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A WOMAN who was injured while having sex in her hotel room during a work trip has won compensation. After a five-year legal battle, the Federal Court dismissed an appeal from the woman's former employer, which argued that having sex during a work trip had nothing to do with her job. However the court ruled that if the applicant had been injured while playing a game of cards in her motel room she would be entitled to compensation and the fact that the woman was "engaged in sexual activity rather than some other lawful recreational activity while in her hotel...

Two steps forward and one back

But a Gallup poll released Wednesday found that more Americans think banning assault and semi-automatic guns wouldn’t be as effective at preventing school shootings compared with alternatives — such as increasing the government’s mental health spending and adding police presence at schools. Pew notes that public opinion for gun control legislation remains significantly lower than before Obama took office.

JAKE TAPPER leaving ABC joining CNN

Prisons for Haiti: U.S. to Build Two Complexes Near Port au Prince (NEWS BRIEF)By Steve Peacock, U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor (Dec. 20, 2012) The U.S. Department of State is arranging the construction of two prison facilities outside Haiti's capital of Port au Prince. The project, with an estimated top-cost of $10 million, includes a 150-bed prison and 200-bed womens prison in Petit Goave and Cabaret, Haiti, respectively. State tentatively scheduled a "pre-proposal conference and site visit" for prospective prison-industry contractors in Port au Prince for February 5-6, 2013. Source document: Solicitation #SAQMMA13R0067. FOR ADDITIONAL COVERAGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE ISSUES,...

Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist chief minister reviled for failing to stop the 2002 massacre of Muslims in Gujarat, was hailed as a candidate for India's next prime minister after a landslide victory in the state elections. [...] Britain announced it would end its boycott in October and sent its High Commissioner to meet Mr Modi as part of its drive to increase trade with India, while the United States said he would be eligible to apply for another visa. Both decisions were driven in part by the possibility that Mr Modi could be India's next prime minister.

Today the House Ethics Committee announced that it was taking no action against Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) who secretly took a $40,000 payment from an individual who subsequently pled guilty in a multi-million-dollar mortgage scam. In 2007, Meeks received $40,000 from a "businessman," Edul Ahmad. Under the Ethics in Government Act, Congressmen are required to disclose such financial transactions on their annual Financial Disclosure Reports. Meeks failed to disclose the transaction on his reports for 2007, 2008 and 2009. In 2010, the New York Daily News reported, "Queens Congressman Gregory Meeks made no payments for three years on a...

The human race, in its advanced economic form, is committing euthanasia. The US, UK, Europe and Japan are all implementing economic policies that must ultimately result in the complete destruction of their currencies; and if you destroy the means of exchange of goods and services, your people will starve. The political class and government establishments have drifted in incremental steps into this tragedy. Far from being the guiding hand for society, they are its destroyers.We all look to government to supply what we used to provide for ourselves, in the naïve belief that it is our servant, it has our...

<p>Newt Gingrich said that conservatives will have to accept marriage equality after three more states this year voted to allow same sex marriage and more will likely do the same in the 2014 election.</p> <p>The former Speaker of the House said he didn’t expect gay rights to become the “wave” issue it has, but that he can accept the difference between a marriage in a church and a legal document, reported Huffington Post.</p>

MeRAM has the potential to succeed NAND flash as the best non-volatile sold state memory with DRAM-like speed, better-than-NAND endurance and density, and now it has taken a step forward, with UCLA research making the stuff 10 to 10,000 times more energy-efficient. UCLA boffins - led by Raytheon professor of electrical engineering Kang L Wang - worked out that the STT-RAM (Spin Transfer Torque RAM) implementation of solid state memory using electron's spin has density and energy limitations that could be side-stepped by using voltage instead of direct current, according to the UCLA release. The research is also backed by...

The Coming China Economic Crisis Economics / China EconomyDec 20, 2012 - 04:43 AM By: Clif Droke When Bert Dohmen talks, smart investors listen. In 2007 when most investment analysts and economists were downplaying the developing credit market troubles, Bert warned investors that the probability was very high that the troubles would escalate into full-blown crisis and would produce a crash of historic proportions. He chronicled the developing credit crisis in the pages of his newsletter and also published a book in early 2012 entitled, The Coming China Crisis, which provided his insightful views on the emerging crisis in depth....

