Remember the reason for Memorial Day

It's that time of the year again. Grills start to fire up, publics pools begin to open, and the start of summer is officially right around the corner. Most of America gets the day off tomorrow to conclude a much needed three day weekend. While all of that is great and always welcomed, let us not forget the reason we get to enjoy these amenities.

Tomorrow marks the annual American holiday of Memorial Day. A day when the people of this great country should take time from their hectic schedules to remember all the brave men and women who unselfishly gave their lives, allowing us to enjoy the freedom and security we do today. Without the soldiers who gave the ultimate sacrifice there is no doubt this country would not be in the place it is today. While you may argue that America is not at its finest point in history right now, that argument is best reserved for the political arena and a day that is not Memorial Day.

So come tomorrow if you have an American flag be sure to fly it at half-staff from dawn till noon, as is tradition. Also remember that a national moment of remembrance will take place at 3:00 p.m., and if you would like to do more visit a national cemetery if you live nearby and maybe plant some mini flags. Do whatever pleases you, it's your day off but just remember the reason why you have this day off to do whatever you please.

God bless America and those who have served and presently serve the land of the free and the home of the brave.

What are your plans for this patriotic Holiday?

Apocalypse averted...whew

The sun has risen six times, the NYSE's opening bell has rung has five times, and America got a new idol. All this has happened within the time frame between now and Harold Camping's failed prediction of Judgment Day being last Saturday May 21, 2011. Luckily for the majority of the world it wasn't so, because according to Camping only 200 million Christians were going to make the ascension to Heaven.

The Family Radio broadcaster is a bit confused but has not given up hope on his apocalyptic prediction. Camping says that May 21 was in fact Judgment Day, but was a spiritual event and not a physical one as he thought it would be. He still stands strong to his belief that October 21, 2011 will be Doomsday, the day that we as human beings cease to exist. We will have to wait five months to see how that prediction pans out and hopefully we get the same result as we did this time around.

Camping may have not had many believers in his words but there's no doubt his words reached a massive amount of ears. In the days leading up to last Saturday Judgment Day was one of the hottest topics on main stream news broadcasts along with social networking websites. #endoftheworldconfessions quickly became a trending topic on twitter Friday night and garnered millions of tweets, some of them quite hilarious.

For many the Judgment Day that wasn't became the butt of a international joke, but for those who believed in Camping's prophecy it was no laughing matter. Many of his followers had quit their jobs, given away all their earthly possessions, and some even left their family months ago to spread the message of impending doom that was supposedly heading our way. One in particular is a man named Robert Fitzpatrick who spent $140,000 of his life savings to help spread the word. When 6:00 rolled around on Saturday evening Fitzpatrick was in New York City's Time Square awaiting the return of Christ, when that did not occur he stated "I do not understand why nothing has happened."

My question to you is do you think Harold Camping's prophecy was financially motivated, or do you think he truly believes May 21 was Judgment Day?

Sony continues to be breached

A month after Sony's PlayStation Network was breached and subsequently shut down, the Japan based company's security woes continue. It all began last month on April 20 when the PSN was breached by a group of hackers who stole millions of names, addresses, and credit card information from online users.

Since the initial breach last month which has been dubbed "The Great PlayStation Network Outage" Sony has continued to battle with hackers who have targeted different branches of the company's infrastructure. While the PlayStation Network was still down earlier this month Sony Online Entertainment also suffered the same type of attack. SOE which is the company's online PC gaming network which host games such as "Star Wars Galaxies", "EverQuest", "DC Universe Online", and many more was forced to shut down for two weeks after customers' personal information had been compromised.

Most recently Sony's security has been breached outside of their gaming networks. Earlier this week Sony revealed that 8,500 Greek users personal information had been stolen along with sites stationed in Thailand and Indonesia. Today the company's most recent breach involved a Canadian Sony Ericsson music website, which forced the site to shut down after 2,000 people's names, e-mail addresses, and passwords were stolen and published on a hacking news website.  

As of right now Sony is proving to be unable to protect their customers' personal information that they have entrusted them with. This lack of trust shows in the decline of Sony's stock price since the breaches began and will more than likely have an even more damaging effect when the company's earnings for this quarter are released.

Air France 447 plummeted 38,000 feet

The recently discovered wreckage of Air France 447 has shed new light onto the plane's and passengers' final moments. The flight which departed on May 31, 2009 from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil was heading for its destination of Paris, France. The mystery that has surrounded the cause of the crash is no more, as flight recorder data has been revealed.

The recordings indicate that before making its fatal plunge into the Atlantic Ocean, Air France 447 stalled roughly 38,000 feet in the air and then proceeded to free-fall from that distance. The data shows that the fall lasted approximately three minutes and thirty seconds before contact was made with the ocean surface. During the fall the plane reached speeds of over 100 mph's.

