Lindsay Lohan: Model Morgue Employee!


Lindsay Lohan has been a model employee at the morgue since getting banished there for community service, according to reports. At her progress hearing tomorrow a.m., Judge Stephanie Sautner may even praise her for her good work again.

Lindsay was required to complete 12 L.A. County Morgue visits and four psychotherapy sessions by Tuesday's court hearing. LiLo has done so, finishing up her 11th and 12th community service trips Friday and Saturday. Give a girl credit for sticking to it!

Lindsay Lohan's Smile

According to sources, Lindsay has been a model morgue employee, i.e. she shows up on time, gets the job done with no drama and she's friendly with the staff.

The oft-maligned starlet will be at the halfway mark of her probation Tuesday, with another hearing set for Feb. 15, and another 12 morgue visits required by then.

On March 29, her final hearing takes place, and at that point, she must show she's completed the remaining 17 morgue visits and six therapy classes.

Should LiLo slip at any point with these terms or violate any more laws, she gets 270 days in jail. Fortunately, she seems dead set on that NOT happening.

[Photo: WENN.com]

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/lindsay-lohan-model-morgue-employee/

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Former First Round Capital VC Charlie O?Donnell Launches New Brooklyn-Based Venture Firm

Charlie O_DonnellA new venture firm is launching in Silicon Alley today. VC Charlie O?Donnell, who has worked as at both First Round Capital and Union Square Ventures, is launching his own venture firm today, New York-based Brooklyn Bridge Ventures. O'Donnell says that Brooklyn Bridge Ventures will make investments in early and seed stage technology companies in the ?Greater Brooklyn Area? (which includes Manhattan and other boroughs) across a variety of information technology sectors. The fund will also be looking to lead or co-lead seed rounds.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/C9mujx9CG2E/

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Whitner's hit on Thomas ruled legal - New Orleans Saints ...

The helmet-to-helmet hit by San Francisco safety Donte Whitner that sent Saints running back Pierre Thomas to the locker room early in Saturday?s NFC playoff game was legal.

Whitner was not penalized because the tackle was not against a defenseless player. Helmet-to-helmet hits are banned against defenseless players in eight categories, and a runner is not one of those categories. Thomas was considered a runner because he?d made a catch, turned and made a ?football move? before being hit.

The eight categories were incorporated into one new rule last March, and a new rule extended the protection for a receiver who has completed a catch until he has had time to protect himself or has clearly become a runner. Thomas had become a runner.

?Even though you get a little extra protection while trying to complete the catch, you are not a defenseless player once you have made that football move,? Mike Pereira, former director of officials for the NFL and now a Fox TV commentator said Sunday. ?The notion is the runner has the opportunity to clearly protect himself.?

The eight defenseless player categories are:

(1) A player in the act of or just after throwing a pass;

(2) A receiver attempting to catch a pass; or who has completed a catch and has not had time to protect himself or has not clearly become a runner. If the receiver/runner is capable of avoiding or warding off the impending contact of an opponent, he is no longer a defenseless player;

(3) A runner already in the grasp of a tackler and whose forward progress has been stopped;

(4) A kickoff or punt returner attempting to field a kick in the air;

(5) A player on the ground at the end of a play;

(6) A kicker/punter during the kick or during the return;

(7) A quarterback at any time after a change of possession, and

(8) A player who receives a ?blindside? block when the blocker is moving toward his own end zone and approaches the opponent from behind or from the side.

The competition committee that recommends rules changes could re-examine such hits in the offseason.

?The committee always closely studies and analyzes anything having to do with player safety,? NFL spokesman Michael Signora said Sunday.

Source: http://www.sunherald.com/2012/01/15/3688208/whitners-hit-on-thomas-ruled-legal.html

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Unified Communications Strategies Blog ? Its Time to Make ?Unified ...

