Floating tool bag

Somebody please say that this isn't Santa's tool bag floating around up there! It's supposed to have toys in it!

From The Inquisitor:

Floating tool bag spotted in night sky

How did we miss this earlier! The floating tool bag, the set of tools lost by Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper during a spacewalk to repair a part of the international space station last week has been spotted in the night sky over Ontario, Canada.

Kevin Fetter video taped the bag through a high-powered telescope, and naturally the footage has made its way online.

NASA told reporters that they’d like to retrieve the bag, but are mostly concerned at the moment that it might end up slamming into one of the solar panels on the international space station.

Unfortunately there has been no sign of the missing spider yet.

Footage as follows. It’s not terribly exciting, but we are looking at a tool bag in the sky, which is somewhat amazing in itself.

Here is the YouTube video referenced in the article above, with blurb. If it looks like it is only 4 seconds long, that is because it is only 4 seconds long.

This is a live shot of the lost tool bag dropped by astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper during a recent Space Shuttle mission.

This was taken from an amateur astronomer's backyard telescope, and was also visible to the naked eye. The tool bag is the bright white spot that moves right to left in a slightly diagonal trajectory across the shot.

Here is a raw video of the tool bag getting lost (from Associated Press on November 18):

Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday is a term coined by Shop.org for the Monday after Black Friday, which is another special shopping day right after Thanksgiving. It is starting to be accepted by the public as the official start of online holiday shopping season.

There is a site (and online shopping mall, actually) called Cyber Monday, cyberMonday.com, which features about 550 major online retailers. Many special deals are advertised, but there has been some criticism in the past that most of these deals are normally offered elsewhere. Cyber Monday is widely seen as an artificial buzz-word created by commerce to stimulate more sales.

One special part of Shop.org's Cyber Monday is that the proceeds go to the Ray M. Greenly Scholarship Fund. Ray Greenly was an executive (a Vice President) at Shop.org. He died of lung cancer in September 2005. The scholarship fund was set up in his honor in 2006 to support students studying e-commerce.

The Cyber Monday site is online all year long.

Tina Sherman loves McDonald's

Heh.

You gotta be careful what you store on your mobile devices. Most of all, do not forget one at McDonald's. The employees might become fans and decide to share the good vibes with the whole world. From Daily News:

Arkansas man sues McDonald's over nude photos of his wife

If you have naked photos of your wife on your cellphone, be sure to keep it safe.

That's sound advice a man in Fayetteville, Arkansas failed to heed.

Phillip Sherman mistakenly left his cell phone behind at a local McDonald's, and now he and his wife, Tina Sherman, are suing the fast food joint for $3 million after nude photos of her that were on the phone found their way to the Internet.

According to the lawsuit, Phillip forgot the phone in July and was assured the employees would keep it safe. However, the naked pictures of Tina ended up online, and the Shermans are blaming the workers at the McDonald's restaurant.

The couple is seeking damages for suffering, embarrassment and the cost of having to move to a new home.

Dr. Pepper N' Guns N' Roses N' Chinese Democracy

Anyone up for a free Dr. Pepper? You have one day to get a coupon for one. Just go to DrPepper.com and get it.

Here's why. The Dr. Pepper people made a bet with the rock band Guns N' Roses. If GNR finished “Chinese Democracy” (an album in the works for the past 17 years) before the end of 2008, Dr. Pepper would give away a bottle of pop to anyone in America who wanted one. Well the CD will be on iTunes and in Best Buy stores on November 23.

So if you want a Dr. Pepper freebie, you can get one. You get a 20-ounce Dr. Pepper product and the coupon is good until February 28, 2009. You have all day Sunday to visit the Dr. Pepper site to claim a coupon, but the offer to claim it expires at midnight.

Cool.

btw - Do the Dr. Pepper executives and employees even listen to Guns N' Roses?

universitydodge.com - Buy one, get one free

If you go to University Dodge in Florida (at universitydodge.com on the web), you can buy a Dodge Ram and get one free.

Not that's what I call a publicity stunt. I hope it does not bankrupt the poor guy.

