Some companies are beginning to offer travel companion services for seniors, modeled after programs airlines currently have in place for unaccompanied minors, to help grandma or grandpa safely get where they are going and back home again.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/45559780#45559780
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a bit strange that plainclothes NYC police knock on church doors at 6 a.m. just to use the bathroom, right? Source: http://twitter.com/tusktusktusk/statuses/143026929912655873
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PingChat! becomes Touch, delivers real-time social collaboration to Android, BlackBerry and iOS (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Dec 2011 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/05/pingchat-becomes-touch-delivers-real-time-social-collaboration/
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ROSEVILLE (WWJ) -?Santa ?Claws? is coming to town, and he?d love to meet you and your doggone good canine, purrfect feline or other furry or feathered friends!
This holiday season, the Michigan Humane Society?and six area PetSmart locations are hosting the fourth annual Pet Pictures with Santa in Chesterfield, Dearborn, Rochester Hills, Roseville, Taylor and West Bloomfield, with proceeds going to benefit MHS.
Photos will cost $10.95, with $5 of each purchase going to help animals at MHS. Photos will be printed and available immediately, and will include a holiday photo frame to take home!
MHS is also partnering with ChowHound Charities this holiday season to hold a Pet Food Drive at the Roseville PetSmart on Saturday, Dec. 3, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday, Dec. 4, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Donations of all unopened cat and dog food will be accepted.
?You can donate food and you know exactly where your donation is going. It?s going to be loaded on a truck and it?s going to be delivered to pets that really need it this holiday season,? said?Shana Kellogg, spokesperson for ChowHound Charities.
Santa will be taking pictures with pets from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the following dates and locations:
All pets must be on leashes or in carriers and up-to-date on vaccinations. MHS reminds pet guardians to avoid any activities which may be stressful or pose a risk to your pet. When deciding to bring your pet into a public environment, please be sure that he or she able to interact positively with other animals.
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LOS ANGELES ? The private world of Michael Jackson, fiercely shielded by the superstar in life, was exposed in the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray. But rather than suffering harm from revelations of drug use, experts say Jackson's legacy and posthumous earning power will survive any damage done and could actually grow after he was portrayed as a victim of a money-hungry doctor.
Jackson died before he could launch a series of highly anticipated comeback concerts in London as he tried to regain the towering status he enjoyed when he released the "Thriller" album in 1983.
But his death did breathe new life into record sales and boosted other projects to generate hundreds of millions of dollars for his estate, even as his already tarnished personal life took another hit by revelations about his drug use.
Jackson zoomed to the top of the Forbes Magazine list of highest earning dead celebrities and his executors are moving quickly on more projects designed to burnish the performer's image and expand the inheritance of his three children.
A Cirque du Soleil extravaganza, "Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour" opens in Las Vegas this weekend, a precursor to a permanent installation at the Mandalay Bay Hotel, and fans are expected to flock there for a "Fan Fest" exhibit of Jackson memorabilia.
After the trial, a judge made it clear that the defense effort to cast Jackson as the villain in the case had been a miserable failure. Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, called a reckless opportunist and sentenced to the maximum four years in prison.
Judge Michael Pastor also blasted Murray for experimenting on the pop star with the operating-room anesthetic propofol to help him battle debilitating insomnia, even though the drug was never meant to be used in a private home.
Some experts say the revelations made the King of Pop look more like a regular person coping with a difficult challenge.
"In the final analysis, not a lot of damage was done," Jackson biographer J. Randy Taraborelli said. "I think the trial humanized Michael Jackson. It presented him as a human being with problems."
As evidence unfolded, "It definitely made our hearts go out to Michael Jackson. He was a person suffering a great deal and not getting the help he needed," the author said.
Taraborelli said the entertainer's family, fans and estate executors were concerned before the trial that testimony would paint Jackson as responsible for his own death while resurrecting past accusations of child molestation and bizarre behavior by the King of Pop.
But the judge limited testimony and evidence to Jackson's final months and specifically ruled out any mention of the 2005 molestation trial.
Thomas Mesereau Jr., the attorney who won Jackson's acquittal in that case, believes the Murray trial did damage Jackson's reputation but said the impact would likely be short term.
"It certainly didn't help to have all this testimony about drug use," Mesereau said. "But as time passes, people will focus more on his music and the negatives will fade."
While Murray was ultimately shown to be negligent, the portrait of his patient that emerged during the trial was one of an aging superstar desperate to cement his place in entertainment history while providing a stable home life for adored children, Paris, Prince and Blanket.
