JC Penney billboard with 'Hitler' teapot sparks social media storm -

JC Penney billboard with 'Hitler' teapot sparks social media storm - 



IT'S just a humble teapot, short and stout - but its comparison to a German dictator has got more than just water boiling.

American retailer JC Penney caused quite a stir after a billboard advertising its latest kettle set tongues wagging and social media users steaming.

The kettle, designed by American architect Michael Graves, is advertised on the retailers website as having " all the bells and whistles you'll need - a cool-touch handle, space-saving design and a delightful whistle to let you know when it's ready to pour."

Twitter users agreed the kettle looked like Adolf Hitler. Picture: Twitter@DorkmanScott

But it attracted plenty of controversy after it was spotted on a billboard along California's 405 Interstate highway, near Culver City.

The ad alos generated plenty of attention on social media with users comparing the kettle to Adolf Hitler.

A picture of the billboard first appeared on Reddit, but quickly spilled over to Twitter with most - except the retailer itself - agreeing it bore a passing resemblance to Hitler.

Read more -

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/home-garden/jc-penney-billboard-with-8216hitler8217-teapot-sparks-social-media-storm/story-fni0dlbq-1226652758709

Arctic Ice Melt Forces Evacuation Of Russian Research Station -

Arctic Ice Melt Forces Evacuation Of Russian Research Station - 



A Russian research station has found itself on thin ice. Literally.

Scientists at North Pole-40, a drifting ice floe station near Canada, are evacuating following a major split in the ice, the RT news network reports.

“A collapse of the station’s ice floe poses a threat to its continued work, the lives of the crew, the environment close to the Canadian Economic Zone and to equipment and supplies,” Russian minister Sergey Donskoya said in a press release.

Ice levels have reached record lows recently, according to the U.S.'s National Snow and Ice Data Center, with the Arctic losing 1.5 million square kilometers of ice in April alone.

Up until the 1980s, ice floe stations were expected to last around three years, New Scientist reports. But since 2003, the labs have hardly been lasting a year.

"Russian high-latitude ocean measurements are fundamental to our knowledge of the Arctic Ocean," Sheldon Bacon of the UK's National Oceanography Centre told New Scientist.

In recent years, Arctic scientists have been fighting to keep up with disappearing sea ice, he added.

Read more - 

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/05/28/arctic-ice-melt-russian-station_n_3346711.html

China Builds EU Beachhead With $5 Billion City in Belarus -

China Builds EU Beachhead With $5 Billion City in Belarus - 



China is building an entire city in the forests near the Belarusian capital Minsk to create a manufacturing springboard between the European Union and Russia.

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko allotted an area 40 percent larger than Manhattan around Minsk’s international airport for the $5 billion development, which will include enough housing to accommodate 155,000 people, according to Chinese and Belarusian officials.

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko is turning to China to help revive a $60 billion economy that’s needed $6.5 billion of bailouts from the International Monetary Fund and Russia since 2009.
Lukashenko, who’s led his former Soviet state of 9.5 million for two decades, is turning to China to help revive a $60 billion economy that’s needed $6.5 billion of bailouts from the International Monetary Fund and Russia since 2009. The hub will put Chinese exporters within 170 miles of EU members Poland and Lithuania and give them tax-free entry into Russia and Kazakhstan, which share a customs union. It will also let them draw from a workforce that’s 99.6 percent literate and makes $560 a month on average, half the Polish wage.

“This is a unique project,” Gong Jianwei, China’s ambassador to Belarus, said on state television May 17, after the project won regulatory approval. “Nobody will be able to build anything like this industrial park anywhere else in Europe anymore. The infrastructure is so powerful.”

Read more - 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-26/china-builds-eu-beachhead-with-5-billion-city-in-belarus.html

Syria Goes Hot: Russia To Deliver Weapons, Deploys Air Defense; Israel Warns Russia; Obama Demands No Fly Zone -

Syria Goes Hot: Russia To Deliver Weapons, Deploys Air Defense; Israel Warns Russia; Obama Demands No Fly Zone - 



Those who were intently following the USDJPY pair formerly known as the stock market today missed the biggest news of the day: the proxy war in Syria just went hot, following a confluence of news, first that Russia insisted "it would deliver anti-aircraft missiles to Syria despite international criticism, as fears of spillover from the conflict grew" and in logical retaliation to yesterday's decision by Europe to lift an arms embargo to the Al Qaeda-supported, Qatari mercenaries operating in Syria, also known as "rebels.

