Thousands sign U.S. petition to deport Piers Morgan over gun comments

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – More than 48,000 people have signed a petition that they posted on the White House website demanding that British CNN talk show host Piers Morgan be deported over comments he made on air about gun control.

Morgan last week lambasted pro-gun guests on his show, after the December 14 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman shot dead 26 people, including 20 children.

“We demand that Mr. Morgan be deported immediately for his effort to undermine the Bill of Rights and for exploiting his position as a national network television host to stage attacks against the rights of American citizens,” the petition said.

The petition, started on December 21 by a man identified as Kurt N. from Austin, Texas, accuses Morgan of subverting the second amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the right to bear arms.

U.S. citizens can file a petition on the White House website, whitehouse.gov, if they collect at least 25,000 signatures within 30 days. The White House is then obliged to issue a response.

Morgan, 47, a former newspaper editor in London, shot back at his critics on Twitter. He repeated his past calls for the United States to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and conduct background checks on all gun purchases.

Five days after the Connecticut massacre, Morgan called a guest, Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners for America, an “idiot,” “dangerous” and an “unbelievably stupid man” when Pratt argued that more guns were needed to combat crime in the United States.

“I don’t care about a petition to deport me. I do care about poor NY firefighters murdered/injured with an assault weapon today. #GunControlNow,” Morgan tweeted on Monday, referring to a shooting in New York that killed three people, including the gunman.

Christa Robinson, a CNN spokeswoman, said the network had no immediate comment on the petition.

Publicist Howard Bragman, vice chairman of Reputation.com, said the controversy will get Morgan attention that may translate into higher ratings and wouldn’t harm his reputation.

“A lot of it comes from his being British, he’s seen the differences between the U.S. and UK, he’s passionate and authentic in taking this issue on, and it’s probably only going to help him attract more people to his show,” Bragman, told Reuters.

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy and Eric Kelsey; editing by Christopher Wilson)

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‘Dystextia’: Gibberish texts sound stroke alarm

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Imagine you were a devoted husband, waiting to hear from your wife about her due date after a visit to the obstetrician, and you saw these on your phone:

“every where thinging days nighing”

“Some is where!”

That’s what happened last December to a Boston-area man, who knew that autocorrect – known for its bizarre replacements – was turned off on his 11-week-pregnant wife’s phone.

You’d probably be tempted to make sure your wife, 25, got to the emergency room. When she did, doctors noted several signs of a stroke, including disorientation, inability to use her right arm and leg properly and some difficulty speaking.

A magnetic resonance imaging scan – MRI – revealed that part of the woman’s brain wasn’t getting enough blood, clinching the diagnosis. Fortunately, her symptoms went away quickly, and the rest of the pregnancy went just fine after she went home from the hospital on low-dose blood thinners.

The case, say three doctors from Boston’s Harvard Medical School who reported it online today in the Archives of Neurology, suggests that “the growing digital record will likely become an increasingly important means of identifying neurologic disease, particularly in patient populations that rely more heavily on written rather than spoken communication.”

The authors describe the phenomenon as “dystextia,” which is the word used by other doctors in an earlier case involving a migraine, and symptoms of a stroke diagnosed for other reasons.

“In her case, the first evidence of language difficulties came from her unintelligible texts,” one of the report’s authors, Dr. Joshua Klein, told Reuters Health by email.

Strokes are rare in women aged 15 to 34, with about 11,000 per year, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published last year.

Dr. Sean Savitz, who directs the stroke program at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, said he has seen a few patients who sent emails suggesting they were having difficulty with language, a condition known as aphasia.

Such clues usually come with other information however. In this case, for example, the patient’s obstetrician’s office later remembered that she had trouble filling out a form. And they might have caught the language difficulty earlier had the woman not had a weak voice, thanks to a recent upper respiratory infection.

“So, this case report per se does not indicate to me if dystextia is going to be more common to pick up strokes,” Savitz told Reuters Health by email, “but I do think it will be a valuable addition to the collection of information that neurologists should obtain when taking a history.”

