Women wearing Burqas, photo courtesy of Flickr user Illuminacion Luiseno

Yesterday, Belgian lawmakers voted almost unanimously to ban women from wearing long Islamic veils such as the burqa in public.  In fact no one actually voted against the law, but two abstained from voting.

Belgium is the first country in Europe to put a ban on the veils. One of the main purposes for the law is so that everyone is able to be recognized as these veils prevent this.

Reactions have been across the board. Twitter users have shown a lot of reactions including:

Lindsay Lohan (@LindsayLohan) took to Twitter to defend a picture of herself wearing a black dress and holding a gun to her lips, describing it as “art,” according to the Press Association.

The Cubs tried to play home-run derby today with the Arizona Diamondbacks, sadly they lost both the game and the home-run contest.

The Diamondbacks handed the Cubs their worse loss since opening day, defeating the Cubs 13-5. Arizona scored most of their 13 runs on four home runs.

A permit was approved Wednesday for energy company Cape Wind Associates to build the first offshore wind farm off the cost of Cape Cod. It has taken 9 years for the permit to be approved, due in part to legal wranging by opponents, who have already announced they are filing a lawsuit.

According to an article on Yahoo!News “Plans for Cape Wind call for construction to begin within a year. Its 130 turbines would be placed in a grid pattern over a 25-square-mile area of Nantucket Sound. The closest turbine to land will be about five miles from Cape Cod . The turbines will supply a maximum of 468 megawatts of electricity, about the output of a medium-sized coal-fired electricity plant, or enough for about 200,000 homes in Massachusetts”

Florida Governor Charlie Crist decided he will run as an independent in the race for U.S. Senate, Fox News reported Wednesday afternoon.

Crist’s official announcement is scheduled for 5 p.m. Eastern time Straub Park in downtown St. Petersburg, FL.

Crist’s poll numbers began to slip when former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio began running ads showing the Florida Governor hugging President Obama and thanking him for Florida’s share of the stimulus money.

Is Steve Carell going to leave The Office?  After seven seasons, Carell says it might be time for Michael Scott to say goodbye to Dunder Mifflin.

Justin Bieber (@JustinBieber) may be a continuous trending topic on Twitter, but he is not afraid of losing his pop star status in an effort to defend his mom.

Sandra Bullock has filed for divorce from husband Jesse James and is finalizing the adoption of her new baby boy, Louis Bardo Bullock.

Fabrice Tourre, along with several other current and former Goldman Sachs employees testified on Tuesday, April 27, 2010, in front of a Senate panel on Capitol Hill  maintaining their innocence in the financial crisis.

Some of the other representatives included, Daniel Sparks, Josh Birnbaum and Michael Swenson.

As reported by CNN, Michael Swenson was quoted as saying:

“We did not cause the mortgage crisis…I do not think we did anything wrong.”

Twitter is alight with #Goldman tweets from supporters, critics and the middle neutral bodies.

Below is a line-up of real-time tweets between 2-4 p.m. (CST):

Twitpic by @Mannaz: "Ok this just made me laugh loud over hotel breakfast #pope"

A formal regret was issued to the Vatican by the British ambassador; Francis Campbell when an internal Foreign Office memo filled with appalling suggestions for the Pope to launch his own range of condoms and open an abortion clinic got leaked and printed in the Sunday Telegraph.

The memorandum was drafted by a 23-year-old Oxford graduate, Steven Mulvain who was part of the staff planning events for Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the UK. Mulvain is believed to be a junior civil servant and amongst his suggestions to the Pope included, blessing a gay marriage.