The little known Female Illuminati:
Sunday, December 1, 2013
VIDEO: "Catching Fire" Steams Past Disney"s Strong "Frozen" At Box Office
“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” continued to light up the box office through the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, collecting $110 million over five days to surpass a hefty opening for Disney’s new animated film “Frozen,” and bringing its 10-day to nearly $300 million. According to studio estimates compiled by Reuters,”Frozen,” which critics lavishly praised, recorded ticket sales of $93 million at U.S. and Canadian theaters for the five-day holiday period that began on Wednesday.
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VIDEO: "Catching Fire" Steams Past Disney"s Strong "Frozen" At Box Office
Humans emerged from male pig and female chimp, world’s top geneticist says
Kounteya Sinha
Times of India
December 1, 2013
Humans are actually hybrids, who emerged as an offspring of a male pig and a female chimpanzee, according to one of the world’s leading geneticist.
Turning the theory of human ancestry on its head, Dr Eugene McCarthy — one of the world’s leading authorities on hybridization in animals from the University of Georgia has suggested that humans didn’t evolve from just apes but was a backcross hybrid of a chimpanzee and pigs.
His hypothesis is based on the fact that though humans have many features in common with chimps, there are a lot more that don’t correspond to any other primates. He then suggests that there is only one animal in the animal kingdom that has all of the traits which distinguish humans from our primate cousins.
This article was posted: Sunday, December 1, 2013 at 11:53 am
Tags: science
Humans emerged from male pig and female chimp, world’s top geneticist says
Britain targets Guardian newspaper over intelligence leaks related to Edward Snowden
Anthony Faiola
Washington Post
December 1, 2013
Living in self-imposed exile in Russia, former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden may be safely beyond the reach of Western powers. But dismayed by the continued airing of transatlantic intelligence, British authorities are taking full aim at a messenger shedding light on his secret files here — the small but mighty Guardian newspaper.
The pressures coming to bear on the Guardian, observers say, are testing the limits of press freedoms in one of the world’s most open societies. Although Britain is famously home to a fierce pack of news media outlets — including the tabloid hounds of old Fleet Street — it also has no enshrined constitutional right to free speech.
The Guardian, in fact, has slipped into the single largest crack in the free speech laws that are on the books here — the dissemination of state secrets protecting queen and country in the British homeland.
This article was posted: Sunday, December 1, 2013 at 11:25 am
Tags: big brother, constitution, domestic spying, nsa
Britain targets Guardian newspaper over intelligence leaks related to Edward Snowden
Donilon: "Reckless" For Karzai Not To Sign US-Afghanistan Deal
Tom Donilon, former national security adviser to President Obama, on Sunday said that Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s refusal to sign a security agreement with the U.S. would be “reckless.”
“His refusal to sign at this point I think is reckless,” Donilon said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I think it’s reckless in terms of Afghanistan, and I think it also adversely impacts our ability to plan coherently and comprehensively for post-2014.”
Donilon emphasized that leaders in Afghanistan approve of the security pact.
“President Karzai should go ahead and sign the agreement. It’s been approved by a very large assembly of leaders in Afghanistan,” he said. “2,500 leaders got together, looked at the proposed agreement with the United States, after December 31, 2014, and asked — and recommended to President Karzai that he sign it.”
Without Karzai’s approval of continued American support, all 51,000 troops would have to head home by the end of 2014, which Donilon said would be a mistake.
“We think at the end of the day, it will be better to have continued support for the Afghan national forces and have a small counter-terrorism presence in Afghanistan,” he said.
Donilon: "Reckless" For Karzai Not To Sign US-Afghanistan Deal
Officials: Worst tech bugs over for Healthcare.gov
This photo of part of the HealthCare.gov website is photographed in Washington, on Nov. 29, 2013. The beleaguered health insurance website has had periods of down times as as the government tries to fix the problems. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)
This photo of part of the HealthCare.gov website is photographed in Washington, on Nov. 29, 2013. The beleaguered health insurance website has had periods of down times as as the government tries to fix the problems. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The worst of the online glitches, crashes and delays may be over for the problem-plagued government health care website, the Department of Health and Human Services said Sunday.
