latest technology in it: April 2013

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Well, That Was Fast: Twitter Already Shut Down Ribbon's Newly Launched In-Stream Payments Feature

This morning, payments startup Ribbon announced support for "in-stream" payments on Twitter.com, allowing users to click a button directly within a tweet in order to make a purchase without having to leave the Twitter.com website. However, it appears that Twitter has already shut this feature down - almost immediately after its public debut.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/VK4QXcbpAM0/

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OS X Code Reveals Apple's Plans For Super-Fast Wi-Fi

With the OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.4 beta release currently in the hands of developers, some of the more eagle-eyed nerds have noticed references to code which appear to confirm rumors about Apple's plans to roll out super-fast Wi-Fi to its Macs. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/X7SiYj6DC7I/os-x-code-reveals-apples-plans-for-super+fast-wi+fi

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Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Thatcher had profound effect on popular culture

FILE - This is a Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2007 file photo of a Spitting Image puppet of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher now Baroness Thatcher's, at Christie's auction house in London, Spitting Image was a satirical puppet show televised in Britain in the 1980's and 1990's. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whose conservative ideas made an enduring impact on Britain died Monday April 8, 2013. She was 87. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)

FILE - This is a Sunday June 18, 2006 file photo of Elvis Costello as performs with Allen Toussaint and the New Orleans Horn Section during the Playboy Jazz Festival in Los Angeles, Calif. Costello was critical of Margaret Thatcher's government in the 1980's in the song "Tramp the Dirt Down," Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whose conservative ideas made an enduring impact on Britain died Monday April 8, 2013. She was 87. (AP Photo/Lucas Jackson, File)

FILE - This is a Thursday June 28, 2007 file photo of The Spice Girls, from left Victoria Beckham, Melanie Chisholm, Geri Halliwell, Emma Bunton, and Melanie Brown as they pose for the photographers on the grounds of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. Geri ?Ginger Spice? Halliwell paid tribute to ?our 1st Lady of girl power, Margaret Thatcher. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whose conservative ideas made an enduring impact on Britain died Monday April 8, 2013. She was 87. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

FILE - This is an undated film image provided by on Feb.1, 2011 by The Weinstein Company, Meryl Streep as she portrays Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady." ?The Iron Lady,? a biopic about Margaret Thatcher starring Streep as the former British prime minister.Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whose conservative ideas made an enduring impact on Britain, died Monday April 8, 2013. She was 87. (AP Photo/The Weinstein Company, Alex Bailey, File)

LONDON (AP) ? Margaret Thatcher was not just a political titan, she was a cultural icon ? skewered by comedians, transformed into a puppet and played to Oscar-winning perfection by Meryl Streep.

With her uncompromising politics, ironclad certainty, bouffant hairstyle and ever-present handbag, the late British leader was grist for comedians, playwrights, novelists and songwriters whether they loved her or ? as was more often the case ? hated her.

SATIRICAL TARGET

Thatcher's free-market policies transformed and divided Britain, unleashing an outpouring of creative anger from her opponents. A generation of British comedians, from Ben Elton to Alexei Sayle, honed their talents lampooning Thatcher.

To the satirical puppeteers of popular 1980s TV series "Spitting Image," Thatcher was a cigar-smoking bully, a butcher with a bloody cleaver, a domineering leader ruling over her docile Cabinet. One famous sketch showed Thatcher and her ministers gathered for dinner. Thatcher ordered steak. "And what about the vegetables?" the waitress asked. "They'll have the same as me," Thatcher replied.

In the U.S., "Saturday Night Live" got in on the act ? albeit more gently ? making the Iron Lady the subject of several skits. In one of them, Monty Python member Michael Palin played the prime minister shortly after her election in 1979, poking fun at her helmet of hair.

MUSICAL OPPOSITION

Pop was political in Thatcher's day, as the bitter social divisions of the 1980s sparked an angry musical outpouring.

"Whenever I'm asked to name my greatest inspiration, I always answer 'Margaret Thatcher,'" musician Billy Bragg, one of her most vocal opponents, said in 2009. "Truth is, before she came into my life, I was just your run-of-the-mill singer-songwriter."

