XIAM007 - Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World: December 2011

Saturday, 31 December 2011

Mitt Romney: Under his pants, he is wearing magic underwear. Magic underwear -

The terms "underwear" or "undergarments" are routinely used in the garment industry, and retailers have entire departments and stores that sell these items. To most people, undergarments or underwear are thought of only as another article of clothing. However, if you mention the word "garments" to your mormon friend or neighbor, you'll get an entirely different reaction.

To millions of Mormons around the world, garments are a special piece of clothing worn as a symbolic gesture of the promises that they have made to God. The garment is always worn under other clothing, next to the skin. For most people who wear it, the garment takes the place of regular underwear. (For this reason, some people refer to the garment as Mormon undergarments or as Mormon underwear. Most LDS prefer simply using the term "garment" instead.)

The garment is directly related to Mormon temples. It is there that faithful members first receive the garment after individual instruction on what it stands for and how it should be cared for. The garment is worn as part of a special ceremony called the temple endowment. The garment is worn at all times (day and night) by members as a constant reminder of the promises they have made to God in the Temple to be honest and faithful to the commandments of the Lord.

Read more -
http://www.mormon-underwear.com/

If you can't follow the rules, file a lawsuit against the state - 4 GOP candidates joined Rick Perry's Virginia lawsuit -

Four GOP candidates on Saturday joined fellow candidate Rick Perry's lawsuit against the state, urging the Board of Elections to either allow them on the ballot or at least refrain from taking any action until a Jan. 13 court hearing.

Only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul qualified for the Virginia primary, a contest with 49 delegates up for grabs. Perry and the four candidates joining the lawsuit -- Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman -- did not.
The failure of other candidates to qualify led to complaints that the 10,000-signature requirement is too stringent.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/31/virginia-attorney-general-intervenes-in-gop-primary-ballot-dispute/

Don't go to Maldives - ordered hundreds of its luxury resorts to close their spas and stop the sale of alcohol -

Maldives ordered hundreds of its luxury resorts to close their spas nearly a week after a protest led by opposition parties demanding a halt to “anti-Islamic” activities, the government said Friday.

A statement from the president’s office said “the government has decided to close massage parlors and spas in the Maldives, following an opposition-led religious protest last week calling for their closure.”

An official from the president‘s office said the tourism ministry notified the resorts Thursday but hasn’t confirmed if the spas have been closed. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak on the matter.

The Indian Ocean archipelago with 1,192 tiny coral islands is known for its exquisite resorts.

Thousands at last week’s protest called on the government to halt what they called “anti-Islamic” activities. Sunni Islam is the official religion in the Maldives and practicing any other faith is forbidden.

Last week’s protest was called by the opposition Adhaalat, or Justice, Party and several other groups that accuse President Mohammed Nasheed’s government of compromising principles of Islam and want strict Islamic law.

The protesters also want authorities to stop the sale of alcohol in the islands, shut down brothels operating in the guise of massage parlors and demolish monuments gifted by other countries marking a South Asian summit last month because they see them as idols.

They also wanted to halt a plan to allow direct flights to Israel.

Read more -
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/maldives-closes-hundreds-of-resort-spas-after-muslims-complain-of-anti-islamic-activities/

‘APPS FOR APES’: Wisconsin Zoo starts movement to donate used TABLETS TO…ORANGUTANS -

‘APPS FOR APES’: Wisconsin Zoo starts movement to donate used TABLETS TO…ORANGUTANS -

It appears that humans are not the only ones that enjoy playing around on their iPads. Orangutans like it too. So much so, that there is now a movement to donate used tablets for the apes to use.

The LA Times blog reports that “Apps for Apes” started at the Milwaukee County Zoo after one donated iPad became a popular gadget among the orangutan community – zookeepers tried with gorillas who were not fans and were “more stoic.”

The Times reports that the orangutans‘ keeper Trish Khan lets them play with the device about two times per week but they don’t get to hold it because they could crack it with their strength:

“We show them the iPad, and read them stories or let them have different apps,” said Jan Rafert, curator of primates and small mammals at the zoo. “We don’t let them hold them, but they can do some of the paint apps by sticking their fingers through the mesh.”

