HP feels the heat, recalls 1040 and 1050 fax machines originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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I ended up calling the police. Within minutes an officer responded to the scene and issued a citation to the couple that had left their dog in the car. Having two older sisters that are veterinarians, I realized that the animal, while not locked in the automobile for too long, may have suffered from minor heat stroke and should probably have been taken to the vet as a precautionary measure. The dog?s owners, however, merely cracked open the window and went back into the gym to resume their exercise routines.
Such treatment of pets, and animals more generally, seems far too common; and most likely, this dog?s owners probably did not think their actions equated to animal abuse any more than Archie Bunker thought that his routine slurs were racist. In many ways, this entire situation speaks to the larger question of whether animals actually have rights. Lyle Munro?s recent examination of the animal rights movement ?in theory and practice? speaks to the fact that our understanding of the issue is empirically poor. In the article, he recommends a greater working partnership between research scholars and animal activists.
As social scientists, we would undoubtedly benefit from a greater empirical understanding of the animal rights movement, although the underlying theoretical conundrum will persist: Do animals actually have rights? Perhaps Joel Best put it best when he once told me that the animal rights movement will never truly succeed because too many people like hamburgers. We do, after all, slaughter a wide variety of animals for a whole host of reasons: consumption, material goods, overpopulation, and the list could go on. Presumably if given their choice, these animals would have passed on their contributions to human survival and happiness. On a smaller scale, many pet owners like myself effectively keep their animals as captives of sorts, even if mine seem content with their full bellies and excessive sleeping. In my own research on zoophilia online communities (see Maratea and Kavanaugh for how this relates to new directives in deviance research), I found that many zoophiles posted statements that mainstream animal lovers like myself actually violate animals? rights if we support the ?Bob Barker approach? to spaying and neutering, and, more importantly, if we refuse to satisfy the sexual needs of our beloved animal partners. Like you (presumably), I scoff at such a ridiculous notion. Yet, this example, however distasteful, speaks to the difficulty in uniformly defining whether animals have rights (which they cannot possibly comprehend).
Most animal lovers will probably agree ? to varying degrees ? that we should protect animal welfare. Rights, however, are a tricky concept; they are purely human constructs that are applied in an entirely subjective manner. For example, the idea of universal human rights might exist on paper, but has certainly never been achieved in practice. How then, does a species that cannot objectively respect the rights of other human beings reconcile whether life forms that are largely considered inferior are endowed with similar innate rights?
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Additional Readings:
The Animal Rights Movement in Theory and Practice: A Review of the Sociological Literature by Lyle Munro
Screwing the Pooch: Legitimizing Accounts in a Zoophilia Online Community by R.J .Maratea
Deviant Identity in Online Contexts: New Directives in the Study of a Classic Concept by R.J. Maratea and Philip R. Kavanaugh
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Photo courtesy The Fairfield Bay Animal Protection League (www.ffbanimalshelter.org)
Source: http://thesocietypages.org/sociologylens/2012/02/03/the-conundrum-of-animal-rights/
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ROME (Reuters) ? The owners of the capsized Italian liner Costa Concordia said Thursday they expected to announce plans by the end of March to remove the wreck.
Costa Cruises, a unit of Carnival CorpCCL.L>, the world's largest cruise ship group, said in a statement it had invited 10 leading salvage companies to tender for the contract to remove the ship.
It said it expected to select the company by the end of March, although delays were possible in an operation of such complexity.
The 290 meter-long Costa Concordia capsized and foundered close to the Tuscan island of Giglio on January 13 after its struck a rock which tore a large gash in its hull. At least 17 people died in the accident and 15 others are still missing.
Officials have estimated that the salvage operation could take between 7-10 months once preparations have been completed, meaning the vast hulk will remain where it rests until the end of the year at least.
The ship's captain Francesco Schettino has been blamed for causing the accident by steering too close to shore.
He has been placed under house arrest and faces charges of multiple manslaughter and abandoning ship before the evacuation of more than 4,200 passengers and crew was complete.
Costa, which puts the blame for the accident on Schettino, is facing a series of individual and class action suits from lawyers representing passengers and crew of the ship.
On Giglio, where the huge wreck lies half submerged meters from the shore, rescue services have abandoned the search for bodies and are preparing to begin removing more than 2,300 tones of diesel fuel to prevent an environmental disaster.
(Reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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Source: http://diyhomebuilding.org/locating-large-grade-rta-cabinets/
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LOS ANGELES (AP) ? The Southern California owner of a Honda hybrid car won her unusual small-claims court lawsuit against the automaker over the vehicle's failure to deliver its stated fuel economy.
Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Douglas Carnahan awarded Heather Peters $9,867 on Wednesday, saying Honda did mislead her about the expected mileage.
"At a bare minimum Honda was aware ... that by the time Peters bought her car there were problems with its living up to its advertised mileage," he wrote in the judgment.
Peters opted out of a class-action lawsuit so she could try to claim a higher payment for the failure of her Civic to deliver the 50 miles per gallon that was promised when she bought it.
Informed of the decision by The Associated Press, Peters exulted, "Wow! Fantastic."
"I am absolutely thrilled. Sometimes big justice comes in small packages," she said. "This is a victory for Honda Civic orders everywhere."
Honda hadn't seen the decision Wednesday afternoon but planned to issue a statement after it was reviewed, said spokesman Chris Martin.
Peters, a former lawyer, hoped to inspire a flood of lawsuits by the other 200,000 owners of the Hybrid Honda Civic model sold in 2006. She said that if all 200,000 owners of the cars sued and won in small claims cost, it could Honda Motor Co. $2 billion.
She launched a website, DontSettleWithHonda.org, and said she was contacted by hundreds of other car owners seeking guidance in how to file small claims suits if they opted out of a class-action case already filed.
The upside of small claims court is that there are no attorneys' fees and cases are decided quickly. Individual payments are far greater than in class-action cases.
Honda's proposed class-action settlement would give aggrieved owners $100 to $200 each and a $1,000 credit toward the purchase of a new car. Legal fees in the class action case would give trial lawyers $8.5 million, Peters said.
Legal experts had said it was unlikely that all owners would take the small claims route because of the time and energy involved in pursuing such lawsuits. But it was a unique approach that could have an impact.
Carnahan held two hearings on the claim in January.
Peters claimed her he car never came close to the promised 50 mpg and that it got no more than 30 miles per gallon when the battery began deteriorating. She still owns the car and wanted to be compensated for money lost on gas, as well as punitive damages, amounting to $10,000.
A Honda technical expert who testified at an earlier hearing said the company was required by federal law to post the sticker estimating the highest mileage the car could get. But he said the mileage varied on how the car was driven. The company said Peters was not deceived.
A judge in San Diego County is due to rule in March on whether to approve Honda's class-action settlement. Members of the class have until Feb. 11 to accept or decline the deal.
Small claims courts generally handle private disputes that do not involve large amounts of money. In many states, that means small debts, quarrels between tenants and landlords and contract disagreements. Attorneys aren't usually there; in California, litigants aren't allowed to have lawyers argue their case.
The limit for small claims damages in California is $10,000. In other states it ranges from $2,500 to $15,000.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) ? For a central bank that wants to make transparency its hallmark, the Federal Reserve's new forecast of nearly three more years of super-low rates has left room for a few doubts.
The Fed surprised markets last Wednesday when it extended its previous forecast for keeping its key interest rate "exceptionally low" until at least late 2014, more than a year longer than its previous guidance.
Ninety minutes later, the U.S. central bank published charts showing that more than a third of its policymakers expected a rate rise before 2014, whiplashing bond markets.
The difference in tone between the dovish statement of the Fed's policy-setting committee and the somewhat more hawkish-looking projections of its 17 individual members, has left some economists unsure as to when the Fed will start to reverse its historic, all-out support of the U.S. economy.
Some are re-examining the Fed's choice of language and questioning whether the term "exceptionally low" really means the current level of the Fed funds rate of zero to 0.25 percent.
Others are asking what the phrase "late 2014" means more precisely as they try to decipher the nuances of a central bank that is taking bold steps to support the economic recovery while at the same time stressing transparency into its inner workings.
"You can't possibly know with any degree of confidence what will unfold given this degree of uncertainty," said Michael Moran, chief economist at Daiwa Capital Markets, in New York, referring to the wide range of views on where rates are headed. "You just have to keep an open mind on monetary policy."
The Fed has kept short-term rates below 0.25 percent for more than three years already and purchased some $2.3 trillion in long-term securities to help the U.S. economy claw its way back from a brutal recession.
With the recovery still fragile and at risk from fallout from Europe's crisis, the Fed is running out of tools and has turned to making statements about its intentions over the coming years in the hope of assuring skittish markets that it is committed to sticking with its super-loose monetary policy.
That could keep longer-term rates low in the open market. Low rates usually encourage economic activity and boost hiring.
This delicate management of expectations is playing out just as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is shining a light on what in the past were the central bank's opaque internal deliberations.
