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cheap nike shoes storeAs stoners toke today, April 20 — on what has become an unofficial holiday celebrating all things marijuana-related — there's good news and bad for those who smoke weed. The good? Support for marijuana legalization has risen steadily since 1990, when only 16% of participants in the General Social Survey supported adding buds to Budweiser on the national menu of legal intoxicants. Now, 45% of the public agrees — and the percentage in favor of freeing the weed only gets higher in younger members of the population. (More on TIME.com: "Why Pot Smokers Are Paranoid") The bad? New research by a scientist who works for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that growing indoor cannabis consumes about 1% of the nation's energy — making reefer is not exactly a green indulgence. birkin bag In fact, in terms of emissions of planet-destroying greenhouse gases, it's the bad-tripping equivalent to the annual emissions of 3 million cars. Also, despite being illegal, marijuana is believed to be America's largest cash crop, valued at $40 billion annually. The ugly? There's still a legal requirement that every news story on this subject contain bad pot-related jokes. No word from our editorial masters as to when this edict will be lifted. (More on TIME.com: "Medical Marijuana Sales Grow to Rival Viagra's: New Report") replica coach handbagsBTW, if you want to know the origins of "420," check out this great piece by the Huffington Post's Ryan Grim. Hint: the Grateful Dead are involved, police codes are not, and it has nothing to do with Hitler's birthday.

nike sb shoes This post is in partnership with Worldcrunch, a new global news site that translates stories of note in foreign languages into English. The article below was originally published in the leading Italian daily La Stampa. VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI isn't alone in his apartment at the Vatican. Four "guardian angels" help him, and recently there has been an addition to the personnel at his service. For the past six years, the Pontiff's Vatican apartment has been run by members of the Memores Domini, a lay association whose members practice obedience, poverty and chastity, and who live in a climate of silence and common prayer. (See pictures of Pope Benedict XVI visiting America.) Loredana is the queen of the kitchen, which was renovated in 2005 with onyx countertops and gray shelves. She prepares meals on a big marble table for Benedict, who turns 84 on Saturday, and any invited guests. hermes birkin bagPasta dishes are her specialty, including pasta with salmon and zucchini, or rigatoni with prosciutto. She keeps in touch with the Vatican supermarket and chooses which vegetables to get from the garden of Castel Gandolfo, a papal retreat in the hills south of Rome. (See Pictures of Papal Style) Carmela helps in the kitchen, where she specializes in cakes the Pope has appreciated since his days as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. His favorites are strudel, tiramisu and tarts. Carmela also tidies the Pope's bedroom and looks after his wardrobe. (See the top 10 religion stories.) Cristina handles the apartment's chapel, where the Pope celebrates Mass every morning, and pitches in with some secretarial work. Finally, Rossella, the latest addition, handles the Pope's archives and the rooms of Benedict's two secretaries, Georg Gänswein and Alfred Xuereb. A social worker in a small community in northern Italy, Rossella was transferred to the Vatican to replace a woman who died in November after being run over by a car in Rome. A former colleague in her community, Ornella Galvani, describes Rossella as "gentle and always ready to help people." Until 2005, under John Paul II, the papal apartment was run by Polish nuns. The memores aren't nuns, do not wear religious garments, are laypeople and live in the world. But this isn't the first time that lay housekeepers are allowed inside the papal apartment. Coach Op Art HandbagsIn 1922, upon his election, Pope Pius XI demanded that his housekeeper follow him inside the Vatican. When he was told this might seem inappropriate and had no precedent, Pius cut it short: "I'll be the first one then," he was said to have responded. (See more international news in Global Spin.) Also part of Benedict's pontifical family is his aide Paolo Gabriele, who waits at the table and helps the Pope during trips and public events. A typical "Benedictine" day: The Pope's day begins at 7 a.m. with Mass; one hour later breakfast is served. At 9 a.m. the Pope goes into his private study, the one where he recites the Angelus