The biggest Burmese python ever caught in Florida - 17 feet, 7 inches long and 164½ pounds - found in Everglades -

 The biggest Burmese python ever caught in Florida - 17 feet, 7 inches long and 164½ pounds - found in Everglades - 



The biggest Burmese python ever caught in Florida — 17 feet, 7 inches long and 164½ pounds — was found in Everglades National Park, the University of Florida announced Monday.
The snake was pregnant with 87 eggs, also said to be a record. Scientists said the python's stats show just how pervasive the invasive snakes, which are native to Southeast Asia, have become in South Florida.
"It means these snakes are surviving a long time in the wild," said Kenneth Krysko, a snake expert at the Florida Museum of Natural History, where the euthanized snake was brought. "'There's nothing stopping them and the native wildlife are in trouble."
The python had feathers in its stomach that scientists plan to use to identify the types of wildlife it was eating.
"A 17½-foot snake could eat anything it wants," Krysko said.
Tens of thousands of Burmese pythons are believed to be living in the Everglades, where they thrive in the warm, humid climate. While many were apparently released by their owners, others may have escaped from pet shops during Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and have been reproducing ever since.
The snakes kill their prey by coiling around it and suffocating it. They have been known to swallow animals as large as deer and alligators.
Authorities have taken repeated steps to try and reduce the python problem, banning their importation and allowing them to be hunted. But those efforts have done little to reduce the population.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/08/13/17-foot-long-burmese-python-caught-in-everglades/

Russian nuclear attack sub patrolled Gulf of Mexico undetected... - and operated undetected for several weeks -

Russian nuclear attack sub patrolled Gulf of Mexico undetected... - and operated undetected for several weeks - 



A Russian nuclear-powered attack submarine armed with long-range cruise missiles operated undetected in the Gulf of Mexico for several weeks and its travel in strategic U.S. waters was only confirmed after it left the region, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

It is only the second time since 2009 that a Russian attack submarine has patrolled so close to U.S. shores.

The stealth underwater incursion in the Gulf took place at the same time Russian strategic bombers made incursions into restricted U.S. airspace near Alaska and California in June and July, and highlights a growing military assertiveness by Moscow.

The submarine patrol also exposed what U.S. officials said were deficiencies in U.S. anti-submarine warfare capabilities—forces that are facing cuts under the Obama administration’s plan to reduce defense spending by $487 billion over the next 10 years.

The Navy is in charge of detecting submarines, especially those that sail near U.S. nuclear missile submarines, and uses undersea sensors and satellites to locate and track them.

The fact that the Akula was not detected in the Gulf is cause for concern, U.S. officials said.

The officials who are familiar with reports of the submarine patrol in the Gulf of Mexico said the vessel was a nuclear-powered Akula-class attack submarine, one of Russia’s quietest submarines.

A Navy spokeswoman declined to comment.

Read more - 
http://freebeacon.com/silent-running/

Executive Branch Porn Problem - the epidemic of U.S. government employees viewing porn on government networks -

Executive Branch Porn Problem - the epidemic of U.S. government employees viewing porn on government networks - 



Allen W. Dulles, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) wrote in “The Craft of Intelligence,” “sex and hard-headed intelligence operations rarely mix well.” Perhaps the boys at the Pentagon need a refresher course.

This past week, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency warned its staff not to view porn on U.S. government computers. The Pentagon also released a report on April’s Secret Service Colombian scandal. The two are connected.

In April, I said the Colombian scandal exposed a national security problem, the epidemic of U.S. government employees viewing porn — child porn — on government networks. I suggested readers type “Transportation Security Administration,” “U.S. State Department,” “Pentagon,” “Immigration and Customs Enforcement” and “child porn” into Google’s search field to understand the scope. I neglected to include “Missile Defense Agency.”

Bloomberg quotes a cybersecurity expert saying the Missile Defense Agency’s use of porn is concerning because “many pornographic websites are infected and criminals and foreign intelligence services such as Russia’s use them to gain access and harvest data.”

The only possible response is: Duh.

In 2006, the deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security was arrested for trying to seduce online someone he thought was a teenage girl. Four years later, the Securities and Exchange Commission found that 17 of 31 employees caught accessing porn at work since 2008 — one for up to eight hours a day — were senior staff.

In 2010, the Boston Globe reported that senior Pentagon staff were downloading child porn. Instead of generating a media storm, the story died. Senior staff were watching the sexual torture of small children on Pentagon computers, and Americans were not outraged?

The latest revelation of missile-defense staff using porn should have America extremely alarmed. It is not yet confirmed if child porn was involved.

Of the Colombian Secret Service scandal, Rep. Darrell E. Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, asked if women younger than 18 (i.e., trafficked children) were involved. Mr. Issa must demand to know the same of the Missile Defense Agency.

