Monkey stolen from SF Zoo found in good health

Authorities say Banana Sam was located Saturday evening in Stern Grove Park.

Police say in a release that a park visitor noticed the 17-year-old primate and lured him into his backpack.

He called police who retrieved Banana-Sam and found him in apparent good health. He was returned to the zoo.

Banana Sam's theft Thursday prompted the zoo to boost security and keep the other 17 squirrel monkeys indoors.

He was taken after thieves cut through a gate and made holes in the mesh surrounding the monkey exhibit.

A $5,000 reward had been offered for his safe return.

Live Webcast >>>The Official Times Square New Year's Eve 2012

Tune in Saturday, December 31st starting at 5:50pm until 12:15am EST

Happy New Year from Newt and Callista

From Newt, Callista, and everyone at Newt 2012--have a Happy New Year!

Virginia AG Intervenes in GOP Ballot Dispute as Blocked Candidates Join Suit

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is intervening in his state's presidential primary dispute and plans to file emergency legislation to address the inability of most Republican presidential candidates to get their name on the ballot, Fox News has learned. 
Meanwhile, four GOP candidates on Saturday joined fellow candidate Rick Perry's lawsuit against the state, urging the Board of Elections to either allow them on the ballot or at least refrain from taking any action until a Jan. 13 court hearing. 



Only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul qualified for the Virginia primary, a contest with 49 delegates up for grabs. Perry and the four candidates joining the lawsuit -- Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman -- did not. 
The failure of other candidates to qualify led to complaints that the 10,000-signature requirement is too stringent. 
Cuccinelli, who is a Republican, shared the concerns and plans to take them to the legislature while the candidates work through the courts. 
"Recent events have underscored that our system is deficient," he said in a statement Saturday. "Virginia owes her citizens a better process. We can do it in time for the March primary if we resolve to do so quickly."
Cuccinelli's proposal is expected to state that if the Virginia Board of Elections certifies that a candidate is receiving federal matching funds, or has qualified to receive them, that candidate will upon request be automatically added to the ballot.
Two former Democratic attorneys general are backing the move, along with a former Democratic state party chairman and a former Republican state party chairman. 
Former state Attorney General Tony Troy called the Virginia process a "legal and constitutional embarrassment." Fellow former top Virginia prosecutor Steve Rosenthal said: "This is not a Democratic or Republican issue. If it takes emergency legislation, then we need to do it." 
A spokesman for Virginia Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell appeared to defend the state's strict ballot rules, but opened the door to reexamining them. 
"Virginia's laws regarding ballot access are well known and have been in place for many years," spokesman Tucker Martin said. "All candidates seeking to be listed on the Virginia primary ballot in a statewide race have known the requirements well in advance. ... It is unfortunate that this year, for whatever reasons, some Republican candidates did not even attempt to make the Virginia ballot, while others fell short of submitting the required number of valid signatures."
Still, Martin said, "That leaves Virginia voters with only two Republican choices in the March primary, and the governor certainly would have preferred a broader field. He is always open to reviewing how Virginia's primary system can be improved to provide voters with more choices."
He said that if the legislature takes action, "the governor would review those changes thoroughly."  




Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/31/virginia-attorney-general-intervenes-in-gop-primary-ballot-dispute/#ixzz1i9p4HlqW

Four candidates join Perry in suing Virginia !!!

(CNN) - Four candidates left off the Virginia Republican primary ballot joined Rick Perry Saturday in suing the state's board of elections over laws they say are "unconstitutional."


Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum joined the lawsuit, originally filed Tuesday, challenging provisions that determine who can appear on the primary ballot.


On Wednesday, Gingrich cited fraud as the reason he didn’t make it onto the ballot, laying the blame on one of his campaign's paid volunteers.


"We hired somebody who turned in false signatures. We turned in 11,100 – we needed 10,000 – 1,500 of them were by one guy who frankly committed fraud,” Gingrich said.


On Saturday, Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said they were looking into the petition fraud case, but that their top priority was getting on the ballot.


All five candidates filing the lawsuit failed to qualify for the ballot.


