Lucas Oil is turning into a fortress

Your right on the money my Freind,Im a lifelong Cardinals fan for going on 49 years,but that stadium was full of history and nostalgia from some of the alltime greats

To me they could have done a lot with it, to preserve that type of history. You can't make things like that again. Huge difference in Yankee Stadium and the RCA Dome.

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Cooperstown is a great trip. It's a little hamlet of a town and has all the history and stuff, but getting there is a chore. The building is kinda small.. Maybe they could have moved the concept of the hall of fame. Tons of people would have complained and I see that point of view and share that point of view to a point, but to me you don't throw away history like that.

?

In Atlanta, when they tore down Fulton County Stadium, they actually built a parking lot on it but at least they outlined the ?the bases, infield/outfield/etc. , and have the spot where Aaron's 715th landed and tried to do some things like that.?

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Source: http://forums.colts.com/index.php?/topic/14092-lucas-oil-is-turning-into-a-fortress/

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bring our troops home from Afghanistan

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Source: http://www.petition2congress.com/8880/bring-our-troops-home-from-afghanistan/

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Iran: Khamenei Page Prompts Calls For Iran To Unblock Facebook

By Golnaz Esfandiari for RFE/RL

Thanks to a Facebook page in the name of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supporters and opponents of Iran?s supreme leader now agree on one thing: Iran should free up access to the social-networking site.

?Khorasan? last week published an opinion piece titled ?Why Don?t They Unblock Facebook?? in which the conservative daily?s editor in chief praised Khamenei?s debut on that network earlier this month.

Calling it a ?wise and smart? move by Khamenei?s office, which is believed to be behind the initiative, Mohammad Saeed Ahadian said the page was cause for Iranian officials to seriously reconsider which websites they block. He said that while exceptions should be made for sites like Facebook, which the op-ed argues could be a valuable networking tool, Iranians should be completely and permanently denied access to ?immoral? sites.

Iran

?It is illogical not to use the very suitable [platform] of the social-networking site with hundreds of millions of users to spread the profound, intelligent, and effective views of [Khamenei], and to close the door to tens of millions of people outside the country,? Ahadian wrote.

A similar argument was made within days by former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, who was jailed amid the unrest that followed Iran?s contentious 2009 presidential election.

?Western Tool?

Abtahi, an active Facebook user, said Khamenei?s Facebook presence should be welcomed. He praised it as a demonstration of the leader?s will to keep up with the modern world.

Writing on his popular blog, Abtahi said that Khamenei?s Facebook page can facilitate communication between the supreme leader and Iranians inside and outside the country, and necessitates halting any efforts to obstruct it.

That people inside Iran have to resort to antifiltering software in order to connect with Iran?s highest authority via the Internet, Abtahi writes, ?is an insult to [Khamenei] and the Iranian people.?

Similar calls have been made on Khamenei?s Facebook page itself, which since its launch on December 13 has been ?liked? by more than 20,000 people.

Khamenei supporters suggested that, if the supreme leader is on Facebook, perhaps the Iranian state should not block it. Opponents, meanwhile, argued that the Iranian establishment no longer has an excuse to filter Facebook.

?Isn?t Facebook an evil Western tool? How come Khamenei has joined it? Is he going to be arrested?? one user writes, referring the effort to counter weapons Tehran claims its enemies use in the ?soft war? being waged against the Islamic republic.

Question Of Authenticity

As recently as December 25, Iran?s Secretary of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace Mehdi Akhavan Behabadi said the authorities had no plans to unblock Facebook.

Behabadi also said Khamenei?s office had issued no statements confirming the leader?s presence on Facebook. He has suggested the page is a spontaneous move by Khamenei?s fans.

Iran observers have argued that because the link to the Facebook page and its contents were first posted on Khamenei?s Twitter account, there is little room for doubt about its authenticity.

Adding to the confusion regarding the origin and authenticity of the supreme leader?s purported social-media initiatives, Khamenei?s office has never either denied or confirmed his Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram accounts.

Facebook user Abtahi writes that, according to his investigations, Khamenei?s office is behind his Facebook page. And in his opinion piece, ?Khorasan? editor Ahadian clearly is of the view that the Facebook page was launched by the office in charge of disseminating Khamenei?s views.

Mahmood Enayat, director of the Iran Media program at the University of Pennsylvania, tells RFE/RL that the supreme leader?s image in the media is so carefully controlled that it is highly unlikely his office would allow a false Khamenei Facebook page to exist.

Deemed ?Permissible?

But Enayat does not believe the page?s existence will prompt the authorities to unblock Iranians? access to the social-networking site, which is highly popular in the country. ?The calls for the unfiltering of Facebook are likely to die out,? he says. ?The only time Iran could perhaps unblock Facebook would be around next year?s presidential vote. We have to wait and see.?

Iran restored access to Facebook a few months ahead of the 2009 presidential vote, apparently in an attempt to create a sense of freedom and win the support of young voters. But shortly afterward, amid increased use of the social-networking site by supporters of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Musavi, the site was again blocked.

Since then, many Iranians have relied on antifiltering software to gain access to Facebook.

When asked in 2011 by one of his followers about the use of Facebook, Khamenei responded that as long as it was not aimed at damaging the Islamic republic and Islam, it was fine.

?In general if it requires engaging in [immorality and evil acts] (such as spreading corruption, lies, and false materials) or if there is concern that it is sinful, or it strengthens the enemies of Islam and Muslims, it is not permissible. Otherwise it?s fine,? Khamenei wrote in a statement posted on Iranian news websites.

By launching a Facebook page for Khamenei, the Iranian establishment has essentially acknowledged the popularity of the social-networking site, which is effectively being used by opposition members to spread news and information about human rights abuses in the Islamic republic.

In the early days of its launch, Khamenei?s Facebook page became a platform for criticism of his policies. Many of the negative comments and criticism have since been removed by the page?s administrators.

About the author:

RFE RL

RFE/RL journalists report the news in 21 countries where a free press is banned by the government or not fully established.

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India rape victim's body cremated in New Delhi

NEW DELHI (AP) ? A young woman who died after being gang-raped and beaten on a bus in India's capital was cremated Sunday amid an outpouring of anger and grief by millions across the country demanding greater protection for women from sexual violence.

The cremation took place during a private ceremony in New Delhi soon after the woman's body arrived in the capital on a special Air India flight from Singapore, where she died at a hospital Saturday after being sent for medical treatment.

The tragedy has forced India to confront the reality that sexually assaulted women are often blamed for the crime, forcing them to keep quiet and discouraging them from going to authorities for fear of exposing their families to ridicule. Police often refuse to accept complaints from rape victims, and the rare prosecutions that reach courts can drag on for years.

Security was tight, with no access to the public or media at the crematorium.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, head of the ruling Congress party, were at the airport to receive the body and meet family members of the victim who were on the flight.

Hours after the victim died early Saturday, Indian police charged six men who had been arrested in connection with the attack with murder, adding to accusations that they beat and gang-raped the woman on a New Delhi bus on Dec. 16.

New Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said the six suspects face the death penalty if convicted, in a case that has triggered protests across India and raised questions about lax attitudes by police toward sexual crimes.

After 10 days at a hospital in New Delhi, the victim, who has not been identified, was taken Thursday to Singapore's Mount Elizabeth hospital, which specializes in multi-organ transplants, but her condition worsened, with her vital signs deteriorating.

Following her death, thousands of Indians lit candles, held prayer meetings and marched through various cities and towns, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata, on Saturday night to express their grief and demand stronger protection for women and the death penalty for rape, which is now punishable by a maximum of life imprisonment.

But even as thousands mourned the rape victim's death and in a sign of how pervasive such crimes are, police in West Bengal state were investigating another suspected gang-rape and death.

In the latest case, the family of a woman said she and her husband were attacked by six men as they returned home after working at a brick factory.

They dragged the woman into a nearby farm after pouring acid into her husband's mouth, the family said.

The woman was found dead with multiple injuries, said police officer Bhaskar Mukherjee, adding he was waiting for an autopsy report.

No charges have been laid. Another police officer, Sugata Sen, said four men had been detained for questioning.

The alleged attack is similar to the Dec. 16 case, where the woman and a male friend, who also has not been identified, were on a bus after watching a film when they were attacked by six men who raped her. The men beat the couple and inserted an iron rod into the woman's body, resulting in severe organ damage. Both were then stripped and thrown off the bus, according to police.

Dozens of protesters tried to break through a police cordon Sunday and march to the parliament building in the Indian capital, but were pushed back. The protesters, belonging to the student wing of main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, shouted anti-government slogans as they marched.

Hundreds of policemen have sealed off the high-security area, where the seat of India's government is located, in anticipation of more protests. The area is home to parliament, the president's palace, the prime minister's office and several ministries.

Gandhi assured the protesters in a statement that the rape victim's death "deepens our determination to battle the pervasive, the shameful social attitudes and mindset that allow men to rape and molest women and girls with such an impunity."

Attitudes by Indians toward rape are so entrenched that even politicians and opinion makers have often suggested that women should not go out at night or wear clothes that might be seen as provocative.

Meanwhile, a United Nations statement said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "offers his sincerest condolences" to the victim's family and "utterly condemns this brutal crime."

"Violence against women must never be accepted, never excused, never tolerated," the statement said. "Every girl and woman has the right to be respected, valued and protected."

Ban urged the Indian government to take steps to deter such crimes and bring perpetrators to justice, and to "strengthen critical services for rape victims," it said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/india-rape-victims-body-cremated-delhi-045328410.html

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Egypt's president warns against dangers to economy

CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt's Islamist president used his first address before the newly convened upper house of parliament on Saturday to warn against any unrest that could harm the country's battered economy, as he renewed calls for the opposition to join in a national dialogue.

In the nationally televised speech, Mohammed Morsi said the nation's entire efforts should be focused on "production, work, seriousness and effort" now that a new constitution came into effect this week. He blamed protests and violence the past month for causing further damage to an economy already deteriorating from the turmoil since the fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak early last year.

In an alarm bell over the economy, the central bank announced soon after Morsi's speech that foreign currency reserves ? which have been bleeding away for nearly two years ? are at a "critical" level, the minimum needed to cover foreign debt payments and buy strategic imports.

Morsi's strongly worded address to lawmakers appeared aimed at sending a message to the mainly liberal and secular opposition not to engage in any new protests, depicting unrest as a threat to the priority of rebuilding.

All sides must "realize the needs of the moment" and work only through "mature democracy while avoiding violence," Morsi told the 270-member upper house, or Shura Council. "We condemn and reject all forms of violence by individuals, groups, institutions and even from the nation and its government. This is completely rejected."

He appeared to chide the opposition for not working with him.

"We all know the interests of the nation," he said. "Would any of us be happy if the nation goes bankrupt? I don't doubt anyone's intentions. But can anyone here be happy if the nation is exposed to economic weakness?"

The mainly liberal and secular opposition accuses Morsi of concentrating all power on the Muslim Brotherhood, from which he hails, and other Islamists and steamrolling any alternative voices.

The main opposition groups have refused to join a national dialogue convened by Morsi, saying past talks have brought no compromise. They also stayed out of the president's appointments last week of a few opposition figures to the overwhelmingly Islamist Shura Council, calling the move tokenism.

The bitterness between the two sides was inflamed by the crisis of the past month leading up to the referendum that passed the new constitution. Mass street rallies were held by both the opposition trying to stop the charter and by Morsi's Islamist supporters determined to push it to victory. Clashes that erupted left 10 dead. The charter was approved by 64 percent, but with a low turnout of around 33 percent. Civil society groups and the opposition also point to incidents of fraud in the vote they say have not been properly investigated.

Opponents fear the new charter will consecrate the Islamists' power. The document allows for a stronger implementation of Islamic law, or Shariah, than in the past and has provisions that could limit civil rights and freedoms of minorities.

Morsi has depicted his national dialogue as a chance for all factions to have a voice in planning the next steps and drawing up key legislation to put before the upper house, including a law organizing parliamentary elections. So far, mainly Islamists and only a few small opposition parties are participating.

Liberal former lawmaker Amr Hamzawi said the president's speech offered no new insights and failed to acknowledge significant opposition to the Islamist-drafted constitution. Hamzawi was among those who walked out in protest of the Islamists' handling of the draft process earlier this year.

"We need binding mechanisms to amend the flawed constitution, guarantee that the legislative role of the upper house of parliament will be temporary and to ensure fair elections," he said. "We will not enter into fraud elections each and every time."

Morsi's address aimed to set the tone as the Shura Council begins work on a slate of new laws. The upper house normally has few powers but it will now serve as the law-making body until a new lower house is chosen in national elections expected within a few months. Two thirds of the Shura Council members were elected in voting last winter, but few Egyptians bothered to vote, and Islamist allies of Morsi swept the chamber.

The ultraconservative Salafi al-Nour Party, the second strongest party after the Brotherhood's political wing, suffered a blow this week when its founder and chief Emad Abdel-Ghafour resigned to start a new party, Al-Watan. He took with him around 150 members, including many who were elected to office. The fracturing of the party may bolster the Brotherhood in the coming elections.

In his speech, Morsi repeatedly said it was time to return to "production" and "work." But he did not give details on an overall economic program, including crucial questions like how the government will tackle a crippling budget deficit or carry out expected tax hikes or reductions of subsidies.

The impending austerity measures are major concerns in a country where some 40 percent of the 85 million population live near or below the poverty line of surviving on $2 a day. Morsi's government has requested a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to bridge the budget deficit, but talks are on hold after the government reversed plans for tax hikes this month.

Instead, Morsi denounced those who he said were spreading panic about Egypt's economy, saying the country will "not go bankrupt." He underlined that banks were healthy, after a rush to buy dollars the past week over fears of devaluation of the Egyptian pound.

"Those who talk about bankruptcy, they are the ones who are bankrupt. Egypt will never be bankrupt and will not kneel, God willing," he said to a round of applause.

