OECD: Europe weighing on global economy

PARIS (AP) — The global economy could easily slide back into recession if its major problems are left to fester, a leading international economic body said Tuesday.

In its half-yearly update, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development warned that the recovery will be “hesitant and uneven” over the coming two years and that a new major contraction cannot be ruled out.

“The world economy is far from being out of the woods,” OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said. “Governments must act decisively, using all the tools at their disposal to turn confidence around and boost growth and jobs in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.”

Gurria’s downbeat assessment came as the OECD published a fairly glum set of predictions. Though the world economy is expected to grow by 3.4 percent next year, up from 2.9 percent this, the numbers mask big divergences around the world.

Though countries like China, Brazil and India are expected to see growth pick up, the more established economies that the Paris-based OECD traditionally monitors remain stuck in a rut.

In particular, the OECD was gloomier about Europe than in its last forecast six months ago, saying “the greatest threats to the world economy” lie in the 17-country eurozone, which continues to grapple with a debt crisis after three years. A deep global recession is also possible, it said, if the European crisis doesn’t stabilize.

The downbeat report came despite recent that the crisis in the eurozone is ebbing. Earlier Greece’s euro partners and the International Monetary agreed to hand over more bailout cash to the country, a move that’s eliminated fears of an imminent bankruptcy.

The OECD is now predicting a 0.4 percent contraction this year for the eurozone, worse than May’s 0.1 percent forecast. For next year, it’s forecasting a further 0.1 percent fall, in contrast to the previous prediction of 0.9 percent growth.

It also downgraded its forecasts for the U.S. economy and warned that it could be worse if the White House doesn’t clinch a deal with lawmakers on the budget. Assuming a deal is thrashed out, the OECD has penciled in growth of 2 percent for the U.S. next year, down from a forecast of 2.6 percent in May.

The OECD cautioned that growth outside the OECD — which comprises 34 developed economies mostly in North America and Europe – would be slightly faster but crimped by Europe’s troubles.

“A slowdown has surfaced in many emerging market economies, partly reflecting the impact of the recession in Europe,” said Pier Carlo Padoan, the OECD’s chief economist.

The OECD also warned the U.S. and Europe against cutting spending too sharply and too quickly, saying that could further hurt growth prospects. It suggested that countries with stronger economies such as Germany and China could provide temporary fiscal stimulus to boost growth.

“Global prospects remain fragile, with strong downside risks, and are heavily dependent on the speed and decisiveness of policy actions,” it said.

Padoan expressed concern about the so-called fiscal cliff in the U.S., automatic tax increases and steep spending cuts that take effect in January unless President Barack Obama and Congress reach a budget agreement.

“If the fiscal cliff is not avoided, a large negative shock could bring the U.S. and the global economy into recession,” Padoan said.

The report argues for “measured” spending cuts and tax increases.

“Reducing the large federal budget deficit is necessary to restore fiscal sustainability, but this should be done gradually and in the context of a well-identified medium-term consolidation plan,” Padoan said.

The report warned that unemployment would continue to rise in the eurozone from 11.1 percent this year to 12 percent in 2014, but that the rate in the U.S. would gradually decline to 7.5 percent in 2014.

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Mexican beauty queen killed in shootout

CULIACAN, Mexico (AP) — A 20-year-old state beauty queen died in a gun battle between soldiers and the alleged gang of drug traffickers she was traveling with in a scene befitting the hit movie “Miss Bala,” or “Miss Bullet,” about Mexico’s not uncommon ties between narcos and beautiful pageant contestants.

The body of Maria Susana Flores Gamez was found Saturday lying near an assault rifle on a rural road in a mountainous area of the drug-plagued state of Sinaloa, the chief state prosecutor said Monday. It was unclear if she had used the weapon.

“She was with the gang of criminals, but we cannot say whether she participated in the shootout,” state prosecutor Marco Antonio Higuera said. “That’s what we’re going to have to investigate.”

