School Apologizes After Putting Fried Chicken, Cornbread, Watermelon On Lunch Menu For Black History Month... -

School Apologizes After Putting Fried Chicken, Cornbread, Watermelon On Lunch Menu For Black History Month... - 



Officials at an East Bay private school are apologizing after a controversial lunch menu option to celebrate Black History Month.
Students at Carondelet High School for Girls in Concord wanted to come up with ways to observe the occasion during a lunchtime celebration Friday. But when the school announced a menu of fried chicken, cornbread and watermelon, other students and parents became offended.

“When I first saw that, I was confused. I didn’t understand why our school would do this because we’re totally against that kind of stuff,” said Gianna Scoma, a junior at Carondelet.
School officials held an assembly on campus Wednesday to discuss the issue and also sent a letter apologizing to parents. Principal Nancy Libby wrote that the items were taken off of the menu and that the school doesn’t perpetrate racial stereotypes.
Libby also wrote the school will hold a diversity assembly for students and faculty.
“Cultural insensitivity of any kind is obviously inconsistent with the mission of Carondelet High School,” said school president Sister Ann Bernard.
Educators at Acts Christian Academy, a private school in East Oakland, told KPIX 5 that Carondelet could have done so much more to teach and celebrate Black History Month.
“Quite offensive because they put everything that we’ve accomplished into a menu,” said Dr. Doris Limbrick, principal of Acts Christian Academy.
Andrew Jackson, a teacher at the academy said, “Regardless of the accomplishments we have achieved, or what we have done, we’re still viewed under the same lens.”
The educators said Carondelet could have invited speakers or hold a field trip to learn about black history.
While many students felt bad about the announcement, some said our society is too sensitive.
“I understand like how it would offend people. But we’re just doing something to celebrate, not bring it down,” said Morgan Hartford, a junior at the school.
Gabby Simones, a junior at the school who is Latina said, “On Cinco de Mayo we would have probably had enchiladas, rice and beans.”
Robert Jackson, a teacher at Acts Christian Academy said offering fried chicken, cornbread and watermelon is different, because the food goes back to the history of slavery. “We talk about soul food because it was actually food we used that was left over from the master’s table and we used it to restore our soul and restore our hope.”

Read more -

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/02/06/controversial-black-history-month-lunch-menu-prompts-concord-school-to-apologize/

In Russia, The Washrooms Watch You -

In Russia, The Washrooms Watch You - 



Journalists may have been tweeting about their hotel nightmares in Sochi, but the Russian government says it has proof the whole thing is overblown—because it's been spying on people in their hotel rooms.

The Internet has been ablaze with what the Washington Post dubbed the "hilarious and gross" experiences journalists covering the 2014 Olympics were having in their hotels:


But, as the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, Russian officials dismissed the claim, with deputy prime minister Dmitry Kozak confidently asserting that hotel surveillance footage showed things were fine (emphasis added):

Kozak, the deputy prime minister responsible for the Olympic preparations, reflected the view held among many Russian officials that some Western visitors are deliberately trying to sabotage Sochi's big debut out of bias against Russia. "We have surveillance video from the hotels that shows people turn on the shower, direct the nozzle at the wall and then leave the room for the whole day," he said. An aide then pulled a reporter away before Mr. Kozak could be questioned further on surveillance in hotel rooms.
So maybe journalists have "creepy government surveillance" to add to their list of hotel issues. Of course, they probably should have been on their guard already, since, as NBC's Richard Engel reported recently, the State Department has warned travelers that they should "have no expectation of privacy, even in their hotel rooms" when they go to Sochi.

Read more - 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/06/russia-journalists-sochi-hotels-sying_n_4739400.html?utm_hp_ref=canada&ir=Canada

Stamps and payday loans? Postal Service considers new offerings -

Stamps and payday loans? Postal Service considers new offerings - 



The perpetually-struggling U.S. Postal Service has bankers in a tizzy after floating a plan to branch into what it called "non-bank financial services" that somehow sound a lot like what lenders do.

In a white paper distributed late last month, the Postal Service's inspector general discussed getting into an array of financial services as a means of keeping the money-losing mail operation afloat. Payday loans, check cashing and digital currency exchanges were among the possibilities outlined in the Jan. 27 report.

“The Office of Inspector General is not suggesting that the Postal Service become a bank or openly compete with banks,” the paper’s executive summary reads. “To the contrary, we are suggesting that the Postal Service could greatly complement banks’ offerings.”

The 27-page document also notes that as the country moves toward a cashless economy, the Postal Service could also provide simple ways for underserved consumers to “convert their cash to digital currency” or other electronic payment methods like prepaid cards, mobile payments and wire transfers.

