clipped from www.firstamendmentcenter.org

Free expression is an essential guarantee of the First Amendment — the
freedom to speak and write as we will, without censorship by the government.

But the freedom to express oneself doesn’t necessarily provide a buffer
against the reaction to what is said or written. For public employees like
schoolteachers, that’s increasingly an issue in the Internet Age, when
off-campus postings easily reach the school community.

Example: A recent Washington Post story that reported on area teachers
who had placed personal material or photos on social-networking sites like
Facebook. The article is headlined, “When Young Teachers Go Wild on the
Web.”

The Post’s report might just pass as noting a titillating curiosity —
if not for the potential pitfalls it and other news reports highlight for public
school educators who might assume speech away from the workplace is protected by
the First Amendment from on-the-job consequences.

clipped from www.firstamendmentcenter.org

A nonprofit digital library has successfully fought an FBI attempt to seize information about one of its users, and is calling on other groups to challenge government agencies' attempts to obtain online customer information without a judge's order.

The FBI presented the San Francisco-based Internet Archive with a national security letter last November asking for a library patron's records. The group sued the agency a month later, alleging the letter violated free-speech rights because it prohibits recipients from talking to anyone else about it.

The Internet Archive said yesterday that the FBI agreed to withdraw the letter last week and make the case, which had been filed under seal, public.

Yesterday, the FBI defended its demand on the Internet Archive in particular and the letters in general as important weapons to fight terrorism.

"Without judicial or public oversight, there is literally nothing stopping the FBI from issuing improper demands for records," Goodman said.

clipped from www.msnbc.msn.com

Soon after Michele Goins became chief information officer at Juniper Networks in February, she decided to respond to the growing chorus of Mac lovers among the networking company's 6,100 employees. For years, many had used Apple's computers at home and clamored for them in the office as well. So she launched a test, letting 600 Juniper staffers use Macs instead of the standard-issue PCs that run Microsoft's Windows operating system. As long as the extra support costs aren't too high, she plans to open the floodgates. "

Funny thing is, she has never received a single sales call from Apple.

Millions of consumers are seeing the Mac in a new light. Once an object of devotion for students and artists, the Mac is becoming the first choice of many.

What's less obvious is that the enthusiasm is starting to spill over into the corporate market. It's a people's revolution, of sorts, with workers increasingly pressing their employers to let them use Macs in the office.

clipped from www.cnn.com

When a 24-year-old woman who called herself "90DayJane" launched a blog in February announcing she would write about her life and feelings for three months and then commit suicide, 150,000 readers flocked to the site. Some came to offer help, some to delight in the drama. Others speculated it was all a hoax.

Few, however, questioned why she would share her deepest thoughts and feelings with strangers online. In the age of cyber-voyeurism, the better question might be: Why wouldn't she?

Overeating, alcoholism, depression -- name the problem and you'll find someone's personal blog on the subject. Roughly 12 million Americans have blogs, according to polls by the Pew Internet and American Life Project in 2006, and many seem to use them as a form of group therapy.

But it's the public nature of blogs that creates the sense of support.

clipped from www.newscientist.com

It's part-reptile, part-mammal, part-bird – and totally unique. Two centuries after European scientists deemed a dead specimen so outlandish it had to be a fake, the bizarre genetic secrets of Australia's platypus has been laid bare.

Platypuses lay eggs and produce venom like some reptiles, but they sport furry coats and feed their young with milk like mammals. The odd creatures are classed as monotremes, with only one close relative – the echidna.

And while the gene that the human sex-determining gene evolved from is present in the platypus genome, it seems to have nothing to do with sex determination. So, that function must have evolved after the platypus split from our common ancestor, about 166 million years ago.

"It looks like the platypus started from the same suite of genes, but did completely different things with them," says Graves.

The draft genome sequence should also help to end the platypus's identity crisis, Graves says.

clipped from www.modbee.com

Supporters and critics of pagan weddings -- like Kemper's -- often describe the ceremonies as beautiful, mystical, bizarre and even evil, all descriptions Kemper has heard. But, according to some experts, there is one word they can no longer use: uncommon.

A 2001 survey by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York found that the number of followers of Wicca, one of the many religions that fall beneath the pagan umbrella, increased from 8,000 in 1990 to 134,000 in 2001, making it the fastest-growing religion in America in terms of percentage increase.

