Top 10 Fashion Faux Pas of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Fashion Faux Pas
1. Stars: They're Not Like Us
2. Drew's Do
3. Cate's Blanket
4. Lady Gaga Tries Normal
5. Scaling Up
6. Royal Mess
7. Never Mind the Bullocks
8. Gray Anatomy
9. Kilting Me Softly
10. Stone Cold
Once in a blue moon there is one on New Year's Eve. Revelers ringing in 2010 will be treated to a so-called rare blue moon. According to popular definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a month. But don't expect it to be blue – the name has nothing to do with the color of our closest celestial neighbor. A full moon occurred on Dec. 2. It will appear again on Thursday in time for the New Year's countdown.
The New Year's Eve blue moon will be visible in the United States, Canada, Europe, South America and Africa. For partygoers in Australia and Asia, the full moon does not show up until New Year's Day, making January a blue moon month for them.
However, the Eastern Hemisphere can celebrate with a partial lunar eclipse on New Year's Eve when part of the moon enters the Earth's shadow. The eclipse will not be visible in the Americas.
A full moon occurs every 29.5 days, and most years have 12. On average, an extra full moon in a month – a blue moon – occurs every 2.5 years. The last time there was a lunar double take was in May 2007. New Year's Eve blue moons are rarer, occurring every 19 years. The last time was in 1990; the next one won't come again until 2028.
Blue moons have no astronomical significance, said Greg Laughlin, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
"`Blue moon' is just a name in the same sense as a `hunter's moon' or a `harvest moon,'" Laughlin said in an e-mail.
The popular definition of blue moon came about after a writer for Sky & Telescope magazine in 1946 misinterpreted the Maine Farmer's Almanac and labeled a blue moon as the second full moon in a month. In fact, the almanac defined a blue moon as the third full moon in a season with four full moons, not the usual three.
Though Sky & Telescope corrected the error decades later, the definition caught on. For purists, however, this New Year's Eve full moon doesn't even qualify as a blue moon. It's just the first full moon of the winter season.
In a tongue-in-cheek essay posted on the magazine's Web site this week, senior contributing editor Kelly Beatty wrote: "If skies are clear when I'm out celebrating, I'll take a peek at that brilliant orb as it rises over the Boston skyline to see if it's an icy shade of blue. Or maybe I'll just howl."
Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs
1. New Mammography Guidelines
2. AIDS Vaccine
3. Funding Ban Lifted on Stem-Cell Research
4. H1N1 Vaccine
5. Stem-Cell-Created Mice
6. Prostate-Cancer Screening
7. New Research on Autism
8. New Drug for Osteoporosis
9. New Alzheimer's Genes
10. Brown Fat in Adults
Related posts:
* New Swine Flu Vaccine Now Available
* H1N1 vaccination started
Top 10 Facebook Stories of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Facebook Stories
1. The Site that Ate the Internet
2. FarmVille
3. Twitter Fail
4. Getting the Last Laugh
5. Rewriting Your Rights
6. Facebook: Read the Book, See the Movie
7. Michael Jackson vs. Barack Obama
8. Breast Practices
9. Unfriend (Verb)
10. Gatecrash-Gate
Related posts:
* Twitter 503 Error
* Twitter Service Temporarily Unavailable
Google is getting serious about realtime search, adding Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace streams into results and adding a recent “updates” option which is addictive. But behind the scenes Google is also getting ready to push out an entirely new way for indexing the Web. Codenamed “Caffeine,” Google has been testing it since last summer in one datacenter, and is now getting ready to push it out across all of Google.
Some SEO-minded tipsters say that they are starting to notice faster search response times, but Google is sticking to the party line that Caffeine won’t roll out until after the New Year of 2010. Read also how Google Caffeine upset local search rankings.
An independent study conducted in September by SEO firm Summit Media suggests that for generic search terms, Caffeine gives more weight to news and social media results, while more specific keywords are more likely to turn up websites about that topic. The Summit Media study compared Caffeine against Google’s current index for about 10,000 keywords. Summit’s findings include:
* Rankings are unlikely to fluctuate. Taken across all of the keywords for a client there should be a tiny percentage change in ranking.
* Websites that do lose rankings are likely to be relying on older, archived content that’s not been updated in years. Keeping your site fresh to be crawled by Caffeine will be important.
* There have been no changes to give one sector any new advantage over another.
* Generic terms against long tail terms in Caffeine show a greater priority for News, Information and Social Media – which fits with generic terms being less clear in terms of the searcher’s intent.
* Only 5% of urls contain exact matches for the searched keyword, 6% of the total point score is made up by exact match urls.
Will there be any change in Google ranking algorithm
There will be a change in the ranking algorithm. Page load speed will be a serious criteria in ranking issue. Faster search responses and faster pages are expected to be key issue in the caffeine’s search algorithm. And this will mean sites using cheap hosting, Flash modules etc are going to lose some altitude in their rankings.
Search, but You May Not Find
AS we become increasingly dependent on Google, we need to be increasingly concerned about how it is regulated. Without search neutrality rules to constrain Google’s competitive advantage, we may be heading toward a bleakly uniform world of Google Everything — Google Travel, Google Finance, Google Insurance, Google Real Estate, Google Telecoms and, of course, Google Books.
Some will argue that Google is itself so innovative that we needn’t worry. But the company isn’t as innovative as it is regularly given credit for. Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Groups, Google Docs, Google Analytics, Android and many other Google products are all based on technology that Google has acquired rather than invented.
Recommended reading:
* Expose your business with Google Places
Top 10 Late-Night Jokes of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Late-Night Jokes
1. Dave's Dirty Laundry
2. The Daily Show's CNBC Takedown
3. Conan Gets a Mayor's Attention
4. Why Sarah Palin Is No Letterman Fan
5. The White House Gets Less Funny
6. Jon Stewart: How Not to Do Interviews
7. Glenn Beck: Too Wacky Even for Colbert
8. Disgraced Politician Watch
9. Don't Ask, Don't Take Seriously
10. Overdosing on Tweets
Top 10 Crime Stories of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Crime Stories
1. Finding Jaycee Dugard
2. The Cleveland Serial Rapist-Killer
3. The Craigslist Killer
4. The Headscarf Martyr
5. The Mystery of the Dead Census Worker
6. Murdering the Abortionist
7. The Tacoma Massacre
8. The Annie Le Murder
9. The Deaths of Byrd and Melanie Billings
10. The Return of the Pishtacos
Related posts:
* 21 dead in Maguindanao massacre
Year 2009 has had its share of mishaps, acts of courage and compassion to be sure, but here we think the following inspirational moments are enough to make even the most cynical among us a bit more optimistic. Check out our list, then be sure to drop a comment to include your own inspiring story.
Crash and Float Miracle on the Hudson River
U.S. Airways pilot C.B. "Sully" Sullenberger became a household name overnight after he successfully landed a plane in the Hudson River without any fatalities. His story of heroism spurned a series of TV appearances and a book about Flight 1549.
Susan Boyle Astounds Us All
Though a well-staged media moment, Susan Boyle surprised millions of viewers with her miraculous rendition of "I Dreamed A Dream." Watching this video can make you feel like even your most fantastical dreams are possible.
Clinton To The Rescue
Remember at the end of "Star Wars" when Han Solo flew in to blow up the ships chasing Luke and save the day? That's what it felt like when former President Clinton went into North Korea and came out with Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two journalists detained in the communist nation for five months.
Obama Inaguration
Inauguration Day in January was a moving moment for many Americans, as the nation's first black president took the oath of office. But Obama soon confronted the sobering realities of governing as he struggled to get the economy back on track and win support for his ambitious legislative priorities.
Recommended reading:
* Top Important Moments of 2009
Top 10 iPhone Apps of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 iPhone Apps
1. Tweetie 2
2. Yelp
3. Slacker
4. FlightTrack Pro
5. Mint
6. SlingPlayer Mobile
7. The Small Chair (McSweeney's)
8. RunKeeper
9. Photoshop.com Mobile
10. Locavore
Related posts:
* Top 10 Green iPhone Apps
* Make money blowing girl's skirt
Top 10 Children's Books according to TIME.
