XIAM007 - Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

Sunday, 23 June 2013

Mississauga Home 'Bombed' By Sky Poo -

What's brown and smelly and falls from the sky?

That's what Emma Gilfillan-Giannakos of Mississauga, Ont., wants to know — and what Transport Canada investigators are trying to determine.

Gilfillan-Giannakos was sitting in her backyard earlier this week, her kids playing nearby.

"I was sitting underneath the gazebo .. with my son, and my two other kids were on a fort over here, and all of a sudden we heard this big bomb! Like it hit the pool."

When she investigated she found her patio, her pool and her garden were covered with brown splashes.

What was it?

As far as Gilfillan-Giannakos is concerned there's no doubt.

"I stuck my finger in it and I smelt it and ... it smells like poo!"

Her home sits along the flight path to Canada's busiest airport, Pearson International. Planes can be seen criss-crossing the sky above her home all day long.

Transport Canada officials are investigating but haven't come to a final conclusion.

They do say there's something they call 'blue ice' that occasionally falls from airliners.

'Blue ice' forms when there's a leak from the tanks which store lavatory waste. The waste sometimes freezes and sticks to the aircraft.

When the plane descends and begins to warm up, the ice falls off.

Investigators say if that is what happened they'll try to identify the aircraft and take corrective measures.

But Gilfillan-Giannakos says she doesn't need to wait for the result of a long investigation.

"All I know is something came from the sky. And to me it's either a bird or a plane. And there's way too much of this to be birds."

Gilfillan-Giannakos, says she's been left with a bill for about $5,000 for emptying and cleaning her pool, replacing the liner and cleaning the patio.

Read more-

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/06/21/mississauga-home-sky-poo_n_3480963.html

Three Foot Snake Found By Woman In Wal-Mart Potato Bag -

Three Foot Snake Found By Woman In Wal-Mart Potato Bag -

Walmart promises a lot of bang for the buck, but one Pennsylvania woman got way more than she bargained for when she bought a bag of potatoes at Walmart: In addition to the produce, her bag contained a three-and-a-half foot long snake. Yech!

Bonnie Raygor had bought a bag of potatoes at Walmart in North Huntington, Pennsylvania. About six days later, she broke open the sealed bag to begin making dinner – and discovered a snake inside. “First I saw it’s underbelly, which is white. I thought I had a bad potato,” Raygor said. “Instead I had a snake. The bag was sealed. The only thing that’s in it are the little holes, so I’m assuming it was in there when I bought it. I screamed.”

Raygor instinctively grabbed the snake and put it in a vacant reptile enclosure her family had created for a pet snake they once owned. Only after the fact did she do some internet research, which led her to conclude that the snake is a non-poisonous corn snake. Or, as Raygor said, “I’m hoping it’s a corn snake, because I just stuck my hand in [the bag] and grabbed it.”

Because the bag was sealed right up until the moment Raygor broke it open, save for a few tiny vent holes so that the potatoes could breath, Raygor assumes that the snake got into the bag when it was originally packed.

Raygor immediately called Walmart. The first thing she was told was to bring the snake to the Lawn and Gardner department, but Raygor wanted something more than having to make an extra trip to Walmart. When she finally spoke to a manager, “He said if I had a receipt, I could get a refund.”

Walmart told WTAE News that it was going to contact the distributor of Harvest Gold potatoes, the brand that Raygor bought. Raygor knows what she wants from Walmart, and it’s more than just a refund. “I think they need to find out where it came from. They owe me an apology.”

Read more -

The Bank Of International Settlements Warns The Monetary Kool-Aid Party Is Over -

When a month ago the Central Banks' Central Bank, aka the Bank of International Settlements (or BIS) in Basel where the MIT central-planning braintrust meets every few months to decide the fate of the world, warned that the Fed-induced collateral shortage is distorting the markets, few paid attention. That the implication behind said warning was that QE can not continue at the current pace, was just as lost. A few short weeks later following the biggest plunge in markets since 2011 in the aftermath of Bernanke's taper tantrum, some are finally willing to listen.

