XIAM007 - Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

Tuesday, 5 July 2011

New Yorkers: Beware of 'Monster' Plant Causing Blisters, Blindness -

A monster plant with flowers the size of umbrellas and sap that causes blisters and blindness is spreading across New York.
It's the giant hogweed, an invasive species, and the Department of Environmental Conservation is asking for help locating outbreaks so they can send crews to nip it in the bud.
The agency has a Giant Hogweed Hotline at 845-256-3111 for people to call and report sightings. Callers are asked to provide photos and site information, but avoid touching the plant.
This is DEC's fourth year of controlling giant hogweed. Six crews totaling 14 people will visit most of the 944 known giant hogweed sites.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/07/05/new-yorkers-beware-monster-plant-causing-blisters-blindness/?test=latestnews

You've heard of drunk dialing and drunk Facebooking, but drunk puppy buying? now Drunk puppy buying customers Banned -

You've heard of drunk dialing and drunk Facebooking, but drunk puppy buying?

Inebritated passers-by are falling in love with playful pooches frolicking in the window of a West Village pet store, and the problem has become so bad the owner has banned them from taking the pets home.

"I feel like they always come in drunk," said Fernanda Moritz, the manager of Le Petite Puppy at 18 Christopher St. which has implemented a policy against letting customers buy — or even hold — animals if they've been drinking.

The shop is surrounded by bars, and Moritz said many of her would-be customers stop in after happy hour around 6 p.m.

"They come from there and say 'let's stop by to see the puppies,'" said Moritz.

Amazingly the store, which has supplied puppies to celebrities including Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Jackman, isn't the only one in the neighborhood forced to implement the ban.

Christopher Street's Citipups also forbids intoxicated customers from purchasing puppies after watching too many booze-fueled purchases go bad.

Moritz recalled selling a Chihuahua some years ago to a woman she thought might have been drunk, only to have the dog returned the next day — in a near-dead state.

"We took it to the vet and he found five pills in the dog's stomach," she said. "It almost overdosed."

The Chihuahua's stomach was pumped, and it survived.

Now Moritz and her staff are always on the lookout for intoxicated customers and won't even let those they suspect are drunk hold the puppies to keep them from being dropped.

Moritz says the situation is an occupational hazard of working on a strip well known for bars and boozy brunches.

The adorable sight of furry faces in the window and the effects of alcohol can be a bad combination, Moritz said.

Further west on Christopher Street, Leandro Jacoby, the 28-year-old manager of Citipups also had to make judgment calls on the sobriety of some of his customers.

Citipups — located next to the Stonewall Inn and Duplex at 45 Christopher St. — has come up with a creative way to test whether a customer is serious about the purchase.

"We have to tell them to come back the next day and most of the time they never come back," Jacoby said.

20 Not So Good Categories That The United States Leads The World In -

20 Not So Good Categories That The United States Leads The World In -
Publish Post

Is the United States “number one”? Many Americans take deep pride in their nation and the truth is that the U.S. has a lot going for it. The United States has the largest economy in the world. The United States also has the most powerful military on the entire planet. The United States has produced most of the greatest movies that the world has ever seen. But the United States is also number one in a lot of categories that are not go great. If we ever want to turn this country around, we need to be very honest with ourselves. We need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and realize that it is not a good thing that we are number one in divorce, drug addiction, debt, obesity, car thefts, murders and total crimes. We have become a slothful, greedy, decadent nation that is exhibiting signs of advanced decay. Until we understand just how bad our problems really are, we won’t be able to come up with the solutions that we need.
A lot of people that write articles like this have a deep hatred for America. But that is not the case with me. I love the United States. I love the American people. America is like an aging, bloated rock star that has become addicted to a dozen different drugs. America is a shadow of its former self and it desperately needs to wake up before it plunges into oblivion.
If you do not believe that America is in bad shape, just read the list below. The following are 20 not so good categories that the United States leads the world in….
#1 The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the largest total prison population on the entire globe.
#2 According to NationMaster.com, the United States has the highest percentage of obese people in the world.
#3 The United States has the highest divorce rate on the globe by a wide margin.
#4 The United States is tied with the U.K. for the most hours of television watched per person each week.
#5 The United States has the highest rate of illegal drug use on the entire planet.
#6 There are more car thefts in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world by far.
#7 There are more reported rapes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.
#8 There are more reported murders in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.
#9 There are more total crimes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.
#10 The United States also has more police officers than anywhere else in the world.
#11 The United States spends much more on health care as a percentage of GDP than any other nation on the face of the earth.
#12 The United States has more people on pharmaceutical drugs than any other country on the planet.
#13 The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higherthan in any other country in the world.
#14 Americans have more student loan debt than anyone else in the world.
#15 More pornography is created in the United States than anywhere else on the entire globe. 89 percent is made in the U.S.A. and only 11 percent is made in the rest of the world.
#16 The United States has the largest trade deficit in the world every single year. Between December 2000 and December 2010, the United States ran a total trade deficit of 6.1 trillion dollars with the rest of the world, and the U.S. has had a negative trade balance every single year since 1976.
#17 The United States spends 7 times more on the military than any other nation on the planet does. In fact, U.S. military spending is greater than the military spending of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATOcombined.
#18 The United States has far more foreign military bases than any other country does.
#19 The United States has the most complicated tax system in the entire world.
#20 The U.S. has accumulated the biggest national debt that the world has ever seen and it is rapidly getting worse. Right now, U.S. government debt is expanding at a rate of $40,000 per second.