Consumers and business users are increasingly using message ?texting? for person-to-person contacts, and automated business applications are targeting pro-active, time-sensitive alerts and ?notifications? to multi-modal smartphone users.? A recent study by Frost & Sullivan confirmed social media tools are being used more frequently than any form of conferencing. Sixty percent of C-level executives indicated that their mobile device was their primary means of communication for their jobs. So, it is time to pull messaging services and especially ?unified messaging? (UM) into the game as multi-modal, ?UC-enabled? applications.

(http://www.nojitter.com/post/232400283/frost?sullivan8217s-end-user-study-shows-interesting-trends-in-uc-social-media)

Old voice mail has always had significant shortcomings primarily because the Telephone User Interface (TUI) was too limiting, but also because of integration issues. With the advent of smartphone usage by consumers, those shortcomings can be obviated and make voice mail and other forms of messaging more convenient and practical by becoming UC-enabled.

What this really means is that every form of business messaging, ranging from email to voicemail to SMS to IM chat to social posts, can be used independently by either senders or recipients. Users can also escalate their messaging contacts with presence-based ?click-to-call/conference? options. It also means that UC enablement can help consolidate all end user communications management functions for the flexibility enabled by mobile, multi-modal devices.

The term ?unified messaging? (UM) was originally used to describe the ability of a voice mail system to inter-operate with an email system to determine if there were any new email messages waiting.? Later, UM included the ability to store and retrieve both text and voice messages, as well as other incoming call management features. Now that IP Telephony is replacing legacy PBX systems and both inbound and outbound calls are becoming more intelligent and ?contextual,? unified messaging may now be ready to be simply part of the ?UC-enabled messaging? landscape.

The experts at UC Strategies will be discussing this topic in terms of UC-enabled voice mail will do for business process performance and technology costs, usage feature benefits to individual end users at the desktop and on the go, as well as practical migration alternatives from legacy voice mail systems.

Stay tuned!

Source: http://blog.ucstrategies.com/index.php/2012/01/14/its-time-to-make-unifed-messaging-uc-enabled/

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Project to pour water into volcano to make power (AP)

Geothermal energy developers plan to pump 24 million gallons of water into the side of a dormant volcano in Central Oregon this summer to demonstrate new technology they hope will give a boost to a green energy sector that has yet to live up to its promise.

They hope the water comes back to the surface fast enough and hot enough to create cheap, clean electricity that isn't dependent on sunny skies or stiff breezes ? without shaking the earth and rattling the nerves of nearby residents.

Renewable energy has been held back by cheap natural gas, weak demand for power and waning political concern over global warming. Efforts to use the earth's heat to generate power, known as geothermal energy, have been further hampered by technical problems and worries that tapping it can cause earthquakes.

Even so, the federal government, Google and other investors are interested enough to bet $43 million on the Oregon project. They are helping AltaRock Energy, Inc. of Seattle and Davenport Newberry Holdings LLC of Stamford, Conn., demonstrate whether the next level in geothermal power development can work on the flanks of Newberrry Volcano, located about 20 miles south of Bend, Ore.

"We know the heat is there," said Susan Petty, president of AltaRock. "The big issue is can we circulate enough water through the system to make it economic."

The heat in the earth's crust has been used to generate power for more than a century. Engineers gather hot water or steam that bubbles near the surface and use it to spin a turbine that creates electricity. Most of those areas have been exploited. The new frontier is places with hot rocks, but no cracks in the rocks or water to deliver the steam.

To tap that heat ? and grow geothermal energy from a tiny niche into an important source of green energy ? engineers are working on a new technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems.

"To build geothermal in a big way beyond where it is now requires new technology, and that is where EGS comes in," said Steve Hickman, a research geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif.

Wells are drilled deep into the rock and water is pumped in, creating tiny fractures in the rock, a process known as hydroshearing.

Cold water is pumped down production wells into the reservoir, and the steam is drawn out.

Hydroshearing is similar to the process known as hydraulic fracturing, used to free natural gas from shale formations. But fracking uses chemical-laden fluids, and creates huge fractures. Pumping fracking wastewater deep underground for disposal likely led to recent earthquakes in Arkansas and Ohio.

