Where's the legal line drawn in animal-rights activism? | McClatchy

WASHINGTON ? A federal courthouse in Boston and a ranch in California's San Joaquin Valley present competing faces of the animal rights movement.

One side is peaceful. The other, decidedly, is not. Both can feel the weight of the law and the sting of being called a terrorist.

At the giant Harris Ranch, in western Fresno County, investigators are trying to solve the Jan. 8 arson that damaged 14 tractors and several cattle-hauling trailers. Anonymous animal-rights activists claimed responsibility for the fire.

The Harris Ranch arson was clearly a crime, however it happened. But in a new lawsuit, animal advocates with a far different tactical approach contend that Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein and other lawmakers went too far the last time Congress addressed animal rights activism, in 2006.

"We're not saying that one can't punish arson," attorney Rachel Meeropol said in an interview Friday, "but that's not what the (2006) law is about. The law reaches far too broadly."

Meeropol, who's with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, is representing Minneapolis resident Sarahjane Blum and four other activists in the lawsuit, filed Dec. 15. It argues that the 2006 Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act violates the First Amendment rights of those who want to protest how animals are treated.

Blum, for one, founded GourmetCruelty.com, whose advocacy efforts helped persuade the California legislature in 2004 to ban traditional foie gras production. The ban, which blocks the force-feeding of ducks "for the purpose of enlarging the bird's liver beyond normal size," takes effect in July.

Under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, animal rights advocates may be prosecuted for actions that cause "the loss of any real or personal property ... used by an animal enterprise" and for interstate travel that has the "purpose of damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise."

The animal-rights advocates' lawsuit argues that the broadly worded law could be used to prosecute activities such as picketing, if companies lose business or have to pay for extra security because of it.

Blum "was stunned that the ethical, important work that she had devoted her life to had been turned overnight into terrorism," the lawsuit says, adding that she now curtails advocacy "that risks prosecution" under the law.

The Justice Department hasn't filed its response.

Lawmakers, though, say tougher laws and stricter penalties are needed to stop zealous activism that evolves into violence. Feinstein, in supporting the 2006 law, cited attempted bombings that targeted a University of California at Los Angeles primate research center and a San Francisco Bay Area pharmaceutical company.

"This legislation is crucial to respond to the expanded scope of terrorist activity," Feinstein said during Senate debate.

Feinstein was the only Democrat to join Republicans, including Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and current presidential candidate Rick Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, in co-sponsoring the Senate bill. It eventually passed the House of Representatives and the Senate easily, but it hasn't yet been extensively used.

In 2009, federal prosecutors used the law to charge four activists with going too far in their protests against animal research labs at University of California campuses at Berkeley and Santa Cruz.

"The defendants are accused of chanting slogans such as '1, 2, 3, 4, open up the cage door; 5, 6, 7, 8, smash the locks and liberate; 9, 10, 11, 12, vivisectors go to hell," the Justice Department noted in a June 15, 2009, court filing.

U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte, whom President George H.W. Bush appointed to the bench, dismissed the case in 2010.

In another rare use of the law, Utah residents William Viehl and Alex Hall pleaded guilty and were sentenced to nearly two years in prison for releasing hundreds of minks in 2008 at a mink farm and spray-painting slogans that included, "No more mink, no more murder."

The Utah incident was less kinetic than what happened near Coalinga, Calif. on the early morning of Jan. 8, when firefighters needed 45 minutes to put out a blaze that started at the Harris Ranch truck storage area.

An anonymous statement subsequently posted on a website maintained by the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, which calls itself a clearinghouse for others, said the attack showed "the enemy is still vulnerable" and signed off "until next time."

Feinstein's office has been in contact with the Harris Ranch since the incident, according to a spokesman.

Farm groups insist that animal-rights groups must help find the perpetrators.

"If they sit by silently while animal rightists attack law-abiding businesses, they are passively endorsing domestic terrorism," Paul Wenger, the president of the California Farm Bureau Federation, said this week in a statement.

ON THE WEB

Blum v. Holder animal rights lawsuit

MORE FROM MCCLATCHY

Animal rights activists take credit for Fresno farm fires

Donor objection prompts Cal Poly to change lecture by agriculture critic Michael Pollan

Ballot issue breeds contempt between dog breeders, animal-rights activists

Follow Michael Doyle on Twitter

Source: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/13/135840/wheres-the-legal-line-drawn-in.html

black friday online deals black friday news gamestop albert haynesworth banana republic apple store academy

Modern trading killing off "barrow boy" market slang (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) ? "The Old Lady just bought half a yard of cable and there are plenty of bids for Bill and Ben."