Read more -
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/number-one-20-not-so-good-categories-that-the-united-states-leads-the-world-in

Monday, 4 July 2011

NYC rationing toilet paper at Coney Island - the city is so hard up for cash - Hey buddy, can you spare a square? -

Hey buddy, can you spare a square?

The city is so hard up for cash that it's rationing toilet paper in women's public restrooms -- to the point where bathroom attendants are doling out a few measly squares per patron -- along the world-famous Coney Island boardwalk.

The Post witnessed stone-faced Parks Department employees leave toilet-paper dispensers empty last week and instead force astonished female beachgoers to form "ration lines" in the bathrooms.

Regina Ballone, 25, of Brooklyn visited a boardwalk bathroom at West 16th Street Wednesday and was "grossed out" at the thought of someone else handling her toilet paper.

"Never in my life have I experienced anything like this," she said. "I walked toward a stall, and a bathroom attendant stopped me by shouting, 'Hey, mami! There's no toilet paper here,' and she whipped out a big roll for me to grab some."

Beachgoers also have been forced to line up for their paltry allotment of the city's cheap, single-ply toilet paper at the boardwalk's other women's restroom at Stillwell Avenue.

Benedikte Friis and Ann Damgaard, both 22, from Denmark, said they enjoyed visiting Coney Island last week -- except when it came to the bathrooms.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/ed_off_over_coney_tp_ration_ZLxvCQtk7PMMJa8wPtA39J#ixzz1R91vhVQU

Sunday, 3 July 2011

New graphic cigarette warning labels having the desired effect: Calls to a national smoker's quit line doubled -

New graphic new cigarette warning labels may already be having the desired effect: Calls to a national smoker's quit line more than doubled the day they hit the media.

The warning labels won't appear on cigarettes until next year, but were unveiled to the media last week.
Calls to the national 1-800-QUIT-NOW smoking cessation line surpassed 4,800 that Tuesday and 3,200 the next day. A typical Tuesday or Wednesday in June sees about 2,000 calls.
The new labels replace the traditional small, white "Surgeon General's Warning" text strips with graphic photograph warnings that cover the entire top half of each cigarette pack.
Read more -
http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/story/2011/07/Quit-line-calls-spike-after-cigarette-labels-debut/49023684/1

Web site lets you check your Facebook at work without the worry of prying eyes - poses as an Excel spreadsheet -

Web site HardlyWork.in lets you check your Facebook Newsfeed at work without the worry of prying eyes with a clever interface that poses as an Excel spreadsheet.

Just go to the site and give it access to your Facebook account, it populates a pedestrian-looking spreadsheet with your Facebook newsfeed. No eye-catching logos, sound effects, or chat windows will mar your appearance of diligent productivity. You will be able to browse your photo albums, so be careful as pictures can be eye-catching to that work busybody that always seems to be walking by your cubicle.