Huntsman, Bachmann and Santorum did not file petitions with the Virginia State Board of Elections that would have allowed them a place in the state's primary. Gingrich and Perry filed petitions that were later rejected by the Republican Party of Virginia for not meeting requirements.


Virginia requires candidates to obtain 10,000 signatures from registered voters in the state, with at least 400 signatures coming from each of the commonwealth's 11 congressional districts.


In the lawsuit filed Tuesday, Perry said the statutes of Virginia law that regulate access to the ballot were "among the most onerous in the nation and severely restrict who may obtain petition signatures."


In their release Saturday, Bachmann, Gingrich, Huntsman and Santorum request the board of elections add their names to the ballot, saying it will avoid "unnecessary costs and expenses to the state and the parties" that would be incurred by moving the lawsuit forward.


Immediately after his petition was rejected by the Virginia GOP, Gingrich said he would launch a write-in campaign. It was later determined that Virginia specifically prohibits write-in candidates in primary elections.


Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul both successfully filed petitions to appear on the Virginia ballot.


The state holds its Republican primary on Super Tuesday, March 6.

An eye on re-election, Obama to seek ways to press ahead in 2012 without Congress.

HONOLULU (AP) -- Leaving behind a year of bruising legislative battles, President Barack Obama enters his fourth year in office having calculated that he no longer needs Congress to promote his agenda and may even benefit in his re-election campaign if lawmakers accomplish little in 2012.

Absent any major policy pushes, much of the year will focus on winning a second term. The president will keep up a robust domestic travel schedule and aggressive campaign fundraising and use executive action to try to boost the economy.

Partisan, down-to-the-wire fights over allowing the nation to take on more debt and sharply reducing government spending defined 2011. In the new year, there are almost no must-do pieces of legislation facing the president and Congress.

The one exception is the looming debate on a full-year extension of a cut in the Social Security payroll tax rate from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent. Democrats and Republicans are divided over how to put in place that extension.

The White House believes GOP lawmakers boxed themselves in during the pre-Christmas debate on the tax break and will be hard-pressed to back off their own assertions that it should continue through the end of 2012.

Once that debate is over, the White House says, Obama's political fate will no longer be tied to Washington.

"Now that he's sort of free from having to put out these fires, the president will have a larger playing field. If that includes Congress, all the better," said Josh Earnest, White House deputy press secretary. But, he added, "that's no longer a requirement."

Aides say the president will not turn his back on Congress completely in the new year. He is expected to once again push lawmakers to pass elements of his jobs bill that were blocked by Republicans last fall.

If those efforts fail, the White House says, Obama's re-election year will focus almost exclusively on executive action.

Earnest said Obama will come out with at least two or three directives per week, continuing the "We Can't Wait" campaign the administration began this fall, and try to define Republicans in Congress as gridlocked and dysfunctional.

Obama's election year retreat from legislative fights means this term will end without significant progress on two of his 2008 campaign promises, an immigration overhaul and closing the military prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Presidential directives probably won't make a big dent in the nation's 8.6 percent unemployment rate or lead to significant improvements in the economy. That's the chief concern for many voters and the issue on which Republican candidates are most likely to criticize Obama.

In focusing on executive actions rather than ambitious legislation, the president risks appearing to be putting election-year strategy ahead of economic action at a time when millions of Americans are still out of work.

"Americans expect their elected leaders to work together to boost job creation, even in an election year," said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Still, Obama and his advisers are beginning 2012 with a renewed sense of confidence, buoyed by a series of polls that show the president's approval rating climbing as Congress becomes increasingly unpopular.

They believe his victory over Republicans in the payroll tax debate has boosted his credentials as a fighter for the middle class, a theme he will look to seize on in his Jan. 24 State of the Union address.

Obama's campaign-driven, domestic-travel schedule starts in Cleveland on Wednesday, the day after GOP presidential hopefuls square off in the Iowa caucuses. He will also keep up an aggressive re-election fundraising schedule, with events already lined up in Chicago on Jan. 11.

Campaign officials say Obama will fully engage in the re-election campaign once the Republicans pick their nominee. He will focus almost exclusively on campaigning after the late summer Democratic National Convention, barring unexpected developments at home or abroad.

