Supreme Court debate: Is lying about being a war hero protected speech?

Supreme Court justices heard arguments over the Stolen Valor Act, which bars lies over receiving military medals, but the discussion broadened into whether there is any value worth protecting in falsehood.

Members of the US Supreme Court grappled on Wednesday with the difficult task of deciding whether the First Amendment protects a free speech right to claim to be a decorated war hero ? even if you aren?t one.

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The high court is being asked to determine the constitutionality of the Stolen Valor Act of 2005, which makes it a federal crime to falsely claim to have received a military medal.

During an hour-long argument, the justices weighed competing claims upholding the necessity of the statute against the dangers to free speech of a government willing to punish its citizens for something that is merely said.

Several justices seemed troubled by the prospect of opening a door to future laws that might ban false speech concerning one?s receipt of a high school diploma or off-the-cuff comments made by a candidate in an election campaign.

Others appeared ready to uphold the statute as a reasonable regulation of a particularly egregious kind of lie undeserving of constitutional protection.

?I believe there is no First Amendment value in falsehood,? Justice Antonin Scalia declared, flatly.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito expressed similar sentiments.

When Jonathan Libby, a deputy public defender from Los Angeles, struggled to answer repeated questions about the constitutional value of a lie, Justice Stephen Breyer broke into the discussion with an example of a situation justifying a deliberate falsehood that would be both honorable and constitutionally-protected: ?Are you hiding Jews in the cellar??

Chief Justice Roberts brushed the comment aside. The statute regulates a ?purely false statement about one?s self.? he said. ?What is the first Amendment value in [allowing such lies]??

?Our Founders believed that Congress as a general principle doesn?t get to tell us what we as individuals can and cannot say,? Mr. Libby replied. In other areas where the high court has long allowed regulation of speech, it involved speech that caused specific harm to others such as libel, obscenity, or incitement, Libby said.

The case, US v. Alvarez (11-210), stems from comments made by Xavier Alvarez, the elected member of a local water district board in southern California. In July 2007, Mr. Alvarez introduced himself during a meeting as a retired US Marine who had served for 25 years and won the Medal of Honor in 1987.

None of it was true.

Alvarez was charged with violating the Stolen Valor Act. He faced up to six months in prison.

After an FBI investigation, Alvarez entered a conditional guilty plea. His lawyer, Mr. Libby, continued to fight the charge, arguing that the underlying statute, the Stolen Valor Act, violated Alvarez?s free speech rights.

Prosecutors defended the law as a narrowly focused regulation of a discrete category of speech that served the important government interest of preventing the dilution of the value of military medals.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/h0Yjq-fGCpU/Supreme-Court-debate-Is-lying-about-being-a-war-hero-protected-speech

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Message From A Bottle: Part One | Dublin Does Fridays

That?s the spirit! Eden Gallagher at the Blue Bar in Skerries, feeling chipper.

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Carl and the two Shanes at the Ivy House ? we?ve spotted a flaw in your plan, lads?

We hope you?re not talking about an actual horse, Gregg at The Goat.

Mags De Burca at The Temple Bar: naughty but nice.

A bright idea from Dublin native Tom. See what we did there?

A touching -and mildly frightening ? message from the lovely Natalie Scully at the Arc Bar.

Er, did he say N-Dubz? Rob Smith at the Silver Tassie.

?Words: Gheorghe Rusu, Ciara Donnelly, Aoife Reilly, Wayne Doyle, Louise Tierney?and?Susan McAteer.

Tags: Dublin Does Fridays, dublin does fridays blog |

21. February 2012

Source: http://www.dublindoesfridays.ie/whats-on/message-from-a-bottle-part-one/

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Drawing a Picture of Business Ethics: Infographic | i-Sight ...

An infographic based on the findings from the 2011 National Business Ethics Survey published by the Ethics Resource Center.

When it comes to business ethics, there?s good news and there?s bad news. Despite what you may see in the headlines, observed misconduct in US workplaces has reached historic lows and more employees than ever before are blowing the whistle on workplace misconduct. Unfortunately, retaliation claims have risen sharply at the same time.

With an increasing number of employees reporting a weak ethical culture in their organizations, it?s clear that things still need to change.

