Economy Continues to Grow at a Plodding Pace

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Photo Credit: NewscomThe Bureau of Economic Analysis’s (BEA) first estimate of economic growth for the third quarter of this year shows an economy that continues to grow at a plodding pace.

According to BEA, the economy grew at 2.8 percent from July 1 through September 30. This was slightly faster than the 2.5 percent the economy grew in in the second quarter of the year.

The main driver of growth in the third quarter was increased investment, the strongest component of which was a sharp climb in business inventories. Inventory accumulation could mean either that businesses didn’t sell as much as they anticipated during the third quarter or that they ramped up production in anticipation of a busy fourth quarter. Time will tell which.

Personal consumption was also a large contributor to growth. Purchases of durable goods—such as cars and home furnishings—drove the growth in consumption.

This is BEA’s first estimate of growth in the third quarter, and subsequent estimates will change.

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Supreme Court Opens Hearing on Public Prayer—With a Prayer

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Photo Credit: APThe United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a case examining whether sectarian prayer should be allowed at government meetings.

The Supreme Court began the day’s session with its traditional opening, “God save the United States and this honorable court.” The irony of the high court hearing a public prayer complaint after its own mention of God was not lost on the justices.

Atheists sued the town of Greece, N.Y. for its practice of opening its town council meetings with mostly Christian prayers, and asking everyone to rise for those prayers. A federal appeals court sided with the plaintiffs, who insisted that any prayers said at council meetings must be nondenominational and inclusive, and the town then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Justice Antonin Scalia asked Thomas Hungar, who argued for the town of Greece, if he objected to the way the Supreme Court opens its sessions.

“But you — but you – you had no problem, Mr. Hungar, with the marshal’s announcement at the — at the beginning of this session. ‘God save the United States and this honorable court,’” Scalia said. “There — there are many people who don’t believe in God.”

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Graham’s Final Sermon: ‘I’ve Wept’ for America (+video)

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Photo Credit: APAt 95 and in frail health, Billy Graham often resists family entreaties to make excursions from his mountaintop home. But the nation’s most famous evangelist attended a birthday celebration Thursday night that featured hundreds of well-wishers and what is being characterized as his final sermon.

In a video that was recorded over the past year, Graham delivered his familiar message about the saving power of Jesus Christ and expressed concern about the nation’s direction. “Our country’s in great need of a spiritual awakening,” he declared. “There have been times that I’ve wept as I’ve gone from city to city and I’ve seen how far people have wandered from God.”

Graham, white-haired and heavier-set now than he once was, was brought into the ballroom in a wheelchair. Instead of speaking from the dais, he addressed the crowd through the half-hour film. It included photos and clips that underscore his ministry’s intersection with decades of American life and politics, showing him alongside presidents (John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton) as well as with Martin Luther King Jr., Pope John Paul II — and Johnny Carson.

Rapper LeCrae and Christian rocker Lacey Strum gave testimony in the video about the impact of Christ in their lives.

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Snowden Reportedly Persuaded Other NSA Workers to Give Up Passwords

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Photo Credit: AFP-Getty ImagesFormer U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden used login credentials and passwords provided unwittingly by colleagues at a spy base in Hawaii to access some of the classified material he leaked to the media, sources said.

A handful of agency employees who gave their login details to Snowden were identified, questioned and removed from their assignments, said a source close to several U.S. government investigations into the damage caused by the leaks.

Snowden may have persuaded between 20 and 25 fellow workers at the NSA regional operations center in Hawaii to give him their logins and passwords by telling them they were needed for him to do his job as a computer systems administrator, a second source said.

The revelation is the latest to indicate that inadequate security measures at the NSA played a significant role in the worst breach of classified data in the super-secret eavesdropping agency’s 61-year history.

Reuters reported last month that the NSA failed to install the most up-to-date, anti-leak software at the Hawaii site before Snowden went to work there and downloaded highly classified documents belonging to the agency and its British counterpart, Government Communication Headquarters.

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Saudi Arabia Said to Have Bought Nukes from Pakistan

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Photo Credit: Youtube/Al Jazeera EnglishSaudi Arabia may be prepared to field nuclear bombs it has purchased from Pakistan in response to Iran’s alleged military nuclear program, and may already have deployed missile systems capable of delivering the bombs, the BBC reported on Wednesday.

According to Mark Urban, diplomatic and defense editor for the BBC’s Newsnight, there are suggestions that the Saudis have paid for a number of nuclear weapons that are ready and waiting in Pakistan. If the reports are accurate, the kingdom could have atomic weapons on its missiles even before Iran has that capability.

Urban said it was an assessment shared by the former head of the IDF’s head of intelligence, Amos Yadlin, and cited comments Yadlin made to that effect at a conference in Sweden last month.

“The Saudis will not wait one month,” Yadlin reportedly said. “They already paid for the bomb, they will go to Pakistan and bring what they need to bring.”

Another source, described as “a senior NATO decision maker,” told Urban earlier this year of an intelligence report about Pakistani-made nuclear weapons ready for delivery to the kingdom.