The slender, 5-foot-7-inch brunette was voted the 2012 Woman of Sinaloa in a beauty pageant in February. In June, the model competed with other seven contestants for the more prestigious state beauty contest, Our Beauty Sinaloa, but didn’t win. The Our Beauty state winners compete for the Miss Mexico title, whose holder represents the country in the international Miss Universe.

Higuera said Flores Gamez was traveling in one of the vehicles that engaged soldiers in an hours-long chase and running gun battle on Saturday near her native city of Guamuchil in the state of Sinaloa, home to Mexico’s most powerful drug cartel. Higuera said two other members of the drug gang were killed and four were detained.

The shootout began when the gunmen opened fire on a Mexican army patrol. Soldiers gave chase and cornered the gang at a safe house in the town of Mocorito. The other men escaped, and the gunbattle continued along a nearby roadway, where the gang’s vehicles were eventually stopped. Six vehicles, drugs and weapons were seized following the confrontation.

It was at least the third instance in which a beauty queen or pageant contestants have been linked to Mexico’s violent drug gangs, a theme so common it was the subject of a critically acclaimed 2011 movie.

In “Miss Bala,” Mexico’s official submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category of this year’s Academy Awards, a young woman competing for Miss Baja California becomes an unwilling participant in a drug-running ring, finally getting arrested for deeds she was forced into performing.

In real life, former Miss Sinaloa Laura Zuniga was stripped of her 2008 crown in the Hispanoamerican Queen pageant after she was detained on suspicion of drug and weapons violations. She was later released without charges.

Zuniga was detained in western Mexico in late 2010 along with seven men, some of them suspected drug traffickers. Authorities found a large stash of weapons, ammunition and $ 53,300 with them inside a vehicle.

In 2011, a Colombian former model and pageant contestant was detained along with Jose Jorge Balderas, an accused drug trafficker and suspect in the 2010 bar shooting of Salvador Cabanas, a former star for Paraguay‘s national football team and Mexico’s Club America. She was also later released.

Higuera said Flores Gamez’s body has been turned over to relatives for burial.

“This is a sad situation,” Higuera told a local radio station. She had been enrolled in media courses at a local university, and had been modeling and in pageants since at least 2009.

Javier Valdez, the author of a 2009 book about narco ties to beauty pageants entitled “Miss Narco,” said “this is a recurrent story.”

“There is a relationship, sometimes pleasant and sometimes tragic, between organized crime and the beauty queens, the pageants, the beauty industry itself,” Valdez said.

“It is a question of privilege, power, money, but also a question of need,” said Valdez. “For a lot of these young women, it is easy to get involved with organized crime, in a country that doesn’t offer many opportunities for young people.”

Sometimes drug traffickers seek out beauty queens, but sometimes the models themselves look for narco boyfriends, Valdez said.

“I once wrote about a girl I knew of who was desperate to get a narco boyfriend,” he said. “She practically took out a classified ad saying ‘Looking for a Narco’.”

The stories seldom end well. In the best of cases, a beautiful woman with a tear-stained face is marched before the press in handcuffs. In the worst of cases, they simply disappear.

“They are disposable objects, the lowest link in the chain of criminal organizations, the young men recruited as gunmen and the pretty young women who are tossed away in two or three years, or are turned into police or killed,” Valdez said.

___

Associated Press Writer E. Eduardo Castillo contributed to this report

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Yes, the Government Can Still Spy on Your Digital Life (for Now)