We put together an inforgraphic based on the findings from the 2011 National Business Ethics Survey conducted by the Ethics Resource Center (ERC).?The survey is published every two years and takes a look at business ethics from an employee perspective.? Over the years, the findings from the survey have been used to identify trends and the factors that impact business ethics, offering suggestions and steps companies can take to reinforce their commitment to ethics. In 2011, the survey looked at:

• The economy?s influence on ethical behavior
• Levels of observed and reported workplace misconduct
• Ethics challenges facing active social networkers
• Retaliation against whistleblowers
• Ethics culture within an organization
• Employee confidence in management

Slide Deck

Articles About the 2011 NBES

The Cost Of ?Doing The Right Thing?
- Patricia Harned, President, Ethics Resource Center, Huffington Post

Whistleblowers face most corporate retaliation ever in 2011
- Tiffany Hsu, LA Times

Survey Sees Less Misconduct But More Reporting And Retaliation
-Samuel Rubenfeld, WSJ Corruption Currents

Study: Social networkers have more ethics problems at work
- Colleen Taylor, GigaOM

Ethics Study: More Employees Report Seeing Illegal Donations
- Janie Lorber, Roll Call

Workplace Snitching: If You See Something, Should You Say Something?
- Meghan Casserly, Forbes

Workers Report Pressure on Ethics Rules in Survey
- Holly Rosenkrantz, Bloomberg

Some Good News and Bad News From The Ethics Resource Center?s 2011 National Business Ethics Survey
- Christopher Bauer, Christopher Bauer?s Ethics Nexus

Are Business Ethics Improving or Declining?
- Steven Mintz, Ethics Sage

Retaliation Against Whistleblowers Jumped in 2011 Says New Study
- Dana Liebelson, POGO

Survey Forecasts ?Looming Ethics Downturn? in Corporate America
- Michael Connor, Business Ethics

Published February 22, 2012Author: Lindsay Walker

Article Tags:

Source: http://i-sight.com/ethics/business-ethics-infographic/

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Health and Fitness Through Weight Management - Speech Thearpy ...

Most people are now into managing how they weigh due to potential threats that being overweight brings to their overall health and fitness. One of the most common forms of managing weight nowadays is dieting.

Within the last couple of years, dieting proves to be one of the most preferred methods for managing weight most overweight individuals around the world. Although there are apparently many testimonies of their effects, many professionals agree that there are also undesirable effects when managing weight is not done the proper way.

What you Should Learn About Diet and Dieting

Dieting usually means the practice of eating or consuming in a controlled manner to be able to achieve a specific short-term objective of gaining or losing size or weight. ?Diet,? on the other hand means the habit nutritional intake and focuses more on the long-term goal.

Studies have shown that the most common goal of dieting is for an individual to get rid excess body fat. However, there are also different types of diet which are recommended to be able to achieve a specific medical objective while some dieting are developed and advised to increase body fat or add up to muscle weight gain.

Diet is actually categorized into two: the weight-loss diets, which restrict the intake of specific foods or food group in order to reduce body weight and the weight-gain diets, which are usually self-imposed in order to achieve a higher weight class.

Aside from that, special cases also require diets especially when it is related to certain medical conditions. Special diets usually include, exclude, or regulate a set of certain chemicals especially from the foods that contain them and are given to people that have chronic diseases such as diabetes and other illnesses such as epilepsy, celiac disease, kidney diseases, and also those who are lactose-intolerant. Other specific types of diet to control weight include low-fat diets, low-carbohydrate diet or Atkins Diet, natural diets, vegetarian diet, and very low calorie diet.

People who are controlling weight should also seek professional help in controlling their weight because dieting may lead to prolonged hunger, depression, reduced sex drive, fatigue, irritability, fainting, sinus problems, muscle loss, rashes, bloodshot eyes, gallbladder diseases, and loose folds of skin among others.

Tips Managing Your Weight

One of the most successful means for achieving health and fitness is, once an individual knows how he can manage or control how much he weigh. This is because a controlled weight only means that you?ll be able to eat balanced meals, healthy foods, and have regular set of exercise required remain fit and Here are some ways on how you can control his or her weight:

1. Drink up lots of fluids, especially water. Lack of fluids results to dehydration which makes a person lose appetite and can make him or her lose so much weight that can be harmful to one?s overall health. To prevent dehydration, one is advised to drink plenty of fluid, especially water.

2. Don?t rush when eating. Taking your time while eating can help you relish the food?s flavors well and assist the body to adjust to the foods you eat. The moment satiety signal is sent to your brain, you will be able to eat in smaller amounts of food.

3. Eat more at daytime and eat less in the evening. To attain optimum health and, fitness, it is best to develop the practice of eating bigger meals in the daytime to have lots of time to burn the whole day. At night though, individuals who?re controlling their weight should eat less, to make sure you will be able to balance the metabolism burn the unwanted fats and calories.

Find our more about health and fitness by visiting our website about Health and Fitness. We have provide a large resource of information to help you.

