RIP Mario Como

Consumer Alert: (Net Right Daily) Get ready for Obamacare auto-enroll

By Robert Romano

While President Barack Obama attempts to put a happy face on the cluster rollout of Healthcare.gov and other state exchanges, where only a half million people are said to have applied for government-subsidized insurance, it may be time to start asking if this was not all a part of the plan in the first place.

Consider the dilemma facing the Obama administration. More than 80 million Americans aged 26 to 64 years old making less than $46,000 not already on Medicaid now qualify for Obamacare, whether through Medicaid or the insurance exchanges, based on data from the U.S. Census and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Of the half million that have reportedly applied, there is no word yet on how many of them actually qualify or will ultimately enroll in the program. And even if every single one of them did qualify — a highly dubious prospect — at the program’s current pace it would take about ten years to sign everyone up. And that’s not even taking population growth into account.

Couple that with the web server failures at Healthcare.gov and Obama in the interim having to direct Americans to a switchboard at 1-800-318-2596 to apply, and it appears that the road to “universal” health care is set to be a bumpy one at the outset.

Making the problem more daunting, as many as 43 percent of the nation’s uninsured are not even aware that come January 2014, they must purchase or carry health insurance or else pay a fine, according to a June Gallup survey.

“If they ever get their website working, and millions who qualify still do not sign up for a product they never asked for, we should expect they will at some point simply be auto-enrolled,” predicted Americans for Limited Government (ALG) president Nathan Mehrens.

Of course, the lack of universal enrollment in programs like Medicaid has long been a topic of considerable interest in the ivory towers of the nation’s health care policy elites. A 2006 study by Stan Dorn and Genevieve M. Kenney found that “Sixty-two percent of uninsured children qualify for but are not enrolled in Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Similarly, two-thirds of uninsured, poor parents qualify for Medicaid but are not enrolled.”

The solution, per Dorn and Kenney? “Auto enrollment could reach many of these uninsured families. Under this strategy, eligible parents and children receive health coverage based on information already in the hands of state officials, rather than through full, formal applications for Medicaid or SCHIP.”

The study cited numerous examples where this has already been done, including Medicare Part B “into which seniors are enrolled automatically unless they decline participation, covers 96 percent of eligible seniors.”

“The entire push for ‘universal’ health care in the U.S. is simply unbridled government coercion to force individuals to behave in a certain way,” ALG’s Mehrens commented.

Anecdotally, in the mid-2000s when the college I attended, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, instituted a mandatory insurance program, lacking coverage I was automatically enrolled in a student health plan. Student health plans had already been available, but it was not until it was required that I was forced to pay for it and automatically added that I actually enrolled.

So, it will come as no surprise to me when health care officials in Washington, D.C. eventually give up on the ill-suited Healthcare.gov strategy to achieve “universal” coverage. But nobody else should be caught off-guard either, even if this is their first experience with a mandatory coverage regime.

In fact, auto enroll is already the top policy recommendation of Enroll America, a non-profit set up to promote Obamacare. The plan to get everyone on Obamacare is to “automatically enroll people who are already known to be eligible,” including “us[ing] data from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to determine eligibility for Medicaid and CHIP,” and “connect[ing] eligible parents to coverage if their children are already enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP,” and “min[ing] existing databases to identify and enroll uninsured residents who are already known to be eligible for coverage programs.”

Read more at NetRightDaily.com: http://netrightdaily.com/2013/10/get-ready-obamacare-auto-enroll/#ixzz2iTPpltA6

FBI Alert: Boston Marathon Suspects

To Provide Tips in the Investigation

If you have visual images, video, and/or details regarding the explosions along the Boston Marathon route and elsewhere, submit them on https://bostonmarathontips.fbi.gov/. No piece of information or detail is too small. 

You can also call 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324), prompt #3, with information.
All media inquiries should be directed to the FBI’s National Press Office at (202) 324-3691.

- Boston FBI- Boston Police Department

American Censorship Day-November 16, 2011

November 16th: American Censorship Day; Don't Let Congress Censor The Internet

from the take-a-stand dept

On November 16th, the House of Representatives will be holding hearings on SOPA, its bill to put in place all sorts of restrictions and regulations on the internet, at the behest of the big Hollywood studios, who have failed to adapt. The bill is nothing short of an attempt to censor the internet, creating -- for the first time ever -- the ability for the US government to flat out censor entire websites. The hearings on the 16th are completely stacked in favor of the bill. The sponsors of the bill can't even stand to have a fair hearing and listen to those who are worried about the unintended consequences of the bill.