Ahead of a controversial Senate debate on digital privacy this week, the battle over warrantless cell-phone and Internet searches is beginning to take shape — even as law-enforcement agencies continue to carry out the searches anyway. Judges across the country have thrown out cases that used tracked digital American lives without warrants, but others haven’t, reports The New York Times‘s Somini Sengupta. A DC court, for example, compared text messages to voicemail messages, which because they can be overheard are not protected by state privacy laws, argued one judge. A Louisiana court is deciding if cell-phone records are like business records. Another court ruled that GPS cell phone tracking without a warrant was fine, too. Others, however, argue that cell phones are more than just a paper trail. One judge called cell phones “raw, unvarnished and immediate, revealing the most intimate of thoughts and emotions,” as in something that is subject to higher privacy standards. Meanwhile, we see the same inconsistencies with Internet protections, reports The Wall Street Journal‘s Joe Pallazolo. A federal court recently ruled that people who use their neighbors’ WiFi without permission forfeit privacy, opening up government officials to warrantless searches. The same ruling other courts have made for IP addresses. However, the law isn’t that clear-cut, either, argues George Washington University professor Oren Kerr. 

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Without clear rules, government agencies have continued investigations with warrantless searches. As people have started using cell phones more often and for more than just calling, law enforcement agency requests for cell-phone information have increased, reported The New York Times‘s Eric Lichtblau earlier this year. AT&T gets more than 700 requests a day from various agencies, triple what it got in 2007, he notes. Last year, the total number of requests came in at at least 1.3 million. At the same time, the application for wiretapping warrants declined 14 percent last year to 2,732, according to the Administrative Office of the United States Courts. A curious pattern considering the requests for information have gone up. Though these wireless carriers say they require a search warrant, a court order or a formal subpoena to release information, “in cases that law enforcement officials deem an emergency, a less formal request is often enough,” writes Lichtblau. Or, it’s possible that law enforcement has opted for other forms of tracking that don’t require warrants, at least not according to some judges. 

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A Senate debate beginning Thursday to make changes on the Electronic Communications Privacy Act might bring some clarity to these issues. However, it’s unclear if the revised bill will give the government more or less power, and it doesn’t sound like the vote will apply to all cell phone or Internet data. An early draft of the bill reportedly allowed warrantless e-mail searches, reported CNET’s Declan McCullagh. Since, Senator Patrick Leahy, who is spearheading the bill, has denied that the updates to the regulation will do that, however. Instead, the revised bill will require search warrants to get into email no matter how old, says Sengupta. That should presumably apply to some of our smartphone and Internet data, too. But it doesn’t address text messages or location information, other concerns of consumers.

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Rolling Stones turn back clock with hit-filled comeback

LONDON (Reuters) – The Rolling Stones turned back the clock in style on Sunday with their first concert in five years, strutting and swaggering their way through hit after familiar hit to celebrate 50 years in business.

Before a packed crowd of 20,000 at London‘s O2 Arena, they banished doubts that age may have slowed down one of the world’s greatest rock and roll bands, as lead singer Mick Jagger launched into “I Wanna Be Your Man”.

More than two hours of high-octane, blues-infused rock later, and they were still going strong with an impressive encore comprising “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”.

In between there were guest appearances from American R&B singer-songwriter Mary J. Blige, who delivered a rousing duet with Jagger on “Gimme Shelter” and guitarist Jeff Beck who provided the power chords for “I’m Going Down”.

Former Rolling Stones Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor were also back in the fold, performing with the regular quartet of Jagger, Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards on guitar and Charlie Watts on drums for the first time in 20 years.

“It took us 50 years to get from Dartford to Greenwich!” said Jagger, referring to their roots just a few miles from the venue in southeast London. “But you know, we made it. What’s even more amazing is that you’re still coming to see us…we can’t thank you enough.”

The Sunday night gig was the first of two at the O2 Arena before the band crosses the Atlantic to play three dates in the United States.

The mini-tour is the culmination of a busy few months of events, rehearsals and recordings to mark 50 years since the rockers first took to the stage at the Marquee Club on London‘s Oxford Street in July, 1962.

There has been a photo album, two new songs, a music video, a documentary film, a blitz of media appearances and a handful of warm-up gigs in Paris.

“STYLE AND PANACHE”

The reunion nearly did not happen. One factor behind the long break since their record-breaking “A Bigger Bang” tour in 2007 has been Wood’s struggle with alcohol addiction, while Jagger and Richards also fell out over comments the guitarist made about the singer in a 2010 autobiography.

