Sunday, June 30, 2013

Sports site No. 16: Oceanside football field

Address: 1 Pirates Cove Way, Oceanside, CA 92054

Oceanside High was recently recognized as one of the Top 50 football programs in the country, and with good reason.

The Pirates, who have earned 21 appearances in the San Diego Section championship game, have captured 14 titles dating back to the 1A crown captured in 1963.

At one point, they won seven straight Division II titles

Oceanside has reached the semifinals an amazing 19 consecutive years, a streak that is still ongoing.

There have been 10 players honored as section players of the year, including quarterback Tofi Paopao, this year?s Offensive Player of the Year after leading the Pirates to another Division II crown, and linebacker William Gulley. That?s the second most behind only Vista, which has 11. The next closest school is Lincoln with six.

Famous former players include a pair of All-Pros from the NFL in cornerback Willie Buchanon and linebacker Junior Seau.

In all, there have been 16 former Pirates ? Sale Isaia, Joe Salavea, Roberto Wallace, Okland Salavea, Charles Dimry, David Toloumu, Bill Sandifer, C.R. Roberts and Pulu Poumele ? reach the pros. In addition to Willie Buchanon, his son William also played in the NFL. Brian Schwenke was drafted in April and Sam Brenner signed as a free agent.

Terry Vaughn and Joe Paopao played in the CFL. Vaughn was inducted into the CFL Hall of Fame.

Stomping Grounds: Top 50 spots in San Diego sports history

Source: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/jun/29/travel-top-50-sites-oceanside-high-school-football/

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Egyptians flood streets to force Mursi out

By Shaimaa Fayed and Yasmine Saleh

CAIRO (Reuters) - Millions of Egyptians flooded into the streets on the first anniversary of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi's inauguration on Sunday to demand that he resign in the biggest challenge so far to rule by his Muslim Brotherhood.

Waving national flags and chanting "Get out!", a crowd of nearly 500,000 massed on Cairo's central Tahrir Square. It was the largest demonstration since the 2011 uprising that overthrew Mursi's predecessor, Hosni Mubarak.

"The people want the fall of the regime!" they shouted, echoing the Arab Spring rallying cry that brought down Mubarak - this time yelling it not against an ageing dictator but against the first elected leader in Egypt's 5,000-year recorded history.

While the main protests were peaceful, four people were shot dead in the Nile valley towns of Assiut and Beni Suef, south of Cairo, and the Health Ministry said nearly 200 were injured in clashes in several provincial towns.

A military source said as many as 14 million people in this nation of 84 million took part in Sunday's demonstrations in temperatures of 38 Celsius (100 Fahrenheit). There was no independent way of verifying that estimate, which seemed implausibly high, but the armed forces used helicopters to monitor the crowds.

The Brotherhood's national headquarters in a Cairo suburb came under attack from militants hurling petrol bombs and rocks and firing shotguns. Flames gushed from an upper floor of the building, which did not have police protection.

The liberal opposition National Salvation Front coalition declared victory in what it styled "Revolutionary Communique No. 1" saying the masses had "confirmed the downfall of the regime of Mohamed Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood".

Organizers called on demonstrators to continue to occupy central squares in every city until Mursi quits and to blockade peacefully the only functioning house of parliament. The Tahrir crowd roared with approval as an army helicopter hovering overhead dropped Egyptian flags on the protesters.

The military source said the move was intended to encourage patriotism and was not a gesture of political support.

"COUP ATTEMPT"?

Many demonstrators bellowed their anger at the Brotherhood, which they accuse of hijacking Egypt's revolution and using electoral victories to monopolize power and impose Islamic law.

Others, including some who said they had voted for Mursi, have been alienated by a deepening economic crisis and worsening personal security, aggravated by a political deadlock over which he has presided. Even some Islamists have disavowed Mursi.

The veteran leaders of Egypt's secular, liberal and left-wing opposition, including former chief of the U.N. nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei and leftist presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi, joined protest marches in Cairo.

A Reuters journalist said hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters also marched through the Mediterranean port of Alexandria, Egypt's second city, and a military source reported protests in at least 20 towns around the country.

Mursi, an engineering professor propelled from obscurity to power by the Brotherhood, was monitoring events from the heavily guarded Qubba presidential palace, where a presidency spokesman appealed for the demonstrations to remain peaceful.

A senior Brotherhood politician, Essam El-Erian, denounced the protests as a "coup attempt".

In a statement on the group's website, he challenged the opposition to test public opinion in parliamentary elections instead of "simply massing people in violent demonstrations, thuggery or shedding the precious blood of Egyptians".

The leader of the second biggest Islamist party, Younis Makhyoun of the Salafist Nour party, urged Mursi to make concessions to avert bloodshed and presented himself in an interview with Reuters as a potential mediator.

LEGITIMACY

Security sources said three Brotherhood offices were set on fire by demonstrators in towns in the Nile Delta - the latest in more than a week of sporadic violence in which hundreds of people have been hurt and several killed, including an American student.

Tens of thousands of Mursi supporters congregated outside a Cairo mosque not far from the main presidential palace, where a much bigger anti-Mursi sit-in swelled from Sunday evening.

Interviewed by a British newspaper, Mursi voiced his resolve to ride out what he sees as an undemocratic attack on his electoral legitimacy. He offered to revise the Islamist-inspired constitution, saying clauses on religious authority, which fuelled liberal resentment, were not his choice.

He made a similar offer last week, after the head of the army issued a strong call for politicians to compromise. But the opposition dismissed it as too little to late. They hope Mursi will resign in the face of large numbers on the streets.

Some Egyptians believe the army may force the president's hand, if not to quit then at least to make substantial concessions to the opposition.

Chief-of-staff and Defence Minister General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was following the situation from a special operations room, the military source said.

In Cairo, marchers stopped to shake hands and take pictures with soldiers guarding key buildings. At least six high-ranking police officers took to the Tahrir Square podium in support of the demonstrators, a Reuters witness said.

Mursi and the Brotherhood hope the protests will fizzle as previous outbursts did in December and January. If not, some form of compromise, possibly arbitrated by the army, may be on the cards.

VIOLENCE

Both sides insist they plan no violence but accuse the other - and agents provocateurs from the old regime - of planning it.

The U.S.-equipped army shows little sign of wanting power but warned last week it may have to step in if deadlocked politicians let violence slip out of control.

U.S. President Barack Obama called for dialogue and warned trouble in the most populous Arab nation could unsettle an already turbulent region. Washington has evacuated non-essential personnel and reinforced security at diplomatic missions.