Confused?

To most foreign exchange traders in London's "City" financial district that sentence would make perfect sense: "The Bank of England just bought half a billion U.S. dollars worth of British pounds against the dollar and there's interest to buy the Japanese yen."

A mixture of Cockney rhyming slang, market banter and expressions picked up from horse racing bookmakers makes up the basis for a financial lingua franca that may sound like nonsense to most people, but has dominated the $4 trillion a day foreign exchange (FX) market for decades up until recently.

Most often used for currencies, countries and numbers, this financial market mumbo jumbo is starting to die out on the modern trading floors of international banks.

The growth of electronic dealing over computer screens rather than telephones or in person, a new generation of university-educated traders, and the introduction of the single European currency are all seen as reasons behind slang's demise.

"These terms get batted around a little bit but not as much as they used to," said Graham Davidson, director of FX trading at National Australia Bank in London, who said dealing rooms in general are much quieter than they used to be.

"FX is much more electronic. Lots of the slang came about through banter with the voice brokers, but that doesn't really work with machines. A lot of day-to-day chit chat has faded away, it's quite sad."

Some market players say the shift in the language of the dealing rooms also highlights a wider shift in the demographic of those doing the trading.

Many traders nowadays are recruited as university graduates with top marks from Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and M.I.T., whereas 30 years ago aspiring youngsters with few, if any, academic qualifications often started as back office clerks and worked their way up to the trading floor.

Young London lads blessed with quick wits, common sense and ability to juggle numbers were often prized above those with academic laurels and went on to make fortunes as City traders.

"They were the 'barrow boys' coming off the market stalls. It was more working class and with that came the language of the street," said one trader, who used to work alongside some dealers who also owned fruit and vegetable and flower stalls.

"In the early days of dealing rooms it was the City institutions and especially the British banks where you heard it. Now dealing rooms might be a bit more international and slang is dying off a bit."

HALF A YARD OF CABLE

Some expressions have endured despite the changed dealing room environment. "Yard," meaning billion comes from shortening the French word for billion, which is "milliard."

"Cable" - one of the most-used slang terms - means the British pound/U.S. dollar currency pair and refers to the transatlantic telegraph cable that allowed prices to be transmitted between the London and New York Exchanges.

The Bank of England gained its title from its address, making it the "Old Lady" of Threadneedle Street, while the yen is nicknamed the Bill and Ben - after a pair of puppets from a 1950s British children's TV show - simply because it rhymes.

Country nicknames tend to conform to stereotypes, some less politically correct than others, while currencies were given nicknames to help distinguish them easily.

Some traders said if countries did give up the single European currency (euro) as a result of an on-going debt crisis in Europe, some slang might re-emerge.

"We have talked about this a lot recently given the euro zone situation, and thought about what it would be like to go back to mark/Paris (deutschmark/French franc)," a London-based trader said.

"These days there are far fewer names to worry about - the euro is the euro. Whereas in years gone by you would have had to worry about what the Estonian currency was even called."

Short selection of City slang

NUMBERS:

A SPANIARD 1 From the Spanish name Juan

A PRICKLY 2 A prickly pear

A CARPET 3 UK prisoners used to be allowed

carpet in their cells after 3 years

LADY GODIVA 5 Rhymes with fiver

AYRTON 10 Tenner rhymes with Ayrton

Senna, the late racing car driver

A BULLY 50 From the 50-point bullseye

on a dartboard

A MONKEY 500 The 500-Indian rupee note used to

have a picture of a monkey on it

CURRENCIES:

THE LOONIE CANADIAN DOLLAR A waterfowl named the

loon is depicted on

Canada's one-dollar coin

THE KIWI NZ DOLLAR National bird of New

Zealand

THE AUSSIE AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR

THE STOKKIE SWEDISH CROWN

THE NOKKIE NORWEGIAN CROWN

(Reporting by Nia Williams, editing by Paul Casciato)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oddlyenough/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120113/od_nm/us_markets_slang_forex

nicki minaj barbie doll black dahlia drew drew lady gaga marry the night video lady gaga marry the night video pac 12 championship game

Mars mission lines up on target

12 January 2012 Last updated at 00:15 ET By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News Continue reading the main story