Read more - 
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/10/executive-branch-porn-problem/

Kangaroo escapes zoo with help of fox and boar... -

Kangaroo escapes zoo with help of fox and boar... - 



A kangaroo is on the run in Germany after breaking out of a wildlife park, with a fox and a wild boar as his suspected accomplices.

Michael Hoffmann, assistant head of the Hochwildschutzpark Hunsrück west of Frankfurt, said on Monday the male kangaroo was one of three that escaped overnight on Saturday with the inadvertent help of the menagerie that lives in the local woods.

Hoffmann said the kangaroos got out of their enclosure after a young fox snuck into the park and dug a hole next to the cage's fencing. Two of the three were then able to escape the park entirely through another hole dug by a wild boar under the exterior fence.

"We've got two of them back; now we're just looking for the third."

Read more - 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/13/kangaroo-escapes-fox-boar-germany

US. Gov't to buy $170M in Pork, Lamb, and Catfish to help drought-stricken farmers... -

US. Gov't to buy $170M in Pork, Lamb, and Catfish to help drought-stricken farmers... - 



President Barack Obama will announce on Monday that the Department of Agriculture intends to buy up to $170 million of pork, lamb, chicken and catfish to help support farmers suffering from the drought, a White House official said.
The food purchases will go toward "food nutrition assistance" programs, like food banks. 
During a visit to Iowa, a political swing state that the Democrat hopes to win in the Nov. 6 election, Obama will press Congress to pass a farm bill with short-term relief measures for the ranchers and farmers hurt by the drought. 
The president will also direct the Department of Defense to "encourage" its vendors to speed up purchases of lamb, pork and beef and freeze it for later use. 
"This is a win-win. Farmers and ranchers will have an opportunity to sell more of their products at this critical time and taxpayers will get a better price on food that would have been purchased later," the official said. 
"The president has directed his administration to continue exploring every possible avenue to provide relief to communities struggling with this historic natural disaster." 
Obama will tour an Iowa farm to view the effects of the drought. The state is one of a handful of political swing states, including Ohio, Florida, and Colorado, that could hold the key to victory in his race with Republican Mitt Romney for the White House.

Read more - 
http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/13/13250065-in-iowa-obama-to-announce-measures-to-soothe-drought-pain?lite

The Queen skips olympic ceremony - Queen praises athletes but will not be there -

The Queen skips olympic ceremony - Queen praises athletes but will not be there - 



In a message to British and Commonwealth athletes released by Buckingham Palace, the sovereign also thanked the volunteers who have given such a “warm welcome” to people from around the world.
The Queen will not attend tonight’s closing ceremony, as Buckingham Palace said there was no official role for a Head of State in the ceremony.
Instead, she is expected to watch it at Balmoral, where she and the Duke of Edinburgh are spending their traditional summer break before returning to London for the start of the Paralympic Games later this month.
Prince Harry, the Duchess of Cambridge and the Princess Royal will represent the Royal family at the Olympic Stadium.
The Queen wrote: “As the 2012 London Olympic Games come to a close, I offer my congratulations to the athletes of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, whose efforts across the range of Olympic disciplines have truly captured the public's imagination and earned their admiration.

Read more -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/queen-elizabeth-II/9470902/Olympics-closing-ceremony-Queen-praises-athletes-but-will-not-be-there.html

Paul Ryan: Former Wienermobile Driver, Future Vice President? -

Paul Ryan: Former Wienermobile Driver, Future Vice President? - 



With November's presidential election drawing close, the tickets are now set, with President Obama and Vice President Biden set to take on Gov. Mitt Romney and newly named Vice President nominee, Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan.

According to a report last year by National Public Radio, the 42-year-old Representative from Wisconsin has a few ties to the automotive world.

Ryan hails from Janesville, Wisconsin, the former home of a GM assembly plant that once built big trucks and SUVs. The plant, which had been assembling machinery of some kind since the early part of the 20th century, was closed at the end of 2008 as GM prepared to enter bankruptcy.

Earlier in that year, Ryan had voted in favor of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, a $700 billion spending program authorized by Congress to stabilize the banking industry as the nation plunged into financial crisis in the same year. Some of the TARP monies were used to invest in General Motors and Chrysler--and much of that money remains locked up in GM shares today. At current share prices, the GM shares would represent a loss of more than $17 billion--and some pundits credit the TARP program with creating the Tea Party conservative movement within Ryan's own Republican party.

But Ryan's deepest connection to the world of cars could be from his teenage years, when the Republican nominee for Vice President worked for Oscar Meyer. Ryan drove the Wienermobile--and as only NPR could observe from that remote province of America called Washington, D.C., "for those who've never seen it, it's a car shaped like a hot dog on a bun."