But they eventually buried the hatchet, and Richards joked in a recent interview: “We can’t get divorced – we’re doing it for the kids!”

Critics were fulsome in their praise of the first comeback gig.

“Keith Richards has said that the beauty of rock and roll is that every night a different band might be the world’s greatest. Well, last night at the O2 Arena, it was the turn of the Rolling Stones themselves to lay claim to the title they invented,” wrote Neil McCormick of the Daily Telegraph.

“And they did it with some style and panache.”

The big question on every fan’s lips is whether the five concerts lead to a world tour and even new material. The Stones sang their two new tracks “Doom and Gloom” and “One More Shot”, which appeared on their latest greatest hits album “GRRR!”.

Richards has hinted that the five concerts ending at the Newark Prudential Center in the United States on December 15 would not be the last.

“Once the juggernaut starts rolling, it ain’t gonna stop,” he told Rolling Stone magazine. “So without sort of saying definitely yes – yeah. We ain’t doing all this for four gigs!”

The band has come in for criticism from fans about the high price of tickets to the shows – they ranged from around 95 pounds ($ 150) to up to 950 pounds for a VIP seat.

The flamboyant veterans, whose average age is 68, have defended the costs, saying the shows were expensive to put on, although specialist music publication Billboard reported the band would earn $ 25 million from the four shows initially announced. A fifth was added later.

“Everybody all right there in the cheap seats,” Jagger asked pointedly as he looked high to his left at the arena. “They’re not really cheap though are they? That’s the trouble.”

Among the biggest cheers on the night were for classics including “Wild Horses”, “It’s Only Rock and Roll” and “Start Me Up”.

There was even time for the odd reference to their advancing years.

“Good to see you all,” said Richards with a mischievous grin. “Good to see anybody.”

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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UnitedHealth forecasts 2013 profit below Wall St view

(Reuters) – UnitedHealth Group Inc , the largest U.S. private health insurer, said on Monday it expected 2013 earnings of $ 5.25 to $ 5.50 per share, below analysts‘ expectations.

Revenue should be $ 123 billion to $ 124 billion, the company said, higher than the Wall Street target. UnitedHealth gave the forecast in a statement ahead of a Tuesday meeting with analysts and investors.

Analysts had expected 2013 earnings of $ 5.58 per share on revenue of $ 119.12 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

UnitedHealth said during a quarterly conference call in October that analysts’ estimates for 2013 were too high, citing the weak economy and government efforts to rein in the deficit. At that time, the consensus was for earnings of $ 5.60 per share.

UnitedHealth has a history of exceeding its forecast, Oppenheimer analyst Michael Wiederhorn said in a research note. “Overall, we believe UNH’s outlook will prove conservative,” he wrote.

Wiederhorn said it was not immediately clear if the Wall Street consensus outlook for 2013 revenue was comparable and included sales from Brazil’s Amil Participacoes SA , which it acquired for $ 4.9 billion.

UnitedHealth also reaffirmed its 2012 outlook for earnings of $ 5.20 to $ 5.25 per share.

(Reporting by Caroline Humer; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Jeffrey Benkoe)

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Is Jordan Headed for an Arab Spring?

In 2011, during the first wave of the Arab Spring, Jordan stood out as an oasis of stability. Recurrent but largely peaceful protests demanding political reform led to two prime ministers being sacked by King Abdullah II in February and October. This year, in the movement’s next wave, some protesters have shifted their focus to direct criticism of the  monarch—an act that can lead to a prison sentence of up to three years in the kingdom. Could King Abdullah, an American ally in a highly unstable region, be the next casualty of popular upheaval?

That’s unlikely at this point mostly because protesters still focus mainly on reforms, both political and economic. They appear willing to give the king one more chance. Whatever he proposes, we can certainly expect a bumpy road before the monarch manages to reclaim any domestic legitimacy, especially after almost two years of significant political and economic crises. Not helping are the growing presence of jihadists —11 members of an al Qaeda-linked cell were arrested in October in an alleged local bomb plot—and the influx of more than 100,000 refugees from neighboring Syria.