Curiosity - Mars Science Laboratory

• Project costed at $2.5bn; will see initial surface operations lasting two Earth years
• Onboard plutonium generators will deliver heat and electricity for at least 14 years
• 75kg science payload more than 10 times as massive as those of earlier US Mars rovers
• Equipped with tools to brush and drill into rocks, to scoop up, sort and sieve samples
• Variety of analytical techniques to discern chemistry in rocks, soil and atmosphere
• Will try to make first definitive identification of organic (carbon rich) compounds
• Even carries a laser to zap rocks; beam will identify atomic elements in rocks

Nasa's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), currently en route to the Red Planet, has had its course corrected to put it on target for an August landing.

The 900kg rover is flying through space at 15km/s following its launch on an Atlas rocket from Florida in November.

Wednesday's manoeuvre ensures MSL is properly lined up on Mars but also that the Atlas, which is following behind, misses the planet.

The roving lab is aiming to land inside a 150km-wide bowl called Gale Crater.

It will use its sophisticated instruments to assess whether the location has ever had the conditions capable of supporting life.

The course correction involved firing the eight thrusters on MSL's cruise stage in a planned sequence that lasted almost three hours.

The cruise stage is the support vehicle that is carrying the rover to the Red Planet. The laboratory itself is tucked away inside a protective cone-shaped capsule.

All of this equipment will have to be jettisoned for MSL to make its landing, expected to take place on the morning of 6 August (GMT).

The thruster firings initiated what is expected to be the biggest change in course for the probe during its nine-month, 570-million-km-long journey to the Red Planet.

Further manoeuvres, however, will still be needed to precisely point MSL at its destination, with a last correction being made perhaps just before the mission's entry into the Martian atmosphere.

Changing course like this mid-way through a cruise is standard practice.

Planetary protection protocols drawn up by scientists demand that space missions limit the amount of earthly contamination they take to other worlds, and while MSL was prepared to exacting standards of cleanliness the same could not be said of its Atlas launcher.

Wednesday's manoeuvre guarantees the upper portion of this vehicle, which has been trailing behind the rover after giving it a final push, cannot now impact Mars.

MSL, also known as Curiosity, is the biggest, most capable spacecraft ever sent to touch the surface of another planet.

Getting down on to planet will not be easy; most efforts have failed. But the Americans have a good recent record and they believe a new rocket-powered descent system will be able to place the rover in one of the most exciting locations on the planet.

Curiosity will investigate a central mountain in Gale Crater that is some 5km high.

It will climb the mountain, and, as it does so, study rocks that were laid down billions of years ago in the presence of water.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/science-environment-16515006

hedy lamarr bill conlin kendall jenner plane crash plane crash kardashian christmas card lori berenson

Video: What's Next in Euro Debt Crisis?

Michael Ozanian, Forbes executive editor, and Don Luskin, Trend Macro chief investment officer, discuss how investors can protect their portfolios, amid recession fears in Europe. Also, will the euro zone's debt crisis keep a lid on the market's rally...

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/45964906/

brine turkey uc davis super committee walmart black friday ad 2011 nl mvp nl mvp verlander

New iPhone app lets users follow roaming great white sharks (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? The great white shark is lurking in cyberspace, in the form of an iPhone application launched this week that allows users to track a dozen of the predators as they roam around the Pacific Ocean.

The California-based Marine Conservation Science Institute launched the app, which the nonprofit describes as the first shark tracker of its kind, to raise funds for its research.

Great white sharks have scared and fascinated the public going back at least to Steven Spielberg's 1975 film "Jaws," and the animals' pop culture stardom continues in such television programming as the Discovery Channel's annual "Shark Week."

Michael Domeier and the Marine Conservation Science Institute he heads have also been featured on TV, through a National Geographic series called "Expedition Great White" that debuted in 2009 and was later renamed "Shark Men."

The institute received exposure from the show and the headline-grabbing theory Domeier has advanced that great whites might hunt giant squids, when they spends part of the year in a desolate patch of the Pacific between California and Hawaii.

The sharks that users can watch on their smartphone screens were tagged by the institute itself in recent years. But Domeier's institute remains relatively small, with only one other person on staff.

"This is an innovative way for us to be trying to raise money in this really challenging economy," Domeier said of his new application, which sells for $3.99 at iTunes.

The application, launched at iTunes on Wednesday, cost nearly $100,000 to produce, he said. Included in that budget was video content and a game for children to learn about great whites.