That's why a bunch of websites have teamed up to declare November 16th: American Censorship Day. If you run a website, please sign up to participate, to help educate your users to the problems associated with the bill, and to urge them to express their concerns to Congress. Don't let Congress build the Great Firewall of America while you sat back and did nothing.

Credit: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111110/10320516709/november-16th-american-censorship-day-dont-let-congress-censor-internet.shtml

11/11/11 – a date with a special meaning?

Dates such as 11/11/11, are happening more often since the start of the new millennium.


The hype for these special dates is building across popular culture, with films and stories being made about the end of the world and news reports about expectant parents eagerly waiting for their children to be born on these dates.

But is there a special meaning behind these unique dates? Or is it just pure math?

Significance of 11/11/11



Based on past calendar dates such as 10/10/10, or October 10, 2010, no significant or unusual phenomenon occurs simply because of a date that has the same numbers in a sequence.

The numerical sequence of November 11 holds a special significance in the binary numeral system, which is the base-2 number system that represents numeric values using two symbols, 0 and 1. The date of November 11 has a binary number of 111110 where it has a decimal equivalent of 62 in the year 2010, and a binary number of 111111 with a decimal equivalent of 63 in the year 2011.

The number eleven has a special characteristic in mathematics where it is the sixth prime number. It contains some interesting peculiarities where the number eleven times itself equals a palindrome:

(2 digits) 11 x 11 = 121
(6 digits) 111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
(9 digits) 111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321

Credit: http://www.timeanddate.com/

10th Year Anniversary of September 11

The last and final time I was at the World Trade Center was September 8, 2001. I was getting books for my multimedia design class at the Borders Bookstore in World Trade Center.

On September 11, 2001....

I was at Borough of Manhattan Community College Library on the fourth floor. I heard a big bang and saw students ran to the windows to see what happened. They saw people falling out of windows from World Trade Center. I went to the window to see what happened. I noticed the second plane hit the second World Trade Center  building. The safety officers evacuated the college. Many students from the college saw the burning World Trade Center. The first building came down and many students including I were running away from the World Trade Center Derbis. About twenty blocks away, The second building came down. I went to the church and said few prayers to the victims, firefighters, and police officers. The bad part about it I couldn't leave Manhattan. I decided to walk West 4 Street. Around two clock, The trains were running again. I got home safe and sound.

Few Years Later.....

My mother was watching the five clock newscast.  She saw a video of me running from the World Trade Center. She noticed that I had terrorized look on my face.

Hurricane Irene is here!!!!

Before Hurricane Irene hits, New York to shut down entire transportation system, plan evacuations

BY Reuven Blau, Jennifer H. Cunningham and Bill Hutchinson
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/08/25/2011-08-25_before_hurricane_irene_hits_new_york_to_shut_down_entire_transportation_system_p.html#ixzz1W5otH4c4The city is planning to shut down the entire transportation system on Saturday in anticipation of Hurricane Irene's arrival, officials revealed Thursday.

A mandatory evacuation of all nursing homes in flood-prone areas of the city was also ordered Thursday.

The monster storm is expected hit New York as a Category 1 storm sometime Sunday, barreling in with winds of 90 miles-per-hour and torrential rains.

Mayor Bloomberg said Thursday that it was "very conceivable" that he will order a mandatory evacuation of all low-lying areas of the city by Saturday.

"The storm is predicted to be very dangerous," the mayor said.

LIVE STORM-TRACKER: Catch the latest news on Hurricane Irene

As the storm finished ravaging the Bahamas Thursday and set its wicked eye straight for the Carolina coastline, city and state officials were busy preparing for the worst:

* Gov. Cuomo declared a state of emergency to free up resources and take advantage of federal assistance.

* The MTA took the unprecedented move of setting its hurricane plan in motion, which calls for a complete shutdown of subways, trains and buses when sustained winds reach at least 39 mph.

* The mayor ordered the mandatory evacuation of nursing homes, care facilities for the elderly and hospitals in low-lying areas by 8 p.m. Friday.

* The MTA warned bridges could be closed for safety reasons due to high winds.