Fears persist that cracking rock deep underground through hydroshearing can also lead to damaging quakes. EGS has other problems. It is hard to create a reservoir big enough to run a commercial power plant.

Progress has been slow. Two small plants are online in France and Germany. A third in downtown Basel, Switzerland, was shut down over earthquake complaints. A project in Australia has had drilling problems.

A new international protocol is coming out at the end of this month that urges EGS developers to keep projects out of urban areas, the so-called "sanity test," said Ernie Majer, a seismologist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It also urges developers to be upfront with local residents so they know exactly what is going on.

AltaRock hopes to demonstrate a new technology for creating bigger reservoirs that is based on the plastic polymers used to make biodegradable cups.

It worked in existing geothermal fields. Newberry will show if it works in a brand new EGS field, and in a different kind of geology, volcanic rock, said Colin Williams, a USGS geophysicist also in Menlo Park.

The U.S. Department of Energy has given the project $21.5 million in stimulus funds. That has been matched by private investors, among them Google with $6.3 million.

Majer said the danger of a major quake at Newbery is very low. The area is a kind of seismic dead zone, with no significant faults. It is far enough from population centers to make property damage unlikely. And the layers of volcanic ash built up over millennia dampen any shaking.

But the Department of Energy will be keeping a close eye on the project, and any significant quakes would shut it down at least temporarily, he said. The agency is also monitoring EGS projects at existing geothermal fields in California, Nevada and Idaho.

"That's the $64,000 question," Majer said. "What's the biggest earthquake we can have from induced seismicity that the public can worry about."

Geologists believe Newberry Volcano was once one of the tallest peaks in the Cascades, reaching an elevation of 10,000 feet and a diameter of 20 miles. It blew its top before the last Ice Age, leaving a caldera studded with towering lava flows, two lakes, and 400 cinder cones, some 400 feet tall.

Although the volcano has not erupted in 1,300 years, hot rocks close to the surface drew exploratory wells in the 1980s.

Over 21 days, AltaRock will pour 800 gallons of water per minute into the 10,600-foot test well, already drilled, for a total of 24 million gallons. According to plan, the cold water cracks the rock. The tiny plastic particles pumped down the well seal off the cracks. Then more cold water goes in, bypassing the first tier, and cracking the rock deeper in the well. That tier is sealed off, and cold water cracks a third section. Later, the plastic melts away.

Seismic sensors produce detailed maps of the fracturing, expected to produce a reservoir of cracks starting about 6,000 feet below the surface, and extending to 11,000 feet. It would be about 3,300 feet in diameter.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management released an environmental assessment of the Newberry project last month that does not foresee any problems that would stop it. The agency is taking public comments before making a final decision in coming months.

No power plant is proposed, but one could be operating in about 10 years, said Doug Perry, president and CEO of Davenport Newberry.

EGS is attractive because it vastly expands the potential for geothermal power, which, unlike wind and solar, produces power around the clock in any weather.

Natural geothermal resources account for about 0.3 percent of U.S. electricity production, but a 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology report projected EGS could bump that to 10 percent within 50 years, at prices competitive with fossil-fuels.

Few people expect that kind of timetable now. Electricity prices have fallen sharply because of low natural gas prices and weak demand brought about by the Great Recession and state efficiency programs.

But the resource is vast. A 2008 USGS assessment found EGS throughout the West, where hot rocks are closer to the surface than in the East, has the potential to produce half the country's electricity.

"The important question we need to answer now," said Williams, the USGS geophysicist who compiled the assessment, "is how geothermal fits into the renewable energy picture, and how EGS fits. How much it is going to cost, and how much is available."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120115/ap_on_re_us/us_geothermal_volcano

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Stocks finish higher after late-day recovery (AP)

NEW YORK ? A drop in oil prices and strong bond auctions in Europe drove stocks to a slightly higher close Thursday. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose for the fourth straight day.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 21.57 points, or 0.2 percent, to end at 12,471.02 It was down most of the day, losing 64 points in the first hour of trading, following a spike in unemployment claims and a weak report on December retail sales.

