Huckabee: EPA Could Ban Baptismal Pools? Persecution Hysteria

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Analysis: What takes so long? Behind the scenes at top U.S. court

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - During a break from the crush of last-minute opinion-writing, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told an audience of 1,000 people last week at a Washington legal convention: "It is flood season at the court."

For the rest of the country it has been more like a drought, a stretch of weeks without any word in the most closely watched cases - the blockbuster challenges to President Barack Obama's healthcare plan and Arizona's crackdown on illegal immigration.

The immigration case was heard on April 25, the last day of oral arguments, the healthcare case over the course of three days a month before that. It seems the justices are going for maximum drama as they push these cliffhangers to the end of June. What's more likely, as seasoned court-watchers know, is that justices are still ironing out the final details of resolutions to the most complex questions they have faced in decades.

Of the 60 signed rulings that have been handed down in the cases heard during arguments in the October-to-April term, many were reached by a unanimous or nearly unanimous vote. In the final days, Ginsburg told the group, "the sharp disagreement rate will go up." She was speaking about what generally happens at the court - although it might have seemed she was letting slip a clue about the current deliberations.

Including the immigration and healthcare disputes, a total of nine individual cases await resolution. Also pending are challenges to a U.S. law that makes it a crime to lie about military honors and to life imprisonment for juvenile offenders.

The court does not reveal when decisions will be announced and has said only that it will be in session on Monday. Decisions are typically released the last Thursday in June, too, although there are whispers that a third decision day, possibly Wednesday, could be added to next week's schedule. It would be a surprise - and only mean intractable differences behind the scenes - if the nine justices were still working into July.

That, of course, would make packing up for summer a little more rushed, as the justices are headed for their usual round of speaking engagements in enviable locales. Chief Justice John Roberts, for example, is scheduled to teach a series of classes starting July 2 in Malta. Justice Antonin Scalia will be a "distinguished visiting jurist" at a program in Innsbruck, Austria, that also starts in early July. Ginsburg is scheduled to teach in Venice, Italy, and Vienna later in the month.

THE RITES OF JUNE

Within the marble walls, the juridical rites of June are full of tension, but also toasts. The justices hold their annual service award ceremony for staff. They attend lunches hosted by sets of law clerks from other chambers. If tradition holds, the justices will raise a glass of wine for their colleagues with June birthdays: Justice Clarence Thomas turns 64 on Saturday, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor will be celebrating her 58th when the court convenes on Monday.

The term is capped off by a party - attended only by the justices and their full-time employees - at which law clerks parody the justices in musical skits.

"It is a simultaneously exciting and exhausting time," said Kannon Shanmugam, a former law clerk to Scalia and now a partner at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C. "There's a good chance that with healthcare all the chambers are engaged in some way ... and at full capacity."

There are other routines. Votes on the judgment in a particular case are taken the week of its oral arguments. Chief Roberts or, if he is not in the majority, the senior justice on the winning side, assigns the majority opinion. The senior justice in dissent assigns for that side. Any justice may write a concurring statement to explain a vote.

For the healthcare cases, preliminary votes and assignments occurred in the justices' private conference on March 30, the Friday after the oral arguments. Since then, the justices have been drafting opinions in that controversy and others. All nine are kept in a conversation of sorts as messengers hand-deliver drafts to individual chambers. (These days, law clerks also distribute copies by email.)

By the time decision-making began stretching into June, the late Justice William Rehnquist, who served as chief justice from 1986-2005, tended to want simply to get it all over with. "If this were November rather than June," he once wrote to a colleague, "I would prepare a masterfully crafted dissenting opinion ... Since it is June, however, I join" the majority opinion.

One year, when the justices were tangling over a handgun-control law until the final days of the month, Rehnquist kept his travel plans. When that ruling, Printz v. United States, was announced on Friday, June 27, 1997, Rehnquist was already on his way to Rome.

VELVET DRAPES, BLACK ROBES

The justices always begin releasing their opinions at 10 a.m. sharp. To the "Oyez, oyez" chant of Marshal Pamela Talkin, the justices emerge in their black robes from behind crimson velvet drapes and ascend the bench. As decisions are ceremoniously announced from the bench, they are posted to the Supreme Court's website (supremecourt.gov) and distributed to reporters waiting in the pressroom on the ground floor of the columned court building.

Justices' spouses often take special guest seats near the bench to watch the drama. Some lawyers associated with the healthcare case have been regulars this month in the section reserved for lawyers. From the center black leather chair, Roberts introduces each case by number and name, and then declares who authored it for the majority. That justice then begins to read excerpts of the opinion.