Timothy Geithner is the new Treasury Secretary

Timothy Geithner is going to be the new Treasury Secretary. This is all well and good as the market takes an upswing, but this guy is Big Government to the core. He was right in the middle of the recent bailouts as a driving force.

One can hope, but this market enthusiasm for him most likely will not last once his policies start becoming law.

America has to stop being addicted to short-term fixes and at least look at reality before partying.

From CNN:

Stocks surge on Treasury chief talk
By Alexandra Twin
CNNMoney.com
November 21, 2008

Stocks rallied Friday, with the Dow industrials bouncing as much as 550 points, after reports surfaced that President-elect Barack Obama will nominate New York Federal Bank president Timothy Geithner as his new Treasury Secretary.

Here is the Wikipedia article: Timothy F. Geithner

Timothy Franz Geithner (last name pronounced /ˈgaɪtnər/; born August 18, 1961) is the 9th president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In that role he also serves as Vice Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).

Personal life

Geithner was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to Mr. and Mrs. Peter F. Geithner of Larchmont, New York. He completed high school at International School Bangkok, Thailand, and then attended Dartmouth College, graduating with a B.A. in government and Asian studies in 1983. After, he obtained an M.A. in International Economics and East Asian Studies from Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in 1985. He has studied Japanese and Chinese and has lived in East Africa, India, Thailand, China, and Japan.

He is married to Carole M. Sonenfeld, a Dartmouth classmate, and with her has two children, Elise and Benjamin. In spare time he fly-fishes, plays tennis and surfs.

Career

After completing his studies, Geithner worked for Kissinger and Associates in Washington, DC, for three years and then joined the International Affairs division of the US Treasury Department in 1988.

In 1999 he was promoted to Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs and served under Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers.

In 2002 he left the Treasury to join the Council on Foreign Relations as a Senior Fellow in the International Economics department. He then worked for the International Monetary Fund as the director of the Policy Development and Review Department until moving to the Fed in October 2003. In 2006 he became a member of the influential Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty.

On November 21, 2008, it was reported that President-elect Barack Obama had decided to nominate Geithner for the position of Treasury Secretary.

Sarah Palin turkey video

For msnbc, Palin can do no right. Even the traditional pardon of a turkey is used as an excuse for mocking her.

For some reason these people think that killing turkeys is something to be ashamed of. There is no doubt, though, that they all eat turkey on Thanksgiving. They just like their reality sanatized so they can pretend it doesn't happen (between mouthfulls).

That's the only reason one can assume they find anything to mock about killing turkeys for the market.

From the msnbc site (Associated Press article):

Turkeys slaughtered as Palin addresses media

WASILLA, Alaska - Gov. Sarah Palin has granted the traditional Thanksgiving pardon to one lucky turkey, but the video that shocked some viewers captured what was happening in the background.

As she answered questions Thursday at Triple D Farm & Hatchery outside Wasilla, cameras from the Anchorage Daily News and others showed the bloody work of an employee slaughtering birds behind the former Republican vice presidential candidate.

Mauritania - a friendly place

Some people are saying that terrorism in Mauritania is killing off the tourist industry. Where is Mauritania anyway?

There is a beg stink over there because of the ruling junta. From AFP today:

The European Union will consider "appropriate measures" to punish Mauritania after it failed to take sufficient steps toward restoring constitutional rule, the French foreign ministry said Thursday.

The move to impose sanctions came as a one-month deadline set by the European Union for Mauritania's ruling junta to free deposed president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi expired, with no sign of a breakthrough.

. . .

Mauritania's first democratically-elected president was ousted on August 6, just hours after he issued a decree firing the military's top brass, including General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.

Ould Abdel Aziz led the putschists and, since the coup, his junta has taken over the powers of the president and formed a new government with the support of a majority of deputies in parliament.

It has categorically refused international demands to reinstate Abdallahi and has failed to set a date for fresh elections.

Pro-democracy activists held small-scale protests Wednesday but the coup leaders appear secure in power.

Navy advancement - advancement.cnet.navy.mil is down?

