post some news!

[Cz]

I need some readin' material!

[Iluyzhat]

news.... :lol:

[Thudz]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- The government of Puerto Rico ran out of money Monday, forcing the U.S. commonwealth to close public schools and shut down government offices, putting almost 100,000 people out of work.

The legislature and governor failed to reach a last-minute accord that would have averted the first-ever partial shutdown of the government in island history.

All 1,600 public schools on the island were closed two weeks before the end of the academic year, and 43 government agencies were shut down after negotiations between lawmakers and Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila failed.

Acevedo blamed "legislative inaction" for the shutdown.

"As of 8 a.m. this morning, I don't have in hand a single legislative proposal that resolves this crisis," he told reporters.

The closure gave an unplanned holiday to 500,000 students and threw almost 100,000 government employees -- including 40,000 teachers -- temporarily out of work. The governor has said essential services, such as police and hospitals, would continue during the shutdown.

Unions planned protests outside the capitol in San Juan and elsewhere to protest the shutdown. Municipal governments, which provide services such as garbage collection, kept functioning.

Outside an elementary school in the Rio Piedras area of the capital, a sign advised parents to monitor news reports to learn when classes would resume. Juan Marrero, a shop owner near the school, said the shutdown would curtail his business.

"They have to solve this quickly," Marrero said.

Puerto Rico has a $740 million budget shortfall because the legislature and the governor have been unable to agree on a spending plan since 2004.

Overnight, the Senate leader offered a compromise that would create a 5.9 percent sales tax, which he said would raise enough money to pay off an emergency $532 million line of credit the government needs to finish the fiscal year.

But that proposal failed to gain traction in the House of Representatives, where leaders said they opposed any sales tax above 5.5 percent -- with 1.5 percent earmarked for municipalities.

Both proposals fell short of the 7 percent that Acevedo said was necessary to pay for an additional $640 million loan and avoid a partial government shutdown. Anything less that 7 percent would only postpone the crisis until July 1, when the next fiscal year begins, the governor said.

The island currently has no sales tax.

Members of the New Progressive Party, which controls the legislature, have blamed the governor for the crisis. The two sides never agreed on the 2005 or 2006 budgets, and the government is using the 2004 budget to operate as debts pile up.

The government is Puerto Rico's largest employer, with some 200,000 workers. Salaries make up about 80 percent of the government's operational costs.

In recent days, Puerto Ricans held protest marches aimed at spurring the politicians to reach an agreement.

"I think it's sad that it came to this, but I think they'll come to their senses after a few days of playing this game," said Hector Aguilo, 24, who lives in Guaynabo, just outside San Juan.

[Thudz]

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said he has been meeting with seven armed insurgent groups in hopes of reaching a deal to include them in Iraq's political process.

None of these groups include people loyal to al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to a statement issued Sunday from Talabani's office.

"These groups who are holding talks with the president are those who believe in a prosperous Iraq. Their will to fight America has waned," said a spokesman in the president's office.

A source close to Talabani said the meetings have been under way for some time.

The groups are realizing that Americans are not their true enemy, the source said, and that they have been "fighting the wrong enemy."

"[These groups] are coming to the realization that one day the Americans will leave -- and that the most important thing is an Iraq that is free from Iranian influence," the source added.

The presidential statement said Talabani also has supported recent talks between U.S. officials in Iraq and armed groups.

Talabani said al-Zarqawi "has "announced genocide against the Iraqi people," according to the statement.

Blast wounds 8 police
Eight police commandos were wounded Monday in Samarra when their patrol passed by a roadside blast, Iraqi police said. Samarra is about 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of Baghdad.

In Baghdad, four roadside bombs exploded in as many neighborhoods Monday, but injuries were limited to one, the city's police said. An Iraqi civilian was wounded when a roadside bomb detonated in the upscale Mansour area, police said.

Earlier Monday, an Iraqi was killed when a car bomb exploded in Iskandariyah, a town about 24 miles (40 kilometers) south of Baghdad, police in Hilla said.

Other developments

Three years after President Bush declared major combat over in Iraq, Americans have strong doubts that the United States will fulfill the promise of his "Mission Accomplished" backdrop, a poll released Monday found. The CNN poll, conducted April 21-23 by Opinion Research Corp., found 44 percent said the United States would never accomplish its goals in Iraq, while 9 percent thought the U.S. mission in Iraq had been reached. Forty percent believed the mission would be complete someday. (Full story)


A rocket-propelled grenade, fired by insurgents, killed two Iraqi children Sunday in Ramadi, west of the capital, the U.S. military said. No other details were immediately available.


