December 1, 2012 archive

Today on The Stars Hollow Gazette

Photobucket Pictures, Images and Photos

Our regular featured content-

This weekly feature-

And this featured article-

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Write more and often.  This is an Open Thread.

The Stars Hollow Gazette

Only 20 Days Left Until The End Of The World!

Have you done your apocalypse shopping yet?

2012 Mayan Apocalypse Rumors Have Dark Side, NASA Warns

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer

Date: 28 November 2012 Time: 06:46 PM ET

“While this is a joke to some people and a mystery to others, there is a core of people who are truly concerned,” he said.



“I think it’s evil for people to propagate rumors on the Internet to frighten children,” (astrobiologist at NASA Ames Research Center) Morrison said.



NASA scientists took questions via social media in the hour-long video chat, debunking doomsday myths from the rogue planet Nibiru to the danger of killer solar flares.



Nor are any near-Earth objects, planetary or otherwise, threatening to slam into our planet on Dec. 21, said Don Yeomans, a planetary scientist who tracks near-Earth objects at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The only close asteroid approach on the horizon is forecast to occur on Feb. 13, 2013, when an asteroid will pass within 4.5 Earth radii to our planet (for perspective, Earth’s radius is 3,963 miles, or 6,378 kilometers). The asteroid is not going to hit Earth, Yeomans said.

Other rumors – that the Earth’s magnetic field will suddenly reverse or that the planet will travel almost 30,000 light-years and fall into the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy – were also dismissed. (A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, or about 6 trillion miles, or 10 trillion km.)

One popular rumor that the planet will undergo a complete blackout from Dec. 23 to 25 earned a “What?” and blank looks from the panel of scientists.

Ultimately, concerns about Earth’s fate would be better focused on slow-acting problems such as climate change rather than some sort of cosmic catastrophe, said Andrew Fraknoi, an astronomer at Foothill College in California.

It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

Cartnoon

Speaking of death, Connections #2.

Surprise!  It’s about economics.

TGIF

42 Million Dead In Bloodiest Black Friday Weekend On Record

The Onion

November 26, 2012

Survivors of the deadly holiday sales event said that while the weekend began as a chance to “get in on some unbeatable post-Thanksgiving deals,” it quickly escalated into a merciless, no-hold-barred fight to the death.

“At some point in time we all stopped caring about the deals and the holiday shopping and were pretty much just out for blood,” said Dana Marshall, 37, a Target shopper who suffered seven broken ribs and a cracked sternum while fighting two other customers for a discounted Nikon digital camera. “I remember just sitting on top of a woman and smacking her head with a DVD player until her face was completely unrecognizable. I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

The Onion will continue to publish a running list of the Black Friday dead throughout the week.

Ha ha ha.  You are so funny ek.

I am put in mind of a question- you see someone slip on a banana peel and tumble down a flight of stairs doing the most hilarious prat falls you can imagine.  When they land at the bottom they stop in a motionless heap.  You go over to check and find them dead.

Question: When did that stop being funny?

Answer: It never stopped being funny.

Alleged Walmart thief dies after confrontation

WSBTV

Monday, Nov. 26, 2012

According to a police report obtained by Channel 2 Action News, the incident happened at the Walmart on Fairington Road in Lithonia. The police report said that about 1:30 a.m. Sunday, a middle aged man was caught shoplifting two DVD players.

He exited the front door of the store and three employees caught him in the parking lot, where a physical altercation took place while they detained him.



The police report said one of those Walmart employees had placed the man in a choke hold, but the cause and manner of death will be determined by a medical examiner.

(h/t Chris in Paris @ Americablog)

Sales at Nation’s Retailers Fell Short of Expectations in November

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD, The New York Times

Published: November 29, 2012

“The traditional post-Black Friday lull, normally starting the following week, started on … Black Friday,” Mr. Johnson wrote in an e-mail. Activity in shopping malls slowed down starting about noon that Friday, he said, “right about the time the early bird specials expired, and long after the Thanksgiving evening doorbuster items were all sold out – leaving financially stressed consumers with little reason to shop” so many weeks away from Christmas.

Over all, the 16 retailers tracked by Thomson Reuters that reported results Thursday recorded a 1.6 percent increase in sales at stores that were open at least a year. Analysts had expected a 3.3 percent jump.