“The main stroke warning signs with respect to texting would be unintelligible language output, or problems reading or comprehending texts,” said Klein. “Many smartphones have an ‘autocorrect’ function which can introduce erroneous word substitutions, giving the impression of a language disorder.”

Autocorrect, said Savitz, a professor of neurology, can confuse matters – even for doctors.

“I have often joked with my colleagues when using the dictation of the smartphone, that it gives me an aphasia,” he said. “Potential for lots of false positives!”

SOURCE: Archives of Neurology, online December 24, 2012.

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Taliban not demanding Afghan power monopoly

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban representatives at a conference did not insist on total power in Afghanistan and pledged to grant rights to women that the militant Islamist group itself brutally suppressed in the past, according to a Taliban statement received Sunday.

The pledges emerged from a rare meeting last week involving Taliban and Kabul government representatives.

The less strident substance and tone came in a speech delivered at a conference in France. The French hosts described it as a discussion among Afghans rather than peace negotiations.

It was hard to determine whether the softer line taken by the Taliban representatives reflected a real shift in policy or a salvo in the propaganda war for the hearts and minds of Afghans.

The speech said that a new constitution would protect civil and political rights of all citizens. It promised that women would be allowed to choose husbands, own property, attend school and seek work, rights denied them during Taliban rule, which ended with the 2001 U.S. invasion. The speech was emailed from Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.

“We are not looking to monopolize power. We want an all-Afghan inclusive government,” the speech said. It was delivered by two Taliban officials, Mawlawi Shahbuddin Dilawar and Muhammad Naeem during the conference on Thursday and Friday.

Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said the government welcomed such talks but did not expect them to bridge the gap between the warring sides.

The United States started to embrace the idea of peace talks after President Barack Obama took office, but discussions stalled in recent years, despite the formation of an Afghan government council tasked with reaching out to the Taliban and the establishment of a Taliban political office in Qatar.

“The peace initiative is a process, and one or two or three meetings are not going to solve the problems. But we are hopeful for the future,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai said. He said the government’s preconditions for the talks with the Taliban have not changed: a cease-fire, recognition of the Afghan constitution, cutting ties with international terrorists and agreeing to respect the rights of Afghan citizens including women and children.

The Taliban speech reiterated the group’s own longtime policies, declaring that the current constitution was “illegitimate because it is written under the shadow of (U.S.) B-52 aircraft” and that the Taliban remained the legitimate government of the country, a reference to the U.S.-led campaign that drove the Taliban from power.

It also called for the withdrawal of all foreign forces and said a 2014 national election was “not beneficial for solving the Afghan quandary” because it would take place while the country was still under foreign occupation.

Most NATO forces are scheduled to be withdrawn by 2014. The Kabul government and its international backers hope that a peace deal can be brokered with the Taliban and other militant groups before the pullout. NATO still has more than 100,000 troops, including 66,000 U.S. soldiers, on the ground. Washington is now determining the size of a scaled down force the United States will keep in Afghanistan after 2014.

“The occupation must be ended as a first step, which is the desire of the entire nation, because this is the mother of all these tragedies,” the speech said.

The conference was also attended by the Hezb-e-Islami group, which is allied with the Taliban, and political opponents of President Hamid Karzai, whom the Taliban regard as a puppet of Washington.

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NRA chief LaPierre fires back at his critics

National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre fired back at his critics today, defending his proposal to put armed guards in every school in the country as a way to prevent future tragedies like the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that took the lives of 20 children and six adults.

"If it's crazy to call for armed officers in our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy," the head of the powerful gun lobby said today on NBC's "Meet the Press."

LaPierre and the NRA came under harsh criticism this week for their response to the Newtown, Conn., school shooting.

After keeping silent for a week, except for a release announcing that the organization would make "meaningful contributions" to the search for answers to the problem of gun violence, LaPierre held what critics described as a "tone deaf" press conference in which he blamed the media, video games and Hollywood for the recent shootings, and suggested that the answer to gun violence was more guns.

Gun control advocates argue that a federal assault weapons ban is necessary to curbing gun violence. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who helped pass an assault weapons ban in 1996 is renewing efforts to pass similar legislation as the original ban expired in 2004.

