| Former drug ranch resurfaces as luxury retreat
For two decades, Rancho del Rio has loomed in the public consciousness as a misbegotten parcel of unfulfilled dreams. It was a haven for a convicted marijuana and cocaine smuggler. Former Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates later envisioned it as a law enforcement training center and retreat for law enforcement. Then, the Girl Scouts Council of Orange County bought it, in part with cookie money, and dreamed of developing a campground there until they grew weary of hauling in portable toilets and water. The property never quite worked out for the current property owners either, but it did capture their hearts. Privately, the family who bought it two years ago have taken to calling it "Shamrock Ranch" because, an associate said, every time you're there, you feel lucky.
Close of Wikileaks website raises free speech concerns
I think we are seeing the limits of a jurisdiction-based judicial system as it faces a relatively borderless Internet," says David Ardia, director of the Citizen Media Law Project, a Harvard-linked group advocating for free speech. The court orders are stunningly broad, he says, and suggest a lack of seriousness about the First Amendment. Rather than addressing just the handful of bank documents brought up by the case, Judge Jeffrey White tried to shut down the entire Wikileaks site, which claims to have received over 1.2 million documents "from dissident communities and anonymous sources." If this kind of order had been given in the 1971 Pentagon Papers case, says Mr. Ardia, the court would be ordering the Teamsters to park their trucks and permanently refuse to deliver any copies of The New York Times.
UW plans grand expansion of Canada's largest mathematics and computer ...
WATERLOO, ON, Nov. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of Waterloo will greatly expand Canada's largest youth outreach program in mathematics and computer science - currently reaching close to half-a-million young people - because of a gift from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The US$12.5-million donation is a "visionary gift," says David Johnston, president of the University of Waterloo. "It will allow our Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing (CEMC) to expand its world-class outreach program to reach hundreds of thousands more youth and educators around the world." UW and the foundation share a common goal to give young people the opportunity to develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in an ever-changing world. "The University of Waterloo has established a record of academic excellence, fostering intellectual growth in the fields of math and computer science," said Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Man faces sentencing in Calif. investment scam targeting seniors that ...
LA HABRA, Calif. - William Miller dreamed of traveling to Italy with his wife and fixing up their modest house with the money he saved while working for 36 years for Chevron Corp. Instead, he lost $450,000 — half his retirement nest egg — after investing with a company that authorities later said netted more than $190 million in a huge Ponzi scheme targeting seniors. "I can't do what I wanted to," said Miller, now 88, widowed and fighting Parkinson's disease. "I realize that I just can't trust anyone anymore." Three people at Daniel W. Heath & Associates, which had offices across Southern California, were convicted last month of charges including grand theft, selling false securities and theft from the elderly. Company president Daniel W.
Archaeologists return to Sassanid city threatened by Salman-e Farsi ...
They plan to commence a new phase of studies at the location to research the transition from the Sassanid era to the Islamic period.
Whilst undertaking excavations in April 2007, a team led by Alireza Jafari-Zand discovered the ruins of structures dating back to the early Islamic era which had been built on the site's Sassanid strata.
The 360-hectare city also contains remains of buildings dating back to the Post-Achaemenid era.
The Sassanid city will be entirely submerged if the Fars Regional Water Company begins filling the dam.
The new phase of excavations has commenced with the digging of a 1X1.5-meter trench near an Imamzadeh -- located northeast of the city, Jafari-Zand told the Persian service of CHN on Tuesday. “Strata from the Sassanid and early Islamic eras can be observed in the trench.
Fabio Capello, I picked up the lingo in no time
Telling him I am molto freddo (cold) but otherwise bene (good) is easy. I am a dab hand at ordering a caffè latte, and know not to order a latte in Italy (fools, you will get a glass of milk). But when Mauro starts talking about everyday stuff at a mile a minute, I am lost. When we part, I also make the mistake of saying Ciao bella to him. In other words, I call him a beautiful lady. So while I am not anywhere near fluent after a month's coaching I feel I have established some foundations and have decided to have more lessons. Plus, judging from Fabio's pre-match press conference yesterday, which he conducted in Italiano and broken English ("I will speak English with you when I can be sure that I know all the right words, because you are very good at twisting things and I am very careful"), it seems he has failed in his challenge as well.