Materials and industrial companies led the afternoon recovery. Caterpillar and Alcoa rose the most in the Dow. The S&P 500 finished up 3.02 points, or 0.2 percent, at 1,295.50. The Nasdaq composite rose 13.94 points, 0.5 percent, to 2,724.70

Stocks drove higher in the last hour and a half of trading after oil prices dropped below $100 per barrel for the first time this year. Oil fell on rumors that Europe will delay an embargo on Iran. Crude plunged $2 a barrel in just eight minutes, ending at $99.

Also pushing stocks were strong bond auctions in Italy and Spain. European markets ended mostly higher rose after Italy and Spain held highly successful bond auctions, easing worries about Europe's debt crisis. Italy's benchmark stock index rose 2.1 percent.

In Italy's first bond auction of the new year, the country was able to sell one-year bonds at a rate of just 2.735 percent, less than half the 5.95 percent rate it had to pay last month. That's a signal that investors are becoming more confident in Italy's ability to pay its debts.

Spain was able to raise double the amount of money it had sought to raise in its own bond sale as demand for its debt was strong. Both auctions were seen as important tests of investor sentiment.

Investors have been worried that Italy and Spain, the third- and fourth-largest countries in the euro area, might get dragged into the region's debt crisis. Greece, Ireland and Portugal have been forced to get relief from their lenders after their borrowing costs spiked to levels the countries could no longer afford.

The euro rose nearly a penny against the dollar, to $1.28, as worries eased about Europe's financial woes. The currency, which is shared by 17 European countries, fell to a 16-month low against the dollar the day before.

In other trading, corn futures plunged 6.1 percent to $6.12 per bushel after the government reported that supplies of the grain were higher than traders had expected. Wheat also fell 5.6 percent. An auction of 30-year Treasury bonds drew meager interest from investors as cash flowed back into European debt.

It was the latest day of quiet trading in the stock market. There have been six consecutive days with moves of less than 1 percent in the S&P 500, the quietest stretch since May.

Ralph Fogel, investment strategist and partner at Fogel Neale Partners in New York, said the moderate moves were an encouraging sign following the steep rises and sudden declines that were typical of last summer. "This is a much healthier market than we've seen."

Unemployment benefits spiked last week to the highest level in six weeks, mostly because companies let go of thousands of holiday hires, the government reported. Retail sales barely rose in December and were lower than analysts were expecting.

Despite the mixed news on the economy, investors are starting to focus on the U.S. corporate earnings season, which got under way this week with Alcoa Inc. The aluminum maker predicted stronger demand for its products this year and surprised the market with revenue that was higher than analysts were expecting.

"There's a fair amount of pessimism out there but I also think that investors are slowly becoming immune to the bad news," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank in Chicago. "As long as the stuff you can sink your teeth into, like corporate profit, is improving, I think it bodes well for the markets this year."

Among stocks making big moves:

? Chevron fell 2.6 percent after the world's second-largest publicly traded oil company said its income will be "significantly" below its fourth-quarter results in the prior quarter because of narrower margins on refining and selling fuels.

? CA Inc. jumped 4.3 percent. The hedge fund Taconic Capital disclosed in a regulatory filing that it has taken a 5.1 percent stake in the business software and technology company and is pressing CA to return more cash to shareholders and increase its profit margins.

? Casino operator Wynn Resorts Ltd. fell 2 percent. The company disclosed in a regulatory filing that its vice chairman has filed a lawsuit against the company. Kazuo Okada claims that Wynn has refused to give him access to records relating to a $135 million donation the company made to the University of Macau and other matters.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/energy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120112/ap_on_bi_st_ma_re/us_wall_street

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CA police say sure they've found homeless killer

This photo provided by the Anaheim Police Dept. shows Itzcoatl Ocampo. Investigators are "extremely confident" that Ocampo a man in their custody is responsible for all four recent killings of homeless men in Orange County, Anaheim Police Chief John Welter said Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012. (AP Photo/Anaheim Police Dept.)

