New round of foreclosures threatens housing market   

 Apple software more vulnerable than Microsoft, security expert says"Apple is far behind Microsoft in the quest to lock up software vulnerabilities."Read Article  

  Nevada Survey of 500 Likely Voters
June 9, 2010 Election 2010: Nevada Senate Sharron Angle (R) 50% Harry Reid (D) 39% Some other candidate 5% Not sure 6%     

  Pushy parents spoil children's fun with too many after-school classesNicola Woolcock 10 CommentsRecommend? (7) A cult of over-scheduling children’s lives is robbing them of the freedom to play or do nothing, according to a prominent head teacher. Competitive parents are jamming their children’s social lives with activities including play dates, baby yoga, foreign languages and tuition in unusual sports. Some are enrolled even before they can walk and talk. Instead, children need to focus on one talent, or even experience boredom so that they can learn to entertain themselves, Helen Wright has told The Times. Dr Wright, head of St Mary’s Calne, an independent girls’ boarding school in Wiltshire, addressed parents yesterday at the Independent Schools Show. “You can of course take the notion of opportunities too far, and it will be counter-productive if you do,” she said. “Sometimes parents can feel a kind of competitive pressure to schedule in as much as possible to their children’s lives, rushing them from ballet, to French, to extra maths, to cram in as many experiences and as much learning as possible. Why play when you can learn? seems to be the mantra. Related LinksSurreal experience in the half-term art class Boredom is the measure of character Let kids use imaginations for best result “The truth is, of course, that our children learn through play, and need time just to learn to be themselves. “Does your three-year-old have a diary? If so, bin it. Over-organisation and relentless scheduling leave no time for a child to breathe, and having space and time to do nothing, just to think and grow, are essential.” Dr Wright, who is president-elect of the Girls’ Schools Association, told the event in Battersea, South London: “Part of the opportunity creation is making…

  America's desire to be loved and feared has long misled CIA The mystery is how a Jordanian 'mole' could be of use in Afghanistan In the vast American embassy in the hills outside the Jordanian capital Amman a senior US Special Forces officer runs an equally special office. He buys information from Jordanian army and intelligence officers – for cash, of course – but he also helps to train Afghan and Iraqi policemen and soldiers. The information he seeks is not just about al-Qa'ida but about Jordanians themselves, about the army's loyalty to King Abdullah II as well as about the anti-American insurgents who live in Jordan, primarily Iraqi but also Iraqi al-Qa'ida contacts with Afghanistan. It's easy to buy army officers in the Middle East. The Americans spent much of 2001 and 2002 buying up the warlords of Afghanistan. They paid for Jordanian troops to join their own occupation army in Iraq – which was why the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad was ruthlessly bombed by Washington's enemies.What the CIA's double agent Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi did – like so many al-Qa'ida followers, he was a doctor – was routine. He worked for both sides, because America's enemies long ago infiltrated Washington's "allies" in the Arab intelligence forces. Even Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who effectively led the al-Qa'ida side of the insurgency in Iraq and was himself a Jordanian citizen, maintained contacts within Amman's General Intelligence Department, whose own senior officer, Sharif Ali bin Zeid, was killed along with seven Americans this week in the CIA's greatest disaster since the Beirut US embassy bombing of 1983.There is, however, nothing romantic about espionage in the Middle East. Several of the CIA men killed in Afghanistan were in fact hired mercenaries while the Jordanian "mukhabbarat" spooks, for whom both bin Zeid and al-Balawi worked, use torture…