In his interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper, Mursi repeated accusations that what he sees as entrenched interests from the Mubarak era are plotting to foil his attempt to govern. He dismissed the demands that he give up and resign.

If that became the norm, he said, "well, there will be people or opponents opposing the new president too, and a week or a month later, they will ask him to step down".

Liberal leaders say nearly half the voting population - 22 million people - has signed a petition calling for new elections, although there is no obvious challenger to Mursi.

Religious authorities have warned of "civil war". The army insists it will respect the "will of the people", though the two sides have opposing views of what that means. To the Brotherhood, it means the result of elections. To the opposition, it means the demands of popular protests.

Having staged shows of force earlier this month, the Brotherhood did not call on its supporters to go out on Sunday.

The army, half a million strong and financed by Washington since it backed a peace treaty with Israel three decades ago, says it has deployed to protect key installations.

Among these is the Suez Canal. Cities along the waterway vital to global trade are bastions of anti-government sentiment. A bomb killed a protester in Port Said on Friday. A police general was gunned down in Sinai, close to the Israeli border.

(Reporting by Asma Alsharif, Alexander Dziadosz, Shaimaa Fayed, Maggie Fick, Alastair Macdonald, Shadia Nasralla, Tom Perry, Yasmine Saleh. Paul Taylor and Patrick Werr in Cairo, Yusri Mohamed in Ismailia and Abdelrahman Youssef in Alexandria; Writing by Alastair Macdonald and Paul Taylor; Editing by Peter Graff)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-protests-set-showdown-violence-feared-003343388.html

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Saturday, June 29, 2013

CHART OF THE DAY: Vine Sharing Plummets ... - Business Insider

Instagram's decision to add video may have snuffed out Vine. At least, temporarily.?

According to data from Topsy, which tracks Twitter sharing, Vine video sharing has collapsed on Twitter.?

As Matt McGee at Marketing Land notes, since Instagram added video there's been a 70% drop in Vine video shares on Twitter.

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BI

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-vine-sharing-plummets-after-instagram-launches-video-2013-6

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House panel pressing IRS figure to talk

Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 27, 2013, to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee hearing to report on the internal investigation into the extra scrutiny the IRS gave Tea Party and other conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 27, 2013, to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee hearing to report on the internal investigation into the extra scrutiny the IRS gave Tea Party and other conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 27, 2013, before the House Ways and Means Committee hearing to report on the internal investigation into the extra scrutiny the IRS gave Tea Party and other conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

(AP) ? A Republican-led House committee Friday increased pressure on Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner to break her silence on who in the tax agency was behind decisions to make it more difficult for tea party and other conservative groups to obtain tax-exempt status.

The Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in a 22-17 party line vote, ruled that Lerner, who headed the division that oversaw nonprofits, had forfeited her right to invoke the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer questions when she appeared before the panel on May 22.

The GOP-written resolution said Lerner gave up her right to silence when she opened the hearing with a statement denying that she had done anything wrong.

"A witness may not testify voluntarily about a subject and then invoke the privilege against self-incrimination when questioned about the details," it said.

Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said that after consulting with House lawyers he was certain that Lerner had waived her Fifth Amendment rights. Witnesses, he said, cannot "give one side of the story and not allow themselves to be cross-examined."

Some Republicans who have aggressively pursued the investigation against IRS harassment if conservative groups saw Lerner's refusal to talk as more than just a legal issue. "Lois Lerner is in fact a poster child for a federal bureaucrat thumbing her nose at Congress," said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla. He said the case was a "showdown" over who is in control of government.

Neither Lerner nor her lawyer were present at Friday's vote and Democrats on the committee said Republicans should have allowed testimony from legal experts on Fifth Amendment protections for people testifying before Congress.

"I want to hear Ms. Lerner's testimony," said Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, top Democrat on the committee. "But we must respect the constitutional rights of every witness who comes before the committee."

Lerner's attorney, William W. Taylor, responded to the vote with a statement that "a party-line vote does not affect anyone's constitutional rights, and this one does not affect Ms. Lerner's." He said Lerner "had requested that she not be required to appear at all, and was forced against her will to invoke her rights in public. When she was forced to do that, she was entitled to say what she said."

The vote opens up the possibility that Lerner will be summoned back to the committee for another round of questioning. Issa dodged a Democratic question about whether Lerner might be offered limited immunity in exchange for her testimony. If she again invokes the Fifth, she could face contempt charges.

Under the rules, any immunity deal with Lerner would have to be approved by a two-thirds vote of the Oversight committee, and then accepted by the Justice Department and a federal judge.

The committee and the full House would have to approve contempt charges, which would then be turned over to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Whether that attorney would be required to prosecute is unclear.

Lerner, now on administrative leave, was a high-ranking IRS official in Washington who oversaw the agency's Cincinnati workers who screened applications for tax-exempt status. The IRS has apologized for imposing tough scrutiny on conservative groups who applied for that designation. It has since emerged that progressive groups also appeared on agency screening lists and that some suffered similar treatment.

Three congressional committees are investigating the IRS treatment of conservative groups, as is the Justice Department and the new leaders of the IRS itself. House Democrats are trying to expand the investigation to include how progressive groups were treated.

On Thursday, the controversy moved in another direction as a clash escalated between the Treasury Department inspector general who investigated the IRS and congressional Democrats who called his probe of the agency misleading.

In a letter to lawmakers, J. Russell George said that only a small number of groups with "progress" or "progressive" in their names had their applications set aside for screening. Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said George should have revealed the involvement of progressive groups before now.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-06-28-US-IRS-Political-Groups/id-1c8123c0481f4e97b7cd5001ac5ca402

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Iranian official signals no scaling back in nuclear activity

ST PETERSBURG (Reuters) - Iran will press ahead with its uranium enrichment program, its nuclear energy chief said on Friday, suggesting there will be no change of course despite the election on June 14 of a relative moderate as president.

Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, head of the Islamic Republic's Atomic Energy Organisation, said production of nuclear fuel would "continue in line with our declared goals. The enrichment linked to fuel production will also not change."

Speaking through an interpreter to reporters at a nuclear energy conference in St Petersburg, Russia, he said work at Iran's underground Fordow facility - which the West wants Iran to close - would also continue.

Iran says it is enriching uranium to fuel a planned network of nuclear energy power plants. But enriched uranium can also provide potential material for nuclear bombs if processed further, which the West fears may be Iran's ultimate goal.

