911 Callers Are a Joke in Broward County - suffers from an influx of foolish calls - one called to ask what day it was -

911 Callers Are a Joke in Broward County - suffers from an influx of foolish calls - one called to ask what day it was - 

It appears residents in Broward County have their definitions for "nonsense" and "emergency" mixed up.

According to the Broward Sheriff's Office call center, nearly half the 911 calls they receive are for things not quite a life or death situation - unless you consider a fast food order an emergency.

To paraphrase the immortal words of Flavor Flav, 911 callers are a joke in this town.

"My toilet's overflowing, what do I do? That's my personal favorite," BSO Sheriff Al Lamberti said.

While it's a stretch, a busted toilet at least could, conceivably, be considered an emergency. But there is no rationale for the number calls that sound something like this:

"I ordered chicken nuggets and they don't have chicken nuggets," one woman called 911 to report.

The fast food offenses are usually the most common and often the most annoying because people think it's really an emergency worthy of 911, one operator said.

"Screaming in my ear, 'I wanted the sausage, and he gave me the burrito!'" April McGill recalls from one call. "She's trying to force me to eat something off the menu that I don't want!"

The penal code hasn't quite addressed customer service in the fast food industry, but that hasn't stopped Broward residents from picking up the phone and calling the police. People have asked for police escorts, rides to the liquor store and instructions on how to make meatballs.

One woman even called to ask what day it was.

Meanwhile, real emergencies can suffer from an influx of foolish calls. Occasionally, the police do show up to help. Well, help that person into a pair of handcuffs and a jail cell.

Lamberti said there is a pretty easy rule to follow if you aren't sure if 911 is the right call for you.

"If it involves your toilet or your turkey that's a no-no," he said.

Or as one operator put it, "911 is if you're dying. Do you understand that?"

Read more - http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/911-Does-Not-Stand-for-Emergency-in-Broward-104294569.html?dr

Tesla Recalls Electric Cars Over Power-Cable Fire Risk - 12-volt cable had chafed against a panel causing short -

Tesla Recalls Electric Cars Over Power-Cable Fire Risk - 12-volt cable had chafed against a panel causing short -  





Tesla Motors Friday said it was recalling over 400 of its battery-powered Roadsters because of the risk that a power cable in the vehicle could short and catch fire.

Palo Alto, California-based Tesla said it had received a report of a single case where a 12-volt cable in the vehicle had chafed against a panel in the vehicle, causing it to short.

The cable then began smoking and may have caught fire in an area behind the front headlamp, Tesla said.

The 12-volt cable targeted under the recall supplies power to a number of auxiliary systems in the vehicle, including its lights, turn signals and airbags, Tesla said.

Tesla [TSLA  20.60    0.195  (+0.96%)   ] has begun to notify Roadster owners of the defect.

The company plans to dispatch its service teams to the homes or offices of owners to complete the needed repair.

That will involve checking the placement of the cable and then installing a protective sleeve over it to keep it from shorting, Tesla said.

The recall is the second for Tesla on its Roadster, a $109,000 car on a Lotus platform that is powered by a battery pack stitched together from over 6,800 laptop batteries.

Tesla said the recall announced Friday would affect 439 Roadsters sold under the 2.0 and 2.5 model names.

The recall does not involve the main battery pack or power system on the Roadster, Tesla said.

U.S. safety regulators have been notified of the recall, Tesla said.

It was the second recall ever for the Roadster and the first since the company's June IPO. In 2009, Tesla announced a recall for 345 Roadsters because of a potential handling issue caused by a manufacturing problem at Lotus.

Tesla has a deal to supply batteries for an all-electric version of the Toyota RAV4 [TM  71.80    0.22  (+0.31%)   ] expected to launch in 2012.

Managing the safety of the power systems needed to drive a coming wave of electric vehicles has been a major focus for automakers including Tesla, General Motors and Nissan Motor [NSANY  17.78    0.30  (+1.72%)   ].