Bragg was a member of the 1980s Red Wedge movement that campaigned against Thatcher and the Conservatives and for the Labour Party.

"I see no joy, I see only sorrow, I see no chance of your bright new tomorrow," sang The Beat, urging Thatcher to resign in "Stand Down Margaret."

In "Tramp the Dirt Down," Elvis Costello imagined the day of Thatcher's death: "When they finally put you in the ground, I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down."

Former Smiths frontman Morrissey went even further, lyrically fantasizing about "Margaret on the Guillotine."

But for some later musicians, Thatcher was a positive figure.

Former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell ? who sported a Union Jack mini-dress as part of the 1990s girl group ? tweeted Monday: "Thinking of our 1st Lady of girl power, Margaret Thatcher, a green grocer's daughter who taught me anything is possible."

LITERARY INSPIRATION

Thatcher has made appearances in several novels written or set in the 1980s.

In Salman Rushdie's 1988 book, "The Satanic Verses," she was "Mrs. Torture." Despite his political opposition to Thatcher, Rushdie remembered her on Monday as a "considerate" woman who had offered him police protection after the novel brought a death sentence from Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini.

She was a major, though mostly unseen, presence in Alan Hollinghurst's Booker Prize-winning 2004 novel "The Line of Beauty," set during the height of Thatcher's rule. The prime minister's appearance at a Conservative lawmaker's party ? where she sends the crowd into a tizzy and dances to the Rolling Stones with the novel's young protagonist ? forms the dizzying pivot of Hollinghurst's tale of 80s power and excess.

STAGE AND SCREEN STAR

Thatcher's transformation into a stage and screen character started not long after she took office. Thatcher's personal papers include an account of an excruciating 1981 evening that she and her husband, Denis, spent at a West End farce titled "Anyone for Denis?"

On stage, Thatcher remains a potent figure, a shorthand for the 1980s. In the Olivier- and Tony Award-winning musical "Billy Elliot," coal miners sing "Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher," a song with music by Elton John and lyrics that say: "We all celebrate today 'cause it's one day closer to your death."

The London production of "Billy Elliot" kept the song in on Monday, after polling the opinion of the audience.

West End theatergoers are currently flocking to see "The Audience," a play about meetings between Queen Elizabeth II and the 12 prime ministers of her long reign. The play is a gentle liberal drama, and Haydn Gwynne's strident Thatcher is gently rebuked by the monarch over her opposition to sanctions against apartheid South Africa.

On-screen, the character of Thatcher had a jokey cameo at the end of the 1981 James Bond movie "For Your Eyes Only," but for left-wing directors, she was no laughing matter. Stephen Frears' "My Beautiful Laundrette" was one of several 1980s films that depicted Thatcher's Britain as a land of poverty and racism as well as economic enterprise.

Others have mined the drama of a hardworking grocer's daughter who became Britain's first female prime minister. In the 2008 TV movie "The Long Walk to Finchley," Andrea Riseborough played the young politician fighting for a seat in Parliament. The next year "Margaret," with Lindsay Duncan, depicted the end of her career via a Cabinet coup in 1990.

The most acclaimed recent screen Thatcher was Streep's turn as the aged politician looking back on her life in the 2011 film "The Iron Lady." Streep won an Academy Award for a performance that humanized a divisive character.

Streep said Monday that Thatcher's political legacy was "worthy for the argument of history to settle."

"It is hard to imagine a part of our current history that has not been affected by measures she put forward in the U.K.," Streep said. "But to me, she was a figure of awe for her personal strength and grit."

___

AP National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report. Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-04-08-Britain-Thatcher-Culture/id-385dd04c2c184a1e8ef6175267cb7db4

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Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Site for new pet shelter on docket | Sonora / Tuolumne News, Sports ...

The Calaveras County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will discuss the site for a new animal shelter and alterations to the board?s meeting schedule and format.

A pair of afternoon study sessions are planned. The first will focus on Animal Services, about six months after the division transferred from the Sheriff?s Office to the Environmental Management Agency.