prayer every Sunday, speaking from the window overlooking St. Peter's Square. hermes birkinHe does his work in the study, where another consecrated laywoman, Birgit, helps him in her role as secretary and typist — she can read Benedict's tiny handwriting better than anyone else. (See pictures of the Path of Pope Benedict XVI) Following Birgit in the study is Gänswein, the Pope's secretary, to discuss the day's agenda. Typically, the Pontiff works until 11 a.m., when audiences, or meetings, begin. At 1:15 p.m. lunch is served, with the secretaries and the memores sitting at the table with Benedict. After a brief stroll in the roof garden, the Pope rests, to return to his private study at 4 p.m. He says the rosary and then resumes his work. After a prayer, dinner is served at 7:30 p.m., in time to watch the 8 p.m. newscast on RAI, the Italian state broadcaster. An hour later, the Pope says good night and retires, though he works some more before going to sleep. The people surrounding him are in effect a real family for the Pope. Coach Colette HandbagsIn his recent book, Light of the World, Benedict said he hardly ever watches TV, though he made an exception when he watched with his "family" old black-and-white movies of Don Camillo and Peppone, Italian comedies portraying the playful clashes between the communist mayor of a small town and the local priest in postwar Italy.

cheap gucci outlet storeBummed you can't make it out to Indio for Coachella this weekend? Lucky for you it's 2011, and nothing of cultural significance ever happens that's not instantly livestreamed on the Internet. Coachella's YouTube channel, sponsored by Wrigley's 5 Gum, is probably the easiest place to watch the performances live. With three different channels, the livestreams capture a nice variety of acts, ranging from legends like Lauryn Hill, upstarts like Gayngs, the recently reunited Death from Above 1979, and even headlining mainstays like The Strokes. If you'd rather not use YouTube, Facebook will have a similar deal utilizing the same three cameras, but there's a three-tiered process to gaining access (involving a "Like" button, a "Share" button, and "Yeah, that's where I live"). U-Stream will be hosting CoachellaOasis about a mile away from the festival site, which will feature artist interviews by Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin (if you're into that sort of thing), and there may even be scantily clad celebrities bingeing in the background. nike dunk shoes (edit: Looks like that feed was from a dead 2010 link. Sorry about that. After flipping through U- Stream, it doesn't appear that there's anything worthwhile, unless you feel like watching opinionated video bloggers weigh in on the party. Which is cool, too.) Of course, there's always the Official Coachella website, but you already knew that. Gucci BeltsSure, you won't have the singong crowds, the zany freakshows, or even the occasional supermodel walking by, but hey, look on the bright side — at least you'll have air conditioning.

gucci outletBy Megan Friedman and Megan Gibson This really raises the stakes on the whole idea of "sleeping on the job." On Wednesday night, an air-traffic controller from Reno-Tahoe International Airport was suspended for being asleep and out of touch when an emergency medical flight was landing. With an ill patient onboard, there was total radio silence as the fretting pilot circled the airport, awaiting instructions. (More on TIME.com: Is shift work to blame for sleepy air-traffic controllers?) After the incident, which was the latest and most severe in a string of incidents involving sleeping or unresponsive controllers, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that not only was it putting a second controller on the late-night shift in 27 towers but also that the head of the FAA's Air Traffic Organization, Hank Krakowski, was resigning. discount gucci bagsFAA administrator Randy Babbitt issued a statement saying there would be a "top to bottom review of the way we operate our air traffic control system." Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood weighed in on NBC: But amid all the breathless headlines, what's been missing from the conversation is some basic background info. A typical control tower has a few people on duty. Radar controllers spend their time turning pilots toward their final landing approach, while tower controllers lead planes to their gates. Supervisors make sure the process goes smoothly. In some of the recent incidents that have made the morning newspapers, one sleeping controller does not mean the entire tower has gone dark, though many towers are indeed shorter-staffed during the overnight shift — when workers will no doubt be the most exhausted. Furthermore, some airports have towers that go entirely unstaffed at some point during the day. replica coach handbags outlet When an airport lacks controllers, which is somewhat common, pilots are put on the same radio frequency as maintenance crew members on the ground. (More on TIME.com: See 20 reasons to hate the airlines.) This rash of sleeping controllers comes five years after a plane crash in Kentucky killed 49 people when a fatigued controller was working alone (though the responsibility was placed on the pilots). Although there have been no major injuries from this year's incidents, they shed new light on air safety and the fatigue that comes with the midnight shift. Here's a timeline of this year's incidents of unresponsive air-traffic controllers, which has led the FAA to take new action: Dec. 31, 2010: Errors by air-traffic controllers hit an all-time high in 2010, causing cockpit-collision warnings dozens of times. Jan. 20, 2011: The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated an incident in which an American Airlines jumbo jet carrying 259 people nearly collided with two military cargo planes. One controller, who was responsible for collecting data, saw the flight paths and told a radar controller to stop the commercial plane's ascent at 20,000 feet.Gucci Indy Bags But the radar controller was distracted by other information from a Continental Airlines flight and did not hear the warning. The American Airlines plane continued to climb, not noticing any problems until its cockpit alarm went off. Reports vary, but the planes may have come as close as 2,000 yards to each other. Feb. 19, 2011: An air-traffic controller reportedly slept for five hours while seven planes landed at McGhee Tyson Airport in Knoxville, Tenn. According to the Washington Post, the radar controller had brought a blanket and made a bed out of couch cushions so he could take a nap. An anonymous federal official told the Post that another employee at the airport noticed the tower's silence and repeatedly tried to wake up the controller. Each time she woke him, the controller promised he would get back to work. But as soon as she left, the controller dozed off again, while employees in other parts of the tower helped land the incoming planes. Gucci Jolicoeur BagsThe FAA has said it is working to fire the controller, and the NTSB is evaluating the incident.

discount gucci bagsThe actor's name is associated with many things—English charm (Hugh Grant can "twinkle for Britain," the screenwriter and director Richard Curtis told me as I researched this piece about Grant's on- and off-screen rival Colin Firth); a weakness for beautiful women including Elizabeth Hurley and Jemima Khan; and a weakness for less beautiful women. What Grant hasn't got a reputation for is acting. Trapped in repetitive iterations of the sweetly hopeless Brit romantic lead, he's rarely been given the chance to let his inner demons dance, though there were glimmerings of the mordantly funny, sharply intelligent man he's reputed to be in real life in his impersonation of Daniel Cleaver in the Bridget Jones movies. So it was left to his former girlfriend Khan to give Grant a role worthy of his talents: as an undercover reporter for Britain's left-leaning political journal New Statesman. Khan herself has been trying on a role more worthy of her talents, mutating from daughter-of (mega-wealthy financier and political eccentric James Goldsmith) ex-wife-of (Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan) status to human rights activist. It was her support for Julian Assange that inspired the New Statesman's editor Jason Cowley to offer her a guest editorship at the magazine. gucci handbags on saleShe used the opportunity to commission Grant to write a piece about a subject close to their hearts: Britain's viciously competitive tabloid culture and its use of illegal techniques to secure celebrity scoops. It's also a subject making headlines in Britain: the news is top of the news—well, for some media outlets. In 2009 the full panoply of British press followed the lead of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph in exposing abuses by politicians of a lax parliamentary expenses regimen. There's notably less enthusiasm for exposing the illicit and sometimes illegal activities of the press and the skein of relationships with police and political spin doctors that afforded the press protection in these activities. But thanks to investigative work led by The Guardian and New York Times and joined by other publications including the New Statesman, that protection has begun to