This photo provided by the Anaheim Police Dept. shows Itzcoatl Ocampo. Investigators are "extremely confident" that Ocampo a man in their custody is responsible for all four recent killings of homeless men in Orange County, Anaheim Police Chief John Welter said Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012. (AP Photo/Anaheim Police Dept.)

Larry Pinson, second from left, of Yorba Linda, is consoled, as is Krista Schegetz, right, of Anaheim, at a makeshift memorial after finding out the name of the homeless man that was killed Friday night outside a fast-food restaurant in Anaheim, Calif., Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012. Police arrested a suspect in connection with the death. The death follows reports of the earlier stabbing deaths of three homeless men in north Orange County since Dec. 21. Police suspect all three were victims of a serial killer. It was not known if the latest death was connected to the other killings. (AP Photo/Alex Gallardo)

FBI special agent in charge William O'Leary speaks at the podium before several police chiefs for a news conference to announce the arrest of Itzcoatl Ocampo, in the photo on the poster board in foreground, as the serial killer of four homeless men, the latest Friday night, where Ocampo was caught in Anaheim, Calif., Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012. (AP Photo/Alex Gallardo)

Larry Pinson of Yorba Linda weeps after finding out the name of the homeless man that was killed Friday night outside a fast-food restaurant in Anaheim, Calif., Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012. Police arrested a suspect in connection with the death. The death follows reports of the earlier stabbing deaths of three homeless men in north Orange County since Dec. 21. Police suspect all three were victims of a serial killer. It was not known if the latest death was connected to the other killings. (AP Photo/Alex Gallardo)

April Orona, 39, and her 3-year-old daughter Arianna bring a rose to place at the make-shift memorial, Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012 in Anaheim, Calif. Investigators are "extremely confident" that a man in their custody is responsible for all four recent killings of homeless men in Orange County, Anaheim Police Chief John Welter said Saturday. (AP Photo/Los Angeles Times, Irfan Khan) NO FORNS; NO SALES; MAGS OUT; ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER OUT; LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS OUT; VENTURA COUNTY STAR OUT; INLAND VALLEY DAILY BULLETIN OUT; SAN BERNARDINO SUN OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT, TV OUT

(AP) ? For a month, a killer who authorities believed was targeting homeless men had investigators scrambling to track down a suspect as three stabbing deaths put fear into the homeless population in the Orange County suburbs.

The killing of yet another homeless man over the weekend led to the arrest of a suspect in that and earlier deaths.

"We are extremely confident that we have the man that is responsible for the murders of all four homeless men in Orange County," Anaheim Police Chief John Welter said at a Saturday news conference. "We plan to request from the district attorney that he be charged with four counts of murder."

The man in custody, Itzcoatl Ocampo, 23, of Yorba Linda, was arrested Friday night after a man was found stabbed to death in the parking lot of a Carl's Jr. restaurant, Welter said.

Witnesses and bystanders at the crime scene chased Ocampo, and he was captured by a police officer who was part of a perimeter set up in response to dozens of 911 calls and other reports.

On Saturday the scene was covered with flowers and signs left in tribute the latest victim.

As the stabbings continued last month, a task force that included the FBI and four local police agencies formed to find the killer.

Authorities would give no further information on Ocampo, the evidence against him or any suspected motive.

Ocampo is being held without bail at the Anaheim jail. A phone number listed in Ocampo's name rang without an answer, and no one answered the door at the address where he had been living.

Family and friends said Ocampo served in the Marines in Iraq, and was mentally troubled when he returned in the summer of 2010, telling those close to him that in the year since he'd been seeing and hearing things.

"When he came back from Iraq, he was sick," Ocampo's uncle, Ifrain Gonzalez, told the Los Angeles Times.