Three private security contractors were killed and two others wounded Sunday when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle in a convoy south of Baghdad, the British Foreign Office said. The nationalities of those killed and wounded were not immediately known.


A bomb inside a minibus killed two civilians and wounded six others Sunday in Baghdad's Sadr City area, police said.


An Iraqi police officer was killed and three others wounded Sunday when they were lured into an explosive trap in Musayyib, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of Baghdad, Iraqi police said. The officers were sent to investigate a report that a body was inside a parked car. The vehicle contained a bomb that exploded as officers approached, police said.


Two bodies were found Sunday in Baghdad's Amil neighborhood, an Iraqi police official said. The victims had been shot in the head, and they appeared to have been tortured, the official said. The bodies could not be immediately identified.

[Thudz]

BLOOMINGTON, Indiana (AP) -- A diner found a piece of human flesh on his hamburger shortly after a restaurant worker accidentally cut his finger, and a spokeswoman said the company was "very, very sorry."

A kitchen manager at the TGI Friday's at College Mall injured himself Tuesday and no one immediately realized he had lost part of his finger while others rushed to help him, said Amy Freshwater, a spokeswoman for the chain.

"The manager didn't even know it happened until he got to the hospital," she said.

Another staff member served the plate to a customer, who immediately spotted the piece of flesh.

The manager was treated at Bloomington Hospital and lost only a small piece of his finger, according to Freshwater.

"We absolutely acknowledge the seriousness of this incident, and we are very, very sorry that this occurred," she said.

The restaurant has been in contact with the customer, Freshwater said.

The diner called police, but an officer told him that it was not a criminal matter, Detective Sgt. David Drake said.

[Thudz]

TEHRAN, Iran, (Reuters) -- Thousands of Iranian workers on Monday protested the growing use of short-term employment contracts. It was the most vociferous May Day demonstration the Islamic state has seen in years.

The protest came as a reminder to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that, although embroiled in an international dispute over his country's atomic ambitions, he was elected to improve living conditions for the poorest members of society.

Short-term contracts, while better paid than regular staff contracts, allow bosses to fire workers more easily and cheaply.

"The contract worker is a slave as he lives in fear of being sacked," said Aliasghar Ghaliaf, 37, who has worked in a textile factory on a permanent contract for 19 years.

"Employers set us up against the contract workers, accusing us of not working hard enough," he added.

Paper-factory worker Masoud Cheraghi, 40, said, "Some employers even make contract workers sign a resignation form without a date on it."

The demonstrators, numbering some 10,000, called for Labor Minister Mohammad Jahromi to resign and brandished placards with bread stuck on them to symbolize their hand-to-mouth existence.

Some wore headbands saying, "The short-term contract is a slavery law." Others carried banners that read, "Labor strikes must be revived."

The protesters spread out for more than a kilometer (0.6 mile), beating their chests in a reference to religious mourning ceremonies.

Unions exist in Iran but their power is limited. Authorities quickly snuff out strikes and protests over living conditions.

Short-term contracts were introduced by the previous administration of pro-reform cleric Mohammad Khatami as part of attempts to make the state-heavy economy more efficient.

The Labor Ministry said it was looking at ways to "optimize" the contracts in favor of workers.

The Labor House, the largest labor foundation in Iran, said temporary contracts were a threat to job security.

"This is an idea that sacrifices the rights of the workforce on the pretext of boosting investment and profits," said the Labor House's legal adviser Arash Faraz.

Ahmadinejad is a religiously conservative populist who won a landslide presidential election victory in June after promising to deliver petrodollars from the world's fourth biggest oil producer to the people.

Iran's government says 10.9 percent of the workforce is unemployed, but some economic analysts say the real figure could be nearer 25 percent.

[Thudz]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Actress and model Anna Nicole Smith can add another line to her colorful resume: a winner in the U.S. Supreme Court.

The justices Monday unanimously ruled Smith, who went by her real name -- Vickie Lynn Marshall -- in legal papers, can continue her fight to claim a large part of her late husband's vast business holdings.

Smith, a former Playboy pinup and stripper, and one of the late oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall's sons have been fighting in court for more than a decade over a fortune estimated as much as $1.6 billion.

The justices did not decide how much money Smith would get, if any. Her victory means the case is thrown back to a lower court. She has yet to collect on any part of the disputed estate.

