| Brisbane blogger spreads school smut
SHE'S bitchy, biting, sarcastic and spiteful and she has taken cyber bullying to new heights with a website that is terrorising students at Brisbane's elite private schools. She is Gossip Girl Brisbane and her MySpace blog, created this month, already has attracted 470 users keen to use the site to denounce their peers with salacious details about their sexual orientation, drug problems, love lives and health woes. Forget scribbling gossip on the back of the toilet door at school, it's now out there for millions of web users to view. Gossip Girl does not name the girls she says are pregnant or the teens she says have had sex. She uses initials to indicate the person she is talking about. The blog, which is updated daily, mirrors the Fox 8 program Gossip Girl, in which the identity of Gossip Girl remains a secret and everyone relies on her website for the latest scoop.
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MINNETONKA, Minn. The ruins of the Minneapolis bridge collapse are all cleaned up now, but Garrett Ebling is still picking up the wreckage it made of his life."Every step I take I'm sore, so that's a reminder. Every time I look in the mirror and see my new nose, it's a reminder. My mouth gets sore every time I chew that's a reminder," said Ebling, a 32-year-old journalist who was among the worst injured when his Ford Focus plummeted 60 feet into the Mississippi River.
For most Minnesotans, what happened on Aug. 1 has receded from daily notice. Answers from a federal investigation into the cause are months away, and at the state Capitol the doomed bridge has become just another subject of partisan feuding.But for Ebling, and an estimated 15 or so others seriously injured in the catastrophe, the last few months have been just the beginning of a long struggle to regain their health.Ebling's "new sense of normal," as he calls it, means recovering from the numerous bones broken in his face and jaw, two broken feet, a compound fracture in his left arm, a severed colon and a collapsed lung."You try to find milestones," Ebling said.He has a few: The day he left the hospital, two months after the collapse; walking for the first time without a walker, right before Thanksgiving; and his first day back at work for a few hours, about four months after the collapse.Before Aug.
Apple iPhone Event
This is Jason Snell reporting live from the Town Hall theater on the Apple campus in Cupertino. The room is filling up with members of the media and analyst communities, music is playing (Mike Doughty's “27 Jennifers," if you must know), and we've been told to silence our cell phones under penalty of death, or at least very stern looks from Apple PR representatives. 10:01 PT: Steve Jobs walks onstage. “We're really excited to share some great news with you about the iPhone software roadmap… We've got some really cool stuff to announce, so let's get on with it." Now here come the iPhone statistics, based on the first eight months: In just eight months, the iPhone has garnered a 28 percent market share, second only to RIM (Blackberry), based on Q4 data. US mobile browser usage: iPhone 71 percent of market share.
Coaches discuss fairness of tournament site
New year, same debate.With the Mountain West Conference Basketball Championships looming, Monday's teleconference involving the league's coaches was dominated by the near-annual debate about the fairness of UNLV hosting the conference tournament.The exact answers varied, but -- especially with five new coaches on the scene -- all pointed towards further discussion in the offseason about finding a better plan."Unfortunately, until things change, the automatic (NCAA Tournament) qualifier is the conference tournament winner," New Mexico coach Steve Alford said. "And that's why I think it's very, very important for our league to really look closely at what we're doing with our league tournament, because having it at a host school, there's not any kind of balance or anything fair to that for the other eight teams in the league."Alford, in his first year at the helm for the Lobos, has been the most vocal about the situation and has made his comments public and very clear from Day One.He coached in the Big Ten at Iowa for the last eight seasons, where the conference tournament alternates between Chicago and Indianapolis, Ind.
Senior Labour figures claim ‘line was crossed’ in criticism of ...
