One In 50 Americans Lives On Nothing But Food Stamps

from The Business Insider by Henry Blodget

A sobering snapshot from Jason DeParle and Robert Gebeloff of the New York Times:

About six million Americans receiving food stamps report they have no other income, according to an analysis of state data collected by The New York Times. In declarations that states verify and the federal government audits, they described themselves as unemployed and receiving no cash aid — no welfare, no unemployment insurance, and no pensions, child support or disability pay.

Their numbers were rising before the recession as tougher welfare laws made it harder for poor people to get cash aid, but they have soared by about 50 percent over the past two years. About one in 50 Americans now lives in a household with a reported income that consists of nothing but a food-stamp card.

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British adopting AR-10 style sharpshooter rifle

British adopting AR-10 style sharpshooter rifle

via The Firearm Blog by Steve on 1/3/10

The British Army will be receiving AR-10 style rifles to help them engage the Taliban at distances beyond the range of their 5.56mm L85 rifles. The new L129A1 will be used in a designated marksmen role. Janes reports ...

In a USD2.5 million deal the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has contracted Law Enforcement International (LEI) to supply 440 LM7 semi-automatic rifles.
...
To be redesignated the L129A1, the gas-operated weapon carries a 20-round magazine, is 945 mm long and weighs 5 kg. It will be manufactured by Lewis Machine & Tool Company in the United States, with deliveries expected to begin in early 2010.
Features of the weapon include a single-piece upper receiver and free-floating, quick-change barrels available in 305 mm, 406 mm and 508 mm. It has four Picatinny rails with a 540 mm top rail for night vision, thermal and image intensifying optics. Stock options include fixed or retractable versions.

The L129A1

I wonder why they did not pull FALs out of storage as an interim solution as US forces have done with the M14.
[Hat Tip: Soldier Systems]

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Relax Guys — There May Be No G-Spot After All

Call it what you want...it's there.

Relax Guys — There May Be No G-Spot After All

via Dvorak Uncensored by Uncle Dave on 1/3/10

A sexual quest that has for years baffled millions of women — and men — may have been in vain. A study by British scientists has found that the mysterious G-spot, the sexual pleasure zone said to be possessed by some women but denied to others, may not exist at all.
The scientists at King’s College London who carried out the study claim there is no evidence for the existence of the G-spot — supposedly a cluster of internal nerve endings — outside the imagination of women influenced by magazines and sex therapists. They reached their conclusions after a survey of more than 1,800 British women.
“Women may argue that having a G-spot is due to diet or exercise, but in fact it is virtually impossible to find real traits,” said Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology, who co-authored the research. “This is by far the biggest study ever carried out and it shows fairly conclusively that the idea of a G-spot is subjective.”

And then there’s this:

Meanwhile, David Matlock, a Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeon, is credited with creating an artificial version of the G-spot. In some cases this has resulted in an over-sensitive zone which induces orgasms when, for example, women drive over bumps in the road.

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Arizona May Abandon Speed Cameras on Highways

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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: January 2, 2010

PHOENIX (AP) — More than a year after Arizona became the first state in the country to deploy dozens of speed cameras on highways statewide, threats to the groundbreaking program abound.

Enlarge This Image

Paul Connors/Associated Press

An photo enforcement van in Arizona lights up a speeding car while recording its license plate.

Profits are far below expectations, a citizen effort to ban the cameras is gaining steam, the governor has said she does not like the program, and more and more drivers are ignoring the tickets they get in the mail after hearing from fellow speeders that there are often no consequences to doing so.
“I see all the cameras in Arizona completely coming down ” in 2010, said Shawn Dow, chairman of Arizona Citizens Against Photo Radar, which is trying to get a measure banning the cameras on the November ballot. “The citizens of Arizona took away the cash cow of Arizona by refusing to pay.”
The Arizona Department of Public Safety introduced the cameras in September 2008 and slowly added more until all 76 were up and running by January.
Supporters say the cameras slow down drivers and reduce accidents, but opponents argue that they are intrusive and are more about making money than safety.
More than 300 communities in 25 states use cameras similar to Arizona’s, including New York, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. But the backlash seems to be particularly intense in Arizona. Some people have shown their distaste with the cameras by covering them with boxes, sticky notes and Silly String. In locally infamous cases, one man took a pickax to a camera and another purposefully set off the cameras dozens of times while wearing a monkey mask.
Lt. Jeff King, photo enforcement district commander for the Department of Public Safety, said his agency just wanted drivers to go the speed limit and did not understand all the backlash.
“Instead of spending so much time focusing on getting rid of cameras, why don’t they focus on the real problem, the root problem, which is getting people to drive the speed limit?" Lieutenant King said. “If everyone was to drive the speed limit, the cameras would never flash.”
The cameras led to more than 700,000 tickets to drivers going 11 miles per hour or more over the speed limit from September 2008 to September 2009, the most recent data available, according to the Department of Public Safety. The mandated fines and surcharges on all those tickets would total more than $127 million, but they had generated just $36.8 million through September, Lieutenant King said.
Some of the people who got those tickets are contesting them in court and could end up having to pay the fine, but many of them have gone unpaid because drivers know they have a good shot at getting away with ignoring them. When people get tickets, they can pay without question, request a court date and fight the ticket, or simply ignore the ticket because law enforcement cannot prove they received it. The ticket becomes invalid if a violator who ignores it is not served in person within three months. It is nearly impossible to say how many people have ignored their tickets because courts do not track the figure.
Whatever the figure, overtaxed process servers cannot get to most of those people, and many of the citations go unpaid. That is part of the reason the speed cameras have not made as much money as expected. While certain to increase, that $36.8 million in revenue through September will still fall far below the $120 million a year that former Gov. Janet Napolitano hoped to put in the state’s coffers when she ordered up the program in early 2007.
The camera operator, Redflex, may not even be breaking even. It cost the company $16 million to install the cameras, and it got back $4.6 million from September 2008 to June, Lieutenant King said.