crumble.nike sb shoes Prime Minister David Cameron's communications chief, Andy Coulson, a former editor of the News of the World, the Sunday tabloid found to have hacked the mobile phones of British royals and aides, resigned in January. Just this weekend, the tabloid—its thirst for scandal long ago earned it the nickname News of the Screws—issued an apology, admitting that there were more victims of the hacking than its executives had owned up to. The newspaper and its parent company News Corp are involved in a frantic damage limitation exercise, to avoid court action, spiraling damages and disruption of company business and ambitions. Enter Hugh Grant, equipped with a concealed recording device. His target: Paul McMullan, a former journalist for the News of the World, now a freelancer and publican. Last December, Grant's car broke down on a remote stretch of road. McMullan gave him a ride and also prevailed on Grant to pose for a photograph "just for the wall of the pub" that duly appeared in the mass-market Mail on Sunday, absolving Grant of any lingering sense of gratitude to his rescuer. Gucci Jolicoeur Bags The actor returned to the pub and engaged McMullan in a conversation that laid bare in a way that even the painstaking work of seasoned professionals at The Guardian had not been able to do the swirling resentments that underpin tabloid bad behavior. Here's an excerpt:

gucci outletAn African delegation on a mission to end the seven-week conflict in Libya received a hostile welcome in the rebel capital of Benghazi Monday. "No Gaddafi, no sons!" hundreds of protesters shouted as they swarmed the vehicles of the Presidents of Congo, Mali, Mauritania and Uganda. Inside the Tibesti hotel, the opposition Transitional National Council (T.N.C.) was just as unreceptive to the African Union's (A.U.) ceasefire plan. There had been some hope of diplomatic progress on Sunday, after Libya's leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi accepted the plan presented by the African presidents. However, the TNC rejected the plan because it did not stipulate that Gaddafi relinquish power and leave Libya. Among the plan's key points were an end to airstrikes by NATO, a cease fire, and a starting point for negotiations between the two sides. But the TNC was in no mood to confer with Gaddafi about a ceasefire, and on Monday they rejected the proposals offered by the African presidents. "It's very simple, and this is the Libyan people's opinion. cheap gucci outlet storeIf it does not include his departure, resigning his job, it won't be accepted by the street," T.N.C. spokesman Mustafa Gheriani declared. On the streets of Benghazi, residents were just as defiant. "We want him to leave and leave now. That is the only thing we are willing to discuss," said Husam al-Jawhari, 31, a few hours after the AU delegation ended talks with T.N.C. leaders. (See pictures of the battle for Libya.) The T.N.C. fears Gaddafi would use the ceasefire to consolidate his position and tighten his grip on the besieged Western city of Misratah, which is under rebel control. His past "truces" have been followed by further pushes towards Benghazi, leaving the rebels with little faith in his promises. "The world has seen these offers of ceasefires before and within 15 minutes [Gaddafi] starts shooting again," Nike outletremarked rebel spokesman Shamsiddin Abdulmolah. Though Washington and the European Union supported the initiative, they reiterated their call that Gaddafi step down. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared, "there needs to be a transition that reflects the will of the Libyan people and the departure of Gaddafi from power and from Libya." (See pictures of workers lost in Libya's turmoil.) With the international community demanding his immediate resignation, Gaddafi was happy to welcome an A.U. delegation that did not insist on his departure. Gucci 2010 New ArrivalsAfrican nations have long provided a diplomatic shield for the erratic Libyan leader who has showered their destitute countries with billions of dollars. In the 1990s, African countries flouted a United Nations flight ban imposed on Libya for downing an American airliner over Scotland. In 2003 they rebuffed Washington's protests and helped Libya secure the presidency of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. In the current conflict, they have proved just as obliging.Gucci Abbey Bags While the E.U. and U.N. imposed sanctions against Gaddafi,, and his fellow Arab leaders denounced him and suspended his membership in the Arab League, A.U. members have refrained from condemning him. Instead, they denounced NATO's airstrikes against his forces.