QUEEN ELIZABETH II Royal Panties For Sale ... - on eBay -

QUEEN ELIZABETH II Royal Panties For Sale ... - on eBay - 


You really can find anything on eBay ... even Queen Elizabeth​'s underwear , which can now be yours ... if you have a few thousand bucks to blow. 


As TMZ previously reported ... the royal panties come from the estate of the late "Baron" Joseph de Bicske Dobronyi ... who wanted to auction them off after he died with the help of a British auction house, Hansons Auctioneers. But it didn't go as planned ...


A rep for the late Baron's estate tells TMZ ... the auction house was difficult to work with. He claims the auction house never gave the item enough publicity and were more concerned with the approval of the royal family than selling the goods. 


We're told the estate was tired of waiting around for Hansons to find them a worthy bid ... so they demanded the underwear back and put them up for sale on eBay for a limited 10-day auction instead. 


Now you can have a piece of the royal family for the low, low starting price of ... $3,999. 


Tally Ho, bidders. 


Read more -
http://www.tmz.com/2012/05/12/queen-elizabeth-panties-back-usa-ebay/

German fishermen say - Swimmers' urine to blame for 500 fish deaths -

German fishermen say - Swimmers' urine to blame for 500 fish deaths - 


Swimmers have killed about 500 fish in a northern Germany lake, with their urine causing algae that poisons marine life.
The mass death in the past two weeks has occurred in Eichbaum lake, in the port city of Hamburg, The Local reported.
"Swimmers who urinate in the lake are introducing a lot of phosphate," fishermen's spokesman Manfred Siedler told Bild newspaper. "We're calculating half a liter [0.15 of a gallon] of urine per swimmer per day."
Applying anti-phosphate -- at a reported cost of $667,000 -- hasn't worked, fueling an ongoing feud between fishermen and those who swim in the lake.
Swimmers have been banned from the lake until the algae outbreak is addressed.




Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/05/12/swimmers-urine-to-blame-for-500-fish-deaths-german-fishermen-say/?test=latestnews

Driver pulled over -- for being radioactive... -

Driver pulled over -- for being radioactive... - 






Mike Apatow was minding his own business Wednesday, driving to an appointment for work in Washington Depot when a state police car appeared suddenly and signaled for the Milford resident to pull over.
Apatow, 42, was entering Interstate 84 in Newtown when the cruiser appeared, and he had no idea what he'd done to merit police attention. It turns out he didn't do anything.
But earlier that day, Apatow, who'd experienced a recent spike in his blood pressure, had a nuclear stress test at Cardiology Associates of Fairfield County in Trumbull. In the test, a small amount of a radioactive material is injected into the veins and used to help track blood flow to the heart.
Though the amount of radioactive material used in the test is relatively low -- equal to a few X-rays or a diagnostic CT scan -- it was enough to set off a radioactivity detector in the state police car. The detectors are used to help identify potential terror threats.
"I asked the officer `What seems to be the problem?' " Apatow said. "He said `You've been flagged as a radioactive car.' "
Apatow's doctor had given him a document attesting that he'd had a medical procedure involving a small amount of radioactive material that he handed to the officer. A Stratford firefighter, Apatow was more curious than annoyed by the incident.
"I had no idea the police even had devices like that," he said. "I imagined it being like a cartoon -- like I'm driving down the street and my car was glowing."
State Police spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance confirmed that many of the state police cars have the radioactivity detectors. "It's part of our homeland security operations here," Vance said. "It's just another layer of public safety that we have in this state."
Though the goal of the detectors is to alert police to motorists who might be carrying hazardous materials, cases like Apatow's happen from time to time.
"They're very sensitive," Vance said of the detectors.
Apatow had the stress test after feeling ill while working at the Fire Department. He took his blood pressure and found it was 180 over 110 -- much higher than the 120 over 70 reading he usually gets. He attributed the spike to a variety of potential factors, including a lack of sleep. On Thursday, after visiting his doctors again, he was cleared for duty.