He directly blamed the past month's violence for Standard & Poor's downgrading this week of Egypt's long-term credit rating one level this week to B-, six steps below investment grade.

Morsi presented the country's foreign currency reserves, currently at $15 billion, as up slightly from last year, though he acknowledged they were still down dramatically from around $36 billion in 2010.

After last year's anti-Mubarak uprising, foreign investment and tourism ? one of the country's biggest money makers ? dried up. With fewer dollars coming in, the central bank has been spending reserves furiously to prop up the currency and pay for key imports. The slight uptick in reserves from last year is mainly due to hundreds of millions of dollars provided by the Gulf nation of Qatar.

In its statement Saturday, the central bank announced the introduction of a new auction system for banks buying and selling U.S. dollars, urging citizens to "ration usage" of foreign currency in favor of the Egyptian pound.

Amr Adly, who heads the Social and Economic Justice Unit at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said Morsi's speech failed to outline a real economic recovery plan.

"We need to know the reality of the economic situation and have an idea of the measures that will be taken to address this situation," Adly said. "We are not bankrupt yet because we can still service the debt, but we are on the verge of bankruptcy."

___

AP writer Mariam Rizk contributed to this report from Cairo

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypts-president-warns-against-dangers-economy-204336713.html

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Asus VG278HE

• Pros

  Solid color performance. Great motion handling. Ergonomic stand.

• Cons Narrow viewing angles. No USB ports. Weak grayscale performance.
• Bottom Line

  The Asus VG278HE is a versatile 27-inch monitor featuring a 144Hz refresh rate and a speedy pixel response. It?s a bit pricey and loses some pop when viewed from an angle but it handles gaming and video with aplomb.

By John R. Delaney When we reviewed the Asus VG278H earlier this year we awarded it an Editors' Choice for its overall performance and the fact that it was one of the first 120Hz monitors to support Nvidia's 3D Vision 2 with LightBoost technology. However, we weren't thrilled with its lofty price, lack of USB ports, and narrow viewing angles. The new Asus VG278HE ($499.99 list) also supports 3D Vision 2 with LightBoost, but it doesn't come with a 3D Vision kit like the earlier model does. Unfortunately, it also suffers from narrow viewing angles and weak grayscale reproduction. On the plus side, it boasts a faster 144Hz refresh rate and delivers a sharp, detailed picture, especially when it comes to gaming. It's still more expensive than most similarly sized TN (twisted nematic) monitors, though.

Design and Features
The VG278HE uses a 27-inch TN panel with a maximum resolution of 1,920-by-1,080 and a matte anti-glare coating. The screen is framed by thin 0.75-inch black bezels with a silver Asus logo attached to the bottom edge. The 16-pound cabinet is 2.75 inches thick and is supported by a mounting arm and base assembly that provides height, tilt, and swivel maneuverability. The round base sports a 3D emblem and a glossy black finish.

There are seven clearly labeled buttons located beneath the bottom bezel, off to the right. In addition to acting as menu navigation buttons they are also hot keys for selecting an Asus Splendid (picture preset) mode, adjusting volume and brightness, and selecting an input source. The Menu button launches the OSD (on screen display) where you can also select one of the Splendid presets (standard, scenery, theater, game, night view, sRGB), and adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, skin tone, and color temperature levels. There's also a Smart View setting that is supposed to improve picture quality when viewed from an angle but colors appear washed out with this setting enabled.

The rear of the cabinet holds DVI, HDMI, and VGA video inputs as well as headphone and audio input jacks, all of which are downward facing. While the headphone jack is a nice touch it would be more convenient if it was mounted on the side of the cabinet. There are no USB ports on this model nor is there a built-in 3D transmitter such as the one embedded in the VG278H's upper bezel. As mentioned earlier the Nvidia 3D Vision 2 kit is not part of the package and must be purchased separately for around $150 if you want 3D capabilities. The 3-watt speakers are appropriately loud and crisp sounding but are no substitute for a good 2.1 channel desktop speaker setup.

The VG278HE comes with a three-year warranty covering parts, labor, and backlighting. Included in the box are a dual link DVI cable, a VGA cable, and an audio cable. An HDMI cable is not included. You also get a CD containing a user guide and drivers.

Performance
The VG278HE turned in mixed performance results. Color gradation was even throughout the DisplayMate color Scales test and the panel delivered bold, well saturated colors in my test photos but it had trouble reproducing dark shades of gray. The three darkest shades of the 64-Step Grayscale test appeared black when they should have been progressing to a dark gray. Light grayscale performance was only slightly better.

The panel's 144Hz refresh rate coupled with a 2-millisecond (gray-to-gray) pixel response provided excellent motion handling, a plus for the gaming crowd. The action was fast and smooth while playing Far Cry 2 on the PC, and there was no discernible judder or ghosting. With the monitor connected to a PS3 console it performed flawlessly while I played Burnout Paradise, an action packed street racing game. As with the PC game there was no noticeable judder, smearing, or ghosting while displaying fast moving images.

The VG278HE used 29 watts of power during testing with ECO mode disabled. Enabling Eco mode brings that number down to 25-watts without making the picture too dim. That's much better than the earlier VG278H, which used 41-watts of power. Still, the VG278HE can't match the energy efficiency of the Samsung S27B750V, which used just 19-watts of power.

The Asus VG278HE will appeal to gamers who want trace-free performance while blasting their way through today's graphics-laden action games, but it may not be the best choice for users who rely on accurate grayscale reproduction to edit photos. Its fast refresh and pixel response notwithstanding, it can't measure up to the Asus VG278H's performance and 3D features. As such, the Asus VG278H remains our Editors' Choice for big-screen gaming monitors.

More monitor reviews:
??? Asus VG2787HE
??? Samsung S27B750V
??? Dell S2740L
??? Viewsonic VX2770Smh-LED
??? AOC i2757fh
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By John R. Delaney Contributing Editor, Monitors and HDTVs

As a Contributing Editor for PC Magazine, John Delaney has been testing and reviewing business displays, PCs, servers, and other assorted hardware and peripherals for the past 8 years. A 13-year veteran of PC Magazine's...

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Indian rape victim, whose attack sparked massive protest, dies (Americablog)

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Christian family chronicles: Defence Health Travel Insurance

Today, it is too horrible an experience to manage on your plan. To take a bit more risk than the defence health travel insurance. If you have the defence health travel insurance onto your insurance review. If you happen to any travel group big or small. Most insurance plans won't provide coverage for especially risky activities like mountain climbing. If you need travel insurance and buy yourself not just peace of mind while overseas. The good thing this particular type of the defence health travel insurance a well established fact that United States insurance policies do cover medical expenses incurred while in a situation where you may hopefully never have to take a vacation without insurance is that hospitals and medical facilities will not pay for these benefits to cover you during your trip because their beloved pet is dead or ill, but don't accept it until you've got competitive figures. The odds are that you'll save money by doing a thorough comparison shopping. So, make sure it's a situation where you enjoy the defence health travel insurance and your family member may get sick at the defence health travel insurance. Many make it extremely challenging for a longer period, and you could be for a trip up to a foreign country. You may even find policies that include options for collision or damage to rented cars and business conflicts. There are so many travel insurance usually won't cover for Medical Expenses and Personal Liability is usually in the defence health travel insurance of sensitive or personal information. Remember that you should get.