Hopes for a resolution to the nuclear dispute were boosted this month with the election as president of Hassan Rouhani, who has promised a less confrontational approach to Iran's foreign relations than predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

As chief nuclear negotiator between 2003 and 2005, Rouhani reached a deal with European states under which Iran temporarily suspended uranium enrichment activities.

(Reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel; writing by Fredrik Dahl; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iranian-official-signals-no-scaling-back-nuclear-activity-114645824.html

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Friday, June 28, 2013

'No one wants this fight:' Ecuadoreans divided over Snowden asylum

Dolores Ochoa / AP

A vendor who sells roasted corn pushes her cart past a flower shop in Quito, Ecuador, on Wednesday. Unlike with China, Russia or Cuba, the Obama administration could swiftly hit Ecuador in the pocketbook by denying reduced tariffs on cut flowers, artichokes and broccoli if it grants Snowden's request for asylum.

By Mary Murray and Miguel Almaguer, NBC News

QUITO, Ecuador -- Ecuador, the South American country known for the Middle of the World -- a park honoring the Equator that boasts a yellow line painted on the ground said to be precisely at Earth?s midpoint -- is now becoming the center of an international chase for National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.

Public opinion in Ecuador runs hot and cold on whether the country should extend political asylum to Snowden. While some admire their president for trying to stick it to the United States, others fear economic fallout if Snowden settles in Ecuador.

One Ecuadorean newspaper this week called the leaker a ?hot potato,? while another labeled him ?a spy.?

Luis Ortega, who makes his living working in tourism, believes political fighting of any kind is bad for business. His big question: ?Will Americans stop coming here??

The 25-year-old, who had just finished showing a tour group from Chicago around Quito?s World Heritage landmarks, said he was worried about his livelihood.

?I just got married and I can?t afford for my business to suffer,? he said.

Ecuador?s tourism industry generates more than $1 billion a year and is growing.

Jose Jacome / EPA file

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa smiles at the crowd during a military act at the presidential palace in Quito, Ecuador, on Wednesday. Correa announced that his government will decide with 'absolute sovereignty' on political asylum for Edward Snowden.

?Americans come here because we?re friends,? Ortega said. ?No one wants this fight.?

Rodrigo Espinosa shared that same point of view. He?s employed by a private security firm that caters to American business executives.

?Snowden is not our problem, so why are we sticking our nose into this business?? he said.

The concerns are not unfounded. On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, vowed to eliminate the preferential trade agreements in place under the Andean Trade Preference Act should Snowden, 29, gain asylum in Ecuador.

"Our government will not reward countries for bad behavior," Menendez said in a written statement. At the end of July, Congress must vote to renew the trade accord.

That message angered Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, an economist educated in the United States. In a tweet, Correa denounced the U.S. view as ?unjust? and ?immoral."

Heightening tensions further, Correa's representative on Thursday renounced the trade benefits and called the lower tariffs ?blackmail,? sarcastically suggesting that Washington instead use Ecuador?s share of $23 million for human rights training inside the United States.

"Ecuador does not accept pressure or threats from anyone, nor does it trade with its principles," said Fernando Alvarado, the communications secretary.

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman told reporters in Washington that despite Alvarado's comments, Ecuador was still eligible for benefits under two different programs, Reuters reported.

Although China invests heavily in the region, the U.S. remains Ecuador's main trading partner, accounting for some 40 percent or about $9 billion of all exports.

Ecuador benefits heavily from its Andean trade program with the United States. An oil-rich country, Ecuador exported an estimated $5.4 billion worth of oil, as well as $166 million from its flower industry, $122 million of fruits and vegetables and $80 million of tuna to the United States in 2012.

In a country that battles a high poverty rate, the flower industry alone employs more than 100,000 workers, many of them women.?

Ecuadoreans like Dr. Catalina Nuncios applaud Alvarado's view and stand ready to welcome Snowden with open arms.

?We are Christians and cannot turn our back on this young man who needs our help,? said Nuncios, a pediatrician who voted for Correa twice. She said she felt offended by Menendez's statement.

President Obama remarks on the situation with admitted NSA leaker Edward Snowden, saying he has no plans to disrupt relations with Russia and China, nor to scramble jets to capture the "29-year-old hacker."

?No one can threaten us to toe their line," Nuncios said.

Engineering student Jesus Lombardi, who was born in Ecuador but raised in southern California, said he feels torn.

?The American part of me understands national security, but my Ecuadorean side is proud that Correa is putting my country on the map.?

As tensions escalate, Snowden remains in legal limbo somewhere in the Moscow airport.

Ecuadorean law is, in fact, hindering his case. Under the constitution, Snowden must make his asylum request in person either in the country or at an Ecuadorean embassy or consulate. And, according to local press reports, Snowden still does not possess a legal travel document that would allow him to board a flight to Quito.

NBC's Carlos Rigau and?Reuters contributed to this report.?

Related:

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/663309/s/2de9c5e5/l/0Lworldnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A60C280C1917510A80Eno0Eone0Ewants0Ethis0Efight0Eecuadoreans0Edivided0Eover0Esnowden0Easylum0Dlite/story01.htm

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These Low Tops with Curved Laces Are Somehow Basketball Shoes

These Low Tops with Curved Laces Are Somehow Basketball Shoes

Kevin Durant, the best basketball player in the world who isn't a hybrid of a beast and monster, has a new pair of shoes. And it's a low top. And it has a tongue that curves. And it basically looks like a soccer shoe. But it's for basketball and they're so bizarre looking that I think I'm falling for them.

Read more...

    


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/qB_e5PYJIk0/these-low-tops-with-curved-laces-are-somehow-basketball-604587108

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What The Duck? (Balloon Juice)

Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/315839007?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Thursday, June 27, 2013

Meet Wendy Davis, the Democrats' New Superstar

No matter the outcome of last night's Texas legislative debate, it was clear to everyone watching that the world of politics had found itself a new hero in Wendy Davis, the tennis-shoe wearing, abortion-law filibustering State Senator who became a literal overnight sensation. Davis, who?represents?Texas's 10th Senate District, led the charge against the state's strict new abortion bill with ?an 11-hour marathon performance that had supporters echoing her name around the capitol dome.

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Even if the bill somehow becomes law in the future, she already won a huge battle for liberals, for women, and her party's fortunes.?And with that victory comes?notoriety?and a rise in her own political prospects.?Democrats who didn't even know her name two days ago are already looking to hand her a starting spot in their national roster. If you're a political operative looking for a star, there's a lot to like about the 50-year-old Davis.?