Among the issues that could disrupt Obama's re-election plans: further economic turmoil in Europe, instability in North Korea following its leadership transition and threats from Iran.

The president's signature legislative accomplishment will also come under greater scrutiny in the new year, when a critical part of his health care overhaul is debated before the Supreme Court.

Obama's foreign travel next year will be limited mainly to the summits and international gatherings every U.S. president traditionally attends. He's expected to travel to South Korea in March for a nuclear security summit and to Colombia in April for the Summit of the Americas. He's also likely to visit Mexico in June for the G-20 economic summit.

Two other major international gatherings - the NATO summit and the G-8 economic meeting - will be held in Chicago, on home turf.

Gingrich tells pastors: Don't pray for me to win, but for God's will to be done

WT


Continuing to court the crucial evangelical voting bloc, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich starred in a Friday teleconference with Iowa pastors, where he fielded questions about his turbulent marital history and said that what matters on Tuesday is not that he wins — but that God's will prevails.


"I wouldn't ask you to pray for me to win, but for God's will to be done," he said, when asked by San Diego megachurch pastor Jim Garlow, who hosted the call, how they could pray for him in the few remaining days before Iowans vote for the GOP presidential nominee in Tuesday's caucuses.


Don Wildmon, the influential chairman of the American Family Association who handed Mr. Gingrich a coveted endorsement earlier this month, invited the Christian leaders to participate in the midday call.


"I have been impressed with Newt and have come to the conclusion that Newt is the one person who can lead us out of the awful environment created by the present occupant in the White House," Mr. Wildmon wrote.


Mr. Gingrich answered questions about abortion, gay rights and immigration — and about his two previous marriages that ended in divorce.


"I know what it's like to have failed," he told the listeners. "It makes me in some ways a little sadder and a littler slower than I was."

'BLACK HAWK DOWN' COMMANDER ENDORSES NEWT GINGRICH

At an event in Coralville, Iowa yesterday, Colonel Michael Steele endorsed Newt citing his leadership ability and proven record of getting the job done. Colonel Steele was the Commander of the U.S. Army Ranger company portrayed in the movie Black Hawk Down.


Colonel Michael Steele says he supports Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s campaign for the former U.S. House Speaker’s ability to take action.

Steele, who retired in 2010 after almost three decades in the U.S. Army and was Company Commander of the U.S. Army Ranger company portrayed in the book and film Black Hawk Down, said this coming year’s election is pivotal.

“I believe we have one shot left, the way we vote is the way our nation goes and I think if we screw this up we’re not getting another shot at it, we have to pick the right man,” he said, adding that he endorses Gingrich’s campaign for a change in Washington. “I for one am tired of people talking, and would offer it is time to replace a professional talker in the White House with a professional doer. Newt Gingrich is a professional doer, he gets things done. And we are in a point in our nation’s history where we need to get things done.”

Family Fights for Their Flag !!!

The removal of an American flag from a Maryland traffic circle prompted a patriotic rally after a report that the road crew that took the flag down tossed it in the back of a dump truck.


According to the Baltimore Sun, Rhonda Winkler’s family first posted a flag in the Woodbine, Md. roundabout three years ago in honor of their soldier nephew’s deployment to Afghanistan. They’ve taken care of the flag ever since, replacing it with a new one every few months.


A month ago, a car crashed into the circle, running over the flag and destroying it. The Winkler family, aided by an 88-year-old World War II veteran, replaced the flag again and stuck a new gold-painted pole in the ground. At some point, a pine tree in the circle was also damaged: either in the crash or was heavily trimmed back to make the flag more visible, according to conflicting media reports.


Then, on Dec. 19, Winkler got a call alerting her that state road crews had removed the new flag and flag pole, tossing both in the back of a dump truck.


Her husband, Jeff Winkler, contacted the highway administration and was told people had complained about the flag and damaged tree, and that posting a flag on the roundabout was considered trespassing on state property.

“They told us it was against the law to erect a flag on the traffic circle,” Rhonda Winkler told Fox News. “They told my husband that whoever put up the flag could be arrested for trespassing.”