Travel insurance will provide an extra option. Don't necessarily assume that your existing cover will be making multiple trips, it makes more sense to invest in the defence health travel insurance if ever there is one of these activities, then you will not cover. Knowing these things when considering whether to purchase through an insurance company, holiday is an excellent opportunity to ad extras onto your insurance questions are answered before you sign anything. It is best to have an emergency.

Usually there are many cheap backpackers travel insurance polices are generally 5% to 7% the defence health travel insurance of your family's health and decide to send you back to the defence health travel insurance of any policy you purchase your vacation with their other costs, and this includes insurance deals. There are several other important issues as well that you consider hiring. Jot down everything you want to buy additional coverage.

Source: http://fernandokern.blogspot.com/2012/12/defence-health-travel-insurance.html

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Citizen of the Year: Bill Featherstone - Lovely County Citizen

Bill Featherstone

On Easter weekend of 1980, Bill and Connie Featherstone visited Eureka Springs for the first time. They returned to Dallas, and a month later, rented a U-Haul, packed up everything they owned and moved here.

"I instantly knew this is where I was supposed to be," Bill said.

Bill and Connie, who had been married a year when they left Dallas, now have roots in Eureka Springs that go back more than three decades and raised their two children here. For the past 14 years, Bill has been paying it forward as a member of the city's Parks and Recreation Commission, and as chairman, oversaw the passage of a sales tax levy to fund road repairs and facility upgrades at Lake Leatherwood City Park.

For putting his time, his energy and his heart into ensuring that Lake Leatherwood City Park will be there for future generations, Bill Featherstone is the Lovely County Citizen's 2012 Citizen of the Year.

"I accept the honor on behalf of the parks commission, the parks staff and the plethora of volunteers who contribute in so many ways throughout the year," Featherstone said. "It takes all of us."

Featherstone originally got involved in Lake Leatherwood because of sports. The backstory: when his son was 4 years old and started playing T-ball, there was only one baseball field in town, and that was a rocky, substandard field on the school campus south of town. Baseball was big in the 1980s and into the '90s, and the school teams, youth sports and adult leagues all vied for use of the field for practices and games. And before each game, team members had to walk the infield with buckets, removing rocks. Featherstone also started a soccer team that played on the infield of the school track, also rocky.

"It was embarrassing to invite other teams to play here," he said.

After the 20-year lease of Lake Leatherwood to a private operator expired in the '90s and it reverted to city ownership, the idea of locating sports fields at the park started gaining momentum. It culminated in the city's Parks and Recreation Commission proposal to build three multi-use sports fields just inside the park boundary. As a big supporter of the plan, Featherstone was appointed to the commission. His first meeting was in the summer of 1998, when the proposal came up for a vote.

"There are seven people on the commission, and it was 3 to 3," he said. "I was the fourth vote."

Featherstone knew what sports fields were supposed to look like. Born in Greenville, Miss., he grew up in Jackson, Miss., where kids played baseball on flat, green fields. After graduating from William B. Murrah High School in 1971, Featherstone attended Ole Miss, then transferred to Southern Methodist University. With a business degree from SMU, he worked for a real estate developer in Dallas for five years, but was never a big-city person -- unlike Connie, who was Dallas born and raised.

"I've been in sales all my life, and the toughest sale I ever had was to convince her to pull up roots in Dallas and move to little old Eureka Springs," Bill said.

They were debt-free but had no jobs when they arrived in town that spring 32 years ago. And they knew only one person, Connie's brother-in-law, who had moved to Eureka Springs to start a business, a gift shop adjacent to the Basin Park Hotel. Both Bill and Connie were involved in the stop that first year, Bill said, then he and King Gladden opened up a toy store on Spring Street, 'Toys and Games Unique.' It evolved into 'Noveltees,' a store that Featherstone started and ran for 14 years. Connie worked for the Chamber of Commerce and the Bank of Eureka Springs, now Cornerstone, then for Community First Bank, which Gladden had started. After 'Noveltees' closed in 1998, Bill worked for 'The Lovely County Citizen' as an ad salesman. He is now a real estate appraiser with Parrish Appraisals.

Gladden was the first person Bill and Connie met when they moved to town and was known for his "can-do" attitude -- ask Bill to tell you the story about how they drove to St. Louis on the day of third game of the 1985 World Series and got tickets to that night's game and the next two. It's an attitude Featherstone applies to revitalizing Lake Leatherwood.

"This is going to get done, and it's going to get done a lot faster and easier if everybody gets on board," he said. "Everybody should be asking 'What little bit of this can I do?'".

What needs doing, besides fixing the road from Highway 62 to the lake: turning the old CCC bathhouse, now mainly used for storage and a laundry, into a nature center and indoor meeting space. Building a handicapped-accessible bathroom with showers. Landscaping the sign at the park entrance and putting up an interpretive kiosk at the main park area. Reroute, renovate and sign trails. Build a bridge across West Leatherwood Creek at the south end of the lake. The bottom line: to make the park more attractive and more accessible to more people for more days of the year while maintaining the sanctity of the property, Featherstone said.

"You're two miles from town and all the craziness and the motorcycles and you hear nothing," he said. "That's what Leatherwood is -- a peaceful place. The ball fields are a very few acres. The rest is natural."

On any given day, however, the park is under-utilized, despite an array of recreational options. They include 25 miles of trails that spiderweb in all directions. A kayak launch ramp that is handicapped accessible can be used by everyone. An old limestone quarry in the side of the mountain is home to mountain boomers, two-foot long lizards that walk around on their hind legs like dinosaurs. A fishing trail winds down to the dam. A bait shop and small marina rents paddle boats and canoes in season. A bird-watching blind was built by a devotee of the sport, J. Pat Valentik, who has recorded 199 species of birds at the park.

"Leatherwood has a lot to give, and people haven't taken it," Featherstone said. "I think it's the greatest asset the city owns in its sheer volume and the recreational opportunities it provides -- there's not anything that compares to it."

The sales tax levy, which will run four years, will provide approximately $105,000 a year, funds that park commissioners hope to increase exponentially by using as matching funds for grants. The Lake Leatherwood committee has written the first draft of the park's master plan, which in its completed form, will detail the projects that need to be done and prioritize them.

"Eureka is really blessed as a community to have this kind of real estate donated to us," Featherstone said. "Along with that comes the obligation to take care of it."

Created in the late 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps, Lake Leatherwood City Park covers 1,620 acres, making it one of the largest municipally-owned parks in the country. It also has one of the largest hand-cut limestone dams in the country. The bath house, cooking pavilion and diving platform date from the CCC. The Leatherwood Fields Municipal Ball Park, inside the park entrance near the highway, has a lighted, full-sized baseball field and a lighted, full-sized soccer field, plus a practice soccer field, concession stand and restrooms. The ballpark hosts music and community festivals, and is used for three major bicycle events, the XTerra in June, the Fat Tire Festival for mountain bikers in July, and the Eurekan in August.

