The overall impact of the payout – placing some $100 billion mostly in the hands of middle- and lower-income taxpayers – should modestly boost the nation's economy in the second half of the year, economists agree. But it may only soften the blow of any recession, making it "shallower" than it might be without this spending.

The president sought this quick relief as "a shot in the arm" for an economy which the White House maintains is going through a "rough patch." The White House, while acknowledging that the growth of the economy is slowing, does not concede that a recession is coming – though the Bush administration is projecting near-record federal budget deficits this year and next, with the tax rebates adding to that deficit.

"Money will be going directly to American workers, family and individuals," Bush said earlier this week. "It's going to help deal with the uncertainties in this economy."

Congress quickly responded to the president's call for an initial package of $145-billion in tax relief for individuals and families as well as tax relief for businesses. With swift bipartisan approval, Congress gave the president a $168-billion measure that includes tax breaks aimed at encouraging business expansion and increases in the mortgage limits that federal lending agencies can support in the midst of a home-mortgage crisis.

"Many Americans are worried about their mortgages," Bush said today. "My administration is working to solve this problem."

The lion's share of the relief will come as tax rebates for eligible taxpayers, people earning at least $3,000 a year. The minimum payment will be $300 for an individual and $600 for a couple filing a joint tax return. Based on the amount of taxes that people pay, the rebate will be as much as $600 for an individual and $1,200 for a couple. In addition, rebates will add $300 for each child in a family eligible for tax credits.

The sliding scale is designed to offer the most money in checks to lower- and middle-income taxpayers, with the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reporting that a couple with two children with an income of $35,000 a year will see a tax rebate of $1,800 – the maximum for a couple with money added for the children.

And because that money will be going to people most likely to spend it, rather than save or invest it, economists agree that it should have its intended effect of pumping billions of dollars into an ailing economy.

"This puts money in the hands of people who will spend it," said Chad Stone, chief economist for the Center. "The more people are up against their credit card limits, the more likely they are to spend the rebates."

Combined with cuts which the Federal Reserve has made in interest rates this year, Stone says, the tax rebates should offer some modest help for the economy at a time when many are predicting a recession.

"On balance, it will provide some useful stimulus, on top of the stimulus that will come from the big rate cuts that the Fed had made," he said. "A lot of people will say it's too little to make a difference. Maybe, if that were the only thing going on that might be true. But it's not the only thing going on."

The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, which Bush signed this afternoon in an East Room ceremony at the White House, could boost the nation's Gross Domestic Product by one-half to one-percent in the second half of the year, other economists say.

"Clearly it will have impact on the second half of this year," said Sung Won Sohn, an economist who teaches at California State University and served as chief economist for Wells Fargo Bank. "We think it could boost GDP at an annual rate of 1 percent during the second half of 2008. That is fairly significant.

"The rebate is structured in such a way that it aims at essentially low and moderate income folks," Sohn said. "They are suffering because of the high price of gasoline and the high price of food.

The lawsuit asks a judge to order the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration to inform recipients in the program that they can change Medicaid plans every year. It also asks for undisclosed damages for all of the 200,000 participants.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of three Broward County residents. But it is being expanded to the class action, said Shawn Boehringer, a lawyer with Legal Aid of Broward County. The lawyers haven't yet told Northeast Floridians of their part in the lawsuit. That will come later, he said.

Lawyers for the state have filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming health care providers already tell people they can change their plan every year and that the three original plaintiffs lack legal standing to sue because they aren't participants in the pilot program.

According to the lawsuit, federal law lets recipients change plans at any time if they have "good cause," but notices sent to program participants didn't explain that adequately.

The state also failed to provide the required notice letting people know they can change their Medicaid plan, or drop it, once a year, the suit says.

Reaction to the pilot program has been all over the map in Florida. A Georgetown University study surveyed 186 physicians in Duval and Broward counties last year and found doctors unhappy with the program and refusing to participate.

But Jay Millson, executive vice president of the Duval Medical Society, said the reaction to the pilot program has been largely positive.

The Nassau County Commission asked the state to exempt the county from the program, but the state refused.

Nassau County Commissioner Mike Boyle said his constituents didn't see a need for the program because they thought Medicaid was fine before.

Pat Glynn, executive director of First Coast Advantage, which manages the care of about 15,000 people with Medicaid in Duval County, said the reaction to the pilot program has been positive.

"I'm sure there are things we can do better, but for the most part the people seem happy," he said, adding that many of the concerns came from people who weren't yet familiar with how the program works.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Texas law making it illegal to sell or promote obscene devices, punishable by as many as two years in jail, violated the right to privacy guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

Companies that own Dreamer's and Le Rouge Boutique, which sell the devices in its Austin stores, and the retail distributor Adam & Eve sued in federal court in Austin in 2004 over the constitutionality of the law. They appealed after a federal judge dismissed the suit and said the Constitution did not protect their right to publicly promote such devices.

In its decision Tuesday, the appeals court cited Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 opinion that struck down bans on consensual sex between same-sex couples.

"Just as in Lawrence, the state here wants to use its laws to enforce a public moral code by restricting private intimate conduct," the appeals judges wrote. "The case is not about public sex. It is not about controlling commerce in sex. It is about controlling what people do in the privacy of their own homes because the state is morally opposed to a certain type of consensual private intimate conduct. This is an insufficient justification after Lawrence."