Read more -
http://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1078422_paul-ryan-former-wienermobile-driver-future-vice-president

'JPM's $150 Billion FDIC Reality Adjustment' - Just Admitted To The World JPM's Assets Are Overvalued By $150 Billion -

'JPM's $150 Billion FDIC Reality Adjustment' - Just Admitted To The World JPM's Assets Are Overvalued By $150 Billion - 



JPM’s $150 Billion FDIC Reality Adjustment

Reuters published an exclusive story this morning

U.S. banks told to make secret plans for preventing collapse
Buried in the final paragraph:

In a presentation in March, JPMorgan Chase said it had a recovery plan in place and said it was ordered by regulators. The presentation was organized by Harvard Law School and was closed to the media at the time, but is now available online.

Here’s the BEST part of the JPM document.

It’s easy to see on the PDF:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/about/pifs/symposia/europe/baer.pdf

Go to page 9.  Under the wipeout scenario JPM describes a $50 billion trading loss turning into a $200 billion loss as soon as the FDIC takes over.  Why… ? Because JPM says they would expect the FDIC to immediately writedown JPM’s assets by an additional $150 billion.

Holy mark to bullshit.  Jamie Dimon just admitted to the world that JPM is mis-marking assets to the tune of $150 billion.

It gets better. Go to page 10.  The chart shows that they only have $184 billion in equity, minus the $50 billion loss, minus ‘the $150 billion fdic reality adjustment’, which leaves them in a negative equity position of (-$16 billion).

So, we can extrapolate that without this phantom loss of $50 billion, JPM’s real equity position is just $34 billion currently, not the $184 billion on their books.

Read more -
http://www.blacklistednews.com/%27JPM%27s_%24150_Billion_FDIC_Reality_Adjustment%27_-_Jamie_Dimon_Just_Admitted_To_The_World_That_JPM%27s_Assets_Are_Overvalued_By_%24150_Billion/20969/0/38/38/Y/M.html

Study: Oral Sex Cures Morning Sickness - ingest the father’s semen to build up a tolerance to what’s already in her -

Study: Oral Sex Cures Morning Sickness - ingest the father’s semen to build up a tolerance to what’s already in her - 



Pregnant women have used natural remedies such as a teaspoon of ginger or a mint to help battle morning sickness. But now, one medical professional believes you can add oral sex to that list.

According to Gordon Gallup, a psychologist at SUNY-Albany, the best way to cure morning sickness during pregnancy is sperm.

But not just any sperm, it should be the sperm of the person who got you pregnant.

Gallup believes the reason a pregnant woman gets morning sickness is due to the unfamiliar semen in their body due to the pregnancy.

Gallup says in his findings that the woman’s body will initially reject the father’s semen as an infection and react to it by vomiting.

Gallup says the best cure for morning sickness is to ingest the father’s semen so her body can build up a tolerance to what’s already in her body.

Gallup agrees with the 2000 abstract from the National Center for Biotechnology Information, which showed that oral sex and swallowing sperm is correlated with a diminished occurrence of preeclampsia.

PubMed Health defines preeclampsia as when a pregnant woman develops high blood pressure and protein in the urine after the 20th week, which is usually in the late second or third trimester of pregnancy.

Read more - 
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/08/10/study-oral-sex-cures-morning-sickness/

In Israel, new modesty glasses for Orthodox Jewish men blur women out of their line of sight -

In Israel, new modesty glasses for Orthodox Jewish men blur women out of their line of sight - 


It’s the latest prescription for extreme ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who shun contact with the opposite sex: Glasses that blur their vision, so they don’t have to see women they consider to be immodestly dressed.
In an effort to maintain their strictly devout lifestyle, the ultra-Orthodox have separated the sexes on buses, sidewalks and other public spaces in their neighborhoods. Their interpretation of Jewish law forbids contact between men and women who are not married.
Walls in their neighborhoods feature signs exhorting women to wear closed-necked, long-sleeved blouses and long skirts. Extremists have accosted women they consider to have flouted the code.
Now they’re trying to keep them out of clear sight altogether.
The ultra-Orthodox community’s unofficial “modesty patrols” are selling glasses with special blur-inducing stickers on their lenses. The glasses provide clear vision for up to a few meters so as not to impede movement, but anything beyond that gets blurry — including women. It’s not known how many have been sold.
For men forced to venture outside their insular communities, hoods and shields that block peripheral vision are also being offered.
The glasses are going for the “modest” price of $6.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/israel-new-modesty-glasses-orthodox-jewish-men-blur-women-line-sight-article-1.1133397