Some guests have claimed that they attended thinking it was an event to establish bridges between government and business, and were unaware that proceeds from the dinner would fund the local Labour Party. When the row broke last week, Labour gave conflicting accounts of the nature of the SIF. Foulkes said that the forum was "never billed as politically neutral". A Labour spokesman said the forum was separate from the party. However, last night Robertson, a former UK defence secretary, claimed the organisation was "explicitly and unashamedly" set up by the party and "did not pretend to be anything else". He added: "The Scottish Industry Forum was similar to the Conservative Party's Focus on Scotland dinners, which raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for Tory coffers, and also like the SNP's Business for Scotland organisation.
Internet Gambling Deserves a New Chance
So let's draw the line on the ground--not in the thin air of cyberspace. We don't need gambling on the Internet. The U.S. isn't alone in this fight, either. Lots of countries ban Internet gambling, and many still outlaw gambling altogether. There are a lot of people who have weaknesses in the world. This online gambling thing is just another way for shysters to destroy the weak and suck them dry. It's anonymous, so the parasites don't even have to see their victims. It's an ugly thing we are better off without. .
DNC: More John McCain Double Talk in CPAC Speech
In fact, at CPAC, Campaign McCain took his do-anything-to-win presidential campaign to new lows, claiming to be a consistent conservative in a speech loaded with double talk on everything from pork spending, to immigration reform, to the Bush tax cuts. McCain bragged about his support for extending the President's reckless tax cuts, but failed to mention that he voted against them. He claimed to have stood by his immigration reform proposal even though he said just last week that he would vote against it if it returned to the Senate floor. And he pledged not to sign any spending bill with earmarks, despite pushing his own earmarks for Arizona while in Congress and relying on one of Washington's most successful pork lobbyists to fund his campaign. "John McCain's politically motivated flip-flops and shameless pandering to the right wing of the Republican Party show why the American people simply cannot trust him to provide the change they are looking for," said Democratic National Committee spokesman Damien LaVera.
Colleges, NHL Devising Ways To Work Together On Players' Early Entry ...
I don't think that's ever changed," NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said. The part of Okposo's departure that was hardest for Minnesota to take was that he had declined an offer last summer to sign with the Isles, who made him the seventh overall pick in the 2006 draft. Okposo was eager to play at least one more season at renowned Mariucci Arena and live the college life for another year. That changed when Islanders general manager Garth Snow came back with an increase of the club's original offer, encouraging Okposo to turn pro. For a 19-year-old determined to make a successful career out of his skills on the ice, the opportunity was too good to wait for. "Life has funny twists and turns," Michele Okposo said, adding: "Kyle was just sick about leaving." Snow, a former goalie who graduated from Maine and played for the Black Bears in the 1993 national championship game before 12 seasons in the NHL, described his college experience as one he'll "cherish" the rest of his life.
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Indigenous Designs Corp. prides itself as a truly green supplier. Its women's clothing is made from all-natural, sustainable materials, such as organic cotton, silk and alpaca. It adheres to strict fair-trade manufacturing practices overseas, runs its U.S. corporate office on solar power and encourages employees to bike to work. But all that feel-good stuff isn't what the Santa Rosa, Calif., company pushed when it met with executives from the Dillard's Inc. department-store chain at a trade show earlier this year. Instead, the apparel maker talked up fashion, design, and price -- mentioning the organic and fair-trade chit only as an extra bonus. .
Michael Pointer: Purdue Q&A
Question: When will the Purdue quarterback actually look off his primary receiver and go through his progressions? From what I saw Saturday, come-heck-or-high-water, Curtis Painter is going to throw to his primary, even if there is a crowd. And, on two of those interceptions, no Boiler receiver was in the area. I haven't seen anyone say that a receiver zigged when he should have zagged. Were those interceptions all on Painter? Quotes from coaches and Painter seem to suggest so. (Mike from Kokomo)
Answer: Mike, I have covered four quarterbacks since I've been on the Purdue beat: Brandon Hance, Kyle Orton, Brandon Kirsch and Painter. (I missed having the pleasure of covering Drew Brees.) I heard that complaint about everyone of them, including Orton, who had 31 touchdown passes and just five interceptions as a starter.
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