Top 10 Children's Books
1. Duck Rabbit by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld
2. Guess Again by Mac Barnett; illustrated by Adam Rex
3. Dogs Don't Brush Their Teeth by Diane deGroat and Shelley Rotner
4. Crow Call by Lois Lowry; illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline
5. Elephants Cannot Dance! by Mo Willems
6. Creature ABC by Andrew Zuckerman
7. How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You? by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague
8. Pick a Pumpkin, Mrs. Millie! by Judy Cox, illustrated by Joe Mathieu
9. The Composer Is Dead by Lemony Snicket; illustrated by Carson Ellis; music (accompanying CD) by Nathaniel Stookey
10. The Snow Day by Komako Sakai
Related posts:
* About Human Manure Composting
Bloggers are making money online from the Internet from the comfort of their homes and offices. For the poor and desperate, they make money by trading their body organs. For them, sometime there is just no other way to get legal money so they decided sell their kidney. Take the case of a 32-year-old Egyptian from the fertile Nile Delta region who is one of many people caught up in a thriving trade for illegal organs in Egypt, where there is no legal path to transplants.
Donation is allowed in practice only in very limited circumstances. But conservative Egypt, one of the world's biggest organ trade hubs, is now working on legislation to legalize transplants from brain dead donors and hopes the new law will cut back on demand for illicit organs.
"Giving my kidney is better than working in furnished apartments," Soheila told an Egyptian transplant advocacy group, using a euphemism for prostitution. "This is against my dignity and I wouldn't want to go and do such things."
"I didn't want to do (anything religiously wrong) and steal for money. There was no other way to get such money so I decided still to give my kidney," she told the Coalition for Organ Failure Solution in testimony posted on the group's web site.
Other Egyptians have complained of being tricked into giving up their kidneys, and some have filed lawsuits. In 2008, police arrested a Syrian and Jordanian over organ trade in Cairo.
Eighteen other Islamic countries, including staunchly conservative Saudi Arabia and Shi'ite Iran, are more liberal than Egypt on transplants, allowing operations from dead donors, said lawmaker Hamdy al-Sayed, who drafted the law in Egypt.
Egypt has no transplant laws although in practice living kin can legally donate a kidney and portions of their liver. It also does not recognize brain death, a matter up for debate in Muslim religious circles and among conservatives. But the World Health Organization said Cairo has agreed to the need for both.
Most of Egypt's commercial living kidney donors are young and male, and later regret selling their organs. Nearly four in five face worsening health after the transplant, and the money they earn is gone within five months, according to WHO.
Commercial living donors, mainly the poor and vulnerable, are thought to supply 10 percent of the world's kidneys, WHO says. It has estimated the price of a kidney in Egypt at $1,700-$2,700.
"SPARE PARTS FOR THE RICH"
Egypt's parliament is due to vote in the next few weeks on a law that would legalize transplants from brain dead donors and regulate organ donations from the living, Sayed said.
"We cannot stop organ trading where the poor sell their organs through dodgy people unless there is a law that criminalizes illegal organ trading," said Alaa Ghannam, director of the health program in the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. "This law is a positive step forward."
The law, which in previous years has failed to make it onto the parliamentary agenda, now has the blessing of President Hosni Mubarak, who told parliament's opening session that he hoped to reach a resolution on the matter.
The law would establish a formal organ waiting list and would bar financial rewards for organ donations. Doctors caught performing illegal transplants may face up to 15 years in jail.
It would also require living donors to sign consent papers, while organs could be harvested from dead donors based on a will or family consent. Operations would be supervised by the state.
To avoid controversy in Egypt, where sectarian tensions sometimes erupt between Muslims and minority Christians, the law would bar transplants across faiths and between Egyptians and non-Egyptians, said Sayed, the law's author.
If the law passes, the number of legal transplants performed annually in Egypt could surge to roughly 40,000 from just 1,000 now, he said.
Egypt's Mansoura University Hospital, the country's premier transplant center and a top trauma center, says it already has the capacity to perform thousands more transplants a year.
Mansoura, where gleaming halls smell of antiseptic and teams of nurses hover at bedsides, is a far cry from many typical Egyptian hospitals, where patients often sleep on trollies in hallways and must tip nurses to receive standard care.
"Once the law is approved, we can start work the next day," said Mohamed Abdel Wahab, a gastroenterologist who works on liver transplants at Mansoura Hospital.
RELIGIOUS DEBATE
Egypt's state-run Islamic authorities, including the prominent Al-Azhar mosque and university, have given a religious nod of approval to the draft law, controversial among many Muslims because it recognizes brain stem death as ending life.
But the proposed law still faces critics even from within Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party, who disagree over the definition of death and fear that allowing transplants in any form could exacerbate organ trade.
"The law should not leave the matter in hands of doctors to decide if death has occurred and should set a clear definition for death that would guarantee the soul has permanently left the body," ruling party lawmaker Mohamed Khalil Kwaitah said.
As early as 1997, al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawy issued a fatwa, or Islamic decree, allowing organ transplants, and vowing to donate his own organs after death.
Some religious Muslims in Egypt, however, believe that death occurs only when the heart stops beating -- a view that would proscribe viable transplants because organs would deteriorate after the heart stops.
"The death of the brain stem is a disease and is not death." said Al-Sayed Abdel Maksoud Askar, a lawmaker from the powerful Muslim Brotherhood, which holds a fifth of the seats in parliament and is the biggest opposition bloc.
He said organs cannot be taken from a person with brain death because in his view life ends with death of all organs.
Recommended reading:
* Kidney Beans - Trading Live Organs For Cash
* World Kidney Day 2009 - Supernumerary three kidneys
* Organ harvesting by Israeli soldiers
* Live Blood Analysis a scam?
Top 10 Buzzwords of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Buzzwords
1. Sexting
2. Public Option
3. Autotune
4. Wise Latina
5. Death Panel
6. Birther
7. Opposite Marriage
8. Summer of Death
9. Beer Summit
10. Green Shoots
In addition to the above, there are also other buzzwords like:
* Job cut
* Cash for clunker
* Twit
Here are some revealing statistics from Chitika Research. Bing users showed a 50% higher ad click rate than Googlers eventhough Googlers dominate the search traffic. Read also this article Ads Clickers vs Non-Clickers
According to Chitika article " Months Later, Bing Users Still Ad-Crazy", Bing keeps showing its ability to push Google from a technology standpoint and Chitika confirmed that Bing users are still clicking on ads at a prodigious rate – in fact, the CTR of users who come to the Chitika network via Bing is over 75% higher than those who come from Google.
Now, it must be mentioned that Bing is still a distant third place in terms of traffic sent – Google dominates with 84% of search traffic, followed by Yahoo! at 7.40%, and Bing holding at 5.75% (AOL and Ask both have just over 1% of search traffic coming into the Chitika network).
However, all things being considered the same, driving one Bing user (or AOL or Ask user) to your site can be more valuable than driving one Google user.
What does the above tell you? As a blogger, try to get more traffic from Bing.
Related posts:
* Chitika Launched MEGA-Unit Ads Layout
China streaked ahead of its western and Asian rivals at the weekend by unveiling the world's fastest long-distance passenger train service. The Harmony express, which reached a top speed of 394km per hour in pre-launch trials, travelled at an average rate of 350km per hour on its debut. This compared with a maximum service speed of 300km per hour for Japan's Shinkansen bullet trains and France's TGV service. In America, Amtrak's Acela "Express" service takes 3½ hours to trundle between Boston and New York, a distance of only 300km.
The Harmony express raced 1,100km in less than three hours on Saturday, travelling from Guangzhou, capital of southern Guangdong province, to the central city of Wuhan. The journey previously took at least 11 hours.
The improvement illustrates how China's huge investment in infrastructure is dramatically shrinking the country, yet the economics of the new service, which runs 56 times a day, remain unproven amid a build-it-and-they-will-come approach to transport.
"China has focused on building expressways but that is an American method," said Zheng Tianxiang, a Guangzhou-based infrastructure expert and government adviser.
"Expressways are not suited for China, which has large numbers of people but little space to spare. China should learn from Japan and Europe."
According to state media reports, the government spent $17bn (€12bn, £11bn) on the Harmony express line's construction over 4½ years. Wuhan invested $2.4bn in a new French-designed train station, which boasts 20 tracks and 11 platforms. Officials this weekend declined to confirm project costs.
