The Yes Men Fix the World (movie 1 hr 30 min)

This is great. Check it out.

Voice memo app for iPhone crashes

Even after a reboot of my phone the Voice Memo app for my iPhone 4 (iOS 5.0.1) crashes after a few seconds of recording. I have over 14 GB of free space.

Actually, it crashes before 10 seconds no matter what I do, record, delete past recordings, or even if I start the app all by itself and do nothing else.

This app comes with the phone and can’t be deleted.

My phone is not jailbroken and never has been.

I haven’t found anyone else reporting this problem on line yet.

Apple Care had me reset all settings. That did not help. App still crashes after doing that and setting it up as a new phone.

Anyone have a fix?

Bible evidence that god is not all knowing

It is obvious from Genesis that the Christian God is not “all knowing.” If he was, he would not have had to “come down” to earth to investigate the amount of evil the people of a town were doing.

US to pay $17.8m over jet crash into San Diego home

A US family will receive millions of dollars in damages after four of them were killed when a military jet crashed into their home.

They originally demanded $56m (£36.2m) in compensation, but have been awarded $17.8m after a non-jury trial.

The aircraft was flying over a residential area in San Diego, California, towards an inland base when it crashed in December 2008.

The military blamed the accident on mechanical failure and human error.

Don Yoon lost his wife, two baby daughters and mother-in-law as a result of the accident, which also destroyed his home.

The settlement includes compensation for Mr Yoon as well as the siblings of his 36-year-old wife, Youngmi, to cover loss of life, wages and property, the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper reports.

The US government had acknowledged that it was at fault for the accident before the trial began.

The pilot ejected before the crash and told investigators he screamed in horror as he watched it smash into two homes. …

via BBC News – US to pay $17.8m over jet crash into San Diego home.

Former CIA Agent: Bloggers self-organizing can be the new intelligence Minute Men of this Century

“War is a racquet… If you bloggers self-organize and attach yourself like leeches to specific issues, corporations, organizations, challenge, whatever, you will be the intelligence Minute Men of this century. … It may be time to dump Congress on it’s ass and start over. … and every single member of Congress is impeachable for abdicating their article 1 responsibilities under the Constitution… “

Powerful message from former C.I.A. Agent to all Americans. YOU ARE THE RESISTANCE! The speaker is named Robert David Steele.

Prediction for war in 2012

Ex-Goldman Sachs Analyst: “Major War” Coming End Of 2012

Why war? Because war finance is the most profitable enterprise for those who pay to influence world events.  (Warning: language in next video)

The cure? Don’t buy into it. Learn the truth about war from those who fight it. It is not glorious. War is exploitation of the ignorant by the filthy rich. Do not create a new tragedy when faced with lies intended to spark hatred, fear and contempt.

Wrecking America’s Postal Service

In early December, USPS announced closure of over half its mail processing centers, 28,000 job cuts, and ending overnight first-class mail delivery.

Beginning in March, cuts will take effect. Standards in place for over 40 years will end. First-class mail will take two or three days, not one. Second class for newspapers and magazines, third class bulk mail, and fourth class will take much longer.

Pensioners dependent on benefit checks to pay bills, anyone buying drugs and other essentials by mail, and businesses needing prompt delivery to operate effectively will be impacted.

According to a Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) Retail Access Optimization Initiative (RAOI) Advisory Opinion, so will rural America.

RAOI says small post office closures aren’t about “rationalizing” the network as savings achieved are minimal. At issue is breaking the bond between small communities and USPS and hastening privatization to make delivery services another profit center instead of a public service.

Currently, USPS generates about $62 billion annually in revenues. Corporate America wants them. Donahue serves their interests. So do union bosses.

They agreed to past work force reductions. In 1999, USPS employed over 900,000. Today it’s around 600,000, a nearly one-third drop, including attrition of over 100,000 under Obama.

On November 21, USPS Postmaster General/CEO Patrick Donahue’s National Press Club speech was interrupted with calls, saying:

“Hey, hey, ho, ho, Donahue has got to go,” and “Don’t privatize the post office. It’s a public service. It’s not a profit center for Fed Ex and UPS to rip off the people. Return the overpaid pension funds….Stop closing post offices.”

Outside the building protesters yelled, “This is what democracy looks like,” and “We are the 99%.”

Donahue claims mail delivery downgrading will save $2.1 billion annually. Other cuts will save $20 billion by 2015, he says. He also wants Congress to end no-layoff union contract clauses for career employees, halt retiree healthcare and pension contributions, and impose other anti-worker measures.

If fully implemented, his scheme will wreck USPS. However, claiming a fiscal crisis is duplicitous. USPS serves 150 million households and businesses daily. Operating as an independent US government agency, it’s America’s second largest employer after Wal-Mart.

It’s not troubled by Internet competition or changed letter-writing habits. It’s because Congress forced USPS to pay about $5.5 billion annually into a trust fund for future retiree healthcare and pension benefits.

It’s currently over-funded by $75 billion. Moreover, USPS is burdened with other charges and obligations. As a result, it appears troubled. Treating the System equitably and fairly would change things. Instead, slash and burn is planned.

On December 7, Ralph Nader’s article headlined, “Time to Save the Post Office,” saying:

It’s “headling for a free fall due to bad management, corporate barracudas, and a bevy of editors and reporters enamoured with the supremacy of the Internet which makes up their world.” …

via Wrecking America’s Postal Service.