The institute has tagged more than 20 great white sharks, but the batteries on some of the tags expired, Domeier said. The iPhone application allows users to follow the migration of a dozen sharks the institute is still following, he said.

TRACKING DEVICES LINKED TO SATELLITES

The tracking devices on the sharks, which are linked to satellites, will not give the exact locations of the predators, so there is no fear that it could be used by hunters.

For the satellite to get a reading from a tracking device, a shark must be at the surface for at least three minutes, Domeier said. As a result, an updated position on each shark is not available every day.

"It's not super-precise, and the sharks are moving all the time," said Domeier, who holds a doctorate in marine biology and fisheries.

Ted Miller, a spokesman for Apple, said apart from the institute's product, he was not aware of any other shark-tracking application available at iTunes.

The institute plans to later launch iPad and Android versions of the app, but for now it is only available for Apple's iPhone.

Domeier said the great white shark remains a largely mysterious creature. The animals number in the thousands in the Pacific Ocean off California and Mexico, but their exact population in the region is unknown, he said.

"For decades, we thought of great whites as a temperate species that lives off the coast living off seals and small porpoises, but actually that's not true," he said.

"They spend a majority of their time out in the ocean, and we really don't know what they're doing there."

John O'Sullivan, curator of field operations at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, said he and colleagues talked about creating a tracking program for the public such as the one developed by Domeier. "He got off his butt and made it," O'Sullivan said.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the great white shark as a vulnerable species, which is one level removed from endangered status.

Great whites have been among those species of sharks killed for shark fin soup, an Asian delicacy. The United Nations estimates that over 70 million sharks a year are killed for the dish. California lawmakers last year banned the soup in an effort to protect the animals.

(Reporting By Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/applecomputer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120113/tc_nm/us_shark_app

japan earthquake bosom buddies andrew bynum anderson cooper rodney atkins diplo fergie

Five Best Goal Tracking Services [Hive Five]

Whether you've made some resolutions for the new year or you're just looking for a tool that can help reinforce your commitment to making some positive changes in your life, the web is full of apps, tools, and web services designed to remind you that you're supposed to do something good for yourself, connect you with other people facing the same challenge, and provide encouragement. Here are five of the best of those services, based on your nominations.

Earlier in the week, we asked you which services you used to track your goals and monitor your progress towards them. You responded with more suggestions than we could possibly cover in one story, but we tallied the nominations and here are the top five.

Photo by Julie Jordan Scott.

Lifetick

Lifetick is one of the most robust and feature-rich goal-tracking webapps we've seen. The service is full of features that make it easy to add and track multiple goals, build plans and steps for each one, and then look back on your progress over time to see how well you're doing on the way there, complete with graphs and reports that quantify your experiences. You can filter your goals based on the part of your life you want to work on, and review your progress in each individual area. Lifetick is free if you're tracking up to 4 goals, but if you want to add more or make use of the service's journaling features, you'll have to pay $20/year for a subscription.

---

Mindbloom Life Game

The Mindbloom Life Game is not only fun, but it's a great way to prioritize the things that are important to you and make concrete strides towards improving those areas of your life. We've covered Mindbloom before, and the service has grown since then to offer more suggestions, roll in more social features to help you collaborate on your goals and share your progress with friends, and even an iPhone app to help you stay inspired and committed to your goals when you're away from your computer. The game rolls in rewards and incentives for working towards your goals, and while the goals aren't completely user-defined, they're all good improvements to make in your life. Plus, it's completely free.

---

Goalscape

Goalscape is up there with Lifetick when it comes to the number of features and reporting options it offers. The service arranges your goals in a large set of concentric "wheels," organized by type and with the relative importance of each goal indicated by how large a slice of the wheel it represents. You can easily see at all times which goals are bigger than the others, and you can separate them out by category to see how you're doing with each one. The service offers templates you can use to get started quickly, and reporting your progress is easy. You can download an AIR app for Mac OS or Windows, use the webapp to keep track of your goals, or take Goalscape on the go with its iPhone app. Goalscape is pricey though: it offers a 14-day free trial, but after that you'll need to cough up either $114 for the AIR app (which includes 6 months of access to the webapp, after which you'll have to pay again if you want to use the webapp), $114 for a 12-month subscription to the webapp alone, or $63 for a 6-month subscription to the webapp alone.

