March 15, 2014

NBC Today Show TV interview with Jerry Sandusky's wife an insult to his victims

NBC Today Show TV interview with Jerry Sandusky's wife an insult to his victims

Almost two years ago, a jury in Bellefonte, Pa., listened to eight days of evidence and testimony, much of it from eight boys turned men who fought through tears and suppressed anger to deliver emotional, first-hand accounts of being sexually assaulted at the hands of Jerry Sandusky.

The jurors poured through everything, including defense arguments and cross-examinations, for a day and a half and finally declared Sandusky guilty of 45 counts of various degrees of abuse. Sandusky, now 70, was sentenced to 30 to 60 years behind bars.

An appeal by Sandusky for a new trial went nowhere and an appeal of that appeal is, legal experts believe, likely to find the same fate. Meanwhile, Sandusky sits isolated for 23 hours a day in a Western Pennsylvania prison cell, running out the clock on his sorry life.

Sadly, that hasn't stopped his family's ability to continue to attack his victims.

On Tuesday, NBC's "Today" show sent Matt Lauer to State College to give Dottie Sandusky, Jerry's wife, a nationally broadcasted forum. It allowed her, without too much counterpoint, to accuse her husband's prey of actually being the ones who committed heinous crimes.
<snip>
Read the rest:
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/tv-interview-with-jerry-sandusky-s-wife-an-insult-to-his-victims-025526818.html

This BS has to stop. If the media is going to let anybody spout baseless accusations they need to have people on who can rebut these claims.
If NBC is on some crusade with the Sandusky 'truthers' to free a supposedly innocent man, then put up the evidence NOW!
Only 2 groups are served by this hot mess. Those who claim Sandusky is innocent and NBC for ratings.
JUST.STOP.NOW!
I don't mean censor Dottie or anybody else. However, don't let this bullshit pass without the other side being given a chance for rebuttal right then. A rebuttal broadcast later on will not get the same number of people watching.

March 14, 2014

Hank the dawg, the Brewers mascot was called up. He's coming to Milwaukee!

It's a big day for Hank the dog, the stray who became an unofficial mascot of the Milwaukee Brewers when he wandered into the team's spring training facility in Arizona. The Brewers have decided that Hank, because he is such a good doggie, will be spending the baseball season in Milwaukee with the team.

You made it, Hank. You're a good doggie.
Video here: (It's great!)
http://deadspin.com/the-brewers-are-bringing-hank-the-dog-to-milwaukee-1543983128

Love his uniform!

March 14, 2014

A Guide to Crap Detection Resources

A Guide to Crap Detection Resources
How this came about, how you can help:

This document is a resource for assessing the accuracy or veracity of online information, organized under a number of headings. The objective of the resource is to improve the digital lives of individuals and to improve the quality of the online commons by increasing the number of people who know how to separate good info from bad info.

It began as a chapter for my 2012 book, Net Smart: How to Thrive Online. I wrote the book to improve the quality of the commons and lives of individuals by introducing them to five fundamental literacies.
In the order I presented them, these literacies involve skills (both individual and social) having to do with attention, crap detection, participation, collaboration, and network know-how. Attention came first because it is basic to thought and communication of any kind.

Crap detection came next because we have lived since the invention of the search engine in a world where almost everybody almost everywhere can ask any question and receive many answers in a fraction of a second -- however, after millennia of vesting authority in the authors of texts, it is now up to the information seeker/user to decide whether the answers they receive are accurate, inaccurate, outright bogus, or deliberately misleading.

In addition to writing the book, I’ve taught a course based on Net Smart at Stanford University and have made available a syllabus for others to adopt and modify. Access to all the published information in the world is a danger rather than a benefit to those who don’t know how to test it.

Here are some tools that anybody can use to judge the quality of online information. Any reader can comment on this document. If you want to edit, request editing privs. First, make sure that what you want to add is an effective tool. Then, make sure that your candidate resource isn’t already here.
Link to document:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/163G79vq-mFWjIqMb9AzYGbr5Y8YMGcpbSzJRutO8tpw/mobilebasic?pli=1

March 14, 2014

Missing Malaysia Airlines Plane Jetliner 'Pinged' Satellites With Location, Altitude for Hours After

Satellite Data Reveal Route of Missing Malaysia Airlines Plane
Jetliner 'Pinged' Satellites With Location, Altitude for Hours After Disappearance

Malaysia Airlines missing jet transmitted its location repeatedly to satellites over the course of five hours after it disappeared from radar, people briefed on the matter said, as searchers zeroed in on new target areas hundreds of miles west of the plane's original course.

The satellites also received speed and altitude information about the plane from its intermittent "pings," the people said. The final ping was sent from over water, at what one of these people called a normal cruising altitude. They added that it was unclear why the pings stopped. One of the people, an industry official, said it was possible that the system sending them had been disabled by someone on board.

The people, who included a military official, the industry official and others, declined to say what specific path the transmissions revealed. But the U.S. planned to move surveillance planes into an area of the Indian Ocean 1,000 miles or more west of the Malay peninsula where the plane took off, said Cmdr. William Marks, the spokesman for the U.S. Seventh Fleet.