For more information about Lake Leatherwood City Park, contact the Eureka Springs Parks and Recreation Commission, 479-253-2866 or email esparks@arkansas.net.

Source: http://www.lovelycitizen.com/story/1926090.html

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Source: http://forums.ferra.ru/index.php?showtopic=53734

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US sailors sue Japan's TEPCO for post-quake radiation exposure

Nicholas A. Groesch / Reuters file

Sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan wash down the flight deck to remove potential radiation contamination while operating off the coast of Japan providing humanitarian assistance in support of Operation Tomodachi on March 22, 2011.

By Kari Huus, NBC News

A group of U.S. Navy personnel involved in the humanitarian effort after Japan's March 2011 earthquake and tsunami have filed a lawsuit against the Tokyo Electric Power Co. for more than $200 million?in compensation, punitive damages and future medical costs for exposure to radiation that leaked from the damaged Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant at the time.

The plaintiffs include eight troops serving on the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier ? one of whom was pregnant at the time of the alleged exposure ??and her?daughter.

They charge that the utility, known as TEPCO, "knowingly and negligently caused, permitted and allowed misleading information concerning the true condition of the (plant) to be disseminated to the public, including the U.S. Navy Department," according to the complaint filed on Dec. 21 in a U.S. federal court in San Diego.

---

?The plaintiffs are suffering a variety of symptoms that attorney Paul Garner says were caused by the exposure, including rectal bleeding, thyroid problems and?persistent migraine headaches, and all face an increased chance of developing cancer and requiring expensive medical procedures.

The U.S. carrier was positioned just offshore from the damaged Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, which and suffered a meltdown which triggered?the release of high levels of radiation into the air and water.

"The carrier was less than two football fields away from the Fukushima Daiichi when it released a cloud of radiation," said Garner, speaking to NBC News on Thursday.

He said the crew was unknowingly exposed to high levels of radiation in numerous ways, including when they cleared the carrier's decks of snow that was contaminated, and washed down the helicopters with sea water that was contaminated.

Archival video: Of all the aftershocks that could hit Japan, nothing frightens the world more than the possibility of a devastating nuclear disaster. NBC's Anne Thompson.

The complaint said that by relying on misrepresentations about the situation by TEPCO, the U.S. Navy was "lulled into a false sense of security," believing it was "safe to operate with the waters adjacent to the FNPP, without doing research and testing that would have revealed the problems."

It goes on to charge that through its conduct, TEPCO "rendered the Plaintiffs infirm and poisoned their bodies. The Plaintiffs must now endure a lifetime of radiation poisoning and suffering which could have and should have been avoided."

Archival video: Damon Moglen of Friends of the Earth discusses the potential dangers that still loom in Japan following an explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility.

The suit is seeking $10 million in damages for each plaintiff, plus?$30 million in punitive damages and a judgment requiring TEPCO to create $100 million fund to pay for their medical costs, including monitoring and treatments.

TEPCO could not immediately be reached for comment by NBC News.

A TEPCO spokesman reached by?The Japan Times?said the company had not yet received the complaint.

"We will consider a response after examining the claim," said Yusuke Kunikage, according to the Times.

Since the disaster, TEPCO has operated a fund to compensate victims in Japan.

Garner said that he didn't believe his clients would get justice through the Japanese system, which is why the suit was filed in a U.S. court. The complaint was served to TEPCO's office in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, he said.

"We need the U.S. justice system to make this right," Garner said.

?More world stories from NBC News:

Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Follow Kari Huus on Facebook

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/27/16197507-us-sailors-sue-japans-tepco-for-post-quake-radiation-exposure?lite

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Simpson off Weight Watchers while pregnant

By Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, TODAY

The rumor that actress and singer Jessica Simpson is pregnant again was confirmed Christmas morning when she tweeted a photo of seven-month-old daughter Maxwell Drew sitting in a patch of sand marked "BIG SIS." And to no one's surprise, Simpson won't be following her Weight Watchers diet program while she's expecting, even though she's their spokesperson.

Simpson "will not be following the program during the pregnancy while her weight and well-being are monitored by her obstetrician, as is recommended for any woman during pregnancy," Weight Watchers said in a statement.

Simpson also confirms her second pregnancy in a new commercial for Weight Watchers, in which she says, "This year is all about new beginnings for me. I lost over 50 pounds on Weight Watchers and did not have to be perfect to do it. Being healthy has become a part of who I am, which is great timing because I'm having another baby."

Jason Merritt / Getty Images

Related content:

Source: http://todayentertainment.today.com/_news/2012/12/26/16170888-jessica-simpson-will-be-off-weight-watchers-diet-while-pregnant?lite

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Scrooged: The Ghost of Bill Murray Past

Watching a movie for exactly the second time ever, when you haven't seen it since you were a young kid, is a pretty amazing experience. I streamed Scrooged the other night. I hadn't seen it since shortly after its 1988 release, when I was about six or seven. Total flashback. The terrifying ghouls under the cloak of the ghost of Christmas Future. The incomprehensible mania of a drunken, laid-off Bobcat Goldthwait. The pointless distraction of the love story. Those things were not, I can report, a bunch of scary nonsense this time around. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/WqXpXszqq0g/scrooged-the-ghost-of-bill-murray-past

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Yemen violence kills 5 soldiers, 11 tribesmen

SANAA, Yemen (AP) ? Gunmen on motorbikes shot dead two Yemeni army officers in the country's capital Tuesday, and clashes between the military and tribal fighters loyal to al-Qaida in a northeastern province killed three soldiers and 11 tribesmen, officials said.

The violence came as al-Qaida's offshoot in Yemen, which the United States considers the most dangerous branch of the terror network, released a new video message calling on Yemeni Muslims to join jihad, or holy war, against America.

The two army officers were gunned down in separate parts of the capital, Sanaa, security officials said. The two were identified as Col. Fadhl Mohammed Jaber, who was shot outside his home, and Col. Saleem al-Gharbani, who was killed near a Sanaa military facility.

Similar attacks have killed several senior Yemeni military and intelligence officials this year. The government has blamed al-Qaida, saying the militants are waging a retaliation campaign over a U.S.-backed military offensive last summer that managed to push militants out of strongholds in several southern towns.

Military officials said clashes between the army and a tribe affiliated with al-Qaida in the northeastern province of Marib killed at least 11 tribesmen and three soldiers over the past 24 hours. The officials said a tribal chief, supported by al-Qaida elements and disenchanted over money allegedly owed to him by the government, has been leading the attacks on the army.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.

The province of Marib has seen a spate of clashes recently, mostly between the army and some tribesmen who maintain ties with al-Qaida. The tribesmen have also attacked oil pipelines and power stations in the province.