Reports indicate that nearly ten minutes after then captain announced he would be taking a rest break the emergency began. Another co-pilot stepped into to take the captain's place while he rested; during this time a left turn was executed to avoid an oncoming set of storms. Within minutes the autopilot system shut its self-off and a co-pilot could be heard saying "I have the controls," soon after the captain returned to the cockpit.

The pilot took the jet into an ascent of 3,000 feet where it finally reached 38,000 feet off the ground. When the jet began its disastrous stall the captain continued to try and pull the nose up, which goes against a pilot's training. During a stall a pilot is trained to lower the nose so airflow increases over the aircraft's wings.

A little over two hours after Air France flight 447 departed, it began its doomed plummet into the ocean below where it reached its resting point 12,800 feet below the surface for nearly two years. The crash claimed the lives of all those aboard, a total of 228 people. The French BEA (aviation accident investigation agency) continues to investigate what caused the errors to occur and what can be done to prevent such tragic accidents in the future.

PlayStation Network Comes Back On

Ladies and gentleman the day has finally came...the PSN is being restored as we speak. Here is a direct quote from the PS Blog.

"Thank you for your patience and encouragement over the last few weeks. As covered in the post from earlier today, you can now update the firmware on your PS3 and change your password. Kazuo Hirai just announced that we have begun the phased restoration by region of some of the services, starting with online multiplayer functionality.
Please note that these services will take a bit of time to be turned on and rolled out to the whole country. The process has begun and some states are being turned on now, so please be patient as we reach your city and state. We’ll be updating the map below as service comes online in individual states. It will take several hours to restore PSN throughout the entire country, so please keep checking back for the latest updates. In the meantime, now’s a great time to get your PS3’s firmware updated and change your password, both of which are required to get online."


 Game on!

Judgment Day May 21?

If Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping is correct people of the world have less than two weeks to repent for their sins. Camping who is also the president of Family Radio has made a shocking revelation that he has found undeniable mathematical evidence within the Holy Bible that Judgment Day is scheduled for May 21, 2011. Judgment Day according to the Christian religion is the day in which Jesus Christ will make his second coming to Earth and rapture all the believers to Heaven where they will spend eternity. Those who lack faith will remain on Earth and face Christ's wrath as he rules as the King of Earth until Doomsday, which Camping says will take place on October 21, 2011.

Many people before have made predictions of Christ's return that passed with no such event. Even Camping himself who stated in his book "1994?" that the Day of Judgment would occur in 1994. To give him some credit though within his book he did state that he had a feeling 2011 would more than likely be the year, and later admitted to have making a mathematical error that caused him to believe the false date. The thing about the others though is that they didn't put the marketing into the prediction like he has. All across the country billboards, post cards, and printouts can be found stating the doomed warning.

Along with the print media Camping also has groups of missionaries that have quit their jobs and basically given up the life they led before to spread his message. They tour the country in RV convoys wrapped with words and images supporting their claim that the end is near. It is their hopes to get the word out and attempt to save as many people as possible before May 21.

For more information on this check out Family Radio's official site.

PlayStation Network down till the end of May?

Rumors have spread recently that the disabled PlayStation Network could stay that way until at least May 31st. The network has been down now for almost three weeks and if the rumor is true that would put its total outage time around six weeks.

The patience of many has already been worn thin by what has been dubbed "The great PlayStation Network outage of 2011", on forums and comment boards across the web disgruntled users have expressed their dissatisfaction towards Sony. Some have already given up hope and sold their PlayStation 3's and converted to Microsoft's X Box 360.

While May 31st is not a date set in stone its source comes from a recent report from Bloomberg. In the article Sony spokesman Shigenori Yoshida is quoted as saying "Sony is uncertain when it can resume the services," Yoshida also went on to say "The company is in the process of adopting an improved security system and its plans to restart the services fully by May 31 is unchanged."

Many are taking this with a grain of salt after Sony has already missed three windows they claimed that service would be restored in, the most recent one being last week. Time shall tell if Sony will get the network up and running before the month's end or if they will again disappoint their eager fans.

For more on this story click here.

Osama Bin Laden is dead

Major news outlets are reporting that the United States has the body of Osama Bin Laden. President Barack Obama is set to address the nation at any moment.

Nearly ten years after 9/11,one the greatest attacks on the United States soil the accused leader of the operation is officially dead. Ever since the attacks on that tragic day the U.S. have been seeking either the capture of death of Osama Bin Laden, today the latter was realized.