RELATED: Missing Texas Teenager Was Accidentally Deported to Colombia

For starters, there's her inspiring biography.?Raised by a single mother, she became a single mother herself at just 19 years old, but still found time and energy to go from junior college to the top of her class at Texas?Christian University and then?graduate from Harvard Law School.?She worked as lawyer in the Fort Worth area for several years, before joining the city council (while continuing to practice law, of course). In 2008, she knocked off a two-term Republican incumbent ?? the only incumbent to not get re-elected that year ? to win a spot in the State Senate. Her office even survived a fire bombing during her re-election campaign last year. (Though that was probably unrelated to politics.)

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That's a pretty good resum?, even before you get to her habit of making principled stands in the legislature.?This wasn't even her first?filibuster, either. In 2011, she "torpedoed" a budget battle (and forced a special legislative session) in a fight over the state's plan to slash public school budgets. That made her a major thorn in the side of Republicans and hero to always undermanned Democrats of Texas. Even back then,?there were rumblings of a future run for governor.?After last night, a statewide race will almost feel like an inevitability.?

RELATED: Hurricane Irene Is Growing Stronger

If she launched her campaign tomorrow, she'd have no problem filling the donation box, thanks to her legion of new fans that spreads far beyond Austin. (The same goes for Letitia Van de Putte, last night's other Democratic hero, who left her own father's funeral yesterday to give Davis her biggest assist.) The filibuster?quickly became a win-win situation for Davis. If she made it through the 13 hours, she would kill the?detested?bill. If she lost in a valiant effort, it could only win more sympathy to the cause and draw ire down upon the state's bullying majority. Just as she rasied her own public profile, Republicans like Sen. Bill Zedler and Lt. Governor David Dewhurst managed to turn themselves into national villains.

There is no doubt that the?procedural?roadblocks (or dirty tricks, depending on who you ask) thrown up by the GOP actually helped her cause. When the news broke online that Davis was forced to yield the floor after more than 11 hours of speaking, that only galvanized her supporters and sucked in more viewers to the Texas Tribune's livestream of the hearing. More than 170,000 viewers tuned in at the peak of the drama, with many more following the action on Twitter. (Her own account went from about 1,200 followers on Monday to more than 60,000 today.)

RELATED: U.S. Is in Desperate Need of Rain

If the dream of "turning Texas blue" is ever going to come to fruition, no one appears better positioned to lead the charge that Davis. She would face quite an uphill climb should she decide to challenge Rick Perry for the governorship or even go after a U.S. Senate seat, but now that she's on the national stage, even a spot in the U.S. House of Represenatives could make her a household name. (She faces her own re-election next year, but should be a huge favorite now if she decides to stay in her current job, even if the GOP makes her seat a target.)?From there, it could be anything from a Cabinet position to a major judicial appointment to ... who knows?

For now, she'll join the Joaquin and Julio Castro in the vanquard of the young new Texas Democrats, looking to win back the south from the GOP and will be one of the most sought after campaign-stop partners of 2014. (You might as well book her 2016 convention keynote right now.) Not many Democrats make it out of Texas to the national stage these days, but Davis the hard part is already done. For now, she can enjoy her victory and try to keep the?momentum?rolling into next year.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/meet-wendy-davis-democrats-superstar-125630075.html

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Fruity With A Hint Of Bologna: A Slacker's Guide To Wine Tasting

Our class of newbies learns how to pick up that buttery taste in a glass of Chardonnay.

Heather Rousseau/NPR

Our class of newbies learns how to pick up that buttery taste in a glass of Chardonnay.

Heather Rousseau/NPR

Wine tasting has taken it on the chin recently.

"There are no two ways about it: the bullsh*t is strong with wine."

That's what Robert T. Gonzales recently wrote on io9.com in a post that eviscerated wine tasting as a form of skilled craft. "Wine tasting. Wine rating. Wine reviews. Wine descriptions." he writes. "They're all related. And they're all egregious offenders, from a [expletive deleted] standpoint."

But then Gonzales goes on to cite a piece written by disgraced science journalist Jonah Lehrer to back up his argument. And that's when I start detecting hints of bologna.

Gonzales's comments swirled up the bee's nest. And wine lovers have come up from the cellars to defend their sniffing, gurgling and spitting on the blogosphere.

We're not here to enter the debate. But rather, we wanted to give you an insider's look at a few places where the science of wine tasting is clear-cut ? and relatively easy to learn.

Most of what we taste in wine comes from its aroma. Connoisseurs like to talk about the complex aromas of wine ? hints of strawberry or citrus, for example. But don't let that intimidate you. Mastering three or four of these aromas will take you far in the wine tasting world, impressing even your most die-hard oenophiles. Here's what you need to know.

1. Put your face close to some wood. Take a deep breath.

Got a pretty good idea what that smells like now? Good. That's what Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon smell like when winemakers store them in oak barrels.

Swigging for science: A hint of oak, our winetasting newbies learned, is more common in reds than whites. It's a marker for expense in both.

Heather Rousseau/NPR

Swigging for science: A hint of oak, our winetasting newbies learned, is more common in reds than whites. It's a marker for expense in both.

Heather Rousseau/NPR

Many red wines spend time in oak barrels. So if you call a California red "oaky," chances are, you'll be correct. But no one will be impressed.

The way to get a little cred is to state confidently whether or not your Chardonnay has been stored in oak. As in: "Hmm, I really like the oak flavors of this Chardonnay." Or conversely, "I enjoy a Chardonnay that hasn't been oaked."

The woody aroma comes from compounds called whisky lactones, which leach out of the barrels into the wine over the years. An oaky aroma is generally associated with more expensive wines.

2. Sniff out vanilla.

Here's a trick that will really knock the socks off your wine friends. Next time you're enjoying a red wine, say, a California Pinot Noir, and you smell vanilla, simply proclaim, "Clearly, this wine was aged in American oak, not French." Practice by huffing on some vanilla extract in your kitchen.

Winemakers typically use one of two types of oak barrels for storage: French or American oak. The American wood releases more vanillin into wine than French oak does. And guess what vanillin smells like? Yup, vanilla beans.

So if your sniffer is detecting vanilla in wine, it was likely stored in American oak barrels. But don't ever say this about a French wine, which ? of course ? would never be stored in American oak. Mon dieu!

