Matt Foley…Motivational Speaker, click for speech

Salt Lake Tribune

A supervisor at a motivational coaching business in Provo is accused of waterboarding an employee in front of his sales team to demonstrate that they should work as hard on sales as the employee had worked to breathe.

In a lawsuit filed last month, former Prosper, Inc. salesman Chad Hudgens alleges his managers also allowed the supervisor to draw mustaches on employees’ faces, take away their chairs and beat on their desks with a wooden paddle “because it resulted in increased revenues for the company.”

The suit claims that Hudgens’ team leader, Joshua Christopherson, asked for volunteers in May for “a new motivational exercise,” which he did not describe. Hudgens, who was 26 at the time, volunteered in order to “prove his loyalty and determination,” the suit claims. Christopherson led the sales team to the top of a hill near the office and told Hudgens to lie down with his head downhill, the suit claims. Christopherson then told the rest of the team to hold Hudgens by the arms and legs. Christopherson poured water from a gallon jug over Hudgens’ mouth and nostrils – like the interrogation strategy known as “waterboarding” – and told the team members to hold Hudgens down as he struggled, the suit alleges. “At the conclusion of his abusive demonstration, Christopherson told the team that he wanted them to work as hard on making sales as Chad had worked to breathe while he was being waterboarded,” the suit alleges. Hudgens left Prosper because of sleeplessness, anxiety and depression he experienced after the waterboarding, the suit claims. He required psychological counseling for emotional trauma, the suit claims.

The suit accuses Christopherson and Prosper of assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and wrongful termination. It also accuses Christopherson of interfering with Hudgens employment relationship with Prosper.

Joshua, I have a van for sale, and I know a nice campsite, next to a river.

The St. Petersburg Times

MIAMI – Talk about biting off more than you can chew.

A 13-foot Burmese python tried to swallow a 6-foot alligator in Everglades National Park – and exploded.

Everglades National Park

Scientists stumbled on the gory remains last week after a helicopter pilot spotted the carcasses. The gator’s tail and hind legs were protruding from the python’s ruptured gut, the two bodies locked together so tightly that it was almost hard to make out which was which.

“If the python got a good grip on the alligator before the alligator got a good grip on him, he could win,” said Frank Mazzotti, a University of Florida wildlife professor who is an expert on gators and other reptiles.

Mazzotti thinks that as the gator was being swallowed, it clawed at the python’s stomach, making the snake burst.

This happened in Oct., 2005, but for some unknown reason, they ran the story and photo today. I had never heard of it before. I think the python was a little over-ambitious.

Sgt. Wayne Leyde

ABC News

After completing two tours in Iraq, Sgt. Wayne Leyde won $1 million from a scratch-and-win lotto ticket on Tuesday. Now that he’s won, Leyde, a 26-year-old member of the Washington National Guard, says he’s still going to volunteer to go back to Iraq for a third tour and won’t spend any of the money in the meantime.

Leyde was driving near his home in Mead, Washington when he stopped at a store on the side of the road and bought a ticket.

“I decided to walk into a local Zip Trip. I got a Coke and beef jerky and walked up to the counter and thought I’d pick up a few scratch tickets and try my luck. I was on my way out when the lady said, ‘Do you have a lucky scratch coin?’ “I said ‘no, you gave me a dime and nickel back.'”

“She said ‘no, try this,'” handing Leyde a penny. “On my way home I started scratching tickets. They were losers. I’m thinking, boy, that lady didn’t know what she was talking about.”

Leyde couldn’t believe it when he scratched a winning ticket, but he still plans to return to Iraq. “It was a commitment I made about three months ago. I’m going to stick to it,” Leyde said about his decision. The sergeant says rents have gone sky high where he and his parents live in the Mount Spokane area of Washington and that, for now, he’s not going to spend any of the money.

Meh, a million dollars ain’t what it used to be. Still, I have to say Dude, take the money and RUN!

Thanks to Austin Flynn

A Microsoft Corp. executive last year said the software company made a mistake by lowering the minimum technical requirements needed to run Windows Vista, a decision he said was made to help Intel Corp. meet its quarterly earnings, according to internal emails disclosed this week…

Problems Microsoft was having with Intel appeared in emails over the past few years, including one dated Feb. 1, 2006, in which Microsoft senior director Mike Ybarra wrote “We are caving to Intel” and later complained that PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard Co. supported Microsoft, yet Microsoft was “allowing Intel to drive our consumer experience…”

In an email addressed to Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Board member John Shirley said that he didn’t upgrade one of his PCs because Windows Vista didn’t have the necessary software, known as a driver, to run his top-of-the-line Epson printer and two scanners. “I cannot understand with a product this long in creation why there is such a shortage of drivers,” Mr. Shirley wrote.

Har!

Thanks, K B

Turkey is engaged in a bold and profound attempt to rewrite the basis for Islamic sharia law while also officially reinterpreting the Qur’an for the modern age.

The exercise in reforming Islamic jurisprudence, sponsored by the modernising and mildly Islamic government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, is being seen as an iconoclastic campaign to establish a 21st century form of Islam, fusing Muslim beliefs and tradition with European and western philosophical methods and principles.

The result, say experts following the ambitious experiment, could be to diminish Muslim discrimination against women, banish some of the brutal penalties associated with Islamic law, such as stoning and amputation, and redefine Islam as a modern, dynamic force in the large country that pivots between east and west, leaning into the Middle East while aspiring to join the European Union…

Fadi Hakura, a Turkey expert at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, described the project as an attempt to make Turkish Sunni Islam “fully compatible with contemporary social and moral values.

