Government

Idiots…

A city correction officer took a cell phone photo of his co-worker sleeping on duty, leading to disciplinary action against both of them.

The photo shows guard Nadja Green, in uniform, leaning back in a chair with her arms folded on her chest, eyes closed and mouth open. An inmate is standing next to her, making a “peace” sign.

Source/Full Story: FOXNews.com

Western governments have overstated the role the Internet plays in the recruitment of militants, and measures to block extremist material are “crude, expensive and counterproductive”, a report said on Tuesday.

Any attempts to filter or restrict access to sites grooming potential suicide bombers would be impractical and ineffective, said the study by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) in London.

In fact there was little politicians could do, said the report, which brought together government, industry and experts to look at the issue.

“Self-radicalisation and self-recruitment via the Internet with little or no relation to the outside world rarely happens, and there is no reason to suppose that this situation will change in the near future,” it said. “Indeed it is largely ineffective at drawing in new recruits.”

For years, governments and security agencies have warned that the Web was allowing extremists, particularly Islamist militants, to recruit and radicalise people to their causes.
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While most of the focus has been on al Qaeda-inspired Islamist militants, far-right white supremacist sites are equally as popular, the report found.

Source: Reuters

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a part of the Voting Rights Act aimed at helping minorities elect their preferred candidates only applies in electoral districts where minorities make up more than half the population.

The decision could make it harder for some minority candidates to win election and for southern Democrats, in particular, to draw friendly electoral boundaries after the 2010 Census.

The 5-4 decision, with the court’s conservatives in the majority, came in the case of a North Carolina plan that sought to preserve the influence of African-American voters even though they made up just 39 percent of the population in a state legislative district.

While not a majority, the black voters were numerous enough to effectively determine the outcome of elections, the state argued in urging the court to extend the civil rights law’s provision to the district.

The state said the district should be protected by the section of the law that bars states from reducing the chance for minorities to “elect representatives of their choice.”

But Justice Anthony Kennedy, announcing the court’s judgment, said the court had never extended the law to those so-called crossover districts and would not do so now. The 50 percent rule “draws clear lines for courts and legislatures alike,” Kennedy said in ruling against the North Carolina district.

In 2007, the North Carolina Supreme Court had struck down the district, saying the Voting Rights Act applies only to districts with a numerical majority of minority voters. The district also violated a provision of the state constitution keeping district boundaries from crossing county lines, the court said.

Kennedy said that, absent prohibitions like North Carolina’s rule against crossing county lines, “states that wish to draw crossover districts are free to do so.” But they are not required, he said.

Source: The Orange County Register