March 27, 2012

JetBlue captain subdued during flight after pounding on cockpit

(CBS News) A police officer and an off-duty airline pilot subdued a JetBlue captain Tuesday morning aboard a Las Vegas-bound flight when the captain started pounding on the cockpit doorafter the flight's co-pilot asked him to leave and subsequently locked him out, a federal official told CBS News.

The captain became incoherent during JetBlue Flight 191 from New York's John F. Kennedy International, prompting the co-pilot to get him to leave the cockpit, the official said. JetBlue said in a statement to CBS News that the flight was diverted to Amarillo, Texas, "for a medical situation involving the captain."

Jet Blue flight 191 enroute from JFK to Las Vegas. The flight was diverted to Amarillo after the pilot reported an in-flight-emergency concerning an out-of-control passenger on board.
A different federal official told CBS News that the incident doesn't appear to be related to terrorism but that the FBI is investigating. The police officer, who works for the New York Police Department, was travelling as a passenger.

The "ill crewmember" was taken to a local medical facility after the plane landed in Amarillo, JetBlue said. Passengers are expected to be transported to Las Vegas on a different plane.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57405282/jetblue-captain-subdued-after-pounding-on-cockpit/

Juuuuuust a bit scarey........

March 27, 2012

Romney's CA Mansion Project Features Elevators For Cars

Politico's Reid Epstein dug up the construction plans for Mitt Romney's La Jolla, CA mansion project (a favorite punching bag for Democrats) and found a project packed with goodies not found on the average middle class home.

At Mitt Romney’s proposed California beach house, the cars will have their own separate elevator.

There’s also a planned outdoor shower and a 3,600-square foot basement — a room with more floor space than the existing home’s entire living quarters.

Epstein also reports the project has "its own lobbyist, hired by Romney to push the plan through the approval process."
More: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/romneys-ca-mansion-project-features-elevator-for-cars

He has no clue how most people live. He probby thinks this is standard.

March 27, 2012

For a laugh: Newspaper headlines and ads

Mitt Romney?





http://www.criggo.com/

Heh!

March 27, 2012

Check out this wild wardrobe a kid has in her room:

http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=69851

I would have loved this!

March 27, 2012

Easter Egg Hunt Canceled Due To Aggressive Parents

Organizers of an annual Easter egg hunt in Colorado attended by hundreds of children have canceled this year's event, citing the behavior of aggressive parents who swarmed into the tiny park last year, determined that their kids get an egg.

That hunt was over in seconds, to the consternation of egg-less tots and their own parents. Too many parents had jumped a rope set up to allow only children into Bancroft Park in a historic area of Colorado Springs.
<snip>
"They couldn't resist getting over the rope to help their kids," said Ron Alsop, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and author of The Trophy Kids Grow Up, which examines the "millennial children" generation.
<snip>
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/26/149379355/easter-egg-hunt-canceled-due-to-aggressive-parents

An Easter Egg Hunt? Seriously? Oy!

March 27, 2012

Design student creates 'sleeping bag coat' for homeless people

<snip>
The Detroit native has watched the homeless population of her economically savaged city explode to more than 30,000 in recent years, and she wants to help.

"What I found, in working at shelters and getting to know homeless people, is that pride is one of their biggest needs," Scott said. "Whether or not they can get into a shelter, they want to be able to take care of themselves."

Part of that pride, Scott learned, meant being able to sleep outside without freezing to death. In Detroit in the winter, a homeless person can die of exposure even in the daytime.
To Scott, the logical thing was to devise a warm coat for the daytime that could also be used as a life-saving blanket at night.

<snip>
Scott takes synthetic quilting used in industrial clothing and stitches it to an outer shell of Tyvek, a paper-thin, crinkly material used in mail envelopes and building insulation. Tyvek is so water resistant and heat-trapping that Scott and her friends have been able to sleep in 17-degree weather, in the snow, and stay warm, she said.

The coat-bag weighs only 1 pound and looks like an extra-large coat with a big hood. It costs $7 to $10 to produce.
<snip>

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/10/BAHR1L2HK8.DTL#

This could save a lot of lives. Unfortunately, homeless shelters and programs for them are being severely cut.
Hopefully, someone will bankroll this project. Modifications may need to be made, but it's a promising start!