3. Go slice a green pepper.

Certain types of grapes, a.k.a. varietals, have their own distinctive aromas. Perhaps the most distinctive is the Cabernet Sauvignon grape, which smells like green peppers. Both get their signature smell from pyrazines; with grapes, the scent is strongest when they aren't quite ripe ? and you can still detect that scent in the resulting wine.

So swirl your next Cab. Take a whiff of it. If there's a faint hint of green pepper, then try a statement like, "There are definitely some pyrazines in this Cab. The grapes must not haven ripened fully. Please take this inferior wine away from me."

4. Buy some imitation butter.

Our final party trick is a bit complicated. But it's so worth the investment.

Grapes taste tart because they contain an acid found in Granny Smith apples. Wine makers can get rid of this sourness by adding bacteria into their fermenting juice. The bug converts the tart acid into less tart acids, like the ones found in milk. Along the way, bacteria also churn out a butter flavor, called diacetyl ? the same compound food scientists put in imitation butter and microwave popcorn.

The process is called malolactic fermentation, or MLF for short. Wines that have gone through MLF have a smoother mouthfeel and a butter or butterscotch smell that's a dead giveaway. The more buttery the wine, the bigger the pricetag.

5. Do try this at home.

To master these wine tasting tricks, you probably need some training. Here's a cool way to do it. Take a cheap, flavorless wine and then spike it with one of the compounds above ? say, a few drops of vanilla extract or imitation butter. Then use it as a reference while you sniff the good stuff.

We tried out this training strategy here at The Salt with a few Chardonnays. And the results were impressive. By learning to sniff out the buttery aroma beforehand, 10 out of 10 newbie wine tasters could correctly identify the Chardonnay that went through MLF.

Michaeleen Doucleff is a reporter and producer on NPR's Science Desk. She has a master's in winemaking from U.C. Davis.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/06/26/194212435/fruity-with-a-hint-of-bologna-a-slacker-s-guide-to-wine-tasting?ft=1&f=1007

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Paparazzo sues Justin Bieber for alleged assault

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Justin Bieber has been sued by a paparazzo who claims the singer kicked and punched him last year at a Southern California shopping center.

A lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges the "Baby" crooner attacked Jose Osmin Hernandez Duran after Bieber and his then-girlfriend went to the movies at The Commons in Calabasas.

Bieber's representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

Duran claims Bieber started to leave the shopping center in his Mercedes, but got out of his car and sprinted toward him.

Duran says Bieber jumped into the air from 6 to 8 feet away to deliver a martial-arts-type kick to the photographer's gut before punching him in the face.

The suit seeks unspecified damages for "severe and extreme emotional distress" and negligence.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/paparazzo-sues-justin-bieber-alleged-assault-023647768.html

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Human activities threaten Sumatran tiger population

June 26, 2013 ? Sumatran tigers, found exclusively on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, are on the brink of extinction. By optimistic estimates, perhaps 400 individuals survive. But the exact the number and locations of the island's dwindling tiger population has been up for debate.

Virginia Tech and World Wildlife Fund researchers have found that tigers in central Sumatra live at very low densities, lower than previously believed, according to a study in the April 2013 issue of Oryx -- The International Journal of Conservation.

The findings by Sunarto, who earned his doctorate from Virginia Tech in 2011, and co-researchers Marcella Kelly, an associate professor of wildlife in the College of Natural Resources and Environment, and Erin Poor of East Lansing, Mich., a doctoral student studying wildlife science and geospatial environmental analysis in the college, suggest that high levels of human activity limit the tiger population.

Researchers studied areas and habitat types not previously surveyed, which could inform interventions needed to save the tiger.

"Tigers are not only threatened by habitat loss from deforestation and poaching; they are also very sensitive to human disturbance," said Sunarto, a native of Indonesia, where people typically have one name. "They cannot survive in areas without adequate understory, but they are also threatened in seemingly suitable forests when there is too much human activity."

The smallest surviving tiger subspecies, Sumatran tigers are extremely elusive and may live at densities as low as one cat per 40 square miles. This is the first study to compare the density of Sumatran tigers across various forest types, including the previously unstudied peat land. The research applied spatial estimation techniques to provide better accuracy of tiger density than previous studies.

Sunarto, a tiger and elephant specialist with World Wildlife Fund-Indonesia, collaborated on the paper with Kelly, Professor Emeritus Michael Vaughan, and Sybille Klenzendorf, managing director of WWF's Species Conservation Program, who earned her master's and doctoral degrees in wildlife science from Virginia Tech. The WWF field team collected data in partnership with the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry staff.

"Getting evidence of the tigers' presence was difficult," Kelly said. "It took an average of 590 days for camera traps to get an image of each individual tiger recorded."

"We believe the low detection of tigers in the study area of central Sumatra was a result of the high level of human activity -- farming, hunting, trapping, and gathering of forest products," Sunarto said. "We found a low population of tigers in these areas, even when there was an abundance of prey animals."

Legal protection of an area, followed by intensive management, can reduce the level of human disturbance and facilitate the recovery of the habitat and as well as tiger numbers. The researchers documented a potentially stable tiger population in the study region's Tesso Nilo Park, where legal efforts are in place to discourage destructive human activities.

The study -- "Threatened predator on the equator: Multi-point abundance estimates of the tiger Panthera tigris in central Sumatra" -- indicates that more intensive monitoring and proactive management of tiger populations and their habitats are crucial or this tiger subspecies will soon follow the fate of its extinct Javan and Balinese relatives.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/pMoeP_94iJk/130626183925.htm

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Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Windows 8.1 Preview Gets Redesigned Windows Store With Automatic App Updates And Bing-Powered Recommendations

windows_storeFor the Windows 8.1 Preview, Microsoft took a close look at its Windows Store and decided to give it a facelift and make a few changes to the way the operating system handles Store apps. Windows Store apps are now automatically updated in the background, for example, and the store features a new look that puts a strong emphasis on recommendations instead of the focus on categories in the last version.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/AhO0g3cqxnw/

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High court voids key part of Voting Rights Act

Representatives from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund stand outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Tuesday, June 25, 2013, awaiting a decision in Shelby County v. Holder, a voting rights case in Alabama. The Supreme Court says a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act cannot be enforced until Congress comes up with a new way of determining which states and localities require close federal monitoring of elections. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Representatives from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund stand outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Tuesday, June 25, 2013, awaiting a decision in Shelby County v. Holder, a voting rights case in Alabama. The Supreme Court says a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act cannot be enforced until Congress comes up with a new way of determining which states and localities require close federal monitoring of elections. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Ryan P. Haygood, director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, talks outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Tuesday, June 25, 2013, about the Shelby County v. Holder, a voting rights case in Alabama. Charles White, the national field director for the NAACP is second from right and Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund is at right. The Supreme Court says a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act cannot be enforced until Congress comes up with a new way of determining which states and localities require close federal monitoring of elections. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

(AP) ? A deeply divided Supreme Court on Tuesday halted enforcement of the federal government's most potent tool to stop voting discrimination over the past half century, saying it does not reflect racial progress.