---

Milestone Planner

Milestone Planner is less oriented towards individuals looking to accomplish their personal goals as it is designed to help groups and individuals work on projects and tasks, but the tool is one of your favorites for both purposes. The drag-and-drop interface works well for organizing tasks, you can easily run a report to see when items are due and what's set to finish when, as well as your overall progress towards those milestones. If you have a goal with incremental steps?and your goals should definitely have measurable steps you can take along the way?Milestone Planner can remind you when to check on those steps, and how far you have to go. If you're organizing goals for a group, you can assign tasks and milestones to others, and get reports on how they're doing as well. The service has free "guest version," which limits you to 3 plans and is ad-supported, but for more plans and milestones you'll need to pay $14/month for the Pro Version, or ask for a quote for their enterprise suites.

---

Joe's Goals

Joe's Goals isn't terribly robust or full of flash and flare, but it's simple, easy to use, and earns more than a few points for being simple and to the point. Add your goals and the things you want to do regularly to a calendar, and then check off whether your met or missed your goal each day. The service was built by?predictably?Joe, who wanted a way to easily keep track of how often he worked out, but also how frequently he slipped up and ordered takeout, so he built a webapp to help him out. Joe's Goals works jsut as well with "positive" goals, like things you want to do, as it does with "negative" goals, or things you want to stop doing. You'll always be able to tell at a glance how well you're progressing, and you can add more than one check for days where you went the extra mile. Simple, effective, easy, and free.

---

Now that you've seen the top five, it's time to vote for the winner.

Honorable mentions this week go out to 43 Things, a service we love and one of the first web services to define this category, but surprinsgly was just shy of the nominations needed to make the top five. Also worth noting is the currently-in-beta Aherk!, which blackmails you into working towards your goals by threatening to post an embarrassing photo to Facebook for you if you don't.

Have something to say about one of the contenders? Miss the call for contenders thread and want to plead the case for your favorite? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/Qi9zU2wgDgQ/five-best-goal-tracking-services

heather locklear mlk mlk coachella 2012 critics choice awards 2012 moonrise kingdom girl scout cookies

Another victory keeps Tebow in the spotlight (AP)

DENVER ? He kneels in prayer at times when many players would be pounding their chest, and is winning with a style the experts insist cannot work for long.

Tim Tebow's formula for success and fame is not typical for the NFL. So, is it a football miracle? Or the perfect blend of luck, timing and big plays? That's the debate that makes the tale of the Denver Broncos quarterback one of the most compelling stories in America these days.

Hardly anyone stands on neutral ground when it comes to the purveyor of this unorthodox mix of throwing mechanics, big-time sports and devout religion, a 24-year-old Christian who is the subject of comedy skits on Saturday nights and serious sermons on Sunday mornings.

But what most people will agree on is that it's hard to take your eyes off Tebow these days ? a man who unapologetically uses football to take his message beyond the field while also taking his team on an unexpected ride through the playoffs.

"I'm just very thankful for the platform that God has given me, and the opportunity to be a quarterback for the Denver Broncos ? what a great organization," Tebow said after his latest shocker ? an 80-yard touchdown pass on the first play of overtime Sunday to beat Pittsburgh 29-23 in the wild-card playoffs.

The play, according to Twitter, spawned a record 9,420 tweets per second.

Not lost in that flurry was that Tebow threw for 316 yards and set an NFL playoff record by averaging 31.6 yards. That's "316," as in John 3:16, one of the most-often cited Bible passages for Christians, the most widely searched item on Google for much of Sunday night into Monday, and the message Tebow used to stencil into the eyeblack he wore when he played college ball at Florida.

Not that referencing the Bible or thanking God is anything new in sports. After NFL games for years, a small group of athletes gather around midfield, kneel, hold hands and pray. That devotion has been largely ignored or even criticized by media and fans.

"The thing with Tebow is that he seems more genuinely religious than most athletes, who seem to be religious to win games," said Clifford Putney, author of the book "Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880-1920."

That might help explain why Tebow's gestures are not being overlooked, but part of an ever-growing sensation. It started building when he won the Heisman Trophy and two national titles at Florida, though he was steeped in strong religion well before that ? born in the Philippines to missionary parents.

More recently, he introduced mass culture to the art of "Tebowing" ? kneeling on one knee, elbow perched on the other, fist to forehead ? while chaos is erupting around him. The practice now has its own website, with pictures of people Tebowing in a research lab, in front of the Sydney Opera House, in front of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, etc.

