Hurrricane Isaac is now coming

Isaac is now a hurricane which is expected to landfall on Tuesday night in New Orleans and Louisiana. Here is the news: 

Isaac finally reached hurricane strength on Tuesday, closing in on New Orleans and the entire Louisiana coast as a slow-moving giant expected to make landfall Tuesday night and then dump up to 20 inches of rain in some spots.

"It's going to be a long period of really bad weather" for the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts as well as areas inland, National Hurricane Center Director Rick Knabb told MSNBC. 

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said he expects his city "will get the brunt of it."

Hundreds of quakes shook San Diego

 "A swarm" of several hundred earthquakes, the strongest measuring a 5.5 magnitude, were centered east of San Diego near California's border with Mexico on Sunday afternoon but caused little damage, seismologists said.

Sunday's shaking in Southern California's Imperial Valley was the most activity recorded there since the 1970s, according to U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones.

"We are having a swarm," Jones said. "We expect thousands of events (like this) over several days."

In Brawley, the town closest to the center of the swarm, a Fire Department dispatcher said there were no reports of injuries so far. Brawley is about 100 miles east of San Diego and about 200 miles southeast of Los Angeles.hundreds of 

Neil Armstrong, the First Man in the Moon Died

He was the first man to walk on the moon and now he died at age 82. Here is the news:

Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, has died, his family said Saturday. He was 82.

"We are heartbroken to share the news that Neil Armstrong has passed away following complications resulting from cardiovascular procedures," Armstrong's family said in a statement.

Armstrong underwent heart surgery this month.

"While we mourn the loss of a very good man, we also celebrate his remarkable life and hope that it serves as an example to young people around the world to work hard to make their dreams come true, to be willing to explore and push the limits, and to selflessly serve a cause greater than themselves," his family said.

The raid and killing of Bin Laden is now in the book. Here is the news:

A book company said Wednesday that it will release on September 11 a firsthand account of the raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Christine Ball, director of marketing and publicity for Dutton, a subsidiary of Penguin Group USA, said the book was written by a Navy SEAL under a pen name.

The book is entitled "No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden."

A Department of Defense official said the SEAL is no longer on active duty.

U.S. Special Operations Command has not reviewed the book or approved it, the official said. Officials only recently became aware the former SEAL was writing a book but were told it encompasses more than just the raid and includes vignettes from training and other missions.

They would like to see a copy, the official said, to make sure no classified information is released or the book contains any information that might out one of the team members.

Officials have been told that some of the profits are going to charity.

Former Special Forces officers slam Obama over leaks on bin Laden killing

About two dozen U.S. Special Operations members and two helicopters were involved in the raid early May 2, 2011, in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed bin Laden.

The raid occurred in a span of 38 minutes, after CIA reports of repeated sightings of a tall man doing "prison yard walks" around the yard of the housing compound in Abbottabad, which was under constant surveillance, a official said on condition of anonymity a few days after the raid.

Rosie O' Donnel suffered a heart attack

Rosie O' Donnel experience the symptoms of a heart attack. Here is the news:

Rosie O'Donnell is "happy to be alive" after suffering a heart attack last week.

“I am lucky to be here,” she wrote on her blog Monday.

O'Donnell, 50, wrote that she began experiencing symptoms, such as sore arms and an ache in her chest, on Tuesday after helping “an enormous woman/struggling to get out of her car.”

After a Google search suggested she was having a heart attack, O'Donnell said she took Bayer Aspirin, but did not call 911.

The next day, O'Donnell recalled, her doctor sent her to a hospital where a stent was put in, and she was also informed her that her “LAD was 99 percent blocked.”

Phyllis Diller died with a smile i her face

She was a comedian and she died in her sleep. Whst a way to go. Here is the news:

Comedian Phyllis Diller, known for her self-deprecating humor, died "peacefully in her sleep" at her Los Angeles home Monday morning, her manager told CNN. Diller was 95.

Her son, Perry, "found her with a smile on her face," manager Milt Suchin said.

Diller's career as a stand-up comic, which she started at age 37, skyrocketed in the 1960s, partly because of her many appearances with Bob Hope on his television specials, USO tours and three movies.

She became a pop culture icon for her disparaging jokes about her looks, her cooking and her fictitious husband "Fang." She wore a blonde fright wig, held a long cigarette holder as a prop and laughed with a loud cackle.

Political Battle over MEDICARE

Both Obama and his political opponent Romney are battling over MEDICARE.

