XIAM007 - Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World: 11/02/10

Tuesday, 2 November 2010

While feeding the polar bears Live at the Zoo, the TV weatherman also threw in his microphone by accident -

Legion Branch Halloween party awarded 1st prize to a person in Ku Klux Klan robes leading a man in blackface on a rope -

A small-town Ontario restaurant owner says he was “blown away” when a person in Ku Klux Klan robes leading a man in blackface by a rope was awarded first prize at a Royal Canadian Legion Halloween party.

“When I saw it and put down my beer and left and was walking out — I never felt as alone as I have in my life,” Mark Andrade said of the troubling spectacle he witnessed at a Campbellford, Ont., Legion on Saturday night.

Mr. Andrade, who is black, said he arrived at the Legion for a beer with friends at about 11:30 p.m.

“I had a swig, turned around and they were doing the parade of the costumes to pick the best,” he said.

One person was dressed as a Klansman, complete with hood, a Confederate flag on their back and a rope in their hand.

“At the other end of that rope was a guy in blackface... with the noose around his neck,” Mr. Andrade said.

The person dressed as a Klansman and the man in blackface won first prize, said Mr. Andrade, who added he left in disgust.

“I was blown away.”

Mr. Andrade said it was his understanding the people in the offensive costumes were not legion members.

Legion officials in the eastern Ontario town, who could not be immediately reached for comment, reportedly issued an apology Tuesday.

Mr. Andrade said he called the legion on Monday to complain and the president “told me I was about the 400th call she'd received since Saturday night.”

“To say people weren't disgusted would be incorrect,” Mr. Andrade said. “But at that time there was about 200 people were there revelling, partying, drinking.”

However, the incident hasn't soured Mr. Andrade on Campbellford, which he calls a “great community, great people.”

“I've never experienced anything like this, even in the realm of racism since I've been here,” said Mr. Andrade, who moved to Campbellford a dozen years ago.

The local Ontario Provincial Police detachment said it has not received any complaints.

ACORN Filing for Bankruptcy - As millions of Americans head to the polls to vote on Tuesday ACORN files for bankruptcy -

As millions of Americans headed to the polls to vote today, the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, aka ACORN, announced that it was filing for bankruptcy. The news came in the form of a letter written by Bertha Lewis, ACORN's CEO, that was posted to the group's website.

"We have seen this coming for some time," Lewis wrote. "Our chapters closed in the first quarter of the year. We have spent our remaining resources trying to dissolve the organization with integrity, while continuing to respond to the extremist attacks. Allegations and reports will continue to try to undermine all that ACORN has done, often searching for evidence from long before I became CEO."

Congress this year voted to cut off taxpayer funding of ACORN following allegations that the group violated its tax-exempt status by improperly mixing politics with its mission of empowering low- and middle-income Americans. Lacking much-needed revenue, ACORN officially shut down its national operations this past spring.

Long the subject of conservative ire, ACORN remained defiant in its claim that it had never participated in anyvoter fraud during the 2008 presidential election.

"The ongoing political onslaught caused irreparable harm," Lewis said. "This effort was a clear attempt to cast a shadow over the historic 2008 Presidential election, and set up a far right counter offense. Through those attacks we re-tooled and re-organized. Then again came the right-wing media blitz. This time of edited videos that misrepresented our mission, and consequently misled the public. The pressure and cost of defending ourselves in multiple investigations as a result of the falsified videos has eroded our organization. As a result we will be filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy by close of business today."

Read more - http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk/article/acorn-filing-for-bankruptcy/19700214

A new television ad about the U.S. national debt - That Is Being Banned By Major Networks - deemed “too controversial” -

A new television ad about the U.S. national debt - That Is Being Banned By Major Networks - deemed “too controversial” -

A new television ad about the U.S. national debt produced by Citizens Against Government Waste has been deemed "too controversial" by major networks including ABC, A&E and The History Channel and will not be shown on those channels. The commercial is a homage to a 1986 ad that was entitled "The Deficit Trials" that was also banned by the major networks. Apparently telling the truth about the national debt is a little too "hot" for the major networks to handle. But perhaps it is time to tell the American people the truth. In 1986, the U.S. national debt was around 2 trillion dollars. Today, it is rapidly approaching 14 trillion dollars. The American Dream is being ripped apart right in front of our eyes, but apparently some of the major networks don't want the American people to really understand what is going on.

