The Birds Nest
#62
01-10-2012, 05:49 PM
Mitch Hedberg's Spectacular Letter to the Uni-Ball Pen Company
"We could put a large banner across the back of the stage: Gel Impact is responsible for the written versions of the jokes this comedian is saying." You are missed, Mitch..
http://www.funnyordie.com/pictures/6a1e235fb1/mitch-hedberg-s-letter-to-the-uni-ball-pen-company
"We could put a large banner across the back of the stage: Gel Impact is responsible for the written versions of the jokes this comedian is saying." You are missed, Mitch..
http://www.funnyordie.com/pictures/6a1e235fb1/mitch-hedberg-s-letter-to-the-uni-ball-pen-company
#67
01-10-2012, 06:31 PM
#69
01-10-2012, 08:43 PM
Posted at 08:48 AM ET, 01/10/2012 Fredericksburg police captain charged after taking teen to motel
By Maggie Fazeli Fard
A Fredericksburg police captain is facing charges after he allegedly took a teenage boy he met online to a motel, investigators said.
Brent Mitchell Taylor, 46, was arrested Saturday and charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office reported.
According to investigators, deputies found a 17-year-old boy walking alone on Warrenton Road about 2:40 a.m. Saturday. The teenager told deputies that he had locked himself out of a room at the nearby Motel 6 and was waiting for the man who had rented the room to return.
Deputies were waiting at the motel when that man, identified as Taylor, a 24-year-veteran and captain in the detective division of the Fredericksburg Police Department, returned later that morning.
Investigators said that Taylor made initial contact with the teenager on the Internet and picked up the teen in Fairfax without parental permission before taking him to the motel.
The sheriff’s office has not revealed what activities went on in the motel room.
By Maggie Fazeli Fard
A Fredericksburg police captain is facing charges after he allegedly took a teenage boy he met online to a motel, investigators said.
Brent Mitchell Taylor, 46, was arrested Saturday and charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office reported.
According to investigators, deputies found a 17-year-old boy walking alone on Warrenton Road about 2:40 a.m. Saturday. The teenager told deputies that he had locked himself out of a room at the nearby Motel 6 and was waiting for the man who had rented the room to return.
Deputies were waiting at the motel when that man, identified as Taylor, a 24-year-veteran and captain in the detective division of the Fredericksburg Police Department, returned later that morning.
Investigators said that Taylor made initial contact with the teenager on the Internet and picked up the teen in Fairfax without parental permission before taking him to the motel.
The sheriff’s office has not revealed what activities went on in the motel room.
#70
01-10-2012, 09:07 PM
Pennsylvania to impose asset test for food stamps | Philadelphia Inquirer | 01/10/2012
Pennsylvania to impose asset test for food stamps
Pennsylvania plans to make the amount of food stamps that people receive contingent on the assets they possess - an unexpected move that bucks national trends and places the commonwealth among a minority of states.
Specifically, the Department of Public Welfare said that as of May 1, people under 60 with more than $2,000 in savings and other assets would no longer be eligible for food stamps. For people over 60, the limit would be $3,250
Pennsylvania would become one of only 11 states with the low-threshold $2,000 asset test - along with Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming, USDA figures show. The $2,000 figure was set in 1980 and has never been changed, USDA figures show.
Pennsylvania to impose asset test for food stamps
Pennsylvania plans to make the amount of food stamps that people receive contingent on the assets they possess - an unexpected move that bucks national trends and places the commonwealth among a minority of states.
Specifically, the Department of Public Welfare said that as of May 1, people under 60 with more than $2,000 in savings and other assets would no longer be eligible for food stamps. For people over 60, the limit would be $3,250
Pennsylvania would become one of only 11 states with the low-threshold $2,000 asset test - along with Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming, USDA figures show. The $2,000 figure was set in 1980 and has never been changed, USDA figures show.
#71
01-11-2012, 07:32 PM
Case of spit in cop’s Whopper headed to state Supreme Court
Case of spit in cop
A Washington sheriff’s deputy who claims he suffered emotional distress after a Burger King worker spit in his Whopper will get his day in court
Deputy Edward Bylsma sued Burger King in U.S. District Court claiming a Burger King employee with a criminal record ruined his late-night snack by spitting – brace yourself – a “slimy, clear and white phlegm glob” into his Whopper.
