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http://www.latimes.com/services/site/premium/access-registered.intercept Some attorneys might shy away from using a witness who says he has been abducted by bizarre creatures that repeatedly return at night to poke tiny holes in his chest. But a Santa Barbara County prosecutor said Wednesday that he intends to present testimony from just such a witness next week in a civil case against the owner of the county's largest land-based oil and gas producer. The man's credibility in the county's lawsuit against Greka Energy is "a valid issue to be litigated," said Deputy Dist. Atty. Jerry Lulejian, adding that videos of the strange visitations may be...

Petaluma Man Who Kept 1,300 Rats Blames a 'Force Of Nature' From the Associated Press June 30, 2006 PETALUMA, Calif. — It all started four years ago, when Roger Dier bought a baby rat to feed his pet Indian python. But when he saw the furry little critter squeaking for its life, the lifelong animal lover said he didn't have the heart to let it become just another snake snack. "I couldn't stand it," he told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. "I took the rat out of the cage and got to know it." After that, Dier was hooked on...

The Alito testimony you won't hear By Stephen R. Dujack, Writer/editor STEPHEN R. DUJACK graduated from Princeton and covered CAP for the university's alumni magazine from 1976 to 1986. [snip] Late last Thursday, Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued a list of witnesses to testify for the Democrats on Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s nomination to the Supreme Court. I was on that list — a mere writer with a bachelor's degree — among all the distinguished household names. But by the end of the day Friday, I wasn't on the list anymore. I had been...

PROFILE | SAYRE WEAVER By Sandy Banks, Times Staff Writer It's hard to imagine Sayre Weaver as the California gun lobby's Public Enemy No. 1. Slight and soft-spoken, the Yale-educated attorney doesn't march or testify or legislate. She litigates. Relentlessly. With a laser-sharp focus that has delivered a series of body blows to an industry long accustomed to beating back efforts at gun control. For 10 years, Weaver has been working to staunch the flow of "Saturday night specials" — cheap handguns that cost less than a good pair of sneakers and are the weapon of choice in the criminal...

US Faces 'Extreme' Temperature Changes: Study Washington (AFP) Oct 17, 2005 The continental United States will face more extreme temperatures during the next century and worse rainfall along its Gulf Coast which has been ravaged by hurricanes this year, according to a climate study released Monday. The study, published on the online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, warned that greenhouse gases will likely swell to twice their current levels by the century's end. "Imagine the weather during the hottest two weeks of the year," lead researcher Noah Diffenbaugh said, referring to northeast United States....

Bush Pledges Border Control The president, in a rare Southland visit, treads the middle ground in immigration furor. By Peter Wallsten and Mark Z. Barabak, Times Staff Writers With increasingly fierce debates over border security exposing divisions in the Republican Party, President Bush on Monday endorsed a policy of strict border enforcement. His comments during appearances in California and Arizona were an apparent response to some state officials and conservatives in his own party who say the administration has failed to adequately address human trafficking from Mexico into the United States. Officials in the two states have struggled to balance...

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/letters/la-le-sat3.2jun03,0,2195082.story?coll=la-news-comment-letters NRA, Politicians Share the Blame for Rampage Re "Two-Day Rampage Leaves Trail of Death and Questions," June 1: Would the horrific and bloody rampage by Toby Whelchel have been possible had he not possessed a handgun? [snip] I think not.... [snip] It is time for California to lead the nation and outlaw the possession of all handguns by private citizens. David Rosen Long Beach

Some professor being challenged on tolerance of political views other than hers yelled "We completely forbid anyone to say we're intolerant!" or words to that effect. Can anyone source and date this for me? Thanks.

The Liberty Amendment AMENDMENT 28 1. The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution is hereby altered to read in its entirety, “The right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms Shall Not Be Infringed.” 2. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is abolished. The regulatory duties of the Bureau relating to Alcohol will be transferred to the FDA. 3. The Fourteenth Amendment to this Constitution is hereby repealed. Citizenship shall depend upon parentage; if one parent is a citizen, the child is a citizen; if neither is, then the child is not. Naturalization is still open as...