In early September, thousands of protesters in nine of Jordan’s 12 provinces demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Fayez al-Tarawneh after the government decided to raise fuel prices by 10 percent. Although King Abdullah promptly suspended the government’s move, some protesters openly mocked him, leading to at least 15 arrests. In October, more than 10,000 Jordanians protested for political reforms in the capital, Amman, despite the king’s call for early elections and plans for electoral reform.

Most recently, in mid-November, thousands protested in cities and towns in more than 100 demonstrations across Jordan following the government’s decision to lower fuel subsidies once again—this time to avoid complete economic collapse by reducing the country’s budget deficit and securing a $ 2 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. In some rallies, protesters spoke out against the king; in Dhiban, some burned pictures of him. The Islamist opposition—the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamic Action Front (IAF) party—has been vocal about its intention to keep protests going, despite the use by riot police of water canons and tear gas on protesters. So far 17 civilians and 58 policemen have been hurt, one protester has been killed, and 158 have been arrested. The military has said it will use “an iron fist” against protesters who “harm public or private facilities or citizens.”

All this unrest exacerbates a severe political crisis. Besides the dismissal of two prime ministers in 2011, three prime ministers have already held power this year: Awn al-Khasawneh, Fayez al-Tarawneh, and the current leader, Abdullah Ensour. King Abdullah has called for elections to be held on Jan. 23, but the opposition—particularly the IAF—has announced plans to boycott the election. Despite concessions by the king that include a constitutional court and an election that will apparently produce an elected prime minister for the first time, rather than one appointed by the monarch, the unrest will probably continue until the IAF and the monarchy reach some consensus about the election.

The economic crisis is severe. Unemployment stands officially at more than 11 percent, but unofficial estimates suggest it is as high as 30 percent. Prices of such basic items as heating kerosene and cooking gas have, respectively, increased by more than 30 percent and 50 percent following the removal of government subsidies. The country faces a significant energy crisis. Much-needed aid from Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations has not yet been delivered. The monarch’s promise of “comprehensive development” clearly isn’t appeasing anyone.

There’s no question that King Abdullah’s domestic legitimacy has eroded significantly in the last two months. This growing legitimacy crisis will continue into 2013—unless there arrives some kind of political agreement involving the IAF, along with economic concessions providing immediate popular relief. If not, Jordan’s days of absolute monarchy could be numbered, despite international support from the U.S., Israel, and other Arab monarchies.

Businessweek.com — Top News

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UN climate talks open in Qatar

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — U.N. talks on a new climate pact resumed Monday in oil and gas-rich Qatar, where negotiators from nearly 200 countries will discuss fighting global warming and helping poor nations adapt to it.

The two-decade-old talks have not fulfilled their main purpose: reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are warming the planet.

Attempts to create a new climate treaty failed in Copenhagen three years ago but countries agreed last year to try again, giving themselves a deadline of 2015 to adopt a new treaty.

A host of issues need to be resolved by then, including how to spread the burden of emissions cuts between rich and poor countries. That’s unlikely to be decided in the Qatari capital of Doha, where negotiators will focus on extending the Kyoto Protocol, an emissions deal for industrialized countries, and trying to raise billions of dollars to help developing countries adapt to a shifting climate.

“We all realize why we are here, why we keep coming back year and after year,” said South Africa Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, who led last year’s talks in Durban, South Africa. “We owe it to our people, the global citizenry. We owe it to our children to give them a safer future than what they are currently facing.”

The U.N. process is often criticized, even ridiculed, both by climate activists who say the talks are too slow, and by those who challenge the scientific near-consensus that the global temperature rise is at least partly caused by human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil.

The concentration of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide has jumped 20 percent since 2000, according to a U.N. report released last week.