The Texas attorney general's office, which represented the Travis County district attorney in the case, has not decided whether to appeal, said agency spokesman Tom Kelley.

Phil Harvey, president of Adam & Eve Inc., said the 5th Circuit Court's decision was a big step forward. He said his business plans to expand to sell in stores and at home parties, something company consultants had been fearful of doing because of the Texas law.

"I think it's wonderful, but it does seem to me that since Texas was one of three states in the country — along with Mississippi and Alabama — that continued to outlaw the sale of sex toys and vibrators, that it was probably past time," Harvey said Wednesday.

Alabama is in the 11th Circuit. But now it's unlikely that the law in Mississippi, which also is in the 5th Circuit, will be prosecuted, some legal experts said.

Virginia's law barring obscene items is a bit different from other state laws and does not appear to apply to sex toy sales, said Harvey, whose company distributes nationwide.

Louisiana, Kansas, Colorado and Georgia had laws barring obscene devices, but courts have since struck them down. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a Georgia law banning the advertising of sex toys, which can be sold under some approved circumstances.

The 5th Circuit Court's decision is encouraging for Sherri Williams, who has been fighting the issue in Alabama for a decade. Williams, who owns Pleasures stores in Alabama, sued in 1998 after state lawmakers banned the sale of sex toys there. A year ago, she lost her fight again when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider a lower court decision upholding the Alabama law as constitutional.

Williams hopes that lawmakers will take notice of the recent Texas case and support a newly filed bill in the Alabama Legislature to overturn the ban on adult toy sales.

"I think the courts are finally listening to the people," Williams said Wednesday. "You have 'Sex and the City,' 'Desperate Housewives' and other shows promoting what society is doing. I think the courts have finally opened their eyes and looked around, which is a miracle in the South."

However, the two added at a hearing before the Senate Banking Committee that official 2008 growth forecasts made late last year by the central bank and the president's Council of Economic Advisors are likely to be lowered in the coming months.

The Fed is currently predicting 1.8% growth for this year but Bernanke said a new forecast would be finalized next week. The Council of Economic Advisors' most recent estimate was for the economy to grow by 2.7% in 2008.

In their prepared testimony, the head of the central bank and the Bush administration's point man on the economy said steps taken already this year will be able to keep the economy moving forward despite the continued downturn in housing and troubles in credit markets.

"At present, my baseline outlook involves a period of sluggish growth, followed by a somewhat stronger pace of growth starting later this year as the effects of monetary and fiscal stimulus begin to be felt," said Bernanke in his opening statement, referring to a series of Fed interest rate cuts and a $170 billion tax rebate and stimulus plan signed by President Bush Wednesday.

But Bernanke conceded that banks are getting tighter in their lending standards, the housing and home building markets are likely to weaken further and the labor market may be softening.

"More-expensive and less-available credit seems likely to continue to be a source of restraint on economic growth," he said.

The Fed last month made two deep rate cuts: three-quarters of a percentage point at an emergency meeting, followed by half a point eight days later.

Bernanke said Thursday that the Federal Open Market Committee, its rate-setting body, was ready to act again if further economic readings justify it.

"The FOMC will be carefully evaluating incoming information bearing on the economic outlook and will act in a timely manner as needed to support growth and to provide adequate insurance against downside risks," Bernanke said.

It was only a matter of time. Most have known for a while now that Bluray players were designed in different phases. The problem is that the same goes for the discs themselves. This leads to a situation where some players play some movies while some players are unable to. Such is the case with the first generation player from Samsung. And now the BD01200 player is the center of a class action lawsuit against the manufacturer Samsung.

A man named Bob McGovern has filed a suit because his BluRay player is unable to play some of the newer Blu-Ray movies.  His Bluray was manufactured in 2006 and is unable to play the movies due to the lack of updated firmware for his particular machine.

Samsung has publicly stated that they have no intentions of providing the necessary firmware update for the machine. Why the company would do this and face a lawsuit is a curious decision indeed. The lawsuit is open to anyone facing the same dilemma as Mr. McGovern.

The lawsuit was lodged in May against Jeppesen Dataplan by several men who say they were taken on secret flights to prisons in Morocco, Egypt, Afghanistan and Jordan, where they say they were tortured.

The lawsuit charged that Jeppesen was a leading supplier of logistics to planes used by US intelligence, and that it carried out 70 such flights in 2001.

The government asked the judge, James Ware in San Diego California, to throw out the case without considering it, arguing it involved secrets that could be neither confirmed nor denied.

After receiving a confidential statement from Michael Hayden, the current CIA director, the judge agreed.

"The Court's review of General Hayden's public and classified declarations confirm that proceeding with this case would jeopardize national security and foreign relations and that no protective procedure can salvage this case," his statement said.

"Thus, the Court finds that the issues involved in this case are non-justiciable because the very subject matter of the case is a state secret," he added.

The planes, which flew under the names of CIA front corporations, are suspected of having been part of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program.

Under the program, terror suspects were abducted and then illegally flown to countries such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan and Romania for interrogation.