Tried for a weekend to install NSW on an AMD system running XP Pro. No go. Spent hours on the phone with Symantec. No good. Installed Ghost. Installs fine; errors out when run. I thought by now AMD systems would be fully compatible; evidently I was wrong. "Fully contemptible" might be more appropriate. Any suggestions? I am thinking of pitching it and going back to intel. --Boris

Looking for a ranking of states with liberal gun laws. Ideally, I would like to cross-reference them with states having excellent medical care (a la U.S. News). Alas, it seems the states with good hospitals/doctors tend to have the most restrictive gun laws. Yeah, thinking about retirment. I'd like to move to New Hampshire, but it is not famous for medical excellence. Thanks--

ON THE LAW Animal Rights Advocacy Is a Growing Field More legal programs are offering classes for students interested in issues of pet cruelty, cosmetics testing and veterinary malpractice. By Rachana Rathi, Times Staff Writer Marissa Nuncio is passionate about your pet. "Fighting for animal rights is as important as fighting for other social justice issues," said Nuncio, a second-year student at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. "It's literally fighting for the underdog." Nuncio and two of her like-minded classmates were preparing for a trip to Boston this weekend, where they will debate animal rights issues in a national...

Teenager Kills Teacher at Elementary School From Times Wire Reports A 17-year-old boy armed with a sashimi knife stabbed a teacher to death and wounded two other adults at his former elementary school, then stood in the faculty lounge and smoked a cigarette with the bloody blade still in his hand. [snip]

NASA: 2004 saw record warming By Andrew Revkin Last year was the fourth warmest since systematic temperature measurements began around the world in the 19th century, NASA scientists said Wednesday. Particularly high temperatures were measured over Alaska, the Caspian Sea region of Europe and the Antarctic Peninsula, while the United States was unusually cool. But the global average continued a 30-year rise that is "due primarily to increasing green-house gases in the atmosphere," said Dr. James E. Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in New York. The main source of such gases is smokestack and tailpipe emissions...

Poverty, Climate on Davos Agenda At annual Alpine event, France's Chirac urges international taxes to fund Third World aid. By Sebastian Rotella, Times Staff Writer DAVOS, Switzerland — British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac urged political and economic leaders Wednesday to take drastic action against poverty and global warming as the World Economic Forum began its annual meeting here. Blair and Chirac used the gathering of major world figures at this Alpine resort to speak for a European Union that was trying to forge an assertive foreign policy targeting social and environmental causes. In contrast to...

U.S. Immigration Could Spell Big Business Saturday January 22, 4:01 PM EST By Reshma Kapadia NEW YORK (Reuters) - The largest immigration boom in U.S. history is expected to lift earnings at companies from discount retailers to telecommunications providers, putting dollar signs in the eyes of investors looking to cash in on the wave of newcomers, mostly from Latin America and Asia. Demographics is "one of the top five tools any macro analyst and investment manager should be following," said Robert Justich, senior managing director at Bear Stearns Asset Management. "And there has been no bigger demographic change than today's...

Did the mods pull this thread? I can't find it...

Supreme Court won't toss local gun-liability lawsuit By Hope Yen, Associated Press WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court declined Monday to consider dismissing a lawsuit seeking to hold gun manufacturers responsible for the 1999 shooting of a letter carrier by a white supremacist. Without comment, justices let stand a ruling of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that reinstated a lawsuit against gun manufacturers and distributors. The companies' weapons were used by Buford Furrow to kill Filipino-American postal carrier Joseph Ileto and wound five people at a Jewish day care center in a San Fernando Valley rampage. The high court's...

Wal-Mart Settles Gun Sales Lawsuit The retailer will pay $14.5 million in its deal with California over alleged violations. By Julie Tamaki, Times Staff Writer Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will pay $14.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the California attorney general that accuses the nation's largest retailer of a host of gun law violations, state officials said Wednesday. The settlement, the largest of its kind since Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer's office established a firearms division in 1999, requires Wal-Mart to pay $5 million in fines. Lockyer said the deal also called for Wal-Mart, which agreed last year to halt...

JONATHAN CHAIT: Why Academia Shuns Republicans A few weeks ago, a pair of studies found that Democrats vastly outnumbered Republicans among professors at leading universities. Conservatives gleefully seized upon this to once again flagellate academia for its liberal bias. Am I the only person who fails to understand why conservatives see this finding as vindication? After all, these studies show that some of the best-educated, most-informed people in the country overwhelmingly reject the GOP. Why is this seen as an indictment of academia, rather than as an indictment of the Republican Party? Conservatives have a ready answer. The only reason...