But that doesn’t mean HealthCare.gov is ready for a clean bill of health.
Officials acknowledged more work remains on the website that included hundreds of software bugs, inadequate equipment and inefficient management for its national debut two months ago. Federal workers and private contractors have undertaken an intense reworking of the system, but the White House’s chief troubleshooter cautioned some users could still encounter trouble.
“The bottom line — HealthCare.gov on December 1st is night and day from where it was on October 1st,” Jeff Zients told reporters.
More than 50,000 people can log on to the website at one time and more than 800,000 people will be able to shop for insurance coverage each day, the government estimated in a report released Sunday. If true, it’s a dramatic improvement from the system’s first weeks, when frustrated buyers watched their computer screen freeze, the website crash and error messages multiply.
The figures — which could not be independently verified — suggest millions of Americans could turn to their laptops to shop for and buy insurance policies by the Dec. 23 deadline.
“There’s not really any way to verify from the outside that the vast majority of people who want to enroll can now do so, but we’ll find out at least anecdotally over the coming days if the system can handle the traffic and provide a smooth experience for people trying to sign up,” said Larry Levitt, a senior adviser at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
But, he added, HealthCare.gov is clearly working better than when it first went online. Its challenge now is to convince users who were frustrated during their first visit to give it another chance.
Politically, a fixed website could also offer a fresh start for President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats after a wave of bad publicity surrounding the president’s chief domestic achievement.
“This website is technology. It’s going to get better. It’s already better today,” said Rep. Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat who is a co-chairman of the liberal Congressional Progressive Caucus. “And we’re only going to be working out more kinks as we go forward.”
Amid all the problems with HealthCare.gov, Obama set a deadline for Saturday for several significant problems to be resolved. The administration organized a conference call with reporters Sunday morning to give a status report and boast that 400 technical problems had been resolved but declined to say how many items remain on the to-do list.
Even with the repairs in place, the site still won’t be able to do everything the administration wants, and companion sites for small businesses and Spanish speakers have been delayed. Questions remain about the stability of the site and the quality of the data it delivers to insurers.
“The security of this site and the private information does not meet even the minimal standards of the private sector, and that concerns me,” said Rep. Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican who leads the House intelligence panel. “I don’t care if you’re for it or against it, Republican or Democrat, we should not tolerate the sheer level of incompetence securing this site.”
Obama promised a few weeks ago that HealthCare.gov “will work much better on Nov. 30, Dec. 1, than it worked certainly on Oct. 1.” But, in trying to lower expectations, he said he could not guarantee that “100 percent of the people 100 percent of the time going on this website will have a perfectly seamless, smooth experience.”
Obama rightly predicted errors would remain. The department reported the website was up and running 95 percent of the time last week — meaning a 1-in-20 chance remains of encountering a broken website. The government also estimated that pages crashed at a rate less than once every 100 clicks.
“Yes, there are problems,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. “There’s no denying that. Let’s work to fix them.”
The nation’s largest health insurer trade group said significant problems remain and could be a barrier for consumers signing up for coverage effective Jan. 1.
“HealthCare.gov and the overall enrollment process continue to improve, but there are significant issues that still need to be addressed,” said Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans.
Republicans, betting frustration about the health care law is their best bet to make gains in 2014′s congressional and gubernatorial elections, continued their criticism of the system.
“I don’t know how you fix it, I’ll be honest,” said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. “I don’t know how you fix a program that was put together in this manner with only one side of the aisle, and taking the shortcuts we’re taking to put it in place.”
Democrats, sensing their potential vulnerability, sought to blame Republicans for not offering ideas on how to improve the website.