This lead Israel's defense minister Moshe Yaalon to immediately signal that "its military is prepared to strike shipments of advanced Russian weapons to Syria."

Meanwhile back in the US "the White House has asked the Pentagon to draw up plans for a no-fly zone inside Syria that would be enforced by the U.S. and other countries such as France and Great Britain, two administration officials told The Daily Beast."

And just to make it very clear that Russia is not bluffing, it announced overnight that its four regiments of S-300 air defense systems have been deployed at the Ashuluk firing range in southern Russia as part of another snap combat readiness check of the Russian armed forces "The missions will be carried out in conditions of heavy electronic warfare to test the capabilities of the air defense units to the highest limit."

And to think: yet another threat of a global war over some natgas pipelines from Qatar to Europe, and a threat to Gazprom's monopoly.

From AFP:

Russia insisted Tuesday it would deliver anti-aircraft missiles to Syria despite international criticism, as fears of spillover from the conflict grew after three Lebanese soldiers were killed in a border-area attack.

Israel warned Russia it would "know what to do" if the delivery went ahead, and Syria's top rebel commander gave Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese Shiite movement, a 24-hour ultimatum to stop fighting alongside regime forces.

The developments stoked tensions after the European Union decided to lift an embargo on weapons to Syria's rebels, in a move the opposition reacted to with caution.

Syria's regime joined its ally Russia in condemning the EU decision as an "obstruction" to peace efforts, while accusing the bloc of supporting and encouraging "terrorists".

Moscow said it would go ahead with its plans to deliver the S-300 missiles to Syria, despite international concerns, saying the weapons were part of existing contracts.

"We consider these supplies a stabilising factor," deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said, adding they could act as a deterrence against foreign intervention.
Israel's immediate response via the Guardian:

Israel quickly issued a thinly veiled warning that it would bomb the Russian S-300 missiles if they were sent to Syria, as such a move would bring the advanced guided missiles within range of civilian and military planes over Israel. Israel has conducted three sets of air strikes on Syria this year, aimed at preventing missiles being brought close to its border by the Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah.

"The shipments haven't set out yet and I hope they won't," Moshe Ya'alon, the Israeli defence minister, said. "If they do arrive in Syria, God forbid, we'll know what to do."

Russia's deputy foreign minister, Sergey Ryabkov, argued that the delivery of the S-300 system had been previously agreed with Damascus and would be a stabilising factor that could dissuade "some hotheads" from entering the conflict. That appeared to be a reference to the UK and France, who pushed through the lifting of the EU embargo on Monday night and are the only European countries considering arming the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA).
After much deliberations, and unable to find the much needed "weapons of mass destruction" to justify intervention, the US is nonetheless escalating next and Obama is now said to demand plans for a No Fly Zone over Syria from the Pentagon. From the Daily Beast:

Along with no-fly zone plans, the White House is considering arming parts of the Syrian opposition and formally recognizing the Syrian opposition council.

The White House has asked the Pentagon to draw up plans for a no-fly zone inside Syria that would be enforced by the U.S. and other countries such as France and Great Britain, two administration officials told The Daily Beast.

The request was made shortly before Secretary of State John Kerry toured the Middle East last week to try and finalize plans for an early June conference between the Syrian regime and rebel leaders in Geneva. The opposition, however, has yet to confirm its attendance and is demanding that the end of Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s rule be a precondition for negotiations, a condition Assad is unlikely to accept.

In April, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense that the military was planning for a range of options in Syria but that he did not necessarily support using those options.

"We're prepared with options, should military force be called upon and assuming it can be effectively used to secure our interests without making matters worse,” he said. “We must also be ready for options for an uncertain and dangerous future. That is a future we have not yet identified."
And finally going back full circle, Russia announced overnight that its four regiments of S-300 air defense systems have been deployed at the Ashuluk firing range in southern Russia as part of another snap combat readiness check of the Russian armed forces, the Defense Ministry said. From RIA:

The regiments were airlifted on Thursday by military transport planes to designated drop zones where they will carry out a variety of missions simulating the defense of the Russian airspace from massive attacks by “enemy” missiles and aircraft.

“The missions will be carried out in conditions of heavy electronic warfare to test the capabilities of the air defense units to the highest limit,” the ministry said.

A total of 8,700 personnel, 185 warplanes and 240 armored vehicles are involved in the three-day exercise, overseen by Col. Gen. Vladimir Zarudnitsky, head of Russian General Staff’s Main Operations Directorate.
Surely all of the above is very beneficial for future global GDP prospects.

