WH: Leaked immigration plan is only partial draft

(CBS News) WASHINGTON -- Over the weekend, a partial White House plan for immigration reform leaked to the press and caused an uproar.

White House officials tell CBS News that what was leaked is real -- it's a partial draft of half a bill. What we know is the administration's current thinking about what to do about the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States right now.

The administration wants a temporary four-year visa to provide legal status -- meaning no more deportations -- that could be renewed. After eight years, they can apply for what's known as permanent legal residency, or, more commonly, a Green Card.

(At left, watch White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough discuss the leaked immigration plan on "Face the Nation.")



There's also administration thinking on border security and an unspecified increase in border security, subject to negotiations with Congress. For workers who try to find jobs in the future and who might not have documents, the plan includes an E-Verify system to make sure undocumented workers aren't given jobs.


GOP: Leaked WH immigration plan "counterproductive"
W.H. immigration plan circulating in case Congress talks "break down," McDonough says

What's missing is a section dealing with all future legal immigration issues: high-skilled workers, seasonal farm workers and workers who work in hotels or restaurants. Without that, this plan doesn't have much of a chance.

The plan is not likely to get through Congress without the section dealing with legal immigration. That's why Republicans were so critical this weekend.

Last year, Republicans criticized the president for being missing in action and failing to draft a bill. Now that he admits he is, Republicans say he's contaminating that process; they argue that if you don't have a comprehensive bill -- one that can pass Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate -- this is a futile effort.

The White House says Republicans are going to be dared to vote up or down eventually, and that they better get used to that.

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Russian Meteor: Close Encounter, Preventing Impacts





Feb 18, 2013 7:03pm



MOSCOW — As if Friday’s massive meteor explosion over central Russia weren’t enough, just hours later a large asteroid buzzed dangerously close to Earth.


And that evening, the California sky was lit up by a fireball, apparently entering Earth’s atmosphere.


It’s a barrage from space that has people asking: Are we ready for the big one?


Nearly 100 tons of space debris enters Earth’s atmosphere every day. Most of it burns up or falls harmlessly into the ocean, but experts still worry that eventually something big will come our way.


PHOTOS: Meteorite Crashes in Russia


epa russia meteor Chebarkul lake jt 130217 wblog Russian Meteor: Close Encounters and Plans to Prevent Impacts

Image credit: Chelyabinsk Region Branch of Russian Interior Ministry/HO/EPA


The prospect of Earth getting hit by a giant hunk of space rock is concerning enough that the United Nations is gathering top minds in Italy this week to discuss it.


Scientists say the idea of blowing up an asteroid — as Bruce Willis’ character did in the movie “Armageddon” — is pure Hollywood fantasy. Even if we could hit it, it’s unlikely to stop it.


Existing sky-watching programs run by NASA and others can only spot the biggest asteroids, not the small ones that sneak up on us.


But fear not, citizens of Earth. Scientists have a plan.


RELATED: Russian Meteor: Rushing to Cash in on the Blast


One group, the non-profit B612 Foundation, proposes sending a telescope, called Sentinel, into space to detect incoming objects decades before their orbits intersect ours. Then, unmanned spacecraft could fly to them and nudge them clear of Earth’s path.


The group is trying to raise $200 million to make it happen and hopes to launch the telescope by 2016.


Another project, proposed by the University of Hawaii, aims to give earthlings a heads-up when necessary, starting by 2015.


RELATED: Meteor Events: Rare, but Dangerous


It is called the Atlas program, and the plan is to deploy a string of telescopes that would search for even smaller objects in the sky, hoping to be able to give people at least a few day’s notice that could allow time for an evacuation.


Until then, better keep Bruce Willis on speed dial.



SHOWS: World News






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Wiping out top predators messes up the climate









































Wiping out top predators like lions, wolves and sharks is tragic, bad for ecosystems – and can make climate change worse. Mass extinctions of the big beasts of the jungles, grasslands and oceans could already be adding to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.












Trisha Atwood of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, studied the effect of removing predator fish from ponds and rivers in Canada and Costa Rica. Across a range of ecosystems, climates and predators, she found a consistent pattern: carbon dioxide emissions typically increased more than tenfold after the predators were removed.