Tesla on Friday ended trading up 1 percent at $20.60 per share. The stock is down almost 14 percent since its first full day of trading in June.

Read more - http://www.cnbc.com/id/39473900

Green comet 103P/Hartley 2 is approaching Earth for a close encounter on Oct. 20th -

Green comet 103P/Hartley 2 is approaching Earth for a close encounter on Oct. 20th - 




 Green comet 103P/Hartley 2 is approaching Earth for a close encounter on Oct. 20th. At that time, the comet will be only 11 million miles from Earth and should be dimly visible to the naked eye from dark sky sites. It already looks great through backyard telescopes:






Amateur astronomer Rolando Ligustri took this picture on Oct. 1st using a 14-inch Global Rent-a-Scope in New Mexico. It shows Comet Hartley beside the spectacularPacman Nebula (NGC 281), a star-forming cloud some ten thousand light years from Earth. "This is a very nice comet for telescopes and binoculars," says Martin Gembec who took a similar picture from his backyard observatory in the Czech Republic last night. "It has a [green atmosphere] almost 0.5 degrees wide and shines like a 7th magnitude star."
Two weeks after Comet Hartley has its close encounter with Earth, NASA will have a close encounter with the comet. The EPOXI spacecraft (formerly known as Deep Impact) is hurtling toward Comet Hartley now, and on Nov. 4th it will fly 435 miles from the comet's active icy nucleus. The encounter will mark only the fifth time in history that a spacecraft has been close enough to image a comet's core.
Until then, amateur astronomers can monitor the comet as it glides through the constellation Cassiopeia in the evening sky. A finder chart from Sky and Telescopeshows the comet passing by a variety of stars and deep-sky objects, offering many photo-ops in the nights ahead.
more images: from Dale Ireland of Silverdale, Washington; from Kevin Black of Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada; from Alan Dyer of near Cluny, Alberta, Canada


Read more - http://spaceweather.com/

$27 million to change NYC signs from ALL-CAPS - will have 11,000 done by end of this fiscal year, rest finished by 2018 -

$27 million to change NYC signs from ALL-CAPS - will have 11,000 done by end of this fiscal year, rest finished by 2018 - 

The Capital of the World is going lower-case.

Federal copy editors are demanding the city change its 250,900 street signs -- such as these for Perry Avenue in The Bronx -- from the all-caps style used for more than a century to ones that capitalize only the first letters.

Changing BROADWAY to Broadway will save lives, the Federal Highway Administration contends in its updated Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, citing improved readability.

At $110 per sign, it will also cost the state $27.6 million, city officials said.

"We have already started replacing the signs in The Bronx," city Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan told The Post. 'We will have 11,000 done by the end of this fiscal year, and the rest finished by 2018."

It appears e.e. cummings was right to eschew capital letters, federal officials explain.

Studies have shown that it is harder to read all-caps signs, and those extra milliseconds spent staring away from the road have been shown to increase the likelihood of accidents, particularly among older drivers, federal documents say.

The new regulations also require a change in font from the standard highway typeface to Clearview, which was specially developed for this purpose.

As a result, even numbered street signs will have to be replaced.

"Safety is this department's top priority," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said last year, in support of the new guidelines. "These new and updated standards will help make our nation's roads and bridges safer for drivers, construction workers and pedestrians alike."

The Highway Administration acknowledged that New York and other states "opposed the change, and suggested that the use of all upper-case letters remain an option," noting that "while the mixed-case words might be easier to read, the amount of improvement in legibility did not justify the cost."

To compensate for those concerns, in 2003, the administration allowed for a 15-year

phase-in period ending in 2018.

Although the city did not begin replacing the signs until earlier this year, Sadik-Khan said they will have no trouble meeting the deadline, as some 8,000 signs a year are replaced annually simply due to wear and tear.