* More than 300 street fairs and other city permitted events scheduled for this weekend were cancelled.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/08/25/2011-08-25_before_hurricane_irene_hits_new_york_to_shut_down_entire_transportation_system_p.html#ixzz1W5ofhHFx


Credit: New York Daily News

Hurricane Irene tightens aim on East Coast

By MITCH WEISS and SETH BORENSTEIN 

BUXTON, N.C. (AP) -- A monstrous Hurricane Irene tightened its aim on the Eastern Seaboard on Thursday, threatening 65 million people along a shore-hugging path from North Carolina to New England. One of the nation's top experts called it his "nightmare" scenario.

The Category 3 storm with winds of 115 mph - the threshold for a major hurricane - would be the strongest to strike the East Coast in seven years, and people were already getting out of the way.

Tens of thousands fled North Carolina beach towns, farmers pulled up their crops, and the Navy ordered ships to sea so they could endure the punishing wind and waves in open water.

All eyes were on Irene's projected path, which showed it bringing misery to every city along the I-95 corridor, including Washington, New York and Boston. The former chief of the National Hurricane Center called it one of his three worst possible situations.

"One of my greatest nightmares was having a major hurricane go up the whole Northeast Coast," Max Mayfield, the center's retired director, told The Associated Press.

He said the damage will probably climb into billions of dollars: "This is going to have an impact on the United States economy."

The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said damages could exceed most previous storms because so many people live along the East Coast and property values are high.

"We've got a lot more people that are potentially in the path of this storm," FEMA Director Craig Fugate said in an interview with The Associated Press. "This is one of the largest populations that will be impacted by one storm at one time."

The storm would "have a lot of impact well away from the coastline," he added. "A little bit of damage over big areas with large populations can add up fast."

Irene was massive, with tropical-force winds extending almost twice as far as normal, about the same size as Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005.

"It's not going to be a Katrina, but it's serious," said MIT meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel. "People have to take it seriously."

The governors of North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New York and New Jersey declared emergencies to free up resources, and authorities all the way to New England urged residents in low-lying areas to gather supplies and learn the way to a safe location.

Irene was expected to come ashore Saturday in North Carolina with 115 mph winds and a storm surge of 5 to 10 feet. It could dump a foot of rain, with as much as 15 inches falling in some places along the coast and around Chesapeake Bay.

Scientists predict Irene will then chug up the coast. Some forecasts showed it taking dead aim at New York City, with its eye passing over Brooklyn and Manhattan before weakening and trudging through New England.

If the storm strikes New York, it will probably be a Category 1 or 2, depending on its exact track, hurricane specialist John Cangialosi said.

Hurricanes are rare in the Northeast because the region's cooler seas tend to weaken storms as they approach, and they have to take a narrow track to strike New York without first hitting other parts of the coast and weakening there.

Still, strong storms have been known to unleash serious damage in an urban environment already surrounded by water.

A September 1821 hurricane raised tides by 13 feet in an hour and flooded all of Manhattan south of Canal Street - an area that now includes the nation's financial capital. An infamous 1938 storm dubbed the Long Island Express came ashore about 75 miles east of the city and then hit New England, killing 700 people and leaving 63,000 homeless.

On Thursday in North Carolina, three coastal counties issued evacuation orders covering more than 200,000 people, including tourists and full-time residents.

Dania Armstrong of New York sat outside a motel smoking a cigarette while she waited for her family to get ready. Armstrong, her daughter and grandchildren had already been ordered off the island of Ocracoke and planned to leave the town of Buxton soon.

"I've been coming down here for 50 years," she said. "I know what's coming. It's time to leave. You don't want to be here when it hits."

John Robeson, an accountant from New Jersey, brought his wife and two children down for a week, but they were cutting the trip short after three days.

"I'm disappointed," he said as he loaded his car. "You wait all year. Talk about it. Make plans for your vacation. And now this. It's a bad break."

Other year-round residents planned to ride it out, despite warnings from authorities that they will be on their own immediately after the storm.

"If you leave, you can't get back for days because of the roads, and you don't know what's going on with your property," said Kathy MacKenzie, who works at Dillon's Corner, a general store in Buxton.

Ollie Jarvis, the store's owner, said he's staying and preparing for the worst. During Hurricane Emily in 1993, his store was flooded with 18 inches of water and sand from a storm surge. Like a spear, the water pushed a T-shirt rack filled with clothes through the ceiling. They still have the high-water mark on a wall near the cash register.

"I can't leave. You have to worry about the stuff you have. You have to save what you can," he said.

Bobby Overbey of Virginia Beach, Va., pulled into a gas station in his Jeep with two surfboards hanging on the back. He planned to stay, despite the evacuation orders.