Ticket prices have been set at Rmb780 ($115, €80, £72) for first class and Rmb490 for second. The country's airlines, which like the railway are mostly state-owned, have responded by slashing fares to undercut those for the new train, with China Southern Airlines, based in Guangzhou, offering tickets for advance purchase starting at Rmb250 and introducing hourly flights.
Huang Xin, head of passenger services for Guangzhou Railway Group, said on the inaugural ride that pricing might have to be adjusted.
Even the second-class fares may prove too rich for the biggest pool of potential passengers for the line, the estimated 20m workers in the Pearl river delta manufacturing belt around Guangzhou who hail from inland provinces. About half of them usually return home during the Chinese new year holiday in the world's biggest human migration. The round-trip express fare is priced at about two-thirds of an average factory worker's monthly wage.
Most passengers on the sold-out debut run were middle-class joy-riders drawn by the journey's novelty value. "We are not staying in Wuhan," said Qiu Chaoyue, a Guangzhou resident who tried out the new rail link with a group of friends. "We're going to take the next train back to Guangzhou."
Another disadvantage of the new service is that the stations at each end of the line are at least an hour's drive from their respective city centres.
In total, the railways ministry intends to complete 18,000km of high-speed rail lines by 2012, allowing passengers to travel between most Chinese provincial capitals in eight hours or less.
One reason for the enormous construction outlay for the Harmony express was difficult terrain, especially in the poor mountainous areas of Guangdong and Hunan provinces. The train travels along 713km of elevated tracks and tunnels, accounting for about 70 per cent of its length.
Police were posted along the route to guard potential sabotage points, while burly railway security personnel monitored each passenger car. The police outside were often joined by farmers, who stopped to watch the Harmony express rush by their rural homes.
In spring and summer, the train will travel through a lush agricultural breadbasket, especially in the rice-growing areas of southern Hunan province. But in the dead of winter, it traverses a bleak, monochrome landscape of fallow fields and dirt roads that turn to mud in the rain.
Related posts:
* China 60 - 60 years of communist revolution
* Disney China to be setup in Shanghai
* Massive lead-poisoning in China Shaanxi province
Top 10 Heroes of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Heroes
1. Captain Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger
2. Neda Agha-Soltan
3. Mike Perham
4. Captain Richard Phillips
5. Kimberley Munley and Mark Todd
6. Ally Jacobs and Lisa Campbell
7. Tan Zuoren
8. Leonard Abess
9. Sultan Munadi
10. Muelmar Magallanes
Top 10 Breakups of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Breakups
1. Silvio Berlusconi and Veronica Lario
2. Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston
3. Lou Dobbs and CNN
4. Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson
5. Mel and Robyn Gibson
6. Jon and Kate Gosselin
7. Michael Phelps and Kellogg Co.
8. Oasis
9. Harry and Pepper, the San Francisco Zoo's Gay Penguins
10. Rihanna and Chris Brown
Searching for the name Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab is dangerous. Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab was named as the prime suspect in the attempted terrorist act on board Delta Airlines flight 253. Read Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab almost blow up a Northwest Airlines plane. Anyway, most searches on his name will lead you to sites with pages linked to antispywarekeypad.com, a site reported as an ATTACK SITE. Those sites were hacked and dummy pages was planted to trick visitor to go to antispywarekeypad.com. Hopefully, the affected sites webmasters spot the problem and fixed it soon.
Obviously, hackers have taken advantage of Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab infamous popularity to phish for unsuspected victims.
To prevent yourself from being the victim of an ATTACK SITE, please use the latest version of Mozilla Firefox (3.5.6 or later).
Site hacked with dummy page containing Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab keyword.
* http://www.everafterdesigns.co.uk/news/abdul-farouk-abdul-mutallab
* http://www.snomi.com/07/umar-farouk-abdul-mutallab
* http://www.yaoyaohome.com/06/umar-farouk-abdul-mutallab
* http://antispywarelinks.com/hitin.php?land=20&affid=92400
* http://www.allprodeal.com/08/umar-farouk-abdul-mutallab
Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian nationality linked to al-Qaeda tried to set off an explosive device aboard a U.S. passenger plane as it approached Detroit on Friday, but was overpowered by passengers and crew and the aircraft landed safely, officials said.
Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab suffered extensive burns and was taken into custody. The passengers, two of whom suffered minor injuries, disembarked safely from the Delta Air Lines plane, which had departed from Amsterdam.
"We believe this was an attempted act of terrorism," a White House official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
President Barack Obama is on vacation in Hawaii and was monitoring the situation after conferring with Homeland Security and National Security Council officials.
Representative Peter King of New York, the senior Republican on the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, said the explosive device was "fairly sophisticated,".
Federal officials identified the man as Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab, according to The New York Times and the Washington Post. ABC News and NBC News reported that he attends University College London, where he studied engineering.
Abdul Mutallab tried to ignite the device or mixture as the aircraft was approaching Detroit.
"When it did go off, he himself was seriously injured. He has third-degree burns," King told Fox News. ... (The device) "appears to be different from what we've encountered before."
King told CNN the suspect "did appear in a database as far as having a terrorist connection. ... My understanding is ... that he does have al-Qaeda connections, certainly extremist terrorist connections, and his name popped up pretty quickly" in a search of intelligence data bases.
SUSPECT BADLY BURNED
The suspect was not on a "no-fly" list, which might have kept him off the plane, but his name was in a database indicating "a significant terrorist connection," King said.
"He was severely burned. His entire leg was burned. They required a fire extinguisher as well as water to put it out," passenger Melinda Dennis told NBC News.
"You could smell the smoke when we landed. You could smell the scent of something being burned when we landed."
Another passenger, Richelle Keepman, said the incident was "terrifying."
"I thought -- I think we all thought we weren't going to land, we weren't going to make it," Keepman told NBC.
Once on the ground, the aircraft was moved to a remote area at Detroit's airport where all baggage was being rescreened, said the Transportation Security Administration.
Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the Wall Street Journal said the Nigerian had told investigators al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen had given him the device and instructions on how to detonate it.
But NBC, citing anti-terrorism officials, said he "claims to have been acting on his own."
The aircraft, Northwest Airlines flight 253, was an Airbus 330 carrying 278 passengers. Delta Air Lines has taken over Northwest. The incident on the Christmas holiday occurred during one of the busiest times of the year for air travel.
King said the suspect started his journey in Nigeria.
"How sophisticated he was, I don't know," he said. "But again, it was a fairly sophisticated device. I would say we dropped the ball on this one."
The Department of Homeland Security said enhanced security measures had been put into effect. "Passengers may notice additional screening measures put into place to ensure the safety of the traveling public on domestic and international flights," said spokeswoman Sara Kuban.
PART OF A LARGER PLOT?
King said investigators were looking into whether the incident was part of a larger plot. There is a "world-wide alert to make sure this is not part of a larger overall scheme," he said.
The New York Times, citing a senior Homeland Security official, said the device "was made from a mixture of powder and liquid" and was "more incendiary than explosive."
The official said Abdul Mutallab told law enforcement authorities he had explosive powder taped to his leg and used a syringe filled with chemicals to mix with the powder in an attempt to cause an explosion."
The attempt appeared similar to one eight years ago when a British-born man, Richard Reid, tried but failed to blow up a transatlantic jumbo jet by lighting explosives stuffed into his shoes. Reid, a follower of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, is serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison.
It also is the latest in a string of terrorism-related plots in the United States over the past few months, including one in which an Afghan-born man was arrested in September on charges he planned to set off bombs in the United States.
NOTES:
* Some medias and officials reported that the suspect is Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab or Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab.
