XIAM007 - Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World: 08/08/11

Monday, 8 August 2011

Furjazzled - service for mutts using dye, stick-on sparkles and even fairy wings -

Furjazzled - service for mutts using dye, stick-on sparkles and even fairy wings -
Done up to ca-nines ... Sasha and Squeak

Done up to ca-nines ... Sasha and Squeak

A DOG groomer obsessed with The Only Way Is Essex is offering a "vajazzling" service for mutts using dye, stick-on sparkles and even fairy wings.

Victoria Barter, 20, was inspired by the telly show women's bizarre practice of glamming up their bikini lines with sticky-back jewels.

She said: "I think the dogs look great all done up in bright colours and sparkling gems - and all the products are dog friendly."

The pet lover has turned her own Westie, named Sasha, pink, and her bichon frise Squeak, blue for years with dye that holds its colour for up to a month.

But she was inspired to add accessories by the ITV2 reality series, known as TOWIE by fans.

Victoria, who runs Cute Cuts Grooming in Heybridge, Essex, said: "I loved the way vajazzling looked on the TOWIE stars, so I thought, 'Why not do it on the dogs?'"

A woman is to command a frontline warship for the first time in the Royal Navy's 500-year history -

A woman is to command a frontline warship for the first time in the Royal Navy's 500-year history -
Pioneering: Sarah West will be the first woman to command a warship in the Royal Navy

Pioneering: Sarah West will be the first woman to command a warship in the Royal Navy

She is the first woman to command a frontline warship in the Royal Navy’s 500-year history.

Lieutenant Commander Sarah West, 39, will take charge of HMS Portland, a 5,000-ton Type 23 frigate that is prepared for ‘total warfare’.

Her appointment is a remarkable achievement because women were not even allowed to go to sea with the Navy until 1990.

Since then, they have only taken charge of small ‘non-fighting’ ships.

Lt Cdr West herself has captained four minehunters – including her current ship Pembroke – which only carry weapons for self-defence.

However, the ten-year-old Portland carries surface-to-surface missiles for tackling ships, surface-to-air missiles for shooting down aircraft and a helicopter for hunting and destroying submarines.

It also carries a 4.5in gun, Stingray anti-submarine torpedoes and is bristling with radar and sonar devices to guide its weapons and help with navigation.

Lt Cdr West will be in charge of a crew of about 180, of which about 10 per cent are Wrens.

Senior defence sources dismissed suggestions that the Navy had caved in to political correctness by appointing a woman to captain such a powerful ship.

Instead, they said, she had seen off fierce competition from male officers to win the role on merit due to her ‘leadership, confidence, moral courage, sound judgment and excellent people skills’.

Market Circuit Breakers - how do they work? When are they used? -

Stock exchanges attempt to ease panic selling by taking certain steps to halt trading. These moves are called market circuit breakers—or collars.

So how do they work? When are they used? CNBC explains.

What are market circuit breakers?

This is when a major stock or commodities exchange stops trading temporarilybecause an index, or even an individual stock, has fallen a certain percentage during a trading day.

The purpose is to prevent a market or stock price free-fall by trying to rebalance buy and sell orders.

For example, if the Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by 10 percent, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) might halt market trading for one hour. There are other circuit breakers for 20 percent and 30 percent declines.

In addition to market-wide circuit breakers, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved market rules on a trial basis in 2010 allowing circuit-breaker pauses for certain individual securities whose prices move 10 percent or more in a five-minute period.

These circuit-breaker pauses apply to stocks in the S&P 500 Index, the Russell 1000 Index, and several hundred exchange traded products

. They halt trading in the applicable security in all U.S. markets for five minutes.

When were market circuit breakers first conceived?

The markets instituted circuit breakers in the wake of 1987's "Black Monday." On Oct. 19, 1987, the market plunged 508.32 points, 22.6 percent, or $500 billion lost in one day. This was the largest one-day percentage drop in history until that time.