Two months ago, tribesmen blew up main electricity pylons and sabotaged an oil pipeline, protesting a death sentence against one of their members convicted of belonging to al-Qaida and killing security agents.

Some tribal chiefs are also suspected of being allied with former longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Their attacks appeared to be aimed at undermining the new government.

Al-Qaida's Yemen branch, also known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, released a video denouncing the United States for what it described as aggressive political and social policies against Islam.

In the video, reported Tuesday by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant activities, three Yemeni al-Qaida leaders ? including deputy leader Said al-Shihri and military commander Qassim al-Rimi ? urge Yemenis to join the jihad against an alleged American "occupation" of their country.

The video was produced by al-Qaida's local media arm, the al-Malahem Foundation.

___

Associated Press writer Maamoun Youssef in Cairo contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/yemen-violence-kills-5-soldiers-11-tribesmen-132337106.html

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Why are realtors in the Miami area so unreliable - Zillow Real Estate ...

Miami is not my main?market, but I show property down in Miami and the surrounding areas from time to time when dealing with cash investors or serious buyers.? As long as I have 24-48 hours advance notice to set up showings, and I do my job, I have not had any major difficulties with the agents in Miami.?
I've had a few bumps in the road, with agents not showing up to appointments or agents not picking up their phones, but it's expected at this point for me.
Do you know how active the market is currently in Miami?? There is a serious?lack of good inventory, and there are cash investors everywhere.? Many of these buyers are putting bids on?properties sight unseen, and LLC's and LP's are dominating the investment market.?
In order to locate a good Miami realtor, it certainly depends on what kind of properties you are looking to purchase, and if you are a cash buyer, with realistic goals.? ?Low priced investment properties are very hard to find with a good realtor as well, and even harder to put under contract.
I?met a few good?Realtors at the National Association of Realtors Convention this year in Orlando if you'd like a recommendation. Otherwise, I'd recommend you make some calls to some zillow agents, and see who wants your business.
Good luck in your search, and I hope you find a property that fits your needs.

Source: http://www.zillow.com/advice-thread/Why-are-realtors-in-the-Miami-area-so-unreliable/472200/

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Investing is Learning about Life - High Heeled Traders

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://highheeledtraders.com/?p=4780

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Troy Ave And DJ Holiday Gift-Wrap White Christmas For December 25

'It felt organic, it felt like I was doin' it an injustice by not calling it White Christmas,' Troy Ave tells Mixtape Daily.
By Rob Markman, with reporting by Ade Mangum

Troy Ave
Photo: MTV News

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1699369/troy-ave-white-christmas-mixtape-daily.jhtml

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Realignment's unintended consequence: No supervision ...

The first wave of felons sent to county jails instead of state prisons under Gov. Jerry Brown's public safety realignment plan are back on the streets after serving their sentences, and local law enforcement officials are worried they will trigger a spike in crime.

Almost all of the felons are under no obligation to report to a parole agent or probation officer, and many did not get job training and other rehabilitation services while behind bars.

"Of those 9,000 who have been sentenced to jail in lieu of prison, about 90 percent of them are going to come out without supervision by a probation officer or a parole agent," county Chief Probation Officer Jerry Powers said during a recent meeting of the Southern California Association of Governments.

"They're simply going to walk out of jail a free person, and we will have no ability to compel them to engage in drug treatment, mental health treatment or anything of that sort," he added. "As soon as they hit that public sidewalk, they are truly free."

Realignment, also known as AB 109, is the governor's way of complying with a Supreme Court mandate to reduce overcrowding in state prisons.

Among the strategies for lowering the inmate population is to send most felons sentenced with non-serious, non-violent and non-sex crimes to county jails instead.

If the felons had stayed in state prisons, they would have been required by state law to report to parole agents for one or more

years after their release.

They would also have been ordered to stay away from their victims, and been subject to warrantless searches. Some might also have been compelled to undergo services to ease their re-entry into society.

Los Angeles Police Department Assistant Chief Michel Moore said realignment provided no such "safety net" for felons diverted to county jails.

"It's a pretty big omission in the statute," added Deputy District Attorney Kraig St. Pierre, in charge of the county DA's Parole Revocation Section.

But Luis Patino, a spokesman with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, noted realignment does not prevent felons from being supervised after their release from county jail, but leaves it to the decision of a judge.

"AB 109 does not inhibit judges from placing an offender on probation supervision once they leave jail," he said. "Superior Court judges are given that discretion through split sentencing."

Under split sentencing, a four-year jail term, for example, can be converted to two years behind bars and two years under probation.

According to a recent study by the Chief Probation Officers of California or CPOC, however, it is used very rarely in Los Angeles County.

Since realignment took effect in October 2011 through June 2012, only 370 out of 6,800 AB 109 felons were given split sentences.

That's only 5 percent, when most other counties in the state use split sentences at least 40 percent of the time. A few apply it to 100 percent their cases.

Moore said jail terms should automatically come with a so-called "supervision tail," which allows local law enforcement officers to keep tabs on felons who are back in the community.

"With realignment, it appears there's some kind of bargaining that has to go on, where if we want community supervision, felons have to get less time in custody," he said.

Moore, Powers, St. Pierre and Assistant Sheriff Cecil Rhambo argue there is a need for legislative fixes to AB 109 so that - at a minimum - felons released from county jail can be subjected to warrantless searches for a certain period of time.

But some key lawmakers, including state Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, oppose that idea.

"If we were to mandate a tail on jail felons, then no one would use the alternative sanctions like split sentencing that were part of the public safety realignment," said Mark Hedlund, a spokesman for Steinberg, D-Sacramento.

"The goal of realignment was to improve the system - not just to push down the same problems with overcrowding to the local level," he added. "This proposal is premature and in conflict with the overall goal of realignment."

Felons violating probation would have to be thrown back into county jail, which is already almost at full capacity because of realignment - so much so that the Sheriff's Department is thinking of outsourcing jail beds.

The overcrowding in state prisons was partly due to felons being recommitted after violating parole.

Also, though the recent approval of Proposition 30 guaranteed funding for realignment, it would not cover the additional cost of jailing AB 109 felons who violate probation.

CPOC advocated an increase in the use of split sentencing.

"When local prison offenders do not receive a split sentence they are released to the community at the end of their sentence and opportunities to change criminal behavior for this population are usually lost," it said in a brief. "Split sentencing would diminish this risk to success by incorporating supervision by the probation officer into supervision and treatment plans."

To provide felons with some re-entry programs while they are behind bars - a captive audience, so to speak - the Sheriff's Department is ramping up its Education-Based Incarceration Program, which provides vocational courses and life-skills classes.

So far, realignment has put about 9,000 felons in county jails instead of state prisons over the last 14 months. Of those, about 4,000 have been released.

Since nobody keeps track of them, it is unclear how many have committed new crimes.

St. Pierre said the governor has called these felons "lower-level offenders," but that may be a misnomer.

"Before AB 109, these people would have gone to state prison," St. Pierre said. "In L.A. County, unless you commit a big-deal crime, you generally do not get a state prison commitment on your first conviction."

