Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Blowing the whistle on tax evaders
Blowing the whistle on tax evaders
Centuries of secretive Swiss banking is being threatened by one of its own.
Biggest investing blunders to avoid
Biggest investing blunders to avoid
Trusting stockbrokers and jumping into a hyped-up investment can destroy your portfolio.
Mountain could mess with the Olympics
Mountain could mess with the Olympics
This year's Olympic skiing site has at times been flat-out impossible to ski.
Ways you can ruin a job interview
Ways you can ruin a job interview
A recruiter shares hilarious real-life mistakes that any job applicant should avoid.
Sugary foods your dentist wouldn't touch
Sugary foods your dentist wouldn't touch
Some of the most sugar-packed products aren't desserts, but they rot your teeth just the same.
Counties with the biggest property tax bills
Counties with the biggest property tax bills
In one part of the country, homeowners have even more reason to dread their annual tax bill.
Backlash over cruise ship docked in Haiti
Backlash over cruise ship docked in Haiti
Even passengers were stunned when their ship stopped in the ravaged nation for some R&R.
Are you ruining your kid's social life?
Are you ruining your kid's social life?
These common parental mistakes can seriously hinder a child's ability to make friends.
Michigan Request For Lock-Closing Turned Down By US Supreme Court
From Treehugger:
"An Asian Bighead carp swims in the Great Lakes Invasive Species tank at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium." Image credit:Nancy Stone/ Chicago Tribune.
I hate it when lawyers end up managing shared environmental resources. So, it is with some pleasure that I share this breaking news, from the Chicago Tribune: "The Supreme Court turned back the Asian carp issue today, rejecting a request from Michigan and other Great Lakes states to force Illinois to stop the flow of water from its rivers into Lake Michigan."
Actually, the Trib wrote about this in a confusing way. The Illinois Chicago River naturally flowed into Lake Michigan until, in the early 1900's, a series of man-made flow control structures were built to prevent storm water and sewerage from the City of Chicago from discharging into the lake and getting into Lake Michigan drinking water intakes. The diversion also provided for barge traffic connecting to the Mississippi River. (Chicago River waters were thus diverted into the Illinois River and on down to the Mississippi, via the Sanitary and Ship canal.) What Michigan wanted in requesting the lock-closing court injunction was to keep river locks permanently closed to impede the migration of Big Head carp toward Lake Michigan - which would eliminate one of the major benefits of the Federal project, as managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers.
Nuclear Winter: Now Easier to Trigger than Ever (In Short: We'd be F#%^ed)
From Treehugger:
Nagasaki before and after 1945 bombing. Photo: Public domain image.
Regional Nuclear War Could Trigger a 10-Year Nuclear Winter
Nuclear weapons are the gift that keeps on giving. We knew they were horrible from the very start (Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- historical trivia: Nagasaki's nuke was supposed to be dropped on Kokura, where the founder of Toyota was on that day), but over the following decades we kept discovering new reasons why they are bad: In the early 1980s, more and more studies showed that a nuclear winter was probable, and this probably helped cool down the cold war. More recently, a study showed that even a small regional nuclear war could create the mother of all ozone holes. But now we learn that even a small regional nuclear war could create our worst nightmare, a nuclear winter lasting about 10 years (!).
Article continues: Nuclear Winter: Now Easier to Trigger than Ever (In Short: We'd be F#%^ed)
Curious chimps of the Congo
From BoingBoing:
In the Goualougo Triangle, a part of the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Congolese rain forest, there are communities of "naive" apes, gorillas and chimpanzees who have never met humans before. These apes behave in ways that haven't been observed by scientists anywhere else in the world -- they use "tool kits" in sophisticated ways and, perhaps equally surprising to those who study them, they are incredibly curious about any humans they do encounter. When these unhabituated chimps run into one of the few people in their habitat, they don't run like hell. Rather, they "call over all their buddies," according to former BB guestblogger Josh Foer, who in 2008 spent time in the Goualougo Triangle. Josh was visiting with primatologists Dave Morgan and Crickette Sanz, co-directors of the Goualougo Triangle Ape Research Project, an organization established to study the apes in the area and help protect them. Josh wrote up his experiences for National Geographic. The video above, showing a juvenile chimp using a tool to poke at a remote cam, is one of many that Morgan and Sanz have posted online.