"It looks like predators in many types of ecosystems – marine and terrestrial as well as freshwater – can play a very big role in global climate change," she told New Scientist.












The widespread and dramatic ecological impacts of the loss of top predators are well known. In the ensuing "trophic cascade", the vanished top predator's prey proliferate, which in turn puts pressure on the species that the prey eats, and so on down the food chain. In this way, changes at the top of a food chain destabilise the balance of populations right the way down.












But the geochemical impacts of trophic cascades, including any impact on emissions from ecosystems, are much less well known. Atwood's study of freshwater ecosystems showed how changes to species at the bottom of the food chain, such as photosynthesising algae, following the removal of a top predator dramatically increased the flow of CO2 from the ecosystem to the atmosphere.












The effect will not always be to increase CO2 emissions, however – sometimes the loss of top predators could decrease emissions, she says. "But we show that something so seemingly unrelated, like fishing all the trout from a pond or removing sharks from the ocean, could have big consequences for greenhouse-gas dynamics."











Help from kelp













Other recent studies have hinted at similar effects. Last October, Christopher Wilmers of the University of California, Santa Cruz, reported how the disappearance of sea otters is linked with increased CO2 emissions from North American coastlines (Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, doi.org/khz). With no otters eating them, sea urchins thrive and eat out kelp forests – often known as the "rainforests of the oceans" – resulting in major CO2 releases.












Global climate models do not take such impacts into account yet. Atwood says they could be major, as freshwater emissions may be on a par with the influence of deforestation, which is thought responsible for around 15 per cent of human-caused CO2 emissions.












Environmentalists will herald the findings as further evidence that it is vital to protect pristine habitats and the charismatic species at the top of their food chains. But there is a dark side. A recent study found that some island ecosystems around New Zealand store 40 per cent more carbon than others because of their top predators – invading rats that are wiping out seabird colonies. Rats, it seems, are good for the climate (Biology Letters, doi.org/bbmtw9).












Journal reference: Nature Geoscience, DOI: 10.1038/NGEO1734


















































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Pakistan protesters demand end to killing of Shiites






QUETTA, Pakistan: Thousands of women refused to bury victims of a bloody bombing and a strike shut down Pakistan's biggest city Karachi as protesters across the country demanded protection for Shiite Muslims.

Up to 4,000 women began their sit-in in Quetta Sunday evening, a day after a bomb in the city killed 81 members of the minority community including nine women and two girls aged seven and nine.

The women blocked a road and refused to bury the dead until authorities take action against the extremists behind the attack, which wounded 178 people.

The bomb, containing nearly a tonne of explosives hidden in a water tanker, tore through a crowded market in Hazara Town, a Shiite-dominated area on the edge of the city on Saturday evening.

It was the second deadly blast in the city in little over a month.

The sit-in continued Monday at Hazara Town and near a local station, said Wazir Khan Nasir, police chief of Quetta which is the capital of the southwestern province of Baluchistan.

"We are going to resume negotiations with the Shiite community leaders this morning to convince them to bury the dead," Nasir told AFP.

However a local Shiite party leader, Qayyum Changezi, said the protesters "will not bury the dead until a targeted operation is launched".

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the bomb blast and called on authorities to act quickly against those responsible.

Sit-in demonstrations were held in several cities and towns across the country demanding an end to the killing of Shiites.

Public transport drivers and traders stopped work in Karachi Monday after a Shiite party called a protest strike, residents said.

Schools were closed, traffic was off the roads and attendance in offices was thin in the city. Several political and religious parties have backed the strike call.

"We will continue our peaceful struggle for protection of the Shiite community," said a Shiite party leader, Hasan Zafar Naqvi.

Baluchistan has increasingly become a flashpoint for surging sectarian bloodshed between Pakistan's majority Sunni Muslims and Shiites, who account for around a fifth of the country's 180 million people.

Saturday's attack takes the death toll in sectarian attacks in Pakistan this year to almost 200 compared with more than 400 in the whole of 2012 -- a year which Human Rights Watch described as the deadliest on record for Shiites.

A double suicide bombing on a snooker club in Quetta on January 10 killed at least 92 people, the deadliest-ever single attack on the community in Pakistan.

