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16 Apr 2011 21:49

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Culture: Will Ferrell’s new Spanish-language film looks amazing

  • Will Ferrell’s Spanish-language juggernaut: With the tone of a Robert Rodriguez film, the acting cast of a Pedro Almodóvar barnburner (with a little help from a “Parks and Recreation” standby) and the wit of a Funny Or Die keeper, we would be underplaying our hand if we didn’t point out that “Casa de Mi Padre” (“House of my Father”) probably isn’t for the Spanish-language market. This is the Will Ferrell we know and love. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Apr 2011 20:58

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World: Wow: Fidel Castro’s brother Raul suggests term limits for Cuba

  • two the number of terms — five years each — Raul Castro just suggested Cuba limit its elected officials to
  • 47 the number of years his brother Fidel led the communist nation for; which explains why this is a surprise source
  • » A rare meeting: Raul made the suggestion at a meeting of the Communist Party Congress — the first get-together of the organization in 14 years. Raul said the country needed the changes to encourage a “systematic rejuvenation of the whole chain of party and administrative posts.” Let’s face it, Raul Castro (the 79-year-old younger brother) isn’t going to live forever. No word on what his brother thinks of this.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Apr 2011 17:25

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World: “Walk to Work”: Did Uganda shut off Twitter & Facebook?

  • No, no, it is not us; it seems it is the government that has blocked the service. Even us, we are crying like you.
  • A Warid telecom engineer in Uganda • Expressing frustration that Facebook and Twitter reportedly no longer working in the country. The report — which would be the second bout of social media downtime the country has faced in the past few months — suggests a degree of par-for-the-course suppression as Ugandan citizens plan a “walk to work” protest for Monday, to fight against quickly-increasing food prices. Which, by the way, has been a root cause of much of the unrest throughout northern Africa of late. (hat tip John Ness) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Apr 2011 16:38

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U.S.: FAA: Maybe we need to change air-traffic controllers’ schedules

  • cause Like sharks in a slow news period, air-traffic controllers have fallen asleep numerous times over the past few weeks — including one just last night in Miami.
  • reaction In an effort to help limit the workers’ on-the-job issues, the FAA plans to change their schedules to better adapt to the late-night shifts. source
  • » Some hard numbers: Our whole grumbling about air traffic controllers being the new sharks did get us curious about whether there were actually more errors among air traffic controllers. But USA Today beat us to the research back in February. Their findings? Incidents involving air traffic controllers are up 81 percent since 2007, from 1,040 to 1,887 in 2010. More serious incidents — which we’re assuming “sleeping on the job” includes — are up 26 percent over the same period, from 34 to 43. Not to say air traffic controllers shouldn’t be incredibly good at their jobs, but considering that we’re still talking about less than 2,000 incidents nationwide — big or small — over an entire year suggests at least some degree of overreaction.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Apr 2011 11:34

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U.S.: Scary report: Many meats have high levels of drug-resistant bacteria

The Translational Genomics Research Institute notes that while the meat is safe to eat, consumers should take care in handling and cooking it. Still though, yikes. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Apr 2011 11:04

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U.S.: Poker sites work around federal shutdowns, get sites back up

  • The developments are confined to the U.S. and do not have any impact on your ability to continue using our services. Please be assured player balances are safe. There is no cause for concern. For all customers outside the U.S. it is business as usual.
  • A statement from PokerStars • Informing users that despite its site being shut down in a federal sting, its app is still operating and will continue to do so … for users outside the U.S. The site is now located at PokerStars.eu. Full Tilt Poker, relocated to a .net domain, has a similar message up at the moment. (Absolute Poker, however, isn’t up as of this writing.) We imagine a bunch of poker addicts high-tailing it to Canada to get their fix. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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