Slatest

Dimitar Kerin may have a thriving Facebook farm, but he no longer has a seat on the Plovdiv, Bulgaria, city council’s budgetary committee. Kerin, once a member of the lucrative committee in the second-largest city in Bulgaria, was kicked out for playing too much Farmville. The Facebook game is a favorite among council members (the council chairman has already had to warn several of them that their city-provided laptops are “not to be used for playing games on social media sites during budget meetings”). But Kerin was “singled out” because he continued “to manage his farm and milk his cows” during meetings. A fellow council member said Kerin “needs more time for his virtual farm” and motioned to remove the Farmville addict from the committee. In a 20-19 vote, the council voted to give Kerin the boot, which should give him some more time to pull on his virtual boots and go tromping around his farm. He’s going to need it if he wants to catch up to his competitors. According to Kerin, he’s just at Level 40, while fellow council member Daniela Zhelyazkova is sitting pretty at Level 46.

Source: AOL

This sounds like the sort of thing that could make Stephen Colbert very jealous: After appearing on The Colbert Report to promote his new book, author Raj Patel started receiving mysterious communications from members of a tiny religious sect convinced he’s their Messiah. Apparently some of Patel’s talking points struck a chord with the followers of Benjamin Creme, an octagenarian Scottish mystic who’s been prophesying about the coming of “Maitreya,” or the “world teacher” for years. Patel, who writes about economics, got e-mails and phone calls informing him his job was “to save the world, and everyone on it.” He tried to tell his unsolicited followers that he was not, in fact, a messiah, but to no avail: “they said that this disavowal, too, had been prophesied.” Creme devotees have traveled thousands of miles to hear Patel speak, which the author says “breaks my heart.” His friends and family aren’t too torn up about the mistaken identity though; on his parents’ last visit, they came bearing gifts emblazoned with the words, “He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy.” “To them, it’s just amusing,” Patel said. “They think it’s hilarious.”

Source: The Guardian

The U.S. is in the proud company of China, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia as the five countries that executed the most people in 2009. China was way ahead of the rest of the field, according to an Amnesty International report that detailed the global use of capital punishment last year. How far ahead we can’t tell, because death penalty records are “a state secret” in China, and experts believe thousands of Chinese executions go unreported every year. It’s so bad that AI declined to publish “minimum figures” for China because “estimates based on publicly available information grossly underrepresent the actual number the state killed or sentenced to death.” Amnesty has better numbers for other countries, allowing them to confidently assert that the U.S. can hold its own against authoritarian Middle Eastern regimes. The United States was the only country in the Americas to use the death penalty last year. It executed 52 people, behind Saudi Arabia (69), Iraq (at least 120), and Iran (at least 338). In Iran, 112 of those deaths came in the eight weeks between the presidential election in June and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s inauguration. But AI is happy to report that “countries that still carry out executions are the exception rather than the rule.” Burundi and Togo abolished the death penalty last year, and the peaceniks in Europe didn’t execute a single person.

Source: Amnesty International

President Obama managed to simultaneously defend his own legislation and ding a likely 2012 Republican opponent at the same time Monday. Speaking before he signed the final piece of health care reform legislation into law, Obama said his bill “incorporates all sorts of Republican ideas. I mean, a lot of commentators have said, you know, this is sort of similar to the bill that Mitt Romney, the Republican governor and now presidential candidate, passed in Massachusetts.” That is definitely not what Romney, who is already not-campaigning in Iowa, wanted to hear from the commander in chief. Since health care reform passed, the former governor has gone out of his way to tar the legislation as “an unconscionable abuse of power,” despite its similiarity to legislation he approved in Massachusetts in 2006. “Romney has been scrambling to distance himself from Obama’s plan and not get stuck on the wrong side of a litmus test issue for conservatives,” David Kurtz writes at Talking Points Memo. “Obama’s helpful reminder that the two plans are similar is like throwing a drowning man an anchor.” (In Slate, Daniel Gross recommends Romney to serve as a health care implementation czar.)

Source: Talking Points Memo

As the FBI investigates gun-happy crazies bent on starting an “uprising” against the federal government, the Obama administration is taking fire from another quarter. The mayor of New York , once considered an “independent ally” of the White House, has become increasingly critical of President Obama’s policies (or lack thereof) on gun control. The Huffington Post reports that Michael Bloomberg wrote a scathing letter to President Obama earlier this month, warning him that “lax enforcement of gun laws contributes to the murder of innocent Americans, many of them children,” and pleading for a personal meeting with the president. HuffPo says Bloomberg “comes intriguingly close to assigning blame for ongoing gun violence to the Obama administration,” by arguing that if earlier recommendations from his coalition had been heeded by Obama’s administration, many of the gun deaths of the last few months could have been prevented. The president and his advisers “have made what appears to be a tacit decision to keep their distance from Second amendment issues,” because they’re “ware of how politically divisive it can be.” But in his letter, Bloomberg asserts that “not all issues that are controversial in Washington are controversial in the rest of the country” and challenges the president to follow his own advice and “take on the tough issues—to worry about the next generation, not the next election.”