Top 10 Green Ideas of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Green Ideas
1. U.N. Climate-Change Summit
2. Cap-and-Trade Debate in Washington
3. Stricter Auto Fuel-Efficiency Standards
4. General Motors Goes Bankrupt
5. EPA to Regulate CO2
6. Biofuels Aren't That Green
7. Factory Farming and Swine Flu
8. Obama's Green Cabinet
9. China's Green Stimulus
10. Nissan's All-Electric Leaf
Top 10 Best Business Deals of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Best Business Deals
1. Berkshire Hathaway–Goldman Sachs
2. JPMorgan Chase and the Deals It Didn't Do
3. BB&T-Colonial
4. Berkshire Hathaway–Burlington Northern
5. Ford's $23.6 Billion Loan Grab
6. BlackRock–Barclays Global Investors
7. HP-EDS
8. Google-AdMob
9. Time Warner Spins Off Cable and AOL
10. Mead Johnson Nutrition
Top 10 Scientific Discoveries of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Scientific Discoveries
1. Our Oldest Ancestor, "Ardi". Read Ardipithecus ramidus - the new human ancestor
2. The Human Epigenome, Decoded
3. Gene Therapy Cures Color Blindness
4. A Robot Performs Science
5. Breeding Tuna on Land
6. Water on the Moon
7. The Fundamental Lemma, Solved
8. Teleportation!
9. The Large Hadron Collider, Revived. Read Large Hadron Collider has first collisions and the planet is still intact
10. A New Planet (or Brown Dwarf?) Discovered
Rev. Tom Brown, pastor of Word of Life Church, El Paso, Texas says Jesus Christ is the richest man on world.
"I believe he was the richest man on the face of the earth because he had God as his source." - Rev. Tom Brown of Word of Life Church.
More stories
* CNN: Passions over 'prosperity gospel': Was Jesus wealthy?
Related posts:
* Best of Jesus Christ Films
* Superman Vs Jesus
* Mocking God Has Consequences
Susanna Maiolo, 25, jumped a barrier, lunged at Pope Benedict XVI and dragged him down during Christmas Eve Mass on Thursday night. On Friday, he delivered his Christmas message in St. Peter's Square and he looks unscathed from the attack the night before. Susanna Maiolo is the same woman who tried to attack the pontiff on Christmas Eve last year. She was detained by Vatican police and then taken to a mental institution.
The pope was quickly helped to his feet by his aides -- prompting cheers from the crowd -- and the service resumed. John Allen, senior Vatican analyst for CNN, said such security breaches aren't uncommon.
"As compared to say, the president of the United States, the security membrane around the pope is pretty thin and fairly permeable," he said, citing similar past incidents, including one that happened last Christmas Eve.
Allen said that generally, these disruptions are caused by people who aren't seeking real harm, but who want to be close to the pope.
Top 10 Gadgets of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Gadgets
1. Motorola Droid
2. The Nook
3. Dyson Air Multiplier
4. iPhone 3GS
5. Canon EOS-1D Mark IV
6. Dell Adamo XPS
7. FinePix Real 3D W1
8. Casio G-Shock GW7900B-1
9. Beats Solo by Dr. Dre
10. Panasonic G10 Series Plasma HDTVs
Top 10 Awkward Moments of 2009 according of TIME.
Top 10 Awkward Moments
1. Balloon Boy Spills the Beans
2. Kanye West Doesn't Let Taylor Swift Finish
3. The Beer Summit
4. Artie Lange Steals Joe Buck's Show
5. Mark Sanford's Mea Culpa
6. Ryan Seacrest's Regrettable High Five
7. Joaquin Phoenix Bombs on Letterman
8. The Colonel Is in the House
9. Joe Jackson Works the Red Carpet
10. Categorizing Caster Semenya
Top 10 Pariahs of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Pariahs
1. Ponzi Schemer. Read also How to make money with Ponzi Scheme
2. Octomom
3. Balloon Boy's Dad. Read also Make money from Balloon Boy
4. The Whipping Boy of Wall Street
5. Rihanna's Ex-Boyfriend. Read also Rihanna Nude Photos Leaked Out
6. Reality TV's Newly Single Dad
7. Lockerbie Convict Released
8. From Governor to Wannabe Reality Contestant
9. Hollywood's Most Famous Former Fugitive
10. Soccer's Ponytail Yanker
Top 10 Fleeting Celebrities of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Fleeting Celebrities
1. Octomom
2. Susan Boyle
3. Miss California
4. Orly Taitz
5. Dr. Conrad Murray
6. Stephanie Birkitt
7. The White House Gate Crashers
8. John Yettaw
9. Tiger Woods' Alleged Mistress
10. Edgar (Patient Zero) Hernandez
Once a popular cross-blog social networking widget MyBlogLog will be closed down by Yahoo! in January. MyBlogLog is a service that shows blog writers and readers the faces and profile information of other MyBlogLog users that visit their sites. The recent service close by Yahoo! was Geocities.
MyBlogLog was a wildly innovative service that grew fast after launching and was acquired in January 2007 by Yahoo! for $10 million. It made a deal with users: give us your personal information and we'll show you the faces of people who read your blog. That was a compelling offer and the resulting data amassed could have proven invaluable, had Yahoo! chosen to cultivate it and a developer ecosystem around it. That potential was so great, in fact, that sunset for MyBlogLog is downright tragic. It's also likely to anger bloggers all around the web.
Read more at Yahoo! Will Kill MyBlogLog Next Month
Top 10 Fiction Books of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Fiction Books
1. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
2. The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter
3. Swimming by Nicola Keegan
4. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
5. Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
6. Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer
7. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
8. Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell
9. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
10. The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell
Top 10 Art Exhibitions according to TIME.
Top 10 Art Exhibitions
1. Francis Bacon: A Centenary Retrospective
2. William Kentridge: Five Themes
3. Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice
4. Cy Twombly: The Natural World, Selected Works 2000-2007
5. Yinka Shonibare MBE
6. James Ensor
7. Butchers, Dragons, Gods & Skeletons
8. Kandinsky
9. Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction
10. Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective
Top 10 News Stories of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 News Stories
1. America's Economic Crisis: Now for the Non-Recovery
2. Afghanistan: Can the U.S. Avoid a Quagmire?
3. Iran's Tumultuous Election and Its Aftermath
4. The Divisive Debate Over Health Care Reform
5. Massacre at Fort Hood: The New Face of Terrorism?
6. The Death of Michael Jackson. Read also Top 10 Michael Jackson Moments
7. Pakistan: On the Verge of a Breakdown
8. Mexico's Bloody Drug War
9. H1N1: That's Swine Flu to You. Read also Swine Flu Outbreak of 2009
10. The End of Sri Lanka's Cataclysmic Civil War. Read also End Of Road For Tamil Tigers
Today, net activity such as Google Trends shows an pervasive hunt underway to find a Brittany Murphy death picture (or autopsy photo). There is no indication such a photo exists. As if a photo could possibly reveal the underlying problem? Today, autopsy notes leaked to TMZ revealed that further testing was needed before a cause of death could be declared. Also leaked was a list of prescription drugs that were found at the scene of her death.
Britney Murphy Autopsy, Brittany Murphy Death Photo: These are the hottest words in the internet today. Still the world is shocked by the early passing of Brittany Murphy that they want more to know about what really happened. Interestingly, her fans want to see her death photos.
For those bloggers desperate for traffic, "autopsy photo" is a powerful keyword to attract visitors. And for this reason, bloggers try to bait the visitors with the controversial keyword especially when there is a demise of a prominent individual.
Top 10 Apologies of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Apologies of 2009
1. A Rambling Apology from a Roving Governor
2. Err Force One
3. Apology Not Accepted
4. A Heckler in the House
5. He Didn't Let Her Finish
6. Serena Williams: My Fault
7. A Presidential Pardon Me
8. Who's the Boss?
9. California Says It's Sorry, 150 Years Late
10. Keep Doing What, Ernie?
Top 10 New Species of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 New Species
1. Ratzilla
2. Teeny T. Rex
3. Glow-in-the-Dark 'Shrooms
4. Land of the Pink Iguana?
5. The World's Biggest Snake
6. The World's Weirdest Fish
7. New Spiders from New Guinea
8. Frog Bonanza in Madagascar
9. A Dinosaur Named Zac
10. Himalayan Hoard
Related posts:
* Blog about Huntsman Spider and Poisonous Millipede
Top 10 Feuds of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Feuds
1. Gates vs. Crowley
2. Gosselin vs. Gosselin
3. Cramer vs. Stewart
4. Palin vs. Johnston
5. Lewis vs. Thain
6. Obama vs. Fox News
7. Walmart vs. Amazon vs. Target
8. Venezuela vs. Colombia
9. Greenberg vs. AIG
10. Olbermann vs. O'Reilly
Related posts:
* Top Moments of 2009
Top 10 Animal Stories of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Animal Stories of 2009
1. The First Family Gets a Dog
2. The President Executes a Housefly
3. Pet-Pig Craze: The Teacup
4. Jessica Simpson's Dog Becomes Coyote's Bitch
5. Cat Gets Swine Flu
6. Sheep That Shrink Like Wool Sweaters
7. Chimp Mauls Woman
8. Spain Debates a Ban on Bullfighting
9. Bolivia Bans Circus Animals
10. Scientists Levitate a Mouse
Related posts:
* Top Moments of 2009
* Top 10 Animal Flu Virus Carrier
* 10 Endangered Animals On The Brink Of Extinction
Readers, read which countries consumed the highest amount of alcohol. The Organization For Economic Cooperation And Development (OECD) recently released their 2009 collection of health data sets for OECD states.
