October 11, 2014

US airways gets bad press -attendant wouldn't hang vet's decorated jacket in 1st class closet

Http://www.bizpacreview.com/2014/10/10/us-airways-feels-wrath-of-social-media-when-flight-attendant-mistreats-army-ranger-151500


U.S. Airways flight attendant’s alleged mistreatment of an Army Ranger on Thursday took Twitter by storm.

According to ABC affiliate WSOC-TV in Charlotte, N.C., the flight attendant refused a request from First Sergeant Albert Marle to hang up his uniform jacket to keep it from getting wrinkled, telling the ranger the service is only for first class passengers.

To add insult to injury, when first class passengers agreed to exchange seats with Marle to accommodate his request, the flight attendant refused to allow it.

“When he asked if he could hang his coat up to keep from getting wrinkled, he had a chest full of medals — many deployments,” Cliff Autrey, a passenger on the flight, told WSOC-TV. “All she had to say was, ‘Yes.’”

Eventually, another attendant hung up the jacket to the dismay of the first attendant.

A passenger who appeared to be on the same flight was so outraged that he began tweeting a series of messages about the incident, tagging U.S. Airways. He stressed in one tweet that “not a soul in first class had a coat. Not one!”

October 11, 2014

In recognization of her campaigning against rape in war zones: Dame Angelina Jolie

The DCMG honour is in recognition of her campaigning against rape in war zones and services to UK foreign policy

As an American citizen, it is highly unusual that Jolie has received an honour from Britain. Foreigners are only occasionally awarded them – there was an honorary knighthood for Bob Geldof, who is Irish, after Live Aid.

It is also unusual for a damehood to be bestowed upon someone so young. The honour is generally bestowed later in life, after a recipient has earned a lower honour such as an OBE or a CBE.

-----------

Building on her long-term humanitarian work for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), she has been at the forefront of the initiative to highlight and seek justice for the plight of some of the most vulnerable people on the planet - the victims of sexual violence in conflict.








Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2788029/angelina-jolie-meets-queen-buckingham-palace-officially-receive-honorary-damehood.html#ixzz3FnEcYzNT

October 10, 2014

Halloween fun or inappropriate? Pittsburgh man’s over-the-top decorations (warning - pics)

http://www.wpxi.com/news/news/national/halloween-fun-or-inappropriate-pittsburgh-mans-ove/nhgGr/?icmp=cmgcontent_internallink_relatedcontent_2014_partners1

A Halloween display in Pittsburgh is causing quite a controversy.

A man in a small neighborhood within the Pittsburgh city limits has his front yard decorated with blood, plastic dolls and a cannibal bunny rabbit.

Some people in the neighborhood said the display is too graphic and they want it to be taken down.

>> Photos: You decide. Are these decorations acceptable or over the line?

But Joe Dauria said it’s all in good fun for the upcoming holiday.

October 10, 2014

Enraged hawk smashes drone to the ground

CAMBRIDGE, Mass —

#t=20

Christopher Schmidt was flying his quadcopter around Magazine Beach Park in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when he learned the hard way that his toy wasn't welcomed in the sky.

His copter, equipped with a GoPro camera, catches the moment a hawk launches toward his drone and knocks it from the air.

The camera continues to roll as the copter crashes to the ground.

The hawk likely wasn't thrilled with the drone in his territory and took it out.

- See more at: http://www.news965.com/news/news/national/enraged-hawk-smashes-drone-ground/nhgGP/?icmp=cmgcontent_internallink_relatedcontent_2014_partners2#sthash.IBCX1inM.dpuf

October 9, 2014

watch cop take $1300 from man's pocket and pepper spray anyone who asks why - nypd

It was Joye’s 35th birthday, and he’d withdrawn the cash — earned from his construction job — to take his wife out for the night, according to his lawyer.

“Give me my money, man! Give me my money,” says Joye in the clip, the stack of bills clearly visible in the officer’s hand. In response, he gets sprayed in the face.

“That’s robbery,” says a bystander. “How you gonna take his money?” When Joye’s sister approaches the officer to get his name and badge number, she, too,

-------

week, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton vowed to “aggressively seek to get those out of the department who should not be here,” officers “so callous, so brutal, so corrupt that they feel comfortable engaging in those acts of brutality, acts of corruption without fear.” In the days since, the videos of police misconduct just keep coming.

The latest is not just shocking for the physical brutality some have come to expect, but for the bald corruption with no apparent regard for consequences — although there’s also brutality. While being filmed during a stop-and-frisk near a basketball court in Coney Island last month, an officer can be seen reaching into a man named Lamard Joye’s pocket and taking what Joye claims was $1,300. Then the cop starts pepper-spraying.

