What the hell is going on over here? Snow is making ppl crazy. Rumors of 10 ppl being taken to the hospital from the UAH shooting. this is the 2nd school shooting in two weeks. the first one happened at a middle school.

Update: 3 dead. Shooter was a faculty member who may have been denied tenure this morning. Victims all faculty.

“Chinese company Hybrid Kinetic Motors announced plans Thursday to construct a new green vehicle manufacturing plant in south Alabama, bringing 5,000 jobs to the state.

“Physicians will not be bullied into bankruptcy. Our system needs reform, but what’s being hammered out in Washington is not the answer.

Two weeks ago the Mayo Clinic shocked the nation when it closed the doors of one of its Arizona clinics to patients on Medicare. Just this past June President Obama himself praised Mayo as a model of medical efficiency noting that Mayo gives “the highest quality care at costs well below the national norm.” If Mayo feels compelled to walk away from this government-run program, others will surely follow. The nation must understand why.”

(more…)

gotta love how woods is driving a minivan and looks like a plushtoy.

this pic was from a live twitter feed around mobile and caused the suspension of the station’s general manager and news director.

the nsa says it’s been involved w/ microsoft in designing security measures against hackers in windows 7. and this is neither the first time nor the only OS vendor it has helped. the nsa was involved in vista’s design and has consulted w/ apple, sun, red hat, symantec, mcafee and intel.

i’m not usually a conspiracy guy, but this bugs me. u have the premiere electronic eavesdropping agency involved w/ OS and security firms. sure, this makes sense on a practical level b/c they’ll likely know tons about defeating security measures. but does anyone remember the clipper chip? it was designed as a way the gov’t could have a backdoor into encrypted communication. who knows if something similar might be going on w/ this “consulting.” at the very least, the gov’t is getting vendor level knowledge about what is vulnerable and what isn’t on current OS’s. the nsa’s main task conflicts directly w/ what these companies are trying to accomplish in security. i hope i’m just overthinking this, but i just don’t know.

UPDATE: ms denies any backdoors were built in. like they would ever confirm something like that…

Chinese meteorologists covered Beijing in snow Sunday after seeding clouds to bring winter weather to the capital in an effort to combat a lingering drought, state media reported.

Article here.

Wha?

this awesome title comes from a line in this article.

BRIDGEWATER, S.D. – Behind the freezer doors at a meat plant mysteriously abandoned by its owner, the 44 tons of bison meat managed to hold its own for months, masked by the brutal chill of two South Dakota winters.

Once the power was cut and spring thaw arrived, nature took over. And enough rotting meat to fill a high school gym did exactly what you’d expect: It stank.

It stank at the bank. It smelled at the lawoffice. It reeked at the cafe. Even the jewelry store wasn’t immune. Everyone in this tiny town could smell it, everywhere they went. A putrid odor so downright nasty the cleaners sent to mop up the gooey mess of liquefied meat — topped by a blanket of swarming white maggots and buzzed by a legion of flies — gave up after two days.

vanguard, the reporting unit that laura ling and euna lee belong to, did a piece on the chinese in africa. laura isn’t the reporter here, but there was a section here i found pretty funny. apparently all chinese looking alike can have its advantages if u’re looking to avoid responsibility.

the rest of the story describes how in a few years china has become a giant presence all over africa and are developing african infrastructure so they can reap the abundance of raw materials from it.

This sounds like a potential premise for a zombie video game…

Government health officials are mobilizing to launch a massive swine flu vaccination campaign this fall that is unprecedented in its scope — and in the potential for complications…

More here.

Interesting story featured on ChinaSmack.com:

My little brother has left my home for four months already – because he is an Internet addict.

My brother was always an obedient kid, but started going on the Internet constantly in college because of video games: Journey to the West (a game in China developed by NetEase), Legend of the Swordsman 11, and World of Warcraft…

rest of article here.

i don’t say this much, but thank freaking god.

hmm…

The Children’s Secretary set out £400million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV super-vision in their own homes.

They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.

Private security guards will also be sent round to carry out home checks, while parents will be given help to combat drug and alcohol addiction.

Around 2,000 families have gone through these Family Intervention Projects so far.

this a joke or exaggeration. it has to be. i mean, i seriously can’t believe ppl would put up w/ this. i would smash the camera to bits even if i had to go to jail. this is revolution time. the article quoted an “ed balls” education secretary, and i even looked him up. it mentions a “shadow home secretary” and the position actually exists. lolwut? i checked some of the other stories on the site, and it appears to be legit. anyways, this story is starting to get major traffic (wired, slashdot etc) so maybe we’ll get “clarification” on it.

if this turns out not to be a joke, i can safely say i never, ever, want to visit the uk. but i must commend them on their gov’t position names. i mean including “shadow” into a title just makes it 100x cooler.

UPDATE: oh. my. god.

Intensive support programme in supervised accommodation
Families receive 24 hour support and supervision from staff in accommodation provided by the project. Families are likely to be involved in many structured sessions as well as daily observation. If the behaviour of the family improves they may be moved into more independent accommodation.

pasted from the uk “Respect” website which aims to “tackle anti-social behavior and its causes.” other great programs they had were street level CCTVs that were monitored by ppl and that were equipped to talk back when “anti-social” behavior was seen. that’s un-fucking-real. still, the page says only 53 intervention projects were established even though there are 1500 problem families.

UPDATE 2: commenters @ slashdot and wired have poo-pooed the sunday express’s credibility in the UK. so apparently the paper is not widely trusted. even so, their own website indicates the story wasn’t a complete fabrication.

1. the onion is sold to the chinese!

2. the fair and balanced way to execute young women in iran. marry them to a prison guard the night before their execution, deflower them, and go on your merry way. why? b/c it’s forbidden to execute virgin girls. (source is jewish newspaper, so take w/ grain of salt.)

3.

the ricci vs destefano ruling came out today 5-4 in favor of ricci. for those that haven’t heard, this case was about a firefighter promotion test. this test had been used in past years to promote the city’s firefighters, and there had been no problem b/c at least 1 of the members who passed the test has been black. as long as they had at least 1 black person pass, they could say the test didn’t have disparate impact, which is difficult to prove in court. but in 2003, only 2 minorities (hispanics) passed, even tho the racial averages were about the same as previous years. (more…)