Combing through the data, there are a few surprising nuggets of information - take the apparent fact that British children have the best dental health (what is it that happens when they enter adulthood then?)
But with the holiday season on our mind, we decided to focus on a subject of particular relevance this time of year - alcohol.
The OECD data shows alcohol consumption in liters per capita for people 15 year old and over. The data is from 2007 or the latest year available.
It turns out that Mexicans don't tend to drink much, while, despite stiff competition from most of Europe, the Luxembourgers really know how to party.
1. Luxembourg, 15.5 Liters per Capita
2. Hungary, 14.9 Liters Per Capita
3. Ireland, 13.4 Liters Per Capita
4. France, 13.0 Liters Per Capita
5. Denmark, 12.9 Liters Per Capita
6. Czech Republic, 12.1 Liters Per Capita
7. Spain, 11.7 Liters Per Capita
8. United Kingdom, 11.2 Liters Per Capita
9. Australia, 9.9 Liters Per Capita
10 United States, 8.6 Liters Per Capita
Other countries
Japan, 7.7 Liters Per Capita
Mexico, 4.6 Liters Per Capita
Turkey, 1.2 Liters Per Capita
The 'missing' proverb is quite famous in Malaysia. The 'missing cycle' goes like this in Malaysia. Read below.
Get Vietnamese workers, dogs go missing.
Get Bangladeshi workers, Malay girls go missing.
Get Indonesian workers, money go missing.
Get Indian workers, jewellery go missing.
Get Chinese workers, husbands go missing.
And now ...
Call the police, the evidence goes missing,
Call the lawyers, the judge goes missing,
Call the ministry of transport, the reports go missing
Change the government, funds go missing,
Say something and you may go missing
Top 10 Movies of 2009 according TIME.
Top 10 Movies
1. The Princess and the Frog
2. Up
3. Fantastic Mr. Fox
4. The Hurt Locker
5. Up in the Air
6. The White Ribbon
7. A Single Man
8. Of Time and the City
9. District 9
10. Thirst
Related posts:
* Top Moments of 2009
* Best of Jesus Christ Films
Top 10 Fashion Moments of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Fashion Moments
1. Michelle Obama's Inaugural Gown
2. In a Downturn, High-End Denim
3. Gaga for Lady Gaga
4. Shortsgate
5. It's the '80s Again, Ladies
6. Mad Men's Off-Air Influence
7. Respect for the Hat
8. Madge's Party Attire
9. Sanity Returns to Shoes
10. Goth Ninja
Related posts:
* Top Moments of 2009
It's tragic that Brittany Murphy could not live long enough to see the release of the first Malaysian-made Hollywood film - Deadline - set to be released internationally early next year.
The psycho thriller, a co-production between Malaysian homegrown KRU Studios and Enso Entertainment.
In the movie, cast the late Hollywood actress as Alice Evans, a screenwriter who camps in an abandoned house to write her film script, but ends up having psychological breakdown after encountering a series of strange events in the house.
The late Brittany aside, the US$2.5 million (RM8.5million) movie also starred Hollywood actors Tora Birch and Marc Blucas.
32-year-old Brittany, who shot to fame through commercially and critically acclaimed movies like 8 Mile and Clueless died of cardiac arrest at her home in Los Angeles on Sunday morning.
She completed filming of Deadline in June this year.
Besides appearing in Deadline, Brittany recently starred in a few other movies including Darin Scott's Dark House follow-up Something Wicked, which would also be released in early release.
Movie trailer of Deadline
Brittany Murphy Hooked On Drugs Following Plastic Surgeries, Claims UK Paper
The Sun:
BRITTANY MURPHY was killed by prescription drugs just like MICHAEL JACKSON, pals feared last night.
One said the 32-year-old beauty, who won acclaim for her performances in Clueless and 8 Mile, had become hooked on painkillers since having a series of plastic surgery ops. They included Vicodin, which Jacko was known to abuse.
Top 10 Albums of 2009 according to TIME.
Top 10 Albums of 2009
1. American Saturday Night by Brad Paisley
2. Bitte Orca by Dirty Projectors
3. Crack the Skye by Mastodon
4. Revolution by Miranda Lambert
5. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix by Phoenix
6. Love vs. Money by The-Dream
7. Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, Pt 2 by Raekwon
8. Veckatimest by Grizzly Bear
9. I and Love and You by the Avett Brothers
10. The Fame Monster by Lady Gaga
Related posts:
*Susan Boyle fastest selling album in Britain for 2009
*Top Moments of 2009
Iraq deployed security forces Saturday near a remote oil well at al-Fakkah seized by Iran, officials said, and its government pressed Tehran to withdraw its forces from the area along their disputed southern border. Iran claimed that al-Fakkah is under its territory based on the international border drawn in 1975. al-Fakkah is one of the largest oil fields in Iraq and has about 1.5 billion barrels in reserves. It is all about money and Iran is taking que from the US to invade Iraq territory. The irony is that, Iraq did the same to Kuwait years ago.
U.S. officials applauded Iraq for standing its ground against Iran – an uneasy ally that analysts said was aiming to remind its neighbor of its economic and political pull in its takeover of the oil well Thursday. The site is located in one of the largest oil fields in Iraq and has about 1.5 billion barrels in reserves.
The standoff was a dramatic display of the occasionally tense relations between the two oil-rich nations that fought an eight-year war in the 1980s but now share common ground in Shiite-led governments.
"Again, we ask Iran to be committed to the good relations that they announced with Iraq and its nation, and to withdraw its forces immediately," Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Al-Arabiyah TV. "This is the demand of Iraq, and we call Iran to be committed with that."
Iran, however, appeared undeterred.
In a statement, the Iranian military denied it violated Iraq's sovereignty and cited a 1975 border agreement in claiming the oil well as part of Iran's territory.
"Our forces are on our own soil and, based on the known international borders, this well belongs to Iran," the Iranian military said in a statement to Iran's Arabic-language Al-Alam satellite television.
Iraqi army and police reinforcements were sent to a staging ground about a half-mile (1 kilometer) from well No. 4 at the al-Fakkah oil field, according to two Iraqi officials close to the site. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue with the media.
One of the Iraqi officials said Iranian soldiers came and went from the oil well throughout Saturday. They were gone by the evening, leaving behind an Iranian flag mounted at the well, the official said.
The oil field, parts of which both countries claim as theirs, is located about 200 miles (about 320 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad. It was unclear how many troops were involved, and Iraqi forces barred journalists from approaching the area.
The standoff spurred an emergency meeting of Iraq's national security council and high-level diplomatic talks between Baghdad and Tehran. U.S. officials, already worried about Iran's growing influence in the region, praised what they described as Baghdad's quick but measured response to the dispute.
"It does speak to the overall view here that they are not going to be pushed around by Iran," U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill told reporters.
Iran's ambassador to Iraq, Hasan Kazemi Qomi, said he would use "diplomatic and technical mechanisms" to soothe tensions. And a spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry accused foreign media of trying to "disrupt good relations" between Tehran and Baghdad.
Experts said it is doubtful that Iran is seeking to provoke Iraq, its only other Shiite-led ally in the Middle East.
Instead, Iran appears to be reasserting its place as having the world's second-largest oil reserves at a time when Iraq is looking to cash in on their own, said Alex Vatanka of the Mideast Institute, a Washington think-tank.