No one has been arrested for that attack and Daud Agha, chairman of the Shia Conference, told AFP anger was rising in the community.

Although it is customary for Muslims to bury the dead swiftly, protesters after the snooker club bombing refused to do so, prompting Islamabad to sack the provincial government.

The banned militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) claimed responsibility for Saturday's attack -- as it did for the snooker hall bombing and a February 1 attack on a Shiite mosque in northwest Pakistan that killed 24.

There is anger and frustration at the apparent inability or unwillingness of the authorities to tackle the LeJ. Activists say the failure of the judiciary to prosecute sectarian killers allows them to operate with impunity.

Baluchistan governor Zulfiqar Magsi pointed the finger at the security forces over the latest atrocity.

"Repeated occurrence of such attacks is a failure of our intelligence agencies," he told reporters late Saturday.

"Our security institutions, police, FC (paramilitary Frontier Corps) and others are either scared or cannot take action against them."

But Baluchistan home secretary Akbar Hussain Durrani said authorities were already taking action. "Law enforcement agencies have arrested so many suspects and seized huge cache of arms," Durrani said.

Pakistan is due to hold a general election in coming months but there are fears that rising sectarian and Islamist violence could force the postponement of polls.

- AFP/ir



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Pope delivers one of his final messages








By Hada Messia and Josh Levs, CNN


updated 7:21 PM EST, Sun February 17, 2013







Pope Benedict XVI waves as he arrives to lead the Angelus prayer at the Vatican on Sunday.




STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • It's the pope's second-to-last Angelus prayer as pontiff

  • Pope Benedict XVI thanks his flock for prayers and support

  • He discusses "decisive moments of our lives"

  • Cardinals may meet before March 15




(CNN) -- Pope Benedict XVI led tens of thousands in a prayer for strength Sunday and thanked followers for their support during his second-to-last Angelus prayer as pontiff.


"Today we contemplate Christ in the desert, fasting, praying, and being tempted," the pope said to an unusually large crowd at St. Peter's Square in Vatican City.


"As we begin our Lenten journey, we join him and we ask him to give us strength to fight our weaknesses. Let me also thank you for the prayers and support you have shown me in these days. May God bless all of you!"






Benedict, 85, shocked millions across the world last week when he announced his intention to stand down at the end of the month, citing the frailty of old age.


The decision makes him the first pope to step down in nearly 600 years.


Referring Sunday to a Bible passage, the pope said, "During the decisive moments of our lives, and in fact at every moment, we are in front of a crossroads: Do we want to follow the I or God? The individual interest or the true good, that which really is the good?"


The crowd appeared to have about 100,000 people


He also tweeted a message to followers worldwide, calling on them to "rediscover faith" as a foundation.


Cardinals may meet before March 15 to choose the next pope if they are all in Rome, a Vatican spokesman said Saturday. The conclave will bring together the 117 cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church.












Part of complete coverage on








What do you think about the Pope's decision to resign? If you are a Catholic, how will it affect you? Send us your thoughts and recollections.








Read all of the latest updates, including standards for the next pope and possible successors on CNN's Belief Blog.








They are the largest group in the Roman Catholic Church, and the next pope might even come from their midst. Yet few have heard how Latino Catholics regard the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI.







updated 11:07 AM EST, Tue February 12, 2013



Before he was Pope Benedict XVI, before he earned the nickname "Cardinal No" as the enforcer of church doctrine, he was Joseph Ratzinger.








The news stunned both the Church's 1.2 billion followers and the rest of the world. Here's a collection of your views from social media.







updated 11:02 AM EST, Tue February 12, 2013



Pope Benedict XVI's decision to resign caught a lot of Vatican watchers, apparently even some in his inner circle, off-guard. They should not have been so surprised.







updated 9:36 AM EST, Mon February 11, 2013



Pope Benedict's German background has always been a talking point. CNN's Fred Pletigen takes a look at Pope's German roots.







updated 7:27 PM EST, Mon February 11, 2013



Pope Benedict XVI on Monday said he plans on resigning the papal office on February 28. Click here for the full text of Benedict's declaration.