Source: http://www.jobs-in-speech-therapy.com/exercise/health-and-fitness-through-weight-management/

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Poor Credit Car Financing ? Your Auto Loan Options

Right now a lot of People have gotten difficulties keeping abreast of their credit rating. You just neglect a couple of expenses and this will impact your credit rating and you?re simply considered to be a poor credit probability. When you get a less-than-perfect credit report it usually takes quite a while to finding it rear ? this is not a little something it is possible to conceal as any time you get credit rating.

If you wish to obtain a new vehicle as an example, the provider will need the information you allow them and publish your company name for the credit rating guide agencies which will post you an investigation payday loans what are the borrower you happen to be. You can obtain a duplicate of your review from your credit reporting agencies and even though you are unable to put it back you are allowed to figure out extenuating scenarios, health issues as an example, concerning have missed expenses.

You?ll be able to get a poor credit car financing but it?s best to look around. When you have less-than-perfect credit the chances are you will not likely qualify special offers that you never pay for way too long, or maybe the interest rates have become reduced and loan unsecured guaranteed personal bad credit isn?t pay in. In case the vehicle dealer is doing a credit rating investigation observed that you have less-than-perfect credit then they may possibly reject you straight up or they will supply you with 1 of 2 financial loan solutions, a person guaranteed and another unprotected.

That has a guaranteed financial loan you need to have a little something that can be used as collateral, be cautious with this particular since if you fall behind around the car financing then the vehicle dealer can take whatever you decide to offer as collateral or security as settlement. A 8 marca less-than-perfect credit car loans may have a more affordable monthly interest than a a person due to the collateral.

An unsecured car financing usually means there is absolutely nothing to assure reimbursement with the financial loan therefore you might pay back an extremely great monthly interest on most unprotected less-than-perfect credit auto loans. Along with the two of these procedures, some traders will give you car finance on settlement of any major pay in, at least 25 % with the acquire selling prices sometimes. You will also have to make a down payment with each guaranteed and signature loans.

Whether you do have a secured or unsecured less-than-perfect credit car financing, the credit might take in between a few and seven ages to settle, if for now, you have the ability to improve your credit rating by paying off some debts then you might want your interest rate for being lessened.

Absolutely there are far more vehicle businesses, each on and real world that happen to be now supplying auto loans to people with less-than-perfect credit. If you get a poor credit vehicle or car loans then you may need to take down objectives about the kind of vehicle you could probably manage to pay for, each in terms of the repayments and of any pay in or pay in. It really is worthy of shopping online as some websites give is potential buyers there are several options from various corporations ? this is why of letting you attain the best less-than-perfect credit car loans that you may.

Source: http://thecrafteconomy.com/?p=1192

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Vanderbilt MBA in HR ? Human Resource Management | MBA ...

Vanderbilt MBA in HR ? Human Resource Management

Written by Sameer Kamat

Sonal Yadav thinks of the Vanderbilt MBA program as the ?Harvard in HR?. She had a bit of a rough ride with her GMAT score and she was pretty clear about the schools that she wanted to apply to.

And many of her advisors and well-wishers painted a bleak scenario for an international candidate trying to get into a Human Resources role in an American company.

But she went ahead and applied to the Vandy MBA. Minutes after she had wrapped up a fantastic interview with the Vanderbilt admissions officer, she got a shock. And then soon after, a pleasant surprise. Sonal has written interesting articles for a US-based newspaper. See if her flair for journalism comes across in her writing.

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Vanderbilt MBA (Owen) ? HR Specialisation

I am your average Jane who comes without any fancy awards or conferral frills. I am guilty of putting my folks through the quarterly episodes of embarrassment at parent teachers meet, all my high school years. I am every mathematician?s horror. Taking a clue from my feeble score report I avoided the fashionable careers and joined Mass Communication and Media bachelor?s degree at Delhi University.

After working for seven years, it dawned upon me that I would be better managing people than a Business Development Manager for International markets ? Oh yes forgot to share! The plot of my story changed tracks some 4 years ago. I converted from a journalist with a jhola and a scratch pad, addicted to the press club tea to a suited corporate manager with a blackberry glued to Decaf Latte. While I swam through the corporate cosmos dexterously, I also felt the need to acquire structured business education. Step one ? take the GMAT!

I took my first GMAT in Sep 2010 and scored a dismal 600. The moment the Pearson Associate announced my score I knew I wanted to take the test again, so I did ? in July 2011. I won?t advise this long a break between your first test and the retake but I got married and moved to the US and took time to settle. Ok, so coming back to the second GMAT ? this time a 660 with an improved quant and verbal percentile. I made peace with the score and was faced with the real deal breaker question ? What colleges to apply to.