You can hover your mouse over comments and Likes, which give you more information and thumbnail previews when you do. You can even activate a "Bosskey" (the space bar) that acts as an emergency kill switch and will kick you immediately into a more real-looking spreadsheet should you need to look like you're doing legitimate work in a hurry.

Thursday, 30 June 2011

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has signaled he’s considering leaving after Congress raises the federal debt limit -

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has signaled to White House officials that he’s considering leaving the administration after President Barack Obama reaches an agreement with Congress to raise the federal debt limit, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Geithner hasn’t made a final decision and won’t do so until the debt-ceiling issue has been resolved, according to one of the people. All spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about private discussions.

The Treasury secretary has said that the U.S. risks defaulting on its obligations if Congress doesn’t raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by Aug. 2. The administration and Republicans in Congress are at an impasse in negotiations to raise the limit, which is tied to efforts to cut the nation’s long-term deficit.

Moody’s Investors Service said on June 2 that it expects to place the U.S. government’s Aaa credit rating under review for a possible downgrade if there’s no progress on the debt limit by mid-July. Fitch Ratings said June 21 it would place the U.S. on a negative rating watch if no action is taken by Aug. 2.

An exit by Geithner would complete the turnover in Obama’s original economic team, with Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Austan Goolsbee scheduled to leave in early August to return to the University of Chicago.

Political Impact

That would leave Obama with two key posts to fill as Republicans are seeking to turn the 2012 election into a referendum on Obama’s handling of the economy and as the recovery is slowing. Theunemployment rate rose to 9.1 percent in May, according to the Labor Department, and the economy grew at a 1.9 percent pace in the first quarter, according to Commerce Department figures released June 24.

Jen Psaki, a White House spokeswoman, declined to comment.

New San Francisco bridge built in China to be shipped to US -

Next month, four enormous steel skeletons, the last of the 12 segments of the bridge, will be shipped 6,500 miles from Shanghai to San Francisco before being assembled on site.

The bridge, which will connect San Francisco to Oakland on the other side of the bay, is a sign of how China has moved on from building roads and ports in Africa and the developing world and is now aggressively bidding for, and winning, major construction and engineering projects in the United States and Europe.

After building forests of skyscrapers in Beijing and Shanghai, showpiece buildings like the Bird's Nest stadium and the Guangzhou Opera House, and a high-speed rail network that is the envy of the world, Chinese construction companies are flush with cash and confidence. This week, Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, lobbied David Cameron to give the contract for the UK's new high speed rail link to a Chinese company.

According to Engineering News Record, five of the world's top 10 contractors, in terms of revenue, are now Chinese, with likes of China State Construction Engineering Group (CSCEC) overtaking established American giants like Bechtel.

TSA FAIL: Nigerian Man Flies From NY to LA With Fake ID, Day-Old Boarding Pass...-

CBS News has confirmed that authorities are looking into a shocking security breach that took place at John F. Kennedy International Airport last week.

Investigators say Olajide Oluwaseun Noibi, a Nigerian, boarded Virgin America Flight 415 to Los Angeles without a valid passport or identification, using an expired boarding pass for a flight the day before that belonged to someone else.

Officials say Noibi got through security and was able to board the plane. No one noticed until the flight was airborne when a flight attendant realized Noibi was sitting in a seat that was supposed to be vacant.

He showed the attendant the expired boarding pass that was in someone else’s name and then showed him a University of Michigan identification card with his picture on it.

'To Catch a Predator' Host Chris Hansen Caught in Cheating Sting - caught cheating on wife with 30 year old ex intern -

Chris Hansen, the NBC anchor famous for snagging Internet pedophiles on the show 'To Catch a Predator' has found himself in the center of an ironic scandal, The London Daily Mail reports.
Hansen, 51 has allegedly been having an affair with Kristyn Caddell, a 30-year-old TV Reporter from Florida.
Hansen was caught in a sting organized by the National Enquirer as he was having a romantic dinner with Caddell at the Ritz-Carlton in Palm Beach. After dinner, the pair then drove to her apartment where they were seen leaving together the next morning.
A source says that Caddell is a former intern at NBC and 'there was an immediate physical attraction between them' when they met.
Hansen lives with his wife Mary, 53 in Connecticut but reportedly has been spending time in Florida on a disappearance investigation.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/06/30/to-catch-predator-host-caught-cheating/?test=latestnews