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Can an Egypt-style uprising happen in the U.S.?

David Seaton
David Seaton's News Links
Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:06 UTC
Egypt
© The New York Times
The Tahrir Square uprising "has nothing to do with left or right," said Dina Shehata, a researcher at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. "It is about young people rebelling against a regime that has stifled all channels for their upward mobility. They want to shape their own destiny, and they want social justice" from a system in which a few people have gotten fantastically rich, in giant villas, and everyone else has stagnated. Thomas Friedman - NYT

We have an inequality index that can go head to head with Egypt's. Of course food's cheaper here, so no one's in the streets. Thomas Geoghegan, Chicago labor lawyer - NYT

No matter how sympathetic we are with their struggle, most of us following the events in Egypt probably see it as something very foreign: an exotically attired, dark skinned people, speaking heavily accented English in a far off land, rebelling against the corrupt regime of an aging dictator, something to which we can only identify with by an intensely imaginative use of our powers of empathy, seeing few similarities with our own lives and condition. Wrong. Thomas Friedman, of all people, brought it all closer to home for me.
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Attention

US: Updated - Five dead after massive Allentown, Pennsylvania gas explosion

Christopher Baxter
LA Times
Thu, 10 Feb 2011 15:45 UTC
Explosion destroys at least two center city homes, sets six on fire, more than 600 people evacuated.


Five people - including a 4-month-old boy - have died in Allentown's massive gas explosion and fire, authorities confirmed at a Thursday afternoon news conference. Search crews have located four of the five victims and the recovery operation continues. Lehigh County Coroner Scott Grim declined to identify the dead whose bodies have been recovered, describing them only as a 79-year-old man, a 69-year-old woman, a 16-year-old girl and a 4-month old baby. Grim said search dogs were being used to find the fifth victim.

Family members and friends earlier confirmed the dead as: William Hall, 79, and his wife, Beatrice, 74, of 544 N. 13th St.; and Ofelia Ben, 69, Catherine Cruz, 16, and Matthew Manuel Cruz, 4 months, of 542 N. 13th St. About a dozen people were injured and more than 350 were forced to evacuate from surrounding blocks and the Gross Towers seniors apartment complex when an apparent gas leak ignited at 544 N. 13th St. about 10:45 p.m. Wednesday.
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Laptop

US: Employees Fired After Forwarding Obama E-Mail


WTAE
Mon, 07 Feb 2011 04:04 UTC

Caption Compared President To Tar Ball In Gulf Of Mexico

Lawsuits were filed against the Centers for Rehab Services by two employees who were fired over an e-mail comparing President Barack Obama to a tar ball washing ashore in the Gulf of Mexico.

The company said the e-mail was inappropriate, but the employees said they were just expressing their political views and were wrongfully fired.

Team 4 investigator Paul Van Osdol reported that the e-mail in question was circulated last summer while the federal government was trying to contain the massive Gulf oil spill.

It showed an image of Obama walking along a Gulf beach with the caption, "Another tar ball washed up on the shore."

In a memo, a Centers for Rehab Services official called it "an inappropriate e-mail that contained political and discriminatory content."

The lawsuit said the e-mail led the company to fire Deborah Bonanno and James Sprung, who received the e-mail and forwarded it to co-workers.

In court papers, an attorney for Bonanno and Sprung said, "The motivation behind CRS' termination was to stifle (the employees') freedom of expression on a matter of public concern" -- namely, the Gulf disaster.

Vic Walczak, the ACLU's legal director in Pennsylvania, said employees have "very few" rights to sound off at work.

Walczak said he had not seen the lawsuits, but he said the Constitutional right to free speech does not apply when someone uses a workplace computer.
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Laptop

U.S.: Pennsylvania Teacher Suspended Over Blog About Students

Brad Segall and Todd Quinones
CBS Philly
Wed, 09 Feb 2011 15:37 UTC
Natalie Munroe

Teacher Natalie Munroe
This is a clear case of what happens online, stays online.

The Central Bucks School District has suspended a high school English teacher after parents complained to administrators about her blog in which she railed on her students for more than a year.

Phrases on the blog include; "Frightfully dim," "Rat-like," "Am concerned your kid is going to open fire on the school," "I hate your kid," and "Seems smarter than she actually is."
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Ambulance

US: 3 dead, 2 missing after massive Pennsylvania natural gas explosion


MSNBC / Associated Press
Thu, 10 Feb 2011 13:05 UTC
Three people including a 4-month-old child were dead and two were missing Thursday after a massive natural gas explosion demolished two row homes and set six others ablaze in eastern Pennsylvania.