The truth is that the ad does not even have anything in it that should be offensive. The commercial is set in the year 2030, and the main character is a Chinese professor that is seen lecturing his students on the fall of great empires. As images of the United States are shown on a screen behind him, the Chinese professor tells his students the following about the behavior of great empires: "They all make the same mistakes. Turning their backs on the principles that made them great. America tried to spend and tax itself out of a great recession. Enormous so-called "stimulus" spending, massive changes to health care, government takeover of private industries, and crushing debt."

Perhaps it is what the Chinese Professor says next that is alarming the big television networks: "Of course, we owned most of their debt, so now they work for us".

So is this television commercial offensive? Watch it below and decide for yourself....

Does this ad not make some great points?

Month after month, thousands of jobs and billions of dollars gets transferred permanently from the United States to China.

In 1985, the U.S. trade deficit with China was 6 million dollars for the entire year. In the month of August alone, the U.S. trade deficit with China was over 28 billion dollars.

The Chinese government has accumulated hundreds of billions of excess dollars, and U.S. government officials now regularly make trips over there to beg them to keep lending more money to our government so that we can continue to go on living far beyond our means.

But the borrower always ends up as the servant of the lender, and we are rapidly becoming the servants of the Chinese.

But it did not have to be this way.

We did not have to merge the U.S. economy into a globalized one-world economy where U.S. workers are put in direct competition for jobs with millions of Chinese workers that make less than a dollar per hour.

Factories, wealth and jobs are leaving the United States at a blinding pace. Since 2001, approximately 42,400 American factories have closed their doors.

America is being deindustrialized, and the sad thing is that most Americans do not even realize that it is a major problem.

As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time that less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.

Does that sound like progress to you?

Today, the United States spends about $3.90 on Chinese goods for every $1 that China spends on goods from the United States.

China is accomplishing this by openly manipulating currency rates, by allowing their population to be paid slave labor wages and by putting up unfair barriers to U.S. goods.

And our politicians are letting them get away with it.

So China is winning and we are losing. In fact, one prominent economist is now projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040.

Meanwhile, formerly great American manufacturing cities such as Detroit now look like post-apocalyptic war zones.

Ron Paul Can Beat Obama In 2012 - even uber-leftist Chris Matthews slams O for being elitist and distant from the people -

US to spend a whopping $200 Million a day on Obama's Mumbai visit - 3,000 people would accompany the President -

The US would be spending a whopping $200 million (Rs. 900 crore approx) per day on President Barack Obama's visit to the city.

"The huge amount of around $200 million would be spent on security, stay and other aspects of the Presidential visit," a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit said.

About 3,000 people including Secret Service agents, US government officials and journalists would accompany the President. Several officials from the White House and US security agencies are already here for the past one week with helicopters, a ship and high-end security instruments.

"Except for personnel providing immediate security to the President, the US officials may not be allowed to carry weapons. The state police is competent to take care of the security measures and they would be piloting the Presidential convoy," the official said on condition of anonymity.

Navy and Air Force has been asked by the state government to intensify patrolling along the Mumbai coastline and its airspace during Obama's stay. The city's airspace will be closed half-an-hour before the President's arrival for all aircraft barring those carrying the US delegation.

The personnel from SRPF, Force One, besides the NSG contingent stationed here would be roped in for the President's security, the official said.

The area from Hotel Taj, where Obama and his wife Michelle would stay, to Shikra helipad in Colaba would be cordoned off completely during the movement of the President.

TSA Officer's Cocaine Pranks - falsely claiming to have discovered cocaine in the luggage of travelers -

The Transportation Security Administration worker who earlier this year was canned for falsely claiming to have discovered cocaine in the luggage of travelers was a bomb appraisal officer who was supposed to be evaluating new screening equipment at the time he was pranking his unsuspecting targets, records show.