I just caught a weird post on the web:

Navy Advancement: advancement.cnet.navy.mil is down

It seems that after trying so many times to visit the official Navy Advancement website we have found that ii is not working, for the time being the site called “advancement.cnet.navy.mil” is down.

The post recommends looking at Navy Advancement Study Guide & Bupers News.

It seems strange for this to happen right when there is a lot of news about Somali pirates. One hopes this is a temporary technical problem and not a hacker attack.

Feral children in England

According to Wikipedia, a feral child is:

... a human child who has lived isolated from human contact from a very young age, and has no (or little) experience of human care, loving or social behavior, and, crucially, of human language.[1] Some feral children have been confined by people (usually their own parents); in some cases this child abandonment was due to the parents' rejection of a child's severe intellectual or physical impairment. Feral children may have experienced severe child abuse or trauma before being abandoned or running away. Others are alleged to have been brought up by animals; some are said to have lived in the wild on their own.

This, like the famous case of Genie, who spent almost all of her first thirteen years confined inside a room (discovered by authorities in 1970), is what people think when they hear the term "feral children.

So what is one to think about the following story in BBC News?

Most adults think children ‘are feral and a danger to society’

Public intolerance of young people has reached such levels that more than half of all adults think that British children are beginning to behave like animals, a poll has found.

The poll, commissioned by the children’s charity Barnardo’s, found that 49 per cent of adults regard children as increasingly dangerous both to each other and to their elders, while 43 per cent feel that “something has to be done” to protect society from children and young people.

. . .

More than half of the survey respondents (53 per cent) said that children were beginning to behave like animals and 45 per cent agreed that people refer to children as feral “because they behave this way”.

Mr Narey said it was appalling that words like “animal”, “feral” and “vermin” were now used daily in reference to children.

Using those words for lots of children is more than appalling. It dilutes our language and opens a crack where it is hard to make correct distinctions. People who exaggerate the language in this manner usually have a political agenda to push. Concern for the actual children is a distant second-place concern.

Sill, violent children is a serious problem. Look at this latest from BBC News:

Teenager attacked man with bottle

David Willis was attacked by the 14-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, after he refused to buy him alcohol in Plymouth, Devon.

The 24-year-old mechanic needed 37 stitches and plastic surgery.

The teenager was sentenced on Monday to 18-month's detention after pleading guilty to unlawful wounding.

Kimberlee Ouwroulis - Stripper stripped of stripping fights back

Kimberlee Ouwroulis is a stripper with gumption. At 44 she refuses to say quit. She won't let her boss say it without a fight, either.

A recent story by National Post in Toronto (written by Karen Hawthorne) gives some details of her predicament, which leads to some interesting tort issues.







Stripper, 44, charges age discrimination

Exotic dancer Kimberlee Ouwroulis has filed a complaint against a Mississauga strip club, New Locomotion, saying she was fired because of her age. The 44-year-old, who has taken an age discrimination complaint to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario...

One wonders what the market really is for 44 year old strippers.

Palin Doodles (scan) and Obama Doodles

It's doodle time for our top political figures in the mainstream media, Obama and Palin. Who needs to worry about the economy or war when you can doodle while the world is burning?










CNN did a story last night called "Obama and Palin doodles."

Politicians watch what they say, but they must also watch what they draw. CNN's Jeanne Moos reports.

But the Palin doodles business is old hat. The New Republic already did that on Oct. 6: Sarah's Doodles.

According to Mahalo in Sarah Palin Doodles:

A document published by the magazine The New Republic reportedly contains a series of hand-written "doodles" made by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in 1996, when she was running for Mayor of Wasilla. The paper--which appears to show notes on her campaign strategy for becoming mayor--was discovered by New Republic senior editor Noam Scheiber while reporting from Alaska.

Lean Cuisine recall

NBC4i's article by Donna Willis states that Nestle is recalling some of its Lean Cuisine products.

Health Risk Causes Frozen Meal Recall

Nestle Prepared Foods recalled more than 879,000 pounds of frozen chicken meals that could contain foreign materials, NBC 4 reported.

