Microsoft confirms it's dropping Windows 8.1 supportInfoWorld – by Woody Leonhard

In what is surely the most customer-antagonistic move of the new Windows regime, Steve Thomas at Microsoft posted a TechNet article on Saturday stating categorically that Microsoft will no longer issue security patches for Windows 8.1, starting in May. Call this the “let them eat cake” approach to support for Microsoft’s flagship operating system.   Continue reading “Microsoft confirms it’s dropping Windows 8.1 support”

The manager is seen here, after having slammed the suspected shoplifter to the ground. (KDFW)Yahoo News – by Will Lerner

If you’re an employee of a chain store and you see a shoplifter, don’t confront them. It’s been proven again and again and again and again that no matter how noble your intentions are, you can be fired from your job. As KDFW FOX 4 News reports, this is exactly what happened to one Kroger grocery store manager in Arlington, Texas.   Continue reading “Kroger manager fired after he slams a knife-wielding shoplifter to the ground”

Coincidence Or Accident? Microsoft Security Essentials Bug Rendering XP Machines Hamstrung Like A VirusHot Hardware – by Rob Williams

Since its release back in 2009, Microsoft Security Essentials has become a respected anti-virus / anti-malware solution. Even I, someone who never went out of their way to run such a solution, used it from the get-go due to its solid design and effective scanning. The fact that it was a cost-free solution sure didn’t hurt, either. As it is today, though, there are many out there starting to wonder if MSE is all it’s cracked up to be. And Microsoft has backed away from the product as of late it seems as well.   Continue reading “Coincidence Or Accident? Microsoft Security Essentials Bug Rendering XP Machines Hamstrung Like A Virus”

Yahoo News – by Scott Smith

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — Drought-stricken California farmers and cities are set to get more water as state and federal officials ease cutbacks due to recent rain and snow, officials announced on Friday.

The Department of Water Resources said it is increasing water allotments from the State Water Project from zero to 5 percent of what water districts have requested. The State Water Project supplies water to 29 public agencies serving more than 25 million Californians and irrigates nearly a million acres of farmland.   Continue reading “California farmers to get more water”

Yahoo News

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — At least 80 immigrants suspected of entering the United States illegally have been arrested in a makeshift encampment in South Texas.

They were found in an undeveloped patch of scrub near an abandoned tennis club. They were camped under tents and huts camouflaged with mesquite branches and cacti. Some told authorities they had been there sleeping on pieces of cardboard with little food or water for at least a week.   Continue reading “US arrests about 80 immigrants at Texas camp”

downloadKVUE – by TONY PLOHETSKI

AUSTIN — Texas taxpayers will pay the legal defense fees for Gov. Rick Perry, who is under criminal investigation for allegedly illegally withholding state money from the Travis County District Attorney’s office.

KVUE News and the Austin American-Statesman reported Sunday that Perry had hired well-known Austin lawyer David Botsford to represent him. The hiring came as a grand jury was about to begin reviewing Perry’s actions.   Continue reading “Texas taxpayers to pay Perry’s legal fees”

PolandThe Daily Caller – by Scott Greer

Poland’s defense minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, announced Friday that U.S. soldiers will be deployed to the Eastern European country as part of a NATO expansion plan in response to Russia’s involvement in the crisis in Ukraine.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Siemoniak said that the U.S. and Poland will formally announce the deployment of troops next week and said that it is a sign that America is shifting its foreign policy priorities from Asia to Europe.   Continue reading “US ground troops heading to Poland in response to Ukraine crisis”

Mexico rattled by 7.2-magnitude earthquakeABC AU

A powerful magnitude 7.2 earthquake has struck Mexico’s capital and Pacific coast, shaking buildings, shattering windows and sending residents fleeing into the streets.

There were no immediate reports of major damage or injuries.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) says the earthquake’s epicentre was 36 kilometres north-west of Tecpan, near the Pacific resort of Acapulco in Guerrero state.   Continue reading “Mexico rattled by 7.2-magnitude earthquake”

Militant Hippies

Today I bottled my first batch of Kombucha tea! I want to write down this process so in 15 days when those bottles have finished fermenting I can see if they taste good or not and if they do not I can change what I did and if they taste wonderful I can keep on doing it the same way!

First a friend of mine brought me over a SCOBY (or a Kombucha Colony), she has been making her own Kombucha Tea since 2008. Her SCOBY was very thick so she peeled it apart and poured enough tea in it (starter tea) to cover it and then drove it to my house!!!   Continue reading “Home Made Kombucha Tea”

download (3)“Since 9/11, the feds have issued a plethora of homeland-security grants that encourage local police departments to buy surplus military hardware and form their own SWAT units.

By 2005, at least 80 percent of towns with a population between 25,000 and 50,000 people had their own SWAT team. The number of raids conducted by local police SWAT teams has gone from 3,000 a year in the 1980s to over 50,000 a year today.”    Continue reading “Stats To Prove Government Terrorism”

Mail.com

KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) — An avalanche swept down a climbing route on Mount Everest early Friday, killing at least 12 Nepalese guides and leaving four missing in the deadliest disaster on the world’s highest peak. Several more were injured.

The Sherpa guides had gone to fix ropes for other climbers when the avalanche struck an area known as the “popcorn field” for its bulging chunks of ice at about 6:30 a.m., Nepal Tourism Ministry official Krishna Lamsal said from the base camp, where he was monitoring rescue efforts.   Continue reading “Avalanche sweeps down Everest, killing at least 12”

Mail.com

MOKPO, South Korea (AP) — The investigation into South Korea’s ferry disaster focused on the sharp turn it took just before it began listing and on the possibility that a quicker evacuation order by the captain could have saved lives, officials said Friday, as rescuers struggled to find some 270 people still missing and feared dead.

Police said a high school vice principal who had been rescued from the ferry was found hanging Friday from a pine tree on Jindo, an island near the sunken ship where survivors have been housed. He was the leader of a group of 323 students traveling on the ship on a school excursion, and said in a suicide note that he felt guilty for being alive while more than 200 of his students were missing.   Continue reading “Doomed ferry’s sharp turn, slow evacuation probed”

Press TV – by Paul Craig Roberts

Libertarian ideology favors privatization. However, in practice privatization is usually very different in result than libertarian ideology postulates. Almost always, privatization becomes a way for well-connected private interests to loot both the public purse and the general welfare.

Most privatizations, such as those that have occurred in France and UK during the neoliberal era, and in Greece today and Ukraine tomorrow, are lootings of public assets by politically-connected private interests.   Continue reading “Privatization: Looting the public purse”

National Review Online – by John Fund

Regardless of how people feel about Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s standoff with the federal Bureau of Land Management over his cattle’s grazing rights, a lot of Americans were surprised to see TV images of an armed-to-the-teeth paramilitary wing of the BLM deployed around Bundy’s ranch.

They shouldn’t have been. Dozens of federal agencies now have Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams to further an expanding definition of their missions. It’s not controversial that the Secret Service and the Bureau of Prisons have them. But what about the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service? All of these have their own SWAT units and are part of a worrying trend towards the militarization of federal agencies — not to mention local police forces.   Continue reading “The United States of SWAT?”