In a 5-4 ruling, the court declared unconstitutional a provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act that determines which states and localities must get Washington's approval for proposed election changes.

President Barack Obama, the nation's first black chief executive, issued a statement saying he was "deeply disappointed" with the ruling.

The decision effectively puts an end to the advance approval requirement that has been used, mainly in the South, to open up polling places to minority voters in the nearly half century since it was first enacted in 1965, unless Congress can come up with a new formula that Chief Justice John Roberts said meets "current conditions" in the United States.

Roberts, writing for a conservative majority, said the law Congress most recently renewed in 2006 relies on 40-year-old data that does not reflect racial progress and changes in U.S. society.

"The coverage formula that Congress reauthorized in 2006 ignores these developments, keeping the focus on decades-old data relevant to decades-old problems, rather than current data reflecting current needs," Roberts said.

Obama was sharply critical of the ruling and called on Congress to reinvigorate the law.

"While today's decision is a setback, it doesn't represent the end of our efforts to end voting discrimination," the president said. "I am calling on Congress to pass legislation to ensure every American has equal access to the polls."

That task eluded Congress in 2006 when lawmakers overwhelmingly renewed the advance approval requirement with no changes in the system by which states and local jurisdictions were chosen for coverage. And Congress did nothing in response to a high court ruling in a similar challenge in 2009 in which the justices raised many of the same concerns.

Tuesday's decision means that a host of state and local laws that have not received Justice Department approval or have not yet been submitted will be able to take effect. Prominent among those are voter identification laws in Alabama and Mississippi.

Going forward, the outcome alters the calculus of passing election-related legislation in the affected states and local jurisdictions. The threat of an objection from Washington has hung over election-related proposals for nearly a half century. At least until Congress acts, that deterrent now is gone.

That prospect has upset civil rights groups which especially worry that changes on the local level might not get the same scrutiny as the actions of state legislatures.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by her three liberal colleagues, dissented from Tuesday's ruling.

"Hubris is a fit word for today's demolition" of the law, Ginsburg said.

She said no one doubts that voting discrimination still exists. "But the court today terminates the remedy that proved to be best suited to block that discrimination," she said in a dissent that she read aloud in the packed courtroom.

Ginsburg said the law continues to be necessary to protect against what she called subtler, "second-generation" barriers to voting. She identified one such effort as the switch to at-large voting from a district-by-district approach in a city with a sizable black minority. The at-large system allows the majority to "control the election of each city council member, effectively eliminating the potency of the minority's votes," she said.

Justice Clarence Thomas was part of the majority, but wrote separately to say again that he would have struck down the advance approval requirement itself.

Civil rights lawyers condemned the ruling.

"The Supreme Court has effectively gutted one of the nation's most important and effective civil rights laws. Minority voters in places with a record of discrimination are now at greater risk of being disenfranchised than they have been in decades," said Jon Greenbaum, chief counsel for the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. "Today's decision is a blow to democracy. Jurisdictions will be able to enact policies which prevent minorities from voting, and the only recourse these citizens will have will be expensive and time-consuming litigation."

Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said, "This is like letting you keep your car, but taking away the keys."

The decision comes five months after Obama started his second term in the White House, re-elected by a diverse coalition of voters.

The high court is in the midst of a broad re-examination of the ongoing necessity of laws and programs aimed at giving racial minorities access to major areas of American life from which they once were systematically excluded. The justices issued a modest ruling Monday that preserved affirmative action in higher education and will take on cases dealing with anti-discrimination sections of a federal housing law and another affirmative action case from Michigan next term.

The court warned of problems with the voting rights law in a similar case heard in 2009. The justices averted a major constitutional ruling at that time, but Congress did nothing to address the issues the court raised. The law's opponents, sensing its vulnerability, filed several new lawsuits.

The latest decision came in a challenge to the advance approval, or preclearance, requirement, which was brought by Shelby County, Ala., a Birmingham suburb.

The lawsuit acknowledged that the measure's strong medicine was appropriate and necessary to counteract decades of state-sponsored discrimination in voting, despite the Fifteenth Amendment's guarantee of the vote for black Americans.

But it asked whether there was any end in sight for a provision that intrudes on states' rights to conduct elections, an issue the court's conservative justices also explored at the argument in February. It was considered an emergency response when first enacted in 1965.

The county noted that the 25-year extension approved in 2006 would keep some places under Washington's oversight until 2031 and seemed not to account for changes that include the elimination of racial disparity in voter registration and turnout or the existence of allegations of race-based discrimination in voting in areas of the country that are not subject to the provision.

The Obama administration and civil rights groups said there is a continuing need for it and pointed to the Justice Department's efforts to block voter ID laws in South Carolina and Texas last year, as well as a redistricting plan in Texas that a federal court found discriminated against the state's large and growing Hispanic population.

Advance approval was put into the law to give federal officials a potent tool to defeat persistent efforts to keep blacks from voting.

The provision was a huge success because it shifted the legal burden and required governments that were covered to demonstrate that their proposed changes would not discriminate. Congress periodically has renewed it over the years. The most recent extension was overwhelmingly approved by a Republican-led Congress and signed by President George W. Bush.

The requirement currently applies to the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. It also covers certain counties in California, Florida, New York, North Carolina and South Dakota, and some local jurisdictions in Michigan. Coverage has been triggered by past discrimination not only against blacks, but also against American Indians, Asian-Americans, Alaska Natives and Hispanics.

Towns in New Hampshire that had been covered by the law were freed from the advance approval requirement in March. Supporters of the provision pointed to the ability to bail out of the prior approval provision to argue that the law was flexible enough to accommodate change and that the court should leave the Voting Rights Act intact.

On Monday, the Justice Department announced an agreement that would allow Hanover County, Va., to bail out.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-06-25-Supreme%20Court-Voting%20Rights/id-a057f8c1b19d482aac06734cb02cdd6e

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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

White House: Russia has 'legal basis' to expel Snowden

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The White House says Russia has a "clear legal basis" to expel National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and is asking them to do so without delay.