Many have believed Osama to have been dead for years as he had a kidney condition and treatment would have been hard to maintain while constantly being on the run. Theories haves been passed around that even if he was dead the U.S. was keeping him alive in the media to further an agenda.

Today it has been confirmed though..... Osama Bin Laden is dead and his body is property of the United States of America. As more details come about we will be sure to bring them to you.

Once again for the history books....Osama Bin Laden is dead.

PlayStation Network to be restored this week

Sony has just delivered a press conference in Tokyo today and has declared that the PlayStation Network services will be restored this week. Not only that, Sony plans to extend an offer of thanks to their loyal customers in the way of gifts, one of those being a free month's service of PlayStation Plus for all PSN users. Here's the full report:

"Tokyo, May 1, 2011 – Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) and Sony Network Entertainment International (SNEI, the company) announced they will shortly begin a phased restoration by region of PlayStation®Network and Qriocity™ services, beginning with gaming, music and video services to be turned on. The company also announced both a series of immediate steps to enhance security across the network and a new customer appreciation program to thank its customers for their patience and loyalty.

Following a criminal cyber-attack on the company’s data-center located in San Diego, California, U.S.A., SNEI quickly turned off the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services, engaged multiple expert information security firms over the course of several days and conducted an extensive audit of the system. Since then, the company has implemented a variety of new security measures to provide greater protection of personal information. SNEI and its third-party experts have conducted extensive tests to verify the security strength of the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services. With these measures in place, SCE and SNEI plan to start a phased rollout by region of the services shortly. The initial phase of the rollout will include, but is not limited to, the following:

• Restoration of Online game-play across the PlayStation®3 (PS3) and PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) systems
  -This includes titles requiring online verification and downloaded games
• Access to Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity for PS3/PSP for existing subscribers
• Access to account management and password reset
• Access to download un-expired Movie Rentals on PS3, PSP and MediaGo
• PlayStation®Home
• Friends List
• Chat Functionality

Working closely with several outside security firms, the company has implemented significant security measures to further detect unauthorized activity and provide consumers with greater protection of their personal information. The company is also creating the position of Chief Information Security Officer, directly reporting to Shinji Hasejima, Chief Information Officer of Sony Corporation, to add a new position of expertise in and accountability for customer data protection and supplement existing information security personnel. The new security measures implemented include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Added automated software monitoring and configuration management to help defend against new attacks
• Enhanced levels of data protection and encryption
• Enhanced ability to detect software intrusions within the network, unauthorized access and unusual activity patterns
• Implementation of additional firewalls

The company also expedited an already planned move of the system to a new data center in a different location that has been under construction and development for several months. In addition, PS3 will have a forced system software update that will require all registered PlayStation Network users to change their account passwords before being able to sign into the service. As an added layer of security, that password can only be changed on the same PS3 in which that account was activated, or through validated email confirmation, a critical step to help further protect customer data.

The company is conducting a thorough and on-going investigation and working with law enforcement to track down and prosecute those responsible for the illegal intrusion.

“This criminal act against our network had a significant impact not only on our consumers, but our entire industry. These illegal attacks obviously highlight the widespread problem with cyber-security. We take the security of our consumers’ information very seriously and are committed to helping our consumers protect their personal data. In addition, the organization has worked around the clock to bring these services back online, and are doing so only after we had verified increased levels of security across our networks,” said Kazuo Hirai, Executive Deputy President, Sony Corporation. “Our global audience of PlayStation Network and Qriocity consumers was disrupted. We have learned lessons along the way about the valued relationship with our consumers, and to that end, we will be launching a customer appreciation program for registered consumers as a way of expressing our gratitude for their loyalty during this network downtime, as we work even harder to restore and regain their trust in us and our services.”

Complimentary Offering and “Welcome Back” Appreciation Program
While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, the company is committed to helping its customers protect their personal data and will provide a complimentary offering to assist users in enrolling in identity theft protection services and/or similar programs. The implementation will be at a local level and further details will be made available shortly in each region.

The company will also rollout the PlayStation Network and Qriocity “Welcome Back” program, to be offered worldwide, which will be tailored to specific markets to provide our consumers with a selection of service options and premium content as an expression of the company’s appreciation for their patience, support and continued loyalty.

Central components of the “Welcome Back” program will include:

• Each territory will be offering selected PlayStation entertainment content for free download. Specific details of this content will be announced in each region soon.
• All existing PlayStation Network customers will be provided with 30 days free membership in the PlayStation Plus premium service. Current members of PlayStation Plus will receive 30 days free service.
• Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity subscribers (in countries where the service is available) will receive 30 days free service.

Additional “Welcome Back” entertainment and service offerings will be rolled out over the coming weeks as the company returns the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services to the quality standard users have grown to enjoy and strive to exceed those exceptions.

