- Being the governor of Hawaii has to be a pretty nice
gig, right? Gov.
Neil Abercrombie and First Lady Nancie Caraway seem to think so and who can
argue with them when they’re busy spending more than $41,000 in taxpayer money
on improvements to the governor's residence since moving in about a year ago.
According to records obtained from the state’s Department of Accounting and
General Services, the expenditures at Hale Kia'aina have included some
extremely necessary upgrades like a dog run for the couple's Shetland sheepdog
at a cost of $12,482. Yes, more than $12,000 so a dog named Kanoa can get her
exercise unsupervised. When asked how such an expenditure could be justified
given his state’s budgetary issues, Abercrombie defended the dog run as part of
improvements needed to make the governor's residence livable. "In order
for her to be able to go into the yard, we had to put up a fence -- that's
all," said the governor. "I think we did a lovely job with that (and)
it complements the house." And really, isn't that what it’s all
about? Complimenting the house is what taxpayers have to be concerned about and
not using state funds for more vital issues. Clearly a $20 leash or an
Invisible Fencing system that has to be cheaper than $12,000 were not options
for the governor. Watchdog groups have criticized the governor for the apparent
abuse of power and pointed out that since the nation’s financial crisis hit its
apex in
December 2007, lawmakers have cut $4.6 billion from state budgets and raised
taxes across the board to keep the state afloat financially. Don’t tell any of
that to Abercrombie, who doesn’t believe spending in excess of $41,000 in the
past year on home renovations is a big issue. "Well, we had to fix the
house up to make it habitable," he said. "It was 10 years old and it
needed some fixing up." Oh no, not a 10-year-old house, how ancient………..
- Give Indonesia its credit because the powers that be in
the Pacific Rim nation have earned it. They have accomplished a feat that the
Western powers of this world have not yet grasped and probably never will:
banning Lady Gaga from performing in their capital city. The reason, while
largely irrelevant, is because Islamic groups voiced strong objections to her
"vulgar" style. Three Islamic groups lobbied vociferously against
the June 3 show, demanding it be stopped because of Gaga’s offensive style.
These groups could have objected to her inane lyrics, lack of vocal talent, the
publicity stunt feel of everything she does to grab attention or any other
number of idiosyncrasies in Gaga’s manufactured persona, but they chose to
single out her lack of morality when stacked up against their Islamic beliefs. "She's
a vulgar singer who wears only panties and a bra when she sings and she stated
she is the envoy of the devil's child and that she will spread satanic
teaching," said Salim Alatas, the Jakarta head of hardline Islamic
Defender Front (FPI). "This is dangerous." That’s definitely a
new one, the whole satanic angle. Gaga’s music has always been devilishly bad,
but to accuse her of spreading demonic teachings is new. For a woman who wears
meat dresses and travels to award shows inside giant eggs, though, nothing is a
surprise. Fearing a security nightmare if the show went on, city officials in
Jakarta refused Gaga a permit for her show. Indonesia is technically a secular state
but it has the world's largest population of Muslims as well as significant
minorities of Christians, Buddhists and Hindus. Prior to the permit denial, more
than 30,000 concert tickets from a total of 40,000 tickets had been sold, with
prices ranging from price from 465,000 rupiah ($50.35) to 2.25 million rupiah
($240). Time to hand out refunds…………
- Trials of accused international criminals have not been
going according to normal judicial procedures lately. First, the suspects in
the ongoing 9/11 terrorist attacks trial at Guantanamo Bay were ignoring
orders, praying and disrupting the proceedings in their trial. But compared to
accused Bosnian war criminal Ratko Mladic, who is accused of orchestrating a horrific campaign of
ethnic cleansing during the bloody civil war that ripped apart Yugoslavia,
those jokers were respectful by comparison. Mladic was not exactly remorseful as
his war crimes trial opened Wednesday, threatening victims and getting loose
with throat-slash gestures like he was some amped-up NFLer who just laid out a
receiver on a pattern over the middle. The former general drew his hand across
his neck while staring at victims of the war that introduced the phrase
"ethnic cleansing." His act was exactly what one would expect from a man
accused of being "the Butcher of Bosnia." Mladic was defiant, angry
and showed no sign of giving a damn that he has been indicted on 11 counts of
genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in the 1992-95 war. The
70-year-old former Bosnian Serb general is on trial at the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands, a
special court established to try those responsible for war crimes. According to
prosecutors, Mladic's campaign included the massacre of 8,000 Muslims in the
Bosnian town of Srebrenica. According to Mladic, he doesn’t give a sh*t. Even
after prosecutor Dermot Groome laid out details of the case against Mladic on
Wednesday, insisting that ethnic cleansing was not a byproduct of the war but
rather a deliberate ploy by Bosnian Serb leadership. The trial will be all
about prosecutors looking to pin responsibility on Mladic for the crimes carried
out by his forces. Groome’s presentation was especially graphic and he bluntly
described a woman who said she had been raped more than 50 times and others who
were forced by Bosnian Serb forces to perform sex acts on members of their own
families. A series of survivor testimonies and video clips will supplement the
prosecution’s case and observers believe the case will serve as a warning to
war criminals that their actions cannot go unchecked. Wednesday was something
of a despicable war criminal club meeting, as former Liberian President Charles
Taylor was given a final chance to address his court as Mladic's trial opened,
following his conviction last month by another international tribunal on
charges of aiding and abetting war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone's brutal
civil war. Mladic tried to evade justice and was successful by living on the
run for 16 years before his capture in 2011. Based on his attitude Wednesday,
he still has no respect for the concept of justice……….
