North Carolina gets ready for 'Hunger Games' fans

RALEIGH, N.C. — Fans of "The Hunger Games" are already turning up in North Carolina, seeking out places where the movie was shot, from old-growth forests to an abandoned mill town.

And the tourism industry is prepared to cash in on them, with everything from hotel packages and zip lines tours, to re-enactments of scenes from the film and lessons in survival skills.

The movie, which opens this weekend and is expected to be a box office smash, is based on a best-selling book about a post-apocalyptic world where teenagers compete to the death in fighting games.

It was filmed entirely in North Carolina, from the mountains, where fake trees were planted, filled with propane and blown up, to Charlotte, which served as the Capitol from the story — the seat of power where the teens are sent for training.

Also prominently featured in the movie is the Henry River Mill Village near Hildebran, about 70 miles from Asheville, which was the setting for District 12, home of the three main characters, Katniss, Peeta and Gale.

Read more here:

http://www.wral.com/entertainment/story/10885797/

Conservative blogger posts Obama photo in chains with fried chicken

Source: CBS-WRAL affiliate

A blogger for conservative NC think tank The John Locke Foundation is being asked to explain why she illustrated a story on President Obama's position on North Carolina's proposed marriage amendment with an altered image of Obama in chains and high heels with a bucket of fried chicken.

On Monday, "Meck Deck" blogger Tara Servatius posted a story stating that the president took a public position against the amendment to boost his chances of winning North Carolina in November. Accompanying the story was an image of the president’s face Photoshopped onto an African-American man wearing high heels and chains. Between the man's legs is a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Update: Servatius has since resigned.

The story didn’t come to our attention till Wednesday evening, when liberal-leaning bloggers began tweeting links to it. Within an hour, the photo was removed from the story, though at the time of this post, it was still available on the think tank’s servers.

Read more: http://www.wral.com/news/state/nccapitol/blogpost/10889012/

Obama opposes NC marriage amendment proposal

Source: WRAL

RALEIGH, N.C. — President Barack Obama is speaking out against an amendment on the May ballot that would define marriage in North Carolina as being between one man and one woman.

The Obama campaign issued a statement Friday, calling the proposed amendment discriminatory.

“While the president does not weigh in on every single ballot measure in every state, the record is clear that the president has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same sex couples," campaign spokesman Cameron French said in the statement. "That’s what the North Carolina ballot initiative would do – it would single out and discriminate against committed gay and lesbian couples – and that’s why the president does not support it.”

Although North Carolina law prohibits same-sex couples from marrying, it is the only state in the Southeast without such restrictions written into its constitution.

Read more: http://www.wral.com/news/state/nccapitol/story/10866062/

On The Road - Official Trailer 2012

This is for all of the Kerouac and Beat Generation fans.

I'm really looking forward to this movie. Walter Salles looks like he has made another masterpiece. (fingers crossed)

Authorities: 'Extreme' tornado damage in Indiana

Source: ap

JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. (AP) -- Authorities say tornadoes have left widespread damage in southern Indiana and a sheriff's official says at least one town is "completely gone."

National Weather Service coordinator Bill Whitlock says the agency is tracking "extreme damage" in the Henryville area, about 20 miles north of Louisville, Ky.


Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SEVERE_STORMS_INDIANA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-03-02-16-06-37

Senator Franken: Privacy and Civil Liberties in the Digital Age

Last year, a researcher discovered that iPhones — among the world’s most popular electronic devices — were storing detailed, unencrypted information on their owners’ locations and uploading it to any computer they were connected to. Subsequent research revealed that both Apple iPhones and Google Android devices were sending detailed location information back to Apple and Google — and that in some cases, users didn’t know about it and even if they did, they had no way of stopping it.

Just a few months ago, another researcher discovered that software made by a company called Carrier IQ had been secretly installed on millions of smartphones and was tracking consumers’ locations and other private information. In both cases, millions of consumers who were carrying smartphones in their pockets had no idea that their personal information was being collected — and no way of stopping it.

When people talked about protecting their privacy when I was growing up, they were talking about protecting it from the government. They talked about unreasonable searches and seizures, about keeping the government out of their bedrooms. They talked about whether the government was trying to keep tabs on the books they read or the rallies they attended. Over the last 40 or 50 years, we’ve seen a fundamental shift in who has our information and what they’re doing with it. That’s not to say that we still shouldn’t be worried about protecting ourselves from government abuses. But now, we also have relationships with large corporations that are obtaining, storing — and in many cases, sharing (and selling) — enormous amounts of our personal information.

When the Constitution was written, the founders had no way of anticipating the new technologies that would evolve in the coming centuries. They had no way of anticipating the telephone, and so the Supreme Court ruled over 40 years ago, in Katz v. United States, that a wiretap constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. The founders had no idea that one day the police would be able to remotely track your movements through a GPS device, and so the Supreme Court ruled in January, in United States v. Jones, that this was also a search that required court approval.

Read more here:

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/03/opinion-franken-privacyliberties/

Twitter Outs Occupy User After Judges Demand

Just over a month after taking criticism for changing its censorship policies, Twitter is handing over the information of a user associated with the occupy movement.

A Massachusetts court ordered the San Francisco-based social-networking site to name the Twitter user behind the account @p0isan0n to the Boston Police Department.

The ACLU had challenged an initial administrative subpoena in court but its motion was denied by a judge and it cannot be challenged further.

A Twitter representative would not confirm whether information beyond the one account subpoenaed was given to authorities.

More here:

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Twitter-Outs-Occupy-User-After-Judges-Demand-141207753.html

Jerry Garcia & David Grisman - Squaw Valley CA - 8-25-91