Oil fields along the disputed border have been frozen for years because of Iraq's longtime inability to entice investors to drill. Iraq is planning to open some oil fields over the next decade and has held two rounds of bidding this year – the first since the war – to develop some sites. Al-Fakkah was among three fields that were combined in one offer in the first round of bidding in June, but the proposal fell through.
At the same time, Iran's leaders may be feeling more isolated as the result of its domestic political unrest and international disapproval of its nuclear program.
"They are not looking for conflict – this is their way of projecting power," Vatanka said. "They are saying, 'Because we're isolated, because we have internal problems, it doesn't mean you can go in here and sign a deal on an oil field that is very close to our border without consulting us.'"
Once bitter enemies, Iraq and Iran settled into a more positive, albeit tenuous, relationship after a Shiite-led government came to power following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. U.S. military officials say Iran continues to fund and train fighters in Iraq and send weapons and equipment over the border – although less frequently now than in the past.
Adm. Mike Mullen, America's top military official said the oil well incident must be resolved between Iran and Iraq, and there were no plans by the United States to intervene.
In Baghdad during a two-day visit to Iraq, Mullen said Saturday that he remains worried about Iran's influence in the Middle East. - AP
Philippine authorities on Sunday raised the alert status of the Mayon, country's most active volcano to level 4 and established an extended danger zone around it, saying an eruption is imminent, possibly within days.
The status change at the Mayon volcano "means that a hazardous explosive eruption is possible within days," according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.
Earlier Sunday, the institute said the central Philippine volcano continues "to exhibit a high level of activity," adding that 222 volcanic quakes and tremors have been recorded in recent days. One was "an explosion-type earthquake" that launched a cloud of ash about 1,640 feet (500 meters) into the air, according to an institute statement.
The institute recommended extending already-established danger zones of nearly five miles (8 kilometers) south of the summit and 4.3 miles (7 kilometers) north of the summit.
In addition, "areas just outside of this extended danger zone should prepare for evacuation in the event explosive eruptions intensify," the institute said.
More than 30,000 people fled their homes last week ahead of an expected eruption, and authorities were attempting to evacuate about 50,000 people living around the 8,077-foot volcano.
People in surrounding Albay province have flocked to town centers to catch a glimpse of glowing lava cascading down the slopes of Mayon since the mountain began oozing fiery lava and belching clouds of ash last week.
The volcano, about 310 (500 kilometers) south of the Philippine capital of Manila, has erupted 49 times since its first documented eruption in 1616.
The Philippines is situated in the so-called Ring of Fire, an arc of fault lines circling the Pacific Basin that is prone to frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
In 1814, Mayon had its most violent eruption, killing more than 1,200 people. Its last major eruption was in 1993. Since then, it has remained restless, emitting ash and spewing lava.
Philippine Volcano Alert Levels
Level O: No alert
Level 1: Abnormal
Level 2: Increasing unrest
Level 3: Increased tendency toward eruption
Level 4: Hazardous eruption imminent
Level 5: Hazardous eruption
If you used Bing.com to search for the keyword "make money online", you will noticed that Bing.com show makeonlinemoney.us on its front page. In fact, makeonlinemoney.us appeared on the first spot for after Bing sponsored ads. The stranger part is that makeonlinemoney.us is totally devoid of anything useful as far as make money online is concerned.
Can you imagine that Bing opt to nominate "makeonlinemoney.us" as it top search even though that site only have a single page and half of its web page is occupied with Google Adsense ads. Even, popular site like johnchow.com is listed a few steps down.
Analyzing the code behind makeonlinemoney.us revealed that it have a simple keyword and web description placement. Nothing fancy (or should I called it plain page) but occupied the number one spot in Bing.com it does.
Perhaps that why Google is still a better search engine.
Once the world's online search leader, Yahoo's share has sharply declined, putting it in danger of losing its relevance in a market increasingly dominated by Google.
Yahoo's search market share in November drop to 17.5% from 18% in October, according to a monthly comScore report released late Wednesday. It's the lowest share ever recorded for Yahoo.
Cannibalizing Yahoo's market share is Microsoft, whose new Bing search site gained 0.4 points of the search market to 10.3% in November. That was the first time Microsoft owned more than 10% of the market since September 2007. Read also Microsoft Gunning For Yahoo Search
Despite that good news, it's really a mixed blessing of sorts for Microsoft, which entered into a search deal with Yahoo that is expected to start in the next several months. When the deal was announced in July, analysts largely praised the marriage, since the companies held a combined 28% of the market -- close to the 30% that experts say is needed to convince advertisers that a company is a relevant competitor in a marketplace.
Since the July announcement, "Microhoo" has gone in the wrong direction. The companies' combined share has taken a 0.4-point hit, as Yahoo's share has fallen by 1.8 points, outpacing Bing's 1.4-point gain.
The new AOL faces a tough fight
"They're still going to be a viable No. 2 behind Google, but less so than they expected," said Daniel Ruby, research director at search-advertising firm Chitika, Inc. "Everyone is surprised by the fact that Yahoo has lost such a significant amount of traffic. Thirty percent seems like a very long shot." Read also Ads Clickers vs Non-Clickers
Google grew its share by 0.9 points since July to take 65.6% of the search market in November. That's the largest share Google has ever garnered.
Meanwhile, Yahoo has lost share for 10-straight months. As the closing date nears for the search rivals' deal, some say Yahoo is reaching a tipping point that could make or break the value of its partnership.
The devil is in the details
Under the 10-year agreement, Microsoft will power the searches that users make on Yahoo.com. In return, Microsoft will pay Yahoo 88% of the revenue it gains from searches on Yahoo's sites. Yahoo.com and Bing.com will maintain their own branding but search results on Yahoo.com will say "powered by Bing."
"There is no getting around the fact that the market share trend for Yahoo is absolutely awful," said Benjamin Schachter, analyst for Broadpoint AmTech. "The Microsoft deal does not guarantee any search revenue, only revenue-per-search levels; therefore, search share and volume are as critical as ever."
Still, another school of thought says not all is lost for Yahoo.
Both Yahoo and Microsoft have poured millions of dollars into advertising campaigns to get users to come to their Web sites. Yahoo's new "It's Y!ou" campaign has been plastered all over billboards and television spots. Microsoft just launched its new highly publicized Bing iPhone App on Tuesday.
As a result, some advertisers believe users who search on those sites are more likely to indulge a sales pitch and therefore are more likely to click on their ads than Google's users.
"Microsoft and Yahoo offer quality versus quantity," said Ruby. "The traffic they drive is more valuable than Google's in some advertisers' eyes, because their users are going to be delivering higher margins."
So even as Google continues to gain share at "Microhoo's" expense, Yahoo and Microsoft live on to fight for high-quality searchers as a way to stay relevant.
Related posts:
* Geocities Termination Will Improved Search Ranking
* How to Rank #1 in Google Search Page?
Severe weather in France led authorities to shut the tunnel under the English Channel, but not before four Eurostar trains got stuck inside, leaving hundreds of people stranded, authorities said Saturday. No injuries were reported.
The four Eurostar trains were all traveling to London when they got stuck in the tunnel, Eurotunnel spokesman John Keefe told CNN. Three were traveling from Paris, France, and one was going from Brussels, Belgium, he said.
One of the trains was towed to London's St. Pancras station and plans were being made to tow another to France, he said.
The passengers on the other two trains, carrying 700 and 664 people respectively, were being evacuated, he said. It was not known how many passengers were on the trains being towed.
It was also not clear why the trains broke down, but there was severe winter weather on the French side of the tunnel.
"The weather conditions (in France) are still very bad," Keefe said. "Heavy snow, deep snow now, and very, very difficult access to the motorways. We're working with the French authorities, who are advising us as to what they think the motorways can cope with."
French authorities have told all trucks to get off the highways on the French side of the Channel because the weather conditions are so bad, Keefe said.
Eurotunnel operates the Channel Tunnel, also known as the Chunnel, between Britain and France.
The shutdown poses complications for freight traffic, Keefe said. Vehicles enter the tunnel directly from the highway, but because French police have banned freight trucks from the roads, trucks can't enter or leave the tunnel on the French side, he said.
It has resulted in a backup of freight traffic on either side of the tunnel, Keefe said. No trucks are stuck inside the tunnel.