Here is the news:

(CNN) – The political battle over Medicare, brewing since Mitt Romney named Paul Ryan as his running mate, showed no signs of easing Sunday, with operatives from each campaign claiming their side had an advantage with senior citizens concerned about their government-funded health benefits.

Romney senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom, speaking on CNN's "State of the Union," said his campaign wasn't worried that seniors would be turned off by Ryan's House budget plan, which proposes allowing private insurers to compete with traditional Medicare on an exchange.

Robredo and the pilots are still missing

There were already more than three hundred in search and rescue operation for the DILG Secretary Robredo but they have not found them yet.

Here is the news:

President Benigno Aquino on Sunday took the lead in the search for Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, a day after a light plane carrying the local government chief and three others crashed in waters off Masbate.

Mr. Aquino flew to Masbate early Sunday morning to oversee the search for the wreckage of the four-seat Piper Seneca that crashed into the sea while attempting an emergency landing about 5 p.m. on Saturday.

More than 300 rescuers were scouring the area about 500 meters from the shore of Masbate City for Robredo, who was missing along with the plane’s two pilots.

Robredo’s bodyguard, Chief Insp. Jun Abrasado, made a dramatic escape from the doomed plane and was rescued by fishermen. Abrasado was helping in the search, officials said.

Transportation Secretary Manuel Roxas, who accompanied Mr. Aquino and was designated as official spokesperson for the search, said special sonar equipment had been flown to Masbate to help in the search operation after some debris, including one wing of the missing plane, was recovered.

“We just want to do everything we can to save him [Robredo],” Roxas said in a message on Twitter.

“We remain hopeful that Secretary Robredo was just carried by the current … and that he will be found,” Roxas said, adding that Mr. Aquino was “very emotionally attached” to Robredo and was doing everything he could to help find him.

Four people were on the private plane that was heading for Naga City in Camarines Sur province from Cebu City when it malfunctioned and crashed in waters between Masbate and Ticao Islands.

Missing, aside from Robredo, were Capt. Jessup Bahinting, the pilot and CEO of Aviatour Air that owned the aircraft, and Kshitiz Chand, the Nepalese copilot.

At about 3 p.m. Sunday, Masbate Bantay Dagat reported to City Mayor Socrates Tuason that a large object had been detected on the seafloor.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) also reported that a Navy vessel’s sonar had detected “something metallic” on the sea floor.

“The sonar showed it was something metallic. But it’s not definite yet if that was really part of the airplane,” NDRRMC Executive Director Benito Ramos said by phone.

Romney slammed Obama Medicare

Romney attacked the MEDICARE program of Obama. Here's the news:

tt Romney attacked President Barack Obama Saturday over the future of Medicare in his first weekly podcast ahead of the November election.

In the address posted on his website, the GOP's presidential candidate said Obama’s healthcare law had taken $716 billion from the fund to finance “his takeover of the healthcare system.”

"Now if that wasn’t bad enough, his healthcare law also put in place a board of 15 unelected bureaucrats and gave them the power to make additional cuts to Medicare without even having to get approval from Congress,” he said.

“This means they could deny elderly Americans the care they’ve worked for their entire lives -- all because President Obama trusts bureaucrats more than he trusts seniors and their doctors,” he said.

“And here’s one more troubling aspect of all this: According to independent, non-partisan scorekeepers, these cuts the President’s people will take to Medicare won’t prevent it from going bankrupt: Experts estimate that Medicare’s trust funds will be exhausted just twelve short years from now,” Romney added.

Another Ponzi Scheme

People don't learn their lesson . This is another scam that would deprive many people of the money they saved and enrich people who operate she operation. Here is the news:

RALEIGH, North Carolina— Federal securitiesregulators have filed fraud charges and an emergency order to freeze the assets of a North Carolina company officials say operated a $600-million Ponzi scheme that is on the verge of collapse.

The action by the Securities and ExchangeCommission Friday is intended to help investors recoup money and avoid devastating losses.

Online marketer Paul Burks is accused of raising money from more than 1 million customers through ZeekRewards.com, a website in operation less than 2 years.

ZeekRewards customers were offered ways to earn money through the site, including buying unregisteredinvestment contracts that promised a share the company’s profits through rewards points that could be traded for cash payouts.

Toilet of the Future

This is good news:

SEATTLE, Washington—These aren’t your typical toilets. One uses microwave energy to transform human waste into electricity. Another captures urine and uses it for flushing. And still another turns excrement into charcoal.

They are part of a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation competition to reinvent the toilet for the 2.5 billion people around the world who don’t have access to modern sanitation systems for handling the basic and vital need in disposing of bodily waste.