Neither the Times nor The Associated Press was able to reach Marine officials to confirm details.

Investigators searched Ocampo's home in Yorba Linda on Saturday morning and left with shoes, clothing and a computer, according the Orange County Register.

Ocampo graduated from Yorba Linda's Esperanza High School in 2006, and had been living back in his hometown with two younger siblings, landlord Jim Tice told the Register.

Word of the arrest was greeted with cautious optimism among the Orange County homeless and their advocates.

"It was the topic of a lot of conversation tonight, and everybody was really excited, just really happy and relieved," said Larry Haynes, executive director of the Mercy House shelter in Santa Ana. "But until there is a conviction and we know for absolute certainty, we're hoping that people will try to stay safe."

Friday night's victim, 65-year-old John Berry, was interviewed by a reporter from the Los Angeles Times looking into the killings earlier this month. Berry, living under a tarp along a riverbed, said then that he wasn't scared enough to go to a shelter.

"I just like to stay outdoors," he said. "A guy can get killed crossing the street. I've been as careful as I can, watching and everything."

But in the days before his death he was uncharacteristically nervous, according to Marilyn Holland, an Anaheim woman who had befriended him and often brought him cookies.

"He told me he thought he was being followed," Holland told The Associated Press.

Holland was having dinner at a nearby restaurant Friday night when she saw dozens of police cars descending on the Carl's Jr. parking lot, and heard they had found a homeless man dead near the trash bin.

"I ran over and hugged my friend, screaming, 'Please tell me it's not John!' But it was," Holland said, fighting back tears.

The other men killed were all found stabbed to death like Berry.

James Patrick McGillivray, 53, was killed near a shopping center in Placentia on Dec. 20; Lloyd Middaugh, 42, was found near a riverbed trail in Anaheim on Dec. 28; and Paulus Smit, 57, was killed outside a Yorba Linda library on Dec. 30.

___

Associated Press Writer Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-15-Homeless%20Homicides/id-e5f86c529ece49e1897a2bf914610d9f

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Heather Locklear taken to Calif. hospital (AP)

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. ? Heather Locklear was taken to a Southern California hospital for precautionary reasons Thursday after an emergency call was made from her home, authorities said.

Paramedics and sheriff's deputies responded Thursday afternoon to Locklear's home in Westlake Village, which is 35 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

Locklear was taken to Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, where a spokeswoman told KCAL-TV the actress was stable and her parents were by her side.

"Her parents wanted everybody to know that she's doing well, she's fine, she's not in any danger, she's healthy," hospital spokeswoman Kris Carraway-Bowman told the station.

Ventura County sheriff's Capt. Mike Aranda said he did not know Locklear's condition but deputies were not investigating.

Locklear has been hospitalized several times over the years. In 2009, she pleaded no contest to reckless driving after being arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of prescription medication.

The 50-year-old actress's publicists did not return messages seeking comment.

Locklear and "Melrose Place" co-star Jack Wagner recently ended their engagement. She was previously married to Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora, and they have a daughter together.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120113/ap_en_tv/us_people_locklear

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Veteran Israeli settler says democracy is obstacle (AP)

ELON MOREH, West Bank ? Israel's democracy has long been a point of pride for its citizens ? setting the country apart in a region of autocratic governments. But veteran settler leader Benny Katzover says democracy is getting in the way of what he believes is a higher purpose.

Katzover has been at the forefront of a religiously inspired movement to take over the West Bank, hilltop by hilltop, helping build a network of settlements over four decades that are now home to hundreds of thousands of Israelis.

Today he argues that democratic principles, such as equality before the law, have become an obstacle to deepening Jewish control over all of the biblical Land of Israel ? though he stops short of calling for dismantling Israel's democratic institutions. They are disintegrating on their own, he says, and losing legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

"We didn't come here to establish a democratic state," Katzover said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We came here to return the Jewish people to their land."

Katzover's comments appear to reflect a growing radicalization among some right-wing religious groups. They come at a time of a rise in attacks on Palestinians by vigilante settlers and an increase in complaints by liberal Israelis that the country's right-wing parliament and government have launched an unprecedented attack on the pillars of democracy. Israel has preserved its democratic system through decades of turmoil, though it never extended it to Palestinians in occupied lands.

Katzover, 64, led the first group of settlers into the northern West Bank in the 1970s and helped establish the settlement of Elon Moreh in 1980. Like other prominent settlers, he has been a confidant and informal adviser to a string of prime ministers over the years.

Katzover remains influential among hardcore activists and heads the Committee of Samaria Settlers, a group that tries to block government attempts to raze any of the about 100 unauthorized settlement outposts or uproot settlers as part of a future ? and for now very remote ? partition deal with the Palestinians.

"Across the country, these ideas, that democracy needs dramatic change, if not dismantling then at least dramatic change, these ideas are very widespread," he said in his modest home in Elon Moreh, a settlement of 2,000 people with a sweeping view of the West Bank hills the Palestinians want as the core of their future state.

The mainstream settlers' umbrella group, the Yesha Council, distanced itself from Katzover's comments, first made in a small ultra-Orthodox publication and picked up by Israel's liberal Haaretz daily earlier this month. The Yesha Council is firmly committed to democratic principles, said its chairman, Dani Dayan. But Katzover claims he's expressing publicly what many others, including more mainstream settler leaders, think privately.

Yair Sheleg of the Israel Democracy Institute said the radicalization of hardline settlers accelerated after Israel's 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Israel uprooted nearly two dozen settlements, including four in the northern West Bank, and the operation was deeply traumatic for the settler movement.

Sheleg said he was surprised by Katzover's tough tone, if not the content of his remarks.

"We should be very worried," he said. "Benny Katzover was considered to be historically one of the mainstream leaders of the settler movement, and this really illustrates the way, the very far way, those mainstream settler leaders went."

The trend has been accompanied by a sharp rise in settler attacks on Palestinians and their property since 2009, including the torching of mosques, setting fire to fields, cutting down orchards and stoning cars. According to new U.N. figures, there were 412 attacks on property and people in 2011, compared to 168 in 2009.

The attacks are part of a tactic called "price tag." They are carried out in response to attempts by the Israeli military to raze even parts of settlement outposts set up since the 1990s to prevent a partition deal. Perpetrators are rarely caught or punished, though recent price tag vandalism at an Israeli army base prompted government pledges to be tougher.

The price tag assailants are usually portrayed as young hotheads, or the most radical among the so-called "hilltop youths" that have been setting up the outposts.

The Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, citing internal documents, alleged last week that Katzover's group is a key force promoting the price tag policy. Katzover denied any involvement, saying he opposes "price tag" attacks as damaging to the settlement cause.

But he refused to denounce the practice, arguing he wants to keep an open line to the most radical in hopes of having a moderating influence.

Katzover is a founder of Gush Emunim, the spearhead of the Jewish settlement movement that sprang up in the 1970s and over the years garnered considerable political clout.

Gush Emunim followers believed even then in the supreme importance of settling the land, including the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war and sought by the Palestinians for their state.

Gush Emunim's original vision of hundreds of thousands of Israelis settling in the West Bank has largely come true, mainly because of massive backing by successive Israeli governments.

Katzover says the accomplishments of the movement, including the establishment of 150 government-sanctioned settlements, "shaped the map" of Israel by preventing a withdrawal to the pre-1967 war frontiers.

Establishment of a Palestinian state, seen by the international community as a cornerstone of Mideast peace, would require the removal of a majority of the settlements or their incorporation into Palestine. As the settler population continues to grow, partition is pushed further out of reach.

There's now a critical mass to prevent a withdrawal from the West Bank heartland as well, he said. "I don't believe there is a government that will take upon itself the responsibility to mark 100,000 people for expulsion," he said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120115/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_a_settler_s_view

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