"I think that is a phony piece of legislation and I do not believe it will pass for this reason: it's all built on lies," LaPierre said today.

LaPierre and many pro-gun advocates like him argue that assault weapons bans aren't effective and that violent criminals are solely to blame.

INFOGRAPHIC: Guns in America: By The Numbers

In today's interview, LaPierre pointed out that the Columbine High School shooting occurred after the assault weapons ban passed, but he failed to mention that the shooters obtained the guns they used illegally though a gun show.

He also did not discuss the fact that there was an armed guard on duty at the school when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people there before killing themselves.

Several senators watching LaPierre's interview had strong reactions.

"He says the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. What about stopping the bad guy from getting the gun in the first place?" said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who was also on the show, said that he open to discussing increased school security but warned against a quick rush to ban assault weapons.

"I don't suggest we ban every movie with a gun in it and every video that's violent and I don't suggest that you take my right buy an AR-15 away from me because I don't think it will work," Graham said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he didn't think having armed guards in schools was a good idea, though the Republican said he was "not commenting on the NRA proposal in particular."

"I am not someone who believes that having multiple, armed guards, in every school, is something that will enhance the learning environment, and that is our first responsibility inside a school, is the learning environment, you don't want to make this an armed camp for kids, I don't think that is a positive example for children," he said. "We should be able to figure out some other ways to enhance safety."

Earlier this week protesters from the group "Code Pink" snuck into the NRA press conference and held up a sign that read "NRA Blood on Your Hand."

Gun-control advocates like the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence have long been critical of the NRA, but some lawmakers who also back more stringent gun control have been reluctant to lash out at the NRA until the recent shootings at Newtown, Conn.

After the Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting, when a gunman armed with an AR-15, two Glock pistols and a shotgun, killed 12 and wounded 70 others, even Feinstein lamented that it was a "bad time" to press for gun control.

She has since changed her tone, but her previous reluctance to tackle the issue shows just how powerful the NRA is in derailing any opposition gun ownership.

President Obama announced last week that he was creating a task force headed by Vice President Biden to offer workable policy solutions to the problem of gun violence by the end of January.

The president will likely face an uphill battle, as any proposed legislation will have to make its way through the House of Representatives, which is currently controlled by Republicans.

Many lawmakers, the president and the NRA have discussed a holistic solution that includes the examination potential problems with the mental health system in this country.

Mental health services have come under a great strain as local governments are forced to cut their budgets. As a result, the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors has estimated a loss of $4.35 billion to state funded mental health services.

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How to Get Free Last-Minute Shipping

First, the bad news: the cut off for free shipping on most online sites was Tuesday, Dec 18^th. But the good news – we’ve got some sneaky ways to finagle free rush shipping and a list of sites still offering free shipping guaranteed to arrive before December 25^th.

Free Rush Shipping
Some of the biggest online retailers are still offering free last minute shipping:

• Barnes & Noble – free shipping on Nook HD through Dec. 22


• MacMall – free 2-day shipping on orders over $ 299 and under 25lbs – through 6 p.m. PST Dec. 22.


• Macy’s – free shipping on orders over $ 99. Place order 11:59 p.m. EST Dec. 20.


• The Northface – free 2-day shipping on everything through 11:59 p.m. Dec. 19.


• Walmart.com has extended free shipping through December 19^th on some items (check product page for eligibility)


• Overstock.com – free shipping on select gifts. Place order by Dec. 22 to receive by Christmas.


• Newegg   Free 2-Day shipping on over 200 items


• Target – free shipping on Daily Deals


• Victoria’s Secret – free shipping on orders over $ 100 using code “SHIP12.” Order by 5 p.m. EST on Dec. 20.


• Zappos – free shipping for all items with guaranteed Christmas delivery if ordered by 11:59 p.m. PST Dec. 22.

And the biggest of the big online retailers, Amazon, has a limited set of items available for free expedited shipping. These include jewelry, watches, clothing, video games, laptops, headphones, and kitchen items.

