WCAU | Philadelphia

MIDDLETOWN, Del. — Police said Tuesday they raided a home where they said much more than strip poker was being played.

Police said a man turned a poker game with neighborhood residents into his business, with thousands of dollars on the table, high-priced buy-ins, credit card machines and occasionally, nudity. Police said 37-year-old William Shane Anderson, his wife Laurie, 37, and 20-year-old Matthew Balotin, were released on bail Monday after being charged with first-degree advancing gambling, providing a premise for gambling, possession of gambling devices, three counts of endangering the welfare of a child, and conspiracy.
Police said they were also questioning the Andersons’ parenting skills, as they said the gambling was going on as the children were in the house, and even said their mother, a stripper, helped run the business.

“On occasion, she was also a dealer and she would deal topless, as well as basically serve liquor,” said Middletown Police Chief Hank Tobin. After a long investigation, police said they figured out why the house was so popular. They said after Anderson lost his job, they said he decided to turn the “Texas Hold ‘Em” night into a career.

Police said he reached out to players all over the Mid-Atlantic, held tournaments with high entry fees, and hired a man as a bouncer/dealer. Police said Alexander even accepted credit cards at 14-hour marathon games that sometimes went on a few nights a week. Police said they have the list of all the people who played poker at the house. Some neighborhood residents were on the list, and they could also face criminal charges, police said.

Can’t even host a decent poker night in the neighborhood anymore. Cripes! The topless dealer might be a bit of a distraction though, especially playing Texas Hold ‘Em.

Craig Accepting Applications for Summer Interns Idaho Senator Larry Craig is currently seeking intern applications for the summer term…

The application deadline is March 15, however if more time is needed for the application process, please contact Senator Craig’s office for an extension. Craig offers paid internships within the Washington, D.C., office. Preference is given to Idaho applicants attending Idaho schools who are in their junior or senior years of college (including graduating seniors).

‘”Interns have the chance to be an essential part of a working congressional office,” said Craig. “They participate in the legislative process as well as ensure that constituent services run smoothly. For those interested in politics, it is an incredible opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes look at how our government functions while serving the people of Idaho.”

Har!

EU Fines Microsoft Record $1.35 Billion – News and Analysis by PC Magazine — This is just going to get worse. The EU are not the USA pushovers Microsoft is used to.

BRUSSELS – Microsoft was fined a record 899 million euros ($1.35 billion) by the European Commission on Wednesday for using high prices to discourage software competition in the latest sanction in their long-running battle.

The executive arm of the European Union said the U.S. software group defied a 2004 order from Brussels to provide the information on reasonable terms.

Microsoft has now been fined a total of 1.68 billion euros by the EU for abusing its 95 percent dominance of PC operating systems through Windows.

Its latest fine far exceeded the original and was the biggest ever imposed on a company.

“Microsoft was the first company in 50 years of EU competition policy that the Commission has had to fine for failure to comply with an antitrust decision,” Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement.

For years after the decision Microsoft said it was making every effort to comply with the Commission’s orders.

“Talk is cheap, flouting the rules is expensive,” Kroes said. “We don’t want talk and promises. We want compliance.”

Comcast has acknowledged hiring people to fill seats before the start of a contentious federal hearing on how the company manages its broadband network, allowing its employees to take those seats when the filled-to-capacity hearing started…

Comcast said it hired people to hold seats only after an advocacy group called Free Press urged its backers to attend…

The practice of hiring people to fill seats in advance of public hearings isn’t unknown in Congress and other forums, but Comcast critics said this case was unique.

“First, Comcast was caught blocking the Internet. Now it has been caught blocking the public from the debate,” said Timothy Karr, director of an advocacy campaign…

“The only people cheering Comcast are those paid to do so.”

Congress could give lessons on sleaze to Comcast. Doesn’t make this incident any less obnoxious.

Google will help build a $300 million undersea cable system with five other companies, becoming the only online search operator with its own network…

The 10,000 kilometer network would link Chikura, in Japan, to Los Angeles, according to a statement from Singapore Telecom, one of the five companies. The project is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2010, the statement said…

The network could help Google, owner of the most-popular Internet search engine, increase its edge over Yahoo and Microsoft’s MSN.com by raising Web connection speeds out of Asia, where response times lag behind the average…

Now, why didn’t I think of that?

Or, more to the point – why didn’t Microsoft? Or AT&T?

Crickets, Grubs Called High Source Of Protein

CHIANG MAI, Thailand — Crickets, caterpillars and grubs are high in protein and minerals and could be an important food source during droughts and other emergencies, according to scientists.

“I definitely think they can assist,” said German biologist V.B. Meyer-Rochow, who regularly eats insects and wore a T-shirt with a Harlequin longhorn beetle to a U.N.-sponsored conference this month on promoting bugs as a food source.
[…]
A Japanese scientist proposed bug farms on spacecraft to feed astronauts, noting that it would be more practical than raising cows or pigs. Australian, Dutch and American researchers said more restaurants are serving the critters in their countries.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates 1,400 species of insects and worms are eaten in almost 90 countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Researchers at the conference detailed how crickets and silk worms are eaten in Thailand, grubs and grasshoppers in Africa and ants in South America.