The image of Jackson as a caring father had never been illustrated quite so vividly. A probation officer who interviewed Jackson's mother, Katherine, said she told him: "Michael Jackson was his children's world, and their world collapsed when he left."
A leading expert on the licensing and branding of dead celebrities believes the trial engendered so much sympathy for Jackson that in the long run it will eclipse negative fallout from his past.
"I don't think any tawdry revelations that may have come out of the trial will have any impact on his lasting legacy," said Martin Crebbs, who is based in New York. "We as a society tend to give everyone a second chance. Michael's legacy will be like Elvis and the Beatles. It will be his music, his genius. and his charitable works "
Crebbs has represented the estates of such deceased luminaries as Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Steve McQueen and Mae West.
He is not involved in the Jackson estate but praised its executors' efforts. Beginning with the rapid release of the concert movie, "This Is It," he said, "They have done a brilliant job of reminding us of Michael's genius."
Taraborelli also cited the film based on rehearsals for Jackson's ill-fated concerts as a spectacular move setting the stage for a posthumous comeback of the Jackson entertainment empire.
"It made you want to embrace him," said the author of "Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness."
Jackson's eccentricities and bizarre behavior often made headlines. Whether it was traveling with a chimp named Bubbles, sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber or dangling his baby Blanket off a balcony, he managed to alienate many people. The molestation trial pushed him further from the mainstream.
"That all ended on the day the news was announced that Michael was dead," said Lance Grode, a former music executive and onetime attorney for Jackson who now teaches legal issues in music at University of Southern California.
"The public decided they prefer to remember Michael as this great superstar and music prodigy and to forgive and forget any negative things they had heard over the last 10 or 15 years," Grode said. "Nothing came out at the trial that was nearly as bad as things they had heard in the past."
Grode said evidence of public acceptance is seen in the Jackson estate's ability to generate a half-billion dollars in the wake of his death.
The Cirque show, which launched in Canada, is slated for 150 dates across North America through July and expected to run through 2014 internationally. The permanent Las Vegas show is due in 2013.
The year he died, Jackson sold 8.3 million albums in the U.S. ? nearly twice as many as second-place Taylor Swift ? and "This Is It" became the highest-grossing concert film and documentary of all time.
Joe Vogel, author of a new book on Jackson's music, and others said the most shocking part of the Murray trial was the playing of a recording of a drugged Jackson slurring his words while dreaming aloud about his future concert and his plans to build a fantastic state of the art children's hospital.
Vogel said the recording, found on Murray's cell phone, reveals the dark side of Jackson's world.
"Michael had a difficult life. He said once that you have to have tragedy to pull from to create something beautiful and inspiring. And that's what he did. His music has staying power," Vogel said.
Rich Hanley, a pop culture specialist who teaches journalism at Connecticut's Quinnipiac University, said Jackson had "complexities on top of complexities."
"There may be collateral damage to his reputation from the trial. His inner sanctum was penetrated for the first time," he said.
However, "his music is eternal. It brings universal joy to people and will continue as much as Elvis' work continues to attract new fans even though he's been gone for generations," Hanley said.
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>>> now to the foreclosure crisis. the attorney general of the commonwealth of massachusetts announced she is suing five of this nation's largest banks , accusing them of unlawful, deceptive practices that harmed borrowers and led to people being thrown out of their homes illegally. and she said she is going the make the banks pay. we get the story from our senior investigative correspondent lisa myers .
>> reporter: today, massachusetts attorney general march that coakley accused five big banks of making the foreclosure crisis worse. deceiving homeowners about loan modifications, unfair and deceptive foreclosure practices, and pervasive use of fraudulent documents, including robo-signing.
>> this seeks be accountability for the banks cutting corners and rush to go unnecessarily foreclose homeowners without following the rule of law.
>> reporter: the lawsuit comes on the heels of complaint by county property records officials, including john o'brien of salem. he accuses the banks of turning his office into a crime scene . so why do you call it a crime scene ?
>> because this registry has been infected with fraudulent documents.
>> reporter: his office identified 26,000 foreclosure filings signed by robo-signers. one involved carol, who has lived in this home all her life but lost her job and fell behind on her mortgage.
>> hi, lisa myers .
>> reporter: the day we visited she just received a notice. what did it say?
>> it said that the house was going to be auctioned off.