Two days after the paper came out, the IG held an invitation-only seminar in Virginia to discuss virtual currencies such as Bitcoin, as well as the potential benefits and disruptive effects they may have on traditional payment networks. But officials insisted to FoxNews.com that the Postal Service isn’t entering the world of virtual currency — or peer-to-peer payment systems not subject to regulation — just yet.

“It is purely coincidental that the OIG hosted an invitation-only seminar to discuss virtual currencies into an electronic form of payment shortly after the white paper’s release,” according to clarification provided to FoxNews.com from the U.S. Postal Service Office of the Inspector General. “ … The USPS OIG did not present and does not have a position or recommendation on virtual currency.”

“There’s an old phrase: Do few things and do them well."
- Bill Himpler, American Financial Services Association

Banking industry officials told FoxNews.com that the agency that suffered a net loss of $5 billion in fiscal year 2013 — the 7th consecutive year in the red — should instead stick to delivering envelopes and parcels and stay out of financial services.

“There’s an old phrase: Do few things and do them well,” said Bill Himpler, executive vice president of the American Financial Services Association. “The Postal Service has its hands full trying to stay above water in trying to accomplish its current mission. I would hate to see taxpayers on the hook for a half-baked venture like this.”

Richard Hunt, president/CEO of the Consumers Bankers Association, characterized the white paper as the potential for “another radical government takeover” of an industry that the private sector is better suited to serve. He also questioned whether entering into those new ventures would necessitate a costly hiring surge.

“You’d have to hire people who are knowledgeable about financial products,” Hunt told FoxNews.com. “So there’s tremendous start-up costs involved.”

Rick Geddes, an associate professor at Cornell University and the director of its program on infrastructure policy, questioned whether there’s actually much to gain for the Postal Service in areas typically served by banks and other financial institutions.

“To me, that seems like a substantial departure from what they’re doing now and I’m not sure I see where the core expertise is in the Postal Service to provide these types of financial services,” Geddes told FoxNews.com. “You’re talking about an entity that’s losing money hand over fist. If these services are so profitable, why haven’t other financial institutions companies got into this business?”

Geddes continued: “Put yourself in the shoes of a small regional bank and you’ve got the Postal Service coming in … That’s a serious problem.”

Read more - 

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/02/06/bankers-balk-as-postal-service-floats-plan-for-payday-loans-digital-currency/

Toronto Zoo Giant Panda Enjoys Epic Snow Fall -

Dog of war: Taliban claims to have captured military canine -

Dog of war: Taliban claims to have captured military canine - 



Taliban fighters in Afghanistan have released video purportedly showing a captured allied soldier -- a dog soldier that is, believed by Pentagon officials to be a British military service pup captured during a raid last December.

The doleful hound, believed to be a Belgian Malinois named "Colonel," appears held by a chain on a video released on the website of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and was publicized by a Tweet  boasted of a Dec. 23 operation that in which "6 US terrorists" were killed and "equip seized." Pentagon officials told Fox News they believe the dog is actually a British military service dog, not an American canine.

"We can confirm that a military working dog went missing following an ISAF mission in December, 2013," the U.S.-led International Assistance Security Force said in a statement. "It is ISAF policy to defer identification to the appropriate national authorities."

Read more - 

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/02/06/taliban-captures-us-military-dog-report-says/

The mystery of the North Star: Astronomers baffled to find Polaris is getting BRIGHTER -

The mystery of the North Star: Astronomers baffled to find Polaris is getting BRIGHTER  - 



Astronomers have discovered that Polaris, the north star, is getting brighter.
They say the star has suddenly reversed two decades of dimming.
It is expanding at more than 100 times the rate they expected - and nobody is sure why.

A team led by Scott Engle of Villanova University in Pennsylvania recalibrated historic measurements of Polaris by Ptolemy in 137 C.E., the Persian astronomer Al-Sufi in 964 C.E., and others. 
They investigated the fluctuations of the star over the course of several years, combing through historical records and utilising the Hubble Space Telescope.
The team found that Polaris is 2.5 times brighter today than in Ptolemy's time, which they say is a remarkable rate of change. 

'If they are real, these changes are 100 times larger than predicted by current theories of stellar evolution,' says Villanova astronomer Edward Guinan. 
The team's data also hint that the star's cyclic 4-day variation in brightness, although still weak, is once again growing more robust--but no one knows what's driving these flutterings or how long they will last.
Engle and his team began to research the star around the beginning of 2000, when they found that the dropping brightness was on the rise again.

