President Obama on Thursday called on Congress to beef up security at U.S. diplomatic facilities, saying the country owes it to the four Americans who died at the Benghazi, Libya, mission last year to protect other personnel serving around the world.
Matt and I have been having this discussion as to how to pronounce the word "Leica," as in the camera and optics manufacturer. At one time, I thought it was pronounced "lisa," but have pronounced it "like-a" for the past couple of years after hearing a bigwhig photographer pronounce it that way in a podcast.Many archeologists argue that the 2012 reference on a 1,300-year-old stone tablet only marks the end of a cycle in the Mayan calendar.
"The world will not end. It is an era," said Yeanet Zaldo, a tourism spokeswoman for the Caribbean state of Quintana Roo, home to Cancun.
The Mayan civilization, which reached its height from 300 A.D. to 900 A.D., had a talent for astronomy.
Its Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 B.C., marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas, and they wrote that the 13th Baktun ends on Dec. 21, 2012.
The doomsday theories stem from a stone tablet discovered in the 1960s at the archaeological site of Tortuguero in the Gulf of Mexico state of Tabasco that describes the return of a Mayan god at the end of a 13th period.
"The Maya are viewed by many westerners as exotic folks that were supposed to have had some special, secret knowledge," said Mayan scholar Sven Gronemeyer. "What happens is that our expectations and fears get projected on the Maya calendar."
Gronemeyer of La Trobe University in Australia compares the supposed Mayan prophecies to the "Y2K" hype, when people feared all computer systems would crash when the new millennium began on Jan. 1, 2000.
For some reason, Gronemeyer says, people have ignored evidence that dates beyond 2012 were recorded.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings sent a letter to subscribers on Monday, admitting he "messed up" and announcing that it would spin off its DVD and Blu-ray-based mailing business as a new service dubbed "Qwikster."
The company's changes come in response to a subscriber backlash that was spurred by higher prices for rentals of physical DVDs. Hastings said the pricing for combined streaming, via Netflix, and mailed rentals, from Qwikster, will remain the same as it is currently.
Global warming may not remain merely "global" anymore, as a new study suggests its cosmic impact.
Beyond endangering the earthly inhabitants, humans may have posed a serious threat to the entire galaxy, possibly prompting aliens to destroy humanity in order to end global warming and save the rest of the galaxy from being contaminated as well.
By using spectrometry, extraterrestrials could detect changes in Earth's atmosphere and deduce that we're out of control, speculated the researchers, among a number of other scenarios discussed in the 33-page paper.
Some scenarios suggest that human contact with aliens would be beneficial, such as how aliens would help us acquire better knowledge and help us solve problems such as hunger, poverty and enable us to eliminate diseases. Another scenario points toward an alliance between humans and Aliens to help us protect ourselves from an attack by other extra-territorial beings.
Human cheese is initially a pretty shocking concept to most people. In that way its a great conversation starter -- people very quickly bring up all sorts of different issues. I've had questions come up like, is it OK for a vegan? Is it empowering or exploitative of the woman? Is it dangerous, or actually healthier?
Many people feel uncomfortable because they don't know the woman, or what she is eating -- but how often do you know the cows whose milk make your cheese, and what they are eating?
3:00 - Item investigating reports of shots fired at SHSU; campus on lockdown; officers massed around Avenue I.
3:40 - All clear at SHSU. More info to come.
4:00 - Police say SHSU reports due to Nerf game on campus.
Anyone who ever bought an iPhone on AT&T is now part of a class-action lawsuit taking aim at both the wireless carrier and Apple for their exclusive contract.
The lawsuit, filed in 2007, accuses both the iPhone maker and AT&T of illegally exerting a monopoly over iPhone customers. It alleges that iPhone users are forced to stay with AT&T after their two-year contract expires, because neither AT&T nor Apple will unlock the iPhone for use on another carrier, such as T-Mobile.
A handful of California students got an unexpected lesson at their high school this week: Don't wear your stars and stripes on Cinco de Mayo.
Five Morgan Hill, California students were asked to take off their American flag bandannas and turn their T-shirts inside out after students complained, according to NBC news in San Francisco.
Many members of Live Oak High School's large Mexican-American student population that felt it was offensive for the students to wear the American flag on a day that's supposed to celebrate Mexican heritage.
When the boys refused to take off their flag t-shirts and bandannas, they were ordered to go to the principal's office.
"They said we could wear it on any other day," Live Oak student Daniel Galli said, "but today is sensitive to Mexican-Americans because it's supposed to be their holiday so we were not allowed to wear it today."
Actress Lindsay Lohan has sued an arm of E*Trade Financial Corp., the operator of a popular online brokerage, alleging the company misappropriated her name and personality in a recent television advertisement.
The suit, filed in state court in Mineola, N.Y., on Monday, seeks $100 million in damages and demands that the company stop airing the ad.
The commercial features a baby boy chatting online through a Web cam with a baby girl, but in the voices and vernacular of a flirtatious, much-older couple. After the boy explains why he failed to call the girl the night before, the girl asks the boy, accusingly: "And that milkaholic, Lindsay, wasn't over?" That prompts a second baby girl, presumably "Lindsay," to jump in the frame on the boy's side. "Milk-a-what?" she asks into the camera, her voice loud and shrill.
Ms. Lohan's lawyer, Stephanie Ovadia, did not immediately return a request for comment, but alleges the spot is clearly a reference to her client. She told the New York Post: "Many celebrities are known by one name only, and E-Trade is using that knowledge to profit. ... They used the name Lindsay." She went on to say: "They're using her name as a parody of her life. Why didn't they use the name Susan? This is a subliminal message. Everybody's talking about it and saying it's Lindsay Lohan."
Nicole Richie and her Good Charlotte rocker boyfriend, Joel Madden, are getting married.
Richie, 28, made the announcement Monday on The Late Show with David Letterman.
"Yep. i'm engaged. Very happy," wrote Madden, 30, on Twitter Monday.
A source tells UsMagazine.com, "Nicole and Joel are in the process of planning the wedding. She's very involved in every detail. She’s thrilled."
The couple is expected to tie the knot in the summer.
Richie and Madden started dating in December 2006 and have two children together: Harlow, 2, and Sparrow, 5 months.
A planetary law, such as China's one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently, which is one million births every four days.
Oprah Winfrey has made it official: In a tearful announcement at the end of her show in Chicago on Friday, she confirmed that The Oprah Winfrey Show will end in September 2011.
BEIJING, Nov 18 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama gave his sternest warning yet about the need to contain rising U.S. deficits, saying on Wednesday that if government debt were to pile up too much, it could lead to a double-dip recession.
"It is important though to recognize if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession," he said.
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