A dissenting justice will sometimes take the unusual step of reading portions of his or her contrary statement from the tall mahogany bench, too. In January 2010, Justice John Paul Stevens voiced an impassioned dissent in the campaign finance case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Stevens, then about to turn 90, retired at the end of that term.

Often retired justices show up in the courtroom for big June days. Last Monday, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was there in a prime guest seat. Two weeks ago, she said she did not know if she would be in Washington on the day the healthcare ruling was released.

If O'Connor, who stepped down in January 2006, knows what her erstwhile colleagues are deciding on that case, she isn't talking.

When asked recently by a reporter about the dispute over the law signed by Obama in March 2010, she quickly protested, "I haven't even read the statute."

Does she have a suspicion on how the court might rule?

"I haven't a clue."

(Reporting By Joan Biskupic; Editing by Amy Stevens, Howard Goller and Bill Trott)

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'Seeking a Friend' is a feel-good doomsday film

Penny (Keira Knightley) and Dodge (Steve Carell) in "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World."

By Stephen Dalton , The Hollywood Reporter

REVIEW: The end of the word is nigh in this enjoyably offbeat rom-com from the first-time writer-director Lorene Scafaria. Very nigh indeed -- in a few short weeks, a gigantic asteroid will slam into Earth, wiping out all of mankind. Which is especially bad news for Steve Carell's newly single insurance salesman. Because the only thing worse than dying in an apocalyptic firestorm, this film suggests, is dying alone and unloved. Essentially, Scafaria has re-imagined Lars Von Trier's planet-smashing gloomfest "Melancholia" as a quirky road movie in the spirit of Alexander Payne's "About Schmidt."

Scafaria is best known for scripting the 2008 young-adult comedy "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist." ?Her directing debut is a superior effort, its slightly uneven tone redeemed by the reliably sympathetic Carell in a typically deadpan suburban everyman role. With its sharp script and bittersweet humor, the audacious premise feels fresh enough to earn a large word-of-mouth audience among moviegoers who normally would avoid a more conventional rom-com, potentially becoming a left-field breakout hit in the mode of "Juno" or "Little Miss Sunshine."

VIDEO: Steve Carell's "Seeking Friend" trailer

Looking a little more gaunt and haunted than usual, Carell plays Dodge, a timid middle-rank office drone whose life clearly has been a series of quiet defeats and creeping disappointments. With the apocalypse looming, fate deals Dodge an extra slap when his wife walks out on him to spend her final few weeks with her previously secret lover. The brief cameo appearance by Carell's real offscreen wife Nancy is a neat in-joke here.

Lonely and suicidal, Dodge resists invitations from his friends to spend their final few weeks immersed in one long booze-addled swingers party. Instead, his life takes a bizarre new turn after he is saddled with an abandoned dog and becomes a reluctant love-life confidant to his emotionally fragile young English neighbor Penny, portrayed by Keira Knightley with just the right degree of irritating kookiness. A free spirit with an amusingly self-absorbed musician ex-boyfriend (Adam Brody) and a fetishistic love for the smell and sound of vintage vinyl, Penny is a kind of fantasy girl-geek designed for maximum appeal to middle-aged male indie-rock fans. Scafaria clearly knows her target audience well.

STORY: 3 female filmmakers stake out their turf at LAFF 2012

Forced from their apartment block by a rioting mob, die-hard romantic Penny persuades Dodge to take her on a cross-country road trip that potentially could reconnect her with her family and him with his long-lost childhood sweetheart, Olivia. Commandeering a stolen truck whose owner has arranged his own macabre suicide by execution, they cruise along spookily empty back roads and eerily depopulated suburban streets. Their journey becomes a succession of odd characters and eye-catching spectacles: military-trained survivalists, overzealous traffic cops, a mass baptism in the ocean. Inevitably, sexual tension develops between this odd couple of lost souls.

Just as the real subject of "Melancholia" was not planet-crunching sci-fi spectacle but soul-crushing depression, the true theme of "Seeking a Friend" is the finite nature of time and how foolishly we ignore it. Scafaria never once shows the approaching asteroid or the doomed "Armageddon"-style shuttle mission that fails to arrest it, instead laying out her premise with admirable economy via TV and radio news reports. Her end-of-days plot is essentially an allegory for everyone's limited lives, the accelerated deadline adding an extra edge of futility to most human activity, whether sweating at the gym or striving for promotion at work.