SNEI will continue to reinforce and verify security for transactions before resuming the PlayStation®Store and other Qriocity operations, scheduled for this month.

For more information about the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services intrusion and restoration, please visit http://blog.us.playstation.com. or http://blog.eu.playstation.com/."

For more on this story click here.

2011 NFL Draft tonight

With the 2011 NFL season still uncertain teams from across the league will restock their rosters with fresh talent from the college level. The Carolina Panthers have the first overall pick and are widely expected to take Heisman trophy and national title winning quarterback Cam Newton. Other potential top picks include Marcell Dareus defensive tackle from Alabama, Von Miller linebacker from Texas A&M, Ryan Mallett quarterback from Arkansas, and A.J. Green wide receiver from Georgia.

While this year's draft may seem normal in appearance, the dynamics are completely different than any draft before it. Due to the ongoing labor disputes teams have been unable to sign free agents and really haven't had a clear understanding as to what holes they need to fill with this year's batch of future NFL players. There is also no set date as to when the new recruits will be able to join their teams, combined with that kind of a big question, will 2011 even be their rookie years?

The 2011 NFL Draft will be held at Radio City Music Hall in New York City starting at 8:00 p.m. tonight and continuing for the rest of the weekend. For full up the minute updates be sure to check out the NFL's official website here.

Tornadoes ravage America's south

The past week has brought hundreds of tornadoes sweeping through the south of the United States. The death toll stands at nearly 250 and continues to grow as the hours go by. Deaths have been reported in Mississippi, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia, and Alabama. The latter being the hardest hit of them all, Alabama has confirmed more than 160 deaths due to the devastating storm system sweeping through the region.

The tornadoes spared no parts of the state, claiming the lives of 30 people in DeKalb County which is located in the northeast section of the state and another 18 in Franklin County situated in the northwest of the state. An unimaginable 66 tornadoes have been reported in Alabama to the National Weather Service, combined with a total of 137 reports throughout the south.

The National Guard has activated 2,000 troops to help search the devastated areas for the missing and injured. FEMA has responded and Alabama governor Robert Bentley has been engaged in communications with President Obama, who is expected to travel the state on Friday to assess the damage that has taken place.

At this time tornado watches still remain in effect for the country's south.

PlayStation Network users' personal information compromised

After nearly a week of the Sony's online gaming service the PlayStation Network being disabled and a lack of information being relayed to customers, the company has finally stated what many have feared since the start. Earlier today on the official PlayStation blog an update was posted saying that users' personal information such as names, home addresses, telephone numbers, and possibly credit card information has been compromised in the external attack that left the network unable to function.

Here's a direct quote from the blog:

"Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained."


With each day that passes by since the attack customers continue to grow increasingly angry and the outlook begins to look for worse for Sony. The question now is will Sony and the PlayStation Network be able to recoup from this event and get back to where it stood less than 8 days ago. 


For more information on this story be sure to check out our original report here and also the first update we brought here.

NFL Lockout lifted by federal judge

Today the NFL players may have received a lucky break. A federal judge has issued an injunction which orders team owners to lift the previous applied league wide lockout. All is not fancy in football country yet as the NFL plans to appeal the ruling on the grounds that federal law prohibits injunctions when it comes to labor disputes. U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson claims that when the players made the decision to relinquish their union the case was no longer applicable under federal labor laws.

If NFL players were to remained locked out come time for the season this September it will be the first time the NFL has stopped working since the year 1987. Football fans across the globe have their fingers crossed that this argument over the division of the NFL's 9 billion in revenue between players and owners can be settled before the season's scheduled kick off on September 8th.

Here's a fact you might need to know one day, with this ruling the Green Bay Packers will finally be able to receive their Super Bowl rings and also make the traditional trip to the White House to meet the President after winning the championship. League rules prohibited both events from taking place during times of a lockout.

Check out the NFL's release of this year's schedules right here. 

Netflix post 87% profit in 1Q earnings

Online movie rental company Netflix (Ticker Symbol: NFLX) posted their first quarter earnings today, which was a remarkable 87% rise in profit. Their stock is up 43% percent this year and today it achieved an all-time high of $254.98 per share. Price per share declined in afterhours trading to $245.34 as the company has stated the outlook of the second quarter's earnings may not match those of the first.

Netflix also reported having a global subscriber base of 23.6 million which is up 69% from last year. Netflix's popularity grew when other than just having movies delivered to customers' home by mail they introduced the ability for a user to be able to instantly stream a movie or television show via their PC, PlayStation 3, or X-Box 360. The current price of Netflix's services is very reasonable $8 a month.

