Wednesday, October 30, 2013

New York CVS Overrun with Duck Invasion

 
New York CVS Overrun with Duck Invasion

New York CVS Overrun with Duck Invasion

The YouTube video, 'There was an incident last night at CVS,' doesn't quite capture the hilarious and puzzling nature of what is contained within, but it's at least a start. According to uploader Aplue, around 50 ducks entered the pharmacy in Saratoga Springs, NY, last week. There is a park down the street where the ducks live most of the time, but somehow they managed to sneak past the front door and hold an impromptu shopping spree. In addition to the ones inside, there were dozens more outside the store as well. After using a swiffer to try to shoo them out, one enterprising employee was able to lure them out with a bag of popcorn. And really, who doesn't love popcorn?

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

US health chief to defend 'Obamacare' despite criticism

US health chief to defend 'Obamacare' despite criticism


US health chief to defend 'Obamacare' despite criticism

The top US health official will issue a trenchant defence of "Obamacare" on Wednesday, defying critics who have savaged the White House over how the reforms were leaving some Americans uninsured.
Under-fire Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will be the most senior Obama administration official to date to appear before Congress to discuss the troubled launch of HealthCare.gov.
And while she will acknowledge the various mis-steps in the website and the frustration it has caused Americans, Sebelius will drive home a message opposed by critics: President Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement nicknamed Obamacare is working.
"The fact is that the Affordable Care Act delivered on its product: quality, affordable health insurance," she will tell a House panel according to her testimony released Tuesday.
She also will stress that "tremendous interest" in the website is proof that Americans "want to buy this product.
"We know the initial consumer experience at HealthCare.gov has not been adequate. We will address these initial and any ongoing problems, and build a website that fully delivers on this promise of the Affordable Care Act."
But amid those assurances, Sebelius also will deflect blame for the site to contractors, saying "unfortunately, a subset of those contracts for HealthCare.gov have not met expectations."
As Sebelius's testimony was released, a top lieutenant Marilyn Tavenner was apologizing for the website's depressing debut, while insisting the online program is fixable.

Tavenner took heat at a hearing on problems with the October 1 rollout of the website through which millions of Americans are expected to sign up for health insurance.
"I want to apologize to you that the website has not worked as well as it should," Tavenner, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in the Department of Health and Human Services, told lawmakers at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing.

"The bottom line is, this healthcare website is fixable," and CMS staff and contractors "are working around the clock" to improve the service.

But she dodged pointed questions about just how many people have enrolled in the system.

Tavenner said some 700,000 people nationwide have applied for coverage, but as for actual enrollment, she repeatedly said: "We'll have that information available in mid-November."
Consumers have had trouble signing on, getting accurate cost estimates, and completing enrollment.
But House Speaker John Boehner, the nation's top Republican, said the issue was less the online portal than with the very structure of the law.

"There is no way to fix this monstrosity," he said, as he and other Republican leaders pointed to reports that the White House knew that millions of Americans could be kicked off their existing plans as insurance companies adjust to meeting the requirements of Obamacare.
"This is government-run health care because virtually every policy that is sold has to be approved by the government," Boehner said.

"That's why you've got 1.5 million Americans who (have) already gotten these notices that they're going to lose their health coverage because it doesn't meet the minimum standard."
Senior Democrat Steny Hoyer fueled the fire Tuesday, acknowledging that the Obama team could have been more "precise" in their messaging on whether Americans could keep their insurance.

"I think the message was accurate, but... clearly it should have been caveated with, 'assuming you have a policy that does in fact do what the bill is designed to do,'" Hoyer told reporters.
The White House pushed back, saying insurance companies are compelled to upgrade their plans to provide services like free mammograms or hospital visits under the new law.

"You might discover, as a significant portion of this five percent will discover, that you're actually going to pay less come January for better coverage than what you're paying now for far worse coverage," Obama's spokesman Jay Carney said.
Obamacare requires most Americans to have health insurance from 2014 or face a fine, but the White House said it will give an extra six weeks, until March 31, to obtain insurance before facing the penalty.

Australia's newly elected conservative government is upholding a ban on China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd

Australia's newly elected conservative government is upholding a ban on China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd

Australia's newly elected conservative government is upholding a ban on China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia's newly elected conservative government is upholding a ban on China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd from bidding for work on the country's $38 billion National Broadband Network (NBN), the attorney-general said on Tuesday.
The former Labor government cited cyber-security concerns when it banned Huawei, the world's largest supplier of telecom network equipment by revenue, from bidding for contracts on the infrastructure rollout last year.
Some senior officials in the new Liberal-led Coalition government, including Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, had supported a review of the ban, raising expectations it would be scrapped.

But Attorney-General George Brandis said the government had decided not to change the policy, citing new briefings from Australia's national security agencies.
"Since the election the new government has had further briefings from the national security agencies. No decision has been made by the new government to change the existing policy," Brandis said in an email to Reuters.
"The decision of the previous government not to permit Huawei to tender for the NBN was made on advice from the national security agencies. That decision was supported by the then opposition after we received our own briefings from those agencies," he said.

The government would not comment on advice from the national security agencies, he added.

China, a major trading partner in the midst of negotiations on a free-trade agreement with Australia, expressed concern.
"We...consistently oppose using national security concerns as a pretext to interfere with the two countries' normal economic cooperation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing in Beijing.

"We hope all sides can make joint efforts to engage in normal cooperation and create good conditions for each others' companies on the basis of market principles and on the foundation of mutual respect and equality."

The move could please Australia's traditional ally, the United States, where lawmakers have warned against awarding Huawei major contracts over spying fears.

The U.S. House Intelligence Committee last year described Huawei as a national security threat and urged American firms to stop doing business with the Shenzhen-based company. Huawei has denied the U.S. allegations that its equipment could be used by Beijing for espionage.