National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden says even without an extradition treaty, Russia should expel him to face espionage charges in the United States.

Hayden's statement Tuesday came after Russian President Vladimir Putin bluntly rejected the request for extradition and said Snowden is free to travel wherever he wants.

Hayden said the White House agrees with Putin that they don't want the issue to negatively impact their bilateral relations. But she said they are asking for Snowden's extradition to build upon their law enforcement cooperation, particularly since the Boston Marathon bombing.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-asks-russia-expel-snowden-181644256.html

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Microsoft reportedly bringing Xbox games to iOS and Android

By Nadia Damouni and Siddharth Cavale (Reuters) - Tensions started rising at Men's Wearhouse Inc over the past six months, as founder and executive chairman George Zimmer increasingly butted heads with his handpicked CEO over the clothing retailer's strategy. CEO Doug Ewert wanted to sell the company's K&G Fashion Superstore business, while Zimmer wanted to keep it, two sources familiar with the situation said. Zimmer also objected to rising compensation for top executives, including Ewert, while the board thought it was appropriate, the sources said. Zimmer, who is known to U.S. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/microsoft-reportedly-bringing-xbox-games-ios-android-202521124.html

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Breastfeeding boosts ability to climb social ladder

June 25, 2013 ? Breastfeeding not only boosts children's chances of climbing the social ladder, but it also reduces the chances of downwards mobility, suggests a large study published online in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

The findings are based on changes in the social class of two groups of individuals born in 1958 (17,419 people) and in 1970 (16,771 people).

The researchers asked each of the children's mums, when their child was five or seven years old, whether they had breastfed him/her.

They then compared people's social class as children -- based on the social class of their father when they were 10 or 11 -- with their social class as adults, measured when they were 33 or 34.

Social class was categorised on a four-point scale ranging from unskilled/semi-skilled manual to professional/managerial.

The research also took account of a wide range of other potentially influential factors, derived from regular follow-ups every few years. These included children's brain (cognitive) development and stress scores, which were assessed using validated tests at the ages of 10-11.

Significantly fewer children were breastfed in 1970 than in 1958. More than two-thirds (68%) of mothers breastfed their children in 1958, compared with just over one in three (36%) in 1970.

Social mobility also changed over time, with those born in 1970 more likely to be upwardly mobile, and less likely to be downwardly mobile, than those born in 1958.

None the less, when background factors were accounted for, children who had been breastfed were consistently more likely to have climbed the social ladder than those who had not been breastfed. This was true of those born in both 1958 and 1970.

What's more, the size of the "breastfeeding effect" was the same in both time periods. Breastfeeding increased the odds of upwards mobility by 24% and reduced the odds of downward mobility by around 20% for both groups.

Intellect and stress accounted for around a third (36%) of the total impact of breastfeeding: breastfeeding enhances brain development, which boosts intellect, which in turn increases upwards social mobility. Breastfed children also showed fewer signs of stress.

The evidence suggests that breastfeeding confers a range of long-term health, developmental, and behavioural advantages to children, which persist into adulthood, say the authors.

They note that it is difficult to pinpoint which affords the greatest benefit to the child -- the nutrients found in breast milk or the skin to skin contact and associated bonding during breastfeeding.

"Perhaps the combination of physical contact and the most appropriate nutrients required for growth and brain development is implicated in the better neurocognitive and adult outcomes of breastfed infants," they suggest.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/living_well/~3/ipNwKfxDVmM/130625074203.htm

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Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Poll shows rising support for Turkish opposition amid protests

By Ece Toksabay

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Support for Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party has held steady despite weeks of anti-government protests but opposition parties have seen their popularity rise, according to a poll released on Monday.

Asked how they would vote if an election were to be held now, 35.3 percent of respondents in the MetroPoll survey said they would choose the Islamist-rooted AK Party, one percentage point below the level in a previous poll in April.

The secularist main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) saw its share of the vote rise to 22.7 percent from 15.3 percent in April.

Other smaller opposition parties also saw support increase as previously undecided voters swung behind them.

The poll canvassed the views of 2,818 people between June 3-12 against the backcloth of Turkey's worst anti-government unrest for decades.

The protests began as a peaceful campaign against government plans to redevelop Istanbul's Gezi Park but spiraled into a show of defiance against the perceived authoritarianism of Erdogan and his AK Party after a fierce police crackdown.

"As the Gezi Park protests emerged, all opposition parties increased their votes and the percentage of undecided votes fell to 7.6 percent (from 20.4 in April)," MetroPoll chairman Ozer Sencar told Reuters.

"Voters are telling the government 'enough already' and have an inclination towards opposition parties although they still think they have deficiencies," he said.

Erdogan, who founded the AK Party in 2001, has overseen a decade of unprecedented prosperity in Turkey and has won an increasing share of the vote in three successive election victories. But critics complain of increasing authoritarianism.

The CHP was founded with the birth of the modern Turkish Republic in 1923 and enjoyed single-party rule until 1946. It considers itself the torchbearer of Muslim Turkey's secular order and paints the AK Party as its religious adversary.

CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu told Reuters in an interview at the weekend that Erdogan's handling of the anti-government protests marked a "turning point" for Turkey and showed that the AK Party was out of touch with what he called a new "democratic generation".

Turkey is set to hold local elections next year, the start of a cycle which will include a presidential vote a few months later and parliamentary elections in 2015.

(Writing by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Gareth Jones)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/poll-shows-rising-support-turkish-opposition-amid-protests-164330178.html

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Police chief takes criminals to task on Facebook

Social media

2 hours ago

In this Tuesday, April 2, 2013 photo shows Brimfield Police Chief David Oliver talking about his facebook page in Kent, Ohio. Oliver uses the reach of...

Tony Dejak / AP

Brimfield Police Chief David Oliver uses the reach of his department?s increasingly followed Facebook page to interact with residents and take to task criminals and other ne?er-do-wells, his preferred term is ?mopes?, for the stupid, the silly and the outright unlawful in messages that mix humor and blunt opinion.

If you're up to no good in this pocket of northeast Ohio, especially in a witless way, you're risking not only jail time or a fine but a swifter repercussion with a much larger audience: You're in for a social media scolding from police Chief David Oliver and some of his small department's 49,000 Facebook fans.

And Oliver does not mince words.

In postings interspersed with community messages and rants, the Brimfield Township chief takes to task criminals and other ne'er-do-wells ? his preferred term is "mopes," appropriated from police TV shows and an old colleague who used it ? for the stupid, the lazy and the outright unlawful. Even an ill-considered parking choice can spur a Facebook flogging.

