Mood:
irritatedTopic: Yahoo Chat Stuff
Apple calls meeting after making little girl cryBy Katie Marsal Apple Computer recently held a meeting to discuss changes to its corporate policy after the company sent an upsetting legalese reply to a third-grade girl who had hand-written a letter to chief executive Steve Jobs with her thoughts on improving the iPod.
When 9-year-old Shea O'Gorman and her third-grade class began learning about writing business and formal letters, she thought who better to write to than the chief executive of the company that makes her iPod nano.
In her letter to Mr. Jobs, little Shea offered her ideas on how the company could improve on its iPod digital music players, such as adding song lyrics so listeners can sing along to their tunes.
After waiting nearly three months, Shea finally received a reply from Apple's Cupertino, Calif.-based headquarters, and the entire family gathered around to read it.
To the dismay of Shea and her family, the letter wasn't from Mr. Jobs. It was from Mark Aaker, Senior Council of the company's Law Department, telling the third-grader that Apple doesnt accept unsolicited ideas, so she should not send them her suggestions and if she wants to know why, she could read their legal policy posted on the Internet.
"She was very upset, and kinda threw the letter up in the air and ran in her room and slammed her door," the girl's mother told CBS 5 News.
Of course, Apple's policy was instated to protect the company -- and anyone who submits ideas to the company -- from ending up in a costly legal spat if similar ideas are ever adopted into future Apple products. However, you'd think the handwriting of a 9-year-old may have drawn company's lighter side.
Apple reportedly decline to comment on the mishap, but the company's General Council placed a personal call to Shea to apologize following a CBS 5 News inquiry.
It was also reported that Apple held a meeting this past Wednesday in which it discussed ways that it could amend its corporate policy when dealing with children.
Apple Insider ~ Katie Marsal ** Apple calls meeting after making little girl cry
CBS 5 News, San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose ~ Anna Werner ** Girl's Letter To Apple Gets Legalese Reply
Posted by yaahoo_2006iest
at 12:01 AM EDT
Updated: Monday, 17 April 2006 10:07 AM EDT
a-ok
Voter ID law upheld by federal court 
their contention that the law is unduly burdensome and would keep many people from casting ballots.
"Plaintiffs also have repeatedly advanced novel, sweeping political arguments which, if adopted, would require the invalidation" not only of the photo ID statute "but of significant portions of Indiana's election code which have previously passed Constitutional muster," Barker wrote.
The Democratic Party and co-plaintiff ACLU of Indiana had argued the law - passed by the Republican-led Legislature in 2005 - would particularly impact the elderly, minorities and people with disabilities, who would bear the cost of obtaining the documentation needed to obtain state-issued ID cards.
!
bright
Zarqawi, al Qaeda are heading out, U.S. general says
Al Qaeda in Iraq and its presumed leader, Abu Musab Zarqawi, have conceded strategic defeat and are on their way out of the country, a top U.S. military official contended yesterday.
The group's failure to disrupt national elections and a constitutional referendum last year "was a tactical admission by Zarqawi that their strategy had failed," said Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who commands the XVIII Airborne Corps.
"They no longer view Iraq as fertile ground to establish a caliphate and as a place to conduct international terrorism," he said in an address at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Gen. Vines' statement came as news broke that coalition and Iraqi forces had killed an associate of Osama bin Laden's during an early morning raid near Abu Ghraib about two weeks ago.
Rafid Ibrahim Fattah aka Abu Umar al Kurdi served as a liaison between terrorist networks and was linked to Taliban members in Afghanistan, Pakistani-based extremists and other senior al Qaeda leaders, the military said yesterday.
In the past six months, al Kurdi had worked as a terrorist cell leader in Baqouba. Prior to that, he had traveled extensively Pakistan, Iran and Iraq and formed a relationship with al Qaeda senior leaders in 1999 while in Afghanistan.
He also had ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, formed while he was in Iran and Pakistan, and joined the jihad in Afghanistan in 1989, the military said. He was killed March 27.
Gen. Vines said the foreign terrorists had made a strategic mistake when they tried to intimidate and deny Iraqis a way to vote.
