Year: 2014

Viral Nova – by Michael Cahill

In these pre-apocalyptic times that we live in, you might be thinking about the best ways to protect you and your family in the event of a disaster, man-made or otherwise. Sadly, there’s not really an easy, catch-all answer.

That is unless, of course, you’re rich and powerful. If you have an extra million or two to spend, you have options. People will cash can choose to ride out any impending apocalypse in style in their very own luxury, underground, disaster-proof condo.   Continue reading “Ride Out The Apocalypse In Style With These Luxury, Disaster-Proof Condos.”

Mail.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — There’s no free lunch — or breakfast or dinner — for President Barack Obama on Thanksgiving Day. Or any other day for that matter.

He has to dig into his pocket to pay for his holiday feast of turkey, ham, two kinds of stuffing, sweet and regular potatoes and six different kinds of pie. It’s a longstanding practice that a president pays for meals for himself, his family and personal guests.   Continue reading “Presidents pick up the check for their meals”

ABC News – by David Reiter

Why is Black Friday called “Black Friday”?

Seems pretty simple – it’s the day retailers go “into the black,” or turn a profit for the year.  But it turns out the term has a darker, less happy origin.

In 1966, Black Friday was the name the Philadelphia Police Department gave to the Friday after Thanksgiving.  The police hated the day — massive traffic jams, overcrowded sidewalks, lots of shoplifters — all because downtown Philly stores were filled with shoppers taking advantage of the first holiday sales.   Continue reading “Black Friday’s Dark Origins”

RT

A ‘unilateral decision’ was taken by OPEC not to cut production and to leave the daily output ceiling unchanged at 30 million barrels, despite a major oversupply that has caused oil prices to fall more than 30%.

“We are not sending any signal to anyone, we are just trying to have a fair price,” OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem El-Badri told reporters in Vienna on Thursday.

World oil demand is expected to increase in 2015, Salem El-Badri said.   Continue reading “Oil slumps 4% as OPEC leaves output unchanged”

RT

A Reddit user from the UK has made an imagined image of a Walmart parking lot on Black Friday go viral by attracting hundreds of thousands of hits to their computer-crafted critique of the major American shopping day.

“As a Brit, this is how I imagine [B]lack Friday in America,” an individual with the Reddit handle ‘_theseacucumber’ wrote on the popular web forum on Tuesday.   Continue reading “Brit’s vision of Black Friday in America goes viral”

NEO – by Steven MacMillan

Is the Western elite’s brainchild – the European Union – disintegrating? Due to persistent economic problems, the rise of “popular resentment” across the continent, the political fallout after the illegal coup in Ukraine and the subsequent unpopular economic war on Russia, the EU is on the verge of crumbling.

In an interview with France 24, the hedge fund manager, billionaire and founder of the Open Society Foundation, George Soros, reveals that the European Union has failed to achieve the desires of the elite and many within Europe now see “Russia as a role model”:   Continue reading “Soros: The European Union is a “Failed” Experiment In “International Governance””

Yahoo News

More than 350,000 electric customers from Maine to Virginia were without power this morning, after a storm dumped a sloppy mix of rain and snow along the East Coast.

New Hampshire residents experienced the heaviest level of outages, with more than 180,000 electric customers there reported without power this morning. More than 78,000 customers in Maine lost power, along with 55,000 customers in New York.   Continue reading “Hundreds of Thousands Without Power Due to East Coast Storm”

Seattle PI

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (AP) — A man is facing a felony menacing charge after two western Colorado sheriff’s deputies say he pointed a banana at them and they thought it was a gun.

The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reports (http://bit.ly/1rqFiVE ) 27-year-old Nathan Rolf Channing, of Fruitvale, was arrested Sunday.

According to an arrest affidavit, Mesa County deputies Joshua Bunch and Donald Love said they feared for their lives even though they saw that the object was yellow. Bunch wrote in the affidavit that he has seen handguns in many shapes and colors.   Continue reading “Man arrested; deputies say he aimed banana at them”

Washington Post – by Craig Timberg

It’s that time again. We’re on the move — feasting, sharing, shopping, giving thanks. And we are being tracked every step of the way. So here’s a quick guide to the state of the unblinking electronic eye, 2014 Holiday Edition.

Flying home? Every passenger on every flight is recorded on digital manifests. Every plane is tracked. And even before you board, airports are among the most intensively surveilled public spaces, full of cameras and other monitoring devices. Some airports even use tiny sensors hidden in lighting fixtures that, according to the New York Times, can spot long lines, read license plates and report “suspicious activity” to authorities.   Continue reading “#HappyTracksgiving : How your travels are tracked this holiday season”

RT

A Jacksonville sheriff fired shots at an unarmed suspect during a traffic incident on Monday, but will not be placed on leave. Officer J.C. Garcia shot at Brian Dennison as the latter was rushing his daughter home in the midst of an asthma attack.

According to the police report, Garcia spotted Dennison’s vehicle speeding through a parking lot, then through a stop sign before nearly hitting another car and driving the wrong way down a one-way street. Dennison also drove away from a bank machine when Garcia pulled up from behind, the officer claimed.   Continue reading “Cop fires shots at Florida man rushing home during daughter’s asthma attack”

American Everyman – by Scott Creighton

Take a look at this and remember what Officer Wilson said about the shooting.

First of, here is an graphic showing what was presented to the Grand Jury about where the evidence was collected at the scene of the Mike Brown shooting. It comes from the Washington Post.   Continue reading “Did Ferguson PD Move the Shell Casings?”

Truth Dig – by EJ Dionne Jr.

It’s a mistake to be nostalgic for some golden age in politics when everyone was nice to each other. Such a time never existed.

Still, this is a particularly rotten moment to be an elected official, and especially a member of Congress, a body whose ratings are even lower than those of journalists. If you run for office these days, all your mistakes (and some you never made) are broadcast widely in some horrible TV spot.   Continue reading “Thank a Politician Today”