XIAM007 - Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

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."

Saturday, 30 October 2010

U.S. govt has revealed that it spent an astounding $80.1 B last year on intelligence -

Now that that the U.S. government has revealed that it spent an astounding $80.1 billion last year on intelligence the veteran lawmaker responsible for oversight of the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies vows to cut waste.

This may cause some Americans to wonder what California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and her colleagues on the panel have been doing. While the nation’s intelligence gathering budget has surged drastically, the committee has evidently failed to scrutinize the numbers.

Perhaps that’s because the official figures have not been available to the public for more than a decade because U.S. intelligence agencies have long argued that disclosing their budget appropriations would compromise national security and jeopardize sources. However, this week the government decided to share with taxpayers that in the fiscal year that just ended, more than $80 billion went to intelligence. That means the intelligence budget has doubled since 2001 and practically tripled in the last 12 years.

The figure exceeds the fiscal 2011 budget for the Department of Homeland Security ($44 billion) and the Justice Department ($29.2 billion) combined. Feinstein, who also sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, quickly threatened to “carefully” review the intelligence budget and “identify and remove any waste and unnecessary duplication.” She added that intelligence spending has “blossomed to an unacceptable level in the past decade.”

The nation’s 16 intelligence agencies include the National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, which serves the Pentagon. Feinstein’s committee is charged with providing vigilant legislative oversight over all of the agencies’ activities and assuring that they conform to U.S. laws. Now word on what the 2011 intelligence budget might be.

Laptops might be damaging sperm - Being close to heat or other radiation from the devices seems to undermine the quality -

They are a fixture of modern human existence, but laptop computers may actually be limiting propagation of the species, suggest two new studies, one of them Canadian.

Being close to heat or other radiation from the devices seems to undermine the quality of sperm in some instances, possibly hindering fertility as a result, the research from Toronto and Argentina concluded.

The small Canadian study found that sperm exposed in a laboratory to a laptop computer had lower levels of motility — the capacity to squirm toward eggs and start the reproductive process — than unexposed sperm.

The Argentine research, presented this week at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference in Denver, found reductions in motility and potentially more serious DNA damage for sperm kept close to a laptop — and suggested WiFi radio waves were to blame.

The findings are preliminary but Dr. Sergey Moskovtsev, a male-fertility expert who did one of the studies at Toronto’s CReATe fertility clinic, said he suspects computers are one of a number of factors in modern life that are feeding high levels of infertility.

Although there is no conclusive evidence yet that laptops cause sperm damage, Dr. Moskovtsev, who is also a scientist at Mount Sinai Hospital, suggested men limit use of them.

“It’s our culture right now. Everything is computerized, you shop by going online, you can go to school online,” he said. “I think it has to be a healthy balance between the virtual world and reality.... Right now, it’s really over the top, the use of computers.”

The new findings follow on an American study published in 2004, which concluded that using a laptop computer for an hour raised the temperature of the scrotum by close to three degrees. Heat is known to compromise sperm production and quality.

The paper Dr. Moskovtsev and colleagues presented at the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society conference earlier this month suggested the sperm changes were a result of thermal radiation — heat — meaning that keeping the computer off the lap might avoid problems. But he said it is possible that other factors are at play.

His study, not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal, took semen samples from 15 patients and placed some under a device that kept the heat at average scrotum temperature and others under a laptop, finding the difference in motility. The laptop heat was not linked, however, to anther type of sperm damage, called DNA fragmentation, that might affect the health of the resulting offspring as well as ability to conceive.

Dr. Moskovtsev’s team is conducting a further study on the impact of laptops on the semen of men who already have fertility problems, speculating their sperm is more likely to suffer DNA harm from computers.

The Argentine study, headed by Dr. Conrado Avendaño of the Nascentis reproductive medical centre in the city of Cordoba, compared semen incubated for four hours with no computer nearby, and for four hours close to a laptop. They found the computer sperm had lower motility and more DNA fragmentation.

“We speculate that keeping the laptops [in WiFi mode] on the lap near the testes may result in decreased male fertility,” the scientists say in a summary of the research.

Dr. Moskovtsev said he believes that male infertility generally — which accounts for 50% of reproductive problems faced by couples — has been given short shrift by the medical-scientific community. A number of unknown environmental factors may be affecting sperm, he said, citing a Florida study that found crocodiles living near a plastics plant had unusually small pensises.

“Everyone is talking about the female factor. It’s like in the old days: everyone would blame the wife that she could not get pregnant,” he said. “We have to educate not only our patients, but also our physicians because ... we sometimes see that someone has treated a female [for infertility] for years, but no one checked the guy.”