>> reporter: o'brien's office said carol's foreclosure is based on inaccurate, fabricated documents. her servicer disputes that. with 2 million home owners now facing foreclosure, the obama administration and state attorney general have been trying to negotiate a settlement in which banks would pay billions in return for protection against lawsuits. coakley said she's tired of waiting.
>> even if the banks think they are too big to fail, we believe they're not too big to have to follow the law.
>> reporter: the ceo of one of the banks said he's disappointed by the lawsuit and still hopes a settlement can be reached. lisa myers , nbc news, washington.
Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/45516508/
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New York ? If the EU is going to assume more control over debt-plagued nations' finances, it must first let Europeans elect the leaders in Brussels
You know what's in bigger trouble than Herman Cain's marriage??The global economy.
This may be the week that decides whether we stumble into ? or avert ? a second Great Depression. May I entice you to pay brief attention to a possible solution? Afterwards, we can quickly return to our regularly scheduled sex scandals.
SEE MORE: Does the E.U.'s Greek debt deal solve anything?
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On Monday, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski gave one of the most important speeches yet delivered on a way past the euro crisis. Sikorski happens to be a good friend of mine, but I'd think the speech important even if I could not pick him out of a police lineup.
The speech demands to be read and studied in full, but the plan has three main elements:
1) The European Central Bank would assume ultimate responsibility for providing every member state of the EU the liquidity it needs to meet its obligations.?
SEE MORE: The rise and fall of Silvio Berlusconi
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The most troubled countries in the Eurozone are seeing their local democratic decision-making subordinated to a remote bureaucracy elected by nobody at all.
2) The European Union would gain power to supervise the national finances of deficit countries ? including automatic sanctions, and potentially also including the ability to strip voting rights within the EU.
SEE MORE: 5 ways to save Europe
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3) The EU institutions supervising national finances would be made more democratically accountable by electing the key figures at the EU level.
Along the way, Sikorski said some remarkable things, including this:
What, as Poland's foreign minister, do I regard as the biggest threat to the security and prosperity of Poland today, on 28th November 2011? It's not terrorism, it's not the Taliban, it's certainly not German tanks. It's not even Russian missiles which President Medvedev has just threatened to deploy on our border. The biggest threat to the security of Poland would be the collapse of the Eurozone.
And I demand of Germany that, for your own sake and for ours, you help it survive and prosper. You know full well that nobody else can do it. I will probably be first Polish foreign minister in history to say so, but here it is: I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity.
You have become Europe's indispensable nation.
You may not fail to lead.
Of everything he said, it is the third point ? the call for European democratization ? that is most haunting.?
SEE MORE: Italy's debt crisis: Why everyone is panicking
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The European Union is not a democracy because until now it has been regarded as an association of democracies. The institutions at the center of Europe existed to serve democratic governments, not to replace those governments.?
When the euro currency was proposed back in the 1990s, opponents of the euro warned that different countries cannot safely share one money. Either the euro would crack up under pressure (as, say, the Scandinavian cracked up in 1914 after 40 years of Swedish-Danish cooperation) ? or else the EU itself would have to evolve into a single polity.
SEE MORE: Will getting rid of Berlusconi solve Italy's debt problems?
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Proponents of the currency pooh-poohed those warnings. Those euro advocates included not only the usual array of Brussels technocrats, but also America's own leading business newspaper, The Wall Street Journal.?
Now the issue has been put to the test. The proponents were wrong. The critics were right. The euro now threatens to plunge Europe and the world into financial crisis followed by severe recession. Threatens? The crisis is here, and the recession may already have begun.
SEE MORE: Europe's Catch-22
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Again as the critics warned, there is no easy way back. Quitting the euro will be painful for the countries that go ? and even more painful for the countries who stay. Banks will be ruined, governments will step in, taxpayers will be called upon. The technical term for the unleashed process is "adjustment," but that bloodless term really means unemployment, loss of savings, squeezed public benefits, higher taxes, and years of slow growth.?
SEE MORE: Does Greece need a new government?
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But to go forward toward a more integrated Europe ? just as the euro critics warned, just as the euro proponents promised would never happen ? is dangerous, too.
The most troubled countries in the Eurozone ? first Greece, now Italy, soon Spain, potentially France ? are seeing their local democratic decision-making subordinated to a remote bureaucracy elected by nobody at all.?
SEE MORE: Is Silvio Berlusconi really gone for good?