Usually the waves top out at 2 to 3 feet. On Thursday, he was riding 4- and 5-foot waves.

"You live for this," he said.Farmers grimly accepted the fate of their crops. Strong winds and widespread flooding could mean billions of dollars in losses for corn, cotton, soybean, tobacco and timber growers. While most farmers have disaster insurance, policies often pay only about 70 percent of actual losses.

Wilson Daughtry owns Alligator River Growers near Engelhard, near Pamlico Sound. Though he is under a mandatory evacuation order, Daughtry and his workers planned to stay to salvage what corn and squash they can.

He said he's lost count of how many times his crops have been wiped out by storms.

"Hurricanes are just part of doing business down here," he said.

In Virginia, officials recalled Hurricane Isabel in 2003, which came ashore as a Category 1, killed more than 30 people and caused more than $1 billion in property damage. The low-lying Hampton Roads region is at high risk of flooding from storm surge and heavy rains. Widespread power outages are likely.

The Navy ordered many of its ships at Norfolk Naval Station out to sea to wait out the storm, including the aircraft carrier USS Dwight Eisenhower, as well as destroyers and submarines.

Gearing up for approaching hurricanes is an almost annual occurrence in coastal North Carolina and Virginia, so planning is extensive and almost second-nature. Building codes along the Outer Banks require structures to be reinforced to withstand sustained winds of up to 110 mph and gusts up to 130 mph. Houses close to the water must be elevated on pilings to keep them above storm surges, and required setbacks preserve sand dunes to provide additional protection.

It could be a different story as the storm moves up the coast. In Washington, where residents were rattled by a rare earthquake Tuesday, officials warned people to be prepared for stormy conditions regardless of Irene's exact path and to stay away from the beaches in the region.

The Philadelphia area could get more than a half-foot of rain, accompanied by sustained winds up to 50 mph. Mayor Michael Nutter said it could be the worst storm in at least 50 years. August has already been one of the rainiest months in city history.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie asked all visitors to the shore to get out by midday Friday. He said Irene was poised to be a "serious, significant event," with flooding a threat across the entire state. A mandatory evacuation was ordered for Cape May County.

In a normal hurricane, tropical storm-force winds extend about 150 miles from the eye. Irene's winds extend nearly 250 miles.

Another worry is that the ground is already saturated in the Northeast after a wet spring and summer. That means trees and power lines will be more vulnerable to winds, like during Hurricane Isabel, Mayfield said.

New York is especially susceptible with its large subway network and the waterways around the city, Mayfield said.

"In many ways, a Category 2 or stronger storm hitting New York is a lot of people's nightmare," said Susan Cutter, director of the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina.

High water in the harbor and rivers, along with a high tide at the end of the month because of the new moon, could cause serious flooding. New York's three airports are close to the water, putting them at risk, too, Cutter said.

And if the storm shifts further to the west, placing New York City on the stronger right-hand quadrant of the storm, "that is what's going to push this wall of water into the bays and the Hudson River."

Credit: Associated Press

East Coast Earthquake News Coverage Interrupts Programming

By Sofia M. Fernandez

NBC, ABC and CBS broke in with coverage of the 5.9 magnitude quake that hit Virginia, while cable news networks dispatched reports from locations that have been affected.

NBC, ABC and CBS all interrupted regular programming Tuesday to report on the earthquake that hit the East Coast.

The 5.9 quake was centered in Northern Virginia and felt throughout the region in cities like Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York.

The earthquake is the biggest domestic story of the day on news sites, second only to the coverage of unrest in Libya.

CNN dispatched reporters to various locations including the New York Stock Exchange, where business correspondentAlison Kosik reported that traders felt the shaking and shouted at each other to "keep trading!"

MSNBC reports that all memorials and monuments on the National Mall were evacuated and closed.

Quake coverage now dominates Fox News.com, which is reporting that U.S. aviation authorities have evacuated control towers at JFK and Newark airports. LaGuardia remains open is and operating normally.

A Univision spokeswoman told The Hollywood Reporter that the Spanish language company’s network has also done several news briefs with updates after the earthquake.

Coincidentally, Metro New York reported earlier this year that scientists at Columbia University's Lamont-Dohery Earth Observatory had predicted that the city was overdue for an earthquake,"The last big quake to hit New York City was a 5.3-magnitude tremor in 1884 that happened at sea in between Brooklyn and Sandy Hook. While no one was killed, buildings were damaged."

