The National Security Agency eavesdropped on civil rights icon Martin Luther King and heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali as well as other leading critics of the Vietnam War in a secret program later deemed "disreputable," declassified documents revealed.

The six-year spying program, dubbed "Minaret," had been exposed in the 1970s but the targets of the surveillance had been kept secret until now.

The documents released Wednesday showed the NSA tracked King and his colleague Whitney Young, boxing star Ali, journalists from the New York Times and the Washington Post, and two members of Congress, Senator Frank Church of Idaho and Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee.

Can't say I'm surprised

NSA spied on Martin Luther King

Venezuelan flights booked months in advance because of cash scheme - After a decade of currency controls set up by late socialist leader Hugo Chavez in 2003, the disparity between the official and black-market rates forthe local bolivar currency is higher than ever. Greenbacks now sell on the illegal market at about seven times the government price of 6.3 to the dollar.
There are strict limits on the availability of dollars at the 6.3 rate, but Venezuelans are cashing in on a special currency provision for travelers. With a valid airline ticket, Venezuelans may exchange up to $3,000 at the government rate.

Uh wow.

Part 2 of WTF......I don't understand the world and it scares me.

The Honey Launderers: Uncovering the Largest Food Fraud in U.S. History- Americans consume more honey than anyone else in the world, nearly 400 million pounds every year. About half of that is used by food companies in cereals, bread, cookies, and all sorts of other processed food. Some 60 percent of the honey is imported from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, and other trading partners. Almost none comes from China. After U.S. beekeepers accused Chinese companies of selling their honey at artificially low prices, the government imposed import duties in 2001 that as much as tripled the price of Chinese honey. Since then, little enters from China legally.

I have become more concerned recently about how clueless we are about what is in our food :P

Part 1 of WTF......I don't understand the world and it scares me.

The next time you stop by the cemetery, you may learn a lot more about your dearly departed than their names and a few ceremonial words.
A few companies are now marketing quick response (QR) codes for gravestones, which will allow visitors to connect their smartphones to a website containing a collection of information on a deceased person, including photos, videos and testimonials from family and friends.

Living Headstone?

Created by Lauren Theis and Lila Kerr, the ingenious DIY centrifuge is cobbled together using a salad spinner, some plastic lids, combs, yogurt containers, and a hot glue gun. The simple and easily-replicated design could be an invaluable tool for clinics the developing world, enabling them to separate blood to detect diseases like anemia without electricity.

The students discovered that a salad spinner can separate 15 microliters of blood into plasma and heavy red blood cells after spinning for just 10 minutes. By holding a gauge up to the tube, Theis and Kerr are able to measure a patient’s hematocrit (ratio of red blood cells to total volume), which can indicate anemia. And while anemia itself isn’t deadly, the condition can point to other ailments like HIV, malnutrition, and malaria.

Now this is the shit that we should be nurturing and focusing on.

Students Transform Salad Spinner Into Life-Saving Centrifuge

At the back entrance on 35th Street, awaiting trash haulers, were bags of garments that appear to have never been worn. And to make sure that they never would be worn or sold, someone had slashed most of them with box cutters or razors, a familiar sight outside H & M’s back door.

It is winter. A third of the city is poor. And unworn clothing is being destroyed nightly. A few doors down on 35th Street, hundreds of garments tagged for sale in Wal-Mart — hoodies and T-shirts and pants — were discovered in trash bags the week before Christmas, apparently dumped by a contractor for Wal-Mart that has space on the block. Each piece of clothing had holes punched through it by a machine. They were found by Cynthia Magnus, who attends classes at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York on Fifth Avenue and noticed the piles of discarded clothing as she walked to the subway station in Herald Square. She was aghast at the waste, and dragged some of the bags home to Brooklyn, hoping that someone would be willing to take on the job of patching the clothes and making them wearable.

A Wal-Mart spokeswoman, Melissa Hill, said the company normally donates all its unworn goods to charities, and would have to investigate why the items found on 35th Street were discarded.

During her walks down 35th Street, Ms. Magnus said, it is more common to find destroyed clothing in the H & M trash. On Dec. 7, during an early cold snap, she said, she saw about 20 bags filled with H & M clothing that had been cut up.

“Gloves with the fingers cut off,” Ms. Magnus said, reciting the inventory of ruined items. “Warm socks. Cute patent leather Mary Jane school shoes, maybe for fourth graders, with the instep cut up with a scissor. Men’s jackets, slashed across the body and the arms. The puffy fiber fill was coming out in big white cotton balls.” The jackets were tagged $59, $79 and $129.

This week, a manager in the H & M store on 34th Street said inquiries about its disposal practices had to be made to its United States headquarters. However, various officials did not respond to 10 inquiries made Tuesday by phone and e-mail.