DNA testing showed employee Gary Herb to be the source of the sputum. Herb was sentenced to 90 days in jail after pleading guilty to a related assault charge.
According to the deputy’s version of events, Bylsma pulled his cruiser into a Vancouver Burger King early on March 24, 2009, to pick up an early morning lunch.
The workers there gave him an “uneasy feeling,” which proved correct when he pealed back the Whopper’s top bun and found the spit resting atop the meat patty, according to the lawsuit. Bylsma claims to suffer “ongoing emotional trauma from the incident, including vomiting, nausea, food anxiety and sleeplessness.”
Finding that Washington consumer protection law is unclear as to whether emotional distress is enough to support a lawsuit, a panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has asked the state Supreme Court to rule on the issue.
“The answer to the unsettled question of law presented by Bylsma’s appeal will have far-reaching effects on those involved in the manufacture and sale of products in Washington,” the judges continued. “We are reluctant to create uncertainty in this area of the law by answering this question ourselves in the first instance.”
“We conclude that the issue presented in this appeal – whether the (Washington Product Liability Act) permits relief for emotional distress caused to a direct purchaser by a contaminated product in the absence of physical injury – ‘has not been clearly determined’ by the Washington courts,” the appellate judges ruled.
The state Supreme Court must now decide if it will answer the appellate court’s question. Until then, Byslsma’s lawsuit will remain paused in federal court.
Case of spit in cop
A Washington sheriff’s deputy who claims he suffered emotional distress after a Burger King worker spit in his Whopper will get his day in court
Deputy Edward Bylsma sued Burger King in U.S. District Court claiming a Burger King employee with a criminal record ruined his late-night snack by spitting – brace yourself – a “slimy, clear and white phlegm glob” into his Whopper.
DNA testing showed employee Gary Herb to be the source of the sputum. Herb was sentenced to 90 days in jail after pleading guilty to a related assault charge.
According to the deputy’s version of events, Bylsma pulled his cruiser into a Vancouver Burger King early on March 24, 2009, to pick up an early morning lunch.
The workers there gave him an “uneasy feeling,” which proved correct when he pealed back the Whopper’s top bun and found the spit resting atop the meat patty, according to the lawsuit. Bylsma claims to suffer “ongoing emotional trauma from the incident, including vomiting, nausea, food anxiety and sleeplessness.”
Finding that Washington consumer protection law is unclear as to whether emotional distress is enough to support a lawsuit, a panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has asked the state Supreme Court to rule on the issue.
“The answer to the unsettled question of law presented by Bylsma’s appeal will have far-reaching effects on those involved in the manufacture and sale of products in Washington,” the judges continued. “We are reluctant to create uncertainty in this area of the law by answering this question ourselves in the first instance.”
“We conclude that the issue presented in this appeal – whether the (Washington Product Liability Act) permits relief for emotional distress caused to a direct purchaser by a contaminated product in the absence of physical injury – ‘has not been clearly determined’ by the Washington courts,” the appellate judges ruled.
The state Supreme Court must now decide if it will answer the appellate court’s question. Until then, Byslsma’s lawsuit will remain paused in federal court.
#72
01-11-2012, 10:01 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/bu...fuel.html?_r=2
When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law.
But there was none to be had. Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist.
In 2012, the oil companies expect to pay even higher penalties for failing to blend in the fuel, which is made from wood chips or the inedible parts of plants like corncobs. Refiners were required to blend 6.6 million gallons into gasoline and diesel in 2011 and face a quota of 8.65 million gallons this year.
“It belies logic,” Charles T. Drevna, the president of the National Petrochemicals and Refiners Association, said of the 2011 quota. And raising the quota for 2012 when there is no production makes even less sense, he said.
When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law.
But there was none to be had. Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist.