From National Geographic:
In the Goualougo Triangle, a part of the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Congolese rain forest, there are communities of "naive" apes, gorillas and chimpanzees who have never met humans before. These apes behave in ways that haven't been observed by scientists anywhere else in the world -- they use "tool kits" in sophisticated ways and, perhaps equally surprising to those who study them, they are incredibly curious about any humans they do encounter. When these unhabituated chimps run into one of the few people in their habitat, they don't run like hell. Rather, they "call over all their buddies," according to former BB guestblogger Josh Foer, who in 2008 spent time in the Goualougo Triangle. Josh was visiting with primatologists Dave Morgan and Crickette Sanz, co-directors of the Goualougo Triangle Ape Research Project, an organization established to study the apes in the area and help protect them. Josh wrote up his experiences for National Geographic. The video above, showing a juvenile chimp using a tool to poke at a remote cam, is one of many that Morgan and Sanz have posted online.
From National Geographic:
Originally WCS, which co-manages two of Congo's national parks with the Congolese government, had hoped to leave the Goualougo Triangle completely untouched as a kind of preserve within the preserve, off-limits even to the corrupting influence of science. But that calculation changed during Congo's 1997 civil war, when Congolaise Industrielle des Bois (CIB), the forestry company with logging rights in the neighboring Kabo concession, built a levee for transporting lumber across the Ndoki River a few miles south of its confluence with the Goualougo. Since CIB would soon be brushing up against the triangle's natural borders, WCS felt that it was critical to put some boots on the ground. "We had to beat the logging companies in here," says Morgan. In 1999 he hiked out to the Goualougo with a single Congolese assistant and set up one of the most remote great ape research sites in the world.
That Morgan was able to persevere out in the middle of nowhere, with spartan accommodations and minimal logistical support, had a lot to do with Sanz, who came out to the Goualougo in 2001 and has been his partner in both science and life ever since.
When I visited the triangle in 2008, I wanted to see what had become of this Eden and its supposedly guileless inhabitants. The Goualougo remains a primate wonderland, with an astounding density of both gorillas and chimps. Things that haven't been observed anywhere else in Africa happen here--and often. Morgan and Sanz have watched chimps and gorillas nibble on fruit in the very same tree. (Not quite the lion lying down with the lamb, but for primatologists, just as bizarre.) They've seen chimps cup their hands and beat their chests, as if mimicking their gorilla neighbors. But the most spectacular finding to come out of the Goualougo over the past several years is an expanded view of what can only be called chimp culture, a tradition of using complex "tool kits." After a decade of determined study by Morgan and Sanz, the story of the Goualougo is no longer how little the chimps know of us, but rather how much we now know of them.
Dinner plate complains when you eat too fast
Finally they've come up with a replacement for your mother ...
Here's a plate that chides you when you eat too fast.
The idea behind the Mandometer is to train overweight people to eat more slowly so that they will feel satiated sooner and eat less, thereby losing weight.An 18 month study conducted by researchers at the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children in Britain has indicated that the Mandometer is an effective tool to combat obesity in children and teens. The team tested 106 clinically obese patients ranging in age from nine to 17 years old. Some of the patients had to use the Mandometer while the others received standard anti-obesity treatment. All of them were urged to practice some form of physical exercise for 60 minutes a day and to follow a healthy diet.
The results of the study were published in an article in the British Medical Journal. When participants were assessed a year into the study, the Body Mass Index (BMI) of the group who had used the Mandometer had fallen by an average of 2.1%, which is about three times more than the group who had received the standard treatment. At the end of the study 18 months later, those results still held steady.
Telling it like it is
Jon Stewart is absolutely brilliant and cutting through the bullshit and telling it like it is.
"Let me see if i have this straight. You need to replace perhaps the most beloved liberal in the history of the senate with a candidate that believes curt schilling is a yankee fan. Because if this lady loses, the health care reform bill that the beloved late senator considered his legacy will die....and the reason it will die is because if Coakley loses, Democrats will only have then an 18-vote majority in the senate. Which is more than George W. Bush ever had in the senate when he did whenever the fuck he wanted to do."
Liars and Fools
Today's Liar and Fool is:
Paul Broun (retard-Georgia) says the Democrats' paltry excuse for health care reform is "the largest takeover of liberty and freedom this country has ever seen".
OK, whatever he's smoking, you better take it from him now.
Paul Broun (retard-Georgia) says the Democrats' paltry excuse for health care reform is "the largest takeover of liberty and freedom this country has ever seen".
OK, whatever he's smoking, you better take it from him now.
Cop News
In Cop News
California police officer gets 180 days in county jail for grand theft, drug possession
Utah cops won't say why cooperative resident's home was pump full of tear gas during search
Pennsylvania man says state troopers storm his home, drag him down after he makes parking comment
Kentucky jail guard is arrested on drug charges
Man tortured by Chicago cops is freed from prison after twenty years
Indiana correctional officer charged with trafficking
California police officer gets 180 days in county jail for grand theft, drug possession
Utah cops won't say why cooperative resident's home was pump full of tear gas during search
Pennsylvania man says state troopers storm his home, drag him down after he makes parking comment
Kentucky jail guard is arrested on drug charges
Man tortured by Chicago cops is freed from prison after twenty years
Indiana correctional officer charged with trafficking
Antique fish?
