Latest News and Politics from the U.S. - Huffington Post [May ‘11 Series]

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By Colin ClarkEditor, AOL DefenseMore...

Source: House Armed Services Commitee Could Fund Alternate Engine

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The elections committee for a union representing academic student employees in the University of California system voted unanimously on Tuesday to resume counting votes in a statewide contest to determine the union's leadership, after scores of demonstrators occupied union offices in Berkeley and Los Angeles.Members of the Election Committee for the United Auto Workers Local 2865, which represents roughly 12,000 graduate students working as teachers, tutors, and researchers, had opted to halt the vote counting process on Saturday, following allegations of election fraud from two rival factions squaring off over leadership positions in the triennial election: the incumbent group, United for Social and Economic Justice, and upstarts, Academic Workers for a Democratic Union. Yet on Tuesday, it was announced that the count would resume on Thursday, following this week's sit-ins protesting the count's suspension.More...

Source: Vote Counting To Resume After UC Grad Students Occupy Union Offices

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The theological notions of sin and redemption contain a heaviness that stems from the fact that they are mostly used to point out the faults in others, rather than to free us from the traps that prevent us from loving God.  In the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John, when Jesus leaves the synagogue after arguing about right beliefs and old customs, he encounters a blind man who is begging. In this narrative Jesus preaches a radical way to approach sin and redemption in our life of faith. It's an approach that offers a deeper way of understanding the terms. Instead of being heavy, it lifts our hearts and minds with the lightness of grace. When the disciples of Jesus see the blind man, they ask, "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" The implication in the question is that if the blind man is a sinner, we don't have to respond, because the man's blindness itself is a sign of divine punishment for sin. The only pertinent question for them is, "Who is to blame?"Characteristically, Jesus uses the question as an opportunity to teach them that culpability -- establishing guilt or responsibility for sin -- is not the issue we need to address in the suffering we encounter in our world.  Jesus through his action and words reminds us all that the issue of morality and culpability lies in our response to suffering and in our ability to love with compassion, not judgment. Then, Jesus, with nothing but spit and dirt, makes a healing and soothing mud for the man. This beautiful, simple, earthy action reminds us that redemption is always possible, even when we feel incapable to adequately address the sin and suffering we meet along the way. The whole story breathes life into the old theologies of blame and exclusion written in stone. It gives us a path to walk where sin and redemption become matters of freeing ourselves, not condemning others. For the blind man, like all of us, sin and redemption were terms others used that alienated and condemned him. For Jesus, sin and redemption become the absolution that frees us to live in gratitude for a loving and merciful God.More...

Source: Sin, Redemption and the Path of Healing

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This post was co-written with Matt McKnight and Brett Gibson.Please note that this post is part two of two in a series that articulates to tech start-ups the value of looking to the military and intelligence community as a client.  More...

Source: As Bin Laden Raid Shows -- Innovative Technologies Are of Increasing Use -- and Value -- to the Military

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For ten years millions of Arabs were held hostage due to the acts of a minority. During this time tens of thousands of lives were lost in senseless violence that only a megalomaniac would be able to justify.Even for Arabs who had not lived in the West, essential movement in this globalized world was impaired. Arabs sensed looks of suspicion at international airports. As long queues formed passengers young and old had to take off their shoes, belts, coats, offload their laptops. Mothers were subjected to tasting their own bottled breast milk to carry it on board a plane to feed their infants. Feelings of suspicion were only compounded.More...

Source: Osama Bin Laden: He Had It Coming

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Today U.S. multinationals have more cash stashed overseas than ever before --according to several estimates, companies have more than $1 trillion in profits squirreled away in foreign subsidiaries. Many of the companies with the most money abroad -- including powerhouses from Apple to Google to Pfizer -- say they'd like to bring a large portion of it back to the U.S.This comes with a catch, however. The companies want a temporary tax holiday -- nearly identical to the one passed in 2004, and the subject of my recent paper -- that would allow them to repatriate profits attributed to their foreign operations at a 5.25 percent tax rate instead of the usual 35 percent. Most of the funds returned to the U.S. will likely be paid to shareholders rather than used for investment and new hiring (as the companies lobbying for the holiday claim). But the tax break would raise billions of dollars for the government and bring cash back to the U.S., which is arguably a good thing. (It's no secret that the Obama administration has recently made overtures to reboot its relationship with the business community, and this is one way to do it. The tax break would make companies happy, and send some much-needed funds flowing back into the U.S. economy.)More...

Source: The U.S. Needs an Overhaul of the Corporate Tax System, and a Temporary Tax Break on Overseas Profits Is Not the Solution

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NEW YORK -- In a sweltering classroom in The Mary Louis Academy of Jamaica Estates, Queens, freshman Regina Maghirang, 15, sat down at a computer, logged onto Facebook and hit delete.More than once.More...

Source: Erasing Cyberbullying, One Keystroke At A Time

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Franklin Roosevelt was perhaps the greatest American leader of the 20th century. Turns out the guy who's playing him isn't too bad, either.Earlier in the week, Bill Murray was confirmed as playing the Great Depression and World War II-era President in the upcoming film "Hyde Park On The Hudson." Word was that Focus Features was using Murray's tentative agreement back in March to sell potential co-stars, and now just days after Murray's confirmation, a second cast member has agreed to join: Laura Linney, as Roosevelt's distant cousin Daisy.More...

Source: Laura Linney In 'Hyde Park On The Hudson': Star To Play FDR's Mistress Daisy

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Doctors and public health officials have been telling us for years that eating too much sodium can increase the risk of heart attack or stroke by raising blood pressure to unsafe levels. So how to explain a new study that suggests low salt intake actually increases the risk of dying from those causes?More...

Source: Surprising Study Finds Downside To Low-Sodium Diet

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OK, stop the presses. Somewhere out there right now, in a college dorm, a young lady is going without the comfort of yoga pants for an indeterminate amount of time. And we thought this week's news couldn't get any more dramatic?What follows is a seriously funny note left for the person who dared (yes, dared) to steal the aforementioned sweatpants that we came across on Buzzfeed, who appropriately dubbed it "#WhiteGirlProblems IRL."More...

Source: Yoga Pants Thief Prompts Hilariously Stern Flyer (PHOTO)