Marty Laubach, a sociology professor at Marshall University, says the number of followers of pagan religions is even higher now, citing a 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey that put the estimate at 1.2 million.

clipped from www.firstamendmentcenter.org

Texas officials are trying hard to keep the focus on child abuse — and away from religion — in the custody battle involving 437 children seized from a polygamist religious sect this month.

If only it were so simple.

Like it or not, this conflict is about far more than the issue of older men having sex with under-age girls in violation of Texas law. It’s also about religion — specifically the religious culture of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS).

Defenders of the church argue that the raid was an overreaction to one telephone call (that may have been a hoax) and was motivated by long-standing animus toward the FLDS community. The state counters that dramatic measures are justified when evidence points to children trapped in a religious culture that promotes child abuse.

The only way to sort out the truth, and determine the fate of the children, will be to put the FLDS way of life on trial.

clipped from www.firstamendmentcenter.org

The Tomah School District has agreed to permit religious expression in student artwork in response to a federal lawsuit.

The Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal advocacy group, sued the district in March on behalf of a Tomah High School student. ADF alleged an art teacher gave the student a zero on an assigned drawing of a landscape because the student included a cross and the words "John 3:16 A sign of love."

The teacher cited a class policy that prohibited any expressions of violence, blood, sex or religious beliefs in artwork. The lawsuit alleged the student was treated unfairly because of his religion.

Students still will be barred from including gang symbols, violence, blood and sex in their work. But they will be allowed to express their religious beliefs as long as it satisfies the assignment criteria.

clipped from www.bloomberg.com

Parts of North America and Europe may
cool naturally over the next decade, as shifting ocean currents
temporarily blunt the global-warming effect caused by mankind

Average temperatures in areas such as California and France
may drop over the next 10 years, influenced by colder flows in the
North Atlantic, said a report today by the institution based in
Kiel, Germany. Temperatures worldwide may stabilize in the period.

The study was based on sea-surface temperatures of currents
that move heat around the world, and vary from decade to decade.
This regional cooling effect may temporarily neutralize the long-
term warming phenomenon caused by heat-trapping greenhouse gases
building up around the earth

``Those natural climate variations could be stronger than the
global-warming trend over the next 10-year period,'' Wood said in
an interview. ``Without knowing that, you might erroneously think
there's no global warming going on.''

clipped from www.boston.com

Haleigh Poutre, a 14-year-old girl once diagnosed as being in an "irreversible vegetative state," has provided police with dramatic testimony about frequent use of corporal punishment during her childhood, but she has not given any specifics about what caused her to suffer a near-fatal head injury more than two years ago, according to two people with direct knowledge of her statements.

Haleigh, who has spent the last two years at a pediatric rehabilitation hospital in Brighton, communicated with simple words and hand gestures in an interview last December. She also spelled out full sentences by pointing to letters of the alphabet on a board, reflecting the remarkable recovery of a girl who nearly was removed from life support by the state after doctors had declared her condition hopeless. She began to breathe on her own just as the state's highest court ruled that she should be allowed to die.

clipped from www.msnbc.msn.com

A Greek court has been asked to draw the line between the natives of the Aegean Sea island of Lesbos and the world's gay women.

Three islanders from Lesbos — home of the ancient poet Sappho, who praised love between women — have taken a gay rights group to court for using the word lesbian in its name.

One of the plaintiffs said Wednesday that the name of the association, Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, "insults the identity" of the people of Lesbos, who are also known as Lesbians.

"This is not an aggressive act against gay women," Lambrou said. "Let them visit Lesbos and get married and whatever they like. We just want (the group) to remove the word lesbian from their title."

He said the plaintiffs targeted the group because it is the only officially registered gay group in Greece to use the word lesbian in its name. The case will be heard in an Athens court on June 10.

clipped from www.cnn.com

From getting hitched to saving the environment, here's proof you can still be a busybody long after you kick the bucket.

1. Get married

2. Unwind with a few friends

3. Tour the globe as a scandalous work of art

4. Fuel a city

5. Get sold, chop shop-style

6. Become a Soviet tourist attraction

7. Snuggle up with your stalker

8. Don't spread an epidemic

9. Stand trial

10. Stave off freezer burn

clipped from www.cnn.com

(CNN) -- A magnitude 5.2 earthquake shook a rural part of northern California on Tuesday evening, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The moderate quake hit shortly after 8 p.m. (11 p.m. ET) about 11 miles east-southeast of Willow Creek, which is about 190 miles northwest of Sacramento.

