Apple defends iPhone suicide factory

So far this year ten workers have killed themselves at the iPhone factory in China.

They all jumped off buildings at the Taiwanese company Foxconn at its factory in Shenzhen, China.

Apple chief Steve Jobs (pictured) has defended the factory in China where the firm's iPhone is produced, following the suicides at the plant.

Now Mr Jobs has sought to reassure his customers that the company's ethical standards have not been compromised.

Speaking at a technology conference, Mr. Jobs insisted: "Foxconn is not a sweatshop.”

"You go in this place and it's a factory but, my gosh, they've got restaurants and movie theatres and hospitals and swimming pools."

The firm, that makes Apple's iPhones as well as products for Dell and Nokia, has announced it is giving its Chinese assembly line workers an immediate 30% pay rise.

The factory hopes the increase in wages will help improve the workers standards of living and allow them to have more leisure time.


The photo shows the Foxconn factory with nets installed to help prevent suicides from employees jumping to their deaths.

Link here and here.

Wintley Phipps - Amazing Grace

Wintley Phipps talks about the song Amazing Grace

Winking baby lion

A baby white lion appears to be winking at a safari park in Schloss Holte-Stukenbrock,
Germany

Joe Biden on being Vice President

“It's easy being Vice President — you don't have to do anything.”

- Joe Biden, just before the afternoon session of the health care summit last February 25, 2010.

Driver in spectacular toll booth crash claimed she was real-ended

The driver in the spectacular toll booth crash, shown in the video below, claimed she was rear-ended.



The spectacular crash was captured by a security camera. The video was originally posted on Unfair Park, a blog of the Dallas Observer – and then picked up by countless other websites – the video has drawn viewers worldwide.

The driver has become an Internet sensation for flying – literally – through the north toll plaza at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

The driver, 22-year-old Yasmine Villasana, was lucky to survive with minor injuries when her car careened through the air and burst into flames.

Link
www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/060310dnmettollbooth.68e8e169.html

Lego computer printer - delightful

Thanks to Ingrid for the link

Obama heads to gulf - cancels Asia trip

The Obama Asia trip has been canceled.

Obama had a sensitive political decision to make: Risk putting off two allies in a strategic part of the world once again or endure all the downsides, including an inevitable level of backlash, for being on the other side of the world during a huge crisis at home.

The domestic agenda proved dominant.

By canceling the trip leaders in Indonesia and Australia will just have to wait for their Obama bow.

Link

Big jobs increase but 95% were government jobs

Jobs growth is disappointing because of weak private sector hiring.

Non-farm payrolls rose by 431,000 jobs on the surge in government hiring but private employment, a barometer of underlying labor market strength, climbed just 41,000, the Labor Department said on Friday.

The increase of 431,000 jobs is made up of 411,000 temporary census workers.

When the administration touts the May jobs gain as the biggest increase in payrolls since March 2000, just remember that only 5% of the increase was in the private sector.

Link

Seafood from the gulf

Court says Ohio cops don’t need radar guns to ticket speeders

From an ABC News report at the link below :

Imagine a highway trooper pulling you over in the middle of your summer travel and declaring that you were speeding.

How's he know for sure? Because he says so; at least, in Ohio.

The state's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the trained eyeballs of police officers are enough to hand out speeding tickets. A radar gun is unnecessary.

Most states, cities and counties claim that traffic citations are all about safety. However, in truth, traffic citations are more about revenue than safety.

By allowing a patrolman to judge speed by eye, Ohio will have a chance to increase their revenue from speeding fines.

It will be interesting to know if lawsuits and public outcry will bring an end to catching speeders by eye in Ohio.

Link

Maytag repairmen won’t be lonely with 1.7m dishwashers recalled

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced that Maytag Corp. is recalling about 1.7 million dishwashers because of a fire hazard.

The recall includes Maytag, Amana, Jenn-Air, Admiral, Magic Chef, Performa by Maytag and Crosley brand dishwashers with plastic tubs.

The recalled dishwashers were made with black, bisque, white, silver and stainless steel front panels and sold at department and appliance stores nationwide from February 2006 through April 2010. They cost between $250 and $900.

CPSC advises consumers to immediately stop using the recalled dishwashers and disconnect the electric supply by shutting off the fuse or circuit breaker controlling it.

Consumers can schedule a free in-home repair or receive a rebate of $150 or $250 toward the purchase of select new Maytag dishwashers. The amount of the rebate depends on the type of model to be purchased.

Link

Blagojevich trial to rattle biggest names in Washington

From a report at the first link below:

The corruption trial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (upper photo) is already shaping up to be a political circus, promising to lay bare the underbelly of Chicago politics.

Corruption in Illinois politics is nothing new. Four former Illinois governors, one Republican and three Democrats, served prison terms. Illinois is surly the only state in the union where former governors made license plates.

Obama has been involved in separate attempted Senate seat “fixes.” The first was with whoever the White House selected to negotiate with Blagojevich to take the Senate seat occupied by Obama - which is what this trial is all about. The second was the Andrew Romanoff case in Colorado (see third and fourth links below). The third was the recent Joe Sestak affair in Pennsylvania.

Now we know why Obama made that last trip to Chicago cutting short his gulf trip to less than three hours and skipping out on the traditional presidential duty at the Arlington Cemetery tomb of the unkowns.