- Science is always evolving and researchers are continually
seeking more understanding of the world around them. Taking something that is
perceived as a hazard or threat to humans and turning it into a useful product
is always a worthy goal and researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have made
just that sort of discovery. A team led by Dr. Seung-Wuk Lee has developed a way to generate electricity using
viruses. Lee’s team built a generator with a postage stamp-sized
electrode, based on a small film of specially engineered viruses. When tapped
by a finger, the electrode sprung into action and the viruses converted the
mechanical energy into electricity. "More research is needed, but our work
is a promising first step toward the development of personal power generators,
actuators for use in nano-devices, and other devices based on viral
electronics," Lee said. His team used an M13 bacteriophage virus for the
study. The virus attacks bacteria but is benign to humans and researchers used
genetic engineering techniques to add four negatively charged molecules to one
end of the corkscrew-shaped proteins that coat the virus. By increasing the
charge difference between the proteins' positive and negative ends, the
additional molecules elevated the voltage of the virus. The entire process
relied on an attribute known as "self-assembly," which is highly
valued in the field of nanotechnology because the components arrange themselves
into an orderly film that makes them easier to use. Lee’s crew boosted the
system by stacking films composed of single layers of the virus on top of each
other and found that a stack about 20 layers thick exhibited the strongest
piezoelectric effect. Materials that can convert mechanical energy into
electricity are commonly known as "piezoelectric.” Next up for the team?
Hopefully finding a way to convert virus-like entities like music from Lady
Gaga or Justin Bieber into electricity…………..
- Oh soccer, how your absurdity never ceases to entertain.
Even when fans aren't rioting and looking to burn down the stadium after their
team loses, there is still plenty to mock. Take Queens Park Rangers midfielder
Joey Barton, who received a lot of heat for his red card in his team's defeat
Sunday in their English Premier League finale against Manchester City. Manchester
City won with a stunning rally, coming back from a two-goal deficit to win 3-2
and snatch the EPL title for the first time since 1968. Before they reached
that point, Barton was ejected from the game for an altercation with Manchester
City striker Carlos Tevez. Ever the professional, Barton responded by
unleashing a wayward kick at Man City striker Sergio Aguero before being
dragged away from the pitch. How did he respond after costing his team by
causing a delay that led to several minutes of stoppage time placed on the
clock and seeing Aguero score the game-winning goal in that extra time? By
taking to Twitter and quoting lyrics from British emo rockers The Smiths, of
course. Responding to criticism from fans and media, he tweeted the following
from The Smiths' 'Still Ill': "For
there are brighter sides to life and I should know because I seen them, but not
very often..." Not content to philosophize with song lyrics once, he later
tweeted a choice couplet from 'Cemetery Gates', writing: "There's always someone, somewhere with
a big nose, who knows and who trips you up and laughs when you fall..."
After that, he engaged in a Twitter beef with the host of a soccer studio show
who had criticized his actions on the field and went back and forth in that
exchange for a while. It will be interesting to see what he tweets out if he’s
assessed the nine-game ban he’s facing over Sunday’s incident…………
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