If you need any proof of Netflix's outstanding rise in popularity just take a look at the Blockbusters and Hollywood Videos closing across the country. As the option of leaving your house to rent a movie becomes more frowned upon so do companies whose business models are built upon it.

Update: No Time Frame On PSN Outage

Patrick Seybold the Senior Director of Corporate Communications and Social Media over at Sony has posted on the official PlayStation blog the following. 

"I know you are waiting for additional information on when PlayStation Network and Qriocity services will be online. Unfortunately, I don’t have an update or timeframe to share at this point in time.

As we previously noted, this is a time intensive process and we’re working to get them back online quickly. We’ll keep you updated with information as it becomes available. We once again thank you for your patience."

While this may not be the information users were looking for, it's still better than receiving no word from Sony at all. 

Check out our initial report of the PlayStation Network being hacked here. 

Stay tuned with Read In The News as we will continue to keep you informed on the PSN outage.

New Nintendo System Coming in 2012

Nintendo has announced they will be releasing a new gaming console in 2012 to follow in the footsteps of their wildly popular and generation bridging Wii. Having sold more than 86 million units since its launch in 2006 the Wii still lacks far behind Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's X-Box 360 in terms of sales.

While not giving an exact date as to when next year the console would be released, Nintendo has promised to have a playable unit of their new mysterious system up and running at this year's E3 Expo. This year's E3 takes place in Los Angeles June 7-9.

Stay tuned for future updates about Nintendo's upcoming console.

Any guesses as to what the name might be?

Lambert-St. Louis International Airport resume flights

As of Sunday afternoon flights once again began to depart from the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, taking those who have been stranded for 2 days. Concourse C which suffered the most damage was still closed. Airport officials are hoping to have service restored up to 70% by the end of the day. Airport director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge has said "It's going to take a while before the C concourse can be functional." 

Along with flights beginning to resume the MetroLink rail line also began operations again this morning. St. Louis mayor Francis Slay hopes for the airport to be 100% functional by the middle of this week.    

The Lambert-St. Louis International Airport was crippled after a fierce EF 3 tornado touched down on Friday. The airport's busiest terminal became a scene of chaos when devastating winds ripped through it damaging parts of the roof and blowing most of the windows out. The tornado is said to have gotten its initial start in the town of New Melle, from there it traveled nearly 30 miles bringing along a path of destruction that spared no mercy on the airport.

Fortunately for those who happened to be there at the time no lives were claimed, though reports says 5 people suffering from minor injuries were taken to the hospital and later released. An unknown amount of others were treated on the scene for cuts from the glass that flew. Diana Miller who was at the scene described it as such "Glass was blowing everywhere. The ceiling was falling. The glass was hitting us in the face. Hail and rain were coming in. The wind was blowing debris all over the place."

Antoine Dodson star of viral internet video arrested

Antoine Dodson a complete nobody from the projects of Alabama who turned into an overnight star via the "Hide Yo Kids, Hide Yo Wife" video has been arrested in Huntsville, Alabama. Dodson was pulled over for speeding early on Saturday morning which also led to his arrest for the possession of marijuana. Along with being charged with possession of an illegal substance and speeding he was also charged with driving without insurance and failure to appear in court for a previous traffic infraction.

His stay at the Madison county jail luckily for him was short after being released around 2:30 a.m., apparently the YouTube mega star had a few words to get off his chest this morning and chose twitter as his forum. A tweet on Dodson's twitter account just before noon today stated "Just got out of jail off a weak charge." Dodson well known not only for his viral video but also his flashy appearance, looked the complete opposite in his mug shot snapped at the county jail during his booking.

Hopefully Antoine learned a valuable lesson that being, other than hiding kids and wives it would be better to "hide yo weed".

What's your thoughts?

Photo by TMZ

PlayStation Network has been hacked.

The official PlayStation website has just announced their online gaming services have been interrupted due to an "external intrusion", in other words they have been hacked. The outage began on Wednesday, April 20th when users were no longer able to neither log in and play their favorite games online nor access any of the features associated with the network such as the PlayStation Store or PlayStation Home, a virtual world much like Second Life.

The ongoing outage has left a massive of amount gamers not only unable to play online but also down right outraged, mainly because of the lack of information being relayed to them by Sony. It took a whole day after this ordeal first began for Sony to inform their customers on what was happening when they posted on their official PlayStation blog that they were aware of the situation and it would take them a day or two to resolve it. In this post they did not give any reason as to the cause or what steps were being done to take care of it.

Now today after much rumor of a hack job taking place, Sony has finally confirmed the suspicions to be true. The questions that remain now are, how long will it take for the PlayStation Network to be fully functional again and how much revenue has Sony already lost due to this outage? Another critical question users should be asking is, has their personal information been jeopardized? With the main focus of that being credit card data, which can be used to purchase content from the PlayStation Store.