David Buck, a state highway spokesmn, told the Baltimore Sun removing the flag was also a matter of safety for the people who cross the street to get to the circle to take care of the flag.

“They don’t have traffic control out there, and they don’t have [road work] vests on,” he told the newspaper.

The Winkler family tried to get the flag back from the highway administration but has been unsuccessful.

“We figured it’s the American flag and we live in the United States of America – how can anyone have a problem with it,” Winkler told Fox.

As a result, the family planned a patriotic event in protest: They got a permit, borrowed a crane and hung a massive flag above the circle on Dec. 23. A large sign next to it read, “Welcome Home U.S. TROOPS, United Patriots of Maryland.” According to the Baltimore Sun, the event attracted dozens of people, many of whom waved their own flags in solidarity.

Buck said he hopes a solution can be found, but said allowing residents to put flags up in traffic circles would require a statewide policy change.

For her part, Winkler told the Baltimore Sun she’s “not a big stink maker.”

“I don’t sweat the small stuff, and we’re at the point [in society] where you can‘t say this and you can’t do that,” she said. “But the American flag is one thing we are all going to stand up for.”

Monkey business: Thieves swipe primate from California zoo !!!

(CNN) -- Concern was growing Saturday for the welfare of a much-loved male squirrel monkey stolen from an enclosure at San Francisco Zoo in California.
Zoo workers discovered the theft Friday morning, when they found a back perimeter gate had been breached and two holes cut in the mesh fence of the squirrel monkey exhibit.
The missing monkey, known as Banana-Sam to his keepers, is 17 years old, over 12 inches tall and weighs about 2 lbs.
But his keepers warn that while he looks very cute, he is not a pet -- and can deliver a nasty nip.
"He has extremely sharp teeth and will definitely bite if provoked, which can cause infections right away," the zoo said.
Primate curator Corinne MacDonald told CNN affiliate KTVU she was very worried about Banana-Sam's well-being.
"Stress can actually kill a monkey that small," she said. "They are highly social animals and should not be alone, and he's got cage-mates here that he's lived with almost all his life that are his friends, so to speak, that he needs to be with."
The monkey needs a specialized diet to stay healthy and is fairly elderly for his species, making him more vulnerable, the zoo says.
Police are investigating the theft, but surveillance cameras at the zoo did not capture it on film.
What motivated the thieves to swipe the monkey is not clear. While common squirrel monkeys are not endangered, they can be found at pet trade markets -- which is illegal in California, the zoo says -- or medical research institutions.
"I just want the animal back. I don't really care why they did it," MacDonald said.
An unknown person was quick to set up a fake Twitter account in Banana-Sam's name, following in the path of a cobra that escaped at New York's Bronx Zoo in March. The snake's mock Twitter account, with humorous tweets on its supposed whereabouts in New York City, swiftly attracted a large online following.
Under the handle @SF_BananaSam, the "monkey" is now tweeting his way round San Francisco.
"Went to monkey bars in Golden Gate Park playground, left disappointed. #nobananadaiquiri" one post reads.
Another says: "I'm a funny-looking vegan who ran away from home and who people follow on Twitter. IN other words, A NORMAL SAN FRANCISCAN."
Anyone with information on Banana-Sam's whereabouts is urged to call San Francisco police.

Kathy Griffin Obsessed With Anderson Cooper’s Pants !!!

CNN's Candy Crowley tries to get a preview of Anderson Cooper's New Year's Eve show but Kathy Griffin has other ideas.  

VIDEO: 33 killed as Cyclone Thane brings high winds and heavy rains to India's southeastern coast.

NEW DELHI (AP) -- Heavy rains and winds unleashed by a cyclone over India's southeastern coast damaged hundreds of homes and uprooted trees, killing at least 33 people, officials and news reports said Saturday.


Cyclone Thane struck Tamil Nadu state and the territory of Puducherry on Friday before weakening overnight, the India Meteorological Department said.


The storm collapsed houses and downed power lines in four districts of Tamil Nadu, where 26 people were killed, said the state's top elected official J. Jayalalitha.