“Yes, we have to fix it. We should be working together to fix it,” said Van Hollen, a former chairman of the committee tasked to elect more Democrats to the U.S. House.
The first big test of the repaired website probably won’t come for a few more weeks, when an enrollment surge is expected as consumers rush to meet a Dec. 23 deadline so their coverage can kick in on the first of the year.
Avoiding a break in coverage is particularly important for millions of people whose current individual policies were canceled because they don’t meet the standards of the health care law, as well as for a group of about 100,000 in an expiring federal program for high-risk patients.
Ellison spoke to ABC’s “This Week.” Rogers and Van Hollen were interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Corker joined CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
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Associated Press writers Darlene Superville and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.
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Follow Philip Elliot on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/philiprelliott
Officials: Worst tech bugs over for Healthcare.gov
Stuffed Full of it: Top Five Food Police Turkeys
The media love a good food scare.
Turkeys just can’t catch a break. Somebody has finally made a film highlighting the gobblers’ annual Thanksgiving plight, and it was a paint-by-numbers politically correct animated clunker nobody wants to see. “Free Birds” depicted a ludicrous story of turkeys attempting to “get turkeys off the [Thanksiving] menu.”
Following the film’s Oct. 14 premier, members of the cast expressed a desire to refrain from eating turkey, with liberal actor George Takei saying “I’m sure the sale of turkeys next year is going to plummet.” Fellow star Amy Poehler suggested that, because she “got to pet a turkey,” she might serve tofurkey this year. After all, “Now I know a few things about turkeys!” Celebrities – is there anything they don’t know?
Unfortunately, not every wanna-be food cop is as inept as the people who brought you “Free Birds.” Every year, some activist or politician discovers a different common and well-loved food that will kill everyone if it isn’t banned. The portions are too big. Too much caffeine! Those ingredients are not all-natural! The ingredients used to replace the ingredients aren’t organic!
These would-be heroes of mankind are never out of crises, and never without sympathetic media to help push their agenda on a public they don’t believe can care for itself.
The Business and Media Institute monitors these food police throughout the year. In honor of Thanksgiving, we here are the Top Five Turkeys of 2013. Now pass the stuffing …
The Soda Jerk
Brainchild of business mogul and frustrated dietician Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the infamous New York City soda ban was implemented on Sept. 13 of last year, and overturned on March 11. The arbitrary and unworkable regulation barred some kinds of New York businesses (but not others) from selling sodas larger than 16 oz. Bloomberg claimed that this ban would help poor people, since they “don’t have the ability to take care of themselves.” The controversial ban garnered Bloomberg a sea of liberal media support.
Besides banning sugary drinks, salt and smoking within the Big Apple, Bloomberg founded Bloomberg L.P., which owns Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Businessweek. Nurse Bloomberg moved on from soda to trying to infringe on Americans’ Second Amendment rights. He co-founded and funds Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the group he co-founded and funds as a much needed counterbalance to Mayors For Illegal Guns.
The Salad Fairy
With her Let’s Move initiative, first lady Michelle Obama wants kids to go outside and exercise, and who could be against that? (Well, besides conservatives, who lack the perception to read “regulating leisure time” among the federal government’s constitutionally enumerated powers.)
But Mrs. Obama’s campaign isn’t simply about using government funds to nag fat kids. It’s also a mechanism for instituting food bans, and the media were more than happy to let her promote her ideas for healthy school lunches. She’s a one-scold media juggernaut, with cameos and appearance on dozens of shows, and even her own healthy-themed hip-hop album. Back in February, Good Morning America gave Obama an eight and a half minute segment to do just that.
At the behest of Lets Move, incidents of abject culinary stupidity became commonplace (pancake breakfasts without syrup?), and an awful lot of salad fixings were tossed. When the USDA adopted strict nutrition standards for school lunches last year, Obama was hailed for her part in it. But when schools ended up having to drop the lunches because, like every parent before the dawn of time, they couldn’t get kids to eat their vegetables, the networks were silent on Obama’s complicity.