Seismologist Won-Young Kim told the publication,"It can happen anytime soon." If it happened tomorrow, he added, “I would not be surprised. We can expect it any minute, we just don’t know when and where.”

Other fallout from the earthquake included the evacuation of Discovery Communications headquarters in Silver Spring, MD. "We evacuated and sent everyone home for the day," a Discovery Communications spokeswoman told THR.

The cable networks juggernaut employs 1,500 there. "No reports yet of any damage or injuries," she added.

Credit: The Hollywood Reporter

Breaking News!!! 5.8-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes East Coast

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE


A 5.8-magnitude earthquake based in Virginia sent tremors from the nation’s capital to New York City and New England Tuesday afternoon, officials said. Buildings throughout major metropolitan centers in the northeast were evacuated after the quake, and tremors were felt as far north as Bath, Me., and as far south as Hampstead, N.C., with some limited reports of damage reported near the quake’s epicenter in Virginia, where a nearby nuclear power plant was taken offline. Amtrak trains were temporarily halted, and cellphone service was disrupted as calls flooded cellular systems.

While there were only limited reports of damage, the breadth of the quake rattled nerves along the Northeast. The streets of downtown Washington filled with thousands of people on Tuesday afternoon as buildings from the Capitol to the White House were evacuated the 1:51 p.m. quake, which lasted by varying accounts anywhere from 20 to 30 seconds.

Andre Smith-Pugh, a 25-year-old carpentry worker, was high above the Eisenhower Executive Office Building when he felt the shaking.

"It felt like the scaffolding was coming down," he said in an interview. "It felt like a big truck slammed into the side of the building right here at the White House."

He and his work crew climbed down and gathered outside the White House. None were injured, he said, but all were rattled. Reuters quoted Richard Weinberg, a spokesman for the National Cathedral in Washington, as saying “at least three pinnacles on the central tower have broken off” because of the earthquake.

Several buildings in New York City were evacuated, with employees standing in the streets in midtown Manhattan. Rumbles were reported on Twitter from places as far-flung as Martha’s Vineyard, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee.

“Our townhouse started shaking a short time ago and branches started to fall off trees and hit our windows and hit our roof like crazy,” said Bill Parks of Hummelstown, Pa. “It lasted about 10 seconds and was as bad as the Northridge after shock I had experienced while visiting in California. I ran outdoors and found my neighbor calling a friend in Virginia who also felt the profound quake. This quake was like none I ever experienced in the East in my life and I am 76 years old.”

Dr. Arthur Lerner-Lam, head of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Division of Seismology, said the earthquake occurred in a part of Central Virginia that is known as an area of geologically old faults, created several hundred million years ago when the Appalachian Mountains were forming. The area has frequent small earthquakes; the largest previously recorded was one of magnitude 4.8 in 1875.

“We do expect earthquakes to occur here,” he said. “Not as frequently as in California, but this is not a surprise.” He described the Central Virginia earthquakes as “kind of a randomized reactivation of these geologically old structures” as opposed to the tremors that occur along an active fault such as the San Andreas in California.

In Mineral, Va., a town about of about 500 people located four miles from the quake’s center, residents reported extensive damage to items inside homes. China shattered and pictures fell off walls. The Virginia epicenter was just miles from a decades-old nuclear power plant, the North Anna, operated by Dominion Power in Richmond, where two reactors were taken offline, although there were no reports of damage there.

Sherry Gibson, 42, owner of Sherry’s Snip & Style in Mineral, had popped home for a few minutes when the earthquake hit.

“The whole ground just shook and shook and kept on shaking," she said. The noise was so loud, she said, that it sounded like a plane falling out of the sky. China blew out of the cabinet, and her mantel pulled away from the wall.

Some of her neighbors have cracks in their walls, she said, but she had not heard of any injuries and she said the town had not lost electricity.

The tremors were even felt in Boston, where John D. Tuerck said he felt "a discernible swaying on the 18th floor" of his office tower. He added: "Not something one expects here, for sure."

In downtown Manhattan, police officers ordered the evacuation of New York’s City’s Hall a few minutes before 2 p.m., sending Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his staff scurrying out of the building.

Mr. Bloomberg, standing in front of the grand Renaissance-style building, said he had felt the tremors but assumed they stemmed from extensive renovations underway inside City Hall.

"I did feel a little bit of shake," he said."And then it got greater."

