U.S. Supreme Court denies lock closure request

Two Chicago locks will remain open for the time being, the U.S. Supreme Court announced today in response to Michigan’s request for immediate action to keep the invasive species Asian carp out of the Great Lakes.

The rest of the lawsuit, still unaddressed by the court, calls for the reopening of a nearly century-old lawsuit about Chicago’s diversion of water from Lake Michigan and permanent closure of the locks.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan argued in a brief sent to the court January 5 that Illinois is not the appropriate defendant in the case because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers controls the locks. She said the Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction over the dispute because lock closure is not a state versus state issue. Madigan added that the Asian carp situation has nothing to do with water diversion, the basis of the original lawsuit.

Robyn Ziegler, spokeswoman for the attorney general, said the office is “pleased with the Supreme Court’s decision” not to immediately close the locks.

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox said he is “extremely disappointed” with today’s decision. Indiana, Minnesota, New York, Ohio and Wisconsin and the Canadian province of Ontario are backing Michigan’s efforts. President Barack Obama’s administration opposes the lawsuit, calling it premature.

Cox said he is stunned by Obama’s “indifference,” which he plans to address through public pressure and congressional action.

"President Obama said he would not tolerate new threats to the Great Lakes, yet he has left the front door to Lake Michigan wide open," Cox said. "Billions in economic activity and 800,000 Michigan jobs connected with the health of the lakes are at risk.”

The court has yet to decide whether to take up the remainder of the case. February 19 is the deadline for interested parties to file positions on the case.

Sources : http://illinoisissuesblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/us-supreme-court.html

Controversial App Provides Background Checks On the Go

Online privacy is a constant and growing concern as the evolving landscape of Web sites and services erode the traditional expectations of privacy. A new app from BeenVerified is adding even more controversy to the privacy dilemma by enabling users to conduct background checks on anyone in a matter of seconds from their iPhone.

The Background Check App is free and employers and individuals can use it to conduct up to three free background checks per week via the iPhone. Users, particularly employers who may want to conduct checks of employees, vendors, suppliers, partners, and other parties they do business with, can also subscribe to the BeenVerified service which would grant them unlimited background checks starting at only $8 per month.

In the press release for the app, BeenVerified CEO Josh Levy says "A BeenVerified background check contains information collected from thousands of public records and publicly available data where the average person would not even know where to begin. All of the information found in our reports is already out there and accessible to anyone."

I contacted Levy and asked whether he feels that the background checks provided by BeenVerified are in any way a violation of an individual's expectation of privacy. Levy replied "It is not a violation of privacy to aggregate the data and present it in one place. The average person would not even know where to begin finding all of this public information and we help present public records in a way that maximizes the usefulness of the information."

I downloaded the app and did a background check on myself. In a matter of seconds the app returned results on a variety of "Anthony Bradley's" in the state of Texas. I was able to identify myself by complete name--including full middle name, age, a list of known addresses (city and state), and a list of known relatives.

Clicking through, I was presented with results with links to the various social networking sites I am a member of--Facebook, Flickr, Pandora, etc., as well as links to Web-based information about me. The results have additional tabs to view photos, property records, and criminal record.

Although it found me based on a search in Texas, the results did incorrectly list my "current" address as a house in Michigan I haven't lived in since 2005. I have moved twice since then. Overall, though, I was fairly impressed with the results given the speed and cost of getting them.

The app has generated some controversy from opponents who feel the background checks are a violation of privacy. Many people may have personal personas that they would prefer employers not know about. One article put it this way "Privacy is a way of managing multiple identities and their contradictions...There is a self I present to my boss, a self I present to my family, a self I present to the public and one for my closest friends. They're all different, authentic and they often contradict each other."

According to BeenVerified, though, there has been no controversy about the popularity of the app. In just three weeks since its release, approximately 400,000 users have downloaded the app, and one million checks have been run so far. The company is already working on Version 2.0 of it Background Check App and is about to release a version for both Blackberry and Android.

Responding to the idea that individuals have separate personas and whether or not the Background Check App crosses the line in exposing them, Levy told me "We consider them entirely separate issues. People have the right to control their own personas online, as those personas contain information presented in the first person. On the other hand, BeenVerified provides access to third-party public information."

The app is a great tool for small and medium businesses to be able to conduct free, or cost-effective background checks. It can also be valuable for single men and women playing the dating game, parents, and others who may want to make sure that the people they, or their children, are interacting with don't have some shady criminal past to be concerned about.

Levy summed up by telling me "The most important message I have is that BeenVerified is a compliment to any background check and not a supplement. A full background check consists of three things: First, one can run an Internet search to see information presented in places like social network. Second, a person should run a search on BeenVerified to check that information against third-party public records. Finally, the third and most important step, there is no replacement for common sense and intuition."

