XIAM007

Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

Sunday 23 June 2013

Mississauga Home 'Bombed' By Sky Poo -


Mississauga Home 'Bombed' By Sky Poo - 



What's brown and smelly and falls from the sky?

That's what Emma Gilfillan-Giannakos of Mississauga, Ont., wants to know — and what Transport Canada investigators are trying to determine.

Gilfillan-Giannakos was sitting in her backyard earlier this week, her kids playing nearby.

"I was sitting underneath the gazebo .. with my son, and my two other kids were on a fort over here, and all of a sudden we heard this big bomb! Like it hit the pool."

When she investigated she found her patio, her pool and her garden were covered with brown splashes.

What was it?

As far as Gilfillan-Giannakos is concerned there's no doubt.

"I stuck my finger in it and I smelt it and ... it smells like poo!"

Her home sits along the flight path to Canada's busiest airport, Pearson International. Planes can be seen criss-crossing the sky above her home all day long.

Transport Canada officials are investigating but haven't come to a final conclusion.

They do say there's something they call 'blue ice' that occasionally falls from airliners.

'Blue ice' forms when there's a leak from the tanks which store lavatory waste. The waste sometimes freezes and sticks to the aircraft.

When the plane descends and begins to warm up, the ice falls off.

Investigators say if that is what happened they'll try to identify the aircraft and take corrective measures.

But Gilfillan-Giannakos says she doesn't need to wait for the result of a long investigation.

"All I know is something came from the sky. And to me it's either a bird or a plane. And there's way too much of this to be birds."

Gilfillan-Giannakos, says she's been left with a bill for about $5,000 for emptying and cleaning her pool, replacing the liner and cleaning the patio.

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Three Foot Snake Found By Woman In Wal-Mart Potato Bag -


Three Foot Snake Found By Woman In Wal-Mart Potato Bag - 



Walmart promises a lot of bang for the buck, but one Pennsylvania woman got way more than she bargained for when she bought a bag of potatoes at Walmart: In addition to the produce, her bag contained a three-and-a-half foot long snake. Yech!

Bonnie Raygor had bought a bag of potatoes at Walmart in North Huntington, Pennsylvania. About six days later, she broke open the sealed bag to begin making dinner – and discovered a snake inside. “First I saw it’s underbelly, which is white. I thought I had a bad potato,” Raygor said. “Instead I had a snake. The bag was sealed. The only thing that’s in it are the little holes, so I’m assuming it was in there when I bought it. I screamed.”

Raygor instinctively grabbed the snake and put it in a vacant reptile enclosure her family had created for a pet snake they once owned. Only after the fact did she do some internet research, which led her to conclude that the snake is a non-poisonous corn snake. Or, as Raygor said, “I’m hoping it’s a corn snake, because I just stuck my hand in [the bag] and grabbed it.”

Because the bag was sealed right up until the moment Raygor broke it open, save for a few tiny vent holes so that the potatoes could breath, Raygor assumes that the snake got into the bag when it was originally packed.

Raygor immediately called Walmart. The first thing she was told was to bring the snake to the Lawn and Gardner department, but Raygor wanted something more than having to make an extra trip to Walmart. When she finally spoke to a manager, “He said if I had a receipt, I could get a refund.”

Walmart told WTAE News that it was going to contact the distributor of Harvest Gold potatoes, the brand that Raygor bought. Raygor knows what she wants from Walmart, and it’s more than just a refund. “I think they need to find out where it came from. They owe me an apology.”

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The Bank Of International Settlements Warns The Monetary Kool-Aid Party Is Over -


The Bank Of International Settlements Warns The Monetary Kool-Aid Party Is Over - 



When a month ago the Central Banks' Central Bank, aka the Bank of International Settlements (or BIS) in Basel where the MIT central-planning braintrust meets every few months to decide the fate of the world, warned that the Fed-induced collateral shortage is distorting the markets, few paid attention. That the implication behind said warning was that QE can not continue at the current pace, was just as lost. A few short weeks later following the biggest plunge in markets since 2011 in the aftermath of Bernanke's taper tantrum, some are finally willing to listen.

However, they will certainly not like what the BIS just released as a follow up, both in the form of the BIS' 83rd Annual Report, and the speech by Jaime Caruana to commemorate said annual meeting. For the simple reason that it reads like a run of the mill Sunday morning Zero Hedge sermon, which says, almost verbatim, that the days of kicking the can via flawed monetary policy are now over, and that the time for central banks to end the monetary morphine drip has finally come.

The BIS message, as summarized by the FT, is that "central banks must head for the exit and stop trying to spur a global economic recovery... cheap and plentiful central bank money had merely bought time, warning that more bond buying would retard the global economy’s return to health by delaying adjustments to governments’ and households’ balance sheets."