A recent projection by the World Bank showed temperatures are on track to increase by up to 4 degrees C (7.2 F) this century, compared with pre-industrial times, overshooting the 2-degree target that has been the goal of the U.N. talks.

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Saudi telco regulator suspends Mobily prepaid sim sales

(Reuters) – Saudi Arabia‘s No.2 telecom operator Etihad Etisalat Co (Mobily) has been suspended from selling pre-paid sim cards by the industry regulator, the firm said in a statement to the kingdom’s bourse on Sunday.

Mobily’s sales of pre-paid, or pay-as-you-go, sim cards will remain halted until the company “fully meets the prepaid service provisioning requirements,” the telco said in the statement.

These requirements include a September order from regulator, Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC). This states all pre-paid sim users must enter a personal identification number when recharging their accounts and that this number must be the same as the one registered with their mobile operator when the sim card was bought, according to a statement on the CITC website.

This measure is designed to ensure customer account details are kept up to date, the CITC said.

Mobily said the financial impact of the CITC’s decision would be “insignificant”, claiming data, corporate and postpaid revenues would meet its main growth drivers.

The firm, which competes with Saudi Telecom Co (STC) and Zain Saudi, reported a 23 percent rise in third-quarter profit in October, beating forecasts.

Prepaid mobile subscriptions are typically more popular among middle and lower income groups, with telecom operators pushing customers to shift to monthly contracts that include a data allowance.

Customers on monthly, or postpaid, contracts are also less likely to switch provider, but the bulk of customers remain on pre-paid accounts.

Mobily shares were trading down 1.4 percent at 0820 GMT on the Saudi bourse.

(Reporting by Matt Smith; Editing by Dinesh Nair)

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Rolling Stones return to mark 50 years in music

LONDON (Reuters) – The Rolling Stones take to the stage later on Sunday after a five-year hiatus to celebrate the golden jubilee of one of the most successful and enduring bands in rock and roll history.

Now in their mid-60s to early 70s, lead singer Mick Jagger, guitarists Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood and drummer Charlie Watts will perform five concerts – two at the O2 Arena in London on November 25 and 29 and three in the United States next month.

Joining them at the O2 on Sunday will be former band members Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor, the first time the two ex-Stones have performed with the group in more than 20 years.

And in a fresh announcement on Saturday, American R&B singer-songwriter Mary J. Blige and guitar great Jeff Beck have also been added to the lineup as special guests.

The flamboyant veterans behind a string of hits including “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” have promised a “stunning” gig lasting more than two hours.

A sellout crowd of some 20,000 people is expected, in spite of widespread complaints from fans at ticket prices that ranged from 95 pounds ($ 150) to up to 950 pounds for a VIP seat.

Costs went far higher on secondary ticketing websites, although by Friday eBay was offering several seats to Sunday’s show at below face value and there were places still officially available at around 400 pounds apiece.

The band has defended the prices, saying that the shows are expensive to put on, although Billboard, a specialist music publication, reported that the quartet would be paid $ 25 million for the four shows first announced. A fifth was added later.

BURST OF ACTIVITY

The concerts are the culmination of a busy few months of events, rehearsals and recordings to mark 50 years since the blues-infused rockers first took to the stage at the Marquee Club on London‘s Oxford Street in July, 1962.

There has been a photo album, two new songs, a music video, a documentary film, a blitz of media appearances and a handful of warm-up gigs in Paris.

The O2 Arena was where another top band of the 1960s and 70s, Led Zeppelin, staged an eagerly awaited one-off reunion in 2007, and while the Stones have appeared together far more regularly, it is their first arena performance in six years.

One factor behind the long break has been Wood’s struggle with alcohol addition, according to Rolling Stone magazine, while Jagger and Richards also fell out over comments the guitarist made about the singer in a 2010 autobiography.

“We can’t get divorced – we’re doing it for the kids!” joked Richards in a recent interview after apologizing to Jagger.