The primary topic of the session will be reconsideration of the May 2011 decision making a property at Highway 4 and Vallecito Road in Angels Camp the preferred site for a new animal shelter.

The current shelter at the Government Center in San Andreas is woefully inadequate, according to Grand Jury findings, though it has undergone considerable improvements since a scathing 2002 report.

The county is planning a partnership with the nonprofit Calaveras Humane Society, in which the government provides land and utility infrastructure while the Society raises funds to construct and eventually staff a new shelter.

The Angels Camp site was seen as more centralized and favored by the Society and a majority of supervisors two years ago. However, a report written by Environmental Management Agency Director Brian Moss for Tuesday?s meeting gives preference to a parcel carved out during the construction of a new justice center near the Government Center. Another Government Center had been rejected in the earlier workshop.

The county already owns the Government Center land, utilities have been installed nearby to service the new jail and Sheriff?s Office under construction, the location is familiar to the public, and less grading is needed to make the site buildable, according to Moss.

?The location is perfect ? it can accommodate long-term growth. It can accommodate some large animals,? said board Chairwoman Merita Callaway. ?A lot of the environmental work is already done because of the courthouse project. The (California Conservation Corps) has already done a lot of clearing of the land.?

Calaveras Humane Society spokeswoman Jean Macomber said the Society would reserve its comments until the study session.

The study session will also consider an increase in dog licensing fees from $12 to $15.

The second study session will take a look at the board?s meeting schedule. The board meets the second and fourth Tuesday of each month, with special meetings in between as needed. The cut back from four monthly meetings to two about two years ago was cited as a cost-savings measure but has been unpopular with the public.

The board has also discussed the possibility of occasional meetings at night and/or outside the county seat of San Andreas in recent years. A majority in favor of such a move has not been achieved, but a new board seated in January with three new members is yet to deliberate the matter.

Also to be discussed are procedures regarding disruptive public comments. Meetings of recent years with strained budgets have been plagued by out-of-order remarks by audience members after official public comment periods have closed.

The regular session will feature a pair of items related to the jail and Sheriff?s Office project. A proposal calls for a ?field work directive? to speed up processing of unforeseen add-ons to the project. A staff report found that a directive will lead to work proceeding on projects with unknown costs at the time they are undertaken. It should save money in the long run by reducing construction delays due to lag time in getting supervisors? approval for ?change orders,? the report stated.

The board will also consider entering three contracts for a combined $550,000 to furnish the new buildings.

PUBLIC MEETING: Calaveras County Board of Supervisors, 9 a.m. regular meeting, 1:30 p.m. Animal Services study session, 2:30 p.m. board policies and procedures study session, Tuesday, Government Center, 891 Mountain Ranch Road, San Andreas.

Source: http://www.uniondemocrat.com/News/Local-News/Site-for-new-pet-shelter-on-docket

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Judge deals blow to high-tech workers' lawsuit

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? A federal judge on Friday struck down an effort to form a class action lawsuit to go after Apple, Google and five other technology companies for allegedly forming an illegal cartel to tamp down workers' wages and prevent the loss of their best engineers during a multiyear conspiracy broken up by government regulators.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, Calif., issued a ruling Friday concluding that the companies' alleged collusion may have affected workers in too many different ways to justify lumping the individual claims together. She denied the request to certify workers' lawsuits as a class action and collectively seek damages on behalf of tens of thousands of employees.

The allegations will be more difficult to pursue if they can't be united in a single lawsuit. Koh, though, will allow the workers' lawyers to submit additional evidence that they have been collecting to persuade her that the lawsuit still merits class certification.

"Plaintiffs appreciate the court's thorough consideration of the evidence and are prepared to address the court's concerns fully in a renewed motion," employee attorney Kelly Dermody wrote in a Friday email.

Apple Inc., Google Inc. and the other companies targeted in the lawsuit have been vigorously fighting the allegations. More is at stake than potentially paying out significant damages to more than 100,000 workers. If the lawsuit proceeds, it could also expose secret discussions among prominent technology executives who entered into a "gentlemen's agreement" not to poach employees working at their respective companies.