I was clear about two things ? a) I should not be over ambitious and apply to (touch-me-not) Ivy leagues, though a small part of you will always dreams to be part of Ivy clan- Not me!. B) I knew I wanted to study Human Resource Management. Though, these two criteria?s did immensely shrink the list of my target schools (since only a handful of schools offer HR immersion, Sigh!), but my worries were far from over.

I started to question the prospect of placement in the HR field after I finish business school since clearly I had no work experience to back my choice of HR elective and my apprehension was compounded when my husband?s friends (all working business professional inclusive of a good chunk of Americans too) gingerly explained that I will always be considered as an outsider in the HR function since I come from a different culture and country. Ouch!

That hurt??and for days I kept fiddling with pros and cons but finally, I decided not to let the noise of others? opinions drown out my own inner call. What an irony that I could be such a sourpuss??! On the land governed by Barack Obama who gave us the slogan ?Yes We can?.

Moving on, a side note ? once you decide on what immersion you wish to study I highly recommend that you skim through topics covered under that immersion and see if they cater to your needs of investing your time and money in pursuing an MBA.

Two advantages of doing this exercise are ?
A) You can further trim the list of your target schools.
B) You will be in a better position to explain ?why this school? in essays and interviews and trust me, an insight into school?s curriculum and specific topics that interest you matter.

One of the schools that I did apply to and badly wanted an admit into was ?Vanderbilt ? I like to call it the ?Harvard in HR?. Its HR program is comprehensive and detailed with excellent support from alums and industry and is ranked third after Stanford and Cornell. I worked hard on the essays and applied in Round 2 ? Nov 28 deadline.

While I waited to hear from them patiently, with each passing day the chances of an interview call seemed bleak but my eyes were set on this school. To learn more about the school and its fabric I met one of their current students while she was visiting her family in Boston over winter break. I got great insights and a lot of dough to hold conversations around it in my interview. But I heard nothing from the school!

I also joined in all the web chat sessions organized by the school, the conversations were very enriching. Benefit of these chats is that you not only get your answers but sometimes an answer to another?s query provides you with a wonderful pointer which you can flaunt in front of the interviewer. But I still did not hear from the school!

An anxious I learnt from various MBA forums that applicants who applied in Round 2 had already been interviewed and received admits. Sigh! and I still heard nothing from the school! But an email that I received on the morning of Jan 6 was about to turn the tide of despair. It stated that Vanderbilt is visiting Boston and applicants (at any stage of their application) schedule their evaluative interview.

At first, I was not sure if that was a good idea, I didn?t want to look desperate and thank God, I did not waste too much time to shoot an email with my resume requesting for a slot since the slots fill in quickly. The adcom appreciates this imitative on your part and sees it as your keenness to join their program so it?s a win ?win situation for you.

My interview was scheduled for Jan 10 and I was a nervous wreck, worried about the way my hair looked to the shape of my unfiled nails. I was to be interviewed by Jill Dunham in the hotel lobby, the lobby was both overcrowded and loud for my comfort but my worries evaporated the moment Jill showed up. I knew this was my only shot, so I gave it my best.

The interview went on as a conversation where she asked why MBA, why Vanderbilt, why now?yada-yada-yada. The most interesting question she asked was ? ?If I were to send you on a vacation with your husband what are things that you will you do to make the most out of that vacation.? The good thing was that I was carrying a copy of the newspaper that I write for here, in the US. She seemed visibly impressed and requested if she could carry the paper to show it to her team.

No affirmative answer but I left content. The smile did not last long, a complete shocker in next ten minutes, I receive an email from Vanderbilt that I am denied admission this year, I could not believe what I just received in my inbox, I wrote to Jill asking about the mail to which she replied after 2 full days that It was a mistake and she will get back to me with a decision before Jan 20. Yes, she did revert ? on the afternoon of Jan 19 ? Congrats you are in for 2012!!! Phew!!!

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Sonal?s won half the battle by getting into the MBA specialisation and business school of her choice. The second half would be for her to break into the Human Resources (HR) field after she graduates. Let?s wish her good luck.

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Source: http://www.mbacrystalball.com/blog/2012/02/21/vanderbilt-mba-hr-human-resource-management/

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Video: Thailand names another bomb suspect

Thai police say they are hunting for anther suspect in an alleged Iranian plot to attack Israeli diplomats in Bangkok. Iran has denied any involvement ? it's blaming Israel for the bombings, as well as similar attacks in India and Georgia. Detectives took one suspect back to the scene of the first blast in central Bangkok as part of their investigation. John Sparks Channel 4 Europe reports.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/46457519/

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