He explained many of them likely amassed a significant misdemeanor record and/or juvenile record. Some may even have prior felony convictions.

Aside from the 4,000 released from county jail, there are another 12,000 AB 109 felons in Los Angeles County who finished serving their sentences in state prison but came under the less-stringent supervision of probation agents instead of parole agents.

About 3,600 of that population went to LAPD territory, where 2,800 were rearrested for various offenses and 500 absconded. At least seven were accused of murder, including Ka Pasasouk, who has been arrested on suspicion of killing of four people in Northridge.

Preliminary data on the crime rate in areas patrolled by the LAPD showed that, overall, violent crimes and property crimes still dropped between 2011 and 2012, though by only 1.2 percent.

In the previous year, the decline was 6 percent.

Property crimes, in particular, rose by 0.4 percent. That's in contrast to the previous year, before realignment, when property crime decreased almost 4 percent.

In areas patrolled by the Sheriff's Department, violent crimes increased by almost 3 percent, and property crimes by more than 4 percent, between 2011 and 2012.

The largest spike was in theft, 6.15 percent; and burglary, 3.92 percent.

Rhambo attributed those to both the struggling economy and realignment, noting "we have had thousands of people released who are pretty much drug addicts or property crime violators."

Moore said unless the AB 109 population had post-release supervision and reentry programs - whether through a supervision tail or split sentencing - the progress made over several years to reduce the crime rate could be jeopardized.

"Make no mistake about it," he said, "when 85 percent of our crime in the city of Los Angeles is property-related, offenders who are not properly reintegrated into society pose a substantial risk to us losing our decade-long decrease in crime."

christina.villacorte@dailynews.com 213-975-8985 twitter.com/LADNvillacorte

Source: http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_22251263/realignments-unintended-consequence-no-supervision-rehabilitation-criminals?source=rss

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Paleo-ocean chemistry: New data challenge old views about evolution of early life

Dec. 23, 2012 ? A research team led by biogeochemists at the University of California, Riverside has tested a popular hypothesis in paleo-ocean chemistry, and proved it false.

The fossil record indicates that eukaryotes -- single-celled and multicellular organisms with more complex cellular structures compared to prokaryotes, such as bacteria -- show limited morphological and functional diversity before 800-600 million years ago. Many researchers attribute the delayed diversification and proliferation of eukaryotes, which culminated in the appearance of complex animals about 600 million years ago, to very low levels of the trace metal zinc in seawater.

As it is for humans, zinc is essential for a wide range of basic cellular processes. Zinc-binding proteins, primarily located in the cell nucleus, are involved in the regulation of gene transcription.

Eukaryotes have increasingly incorporated zinc-binding structures during the last third of their evolutionary history and still employ both early- and late-evolving zinc-binding protein structures. Zinc is, therefore, of particular importance to eukaryotic organisms. And so it is not a stretch to blame the 1-2-billion-year delay in the diversification of eukaryotes on low bioavailability of this trace metal.

But after analyzing marine black shale samples from North America, Africa, Australia, Asia and Europe, ranging in age from 2.7 billion years to 580 million years old, the researchers found that the shales reflect high seawater zinc availability and that zinc concentrations during the Proterozoic (2.5 billion to 542 million years ago) were similar to modern concentrations. Zinc, the researchers posit, was never biolimiting.

Study results appear online Dec. 23 in Nature Geoscience.

"We argue that the concentration of zinc in ancient marine black shales is directly related to the concentrations of zinc in seawater and show that zinc is abundant in these rocks throughout Earth's history," said Clint Scott, the first author of the research paper and a former UC Riverside graduate student. "We found no evidence for zinc biolimitation in seawater."

Scott, now a research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, explained that the connection between zinc limitation and the evolution of eukaryotes was based largely on the hypothesis that Proterozoic oceans were broadly sulfidic. Under broadly sulfidic conditions, zinc should have been scarce because it would have rapidly precipitated in the oceans, he explained.

"However, a 2011 research paper in Nature also published by our group at UCR demonstrated that Proterozoic oceans were more likely broadly ferruginous -- that is, low in oxygen and iron-rich -- and that sulfidic conditions were more restricted than previously thought," said Scott, who performed the research in the lab of Timothy Lyons, a professor of biogeochemistry and the principal investigator of the research project.

The research team argues that ferruginous deep oceans, combined with large hydrothermal fluxes of zinc via volcanic activity on the seafloor, maintained high levels of dissolved zinc throughout the oceans and provided a relatively stable marine reservoir of the trace metal over the past 2.7 billion years.

"The key challenge in understanding the early evolution of life is recognizing the environmental conditions under which that life first appeared and diversified," Lyons said. "We have taken a very direct approach that specifically tracks the availability of essential micronutrients, and, to our surprise, zinc supplies in ancient seawater were much higher and less variable than previously imagined.

"We can imagine for the first time," he quipped, "that zinc supplements were not on the shopping lists of our early eukaryotic ancestors, and so we better find another reason to explain the mysterious delay in their rise in the ocean."

Scott, who graduated with a doctoral degree in geological sciences from UCR in 2009, and Lyons were joined in the study by Noah J. Planavsky, a former UCR graduate student in Lyons' lab; Chris L. Dupont at the J. Craig Venter Institute, La Jolla, Calif.; Brian Kendall and Ariel D. Anbar at Arizona State University; Benjamin C. Gill at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and also a former member of the Lyons lab; Leslie J. Robbins and Kurt O. Konhauser at the University of Alberta, Canada; Kathryn F. Husband and Simon W. Poulton at the University of Leeds, United Kingdom; Gail L. Arnold at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Germany; Boswell A. Wing at McGill University, Canada; and Andrey Bekker at the University of Manitoba, Canada.

The idea for the study was a direct consequence of the 2011 Nature paper by Planavsky, Scott, Lyons and others that challenged the hypothesis of broadly sulfidic oceans.

The international collaboration received funding for the study from numerous sources. In the U.S., funding came from the National Science Foundation, the NASA Astrobiology Institute and the Agouron Institute.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Riverside. The original article was written by Iqbal Pittalwala.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Clint Scott, Noah J. Planavsky, Chris L. Dupont, Brian Kendall, Benjamin C. Gill, Leslie J. Robbins, Kathryn F. Husband, Gail L. Arnold, Boswell A. Wing, Simon W. Poulton, Andrey Bekker, Ariel D. Anbar, Kurt O. Konhauser, Timothy W. Lyons. Bioavailability of zinc in marine systems through time. Nature Geoscience, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1679

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/DC5qaP7AZPY/121223152736.htm

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AP Interview: Egypt liberal objects to charter

Egyptian opposition leader Hamdeen Sabahi talks during an interview with the Associated Press at his office in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Dec. 24, 2012. Sabahi said there will be continued resistance to the constitution even though it passed, contending that the majority of Egyptians are not Islamists. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Egyptian opposition leader Hamdeen Sabahi talks during an interview with the Associated Press at his office in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Dec. 24, 2012. Sabahi said there will be continued resistance to the constitution even though it passed, contending that the majority of Egyptians are not Islamists. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Egyptian opposition leader Hamdeen Sabahi talks during an interview with the Associated Press at his office in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Dec. 24, 2012. Sabahi said there will be continued resistance to the constitution even though it passed, contending that the majority of Egyptians are not Islamists. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Egyptian opposition leader Hamdeen Sabahi speaks during an interview with the Associated Press at his office in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Dec. 24, 2012. Sabahi said there will be continued resistance to the constitution even though it passed, contending that the majority of Egyptians are not Islamists. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Egyptian opposition leader Hamdeen Sabahi talks during an interview with the Associated Press at his office in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Dec. 24, 2012. Sabahi said there will be continued resistance to the constitution even though it passed, contending that the majority of Egyptians are not Islamists. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

CAIRO (AP) ? One of Egypt's leading opposition figures on Monday pledged continued resistance to his country's Islamist-oriented constitution even if it is declared to have passed, contending that the process was fundamentally illegitimate.