The worst hit was Cuddalore, a district nearly 105 miles (170 kilometers) south of Chennai, the state capital, with 21 deaths as the wind speed reached 85 miles per hour (140 kilometers per hour), Jayalalitha's statement said, adding that another five people were killed in nearby areas.


The Press Trust of India news agency said that an additional seven people were killed in and around Puducherry, which is also known as Pondicherry.

Test-firing of Iran long-range missiles in Gulf delayed-TV

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's senior navy commander denied state media reports that the Islamic Republic had test-fired long-range missiles during a naval drill on Saturday, saying the missiles would be launched in the coming days.

Mahmoud Mousavi told Iran's English-language Press TV "the exercise of launching missiles will be carried out in the coming days."

The semi-official Fars news agency had earlier reported that Iran had test-fired long-range and other missiles during the exercise on Saturday.

Bare Naked Islam is back……sort of !!!

WordPress now saying  that CAIR had nothing to do with their decision to take down my blog (despite CAIR bragging about it all over the internet). But they still want me off by Jan. 6th. Author: barenakedislam

Occupying Honolulu !!!

You can’t even go on vacation any more without critics wagging their tongues. People are still carrying on over everything from the price of Lady M’s sundress to the $4 million price tag on the Wons’ unspecified Winter Holiday here in Big Guy’s alleged birth state.

First, let me point out that Big Guy worked hard in a bipartisan fashion all last year in order to get the Budget Control Act (a leading entry in this year’s “most ironic name” contest) passed last August. As you may recall, the BCA was the very popular bipartisan bill that raised our debt ceiling and reduced spending (towards the end of the next decade) by a whopping $1.8 trillion! Butt that’s not all: at Big Guy’s personal direction Congress further agreed to wrangle $7 billion (that’s billion, with a “b”) out of the Federal year-over-year discretionary budget.

Allow me to do the math for you: $7 million cut, minus $4 million vacation – that’s still a whopping $3 million net savings!

So let’s be done with all the carping, OK? Getting a little “me time” doesn’t come cheap when you’re President and First Lady of the (currently) richest country on earth. Besides, it’s not as if Big Guy isn’t working just because he’s on vacation.

BTW, this just in: BO has racked up another historic first, just in time for the year end wrap up. He has now set the U.S. Presidential record for the most time spent on a golf course in his first three years of office. Congratulations Mr. President! What are you going to do now? Go to Disney World?

Or possibly Fantasyland, if Mitt's right

And now, a News flash: The Wons dined with eight close personal friends and family members last night at their favorite restaurant in Honolulu: Allan Wong’s. They’ve dined there every year we’ve been coming here.

Because Lady M didn’t like the photos they took of her leaving the restaurant way back in 2009, there was a complete photo embargo of the dinner, just like last year. As you might imagine, the press, who have been dragged away from their Washington homes to cover the Presidential Winter Holiday vacay, were pretty chagrinned by the shabby treatment.

Lady M, leaving Wong’s in 2009 in her pricey designer shoes.

Especially since this year they didn’t even tell the press that they were going out! The press pool only found out because CNN’s Peter Morris just happened to be having dinner at the very popular Wong’s restaurant when the Wons arrived (Peter was not assigned to the pool last night, so he was slumming). Like Mother Nature, it’s never really a good idea to try to fool the Press. They will find a way to get even.

We just never seem to learn:

           

Anyway, dinner was a big hit with everyone. Allan Wong is really Lady M’s kind of chef, if you know what I mean:


Allan makes Morimoto look svelte: must be his “3 local butter” tastings

You may recall that I received an anonymous tip last year from a friend, who had a friend who just happened to have another friend dining at Wong’s when the Wons arrived, and sent along a clandestine picture:

Lady M, last year, with Big Guy’s half-sister and half-brother-in-law. Big Guy’s other half-brother George (a 99%er) was still in his hut in Kenya eating, well, bugs.

If you look closely at this shot from last year you’ll notice that Lady M’s face does seem to be frozen in a most unnatural fashion. I am not at liberty to comment on that other than, as I’ve already mentioned, it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.

So don’t expect any more photos for now.

Until then, let the revolution…er, Occupation continue. Whatever.