On the British side, Kent Police early Saturday implemented Operation Stack, which goes into effect any time there is a problem affecting freight traffic in the tunnel. The operation lets police manage the backlog of trucks that builds up whenever the tunnel is closed.
A Kent Police spokesman could not estimate how many trucks were backed up Saturday morning, but he said Operation Stack allows police to manage as many as 2,300 trucks.
Passenger cars were also blocked from using the tunnel until the weather improves.
The Port of Dover, another major exit point to France, was open but full Saturday morning and unable to accept more traffic, said a police spokesman, who could not be named in line with policy.
Four ships from Dover are in Calais, France, but unable to offload their cargo because of the weather. It means they can't immediately return to Dover and accept more cargo, and the ships in Dover can't depart for Calais until that happens.
"We're advising all drivers to avoid the area if at all possible," said Chief Superintendent Matthew Nix of Kent Police. "Please consider if your journey is essential. If not, please avoid the Dover and Folkstone area of Kent."
Eurotunnel offered similar advice to passengers, and warned them to expect delays.
"'It's bad out there' is what we're saying," Keefe said.
Nene Anegasaki is a witty, doe-eyed beauty. She looks perfectly perky in sexy skirts, doesn't pick fights and is always at one Tokyo man's beck and call -- that is why the 27-year-old decided to marry her. The only complication: She is a videogame character (also known as anime character) in the Nintendo DS game called "Love Plus." Well, this kind of thing usually happened in Japan. Maybe, Nene Anegasaki's husband want some cheap publicity for this human-computer avatar marriage.
Still, that didn't stop Sal 9000 -- the only name the groom would give -- from marrying Nene in a ceremony witnessed live by thousands on the Web.
When asked if Nene is his dream woman, Sal replied, "Yes, she is. Her character changes to my liking as we talk and travel to different places."
Related links:
* CNN: Tokyo man marries video game character
Related posts:
* Soshokukei Danshi - Japan's Newest Demographic
* Japan's Herbivore Men Were Flaky And Weak
Cyber terrorism hit the popular microblogging site Twitter when the Shiites group allegedly hacked into Twitter and redirect the user to another site. Twitter was hacked briefly by a group calling itself the Iranian Cyber Army, but the site was quickly restored after the incident early Friday.
Those who tried to access Twitter were redirected to a site displaying a green flag and proclaiming, in English, "This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army." The group's Web address was provided.
Arabic writing in blue said, "Hezbollah is victorious," and a message on the flag said, "Ya Hussein," referring to Prophet Mohammed's grandson.
The United States and Israel categorize Hezbollah, a political party in Lebanon, as a terrorist organization.
"The group claiming responsibility for the Twitter hacking is previously unknown, but its symbols would be familiar to anyone looking at radical (Web) sites," said Octavia Nasr, CNN's senior editor for Middle East affairs.
"The hackers are definitely Shiites, as indicated by the 'Ya Hussein' chant printed on their banner," she said.
"The group also uses Arabic in their text, a clear indication of collaboration with Arabic groups. Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shiite militia with ideological, political and military ties to Iran. The same name is also used by a group inside Iran."
Twitter posted a message about 2:30 a.m. ET Friday on its official Twitter page, saying, "Twitter's DNS (domain name system) records were temporarily compromised but have now been fixed."
"In the past few years, we've been seeing a rise in desire for hacking by insurgents and terrorist groups," said Nasr. Not only do they hack outside sites, but they hack each other's, she said. "The idea of 'cyber terrorism' and 'cyber insurgency' has been manifested in many ways -- (with) hacking individual sites being the most infamous."
She added, "This week's (revelation of) successful hacking of U.S. predator drone feeds by Iranian-backed Shiite militants adds another level of sophistication toward the hacking effort."
Twitter became unwittingly involved in Iranian politics last summer.
When Iran's disputed presidential election spiraled into bloody protests, the opposition used Twitter and other social networking sites to inform the world.
Protesters beamed images from the violent demonstrations at a time when mainstream media were given almost no access to the demonstrations.
Twitter became so fundamental in spreading news of the protests that the U.S. State Department asked the company to delay a planned shutdown for maintenance.
Related posts:
* How to use SkyGrabber to hack U.S. Predator drones
* Advent of Cyberweapons and eBombs - Futuristic Internet
Christmas is just around a corner and some very enterprising individuals is making money renting live Christmas trees. And what better way to have a live tree delivered to your door step at a bargain price then having a dead tree. Spend frugally and supporting the environment is the way to go this year.
It is a nibble weird that a guy who describes his relationship to Christmas as “hostile” runs around greater Los Angeles in a floppy red Santa hat and answers his iPhone, “Merry Christmas, this is Scotty Claus!”
But bummed as false merriment and gift obligations render him, Scott Martin — landscape architect and tree hugger in a literal sense — was unnerved by the sight of post-Christmas trees lying about like so much discarded sausage casing.
What people really ought to do, he reasoned, was rent a Christmas tree, and return it, alive, to the nursery after the season.
Mr. Martin’s idea, enabled by a rotten economy that made his free time greater and his potential labor pool deeper, is now manifest in his new business delivering live, potted Christmas trees that are taken away once the toys have been unwrapped and, possibly, already broken, and the New Year’s confetti has been swept away.
Rentable Christmas trees, which have been tried in Oregon and a smattering of other places over the years, are a perfect match for Los Angeles, he said, where Christmas trees have “an image issue,” and escaping a drive through traffic with a tree strapped to a car roof is especially welcome.
To rent a tree, a customer visits Mr. Martin’s Web site, livingchristmas.com, picks out a tree from among several varieties and then awaits delivery. Delivery days are determined by geography, to save time and gas. Prices range from $50, for a two-to-three-foot number, up to $185 for something bigger. While two weeks is the recommended length of stay for a live tree in a house, Mr. Martin lets his customers keep them for three.
The tree is then picked up to join its evergreen cousins; they will summer together on industrial properties where Mr. Martin rents space for pennies on the dollar to house his inventory. People who want the same tree next year ask for it to be tagged with their name, so it might return next December, taller.
Extra-credit points: The delivery trucks run on biodiesel; the trees are cared for by adults with disabilities; the drivers will pick up donations for Goodwill and used wrapping paper for recycling; and the Web site also sells eco-friendly, fair-trade ornaments.
The "Global Ikhwan" polygamy club is Jakarta's newest club. Tucked away in a leafy suburb a few hours out of Jakarta, the club was set up in Indonesia earlier this year, but has its origins in Malaysia.
It says it has more than 1,000 members worldwide - as far away as Australia and the United States.
In Indonesia, the law allows men to marry more than one woman - but only under strict conditions, which makes the practice of polygamy less common here than in other Muslim nations.
But that could change if the controversial new polygamy club is a success.
The club has garnered a great deal of criticism since its inception.
But in the hall, the only sounds you can hear that disrupt the quiet are the voices of young children filling the corridors. They are being taught to read Islamic scriptures, so that they can become pious Muslims from a young age.
But the main aim of the club is to promote the virtues of polygamy, as well as to support those who are struggling with their choices.
In one of the club's rooms, the director of the organisation, Dr Gina Puspita, speaks to a group of young women trying to help them get over their jealousies and insecurities.
She admits she found it hard when her husband Rizdam took on a second wife.
"It was difficult for me in the beginning, but I knew it was because of my emotions, my desires," she told me. "But polygamy is a way for us to find happiness and love in this world.
"There are a lot of advantages for women in polygamous marriages - we learn how to control our desires and their jealousies, and this brings us closer to Allah."
Tight controls
But Dr Puspita's stance on polygamy is firmly opposed by some groups in Indonesia.
This country has strict rules about who is allowed to take on multiple wives.
The guiding principle of Indonesia's marriage law is monogamy. Polygamy is tolerated - but tightly controlled.
You have to go through a number of steps to take more than one wife.
First, you have to get your first wife's permission. Second, if she does not give you her consent, you must prove that she is either infertile, terminally ill, or not performing her wifely duties. And finally you have to get the permission of a religious adviser.
Although there are no official statistics for how many people in Indonesia are polygamous - because so many of the marriages go unregistered - women's groups say organisations like the polygamy club could prompt more Indonesian men to take on multiple wives.
