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Found by ECA.
- Santa being tracked by Norad.
- Notebook sales outpacing desktops. Finally.
- HP geared up to sell 18 million laptops in 2009.
- Windows 7 to be out in 2009.
- The Digital Cliff coming your way.
- Steve Jobs spirit suddenly “institutionalized” within Apple.
- Today’s list. “Four things Microsoft got right in 2008.”
Right click here and select ‘Save Link As…’ to download the mp3 file.
Here is the 10th conversation I had with money manager Andrew Horowitz…. new insights for anyone who invests in anything. What to do? This chat is not produced and is presented as-is for anyone who wants to listen in. We discuss Bernie Madoff among other topics.
Right click here and select ‘Save Link As…’ to download the mp3 file.
WCVB-TV-5 – December 24, 2008:
Two young children and a woman who were ice fishing on a lake in Athol were rescued after they fell through the ice and spotted by a man who just happened to be walking by.
“I started screaming, looking for help and hoped to God that someone could hear,” said Sileng Lheureux, 34, who fell into the water with her children, ages 3 and 11.
A former firefighter who lives near Lake Ellis saw the ice give way at about 9:15 a.m. Wednesday and called police. Lee Chauvette said that he saw the woman and children on the ice when he left for work.
He realized he forgot something and when he returned home, he spotted the group falling through the ice.
Officials in Athol called the timing of Chauvette’s return home a “Christmas miracle.”
“Thank God the guy could hear and help me. If it’s not him, we are all going to die in the water, said Lheureux.
“It was just unbelievable situation. I went to drop off a food permit and returned home for my checkbook,” Chauvette said. “I live on Lake Ellis. I saw three people on the ice, and I went to the top of the driveway and physically saw them fall through the ice.”
Brave Italian photographer Iago Corazza travelled the country, the island at the end of the world, and took photos of its fascinating inhabitants, who still live a Stone Age existence.
“You find people here who can describe the taste of human flesh,” the photographer said of his travels.
Anthropologist Olga Ammann describes it more succinctly in the book. She quotes people who have eaten other humans: “The meat of white people smells too strongly and is too salty.”
The Japanese are meant to taste the best, according to her study – the only thing that beats it is the meat of their own women. But is cannibalism just a myth, or does it still exist on the island? It has been banned there for over 50 years – but it is reported that some tribes still eat the flesh of people who have died.
Evidence of this is the current prevalence of the Kuru illness in tribe members, which is associated with cannibalism.
FORBES- How a Beverly Hills doctor powered his SUV using his patients’ spare tires. Liposuctioning unwanted blubber out of pampered Los Angelenos may not seem like a dream job, but it has its perks. Free fuel is one of them. For a time, Beverly Hills doctor Craig Alan Bittner turned the fat he removed from patients into biodiesel that fueled his Ford SUV and his girlfriend’s Lincoln Navigator. Love handles can power a car? Frighteningly, yes. Fat–whether animal or vegetable–contains triglycerides that can be extracted and turned into diesel. Poultry companies such as Tyson are looking into powering their trucks on chicken schmaltz, and biofuel start-ups such as Nova Biosource are mixing beef tallow and pig lard with more palatable sources such as soybean oil. Mike Shook of Agri Process Innovations, a builder of biodiesel plants, says this year’s batch of U.S. biodiesel was likely more than half animal-derived since the price of soybeans soared.
A gallon of grease will get you about a gallon of fuel, and drivers can get about the same amount of mileage from fat fuel as they do from regular diesel, according to Jenna Higgins of the National Biodiesel Board. Animal fats need to undergo an additional step to get rid of free fatty acids not present in vegetable oils, but otherwise, there’s no difference, she says. Attorney Andrew Besser, who represents three patients, says the assistant and girlfriend removed too much fat from clients and left them disfigured. Dozens of other patients have complained to the state medical board, Besser says. The board is investigating Bittner but declined to comment.
Cripes! So, should we start harvesting fat people to reduce our dependence on oil?
PENSACOLA, Fla. — A Christian woman claims she was fired from her job because she greeted callers with “Merry Christmas,” but the vacation rental company says it’s no Scrooge and the woman is just a disgruntled employee. Tonia Thomas, 35, said she refused to say “Happy Holidays” and was fired, even after offering to use the company’s non-holiday greeting. The Panama City woman filed a federal complaint that accuses the company of religious discrimination. She is seeking compensation for lost wages.
“I hold my core Christian values to a high standard and I absolutely refuse to give in on the basis of values. All I wanted was to be able to say ‘Merry Christmas’ or to acknowledge no holidays,” she said Tuesday. “As a Christian, I don’t recognize any other holidays.” Thomas said she is Baptist. Her former employer, Counts-Oakes Resorts Properties Inc., said she wasn’t fired for saying “Merry Christmas,” but would not elaborate.
