Today, President Obama’s birth certificate in long form has been released to the media. Any questions?
I fail to see the logic of pursuing such trivial points of interest. Isn’t there enough to worry about? I mean, gas prices, unemployment, child abuse, domestic violence, the whittling away of basic rights… The man was voted into office; isn’t that enough? No? We need to be distracted from the important issues; is that it?
It’s time to learn how to play together, don’t you think?
Rumor has it that it has been reintroduced in Washington, DC, and may be part of the new health care program.
Um, I think I’ll pass. Next?
Image, the perfect evening, candlelit, romantically cozy and as memorable as they come. Now, add in a huge dose of unique and you have a night spent in this Quebec City, Canada Ice Hotel adorned with glasses made of ice, beds made of ice and a guarantee that you two will cuddle together – for warmth.
In its eleventh year running, the ice hotel sports 36 rooms in an area with average temperatures of –4. Inside, however, it’s cozy, with the igloo construction trapping in body heat as the Inuit’s intended.
Book your event now because it will close its doors on March 27, then melt away.
What do you get when you mix potatoes, sweet potatoes and plastic? Mass produced and distributed rice.
The Korea Times reports that the Weekly Hong Kong quotes a Singapore media article that the fake, toxic rice is selling like hot cakes in Taiyuan, Shaanxi Province.
The rice is made by shaping potatoes and sweet potatoes like rice, then adding in an industrial strength synthetic resin. One Chinese official said that if you eat three bowls of this rice, you’ve eaten the equivalent of one vinyl bag. The fake rice is hard like stone, even when cooked, and “very harmful to the human body.”
The rice is hugely profitable and still sold in mass quantities, despite its discovery to be harmfully fake.
Kudos to Mike Elgan for finding this tidbit. How long before this rice hits US grocery shelves?
The Coast Guard says that a grand piano, perched on the highest point of a sandbar at Biscayne Bay in Miami, Fla, is not a navigational hazard and therefore has no plans to remove it. There since last week, it’s probably not in tune, and no one knows who put it there.
Rumors abound. The New World Symphony opens this week, so is it a publicity stunt? Was it a prop left behind after filming a Kayne video? Or, was it a child’s imagination: "The Little Mermaid was not a work of fiction and the musically inclined lobsters and crabs dragged the piano out themselves." The NY Times even wants to put the person responsible on its list of 100 Creatives.
So, the piano picturesquely stands as a testament to music. It’s a nice change from the usual news story.
This photo was taken in 1904 in Clay County, Arkansas and shows a fault trench left by the New Madrid Fault Line earthquakes of 1811-1812. Those earthquakes are known as the largest, greatest natural disaster the US has ever known and some say equaled the energy produced by one thousand atom bombs.
David Maxwell, the Director of the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, predicts that an earthquake of the same magnitude will hit again:
"There will definitely be casualties, and depending on the time of day, we've got studies that run a model that show we would have a substantial fatalities, certainly a large number of people injured.”
Though a major earthquake has yet to hit, more than 500 temblors have occurred since September around Guy, Arkansas. Not new news for the state, but now getting national coverage and attention from CNN. Many question whether the recent increase in frakking for natural gas along the Fayetteville Shale Play, in particular, the practice of injecting drill water back into the earth via disposal wells, is behind the exponential increase in seismic activity.
“I think everyone recognizes that there is an increased number of seismic events occurring in and around this area. If you look at the maps, at least circumstantially, there appears to be evidence that they may be related to disposal operations," said Shane Khoury, deputy director and general counsel for the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission. "But we also know that this is an area that is historically active."
In not a matter of “if,” but a matter of when a major quake along the New Madrid Fault Line will happen. In Spring, 2011, state and federal agencies will conduct a large-scale simulation of a natural disaster in order to practice earthquake response.
The Arkansas Dept of Emergency Management asks that everyone help by becoming as prepared as possible, and has put together an earthquake preparedness guideline for you.
Some will say that it’s because of the hard economic times that rob people of hope for the future. Others will just write it off to some unyet sound explanation. But, there are enough questions, hard, tough questions that prompted the people of Denver to add a measure to the Nov. 2 ballot that set the ground to develop a welcoming protocol. That measure was voted down, but it was there.