The problem was discovered after the company received consumer complaints and a report of one injury. Nestle identified the foreign objects as small pieces of hard plastic.

This is a Class 1 Recall or one the USDA considers a high health risk.

Here are the products under the recall: Lean Cuisine Pesto Chicken with Bow Tie Pasta, Lean Cuisine Chicken Mediterranean and Lean Cuisine Chicken Tuscan.

According to a Harris Teeter supermarket chain release, there were pieces of plastic found in the frozen meals were blue.

Who said that dieting was easy?

Freida Pinto and Dev Patel a box office sensation in "Slumdog Millionaire"

According to indieWIRE's Box Office Coverage by Brian Brooks, Freida Pinto and Dev Patel, despite being relatively unknown to American audiences, did something right. The production's money people are certainly happy.

Fox Searchlight's "Slumdog Millionaire" cruised on up the iW BOT over the weekend, opening in limited release with a stellar $36,000 average...

. . . . .

Telluride and Toronto '08 debuter "Slumdog Millionaire" raked in the cash in its opening weekend, taking in $360,018 from only ten locations. Since opening Wednesday, the film directed by Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan has cumed over $427,000.

"Wow, we were thrilled, [the film] passed out expectations," said Fox Searchlight's Senior Vice President of Distribution, Sheila DeLoach to indieWIRE Monday evening

This looks like a film well worth seeing.

How Obama Got Elected (dot com)

The website How Obama Got Elected (howobamagotelected.com) is making some noise on the Inernet about how the media impacts voting results. This obviously is buzz for the upcoming documentary "Media Malpractice... How Obama Got Elected" announced on the site, but still, the YouTube video published on that site is unsettling (given below).



What's really unsettling is the results of a Zogby poll from that site:

Zogby Poll

512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points

97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates

Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions

57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)

81.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)

82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)

88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)

56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).

And yet.....

Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes

Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter

And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her "house," even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!

Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.

Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we "gave" one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey)

Good Lord! Do we live in a country of airheads and dummies?

Extortion alert

The following alert was recently published on the FDA site. You have to be careful if you are going to buy prescription drugs over the Internet or by phone. Be aware that the FDA never contacts consumers by phone for money or payment.

Beware of Extortion Scam by FDA Impersonators

Several instances have been reported to FDA of calls enticing consumers to purchase discounted prescription drugs by wiring funds to one of several locations in the Dominican Republic. No medications are ever delivered.

A subsequent call is received from a fraudulent "FDA special agent" informing the consumer that a fine of several thousand dollars is required to be sent to an address in the Dominican Republic to prevent incarceration or other legal action.

Though the fraudulent calls appear to be from telephone numbers located within the United States, they are from either ported voice-over-the-Internet-protocol numbers (calls made directly from a computer and moved or "ported" to other computers to avoid detection) or cellular phones.

At least attempts at extortion and embezzlement over the phone do not entail physical abuse like workplace violence or beatings. That's not much of a consolation to a victim, though.

Christopher Lloyd's home burns

According to CNN report, Christopher Lloyd is pretty much in shock. An 11 million dollar home is no fortress against the elements. This is something we all should think about...

Actor on destroyed home: 'It's amazing, it's just gone'

The "Back to the Future" and "Taxi" star showed ABC's "Good Morning America" what remained of his $11 million home in the exclusive celebrity neighborhood northwest of Los Angeles.

"Boy, look at that," Lloyd said as he approached the rubble. "All this happens in a couple of minutes."

Lloyd's home was among dozens of homes lost in wildfires in Southern California.

. . .

"It's amazing, its just gone," Lloyd told "Good Morning America." "Rebuilding would be -- it's too much. You can't rebuild that."

The home's windows were blown out, entire sections demolished, and piles of concrete, ashy trees and shrubbery were scattered across the property.

"You watch TV, you see these kinds of incidents happening here and there, but you look with a kind of detachment because it's happening ... elsewhere," he told "Good Morning America." "But suddenly to be in the midst of it -- it's a very different awareness."