Circuit breakers were first used in October 1989, following a major stock market drop.

Until 1997, the markets used a point drop rule—that is, looking at how many points the markets declined, rather than the percentage of the move, to trigger circuit breakers to stop trading.

This point-drop rule caused trading to halt on Oct. 27, 1997, even though the decline was only about 7 percent. The rule was subsequently changed to respond to percentage drops rather than point drops. The rules have since been changed back to point drops as well as percentage declines.

When do market circuit breakers kick in?

The rules for using circuit breakers have changed over the years, and are usually calculated on a quarterly basis.

On June 30, 2011, the NYSE issued these guidelines for using circuit breakers:

Level 1 Halt

A 1,200-point drop in the Dow industrial average before 2 p.m. ET will halt trading for one hour; for 30 minutes if between 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. ET; and have no effect if happens at 2:30 p.m. or later, unless there is a level 2 halt.

Level 2 Halt

A 2,400-point drop in the Dow industrials before 1 p.m. will halt trading for two hours; for one hour if occurs between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m.; and for the remainder of the day if at 2 p.m. or later.

Level 3 Halt

A 3,650-point drop will halt trading for the remainder of the day regardless of when the decline occurs.

The percentage levels were first implemented in April 1998, and the point levels are adjusted on the first trading day of each quarter. In 2011, those dates are Jan. 3, April 1, July 1 and Oct. 3.

Read more -

http://www.cnbc.com/id/44059883

Obama to scrap testing requirements because too many students failing... -

State and local education officials have been begging the federal government for relief from student testing mandates in the federal No Child Left Behind law, but school starts soon and Congress still hasn't answered the call.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan says he will announce a new waiver system Monday to give schools a break.

The plan to offer waivers to all 50 states, as long as they meet other school reform requirements, comes at the request of President Barack Obama, Duncan said. More details on the waivers will come in September, he said.

The goal of the No Child Left Behind law is to have every student proficient in math and reading by 2014. States have been required to bring more students up to the math and reading standards each year, based on tests that usually take place each spring. The step-by-step ramping up of the 9-year-old law has caused heartburn in states and most school districts, because more and more schools are labeled as failures as too few of their students meet testing goals.

Critics say the benchmarks are unrealistic and brands schools as failures even if they make progress. Schools and districts where too few kids pass the tests for several years are subject to sanctions that can include firing teachers or closing the school entirely.

Through the waivers, schools will get some relief from looming deadlines to meet testing goals as long as they agree to embrace other kinds of education reforms such as raising standards, helping teachers and principals improve, and focusing on fixing the lowest performing schools.

Duncan and Melody Barnes, director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House, said the administration will encourage every state to apply and will work with them to meet the requirements.

Nothing in this plan for temporary relief from some aspects of the federal law will undermine what Congress is still discussing in terms of revising federal education laws, Duncan said. The long-awaited overhaul of the law began earlier this year in the U.S. House, but a comprehensive reform appears far from the finish line.

Jacqueline Kennedy Reportedly Believed Lyndon B. Johnson Behind JFK's Assassination -

Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis believed Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was behind the assassination of her husband, according to tapes recorded by the former first lady just months after President John F. Kennedy's death, the Daily Mail reports.

The tapes, which are set to be released by ABC News, reportedly reveal that Kennedy-Onassis believed then-vice president Johnson, along with businessmen in the South, planned the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of her husband in Dallas, Texas.

Kennedy-Onassis thought gunman Lee Harvey Oswald -- long believed to be a lone assassin -- was part of a larger conspiracy involving Johnson, according to the Daily Mail.

The tapes, which were recorded with historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., also reveal that Kennedy-Onassis had an affair with actor William Holden in retaliation to her husband's reported indiscretions, the Daily Mail reports.