Http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/10/nypd-steals-cash-pepper-sprays-victims-video.html



Nn

October 9, 2014

CNN lead story - saying the senate is lost to the dems

Today . saying the math is impossible

No need to vote people. It's over.

October 9, 2014

pumpkin pie aint pumpkin pie anymore - its a Libby developed squash flavored w squash spices

The Dickinson variety of squash pictured above was developed specifically by Libby's, the brand responsible for selling about 85 percent of canned pumpkin pie filling sold in the U.S. As you can see, it bears a lot more resemblance to a butternut squash than anything you'd think to carve a face on. Indeed, butternut squash and Dickinson gourds are part of the same species, which is different from the species most jack-o-lanterns come from.

So if you're a longtime fan of pumpkin pie, chances are you've actually been enjoying something more along the lines of butternut squash pie. Seasoned with "squash spices." Which coffee chains use to make seasonally appropriate "squash spice lattes." Yes, squash spice lattes.

Slightly less appetizing? Maybe. Still delicious? Definitely. C. pepo, your classic bright orange pumpkin, actually doesn't make for the best pie. With 90 percent water content and mostly hollow insides, true "pumpkin pie" can come out pretty bland and soupy. Squash is better in every way except, perhaps, appearance -- it's sweeter, fleshier and creamier.

The lines between gourd terminology are a little blurry. That's part of the reason it's perfectly legal under current FDA regulations to label a food product as "pumpkin" when it's actually closer to squash.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/08/canned-pumpkin-pie-filling_n_5941122.html

October 9, 2014

Repub falling in polls in state Dems had written off as a loss - South Dakota

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/new-poll-gop-candidate-losing-ground-south-dakota-senate-race

Rounds has long been favored to win the seat, which is currently held by Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson, who is retiring. Even Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid publicly wrote the race off as a loss, refusing to endorse Weiland, and most previous polls had Rounds leading by double digits.

But Rounds’s support appears to have fallen amid the growing controversy over a foreign investor visa program known as EB-5, which expanded under his term as governor. Investigators flagged suspicious financial transactions in the program, and the Rounds official who oversaw the program was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound before he was called to testify in front of a state grand jury last year. 

Survey USA found that 56% of voters believe the former governor needs to say more about the EB-5 program, which gives green cards to foreign investors who sink at least $500,000 into economic development programs, provided that they create a certain number of U.S. jobs.

Both Pressler and Weiland have attacked Rounds over the EB-5 issue and his term as governor. Pressler is a former three-term Republican senator who lost the seat in 1996. He has since shifted to the left, having endorsed President Barack Obama, supported gay marriage, and defended the Affordable Care Act. 

October 9, 2014

No, Sam Brownback, it’s not the media’s fault you’re losing

Here's how embattled Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback diagnosed his political problems in an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody:  “I think they (the mainstream media) want what’s happening in this state to fail,  that they’re shopping for a factual setting to back that up because it’s working.”

Um, no.  While blaming the media is both one of the most common strategic moves and one that regularly reeks of desperation, in this case -- as in most of them -- what Brownback is saying is simply not true.

So why then is Brownback in so much trouble in a state where President Obama won just 38 percent of the vote in 2012 and is, inarguably, one of the five most conservative states in the country?

Maybe -- just maybe -- it has something to do with the massive (and massively unpopular) income tax cuts championed by Brownback and passed into law in 2012. Or a further reduction in the income tax in 2013.  The combined effect of those two cuts was a more than $330 million budget shortfall in the state and the downgrading of the state's credit by several major rating agencies.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/10/08/no-sam-brownback-its-not-the-medias-fault-youre-losing/?tid=trending_strip_6

October 9, 2014

this photographer has taught 1500 puppies how to get safely out of the pool

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/16/seth-casteel-underwater-puppies-photography_n_5828262.html















New York Times best-selling author Seth Casteel is back with a second photography book full of our doggy paddling pals, but this time the stars are miniature.

Underwater Puppies, a successor to his 2012 book Underwater Dogs, is the product of swimming lessons Casteel says he gave to more than 1,500 pups. Although dogs are instinctive swimmers, he writes on his website that since swimming pools are not natural bodies of water, it's important that the dogs are taught taught how to get safely out of pools.

Many of the little ones had never swum before, and the pictures showing their excitement are making a serious splash.

But why all the fuss about man's (tiny) best friend getting in some swim time? Casteel thinks he has the answer.

"Puppies lift our spirits. They don't care who you are, what you've been doing, where you're going, they just want to love you and they just want to be your friend. And I think that's always going to make us feel good," Casteel told NPR.