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That will not be acceptable or accepted. We may see populist movements of the Left and Right mobilize to oppose these imposed changes ? as people always oppose painful changes in which they feel they have had no voice, which they feel imposed by powerful outsiders. Along with "no taxation without representation," people also resent austerity without representation, pension cutbacks without representation, harder work for less reward without representation.
Yet when people are represented, when they do have voice, they can also show amazing responsibility and self-restraint. Europe should never have needed such a voice, because the euro gamble should never have been taken. Now, the options dwindle to an ugly few. More participation is the one way to make those options a little less ugly. Europe needs a euro democracy as much as it needs euro bonds and euro budgets. Things should have been otherwise, but Europe and the world are where they are.
SEE MORE: Greece's 'rogue' E.U. bailout vote: Democracy or 'tragedy'?
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View this article on TheWeek.com
Get Will Europe derail our recovery?
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WASHINGTON ? The White House on Friday accused the Democratic-controlled Senate of "political micromanagement" at the expense of national security after it approved legislation requiring military custody of suspected terrorists, even those captured within the U.S., and indefinite detention of some without trial.
In a statement, National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor renewed the White House threat of a presidential veto of the sweeping $662 billion defense bill that includes the far-reaching policy changes on how to handle suspected terrorists. The Senate voted 93-7 Thursday night for the legislation.
Vietor pointed out that counterterrorism experts from Republican and Democratic administrations had said the provisions would restrict the president's authority in the fight against al-Qaida and jeopardize national security.
"By ignoring these non-partisan recommendations, including the recommendations of the secretary of defense, the director of the FBI, the director of national intelligence and the attorney general, the Senate has engaged in political micromanagement at the expense of sensible national security policy," he said.
The Senate bill must be reconciled with a House-passed version in the closing days of the session. The administration opposes provisions in the House bill that would require military commissions for suspected terrorists and limit the president's authority to transfer terrorist suspects from the U.S. naval facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to installations in the United States, even for trial. It also would make it difficult for the administration to move detainees to foreign countries.
Overall, the Senate bill would authorize money for military personnel, weapons systems, national security programs in the Energy Department, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. Reflecting a period of austerity and a winding down of decade-old conflicts, the bill is $27 billion less than President Barack Obama requested and $43 billion less than Congress gave the Pentagon this year.
In a resounding vote, the Senate unanimously backed an amendment to impose harsh sanctions on Iran as fears about Tehran developing a nuclear weapon outweighed concerns about driving up oil prices that would hit economically strapped Americans at the gas pump.
"Iran's actions are unacceptable and pose a danger to the United States and the entire world," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
In an escalating fight with the White House, the bill would ramp up the role of the military in handling terror suspects. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and FBI Director Robert Mueller both oppose the provisions as does the White House, which said it cannot accept any legislation that "challenges or constrains the president's authorities to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists and protect the nation."
The bill would require military custody of a suspect deemed to be a member of al-Qaida or its affiliates and involved in plotting or committing attacks on the United States. American citizens would be exempt. The bill does allow the executive branch to waive the authority based on national security and hold a suspect in civilian custody.
The legislation also would deny suspected terrorists, even U.S. citizens seized within the nation's borders, the right to trial and subject them to indefinite detention.
The series of detention provisions challenges citizens' constitutional rights, tests the boundaries of executive and legislative branch authority and sets up a confrontation with the Democratic commander in chief. Civil rights groups fiercely oppose the bill.
"The bill is an historic threat to American citizens and others because it expands and makes permanent the authority of the president to order the military to imprison without charge or trial American citizens," said Christopher Anders, ACLU senior legislative counsel.
The bill reflects the politically charged dispute over whether to treat suspected terrorists as prisoners of war or criminals. The administration insists that the military, law enforcement and intelligence agents need flexibility in prosecuting the war on terror after they've succeeded in killing Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki.
Republicans counter that their efforts are necessary to respond to an evolving, post-Sept. 11 threat, and that Obama has failed to produce a consistent policy on handling terror suspects.
On Iran, Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Mark Kirk, R-Ill., had widespread bipartisan support for their amendment, which would target foreign financial institutions that do business with the Central Bank, barring them from opening or maintaining correspondent operations in the United States. It would apply to foreign central banks only for transactions that involve the sale or purchase of petroleum or petroleum products.
The sanctions on petroleum would only apply if the president determines there is a sufficient alternative supply and if the country with jurisdiction over the financial institution has not significantly reduced its purchases of Iranian oil.
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