Finally, here is the Russian S-300 system causing Qatar gas pipeline plans global democracies so much consternation:




Read more - 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-28/syria-goes-hot-russia-deliver-weapons-deploys-air-defense-israel-warns-russia-obama-

Canadians complain their new $100 bills smell like maple syrup... -

Canadians complain their new $100 bills smell like maple syrup... - 



The smell of success is particularly sweet in Canada as an unending stream of residents swear that the new $100 bill is the scent of maple syrup.

The national treasury released a new plastic bank note in November 2011, and they have received hundreds of emails from residents who are convinced that the bills have an added fragrance.

'They all have a scent which I’d say smells like maple? Please advise if this is normal?' wrote one concerned citizen.

Media liaisons for the Bank of Canada have repeatedly denied that there is any particular scent to the money, but that didn't stop concerned citizens.
The Canadian Press submitted a request for all of the emails the bank received from the public in regards to the issue, and there are enough to fill a maple syrup vat. 

'I would like to know...once and for all if these bills are in fact scented, as I do detect a hint of maple when smelling the bill,' another such email read.
While some of the emails were focused on the question of whether or not they were scented, others were more concerned that their notes were defective since they had lost 'the scent'.

'The note...lost its maple smell. I strongly suggest the Bank increases the strength of the... maple smell,' one person wrote.
The smell isn't the only maple-related complaint about the notes, as other emails reveal that the Bank received a number of emails about the fact that the maple leaf that is drawn on the bill looks more like a Norway Maple than a Canadian one.
Adding insult to injury, the Norway Maple is an invasive species that is doing damage to the Canadian environment.
The Bank says that there is no truth to the claims about the different species.


Read more: - 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2331770/New-Canadian-100-dollar-bills-reek-like-maple-syrup-national-bank-says-notes-fragrance-free.html

400-year-old frozen moss brought back to life in scientist’s lab -

400-year-old frozen moss brought back to life in scientist’s lab - 



In Arctic summers, Catherine La Farge camps out at the toe of the Teardrop glacier on Ellesmere Island in Canada’s North.

The University of Alberta biologist has watched the ice retreat, up to four metres a year now, giving her an unprecedented view of what was entombed under the ice for 400 years — old rocks, mud, and her specialty, ancient moss.

One day, walking along the edge of the ice, La Farge noticed some of the moss had a greenish tinge. That gave her a hunch — could there be life in that old moss after all?

In an amazing experiment, La Farge found the frozen moss was able to revive itself though it had been buried since the Little Ice Age (1550-1850). Her study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, is shaking up some basic assumptions about land plants.

In the past, when scientists occasionally came across plant material previously frozen under an Arctic glacier, they assumed the plant material was dead. Discoloured and lifeless, it certainly looked like it was.

In 2009, La Farge brought samples back to the lab. On closer examination, she noticed a tiny green stem. There were two possible explanations.

“Either it kept its colour under the glacier or it grew after the moss emerged 400 years later.”

There was only one way to find out.

La Farge ground up the old plant material, put it in petri dishes full of potting soil and set it in the grow chamber next to her office. Then she and graduate student Krista Williams and master’s student David Wilkie watched for signs of life.

It didn’t take long. In about four to six weeks, tiny green filaments or strands called protonema began to grow.

Months later, a dish was almost full of green moss from cells frozen for 400 years. Of 24 samples potted, seven produced new growth.

“It was just incredible,” said La Farge, whose work has given scientists another window into the basic life systems of plants.

“Now we have Little Ice Age moss material that produced juvenile plants.”

In glaciers, there are all kinds of fungi and bacteria, but no one has ever considered that land plants could survive being entombed underneath, she said.

“Now we have to think there may be populations of land plants that survived that freezing. It makes you wonder what’s under the big ice caps in the Arctic and Antarctic and alpine glaciers.

“And we have a 400-year-old lineage of genetic material,” she added.

Mosses are especially hardy and ancient — 400 million years old, she said. Mosses played a key role in moving life from water to land in evolution. They evolved from green algae and paved the way for other land plants.

Unlike most other plants, mosses reproduce by cloning their cells so “all you need is even one cell to survive.”

Also, moss cells are very powerful — totipotent is the scientific term — because they can reprogram themselves to start growth all over again.

La Farge’s work shows that ability to regenerate — the totipotency of a cell — doesn’t diminish with age, at least not over 400 frozen years.