In 2012, the oil companies expect to pay even higher penalties for failing to blend in the fuel, which is made from wood chips or the inedible parts of plants like corncobs. Refiners were required to blend 6.6 million gallons into gasoline and diesel in 2011 and face a quota of 8.65 million gallons this year.
“It belies logic,” Charles T. Drevna, the president of the National Petrochemicals and Refiners Association, said of the 2011 quota. And raising the quota for 2012 when there is no production makes even less sense, he said.
#73
01-12-2012, 06:19 AM
Florida House committee passes bill that mandates all accident victims go to ERs | jacksonville.com
By James L. Rosica
Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE -- A bill that would force all accident victims to go to emergency rooms instead of their family doctor -- even for minor injuries -- has cleared a House subcommittee.
The bill (HB 119) was voted up 10-5 by the Florida House Banking and Insurance Subcommittee on Wednesday. It aims to cut down the fraud that is rampant in the state's personal injury protection, or PIP, coverage.
The proposed law requires those hurt in a wreck to go to a hospital emergency room or hospital-owned walk-in clinic within 72 hours for PIP coverage to kick in.
The bill (HB 119) was voted up 10-5 by the Florida House Banking and Insurance Subcommittee on Wednesday. It aims to cut down the fraud that is rampant in the state's personal injury protection, or PIP, coverage.
Lawmakers passed PIP coverage in 1972 to ensure that anyone hurt in an automobile wreck could quickly get money to treat their injuries.
The legislation provided that a driver's insurance company pay up to $10,000 to cover medical bills and lost wages after an accident -- no matter who is at fault. All Florida drivers are required to carry no-fault insurance.
But over the years, fraudsters have turned Florida into the top state for staged accidents, particularly in the Miami-Dade and Tampa areas. Some racketeers have even turned it into a profit center, reports show.
The Insurance Information Institute predicted that PIP fraud could approach $1 billion in the state this year, and those costs are passed on to customers through increased premiums. In some sections of South Florida and the Tampa Bay area, that can mean hundreds of extra dollars per year.
State investigators recently found a number of Miami-Dade medical clinics that only treat auto-accident victims and bill primarily for massage therapy.
Investigators also found many clinic owners who had no prior health care experience. Some of them said they had opened auto-crash clinics only because they heard they could make a lot of money
"How long is it before hospitals figure out that PIP equals $10,000?" the Melbourne Republican asked Boyd. "Hopefully never," Boyd answered with a smile.
Dr. Steven Kailes, who represented the Florida College of Emergency Physicians, said his group didn't believe that every PIP case needed to come into an emergency room, but understood why it was in the bill.
"The evidence is that PIP fraud is not happening in (hospital) emergency rooms," he told a reporter. "And yes, not every accident victim needs immediate attention, but those that do, get it.
By James L. Rosica
Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE -- A bill that would force all accident victims to go to emergency rooms instead of their family doctor -- even for minor injuries -- has cleared a House subcommittee.
The bill (HB 119) was voted up 10-5 by the Florida House Banking and Insurance Subcommittee on Wednesday. It aims to cut down the fraud that is rampant in the state's personal injury protection, or PIP, coverage.
The proposed law requires those hurt in a wreck to go to a hospital emergency room or hospital-owned walk-in clinic within 72 hours for PIP coverage to kick in.
The bill (HB 119) was voted up 10-5 by the Florida House Banking and Insurance Subcommittee on Wednesday. It aims to cut down the fraud that is rampant in the state's personal injury protection, or PIP, coverage.
Lawmakers passed PIP coverage in 1972 to ensure that anyone hurt in an automobile wreck could quickly get money to treat their injuries.
The legislation provided that a driver's insurance company pay up to $10,000 to cover medical bills and lost wages after an accident -- no matter who is at fault. All Florida drivers are required to carry no-fault insurance.
But over the years, fraudsters have turned Florida into the top state for staged accidents, particularly in the Miami-Dade and Tampa areas. Some racketeers have even turned it into a profit center, reports show.
The Insurance Information Institute predicted that PIP fraud could approach $1 billion in the state this year, and those costs are passed on to customers through increased premiums. In some sections of South Florida and the Tampa Bay area, that can mean hundreds of extra dollars per year.