Shooting her nonspecific Southern California locations in bright hues and constant sunshine, Scafaria maintains a cheerfully ironic and unpredictable tone for the first half of the movie, scoffing at vanity and self-delusion with sharply observed social observation. Like the suburban dinner party that degenerates into a desperate bucket-list orgy: "Put Radiohead on!" one guest demands, "I wanna do heroin to Radiohead!" Later, in a stand-out comic set piece, Dodge and Penny visit a T.G.I. Fridays-style roadside diner apparently staffed by a cult of free-love stoners. Amplifying the happy-clappy weirdness normally found in such places by just a few degrees, this is inspired satire.

The cynical screenplay softens a little during its final act, bowing to familiar Hollywood tear-jerking tropes -- a screen legend makes a late appearance as Dodge's estranged father, adding a superfluous twist of unresolved Daddy Issues. In fairness, Dodge's search for his lost childhood sweetheart resists clich? with an agreeably ambivalent offscreen farewell. But Scafaria's take-home message, that budding romance with a virtual stranger is the best comfort in the face of impending apocalypse, feels a little too corny.

After 100 minutes of gallows humor and surprise left turns, "Seeking a Friend" leaves us with a disappointingly banal observation: All you need is love. It is hard to imagine Payne or Von Trier letting such fortune-cookie whimsy sweeten life's harsh lessons. But that said, Scafaria and her two likable leads have made a witty, warm-hearted and impressively original addition to the rom-com ranks.

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Law forces sex offenders to identify themselves on social networks

9 hrs.

"Now that we are in the digital age, people get access to us not just by living near us,"?Louisiana State Representative Jeff Thompson explained when I asked him about a law he'd authored recently. The law forces registered sex offenders to identify themselves ? and explain the nature of their crimes???on social networks. ?A $1,000 fine and at least two years of prison (with hard labor) await those who fail to comply.

Thompson's law will be effective Aug. 1, and is basically an addition to existing sex offender notification laws.?Under current law, Thompson pointed out, sex offenders are required to give notice to certain individuals and organizations based on their geographic proximity. (For example, they have to notify those who reside near them, the local school district, local parks, and other places where there may be children.)

The new law?additions stipulate that any registered sex offender, "who is otherwise not prohibited from using a networking website, and who creates a profile or uses the functionality of a networking website to contact or attempt to contact other networking website users shall include in his profile for the networking website an indication that he is a sex offender or child predator and shall include notice of the crime for which he was convicted, the jurisdiction of confiction, a description of his physical characteristics as required by [the relevant laws], and his residential address."?This information must be made visible to users and visitors of the site.

The definition of a "networking website," in this context, is reasonably broad. Any site which focuses on social interaction and includes profile pages, photos, and the ability to send messages or leave comments appears to be included. This would suggest that Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and many other popular websites are covered by it. (Though the law is moot when it comes to Facebook, as?its terms of use prohibit convicted sex offenders from using the social network.)

While discussing the law with me, Thompson emphasized that it is simply a way of bringing existing laws up to date with current technology. The information sex offenders will have to provide on social networks matches the details which are printed in local papers upon conviction.

For that reason, the penalties are equal.?Failure to comply with the law leads to a $1,000 fine and at least two ??but no more than ten ??years of inprisonment (with hard labor). A second violation would bring a?$3,000 fine and at least five ??but no more than twenty ??years of inprisonment (with hard labor).

"It may not be the perfect solution," Thompson acknowledges, but says?he has a responsibility to his constituents. And this is theoretically?more reasonable than attempting to ban some folks from the Internet entirely.

Want more tech news, silly puns, or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts,?or circling her?on?Google+.

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PFT: Jacobs repays kid who emptied piggy bank

136320090_crop_exactGetty Images

Whenever a player under contract holds out, plenty of fans argue that the player is doing something wrong. ?In comparison to the men who have acquired the wealth and power to own NFL teams, perhaps the player is doing something right.

After years of believing that players must honor the contracts to which they?ve applied their names, I?m ready to adopt/borrow/steal a theory Ross Tucker offered up last week on PFT Live. ?(Ross also has reduced his thoughts on the subject to writing in his latest column for SportsUSAMedia.com. ?Providing that link makes me feel somewhat less guilty about adopting/borrowing/stealing his idea.)

A holdout, while technically a violation of the player?s contract, represents a shrewd and aggressive business move ? as long as the player is good enough to get the team?s attention via his absence. ?The only real leverage a player ever has comes from withholding services, and the fact that a player is under contract doesn?t require him to provide those services.