“If we could find some moss that went back 1,000 years or 5,000 years we may find some material that could be revived. But it all depends on the specific way the material is buried and the conditions” — cold and dry is best.

Read more -

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/year+frozen+moss+brought+back+life+scientist/8441111/story.html

Scotland: Every Child to Have “State Guardian” From Birth - government social worker assigned to spy on every family -

Scotland: Every Child to Have “State Guardian” From Birth - government social worker assigned to spy on every family - 



Every child in Scotland is to be assigned a “state minder” from birth under draconian new proposals that would enable the government to spy on families under the justification of preventing “child abuse”.

Writing in the Scotsman of how he penned a dystopian novel based around this very scenario of every child being assigned a government mentor, sociology and criminology lecturer at the University of Abertay Dundee Stuart Walton writes, “Unfortunately, this dystopian future has arrived a little faster than I imagined, as last week the Scottish Government’s plan to give every child a state guardian from birth was launched.”
“This state-appointed overseer will be a specific, named individual, and every child will have one, from birth. The responsibility for creating this named guardian will fall on the heads of the health boards for the first five years of a child’s life, before being transferred to councils.”
The program is a statutory initiative built into the Children and Young People Bill. Children’s minister Aileen Campbell justified the proposal by asserting it would “make sure there is someone having an overview of what is happening to that child, to make sure that early indicators of anything that would pose a threat or risk to that child are flagged up”.
Walton speculates on what kind of behavior could eventually be deemed “child abuse,” including the contents of a child’s school lunch box or a re-definition of “bullying” to include a parent shouting at their kid.
Indeed, as we have previously documented, schools are now encouraging children to spy on their parents’ recycling habits in the name of protecting mother earth. Could the alleged eco-crime of failing to place a piece of cardboard in the correct trash can prompt the child to report his parents to the “state guardian” and spark an investigation?
In the aftermath of the Jimmy Savile scandal, concern about child abuse is rampant in the UK but it is a fear that has largely been generated by media scaremongering and not an actual marked increase in cases of child abuse.
Top judges like Alan Goldsack QC are also calling on the government to intervene to remove children from “criminal families” at birth. As part of what it calls “Family Intervention Projects,” the British government has also forced thousands of families to install surveillance cameras inside their own homes while subjecting them to home visits to ensure that children go to bed on time, attend school and eat proper meals.
The idea of having a government social worker assigned to spy on every family via the child is an abhorrent notion that would only be accepted in despotic hellholes like North Korea, Maoist China, or Stalinist Russia, yet it is calmly being proposed in current legislation.
The secret police of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu also recruited thousands of children aged 12-14 to spy on their school friends, parents and teachers, according to communist-era archives. At the height of the dictatorship, a staggering 15 per cent of the country’s informants were children. They were encouraged to report anyone who expressed a political opinion contrary to the status quo or those who merely made a joke of Ceausescu.
Is the Scottish government also taking cues from George Orwell’s 1984? In the dystopian classic, “children who turned in their own parents as traitors” are treated as heroes by the Party.

Read more -

http://www.prisonplanet.com/scotland-every-child-to-have-state-guardian-from-birth.html

Drone controlled by computer soon to round up sheep and cows... - Baa, baa robot! -

Drone controlled by computer soon to round up sheep and cows... - Baa, baa robot! - 


The bond between shepherds and their loyal sheepdogs is a rural image portrayed on television shows like the BBC's One Man His Dog.
But now the face of hill farming may soon change forever with the introduction of a battery-powered airborne robot to track and round up flocks.
The drone, developed by Frenchman Marc-Alexandre Favier, costs a few hundred pounds and could eventually be controlled by smartphone.

It uses cameras and image recognition software to find sheep and cows even in remote areas.

Favier, 27, a postgraduate student at Harper Adams University College, Shropshire, told the Sunday Times: 'It's amazing that the technology is becoming so developed that this sort of thing is possible.'
The son of a farmer, he has designed a prototype Unmanned Air System (UAS) to be used as an eye in the sky to manage and monitor livestock on very large and remote estates.

He used an AR Drone 2 with a camera attached to the bottom to allow the user to get a bird’s eye view and came up with a computer programme which instructs the drone to locate, recognise and track livestock.
Although the drone can be controlled via WiFi on a computer, the aim is for farmers to be able to control it using an iPhone or smartphone.