Here's a link to the official PlayStation Blog.

Obama authorizes use of armed drones in Libya

With it becoming harder by the day to distinguish friend from foe in Libya President Barack Obama today has authorized the use of armed predator drones within the country engulfed in combat. Unrest broke out in Libya two months ago when the people now defined as "rebels" began the overthrow of their much despised leader Muammar Gaddaffi, who has held on to power for an amount of time totaling more than four decades. Last month western allies along with NATO intervened to enforce a no-fly zone to stop the bombings of innocent civilians being perpetrated by the brutal Libyan government in a desperate attempt of clinging to power. Predator drones which have been used by the U.S. in other mid-eastern countries such as Pakistan have been a hot bed of controversy due to claims of civilians being killed and wounded by their attacks.


 The report of drones being issued for use in Libya comes from Defense Secretary Robert Gates who also states "The President has said that where we have some unique capabilities, he is willing to use those,"; prior to this authorization the U.S. had been using drones in Libya for surveillance reasons the difference is now that they are permitted to use deadly force on enemies and their compounds. These compounds include targets such as radar, missile, and air defense sites as wells as troops belonging to Gaddaffi. Predator drones have been a key tool to U.S. military operations since their conception because they allow a wider range of abilities compared to those of larger aircrafts. Gates also went on to say that the use of the drones would be a "modest contribution" to the allies in the fight against Gaddaffi.


 In my own opinion all options should be on the table to bring an end to the blood shed that has been going on since the fighting began. This is without a doubt the harshest and longest uprising that has taken place within the region this year. Unfortunately the actions in Libya may prove to be a diagram for other oppressive regimes that will fight off attempted revolutions by their citizens that grow tired of their way of living as the days go by. To the people of Libya I commend your courage and hope that your wishes are granted throughout the journey for freedom you have embarked on. 


For more on this story click here.

iPhone 5 rumored for an October release.

The internet is abuzz about the latest iPhone and when it will be released. Rightfully so, the iPhone has not only maintained as one of the hottest items on the market but also one of the hottest topics. Its recent addition to the Verizon lineup and T-Mobile's in the future will put it in the hands of more consumers than ever before. Prior to Apple stepping into the cellular market palm and Blackberry dominated the early beginnings of the smartphone era with devices targeted toward the more business minded consumers. Then along came the original iPhone which proved to be a stepping stone for the smartphone market. Not only did it change a lot of people's perception about what a smartphone should be, it also introduced many people to what a smartphone actually was.

 Enough with the history lesson though, we all know what the iPhone transformed into and where it stands today. You're here to get the details on its newest edition, so let's get to that. The latest chapter in iPhone 5 rumors speculates the device to be released a little less than six months from now in October. It's said to be sporting an A5 processor which is what churns the iPad2 along. The camera is rumored to be getting an improvement to 8 mega pixels; the current iPhone has a 5 mega pixel camera on its backside. As for the actual design of the phone nothing major seems to be planned, so don't be expecting a brand new looking iPhone. Word is that Apple plans on promoting the operating system this time around, the new iOS5.

 Rumor also has it that it is scheduled to go into trial production late this summer, followed by mass production in September. That would set it up to be ready for consumers to camp out in front of stores, form lines around the block, and shutdown the internet in hopes of getting their hands on one in October. Of course like with any rumor be sure to take it with a grain of salt, and keep your eyes open as October gets increasingly closer.

Want more on the iPhone5? Click here.

Picture courtesy of: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What's going with our nation's air traffic controllers?

Unless you have been living under a rock as of late then you heard all the mishaps of air traffic controllers across the country. In this year alone the FAA has reported seven different cases of a controller falling asleep while on the job. I also read an account of a controller caught watching a movie during their shift. Let's say you work at McDonald's and sneak a quick nap while on the job, what's the worst that could happen? I’d guess a backed up line, coworkers angry with you, and more than likely termination. Air traffic controllers don't flip burgers though; these people are responsible for the safe flight paths of numerous flights taking place simultaneously. Falling asleep on this job is more than just a minor infraction; you put a lot of lives at risk while in dream land. 

 Just recently things got a lot more serious than they already could be. On Monday a plane that First Lady Michelle Obama was on had to abort its landing after according to the NTSB "an air traffic controller had sequenced it too close to another military plane,". Imagine how those in charge were feeling after all this sudden scrutiny they were under, now times it by a thousand. This lapse wasn't just a commercial flight interrupted; we're talking about a flight carrying the leader of the free world's wife. It was also rumored by an unknown source to have as well been carrying Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden. FAA administrator Randy Babbitt appeared to be less than happy when he said "None of us in this business can tolerate any of this,", he described his self as being "infuriated" with the situations taking place as of late. 