The case, filed in San Jose federal court, already has disclosed emails raising questions about the tactics of Apple's former CEO, the late Steve Jobs, and Google's former CEO, Eric Schmidt. Other sensitive information has so far been redacted in various court documents, including parts of Koh's 53-page ruling, but more dirty laundry could be aired if the lawsuit proceeds.

The lawsuit is trying to hold the companies accountable for an alleged scheme that cheated employees by artificially suppressing the demand for their services. The complaint hinges on the contention that the workers would have gotten raises either from their current employers or at other jobs if an anti-poaching provision hadn't been imposed. In most instances, the recruiting restrictions were in place from March 2005 through December 2009, according to the lawsuit.

Besides Apple and Google, the lawsuit is aimed at computer chip maker Intel Corp., software makers Intuit Inc. and Adobe Systems Inc., and film makers Pixar and LucasFilm, both of which are now owned by Walt Disney Co.

With the exception of LucasFilm, all the companies being sued settled similar allegations of an anti-poaching conspiracy with the U.S. Justice Department in 2010. The government opened its investigation in 2009 after finding evidence that the companies had reached behind-the-scenes agreements not to recruit each other's employees without permission. Apple, Google and the other companies lifted their poaching prohibitions without acknowledging any wrongdoing, as part of their settlement with the Justice Department.

Documents filed in the lawsuit indicated executives knew they were behaving badly. Both Schmidt and Intel CEO Paul Otellini indicated that they were worried about the anti-recruiting agreements being discovered, according to declarations cited in Koh's ruling. Nevertheless, Schmidt still fired a Google recruiter who riled Jobs by contacting an Apple employee, according to evidence submitted in the case.

Sometimes, workers who applied for a vacant position of their own volition were turned away if they were employed by one of the companies already adhering to the recruiting restrictions.

In her ruling, Koh said there's evidence that some of the employees working at the companies named in the lawsuit probably didn't earn as much money as they would have in a completely free market.

"The sustained personal efforts by the corporations' own chief executives...to monitor and enforce these agreements indicate that the agreements may have had broad effects on (their) employees," she wrote.

The problem with the lawsuit, Koh said, is that the circumstances for each employee differ too widely to qualify as a class action.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-04-05-Tech%20Jobs-Lawsuit/id-d67119caafb5448ea38aeab1f0842658

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Afghanistan helicopter crash kills two Americans

KABUL (Reuters) - A helicopter crash in eastern Afghanistan killed two American members of the NATO-led force on Tuesday, spokesmen said.

There were no reports of enemy activity in the area, said Captain Dan Einert, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

U.S. military spokesman Colonel Thomas Collins said both the dead were from the United States.

The helicopter went down in Pachir Agam district of Nangarhar province, said Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, a spokesman for the governor's office.

No other details were immediately available.

(Reporting By Katharine Houreld; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/afghanistan-helicopter-crash-kills-2-members-nato-led-131446273.html

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Monday, April 8, 2013

Microsoft To Sell IPTV Mediaroom Division To Ericsson, Will Refocus TV Efforts On Xbox

Microsoft announced today via its blog that it will be selling its Mediaroom properties to Ericsson, in a deal that will see Ericsson become the dominant IPTV player in the industry with over 25 percent market share. Mediaroom operates as a pretty much separate company from Microsoft, with its own HQ in Mountain View and around 400 employees, and powers TV offerings like AT&T U-verse, as well as services from Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica and Telus. The deal clears the deck for Microsoft fo go all-in on Xbox as the focal point of its own TV efforts.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/2RNxr-lGCSI/

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Norway's energy minister exposed | IceNews - Daily News

Posted on 07 April 2013. Tags: Ola Borten Moe, Per Borten, Portrett av en pl?yboy

A newly released unauthorised biography of Ola Borten Moe paints an unflattering picture of an ambitious young man with a love of partying.?Written by Verden Gang (VG) political editor Elisabeth Skarsb? Moen, the book is an untimely revelation for Norway?s controversial Oil and Energy Minister.

