Sunday, January 17, 2010
Ten ways ten pounds can change your life
Ten ways ten pounds can change your life
Shedding ten pounds can help you sleep, boost your energy, and cut your risk of cancer.
Haiti rescuers rush to find last survivors
Haiti rescuers rush to find last survivors
Looters and rioters ransack markets as the task of finding quake survivors becomes harder.
Top Teabagger is mad: Don't call us 'an offensive sexual slur'
The teabaggers don't like being called teabaggers. Yesterday, via email, I got a press release from one of the leaders of the teabagging movement, David Webb, the "Co-Founder Tea Party 365, Inc." Webb is steamed at Senator Chuck Schumer:
The senior Senator from New York has joined the ranks of Janeane Garofalo, Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews in insulting Americans who exercise their rights in a Democratic manner. These stalwarts of Liberalism claim to uphold fiercely the rights of all, unless you hold a position that does not suit them. Massachusetts residents have legitimate policy concerns about Martha Coakley and a 1st Amendment Right to voice them.Who knew the teabaggers were so thin-skinned? And, I don't think Webb's definition is quite "accurate."
Senator Schumer stated in an official email "Martha Coakley is running to fill the rest of Ted Kennedy's term, and her opponent is a far-right tea-bagger Republican." The accurate definition of "tea-bagger" or any derivation is an offensive sexual slur referring to the placement of a man's testicles on a woman's chin. One can only wonder how the women in Senator Schumer's offices, residents of New York or any woman who interacts with the Senator feel about his public and official use of such an offensive sexual slur in referring to American citizens he is elected to represent.
Samantha Jones explains it here.
This press release reads like it was inspired by Andy Cobb's teabagger video:
Of course, Webb's reaction also means we must only refer to the teabaggers as teabaggers.
Winning the Genetic Diversity Race in Lost City
Image: D. Kelley of University of Washington, IFE, URI‑IAO, UW, Lost City science party, NOAA
Lost City of Atlantis
The Lost City is so named because it juts from an Atlantic undersea mountain named Atlantis and was coincidentally discovered by the scientific expedition aboard the research vessel Atlantis. Scientists who noticed the white columns growing 65 to 200 feet up from the ocean floor were soon credited with finding a completely new type of hot spring environment. Previously, the only hot springs known derived their heat from the hot magma below the earth's crust.
But the Lost City represents a remarkable chemical process that may now be providing the best empirical evidence for the widely believed theory that when conditions change, relatively rare indigenous species may quickly take over and dominate a biosphere at the expense of previously successful species.
Green sea slug makes chlorophyll like a plant
The photosynthetic sea slug Elysia chlorotica appears like a dark green leaf as a result of retaining chloroplasts from its algal prey, Vaucheria litorea, in cells lining its digestive tract. Image credit: Mary S. Tyler/PNAS.
Teabaggers getting scammed
We here at Carolina Naturally wish the scammers all the very best.
Health overhaul leaves gap for disabled workers
Disabled by chronic back pain and unable to afford medical insurance, Lea Walker hoped President Barack Obama's health care overhaul would close a coverage gap that has trapped her and millions of other workers.
Iraq's 'Chemical Ali' gets 4th death sentence
Iraq's 'Chemical Ali' gets 4th death sentence
Ohio county pays man $1,500 for bat bite
Ohio county pays man $1,500 for bat bite
Minnesota urologist banned from impatient surgery after removing wrong kidney from patient
Minnesota urologist banned from impatient surgery after removing wrong kidney from patient
You might want a second opinion if this is your doctor.
Anonymous Employee Reveals Ugly Details of Facebook's Inner Workings
The whining and gnashing of teeth that immediately greet any changes to Facebook have become a cliched social networking punchline. The site, though, is currently being hammered over very real and pertinent concerns that go far beyond mere member tempter-tantrums.The brouhaha began early last year when Facebook implemented, and then almost immediately retracted, new Terms of Service that many believed would give the site perpetual ownership of member information (like photographs).
Over the course of the last year, despite the reversal, those concerns over privacy have only escalated, and some recent revelations by an anonymous Facebook employee should only serve to intensify the cacophony of complaints.