"I believe Zarqawi discredited himself with the Iraqi people because of his willingness to slaughter Iraqi people," he said.
Huthayafa Azzam, whose father was seen as a political mentor of bin Laden, told reporters in Jordan in early April that Zarqawi had been replaced as head of the terrorist fight in Iraq in an effort to put an Iraqi at the head of the organization.
Azzam said Zarqawi had "made many political mistakes," including excessive violence and the bombing last November of a Jordanian hotel, and as a result was being "confined to military action."
happy
The picture of Mohsin Musa Matawalli Atwah that appears on the FBI's Web site. >>>>>
Airstrike in Pakistan kills top al-Qaida militant
NBC News: Up to 14 slain, including high-ranking Egyptian bombmaker
MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan - A high-ranking member of the al-Qaida terrorist network was killed in an airstrike on a remote village in western Pakistan, U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News on Thursday.
Mohsin Musa Matawalli Atwah was among as many as 14 suspected militants who were killed in the attack in the North Waziristan tribal region village of Naghar Kalai, near the Afghan border, the officials told NBC News.
Pakistani intelligence officials said an army helicopter gunship struck the village, but local villagers, speaking to NBC News, claimed a Predator drone firing a Hellfire missile was responsible for the attack.
The Egyptian-born Atwah was one of al-Qaida's top bombmakers, intelligence officials said. The United States had offered a $5 million reward for the capture of Atwah, who has been accused of training the bombers who attacked U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya on Aug. 7, 1998.
"He is a significant player, an explosives expert, a bomb maker," one U.S. intelligence official told NBC.
Senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC they had no comment on the claim that a Predator was responsible for the strike. They directed all questions to Pakistani officials, who deny the villagers' claim.
At least two children were among those killed in the raid, Pakistani security officials told The Associated Press. The bodies of the militants were buried quickly, the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.
The two Pakistani security officials, based in the capital, Islamabad, told the AP that Wednesday's operation targeted Atwah and another al-Qaida militant, identified as Abdul Rahman al-Masri, another bomb-making expert.
But a third official, who also declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, told The AP that it was likely that Abdul Rahman was one of the aliases used by Atwah. The FBI Web site also says one of Atwah's aliases is Abdul Rahman.
An intelligence official in Miran Shah, a town on the Afghan border in North Waziristan, told The AP that the raid targeted a house where a group of militants were being sheltered by a local tribesman.
U.S. and Egyptian diplomats in Islamabad could not confirm if Atwah was targeted in the attack.
General: 'The target was knocked out'
"We had information about the presence of foreign militants," said Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, the top Pakistan army spokesman. "It was a sting operation and the target was knocked out."
Pakistani forces have been hunting remnants of al-Qaida and Afghanistan's toppled Taliban government in the North and South Waziristan tribal regions that border Afghanistan.
Pakistani security officials have said Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri and other top al-Qaida figures could be hiding along the mountainous, porous Pakistan-Afghan border region.
Authorities here have arrested more than 750 al-Qaida suspects, including senior leaders of the terror network, since joining the U.S.-led war on terror launched following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Related: 
d'oh
Woman Pleads Guilty in Racist Letters Case 
WAUKEGAN, Ill. - A black woman accused of sending threatening letters to minorities at her former college has pleaded guilty to felony disorderly conduct and was sentenced to two years' probation.
Alicia Hardin, 20, also was ordered Thursday to perform 200 hours of community service, pay $2,000 restitution and cease all contact with Trinity International University, a small Christian school in suburban Chicago.
Hardin also has to submit to psychological testing if her probation officer recommends it, according to the Lake County state's attorney's office.
Authorities say Hardin sent letters filled with racial slurs and threats of violence to two black students and a Hispanic student last spring. One of the letters read: "I saw you in chapel... I had my gun in my pocket, but I wouldn't shoot."
Authorities have said Hardin sent the letters because she was unhappy at the school and wanted her parents to believe she wasn't safe there. The threats prompted officials to move dozens of minority students off campus for one night out of concern for their safety.
Hardin was arrested after tips from other students.