[Related: Great Gifts for Under $ 25]

But since many of the above deals are limited to select items, take a look at…

How to Get Free 2-Day Shipping on Just About Everything
Amazon Prime is a yearly subscription service. In exchange for a $ 79 fee, you get free 2 day shipping all year long. And yes, that also applies at Christmas (must order by 3 p.m. EST Dec. 22 to receive on time). Best deal is that you can get a free 6-month trial.

And here’s the real sneaky surprise: Do you have a family member who already belongs to Prime? They can nominate up to four people for the same free shipping benefits. Prime members nominate someone by going to their account, clicking “Settings” and “Manage Prime Membership.”

Also, Amazon Student is a free 6-month membership to Prime with all the benefits, providing you have an email address that ends in .edu.

But you don’t have to limit yourself to Amazon. Shoprunner.com also offers free 2-day shipping, though the membership service costs $ 8.95 a month – so not entirely free, but if you have numerous items still to buy, you could save a bundle.  And Shoprunner has tons of participating online retailers like Toys R Us, Sports Authority, Claire’s, PetSmart and EMS. Say you want to buy something from PetSmart.com, if you sign in with Shoprunner, many of the items on the site will be eligible for free 2-day shipping. One more thing to try: I was able to sign up for a free 1-year membership to Shoprunner using the promo code RUNNER. The site implied I had to be an American Express member, but it never asked for my details about the credit card, and now I have a membership. Good luck.

Ship to Store
Finally, the best last-minute option for many is to ship to store. You peruse all the options from home, pay online, and then pick up your selection at your local store. Tons of big retailers offer this service, and it guarantees your item will be in stock and waiting for you at customer service. Major retailers offering free Ship to Store include:

• Best Buy


• Target


• Toys R Us


• Walmart


• Sears

[Related: Best E-Reader for Under $ 100]

Brad Marshland contributed to this story.

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Barbra Streisand goes on a “Guilt Trip” with Seth Rogen

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Road-trip movies have been dominated by teenagers on wild adventures or “Hangover” style bro-mances, but Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen are driving the genre into new territories with mother-son comedy “The Guilt Trip” to usher in the holiday season.

“The Guilt Trip,” which hits U.S. theaters this week, follows struggling novice inventor Andy (Seth Rogen), who is guilted in to bringing his mother on a work-related road-trip across the country.

Streisand, 70, who broke out as an actress in 1968′s comedy “Funny Girl,” returns to her comedic roots as Joyce, Andy’s overbearing mother, who becomes closer to her son over the duration of their tense and comedic adventures on the road.

The actress told reporters at a recent press conference that it was her son Jason Gould who convinced her to do the project after reading the script with her, and Streisand found a deeper connection to the story.

“Mothers develop guilt trips,” Streisand said. “(When my own son was young) I was working a lot and I felt guilty as a parent that I cannot pick (up) my son everyday from school, bake him cookies, that kind of thing. And so you try and compensate.”

“I thought it was interesting to investigate this – trying to be his friend versus a mother…this movie, it hit on all those things that I thought I could explore.”

Rogen, 30, also related closely to the mother-son storyline, saying that while he has a “good relationship” with his own mom, even she can drive him “crazy” sometimes.

“That dynamic where your mother is trying and the more she tries, the more it bugs you, the more it bugs you, the more she tries….All that is very, at times, real to my relationship with my mother,” Rogen said.

STAYING OUT OF THE SPOTLIGHT

Streisand, who is one of the few actresses to win a Tony, Emmy, Grammy and Oscar award over her six-decade career, last took a leading role in 1996′s “The Mirror Has Two Faces,” which she also directed and produced.

The actress initially had reservations about signing onto the movie and said she gave the movie studio numerous clauses “because I kept wanting an out some way.”

Her requests included having a set “no more than 45 minutes away from my house” and later morning starts, as “my husband (James Brolin) and I stay up until two or three in the morning so we don’t function…at six in the morning.”

Streisand’s requests were granted, and thus came about a road trip movie where the actors never actually went on the road. The film ended up largely being shot on a sound stage with Streisand and Rogen in a car against a green screen while backdrops of landmarks such as the Grand Canyon, were added in later.