Here is a better summary of the BIS' unprecedented U-Turn on its 5 year long monetary strategy, in its own selected words:

Can central banks now really do “whatever it takes”? As each day goes by, it seems less and less likely... Six years have passed since the eruption of the global financial crisis, yet robust, self-sustaining, well balanced growth still eludes the global economy. If there were an easy path to that goal, we would have found it by now.

Monetary stimulus alone cannot provide the answer because the roots of the problem are not monetary. Hence, central banks must manage a return to their stabilisation role, allowing others to do the hard but essential work of adjustment.  

Many large corporations are using cheap bond funding to lengthen the duration of their liabilities instead of investing in new production capacity.  

Continued low interest rates and unconventional policies have made it easy for the private sector to postpone deleveraging, easy for the government to finance deficits, and easy for the authorities to delay needed reforms in the real economy and in the financial system.

Overindebtedness is one of the major barriers on the path to growth after a financial crisis. Borrowing more year after year is not the cure...in some places it may be difficult to avoid an overall reduction in accommodation because some policies have clearly hit their limits.
Of course, it would have been more useful for the BIS to reach this commonsensical conclusion some four years ago (or roughly when we started preaching to the choir, which now includes the BIS itself), instead of allowing the global private bank controlled syndicate known as "central banks" to inject $15 trillion into global capital markets in the past 4 years, and nearly $25 trillion since 2000.

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has inserted a handout to Las Vegas casinos into the repackaged immigration reform bill -


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has inserted a handout to Las Vegas casinos into the repackaged immigration reform bill - 



Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) have inserted a provision that amounts to little more than a handout to Las Vegas casinos into the repackaged immigration reform bill, Breitbart News has learned. This provision, a brazen example of crony capitalism, was inserted into the immigration law enforcement section of the bill despite the fact that it has nothing whatsoever to do with "immigration" or "law enforcement."
On page 66 of the repackaged bill, the following provision appears:
“CORPORATION FOR TRAVEL PROMOTION.—Sec- 9(d)(2)(B) of the Travel Promotion Act of 2009 (22 U.S.C. 2131(d)(2)(B)) is amended by striking ‘‘For each of fiscal years 2012 through 2015,’’ and inserting ‘‘For each fiscal year after 2012.”
The Travel Promotion Act (TPA) of 2009 allows the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury to spend up to $100 million on promoting travel to specific areas of the country. If the provision Reid and Heller inserted into the proposed immigration reform legislation becomes law, the benefits of the TPA would be extended indefinitely.
As the Heritage Foundation’s Jena McNeill wrote in June 2009, the Travel Promotion Act creates “a government-run public relations campaign funded by a tax on international visitors.” After the law was passed, the PR campaign touting Las Vegas casinos and other tourist destinations in the U.S. using that tax was rolled into a government-run corporation called “Brand USA.” In October 2012, Jim DeMint and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) released a report that “reveals a history of waste, abuse, patronage, and lax oversight” with the Brand USA program and the Department of Commerce that oversees it.
When the Travel Promotion Act was passed in 2009, the Las Vegas Casino industry and the Las Vegas Strip officially thanked Reid for passing it. Among others, Bally’s Casino ran an advertisement on their electronic billboard on the Strip thanking Reid for its passage, a billboard Reid promoted on his website.
“The recently signed into law Travel Promotion Act is going to greatly benefit Nevada because we have so many wonderful tourist attractions,” a 2009 post from Reid’s website reads. “Senator Reid fought so hard to pass this bill because he knew that it would mean thousands of jobs for Nevada as foreign tourists flock to Las Vegas, Reno, and Lake Tahoe. Yesterday a number of hotels on the Las Vegas Strip showed Senator Reid their appreciation for his efforts on behalf of Nevada by thanking him in their marquees.”

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World's Ugliest Dog 2013: Beagle-Boxer-Basset Named Walle Wins Annual Contest -


World's Ugliest Dog 2013: Beagle-Boxer-Basset Named Walle Wins Annual Contest - 



A huge-headed, duck-footed mix of beagle, boxer and basset hound was the upset winner at the 25th annual World's Ugliest Dog Contest.

Walle (WAHL-ee), a 4-year-old mutt from Chico, Calif., who was entered at the last minute, was judged Friday as the most unsightly of 30 dogs at the Northern California competition.

"This dog looked like he's been photo-shopped with pieces from various dogs and maybe a few other animals," judge Brian Sobel said.

Walle overcame the dominance in recent years by nearly hairless Chihuahuas, Chinese cresteds, or combinations of the two.

Owner Tammie Barbee got the dog when he was three months old.

"People come up to me and say that dog is not right," Barbee said, "but I love him."

Judges said they were especially impressed by Walle's bizarre waddle of a walk.

Walle wins $1,500 and will make several network TV appearances next week, including NBC's "Today" show and ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

The contest at the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds gets worldwide attention, with media from around the world traveling to Petaluma, about 40 miles north of San Francisco.

Organizers say the dogs are judged for their "natural ugliness in both pedigree and mutt classes."

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