March 27, 2012

Mitt: I Won’t Detail Plans, Because Then I’d Lose

Mitt Romney has embraced a budget plan that would entail cutting federal programs other than defense and Social Security by more than half. It does raise the question of how he plans to carry out such a sweeping goal. In an interview with the Weekly Standard, Romney says he'd eliminate a bunch of departments. But he won’t say which ones:

One of the things I found in a short campaign against Ted Kennedy was that when I said, for instance, that I wanted to eliminate the Department of Education, that was used to suggest I don’t care about education,” Romney recalled. “So I think it’s important for me to point out that I anticipate that there will be departments and agencies that will either be eliminated or combined with other agencies. So for instance, I anticipate that housing vouchers will be turned over to the states rather than be administered at the federal level, and so at this point I think of the programs to be eliminated or to be returned to the states, and we’ll see what consolidation opportunities exist as a result of those program eliminations. So will there be some that get eliminated or combined?
The answer is yes, but I’m not going to give you a list right now.

One of the things I have found in previous elections is that announcing my plans makes people want to vote against me!
<snip>
http://www.nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/03/mitt-i-wont-detail-plans-because-then-id-lose.html?imw=Y&f=most-emailed-24h5


He is a deeply stupid man in many ways.

March 27, 2012

Big problem with Zimmerman's story:

Joy Reid (@TheReidReport)
3/26/12 10:43 PM
Big problem with Zimmerman's story as told in the @orlandosentinel: you can't lose sight of someone in the corridor where he shot Trayvon.

Joy Reid (@TheReidReport)
3/26/12 10:44 PM
The row of backyards that form the corridor where Zimmerman followed Trayvon on foot is made of attached homes. No hiding places.

There will be many others. Call me Carnac.

March 27, 2012

Bad RW Math

Hoodie = hoodlum
Marijuana = FBI's Most Wanted
Skittles = gun
Neighborhood Watch = police

There are many others.

Trayvon's life will be thoroughly dissected. ANYTHING remotely negative will be publicized and blown up into gigantic issues.

Few people could stand up to this kind of scrutiny. I couldn't!

March 26, 2012

The Goldman Sachs-y group behind the London Olympics is making torchbearers buy their own torches

<snip>
Decisions like these are made by the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games, commonly referred to as LOCOG, a murky organization which probably hadn't encountered the phrase "low cognitive ability" until after it named itself. LOCOG occupies a special place in the UK's socioeconomic spectrum, operating as a private company but spending a large amount of public funds—around $1.5 billion—to benefit, primarily, giant corporations.

But it gets worse. Much worse. Eschewing the idea that the Olympics should be organized by someone with a background in sports, public service, international relations, or anything that benefits humanity, LOCOG appointed as its leader Paul Deighton, a consummate control freak who made his name "making" money at Goldman Sachs. Think about that for a second. The city hosting the world's greatest, most inspiring sporting event chose as its captain a guy who made partner in a company that routinely skullfucks the world.

In an illustrative gesture, LOCOG announced today that it would be charging torchbearers like Kirkwood £199, or about $320, to actually buy their own torches. The price goes up to £215 if they decide to keep the torch once the relay begins in May. LOCOG has, in its own defense, suggested that the price for the "high design specification" torches is "good value"—implying that these will be much more functional than the Olympic torches participants might pick up at, say, Best Buy or the local tuck shop next to the sausage-and-tomato flavored crisps.

In all fairness, this isn't the first time a host nation has decided to charge torchbearers for keeping their own torches. The U.S. Olympic Committee applied similar conditions to American torchbearers at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. Of course, that was also the year the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, or SLOC, bribed members of the International Olympic Committee with cash, ski trips, and plastic surgery. Want to guess who got to manage the $40 million endowment left by SLOC for Olympics facilities built in Utah? Goldman Sachs.
http://deadspin.com/olympics/

And we know who ran the Salt Lake City Winter Games.....