Some shoppers said the deals this year were not good enough to get them to buy. “We looked through the ads and didn’t see anything we really wanted,” said Lisa Apple, 46, who was shopping in Columbus, Ohio, on Black Friday. “The good deals were on TVs, but how many TVs do you need?”

Another shopper, Laura Schimpf, 32, who lives in Delaware, Ohio, and works for the state’s government, agreed. “The deals don’t seem too good. We really had to hunt for good ones. I’ve been looking online for three weeks,” she said.

Retailers report weak sales gains for November, hurt by Superstorm Sandy early in the month

By Associated Press

Nov 29, 2012 09:17 PM EST

Meanwhile, department store chains Macy’s and Nordstrom Inc. reported their first monthly sales drops since late 2009 when the U.S. economy was just coming out of the Great Recession.

Nordstrom recorded a 1.1 percent decline in November, blaming the weakness not only on Sandy but also on tepid customer response to its semi-annual sales in the first half of the month. Nordstrom also said customers continue to prefer fashion and newness over bargains, which has made its clearance sales less enticing. The November figure was Nodstrom’s first monthly decline since September 2009 when it had a 2.4 percent drop.

Macy’s revenue at stores open at least a year fell 0.7 percent in November, compared with the 1.5 percent increase analysts expected. It was Macy’s first monthly sales drop since November 2009 when it recorded a 6.1 percent decline.



Perhaps most surprisingly, Target reported that revenue at stores opened at least a year fell 1 percent, well below the 2.1 percent increase that Wall Street was anticipating.



Analysts were puzzled by Target’s disappointing sales performance in November. Earlier this month, the no. 2 discounter behind Wal-Mart had issued a profit outlook for the holiday quarter that beat analysts’ estimates. The chain also opened its doors at 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving, three hours earlier than a year ago.

Given the tough spending climate, Brian Sozzi, chief equities analyst at NBG Productions, said: “Not everyone is going to win.”

Retailers’ Thanksgiving Deals Cut Black Friday Sales

By Sapna Maheshwari & Matt Townsend, Bloomberg News

Nov 25, 2012 1:41 PM ET

Karen Carlow, a 57-year-old from Coventry, Rhode Island, said the damage caused by superstorm Sandy made her “think more about what other people lost.” Carlow said in an interview at the Crystal Mall in Waterford, Connecticut, that she was less willing to make extravagant purchases this year.

Others are spending carefully as the unemployment rate, while down from almost 9 percent a year ago, remains above 7 percent. Deb Bettini, 56, plans to spend about $300 on holiday gifts, about the same as last year and mostly in the form of gift cards to retailers such as Lowe’s Cos. and Panera Bread Co., she said said yesterday after spending $27.04 on pajamas and socks at a Roses discount store in Reidsville, North Carolina.

“There is a lot of belt-tightening by companies going on and people are still losing their jobs,” said Bettini, who with her husband, Randy, raises grapes, mushrooms and vegetables on a family farm. They also plan to give gift baskets with homemade cider. “People are trying to get by the best way they can.”

Ho, ho, ho.  Merry ek’smas.

CEO’s Have “A Pension Deficit Disorder”

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

A group of CEO’s from major US corporations have been lobbying Capitol Hill to put cuts to the social safety net at the forefront of negotiations to “fix the debt’ at the same time asking for more tax breaks while they reap the benefits of billions in government contracts and hand themselves lucrative pay raises and pensions while they bankrupt companies and underfund their employee pension funds.

From the Huffington Post

A group of high-profile corporate CEOs are lobbying Capitol Hill this week to put Social Security and Medicare cuts at the forefront of deficit reduction negotiations. Their own retirement funds, however, are secure: The coalition includes 54 CEOs who have amassed combined pension assets of more than $649 million from their companies’ executive retirement plans, according to a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies, titled “A Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts.”

The CEOs’ employees are much less secure in their retirement than the CEOs. According to the report, less than 60 percent of the 71 public companies offer pension plans for their employees. Of the 41 companies that do, 39 of them haven’t contributed enough to their workers’ pension funds to enable the plans to pay out their anticipated obligations. Among the companies with employee pension funds in the red, these deficits exceed $100 billion.