"It's quite a story," remarked Justice Stephen Breyer when the case was argued in February. Smith's appearance in court caused a minor media sensation, with cameras jockeying for position as she entered and left the building. (Full story)

Despite the colorful details contained in the legal briefs, the issue for the Supreme Court was fairly pedestrian. The justices ruled that federal courts do have a role, however limited, when state probate courts are hearing the same case.

'Probate exception'
State courts usually decide probate issues involving wills and trusts. Federal courts hear bankruptcy issues.

The so-called "probate exception" normally keeps federal courts from hearing such disputes, but there is no congressional law mandating the hands-off approach.

"The probate exception does not bar federal courts from adjudicating matters outside those confines and otherwise within federal jurisdiction," wrote Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the court. She concluded a federal appeals court improperly kept Smith from pursuing her case.

Smith, a model, reality TV star and diet company spokeswoman, went to both state and federal courts to press her claims.

The Supreme Court did not delve into matters raised in oral arguments: whether document tampering happened, whether Smith was kept from her husband's bedside as he was dying, and how the money should be divided.

Smith's attorneys claim that apart from the will and trust, Howard Marshall promised his young wife a share of assets earned while they were married.

The Yale-educated businessman was 89 in 1994 when he married the then-26-year-old Texan. They had met a few years earlier at a strip club where she worked.

Marshall died a year after the wedding, but Smith, according to legal briefs filed with the high court, was not given a share of the estate in the will or separate trust.

Courts have disagreed
"The problem is that the claim she is trying to pursue requires for its determination whether or not J. Howard intended to give her the assets," said Eric Brunstad, attorney for E. Pierce Marshall, the tycoon's son.

"But his estate plan demonstrates conclusively that he intended the assets to go somewhere else. She says she just wants the money; the problem is that the money, again, under the estate plan, was designated to go to persons other than her," he told the court.

State and federal courts have disagreed over whether Smith should receive any part of the estate.

A U.S. bankruptcy judge initially awarded her $474 million, which later was reduced to about $90 million. A federal appeals court eventually dismissed the entire award.

A state probate court also dismissed her claims, saying E. Pierce Marshall was the sole heir.

"I will continue to fight to clear my name in California federal court," said Pierce Marshall in a statement released shortly after Monday's ruling. "That is a promise that Vickie [Smith] and her lawyers can take to the bank."

Smith was a model for Guess Jeans and was Playboy's 1993 "Playmate of the Year." More recently, she had a reality program, "The Anna Nicole Show," on the E! cable network.

[Thudz]

More at 11.

[Halkatla]

My Swedish King turned 60 yesterday!
Tom Cruise love to change diapers.
Jolie's kids name's gonna be Africa.

[Fruity]

Abramz wins at being subtle.

[Trotts]

News flash, The diapers that Tom Cruise likes to change are his own.

[Rallick]

Teachers at several nursery schools in Oxfordshire, England, have been encouraging kids to learn the verse "Baa, baa, black sheep/Have you any wool?" without the word "black," but in its place a variety of emotions (e.g., "Baa, baa, sad sheep") or colors (including "Baa, baa, rainbow sheep") because they believe that kids with black skin might feel disrespected. According to a March Cox News Service dispatch from London, the campaign seems of a piece with a UK media flurry in 2003 suggesting changing the ending to Humpty Dumpty so that he receives merely a mild bump instead of shattering. [Duluth News Tribune-Cox News Service, 3-22-06]

[Rallick]

China's Xinhua news agency reported in March that the police department in Nanjing has gone beyond fingerprints and now has a data bank of smells taken from criminals and crime scenes to aid police dogs in investigations. Officials say that storing the scents at minus-18 degrees Celsius retards degradation for at least three years, and already, they say, the bank of 500 odors has led to the identification of 23 suspects. [BBC News, 3-16-06]

[Rallick]

In March, on state highway 2 near Papamoa, New Zealand, police stopped a 32-year-old man driving 121 km/hr (75 mph), with no license and also no arms, having kept relatively good control with one foot on the gas and the other on the steering wheel. He told officers he had been driving that way for years without incident, a fact that amazed police and an amputee interviewed by the New Zealand Herald. The man still got a NZ$170 (US$106) ticket. [New Zealand Herald, 3-24-06]

[Rallick]

(1) Children's Hospital of Orange County (Calif.) announced new rules to guard against wrong-site surgery after a January incident in which doctors opened up the wrong side of a child's skull to remove a brain tumor, only to realize, after finding no such tumor, that it was on the other side. (According to the surgeons, they merely sewed up the first site and proceeded to the correct side, without complication.) (2) Dr. Mary Ellen Beatty was suspended and fined $20,000 by the Florida Board of Medicine in April for a wrong-finger surgery, her third wrong-site error in five years. [Los Angeles Times, 3-29-06] [Tampa Tribune, 4-8-06]

[Singularity]

I need some readin' material!