updated 12:30 PM EST, Mon February 11, 2013



Assuming Pope Benedict XVI steps down as planned at the end of February, his tenure on Twitter will have been fleeting.







updated 6:26 AM EST, Tue February 12, 2013



After his resignation, Benedict, 85, will probably retire to a monastery and devote himself to a life of prayer. Look back at his time as Pope.







updated 2:12 PM EST, Mon February 11, 2013



The surprising news from Rome, Monday, leaves the church and the world in unfamiliar, but not entirely uncharted, territory.







updated 9:13 AM EST, Mon February 11, 2013



Pope Benedict directed the church's response to decades of abuse by its priests. CNN's Nic Robertson reports.







updated 11:06 AM EST, Tue February 12, 2013



We explore what the surprise announcement means for the Catholic Church.







updated 8:58 AM EST, Mon February 11, 2013



CNN's Jim Bittermann looks at the legacy and controversies that have marked Pope Benedict XVI's reign.







updated 10:56 AM EST, Fri November 23, 2012



A book released by Pope Benedict XVI last year looks at the early life of Jesus -- and debunks several myths about how the Nativity unfolded.






















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Danica Patrick makes NASCAR history

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. Danica Patrick has made history before — as a woman and a racer, in Indianapolis and Japan.

The spotlight is nothing new. But never has it been this bright before.

Patrick won the Daytona 500 pole Sunday, becoming the first woman to secure the top spot for any race in NASCAR's premier circuit. It's by far the biggest achievement of her stock-car career.




29 Photos


Danica Patrick



"I was brought up to be the fastest driver, not the fastest girl," she said. "That was instilled in me from very young, from the beginning. Then I feel like thriving in those moments, where the pressure's on, has also been a help for me. I also feel like I've been lucky in my career to be with good teams and have good people around me. I don't think any of it would have been possible without that.

"For those reasons, I've been lucky enough to make history, be the first woman to do many things. I really just hope that I don't stop doing that. We have a lot more history to make. We are excited to do it."

Her latest stamp in the history books came with a lap at 196.434 mph around Daytona International Speedway. Patrick went out eighth in the qualifying session, then had to wait about two hours as 37 fellow drivers tried to take her spot.

Only four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon even came close to knocking her off. Gordon was the only other driver who topped 196 mph in qualifying. He locked up the other guaranteed spot in next week's season-opening Daytona 500.

"It's great to be a part of history with Danica being on the pole," said Gordon, who joked that at least he was the fastest guy. "I think we all know how popular she is, what this will do for our sport. Congratulations to her. Proud to be on there with her."

  • Danica Patrick crashes in Daytona qualifier
  • The rest of the field will be set in duel qualifying races Thursday.

    However the lineup unfolds, all drivers will line up behind Patrick's No. 10 Chevrolet SS.

    And she knows her latest achievement will mean more public relations work.

    The routine is nothing new for Patrick, who was the first woman to lead laps in the Indianapolis 500. She finished third in 2009, the highest finish in that illustrious race for a woman. And she became the only woman to win an IndyCar race when she did it in Japan in 2008.

    Hardly anyone witnessed that victory.

    Leading the field to the green flag in NASCAR's showcase event should be must-watch television.

    "That's a huge accomplishment," team owner and fellow driver Tony Stewart said. "It's not like it's been 15 or 20 years she's been trying to do this. It's her second trip to Daytona here in a Cup car. She's made history in the sport. That's stuff that we're proud of being a part of with her. It's something she should have a huge amount of pride in.

    "It's never been done. There's only one person that can be the first to do anything. Doesn't matter how many do it after you do, accomplish that same goal. The first one that does always has that little bit more significance to it because you were the first."

    Even before her fast lap Sunday, Patrick was the talk of Speedweeks. Not only did she open up about her budding romance with fellow Sprint Cup rookie Ricky Stenhouse Jr., but she was considered the front-runner for the pole after leading practice sessions Saturday.

    And she didn't disappoint.

    She kept her car at or near the bottom of the famed track and gained ground on the straightaways, showing lots of power from a Hendrick Motorsports engine.

    "It's easy to come down here in your first or second year as a driver and clip the apron trying to run too tight a line or do something and scrub speed off," Stewart said. "That's something she did an awesome job. Watching her lap, she runs so smooth. ... She did her job behind the wheel, for sure."