Read more: http://www.ctpost.com/default/article/Radioactive-man-Milford-resident-pulled-over-by-3549631.php

Air traffic controllers in NY napped, watched movies, gambled on job... -

Air traffic controllers in NY napped, watched movies, gambled on job... - 




When midnight rolled around and flight traffic thinned out, air-traffic controllers guiding planes in the busiest U.S. corridor whipped out laptops to watch movies, play games or gamble online.
Controllers on break inflated air mattresses and napped on the floor. Some left before their shifts were over. They cursed at managers, refused to train new controllers, and flouted rules requiring them to pass on weather advisories to pilots.



“It was blatant and in your face,” Evan Seeley, a former manager in the Ronkonkoma, New York, tower who came forward last year, said in a phone interview yesterday.
Those and other allegations made by Seeley were corroborated by investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration, according to reports released this week by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an agency formed to help and protect whistle-blowers inside federal agencies.
Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner sent a letter on May 8 to the White House and Congress detailing findings in Seeley’s case and six other verified whistle-blower complaints, saying the FAA and Department of Transportation were slow to address them or hadn’t acted.
In New York, investigators found a facility in which FAA managers were unwilling or afraid to discipline controllers’ union members, the reports said. Supervisors who tried to enforce the rules had their cars vandalized or were threatened. The result was widespread violations of rules that undermined safety, reviews by the special counsel and FAA found.
Seeley, who’d worked in Fort Worth, Texas, before coming to New York in February 2010, said he was shocked by what he saw.
“The advice from the seasoned front-line managers was: you keep your head in the sand,” he said.


Read more - 
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-11/midnight-was-movie-hour-nap-time-in-new-york-air-tower.html

Google Search Results Protected by First Amendment -

Google Search Results Protected by First Amendment - 


Google and other search engines have a First Amendment right to sort or even censor search rankings as they like, according to a legal analysis Google commissioned from a law professor.


Search engine companies are no different from traditional news media outlets such as The New York Times, CNN or the Drudge Report and therefore merit the same constitutional protections, according to UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh in a recent report.


“[S]earch engines select and sort the results in a way that is aimed at giving users what the search engine companies see as the most helpful and useful information…. In this respect, each search engine’s editorial judgment is much like many other familiar editorial judgments,” Volokh writes.


In the report, titled “First Amendment Protection for Search Engine Results,” the libertarian-leaning Volokh, who runs the popular Volokh Conspiracy group blog, argues that search engine results that Google and others produce are a form of opinion. Therefore they have the right to choose what goes into that opinion – whether this means excluding certain links entirely or ranking them in a manner that the search engine deems is most relevant to users.


What this means in practice is that Google should be protected from claims others have made that the search engine giant is abusing its power by excluding certain links altogether or ranking results in a way that can harm the business of others.


Google has been fighting off accusations that it rigs its search results. In 2003 an Oklahoma advertiser accused Google of burying a link to the company in search results, but a judge rejected the case, citing First Amendment protections. In 2007, a California company accused Google of violating its own First Amendment rights because it also was banished to a low ranking in search results. Reader review site, Yelp, has also accused Google of abusing its power by preferring its own content over Yelp’s.


The timing of the report is likely not coincidental. Google is currently the target of a federal investigation over charges of unfair competition. Google is likely to make the argument that even if it is found to be a monopoly, its choices in regards to search rankings and display are protected First Amendment activities.


Google has always threaded a fine line on the issue. The company maintains that it does not have the ability to manipulate individual results. While at the same time, the company regularly punishes sites that it thinks use underhanded tactics to game search results or that sell paid links by reducing or even banishing them from search results.


At a congressional hearing last year, Nextag Chief Executive Jeff Katz testified that Google’s search results for products favor its own sites over those of competitors.


Yelp chief executive and co-founder Jeremy Stoppelman echoed the criticism when he told lawmakers that Google prefers “to send consumers to the most profitable sites on the Web: their own.”


Read more - 
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/google-first-amendment/

Washington state health officials declare whooping cough epidemic -

Washington state health officials declare whooping cough epidemic - 


Washington state’s worst outbreak of whooping cough in decades has prompted health officials to declare an epidemic, seek help from federal experts and urge residents to get vaccinated amid worry that cases of the highly contagious disease could spike much higher.