Read more -
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/apps-for-apes-wisconsin-zoo-starts-movement-to-donate-tablets-to-orangutans/

If you can't follow the rules, get a friend to change them - Virginia Attorney General Intervenes in GOP Primary Ballot -

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is intervening in the Virginia presidential primary dispute and plans to file emergency legislation to address the inability of most Republican presidential candidates to get their name on the ballot, Fox News has learned.
Only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul qualified for the Virginia primary, a contest with 49 delegates up for grabs.
The failure of other candidates to qualify -- notably Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry -- led to complaints that the 10,000-signature requirement is too stringent.
Cuccinelli, who is a Republican, shared the concerns.
"Recent events have underscored that our system is deficient," he said in a statement. "Virginia owes her citizens a better process. We can do it in time for the March primary if we resolve to do so quickly."
Cuccinelli's proposal is expected to state that if the Virginia Board of Elections certifies that a candidate is receiving federal matching funds, or has qualified to receive them, that candidate will upon request be automatically added to the ballot.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/31/virginia-attorney-general-intervenes-in-gop-primary-ballot-dispute/

Best of 2011 Compilation - Happy New Year! - Chock full of win with an extra side of awesome -

Does Apple service stolen phones? - Yep, steal one and return it to the Apple retail store - policy not to get involved -

Scott Barkley was enjoying a drink with friends at his local pub the Thursday before Christmas when thieves made off with the coat on the back of his chair.

Minutes later, Barkley found the coat ditched in a nearby alley, minus his wallet, keys and iPhone 4G. He cancelled his credit cards, suspended his Bell phone service and changed the locks on his home and car. He filled out a police report.

He figured his phone was gone for good.

What happened instead turned out to be a case of instant karma, when Apple refused to help Barkley and ended up giving away a phone to the man who may have stolen Barkley’s, or bought it from the person who did.

At 1 p.m. the day after the theft Barkley found an automatically generated e-mail on his computer confirming an appointment at the Apple retail store in Fairview Mall for 2:20 p.m. He called the store to tell them that the person who showed up for that appointment would probably be carrying his stolen phone.

“I thought maybe they’re trying to get around my disconnect or maybe they knew that the store was as screwed up as they turned out to be and they were just going to go for it,” says Barkley, 58, a self-employed publications designer.

Perhaps, Barkley asked the clerk on the phone, Apple might want to notify mall security? Barkley was told it is Apple policy not to get involved in such matters.

“I can’t believe they don’t have some protocol to deal with that. You can imagine it’s not an uncommon situation, people showing up with stolen phones.”

Apple offices were closed for the holidays yesterday. No one returned e-mails or phone calls asking for comment. The Apple store at Fairview Mall referred questions to an unstaffed media relations hotline.

Technology writer Marc Saltzman, who writes for the Star’s Moneyville.ca, said he’s not surprised Apple wouldn’t intervene. There is a free app available that will track the location of stolen phones, but users are told to contact police, not Apple, when a phone is stolen.

“It could set a precedent, because then people are going to turn to Apple instead of the authorities,” said Saltzman.

When Apple made it clear they wouldn’t intervene in any way, Barkley called Toronto Police 54 Division, not expecting to get much police interest in following up on a stolen cell phone.

Police said they would try to look into it.

Barkley decided to go to the store himself. Despite Christmas traffic, he managed to get to Fairview before 2 p.m. He spoke to the Apple store manager who repeated Apple policy about not getting involved.

Then Toronto Police detectives Darryl Lambie and Themistoklis Hantzaridis showed up.

There were about 300 people in the store, says Barkley. He lost track of the detectives and gave up and left. He never saw the men who took his coat.

Later that same afternoon, the detectives called Barkley to tell him he could pick up his phone at the police station. It turns out someone did come in with the phone – before Barkley and the police arrived – with a story about buying it from a friend of Barkley’s uncle, only to find the phone didn’t work. In fact, it wasn’t working because Barkley had had the service disconnected.

The Apple clerk at the Genius Bar assumed it was a phone malfunction, and seemingly without checking to make sure, handed the man a brand new phone and put Barkley’s stolen phone in the back, to be sent off for servicing.

Read more -
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1108987--does-apple-service-stolen-phones?bn=1

Friday, 30 December 2011

2011: The Year Facebook Killed Google - I used to discover new content via Google. Now I find it on Facebook and Twitter -

I have to admit it: I get a queasy voyeuristic feeling in my gut when I see what my friends are reading on the Washington or Huffington Posts, watching on YouTube, or listening to on Spotify. This whole “frictionless sharing” business makes me uneasy. As my lovely talented wife always says when I do this, “too much information, dude.”

And yet I can’t pull myself away.

A few weeks ago I began to notice that most of the content I was consuming on the Web – at least, during moments of leisure and/or extreme procrastination – was coming via Facebook or Twitter. A friend or acquaintance would post a link, and I’d follow it. If I liked it, I shared it with others.