However, they will certainly not like what the BIS just released as a follow up, both in the form of the BIS' 83rd Annual Report, and the speech by Jaime Caruana to commemorate said annual meeting. For the simple reason that it reads like a run of the mill Sunday morning Zero Hedge sermon, which says, almost verbatim, that the days of kicking the can via flawed monetary policy are now over, and that the time for central banks to end the monetary morphine drip has finally come.

The BIS message, as summarized by the FT, is that "central banks must head for the exit and stop trying to spur a global economic recovery... cheap and plentiful central bank money had merely bought time, warning that more bond buying would retard the global economy’s return to health by delaying adjustments to governments’ and households’ balance sheets."

Here is a better summary of the BIS' unprecedented U-Turn on its 5 year long monetary strategy, in its own selected words:

Can central banks now really do “whatever it takes”? As each day goes by, it seems less and less likely... Six years have passed since the eruption of the global financial crisis, yet robust, self-sustaining, well balanced growth still eludes the global economy. If there were an easy path to that goal, we would have found it by now.

Monetary stimulus alone cannot provide the answer because the roots of the problem are not monetary. Hence, central banks must manage a return to their stabilisation role, allowing others to do the hard but essential work of adjustment.

Many large corporations are using cheap bond funding to lengthen the duration of their liabilities instead of investing in new production capacity.

Continued low interest rates and unconventional policies have made it easy for the private sector to postpone deleveraging, easy for the government to finance deficits, and easy for the authorities to delay needed reforms in the real economy and in the financial system.

Overindebtedness is one of the major barriers on the path to growth after a financial crisis. Borrowing more year after year is not the cure...in some places it may be difficult to avoid an overall reduction in accommodation because some policies have clearly hit their limits.
Of course, it would have been more useful for the BIS to reach this commonsensical conclusion some four years ago (or roughly when we started preaching to the choir, which now includes the BIS itself), instead of allowing the global private bank controlled syndicate known as "central banks" to inject $15 trillion into global capital markets in the past 4 years, and nearly $25 trillion since 2000.

Read more -

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-23/bank-international-settlements-warns-monetary-kool-aid-party-over

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has inserted a handout to Las Vegas casinos into the repackaged immigration reform bill -

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) have inserted a provision that amounts to little more than a handout to Las Vegas casinos into the repackaged immigration reform bill, Breitbart News has learned. This provision, a brazen example of crony capitalism, was inserted into the immigration law enforcement section of the bill despite the fact that it has nothing whatsoever to do with "immigration" or "law enforcement."
On page 66 of the repackaged bill, the following provision appears:
“CORPORATION FOR TRAVEL PROMOTION.—Sec- 9(d)(2)(B) of the Travel Promotion Act of 2009 (22 U.S.C. 2131(d)(2)(B)) is amended by striking ‘‘For each of fiscal years 2012 through 2015,’’ and inserting ‘‘For each fiscal year after 2012.”
The Travel Promotion Act (TPA) of 2009 allows the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury to spend up to $100 million on promoting travel to specific areas of the country. If the provision Reid and Heller inserted into the proposed immigration reform legislation becomes law, the benefits of the TPA would be extended indefinitely.
As the Heritage Foundation’s Jena McNeill wrote in June 2009, the Travel Promotion Act creates “a government-run public relations campaign funded by a tax on international visitors.” After the law was passed, the PR campaign touting Las Vegas casinos and other tourist destinations in the U.S. using that tax was rolled into a government-run corporation called “Brand USA.” In October 2012, Jim DeMint and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) released a report that “reveals a history of waste, abuse, patronage, and lax oversight” with the Brand USA program and the Department of Commerce that oversees it.
When the Travel Promotion Act was passed in 2009, the Las Vegas Casino industry and the Las Vegas Strip officially thanked Reid for passing it. Among others, Bally’s Casino ran an advertisement on their electronic billboard on the Strip thanking Reid for its passage, a billboard Reid promoted on his website.
“The recently signed into law Travel Promotion Act is going to greatly benefit Nevada because we have so many wonderful tourist attractions,” a 2009 post from Reid’s website reads. “Senator Reid fought so hard to pass this bill because he knew that it would mean thousands of jobs for Nevada as foreign tourists flock to Las Vegas, Reno, and Lake Tahoe. Yesterday a number of hotels on the Las Vegas Strip showed Senator Reid their appreciation for his efforts on behalf of Nevada by thanking him in their marquees.”

