Year: 2014
Charles Gaba has “been tracking the most up-to-date enrollment information and offering his own projections on his blog, ACAsignups.net. On the same day that he predicted the 5 million signups milestone, he accurately predicted that California would hit the 1 million mark.”
“His next big prediction: The final sign-up tally will hit 6.22 million.”
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Ukraine Will Pull All Its Forces from Crimea
Despite earlier declarations from opposition leaders in Kiev that the Crimea referendum was illegal and Crimea would always be part of Ukraine, yesterday a plan was announced that Ukraine would pull out all its forces from Crimea. The forces, some 25,000 personnel, will be relocated to parts of Ukraine outside of the Crimea region.
Though not a formal recognition of Russian control over Crimea, it’s pretty close.
While the provisional government in Kiev has insisted that Russia’s annexation of Crimea is illegal and has appealed to international supporters for help, the evacuation announcement by the head of the national security council, Andriy Parubiy, effectively amounted to a surrender of Crimea, at least from a military standpoint.
It came hours after militiamen, backed by Russian forces, seized the headquarters of the Ukrainian Navy in Sevastopol and detained its commander, in what appeared to be the start of a concerted effort to oust the Ukrainian armed forces from outposts throughout the peninsula.
Imagine if the teen had nefarious intentions. The new tower which replaces the two destroyed in the World Trade Center attack on September 11th, is not completely finished but already, a security breach!
A daredevil New Jersey teen sneaked up to the antenna atop 1 World Trade Center in the middle of the night to take pictures — passing a sleeping guard, officials said Thursday.
Justin Casquejo, 16, managed to crawl threw a 12-by-12-inch hole in the construction fence surrounding the nation’s tallest building at about 4:10 a.m. on Sunday and then scaled scaffolding surrounding the tower to get inside, according to Port Authority spokesman Joe Pentangelo.
The teen told investigators he climbed the scaffolding until he was able to find an entry point on the sixth floor.
He rode the elevator to the 88th floor, according to court documents, and then “took the staircase up to 104th floor,” he told police.
“I went to the rooftop and climbed the ladder all the way to the antenna,” Casquejo admitted.
A Port Authority officer ultimately grabbed Casquejo on the 104th floor at 6 a.m. — two hours after he breached the gates, officials said.
The teen also crept by a sleeping private security guard on the 104th floor, who has since been fired, officials said.
The founder of the Westboro Baptist Church who brought himself and his congregation notoriety by protesting at the funerals of military troops, the man responsible for having a group of misguided people celebrate every time there is a mass murder (they celebrated when 20 kids were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School for crying out loud!), or celebrate when people die from a natural disaster, that man – Fred Phelps – has died. He was 84 years old.
A very hateful man is gone. I don’t think he will be resting in peace.
There is nothing else to report.
(NaturalNews) As more and more people wake up to the dangers of fluoride, chlorine, pharmaceuticals, and the many other toxic compounds found in municipal water supplies, the market for bottled water has exploded. But in the process, some major food and beverage corporations have unwittingly begun peddling that very same tap water in bottles as “pure,” a deceptive labeling term that is the subject of a new trade controversy in Europe.
According to a recent report by Occupy Monsanto, the Dasani water brand, which is owned by beverage giant Coca-Cola, is one such bottled water counterfeit, if you will, that contains purified tap water dressed in fancy-looking bottles. Like many other bottled water brands, Dasani is sold at a premium price, and many people perceive it to be superior to tap water, even though it actually is just tap water.
Even though the majority of the impurities have admittedly been removed from Dasani water, and minerals added back in, many people do not realize that the water contained in Dasani bottles is not actually from a natural spring. If you read closely the labels found on water bottles, it usually spells out the source where the water inside was derived. But this information is often overlooked by consumers who believe they are buying something superior.
“Figures from independent beverage research company Canadean show that at least two out of every five bottles of water sold around the world are, like Dasani, ‘purified’ waters, rather than ‘source’ waters which originate from a spring,” explains Trevor Datson in an Occupy Monsanto piece. “Most of the supermarket own-label bottled waters consist of treated mains water. In short, they are subjected to many of the same treatments that source waters undergo to satisfy public health requirements after being pumped up from the ground.”
The significance of this is that water specifically derived from a natural spring actually is superior to the water supplied by the local tap, at least in most cases. Many people who buy bottled water assume their water comes from a spring, because this is how the bottled water industry got its start. But today, brands like Dasani, Aquafina, and Sparkletts have captured significant market share by engaging in what some would called deceptive advertising.
Florida… oh Florida…
The Orlando Sentinel reported that 61-year-old James Guy Bull was arrested on Tuesday after neighbors told police that they saw him attacking his mixed-breed, 8-month-old dog on multiple occasions at his Daytona Beach apartment.