It’s the age-old question of extraterrestrial life and UFOs, and according to some, the more sightings that hit the news, the more sightings there are. Take, for instance, the sighting over NY City that has the attention of national media. MUFON, one organization dedicated to investigate sightings, reports receiving 500 calls per month on average, with 100 of those calls not so easily explained away.
Even ABC news caught this object hovering over NYC while doing on-street interviews. So far, no one is able to come up with a plausible explanation, yet thousands have seen the object hovering.
The debate is fueled and alive again. Is there life “out there?”
A bell clangs to signal the end of the work shift. Your replacement is standing behind you, waiting to take over and obediently steps in without missing a beat of the production flow. You walk a short way down an alley and into a massive dorm that is home to 210,000 of your coworkers, half of the existing workforce. You walk down a sterile, dim hallway to your room that is the size of a garage and shared with 7 others, one of which shares your bed since there are only 4. You might watch TV in a stark community room or wash your clothes and yourself on a balcony set up for that purpose. Then, back to work you go after sleeping on a barely 1 inch thick pad for a bed.
That is what it’s like to work for electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn in China, the makers of our beloved iPhone. Wired.com sent a team there to take photos for an upcoming feature focusing on the worker’s conditions and reported abuse allegations along with the unprecedented 11 suicides that have occurred there.
Article comments point out that the conditions photographed at Foxconn aren’t all that bad compared to other places in China, and I suppose it wouldn’t even be in our sights at all if it wasn’t the birthplace of the wildly popular iPhone.
But here is an example of the extreme exploitation of people at the hands of capitalism, found throughout Asia and any other third-world or newly industrialized country.
I love my iPhone and extend my thanks to those that suffered to make it.
Meet Howard Veal. Now, Mr. Veal apparently vehemently follows Darwin in that he has fathered 23 children with 12 different women. Yes, spread the seed. Someone should get with this man and document his pick-up lines because they seem to work rather well.
Of all those children, 23 and counting, Veal has paid a grand total of $90 in child support. Nothing more. Ever. To date, he owes $533,000 in back child support with 14 additional child support cases pending. He is currently unemployed in Michigan, a state bursting with a 13% unemployment rate.
The punishment doled out by the courts: 23 to 48 months in jail with a price tag to taxpayers of roughly $30,000 a year.
You are the poster child for irresponsibility," Kent County Judge Dennis Leiber told Veal at a court hearing, according to The Grand Rapids Press. "You're an insult to every responsible father who sacrifices to provide for their children."
I’d say that this makes a darned good case for male birth control.
Palestinians are threatening to withdraw from talks and Israel is refusing to extend a moratorium on settlement building. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton can’t seem to break the deadlock, though she did put her foot down and told both sides not to wreck the peace talks.
As always, a picture is worth a thousand words, and the Associated Free Press captured the sentiments exactly. This is progress.
ABC News (and only ABC News) reports today that the threat of terrorism is now the highest since 9/11, with readily available al Qaeda propaganda on the Internet driving like-minded individuals in the US to terroristic acts.
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter spoke during a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee September 22, 2010 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, to present the facts behind the evolving threat level.
"A blend of al Qaeda inspiration, perceived victimization, and glorification of past plotting, has become increasingly accessible through the Internet, and English-language websites are tailored to address the unique concerns of US-based extremists," said Leiter, who stated that more complex and frequent attacks have happened in the last year.
"The attack threats are now more complex, and the diverse array of threats tests our ability to respond, and makes it difficult to predict where the next attack may come.”
The National Weather Service has issued a state-wide warning that has prompted burn bans across Arkansas:
...ELEVATED FIRE DANGER CONTINUES TODAY...
HIGH PRESSURE BROUGHT DRIER AIR TO THE NATURAL STATE FOR THE WEEKEND...AND THIS DRY AIR WILL ALLOW FOR AN INCREASED FIRE DANGER TODAY. THE COMBINATION OF LOW MOISTURE LEVELS IN THE FINE FUELS SUCH AS GRASS...AND LOW AFTERNOON RELATIVE HUMIDITY WILL RESULT IN INCREASED FIRE DANGER ACROSS MUCH OF THE STATE TODAY. ALSO...AS THE HIGH PRESSURE MOVES EAST...WINDS...ESPECIALLY ACROSS WESTERN ARKANSAS...WILL INCREASE AND BECOME GUSTY THIS AFTERNOON.