Allentown fire Chief Robert Scheirer said a two-story row house exploded about 10:45 p.m. Wednesday. An elderly couple who lived in the home died. They were identified by their daughter-in-law as Beatrice Hall, 74, and her husband, William, 79, the Allentown Morning Call newspaper reported on its website.

The baby was not identified.

UGI Corp. said Thursday morning that one of its natural-gas pipelines likely exploded.


Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
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Attention

Tamer Hosny, Egypt's Answer to Justin Timberlake, Attacked in Cairo's Tahrir Square


NY Daily News
Thu, 10 Feb 2011 15:27 UTC
Tamer Hosny
© YouTube / Getty
Egyptian pop star Tamer Hosny was attacked in Tahrir Square Wednesday a week after he called for an end to the protests.
The Arab world's King of Pop - who had publicly dissed Egypt's pro-democracy protests - went to Tahrir Square Wednesday to apologize.

First he was run out with catcalls and punches and had to be saved by the army.

Then he started to cry.

"I want to die today," Tamer Hosny said, blubbering on the video burning up Twitter and YouTube. "I thought I was saving the people."
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Stormtrooper

Ontario Woman Sues Over Strip-Search at U.S. Border


CBS Detroit
Thu, 10 Feb 2011 01:01 UTC
ambassador bridge
An angry and embarrassed Ontario woman who says she was strip-searched at the Ambassador Bridge without justification has sued two U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents.

The Detroit Free Press says Loretta Van Beek of Stratford filed the suit in Detroit federal court against the unnamed agents. She says she was en route to her Georgia vacation home last March when one agent strip-searched and groped her while the other one watched.
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Light Saber

'Nearly one million protesters descend on Cairo square'

Avi Issacharoff
Haaretz
Thu, 10 Feb 2011 14:09 UTC
Image
© AP Photo/Victoria Hazou
Young girls wave Egyptian flags atop an armored vehicle just outside Tahrir or Liberation Square in Cairo, Egypt.

Number of demonstrators climbing steadily, Al Jazeera reports, despite Egypt FM's warning that military could be forced into action if demonstrations continue; protesters have called for a second '1-million-strong rally' on Friday.

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptian anti-government protesters stood their ground in Cairo's Tahrir Square for a 17th day on Thursday, despite Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit's warning that the military could intervene if demonstrations continue.

Hundreds had camped overnight in and around Cairo's Tahrir Square, within sight of the nearby parliament buildings. By late afternoon, Al-Jazeera reported that nearly one million demonstrators had gathered.
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Passport

Canadian sues claiming abuse at U.S. border

D. Ashenfelter, L. Higgins & E. D. Lawrence
Detroit Free Press
Thu, 10 Feb 2011 14:21 UTC
Wayne County - A 46-year-old Canadian woman sued two unidentified female U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in U.S. District Court in Detroit on Wednesday, saying one of them strip-searched and groped her without justification as the other one watched at the Ambassador Bridge last March.

Loretta Van Beek of Stratford, Ontario, who said she travels to the U.S. regularly to vacation in Georgia, said agents sent her to secondary inspection because she failed to declare raspberries.

She said agents questioned her during a two-hour session, then ordered her to strip. She said one agent aggressively groped her breasts and genital area for an extended period of time while the other watched. Then they photographed and fingerprinted her and sent her back to Canada, the suit said.

Her lawyer, S. Thomas Wienner of Rochester, said she was traumatized by the incident and wants to find out whether there are other victims.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it couldn't comment on pending litigation.
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Cult

Mayoral candidates go after Emanuel on taxes, slavery reparations

John Chase
Chicago Tribune
Thu, 10 Feb 2011 13:43 UTC
Image
© Chris Sweda, Chicago Tribune
Miguel del Valle reaches over Rahm Emanuel to shake hands with William "Dock" Walls during the Chicago Defender-sponsored mayoral debate Wednesday at the DuSable Museum. All six candidates were at the debate, including Gery Chico, left, Carol Moseley Braun and Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins.
Debate is the first to feature all 6 hopefuls

Rahm Emanuel found himself criticized on issues ranging from taxes to reparations for slavery Wednesday night during the first forum featuring all six candidates for Chicago mayor.

The former White House chief of staff mostly ignored the barbs, especially those from Gery Chico, former Chicago school board president. He contended that Emanuel would burden taxpayers with a service tax Emanuel has proposed as part of a plan that would include a quarter-point cut in the city sales tax.

Two other candidates, William "Dock" Walls and Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins, slammed Emanuel for his positions on tax increment financing districts and reparations.

Emanuel agreed with most candidates in supporting reparations for descendants of slavery, but said that all citizens need to keep in mind that the city has a significant budget deficit to tackle.
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