Favier  said: 'The number of robots for professional use is increasing significantly so it is very important to be up-to-date with robotics - it’s the future and the present.'
He said his prototype was designed with Scottish sheep farmers in mind, many of whom spend large amounts of time and cover many miles monitoring their livestock.
In America,  the U.S. Department of Defence in charge of military technology, has developed a robot dog that can run faster than Usain Bolt, follow its leader, and respond to commands
The LS3, or 'Alphadog' as it has been nicknamed, is so lifelike, that it can catch itself slipping on ice , easily navigates streams and ditches and and can carrying 400 pounds.
Other drones include hand grenade-sized robots that can be thrown into Afghanistan rebel compounds.
Former One Man presenter Clarissa Dickson Wright was unimpressed by the technological breakthrough. 'There is no substitute for a dog and a shepherd,' she said.


Read more: - 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2331146/Baa-baa-robot-Drone-controlled-able-track-round-sheep-cows.html

Two Companies Rake in Big Profits from Billion-Dollar Prisoner Phone Call Industry -

Two Companies Rake in Big Profits from Billion-Dollar Prisoner Phone Call Industry - 



Those unfortunate enough to be picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) often find themselves locked away in detention facilities that aren’t governed by the same rules as state prisons.

At the Contra Costa West County Detention Facility (WCDF) in Richmond, California, one of the differences is the cost of making a phone call. A couple of weeks ago, protesters gathered outside the facility that houses 1,100 prisoners to argue that what amounts to upwards of a $20 charge for a 15-minute phone call is cruel and inhumane treatment of inmates.

A call from inside WCDF costs $3.25 for the initial connection, with charges up to 25 cents a minute for in-state calls and 30 cents a minute for out-of-state. Calls are often dropped, requiring a reconnection charge. Unlike state prisons, which have been constrained by law since 2007 from extracting large concessions in phone service, facilities like WCDF can cut a deal that works best for them.

Officials of a national campaign, called Phone Justice for Immigrants in Detention, say Global Tel*Link (GTL) pays Contra Costa County a commission of up to 57% on phone calls, in addition to a $75,000 bonus for giving it the contract. The county received $653,506 in commissions from GTL in fiscal year 2011-12, according to the immigrants group.

GTL is one of the leaders in the $1.2 billion business of providing phone service to private and government prisons, according to Bloomberg. The Mobile, Alabama-based company has about half of the correctional phone services market and Securus Technologies has about 30%, according to Standard & Poor’s.

Up to two-thirds of the inmate charges are kicked back to prison operators as commissions, providing a powerful incentive for the system. Civil rights groups, religious organizations and congressional members have pressured the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to do something about the exorbitant rates. 

The group says that the excessive charges present an additional hardship for low-income families already burdened by the incarceration of a family member, but also have a negative impact on detainees’ contact with their lawyers. “All of the legal defenses that exist in immigration court become illusory without telephone access,” the group argues in a fact-sheet that says the charges are in violation of ICE’s own standards, which dictate that, “Detainees shall have reasonable and equitable access to reasonably priced telephone services.”

However, the argument about denying detainees access to legal counsel may be moot, since, according to the group, “About 84% of all detained immigrants must represent themselves in court because they are not afforded the right to court-appointed attorneys and they cannot afford private defense lawyers.”

Read more - 
http://www.allgov.com/news/where-is-the-money-going/two-companies-rake-in-big-profits-from-billion-dollar-prisoner-phone-call-industry-130526?news=850121

World's first 3D printed object created using brain waves -

World's first 3D printed object created using brain waves  - 


A Chilean tech company has laid claim to creating the first physical object using the power of the mind.
George Lakowsky, the Chief Technical Officer for Thinker Thing, a self-described “creative group” successfully created the object using a brain-computer interface headset according to technology blog neurogadget.com.
Lakaowsky was able to use the interface to form a 3-D shape using his thoughts which were sent to a 3-D printer for fabrication of the object- a cluster of polygons that resemble the arm of a toy robot.
“Whilst the first object George created was very simple it’s a breakthrough of epic proportions in our project,” Thinker Things founder Bryan Salt said in an interview with the blog.
“George was able to control an evolutionary process that grows a 3D object using the small electrical impulses detectable in the brain. This evolving model is created in a form that can be read by the latest 3D printers, which allows us to create real physical objects directed by your mind,” he added.
The government funded Thinker Thing is also launching a project that will principles of science, art, and engineering to young children in some of the most remote regions of Chile using the new technology.
Children from these regions will use the interface to create “fantastical creatures of the mind” which will later be put on display.


Read more: -