The British government said in July that checks on Huawei's role in British telecommunications infrastructure had been "insufficiently robust" in the past, and announced a review of security at a cyber centre the company runs in southern England.
Huawei spokesman Jeremy Mitchell said the company believed the Australian government was still reviewing its policy.
"Huawei's understanding is that no decision has been made regarding the NBN and that the review is ongoing," Mitchell said in an emailed response after Brandis released his statement.
Huawei has become a significant market force in Australia. It supplies equipment to Singapore Telecom's local unit Optus as well as Vodafone, and has conducted trials with Australia's biggest telecom company, Telstra Corp Ltd. It also employed former senior Liberal Party officials as part of its lobbying effort to overturn Australia's ban.

The company, founded in 1987 by former People's Liberation Army officer Ren Zhengfei, last year proposed building a cyber security evaluation centre in Australia.

Police investigating Ang Mo Kio Town Council website hacking

Police investigating Ang Mo Kio Town Council website hacking


Police investigating Ang Mo Kio Town Council website hacking

Police are investigating the compromising of Ang Mo Kio Town Council's website, www.amktc.org.sg, according to Ang Mo Kio member of parliament (MP) Ang Hin Kee.

Speaking to Yahoo Singapore on Monday evening, Ang clarified that no personal information was compromised as all information on the website was public. He nonetheless called it "malicious", but said the intrusion caused "minimal" inconvenience as the town council acted quickly to shut the site and investigate the hacking.

"Nonetheless, we will ramp up security to the website," said Ang. "We also regret that the attacker has chosen to attack an amenity that residents can access."

After the hacker's outings on Sun Ho's as well as the People's Action Party (PAP) Community Foundation websites, the now-infamous "The Messiah" left a message in a two-panel carousel on the town council's home page on Monday afternoon targeting both it and Ang.
 
The first panel read, "I have been to various sites and seen how they take the initiative to secure their systems. You have a brain and you have money. You had a choice. Don't blame external factors (Anonymous) for this hack. - The Messiah ;)".

It linked to an article on sociopolitical site TR Emeritus reporting Ang's comments on the Woodlands bus interchange incident where a man was recorded on video spitting and verbally attacking other commuters over cutting a queue.

Ang said those comments, which were quoted in a MyPaper article previously, were taken out of context in that piece, adding that he has not spoken further on the issue since.
 
Clicking to the second panel revealed a second message, purportedly of Ang "tender(ing) (his) resignation as your minister of parliament".
 
"I am incapable and have failed you," wrote the hacker, who added another link to a YouTube video about the Anonymous group of "hacktivists".
 
By about 5pm, administrators had locked the Town Council's website, requiring authentication to access it.

News for X Men Days Of Future Past Showing - Singapore


X Men Days Of Future Past Showing

News for X Men Days Of Future Past Showing

X Men Days Of Future Past Showing Release date: May 23, 2014 (USA), (Singapore) "I don't want your suffering! I don't want your future!" Ever since we saw footage from Comic-Con, we've been waiting to see the first trailer for Bryan Singer's return to the X-Men franchise in the form of X-Men: Days of Future Past. With the cast of the original X-Men franchise and the new series X-Men: First Class coming together for this film, it looks like it will undoubtedly be the biggest X-Men film to date. This is pretty much exactly what we saw at Comic-Con, including the use of that The Thin Red Line track, but with some new shots we didn't see in San Diego. Next summer needs to be here now. Watch it below! via http://www.firstshowing.net/

 

ComicBook.com grabbed a few shots of the four new revealed we were able to get a clear look at in the new trailer, and will offer them here with commentary for the uninitiated.

Bishop

 In the comics, Bishop comes from a future where the world has been torn apart by a war that pitted humanity and mutantkind against an overwhelming force of Sentinels. He (and later his sister, Shard) is sent back in time by an ancient mutant called The Witness (that future’s version of Gambit) to prevent an unknown team member from kicking off the whole process by betraying the X-Men. His backstory got increasingly more complicated over time, especially because there were so many false starts where it seemed as though the traitor had been revealed and eventually that aspect of Bishop’s character–originally his driving motivation–became less significant. He’s got the ability to absorb and redirect energy, making him a very useful agent against the energy-firing Sentinels. It looks from what little we’ve seen in the trailer as though Bishop’s future may be folded into the story of Days of Future Past, a story in which he wasn’t featured because he wouldn’t be created for another ten years.

Blink

 An unstable mutant with the ability to teleport, she’s basically got the powers covered that Nightcrawler–who didn’t show this time out, even though Alan Cumming may have been willing–provided in the past. She’s also a fan-favorite character; in her original incarnation, she was introduced in “The Phalanx Covenant” and died almost immediately, but after one of her co-creators made her a big part of they fan-favorite alternate-universe story “The Age of Apocalypse,” Blink became popular enough that a version of her was later added to the dimension-hopping mutant super-team in Exiles. Again, while she’s got a time-travel/alternate reality background that serves the plot well, Blink didn’t appear in the original Days of Future.

Past comic book story since she hadn’t been created yet. Created two years after the original Days of Future Past storyline, Roberto Da Costa became a member of the New Mutants and later X-Force. With solar-based powers, including flight and the ability to fire solar blasts, Sunspot is mostly notable for the cool visual effect that they gave him for most of his career, where he looked completely black except his eyes and mouth, perhaps because he was absorbing all the light energy in his immediate area. He was an important player in the storyline “Days of Future Now,” in which he was the leader of a team of mutants called Gene Nation.

 20th Century Fox releases the first trailer for "X-Men: Days of Future Past" out next year.

News for X Men Days Of Future Past Showing


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