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Massive Great White Shark Returns to Dixie

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Photo Credit: ocearch.orgAround this time last year, one of the Atlantic’s most famous great white sharks entered Southern waters for the first time since the crew at the non-profit OCEARCH tagged her.

Mary Lee, as the 16-foot, 3,500-lb shark is known, has since shown a clear affection for the South. Though she spent the early part of the year exploring the waters off New England, then circling Bermuda and the mid-Atlantic, she has spent the summer and fall off the coasts of the Carolinas. According to the most recent pings from her tracking device, she spent last night nestled in the shallow waters of St. Helena Sound, just south of Charleston, South Carolina, and has now moved back offshore.

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Trans Fat Fallout: Will Food Taste Worse?

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Photo Credit: ReutersIt’s no secret trans fats are unhealthy. But now that the Food and Drug Administration is pushing to remove them from the food supply, there may be some unintended consequences: America’s favorite snacks won’t last as long on grocery store shelves, they could be more expensive, and they might not taste as good.

The fact that FDA said Thursday a widely used ingredient should no longer be considered safe represents one of the most sweeping actions the agency has taken in recent years.

And American consumers could very well see — and taste — a difference.

Take Pop Secret popcorn. Partially hydrogenated oils is on the list of ingredients and the nutrition facts show there are 5 grams of trans fat per serving.

But that’s just one of many popular products that likely would have to undergo a reformulation. Other products with labels that show they possess trans fats, according to a recent article in Health Magazine, include: Duncan Hines buttercream frosting, Bisquick’s original pancake mix, Kid Cuisine All American Fried Chicken meal and Häagen-Dazs caramel cone ice cream.

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Don’t Pull that Plug: New Technology Shows that Many in Vegetative State are NOT Brain Dead

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Photo Credit: theverge.comFor a patient who sustains devastating brain damage, the outcome is often exceedingly grim: if they don’t show signs of improvement within a few weeks, they’ll be diagnosed as vegetative — unaware of themselves or their environment, and unlikely to ever be again. To their loved ones, these patients are essentially lost, as is the prospect of ever communicating with them again.

Unless, that is, the diagnosis is wrong.

That’s the startling possibility raised by a series of recent studies, which used neuroimaging techniques to evaluate awareness levels among patients diagnosed as being in persistent vegetative states (VS) or in minimally conscious states (wherein patients exhibit fleeting, inconsistent awareness). A small number of patients, these studies found, exhibited brain activity that indicates they were able to focus on a given word, answer a question, or complete a task. “We don’t yet have a full picture of the abilities of these patients,” says Srivas Chennu, PhD, an expert in cognitive and behavioral neuroscience at the University of Cambridge. “And what this research suggests is that there’s much more nuance here than anybody thought.”

Patients in vegetative states can often breathe autonomously, open their eyes, and blink. But despite those abilities, they tend to suffer brain damage so severe that they won’t respond to cues, acknowledge a family member, or react to their own name. For decades, those attributes (combined with extensive bedside tests) led doctors to conclude that the inner workings of these patient’s brains lacked any and all higher function. Patients were awake, in other words, but they weren’t aware.

Several studies in the past decade have questioned that line of reasoning. In 2009, a study on 103 patients found that some of those diagnosed as VS were, in fact, minimally conscious. The research also concluded that some patients diagnosed as minimally conscious actually showed signs of emerging from that state. Other studies, using both EEG and fMRI brain scans, noted that the brains of some vegetative patients engaged with commands similarly to those of healthy control participants.

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Senate Approved Legislation Banning Workplace Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

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Photo Credit: AP/J. Scott ApplewhiteReflecting Americans’ increasing acceptance of gays, the Senate on Thursday approved legislation that would bar workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Gay rights advocates hailed the bipartisan, 64-32 vote as a historic step although it could prove short-lived. A foe of the bill, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has signaled that the Republican-led House is unlikely to even vote. Senate proponents were looking for a way around that obstacle.

Seventeen years after a similar anti-discrimination measure failed by one vote, 54 members of the Senate Democratic majority and 10 Republicans voted for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. It is the first major gay rights bill since Congress repealed the ban on gays serving openly in the military three years ago.

“All Americans deserve a fair opportunity to pursue the American dream,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a chief sponsor of the bill.

Proponents cast the effort as Congress following the lead of business and localities as some 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies and 22 states have outlawed employment discrimination against gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.

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Women Dressed as Bombed Twin Towers, Win Halloween Costume Contest

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Photo Credit: SWNS/Chester A nightclub has come under criticism by giving top prize in a Halloween fancy dress contest to two women dressed as the blazing Twin Towers.

Amber Langford and Annie Collinge, both 19, dressed up as the buildings involved in the 9/11 terror attacks, where more than 2,700 people lost their lives.

Their outfits – marked North Tower and South Tower – included models of the two hijacked planes crashing into the New York skyscrapers.

The costumes also had tiny models of people falling to their deaths and were topped off with the women wearing smouldering Stars and Stripes flags on their heads.

The pair won £150 between them after being voted best fancy dress by a DJ at the huge Rosies club in Chester.

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