 Bob Richards a former controller and author of the book "Secrets From The Tower" has said "I think inside the profession, everybody knows this goes on,” Really? I wish I could work in a "profession" where sleeping and fooling around on the job is considered standard knowledge. Now to be fair I have no experience when it comes to air traffic controlling nor does anyone that I know, but from the outside looking in I'm willing to guess there isn't much hard labor involved. So what causes such fatigue for someone to fall asleep while helping to navigate something as large as a plane? Maybe staring at a screen all day, believe me I know what can do to your eyes. Possibly it could be that it's not uncommon for a controller to work alone during a shift, the lack of another physical person around you could make it easy to doze off. I'm not making any excuses for these people because keep in mind according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics the annual pay for an air traffic controller in 2009 was $109,000. That's a nice chunk of change especially when you consider the added perk of being able to take a nap while on duty.

 At the end of the day I'm with the FAA and NTSB on this one. The behavior of these air controllers is nothing short of unacceptable and downright unprofessional. It's good to know there are plans to overhaul how the systems works and make it more automated, which will take some of the load off the air controllers. As of today we are lucky to say this has not turned into a situation with fatal consequences and it very well could have in the blink of an eye. Hopefully those under the microscope right now are able to turn this thing around and get operations running as smooth and flawless as possible.

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Royal wedding consumes the world

All it takes is to have the news on for no less than 20 minutes and you are guaranteed to hear something about the upcoming royal wedding. It seems as if the world has gone mad for Kate (sorry Gosselin, your time is up) Middleton. Can you blame them though? It's the stuff fairy tales are made of. In this modern world we live in today it's not often you hear of a prince set to marry and make a woman a princess, but on the 29th day of April at the Westminster Abbey that's exactly what will happen. The same venue where Prince William mourned the death of his mother Princess Diana in 1997 is where he will turn his fiancée Kate Middleton into Princess Catherine. The masses cannot wait for it to take place and neither can I, simply so I won't have to hear about it anymore.

 This will be far from your average wedding. The ceremony will be shown on more television stations than you can think of, and will also have its own "royal stream" to watch live online. Bloggers by the millions will be in a frenzy tweeting and chirping every single detail that can possibly be told the second they occur. Luxury vehicles, foreign dignitaries, and celebrities from all over the world will be in attendance at this historic event. A guess list of well over 2,000 people will be attendance for the royal wedding including those I mentioned above as well Kate's hometown mailman and shopkeeper. The wedding is scheduled to begin at 11:00 a.m. England time, which would make it around 6:00 a.m. eastern time, though of course there will be a huge lead up hours ahead of the service. So if you're looking to tune in for the whole event be prepared to pull an all-night affair that will probably stretch most of the day.

 Like I said earlier I for one can't wait for it to be over because simply I'm tired of being engulfed by it, and I'm sure that I don't stand alone on that notion. In reality though this is a good change of pace, too much as of late the news has been filled with talks of the negative. The disaster in Japan, the uprisings in Northern Africa and the Middle East are all very serious and relevant issues, but there comes a point where we need something to smile about. I'm not trying to take anything away from those that I just mentioned but more than ever the world sure could use something to unite and cheer for. So to Prince William and Kate, I say the best of luck and hope all goes as planned. 

What are your thoughts on the upcoming royal wedding?

For everything you need to know about the royal wedding click here. 

Kindergartner brings gun to school

News came out of Houston, Texas yesterday that a six year old brought a loaded handgun to a Houston elementary school yesterday. The result of this frightening occurrence was three students being injured with non-life-threating injuries. Witnesses state the weapon fired once after falling out of the student's pocket, Independent School District spokesman Jason Spencer said the injured students may have been struck by bullet fragments. He also said that the injured children were taken to a hospital and their parents were notified, while not knowing there specific conditions he was quoted as saying "the prognosis is good for these kids."

 What's really going on when a child is able to walk out of the house with a loaded handgun? What's worse is that according to the numbers this isn't uncommon in Houston. Within the last school year this is the third occasion of a student bring a gun to school, all at the elementary level. Other than learning the core beginning elements a child should be learning in school, they are dealing with guns being brought to class by their peers. If our kids aren't safe at school, then where are they safe? It seems like the safe havens we can send our children have grown few and far between.

 As cliché as it may sound this starts with the parents. Unfortunately this happens to be a reflection of their skills of doing what their title implies, parenting. I'm not going to turn this into second amendment pros vs. cons article, because that would be calling a spade a club. What I am going to say is that, as a grown responsible adult there should be no reason for a handgun to be anywhere within the range of a child no matter the age. For a six year old to be able to bring a gun to school like a packed lunch it had to be lazily kept by the parent. Not even that, more than likely also made visible to the child for them to know it was in the house. If you feel the need to share a house with a weapon and a child it seems only logical to have the weapon kept as far and unreachable for them as possible.