Britney Spears Circus Leak

Don't you love it when you find out that a public controversy has been orchestrated as a publicity stunt? That hasn't been the case with Britney Spears in the last couple of years. Here meltdown was real. According to Tashi Singh in The Post Chronicle today, her machine is humming along with hype as usual. In Britney's case, that is a good thing and not sleazy at all. Hype beats berserk any day.

Britney Spears Circus Leak Video

The 'Womanizer' singer releases her new album 'Circus' on her 27th birthday December 2. A range of songs from the album have allegedly been leaked online.

The songs in the YouTube clip sound real, but the leak seems to be more like a PR stunt, with Spears' record company linking to the site that has supposedly gained the leak from an inside source.

Snagglepuss on SNL

Snagglepuss weighed in on Proposition 8 on SNL. Heh. A Gay Snagglepuss trying to be the Pink Panther is just hilarious...

Jeff Dunham and Peanut

This thing with Jeff Dunham and Peanut is very funny:

Miley Cyrus Dead?

Not according to most all of the news agencies in the world. For instance, here is an entry from today on contactmusic.com:

MILEY CYRUS - CYRUS VICTIM OF TWISTED HACKER

MILEY CYRUS' representatives have been forced to confirm she is still alive after an Internet hacker broke into the teen superstar's YouTube account and falsely claimed she had died in a car crash.

A video was uploaded onto Cyrus' official page on the video sharing website on Sunday (16Nov08), which told fans: "Miley died this morning after being hit by a drunk driver. She always told us if anything ever happened to her then tell her loyal fans first before the public. R.I.P Miley, we'll never forget you!"
The video, set to the Hannah Montana star's sad new song Goodbye, upset the singer/actress' friends and family, who had to quickly deny the claims - insisting it was the work of a twisted hacker.

According to celebrity blogsite Perezrevenge.com, Cyrus' boss - the head of Hollywood Records - leaves a statement assuring worried fans the teen sensation is perfectly fine.

The comment reads, "This Is The President Of Walt Disney Records And I Can Honestly Say That Miley Cyrus AKA Hannah Montana Is Not Dead And She Is Currently In New York City Doing The Final Episode Of TRL. We Are Doing Our Best To Find Out Who This Hacker Is. Thanks You For Your Concerns Miley Fans."

Boston Ma - Boston City Hall - Where's the list?

Boston City Hall in Boston Ma apparently was declared by Virtual Tourist to be the ugliest building in the world. Today Reuters (from Sydney - Reuters Life!) posted a news report at 9:31 am EST called "Travel Picks: 10 top ugly buildings and monument."

This news quickly spread across the Internet. Here is the full list of the earth's ugliest buildings and monuments as given in the article (in order of classification).

1. Boston City Hall - Boston, Massachusetts
2. Montparnasse Tower - Paris, France
3. LuckyShoe Monument - Tuuri, Finland
4. Metropolitan Cathedral - Liverpool, England
5. Port Authority Bus Terminal - New York City, New York
6. Torres de Colon - Madrid, Spain
7. Liechtenstein Museum of Fine Arts - Vaduz, Liechtenstein
8. Scottish Parliament Building - Edinburgh, Scotland
9. Birmingham Central Library - Birmingham, England
10. Peter the Great Statue - Moscow, Russia

Reuters also quoted the general manager in the same breath as it mentioned the web site.

Web site VirtualTourist.com (www.virtualtourist.com) has come up with a list of "The World's Top 10 Ugliest Buildings and Monuments" according to their editors and readers. Reuters has not endorsed this list.

"Some of these picks have all the charm of a bag of nails while others are just jaw-dropping in their complexity. Love them or hate them, the list is certainly entertaining," said General manager Giampiero Ambrosi.

Now here is my problem. I went to that website (www.virtualtourist.com). For the life of me, I couldn't find the list. Are they waiting until the entire Internet publishes it first?

I admit that almost all Boston attractions are delightful whereas the Boston City Hall is not. The Brutalist "raw concrete" style of Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles is literally in stark contrast to the many charming Boston bed and breakfast lodges. If I were a tourist, I would vastly prefer the architecture of the hotels to that roadwork posing as a building.

But still, where is that list by Virtual Tourist?