He needed to get his “ducks in a row” before the Blagojevich corruption trial.

One wonders how much influence Obama will have over how Patrick Fitzgerald (lower photo) plans to handles the prosecution.

Obama will probably not testify. However among those who may take the stand are senior White House staffers Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, U.S. Senator Richard Durbin, and U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.

From one commenter:

Blagojevich probably has hidden paperwork in various safe locations and with people he trusts.

Maybe he has even given it all to a 'conservative' investigative journalist, as no Democrat could be trusted to write objectively about material damaging to the Democratic Party.

He has probably made it clear that he doesn't plan to be the next Vince Foster nor does he plan to be the fifth Illinois governor to end up in prison.

Everyone who could be adversely affected by the Blagojevich trial are high-profile Democrats. It will be interesting to see how left-leaning special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald goes after Blagojevich while trying to minimize the political damage to Democrats.

Will this go on as long as the Bill Clinton impeachment trial? How much of the Blagojevich trial will be made public?

If most of the proceedings are reported in the media it will be interesting to follow but at the same time it will be sad to witness another dark period in Democratic Party politics.

Link here, here, here and here.

Two if by sea …

Rained out

A spectator waits under his umbrella as the game between Spain's Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez and Czech Republic's Lucie Safarova was suspended due to rain at the recent Italian Open tennis tournament in Rome.

Osama Bin Laden gets boarding pass from British Airways

LHR News is a British Airways staff magazine covering London's Heathrow Airport.

The magazine did a cover story about a new service allowing passengers to download paperless boarding passes to their iPhones.

Only problem was, a close-up of the cover photo shows a white boarding pass bearing the name “Bin Laden/Osama.”


The boarding pass is thought to be the work of a disgruntled employee or former employee.

British Airways is currently in the middle of a prolonged labor dispute with some of its unions so the disgruntled employee theory is quite plausible.

Link

Republicans jump to historic lead in Gallup generic polling

From a report at the first link below:

Gallup's generic polling shows the number of voters saying that they would vote for Republicans rising three points from last week, while the number saying they will vote for Democrats dropped four points.

The 49%-43% lead for the Republicans is the largest that the pollster has ever recorded for the party. Moreover, Democratic enthusiasm for voting this fall fell a point, while enthusiasm among Republicans stayed about fifteen points higher. This indicates an even wider lead for Republicans once Gallup imposes a likely voter screen this fall.

The Republican lead may increase as the gulf oil spill continues to be viewed as “Obama’s Katrina.”

Obama’s three hours spent in the gulf last week was only his second visit to the gulf coast since the disaster began last April. It takes him more than three hours each time he plays golf.

Link here and here.

A case made for Obama’s incompetence

A report at the link below is titled, “Obama doesn’t have a clue.”

From the report:

Conservatives are so enraged at Obama’s socialism and radicalism that they are increasingly surprised to learn that he is incompetent as well.

The writer compares Obama’s “blithering and blustering” during the most massive oil spill in history to Jimmy Carter’s incompetence in the face of the hostage crisis.

America is watching the president alternate between wringing his hands in helplessness and pointing his finger in blame when he should be solving the most pressing environmental problem America has faced in the past 50 years.

The environmentalists of America cannot take heart from a president so obviously ignorant about how to protect our shores and so obstinately arrogant that he refuses to inform himself and take any responsibility.

Obama has no more idea how to work his way out of the economic mess into which his policies have plunged us than he does about how to clean up the oil spill that is destroying our southern coastline.

More here.

Joran Van der Sloot is prime suspect in Peru murder

Dutch national Joran Van der Sloot remains the prime suspect in the 5-year-old murder of American student Natalee Holloway in Aruba.

Now, Van der Sloot (pictured) is the prime suspect in the murder of Stephany Flores Ramirez.

The 21-year-old girl was found dead in a Lima, Peru hotel room.

According to police reports, Ramirez was brutally stabbed and was found wrapped in a blanket in a pool of blood.

Chief of detectives Col. Miguel Canlla says that Ramirez was murdered on Sunday.

The victim's father, Ricardo Flores, says Van der Sloot appears with his daughter in a video taken at a Lima casino early Sunday.

Hotel employees also told police that they saw VaLinkn der Sloot with Stephany over the weekend. The hotel room where Ramirez's body was found was registered under van der Sloot's name, says the paper.

According to Peruvian immigration officials, Van der Sloot departed Peru on Monday. Canlla says Peru is asking Chilean authorities for help in the case.

The Dutch government said Interpol has issued an international arrest warrant for Van der Sloot.

Link

Hope and Change working in the gulf

Editorial cartoonist Eric Allie shows how the Hope and Change is workin’ in the gulf.

Bulls and bears take back seat to bees

We usually think of Wall Street belonging to bulls or bears but for a short while last Sunday Wall Street belonged to the bees.

A swarm of bees unnerved New Yorkers before settling on the door of Cipriani's on 55 Wall Street -- but they were removed without incident and are on their way to a hive at some undisclosed location in Connecticut.

Nobody was hurt and no one panicked -- people just gathered to witness the rarity, Verner said. Police closed off a section of Wall Street to allow NYPD specialists to respond to the emergency, using a special device to suck up the bees.

The bees were taken to an undisclosed location in Connecticut.

Link