The spike in Facebook vitriol has amplified primarily because of December changes to Facebook's privacy guidelines. The new user settings were initially described as a method for members to completely control their profile activities. People steadily identified some glaring holes in the supposed security measures, though, including the inability to securely lock down profile pictures, fan pages, and friends lists.
According to the unnamed snitch, those aren't the only issues, as the employee claims that everything you do is not only permanently stored and saved, but completely available to Facebook staff and associates. The site All Facebook has expectedly and deservedly retaliated to the whistleblower claims, and has dismissed the supposed revelations as common knowledge with which all Facebook members should be completely familiar.
Speaking to the Rumpus, the Facebook worker asserted that when a member makes "any sort of interaction on Facebook -- upload a photo, click on somebody's profile, update your status, change your profile information," that activity is stored on Facebook's servers.
In order to identify a member's "best friends," a feature which quietly debuted recently, the site tracks and stores (at one of four massive data centers) every possible interaction. All Facebook countered by saying this practice is "widely known," and that "if you don't want Facebook collecting information about you, don't give it to them." (Excellent customer service -- MySpace would be thrilled if Facebook adhered to an official "take it or leave it" approach.)
One of the most troubling revelations in the anonymous interview is the claim that any Facebook employee could log into any member account with a single master password (which was some derivation of Chuck Norris -- not so funny in this scenario). The shadowy interviewee also said that various employees (at least two of whom were terminated) were caught inappropriately using that password to gain access to accounts. But, according to some, that password issue "isn't really that big of a deal." That may not sound comforting, but the site says it has a zero tolerance policy for snooping and it has also created a Chief Privacy Officer position.
The comprehensive interview covers even more topics, including fascinating discussions on developments in "psychological analysis," incredibly creepy Facebook interactions, the low-down on the huge programming nerds, and Facebook's international future. Lastly, make sure to check out All Facebook to get both sides of the story.
Which one ...
The conductor. Business before pleasure.
Just a thought ...
Birthday Girl
Singer Susanna Hoffs (The Bangles) is 51 today.She's the one on the far left by the way.
Just yesterday she and the rest of the Bangles were twentysomethings and I had dark hair ... what happened?!
Spanish lawmaker's photo used for bin Laden poster
A Spanish lawmaker was horrified to learn that the FBI used an online photograph of him to create an image showing what Osama bin Laden might look like today.
Full StoryAlan Grayson On Expected SCOTUS Ruling: 'The Law Itself Will Be Bought And Sold'
I just love Alan Grayson - and I especially love the names for his proposed bills, and I can't wait to hear why the Republicans won't support them:
Anticipating a Supreme Court decision that could free corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) introduced five bills on Wednesday to choke off the expected flood of corporate cash.
"We are facing a potential threat to our democracy," Grayson said in an interview with HuffPost. "Unlimited corporate spending on campaigns means the government is up for sale and that the law itself will be bought and sold. It would be political bribery on the largest scale imaginable."
At issue in the Supreme Court case is whether the government can limit corporate spending during presidential and congressional campaigns. The case is pitting Citizens United, a conservative group, against the Federal Election Commission. The FEC banned ads for Citizens United's film bashing Hillary Clinton during the 2008 election season.
Grayson introduced a handful of bills on Wednesday -- the Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act, the Corporate Propaganda Sunshine Act, the End Political Kickbacks Act, and two other measures.
Discovery casts light on Bible's age
Discovery casts light on Bible's age
The words on an ancient tablet suggest the Hebrew bible was written far earlier than thought. Although it is still thousands of years younger than the stories it plagiarizes.
There are 348 days left in the year.
Today In History January 17
Today's unusual holidays and celebrations are:
Bald Eagle Appreciation Day,
Customer Service Day,
Hot Heads Chili Day,
and
Kid Inventors' Day
Our Readers
Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Cambridge England, United Kingdom
Riga, Riga, Latvia
Plymouth, England, United Kingdom
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Londrina, Parana, Brazil
Paris, Ile-De-France, France
as well as Scotland, and the United States
Daily Horoscope
Your friends will definitely not recognize you for a while, maybe even a long while.
You've already changed, seemingly overnight, from being reticent and polite to being bold and brazen -- but today you'll be adding a touch of rebellion into the mix.
This is just not your usual style -- but hey, don't rein it in.
Not one inch.
It's good to keep 'em guessing.
And fun, too!
Bold and Brazen ... who Me!