It’s the first state to declare a whooping cough, or pertussis, epidemic since 2010, when California had more than 9,000 cases, including 10 deaths. Washington has had 10 times the cases reported in 2011, and so has Wisconsin with nearly 2,000 cases this year, though that state has not declared an epidemic.



California responded to its crisis two years ago with a public information campaign, readily available vaccines and a new law requiring a booster shot for middle- and high-school students. Doctors were urged to spot whooping cough early, send infected babies to the hospital and promptly treat those diagnosed. In 2011, the number of cases there dropped significantly.


In Washington, about 1,280 cases have been reported in 2012, and officials believe the state could see as many as 3,000 cases by year’s end. Health Secretary Mary Selecky declared the epidemic April 3, and since then officials have bought up the vaccine and made it available for free for people who don’t have insurance.


State officials have asked hospitals to vaccinate every adult who goes home with a new baby, and urged businesses to encourage their employees to get the adult booster shot. Washington already requires a booster shot for middle- and high-school students.


Last week, Gov. Chris Gregoire announced the state is putting $90,000 into a public awareness campaign and diverting some federal money to pay for 27,000 doses of vaccine. The state has also asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to send a special team of investigators and an epidemiologist to the Washington.


State epidemic declarations are up to the states; there are no federal regulations for such decisions. Selecky said this is the first time in her 13 years on the job she has declared a state epidemic, but felt she needed to take action to stop the disease from spreading further.


“When we’ve looked historically, we’ve seen nothing like this,” she said. “We’re taking this very seriously.”


Adults and teens need booster shots so they don’t give pertussis to the babies in their lives, said CDC spokeswoman Alison Patti


“We want to create a cocoon of protection around them,” she said. “We’re really worried about keeping babies safe.”


Pertussis is known as whooping cough because of the “whooping” sound people often make while gasping for air after a coughing fit. A highly contagious bacterial disease, it starts off like a cold but leads to severe coughing that can last for weeks. In rare cases, it can be fatal.


Until routine child vaccination became widespread in the 1940s, pertussis caused thousands of fatalities each year in the United States. While deaths are uncommon today, they still occur: In recent weeks, infants in New Mexico and Idaho have died from the disease.


Because the adult booster for pertussis — called Tdap for tetanus, diphtheria and acellular pertussis — has only been available since 2005, fewer than one in 10 adults have gotten the shot and most don’t even know they need it. The numbers are better for teens: about 70 percent have received a booster shot. Most people do not find out they even need a booster until they go to the doctor for a tetanus shot, Patti said.


Patti emphasized that pertussis isn’t spreading because of an anti-vaccine movement. Among possible reasons for the recent spike are that diagnoses in teens and adults are getting better and doctors are doing a better job with reporting, she added


Read more - 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/washington-state-health-officials-declare-whooping-cough-epidemic-seek-cdc-help-as-cases-soar/2012/05/10/gIQAUsE5FU_story.html

Dallas Shopping Mall Requires Teens To Be With Parents After 6 PM... -

Dallas Shopping Mall Requires Teens To Be With Parents After 6 PM... - 


Teenagers have been hanging out at shopping malls since the 1970s. It almost seems like a rite of passage. At NorthPark Center in Dallas, that rite of passage now requires a parent after 6:00 p.m.


“I think it’s our responsibility to know where our children are, who they’re with and what they’re doing,” said Bridget Johnson, a mother of a 15-year-old.


NorthPark is enforcing a new “code of conduct” that requires anyone 17 or younger to be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian while inside the mall after 6:00 p.m. “I really do respect that there are parents who may not agree with us completely,” explained NorthPark spokesman, Mark Annick. ”I can tell you that we’ve also spoken with all of the merchants in NorthPark and they think this a very good idea,” added Annick.


NorthPark says the new code is a result of the estimated 26 million visitors that come to the mall every year. With such a large volume, the management says they’re trying to maintain a family friendly atmosphere.



Meredith Bunch is the store manager of Fresh and she’s on board with the policy. “Friday nights and Saturday nights tend to be times spent with your family,” said Bunch. “I love that people come to mall and feel safe and feel comfortable,” she added.