State investigators recently found a number of Miami-Dade medical clinics that only treat auto-accident victims and bill primarily for massage therapy.
Investigators also found many clinic owners who had no prior health care experience. Some of them said they had opened auto-crash clinics only because they heard they could make a lot of money
"How long is it before hospitals figure out that PIP equals $10,000?" the Melbourne Republican asked Boyd. "Hopefully never," Boyd answered with a smile.
Dr. Steven Kailes, who represented the Florida College of Emergency Physicians, said his group didn't believe that every PIP case needed to come into an emergency room, but understood why it was in the bill.
"The evidence is that PIP fraud is not happening in (hospital) emergency rooms," he told a reporter. "And yes, not every accident victim needs immediate attention, but those that do, get it.
#74
01-12-2012, 06:50 AM
http://ratfreesubways.com/
<iframe width="640" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wgVATc3P7ac" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This website in going on my daily check list.
People are asked to post their pics of the rats they see.
I'm very ANTI-RAT as they have been chewing through my PEX pipe plumbing of the Mississippi cottage I have.
They got me a couple of weeks ago. This time was in the area I had not yet touched.
This time the work will go faster. I don't blame the rats so much as I blame the Manufacturer for how the plumbing and ESPECIALLY THE INSULATION was done.
I have to remove the contaminated insulation. In other words all of it, completely. from the underside of the cottage.
I will replace it with R-19 unfaced batt held in place with steel wire braces.
Below that the plumbing runs will be individually wrapped (the hot & cold runs were bound together with duct tape) with ½" wall rubber self sealing insulation.
Then the bottom will be covered again with a wall wrap product
I'm taking extra care to seal the bottom of the cottage in order to prevent access by rodents.
Additional measures are being used to eliminate the culprits.
(Ed. note Really good job there guys splitting the insulation batts and creating a rat run the length of the pipes.)
<iframe width="640" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wgVATc3P7ac" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This website in going on my daily check list.
People are asked to post their pics of the rats they see.
I'm very ANTI-RAT as they have been chewing through my PEX pipe plumbing of the Mississippi cottage I have.
They got me a couple of weeks ago. This time was in the area I had not yet touched.
This time the work will go faster. I don't blame the rats so much as I blame the Manufacturer for how the plumbing and ESPECIALLY THE INSULATION was done.
I have to remove the contaminated insulation. In other words all of it, completely. from the underside of the cottage.
I will replace it with R-19 unfaced batt held in place with steel wire braces.
Below that the plumbing runs will be individually wrapped (the hot & cold runs were bound together with duct tape) with ½" wall rubber self sealing insulation.
Then the bottom will be covered again with a wall wrap product
I'm taking extra care to seal the bottom of the cottage in order to prevent access by rodents.
Additional measures are being used to eliminate the culprits.
(Ed. note Really good job there guys splitting the insulation batts and creating a rat run the length of the pipes.)
#75
01-12-2012, 07:26 AM
Parkway's use of fitness monitors raises privacy questions
District wants to have students wear devices 24/7
Parkway's use of fitness monitors raises privacy questions
When is the line crossed between better health and surveillance?
In early 2012, wristwatch-like devices called Polar active monitors will be used by older students in PE classes at all 18 Parkway elementary schools. District officials say the devices should help improve the students' fitness and academic achievement.
Later this school year, the district plans to collect data about activity levels and even sleep patterns for a week at a time. It will have the students wear the devices round the clock.
Some parents and legal experts are raising privacy concerns about at least that aspect of the program.
District wants to have students wear devices 24/7
Parkway's use of fitness monitors raises privacy questions
When is the line crossed between better health and surveillance?
In early 2012, wristwatch-like devices called Polar active monitors will be used by older students in PE classes at all 18 Parkway elementary schools. District officials say the devices should help improve the students' fitness and academic achievement.
Later this school year, the district plans to collect data about activity levels and even sleep patterns for a week at a time. It will have the students wear the devices round the clock.
Some parents and legal experts are raising privacy concerns about at least that aspect of the program.