While the rock and roll excesses of the swinging 60s and 70s are in the past for the band, and their very best songs may be behind them, music critics praised their recent single “Doom and Gloom” from the “GRRR!” greatest hits album just released.

And there have been hints from the band that the five gigs which wind up at the Newark Prudential Center on December 15 may not be the end of their reunion.

“Once the juggernaut starts rolling, it ain’t gonna stop,” Richards told Rolling Stone. “So without sort of saying definitely yes – yeah. We ain’t doing all this for four gigs!”

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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6 ways to tweet yourself out of a job

Hate your job? Want to leave without giving two weeks notice? Thanks to Twitter, it’s never been easier to get fired, says Rob Lammie at Mental Floss

Step 1: Drunk tweet
As any Spring Break partier knows, drinking impairs your judgment. It seems to have also impaired the judgment of Major League pitcher-turned-sports-radio-host Mike Bacsik, who put on quite a show during a San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks NBA game in April 2010. While watching the game, Bacsik bragged that he was “About 12 deep and some shots.” He proceeded to unleash a string of insults aimed at NBA commissioner David Stern, accused the refs of fixing the game, and even threatened to blow up the NBA’s offices. But the one that really got people riled up came after the Mavericks lost the game, when Bacsik tweeted: 

SEE MORE: Why popular kids make more money as adults

@MikeBacsik: “Congrats to all the dirty mexicans in San Antonio.”

After sobering up, Bacsik deleted the offending tweets and issued an apology. But it was too little, too late. Numerous people complained to his radio station, which first suspended Bacsik and later fired him. After his dismissal, he told ESPN Dallas, “When you tweet like that, it’s not a playful, harmless thing… I’m very sorry and will try my best for my actions to speak louder than my tweets.”

Step 2: Break the law (or just anger your governor)
Twitter has become a great tool for politicians to connect to the voting public. Former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, for one, has really embraced the technology as a way to share his opinions and views. For example, in December 2009, he sent out a tweet saying:

 @HaleyBarbour: “Glad the Legislature recognizes our dire fiscal situation. Look forward to hearing their ideas on how to trim expenses.”

Jennifer Carter, one of his Twitter followers who worked for the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC), read this message and offered up a suggestion on how Governor Barbour could personally save the taxpayers money:

“Schedule regular medical exams like everyone else instead of paying UMC employees overtime to do it when clinics are usually closed.” 

This “Oh, snap!” moment referred to an incident that had occurred three years earlier, when the governor requested the medical center open on a Saturday, when they were normally closed, and bring in a staff of 15-20 people who were paid overtime to administer his annual check-up. This happened before Carter worked for UMC and she was simply repeating what she had been told by other employees. 

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The governor’s office tracked down Carter and made a formal complaint to UMC, saying Carter had violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a privacy law that states no employee of a medical facility can reveal any information about a person’s “protected health information.” Some argued that Carter didn’t violate HIPAA, since she didn’t actually give out any information about the health of the governor. However, others believe that simply saying the governor had even visited a doctor is a violation. 

Semantics aside, UMC administrators said it was a violation, so they suspended Carter for three days without pay and strongly suggested she resign to avoid further disciplinary action, which she did.

SEE MORE: Facebook’s new jobs board: Is LinkedIn toast?

Step 3: Have an NSFW lifestyle
St. Louis-based blogger “The Beautiful Kind” had been writing online about her polyamorous sex life for years. Knowing that not everyone would agree with her chosen lifestyle, she was always very careful about maintaining her anonymity, especially when it came to the workplace. So when she signed up for Twitter, she wanted to be anonymous there as well. She thought that, thanks to the similarities between the two, it was like signing up for an online message board — you supplied your real name to the website privately, but could choose to be known publicly by your username only. But when she logged in for the first time and saw that, not only did it show her username (@TBK365), but also her real name on her profile, she immediately went back and removed it. 

Thinking she was now safely anonymous, she used Twitter to promote her blog and to discuss sexually explicit topics with her followers. However, when her boss at the non-profit group where she worked was told by upper management to do a Google search of all employees, TBK’s Twitter account information — with her real name still associated — came up on the Twitter tracking site topsy.com.

The next day, TBK was called into her boss’ office and fired on the spot. Afterwards, her former boss sent her a letter saying, “While I know you are a good worker and an intelligent person, I hope you try to understand that our employees are held to a different standard. When it comes to private matters, such as one’s sexual explorations and preferences, our employees must keep their affairs private.” Because Missouri is an at-will employment state, meaning employers can fire someone for just about any reason, TBK was SOL.

Step 4: Question company policy
When California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) traded in their standard white shirts for black ones, employee Tim Chantarangsu wasn’t happy with the change. So he tweeted @calpizzakitchen his opinion:

@traphik: “black button ups are the lamest s**t ever!!!”

He didn’t expect anyone to notice or care, but the next day he received a direct message from corporate asking what restaurant he worked for. He knew better than to respond, but they tracked him down anyway and he was fired. They not only referenced his tweet about the shirts, but also an earlier one where he had said he was getting ready to work at “Calipornia Skeetza Kitchen.” 

Little did they know that Chantarangsu is kind of a big deal on another social website, YouTube. Under the name TimothyDeLaGhetto2, Chantarangsu has hundreds of thousands of subscribers, accounting for over 10,500,000 views of his videos at the time. Of course he made a YouTube video telling his Twitter story and it has been viewed well more than 100,000 times. Shortly after the incident, he asked his followers to bombard CPK’s Twitter account with RTs (re-tweets) of his offending message, which they were more than happy to oblige.

Step 5: Make a celebrity look bad
During his five years on the job, Jon Barrett-Ingels had served a lot of celebrities as a waiter at Barney Greengrass, an upscale restaurant in Beverly Hills. One day, Jane Adams, star of the HBO series Hung, came in and had lunch to the tune of $ 13.44. Unfortunately, when the bill came, Adams realized she had left her wallet in the car. Ingels knew who she was, so he told her she could run out and grab it and come back. The actress left, but didn’t return. Instead, someone from her agency called the next day and paid the bill. However, they didn’t leave a tip. Ingels had recently signed up for Twitter and so, his sixth tweet to his 40 followers said:

@PapaBarrett: Jane Adams, star of HBO series “Hung” skipped out on a $ 13.44 check. Her agent called and payed the following day. NO TIP!!!” 

Over the next few weeks, Ingels started using Twitter to send out a few harmless observations about celebrities that came in to eat — mainly what they ordered or what they looked like that day. Then, out of the blue, Jane Adams came back to the restaurant. According to Ingels’ blog, she was clearly upset and begrudgingly slapped $ 3 on the bar for Ingels as a tip. Surprised, Ingels told the actress she really didn’t have to do that, but her gesture was appreciated. She allegedly replied with, “My friend read about it on Twitter!” before storming off. Adams complained about the tweet to management, so someone from Barney’s corporate started following Ingels on Twitter to see what he was up to. After reading his celebrity tweets, it didn’t take long before they gave him the boot.

Step 6: Don’t get hired in the first place
If you’ve followed steps 1 – 5 and you still have a job, here’s the ultimate way to make sure Twitter will keep you from gainful employment.

When recent college grad Skye Riley heard back from Cisco, the computer networking giant, about her job application, one of her first instincts was to tweet about it. Unfortunately, this is what she tweeted:

@theconnor: Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.

The unfortunate part? An employee of Cisco, Tim Levad, came across her post while doing a Twitter search for Cisco. He replied to her by saying:

@timmylevad: Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.

Riley’s story was the tweet heard round the world. It became a hot topic on tech blogs for weeks afterwards, with writers calling it the “Cisco Fatty” incident. She later claimed that the tweet was taken out of context — that part of her message was referring to a well-paid internship she had turned down — but it appears the damage had already been done. While only she and Cisco know what really happened, according to her online resume, she has never worked for the company.

 — Rob Lammie

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