Panda bear cub playing at the Shanghai Zoo

Gaither Toronto Homecoming - “Just a Little While”

Mismanagement shames Arlington Cemetery

Worried families calling Arlington about cemetery mix-ups reported yesterday.

The Army announced Thursday that an investigation found potentially hundreds of remains may be unidentified or misidentified due to poor management and record keeping at the cemetery.

The Army has fired the two top Arlington administrators after a scathing review of America's "sacred ground" revealed more than 200 bodies had been misplaced or misidentified amid "dysfunctional management."

Link here and here.

Teen sailor found adrift in Indian Ocean

A 16-year-old sailor on a round-the-world journey was adrift in the frigid southern Indian Ocean on Friday as rescue boats headed toward her yacht, damaged by 30-foot waves that knocked out her communications and prompted her to set off a distress signal.

After a tense 20 hours of silence, a search plane launched from Australia's west coast made radio contact with Abby Sunderland on Friday.

The boat's mast was broken — ruining satellite phone reception — and was dragging with the sail in the ocean.

Link here and here.

University of Nebraska to join Big Ten

Will the last university to leave the Big 12 Conference please turn off the lights.


From a report at the link below:

According to a number of reports coming out of Nebraska, one of the most storied football programs in all of college football will join the Big Ten.

The Pac-10 allegedly extended offers to roughly half of the Big 12 in the last couple weeks; the mega-conference on the West coast reportedly invited Texas, Texas A & M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado to jump ship.

Schools in the Big 12 North with questionable futures include Kansas, Kansas State and Iowa State.

College athletics has always been driven by football because that’s where the money is.

This puts the University of Kansas in an uncomfortable position. The dominant sport at KU is basketball and teams that change from one conference to another must transfer all of their sports - not just football.

Link

60M gallons and 53 days later Obama finally to meet BP chairman

Barack Obama has finally summoned BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg to a meeting over the gulf oil spill.

The report at the link below says Obama didn’t want to meet with BP’s CEO.

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs parried questions about the failure to meet BP CEO Tony Hayward, and said that the firm's chairman was a more logical choice for any meeting.

Why then wasn’t a meeting with the chairman scheduled instead rather than waiting this long?

The reluctance on the part of Obama to meet with anyone connected with BP was no doubt because BP was a huge financial contributor to the Obama presidential campaign.

Now, however, after over 50 days and 60 million gallons later, Obama can’t wait any longer. He is acting tough -- saying he is looking for an a** to kick and finally planning to meet with someone at BP.

Link

View of oil slick from high in the air

Close-up of oil on the water

Teen girl feared lost on solo world sail

From a report at the link below:

A 16-year-old Southern California girl attempting a solo sail around the world was feared in trouble Thursday thousands of miles from land in the frigid, heaving southern Indian Ocean after her emergency beacons began signaling and communication was lost.

The photo at right above shows Abby Sunderland in January about to leave on her solo trip.

Abby is shown above on the cover of Seafaring magazine.

Abby Sunderland set sail from Los Angeles County's Marina del Rey in her 40-foot boat named Wild Eyes on Jan. 23.

She wanted to become the youngest person to sail around the world alone without stopping.

Link

U P D A T E
Rescuers make radio contact with teen sailor adrift in ocean.

A 16-year-old sailor on a round-the-world journey was adrift in the frigid southern Indian Ocean on Friday as rescue boats headed toward her yacht, damaged by 30-foot waves that knocked out her communications and prompted her to set off a distress signal.

Link

It’s Chevrolet not Chevy - got that?

General Motors executives are ready to drive their Chevy to the levee — and into the river. Well, the nickname Chevy, anyway.

From a report at the link below:

Apparently, when General Motors isn't busy destroying documents they're apparently not taking the time to improve their vehicles.

Instead, they're fretting over whether people refer to their most popular brand as "Chevrolet" or "Chevy."

In a memo sent to employees yesterday, GM executives wrote:

We'd ask that whether you're talking to a dealer, reviewing dealer advertising, or speaking with friends and family, that you communicate our brand as Chevrolet moving forward...

When you look at the most recognized brands throughout the world, such as Coke or Apple for instance, one of the things they all focus on is the consistency of their branding.

Except... their example of Coke certainly doesn't fly in terms of a consistent brand name. Since the company is named "Coca Cola" and in some parts of the country, a "Coke" just means any kind of soda. And even though "Apple" is a solid brand name, many people refer to their Apple computers as "Macs," and yet everyone knows they're referring to an Apple product.

It seems like GM is banning the use of “Chevy” - internally anyway.

What about national advertising? Will the name Chevy disappear from GM ads?

Just for fun we made a correction to a 2010 Camero ad calling it a Chevy as shown here.