On Good Morning America on Aug. 28, anchor George Stephanopoulos allowed, “Schools across the country are dropping out of a federal program to curb childhood obesity because the kids just won’t eat what they’re served.” Reporter David Kerley asserted that the “national school lunch program rolled just last fall to great fanfare.” According to a student in Kentucky, the new lunches “taste like vomit.”
According to The Blaze in July 2013, the cost of complying with Michelle Obama’s school lunch plan was estimated at $ 3.2 billion. That’s a lot of money for something that kids won’t even eat.
Incidentally, the FDA has proved it doesn’t need Michelle Obama or raps about food to mess things up. It continues to pass regulations implementing the Food Safety Modernization Act, which Obama signed into law in 2011. This sweeping legislation sought to overhaul food safety regulations but may end up heavily burdening farmers. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition estimated in October 2013 that the law “could cost farmers over half of their profits.”
The Cheesy Comic
Nobody intones the grim warnings of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and other anti-free market killjoys like news reader Brian Williams, host of NBC’s “Nightly News.” Williams promotes the food police’s word as law.
When two food bloggers launched an attack against Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, referring to an outdated study, and ABC and NBC were quick to rush to their aid.
NBC’s Brian Williams began “Nightly News” coverage of the petition by noting that the orange color given to macaroni and cheese by the food dyes was “a color normally worn by road crews.”
Maybe Williams should take a lesson from his time hosting SNL and making cameos on “30 Rock” and stick to comedy.
In fairness, Williams is far from the only CSPI press-release regurgitator. CSPI absurdly claimed in January 2013 that major restaurant chains are purposefully “promoting obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.” CBS hyped this report, on Jan. 16, as coming from an industry “watchdog,” with no coverage of the restaurants’ rebuttals.
Poison in your Coffee
“It’s killing us, it’s killing our children.”
What? Radiation? Pollution? Small Pox? Soccer hooliganism? Nope. Big Soda.
Sure, a lot of people don’t like soda. But only Mike Brzezinski can get really unhinged about sweet carbonated beverages. On March 12, after Nurse Bloomberg’s large soda ban was struck down, Brzezinski ranted on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“It’s liquid sugar, and sugar is poison,” she spat, calling sugar “poison” four times in five minutes. To her, Bloomberg is a “visionary,” and the “American Beverage Association is relieved because they can continue to make money poisoning people.”
And you, dear consumer, have only yourself to blame for buying this “stuff” that encourages companies to “produce poison for you and your children.”
Al Roker (No joke. Just Al Roker.)
Al Roker was a lot more fun when he was fat. But now, free from the appetites he couldn’t keep in check, he’s certain you need daddy figures like Mike Bloomberg to control yours. The co-host of NBC’s “Today,” Roker is an outspoken supporter of Bloomberg’s micromaneagement of New Yorkers’ lives.
On Nov. 8, Roker said Bloomberg was “ahead of the curve.” “People have been giving Mayor Bloomberg a lot of flack, but, you know, there are certain things that he’s been ahead of the curve on.”
On June 17, Roker and Co-hosts Matt Lauer, Savannah Guthrie and Natalie Morales praised Bloomberg’s mandatory program to get New York City residents to sort out rotten food scraps from their garbage for composting. Roker claimed that the move was “not only good for the environment, but saves like millions of bucks.” And Al lost like, millions of pounds.
These are just the top five. Sadly, we could go on, because there’s never any shortage of busy-bodies, daddy figures and scolds who know better than you what’s good for you. Some of them even mean well, some just dislike freedom. Hopefully, none will be at your table this Thursday.
— Mike Ciandella is Staff Writer/Analyst for the Business and Media Institute at the Media Research Center. Follow Mike Ciandella on Twitter.
Stuffed Full of it: Top Five Food Police Turkeys
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