Read more: - 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2552530/The-mystery-North-Star-Astronomers-baffled-Polaris-getting-BRIGHTER.html

Putin’s Girlfriend May Light Sochi Olympic Torch -

Putin’s Girlfriend May Light Sochi Olympic Torch - 



With the Sochi Winter Olympics opening Friday, the person chosen for a key element in the opening ceremony has not been revealed.
But a new report is stating that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rumored girlfriend may be lighting the Olympic flame at the Fisht Stadium near the Black Sea.
“I’m aware of this (the speculation), I was told of this by (Kremlin spokesman) Dmitry Peskov. These are the usual red herrings,” Putin said according to News.com.au.
Alina Kabayeva, a 2004 Olympic rhythmic gymnastics champion, is rumored to be Putin’s lover.
“We have many outstanding sportspeople who are significant and known in the whole world and I am not going to interfere in this process,” he said in comments broadcast on state television.
The Sochi organizing committee is expected to choose a successful Russian sports star.
Putin also added that he would not be lighting the flame.
“I do not represent winter sports, I am just a fan,” Putin said.
The rumors between Putin and Kabayeva have never been confirmed officially but Putin is single since divorcing his wife, Lyudmila, last year.

Read more - 

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/02/06/report-putins-girlfriend-may-light-sochi-olympic-torch/

The Countdown To The Nationalization Of Retirement Savings Has Begun -

The Countdown To The Nationalization Of Retirement Savings Has Begun - 



Simply put, the new myRA program put forward by Obama is at best a sucker's deal… or worse, it's a first step toward the nationalization of private retirement savings. (Note: If you haven't yet heard of myRA, I'd strongly suggest you read this excellent overview by my colleague Dan Steinhart.)

Even before the new myRA program was announced, there had been whispers about the need for the US government to assume some risk for US retirement accounts. That's code for forced conversion of private retirement assets into government bonds.

With foreigners not buying as many Treasuries and the Fed tapering, the US government has been searching for new buyers of its unwanted debt. And this is where the new myRA program comes in.

In short, it's ostensibly a new way for people to save for retirement. Of course, you can only invest in government-approved investments—like Treasuries—which probably won't even come close to keeping up with the real rate of inflation. It's like Jim Grant says: "return-free risk."

In reality, a myRA doesn't really provide any significant new benefits over existing options. To me it just looks like a way for the US government to pass the hot potato on to unsuspecting Americans in exchange for their retirement savings.

The net effect is the funneling of more capital to Treasury securities and thus helping the US government finance itself.

You'd be much better off using a precious metals IRA to save for retirement than participating in the government's latest Ponzi scheme.

There are other protective strategies as well, such as internationalizing your retirement savings into assets that are hard, if not impossible, to confiscate on a whim—like foreign real estate and physical gold held abroad. More on that below.

Retirement Savings Are Always Juicy Targets

As bad as it is to deceive naïve Americans into trading their hard-earned retirement savings for garbage (i.e., Treasury securities), the myRA program potentially represents something far worse… the first step toward the nationalization of existing private retirement accounts.

I believe myRA is a way to nudge the American people into gradually becoming more accustomed to government involvement in their private retirement savings.

It's incorrect to assume nationalization couldn't happen in the US or your home country. History shows us that it's standard operating procedure for a government in dire financial straits.

In just the past six years, it's happened in some form in Argentina, Poland, Portugal, Hungary, and numerous other countries.

To me it's self-evident that most Western governments (including the US) have current debt loads and future spending commitments that all but guarantee that eventually—and likely someday soon—they will try to unscrupulously grab as much wealth as they can.

And retirement savings are a juicy target—low-hanging fruit for a desperate government.

Naturally, politicians will try to slickly sell the idea to the public as something "for their own good" or as "protection from market instability." This is how similar programs were sold to skeptical publics in the past.

In reality, governments take these actions not to "reduce the risk" to your retirement savings or whatever propaganda they happen to come up with, but rather to obtain financing—by forcefully dumping their unwanted debt onto seniors and savers.

Below are several ways it has happened or could happen. Of course, there could always be some sort of new, creative proposal that was previously unthinkable. No matter the method, however, the end result is always the same—the siphoning off of purchasing power from your retirement savings.

New Contribution Mandate: The government could mandate, for example, that 50% of new contributions to private retirement accounts must consist of "safe," government-approved investments, like Treasury securities.
Forced Conversions: This is where a government will forcibly convert existing assets held in retirement accounts into so-called "safer" assets, such as government bonds. For example, if the US government forcibly converted 20% of the estimated $20 trillion in retirement assets (401k plans, IRAs, defined benefit and contribution plans, etc.), it would net them $4 trillion. Not a bad score, considering the national debt is north of $17 trillion.
Special Taxes: The government could look into levying special taxes on distributions from retirement, especially those deemed to be "excessively large."
In order to be more effective, forced conversations probably wouldn't happen until after official capital controls have been instituted. Once in place, capital controls would make it very difficult, if not impossible, for you to avoid the wealth confiscation that is sure to follow… like a sheep that has just been penned in for a shearing.

