Mediaboss Marketing

By LISA LEFF Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court in San Francisco plans to announce Tuesday if it will rehear a legal challenge to California's same-sex marriage ban or send the landmark case on to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said Monday it was ready to reveal whether a majority of its actively serving judges has agreed or refused to reconsider a February ruling by two of its member judges declaring the ban unconstitutional.

The decision is important because it affects how much longer the issue, which is expected to be appealed to the Supreme Court no matter what the 9th Circuit does, will take to resolve.

Same-sex marriages briefly were legal in California before voters approved Proposition 8 in November 2008, which barred gay and lesbian couples from marrying.

Two unmarried couples sued to overturn the ban in May 2009, and their lawsuit gave rise the next year to the first federal trial to examine if states can prohibit gays from getting married without violating the constitutional guarantee of equality. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ultimately sided with the couples.

After the ban's sponsors appealed, a 9th Circuit panel by 2-1 affirmed Walker's finding that Proposition 8 violated the civil rights of gay and lesbian Californians. But, instead of finding any gay marriage ban would be unconstitutional, the panel limited its decision to California, saying Proposition 8 improperly took away an existing right.

The ban's backers asked the full 9th Circuit to review the decision instead of appealing directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. If the full appeals court decides to rehear the case, it will go before the chief judge and 10 randomly selected judges, delaying a final resolution from the Supreme Court.

The 9th Circuit does not agree to such banc reviews very often. The practice is reserved for "a question of exceptional importance" or when the original panel's decision appears to conflict with Supreme Court or 9th Circuit precedents.

Several other high-profile same-sex cases also are making their way toward the high court. A three-judge panel of the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared last week that the federal law that prohibits recognition of same-sex couples unconstitutionally denies Social Security and other federal spousal benefits to married gay couples.

See the original post here:
Next word in Calif. gay marriage case due Tuesday

Compromise has always been a holy word for the Washington establishment. But against the backdrop of ever-increasing anxiety over our fiscal dysfunction, most particularly the next budget showdown, the word has taken on a tone of anger, desperation and even panic.

By Mandel Ngan, AFP/Getty Images

Not eye-to-eye: House Republican leader John Boehner and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.

By Mandel Ngan, AFP/Getty Images

Not eye-to-eye: House Republican leader John Boehner and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.

Columns

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes a variety of opinions from outside writers. On political and policy matters, we publish opinions from across the political spectrum.

Roughly half of our columns come from our Board of Contributors, a group whose interests range from education to religion to sports to the economy. Their charge is to chronicle American culture by telling the stories, large and small, that collectively make us what we are.

We also publish weekly columns by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY's founder, and DeWayne Wickham, who writes primarily on matters of race but on other subjects as well. That leaves plenty of room for other views from across the nation by well-known and lesser-known names alike.

But in all its usages these days, "compromise" remains a word for bludgeoning Republicans. "Congress isn't just stalemated, it's broken, experts say," proclaims the typical headline, this one in TheMiami Herald. And the experts say it's all the Republicans' fault.

Excerpt from:
Column: 'Compromise' is not a dirty word

The two most recent versions of Microsoft's word processor let you paste plain text rather than formatted text and graphics when you press Ctrl-V or click the Paste button.

In the annals of computer history, no two keystroke combinations have done more to boost worker productivity than Ctrl-C to copy to the clipboard whatever you've selected on the screen, and Ctrl-V to paste the contents of the clipboard to wherever you've placed the cursor.

What often follows the paste is the laborious process of reformatting the pasted material to match the look of the destination document. Microsoft Word lets you apply the formatting of the destination document when you paste, but by default Ctrl-V retains the original formatting of the pasted text.

Back in 2007 I described how to create a keystroke combination for pasting plain text in Word. One of the welcomed changes to Word 2007 was the ability to change the program's default paste setting to plain text, which I explained in a post from 2010.

Word 2007 also added a third paste alternative: in addition to retaining the selection's original formatting or pasting only plain text, you can choose to "match the destination formatting" when you paste (Word 2010 renames this option as "merge formatting"). This setting adopts most of the formatting of the destination document but retains bold, italic, and other emphasis formatting of the selection.

More helpful is the preview Word 2010 provides of the three paste options: hover over the buttons in the Paste dialog to see how the clipboard contents will appear after the paste.

Pass your mouse over the three buttons in Word 2010's Paste dialog box to preview the pasted selection with original formatting, merged formatting, or unformatted.

Make plain text the paste default in Word 2010 Previewing your paste avoids unpleasant surprises when adding material to a document from another source, but nine times out of ten I just want to paste plain text via Ctrl-V: no preview or mouse action required. To change the default paste setting in Word 2007 and Word 2010, open the program's Advanced options.

In Word 2007, click the Office button, then Word Options, then Advanced in the left pane. In Word 2010, click File > Options > Advanced. In both programs, scroll to the "Cut, copy, and paste" section of the Advanced settings.

In the drop-down menus to the right of "Paste between documents" and "Paste between programs," choose Keep Text Only. You can also change the placement of images you paste (the default is to set pasted images in line with the text).

Read this article:
Change MS Word's default paste setting to plain text

04-06-2012 03:31 (www.abndigital.com) ABN's Mashudu Masutha speaks with Nomvuyo Guma, Macroeconomic Strategist at Standard Bank, looking at: Market reaction to disappointing US jobs data last week; Expectations ahead of ECB meeting this week; Rand bouncing off three-year lows; SA markets eyeing vehicle sales and manufacturing data this week.

Read this article:
4 June - Currency Report with Nomvuyo Guma - Video

04-06-2012 14:44 The first of what will be a series of interviews with people living the travel dream, traveling the world and making money as they do it! Travel Blogging - I meet up with Samuel Jeffery of a Canadian currently teaching in South Korea, who over the last 11 months has built up his travel blog to where it earns anything from $2000 to $6000 USD a month. I ask him what his secrets are and he reveals some interesting tips. AROUND THE WORLD TRAVEL VIDEO ADVENTURE web: fb: twt: g+:

See the original post here:
Digital Nomads - Travel Blogger - Nomadic Samuel - Video