7.5 foot tall Irish giant, diplayed against his wishes, ‘should finally be buried at sea’

The skeleton of the Irish giant, who was almost 8ft tall, has been the subject of medical research and has been on display at the Royal College of Surgeons for almost two centuries.

Byrne, who was born in County Derry in 1761, suffered from acromegaly, or an excess of growth hormone. He died aged 22 after travelling to London in 1780.

Knowing his body would be of interest after his death, Byrne asked that he be buried at sea, sealed in a lead coffin.

But surgeon John Hunter, who used grave robbers to collect unusual specimens, bribed one of Byrne’s friends and took the body, boiling it down to his skeleton before displaying it in his museum.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, Thomas Muinzer and Professor Len Doyal have said his dying wishes should now be met.

They write: “The fact is that Hunter knew of Byrne’s terror of him and ignored his wishes for the disposal of his body. What has been done cannot be undone but it can be morally rectified. Surely it is time to respect the memory and reputation of Byrne: the narrative of his life, including the circumstances surrounding his death.”

Talking to the BBC’s Today programme, Mr Muinzer, from the school of law at Queen’s University Belfast, said: “We understand Byrne’s wishes as regards burial. Professor [Len] Doyal and I would like to see a due respect accorded those wishes.

“We have now a full DNA record of Byrne’s DNA and we also have numerous examinations of the skeleton. We have reached the limit of what that skeleton can teach us.

“With burial law, when you or I stipulate burial wishes in life, we rely on those wishes to be respected. Those wishes don’t have legal force, they have moral force. So even when we look back 200 years ago, we find the same drivers operate on Byrne as operate on us.”

Mr Muinzer described the exhibition of Byrne’s skeleton as “sad, tragic and morbid”.

via The Irish giant ‘should finally be buried at sea’ – Telegraph.

In April 1782 a real, live giant appeared in London. Charles Byrne was said to be a majestic 2.54m in height and able to light his pipe on street lamps.

Now, the macabre events that took place after his death have finally allowed modern genetics to deliver a new twist to the story of the “Irish Giant” — and could change the lives of patients today.

From double-headed cows to eight-legged pigs, the Georgians paid handsomely to gawp at all manner of wondrous creatures and also at people afflicted by rare conditions: bearded women, dwarves and giants. After death, many found their way to John Hunter, the anatomist and founder of modern surgery, who was an obsessive collector of anatomical curiosities.

It is almost certain that he met Byrne — perhaps one of the tallest men to have lived — and decided that he had to have his skeleton. But Byrne had other ideas. He not only refused Hunter’s requests for his body but asked to be buried at sea to make it an impossibility. Hunter was undeterred and, as Byrne’s health deteriorated, had the young man followed.

In 1783, aged just 22, Byrne died and, according to his wishes, his coffin was taken to the coast by friends. Hunter’s agents then sprung into action, getting the friends drunk before switching the body for stones. Hunter then boiled the corpse for 24 hours to procure the bones and hid the skeleton, not daring to show it for many years. . link

Federal experts to investigate double-tire blowout at Sacramento International Airport

Federal inspectors are en route this morning to Sacramento International Airport to investigate the cause of an unusual double-tire blowout on a Southwest Airlines jet Tuesday night.

Flight 2287 to Seattle with 130 passengers aborted take-off at about 6:15 p.m. Tuesday, airline officials said, after two tires blew on the runway. No injuries were reported.

The Boeing 737 has been towed from the taxi-way. Airport officials say they’ve inspected the runway and found no debris or other potential cause for the blowout.

Federal Aviation Administration officials said blowouts are rare, but not unheard of.

“They can result from mechanical problems in the wheels, structural failure of the tires themselves or debris on the runway,” the FAA’s Ian Gregor said. “Tires can also blow if a pilot applies the brakes hard. At this point, we don’t know if the blown tires were the reason for the aborted takeoff or the result of a takeoff that was aborted for other reasons.

“We’ll work with the airline to determine what happened and to ensure the problem is corrected before the plane is returned to service,” Gregor said.

Airport spokeswoman Laurie Slothower said the National Transportation Safety Board has been notified. Southwest Airlines is also expected to conduct an investigation.

It was the second tire blowout at the airport in a little more than a year. In August 2010, four tires popped and the brakes caught fire on a JetBlue flight from Long Beach during a hard landing. …

via Federal experts to investigate double-tire blowout at Sacramento International Airport – Sacramento News – Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee.

None of the 9 million passengers per year using the Sacramento Airport were injured due to tire blowouts.  On the other hand, if a pilot can cause tires to blow out by hitting the brakes too hard, that seems like a design flaw.  Perhaps flat tires slow you down more, but if that was the intent, a separate “Blow out the tires” button would make more sense.

SF turns Christmas trees into energy source

San Francisco officials are encouraging residents to put their old Christmas trees out with the trash, so they can be recycled and turned into an energy source.

Department of Environment spokesman Kevin Danaher says the trees will be ground into wood chips that will be sent to power facilities in Woodland and Tracy.

The trees can be left out on regular trash collection days in the two weeks after New Year’s Day. They should be stripped of all decorations, stands and wires and set outside, not placed in the regular trash bins.

Officials say the city last year turned Christmas trees into 514 tons of wood chips. The chips are sold by Recology, the city’s trash provider, which uses the money to offset the costs of collecting the trees.

via SF turns Christmas trees into energy source – Sacramento News – Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee.