It's WTF Tuesday!

Soldier: Obama not U.S. born, can't send me to Afghanistan:

MACON — U.S. Army Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook is seeking a federal court order to stall and eventually prevent an upcoming deployment to Afghanistan.

In the 20-page document — filed July 8 with the United States District Court, Middle District of Georgia — Cook's California-based attorney, Orly Taitz, asks the court to consider granting his client's request based upon Cook's belief that President Barrack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and is therefore ineligible to serve as commander-in-chief of U.S Armed Forces.

Major Cook is very brave to bring attention to the fact that he wasn't paying attention in history class. Hawaii isn't part of the United States but one of those weird island nations filled with exotic natives and stuff, apparently.

Why didn't soldiers think of this excuse with Bush? "He wasn't elected but selected, so doesn't have the right to send me to his Neocon war of choice." That excuse would at least been based on the truth!
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That's a lot of fake brake repairs....

Rarely do stories generate the kind of consumer response that The Bee received after the state attorney general's office sued a Modesto businessman and his 22 Midas Automotive Service franchises.

The civil lawsuit, which seeks $222 million in penalties, claims the shops owned by Maurice "Mike" Irving Glad used false advertising and fraudulent business practices to sell consumers unnecessary parts and services. The case stems from a four-year investigation and 30 undercover sting operations.

For his part, Glad says he was the victim of overzealous enforcement by the state Bureau of Automotive Repair that was designed to deceive his mechanics. He defended his business practices and workers, vowing to fight the lawsuit aggressively.

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Chan Akya of The Asia Times digs a hole trying to explain why he took offense to Krugman's ... use of slang which makes his economic theories all wrong?

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Ya give a kid a credit card....

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Speaking of money, we'd like to see this corporation's uncooked books:

US bank Goldman Sachs reported a net profit of $3.44bn (£2.1bn) for April to June, beating analysts' forecasts.

Less volatility in stock markets, rises in global share prices and involvement in many firms' rights issues and takeovers had boosted profits, it said.

The bank said it had set aside $6.65bn for pay and bonuses in the quarter - an average of $226,000 per employee.

Goldman has recently paid off $10bn of government loans it had taken as part of a government bail-out programme.

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But lead is a natural substance... and makes you feel full!:

A new study by Consumer Lab found that many multivitamins contain potentially dangerous levels of lead, and many did not contain the vitamins and minerals their labels proclaim.

[snip]

Almost no vitamins were found to be free of lead, according to the Sacramento Bee (the study results are by subscription only). Indeed, lead-free may be an impossible goal because fruits and vegetables absorb lead from soil and water.

What's a person to do? Your best bet is to buy a well known brand and look for a stamp on the bottle from USP, NSF or Consumer Lab.com. Living in California helps, because our state is the only one to regulate vitamins. By California law, 15 percent of the vitamins evaluated ought to carry a warning label.

Plastic is forever

Honolulu, HI (AHN) -- Two men have successfully sailed from California to Hawaii in a raft made of plastic bottles and Cessna airplane parts.

Dr. Marcus Eriksen and Joel Paschal built their raft, which they named "Junk," out of 15,000 plastic bottles and a Cessna 310 fuselage. The purpose of their journey was to bring attention to the massive amount of plastic floating at sea.

The Northern Pacific Gyre, which has been getting some alternative media attention this year, is an area twice the size of Britain that swirls with tons of plastics used for water bottles, food containers, and various other one-time purposes.

Eriksen and Paschal described to reporters instances during their 2,600 mile journey when they caught a fish to eat, only to find plastic in its stomach when they cut it open.

During the 87 day journey, the two men saw first hand that "plastic is forever, and it's everywhere," as yahctpals.com reported Eriksen wrote in his journal at the end of the trip.

He went on to say that he plans to use the voyage as a starting point to create a dialogue about how to deal with the problem of disposable plastics.

This post deserves repeating:

Making a new continent
One plastic bag at a time:

­ ­In the broad expanse of the northern Pacific Ocean, there exists the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, a slowly moving, clockwise spiral of currents created by a high-pressure system of air currents. The area is an oceanic desert, filled with tiny phytoplankton but few big fish or mammals. Due to its lack of large fish and gentle breezes, fishermen and sailors rarely travel through the gyre. But the area is filled with something besides plankton: trash, millions of pounds of it, most of it plastic. It's the largest landfill in the world, and it floats in the middle of the ocean.

The gyre has actually given birth to two large masses of ever-accumulating trash, known as the Western and Eastern Pacific Garbage Patches, sometimes collectively called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Eastern Garbage Patch floats between Hawaii and California; scientists estimate its size as two times bigger than Texas [source: LA Times]. The Western Garbage Patch forms east of Japan and west of Hawaii. Each swirling mass of refuse is massive and collects trash from all over the world. The patches are connected by a thin 6,000-mile long current called the Subtropical Convergence Zone. Research flights showed that significant amounts of trash also accumulate in the Convergence Zone.

It's the world's biggest landfill and it's in the Pacific Ocean

Before you despair too much, another post mentions the teenage boy who discovered how to decompose plastic bags.

Too bad Falwell isn't here to tell us what sin was responsible

For Hawaii's incoming troubles:

HONOLULU — Hurricane Flossie was downgraded to a Category 2 hurricane Tuesday but stayed on course to brush the Big Island, where schools were closed and residents were urged to stock up on food and water.

As if the storm wasn't enough, an 5.3 magnitude earthquake jolted the Big Island of Hawaii during the night.

The eye of the storm had maximum sustained wind of 110 mph, hurricane specialists noted in downgrading the storm from the earlier Category 3. It was expected to pass less than 100 miles from the islands, lashing the shores with strong wind and up to 10 inches of rain, meteorologists said.

The National Weather Service placed the Big Island under a hurricane watch and a tropical storm warning. A flash flood watch was also issued for the island through Wednesday.

Or the U.S' incoming hurricane season...

Oh well... where ever he is now, I'm sure he's having a ... blast.

It's a rare new species

So the first thing we need to know is... how does it taste?

What appears to be a half-squid, half-octopus specimen found off Keahole Point on the Big Island remains unidentified today and could possibly be a new species, said local biologists.

The specimen was found caught in a filter in one of Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority's deep-sea water pipelines last week. The pipeline, which runs 3,000 feet deep, sucks up cold, deep-sea water for the tenants of the natural energy lab.