I know I probably shouldn’t have done it — especially because yesterday was a snowy day with the temperature here in Colorado dipping well below freezing — but on a whim I took all my guns and ammunition out in a small skiff on one of the nearby lakes and, sad to say, the boat capsized when I stupidly tried to prove to myself that I could do it Gangnam style, even in an inherently unbalanced situation, while also tending to a fishing pole. All my firearms and my ammo stockpile is now, as a consequence, sleeping with the fishes....

The Legacy Lives On! Mark’s Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation “Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.” --Mark Levin in Liberty and TyrannyWelcome to “The Levin Lounge”… Step in and have a virtual FRink.Taking the country by storm, one radio station at a time – and kicking the BUTTS of the competition! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic.com! You can call Mark’s show: 1-877-381-3811

An international team of astroboffins have discovered that the nearest single Sun-like star has one planet orbiting in the sweet spot for potential alien life. Tau Ceti, which is just 12 light years away and can be seen with the naked eye in the night sky, has five planets in orbit around it, with one lying in the habitable zone. The potentially life-supporting world has a mass around five times the size of Earth, making it the smallest planet found in the habitable zone of any Sun-like star. The other four planets are between twice and six times the mass...

Iran is producing explosive mini-submarines DEBKAfile December 20, 2012, 9:05 PM (GMT+02:00) DEBKAfile exclusive: Iranian production lines are turning out a new type of speed mini-submarine customized for combat against the US and other Western navies present in Persian Gulf waters. On the principle of asymmetric warfare, the new pint-sized Iranian submarines are light in weight and able to dart nimbly around large vessels to explode on contact with their floating target. Their pilots are bent on suicide. These mini-subs are designed to complement the app. 2,000 Revolutionary Guards’ explosive speedboats.

Vote coming up.

Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen's road-trip comedy The Guilt Trip debuted to an unimpressive $1.1 million at the North American box office on Wednesday as Streisand returned to the big screen in a lead role for the first time since The Mirror Has Two Faces in 1996. Box Office Report: 'Zero Dark Thirty' Soars in New York and Los Angeles Guilt Trip came in No. 2 behind Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which took in $6.3 million for a six-day domestic cume of $106.5 million. Wednesday's biggest headline was Kathryn Bigelow's controversial Osama bin Laden pic Zero Dark...

It just would not be right for California to finish off 2012 without one more designation as being the worst at something. Our state seems to receive several of these each year: one of the worst legal climates, the state with the worst government, the worst place to do business, and now, we are the #1 “Judicial Hellhole” in the nation. The American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) released its annual list of “Judicial Hellholes” – places where frivolous lawsuits thrive and courts produce uneven rulings that often favor plaintiffs – and California earned the #1 slot.

Prices over the last months have been skyrocketing. Existing home sales rose to 5.04 million units in November, more than expected. Existing home sales are almost back to 1999 levels! [Note to government: PLEASE don't do anything like the National Homeownership Strategy again!] nhsdream2 The FHFA Purchase Only House Price Index increased +0.5% in November, more than the expected +0.3%. The final Q3 GPD printed at 3.1%, more than the forecast 2.8%%. The print was mostly due to government expenditures and growing inventories. Offsetting the government-induced rise in GDP was the decline in leading economic indicators, down -0.2% in November...

Unedited Video Further Proves Conservative Assaulted by Michigan Union Member Katie Pavlich Last week conservative activist and comedian Steven Crowder was punched repeatedly in the face by a Michigan union member and threatened with murder in Lansing during violent protests against right-to-work legislation, which was signed into law by Governor Rich Snyder. Since the incident happened, leftist media outlets have accused Crowder of selectively editing video to make the fight look like the fault of a violent union mob rather than himself, who they say started it. They also said Crowder deserved the attacks while failing to condemn the union...