If he chooses to breach that contract, the team has remedies, from fines to bonus forfeiture to other rights under the labor deal and the individual player contract. ?But the team ultimately can?t force the player to do the one thing the team wants the player to do most: ?show up and play.

Twice in the past two years, an aggressive holdout from a high-profile player under contract got the player paid handsomely. ?In 2011, Titans running back Chris Johnson did it. ?The year before, it was Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis.

This year, it could be Revis all over again. ?And Jaguars running back Maurice Jones-Drew. ?And possibly plenty of young players who believe that the league?s ability to avoid paying a bunch of money to unproven rookies under the new CBA means that the players who prove themselves should be financially rewarded.

Taking a stand to get what they want is no different than what the folks who have acquired the wealth to own football teams (or their parents, or their grandparents) have done plenty of times. ?Otherwise, they (or their parents, or their grandparents) never would have acquired that kind of wealth.

So Godspeed, MJD, Darrelle Revis, and anyone else who ever chooses to stay away in order to get more of what the owners already have. ?As long as you?re willing to face the potential consequences of holding out, we say, ?Giddyup.?

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Next iPhone's connector to make current cables, docks useless?

21 hrs.

Most folks have accepted that they'll buy new cases almost?every?time they upgrade their iPhones, thanks to subtle?? and occasionally rather bold?? design changes. But repurchasing all?their?accessories, including charger cables and speaker docks? That is a tougher, pricier pill to swallow.

According to TechCrunch's John Biggs, we should get our credit cards ready as that shopping spree is inevitable. At the very least you'll be looking at buying an extra cable or two (currently priced at $19) and, unless there are some third-party adapters out there to ease the pain, you may also?have to kiss your current?speaker dock goodbye.

Biggs writes that?"three independent manufacturers" told him that?the next-generation iPhone will use a 19-pin port, rather than the wider 30-pin port found on current iPhones, iPads and iPods.?If true, this news will make life a bit difficult for third-party accessory manufacturers, who have accepted Apple's 30-pin port design as a standard "since Apple released the third-generation iPod" in 2003, writes?Biggs.

As skeptical as I normally am regarding reports like this one, it's actually not all that unlikely that Apple would redesign the iPhone?? and subsequently iPod and iPad?? ports. The 19-pin design would save valuable space, after all, and interface technology has made major advancements in 10 years.

Let's not forget, the Cupertino-based company recently redesigned the MagSafe, its proprietary magnetically-attached power connector, too, and that was only around since 2006.

Want more tech news, silly puns, or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts,?or circling her?on?Google+.

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A virtual look at the zebrafish brain

ScienceDaily (June 21, 2012) ? Scientists have long dreamed of being able to grasp the brain as a whole rather than just understanding the function of individual nerve cells. A research team led by Junior Professor Dr. Olaf Ronneberger from the Department of Computer Science of the University of Freiburg and Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Driever, developmental biologist at the Institute of Biology I, has now taken a big step toward making this dream a reality. The Freiburg researchers developed microscopic imaging techniques and software for observing and comparing all of the genes of the zebrafish brain, and thus also the factors influencing its nerve cells, in a three-dimensional virtual model.

The results of the project have been published in the current issue of the journal Nature Methods.

The team's Virtual Brain Explorer for Zebrafish (ViBE-Z) automatically assigns experientially obtained genetic data to certain points of a brain image created under the same conditions. The zebrafish is particularly popular as a model organism for biologists and doctors due to the fact that many of the developmental and neurobiological findings made on them are transferrable to humans. The very detailed information in the new brain image is compared with the image of a standard brain on a database. This happens automatically and with such precision that differences between individual cells are discernable. In order to achieve this level of precision, Olaf Ronneberger and his team developed a new calculation method that identifies anatomic structures in the brain of the zebrafish and transfers them to a database of the three-dimensional brain.

The scientists can then use the database to determine which genes are active in which areas of the brain and which proteins influence the brain activity under various experimental conditions. This enables them to study the very large number of factors influencing a particular area of the brain at any given time in an integrated fashion. "The new method allows us to understand the complicated network of the brain much better than in the past and to quantitatively compare our data with that from other labs, for instance in Tokyo or Washington, in a three-dimensional space," explains Wolfgang Driever. The Freiburg researchers will make ViBE-Z available to all interested colleagues on an Internet portal. Researchers from around the world will then be able to enter their own images with genetic data into the system and download a virtual model in the standard brain from the Freiburg server around a half an hour later.

Wolfgang Driever and Olaf Ronneberger are members of the Cluster of Excellence BIOSS. Wolfang Driever is also an Internal Senior Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, the research institute of the University of Freiburg.

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