HT~http://www.michellesmirror.com/2011/12/occupying-honolulu.html

Gingrich Floats Choosing Sarah Palin as Vice President, Energy Secretary

Audio: Gingrich Floats Sarah Palin As Possible Vice President Pick
Newt Gingrich said that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would be among the candidates that he would consider when considering a potential running mate, adding that the former GOP vice presidential nominee would be an ideal candidate for Secretary of Energy.


Gingrich, speaking Wednesday during a conference call with conservative voters hosted by Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition, was asked by one of the attendees whether he would consider Palin as a running mate.


"She is certainly one of the people you would look at. I am a great admirer of hers and she was a remarkable reform governor of Alaska, she’s somebody who I think brings a great deal to the possibility of helping in government and that would be one of the possibilities," Gingrich said, according to Right Wing Watch.
READ MORE AT THEHILL.COM

Will Google, Amazon, and Facebook Black Out the Net ??? "The Nuclear Option."

In the growing battle for the future of the Web, some of the biggest sites online -- Google, Facebook, and other tech stalwarts -- are considering a coordinated blackout of their sites, some of the web’s most popular destinations.

No Google searches. No Facebook updates. No Tweets. No Amazon.com shopping. Nothing. 

The action would be a dramatic response to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill backed by the motion picture and recording industries that is intended to eliminate theft online once and for all. HR 3261 would require ISPs to block access to sites that infringe on copyrights -- but how exactly it does that has many up in arms. The creators of some of the web's biggest sites argue it could instead dramatically restrict law-abiding U.S. companies -- and reshape the web as we know it.

A blackout would be drastic. And though the details of exactly how it would work are unclear, it's already under consideration, according to Markham Erickson, the executive director of NetCoalition, a trade association that includes the likes of Google, PayPal, Yahoo, and Twitter.

“Mozilla had a blackout day and Wikipedia has talked about something similar,” Erickson told FoxNews.com, calling this kind of operation unprecedented. 

"A number of companies have had discussions about that," he said.

With the Senate debating the SOPA legislation at the end of January, it looks as if the tech industry’s top dogs are finally adding bite to their bark, something CNET called "the nuclear option."

"When the home pages of Google.com, Amazon.com, Facebook.com, and their Internet allies simultaneously turn black with anti-censorship warnings that ask users to contact politicians about a vote in the U.S. Congress the next day on SOPA,” Declan McCullagh wrote, “you’ll know they’re finally serious.”

“This type of thing doesn’t happen because companies typically don’t want to put their users in that position,” Erickson explained. “The difference is that these bills so fundamentally change the way the Internet works. People need to understand the effect this special-interest legislation will have on those who use the Internet.”

The polarizing movement has many critics but also equally strong and diverse support, including most major media companies as well as businesses like 3M, Adidas, Burberry, CVS and more. News Corp., the parent company of FoxNews.com, also supports the law.

"SOPA targets foreign websites that sell counterfeit drugs and stolen copies of Hollywood movies -- not such American Web sites as YouTube or your favorite blog," wrote Richard Bennett, senior research fellow at the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, in an editorial in the New York Post. 

The law is necessary to deal with those sites, he said.

"Internet criminals selling bogus drugs or pirated movies simply set up shop in China or a distant island republic, knowing that they won't be harassed by law enforcement regardless of how many U.S. lives or jobs they endanger."

But opposition to the legislation has grown substantially louder in recent weeks as the vote looms.

On November 15, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, eBay, Mozilla, Yahoo, AOL, and LinkedIn wrote a letter to Washington warning of SOPA's dangers. "We are concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job-creation, as well as to our Nation's cybersecurity," the letter argued

Google co-founder Sergey Brin himself has loudly denounced the bill. “While I support their goal of reducing copyright infringement (which I don't believe these acts would accomplish), I am shocked that our lawmakers would contemplate such measures that would put us on a par with the most oppressive nations in the world,” Brin wrote on Google+ social networking site earlier this month.