Glenn Greenwald Is So Right It Hurts
Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald has nearly every quality I like in a man: he's pretty, smarter than me, righteous, and he hates both that Washington Post ass Richard Cohen and Gawker. Glenn's crusade against The Politico—they're in bed with Matt Drudge (Mmm! Tasty!) and their barrier-to-print is too low and therefore error-full—has become a war against the shallow right-wing internets newspaper-destroying conspiracy of which we are a part! According to Glenn, there is a war on overseas! This is no time for "The Gawker cool guy" [Ed Note: Hasten Doree's gender transformation] to be shallow and petty about how The Politico is destroying everything the First Amendment holds dear. Cynicism is the end of us! Has he been to New York City lately? If he had, he would know just how seriously we in Manhattan take the permanent war of on terror.
'Caramel' is subtle & razor smart
Caramel, which is performed in Arabic and French, was Lebanon's entry in the Oscar race as best foreign language film. It did not make it to the final five nominations, but that was not for a lack of quality. As a light-hearted yet razor-smart, bittersweet comedy about life in Beirut, Caramel has important things to say, including about the displaced position of women in an Arabic country. It just says them on the sly. And it never talks about the obvious -- the constant threat and the long history of war in one of the crossroads countries of the Middle East. That must take courage in a place where few films are made and much needs to be debated in every medium of the arts. The title -- which is Sukkar Banat in its original language -- refers to the sugary concoction that Lebanese women cook up when they want to rip out unwanted hair.
Long-running dispute over Chesapeake tract settled
A long and contentious legal battle over one of the largest undeveloped tracts left in Chesapeake has been settled, ending a case that highlighted the difficult balance of property rights and government protection of wetlands. The U.S. Department of Justice released three proposed agreements last week that would resolve alleged wetlands violations dating to 1999 on the Bosher Tract, also known as the Green Sea Farm, a 1,560-acre parcel in southern Chesapeake. The Bosher family, which owns the land, says hired hands merely were cleaning out farm ditches in 1999, the government says they were illegally dumping muck and dirt from the ditches into ecologically important nontidal wetlands, considered "waters of the United States." The settlements side step this core issue, but include a $65,000 penalty against Elwood H.
Romance Report: Kate vs. Pete, Olsen PDA
We've put the wedding on pause and the engagement as well. I didn't want to force the wedding on Spencer. We're just going back to being boyfriend and girlfriend ..." Heidi tells the mag, with her partner in publicity piping in, "When our relationship was flawless." As for her engagement ring, which TMZ.com has claimed wasn't so much a honkin' diamond as a thrifty amethyst, the fame-seeking starlet says, "I turned it into a pendant ... It wasn't my dream ring. I don't like what it represents. I might sell it." Her soul not included. Nothing says romance quite like scooping up the bullet-ridden bodies of game birds, at least if you're Prince William and Kate Middleton, who were snapped nuzzling in between hauling dead fowl on a pre-holiday pheasant shoot this week in Windsor. According to the London Sun, the "festive" outing was a Christmas gift from the prince's grandma, the Queen, and offered further evidence over how serious his rekindled relationship with Middleton has become.
TODAY'S VOTE
Police have been called in and the council has ordered an urgent review after claims its parking arrangements across the town could be illegal. If the allegations are proved, the council could have to pay back thousands of fines imposed on motorists. .
Ovechkin joining Habs rare rumour that has legs
If you were watching the Canadiens' 5-2 win over Washington last night, chances are your attention was about evenly divided between the Habs and the kid wearing No. 8 for the Capitals: the incomparable Alexander Ovechkin. And chances are, more than a few of you closed your eyes and dreamed the dream: Ovechkin wearing the CH. .
Scott Ostler Archive
Somebody kicked LaDainian Tomlinson's butt Sunday, but it wasn't a 49er. It was Tomlinson's wife. One of the Chargers running back's four rushing touchdowns Sunday was a 1-yard "run" in which the 5-foot-10 superstar launched himself up and over the pile of human wreckage and into the end zone. It was a 7-foot high jump, without a pit. To stop L.T. on that one, the 49ers would have needed a butterfly net. "Each time I do it (a touchdown leap), my wife is killing me," Tomlinson said with a grimace. "When I get home, it's going to be, 'Honey, I'm sorry.' " Oh, yeah, there were a lot of regrets on the Chargers' side Sunday at Monster Park. Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers said, "I'm still a little bit mad about some plays we missed." Even with missing all those plays, the Chargers still eked out a 48-19 win over the 49ers.
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