Two antique pieces of furniture normally worth hundreds of pounds each are expected to sell at auction for less than a tenner - because they stink of fish after spending a century at Grimsby docks.
Some Texans Claim To Have Seen Chupacabra
A maintenance worker was the first to spot the dead creature on a golf course.
Some Texans Claim To Have Seen Chupacabra
Some Texans Claim To Have Seen Chupacabra
Egypt Announces Find Of Cat Goddess Temple
William West/AFP/Getty Images
Archaeologists have unearthed a 2,000-year-old temple that may have been dedicated to the ancient Egyptian cat goddess, Bastet, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said Tuesday.
Ancient cat-goddess temple unearthed
A 2,000-year-old temple found in Egypt surprises experts and may point to a long-sought set of ruins.
California Company Recalls 836K Pounds Of Ground Beef
The products were sold by Montebello-based Huntington Meat Packing Inc.
California Company Recalls 836K Pounds Of Ground Beef
California Company Recalls 836K Pounds Of Ground Beef
How to commit social suicide online
Need to disappear from Facebook or Twitter?
Now you can scrub yourself from the Internet with the Web.
Now you can scrub yourself from the Internet with the Web.
Elderly man faces charges for punching roommate over garlic complaint
An elderly Croatian man is facing charges for disturbing the peace after he hit his hospital roommate in the head for complaining that he smelled like garlic.
What employers really do with references
What employers really do with references
Hiring managers are changing their approach to this big step in the hiring process.
Mysterious tradition broken after 60 years
Mysterious tradition broken after 60 years
A strange ritual that draws fans to Edgar Allan Poe's grave fails to happen for the first time since 1949.
Troops land at Haiti's presidential palace
Troops land at Haiti's presidential palace
U.S. reinforcements arrive to help in the struggle for security and earthquake disaster relief.
Discrimination case ends after 4 decades
Discrimination case ends after 4 decades
Sallie Sanders holds the keys to a new house today because of a battle that began in the '60s.
A Bully get his Comeuppance (They always do)
Naomi Seligman had this to say over at AMERICAblog:
In Arizona, Bully with a badge getting his due
After years of running an immigrant-bashing operation in Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is finally getting his due.
This weekend, immigrant leaders from across the country organized a protest against the sheriff in Arizona. The AP covered the event:
The AP reports:
This weekend, immigrant leaders from across the country organized a protest against the sheriff in Arizona. The AP covered the event:
Ten thousand immigrant rights advocates marched in front of a county jail in Phoenix Saturday in a protest that was aimed at Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's immigration efforts...Arpaio has been described by The New York Times as the "worst sheriff in America":
Organizers say the protest was meant to show officials in Washington that Arpaio shouldn't handle immigration enforcement, and that Congress and the Obama administration need to come up with a way for immigrant workers to come to the country legally.
Sheriff Arpaio is armed and dangerous. He is a genuine public menace with a long and well-documented trail of inmate abuses, unjustified arrests, racial profiling, brutal and inept policing and wasteful spending.A web site, barriozona.com even tracks the sheriff’s terrorizing sweeps through Latino neighborhoods. You may remember his penchant for dressing jailed immigrants in pink underwear, pink handcuffs and a stripped jumpsuit. But, Arpaio might have to pay for some of his abusive treatment.
The AP reports:
Ten months ago, Arpaio learned he was under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for alleged discrimination and unconstitutional searches. He says the investigation was prompted by his immigration efforts, although federal authorities haven't provided details.The sheriff claims none of this bothers him and the protesters should be directing their frustrations at Congress because it has the power to change America's immigration laws:
Since early 2008, Arpaio has run 13 immigration and crimes sweeps involving officers who flood a section of a city - in some cases heavily Latino areas - to seek out traffic violators and arrest other violators.
Arpaio's power to make federal immigration arrests was stripped away three months ago by officials in Washington, but he continues his immigration efforts through the enforcement of two state laws.
"They are zeroing in on the wrong guy," Arpaio said. "They ought to be zeroing in on the president."This time, I'm with the feds. Seems they are looking at just the right guy.
*****
Yes, Naomi, you are correct the Feds have it right this time.
Anti-Choice activists protest new Planned Parenthood clinic
'The Pro-Deathers can go back to Louisiana, Kansas, Missouri -- I've seen plates from all over the country.
