- It may sound like an academic scandal from your local Division I college in which some dumb jock is accused of buying a research paper or copying someone else’s work, but the uproar over alleged plagiarism is actually a major issue in Germany right now and it’s at the heart of a battle between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and opposition lawmakers. Those opposition members are attempting to tie the ongoing plagiarism scandal surround Merkel’s defense minister to her own reputation and drag her down even though the public seems to have accepted that Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the country's most popular politician, plagiarized large sections of his doctoral thesis without attribution. Guttenberg was grilled by angry lawmakers in the Reichstag Wednesday over revelations that his constitutional law dissertation is rife with passages lifted almost verbatim from newspapers and scholarly journals. Yet in the midst of questioning Guttenberg, may opposition members chose to target Merkel as if she was the one who told Guttenberg to cheat and lie about it. The chancellor has supported Guttenberg since the allegations first surfaced last week and apparently that makes her party to an academic cheating incident that took place several years ago. There can't be any special rights for ministers in Germany," said Thomas Oppermann, a parliamentary leader for the Social Democrats, the main opponent Merkel's Christian Democrat Union. "The chancellor has made a grave mistake. She sacrificed the truth for power, but she won't get away with it." Wow…..a little amped up, are we? Guttenberg has already had his doctorate ripped by the University of Bayreuth - where the dissertation had received a grade of highest honors in 2007 - and that should have settled the matter. Guttenberg has agreed that he will no longer use his doctorate title and conceded that his "clearly faulty" dissertation sent a "poor signal" to academia. However, he insisted that the scandal did not impair his ability to serve as defense minister as the German military undergoes its biggest overhaul since World War II. In the face of pressure to step down, Guttenberg said he faces pressing duties "that I will continue to execute and fulfill with the sense of responsibility that I have up to now." The reason he had to face questioning from parliament is that in addition to unattributed articles and journals, he is also accused of lifting work from parliament's research department, a potential abuse of office. One group that has not turned against Guttenberg is the German public, with a recent poll showing that 70 percent of respondents said the allegations hadn't changed their opinion his trustworthiness. Additionally, 73 percent said he should remain in office. Just don’t tell the Reichstag, because they’re doing their damndest to turn this into a full-blown crisis and take down the current administration…………
- NASA’s budget is being slashed and missions to outer space are soon to be a thing of the past for the space agency, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to give up hope. In fact, NASA will launch a new satellite designed to probe how the sun and the Earth’s atmosphere conspire to shape Earth’s climate early Thursday morning, proving that it still has some life left in it. The satellite, called Glory, will be tasked to monitor the sun and the Earth’s atmosphere simultaneously to see how they interact. It is a small craft, just six feet tall, but it comes equipped with instruments to measure the quantity of solar energy that reaches the top of the atmosphere and measure the concentration of small droplets and particles called aerosols that float suspended in the atmosphere. Studying aerosols is important because atmospheric scientists know that they play a role in shaping the planet’s overall climate, but no one is quite sure of that role. What is known is that aerosols can directly warm or cool an area of the Earth by absorbing heat from the sun or reflecting sunlight into space. These versatile little buggers can also indirectly influence climate by serving as the seeds of clouds and altering certain cloud properties, such as brightness, how long they last and how much they rain. The particles comprising them can come from any number of natural sources, such as volcanoes, sandstorms, forest fires and sea spray. They may also be generated by human activity, such as burning fossil fuels or clearing land by burning plants. Glory is being counted on to differentiate between the different types of particles and determine their purpose by analyzing the physical direction of light reflected off the droplets. If the mission is successful, the findings will provide data for climate models to learn how each aerosol works. Glory will be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in southern California at 2:09 a.m. Pacific time after being originally scheduled for launch at the same time Wednesday morning. A last-minute technical glitch forced engineers to scrub the launch, postponing the excitement for a day. “We were in safe mode, and externally received signal to go into safe mode. We don’t quite understand why that occurred,” said assistant launch manager Chuck Dovale. “We’re going to troubleshoot in the next few hours, and certainly won’t continue until we understand it.” Sounds good, but don’t make me wait too long for my satellite launch because having to reschedule my Glory launch party was a pain in the ass…………