The first-ever release last week of projections by Fed policymakers of where they expect interest rates to be over the next few years revealed a remarkably wide range of views.
Three officials expected a rate rise as soon as this year. Two others did not see that happening until 2016.
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Economic, rate projections: http://link.reuters.com/zud36s
FOMC statement from Jan 24-25 meeting: FED/FOMC
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CONFUSION
In an early sign of confusion, yields on 10-year Treasuries dropped after the Fed's late-2014 comment on Wednesday and fell to as low as 1.92 percent. They bounced back to 2 percent after the rate projections were revealed.
Asked for clarity by reporters, Bernanke made it clear that the statement from the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets rates and currently has 10 voting members, prevailed over the 17 individual projections.
"The FOMC will always, in some sense, trump the projections of forward interest rates," he said.
But Charles Plosser, president of the Philadelphia Fed and among the most hawkish of the Fed's top officials, acknowledged on Monday that the FOMC's statement was "not as clear as it could have been."
Having low rates until late 2014 is "conditional on the evolution of the economy. I think that we don't make that clear enough," Plosser told CNBC television.
"A lot of people have been reading the statement as if it was a commitment and it is not a commitment."
ALL EYES ON 2014
Plosser, who has focused more on keeping a lid on inflation than lowering the 8.5-percent U.S. unemployment rate, confirmed that he was one of the three officials forecasting a rate rise this year. He is among those skeptical of the Fed's ultra-easy policy and its talk of standing pat for some time to come.
Six of the FOMC's 17 policymakers saw rates rising to between 0.25 percent and 2 percent by the end of 2013. By the end of 2014 they were joined by a further five who expected increases in borrowing costs and as a group they saw rates between 0.25 and 2.75 percent, with a median of 0.75 percent.
The other six projected no change until after 2014.
Adding to intrigue over the path ahead for rates, Plosser, fellow hawk Richard Fisher of Dallas, and Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota, a moderate hawk, all regain positions on the FOMC in the critical year of 2014.
Bernanke, along with vice chair Janet Yellen and William Dudley, the influential head of the New York Fed, has steered the Fed's policy moves. But the chairman's current term expires in early 2014, adding to the uncertainty on the horizon.
Since August, when Bernanke clearly implied in a speech that "exceptionally low" rates meant zero to 0.25 percent, Wall Street has run with that assumption.
Now some economists are reading between the lines.
"There are different definitions of 'exceptionally low' levels of the federal funds rate. Perhaps one could think of any rate below 1 percent as exceptionally low," said Thomas Simons, money market economist at Jefferies & Co, who co-published a note to clients on the topic.
"What is your definition of late 2014? Maybe it's September," Simons said.
Accordingly, futures traders are hedging their bets over what the Fed will actually do.
According to rates contracts at exchange operator CME Group Inc, traders are pricing in a 48 percent chance that the first rate hike will occur in June, 2014. There is a 62 percent chance that it comes in July, 2014.
Economists at FTN Financial argued the Fed's statement was intended to reinforce the primacy of the FOMC over the broader group. "The unspoken message is that there are enough voting members at or near zero to keep rates unchanged even if others at the Fed disagree," they wrote last week in a note to clients.
(Reporting by Jonathan Spicer; Additional reporting by Ann Saphir in Chicago; Editing by Kim Coghill)
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The nation's leading breast-cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, is halting its partnerships with Planned Parenthood affiliates ? creating a bitter rift, linked to the abortion debate, between two iconic organizations that have assisted millions of women.
The change will mean a cutoff of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, mainly for breast exams.
Planned Parenthood says the move results from Komen bowing to pressure from anti-abortion activists. Komen says the key reason is that Planned Parenthood is under investigation in Congress ? a probe launched by a conservative Republican who was urged to act by anti-abortion groups.
The rupture, which has not been publicly announced as it unfolded, is wrenching for some of those who've learned about it and admire both organizations.
"We're kind of reeling," said Patrick Hurd, who is CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Virginia ? recipient of a 2010 grant from Komen ? and whose wife, Betsi, is a veteran of several Komen fundraising races and is currently battling breast cancer.
"It sounds almost trite, going through this with Betsi, but cancer doesn't care if you're pro-choice, anti-choice, progressive, conservative," Hurd said. "Victims of cancer could care less about people's politics."
Planned Parenthood said the Komen grants totaled roughly $680,000 last year and $580,000 the year before, going to at least 19 of its affiliates for breast-cancer screening and other breast-health services.
Komen spokeswoman Leslie Aun said the cutoff results from the charity's newly adopted criteria barring grants to organizations that are under investigation by local, state or federal authorities. According to Komen, this applies to Planned Parenthood because it's the focus of an inquiry launched by Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., seeking to determine whether public money was improperly spent on abortions.
Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, has depicted Stearns' probe as politically motivated and said she was dismayed that it had contributed to Komen's decision to halt the grants to PPFA affiliates.
"It's hard to understand how an organization with whom we share a mission of saving women's lives could have bowed to this kind of bullying," Richards told The Associated Press. "It's really hurtful."
Planned Parenthood has been a perennial target of protests, boycotts and funding cutoffs because of its role as the largest provider of abortions in the United States. Its nearly 800 health centers nationwide provide an array of other services, including birth control, testing for sexually transmitted diseases, and cancer screening.
According to Planned Parenthood, its centers performed more than 4 million breast exams over the past five years, including nearly 170,000 as a result of Komen grants.
Komen, founded in 1982, has invested more than $1.9 billion since then in breast-cancer research, health services and advocacy. Its Race for the Cure fundraising events have become a global phenomenon.
For all its mainstream popularity, however, Komen has been a target of anti-abortion groups since it began its partnerships with Planned Parenthood in 2005.
Life Decisions International includes Komen on its "boycott list" of companies and organizations that support or collaborate with Planned Parenthood. In December, Lifeway Christian Resources, the publishing division of the Southern Baptist Convention announced a recall of pink Bibles it had sold because some of the money generated for Komen was being routed to Planned Parenthood.
Aun, the Komen spokeswoman, said such pressure tactics were not the reason for the funding cutoff and cited Stearns' House investigation as a key factor.
That investigation, which has no set timetable, was launched in September when Stearns asked Planned Parenthood for more than a decade's worth of documents.
Stearns, in a statement emailed to the AP on Monday, said he is still working with Planned Parenthood on getting the requested documents. He said he is looking into possible violations of state and local reporting requirements, as well as allegations of financial abuse, and would consider holding a hearing depending on what he learns.
Many of the allegations were outlined in a report presented to Stearns last year by Americans United for Life, a national anti-abortion group, which urged him to investigate.
Democrats and Planned Parenthood supporters have assailed the probe as an unwarranted political ploy.
Komen, while not publicly announcing its decision to halt the grants, has conveyed the news to its 100-plus U.S. affiliates. Richards said she was informed via a phone call from Komen's president, Elizabeth Thompson, in December.
"It was incredibly surprising," Richards said. "It wasn't even a conversation ? it was an announcement."
Richards subsequently sent a letter to Komen's top leaders ? CEO Nancy Brinker and board chairman Dr. LaSalle D. Leffall, Jr. ? requesting a meeting with the board and asserting that Komen had misrepresented Planned Parenthood's funding-eligibility status in some states.
According to Planned Parenthood, the Komen leaders replied to Richards with a brief letter ignoring the request for a meeting, defending the new grant criteria, and adding, "We understand the disappointment of any organization that is affected by these policy and strategy updates."
Aun, in a telephone interview, said Komen was not accusing Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing.
"We want to maintain a positive relationship with them," she said. "We're not making any judgment."
Richards said Planned Parenthood is intent on raising funds quickly to replace the lost grants so that women in need do not go without breast-screening services. Already, the family foundation of Dallas oilman/philanthropist Lee Fikes and his wife, Amy, has donated $250,000 for this purpose, Planned Parenthood said.
The Komen decision was perplexing to Dottie Lamm, a Denver newspaper columnist and breast cancer survivor. She has done fundraising for Planned Parenthood, participated in several Races for the Cure, and serves on an honorary advisory council for the local Komen affiliate.
"It really makes me sad," said Lamm, wife of former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm. "I kind of suspect there's a political agenda that got to Komen ... I hope it can be worked out."
Stephanie Kight, a vice president with Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties, said her affiliate in Southern California received a Komen grant for 2011 and was able to obtain an additional grant of $120,000 for 2012 by signing the deal with its local Komen counterpart just before Komen's new criteria took effect. Under the criteria, no further grants will be allowed unless the pending House inquiry is resolved in Planned Parenthood's favor.
Kight said her conversations with local Komen leaders indicated there was a shared sense of frustration over the national Komen decision.
"One of the things these organizations share is the trust of women across the United States," Kight said. "That's what we're concerned about ? not losing the trust of these women, who turn to both of us at their most difficult moments."
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Online:
Susan G. Komen for the Cure: http://ww5.komen.org/
Planned Parenthood: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/
___
David Crary can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/CraryAP
Source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/news/2012/01/cancer-charity-halts-grants-planned-parenthood
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