Facebook's frictionless sharing: A privacy guide
It didn’t used to be this way. I used to find stuff via Google. Now, not so much. And I’m not alone.

Let’s look at some stats. According to the folks at Nielsen, Facebook trails only Google in the number of unique monthly visitors (137 million vs 153 million) but it’s killing Google in time spent on line. People spend about 16 percent of their time online just on Facebook – or more than they do on Yahoo, Google, AOL, and YouTube combined. For the third year in a row “Facebook” was the most searched for term on the Internet, according to Experian Hitwise.

And when people look for interesting content, more and more they turn to recommendations from their online buddies. Google recently announced that people share 1 billion items a day on G+ – or about one-fourth the number of items shared on Facebook, a number that’s doubling each year.

Google’s once-secure niche as the place people go on the Internet when they don’t where to go on the Internet isn’t so secure any more.
Read more -
http://www.pcworld.com/article/247140/2011_the_year_facebook_killed_google.html

Friday Humor: Unspinning The "€100 Bill" Or How The European Bailout REALLY 'Works' -

It is a slow day in a little Greek village. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit. On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the village, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night. The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel. The guy at the Farmers' Co-op takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the taverna. The publican slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him "services" on credit. The hooker then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the €100 note. The hotel proprietor then places the €100 note back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything. At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, picks up the €100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole village is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism. And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how the bailout package works.

Chevy to Recall Over 4,000 2012 Chevrolet Sonics to Check for Missing Brakes - "could increase stopping distance" -

General Motors Co. is recalling more than 4,000 of its 2012 Chevrolet Sonic subcompact cars to check for missing brake pads.
Some Sonics could be missing an inner or outer brake pad, which could increase stopping distance. GM said there are no known crashes or injuries related to the issue.
The recall involves 4,296 of GM's 2012 Sonics sold in the U.S. Affected models are from the Orion Township, Mich., assembly plant, which makes Sonics for the U.S. and Canadian markets.
Dealers will inspect front brakes on Sonics for missing inner or outer pads and install new pads, if necessary. Customers affected by the recall will receive dealer letters beginning Jan. 14.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2011/12/30/chevy-to-recall-over-4000-cars-to-check-for-missing-brakes/?test=latestnews

Kill-adelphia: Yet again, Philadelphia tops list of homicide rates - homicide tally stood at 324 Wednesday -

ON THE DOOR into the Uceta Mini Market in North Philadelphia, a sign warns shoppers, "No Weapons Allowed."

Inside, the message on a sign sandwiched between cigarette ads is even more blunt: "Stop. Shooting. People."

The market sits at Stillman and Somerset streets, just steps from the scenes of two recent gun slayings that remain unsolved. But in the store, where you can buy everything from milk to motor oil, the signs are an ignored, endured part of everyday existence - just like the homicides themselves.

This is among the city's most dangerous neighborhoods, where violence is as ingrained as the futility many feel that it will ever abate.

"I know a lot of people who got killed, maybe 10, I don't know how many," Marcus Henry, 29, said yesterday as he got his morning coffee.

Murders are up again this year in Philadelphia, and the city still has the highest homicide rate of the nation's 10 most populous cities, according to stats provided by each city's police department. At the same time, fewer murders are getting solved.

With a few days left in the year, the city's homicide tally stood at 324 Wednesday, including the eight victims allegedly killed in previous years by West Philly abortionist Kermit Gosnell. Last year, 306 people were killed, and the year before, 302.
Read more -
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20111230_Kill-adelphia__Yet_again__city_tops_list_of_homicide_rates.html?cmpid=125219969

Siri Tells Little Boy to 'Shut the F--- Up,' Calls Him 'Ugly' - iPhone 4S was then sent in for repairs -

For all the kind and helpful advice that Apple's Siri personal assistant gives out, don't ever catch it on a bad day, or it'll tell you off in ways your mother would not approve.

If a report from The Sun is to be believed, a demo unit for the iPhone 4S caught fire for telling 12-year-old Charle Le Quesne to "Shut the f--- up, you ugly t---."

Charlie reportedly asked Siri "How many people are there in the world?" and that was the answer he got back. Together with his mother and the manager, they asked the demo iPhone 4S the same question and got the same answer back yet again. Needless to say, the demo unit was unplugged and sent back to Apple for "diagnostic tests."

The errors seems to have stemmed from Siri thinking that the questioner's name was "Shut the f--- up, you ugly t---."