Posted by: Tony Bradley
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/187304/controversial_app_provides_background_checks_on_the_go.html

Scam Reverse People Finder

Are you seeing an unnamed number on your phone or home phone? Did the monthly phone charge come in and there are phone calls made to a figure that is unknown? Searching can supply you with answers to these varieties of calls into question - and more - with a Reverse Phone Lookup.

VISIT NOW to Reverse Lookup The Real Owner of That Number

What is a 'Reverse Phone Lookup? A Reverse Phone Lookup permits you to put in a phone number, whether landline or cell, and then leaves you with information relating the individual whose telephone number it is. Data such as the individual?s name and location will be offered to you at once. If you want extra first-class information such as address history, house records on that individual, you can find it on this website. Now that you understand what this type of reverse number lookup is, you could be needing to know if they are as functional as they appear. In a word, yes.

Why Run a Reverse Phone Lookup? Check who is irritating you so you can take him to court. From researching a phone bill, following an unwelcome caller, or verifying an address, Phone Detective Reverse Search is the best on the market, quick and simplified!

1. Observe who is calling your home phone, your cell phone, or your wife's phone.
2. Detect repeated calls from unfamiliar number on your caller ID.
3. Find out trick callers.
4. Find Out someone?s name and workplace.

Phone Detective Reverse Search leaves you with the name and address behind that unfamiliar number. On Phone Detective, we have resources to classified public records that goes beyond the white pages and therefore are efficient to supply you with contact info who needs to be disciplined. And if we can?t obtain it in our database right away, we?ll take an additional measure and run an complete seek and pass reverse phone lookup outcomes within three minutes at no extra billing.

Posted by: Julia Matiko
http://www.articlesbase.com/networks-articles/scam-reverse-people-finder-1750833.html

NUMB

I am inspired by this post, hope you like it.

"Good morning,
I woke up this morning, & the first word that popped in my head was NUMB. I am very use to that word, I use to feel NUMB, all the time. Have you ever looked in the mirror and saw someone you didn't know? & you didn't feel anything anymore, everything in your body goes numb.
(like your foot falling asleep) Its that tingling feeling. That numb feeling became apart of me, it never went away, it was there when I woke up, it was there when I fell asleep. It took almost a year to get that numb feeling to go away, and some days it comes back to visit. Have you ever felt it? I block out memories of my childhood, and think about the good ones, but every time there was a good memory, it was followed by a bad one right behind it. I was the walking dead, just all to my self, nothing to say to anyone, that's totally the opposite of who I am, I am very happy, energetic, and so loving to everyone. I ended up just isolating, not having friends, and just being alone. I was alone one of my biggest fears, of being alone. I mean yeah I had my mother who never left the couch watching T.V. & drinking but that wasnt someone I wanted to be around. I couldnt get away from her everywhere I would turn I would see her. I mean she is still with me everywhere I go now, I think about her when I am at school, or out shopping, or simply watching tv, and I get that numb feeling again it comes back, like o remember how you felt when your mom did this, or this. I hate it. Its one of those things, you try to let go, let go of your past but it still comes back. I wish I can block it all out, and start over. I would love that but no, it doesnt happen like that.

I shared alittle about my numbing feeling, its horrible, and if you start to get this too, please talk to someone you can trust, no one came to me and I felt so alone i wanted someone to reach out and get me away from the pain. But no one cam until a year later. Almost too late. So please get help, this is most likely depression, You shouldn't be alone. No one ever deserves to be alone. People who want help are not alone, people who refuse help are not alone they have there addiction to go back too. Everyone has someone, or something. Just remember you deserve the someone not the something."

Thanks to you stephanie

Original post : http://sbahr94-lwaa.blogspot.com/2009/12/numb.html

People Searches: Helping with Your People Search

I just saw a blog entry online, a kind of "missing persons" ad that puzzled me. A family in West Virginia is offering a $5000 reward for help provided in connection with their people search. Apparently, they are looking for a local mother and daughter who disappeared in 1999. The family patriarch and spokesperson expressed high hopes the reward will help unearth new information in connection with the missing relatives.

Here's the gist of the story: on Dec. 1, 1999, a mother in her late sixties and her forty-something daughter left their local home and set out on a shopping spree, never to be seen again. Their car was located five days later in a neighboring county.

The desire to learn more about, and possibly reunite with, family members was sparked by genealogy research. The family had lost all contact with these relatives after the mother of the current head of the family passed away in 1989; the missing women were his mother's sister and niece.

So now they're willing to pay $5000 to find these relatives, yet it's been 20 years since they'd had any contact with them, out of which they've been missing for 10. It's from one extreme to the other. It doesn't make much sense: why the sudden interest in the people who surely must have met with foul play and have long been dead? And if, by chance, the women are still living elsewhere, their relatives should really scale down their people search strategies and start with the much cheaper and a whole lot more effective. I'm talking about online people searches.

Where have these people been? Don't they know that today, for a price of a latte, they can find people online by name and last known location, or even by an old phone number?