    The result surely felt good for Patrick, especially considering the former IndyCar driver has mostly struggled in three NASCAR seasons. Her best finish in 10 Cup races is 17th, and she has one top-five in 58 starts in the second-tier Nationwide Series.

    She raced part-time in 2010 and 2011 while still driving a full IndyCar slate. She switched solely to stock cars last season and finished 10th in the Nationwide standings.

    She made the jump to Sprint Cup this season and will battle Stenhouse for Rookie of the Year honors.

    Starting out front in an unpredictable, 500-mile race doesn't guarantee any sort of result, but securing the pole will put her in the limelight for at least the rest of the week.

    She also won the pole at Daytona for last year's Nationwide race.

    This is considerably bigger.

    The previous highest female qualifier in a Cup race was Janet Guthrie. She started ninth at Bristol and Talladega in 1977.

    "It's obviously a history-making event that will last a long, long time," Guthrie said, praising Patrick's feat. "It's a different era, of course. Different times. I can't imagine what I would do with a spotter or somebody telling me how to drive. It's rather a different sport now. Back then, there was a much greater difference from the front of the field to the back."

    Guthrie received a lukewarm reception from fellow drivers back then.

    Patrick was much more welcomed, undoubtedly because of her background and popularity.

    She's comfortable being in the spotlight, evidenced by her racing career, her television commercials and her sudden openness about her personal life.

    "I think when pressure's on and when the spotlight's on, I feel like it ultimately ends up becoming some of my better moments and my better races and better results," Patrick said. "I just understand that if you put the hard work in before you go out there that you can have a little peace and a little peace of mind knowing that you've done everything you can and just let it happen."

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Country Star Mindy McCready Shot Herself, Cops Say











Mindy McCready, the country singer who soared to the top of the charts with her debut album, "Ten Thousand Angels," but struggled with substance abuse, served time in jail and fought a lengthy battle with her mother over custody of her son has died of what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said. She was 37.


Deputies from the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to a report of gun shots fired at McCready's Heber Springs, Ark., home at around 3:30 p.m. today.


There they found McCready on the front porch. She was pronounced dead at the scene from what appeared to be a single self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to a statement from the sheriff's office.


McCready's boyfriend, David Wilson, died in January of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. McCready was ordered to enter rehab shortly after Wilson's death, and her two children, Zander, 6, and 9-month-old Zayne were taken from her. She was released after one day to undergo outpatient care.


McCready scored a number-one Billboard country hit in 1996 with "Guys Do It All the Time," but in recent years, the country crooner has received more media attention for her troubled personal life than her music.


She has been arrested multiple times on drug charges and probation violations and has been hospitalized for overdoses several times, including in 2010, when she was found unconscious at her mother's home after taking a painkiller and muscle relaxant.






Angela Weiss/Getty Images







Her mother, Gayle Inge, was appointed to be her son Zander's legal guardian in 2007 after McCready was arrested for violating probation on a drug-related charge. The boy's father is McCready's ex-boyfriend Billy McKnight.


Following a custody hearing in May 2011, McCready released a statement, saying, "We have progressed in a positive manner to reunite me and my son, Zander. I feel very optimistic this will happen in the near future."


But just six months later, in November 2011, was accused of violating a court order for failing to bring Zander back to her mother in Florida after a visit. The boy was placed in foster care while McCready and her mother worked out the custody dispute.


McCready's struggle with substance abuse was broadcast in 2010 on the third season of "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew."


McCready also claimed to have carried on a decade-long affair with baseball star Roger Clemens that began was she was 15 years old and he was 28. Clemens denied that the relationship was sexual in nature.


"You know what, I don't think I'm ever going to be one of those people that has a normal, quiet existence," McCready told ABC Radio in 2010. "I've been chosen for some reason to be bigger and larger than life in every way. Negative and positive."


McCready, who was born and raised in southern Florida, moved to Nashville when she was 18 to start her music career.


Within a few months, she was starting to work with producer David Malloy, who got her tapes to RLG Records. The company signed her to a contract after seeing her in concert, giving her a record deal less than a year after her arrival in Nashville.