The new diminutive signs, which will also feature new reflective sheeting, may also reflect a kinder, gentler New York, she said.

"On the Internet, writing in all caps means you are shouting," she said. "Our new signs can quiet down, as well."

Read more - http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/million_kuj8X4Z2VolVhXnCymfkvM

NFLer’s charity hotline phone number points callers to sex line - 800-prefixes mixed up - should begin with 888 - oops -

NFLer’s charity hotline phone number points callers to sex line - 800-prefixes mixed up - should begin with 888 - oops - 

Cincinnati Bengal Chad Ochocinco has never been big on good intentions. And then when he finally tries them out, they end up going all “road to hell” on him.

A few weeks ago, the gleeful NFL villain debuted his own cereal line in Cincinnati – OCHOCINCOs. The breakfast treat was designed in part to push support to the player’s pet charity, called Feed the Children.

On Thursday morning, the cereal was pulled from shelves after an area parent attempted to call the toll-free number on the box – 1-800-HELP-FTC.

When Tara Sand called, she got the following message: “Wanna get off with the sluttiest girls your imagination can dream up?”

Cringingly, someone got their 800-prefixes mixed up. Instead of the charity hotline, the number directs callers to a sex chat line. The correct number begins with 888.

“You do have to admit it is kind of funny. When we dialed it for the second time, I sat there and thought 'are you kidding me?' Nobody has found this yet?” Sand told Cincinnati’s WCPO.

Reached by the Cincinnati Enquirer, Ochocinco said he regretted the mistake.

"I really do apologize," Ochocinco told the Enquirer on Thursday. "Some people got a laugh out of it, others are upset."

Read more - http://www.thestar.com/sports/football/nfl/article/868449--nfler-s-charity-drive-points-parents-to-sex-line

Navy's new $2 billion nuclear subs, super-stealth coating falls apart - Cheapened by Chintzy Coating -

Navy's new $2 billion nuclear subs, super-stealth coating falls apart - Cheapened by Chintzy Coating - 








Of all the complicated gadgets in the Pentagon's arsenal, a nuclear submarine is one that probably shouldn't be built on the cheap. Yet according to military analysts, that's precisely what the Navy and two defense contractors did with a series of $2 billion attack subs, and now they're literally dropping chunks of their protective skins into the briny deep.

The problem afflicts the Navy's growing fleet of Virginia-class subs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_class_submarine), high-tech boats longer than a football field and armed with a dozen Tomahawk cruise missles.

The subs are coated with a "special hull treatment," urethane tiles that are supposed to make them super-stealthy, reducing their noise underwater and absorbing sonar impulses. As these photographs show,

Link to photos and additional info:
http://nextnavy.com/virginia-class-when-does-hull-coating-separation-endanger-the-boat/

and as the Pentagon's top weapons inspector has reported, the tiles have been peeling off of the subs while they're at sea, often in large sections. So far, missing tiles have been documented on four of the Navy's seven , the first of which launched in 2003.

The disappearing tiles won't sink the subs, but they could seriously impede their primary mission—to run silent and run deep without being detected. "When pieces of the hull coating fall off, the sub gets noisier because it interrupts the water flow over the hull," Norman Polmar, a defense analyst who literally wrote the book on Navy subs, explained to the Newport News, Virginia, Daily Press. "When you put more noise in the water, you're easier to detect." A blogger at Halibut Hangar, which discusses submarine systems, puts it more bluntly: "The submarine platform may purr like a kitten when delivered and roar like a lion after a subsystem failure."

How could one of the world's most advanced pieces of military machinery be laid low by something so basic? Officers and contractors may have been cutting corners when the subs were built, says Craig Hooper, a San Francisco-based security strategist who's been tracking the Virginia-class woes on his blog Next Navy. "The demand to build this submarine in a fast, cost-effective way led them to skip some steps that should have been in the process," he says. "They've got this beautiful, fantastic vessel, and they just covered it in a Wal-Mart tarp."