TSA documents released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request provide further details about the January incidents at the Philadelphia International Airport. The name of the bomb appraisal officer has been redacted from the material, though one memo indicates that when the worker was confronted, “He did say humbly that he was completely wrong and he made a mistake.”

The TSA officer was working near a passenger screening checkpoint “collecting data for several new pieces of equipment that are currently being evaluated by Northrop Grumman,” according to a TSA memo. Since individual data collection phases could each take up to ten minutes, the worker apparently decided to fill up the time by pranking travelers: “While the data was being collected,” the bomb appraisal officer “began to engage passengers.”

As one passenger gathered their belongings (which had just emerged from an X-ray machine), the TSA worker displayed a “small vial of white powder” and asked, “Did this come out of your bag?” When the passenger replied, “No,” the officer asked, “Are you sure?” The traveler, according to a TSA memo, said, “Yea, I’m pretty sure,” and began to laugh. “Okay, just wanted to make sure. Have a nice flight,” the officer replied.

The white powder that appeared to be cocaine was actually creatine, a nutritional supplement that was “being utilized for the data collection” being performed by the bomb appraisal officer.

His first prank--details of which have not been previously disclosed--completed, the bomb appraisal officer “returned to the equipment to begin another phase of the data collection.”

However, the TSA worker would later return to a screening lane and approach two young women who were collecting their luggage from a conveyor belt. One of the women has been previously identified as Rebecca Solomon, a 22-year-old University of Michigan student who was en route to Detroit. Solomon’s name has been redacted from the TSA documents.

After first confirming that the items in front of him belonged to the pair, the TSA employee asked the women, “Do you have anything in your bag that you’re not supposed to?” After the passengers answered, “No,” the worker again displayed some purported cocaine. While a TSA memo notes that the white powder was in a vial, Solomon has said that she was shown a plastic baggie filled with powder.

“Did this come out of your bag?” he asked. “The passengers replied, ‘No way. I don’t even know what that is,’” according to a TSA report. The worker “concluded with, ‘I’m just checking. I know it didn’t come out of your bag, it belongs to me. You seem way too nice. Have a good flight.'"

“You almost had me,” one passenger is reported to have responded, according to a TSA memo.

Solomon, crying, eventually approached an airline worker to lodge a complaint about the TSA worker. Referring to “the things that are going on in the world today,” Solomon said she did not consider the cocaine prank a “funny joke.” She added that airport security workers “should be taking our jobs seriously.”

Two other passengers quoted in the TSA records told officials that they saw the bomb appraisal officer showing the women a bag of white powder that appeared to have been removed from a bag. One witness said that she felt bad for the women after subsequently learning that they were the target of a prank. She added that if the officer “had played that joke on her then we (TSA) would still be hearing her hollering and something would have to be done right then and there.”

As part of its probe of the pranks, investigators spoke with other TSA employees, five of whom confirmed that the officer had tried to trick passengers into thinking that cocaine was found in their luggage. One worker said that they told the officer, “Don’t do that,” when a victim of the prank appeared distraught.

Only one of the workers interviewed, however, informed a supervisor of what was transpiring at the security checkpoint. (8 pages)

Toddler survives seven-floor fall in France - and bouncing off an awning into the arms of a passer-by -

An 18-month-old boy survived after falling seven floors and bouncing off a Paris cafe awning into the arms of a passer-by, witnesses said Tuesday.

"My son saw a little boy on a balcony. He had gone right outside the railing... I said to myself I mustn't miss him," the toddler's saviour, local doctor Philippe Bensignor, told AFP, recounting Monday's drama.

"I had time to move from side to side to get in the right position," he added. "The little boy was fine. He cried a little bit but calmed down straightaway."

An official involved in investigating the incident said the boy had been left alone in the family apartment in northern Paris with his sister by their parents, who were taken into custody afterwards.

"It's a real miracle," said the cafe's barman, who gave his name as Gaby, pointing to a small tear in the awning where the toddler bounced off.

"We were closed yesterday but the mechanical device for closing the awning wasn't working."