All this happened at a U.K. Tesco supermarket. It's worth noting that on U.K. iPhones, Siri's default voice is that of a male and not female like it is in the U.S. So you'll have to picture Siri cursing the poor boy out with a male British accent. I bet it sounds even funnier that way.

Read more -
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4027105/iPhone-Siri-tells-lad-in-Tesco-Shut-the-f-up.html

What is the number one catastrophic event that Americans worry about for 2012? -

Can you guess what the number one catastrophic event that Americans worry about is? There are certainly many to choose from. Many Americans are deathly afraid of a major terrorist attack. Others live in constant fear of natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes. Still others are incredibly concerned that a massive pandemic will break out at any time or that World War III will erupt in the Middle East. Yes, there are certainly a lot of potential catastrophic events that one can worry about in the times in which we live, but the number one catastrophic event that Americans worry about is actually "economic collapse". At least that is what arecent survey conducted by Leiflin Inc. for the EcoHealth Alliance found. But this goes along with what so many other polls have found over the past few years. Over and over again, opinion polls have found that the number one issue that American voters are concerned about is the economy. The truth is that average Americans are deeply, deeply concerned about unemployment, debt, the housing crash and the steady decline in the standard of living. It has been years since the U.S. economy has operated at a "normal" level, and many Americans are afraid that things could soon get a whole lot worse.

In the new survey mentioned above, those contacted were asked to select the top three potential catastrophes that worry them the most.

The following results come directly from the survey....

Economic Collapse: 63%
Natural Disaster: 46%
Terrorist Attack: 44%
Global Disease Outbreak: 33%
Global War: 27%
Nuclear Accident: 25%
Global Warming: 22%
Fuel Shortage: 15%
Cyber War: 8%
Famine: 8%
Oil Spill: 6%
Industrial Accident: 5%

As you can see, "economic collapse" was the winner by a wide margin.

So are there good reasons for the American people to be concerned about an economic collapse?

Of course there are.

Back in 2008, a financial crisis that began on Wall Street was felt in the farthest corners of the globe.

This time, ground zero for the financial crisis is going to be in Europe. As I have written about previously, the European financial system is rapidly coming apart at the seams. The euro continues to drop like a rock, and banking stocks continue their long-term decline.

Many people expect a "financial collapse" to happen on a particular day. But that is not how it happens usually. Instead, it is often like a snowball that starts rolling downhill very slowly at first but that eventually become a huge avalanche.

Right now, we are seeing the financial world come apart in slow motion. A recent article posted on Automatic Earth included a list of the year-to-date performance of some of the most prominent global banking stocks. These numbers are absolutely staggering....

BofA: -60.38%
Citi: -44.76%
Goldman Sachs: -46.41%
JPMorgan: -23.03%
Morgan Stanley: -45.24%
RBS: -50%
Barclays: -34.32%
Lloyds: -63.02%
UBS: -29.33%
Deutsche Bank: -28,55%
Crédit Agricole: -56.04%
BNP Paribas: -37.67%
Société Générale: -59.57%

But because these numbers happened over the course of a year and not on a single day it doesn't feel quite as much like a "collapse".

Unfortunately, things are about to get a whole lot worse. Global credit markets are really freezing up - especially in Europe.

Considering the fact that the entire global financial system is based on credit and debt, that is a very bad thing.

Our system simply does not work when banks do not want to lend money to each other or to businesses.

Just yesterday there was an article in the Guardian that talked about how it looks like the credit crunch may be getting even worse....

"If European banks are still this concerned, it's not a good sign," said Karl Schamotta, senior markets strategist with Western Union Business Solutions. "That underlines the possibility that this liquidity crunch is getting worse and will continue into the new year."

When banks cut back on lending, that causes the money supply to shrink. When the money supply shrinks substantially, it is almost impossible to avoid a recession. A recent article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard detailed how the money supply in many eurozone nations is shrinking at a very rapid pace right now....

Simon Ward from Henderson Global Investors said "narrow" M1 money – which includes cash and overnight deposits, and signals short-term spending plans – shows an alarming split between North and South.
While real M1 deposits are still holding up in the German bloc, the rate of fall over the last six months (annualised) has been 20.7pc in Greece, 16.3pc in Portugal, 11.8pc in Ireland, and 8.1pc in Spain, and 6.7pc in Italy. The pace of decline in Italy has been accelerating, partly due to capital flight. "This rate of contraction is greater than in early 2008 and implies an even deeper recession, both for Italy and the whole periphery," said Mr Ward.

Those are very, very frightening numbers.