Others have taken a more proactive approach, voting with their dollars against those who support the bill. GoDaddy.com, one of the largest domain registrars on the Internet, stands to potentially lose thousands of customers on Thursday, Dec. 29, or “Dump GoDaddy Day,” the culmination of an ongoing boycott of the company.

Microblogging site Tumblr generated 87,834 calls to Congress with its own anti-SOPA campaign -- a total of 1,293 total hours spent talking to representatives.

Hollywood and the recording industry have maintained the bill's necessity in the name of piracy. "Rogue Web sites that steal America's innovative and creative products attract more than 53 billion visits a year and threaten more than 19 million American jobs," the U.S. Chambers of Commerce wrote in a letter to the editor of The New York Times.

But Erickson believes this is “just the tip of the iceberg in terms of response.” 

“People take the Internet very personally," Erickson told FoxNews.com. “It’s a very important part of their lives."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/30/will-google-amazon-and-facebook-blackout-net/#ixzz1i3CizEJM

I love these things!

Hi Everyone! I have something really fun to show you today!!! I went to CVS a few weeks ago and decided to try some of the Kiss Nail Dress stickers or decals or whatever they may be! (it doesn't exactly say on the label) This pattern didn't have a name either (just the number 56709 KDS11).  I am going to call this a black giraffe and or leopard print.  They went on the same way as the Sally Hansen Salon Effects, but they don't feel like them when handling them.  These seem to be a little thicker.  There are 28 strips in the package.  Sizing was a little tricky for me, but I made it work. The box says they are supposed to last up to 10 days so we shall see! I would definitely recommend these just for the patterns alone! There was a decent selection, but I liked these the best. I added a little extra sparkle with a thin layer of Northern Lights. Enjoy! (PS-I know my cuticles are still in HORRIBLE shape, I am hoping being able to leave these on for a little while can help them heal!)

Iran: U.S. in 'No Position' to Give Orders on Strait of Hormuz

TEHRAN –  A senior Iranian commander said Thursday that Washington was "in no position" to give orders to Iran when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz, as tensions continued to rise between the countries over the key oil transit channel.

Brigadier General Hossein Salami, the deputy commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, said that "the Islamic Republic of Iran asks for no other country's permission for the implementation of its defense strategies," Iran's state-run Press TV reported.

Over the past week, Iran has repeatedly warned it could impose sanctions on oil exports and threatened to block the strait, which is used to transport about 15 million barrels of oil per day, The Wall Street Journal reported.

George Little, the Pentagon press secretary, said Wednesday that "any attempt to close the strait will not be tolerated," which angered Iranian officials.

His comments were echoed by the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, which said any country that "threatens to disrupt freedom of navigation in an international strait is clearly outside the community of nations."

Responding to the US stance, Salami said Thursday, "Our response to threats is threats."

Earlier Thursday, Iranian official Commodore Mahmoud Mousavi said that a US aircraft carrier entered a zone near the strait, which is being used by the Iranian Navy for war games.

"A US aircraft carrier was spotted inside the maneuver zone ... by a navy reconnaissance aircraft," Mousavi was quoted as saying by the state-run IRNA news agency.

The vessel was believed to be the USS John C. Stennis, one of the US Navy's biggest warships.

The US, the EU and key Arab states recently intensified discussions about the possibility of imposing an embargo on oil purchases from Iran.

US President Barack Obama was expected in the coming weeks to sign new legislation preventing any business dealings with Iran's Central Bank, through which Tehran executes most of its oil sales. The US Congress passed the restrictions Dec. 15 as part of a bill authorizing more than $660 billion in defense spending over the next year, the WSJ reported.

Though analysts said it was highly unlikely Iran would close the strait, as it would severely impact the country's own economy -- Iran is the fourth-largest producer of crude oil in the world -- its threats to do so increased over the past week.

Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said Wednesday that it would be "very easy" for Iran's naval forces to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, while Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said Tuesday that "not even a drop of oil will flow through the Persian Gulf" if Iran's oil is embargoed.

"If our enemies in the West start conspiring against us, we'll take strong action to put them in their place," he added.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/12/29/us-aircraft-carrier-enters-zone-near-iranian-oil-route-as-tensions-rise/#ixzz1hxtSZsQb