"So far," Mr. Bloomberg said, "we have no reports of any damage."

In Fort Greene, Brooklyn, calls of "did you feel that?" could be heard on nearly every street corner.

"I’m from California and I thought, ’that feels like an earthquake, but no, it can’t be an earthquake!’" said Matt Flammer, 23, who was standing in Bespoke Bicycles, the shop where he works on Lafayette Avenue, when the bikes on the wall began to sway.

In Washington, the tremor caused strong shaking in the Capitol, which was quickly evacuated for a structural evaluation. Chandeliers swayed and one short burst shook the centuries-old building. With a pro forma Senate session scheduled, Senate officials gathered across Constitution Avenue to determine how to proceed.

President Obama was in Martha’s Vineyard during the quake and Vice President Biden spent Tuesday in Japan, coincidentally touring areas that were devastated by the earthquake and attendant tsunami earlier this year.

But the biggest jolts occurred closer to the quake’s epicenter in Virginia.

Chuck Thies, 46, a political consultant who lives in Mount Pleasant in Washington, D.C., was writing an email on his computer on the top floor of his four-story building when the shaking started. It lasted a harrowing 15 to 20 seconds, he recalled, and within 10 seconds or so of the temblor subsiding, Mr. Thies had folded up his laptop and was barefoot on the sidewalk — standing among dozens of other stunned neighbors.

But before Mr. Thies, who was home alone in his office, bolted his building, which is more than 100 years old, he suspected it was an earthquake or perhaps a major explosion.

“My five-year-old son’s Matchbox trucks started falling off the shelf in succession, and that’s when I realized it was an earthquake,” he said. “And in the kitchen, some dishes that were in the drying rack started rattling loudly against one and other. This place really shook.”

Credit: New York Times

New York prosecutors set to drop Strauss-Kahn case

(Reuters) - Prosecutors on Monday appeared set to drop sexual assault charges against former IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a stunning reversal in the case against a man who many had seen as the next president of France.

The Manhattan District Attorney's office will recommend to a judge that the case be dismissed after they lost faith in the accuser, a 32-year-old hotel maid from Guinea, due to lies she told about her past, New York news media reported.

Strauss-Kahn, who has denied the allegations, was the leading contender for the April 2012 presidential elections until Nafissatou Diallo accused him of forcing her to perform oral sex on May 14 at New York's Sofitel Hotel.

He was arrested and forced to resign as head of the International Monetary Fund a few days later.

Diallo was due to meet with prosecutors at 3 p.m., and they were expected to inform her the case was being dropped, said Kenneth Thompson, the woman's lawyer.

Strauss-Kahn was due to appear in court on Tuesday, at which point the dismissal of charges could be a mere formality if prosecutors make public their decision on Monday.

Diallo's lawyers said they would request a special prosecutor to pursue the criminal case, though legal experts said such a move would have little chance of succeeding.

But nor would Strauss-Kahn be totally in the clear. He still faces a civil lawsuit filed by Diallo on August 8 and a complaint from French writer Tristane Banon who said he tried to rape her during a 2003 interview. Authorities in Paris are considering whether to press charges in that case.

Prosecutors initially trumpeted Diallo as a credible witness and her testimony helped convince a grand jury to formally charge Strauss-Kahn, but the case has teetered since late June when prosecutors disclosed that Diallo fabricated a story about being gang-raped for her U.S. asylum application and lied about other aspects of her past.

Read more: Reuters

Picture is Worth Thousand Words

Credit: CNN

Is American Idol Voting Against Haley Reinhart

5/12/2011 — So I Guess The Big Story On American Idol Is That Haley Reinhart Has A Bad Attitude And Is Not Very Well Liked Behind The Scenes. American Idol Producers Want Her Off The Show, So American Idol Producers Told The Judges To Sway The Votes Away From Haley By Using Their Constructive Criticism.
If This Is True, How Do You Feel About It? Do You Think That It Is Fair For The Judges To Try To Sway The Voters? After All, American Idol Is A Talent Competition Not A Personality Contest. Or Do You Think That The Two Go Hand In Hand?
If You Support Haley, Follow Her On Twitter At @HReinhartAI10And Tweet Your Support To Her. You Can Also Let American Idol Know What You Think At @AmericanIdol .
Tweet Your Opinions To Us @TrifcEntrtanmnt And We Will Retweet Your Thoughts. We Look Forward To Hearing From You.

Credit: The Terrific Scoop