Unofficial tallies say nearly two-thirds voted in favor of the draft constitution, but turnout was so low that opponents are arguing that the vote should be discounted.

Hamdeen Sabahi, who placed third in the nation's first free presidential race over the summer, said in an interview with The Associated Press that the majority of Egypt's people are not Islamists.

He argued that the string of election triumphs by President Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood group are the result of unfair electoral practices and key mistakes by the liberal opposition, particularly a lack of unity and organization.

"The Muslim Brotherhood is a minority ? this is for sure. They get majority votes because of division within the opposition," he said. "If there is transparency (in voting) and unity among civil groups, then surely the majority will turn from the Brotherhood."

Sabahi said the Islamist groups in the country "for sure have tried to steal" the revolution that toppled authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak neat two years ago ? "but we will prevent them."

Sabahi said the National Salvation Front ? a union of key opposition forces that coalesced in the fight against the draft constitution ? is not calling for civil disobedience in rejection of the Islamist-drafted constitution, but for a new constitution through peaceful means.

The path toward such an outcome appears uncertain at best ? especially as Sabahi rejected the notion, somewhat plausible in Egypt, of the military stepping in to undo the inconvenient outcomes of politics.

In a sign of the opposition leadership's efforts to coalesce, Sabahi said the grouping would be led in the interim by Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the Vienna-based United Nations nuclear agency.

No confirmation of that was immediately available from ElBaradei.

In the interview, the silver-maned, charismatic former journalist seemed to embody the frustrations of liberal Egyptians today: While championing the democracy and lauding the 2011 revolution that felled Mubarak, they reject the outcome of that revolution, yet seem at something of a loss to cause a change of course.

Tens of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets weeks before the referendum to demand a new assembly with greater diversity write the charter. Instead, an Islamist-dominated assembly hurriedly passed it before a court could rule on the body's legitimacy, and Morsi himself issued decrees, later rescinded, that gave him near absolute powers to push the constitution to a referendum.

Backers of the Brotherhood and others Islamist parties also rallied in support of the charter, leaving the country split and leading to violent clashes between the two camps that killed 10 outside the presidential palace in Cairo this month. That created the impression that street protests can be conjured up to support either side in the current divide.

But only around 30 percent of eligible voters participated in the referendum on the divisive charter. Of that number, unofficial figures estimate that 64 percent voted in support of it.

Sabahi said the low voter turnout shows people were not convinced by the Brotherhood's slogans ? nor with the opposition's.

"This means that the battle for politics is concentrated on survival, food, jobs and prices ? daily struggles that are the priority of all Egyptians," he said.

Under such circumstances, he said, it was illogical to enshrine the document as a constitution that can be amended only by supermajorities in parliament.

Critics say the new constitution seeks to entrench Islamic rule in Egypt and that the charter does not sufficiently protect the rights of women and minority groups. Morsi and his supporters say the constitution is needed to restore stability in the country, install an elected parliament, build state institutions and renew investor confidence in the economy.

In a reflection of the complex nuances at play, Sabahi refused to describe the current conflict roiling Egypt as a clash between secularism and theocracy, saying that in the Arab world, religion and public life could never be distinct in accordance with the Western model.

Rather, he said, the issue was preventing the Brotherhood from establishing a "tyranny" as a political movement not unlike that of the previous authoritarian regime.

He likened Morsi to the ousted leader, Mubarak, saying the Brotherhood is after absolute power.

"He (Morsi) reached power democratically, but is not exercising power democratically," he said, adding that the Brotherhood "wants to establish a system of tyranny in their benefit."

Regarding the fears of theocracy, Sabahi said, "We are against separation of religion and state ... The intellect of the Arab region, and Egypt, is built essentially on religion and specifically the Islamic religion."

Nonetheless, Sabahi said the opposition would continue to fight the constitution, arguing that the low turnout made it illegitimate.

"From the beginning the National Salvation Front said this constitution does not represent the people," he said. "This constitution is not one of national consensus, but of national division."

He said the NSF would now try to remain united in preparation for possible participation in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

He said the front has no immediate plans to unite under one party, but that as a coalition they could win a majority of seats if electoral laws mandated an end to political proselytizing in mosques and placed a limit on the funds used for political campaigns.

Another key issue for the opposition has been enabling people to vote outside their home district. The absence of this has aided the Islamists, who have the money to bus supporters back home to vote. The opposition, though, has also warned that rigging could be made easier if people vote from any location and point to the current use of Brotherhood-manned buses to transport poor voters.

"I am sure that the non-Islamists are the real majority in Egypt. But the Muslim Brotherhood enjoys strong organization, and the forces that oppose them do not have the same organization or finances," he said.

The Brotherhood emerged as the country's strongest political force after the popular uprising that toppled Mubarak nearly two years ago. They won the most seats in parliament, before it was dissolved by the courts, and won the presidency. Liberal and secular groups have consistently failed to beat the Brotherhood at the polls since.

That was until Sabahi, a charismatic populist, appeared as a surprise presidential contender against Morsi and his rival, Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak's last prime minister, an ex-military man who lured voters with promises of stability.

Sabahi had a last-minute surge after campaigning on promises to help the poor and harkening back to the nationalist, socialist ideology of Gamel Abdel-Nasser, Egypt's president from 1956 to 1970.

Would Sabahi ? known as a fervent opponent of Israel ? cancel the landmark 1979 peace treaty if he one day ascended to power?

No, he said. The main issues facing Egypt today are resolving internal problems, especially endemic poverty ? and he would not risk that priority issue by courting war with a neighbor.

In contrast to the Brotherhood, which has several offices in every Egyptian governorate, Sabahi spoke from the office of a famous Egyptian movie director, who lent him the space.

"The Brotherhood is losing every day. Mohammed Morsi is losing every day," Sabahi insisted, sitting among black and white pictures of Egyptian cinema actors emblematic of the 1960s ? a time of resurgent Arab nationalism less complicated by the politics of religion.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-12-24-Egypt-Opposition/id-b63816e0573b448a8c7bad087f1b3886

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