Her debut album, "Ten Thousand Angels," went gold within six months of its release in April 1996, and eventually went multi-platinum. Two more followed: "If I Don't Stay the Night," in 1997; and "I'm Not So Tough" in 1999.


Her most recent album, "I'm Still Here," featuring new versions of her early hits "Ten Thousand Angels" and "Guys Do It All the Time," was released in March 2010.



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False memories prime immune system for future attacks









































IN A police line-up, a falsely remembered face is a big problem. But for the body's police force – the immune system – false memories could be a crucial weapon.












When a new bacterium or virus invades the body, the immune system mounts an attack by sending in white blood cells called T-cells that are tailored to the molecular structure of that invader. Defeating the infection can take several weeks. However, once victorious, some T-cells stick around, turning into memory cells that remember the invader, reducing the time taken to kill it the next time it turns up.












Conventional thinking has it that memory cells for a particular microbe only form in response to an infection. "The dogma is that you need to be exposed," says Mark Davis of Stanford University in California, but now he and his colleagues have shown that this is not always the case.












The team took 26 samples from the Stanford Blood Center. All 26 people had been screened for diseases and had never been infected with HIV, herpes simplex virus or cytomegalovirus. Despite this, Davis's team found that all the samples contained T-cells tailored to these viruses, and an average of 50 per cent of these cells were memory cells.












The idea that T-cells don't need to be exposed to the pathogen "is paradigm shifting," says Philip Ashton-Rickardt of Imperial College London, who was not involved in the study. "Not only do they have capacity to remember, they seem to have seen a virus when they haven't."












So how are these false memories created? To a T-cell, each virus is "just a collection of peptides", says Davis. And so different microbes could have structures that are similar enough to confuse the T-cells.












To test this idea, the researchers vaccinated two people with an H1N1 strain of influenza and found that this also stimulated the T-cells to react to two bacteria with a similar peptide structure. Exposing the samples from the blood bank to peptide sequences from certain gut and soil bacteria and a species of ocean algae resulted in an immune response to HIV (Immunology, doi.org/kgg).












The finding could explain why vaccinating children against measles seems to improve mortality rates from other diseases. It also raises the possibility of creating a database of cross-reactive microbes to find new vaccination strategies. "We need to start exploring case by case," says Davis.












"You could find innocuous pathogens that are good at vaccinating against nasty ones," says Ashton-Rickardt. The idea of cross-reactivity is as old as immunology, he says. But he is excited about the potential for finding unexpected correlations. "Who could have predicted that HIV was related to an ocean algae?" he says. "No one's going to make that up!"












This article appeared in print under the headline "False memories prime our defences"




















































If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.









































































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Briton survived Outback by drinking contact lens fluid






SYDNEY: A British backpacker who endured three days missing in Australia's punishing Outback survived by drinking his contact lens fluid and urine, his mother said Sunday.

Samuel Woodhead, 18, was found Friday on the sprawling remote property Upshot Station, about 130 kilometres (80 miles) from the far-flung central Queensland town of Longreach, from where he had set off on Tuesday.

He became lost in extremely harsh terrain and mother Claire Derry credited his training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst for his survival in the remote and unforgiving Outback with little more than sunburn and dehydration.

"He tried drinking his own urine and he wasn't able to cope much with that, so he drank tiny sips of the contact lens fluid," Derry told the Sun-Herald newspaper.

He lost 15 kilograms over three days and nights and Derry said she and her son were both incredulous that he'd been found alive.

"Sam is incredibly fit, that was something I clung on to," she said, adding that her son wanted to go into the Royal Marines or the army.

"He'd not long ago been on an appropriateness course for Sandhurst... so I knew he had a lot of knowledge to draw on."

Australian authorities had held grave fears for the man's survival in a region where heat, a lack of water, venomous snakes and the possibility of injury could prove deadly.

Planes, motorbikes, and four-wheel drives were being used in the search, with neighbours also combing the area on foot and horseback and an emergency services helicopter dispatched with medical staff.

When he was found Derry said her son told her his rescuers said "they normally find people out here with their eyes pecked out.

"All he could say was 'Mum, just thank these wonderful people. I've loved Australia from the minute I arrived here. These people are extraordinary'."