With the exception of a supporting role as Ben Stiller’s mother in 2004′s “Meet The Fockers” and 2010′s “Little Fockers,” Streisand has stayed out of the spotlight in recent years, and attributes that as one of the keys to her long-standing success.

“I don’t make many movies and I don’t make that many appearances. Less is more. Maybe that keeps a little mystery,” Streisand said, adding that she likes to “stay at home a lot.”

While she hasn’t signed onto another project just yet, she said what keeps her satisfied as an artist is engaging in work that is “private” as opposed to being on public display.

“I love recording and I love making films as a filmmaker,” she said. “Because it uses every bit of what you have experienced or know, whether it’s graphics, composition, decorating, psychology, storytelling, whatever it is. It’s a wonderful thing.”

(Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Lisa Shumaker)

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Canada spending growth sluggish in November, Mastercard says

(Reuters) – Canada‘s holiday shopping season got off to a slow start in November with retail sales rising only 1.3 percent from the previous year, compared with 4.2 percent growth a year earlier, according to data released by MasterCard on Thursday.

Still, the shopping season was still young in November. MasterCard Advisors, the payment company’s research and consulting division, found that in recent years, holiday shopping peaks from December 20 to December 22.

“Many Canadians may have gotten an early start with Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year, but it’s still a very young phenomenon in Canada,” Senior Vice-President Richard McLaughlin, said in a release.

The Friday after U.S. Thanksgiving is the unofficial start to the holiday shopping season south of the border, and in recent years retailers have imported Black Friday sales to Canada.

Some also promote online sales the following Monday.

Canada’s online retail sales continued to grow in November, increasing 26.4 percent.

(Reporting by Allison Martell; Editing by Peter Galloway)

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Obama starts Hawaiian vacation, leaving Washington on ice

KAILUA, Hawaii (Reuters) - Taking what promised to be a very brief Christmas break from the ongoing struggle to avoid the "fiscal cliff" of tax hikes and spending cuts, President Barack Obama relaxed with his family on Saturday at a beach retreat in Hawaii.

Congress was to return to Washington next Thursday and Obama has pledged to work with lawmakers to strike a deal to avoid the economic shock from tax and spending measures set to take effect on January 1 if a deal can't be reached, which many economists say could push the U.S. economy back into recession.

The president is expected to indulge in some of his favorite pastimes on the island where he was born and raised: golf, an expedition for the local treat "shave ice," and an evening out with family and friends. He hit the links at the nearby Marine Corps base under sunny skies on Saturday afternoon.

On Sunday, he is expected to attend funeral services for Senator Daniel Inouye, the long-serving Democrat from Hawaii who died on Monday, but the president has no other public events on his schedule.

On Saturday, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he had urged Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie, a Democrat, to name Inouye's successor "with due haste."

"It is critically important to ensure that the people of Hawaii are fully represented in the pivotal decisions the Senate will be making before the end of the year," Reid, of Nevada, said in a statement.

Obama's idyll was not expected to last more than four days, and he will likely retrace the more than 4,800-mile trip from the Aloha State to Washington after Christmas in a bid to cut a deal with Republicans, who failed on Thursday to agree on competing tax and spending bills of their own.

Before leaving Washington on Friday evening, Obama urged Congress to come up with a stopgap measure to spare the U.S. economy the jolt of $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts economists say would likely derail the economy.

The president asked lawmakers for a stripped-down deal to continue lower tax rates on middle income earners and extend unemployment insurance benefits to avoid some of the worst effects of the "fiscal cliff" in the new year.

Obama's family holiday, in a quiet beach front community on the other side of the island from bustling Honolulu, should also provide some respite from the somber focus on the Newtown, Connecticut, school massacre and the consequent bitter debate over measures to change America's gun culture and prevent violence.

The president's weekly radio and Internet addresses, which in recent weeks have centered on his argument for extending tax cuts for all but the wealthiest Americans, on Saturday offered holiday greetings to U.S. military forces.

(Reporting By Mark Felsenthal and Richard Cowan; Editing by Vicki Allen, Todd Eastham and Paul Simao)

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Facebook Poke App Is Frustrating as Hell

Facebook Poke: Startup Screen

Poke, the new iPhone app from Facebook, lets you send short messages, photos and videos to friends that automatically self destruct after a few seconds. If you have the Facebook app on your phone already, logging in is effortless.