Scientists from around the world have taken up the challenge, and the foundation announced some projects on Tuesday that would be getting more money to take their ideas from the lab to the cities.  There, local entrepreneurs are expected to use the newtechnology to turn pollution into cash.

“Toilets are extremely important for public health and, when you think of it, even human dignity,” Gates, the Microsoft cofounder turned global philanthropist, said in a statement launching the “Reinvent the Toilet Fair” in Seattle.

“The flush toilets we use in the wealthy world are irrelevant, impractical and impossible for 40 percent of the global population, because they often don’t have access to water, and sewers, electricity, and sewage treatment systems,” he added.

The toilet fair was described as a swirl of about 200 inventors, designers, investors, partners and others passionate about creating safe, effective, and inexpensive waste management systems.

“We couldn’t be happier with the response that we’ve gotten,” Bill Gates said.

US Immigration Change

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services began accepting requests Wednesday for consideration of deferred actionfor young undocumented immigrants who arrived in America as children.

Here are five things you should know about the bold change announced by President Barack Obama in June:

1. What is it?

The policy is a "temporary" measure that allows eligible immigrants to apply for work permits and deportation deferral for a two-year period. Supporters stress it does not grant immunity or a provide a shortcut to citizenship but affords undocumented immigrant children a chance to be productive workers -- with a promise they won't be deported for two years. Opponents see the policy as granting backdoor amnesty to people who came to America illegally and tightening an already poor job market for young Americans.

2. Who is eligible?

Obama and Romney on MEDICARE

The focus of the debate of Obama ad Romney is MEDICARE, the health care plan for senior citizens.

Here is the news: 

President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney battled over Medicare and energy policy Tuesday as the November election campaign reached out to battleground states crucial to both sides' chances for victory.

In an escalating struggle to seize the advantage on the contentious Medicare issue, the Romney campaign counterpunched with a new ad accusing Obama of cutting more than $700 billion from the government-run health care plan for senior citizens.

Romney made the same claim at two Ohio campaign appearances, three days after his selection of House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan brought the issue to the forefront of the campaign spotlight.

Ryan is best-known for a conservative budget plan passed by the U.S. House that includes reforms to partially privatize Medicare, which Democrats say will kill the popular entitlement program.

To counter consistent Democratic attacks in recent days against Ryan's Medicare proposals, the new Romney ad sought to turn the tables by contending the money senior citizens have paid into Medicare for years will instead fund Obama's 2010 health care reform bill.

At a campaign event Tuesday in Ohio, Romney beat the same drum.

"When he ran for office he said he'd protect Medicare, but did you know that he has taken $716 billion out of the Medicare trust fund -- he's raided that trust fund -- and you know what he did with it?" Romney said of Obama. "He's used it to pay for Obamacare -- a risky, unproven, federal government takeover of health care -- and if I'm president of the United States we're putting the $716 billion back."

A July 24 Congressional Budget Office report said that repealing the health care law, as called for by Romney and Ryan, would increase spending on Medicare by $716 billion through 2022. At the same time, the CBO letter said keeping Obamacare in place would not mean a $716 billion decrease in Medicare spending as claimed by Romney and his ad.

The Obama campaign called Romney's claim "dishonest and "hypocritical."

"The savings his ad attacks do not cut a single guaranteed Medicare benefit, and Mitt Romney embraced the very same savings when he promised he'd sign Paul Ryan's budget," said Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith.

David Axelrod, Obama's senior campaign adviser, told CNN earlier Tuesday that Medicare reforms in the president's health care law "took away subsidies, unwarranted subsidies, to insurance companies, and he used that money to help lengthen the life of Medicare by nearly a decade."

Steve Job's Home Robbed

Steve Job's home in Palo Alto was burglarized.

Here is the news: 

More than $60,000 worth of computers and personal items have been stolen from the Palo Alto, California, home of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

Kariem McFarlin, 35, of Alameda was arrested and charged with residential burglary and selling stolen property, according to Scott Tsui, supervising deputy district attorney for Santa Clara County. McFarlin remains in the Santa Clara County jail on $500,000 bail pending a court hearing on Monday, Tsui said.

The break-in occurred July 17, although details of the burglary and McFarlin's August 2 arrest are now just becoming public. The house was being renovated last month, and nobody was home at the time, Tsui said.

Vanessa Williams on Toddlers and Tiaras

Maybe now would be a good time for the folks behind "Toddlers & Tiaras" to wish for world peace. The controversial show is no stranger to coming under fire for its provocative presentation of young girls, having been slammed by everyone from JonBenet Ramsey's father to media outlets who've labeled its contestants as "prosti-tots."