If the missing people ever existed, there are public records containing information about their last address, phone number and many other details that have been collected for years. One can look around for all kinds of hints about their lives via people searches, even criminal records, if any. And if the missing people are dead, searching for vital records online can lead to the discovery of death certificates. Case closed.

Original Post : http://www.articlesbase.com/news-and-society-articles/people-searches-helping-with-your-people-search-905780.html

Chick Flicks….Guy Movies….The Works

For my birthday this year, I got the movie I’ve been looking for since I finished reading the book (in pdf). Cheers to that! I got Time Traveler’s Wife, a movie about a guy who time travels unexpectedly bringing him to meet his wife’s 6-year-old self. Actually it’s a love story and I’m a fan—sort of.

It’s a tear jerker, a hair raiser, a complete heart jumper; it’s hard to take the eyes off from the screen once a good movie starts playing. Find people who are movie fans and you’d be surprise.

In the age of Ipods, IMaxs, DVD players and YouTubes, movie marathons are a complete buzzer. They get people’s attention and have them hooked. And ever since films began rolling, it seems that genres are distinguished according to what men thinks are cool and what women take as fun.

Guy movies are films that define man’s masculinity in every way. The action packed flicks: the muscles, the ammos, the ladies, the cars. These are but a few that can be considered “For the boys only so BACK OFF” or “KEEP OUT”. Some of these movies are that of James Bond series, Mission Impossible, and Rocky.

Girls have their own reason to enjoy movies as well. Everything that touches the emotions are keeps for the chicks—that’s why these movies are called chick flicks. From dramas to romance, girl meets guy; guy meets girl, sparks fly. They may be tear jerker at times but are totally fun to watch.

The action is for boys; the dramas and romance for the girls. But like today’s modern trend where ladies wear pants and do stuff that were once “only boys can”, and boys taking careers where girls are most known to dominate; surely movies have their own twist that allows the ideas of films from the other gender’s preference to be accepted by the other as well.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, DOA, and Double Jeopardy are action films which have women for heroes thus these are considered chick flicks. These are films that show off the other side of womanhood—strong and smart. Types of movies such as these are a showcase of woman’s evolution.

Men have also their say with dramas. The Butterfly Effect, 8 Miles, and Benjamin Button are but some of those who have touched emotions showing the sensitive side of the male species. They cry too, matter of fact, and at times are more in touch with life than women.

We may find people enjoying the things that were not likely to fit their preferences. They may surprise us at times but gender movies of man and of woman has changed through time. Even women enjoy action as some men enjoy chick flicks like “Confessions of a shopaholic”. As of the moment, I don’t even care whether the film I got is for the ladies or the gents. What’s important is to sit back and relax while enjoying the movie as the DVD turns.

Posted by: Emma G. Fox is a freelance writer, with experiences working as a marketing executive in a leading authority on the web when it comes to conducting and searching background check and especially the people search, with the largest database consisting of over 26 billion government records is provided.

Original Post : http://www.articlesbase.com/movies-articles/chick-flicksguy-moviesthe-works-1705065.html

Hiring Celebrities is Not a Done Deal

Say one day, Kobe Bryant, Tim Allen and Michael Jackson are all applying in your nursery school. As the principal, who would you hire? Maybe you will reject downright Michael Jackson's application due to pedophile records and cases still in court, but who do you think is the better candidate between Kobe Bryant and Tim Allen? With much consideration, you accept both the applications and told them to wait for further notice.

You get to take a look at Tim Allen's resume first. Being the voice of Buzz Lightyear of Disney's animated film Toy Story, he could be the perfect candidate as children will obviously love him the instant they learn this. To add up to what to be more convincing, he is also dedicated and hardworking father in the sitcom Home Improvement that had won plethora of awards and upscale ratings. Tim Allen also played roles that children had laughed and loved like the series of The Santa Clause films. You wrote excellent over his application but remembered that there is Kobe Bryant's resume still waiting. As an American All-star shooting guard, Kobe Bryant is equally convincing to be the right person you can hire to be included in your school's administration and faculty. Being a NBA superstar alone is enough to make children go giddy with him. He could be the perfect role model and idol your children could ever have, face to face.

Both are impressing, but who's to call? You resort for background check and investigation to clear up your confusion. After all, it is under the federal law that anyone who seeks a job involving working with children must submit their selves to a background check. To your dismay, you have learned that both have criminal records that are not qualified to work with children. The result? Allen to be guilty of drunk driving, cocaine and illegal drug abuse opposite Bryant that was accused of rape and actually admitting it by stating a public mea culpa although the case was dropped.

To think that hiring celebrities could be one top prize decision, but with background check, you should have known better. Let them both wait for the call in vain, or else, you could face negligent hiring practice lawsuit in the future.

Posted By Hilda Carlsen
http://ezinearticles.com/?Hiring-Celebrities-is-Not-a-Done-Deal&id=1999574