How far will they go? One Internet article wondered if they want the lyrics of the song changed from “I drove my Chevy to the levee” to “I drove my Chevrolet to the levrolet?”

Link

Nevada Senate race: Angle 50%, Reid 39%

From Rasmussen Reports:

Sharron Angle, following her come-from-behind Republican Primary win Tuesday, has bounced to an 11-point lead over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada’s closely-watched U.S. Senate race.

This will make Angle the top target of Democrats who don’t want Harry Reid to be the second Senate Majority Leader to be defeated in just six years.

Link

Worst Apple security breach: 114,000I Pad owners exposed

Apple is embarrassed again. This time it’s the worst security breach in the company’s history as 114,000 iPad owners could be exposed to spam marketing and malicious hacking.

This includes all iPad owners including dozens of CEOs, military officials, and top politicians.

The breach, which comes just weeks after an Apple employee lost an iPhone prototype in a bar, exposed the most exclusive e-mail list on the planet, a collection of early-adopter iPad 3G subscribers that includes thousands of A-listers in finance, politics and media, from New York Times Co. CEO Janet Robinson to Diane Sawyer of ABC News to film mogul Harvey Weinstein to Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

It even appears that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's information was compromised.

The report at the link below says it doesn't stop there. According to the data they were given by the web security group that exploited vulnerabilities on the AT&T network, they believe 114,000 user accounts have been compromised, although it's possible that confidential information about every iPad 3G owner in the U.S. has been exposed!

More here.

He wants another bottle of wine

Diversity at Carnival of Cultures Parade

Photos taken at the Carnival of Cultures Parade in Berlin. Thousands of people in a wide variety of costumes attend the Carnival celebrations.

Link

More on Obama’s six-month moratorium …

Watch the cleaning of oil-drenched pelicans

The photo above shows a pelican coming in for a landing in the gulf before the oil arrived. The video below shows how pelicans not so fortunate are cleaned after being contaminated by oil in the gulf.



Link here to CNN pelican rehab report.

Did the FBI blow it during the van der Sloot sting?

Joran van der Sloot tried to extort $250,000 from Natalee Holloway’s mother in exchange for disclosing the location of Natalee's body on the island of Aruba.

U.S. authorities stepped in and paid Joran van der Sloot $15,000 in a sting operation. The agency wired the $15,000 to a bank account van der Sloot controlled.


The photo shows Joran van der Sloot flanked by Natalee Holloway on the left and Stephany Flores on the right.

The FBI delayed arresting van der Sloot because they were trying to build a murder case against him in the 5-year-old disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba.

While the FBI was building a case for the Aruba disappearance, van der Sloot took the money and fled to Peru where he has now confessed to the murder of Stephany Flores.

Link

Peacock shows of his plumage

A peacock shows off his plumage at the Great Plaines Zoo in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Apple CEO embarrassed on stage by tech issues showing off new iPhone

As Apple CEO Steve Jobs (pictured) began showing off the newest version of his iPhone to the world he began having monumental tech problems as demonstrated in the three minute video below.

He even asked anyone in the room to shut down if they were on WiFi. Tech zapped the tech guy.

By the way, doesn’t he have anything in his closet besides faded, baggy jeans?

New stadium for 49ers to be built in Santa Clara

The San Francisco 49’ers will say goodbye to Candlestick Park in 2014 when they move into a new stadium in Santa Clara.

An architect’s rendition of the new stadium is show above.

The team will keep the name San Francisco 49’ers even though, beginning in 2014, they will play their home games about an hours drive from San Francisco.

Changing the name of the team would probably drive fans away in droves. Can you imagine calling them the Santa Clara 49’ers? Neither can we.

Link

Ladies prevail in key primary elections

Left to right: Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Blanche Lincoln, Sharron Angle.

California:

Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman defeated California state insurance commissioner Steve Poizner in what is the most expensive primary campaign based on candidates spending their own money.

Poizner put $24 million of his own money into his primary campaign while Whitman spent $71 million of her own money.

Also in California, Carly Fiorina, a former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, beat Tom Campbell, a former congressman, and Chuck DeVore.

Whitman will challenge Jerry Brown, the state’s attorney general, who was first elected governor of California three decades ago.

Nevada:

Republicans in Nevada chose Sharron Angle to run against Harry Reid, the embattled Senate majority leader. Mr. Reid has emerged as a primary target of conservatives intent on toppling key Democrats this year.

Arkansas:

Blance Lincoln won in a runoff over Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, despite millions of dollars spent on his behalf by organized labor and other special interests.

Link

Victory formation at the stadium

Members of the South African Police Service sit in a “V formation” to watch a security demonstration at a stadium in Cape Town.