They're a very warped group, but they're not coming to Houston to close down our clinics.'
Hundreds of anti-choice activists gathered in Houston, Monday to protest a new Planned Parenthood clinic they're calling an "abortion supercenter."
They're a very warped group, but they're not coming to Houston to close down our clinics.'
Hundreds of anti-choice activists gathered in Houston, Monday to protest a new Planned Parenthood clinic they're calling an "abortion supercenter."
'Tea party' activists feel slighted by repugicans
Just when the repugican party had deluded itself into thinking it was poised for big pickups in the 2010 midterm elections, a ragtag band of grass-roots demented wingnuts tens strong and fiercely motivated, but with no national leader, threatens to split the repugican party in two.
Pot Club Owner Arrested
Selling pot isn't what got Joel Kelly Castle in trouble with the law.
Police charge Castle with what he wanted in trade for pot.
Pot Club Owner Arrested
Police charge Castle with what he wanted in trade for pot.
Pot Club Owner Arrested
Pennsylvania man fined for 'dirty' words on state truck
A western Pennsylvania man has been fined $50 for using his finger to write derogatory words on the dirty cab of a Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission truck.
Tentacled snakes feel their way to a midnight feast
The mysterious mustache of an aquatic snake may help it "see" in murky waters by detecting subtle currents generated by its prey.Tentacled snakes feel their way to a midnight feast
Solar system 'on fire' burned up Earth's carbon
A fire sweeping through the inner solar system may have scorched away much of the carbon from Earth, explaining our planet's mysterious carbon deficit.Solar system 'on fire' burned up Earth's carbon
Rare glimpse of the crystal cave
BBC film-makers venture into Mexico's Cave of Crystals, which contains some of the largest natural crystals ever found.
Did you hear ...
Did you hear about the Blind man that went Bunjee jumping?
Scared the hell out of the dog.
Scared the hell out of the dog.
Billboard prompts 911 calls
A unconventional Connecticut billboard with a life-sized mannequin and teddy bear on top is prompting emergency calls from alarmed motorists.
NC Seeking Federal Education Money
North Carolina is seeking almost $470 million in federal education funds from a grant that rewards states for innovation and improved student performance.NC Seeking Federal Education Money
Supreme Court throws out ruling setting aside death penalty for man in cop killing
The Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out a court ruling that invalidated a former Black Panther's death sentence for killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981.
Supreme Court throws out ruling setting aside death penalty for man in cop killing
Supreme Court throws out ruling setting aside death penalty for man in cop killing
Today is ...
Today is Tuesday, January 19, the 19th day of 2010.
There are 346 days left in the year.
Today In History January 19
The moon is waxing.
Today's unusual holiday and celebration is:
Rid The World Of Fad Diets And Gimmicks Day
There are 346 days left in the year.
Today In History January 19
The moon is waxing.
Today's unusual holiday and celebration is:
Rid The World Of Fad Diets And Gimmicks Day
Our Readers
Some of our readers today have been in:
London, England, United Kingdom
Bristol, England, United Kingdom
Moscow, Moskva, Russia
Kettering, England, United Kingdom
Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
Porto, Porto, Portugal
Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Milano, Lombardia, Italy
Ahmadi, Al Ahmadi, Kuwait
Portsmouth, England, United Kingdom
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Medan, Sumatera Utara, Indonesia
as well as Scotland, and the United States
London, England, United Kingdom
Bristol, England, United Kingdom
Moscow, Moskva, Russia
Kettering, England, United Kingdom
Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
Porto, Porto, Portugal
Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Milano, Lombardia, Italy
Ahmadi, Al Ahmadi, Kuwait
Portsmouth, England, United Kingdom
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Medan, Sumatera Utara, Indonesia
as well as Scotland, and the United States
Daily Horoscope
Today's horoscope says:
Expect to raise some eyebrows at work today -- and a few more tonight, too.
You're in a very rare mood, so rare that your coworkers and friends are willing to bet they've never seen you like this.
Rather than exercising caution, playing it safe or avoiding confrontation, you're ready to rock.
If it's reckless, you're in.
If it's slightly scary, you're in, too.
Better warn anyone you expect to be spending any time with today!
Kewl!
Expect to raise some eyebrows at work today -- and a few more tonight, too.
You're in a very rare mood, so rare that your coworkers and friends are willing to bet they've never seen you like this.
Rather than exercising caution, playing it safe or avoiding confrontation, you're ready to rock.
If it's reckless, you're in.
If it's slightly scary, you're in, too.
Better warn anyone you expect to be spending any time with today!
Kewl!
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