Read more -

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/22/Harry-Reid-Dean-Heller-insert-Casino-Cronyist-favor-handout-into-amnesty-bill

World's Ugliest Dog 2013: Beagle-Boxer-Basset Named Walle Wins Annual Contest -

A huge-headed, duck-footed mix of beagle, boxer and basset hound was the upset winner at the 25th annual World's Ugliest Dog Contest.

Walle (WAHL-ee), a 4-year-old mutt from Chico, Calif., who was entered at the last minute, was judged Friday as the most unsightly of 30 dogs at the Northern California competition.

"This dog looked like he's been photo-shopped with pieces from various dogs and maybe a few other animals," judge Brian Sobel said.

Walle overcame the dominance in recent years by nearly hairless Chihuahuas, Chinese cresteds, or combinations of the two.

Owner Tammie Barbee got the dog when he was three months old.

"People come up to me and say that dog is not right," Barbee said, "but I love him."

Judges said they were especially impressed by Walle's bizarre waddle of a walk.

Walle wins $1,500 and will make several network TV appearances next week, including NBC's "Today" show and ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

The contest at the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds gets worldwide attention, with media from around the world traveling to Petaluma, about 40 miles north of San Francisco.

Organizers say the dogs are judged for their "natural ugliness in both pedigree and mutt classes."

Read more -

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/22/worlds-ugliest-dog-2013_n_3484626.html

Saturday, 22 June 2013

Tests On Dog Harnesses Show 100 Percent Failure Rate -

A first-of-its-kind crash test for dog harnesses widely used by pet owners showed that none offer adequate protection, with not a single harness passing the test.

The non-profit Center for Pet Safety (CPS) said during its harness tests, crash-test dog dummies turned into projectiles and were even decapitated.

“We tested them to the child safety restraint standard and we experienced a 100-percent failure rate to protect either the consumer or the dog,” said CPS founder and CEO Lindsey Wolko. “That is a very real concern for consumers.”

The Center for Pet Safety would not disclose which harnesses the nonprofit tested out of fear even fewer people will secure their pets.

Wolko said that, while some manufactures do claim to do their own testing, there is no government standard, which creates unregulated industry that can be dangerous for drivers.

Veterinarian Kim Haddad has seen what can happen to a pet in a car accident. “Broken legs, broken jaws, soft tissue injury, it can be pretty traumatic,” said Dr. Haddad.

But while injuries are much worse when drivers let their dogs roam free inside a vehicle, simply using a harness often isn’t enough. In some cases, they can be just as deadly.

“Something is better than nothing, but again, it is only going to be as good as the manufacturer, the fit and the user application of the product,” said Haddad.

According to the American Automobile Association, 20-percent of dog owners admit to allowing their pets to ride unrestrained inside their vehicle.

While having your dog in your lap as you drive violates distracted driving laws, no state currently requires drivers to buckle up their pets.

Some states have proposed bills that could require harnesses, but CPS worries such laws would create a false sense of security as owners assume if a product is legislated, it meets some kind of safety standard.

CPS is now calling for standardized testing similar to child safety seats and for lawmakers to educate themselves on safety standards before legislating the restraints.

One auto manufacturer, Subaru, is currently partnering with CPS to create a testing standard.

Read more -

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/06/21/tests-on-dog-harnesses-show-100-percent-failure-rate/

Friday, 21 June 2013

Facebook glitch exposes info of 6 Million users -

Facebook says a glitch may have exposed portions of the personal contact information, such as email addresses or phone numbers, of roughly 6 million users.

In a statement posted Friday, the social network says the bug is tied to uploading contact lists or address books, which are used in creating friend recommendations.

"Because of the bug, some of the information used to make friend recommendations and reduce the number of invitations we send was inadvertently stored in association with people's contact information as part of their account on Facebook," reads a statement from Facebook Security. "As a result, if a person went to download an archive of their Facebook account through our Download Your Information (DYI) tool, they may have been provided with additional email addresses or telephone numbers for their contacts or people with whom they have some connection."