“We are a Christian company and we celebrate Christmas,” said Andy Phillips, the company’s president. Thomas is “a disgruntled employee,” presenting a one-sided version of what happened when she was fired Dec. 10, Phillips said.
Liberty Counsel, an Orlando-based legal group that advocates for people discriminated against because of their religion, is representing Thomas before the federal Equal Opportunity Employment Commission. Their complaint also accuses the company of harassing and taunting Thomas after she was fired by calling the police to watch her pack her belongs and leave.
What a dumb thing to get fired over. As bobbo is fond of saying…..Silly Hoomans.
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And a little hint. Once you’re there, click on a present to see where Santa delivered.
Typical Congressional reaction to a problem — quickly pass an overly broad law in a rush to do something without thinking through the consequences.
The testing is required under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which was passed in response to last year’s massive recalls of toys containing lead and other dangerous substances.
[…]
“If they don’t change the law, we’d have to close our doors,” said Nick Christensen, owner of Little Sapling Toys in Eureka, Calif. “We won’t be able to afford the testing.”His wooden rattles and building blocks, which retail for $20 to $40, would cost at least $1,500 per model to test, he said. Because he makes 20 models, his testing bill would be at least $30,000.
Christensen, who makes everything by hand, says the only things his products contain are wood and beeswax, and he’s bitter about being forced to test them for lead.
Other manufacturers say they’ve been quoted testing prices of $24,000 for a telescope, $1,100 for a wooden wagon and $400 for cloth diapers, according to the toy alliance.
[…]
Daylife/AP Photo by Robert F. Bukaty
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The U.S. navy has signed a contract worth some 14 billion U.S. dollars with General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman to build eight new Virginia-class submarines.
In a statement, General Dynamics said its Electric Boat unit and Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, a unit of Northrop Grumman, will start building the submarines next year.
These submarines are capable of speeds in excess of 25 knots (46 km per hour) and can dive to a minimum depth of 244 meters, while carrying Mark 48 advanced capability torpedoes, Tomahawk land attack missiles and unmanned underwater vehicles.
Cities all over America have to cut back on everything from education budgets to support for their police departments – but, part of Bush’s farewell to the American taxpayer is guaranteeing that we can fight World War 3 from a position of hardware absurdity supremacy.
Demarkus PeeplesAround noon on Tuesday, Dec. 2, [Demarkus] Peeples was watching TV at home when he heard a knock at the front door. When he looked out the door’s top window, he saw a group of men standing on his porch wearing jeans and T-shirts, a couple of them looking a little ratty. To get a better look, he went to a side window and peeked through the drawn blinds. “Honestly, they looked like they were transients,” he said. The men, it ends up, were undercover narcotics officers who were there on a complaint about drug activity at that address—Peeples was later told that it had to do with a “chemical smell.” Peeples said the men—he estimates there were six—never announced who they were.
Peeples waited until they circled back to the front of his house, at which point he opened his back door to investigate. That’s when his dog, a three-year-old Staffy named Eygpt ran out. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem, except that one of the police officers had left the backyard gate open. The dog ran out, and down Peeple’s driveway toward the officers, at which point they shot it three times. Even the police concede the dog never attacked. It only gets worse from there. The police then arrested Peeples on the charge of assault with a deadly weapon—the weapon being his now dying dog. Peeples says they then euthanized his dog, despite his explicit instructions not to.
In a not-so-shocking analysis of one of the most-watched TV investment advisers, author Eric Tyson argues that Jim Cramer’s actual stock-picking performance doesn’t match the strength of his bellowing. Besides his show Mad Money, Cramer is all over CNBC dispensing investment advice left and right. He’s got to be out-performing other investment advisers and especially the market, right? Not really. Tyson points out that Cramer’s past hedge fund results (the basis for his claim of investment success) have never been audited or independently verified. Then Tyson starts his assault on Cramer’s more-trackable public stock recommendations with the following:
“There is a web site, yourmoneywatch.com, which, unbelievably, tracks all of the stock recommendations on Cramer’s television show. The web site is operated by Michael McGown who has been tracking Cramer’s television show picks since July, 2005. Over that time period, Cramer’s picks, after being held accountable for trading fees, have performed worse than the broad market averages. His overall average with simply picking stocks that go up is pretty dismal. The most recent tally shows that out of more than 1500 stock recommendations, more than half have gone down!”
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He was made to strip down to his shorts and surrender his plastic handcuffs before boarding the hour-long flight…
“When I got to security check-out I had to take my boots off, and my hat off, and my little props I had on me, through the X-ray.
Mr Vaughan was asked to remove his oversized floppy shoes and flashing policeman’s helmet and place the bubble-making liquid for his pretend saxophone in a clear plastic bag, before he was allowed on the Thomas Cook plane.
The hour-long charity flight, for disadvantaged children, circled the Midlands on Tuesday.
Bureaucrats really are such cowards. Maybe that’s part qualification for the job.
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