About the only thing propping up European banks right now is the fact that the European Central Bank is loaning them gigantic piles of cheap money.

But there is a big problem.

European banks are running out of collateral for those loans as an article in the Wall Street Journal recently noted....

Even after the European Central Bank doled out nearly half a trillion euros of loans to cash-strapped banks last week, fears about potential financial problems are still stalking the sector. One big reason: concerns about collateral.
The only way European banks can now convince anyone—institutional investors, fellow banks or the ECB—to lend them money is if they pledge high-quality assets as collateral.
Now some regulators and bankers are becoming nervous that some lenders' supplies of such assets, which include European government bonds and investment-grade non-government debt, are running low.

So what happens when banks all over Europe start running out of collateral and can't get any more loans?

The answer should be obvious.

As I detailed a few days ago, many prominent voices in the financial world now believe that we could be looking at a financial crisis that will be even worse than 2008.

If you want to see what happens when a collapse happens and a depression begins, just look at what is happening in Greece....

*100,000 businesses have been closed since the beginning of the crisis.

*About a third of the nation is now living in poverty.

*The unemployment rate for those under the age of 24 is 39 percent.

*The number of suicides has increased by 40 percent in the past year.

*Thefts and burglaries nearly doubled between 2007 and 2009.

Things have gotten so bad that hundreds of families in Greece are abandoning their children.

Some are taking their children to charitable institutions and others are handing them directly over to the government.

The following sad story of one Greek family comes from an article in the Guardian....

"Psychologically we were all in a bit of a mess," said Gasparinatos. "We were sleeping on mattresses on the floor, the rent hadn't been paid for months, something had to be done."
And so, with Christmas approaching, the 42-year-old took the decision to put in an official request for three of his boys and one daughter to be taken into care.
"The crisis had killed us. I am ashamed to say but it had got to the point where I couldn't even afford the €2 needed to buy bread," he told the Guardian. "We didn't want to break up the family but we did think it would be easier for them if four of my children were sent to an institution for maybe two or three years."

Does that seem shocking to you?

Well, all of this is coming to America eventually.

Someday we will see American parents abandoning their children because they cannot take care of them anymore.

Someday we will see suicides absolutely skyrocket in America because people have lost all hope.

Someday we will see thefts and burglaries soar to unprecedented heights as millions of desperate people attempt to try to find some way to survive.

It is all coming.

The federal government cannot pile up a trillion dollars of additional debtevery year indefinitely.

We cannot afford to see an average of 23 manufacturing facilities a day in the United States shut down. Eventually there won't be anymore factories to shut down.

We cannot afford to keep putting millions more Americans on welfare. At this point the government is feeding 46 million Americans a month. Will the government eventually be feeding most of us?

The U.S. economy is getting weaker and weaker and weaker. All of the long-term trends are absolutely nightmarish. We are accumulating debt faster than ever, and our ability to produce wealth is diminishing faster than ever.

There is no way that things are going to be okay if we stay on the path that we are currently on.

So the truth is that Americans should be very concerned about an economic collapse.

It is coming and it is going to be very painful.

Photo of Kim Jong Il’s funeral has created internet frenzy after finding a "giant" towering high above his countrymen -

A photo of Kim Jong Il’s funeral has created an internet frenzy after eagle-eyed observers spotted a "giant" towering high above his countrymen.

The Associated Press yesterday released photos of thousands of North Koreans lined up in orderly rows to watch their former dictator's funeral procession pass.

But one image has aroused worldwide curiosity for the mysterious figure standing in the back row.

The man appears to be about one third taller than the men to his left and right, with the tops of his legs almost at shoulder height with others standing in the crowd.

It seems probable the tall man is North Korea's NBA star Ri 'Michael' Myung Hun, who is 235cm tall.

The mystery man appears to be close to that height when compared with the other people around him.

The average height of North Koreans is 166cm, 5cm shorter than their South Korean neighbours.

The height difference has been blamed on the poor standard of living in the country.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8396528/giant-man-spotted-at-north-korean-funeral

Two Mexican police rob Canadian tourist in Acapulco - 300 pesos (about $22) and personal belongings -

The Acapulco municipal government fired two local police officers Thursday who were accused of robbing a Canadian visitor in the popular tourist city.

Acapulco Mayor Manuel Añorve told the Reforma newspaper that the officers were fired for robbing 300 pesos (about $22) and personal belongings from a Canadian visitor early Wednesday near the Crowne Plaza hotel on Acapulco’s main tourist strip.