Directly around the corner from H & M is a big collection point for New York Cares, which conducts an annual coat drive.

“We’d be glad to take unworn coats, and companies often send them to us,” said Colleen Farrell, a spokeswoman for New York Cares.

More than coats were tossed out. “The H & M thing was just ridiculous, not only clothing, but bags and bags of sturdy plastic hangers,” Ms. Magnus said. “I took a dozen of them. A girl can never have enough hangers.”

H & M, which is based in Sweden, has an executive in charge of corporate responsibility who leads the company’s sustainability efforts. On its Web site, H&M reports that to save paper, it has shrunk its shipping labels.

“How about all the solid waste generated by throwing away usable garments and plastic hangers?” Ms. Magnus asked in a letter to the executive, Ingrid Schullstrom. She volunteered to help H & M connect with a charity or agency in New York that could put the unsold items to better use than simply tossing them in the trash. So far, she said, she has gotten no response.

unbelieveable

Clothes Discarded by H and M and Wal-Mart are First Destroyed

James von Brunn is alternately described as a decorated World War II PT boat captain, an artist and member of the high-IQ club, Mensa, as well as a notorious racist and anti-Semite.
The man who police say walked into the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in the nation's capital and started shooting Wednesday also is the author of Kill the Best Gentiles, a 200-page book denying the Holocaust and praising Hitler. In writings on what the Anti-Defamation League and other groups say is von Brunn's website, he writes a rambling autobiography and touts the tome as a "hard-hitting exposé of the Jew conspiracy to destroy the white gene pool."

I ran across this story in researching a trip to D.C.

June Shooting at Holocaust Museum

A rare Bugatti supercar left to gather dust in an English garage for half a century could fetch millions when it goes under the hammer next month, a report said Thursday. Experts believe the car -- one of just a handful ever made -- could fetch as much as six million pounds (6.2 million euros, 8.7 million dollars) when it is auctioned at the Retromobile car show and sale being organised by Bonhams in Paris in February. Harold Carr, a surgeon, apparently abandoned the rare Bugatti in his lock-up in northeastern Newcastle after buying it in the 1950s. When the reclusive Carr died in 2007, his nephew found the Type 57S Atalante when he cleared out the garage and was amazed to learn that just 17 of the model were ever made.

James Knight, international head of Bonhams' motoring department, said: "I have known of this Bugatti for a number of years and, like a select group of others, hadn't dared divulge its whereabouts to anyone. "It is absolutely one of the last great barn discoveries... The Atalante is incredibly original and, although she requires restoration, it is 'restoration' in the true sense of the word.

Rare Bugatti untouched for 50 years could fetch millions

The Man Rules­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­
At last a guy has taken the time to write this all down

Finally , the guys' side of the story.
( I must admit, it's pretty good.)
We always hear " the rules "
From the female side.

Now here are the rules from the male side.

These are our rules!
Please note.. these are all numbered "1 "
ON PURPOSE!

1. Men are NOT mind readers.

1. Learn to work the toilet seat.
You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down.
We need it up, you need it down.
You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

1. Sunday sports It's like the full moon
or the changing of the tides.
Let it be.

1. Crying is blackmail.

1. Ask for what you want.
Let us be clear on this one:
Subtle hints do not work!
Strong hints do not work!
Obvious hints do not work!
Just say it!

1. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.

1. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what we do.
Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument.
In fact, all comments become Null and void after 7 Days.

1. If you think you're fat, you probably are.
Don't ask us.

1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one

1. You can either ask us to do something
Or tell us how you want it done.
Not both.
If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.

1. Whenever possible, Please say whatever you have to say during commercials..

1. Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we.

1. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings.
Peach, for example, is a fruit, not A color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.

1. If it itches, it will be scratched.
We do that.

1. If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing," We will act like nothing's wrong.
We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.

1. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, Expect an answer you don't want to hear.

1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine... Really .

1. Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as baseball or
motor sports

1. You have enough clothes.

1. You have too many shoes.

1. I am in shape. Round IS a shape!

1. Thank you for reading this.
Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight;

But did you know men really don't mind that? It's like camping.

For the natives of Northeast United States,sweetest day comes as a holiday which is celebrated on the third Saturday of October. This day took birth in Cleveland in the year 1922 when Herbert Birch Kingston who was a philanthropist and a candy company employee, thought of bringing smiles on the faces of the poor,neglected and the forgotten. To execute this great thought of his, he took the help of his friend and distributed candies and gifts among the underprivileged group. This was an effort to convey to these people that they were equally important as others and their existence was well respected and cared for. This effort by Kingston was well appreciated and gradually with passing times, much of the Clevelanders joined in to make it a big and important occasion.

The Sweetness of Sweetest Day