There are those who say we should leave the Middle Eastern nations to find their own way out of the 6th Century. Perhaps this is one of those attempts.

Or is this nothing more than Islamist politicians hoping to move Turkey backwards from their secular constitution?

Come on, America! 1 in 99 in prison? You can do better than that! All you have to do is support Bush and Congress in their privacy ravaging legislation because you just know that once put into place to hunt terrorists it will be used to root out potential criminals and thought-crime violators… all to make us safer. Let’s get cracking some heads and push this to 1 in 50!

Remember, imprisoning an evil marijuana farmer a day keeps the economy rolling with new prison construction contracts and jobs for guards!

1 In Every 99 Americans Now Behind Bars

Don’t ask the U.S. prison system if this is indeed “the land of the free.”

For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report tracking the surge in inmate population.

The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.

Using updated state-by-state data, the report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world.

By contrast, in mid 2002 the ratio was 1 in 142, with the prison population surpassing 2 million for the first time.

The steadily growing inmate population “is saddling cash-strapped states with soaring costs they can ill afford and failing to have a clear impact either on recidivism or overall crime,” said the report.

Killer robots could become the weapon of choice for militants.

Several countries and companies are developing the technology for robot weapons, with the U.S. Department of Defense leading the way. More than 4,000 robots are deployed in Iraq.

“The trouble is that we can’t really put the genie back in the bottle. Once the new weapons are out there, they will be fairly easy to copy,” says Noel Sharkey…

“How long is it going to be before the terrorists get in on the act? With the current prices of robot construction falling dramatically and the availability of ready-made components for the amateur market, it wouldn’t require a lot of skill to make autonomous robot weapons.”

Sharkey said a small GPS-guided drone with autopilot could be made for about $490.

RC model plane clubs will now require Homeland Insecurity clearance.

Update 2: From the Wall Street Journal:

At a police conference Thursday night, police Capt. Joseph Lombardo said the man who brought the substance to the hotel manager had told police he found it in a suite and it didn’t belong to him.

Update: Homeland Security and the National Guard are getting involved, but they say terrorism isn’t suspected. Hmmm…

Not much is known yet, but I’ll update this as more is known. Cripes, this is only a few miles from where I live!

Ricin is a deadly toxin that has been used by the terrorists around the world.

Ricin Possibly Found at Las Vegas Motel

Preliminary tests indicate that a package found at a motel contained the toxin ricin, and seven people have been taken to hospitals, authorities said.

Police were called to the Extended Stay America Motel on Thursday and retrieved a package from the motel manager that was determined to be a chemical or controlled substance, Officer Ramone Denby said.

Two preliminary tests indicate it contained ricin, he said. Results from further tests by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a second local lab are expected Friday, police said.

“Ricin has no medical uses other than cancer research,” police Captain Joseph Lombardo said at a news conference Thursday night. “An individual citizen other than being involved in cancer research or cancer prevention would not have any legal means or proper means of having that.”

Investigators did not immediately believe the substance was intended for an attack. “This is not a terror incident at this point,” Lombardo said.
[…]
It takes between six and eight hours for someone exposed to ricin to show signs of contamination, Denby said.

Homeland Security officials joined local police in the investigation. Officials from the FBI, Las Vegas Health District, a hazardous materials team and the National Guard were also at the scene.

Click image to see Cranky Geeks.

Today’s Guests:

• Sebastian Rupley, Co-Crank, PCMagCast.com
• Garnett Lee, Managing Editor, 1Up.com
• Dave Mathews, Inventor, Contributing Writer, PC Magazine

The Topics:

• Game Developers Conference Wrap-Up
• Grand Theft Auto Maker Says $2 Billion Offer is Chump Change
• The EU Sends an Expensive Message to Microsoft

YAHOO! News

DUBLIN (AFP) – An Irishman blinded by an explosion two years ago has had his sight restored after doctors inserted his son’s tooth in his eye, he said on Wednesday.

Bob McNichol, 57, from County Mayo in the west of the country, lost his sight in a freak accident when red-hot liquid aluminium exploded at a re-cycling business in November 2005.

“I thought that I was going to be blind for the rest of my life,” McNichol told RTE state radio.

After doctors in Ireland said there was nothing more they could do, McNichol heard about a miracle operation called Osteo-Odonto-Keratoprosthesis (OOKP) being performed by Dr Christopher Liu at the Sussex Eye Hospital in Brighton in England.
[…]
The procedure used on McNichol involved his son Robert, 23, donating a tooth, its root and part of the jaw.

Definition from encarta: implanted corneal lens – a plastic lens cemented into a section of decalcified tooth that is then stitched into an opening cut in a totally opaque cornea to restore vision. The lens may be implanted after normal corneal grafting has failed.

Man, what an unusual surgery.

US officials said 40,000 people may have been infected with HIV and hepatitis in a major health scare after a Las Vegas clinic was found to have re-used syringes and medicine vials.

Authorities in southern Nevada said they were notifying some 40,000 patients who received anesthesia injections at the clinic’s endoscopy center between March 2004 and January 11, 2008 about potential exposure to hepatitis and HIV.

After an investigation, “the health district determined that unsafe injection practices related to the administration of anesthesia medication might have exposed patients to the blood of other patients,” it said.

“The joint investigation identified the re-use of syringes (not needles) and the use of single dose vials of anesthesia medication on multiple patients as the potential sources of contamination.”

Action has since been taken by the clinic to end such practices.

We do get the best health care in the world even if it’s expensive. Right?