The tourist has since returned home, along with 32 other Canadians in his tour group, Guerrero state tourism secretary Graciela Baez said.

“It’s very regrettable that this happened,” she said.

An official with the state prosecutor’s office for tourists, Alfredo Fernández, was unable to confirm the identity of the Canadian victim or where he was from, but said the cash and stolen items were returned promptly.

The incident threatened to further sully the reputation of Acapulco, a city that gained fame as a beach resort destination but has more recently struggled with violence.

Pedro Isnardo de la Cruz, a security expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, says Acapulco law enforcement and traffic officers have a long history of committing small-time crimes, such as demanding bribes, from local visitors.

“This isn’t the exception,” said de la Cruz, a native of Acapulco.

Acapulco tourism officials insist the destination is safe and say local hotels currently boast a 90 per cent occupancy rate as holidayers from Mexico City — a four-hour drive to the north — pour into town for New Year’s festivities.

Read more -
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1108622--mexican-police-accused-of-robbing-canadian-tourist?bn=1

Thursday, 29 December 2011

Bravo Canada - This is how Canada brings home each one of its War dead - The Highway of Heroes -

'Bunny Ranch' Owner Creates New Science Fiction-Themed Brothel Targeting 'Star Wars' Fans, Trekkies... -

Reality star and veteran brothel owner Dennis Hof wants to go where no man has gone before.

Hof, 65, is the present owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch. But now, he is opening up a new venture, a sci-fi-themed bordello situated 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The venture will be called “Alien Cathouse.”

For assistance with his new business, Hof turned to infamous Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss.

Fleiss made her name in the 90s for running a prostitution ring that catered to the stars. Hof is a long time friend of Fleiss and told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that she would be serving as “chief alien design queen,” tapping into her expertise with the costumes and décor.

Both Hof and Fleiss came up with the idea for Alien Cathouse.

“We both wanted to do something different, and we both like being on the cutting edge,” he said. “There has never been a place like the Alien Cathouse before because no one ever went for it.”

Read more -
http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2011/12/29/science-fiction-themed-brothel-opening-soon/

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hinted that the U.S. may be behind a “very strange” bout of cancer -

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hinted that the U.S. may be behind a “very strange” bout of cancer affecting several leaders aligned with him in South America.
Chavez, speaking a day after Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, said the Central Intelligence Agency was behind chemical experiments in Guatemala in the 1940s and that it’s possible that in years to come a plot will be uncovered that shows the U.S. spread cancer as a political weapon against its critics.
“It’s very difficult to explain, even with the law of probabilities, what has been happening to some of us in Latin America,” Chavez said in a nationally televised speech to the military. “Would it be so strange that they’ve invented technology to spread cancer and we won’t know about it for 50 years?”
Chavez, who was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer in June and had a baseball-sized tumor removed in Cuba, has called for a regional summit of leaders who have battled cancer including Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, her predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva and Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo.
“I’m just sharing my thoughts, but it’s very, very, very strange,” Chavez said. “Evo take care of yourself, Correa, be careful, we just don’t know,” he said, referring to Evo Morales and Rafael Correa, the leaders of Bolivia and Ecuador.

Read more -
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-28/chavez-u-s-may-be-behind-s-america-leaders-cancer.html

Now Here's What A Failed Bond Auction Looks Like - nobody hungry for Hungary - unable to sell any at staggering 9.1% -

No one is excited about the Italian 10-year selling at 6.8%, but at least it sold.
A Hungarian bond auction this morning failed as Hungary rejected all bids in a 3-year bond sale. The 3-year is trading at a staggering 9.1%.
Hungary was able to sell HUF5B ($21 million) of a June 2022 Bond at an average yield of 9.70%.
Altogether Hungary sold HUF15B ($63 million)in government bonds after trying to sell HUF33B ($138) (data via @Uldis_Zelmenis).
Hungary's debt was downgraded to junk by S&P and Moody's last week.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/now-heres-what-a-failed-bond-auction-looks-like-2011-12

Wednesday, 28 December 2011

Grenada seeks probe into death of Toronto man - mistook plainclothes female police officer for a friend and hugged her -

The death of a Toronto carpenter who clashed with police while visiting his homeland of Grenada for Christmas has drawn the attention of that country's government and touched off an official investigation.

Oscar Bartholomew, 39, died in hospital on the eastern Caribbean island on Tuesday, 24 hours after being taken into custody in the town of St. David's.

Family members have accused officers of beating Bartholomew after he mistook a plainclothes female police officer for a friend and hugged her, lifting her off the ground while in front of a police station.