Nita Rowley with the Williow Creek Chamber of Commerce said she felt the earthquake as a rolling jolt, but had not received any reports of damage.

At the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office in Eureka, Sgt. Diana Freese said several people had called to ask whether a quake had struck. She said the office had received no reports of injuries or damage.

clipped from abcnews.go.com

Humans alone practice religion because they're the only creatures to have evolved imagination.

That's the argument of anthropologist Maurice Bloch of the London School of Economics. Bloch challenges the popular notion that religion evolved and spread because it promoted social bonding, as has been argued by some anthropologists.

Instead, he argues that first, we had to evolve the necessary brain architecture to imagine things and beings that don't physically exist, and the possibility that people somehow live on after they've died.

Once we'd done that, we had access to a form of social interaction unavailable to any other creatures on the planet. Uniquely, humans could use what Bloch calls the "transcendental social" to unify with groups, such as nations and clans, or even with imaginary groups such as the dead. The transcendental social also allows humans to follow the idealised codes of conduct associated with religion.

clipped from www.christianitytoday.com

The liberal end of the Society of Friends has long had members who denied God's existence or Jesus' divinity. Now hundreds of pagans call Quakerism home.

Even after Olive found his way back to Jesus, he retained some elements of paganism. While he upholds the standard traditions of his local Quaker meeting hall, he privately incorporates pagan ritual into his prayer.

He's part of a small but growing movement of Quakers who also identify as pagan — a trend that may or may not exist in other Christian traditions, but certainly not in such an organized, public fashion.

In the last decade, this dual faith has sprung up around the country, including Quaker-pagan gatherings, seminars, an extensive presence on the Internet, and even explicitly Quaker-pagan congregations. There may be only several hundred Quaker pagans, but among American Quakers, their presence can be distinctly felt.

clipped from startcooking.com

Ahh, bacon! That crispy, chewy, salty and sinful cut of pork we all love.

Bacon has disciples far and wide, some of whom devote entire blogs to it.

For those who’ve spent more time eating it than studying it, bacon is cut
from the sides, belly, or back of a pig, near the ribs. It’s the fattiness of
the meat that makes it so yummy. After the skin is cut away, the meat is cured,
smoked, and sliced. It can be cooked in a pan on the stovetop, in the oven, or in
the microwave, until it’s perfectly crisp.

1. Make a good old BLT sandwich, of
course.

2. Bacon cheeseburgers will make anyone’s mouth water. Meat topped with
more meat? Perfection!

3. Bacon-wrapped tater tots would go perfectly with that
bacon cheeseburger!

4. Roast a bacon-wrapped
turkey for Sunday dinner.

5. Make delicious bacon pastry slices.

12. It’s not real, southern cornbread unless there’s bacon grease
in it.

15. The beautiful city of Charleston,
South Carolina gives us bacon-flavored cotton candy.

clipped from www.cnn.com

But the short and soft-spoken specialist is at the center of a legal controversy. He has filed a lawsuit alleging that he's been harassed and his constitutional rights have been violated because he doesn't believe in God. The suit names Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Known as "the atheist guy," Hall has been called immoral, a devil worshipper and -- just as severe to some soldiers -- gay, none of which, he says, is true. Hall even drove fellow soldiers to church in Iraq and paused while they prayed before meals.

It wasn't until he joined the Army that he began questioning religion, eventually deciding that he couldn't follow any faith.

It eventually came out in Iraq in 2007, when he was in a firefight. Hall was a gunner on a Humvee, which took several bullets in its protective shield. Afterward, his commander asked whether he believed in God, Hall said.

"I said, 'No, but I believe in Plexiglas,' " Hall said.

clipped from www.msnbc.msn.com

Indian police want a museum to display the head of a woman decapitated after she was accused of practicing witchcraft, hoping it will be a lesson for those who persecute innocent women.

A villager in the country's eastern Jharkhand state attacked the woman and chopped off her head at the weekend, apparently because he suspected her of being to blame for deaths in the family, police said. He then walked into the nearest police station holding the severed head.

"I think displaying this head in a museum will create a sensation in society and could be helpful in preventing people from taking to such heinous crimes," Sunit Kumar, a senior police officer, said from Jharkhand on Wednesday.