In 2004, the Navy estimated that it needed 55 nuclear subs to keep up with the rest of the world's navies (never mind that the costly and top-secret Cold War battle for underseas supremacy was well over). To meet that ambitious goal, it kicked up production and broke with its long-standing practice of using one contractor per boat by splitting the work on its new Virginia-class subs between two shipbuilders, Northrop Grumman's yard in Newport News and General Dynamics' Electric Boat Co. in Groton, Connecticut. It also put a premium on building quickly and inexpensively, pressing for a goal of "two for four in twelve": putting two subs into service every year, for $4 billion a year, every year until 2012.

Members of Congress and Navy brass have touted the Virginia program as a paragon of cost-effectiveness. But according to a Congressional Research Service report (http://www.fas.org/man/crs/RL32418.pdf ) on the program, the time and financial pressure put on the shipbuilders may have had unintended consequences, such as "production inefficiencies and higher costs." And in a recent memo (https://dap.dau.mil/policy/Documents/Policy/State%20of%20Reliability%20-%20DOT%20and%20E%2030%20June%202010.pdf), J. Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation, has criticized the Virginia-class subs for "multiple 'fail to sail' issues." Gilmore, the nation's top weapons inspector, cited the program as an example of widespread shoddy weapons manufacturing, warning that unreliable equipment "can essentially render weapons useless."

The Navy has been slow to say much about the problem. When it has, it's contradicted itself. Sailors who work in the office of the Virginia program initially told media that the hull-splitting issue came to light in 2006; they later claimed that it first popped up in 2007, immediately after a brand-new sub was delivered with its skin peeling. The Navy also asserts that only three subs—the USS Virginia, Texas, and North Carolina—have succumbed to hull decay. But Hooper brought the service's attention to its own public affairs photos, which show damage on the USS Hawaii as well. In response, the Navy said that the peeling tiles were part of normal wear and tear. Hooper says the photos of the Hawaii, which was peeling after a routine 10-day voyage, prove otherwise. "The program office is saying this happens over years. It doesn't."

Asked for comment, Northrop and General Dynamics—two of the military's largest vendors—both referred questions to the Navy.

Military analyst Hooper doubts the Navy can be trusted to face up to the seriousness of the problem. "If the Virginia-class program office cannot muster the cojones to even recognize a problem that is staring 'em in the face, how in the heck is the rest of Big Navy going to muster the will to get the problem solved?" he asks. "This lack of intestinal fortitude will, in a shooting war, get our sailors killed."

Read more - http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/09/navy-submarine-virginia-hull-problem

Abandon Ship! Three Deadliest Catch Captains Leaving Show - they are leaving the show, due to litigation with Discovery

Abandon Ship! Three Deadliest Catch Captains Leaving Show - they are leaving the show, due to litigation with Discovery-





There's a storm hitting the hit Discovery show Deadliest Catch. 

Three of the programs stars, captains Sig Hansen and Johnathan and Andy Hillstrand, are retiring – from reality TV. 

The three crab fishermen are leaving the show, due to litigation with Discovery, they tell theHollywood Reporter. 

"We have been through a lot over the past year and unfortunately given the current situation with Discovery we are unable to continue participating inDeadliest Catch, they said in a joint statement. 

The network sued the Hillstrand brothers for $3 million in September, claiming they failed to finish production on their planned spin-off, Hillstranded. 

"It has been a fantastic ride, and we wish the best to all of the amazing and supportive Catch fans we have met over the years," the captains added. 

Their departure comes after a highly emotional season, which documented the death of beloved Captain Phil Harris, who died of stroke complications at 53. 

Harris's sons, Josh and Jake Harris, plan to return to the show for season seven. 