NorthPark management says the new teen policy has nothing to do with complaints filed by shoppers.


While many parents support it, others maintain that 6:00 p.m. is too early to enforce a code of conduct. “I think it’s a little early. I think more like 8:00 p.m. or 9:00 p.m., maybe,” said parent Debbie Hilliard.


NorthPark security will enforce the code by randomly checking IDs. Unaccompanied teenagers, 17 and under, will be asked to call their parents to come join them or pick them up.


An exception will be made for teens coming to the mall for a movie.  However, NorthPark says they must go straight to the theater and leave once the movie is over.


Teens who work at the mall are also exempt. Here’s the full code of conduct:


Read more - 
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/05/09/teens-must-be-with-parents-at-night-at-northpark/

Americans consume 80% of world's pain pills... -

Americans consume 80% of world's pain pills... - 




Americans consume 80 percent of the world's supply of painkillers -- more than 110 tons of pure, addictive opiates every year -- as the country's prescription drug abuse epidemic explodes.
That's enough drugs to give every single American 64 Percocets or Vicodin. And pain pill prescriptions continue to surge, up 600 percent in ten year, thanks to doctors who are more and more willing to hand out drugs to patients who are suffering. 
As more people get their hands on these potentially-dangerous drugs, more are taking them to get high. Their drug abuse leads to 14,800 deaths a year -- more than from heroin and cocaine combined.



'We've become a society of wusses,' Long Island, New York, pharmacist Howard Levine told the BBC. 
Mr Levine stopped carrying all of the major addictive prescription drugs after he was robbed twice by addicts looking to get high.



Nationwide, police are reporting increases in robberies and other crimes by people who are addicted to oxycodone and hydrocodone, the key ingredient in most prescription pain pills. 
One of the people lured into crime by drug dependency was Rich Elassar, 36, who once owned a successful business in New Jersey.



But an addition to painkillers led to him taking 90 Percosets a day, he told BBC. When the money ran out he was desperate for more drugs.
One day, he walked into a bank and handed the teller a note demanding cash. He was caught and arrested shortly after the robbery. 
When the police came to bust him, he said he was actually relieved.
'I looked in my rear-view mirror and I saw the cops, I saw their lights flashing and I really, really, really remember thinking, well this is it. I'm going to get clean now,' he said.




Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2142481/Americans-consume-80-percent-worlds-pain-pills-prescription-drug-abuse-epidemic-explodes.html

Oregon norovirus traced to reusable grocery bag -

Oregon norovirus traced to reusable grocery bag - 




Oregon investigators have traced an outbreak of norovirus to a reusable grocery bag that members of a Beaverton girls' soccer team passed around when they shared cookies.
The soccer team of 13- and 14-year-olds traveled to Seattle for a weekend tournament in October 2010.
At the tournament, one girl got sick on Saturday and spent six hours in a chaperone's bathroom. Symptoms of the bug, often called "stomach flu," include vomiting, diarrhea and stomach cramps. The chaperone took the girl back to Oregon.
On Sunday, team members had lunch in a hotel room, passing around the bag and eating cookies it held. On Monday, six girls got sick.
Oregon scientists determined they had picked up the norovirus from the grocery bag.
Tests turned up the virus on the sides of the bag below the polypropylene handle.
The results of the research have been published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
The authors are Kimberly Repp, epidemiologist for Washington County, and William Keene, senior epidemiologist with Oregon Public Health.
Norovirus causes about 21 million illnesses, 70,000 hospitalizations and 800 deaths a year in the United States. It caused 139 of 213 outbreaks of gastroenteritis in Oregon in 2010.
The germ can spread quickly in places like day care centers, nursing homes, and cruise ships.
Usually, it's transmitted by direct human contact, but can contaminate surfaces. Leafy greens, fresh fruits and shellfish are commonly involved in foodborne outbreaks.
An epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the work also shows how hardy the norovirus is and how difficult it is to control.
"What this report does is it helps raise awareness of the complex and indirect way that norovirus can spread," said Aron Hall, an epidemiologist with the Division of Viral Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
His agency says the best way to fend off the virus is thorough hand-washing and cleaning contaminated surfaces with a bleach-based solution.




Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/05/10/oregon-norovirus-traced-to-reusable-grocery-bag/

24 Facts That Prove That America Is A Nation Of Slobs -

24 Facts That Prove That America Is A Nation Of Slobs - 






What would our founders say if they could see us now?  Americans like to believe that the rest of the world looks up to us, but the truth is that the rest of the world is laughing at us.  It may be very difficult for us to admit, but the reality is that America has become a nation of slobs.  And I am not just talking about being overweight.  Today, Americans are physical, mental, emotional, moral, financial and political slobs.  We are addicted to entertainment, we are addicted to shopping, we are addicted to food, we are addicted to prescription drugs, and we are addicted to anything else that gives us the pleasure that we crave.  We allow our televisions to do our thinking for us and our families are falling apart.  Our lives center around pleasing ourselves, and we have become one of the most narcissistic societies in the history of the world.  We are like a middle-aged man that has totally let himself go.  You know the guy who shows up for an important event in sandals, sweatpants and a stained t-shirt?  That is us.  We are only a shadow of what we once were as a nation, and we desperately need to change course.
So what is the solution?
Well, just like any addict, the first thing that we need to do is to admit that there is  a problem.  Until we admit how dramatically we have fallen, we are never going to be ready to make the changes that are necessary.
And yes, we have fallen a long, long way as a country.
The following are 24 facts that prove that America is a nation of slobs….
#1 Right now, approximately 36 percent of all Americans are obese.  It is being projected that number will rise to 42 percent by 2030.
#2 Back in 1962, only 13 percent of all Americans were obese.


#3 Medical costs related to obesity in the United States are estimated to be approximately $147 billion a year.
#4 All over America, our infrastructure is crumbling.  For example, in the most populated county in Alabama potholes the size of pizzas now litter the roads.
#5 The average American family purchases 200 pounds of meat per family member each year.
#6 Large numbers of cows that are killed for hamburger meat in America stand ankle-deep in their own manure all day long.
#7 The average American watches 28 hours of television every week.
#8 U.S. corporations sell more fast food and more soda than anyone else in the world by a very wide margin.
#9 The average American drinks more than 600 sodas every single year.  That is by far the most in the world.
#10 Of all the major industrialized nations, America is the most obese.  Mexico is in second place.
#11 Americans take more prescription drugs than anyone else on the planet.
#12 The United States has the highest rate of illegal drug use in the entire world.
#13 According to the Pew Research Center, only 51 percent of all Americans that are at least 18 years old are currently married.  Back in 1960, 72 percent of all U.S. adults were married.
#14 The United States has the highest divorce rate in the world by a very wide margin.
#15 According to one study, one out of every four teen girls in the United States has at least one sexually transmitted disease.
#16 The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate on the entire globe.
#17 The United States has the highest child abuse death rate on the entire globe.
#18 The United States produces more pornography than any other nation has in the history of the world.
#19 One survey found that an astounding 30 percent of all Internet traffic now goes to pornography websites.
#20 Consumer debt in America has increased by a staggering 1700% since 1971.
#21 There is more credit card debt in America than anywhere else in the world.
#22 There is more mortgage debt in America than anywhere else in the world.
#23 There is more student loan debt in America than anywhere else in the world.
#24 Nobody in the world gets more plastic surgery done than Americans do.
Have you read enough?
For even more signs that America is becoming a nation of slobs, you can check out one of my recent articles entitled “16 Signs That People Are Becoming Stupider“.
The sad truth is that this nation is a complete and total mess and the decline is accelerating.
Many want to blame our politicians for all of our problems, but replacing all of our politicians would not fix any of the things listed above.
Yes, we definitely need different leadership, but each one of us also needs to look into our own hearts.
It is not just the government that needs to change.
The American people need to change as well.
So what do you think about this article?
Am I being too harsh on the American people?
Am I not being harsh enough?
Please leave a comment with your opinion below….


Read more -
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/24-facts-that-prove-that-america-is-a-nation-of-slobs