I think people in the US are too squeamish by nature to eat bugs and worms. I know I am. eeeuuuuwwww.

“What are you still doing here?”

Cafferty File – February 25, 2008:

There’s a growing chorus of voices starting to call for Hillary Clinton to give it up.

In a Newsweek column called “Hillary should get out now”, Jonathan Alter says if she wanted a graceful exit, now would be the time – before the Texas and Ohio primaries – to drop out and endorse Barack Obama. He says it would be the “best thing imaginable” for Clinton’s political career, meaning it would set her up perfectly for 2012 if Obama loses. Alter says Clinton doesn’t have a reasonable chance of winning the nomination, but he doesn’t think she’ll call it quits.

Meanwhile, in another tough piece, Robert Novak asks who will tell Hillary Clinton that it’s over, that she can’t win the nomination and the sooner she gets out of the way, the better the chances her party will beat John McCain in November.

Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age — It’s always something.

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center NCDC reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January “was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 20th century average.”

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.

There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.

In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its “lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.

The ice is back.

Hmmmm, then how do you explain this post?

The euro has broken the 1.50-dollar mark for the first time ever in the wake of lackluster US economic reports that renewed fears the American economy could be falling into a recession.

The dollar fell to a record low against the single European currency in electronic trading in New York as traders continued assessing the latest economic readings.

An influential survey, released earlier Tuesday, on US consumer sentiment during February delivered fresh ammunition to market forecasters who are predicting a recession…

The survey showed the confidence of American consumers had slumped to its lowest level since November 1993, with the exception of polling conducted as US forces toppled the government of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein five years ago.

Want some really fuzzy logic from whomever you’re voting for, this November?

Ask how this event balances alongside the market prices for oil – and the fact that sooner or later the bulk of oil futures will be in euros rather than dollars?

International Herald Tribune Gasoline prices, which for months lagged the big run-up in the price of oil, are suddenly rising quickly, with some experts fearing they could hit $4 a gallon by spring. Diesel is hitting new records daily and oil closed at an all-time high on Tuesday of $100.88 a barrel. The increases could not come at a worse time for the economy.

With growth slowing, high energy prices that were once easily absorbed by consumers are now more likely to act as a drag on household budgets, leaving people with less money to spend elsewhere. These costs could exacerbate the nation’s economic woes, piling a fresh energy shock on top of the turmoil in credit and housing.

“The effect of high oil prices today could be the difference between having a recession and not having a recession,” said Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University economist. The depth of the nation’s economic problems became clearer Tuesday with the release of figures showing that prices at the producer level rose 1 percent in January, driven in large measure by energy costs. Compared with a year ago, prices were up 7.4 percent, the worst producer price inflation in the United States since 1981.

In other news, Exxon has posted another record in profits.

The company reported Friday that it beat its own record for the highest profits ever recorded by any company, with net income rising 3 percent to $40.6 billion, thanks to surging oil prices. The company’s sales, more than $404 billion, exceeded the gross domestic product of 120 countries. The company also had its most profitable quarter ever. It said net income rose 14 percent, to $11.7 billion, or $2.13 a share, in the last three months of the year. The company handily beat analysts’ expectations of $1.95 a share, after missing targets in the last two quarters.

Of course Exxon is just a company that is doing exactly what’s expected of them by their stockholders. Enjoy! And have a great summer everyone!

Ace of Spades HQ

The pilot of a brand new Cathay Pacific Airways Boeing 777-300ER was fired this week for a stunt he performed reminiscent of the movie Top Gun. Captain Ian Wilkinson flew the 250 million dollar jet just 30 feet off the runway with its landing gear up on its maiden flight with an apparently oblivious Cathay Pacific chairman Chris Pratt on board.

The airline denied forehand knowledge of the stunt and stated that they did not give the pilot permission to attempt it.

More on this story here.

There was a video of this incident on YouTube but it mysteriously disappeared. Har!

Update: Video in comments section.

Click pic for larger image.

On February 5th, 2008 the International Space Station flew over the country of Mali – located in West Africa. One of the astronauts snapped this photo of a very large thunderstorm. Please note the huge anvil shape at the top of this thunderstorm, along with the overshooting tops where the best lift in this particular thunderstorm was occurring at the time the picture was taken.

tampabays10.com Eugene, OR—It’s happened again. Someone has found something in the shape of the Virgin Mary. And they’re trying to sell it on eBay. This one is a pretzel, that looks like the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus.

Michael Fleming found it in a bag of Rold Gold pretzels 3 years ago, but he’s been holding onto it since then.

His co-workers posted it on eBay Wednesday, and in the first hour, bidding reached $1,000.

There’s a video here.

“There’s a sucker born every minute”