Derry was on board a flight from Britain to Australia and had been fearing the worst when she learned that her son had been found alive. She celebrated by embracing the flight crew and popping some champagne.

"One of the airline staff came up to me and he was smiling. He handed me this piece of paper saying Sam was found alive and well," she said.

- AFP/ir



Read More..

Internet rules: More cats. LESS CAPS




















Our 12 Rules of the Internet


Our 12 Rules of the Internet


Our 12 Rules of the Internet


Our 12 Rules of the Internet


Our 12 Rules of the Internet


Our 12 Rules of the Internet


Our 12 Rules of the Internet


Our 12 Rules of the Internet


Our 12 Rules of the Internet


Our 12 Rules of the Internet


Our 12 Rules of the Internet


Our 12 Rules of the Internet


Our 12 Rules of the Internet





<<


<





1




2




3




4




5




6




7




8




9




10




11




12




13



>


>>







STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • Yes, there ARE some rules to the Internet, though, for now they're mainly an inside joke

  • Some rules based on pop culture, some have become Web memes

  • Other rules ominously quote Anonymous

  • Is there a need for rules on the vast and wild Web? Depends on where you stand




Editor's note: In the gallery above, we've selected a handful of our favorite Internet rules, or truths. (You might recognize a few.) What are some of yours? Tell us in the comments. We'll feature some of the best on CNN.


(CNN) -- Hello!


Welcome to the Internet. It's a big place, so let me show you around.


You're approaching Oversharing Pass, where residents routinely post too much information. The Facebook Gorge and Twitter Triangle are particularly nefarious time-sucks. Restraint is advised.


Up ahead is Hyperbole Junction, which is the Worst. Spot. Ever. We recommend that you maintain an even keel and stay to the center; the extreme left and right can be dangerous.


And over there is the infamous Lair of Sociopaths, the home of trolls and loners who mercilessly mock everyone who enters their territory. Watch your step: They may trip you up and you'll fall into the Chasm of Lulz.


Our world isn't all dangerous, of course. You may visit Squee City, where images of cute cats and laughing babies fill the landscape. You'll also meet countless kind strangers, hilarious raconteurs and hard-working fact-checkers. They make it all worthwhile.


Hmm. Maybe it would be easier if you had a guide -- you know, some rules to help you find your way.


What, you didn't know there are rules of the Internet?


Of course there are rules. How do you think we maintain order around here?


A parody of rules


That's a joke.


But there really are some rules of the Internet -- even if they, too, began as kind of a joke.


According to the site KnowYourMeme.com, the Rules began around 2006 as a guide for the Internet collective Anonymous and emerged on the old Encyclopedia Dramatica, a bawdy meme catalog. Soon a version emerged on 4chan, an online bulletin board where most users post anonymously, says Jamie Cohen, director of web/digital media at Hofstra University's School of Communication.


"Chris Poole (4chan's founder) kind of designed it, kind of like a Netiquette rules," he says, describing the unspoken code of conduct that lubricates Internet discourse. (Poole has attributed the rules to Gaia Online, a role-playing community.)


But the rules of the Internet deliberately mocked many of those conventions. The self-reflexive parody fit perfectly with its community's attitude, points out Anthony Rotolo, a professor at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies.


"These jokes are meant to comment on something happening in the world," he says. "Later they get accepted as truisms or become a meme."


The absurdity has been reflected even in the supposed number of rules. Though the best-known first version claimed there were 50 rules, only 18 were listed. Number 1 was initially "Do not talk about Rules 2-33"; no Rules 2-33 were on the list.


The sarcastic attitude was reinforced by the kicker found on Encyclopedia Dramatica. It was a parody of Wikipedia's stub language: "This article is crap. You can help by completely re-writing it."


'Fight Club' and Monty Python


Very quickly, the lists started multiplying and expanding, liberally borrowing from comedy, Web culture and math-science tropes. On one list, a few were designated by complex numbers and mathematical symbols. Some were observations; others were directives.




Some have traced the Internet rules to Chris Poole, the founder of 4chan.