Source: The Huffington Post

Republican Sen. Scott Brown, who won the Massachusetts seat filled for 47 years by health care reform crusader Sen. Ted Kennedy, is calling for a repeal of health care reform legislation. In a rambling op-ed for the Boston Globe, Brown writes that Republicans must repeal the “worst parts” of health care reform and says he is in the process of drafting legislation “that would allow states to opt out of this federal health care bill.” But first, he slams the legislation and the process that created it, accusing “Washington politicians” of entering “secret negotiations to make up their own rules” and “force their unpopular health care bill on an unwilling nation.” But, Brown says, all is not lost. Republicans can “work in a bipartisan manner” to repeal the bill, or at least parts of it. He is working on opt-out legislation, “because states need flexibility, not a federal government takeover of health care.” He says states should be able “to solve the health care problems in a way that is best for their specific state, similar to the approach we took in Massachusetts.” (Would that be the Massachusetts approach that commentators say Obama’s reform bill is modeled after? Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts approach?) In a conclusion worthy of Sarah Palin, Brown writes that the “disastrous detour of a health care bill has distracted the attention and energy of Congress for the past year.” Now, it’s time to “restore faith in government” by “heeding the will of the American people.” And what do the American people want? “Commonsense, practical solutions that will put Americans back to work and get our economy back on track.”

Source: The Boston Globe

In the wake of terrorist attacks on the Moscow metro system, foreign policy experts are closely watching the Kremlin for signs of who’s in charge and what they’re going to do next. President Dmitri Medevev is technically at the top of the political pecking order, but Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, “the former president and still Russia’s paramount leader,” may muscle Medvedev aside. Putin has a lot to lose; according to the New York Times, Putin “has built his reputation in part on his success in … preventing major terrorist attacks.” If Monday’s bombing is a sign of things to come, “that legacy may be tarnished.” The Times says the attacks may “cause Mr. Putin to shove Mr. Medevev aside and move the security-oriented circle of advisers around Mr. Putin to the forefront.” Mark Katz agrees that “the bombings may aggravate the leadership struggle in Russia as Putin, Medevev and their supporters try to make use of it in their internal power struggle.” Many Russians are disgusted with the Kremlin’s response to the crisis, lambasting what they see as a “failure to protect or even inform citizens.” At Foreign Policy, Blake Hounshell says the difference between Putin and Medevev on security is what makes Putin so much more popular in Russia. “Their reactions to yesterday’s subway bombings in Moscow shows why,” Hounshell writes. “Putin said he’d like to ‘drag out of the sewer’ the organizers of the attacks. And Medevev? He’d like the Supreme Court and the High Court of Arbitration to come up with some ways to improve counterterrorism laws.”

Source: The New York Times

Media critic and blogger Michael Calderone is leaving his position at Politico to join Yahoo’s new original content site, theHuffington Post’s Danny Shea reports. Calderone is the most recent acquisition for the Yahoo site, which already includes Chris Lehmann and “Cajun Boy” Brett Michael Dykes, and he is the fourth writer to leave Politico this month. According to Shea, “other members of Politico’s staff have also been shopping their resumes around to various news organizations in Washington.” Calderone has not yet acknowledged the transition—or mentioned it on his Politico blog—but sources say that he’s expected to make the switch within a matter of weeks. Shea adds that in addition to his media accolades, Calderone has the unique distinction of being listed as one of Keith Olbermann’s “Worst Persons in the World” and one of Bill O’Reilly’s “pinheads.”

Source: The Huffington Post

When the U.S. Postal Service began closing local offices last year in order to combat major budget shortfalls, people were unhappy. Now, USPS has a new proposal for cutting costs without shuttering any more local offices—they want to stop Saturday delivery. The postal System is currently facing a $238 billion budget deficit, and according to Postmaster General John Potter, the move could help the service save $3.3 billion the first year and $5.1 billion a year within the next decade. If the measure is approved by Congress, it could be implemented by the beginning of next year. The postal system has been hard-hit by the rise of e-mail and electronic communication and has been steadily shedding jobs over the past several years. Alongside getting rid of Saturday service, the proposed series of cuts would also eliminate 49,000 full and part-time jobs. “Given the fact that we’re facing such a huge deficit, we’d like to move as quickly as possible,” Potter said at a press conference Tuesday.

Source: Los Angeles Times

Nine Massachusetts teenagers have been charged with multiple felony indictments after bullying a high school freshman so badly that she took her own life last January. Phoebe Prince, 15, hanged herself earlier this year after three months of aggressive bullying that authorities say was overlooked by school administrators. While describing the charges, District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel argued that Prince was targeted because she was new to South Hadley High School—her family had immigrated from Ireland the year before—and because she had recently gotten out of a brief relationship with a popular senior boy. On the day of her suicide, students reportedly “abused her in the school library, the lunchroom and the hallways and threw a canned drink at her as she walked home.” Her 12-year-old sister found her hanging in the stairwell hours later. Over the past several months, the case has mobilized a statewide campaign against bullying and prompted the Massachusetts legislature to develop an anti-bullying bill requiring school officials to report similar incidents. According to legal experts, the charges levied against the nine students are some of the most serious to date for bullying and could lay the groundwork for future legislation against cyberbullying. Two boys have been accused of statutory rape, and three girls have been charged with criminal harassment and violating civil rights. Six of the nine students have been charged as adults, and three more are facing criminal charges. The ruling, while harsh, has won the support of Massachusetts parents, including Mitch Brouillard, whose daughter has also been bullied at South Hadley. “We have to make an example out of these kids,” Brouillard told the Boston Globe. “They have to be held accountable. This could have been my daughter.”