“They heard the animal yelp and cry but [Bull] continued with the conduct,” a police report said.
One witness heard a “dog in distress.” But when Bull saw the neighbor, he “pulled up his pants and put the dog down.”
“Both witnesses claim that they can hear the animal crying and yelping through the walls of the apartment but not when she is chained up on the porch,” the charging document alleged.
The report described the dog as “clearly emaciated” and having “no water or food.”
“The chain was rather large and it was stuck in … the wood slats. She had about 8 inches of space from the post,” police said. “The female dog was transported to Halifax Humane Society for medical treatment.”
Bull was charged with two counts of animal cruelty. He remained in Volusia County Branch Jail on Wednesday.
Sounds like Christie’s folks are engaging in, can you say… intimidation?
Amid mounting criticism that their tactics violated civil liberties, the state attorney general today ordered the State Police to stop taking pictures of protesters at Gov. Chris Christie’s town hall meetings — for any reason.
The order came a day after a man who identified himself as a member of the State Police photographed people who disrupted one of the governor’s usually highly orchestrated events.
In a statement issued to The Star-Ledger, acting Attorney General John Hoffman said he and State Police Superintendent Col. Rick Fuentes had “instructed the State Police to no longer photograph at these events for security or any other purposes.”
Christie plans to hold another town hall meeting Thursday in Flemington.
In calling for a halt to the practice, Hoffman said: “The State Police is responsible for the safety and security of the governor and the public at town hall meetings. In doing so, the State Police are careful to guarantee that First Amendment rights are respected and the public — whether expressing positive or negative sentiments toward the governor and his policies — have ample opportunity to make their positions known.”
I think the Democratic Congressman is just calling it as he sees it. They claim that they’re against “big spending government,” but where was the Teaparty when Bush spent us into oblivion?
In an interview with NY1, Rangel said “it’s hard for me to explain how you work with a president that thought that he could really deal with the Republican leadership,” Rangel said. “Maybe it was the water that they drink at Harvard,” he continued, referring to Obama’s time at Harvard Law School.
While Rangel was disappointed with the president, his ire was at its most intense when discussing the Tea Party. If Rangel had to describe the right-wing movement in a word, it would appear he’d have a hard time choosing between “racist” and “mean.”
“They are mean, racist people,” Rangel said of the Tea Party. “Now why do I say that? Because in those red states, they’re the same slave-holding states.”
“They had the Confederate flag,” he continued. “They became Dixiecrats; they had the Confederate flag. They’re now the Tea Party; they still got the Confederate [flag].”
“I don’t think that’s a coincidence,” Rangel added. “There is nothing the president can do – not love of country, not love of party – that they’re not prepared to kill themselves to get to him.”
As Politicker.com notes, this isn’t the first time Rangel has attacked the Tea Party and described the movement as racist in nature. During the Summer of 2013, Rangel said Tea Partyers were “the same group we faced in the South with those white crackers and the dogs and the police.”
Pharrell Williams is partnering with the United Nations Foundation to celebrate this year’s International Day of Happiness.
The Grammy Award winner’s song “Happy” will be this year’s anthem, encouraging “people to take action to support the UN and to create a happier world for people everywhere,” according to the UN Foundation’s website.
You can join the celebration from anywhere in the world by submitting photos or videos of yourself dancing, singing or just being happy with the hashtag #HAPPYDAY to Williams’ website: www.24hoursofhappiness.com/.
The singer will share the best submissions on March 20 at noon in each time zone.
“Happy,” which was featured in 2013′s Despicable Me 2, was nominated for an Academy Award. Williams performed at the awards show but lost the Oscar to Frozen‘s “Let It Go.”
Happy
Notice the infamous flight simulator in the background. Authorities have discovered that a month before Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah piloted the missing MH370 flight from Malaysia, he deleted a log from the simulator.
Eleven days now into this drama, and there’s s6ill no word on what happened to the plane and its passengers.
Young Turks host Cenk Uygur criticized MSNBC counterpart Touré for his recent commentary calling for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) not to run for president, in order to assure former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can provide the Democratic Party with a “pragmatic” 2016 candidate.
“This is the same kind of horsecrap I’ve been hearing for the entire time we’ve been doing this show,” Uygur said, shaking his head. “‘No, no, we should run weak-ass Democrats because it’s the pragmatic thing to do. And then what do they do? They get rolled over by Republicans because they’re Republican-lite. Republican vs. Republican, the Republican always wins.”
On Monday, Touré expressed his support for Clinton, saying past Democratic attempts to run behind “true liberal” candidates like Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis had failed, and called Warren an “inexperienced candidate who fits neatly into the classic caricature of Dems as effete latte-sipping, Volvo-driving, Ivy Leaguers” while praising her for not being afraid to take on Wall Street interests, a contrast upon which Uygur seized.