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: 2012′s Biggest Winners and Losers]

I was never a big poker on Facebook. When I joined the social network in 2007, giving someone a “poke” was still pretty common. It was a connection that stopped short of an actual friend request, a way to test the waters of a reconnection with, say, an ex.

The new app, Facebook Poke (as it’s listed in the App Store), doesn’t have much in common with poking of old. It’s essentially a clone of other texting apps where all the messages have a built-in self-destruct. It’s ideal for clandestine activities, shall we say.

[More from Mashable: Facebook Introduces Snapchat Competitor, Poke]

Here’s how it works: Let’s say you have a sudden urge to send one of your Facebook friends a photo of a, er, cucumber. But you don’t want to just send them a cucumber pic that they could post and re-share to the world. Poke lets you send the pic, but the recipient will only have 1, 3, 5 or 10 seconds to view your majestic vegetable. And they need to press and hold the screen while viewing, or the pic goes away.

You can send photos, videos or text messages via Poke, although you can’t use it for anything too elaborate since the message content lasts 10 seconds maximum. After that, boom. The message, whatever it was, is gone forever. There isn’t even a record on the sender’s phone (although a log of who you’ve poked and who’s poked you still remains).

Poke is pretty unforgiving. The recipient must press and hold the notification to see the content. Once you touch, the countdown starts, and there’s no going back — even if you let go. Videos just stop, with no chance of re-watching. You slip, and you’re done.

I suspect Poke will engender a lot of frustration because of this limitation. You feel as if it should at least pause the countdown when you remove your finger.

The app also lets you just “poke” people — meaning send a message with no content — about the only way the app is similar to the old act of poking. Those are just simple notifications, and don’t expire.

It gets more annoying: All your poke recipients need to download the app to see them. Poking only works on mobile right now, and Facebook’s been careful to ensure notifications for incoming pokes only appear in its mobile apps.

Checking out your profile on the web won’t reveal any trace of poking. On a smartphone, a note appears that encourages pokees to download the app.

What if someone does a screengrab of your poke, turning it into something more permanent? There’s nothing you can do, but the app will inform you if someone does that, with a “flash” icon beside their name in your feed. If you see your ephemeral wild moment appear on Tumblr the next day, at least you’ll know who to blame.

Poke isn’t that intuitive. It displays some basic instructions when you first log in, but would benefit greatly from one of those tutorial overlays that have become ubiquitous among iOS apps. Also, I find it odd that your front-facing camera isn’t selected by default. But maybe my expectation for the subject material of most pokes is off the mark.

You can add text and colored line drawings to any pics you send. That’s helpful to get the attention on the thing in the photo you really want the person to look at in those three seconds of poke life.

At first I found it frustrating that Poke doesn’t let you take horizontal photos or videos. But that’s actually a good idea. If you think about it, if the only people seeing this content are people glancing at their phones for a few seconds, so vertical pics make total sense. In the time it took a person to turn their phone and the accelerometer to react, the message will probably be gone. If you want masterpieces, try Flickr.

Bottom line: Poke is an annoying app, but it probably has more to do with the nature of what it’s trying to do than any design flaws. How do you like Poke? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, jcsmily

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Reports: Rolling Stones guitarist Wood ties knot

LONDON (AP) — Two British newspapers say Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood has married his fiancee Sally Humphreys at a ceremony at London‘s Dorchester Hotel.

The Sun and the Daily Mirror carried photographs of the 65-year-old rocker with a pale boutonniere and a dark blue suit, and his 34-year-old bride in a traditional white gown and a clutch of matching white flowers.

The Sun quoted Wood as saying “I’m feeling great” as he and his bride kissed and posed for pictures outside the exclusive hotel in London’s upscale Mayfair district.

The newspapers said the guests included singer Rod Stewart and his wife Penny Lancaster as well as ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and his wife Nancy Shevell.

A call and an email to Wood’s U.S.-based agent weren’t immediately returned Saturday.

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