"Both boys are eager as ever to get back to fishing with their crew on board the Cornelia Marie," Jake's rep, Russ Herriott, tells PEOPLE. "Josh and Jake hate to see what is going on at this time. The Hansens and Hillstrands are close friends and part of the crab fishing brotherhood and it is sad to see that they have chosen this path to leave the show." 


Read more - http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20430353,00.html

United States Mint has depleted its inventory of 2010 American Buffalo One Ounce Gold Bullion Coins

United States Mint has depleted its inventory of 2010 American Buffalo One Ounce Gold Bullion Coins

The U.S. Mint has run out of a type of highly pure gold coin it had been selling amid record high prices of gold.

The mint said it will not stock more of the 1-ounce, 24-karat American Buffalo bullion coins.

"The United States Mint has depleted its inventory of 2010 American Buffalo One Ounce Gold Bullion Coins," the Mint said in a statement, seen by Reuters on Monday.

Officials at the Mint could not immediately be reached for comment.

Gold prices have hit record highs over the last two weeks, breaching $1,300 an ounce, as investors bought into the precious metal on global economic health worries and possibilities of more U.S. stimulus programs that could weaken the U.S. dollar.

In Monday's trade, New York's most active gold futures contract, December, settled up 50 cents at $1,298.60 per ounce, after rising to $1,301.30. Spot gold, which reflects the price of bullion, hit a high of $1,300 against the $1,295.60 level quoted in New York late on Friday.

This year alone, gold prices have risen more than 18 percent. Fund managers and industry experts think the rally has further to run in the longer term as gold provides a hedge against inflation amid expectations that central banks worldwide could resort to more monetary easing to support their economies.

The Mint said on its website that the American Buffalo Gold Bullion Coins -- authorized by Congress in 2005 and first minted in June 2006 -- were "among the world's purest gold coins in terms of the fineness of the metal they contain".

Each coin contains a full 24-karat of purity, the Mint said.

Read more - http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/mint-runs-buffalo-gold-coins/

US Seizes 3 Failing Corporate Credit Unions - were critically undercapitalized - cost the industry between $7 to $9 billion -

US Seizes 3 Failing Corporate Credit Unions - were critically undercapitalized -  cost the industry between $7 to $9 billion - 

U.S. regulators seized three corporate credit unions on Friday and will repackage about $50 billion in troubled assets from these and previous seizures to sell on the open market.

The National Credit Union Administration said the three corporate credit unions, which provide clearing services to retail credit unions, were critically undercapitalized.

Barclays Capital will manage the securitization plan, the regulator said. A securitization trust will be created to issue about $35 billion in guaranteed notes backed by the government, a process likely to start in October, the NCUA said.

"This approach is best for taxpayers, consumers and credit unions," NCUA Chairman Debbie Matz said.

Matz said the agency also put in place on Friday regulations requiring corporate credit unions to hold higher levels of capital and setting risk limits.

The institutions seized on Friday were Members United Corporate Federal Credit Union of Warrenville, Illinois; Southwest Corporate Federal Credit Union of Plano, Texas; and Constitution Corporate Federal Credit Union of Wallingford, Connecticut. Matz said combined they had about $16 billion in assets.

The seizures come after the NCUA last year took over two other such institutions: U.S. Central Corporate Federal Credit Union of Kansas and Western Corporate Federal Credit Union of California.

Corporate credit unions are the retail credit union's credit union, providing services including lending, and check and payment clearance services.

The wholesale credit unions have experienced more troubles than their retail counterparts because they did not face the same restrictions on permitted investments, leading to big losses during the financial crisis.

The $50 billion in troubled assets comes from all five credit unions and is mostly in the form of mortgage-backed securities.

Matz said 70 percent of all assets held by corporate credit unions are now under conservatorship.

The seizure of the five firms will ultimately cost the industry between $7 to $9 billion, she said, and NCUA will collect this amount from credit unions over the next 10 years. Taxpayers will not have to foot any of the bill, she added.

Read more - http://www.cnbc.com/id/39351472