Haha!

Zomg I have missed you Ciliz! :wink:

[Andorah]

Why Are People Calling in Sick? What's your excuse?
By Kate Lorenz, CareerBuilder.com Editor

Whether it's personal errands, catching up on sleep or simply relaxing, Americans are using sick time for more than just the common cold.
More than one-third of U.S. workers say they played hooky from work over the last twelve months in the recent CareerBuilder.com survey "Out of the Office." Thirty-five percent of workers admit to calling in sick when they felt well at least once during the last year. One-in-ten said they did so three or more times.
"With the cold and flu season kicking in, it's a popular time of year for employees to call in sick," said Rosemary Haefner, Senior Career Advisor for CareerBuilder.com. "However, the number of those who are actually feeling under the weather may not necessarily match up with unscheduled absences. Twenty percent of workers say they called into work because they just didn't feel like going into the office that day. One-in-four workers report they feel sick days are equivalent to extra vacation days and treat them as such."

Another survey by CCH Incorporated found that the rate of unscheduled absenteeism is at a five-year high. It also found that most employees who fail to show up for work, however, aren't physically ill. CCH's Unscheduled Absence Survey results showed that unscheduled absences are broken down into:
Personal Illness - 38 percent
Family Issues - 23 percent
Personal Needs - 18 percent
Stress - 11 percent
Entitlement Mentality - 10 percent

Why this growing trend? The number of employers allowing employees to carry over sick time from one year to the next is trending downward, from 51 percent in 2000 to 37 percent in 2004. As a result, employees would rather use it than lose it, Lori Rosen, J.D., CCH workplace analyst says.

Employees are not only being more creative with their use of sick time, they're also becoming more crafty with their excuses. Employers told CareerBuilder some of the most unusual excuses they have heard. They include:

- "I was sprayed by a skunk."

- "I tripped over my dog and was knocked unconscious."

- "My bus broke down and was held up by robbers."

- "I was arrested as a result of mistaken identity."

- "I forgot to come back to work after lunch."

- "I couldn't find my shoes."

- "I hurt myself bowling."

- "I was spit on by a venomous snake."

- "I totaled my wife's jeep in a collision with a cow."

- "A hitman was looking for me."

- "My curlers burned my hair and I had to go to the hairdresser."

- "I eloped."

- "My cat unplugged my alarm clock."

- "I had to be there for my husband's grand jury trial."

- "I had to ship my grandmother's bones to India." (note: she had passed away 20 years ago)

So what's your excuse?

[Vanraw]

Why Are People Calling in Sick? What's your excuse?
By Kate Lorenz, CareerBuilder.com Editor

...............edited for the truth.

Personal Illness - 18 percent
Family Issues - 13 percent
Personal Needs - 18 percent
Stress - 11 percent
Entitlement Mentality - 10 percent
Playing MMOG - 30 percent.

Seriously, I managed a guy that was on his last leg because of sick time and being late. He was told that if he was late one more time he was fired. The next week he calls in and says..... get this.... he says he will be late because his cat is constipated.

[Hoofhurr]

"I forgot to come back to work after lunch."

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Cz]

I'm more of a pictures guy on the front page...anyone got the sports section?!

Cinder - so help me god they open transfers I'm coming...and I expect heals 8)

[Breand]

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[Flab]

SCALEBLADE! THE ONLY PERSON IN MMORPGS i knew who was gayer than you was VIKT.

Can't believe ya went to Mannoroth ya faggo!


Love, Flabgutt

[Cz]

Oh Flab I got something for you!



Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck (forgive me for refusing to say the name, trying to clean my mouth up for my son!)

[Flab]

You really shouldn't put the little fella in an OSU jersey. He is liable to grow up wanting to do interior decoration or musical theatre.













Cute Kid, Adopted?



Grats Man.

[Cz]

Carson Davis ~ born 4-17, 7 lbs. 1 oz, 21" long (insert penis joke here).

He could be adopted, I sure as hell don't have a red tint to my hair. My mailman is a dark brown, wife's boss is black...so it's all still up in the air. No notable blondes close to the family.

He's also the reason I don't try to level up again on Crush, but by god if they ever let me off my server now...