Entertaining as all that has been, it has made fans and the media rethink the way they judge and cover their sports stars. Reporting that a player was including the Lord in his postgame analysis has long been widely thought of as trite and inappropriate, something to simply skip over when typing in the quotes.

Tebow's five fourth-quarter comebacks and his four overtime victories ? each more improbable than the last ? and his steady, genuine, yet somehow unassuming insistence on bringing God into the conversation has forced an uncomfortable question upon those who want to make it only about what happens between the lines.

Does God really care about football?

"Not one whit," said Joe Price, a professor in the religious studies department at Whittier College. "But does God care about people who play football? You betcha."

In a sports season filled with unsavory stories ? NFL and NBA labor wars, child sex abuse scandals at Penn State and Syracuse, and a baseball MVP accused of using steroids ? Tebow is seen by many as a sports star who really could be a role model, contrary to what Charles Barkley or anyone else might say.

But the Tebow angst still exists, in large part because there is seemingly no way to analyze what he does on a football field without religion seeping into at least some part of that analysis.

Opine about his unorthodox throwing motion ? widely derided by scouts and coaches and seemingly more suited for tossing a boomerang than a football ? and the quick assumption becomes that you might not like him because of his religious beliefs.

Defend him as a winner who cares less about conventionality and depends more on moxie than mechanics ? well, then you must be drinking the Kool-Aid, a Tebow fan because you're in line with his Christian beliefs.

"I still have doubts about him as a long-term answer, as I think most reasonable people do," said radio host Sandy Clough, who has been manning Denver's sports talk shows for more than 30 years. "Does one game, if he plays well, not only invalidate his play from the other (bad) games but anything anyone's ever said about it? Well, no it doesn't. It's all part of the mix. It's a fascinating mix. He's the toughest player I've ever had to analyze, because there are all these extraneous factors you have to bring in."

Sensing the excitement and loving his message, Tebow is also being courted by Republican presidential candidates. The quarterback recently told The Associated Press he's been asked by more than one of the contenders for his support. He wouldn't name names, but did say he'd declined the offer.

"I think you have to have so much trust in who you support, just from product endorsements to endorsing a candidate because if that person or company does something (bad), it reflects on you," said Tebow, who's a pitchman for Nike, Jockey and FRS energy drink.

Tebow has, however, placed himself in the political realm before ? two Super Bowls ago when he starred in a Focus on the Family commercial with his mother sharing the story of how she gave birth to him in the Philippines in 1987 after spurning a doctor's advice to have an abortion for medical reasons. After being criticized for that ad, he didn't do an encore and instead tries to toe the line of showing his religion without shoving it down people's throats.

That hasn't stopped people from mocking him ? and worse.

After Tebow was particularly bad in an ugly loss to Buffalo on Dec. 24, comedian and talk show host Bill Maher sent out a tweet that basked in the QB's misfortune, blaming Jesus for the loss. "And on Xmas Eve! Somewhere in hell Satan is tebowing, saying to Hitler `Hey, Buffalo's killing them,'" Maher tweeted.

Maher, in turn, was roundly ripped for the post.

Less toxic was the recent skit on "Saturday Night Live," where "Jesus" materializes in the locker room with an actor portraying Tebow, admits he is pulling some strings during these Bronco games, then after being told the New England Patriots are next on the schedule, suggests Tebow substitute his playbook, "the holy Bible," for one with some Xs and Os.

The "SNL" Jesus also concedes that he, personally, prays to the Broncos place-kicker, Matt Prater, whose excellence has defined what the Tebow sensation has been about for most of this season: a bunch of teammates, motivated by a less-than-perfect leader who never gives up, coming together and picking each other up when the going gets tough.

A great story line that has held most of the year.

The twist on Sunday, though, was that for the first time this season, it could reasonably be argued that Tebow was a one-man show. In the win over Pittsburgh, he completed five passes of 30 yards or more. And with his defense struggling, he threw a perfect strike for the game-winner to receiver Demaryius Thomas, who didn't have to change his stride and, thus, ran untouched into the end zone.

"He was the same Tim, calm and collected," Thomas said. "He took it one play at a time and was in the huddle and said, `It's either we win or we go home.'"

___

AP Pro Football Writer Arnie Stapleton contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120109/ap_on_sp_fo_ne/fbn_the_tebow_sensation

douglas fir jim boeheim jim boeheim bill of rights toys r us toys r us shame