Moe is the grandson of former Prime Minister Per Borten, and is described in the book, which is titled Portrett av en pl?yboy (?Portrait of a plowboy?), as lusting for power. It reveals incidents of partying and nakedness, quite literally, which the author was personally privy to.

But it?s not without criticism. Norway?s journalists are typically restrained and some have admonished Moen for violating confidence. Harald Stanghelle, of Aftenposten, called her revelation speculative and moralistic. Pernille Huseby, political editor of the small, farmer-friendly newspaper, Nationen, that often supports Moe?s Center Party, agreed with Stanghelle, claiming that it was unnecessary for the Norwegian public to be informed of Moe?s antics.

Moe himself has said ?It?s difficult to comment on something I haven?t read, and I?m not even sure I will read it.? The handsome young minister has ruffled feathers in his party by favouring oil and gas exploration and production over environmental protection. He is also known to have butted heads with party leader Liv Signe Navarsete.

It will not be a welcome book, considering the fledgling party is struggling with popularity, reckoned to be less than 5 per cent in the polls.

Source: http://www.icenews.is/2013/04/07/norways-energy-minister-exposed/

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Fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer dies at 81

FILE - In this March 16, 1965 file photo, Palm Beach the fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer, wears her own design and creation of the Lilly shift, in Palm Beach, Fla. Pulitzer, known for her tropical print dresses, dies in Florida at 81. (AP Photo/Robert H. Houston, File)

MIAMI (AP) ? Lilly Pulitzer, a Palm Beach socialite turned designer whose tropical print dresses became a sensation in the 1960s and later a fashion classic, died Sunday. She was 81.

Pulitzer, who married into the famous newspaper family, got her start in fashion by spilling orange juice on her clothes. A rich housewife with time to spare and a husband who owned orange groves, she opened a juice stand in 1959, and asked her seamstress to make dresses in colorful prints that would camouflage fruit stains.

The dresses hung on a pipe behind her juice stand and soon outsold her drinks. The company's dresses, developed with the help of partner Laura Robbins, a former fashion editor, soon caught on.

"Lilly has been a true inspiration to us and we will miss her," according to a statement on the Lilly Pulitzer brand Facebook page. "In the days and weeks ahead we will celebrate all that Lilly meant to us. Lilly was a true original who has brought together generations through her bright and happy mark on the world."

Her death was confirmed by Gale Schiffman of Quattlebaum Funeral and Cremation Services in West Palm Beach. She did not know Pulitzer's cause of death.

Jacqueline Kennedy, who attended boarding school with Pulitzer, even wore one of the sleeveless shifts in a Life magazine photo spread, and matriarch Rose Kennedy and one of her teenage granddaughters were once reported to have bought nearly identical versions together.

The signature Lilly palette features tongue-in-cheek jungle and floral prints in blues, pinks, light greens, yellow and orange ? the colors of a Florida vacation.

"I designed collections around whatever struck my fancy ... fruits, vegetables, politics, or peacocks! I entered in with no business sense. It was a total change of life for me, but it made people happy," Pulitzer told the The Associated Press in March 2009.

The line of dresses that bore her name was later expanded to swimsuits, country club attire, children's clothing, a home collection and a limited selection of menswear.

"Style isn't just about what you wear, it's about how you live," Pulitzer said in 2004.

"We focus on the best, fun and happy things, and people want that. Being happy never goes out of style," she said.

In 1966, The Washington Post reported that the dresses were "so popular that at the Southampton Lilly shop on Job's Lane they are proudly put in clear plastic bags tied gaily with ribbons so that all the world may see the Lilly of your choice. It's like carrying your own racing colors or flying a yacht flag for identification."

But changing taste brought trouble. Pulitzer closed her original company in the mid-1980s after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The label was revived about a decade later after being acquired by Pennsylvania-based Sugartown Worldwide Inc.; Pulitzer was only marginally involved in the new business but continued reviewing new prints from Florida.

"When Lilly started the business back in the '60s, she targeted a young customer because she was young," the company's president, Jim Bradbeer, told the AP in 2003. "What we have done is target the daughter and granddaughter of that original customer."

Sugartown Worldwide was bought by Atlanta-based Oxford Industries in 2010.

Pulitzer herself retired from day-to-day operations in 1993, although remained a consultant for the brand.

Pulitzer was born Lilly McKim on Nov. 10, 1931, to a wealthy family in Roslyn, N.Y.

In 1952, she married Pete Pulitzer, the grandson of newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, whose bequest to Columbia University established the Pulitzer Prize. They divorced in 1969. Her second husband, Enrique Rousseau, died in 1993.

"I don't know how to explain what it was like to run my business, the joy of every day," she told Vanity Fair magazine in a story in 2003. "I got a kick every time I went into the shipping department. ... I loved seeing (the dresses) going out the door. I loved them selling in the shop. I liked them on the body. Everything. There's no explaining the fun I had."

Pulitzer, who was known for hosting parties barefoot at her Palm Beach home, also published two guides to entertaining.

"That's what life is all about: Let's have a party. Let's have it tonight," she said.

___

Online:

Lilly Pulitzer: http://www.lillypulitzer.com

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-04-07-Lilly%20Pulitzer/id-93ade2af8ace48cc9bd49d144b5db4f5

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Sunday, April 7, 2013

State's Union Bill 'Political Payback'?

Maryland lawmakers agreed this week to require public school teachers to pay union fees ? a move that bolsters the state?s connection to organized labor as others move toward a right-to-work status.

The bill passed Thursday in the General Assembly and is headed to the desk of Democratic Gov. Martin O?Malley for signing after Monday, the final day of Maryland?s 2013 legislative session.

The bill is also part of a larger progressive agenda put fourth this year by leaders of the Democrat-controlled Assembly that includes the approval of tax increases and one of the toughest gun-control proposals in the country.

State Sen. David Brinkley calls the fees a ?forced tax? and disagrees with union claims that representation will benefit every teacher.

?If the representation is so exceptional, then everybody would join,? he said. ?I just don?t buy it. It?s a political payback that has nothing substantial to do with the merits of education.?

The bill will require tens of thousands of public school teachers to pay close to 1 percent of their paychecks in so-called ?fair share? fees to cover the cost of contract negotiations and grievance representation.

Union leaders say the legislation attempts to create uniformity across Maryland and that non-union workers should share the cost.

?We just have a patchwork of bills with no consistency,? said Sean Johnson, the Maryland State Teachers Association?s managing director of legislative and legal affairs.

Johnson acknowledged some issues are best decided on a local level but not in this case, in which some workers pay for union representatives to negotiate fair pay and benefits while others do not.

Right now, 24 states have right-to-work statues, which prohibit unions from requiring employees to join or pay dues as a condition of employment, according to the National Right to Work Foundation.

?The right to work has been on the march for several decades,? said Greg Mourad, vice president for the Right to Work Committee. ?And Maryland is moving in the wrong direction in relation to the rest of America.?

He also said the recent efforts by governors in Indian and Michigan that made their states right to work states ?stunned a lot of people.?

Mourad said the key points are employees want freedom in the workplace and employers want to open businesses where they can treat their employees fairly and they won?t be forced to join unions. ??

The new Maryland legislation is an extension of 2009 legislation passed by the Assembly -- at the request of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees ? that requires all state workers except teachers to pay the fees.

Right now, teachers in Baltimore City and nine of the state?s 23 counties already pay the fee, as do all other state employees including prison guards and state troopers.

Johnson also said the fees are not automatic and will be decided during future contract negotiations between the union and local school boards. The fees will not go toward political activities and workers are not being forced to join the union, he also said. ?

The legislature has already passed O?Malley incremental gas-tax increase that will up the price of a gallon of gas by as much as 20 cents by 2016 and the governor?s gun-control bill, which is considered among the toughest in the county. The bill includes bans on assault weapons, limits on high-capacity magazines and fingerprinting for buyers.

Mourad said he expects O?Malley will sign the union bill.

O?Malley?s office said Wednesday the bill was not part of the governor?s legislative agency and ?no decision has been made? whether he would sign it.