Bartholomew, along with his wife and a cousin, had stopped at the St. David’s police station on Monday afternoon because his wife needed to use the bathroom, his aunt Josephine de Souza said in a telephone interview.

Police dispute that account, however, saying Bartholomew was arrested after assaulting an officer.

Dunbar Belfon, superintendent of the Royal Grenada Police Force, said the female officer was in uniform at the time she came into contact with Bartholomew.

Belfon said Bartholomew was taken into custody after the altercation and eventually transferred to hospital.

De Souza and one of Bartholomew’s cousins, Shem Pierre, accused police of leaving Bartholomew bleeding in his cell for at least three hours before calling an ambulance at the insistence of his wife.

BBC criticised for naming panda as a woman of the year -

The broadcaster's Faces of the year 2011 – the women featured the women who made the headlines for each month and included Gabrielle Giffords, the US Congresswoman who recovered after she was shot in the head, as well as Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff.
Pippa Middleton is named as the female face of April after she caught the nation's attention as maid of honour at the wedding of her sister Kate to Prince William.
But for December, the BBC picked Sweetie the panda, who arrived along with Sunshine in Edinburgh from China. The pandas are on loan to the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland for £600,000 a year.
The list sparked a mock-frenzy on Twitter with users labelling the episode "panda gate".

Read more -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/8980607/BBC-criticised-for-naming-panda-as-a-woman-of-the-year.html

Former Fed VP Accuses Bernanke Of Bailing Out Europe Via Currency Swaps -

First it was Zero Hedge. Then Ron Paul joined in. Now it is the turn of a former Dallas Fed Vice President, Gerald ODriscoll, to outright accuse the Fed of bailing out Europe courtesy of "incomprehensible" currency swaps, and implicitly accusing Bernanke of lying that he would not bail out Europe even as he has done precisely that. And not only that: by cutting the USD swap spread from OIS+100 to OIS+50, the Fed has made sure it gets paid less than ever for extended Europe the courtesy of bailing it out all over again. Incidentally, O'Driscoll says, "America's central bank, the Federal Reserve, is engaged in a bailout of
European banks. Surprisingly, its operation is largely unnoticed here." One thing we can say proudly - it has been noticed loud and clear here...

From the WSJ:

The Federal Reserve's Covert Bailout of Europe

When is a loan between central banks not a loan? When it is a dollars-for-euros currency swap.

America's central bank, the Federal Reserve, is engaged in a bailout of European banks. Surprisingly, its operation is largely unnoticed here.

The Fed is using what is termed a "temporary U.S. dollar liquidity swap arrangement" with the European Central Bank (ECB). There are similar arrangements with the central banks of Canada, England, Switzerland and Japan. Simply put, the Fed trades or "swaps" dollars for euros. The Fed is compensated by payment of an interest rate (currently 50 basis points, or one-half of 1%) above the overnight index swap rate. The ECB, which guarantees to return the dollars at an exchange rate fixed at the time the original swap is made, then lends the dollars to European banks of its choosing.

Why are the Fed and the ECB doing this? The Fed could, after all, lend directly to U.S. branches of foreign banks. It did a great deal of lending to foreign banks under various special credit facilities in the aftermath of Lehman's collapse in the fall of 2008. Or, the ECB could lend euros to banks and they could purchase dollars in foreign-exchange markets. The world is, after all, awash in dollars.

The two central banks are engaging in this roundabout procedure because each needs a fig leaf. The Fed was embarrassed by the revelations of its prior largess with foreign banks. It does not want the debt of foreign banks on its books. A currency swap with the ECB is not technically a loan.

The ECB is entangled in an even bigger legal and political mess. What the heads of many European governments want is for the ECB to bail them out. The central bank and some European governments say that it cannot constitutionally do that. The ECB would also prefer not to create boatloads of new euros, since it wants to keep its reputation as an inflation-fighter intact. To mitigate its euro lending, it borrows dollars to lend them to its banks. That keeps the supply of new euros down. This lending replaces dollar funding from U.S. banks and money-market institutions that are curtailing their lending to European banks—which need the dollars to finance trade, among other activities. Meanwhile, European governments pressure the banks to purchase still more sovereign debt.

This Byzantine financial arrangement could hardly be better designed to confuse observers, and it has largely succeeded on this side of the Atlantic, where press coverage has been light. Reporting in Europe is on the mark. On Dec. 21 the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung noted on its website that European banks took three-month credits worth $33 billion, which was financed by a swap between the ECB and the Fed. When it first came out in 2009 that the Greek government was much more heavily indebted than previously known, currency swaps reportedly arranged by Goldman Sachs were one subterfuge employed to hide its debts.