DUE TO THIS INCREASED FIRE DANGER...NUMEROUS COUNTIES ACROSS THE STATE HAVE ISSUED BURN BANS. PLEASE CONTACT LOCAL OFFICIALS BEFORE BURNING TO SEE IF YOUR COUNTY IS UNDER A BURN BAN.
IN ADDITION TO THE BURN BANS...ALL OF ARKANSAS IS IN A MODERATE WILDFIRE DANGER RISK...WITH WESTERN ARKANSAS IN A HIGH WILDFIRE DANGER. REMEMBER...ANY FIRES THAT START WILL HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO SPREAD QUICKLY AND GET OUT OF CONTROL. EVEN SOMETHING AS SMALL AS A DISCARDED CIGARETTE...EMBERS FROM A CAMPFIRE OR EVEN SPARKS FROM FARM MACHINERY CAN START A FIRE.
MOISTURE VALUES WILL BEGIN TO INCREASE SIGNIFICANTLY TUESDAY...AS MOISTURE STREAMS NORTH FROM GULF. RAIN CHANCES WILL ENTER THE FORECAST TUESDAY...AND CONTINUE THROUGH THE END OF THE WEEK...AS THE REMNANTS OF TROPICAL STORM HERMINE MOVE INTO THE SOUTHERN PLAINS.
Since 1591 when the flush toilet was invented and common by the 60s and 70s, we have been BM-ing in a position non conducive to getting the job done in a way our bodies were intended.
You see, our bodies have something called an anorectal angle, a bend in the pipes between where waste is held and where it comes out. This bend is at 90 degrees when we stand, and about straightened out when we squat. Sitting down while inviting movement is working against the way our bodies work, increasing abdominal pressure that cause the veins in our anuses to swell, painfully. When those veins stay swollen, they may bleed. Welcome to Hemorrhoid City.
If you don’t believe it, try it yourself as Slate’s Daniel Lametti did. He said he gained an hour of time each week, saved some effort along the way, and his knees stopped hurting after about the third day.
It’s every parents’ nightmare. Mom pulled up to the elementary school to pick up her 6 year old only he wasn’t there. He was supposed to wait for his mother, but instead, he got on a school bus, sat down, and took an hour long ride. The little boy was so frightened, he didn’t know what to do. His mom was franticly looking for him at the school.
That’s what happened to Chandra Russey-McCormick and her son Zyic on Monday at Landmark Elementary, in the Pulaski County Special School District in Little Rock, Arkansas.
The school says they knew the little boy got on the school bus. Mom says she let the school know multiple times that she would be picking him up. She wants to know why Zyic was on the bus and the principal blames her for not letting the school know she would be picking him up.
To give credit where credit is due, as upsetting as this incident is to Zyic’s mom, this is the first time I’ve heard of a school losing a child. Either I have my head in the sand, or schools are really good at getting children where they need to be.
Be careful out there.
The news hit late yesterday. Congress passed and sent the bill to the president to restore Unemployment Insurance extensions. The bill was hung up in a political filibuster since the end of May, leaving many who, unable to find work, ran out of regular benefits and were left with no income whatsoever.
There has been, as a result of this long-awaited announcement, a mass of confusion. Some people, who exhausted all possible regular benefits and all the available extensions, mistakenly misunderstood that there were now additional extensions. The media has not been clear in reporting just what has come to be. In some cases, articles have reported the restoration of “up to 99 weeks of unemployment.” What the media did not report is all the variables that come into play to be eligible for that length of time. In the end, desperate, hopeful people went to their local unemployment offices only to leave more angry and frustrated than they already were with no income and little chance of finding a job.
In an effort to clear up some of the uncertainty, let me point out a few things that will help you understand what is going on.
The number of Unemployment Insurance extensions is based solely on each state’s unemployment rate. Arkansas’ unemployment rate is now at 7.5 percent.
The national unemployment rate is 9.5 percent. That number is the average unemployment rate of each of the 50 states. There are some states with a much higher rate of unemployment than Arkansas, and some at a lower rate. Depending on where those numbers fall is what determines the number of unemployment extensions available.