The CEOs are among 71 chief executives of publicly traded companies who belong to the Fiscal Leadership Council of the influential Campaign to Fix the Debt, a group which has raised more than $60 million to lobby for a debt deal driven by cuts to “entitlements.” The coalition will meet Wednesday morning with congressional leaders, according to sources familiar with the group’s lobbying activities. The group, funded in part by former private equity magnate Peter G. Peterson’s foundation, has pledged to push for austerity during the lame duck congressional session, and beyond. Peterson has spent nearly half a billion dollars in recent years pushing his austerity agenda.

As the debate heats up over whether to cut Medicare, Social Security or Medicaid in order to maintain federal spending and corporate tax breaks, companies with well-compensated CEOs who preside over underfunded employee pension funds invite a new round of questions about the motives, and methods, of the CEOs pressuring Congress and the White House to cut programs for the middle class.

As Talks Begin on “Fiscal Cliff,” Report Warns “Fix the Debt” a Front for More Corporate Bailouts

As the White House begins a series of meetings today on the looming “fiscal cliff,” a coalition of the largest corporate firms and advocacy groups is lobbying for wide-ranging cuts in government spending, including to programs like Medicare and Social Security. The group, which includes 80 of the country’s most powerful CEOs, is called the Campaign to Fix the Debt. It was co-founded by former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, previously the co-chairs of President Obama’s bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Critics have accused the group of using the budget crisis to push for corporate tax cuts. We are joined by Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-author of the new report, “The CEO Campaign to ‘Fix’ the Debt: A Trojan Horse for Massive Corporate Tax Breaks.

The middle class, elderly, students and the poor have paid more than their “fare share” in this economic downturn while Wall St. and these megacorporations have continued to rake in billions. Social security, medicare and medicaid should be removed from any talks about the “fiscal cliff” myth. Lambert Strether at Corrente enumerated it best.

   Not one penny of cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or any other social insurance program, and any savings to be paid out as benefits.

The Democrats are defending programs. But they should be defending households. Here are some of the social insurance programs that are on the table, even if Social Security, Medicare, and Medcaid turn out to be off the table:

   Unemployment benefits extension in 2013 ($40 billion): If long-term unemployment benefits are allowed to expire at the end of the year, some 2 million jobless will be affected. Kogan says “there will be some extension, because that’s just brutal. It’s just a question of how much.”

   Pell Grants ($36 billion) (pdf): These need-based grants help some 10 million low-income students afford college.

   Section 8 Housing Assistance ($19 billion): Section 8 vouchers allow more than 2 million super low-income families to afford decent housing in the private market.

   Job Training ($18 billion in 2009): Loads of federal job training programs help millions of seniors, Native Americans, farm workers, veterans, young people, and displaced or laid-off workers with career development.

   Head Start ($7.9 billion):  The program, which helps kids from disadvantaged homes be better prepared to start school, had about a million enrollees in 2010. Research has shown that Head Start generates real long-term benefits for participants.

   Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program ($3.47 billion): In 2011, about 23 million poor folks got help paying the winter heating bills through LIHEAP.

   Community Health Centers ($3.1 billion (pdf): In 2011, more than 20 million patients, 72 percent of whom were below the poverty line, got healthcare through federally-supported community health centers.

   Title 1 Education Grants ($322 million) (pdf): Under the No Child Left Behind Act, school districts serving a big percentage of low-income kids get financial assistance to help them meet state academic standards.

   Women, Infants, and Children ($7.2 million in 2011): The Department of Agriculture’s WIC program helps low-income moms and babies get access to supplemental nutrition and health care referrals. WIC has about 9 million participants, most of whom are kids.

Not one penny should be cut from of any of these programs. Go scuttle an aircraft carrier or something. Stop one of the wars. Whatever, dude. You’re the Preznit.

Know your president by the friends he keeps.

h/t Suzie Madrak at Crooks and Liars

Health and Fitness News

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

To End the Feast, Something Sweet but Light

Pear Cranberry Galette

It’s always the desserts that tip the balance at Thanksgiving. We’re pacing ourselves, full but not too full, until we get to those irresistible pies. I love them as much as anybody, but I thought I’d work on some pielike desserts this week that have the fillings we love without as much butter in the crust. Galettes, phyllo-wrapped strudel and clafoutis all fit the bill. I filled layers of phyllo with a mixture of caramelized chopped apples, pears, mixed dried fruit and slivered almonds and rolled it up into two beautiful strudels, one of which I froze and will pull out and bake on Thanksgiving. Galettes are more rustic than pies, but they’ll look beautiful on any Thanksgiving buffet, and judging from the way they went over in my house when I was testing the recipes, the apple and the pear and cranberry galettes will please a crowd. A clafoutis is one of the easiest impressive desserts that you can make; it looks a bit like a pie, but there’s no crust. Pears are the fruit to use at this time of year.