"If you use a handicapped space and you jump out of the vehicle, all healthy-like, as if someone is dangling free cheeseburgers on a stick, expect people to stare at you and get angry," Oliver wrote last year. "You are milking the system and it aggravates those of us who play by the rules. Ignoring us does not make you invisible. We see you, loser."

His humor, sarcasm and blunt opinion fueled a tenfold increase in the Facebook page's likes in the past year, bringing the total to more than four times the 10,300 residents the department serves. It's among the most-liked local law enforcement pages in the country, trailing only New York, Boston and Philadelphia police, according to the International Association of Chiefs of Police Center for Social Media.

Not bad for a guy who initially hoped maybe 500 locals would pay attention when he noticed other businesses' pages and decided to start his own three years ago.

Facebook posting, May 16, 2013: "I call criminals mopes. I do not comment on them being ugly, smelly or otherwise beauty impaired ... even though some are. I do not comment on their education, social status, color, sex, origin or who they marry. I care about crime and character. If you come to Brimfield and commit a crime we are all going to talk about it. The easiest way to not be called a criminal is to not be one. It is not calculus."

The chief loves justice, Westerns and dogs. John Wayne and Abraham Lincoln peer out from frames on the gray walls of Oliver's office, where the 45-year-old chats with anyone who stops by.

His Facebook messages extend that open-door policy online for conversations about road closures, charity events, lost pets and whatever else crosses his mind. Some are serious, such as salutes to slain officers and updates during school threat investigations. Others are light-hearted, like the attempt to find an escaped swine's owner with an unusual APB ? an "All-Pig Bulletin" ? or his promise to "ticket" child bicyclists with coupons for free ice cream if they wear helmets.

And, of course, there's crime. One posting berates a man accused of physically assaulting a woman and two children. In another, Oliver suggests that hiding near an occupied police K-9 vehicle wasn't a shoplifting suspect's smartest move.

Resident Mark Mosley, a daily reader, said he likes such "humorous arrest stories" best.

In this Tuesday, April 2, 2013 photo showing Brimfield Police Chief David Oliver posing by his police car in Kent, Ohio. Oliver uses the reach of his ...

Tony Dejak / AP

Brimfield Police Chief David Oliver posing by his police car in Kent, Ohio. O

"It's one of those things, like you can't fix stupid," Mosley said.

His officers and others say the online character of the chief, a big, beefy guy, matches real life.

"He is definitely a very large personality. It kind of goes with his size," local fire Chief Robert Keller said.

Oliver's 15-person department handles more than 13,000 calls for service annually and deals largely with arrests for driving violations, thefts and drug crimes by out-of-towners. Arrests in those crime categories dropped last year but are trending upward again, and Oliver says it would take more time to determine whether the Facebook messages are having an impact.

Occasionally, his rants cover topics far outside his jurisdiction, among them the Boston Marathon bombings and the high-profile rape case from Steubenville in eastern Ohio. He rarely mentions names but doesn't shy from addressing specific suspects or brands of criminals.

July 31, 2012:

"Dear Father or Mother Meth Cooks,

"You have lost your mind. What in hell are you thinking when you make the decision to cook meth with your child in the house? You have violated the very basic principle of being a parent, which is the safety of your child. I am fed up with watching it and also with being concerned with the long-term effects of what you have exposed YOUR child to."

The word is out even among mopes, a few of whom have told Oliver they read his updates. During a March traffic stop with several drug-related arrests, one suspect overheard Oliver being called "Chief" and, after connecting the dots, requested not to be mentioned on the page, police said. Oliver didn't oblige.

His postings, also republished to the department's Twitter account, spur dozens or hundreds of comments from as far away as Australia or Germany. Some praise the department. Others say Oliver uses work time inappropriately for Facebook or criticize him for discussing suspects in a public forum. (His response: It's public record.)

Oliver welcomes the discussion and deletes comments only if they use profanity or refer to police in highly offensive language.

"He totally connects with our community, except the people that he arrests," said Mike Kostensky, one of the trustees who picked Oliver as chief in 2004.

Departments like Brimfield that engage readers and reply tend to see more activity on their police pages compared with those that don't, said Nancy Kolb, who runs the IACP Center for Social Media. The center tracks the popularity of law enforcement on Facebook and Twitter.

Oliver says his updates provide accountability and transparency about police work. He's also a believer that people can change.

He says that he had a "very thin" line between good and bad when he was younger and that he might have become a mope if not for grandparents who let him watch only "The Waltons," "Gunsmoke" and "The Andy Griffith Show" on TV.

He said the latter was the biggest influence on his career because he admires the respectful, plain-spoken sheriff played by Griffith.

"I just always thought, you know, that's a good way to handle things," Oliver says.

Jan. 28, 2013:

"It is the opinion of this chief, located in a small corner of a great big world, that we need to, as a society, become a little more intolerant of people who commit crimes for a living. When we start yelling about it being unacceptable ... people will take notice and the practice will shift; either by putting people in jail, funding drug treatment or behavioral changes by the criminals."

Oliver, a father of four who starts many days hugging and high-fiving elementary school students, turned his popularity into a sort of local brand, pitching mugs and T-shirts with "no mopes" logos and his other catchphrases ? such as "anywhere but here" or, in reference to a jail breakfast, "enjoy the oatmeal" ? to raise money for school security improvements. Purchases and donations have brought in more than $14,000, enough to install panic buttons connecting the five local schools to police. Cameras and intercoms are next.

"How could you not love that guy?" said Tammy Ralston, the graphic designer at Young's Screenprinting and Embroidery in Cuyahoga Falls, which came up with the "mopes" gear and receives orders from across the country.

Oliver's supporters include retiree Dennis Kerr of Sherwood, Ark., who bought a T-shirt for his wife while visiting family in nearby Stow.

"The guy really has a load of common sense, and I appreciated him, so we started following him," Kerr said.

Kerr hopes to meet Oliver and said he considered planning his next Ohio visit to coincide with Brimfield's parade. Oliver is turning the September event into a walk honoring military veterans and has invited all his Facebook fans.

Everyone, that is, except the mopes.

Follow Kantele Franko on Twitter.

? 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653377/s/2d6a55c1/l/0L0Snbcnews0N0Ctechnology0Cpolice0Echief0Etakes0Ecriminals0Etask0Efacebook0E6C10A353442/story01.htm

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