The Fed had more than $600 billion of currency swaps on its books in the fall of 2008. Those draws were largely paid down by January 2010. As recently as a few weeks ago, the amount under the swap renewal agreement announced last summer was $2.4 billion. For the week ending Dec. 14, however, the amount jumped to $54 billion. For the week ending Dec. 21, the total went up by a little more than $8 billion. The aforementioned $33 billion three-month loan was not picked up because it was only booked by the ECB on Dec. 22, falling outside the Fed's reporting week. Notably, the Bank of Japan drew almost $5 billion in the most recent week. Could a bailout of Japanese banks be afoot? (All data come from the Federal Reserve Board H.4.1. release, the New York Fed's Swap Operations report, and the ECB website.)

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NASA's twin moon probes to land this weekend - Grail-A and Grail-B to study Moon from crust to core -

NASA's twin moon probes to land this weekend - Grail-A and Grail-B to study Moon from crust to core -
Image: Artist's drawing, Grail mission

A pair of NASA spacecraft is getting set to orbit the moon this weekend, a move that will kick off the probes' effort to study Earth's nearest neighbor from crust to core.
NASA's twin Grail spacecraft are slated to start circling the moon one day apart, with Grail-A arriving on Saturday and Grail-B following on Sunday. The two probes will then fly around the moon in tandem, mapping the lunar gravity field in unprecedented detail and helping scientists better understand how the moon formed and evolved.
"This mission will rewrite the textbooks on the evolution of the moon," Grail principal investigator Maria Zuber, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in a statement.
More space news from msnbc.com

IKI
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Science editor Alan Boyle's Weblog: Will Russia's doomed Phobos-Grunt spacecraft fall in Afghanistan? Experts say it's way too early to be that precise about a prediction.
Rare slow-spinning star reveals space oddity
Sun storms may super-charge northern lights
Christmas Eve fireball sparked by falling rocket debris
The $496 million Grail mission (short for Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory) launched on Sept. 10 from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
The two washing-machine-size probes have taken their sweet time since, charting circuitous, energy-efficient courses that will get them to the moon after more than three months of flying. Contrast that with NASA's manned Apollo 11 mission, which prioritized speed and got there in three days back in 1969.
Grail-A and Grail-B won't be ready to start their science campaign immediately upon arriving at the moon. Rather, they'll spend another two months circling lower and lower, eventually settling into orbits just 34 miles above the lunar surface, researchers said.
The twin probes will begin taking measurements in March. They'll chase each other around the moon for 82 days, staying 75 to 225 miles apart.

Read more -
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45809905/ns/technology_and_science-space/#.Tvu-8dQV2-U

Tweeting the word 'drill' or 'virus' could mean your Twitter account is read by U.S. government spies -

The Department of Homeland Security makes fake Twitter and Facebook profiles for the specific purpose of scanning the networks for 'sensitive' words - and tracking people who use them.
Simply using a word or phrase from the DHS's 'watch' list could mean that spies from the government read your posts, investigate your account, and attempt to identify you from it, acccording to an online privacy group.
The words which attract attention range from ones seemingly related to diseases or bioweapons such as 'human to animal' and 'outbreak' to other, more obscure words such as 'drill' and 'strain'.
The DHS also watches for words such as 'illegal immigrant'.
The DHS outlined plans to scans blogs, Twitter and Facebook for words such as 'illegal immigrant', 'outbreak', 'drill', 'strain', 'virus', 'recovery', 'deaths', 'collapse', 'human to animal' and 'trojan', according to an 'impact asssessment' document filed by the agency.
When its search tools net an account using the phrases, they record personal information.
It's still not clear how this information is used - and who the DHS shares it with.

An online privacy group, the Electronic Privacy Information Centre has requested information on the DHS's scans, which it says the agency announced in February.
The privacy group has requested information on the DHS, and contractors it claims are working with the agency to scan social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
The group says that the government has used scans of social media before to analyse specific events - such as the 2010 BP oil spill - but this general 'watching' of social media using fake profiles is new.
'The initiatives were designed to gather information from 'online forums, blogs, public websites, and message boards,' to store and analyze the information gathered, and then to 'disseminate relevant and appropriate de-identified information to federal, state, local, and foreign governments and private sector partners,' the group said in a court filing.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2079283/Tweeting-word-drill-mean-Twitter-account-read-government-spies.html