~Martha Rose Shulman~

Pear Cranberry Galette

I used Bartlett pears for this juicy galette, but pretty much any variety will work, as long as they’re not overly ripe.

Pumpkin Caramel Mousse in a Glass

I wanted to do something with pumpkin that didn’t involve a crust, so I made a mousse and piped it into small glasses, then sprinkled ground toasted hazelnuts on top.

Apple Walnut Galette

A great rustic apple pie for Thanksgiving, this has very little butter in the pastry and a minimum of sweetening. It’s all about the apples.

Apple Pear Strudel With Dried Fruit and Almonds

This strudel is made with phyllo dough. When I tested it the first time, I found that I had enough filling for two strudels. Rather than cut the amount of filling, I increased the number of strudels to 2, as this is a dessert you can assemble and keep, unbaked, in the freezer.

Pear Clafoutis

If you don’t want to make a crust but want something tartlike for your Thanksgiving dessert, a clafoutis, which is something like a cross between a flan and a pancake, is a great choice.

On This Day In History December 1

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

December 1 is the 335th day of the year (336th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 30 days remaining until the end of the year

.

On this day in 1990, the Chunnel makes breakthrough. Shortly after 11 a.m. on December 1, 1990, 132 feet below the English Channel, workers drill an opening the size of a car through a wall of rock. This was no ordinary hole–it connected the two ends of an underwater tunnel linking Great Britain with the European mainland for the first time in more than 8,000 years.

The Channel Tunnel, or “Chunnel,” was not a new idea. It had been suggested to Napoleon Bonaparte, in fact, as early as 1802. It wasn’t until the late 20th century, though, that the necessary technology was developed. In 1986, Britain and France signed a treaty authorizing the construction of a tunnel running between Folkestone, England, and Calais, France.

The Channel Tunnel (French: Le tunnel sous la Manche), (also informally known as the Chunnel) is a 50.5-kilometre (31.4 mi) undersea rail tunnel linking Folkestone, Kent near Dover in the United Kingdom with Coquelles, Pas-de-Calais near Calais in northern France beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. At its lowest point, it is 75 metres (250 ft) deep. At 37.9 kilometres (23.5 mi), the Channel Tunnel possesses the second longest undersea portion of any tunnel in the world. The Seikan Tunnel in Japan is both longer overall at 53.85 kilometres (33.46 mi), and deeper at 240 metres (790 ft) below sea level.

The tunnel carries high-speed Eurostar passenger trains, Eurotunnel Shuttle roll-on/roll-off vehicle transport-the largest in the world-and international rail freight trains. The tunnel connects end-to-end with the LGV Nord and High Speed 1 high-speed railway lines. In 1996 the American Society of Civil Engineers identified the tunnel as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.

Ideas for a cross-Channel fixed link appeared as early as 1802, but British political and press pressure over compromised national security stalled attempts to construct a tunnel. However, the eventual successful project, organised by Eurotunnel, began construction in 1988 and opened in 1994. The project came in 80% over its predicted budget. Since its construction, the tunnel has faced several problems. Fires have disrupted operation of the tunnel. Illegal immigrants and asylum seekers have attempted to use the tunnel to enter Britain, causing a minor diplomatic disagreement over the siting of the Sangatte refugee camp, which was eventually closed in 2002.

Drama in New Hampshire

As reported earlier this month New Hampshire voters chose the first openly transgender state legislator, Stacy Laughton of Nashua, who represents Ward 4 .  That didn’t sit well with some apparently so the Laconia, NH Daily Sun dug into her past and discovered that prior to her transition, she served 4 and a half months of 2008 in jail on a felony conviction of conspiracy to commit credit card fraud.

She was also convicted of tire slashing and at one point reportedly admitted she faked illness to gain an ambulance ride from Weirs Beach back to the heart of Laconia.

Neither of those latter incidents were felonies of course.

According to NH State law convicted felons can vote and run for public office as long as they are not incarcerated and have successfully completed any court-ordered probation.