Facebook says the bug has been fixed, and no other personal or financial information was compromised. Also, the social network says they have found no proof the glitch is being used maliciously.

Although Facebook insists it will likely have little impact, the company apologized for the glitch. "It's still something we're upset and embarrassed by, and we'll work doubly hard to make sure nothing like this happens again."

Read more -

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/06/21/facebook-bug-personal-info/2447547/

'Sheep-eating' plant about to bloom - it uses its sharp spines to snare and trap sheep and slowly starve to death -

A South American plant with a 10ft (3m) tall flower spike is about to bloom in a Surrey glasshouse for the first time since it was planted 15 years ago.

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) at Wisley said the Puya chilensis, a native of Chile, would bloom in the next few days and last about a week.

In the Andes it uses its sharp spines to snare and trap sheep and other animals, which slowly starve to death.

The animals then decay at the base of the plant, acting as a fertiliser.

The RHS feeds its specimen on liquid fertiliser.

The gardening charity said very few specimens of Puya chilensis were known to have flowered in the UK.

The National Botanic Garden of Wales waited 11 years for its plant to bloom, though clumps bloom every April in the open on Tresco in the Isles of Scilly.

The plant has bright greeny-yellow flowers on tall spikes above the razor-sharp spines.

"I'm really pleased that we've finally coaxed our Puya chilensis into flower," said horticulturalist Cara Smith.

"We keep it well fed with liquid fertiliser as feeding it on its natural diet might prove a bit problematic.

"It's growing in the arid section of our glasshouse with its deadly spines well out of reach of both children and sheep alike."