Two rules were taken from "Fight Club": "You do not talk about 4chan (or "/b/," 4chan's random, free-wheeling bulletin board) and "You DO NOT talk about 4chan." One version of Rule 6 stated "There is no Rule 6," which is from a Monty Python sketch. Rule 42, "Always bring a towel," was drawn from Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series. (If you have to ask, read the books.) "Profit," Rule 49, came from "South Park."


Other rules went the reverse direction and became part of mainstream culture. Rule 34 -- "If it exists, there is porn of it" -- is likely the most famous. But there's also "Pics or it didn't happen" (Rule 30), "For every given male character, there is a female version of that character; conversely for every given female character, there is a male version of that character" (Rule 63) and, of course, the corollary to Rule 34 -- "If no porn of it exists at the moment, it will be made" (Rule 35).


Most retained a sense of humor, riffing off established rules and occasionally ending with a giggly "No exceptions."


But a handful were, and remain, as serious as a judge -- notably the three directly about Anonymous (commonly Rules 3-5):


- We are Anonymous.


- We are legion.


- We do not forgive, we do not forget.


The overall Internet rules may have started as a joke, but such ominous language from Anonymous speaks to some of the paradoxes of the Web:


Rules? Why do we need some stinkin' rules?


After all, rules can be helpful -- or divisive. They can create community -- or subvert it.


Even Anonymous, the activist group itself, cuts both ways, says Rotolo. When it hacked the extremist Westboro Baptist Church, many people cheered. But when it goes after less unpopular targets, some cry vigilantism.


Cohen says that the rules themselves try to have it both ways. They're funny until someone gets hurt.


They "play more of a game type of role. They can be bent or broken or cheated or moved around, as you would in any game that has no physical reaction," he says. "That doesn't take into account ever the result of real people being affected by this -- such as teenagers, children, anybody who's seeing things that they shouldn't."


He adds, "There's a lot of rules in there that work for (the creators) more than anyone else. Until they become victims of their own thing, they don't know how powerful the rules are."


Evolving from the Wild West


Of course, the Internet isn't that old, and we're still in its Wild West era in many ways. As the technology evolves from a handful of hackers on Usenet bulletin boards to billions of users on officially sponsored sites, the customs -- the rules -- of the Web will evolve with it.


But we're not talking about the kinds of changes that your family makes to the rules of Monopoly (no, Free Parking is NOT for the pool of money acquired via Chance and Community Chest). We're talking something more expansive: All the established customs of our carbon-based life forms, making way for the instantaneous and virtual modes of silicon-based electronics.


Who knows what new rules may be written?


"When you're in the midst of social change, it's impossible to determine where it's going," says Peter S. Vogel, a former programmer who's now a Dallas-based attorney. "And I think we are in the greatest social change in the history of humans, because there are no boundaries of geography or time."


We haven't even sorted out what happens when the differences in local culture meet global technology. Bruce Umbaugh, a philosophy professor at Webster University in St. Louis who teaches a course on philosophy and technology, argues that not all parts of the world are as tolerant or open-minded as Western democracies.



There's a lot of rules in there that work for (the creators) more than anyone else.
Jamie Cohen, Hofstra University



"There are a lot of other places in the world that are actively using the technology of the Internet to control the free communication among citizens, and to identify critics of the government and hurt them," he says. "We need to be mindful in what we advocate from our perspective that the tools that are implemented on the Net are tools for the global Net."


In other words, citizens of other countries already face actual, enforceable rules -- unlike the folkways established by Web users in the West. Witness the frictions of the Arab Spring, or the restrictions of societies such as North Korea.


It's the kind of perspective that provides a different context for the issues raised by a libertarian, anything-goes Internet. It's hard enough to stop "Star Wars" comment boards from devolving into flamebaiting, meme-generating files of NSFW Yodas.


So for now, we're still making our way through the Series of Tubes, and nobody knows where the boundaries lie. We joke, we grimace and we marvel at the creativity of the hive mind. The Internet is a big place, and countless cultures have set up residence. Eventually, what is now humor may lose its zing; what are now customs may become laws.


Will the rules ever become The Rules? Maybe some future generation will figure out the true guideposts of Internet life, and the singularity will be upon us.


Nah. It'll never happen.


What did we miss? Share your rules for the internet below in the comments. We'll feature some of the best on CNN.







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