"The Fed didn't tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn't mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed's below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue."

"Politico has a piece on how the Patriot Act is interfering with U.S. firms trying to do business overseas in the area of cloud computing. Here's a quote: 'The Sept. 11-era law was supposed to help the intelligence community gather data on suspected terrorists. But competitors overseas are using it as a way to discourage foreign countries from signing on with U.S. cloud computing providers like Google and Microsoft: Put your data on a U.S.-based cloud, they warn, and you may just put it in the hands of the U.S. government.'"
Quite possibly the reason why most early adopters of the internet went from 'dial~up' to DSL and Cable..."NAPSTER". Faster internet for faster downloading of music..."Napster was one of the earliest and most popular P2P music-sharing services. After a long legal battle that saw Napster slowly gutted in the face of infringement lawsuits, it was reinvented as a legitimate music download service. The resurrected Napster is now being shut down. Rhapsody has completed its purchase of Napster and will be absorbing its subscribers and assets."
 Google Chrome is in the process of surpassing Firefox to become the second most popular web browser. Pinpointing the exact time of the change is difficult, of course, since different analytics firms collect slightly different data. The current crop of media reports were triggered by data from StatCounter, which shows Chrome at 25.69% and Firefox at 25.23% for November. Data from Net Applications shows Firefox still holding a 4% lead, but the trends suggest it will evaporate within a few months.
"Scientists from the California Institute of Technology have come up with a gene therapy approach that has proven effective inprotecting mice (with humanized immune systems) against HIV infections. They used a genetically altered virus to infect muscles cells and deliver DNA codes of potent antibodies isolated from the blood of human HIV victims (abstract). The muscle cells then began to manufacture the antibodies in quantities that proved 'completely protective' against HIV infection. By contrast, traditional vaccines have not worked against HIV, as scientists have failed to find a molecule that induces the immune system to produce enough potent antibodies. The difficulties stem from the fact that HIV disguises some of its external structures from the antibodies."
"The days of watching movies on the cheap via the Web may soon be over. Time Warner Cable and U.S. pay-TV companies are on the verge of instituting new fees on Web-access customers who use the most data. ... U.S. providers have weighed usage-based plans for years as a way to squeeze more profit from Web access, and to counter slowing growth and rising program costs in the TV business. While customer complaints hampered earlier attempts, pay-TV companies are testing usage caps and price structures that point to the advent of permanent fees. ... Cable's best option is to find ways to profit from the online shift, said [analyst Craig Moffett]. If the companies were to lose all of their video customers, the revenue decline would be more than offset by lower programming fees and set-top box spending. 'In the end, it will be the best thing that ever happened to the cable industry,' Moffett said."
My friend rescued a baby owl. He may not be as cute as the other owls but I think he's got some personality...
The Bomb Buried In Obamacare Explodes Today-Forbes
Russian Winter Kitty
Well done
Missing cat returns after a month during interview with owner
Dutch anti-piracy group, BREIN, not only stole the music for that ad, but was also found to be illegally seizing servers
Roommate couldn't find the key to his door last night...chill bro.
My friend had half of his Christmas lights up... This was on his door the next day. 
can I keep him, please?
Whoa Billy
This little guy came up to us as soon as we parked in the mountains. I guess mooching in the parking lot beats hunting.
Drunk guy trys to surf down his roof
Puppies abandoned in a vacant lot on a rainy day
Researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine show, for the first time, that violent video games directly alter brain activity - not after years of play, but after one week
He was NOT okay with the seal coming ashore
Canadian Highway Patrol 
Whoa... HOT! HOT! HOT! HOT! 
The Fool Hath Said In His Heart There Is No God.
Flying over London 

A Message For A Friday

Few Christians have enough faith to believe that God can preserve America. There is a cloud of dispair and unbelief upon people everywhere, as they look for disaster or the judgment of God to fall. We are looking for God to bring deliverance. We believe this with all our hearts. God has made us to be a nation, a people for His possession. Peter made it very plain that while we are citizens of the Kingdom of God, we are also coexisting with this present world.
 1 Peter 2:11-25

America is a great country! Consider the position of women today. In every Christian country, women have far more liberation than in other countries, and they are trying to attain still more. Many women want to move in domination, not liberation; they want to take over. women already own more real property in the United States than men do. In no other place of the world does the women have the rights that she enjoys in a nation with a Christian heritage. In some parts of the world a woman is bought and sold like a cow, harassed and esteemed as very unworthy; while the man continues in his dominant arrogance.

Where Christ has ruled, or where the Christian Church has had influence, it has been the salt of the earth and an instrument of change. No big revolution was needed to start those changes working. The Kingdom of heaven comes like leaven hidden in three measures of flour, and soon the whole is leavened (Matthew 13:33).

All we have to do as citizens of the Kingdom is to worship and to prophesy, to move in what God has for us, speaking the Living Word and seeing it sent forth, because that is the factor which will change the structures of society; we will do it by a Word.

We do not overcome evil by combating it in the same way it comes against us. Because we earnestly desire to see God move in the earth, we submit totally to Him. We must reach the place where we can love even our enemies. Others may come against us, but God has given us a promise that in the end time no weapon formed against us will prosper (Isaiah 54:17). When human nature enters into a situation, then nothing is accomplished spiritually. God cannot bring the victory as long as the one involved is not yielded to Him in the realm of his spirit so that He can make him an instrument. None of the ancient armies could cope with Elijah or Elisha. On one occasion, when fifty men came to take the prophet of God, he said, "If I am a man of God, let fire consume them" (II Kings 1:10,12). In other words, "God, You defend me. You take on these enemies Yourself." Elijah was wholly dependent on God to defend him, and He did.

