Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.

* Kicking off the “oh that’s just friggin’ spiffy” game, “President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan… called the US one of three enemies faced by Afghanistan, and added, “If I had to choose sides today, I’d choose the Taliban”… before storming out of the room”. No worries. Playing Monopoly makes everybody storm out of the room at some point. [JUANCOLE]

* If you know what a LOIC is, and you’ve used it recently without a proxy to cover your butt, there’s something important you should really really realllllly read about… [NEOWIN]

* In related news, are young kids getting dumber? Duh! Durrrr! Ah-der-deeerrrrr! Derrr-derrr-ah-derrrrr! [PHILLYMAG]

* In related related news, “stopping a thought burns more energy than thinking”. Actually, this explains a great, great many things. [CASE.EDU]

* I successfully converted some pitchforks into show shovels this week! Just by agreeing with something Michael Moore said! Specifically… “Imagine if the men who planned this war crime back in 2002 had had a WikiLeaks to deal with… WikiLeaks exists, in part, because the mainstream media has failed to live up to its responsibility”. And the 30 degree below grand prize blizzard winner… “Might WikiLeaks cause some unintended harm to diplomatic negotiations and U.S. interests around the world? Perhaps. But that’s the price you pay when you and your government take us into a war based on a lie.” Dude! The truth at last! [DAILYKOS]

* Speaking of Assange, a grand jury is meeting in the US to decide whether or not to indict and prosecute the Wikileaks founder. Soooo the US is groovy with starting a war on false data and damned lies, locking away POWs without counsel or trial, waterboarding and torturing the hell out of them just for giggles, the man who was elected to stop all this crap hasn’t, and the one guy who exposes the tip of the BS iceberg is the one that’s targeted for trial? When did I crash land on Bizarro world and where’s my damn rocket ship to get outta here? [THE REGISTER]

* Passwords 101 : Use different random passwords for every site. That’s it. Done. This very easy lesson is something the US government may have to learn the hard way if this next story on PBS is right. [PBS]

* Google’s new OS is getting a the big stink eye from GNU founder Richard Stallman. Why? He says putting everything in the cloud means “a loss of control of data.” I love me some Google (even though I didn’t get any of their new laptops to beta, dammit!) but Stallman has a semi-point here. I think data has always relied on the user for survival, so instead focusing on “a loss of control of data”, I think it should be a focus on proper data retention and data security. [GUARDIAN.CO.UK]

* WalMart is going all 1984 on us. Specifically, they’re putting up large TVs that will stream Homeland Security’s ads and Homeland Security’s “if you see something, report it” campaign. Hellooooooo Target! [GREELY GAZETTE]

* And finally, I would like to take this opportunity to point out that State Senator R.C. Soles is a giant elfin’ hypocrite. This politician was a major hardcore anti-gun loon, but the headline “Anti-Gun Senator Shoots (Home) Intruder” says to me his laws for us apparently don’t apply to people like him! Do as I say and not as I do, right Solaroonie? [SMART GIRL POLITICS]

That’s all I got this (very busy with work projects) week! Back Monday!

Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.

Special FIVE POINTS OF FIST OF DEATH NINJA KARATE NEWS version!! (Ok, fine, I’m really doing Christmasy stuff this weekend and I’m way behind. But FPOFODNKN sounds way cooler.)

* LA banned any new fast food restaurants in poor neighborhoods some time ago, but promised it was only a temporary thing. Apparently all the bribe checks bounced, because this week they made it a permanent ban! Take that all you wackos who want jobs and food! [REASON]

* Mount Everest. No breathable air. Hidden pits of death you can fall into. And frozen dead bodies everywhere. Hey, howcome none of those little details are in the damn brochure?! [GODHEADV]

* Fu-Go Fire Balloon Bombs sounds like the daily special at a half-star Japanese restaurant. But it’s actually a world war II prototype weapon the Japanese invented to bomb America. Crazy invention details to follow. [ENVIRONMENTAL GRAFFITI]

* I remember my first philosophy class. The professor started one lesson by saying “We mostly visualize the future as one direction. Forward. Never ending and heading off in one direction.” (he drew a long line on the chalkboard going right) “My question today is” (he drew a line on the chalkboard from the beginning of the same line, but this time going to the left) “Why can’t our past, and time, go on forever as well, but in the opposite direction?” Cheesy? Definitely. A slow pitch? Big time. But it was a 101 class, and that was enough to blow the mind of quite a few classmates. I hope he’s reading my blog today, because scientists have just found out “the universe may have existed forever”. [THE ECONOMIST]

* You remember when reporters were blunt and factual and weren’t all trying to be your OMG LOL BFF and all that crap? This site put together a old-school news reporting 101 on Wikileaks! More news like this please. [TECHNOLOGY REVIEW]

That’s all I got for now. Back Monday!

Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.

* Get married to a woman 40 years younger than you are. Quit smoking when you’re 106 years old. Apologize for cooperating with the Nazi regime 50 years after the fact. Could this the Dos Equis’ “most interesting man in the world’s” evil twin brother? [MSNBC]

* How many levels of hell are there? We have a volunteer who wants to find out! Step right up! Step right up! “A former Roman Catholic priest charged with sexually abusing a teenage boy in rural Texas is now accused of plotting the teen’s murder.” At the sound of the FWOOOSH the time will be one sinner past midnight. [FOX NEWS]

* Some people deserve free speech more than others! That’s apparently Al Sharpton’s motto as he’s trying to get the FCC to yank Rush Limbaugh’s broadcast license because he doesn’t agree with what he’s saying. Um, Al? I might have some bad news for you on this one. [EXAMINER.COM]

* Did you know the TSA is looking for new recruits? And they’re advertising these job openings on pizza delivery boxes? Suddenly a great many things about the TSA make sense. [UPI]

* China and Russia say using dollars are sooooo 1990’s and they’re, like, totally over them. This is bogus news for US. [CHINA DAILY]

* So there’s glowing trees in the works? Bio-luminescent trees like the Avatar movie had? And they’re specifically designed to replace streetlights? Somebody go get the knights who say “Nee”. Their awesome shrubbery has been found! [MSNBC]

* Why do kids from the same parents with the same genes and living in the same household all come out different? That’s one of those questions you think you have the answer to, until you actually try and answer it. Scientists think they got it now. [NPR]

* In the “maybe things really are getting worse” department, NYC has decided if they feed prisoners less food, they’ll save some money! You know things are getting bad when ideas like this make it out the door and get approved. [UPI]

* And finally, Al Gore admitted he made a slight boo-boo. An itsy bitsy one. He really didn’t mean it when he said corn ethanol was good for the environment. He just wanted some votes! Ah. I see. So my next question would be what else have you done for votes that was “good for the environment”? [MSNBC]

That’s all I got this week. Back Monday!

Long story short: The company I work for recently purchased a few dozen of Safco’s suggestion boxes from a couple of different stores.

We were setting them up when I found out the suggestion boxes all use the same key.

You can buy a Safco suggestion box online and use that key to open any other Safco suggestion box anywhere in the world.

Is this bad? Not necessarily. But it’s something to keep in mind if you intend to buy this $63 product.

Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.

* Those Amish heaters that are advertised on the late late night commercials? Turns out they’re 90% hooey, 6% baloney and 4% shenanigans. Or something like that. Consumer Reports exposes the funk. [MSNBC]

* What do McDonald’s, Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Denny’s, Jack In The Box, Aetna, Cracker Barrel, Dish Network and Uncle Julio’s have in common? They’ve all been granted waivers from insuring their employees under ObamaCare! Wait, what? How did that happen? [HHS.GOV]

* I can sum up this next big expensive scientific study in four words and two punctuation marks… “Eat less. Live longer.” Do scientists need a TL;DR writer? And if so, where can I sign up? [MONTREAL GAZETTE]

* Speaking of scientific studies, scientists are absolutely baffled about this one woman from Texas who has to eat 8,000 calories a day just to stay alive. Thing is, she has a BMI of 10.9! For reference, “A body mass index (BMI) value of 20 to 25 is considered normal. Someone with a BMI of less than 16 is considered critically underweight.” If scientists can figure this major medical mystery out, this can have major implications for the whole world. Seriously. [SPIEGEL]

* A “cascading failure” is pretty much when one thing messes up another, and soon you’ve got something that wants to go all explodey-like. That happened on the emergency Qantas jet landing recently. It wasn’t just a “problem” engine that went thbttttt. “Kerosene was leaking from two of the 12 fuel tanks… an automatic extinguishing system failed to activate… the machines were unable to pump kerosene from the back to the front of the aircraft, causing it to become increasingly unstable as kerosene escaped… and one of the two hydraulic systems failed and important connecting cables were severed, including those leading to the outer engine one. Although the pilot could still control the engine manually, it could no longer be shut off AND the aircraft tire’s anti-lock system also stopped working, which caused three tires to burst when the plane touched down as a result, sending sparks into the air.” In related news, I ain’t never flying on no Quantas jets. [SPIEGEL]