Activist Nursyahbani Katjasungkana is incensed by the polygamy club, and she uses the Koran to try to refute claims that polygamy is an acceptable, even desirable Islamic practice.
"When the scripture revealed to the Prophet Muhammad its direction on polygamy, it was during the time of war," she says.
"I believe it was a direction to the Muslims of that time that all the victims of war or widows and children who lost a father or a husband have to be protected. That's the message of the scriptures - it wasn't really a command to men to have a second or third or fourth wife."
But that is not an interpretation Dr Gina Puspita or her family accepts.
Back at her house, she's frying up some rice and chicken for her family for lunch.
She cooks while Salwa, wife number three, chops up the vegetables. It is a picture of domestic harmony, an unusual family tableau.
Her husband Rizdam tells me this system works for them.
"I think polygamy is better than monogamy," he says to me as we share the lunch his wives have cooked for us.
"There are so many advantages - for men, it teaches us leadership. If it difficult to manage one wife in a marriage - but four? It is much more difficult and it is a good educational practice."
Sign of the times
Indonesian women's groups are calling on officials to shut the club down.
But so far the Indonesian government has said it will only monitor the club's activities - it won't curtail it.
Indonesia prides itself on its reputation as a tolerant Islamic nation, but many of its people are pitted against each other in an ongoing ideological battle.
The current controversy over Indonesia's polygamy club is a sign of the struggle this country is going through - how to be Muslim and modern at the same time.
Related links:
* Global Ikhwan FaceBook fan page
Controversial polygamy club spreads its wings to Indonesia
The controversial Ikhwan Polygamy Club of Malaysia intends to set up branches in Indonesia.
There is already one in Bandung, launched by the Malaysian chapter chairman Hatijah Aam, the second wife of Ashaari Muhammad.
Ashaari was the founder of the now-defunct Al-Arqam movement.
Launched in an upscale hotel, the event themed “Polygamy as panacea to win the love of God” attracted 150 people.
Hatijah told the Jakarta Globe that she planned to open more branches in Indonesia.
“I have travelled throughout Indonesia to convey the mission of polygamy,” she told the newspaper.
Hatijah said the club in Malaysia, set up in August, currently had 300 members from various countries, including Indonesia, Australia, Singapore, the Middle East and Thailand.
Last month, former Al-Arqam member and legal adviser Zabidi Mohamed had said that the setting up of the club in Malaysia was an attempt to revive the defunct movement.
“The name and the packaging may be different, but the people leading it are the same ones,” he said.
The polygamy club is managed by Global Ikhwan Sdn Bhd.
Global Ikhwan was set up by former Al-Arqam members after their previous outfit, Rufaqa Corporation Sdn Bhd, was busted by the religious authorities a few years ago.
Home Ministry secretary-general Datuk Seri Mahmood Adam was reported to have said last month that the ministry was keeping a close eye on the club and was waiting for the right time to act.
Is it possible to hack the million dollars U.S drones? Initially I though it was remotely impossible. Now it is 50/50. Militants in Iraq have used the cheap $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations. The insurgents so far has not been able to take control of the drone but they have remove the element of a surprise attack.
Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes' systems. And I thought the US Army is extremely protective on their data. Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber -- available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet -- to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter.
U.S. officials say there is no evidence that militants were able to take control of the drones or otherwise interfere with their flights. Still, the intercepts could give America's enemies battlefield advantages by removing the element of surprise from certain missions and making it easier for insurgents to determine which roads and buildings are under U.S. surveillance.
The drone intercepts mark the emergence of a shadow cyber war within the U.S.-led conflicts overseas. They also point to a potentially serious vulnerability in Washington's growing network of unmanned drones, which have become the American weapon of choice in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Obama administration has come to rely heavily on the unmanned drones because they allow the U.S. to safely monitor and stalk insurgent targets in areas where sending American troops would be either politically untenable or too risky.
The stolen video feeds also indicate that U.S. adversaries continue to find simple ways of counteracting sophisticated American military technologies.
U.S. military personnel in Iraq discovered the problem late last year when they apprehended a Shiite militant whose laptop contained files of intercepted drone video feeds. In July, the U.S. military found pirated drone video feeds on other militant laptops, leading some officials to conclude that militant groups trained and funded by Iran were regularly intercepting feeds.
In the summer 2009 incident, the military found "days and days and hours and hours of proof" that the feeds were being intercepted and shared with multiple extremist groups, the person said. "It is part of their kit now."
A senior defense official said that James Clapper, the Pentagon's intelligence chief, assessed the Iraq intercepts at the direction of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and concluded they represented a shortcoming to the security of the drone network.
"There did appear to be a vulnerability," the defense official said. "There's been no harm done to troops or missions compromised as a result of it, but there's an issue that we can take care of and we're doing so."
Senior military and intelligence officials said the U.S. was working to encrypt all of its drone video feeds from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, but said it wasn't yet clear if the problem had been completely resolved.
Some of the most detailed evidence of intercepted feeds has been discovered in Iraq, but adversaries have also intercepted drone video feeds in Afghanistan, according to people briefed on the matter. These intercept techniques could be employed in other locations where the U.S. is using pilotless planes, such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, they said.
The Pentagon is deploying record numbers of drones to Afghanistan as part of the Obama administration's troop surge there. Lt. Gen. David Deptula, who oversees the Air Force's unmanned aviation program, said some of the drones would employ a sophisticated new camera system called "Gorgon Stare," which allows a single aerial vehicle to transmit back at least 10 separate video feeds simultaneously.
Gen. Deptula, speaking to reporters Wednesday, said there were inherent risks to using drones since they are remotely controlled and need to send and receive video and other data over great distances. "Those kinds of things are subject to listening and exploitation," he said, adding the military was trying to solve the problems by better encrypting the drones' feeds.
The potential drone vulnerability lies in an unencrypted downlink between the unmanned craft and ground control. The U.S. government has known about the flaw since the U.S. campaign in Bosnia in the 1990s, current and former officials said. But the Pentagon assumed local adversaries wouldn't know how to exploit it, the officials said.
Last December, U.S. military personnel in Iraq discovered copies of Predator drone feeds on a laptop belonging to a Shiite militant, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter. "There was evidence this was not a one-time deal," this person said. The U.S. accuses Iran of providing weapons, money and training to Shiite fighters in Iraq, a charge that Tehran has long denied.
The militants use programs such as SkyGrabber, from Russian company SkySoftware. Andrew Solonikov, one of the software's developers, said he was unaware that his software could be used to intercept drone feeds. "It was developed to intercept music, photos, video, programs and other content that other users download from the Internet -- no military data or other commercial data, only free legal content," he said by email from Russia.
Officials stepped up efforts to prevent insurgents from intercepting video feeds after the July incident. The difficulty, officials said, is that adding encryption to a network that is more than a decade old involves more than placing a new piece of equipment on individual drones. Instead, many components of the network linking the drones to their operators in the U.S., Afghanistan or Pakistan have to be upgraded to handle the changes. Additional concerns remain about the vulnerability of the communications signals to electronic jamming, though there's no evidence that has occurred, said people familiar with reports on the matter.
Predator drones are built by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. of San Diego. Some of its communications technology is proprietary, so widely used encryption systems aren't readily compatible, said people familiar with the matter.
In an email, a spokeswoman said that for security reasons, the company couldn't comment on "specific data link capabilities and limitations."
Fixing the security gap would have caused delays, according to current and former military officials. It would have added to the Predator's price. Some officials worried that adding encryption would make it harder to quickly share time-sensitive data within the U.S. military, and with allies.
"There's a balance between pragmatics and sophistication," said Mike Wynne, Air Force Secretary from 2005 to 2008.
The Air Force has staked its future on unmanned aerial vehicles. Drones account for 36% of the planes in the service's proposed 2010 budget.
Today, the Air Force is buying hundreds of Reaper drones, a newer model, whose video feeds could be intercepted in much the same way as with the Predators drone, according to people familiar with the matter. A Reaper costs between $10 million and $12 million each and is faster and better armed than the Predator. General Atomics expects the Air Force to buy as many as 375 Reapers.
Related posts:
* Advent of Cyberweapons and eBombs - Futuristic Internet
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