- What will NFL players do if there is no season this fall due to a work stoppage? As the league nears the expiration date on its current collective bargaining agreement on March 3 and a new deal does not appear imminent, that question becomes more and more pertinent. For some, the answer is simple. Minnesota Vikings offensive tackle Bryant McKinnie allegedly rolled into Los Angeles for the NBA’s All-Star weekend and ran up a $100,000 bar tab, so he’s clearly ready to party right through any potential lockout. For others, the answer could be more interesting. That’s especially true for incoming rookies, who could be part of a draft conducted with no CBA in place and thus not be able to sign contracts or become an active member of their new team. What do those draftees do? For Washington quarterback Jake Locker, the answer could be baseball. The Los Angeles Angels drafted Locker in the 10th round of the 2009 draft, gave him a $250,000 signing bonus and hold his rights until August of 2015. In the event of an NFL lockout, Locker could simply elect to play baseball and earn his money that way. The Angels are closely monitoring the situation and hope that Locker, whom they drafted as a strong-armed outfielder, will be playing for one of their farm teams this season. Angels general manager Tony Reagins confirmed that Locker has lived up to his obligations under the contract, including commuting to Arizona periodically to work out at the team's minor league facility. "I think there are some factors out there that are going to make his decisions more difficult," Reagins said. "The labor situation is one, where he's selected is one of them. Our eyes are wide open in this regard and we'll see how it plays out. You always have a chance." Baseball might not be the worst choice for Locker, who was once pegged as the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft but saw his stock fall precipitously after an inconsistent senior season. He is now ranked fourth or lower among quarterbacks by most draft experts and channeling his days as a standout pitcher and outfielder at Ferndale High School in Washington might be a solid option…………
- We may not be able to save everyone, but at least we can save the kids. That seems to be the philosophy behind a bill introduced by a state legislator in Ohio that would prohibit the sale of indoor tanning to anyone under the age of 18 unless permission has been granted through a prescription by a physician. Reps. Courtney Combs (R-Hamilton) and Lorraine Fende (D-Willowick) introduced the legislation on Wednesday and if Ohio has a competent state legislature, everyone else in the Ohio House and Senate will support this idea. Presently, the law requires that consumers under 18 obtain written consent from a parent or legal guardian prior to receiving tanning services. Because parents often just want to get their moody teens out of the house and out of their hair, giving them permission to hop in a cancer box and orange themselves up artificially is done without much thought. That would change if House Bill 119 becomes law. The bill aims to prevent teens from getting an early start on a life of skin cancer, heavily wrinkled skin by age 40 and other medical conditions related to too much tanning. "Many have clamored that if we prohibit the use of tanning beds for minors we might as well ban poolside and beach tanning, but that argument is moot," Combs said. "The amount of radiation produced during indoor tanning, in many cases, is stronger that the sun. There is direct evidence that exposure to UV radiation during indoor tanning damages the DNA in the skin cells. Studies have shown that 80 percent of skin damage happens before the age of 18." Those claims are backed up by data from the American Cancer Society, which claims skin cancer cases have rise from 500,000 to 1.2 million annually over the last 20 years. Those most likely to be affected by this bill, teenage girls, eventually become the women between the ages of 25-29 for whom melanoma is the leading cause of cancer-related death and the women between the ages of 30-34 who die from melanoma more often than other forms of cancer, with the exception of breast cancer. For those looking to track the bill’s progress and cheer it on, it will now be referred to a House committee for further discussion and begin to make its way through the long, slow legislative process………….
- That’ll show ‘em, Justin Bieber. For everyone (first and foremost, me) who steadfastly believes that Bieber is actually an 8-year-old Canadian girl based on his/her feeble, high-pitched voice, achieving your most success in selling nail polish is probably not the best maneuver. But I’m not an overrated, flavor-of-the-month Canadian pop hack currently enjoying his/her 15 minutes of fame, so let’s set my views aside and see what Biebs and his crew have cooked up. Using some of his music (in which all songs sound the same - crappy), Bieber created One Less Lonely Girl nail lacquer shade and so far, OLLG has sold out of more than 1 million bottles after arriving in stores in mid-December. Nicole by Opi, the makers of the nail polish, announced Wednesday that it has shipped triple the number of bottles to meet consumer demand, and the 14 shades of polish should be in stores Thursday to take advantage of what remains of the quickly fading popularity of Bieber’s Never Say Never movie. Something tells me that most of the people buying this crap are the same musically clueless, captivated-by-looks teenage girls who don’t actually like Bieber’s music or his nail polish as much as they think he’s cute. Were he to pack on 100 pounds, have zits all over his face and put his hair in dreadlocks, something tells me that neither One Less Lonely Girl nail lacquer shade nor Bieber’s music would have any success at all……….
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