The tapes, which were sealed in a vault at the Kennedy Library in Boston, were supposed to be released 50 years after Kennedy-Onassis' 1994 death. But her daughter, Caroline Kennedy, reportedly agreed to their early release in exchange for ABC dropping its drama series about the family. It is not yet known when the tapes will air.

Mexican Smugglers Nearly Interrupt California Surf Contest -

Three Mexican nationals attempted to illegally land their boat on California's Huntington Beach Sunday -- about a mile away from where crowds were forming to watch a professional surfing contest.

Lifeguards spotted the small fishing boat at around 8:30 a.m., but when the men realized they had been spotted, they turned back to sea and were seen throwing a package overboard, The Orange County Register reported.

A number of people were on the beach at the time, for the U.S. Open of Surfing.

It is believed the men in the boat were smuggling drugs across the border from Mexico.

All three were arrested and taken into custody by U.S. Border Patrol agents on suspicion of smuggling and attempting to enter the U.S. illegally.

Alleged Marilyn Monroe Sex Film Gets No Buyers -

There were no buyers Sunday at the auction of a 1940s stag film that an events promoter claims shows a young Marilyn Monroe having sex before she became a movie star.

The auction was a flop. Nobody came forward willing to pay Mikel Barsa's starting price of 2 million Argentine pesos, about $480,000.

Barsa said it didn't help matters that a spokeswoman for Monroe's estate was quoted in an Associated Press interview calling the whole thing a fraud.

"It doesn't surprise me. The latest statements of Nancy Carlson didn't do anything good for all this," Barsa said, referring to the spokeswoman for a company in charge of protecting Monroe's image and estate.

Barsa said he was still negotiating with an unidentified buyer from Denver whom he said was offering much less than a fair price. But he also said his lawyers were reviewing the matter now that Monroe's protectors warned they would sue him if the sale went through.

Barsa claimed before the auction that the scratchy, black-and-white, six-minute 8-mm film shows the young actress, known then as Norma Jeane Baker, around 1946 or 1947 when she was poor and desperate to break into show business.

Experts on Monroe's life, however, said it's highly unlikely that the smiling young blonde in the film is her.

Comparing the film with known Monroe images leaves ample room for doubt. And several documents Barsa said proved his argument -- a letter from the American Film Institute and what looks like a declassified FBI file that mentions a 1965 attempt to sell an alleged Marilyn Monroe sex film -- are inconclusive.

Judge warns about growing problem of ‘mistrial by Google’ -

Judge Herbert B. Dixon Jr. calls them ‘Internet trial torpedoes’ and U.S. media outlets refer to it as ‘mistrial by Google.’

They’re describing the phenomenon of jurors accessing the Internet before and during trials to learn about the witnesses or legal issues.

It is a vexing problem that undermines the fundamental legal principle that jurors must decide a case based on the evidence presented in the courtroom, Dixon told lawyers and judges attending the American Bar Association annual meeting here in Toronto. It wraps up Tuesday.

“No matter what we do, no matter how much effort we go to, there will be some jurors who will violate instructions.”

Dixon sits on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. He was the keynote speaker at a weekend seminar on judicial ethics and the challenges social media poses for the judiciary south of the border.

He came armed with examples.

Last year, a Florida judge discovered jurors in a drug case were conducting Google searches on the lawyers and looking up news articles about the defendant. A mistrial was declared and an eight-week trial went out the window.

In Maryland, an appeal court tossed a first-degree murder conviction because the judge refused a defence request for a mistrial after two Wikipedia articles were found in the jury room on the subject of body temperature after death. Time of death had been a contentious and crucial issue during the trial.

Then there was the prospective juror who blogged: “Now I get to listen to the local riff-raff try and convince me of their innocence.”

Dixon told the Star he has had no such incidents in his court, where he delivers a “new type of jury instruction. I start at the very beginning. You can’t text, you can’t email, you can’t talk about the case or look up terms on the Internet. I have found it works.” He also warns jurors about the consequences of violating court orders, including possible jail terms and fines.