 A little bit of logic can save a lot of lives.


Check out the full story here.


Photo courtesy of: Arvind Balaraman

NFL releases 2011 schedule

In the midst of a looming lock out the NFL released the 2011 schedules yesterday. Hopefully we all don't get our hopes up just to have them shattered by the season not taking place. Since the matter is not in the hands of the fans let’s take a look at some of the highlights of this year schedule and keep our fingers crossed we get to see them. 

• Once again the Super Bowl champions will open the season three days ahead of the rest when the Green Bay Packers host the New Orleans Saints on Thursday night September 8th, 2011.

• The rest of the season will kick off on Sunday September 11th. To commerate the ten year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks there will be two games in Washington and New York. The Washington Redskins will play host to the New York Giants in an afternoon match-up and the New York Jets will welcome the once titled "America's Team" Dallas Cowboys to the Meadowlands for the night game.

• This year's Thanksgiving Day triple header will start with the Miami Dolphins heading to Texas to play the Cowboys at 12:30 p.m.; Followed by the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions who play at 4:15 p.m. in the Motor City. To conclude the day’s festivities will be a family gathering when John Harbaugh's Baltimore Ravens play host to his brother Jim Harbaugh and his newly acquired San Francisco 49ers.

• Get ready to see a lot of the Dallas Cowboys, Pittsburgh Steelers, Philadelphia Eagles, Indianapolis Colts, and the New York Jets as all these teams are slated for 5 prime time games this season.

• Speaking of prime time, for the first time in a decade (yes 10 years) the Detroit Lions will play a prime time game. The Chicago Bears come to town on October 10th to play that week's Monday night game.

• Three Super Bowl rematches from within the last half decade will take place this season. Week 7 has the Pittsburgh Steelers heading west to play the Arizona Cardinals in a rematch of Super Bowl XLIII. Also that same week the Indianapolis Colts are bayou bound when they play the New Orleans Saints in a night game rematch of Super Bowl XLIV. Two weeks later on November 6th the New England Patriots will look for redemption of their almost perfect season when the New York Giants come to visit for a rematch of Super Bowl XLII.

• Four teams will be packing up and heading abroad this season in hopes of a win. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Chicago Bears will travel across the pond for a week 7 game in London, England. Also the Washington Redskins and the Buffalo Bills will head to our neighbors to the north territory when they meet in Toronto week 8.

 Normally every year when the schedules come out it marks the time to start looking forward for the season to come. This year though the road ahead doesn't seem as smooth as those before, on the bright side though NFL commissioner Roger Goodell did state "We have every intention of playing the full season." So football fans across the world hang in there and time will tell if we get to enjoy the greatness that is football in the fall. Until then if you want to see the complete schedule for the 2011 season head over to the NFL's website and check them out.


Photo courtesy of Idea go

Cincinnati Reds' pitcher caught shoplifting

Apparently this week a professional baseball player was arrested for a misdemeanor theft charge. Cincinnati Reds' pitcher Mike Leake attempted to steal six shirts valuing a whopping $60.00 from a Cincinnati Macys store. The police report stated that Leake removed the price tags from six t-shirts and then tried to exit the store without paying for them. Security cameras captured his actions and he now faces a maximum of 180 days in jail. The Reds' pitcher made his last appearance on the mound this past Saturday and in the early parts of the year he is 2-0 with a hideous 5.40 ERA.

 Yes ladies and gentlemen what you just read is true. Here's the kicker of the whole scenario though, Mike Leake is set to make $425,000 this year. While that's not all-star caliber money, it's still more than the average Joe will make in the same time frame. So my question is with that kind of money, what on this green Earth are you doing stealing t-shirts from Macys? Not even top of the line shirts, he attempted to steal six shirts with an overall value of $60 which would equal around $10 a shirt. I personally believe this was some kind of joke gone embarrassingly wrong, or a secret urge maybe? Maybe having that amount of money on hand may cause you to do idiotic things of this nature just for the rush of it.

 Whatever the reason at the end of the day it was a very stupid and immature move if you ask me. I'm pretty sure any explanation Leake could give wouldn't even come close to making any kind of sense.  The best thing that came out of this situation was the laugh I got after hearing about it. The Cincinnati Reds have since issued a statement condemning their pitchers actions and also an apology on the behalf of Mike Leake.

I Guess the lesson learned here is that money can't buy everything.

For more on this story click here.