There may be times when God does not defend certain of His servants. If we are chosen to be martyrs for Him, we will rejoice in the privilege. But if it is God's will for us to prevail by the Spirit, we believe for that. And this is exactly what He has been speaking to us, that we will prevail in the Spirit. We submit to the institutions that God has raised up, because we know that this is God's way of working, and it is what He says to us in His Word.
 I Timothy2:1-8 expresses this same thought.

Lord we look to You. We do not want to be a  fearful people, nor do we want to be a compromising people. After receiving so much from You, we do not want to back away from it. But we do want to apply the Word that You have given us in the way that You say we are to apply it. We know that we cannot use carnal means to bring about a spiritual end, for our weapons are not carnal; they are mighty through God (II Corinthians 10:4). We reach to You, Lord, believing that You will bring down every lofty thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of Yourself (II Corinthians 10:5). We believe in the ultimate glory of God in the whole earth. We believe in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 17:14). We believe that He shall rule and reign, for this is His right.

We believe that the simple voicing of our prayers and our faith will bring Thy divine power into action and bring about Thy will in the whole earth. We commit ourselves into action and bring about Thy will in the whole earth. We commit ourselves to Thee, Lord. We refuse to walk by any other word than Thy Word. We submit ourselves wholly unto You. So completely do we yield that whatever You tell us to do, we shall do, in Your name.

We take upon ourselves the armor of God, that we may resist all the powers of darkness, and "having done all that, to stand" (Ephesians 6:13). We do not fear, for we know that Christ is coming to rule, "to be glorified in His saints" (II Thessalonians 1:10).
Amen.

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"The days of watching movies on the cheap via the Web may soon be over. Time Warner Cable and U.S. pay-TV companies are on the verge of instituting new fees on Web-access customers who use the most data. ... U.S. providers have weighed usage-based plans for years as a way to squeeze more profit from Web access, and to counter slowing growth and rising program costs in the TV business. While customer complaints hampered earlier attempts, pay-TV companies are testing usage caps and price structures that point to the advent of permanent fees. ... Cable's best option is to find ways to profit from the online shift, said [analyst Craig Moffett]. If the companies were to lose all of their video customers, the revenue decline would be more than offset by lower programming fees and set-top box spending. 'In the end, it will be the best thing that ever happened to the cable industry,' Moffett said."
"Almost every year, the estimated number of U.S. households owning TV sets goes up. Until now. This year, for the second time since 1970, TV ownership has gone down; by about 1%. TV ownership among the key adult 18-49 demo also declined even steeper, down 2.7 percent and percentage of homes without a TV is at the highest level since 1975. The reasons behind this appear to be online media content and the recession."
"The BBC is reporting that a team led by Dr. Friedemann Freund from NASA and Dr. Rachel Grant from the UK's Open University have found that 'animals may sense chemical changes in groundwater that occur when an earthquake is about to strike.' Just prior to the quake that struck L'Aquila, Italy in 2009, Grant observed a mass toad exodus from a colony she was monitoring as part of her PhD project, and her published results prompted NASA to contact her as they found that highly stressed tectonic plates released a greater amount of positively charged ions that affected the water quality, which was sensed by the toads. According to NASA's Freund, 'Once we understand how all of these signals are connected, if we see four of five signals all pointing in [the same] direction, we can say, "ok, something is about to happen."'"Ya...HAARP...http://beforeitsnews.com/story/20/951/Are_We_in_a_HAARP_Earthquake_War.htmlhttp://www.haarp.net/http://www.earthpulse.com/src/category.asp?catid=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkLTzesBxGE

"WikiLeaks has launched a new submissions platform, along with a study of the global trade in surveillance products. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told press conference attendees in London that all the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Gmail users in the crowd were 'screwed.' 'The reality is intelligence contractors are selling right now to countries across the world mass surveillance systems for all of those products,' Assange said."
My brother's friend also likes to draw on his whiteboard at work.
Remember that catchy tune on the "You Wouldn't Steal a Handbag..." antipiracy notices? Yup. They pirated the music.
TIL a flamingo escaped from a zoo in Salt Lake City and lived in the wild from 1987-2005. His name was Pink Floyd.
In the deep ocean off the coast of Costa Rica, scientists have found a species of crab that cultivates gardens of bacteria on its claws, then eats them.
So I heard you like portable consoles... [360]
All six of these guys immediately climbed into my lap and fell asleep after their bath.
We got you a little brother!
Okay, It’s Official. We Have Found The Worst Video Ever Made. Well, At Least This Year.
Huh!?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_1WvxYBGTk&feature=related
This video is mesmerizing to watch
http://www.americablog.com/2011/11/ag-holder-asks-americans-to-report-ip.html
LA poised to be the first major US city to call for an end to Corporate personhood: City Council will vote on a resolution calling Congress to amend the Constitution to establish that only living persons - not corporations - have constitutional rights and that money is not the same as free speech
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension: Kevin Smith, Peter Weller, John Lithgow: Intro and Q&A
Meanwhile, on a History Channel far, far away...