Source: Boston Globe

To the dismay of the Austrian town of Fucking, the European Union trademark authority has granted a German company the right to patent a beer called “Fucking Hell.” The EU Trademarks and Designs Registration Office defended the move on the grounds that “Fucking” referred to the Austrian town, and “Hell” to a light ale common in Bavaria. Thing is, the beer in question won’t actually be made in Fucking (which doesn’t have a brewery) and the town isn’t happy about its name being exploited for commercial use. This doesn’t seem to phase the EU Office, which argues that while the phrase is offensive in English, it doesn’t carry the same meaning in German. It can’t be considered “reprehensible to use existing place names in a targeted manner (as a reference to the place), merely because this may have an ambiguous meaning in other languages,” officials said. Der Spiegel reports that this isn’t the first time that Fucking has gotten into trouble over its name: according to the mayor, “Twelve or 13 town signs have been stolen” in recent years.

Source: Der Spiegel

Shortly before noon today, President Obama signed into law an overhaul of the student loan system—legislation that was included in the health care reform reconciliation package. The plan removes commercial banks from the student loan business (they were previously responsible for distributing loans) and is predicted to save $68 billion in taxpayer money by 2020. Under the old system, the government guaranteed student loans and was stuck footing the bill if the borrower defaulted. In other words, “heads, students pay the bank. Tails, taxpayers pay the bank.” According to the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson, the new system won’t make much of a difference for students, but it could have a big impact on education funding. The $7 billion in interest that the government is expected to generate over the next decade (which used to go to banks) will now go toward Pell grants, reducing the deficit, and supporting community colleges, Thompson says.  While the move has been unpopular with private lenders who say it will eliminate jobs, the overhaul seems to have the support of the American public. According to a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, 64 percent of Americans approve of the plan.

Source: The Atlantic

The bodies of 21 babies wrapped in yellow plastic bags have washed ashore in eastern China, state-run news agencies reported on Tuesday. Officials believed that the remains, which were marked “medical waste” and contained hospital tags, were dumped by a hospital in Jining, Shandong province. Xinhua reports that the remains included fetuses, leading some to speculate that the findings were the result of gender-specific abortions. (The babies’ genders have not been made public.) According to the Detroit Free Press, officials from the Affiliated Hospital of Jining Medical College confirmed that “several of the bodies of babies with (identification) tags were from our hospital, but not all of them.” A number of hospital workers have since been suspended. In an unrelated yet equally disturbing story, the Times of Londonreports that on Tuesday, a mass grave containing more than 30 animals was uncovered near a Chinese zoo. The animals, which included rare white tigers and Asians elephants, are believed to have died of malnutrition.

Source: Detroit Free Press

In the wake of yesterday’s attacks on two Moscow metro stations, Russian security officials are investigating a cell of female suicide bombers known as the “Black Widows,” and looking into the possibility that Monday’s attacks were designed to avenge the death of one of the organization’s leaders. Russian authorities say that the group—which is believed to have about 30 members—was trained by Said Buryatsky, an Islamist Chechen rebel who was killed in a government-led operation earlier this month. Buryatsky was thought to be behind the November attack on a Moscow-St. Petersburg express train, as well as two attacks that left nearly 150 wounded or dead last year. Russia’s Kommersant newspaper reports that nine of the 30 Black Widows may have successfully carried out their missions (bringing the group’s total down to 21) and that the cell has received congratulations from al-Qaida-linked groups for yesterday’s bombing. The attacks left 39 dead and more than 100 wounded. The New York Times reports that the attacks have renewed Russians’ fear of female suicide bombers, who are believed to be responsible for more than 16 attacks over the span of several years. “Earlier this decade,” the Times says, “Moscow’s fear of female suicide bombers was so strong it became a lurid obsession.” Monday’s attacks have also renewed fears that the Russian government could use the opportunity to consolidate power and crack down on rebel regions. (Human rights groups say that the government’s anti-terror campaigns in Northern Caucasus are already “marked by the torture, disappearances or targeted killings of suspected terrorists.”) The last time the country was struck by terrorist violence, the Times says, former President Putin “reacted with a sweeping reorganization of the government that he said would unite the country against terrorism, but also concentrated power in the Kremlin.” According to the Washington Post, the attacks were designed to target Russian intelligence officers by striking the government’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the latter-day version of the KGB. Because spies are often the first line of defense against insurgencies, more and more terrorists are targeting intelligence agencies, analysts tell the Post.

Source: The Times of London