Arkansas has, at this time, three “Tiers” of extensions. Some states have only one extension, while others with high unemployment rates have 5 extensions. The availability of any of the federally funded unemployment extensions can change at any given moment. If a state’s unemployment rate changes, so do the number of extensions.
A person who has worked in Arkansas with a full, 26-week claim is eligible to receive the full amount of each of the 3 Tiers of the extensions. This works out to be 73 weeks of unemployment benefits. If a person was not eligible for a full, 26-week regular benefits claim, then that person would not be eligible for the full amounts of each extension Tier. A person is not eligible for an extension at all if he or she did not work 20 weeks in the base period of the claim.
In other words, each person drawing unemployment will receive a different amount each week and for a different number of weeks. Each person’s work history and how much they made go into the calculations. No two claims are alike.
Arkansas will begin paying out the restored extension benefits on July 26.
That is good news. The bad news is that it won’t happen all at once. It will take up to 7 days to get this ball rolling again. Be thankful that you live here in Arkansas because there are some states that anticipate taking 6 weeks to get everyone caught up!
Please, learn and spread accurate information.
There is nothing more frightening than losing a job. It is a threat that strikes at your core ability to take of yourself and your family. Unemployment insurance eases some of that mountain of stress by providing enough of an income to tide you over while looking for another job. Nowadays, it’s difficult to find a job, so running out of unemployment too is an even bigger stress. That incredible amount of stress makes it difficult to keep your head straight, so to speak, when you need your faculties about you the most.
So, if you or someone you know is unemployed and subsisting on just unemployment insurance, learn what is really available to you in your area. Go to your local Arkansas Department of Workforce Services office and get to know all the facts.
On the Senate’s table is a bill to create a $30 billion fund to boost lending, distributed to community banks as incentives to extend loans to small businesses that create two out of every three jobs. On that same table is another issue already blocked from a “yea or nay” vote by a Republican filibuster three times is the bill to restore unemployment extensions to the 2.1 million people who have exhausted their regular benefits claim but have yet to find work.
“The fact is, most economists agree that extending unemployment insurance is one of the single most cost-effective ways to help jumpstart the economy," he said. "It puts money into the pockets of folks who not only need it most, but who also are most likely to spend it quickly. That boosts local economies. And that means jobs,” said Obama as he railed against the country’s leadership that is holding out against continuing economic stimulus. Their argument, he said, is that it would increase the national debt with the money borrowed, yet these same leaders didn’t hesitate an instant to fork over billions to bail out the financial sector.
“I haven’t met any Americans who would rather have an unemployment check than a meaningful job that lets you provide for your family,” Obama said to those that insist unemployment insurance discourages the jobless from looking for work.
The reality is finally coming to light, and the numbers are staggering. With roughly 10 percent of the population struggling with no income and little hope of gainful employment, the future of the country itself is tottering on the brink of disaster as the economy continues its downward spiral.
In October, it will be worse as millions more exhaust their unemployment claims. Next year, it will be exponentially worse as few will have enough wages on file to even qualify for unemployment benefits.
An even harsher reality points to the possibility that both proposed legislative bills are no more than the usual band-aid on a gaping wound. That gaping wound started this whole mess to begin with, and the culprit is the financial sector itself. Banks and investment companies are back on solid ground and are staying there at the expense of everything and everyone else. The money goes it, but it never comes back out.
All it would take to bring the whole thing tumbling completely down is another spike in the pump price of gasoline. What will be left standing in the ashes of ruin will be gas and insurance companies.
Is it too late to plant a garden?
One man made national news today after losing a drinking bet with his buddies, though his name is absent from the accounts and will not enjoy his notoriety.
A New Mexico man was found naked and on fire along Rt 70 on Monday. He told police that he lost a drinking bet with his friends, that whoever drank the least would be set on fire and agreed to let those friends set him on fire when he managed to only drink a 6-pack of beer.
The friends lit up this man’s prosthetic leg. The flames started to burn the man’s buttocks, so they loaded him into a truck to take him to the hospital. But, before they got there, the friends freaked and left him burning on the side of the road.
At this point, dear Sir, I question the kind of friends you keep and the idiocy of taking part in a bet with those friends who think nothing of setting you on fire. Is it time to rethink a few things?
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