* Speaking of cascading failures, the Euro may be in store for a cascading failure of their own if more Euro-based countries’ economies keep failing. This would be a “9” on the bad-chit-o-meter scale. [BLOOMBERG]

* George Bush says he authorized waterboarding in his new book, and paraphrasing somewhat, pretty much says waterboarding isn’t really torture and everybody else can suck it if they think it is. OK, Dubya, here’s a slow pitch for you to swing at… if waterboarding isn’t torture, why does it kill someone if you keep doing it? [THE ATLANTIC]

* And finally, the Pope said it’s OK for male prostitutes to use condoms. Nobody else, though. I’m just going to leave that right there and back away sloooowly. Very slowly. [THE STAR]

Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.

* The next time you’re busted for sleeping in, just say you were actually very hard at work rebuilding your synaptic pathways! Scientists just figured out sleepin’ helps “consolidate memories, fixing them in the brain so we can retrieve them later… new research is showing that sleep also seems to reorganize memories, picking out the emotional details and reconfiguring the memories to help you produce new and creative ideas.” [PHYSORG]

* Brace yourself… I see a stamps going up to a dollar soon! The U.S. Post Office just announced they doubled their losses “in fiscal year 2010, despite cutting billions of dollars in expenses and trimming its staff.” I think the problem is the post office is fighting 2010 tech with a 1800’s mentality. So how can they update themselves to be profitable in these modern times? Off the top of my head…

• They need to get into the digitization of magazine subscriptions and print periodicals so that customers have the option to read, search and archive all of their “paper” mail in a secure online account. (As a bonus, resell the high-quality digitized copies back to the magazine vendors for their own redistribution purposes.)
• Get into the “app” stores of  iPhone and Andriod and offer a take-a-photo-and-send-it-through-the-regular-mail service (or just buy one of the dozens of apps that already do this). As a bonus, tie into Walgreens, Sams, Target and WalMart to have a copy of the postcard printed at a local photo printing location as well.
• Setup a secure email confirmation service that has the US governments’ seal of approval on it. I’m thinking something like the “e-cards” from a few years ago, where you send an email to a “certified” USPS site and the recipient “picks it up”. The USPS would track the IP address of the sender and recipient, keep all the tech info on file, and make the output court-friendly.
• Setup something like a “USPS micropayment” service for internet transactions, where customers can make little transactions online (.10 cents, .50 cents, etc) in exchange for a bill at the end of the year.

Oh, and one more thing they can do… quit with the constant catalogs I’m getting in the mail that say how wonderful they are and how spiffy everything they do is. [CNN]

* Wanna’ know another way you can tell someone is lying to you? They start an answer to you with “Well”. It’s actually scary how many times this happens. [PSYCHOLOGY TODAY]

* Oh Danny boy, the banks, the banks are failin’… [SPIEGEL]

* A federal judge found warrantless cell phone tracking is unconstitutional! Dude! What’s next? Closing Guantanamo? Stopping the torture of prisoners? Ahhh, I can dream of such righteous freedom and liberty! [ACLU]

* The future called and said it’s really here. You can now create blood for your own transfusions from your skin cells. Science is awesome! [TELEGRAPH.CO.UK]

* Have you ever heard of the movie “Victor, Victoria“? It’s about a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman, all in the name of getting a part on a Broadway show. That’s kind of a goofball premise, right? Well check this out… an man engaged to be married (with millions to waste) decided he not only did not want to get married, but he really wanted to be a woman! He went through a complete sex change, then partied hard with a ton of men. In the middle of his partydom, he met a “very special” woman, and decided he really didn’t want to be a woman anymore. So he went back through the sex change process to become a man again, and then married this new woman. Dude. I can’t tell if this is going to wind up on Lifetime, Sci-Fi, or the Horror channel. [DAILYMAIL.CO.UK]

* And finally, allow me to present a completely fabricated fully holographic singer. Terrifying concept. Seriously awesome high-tech. Japan. Of course.

Video #1

Video #2

aaaaaand Video #3

OK, so if this crap exists, where are my Star Wars hologram phone calls and my R2 unit already?

That’s all I got! Back Monday!!