Since FATCA and other regulatory burdens already amount to a soft form of capital controls, it's absolutely essential that you start implementing protective measures now.

It's like I have always said: internationalization is your ultimate insurance against the measures of a desperate government. In the case that the government makes a grab for retirement savings, it's much better to be a year or two early rather than a minute too late.



Internationalize Your Retirement Savings

It's much more difficult for the government to convert your retirement assets if they're outside of its immediate reach. If you have a standard IRA from a large US financial institution, it would only take a decree from the US government and Poof!: your dividend-paying stocks and corporate bonds could instantly be transformed into government bonds.

Obviously, this is much harder for the government to do if your retirement assets are sufficiently internationalized.

For example, you can structure your IRA to invest in foreign real estate, open an offshore bank or brokerage account, own certain types of physical gold stored abroad, and invest in other foreign and nontraditional assets.

In my view, owning an apartment in Switzerland and some physical gold coins stored in a safe deposit box in Singapore beats the cookie-cutter mutual funds shoved down your throat by traditional IRA custodians any day.

If and when there's some sort of decree to convert or otherwise confiscate the assets in your retirement account, your internationalized assets ensure that your savings won't vanish at the stroke of a pen.

There are important details and a couple of restrictions that you'll need to be aware of, but they amount to minor issues, especially when weighed against the risk of leaving your retirement savings within the immediate reach of a government desperate for cash.

After placing a juicy steak in front of a salivating German shepherd, it's only a matter of time before he makes a grab for it. The US government with its $17 trillion debt load is the salivating German shepherd, and the $20 trillion in retirement savings is the juicy steak.

Internationalizing your IRA has always been a prudent and pragmatic thing to do. And now that the US government has now officially set its sights on retirement savings, it's truly urgent.

You'll find all the details on how it to get set up, along with trusted professionals who specialize in internationalizing IRAs in our Going Global publication.

Read more - 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-05/countdown-nationalization-retirement-savings-has-begun

Just When You Thought Google Glass Couldn't Get Creepier: New App Allows Strangers to ID You Just by Looking at You -

Just When You Thought Google Glass Couldn't Get Creepier: New App Allows Strangers to ID You Just by Looking at You - 



Have you ever seen someone wearing Google Glass out at the bar? Like a real person at a real bar actually wearing Google Glass? If so, you know how absolutely ridiculous they look. Which may be the only factor we have that will stop this:
A new app will allow total strangers to ID you and pull up all your information, just by looking at you and scanning your face with their Google Glass. The app is called NameTag and it sounds CREEPY.
The "real-time facial recognition" software "can detect a face using the Google Glass camera, send it wirelessly to a server, compare it to millions of records, and in seconds return a match complete with a name, additional photos and social media profiles."

The information listed could include your name, occupation, any social media profiles you have set up and whether or not you have a criminal record ("CRIMINAL HISTORY FOUND" pops up in bright red letters according to the demo).

And NameTag may have already added you to their database.
Two million entries have already been uploaded to FacialNetwork.com. Once the app officially goes live, you can sign up for NameTag and opt-out, instead of the alternative: Having to opt-in to allow them to show your information.
How is that OK?

"It's not about invading anyone's privacy," one NameTag's creators claimed (via Independent). "It's about connecting people that want to be connected. We will even allow users to have one profile that is seen during business hours and another that is seen in social situations. NameTag can make the big, anonymous world we live in as friendly as a small town."
It may not be about invading anyone's privacy, but that sounds like what it does. And forcing people to opt-out if they want to maintain their privacy is wrong (we would go so far as to say it should be illegal). But the purported benefits of the app are almost even worse:
They continue, "It's much easier to meet interesting new people when we can simply look at someone, see their Facebook, review their LinkedIn page or maybe even see their dating site profile. Often we were interacting with people blindly or not interacting at all. NameTag on Google Glass can change all that."