But now, no less than former Miss America Vanessa Williams has come forward to criticize the show, and she's got some ugly things to say about "T&T's" treatment of its pretty little ladies ...

Senator Edward Kennedy 1932-2009

Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy succumbed to brain cancer. He was 77. He was the brother of the late President John F. Kennedy, and late Senator Robert Kennedy, both assassinated.



photocredt:washington post

Here is the excerpt of the news news:

Edward M. Kennedy, one of the most powerful and influential senators in American history and one of three brothers whose political triumphs and personal tragedies captivated the nation for decades, died at 77.

Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, was the last survivor of a privileged and charismatic family that in the 1960s dominated American politics and attracted worldwide attention. As heir through tragedy to his accomplished older brothers -- President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.), both of whom were assassinated -- Edward Kennedy became the patriarch of his clan and a towering figure in the U.S. Senate to a degree neither of his siblings had been.

NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS WERE DUPED BY A PONZI SCHEMER

BERNARD MADOFF established a reputation in Wall street only to be uncovered that he is a fraud and a scammer using the old Ponzi scheme. His total loot..50 billion dollars.

Deborah Coltin learned yesterday morning that the $8 million foundation she has led for a decade, which supported a wide range of Jewish programs on the north shore of Massachusetts, did not actually exist.

The foundation had invested its endowment with Bernard L. Madoff, a storied name on Wall Street. Every year, Madoff paid out several hundred thousand dollars to the foundation. But on Thursday, Madoff was charged with securities fraud after confessing to his sons that his business was a Ponzi scheme, according to a complaint filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The returns paid to investors came from money invested by other people. And there was almost nothing left.

It may be the largest fraud in the history of Wall Street, authorities said. Madoff is charged with stealing as much as $50 billion, in part to cover a pattern of massive losses, even as he cultivated a reputation as a financial mastermind and prominent philanthropist.

Rod Blagojevich asked to step down

The travails of the Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich who was accused of selling the position vacated by President-elect Barack Obama continue as the Attorney General asked te highest court to remove him from office.

This is from CNN

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan on Friday asked her state's highest court to remove Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office temporarily.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan says Gov. Rod Blagojevich needs to step down.

Moments after Madigan's announcement, news broke that Blagojevich's chief of staff, John Harris, had resigned, a spokesman for the governor said.

Blagojevich, 52, and Harris, 46, were arrested this week on federal corruption charges relating in part to the selection of a successor to President-elect Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat.

The governor's attorney has said Blagojevich did nothing wrong.

Madigan's office also asked the Illinois Supreme Court to strip Blagojevich of duties, including appointing Obama's Senate replacement.

"I recognize that this is an extraordinary request, but these are extraordinary circumstances," Madigan said Friday in Chicago.

Madigan said she wants Blagojevich out of office because, given the charges against him, she does not think he can do his job. The court filing asks that Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn become acting governor.

"As governor, Mr. Blagojevich's duty is to do what is best for the people of the state of Illinois, not for himself.

War is all about global oil supply--Greenspan

Alan Greenspan admitted that the war is all aobut global oil supply and the ouster of Saddam is crucial for oil security.


Greenspan: Ouster Of Hussein Crucial For Oil Security

Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said in an interview that the removal of Saddam Hussein had been "essential" to secure world oil supplies, a point he emphasized to the White House in private conversations before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Greenspan, who was the country's top voice on monetary policy at the time Bush decided to go to war in Iraq, has refrained from extensive public comment on it until now, but he made the striking comment in a new memoir out today that "the Iraq War is largely about oil." In the interview, he clarified that sentence in his 531-page book, saying that while securing global oil supplies was "not the administration's motive," he had presented the White House with the case for why removing Hussein was important for the global economy.

Read the entire news here.

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O.J. Simpson in the News Again for Alleged Robbery

He claimed he just wanted to get his belongings back.

O.J. Simpson Is Charged In Alleged Robbery

Las Vegas police arrested O.J. Simpson yesterday and charged the former football star with six felony counts in connection with an alleged hotel-room robbery, placing Simpson in his most serious legal jeopardy since his acquittal on double murder charges in 1995.

Simpson, 60, was arrested yesterday morning, three days after two sports-memorabilia dealers told police that Simpson and five other men burst into their room at the Palace Station Hotel and Casino, several of them brandishing guns, and seized various mementos, including several items autographed by the NFL Hall of Famer.

Read the entire news from Washington Post.

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