He said the destroyer USS Kidd would move through the Strait of Malacca, on Malaysia's west coast, and stay at its northwest entrance. Malaysia, which is overseeing the search effort, directed Indian forces to a specific set of coordinates in the Andaman Sea, northwest of the Malay peninsula, an Indian official said Thursday. "There was no specified rationale behind looking in those areas, but a detailed list was provided late Wednesday evening," the Indian official said.

The automatic pings, or attempts to link up with satellites operated by Inmarsat PLC, occurred a number of times after Flight 370's last verified position, the people briefed on the situation said, indicating that at least through those five hours, the Boeing Co. BA -2.04% 777 carrying 239 people remained intact and hadn't been destroyed in a crash, act of sabotage or explosion.
<snip>
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304185104579437573396580350?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304185104579437573396580350.html

Hmmmmm.....
Wonder how long they knew this?

March 13, 2014

Watch what happens when a pug interrupts a standoff between police and an armed robber:

An intense standoff between police and an armed robbery suspect outside a home in Phoenix, Arizona took a momentary turn to the whimsical on Wednesday after an audacious pug breached the barricade to try and pick a fight with the SWAT team's K9 unit.
<snip>
https://www.thedodo.com/video-pug-interrupts-police-st-455632425.html

Ha!

March 13, 2014

More unsubstantiated info about flight 370 to mull over:

@mpoppel:
REU sources: "Faint electronic pulses" picked up by satellites gave no indication of where the jet was heading nor its technical condition

@mpoppel:
REU sources: "Pings" indicate aircraft's troubleshooting systems were ready to communicate, but airline did not subscribe to full service

@mpoppel:
REU: New search area may be opened in the Indian Ocean based on "new" but inconclusive information, White House says

Somebody knows more than they are letting on. Don't know who, but all those satellites aren't up there for grins. Probably trying to figure out how to release info without giving up secret squirrel shite.

@mpoppel:
REU: WHITE HOUSE SAYS CONSULTING WITH INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS ABOUT WHAT ASSETS TO DEPLOY IN NEW SEARCH AREA FOR MALAYSIAN JET
Probably figuring out how to release info without the secret squirrel shite drawn in.

March 13, 2014

The feral hog problem in just NC and SC (They are a problem in many states)

Overview of the Problem
Like most of the United States and at least four Canadian provinces, the State of South Carolina has seen a recent and dramatic increase in the distribution and abundance of wild hogs. The increase in wild hog numbers has led to an increase in the damage these animals cause to natural, agricultural, and developed landscapes.
Recent data suggest a large and growing population of wild hogs (approximately 150,000 individuals). Wild hogs have been reported in every county in the state. Scaling the national annual estimate of economic damage done by wild hogs (Pimentel 2007) to population estimates for South Carolina, the collective yearly cost of agricultural damage and control of these animals alone would conservatively be in the tens of millions of dollars.
Considering the potential impacts wild hogs have on the natural landscape and native species, in addition to the threat wild hogs pose to the state’s livestock industry through the spread of zoonotic diseases, the economic impacts of wild hogs are even higher.
As such, a coordinated, multi-agency, statewide effort must be implemented to effectively control and manage this rapidly emerging issue to a less critical level, with a long-term goal of reducing the threat of wild hogs in the Palmetto State. This white paper introduces a multi-agency proposal to achieve this goal.
<snip>
http://www.dnr.sc.gov/wildlife/hog/pdf/wildhogwhitepaper.pdf

<snip>
Pigs are famous with the public for eating almost anything, famous to hunters as a wily opponent and famous among scientists for an extraordinary reproductive rate. Female pigs can crank out three litters of up to 12 piglets each in 14 months, little ones that themselves begin reproducing within months.

“Everybody talks about rabbits reproducing quickly, but hogs can match or exceed them,” Ray said. “The difference is that hogs have no real predators. That means one sow in two years’ time can create 200 more pigs.”

Danger to domestic pigs
Crop and habitat destruction is the wild pig issue that gets most of the attention nationally, with estimates of the annual damage at $1.5 billion.

Here, though, given North Carolina’s status as one of the nation’s largest producer of hogs, there’s another potential catastrophe: Pork production could be nearly shut down within hours if diseases that have been found in feral pigs here are passed to their domestic cousins.

Ray said the diseases likely wouldn’t be diagnosed until after spreading throughout the national pork industry, via thousands of feeder pigs that North Carolina producers ship daily to producers elsewhere who grow them to market size.
<snip>
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/05/06/2047423/a-farmers.html

They are everywhere and they are mean and nasty.

March 13, 2014

Triplet Sumatran tiger cubs, born at London Zoo (pic)

Triplet Sumatran tiger cubs, born at London Zoo

http://j.mp/1iErBmB

Sweet.

March 13, 2014

Then and Now: Forever friends

@AnimalLife

That is one patient dawg who really loves that chicken.

March 13, 2014

I have no idea where flight 370 is and

I have no idea what info released is true.
There have been multiple reports from different sources, multiple retractions of some of these reports, sniping reports between countries and who knows what else.

I am going to Beaufort SC and ask Dr.Buzzard for his best info. He is as reliable as anybody else. Probably more.