N.Y. TIMES LEADS NEWSPAPER $HORTFALLS
At the McClatchy group, which is paying $4.5 billion for the Knight Ridder papers, profits fell 14 percent to $27.7 million, or 59 cents a share, from $32.3 million, or 69 cents a share, a year earlier.
Profits at Tribune Co., which has cut jobs at its Newsday and other papers, plunged by 28 percent to $103 million, or 44 cents a share, while revenue fell 1 percent to $1.3 billion.
All three publishers highlighted the strength of their own Internet businesses. The New York Times said revenue at its About.com site rose 98 percent since it acquired the site a year ago, but still accounted for only 7.5 percent of total revenue.
Shares of Tribune were up 22 cents, or 0.8 percent, at $28.24. New York Times rose 17 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $25.39, while McClatchy fell $1.95, or 4.1 percent, to $46.05.
Gannett said on Wednesday that profit fell 11 percent on stock-options expenses and a 14 percent rise in newsprint costs, while circulation of USA Today dropped 4.2 percent.
Gannett trimmed 1,200 jobs or 5 percent of its payroll to offset rising expenses.
Journal Register Co., the publisher of 27 daily newspapers including Connecticut's New Haven Register, yesterday said revenue fell 2.2 percent to $129.6 million, with profits plunging 76 percent to $1.77 million, or 4 cents a share.
silly
Couric's Complaint: Why Won't Rumsfeld Critic Bash Bush Too?
By 
There is no reason to doubt Batiste's sincerity. He said that his motivation is the servicemen and women and their families. He stated that he had come forward to demand "accountability for a war plan was built to invade Iraq but failed to build the peace. Accountability for what happenened at Abu Ghraib. Accountability for a leadership style that which is intimidating, abusive. It was not a two-way street of respect."
Batiste stated he had no political agenda. That such is not also true of Couric was made evident from her question:
"At the same time though, the President, as you well know, General, is the Commander-in-Chief. Why reserve all your criticism for Donald Rumsfeld and hold all your fire when it comes to the President himself?"
Batiste: "My focus is on the Dept. of Defense - it's what I know."
Katie's other complaint: why didn't you start bashing sooner? "I guess if you had concerns about this from the get-go, if you had come out publicly you might have been successful in shaping public opinion far earlier than you are now."
Batiste: "Back then I was a one-star general. I doubt there would have been many people who would have listened to this voice."
Again, there's no reason to doubt Batiste's sincerity. But it's sad to see the MSM reveling in his words to further their own political agenda.
Finkelstein lives in Ithaca, NY, where he hosts the award-winning public-access TV show 'Right Angle'. Contact him at: 
chatty
Poll: College Students Finding Religion
Politicians take note: religious centrists dominate college campuses, according to a new poll conducted by Harvard University.
More than 70 percent of 1,200 students polled in mid-March said religion was an important part of their lives. Roughly 60 percent said they were concerned with the moral direction of the country. These religious centrists, said the report, are more likely to be optimistic and politically-engaged.
The report accompanying the poll suggests political leaders court these voters.
"This analysis," claims the report, "foreshadows the 2008 general election campaign for president where religious centrists,
nearly a quarter of the student vote, will be the critical swing vote ... and likely the most influential group in American politics for years."
The report advised Democrats not to concede on moral issues, and for Republicans to move beyond the "Big Three" – abortion, stem cell research and gay marriage.
The so-called centrists are ethnically and politically diverse. A majority support universal health care and oppose legalizing abortion. In 2004, they split their votes evenly between Pres. Bush and John Kerry. They maintained their split when asked who they would vote for
in a hypothetical presidential match-up between presumptive candidates Sen. John McCain R-Ariz., and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.
But some internal data from the poll cast doubt on the authors' claims that the religious centrists see morality in every political issue. In fact, the "Big Three" were the only issues which a majority of both self-proclaimed Democrat and Republican students viewed as a "question of morality."