Parents Arrested For Giving Kids, Ages 10-17, Homemade Tattoos

Parents Arrested For Giving Kids, Ages 10-17, Homemade Tattoos

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by The Huffington Post News Editors on 1/3/10

A northwest Georgia couple arrested for giving six of their children homemade tattoos say they didn't do anything wrong. The kids, they say, wanted the tattoos to be like Mom and Dad.
"I'm their mother," Patty Jo Marsh said late Saturday. "Shouldn't I be able to decide if they get one?"
Georgia law prohibits tattoos from anyone other than a licensed professional. Children under 18 are also prohibited from getting tattoos.

Argument Over Game Blamed as Nine-Year-Old Stabbed to Death [Murder]

Argument Over Game Blamed as Nine-Year-Old Stabbed to Death [Murder]

via Kotaku by Owen Good on 1/3/10

Police and relatives say an argument over Tony Hawk: Ride precipitated a shocking murder in New York; Anthony Maldonado, 9, (pictured) who got a PS3 for Christmas, was stabbed in the chest by an enraged 25-year-old early New Year's Day.

The specifics of what sent Alejandro Morales, 25, into a murderous rage are unclear. The attack happened at 3:30 a.m. The Daily News of New York spoke to the dead boy's family and they leave no doubt that an argument over the game was the cause.

"Anthony was playing ... on PlayStation when his friend came and stabbed him. My grandson died over a video game," Antonio Juela, 59, Anthony's grandfather, told the Daily News.

Police said Anthony was slashed in the face and stabbed several times, indicating there may have been a struggle before he was stabbed in the chest. He was taken to the hospital but died within an hour.

Anthony had been playing Tony Hawk: Ride with Morales and two men whom Anthony's parents said were Morales' brothers. The three rent an apartment in the same building, they said. At some point, two of the brothers left to go get something to eat, leaving Morales with the boy. The attack occurred while they were alone and Anthony's family was asleep.

This is a sickening and sad story, and you can't read about a 25-year-old man doing anything to a fourth-grader, much less attacking him with a knife, without feeling a powerful revulsion, if not outright hatred of the accused.

But while I don't mean to be "that guy," the video game is only incidental to the cause here. A violent man willing to stab a 9-year-old over such a trivial argument could have killed him or anyone else for any of several other reasons. It's still a very sad and germane detail - a child stabbed while playing a game he got for Christmas - but it's not the reason.

Anthony Maldonado, 9, Stabbed to Death over Video Game while Visiting Family in Harlem [Daily News, New York, via DualShockers]

[Image Credit: Fevelo for Daily News]

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Colt, Christmas Edition

Colt, Christmas Edition

via 2leep.com latest links on 1/3/10

Colt, Christmas Edition
Give yourself a Christmas present!
more...

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Keb’ Mo’ Bluesmaster - If you haven't checked out Keb's stuff do it!

Keb’ Mo’ Bluesmaster

via The Awesomer by The Awesomer on 1/3/10

Grammy award winner Keb’ Mo’ and Gibson take blues back to its acoustic roots with the Bluesmaster; limited to 300 pieces, it’s a flat-top L-series guitar with an L.R. Baggs Element pickup.

• Link: http://www.theawesomer.com/c/click.php?id=8589
• Price: $3,868

Related posts:

1. Gibson Artist Guitars
2. Gibson 7-String Explorer
3. Angus Young SG Guitar

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"Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Allan N. Schwartz, LCSW, Ph.D. Updated: Apr 14th 2009

Are you a "man," a nonconformist, in the way that Emerson speaks of? We Americans pride ourselves in being individualistic, independent and nonconformist. We prize our freedom to choose what we want to do and when we want to do it. We are convinced that it is more important to do the right thing than to go along with the majority.

However, during the 1950's an experiment was done that revealed the truth that many of us are more conformist in our behavior than we like to admit to ourselves or to other people. Specifically, there were a series of experiments done called the "Asch Conformity Experiments."

Solomon Asch was a psychologist who, during the decade of the 1950's wanted to demonstrate the power that groups exert over our thinking and behavior.

12 Cool Lamborghini Concept Cars

12 Cool Lamborghini Concept Cars

via Toxel.com by Toxel.com on 1/2/10

Collection of the most beautiful and interesting Lamborghini concept cars designed by talented artists from all over the world. Lamborghini Embolado Concept Designed by a talented Italian design student Luca Serafini, the name of the concept derives from a Spanish festival called “Embolado Bull”. [link] Lamborghini Furia Concept Inspired by the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4, designer Amadou Ndiaye has come [...]

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