Read more - 

http://ca.eonline.com/news/507361/just-when-you-thought-google-glass-couldn-t-get-creepier-new-app-allows-strangers-to-id-you-just-by-looking-at-you

Bombshell Audio Recording Revealing Bill Clinton White House Sex Romps Behind Wife Hillary’s Back -

Bombshell Audio Recording Revealing Bill Clinton White House Sex Romps Behind Wife Hillary’s Back - 



As Hillary Clinton prepares to run for President in 2016, RadarOnline.com has uncovered bombshell new information that could torpedo her White House dreams: The philandering husband of the former United States Secretary of State, ex-President Bill Clinton, carried on a torrid year-long love affair with British supermodel Elizabeth Hurley behind White House walls.

That’s the explosive revelation dropped by the man who says he arranged the secret tryst, actor Tom Sizemore.

In a blockbuster exclusive, Radar has unearthed a secret audio recording during which the Hollywood actor, who had his own three-year sexual liaison with Hurley, recounts how the horn-dog ex-President once sent a plane to fly Hurley to Washington D.C., where he bedded her in the White House — while First Lady Hillary was in the very next room!

On the tape, recorded in January of this year and provided to Radar and GLOBE in a joint investigation, 52-year-old Sizemore boasts to two pals about how he arranged the pair’s first rendezvous.

According to the Black Hawk Down star, it all began during a 1998 White House screening of Saving Private Ryan, when President Clinton pulled Sizemore aside from the crowd of A-listers that included Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Ed Burns and Dennis Farina.

The premiere of the film was four years after Hurley was catapulted into the limelight after wearing that Versace dress to the premiere of ex-boyfriend Hugh Grant’s film Four Weddings And A Funeral.

Sizemore claims that Clinton asked if he wanted to see the Lincoln Bedroom and after shaking his Secret Service detail, the pervy President quickly made his move!

“We walk in,” Sizemore says on the tape, when suddenly Clinton, then in his second-term of office, asked point-blank, “Did you go with Liz Hurley for four years? Do you still see her?”

When Sizemore confirmed they had dated but were no longer together, he says the President asked for her number.

Stunned at the suggestion, Sizemore admits to being somewhat hesitant to dole out the digits, but claims Clinton insisted: “Give it to me. You dumb m***********r, I’m the Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America. The buck stops here. Give me the damn number.”

The actor obliged, but before dialing, he says the President was already covering his tracks, thinking of his oblivious and long-suffering wife Hillary in the other room.

“[Clinton] said, ‘I’m going to say I asked you about your uncle, Ted Sizemore, who played professional baseball,” Sizemore recalls. “That’s the lie. Don’t forget it.’”

Then, Sizemore recounts, Clinton dialed, wasting no time in getting down to dirty business with the stunning brunette, now 48.

“Elizabeth, this is your Commander-in-Chief,” Clinton said to the actress, who played Vanessa Kensington in the 1997 hit Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.

And though Hurley at first thought it was a joke, she played coy, but the President wouldn’t take no for an answer!

Clinton said, “Listen Elizabeth, this is the President!” Sizemore recalls. “‘I don’t have any time for this ****. I‘m keeping the world from nuclear war all the time. I’m sending a plane to pick you up.”

Hours later, he claims, Hurley was at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

“While we’re at the reception, I see her,” Sizemore reveals, but then she disappeared through a door, trailed by a Secret Service agent.

As she disappeared into a room with the President, Sizemore charges, “Bill turns to me and he goes, ‘I owe you one.’”

As to what happened after that, Sizemore declares on the tape: “What do you think? She was there for four days. He f****d her that night.”

Later, her recalls, “I asked her (Hurley), what was it like there? …I said was Hillary a problem? And she said ‘No, they sleep in different bedrooms.’”

“Bill said that, he intimated to Elizabeth that they have been, they’re in love,” Sizemore claims, “but they stopped [sleeping together] a long time ago and they both have separate romantic lives.”

As such, the steamy affair didn’t end after Hurley’s visit.

Sizemore says they kept in contact for a year, until Clinton ended the sexual shenanigans because he was falling deeply in love with the charming actress, 19 years his junior.

“At a certain point, he told her, ‘I don’t do love and I’m beginning to think I might love you,” Sizemore says.

Confronted with Sizemore’s claims, a representative for Hurley did not deny the relationship and coyly said that she would not be commenting on her relationship with Clinton.

Sizemore, who starred in Natural Born Killers before spiraling into a dark drug addiction, revealed the tryst between the politician and actress in the recorded conversation which took place at his hotel room in Manchester, Conn., where he was shooting a movie.

Listen to the tape, below. (It has been edited to remove the voices of the two other individuals on the tape, at their request. Both asked not to be identified.)

Read more - 

http://radaronline.com/exclusives/2014/02/hurleys-ex-lover-caught-on-bombshell-audio-recording-revealing-ex-prezs-white-house-sex-romps-behind-wife-hillarys-back/