Affirmative action, Iraq, the environment, education, and the government response to Katrina all failed to garner a student majority as a "moral" issue. Just more than half, 52 percent, of Democrats said health care was a moral issue. But only 35 percent of Republicans agreed.
spacey
The delusional libtards look at this issue as the "Illegal Immigrant, Convicted Felon Voting Act of 2006" ... That's who they're now pandering to. They know they lost the battle of persuading normal, sane, law-abiding Americans to vote socialist demented-crat.
Voter Registration Drives at Illegal Immigration Rallies
Some of the biggest pro-illegal immigration rallies lately have featured a disturbing phenomenon: Democratic Party operatives conducting voter registration drives.
After Sunday's massive illegal-immigration rally in Dallas, for instance, the Dallas Morning News headlined their coverage: "Activists sign up protesters to put them on road to polls."
The paper quoted Lena Levario, a criminal defense lawyer who's running as a Democrat to be a judge:
"I am so optimistic that I have 5,000 voter registration cards," she told the News.
By the day's end, the paper said - Levario had yet to tally the new voters she'd harvested from the massive - and largely illegal - crowd.
But the Democrat hopeful declared: "We are going to march to the end of the November election."
Also working the illegal immigration rally was David Hanschen, another Democratic candidate for judge. He handed out fliers that read: " Vota Democrata en 2006."
Organizers for San Diego's pro-illegal rally made a decision to focus more intensely than originally planned on registering voters, the Tribune said.
N.J. smoking ban goes farther than businesses thought
No lighting up within 25 feet of buildings
With less than two days remaining until New Jersey bans indoor smoking in public places, restaurant and bar owners discovered they are facing an unexpected restriction -- no smoking within 25 feet of a building.
In releasing 77 pages of proposed restrictions yesterday, the state Department of Health and Senior Services unveiled the "25-feet rule" that might all but snuff out plans businesses had to create outdoor areas, such as decks, where customers could smoke.
The ban, called the Smoke-Free Air Act, is scheduled to go into effect at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. The proposed restrictions are effective immediately, although they won't be finalized until September.
"This will prevent a phalanx of smokers outside the door, which is not only unsightly but unpleasant," Health Commissioner Fred M. Jacobs said of the regulation. "And it will prevent a backwash into the restaurant."
Armando Frallicciardi Jr., co-owner of Lorenzo's Cafe in Trenton and a strong opponent of the ban,
called the surprise regulation "absurd." He said a number of owners, including himself, have been considering building a deck or a patio.
"This means if we build a 30-foot deck, and that is an extensive deck, we would have 5 feet where people can smoke. That is totally absurd," he said. "The state needs to work with small business on this and stop this. They have gained their objective. Now we need to have smoking outside."
In a last-ditch move to stop the ban, at least temporarily, lawyers for restaurant and bowling alley owners are scheduled to appear before Judge Stanley R. Chesler in U.S. District Court in Trenton today. They are seeking a restraining order on the grounds that the law is discriminatory because it allows smoking in the gambling areas of Atlantic City's 13 casinos. The owners maintain they will accept the ban if the casinos are included.
There has been legislation introduced in both houses to have the ban extended to the casino gaming areas.
"This new law is one of the greatest public health measures in New Jersey history," Jacobs said. Up to 62,000 adult nonsmokers in the United States, including 1,000 to 1,800 New Jersey residents, die each year from secondhand smoke, he said.
"This new law will reduce illness and premature mortality through decreased exposure to secondhand smoke," Jacobs said. "It will have tremendous long-term health benefits for future generations as fewer and fewer young people are exposed to secondhand smoke on the job."
The state is providing $200,000, and the Robert Wood foundation of Princeton another $380,000, to finance a public education campaign to alert the public and business owners about the ban. The effort will include direct mail, and print, radio and billboard ads.
New Jersey will join 10 other states that have indoor public smoking bans, including New York, Delaware and Connecticut. And England, Ireland and Italy are among a number of countries where indoor smoking is banned.
One business owner supporting the ban is Michael Zambas, owner of Clinton Station Diner in Hunterdon County. Zambas said he instated a smoking ban at the request of employees when the law cleared the Legislature on Jan. 9
"We are not going to be heavy-handed about this," he said. "It is the obligation of owners to remove violators. I believe people will obey the law."
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