"Gov. O?Malley has been competing with (New York) Gov. Cuomo to make Maryland the most liberal and high taxed state in the nation," said state Republican Delegate Susan Krebs. "It is a race to the bottom for Maryland, this is all ?an effort by the governor to position himself to the left of his potential presidential contenders.? There is no doubt that Maryland has become the bluest of blue states."

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/04/06/maryland-lawmakers-pass-bill-forcing-teachers-to-pay-union-fees-reversing-right/

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Church: Pastor Rick Warren's son commits suicide

LAKE FOREST, Calif. The Southern California church headed by popular evangelical Pastor Rick Warren announced Saturday that Warren's 27-year-old son has committed suicide.

Warren's Saddleback Valley Community Church said in a statement that Matthew Warren had struggled with mental illness and deep depression throughout his life.

"Matthew was an incredibly kind, gentle and compassionate young man whose sweet spirit was encouragement and comfort to many," the statement said.

"Unfortunately, he also suffered from mental illness resulting in deep depression and suicidal thoughts. Despite the best health care available, this was an illness that was never fully controlled and the emotional pain resulted in his decision to take his life."

Warren, the author of the multimillion-selling book "The Purpose Driven Life," said in an email to church staff that he and his wife had enjoyed a fun Friday evening with their son before Matthew Warren returned home to take his life in "a momentary wave of despair."

Church spokeswoman Kristin Cole said he died Friday night.

Over the years, Matthew Warren had been treated by America s best doctors, had received counseling and medication and been the recipient of numerous prayers from others, his father said.

Still, he struggled over the years.

"I'll never forget how, many years ago, after another approach had failed to give relief, Matthew said 'Dad, I know I'm going to heaven. Why can't I just die and end this pain?'" Warren recalled.

Despite that, he said, his son lived for another decade, during which he often reached out to help others.

"You who watched Matthew grow up knew he was an incredibly kind, gentle, and compassionate man," Warren wrote. "He had a brilliant intellect and a gift for sensing who was most in pain or most uncomfortable in a room. He'd then make a bee-line to that person to engage and encourage them."

The elder Warren founded Saddleback Church in 1980, according to his biography on the church website, and over the years watched it grow to 20,000 members. He and his wife, Kay, began by holding Bible studies for people who weren't regular churchgoers.

In 2008, the church sponsored a presidential forum with Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain. Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney had been invited to a similar forum last fall, but Warren canceled it, saying the campaign had become too uncivil.

As Saddleback has grown over the years, it has spread out from its Lake Forest headquarters, 65 miles southeast of Los Angeles, adding several other campuses and ministries around Southern California.

The church says it now offers more than 200 community ministries and support groups for parents, families, children, couples, prisoners, addicts, and people living with HIV, depression and other illnesses.

Warren was named the top newsmaker of the year for 2009 by the Religion Newswriters Association. He gained attention that year with his invocation at President Barack Obama's inauguration that year and comments he made in the aftermath of California's Proposition 8, which overturned gay marriage.

Source: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/04/06/3964362/church-pastor-rick-warrens-son.html

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Sony outs Lightning-friendly speaker dock in Japan, alarm clock and radio features in tow

Sony may have unveiled a slew of new audio products back at CES 2013, but the company has been relatively quiet when it comes to launching ones that are compatible with Apple's novel Lightning connector. That being said, it looks as if folks in the Land of the Rising Sun will soon be able to pair their current-gen iOS device with a dock from the PlayStation maker, thanks to the recently announced SRS-GC11IP. Pictured above, this little 0.8W speaker isn't loaded with fancy features like Bluetooth 4.0 or WiFi, but it does offer convenient functions such as an alarm clock and AM / FM radio -- these, of course, go along with the ability to also play tunes straight from a Lighting-ready iDevice or, with the proper RDP-NWC11 model, a new-era Walkman and many different smartphones. Whether we'll ever see the as-yet-unpriced tubular peripheral hit other markets, well, that still remains to be seen, with Sony only going so far as to listing it as "coming soon" on its Japanese website.

Gallery: Sony RDP-NWC11 speaker dock