Read more -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-22967160

20 Signs That The Pharmaceutical Companies Are Running A 280 Billion Dollar Money Making Scam -

If you could get 70 percent of Americans addicted to your drugs and rake in $280 billion a year in the process, would you do it? If you could come up with a “pill for every problem” and charge Americans twice as much for those pills as people in other countries pay, would you do it? If you could make more money than you ever dreamed possible by turning the American people into the most doped up people in the history of the planet, would you do it? In America today, the number of people hooked on legal drugs absolutely dwarfs the number of people hooked on illegal drugs. And sadly, the number of people killed by legal drugs absolutely dwarfs the number of people killed by illegal drugs. But most Americans assume that if a drug is “legal” that it must be safe. After all, the big pharmaceutical companies and the federal government would never allow us to take anything that would hurt us, right? Sadly, the truth is that they don’t really care about us. They don’t really care that prescription painkillers are some of the most addictive drugs on the entire planet and that they kill more Americans each year than heroin and cocaine combined. They don’t care that antidepressants are turning tens of millions of Americans into zombies and can significantly increase the chance of suicide (just look at the warning label). All the big pharmaceutical companies really care about is making as much money as they possibly can. The following are 20 signs that the pharmaceutical companies are running a $280 billion money making scam…
#1 According to a study conducted by the Mayo Clinic, 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug. An astounding 20 percent of all Americans are on at least five prescription drugs.
#2 According to the CDC, approximately 9 out of every 10 Americans that are at least 60 years of age say that they have taken at least one prescription drug within the last month.
#3 The 11 largest pharmaceutical companies combined to rake inapproximately $85,000,000,000 in profits in 2012.
#4 During 2013, Americans will spend more than 280 billion dollars on prescription drugs.
#5 According to Alternet, last year “11 of the 12 new-to-market drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration were priced above $100,000 per-patient per-year”.
#6 The CDC says that spending on prescription drugs more than doubledbetween 1999 and 2008.
#7 Many prescription drugs cost about twice as much in the United States as they do in other countries.
#8 One study found that more than 20 percent of all American adults are taking at least one drug for “psychiatric” or “behavioral” disorders.
#9 The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higher than in any other country in the world.
#10 Children in the United States are three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants than children in Europe are.
#11 A shocking Government Accountability Office report discovered thatapproximately one-third of all foster children in the United States are on at least one psychiatric drug. In fact, the report found that many states seem to be doping up foster children as a matter of course. Just check out these stunning statistics…
In Texas, foster children were 53 times more likely to be prescribed five or more psychiatric medications at the same time than non-foster children. In Massachusetts, they were 19 times more likely. In Michigan, the number was 15 times. It was 13 times in Oregon. And in Florida, foster children were nearly four times as likely to be given five or more psychotropic medications at the same time compared to non-foster children.
#12 In 2010, the average teen in the U.S. was taking 1.2 central nervous system drugs. Those are the kinds of drugs which treat conditions such as ADHD and depression.
#13 The total number of Americans taking antidepressants doubled between 1996 and 2005.
#14 All of those antidepressants don’t seem to be working too well. The suicide rate for Americans between the ages of 35 and 64 rose by close to 30 percent between 1999 and 2010. The number of Americans that are killed by suicide now exceeds the number of Americans that die as a result of car accidents.
#15 According to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, 36 millionAmericans have abused prescription drugs at some point in their lives.
#16 A survey conducted for the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that more than 15 percent of all U.S. high school seniors abuse prescription drugs.
#17 According to the CDC, approximately three quarters of a million people a year are rushed to emergency rooms in the United States because of adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs.
#18 According to the Los Angeles Times, drug deaths (mostly caused by prescription drugs) are climbing at an astounding rate….
Drug fatalities more than doubled among teens and young adults between 2000 and 2008, years for which more detailed data are available. Deaths more than tripled among people aged 50 to 69, the Times analysis found. In terms of sheer numbers, the death toll is highest among people in their 40s.
#19 In the United States today, prescription painkillers kill more Americans than heroin and cocaine combined.
#20 Each year, tens of billions of dollars is spent on pharmaceutical marketing in the United States alone.
The American people deserve better than that. Every year, the United Statesspends more on health care than Japan, Germany, France, China, the U.K., Italy, Canada, Brazil, Spain and Australia combined. In fact, if the U.S. health care system was a separate nation it would be the 6th largest economy on the entire planet.
For all the money that we spend, we should be the healthiest people in the world by a wide margin. Instead, life expectancy is higher in dozens of other countries and we have very high rates of cancer, heart disease and diabetes. For much more on the colossal failure of our health care system, please see my previous article entitled “50 Signs That The U.S. Health Care System Is A Gigantic Money Making Scam“.
So what do you think about the pharmaceutical companies that are making billions of dollars by getting the American people addicted to their super-expensive legal drugs?

Read more -

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/20-signs-that-the-pharmaceutical-companies-are-running-a-280-billion-money-making-scam

The largest full moon of 2013, a so-called "SuperMoon," will light up the night sky this weekend -

The largest full moon of 2013, a so-called "supermoon," will light up the night sky this weekend. On Sunday, June 23, at 7 a.m. EDT, the moon will arrive at perigee -- the point in its orbit its orbit bringing it closest to Earth), a distance of 221,824 miles. Now the moon typically reaches perigee once each month (and on some occasions twice), with their respective distances to Earth varying by 3 percent. But Sunday's lunar perigee will be the moon's closest to Earth of 2013. And 32 minutes later, the moon will officially turn full.

The close timing of the moon's perigee and its full phase are what will bring about the biggest full moon of the year, a celestial event popularly defined by some as a "supermoon."You can watch a free webcast of 2013 supermoon full moon on SPACE.com on Sunday at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 June 24), courtesy of the skywatching website Slooh Space Camera.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57590418/supermoon-rises-in-weekend-night-sky/

SLOOH, an international team of astronomers tracking celestial phenomena, will have a high-definition live stream of this weekend’s supermoon originating from their observatory in the Canary Islands. The live stream begins on June 23 at 6 p.m. EDT, 9 p.m. PDT. The SLOOH live stream will include a live chat with astronomer Bob Berman and the SLOOH team and will also include different angles of the supermoon as well as close-up looks at the surface of the Moon.

Read more -

http://www.ibtimes.com/supermoon-live-stream-watch-years-biggest-full-moon-hd-weekend-video-1318093#