February 5, 2012

Posts Comments

You are here: Home / Archives for Big Daddy

BP: Oil leak could be stopped by next week

May 21, 2010 By 1 Comment
lkl.bp_.dudley.oil_.spill_.cnn_.640x360

STORY HIGHLIGHTS * NEW: Well could be shut off next week, BP official says * NEW: Coast Guard announces flow rate assessment group * EPA orders BP to find less toxic chemical to use to break up oil * Oil seeping into Louisiana wetlands Washington (CNN) -- A BP official says a gusher of oil pouring from its damaged Gulf of Mexico well could be shut off as early as next week. BP Managing Director Bob Dudley said Thursday night the company will pump fluids into the well this weekend in the beginning of a process that -- if successful -- could lead to the leak finally being closed off in a matter of days. "If that option doesn't work, we've got a second and a third option we'll do after that," Dudley said on CNN's Larry King on Thursday. "We're hopeful that next week we'll be able to shut it off." Earlier in the day, BP acknowledged that the underwater gusher is bigger than estimated to date, as new video showed a cloud of crude billowing around its undersea siphon. Company spokesman Mark Proegler said Thursday that the siphon is now drawing about 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons) per day up to a ship on the surface of the Gulf -- as much as government and company officials had estimated the spill was pouring into the Gulf every day for a month. Proegler declined to estimate how much more oil was escaping. BP America Chairman Lamar McKay said Wednesday that the figure used by the oil spill response team had a degree of "uncertainty" built into it. But figures by independent researchers have run up to many times higher: Steve Wereley, a professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, told CNN's "American Morning" that the spill could be as big as 20,000 to 100,000 barrels a day. And members of Congress released video from the company that showed much more oil pouring out of the damaged well than the siphon was capturing. Rep. Ed Markey, who leads a House subcommittee investigating the disaster, told reporters, "I think now we are beginning to understand that we cannot trust BP." "People do not trust the experts any longer," said Markey, D-Massachusetts. "BP has lost all credibility. Now the decisions will have to be made by others, because it is clear that they have been hiding the actual consequences of this spill." RELATED TOPICS * Gulf Coast Oil Spill * Mary Landrieu * BP plc * Louisiana Meanwhile, the Coast Guard announced the creation of a federal Flow Rate Technical Group to assess the actual flow rate from the well. Coast Guard Capt. Ron LaBrec said that Adm. Thad Allen would oversee the team, which will include members from the Coast Guard, the Minerals Management Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Energy, the U.S. Geological Society and others from the science community and academia. The peer-reviewed team, which has already begun its work, is to determine the flow rate from the beginning of the incident to the present, LaBrec said. The Obama administration … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Adult Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Clinton warns North Korea on sinking of South's ship

May 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment
ac73e9c17f35d120d4640c105787566d

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned North Korea must face international consequences over the sinking of a Southern warship in March. She said on a visit to Tokyo that, despite Pyongyang's denials, evidence the North had torpedoed the ship was "overwhelming". South Korea's president told his security chiefs the response to the sinking must be "very prudent". He also firmly blamed North Korea when he addressed his security council. It was a "surprise military attack from North Korea [that came] while South Korean people were resting late at night", President Lee Myung-bak said. Foreign investigators said in a report that a torpedo had hit the ship, killing 46 people. Experts from the US, the UK, Australia and Sweden found that parts of the torpedo retrieved from the sea floor had lettering that matched a North Korean design. 'Scientific' report Hillary Clinton: "The evidence is overwhelming and condemning" Speaking after talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, Mrs Clinton called on North Korea to "stop its provocative behaviour". While she said it would be premature to discuss options before consultations with countries in the region, the evidence of a Northern attack was, in her words, "overwhelming and condemning". "The torpedo that sunk the Cheonan... was fired by a North Korean submarine," she said. "We cannot allow this attack on South Korea to go unanswered by the international community. "This will not be and cannot be business as usual. There must be an international, not just a regional, but an international response." READ THE REPORT IN FULL Continue reading the main story PDF download Investigation result on the sinking of Cheonan[72KB] Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but you may need Adobe Reader Excerpts: Ship sinking report Mrs Clinton, who is in Asia for a week-long tour, described the report on the sinking as "scientific", BBC state department correspondent Kim Ghattas reports from Japan. Her choice of words was interesting, our correspondent says. China was sceptical about the investigation and said it had to be scientific. Mrs Clinton is heading to China next. Earlier, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said that America, which has some 28,000 troops stationed in the South, was in "close consultation" with Seoul. 'Resolute counter-measures' South Korea's president is due to outline his plan of action early next week and this is thought likely to include taking the evidence of an attack to the UN Security Council in an attempt to win support for tougher sanctions on North Korea, the BBC's John Sudworth reports from Seoul. President Lee Myung-bak (centre) attends the South Korean security council meeting, 21 May President Lee is due to outline the response next week President Lee told his security council the sinking of the Cheonan on 26 March had violated the UN Charter and the 1953 armistice which effectively ended the Korean War. Ordering "systematic and resolute counter-measures … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Adult Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Failure to Launch

May 21, 2010 By 1 Comment
17214

Sirius Radio's Dr. Steve discusses erectile dysfunction — and how to get things up and running again "I'm a 26-year-old guy that has trouble 'getting it up' sometimes. I'm not really up for going to the doctor to get Viagra or anything like that, so I'm wondering are there any 'natural' fixes that actually help in that department? And how is it even possible for someone my age to have this kind of problem?" — Conrad S., Buffalo, New York There's nothing worse than being in the middle of an amorous encounter and "coming up short," so to speak. Erectile dysfunction is a very common problem, affecting a significant fraction of men, especially over 40, but younger men can be affected (as you and millions of your brethren out there can attest). Before just popping off to a health food store for some herbal supplements, it's smart to take a few minutes to try to figure out why you're having the problem in the first place. When a man gets aroused, the brain goes through an electrical tap dance that results in an increase of blood flow to the penis; there's also a constriction of the veins that carry blood away from the organ. All this causes a net increase of fluid pressure in these spongy tube things running the length of the shaft (called corpora cavernosa) which begin to fill up like manic sausages. Because the outer sheath of the penis doesn't stretch much, the result is an erect member. It's easy to see that for every step in the process, there's a potential defect that can cause it not to work. Decrease desire, and the genitals never get the signal to come to attention. This "loss of libido" can be caused by medical problems (e.g., low testosterone), psychological problems (e.g., depression, anxiety), and drugs (e.g., antidepressants). If the arteries become inelastic and won't dilate, all the desire in the world won't get you hard; this happens in patients with "hardening of the arteries," otherwise known as atherosclerosis. Diabetes can also damage the small nerves going to your junk and can cause the "happy signal" to never arrive. There's also the possibility that your problem is psychological. If you can masturbate normally but have difficulties during consensual sex, your problem is likely in your head rather than your penis. Performance anxiety has been the downfall of many otherwise virile young men, and it often starts with a small problem and then snowballs over time. A typical scenario: a man has a little too much to drink one night and can't get an erection during a lovemaking session. He may blame himself or feel "less than a man" so that the next time he has an opportunity for sex he's so distracted from the pressure to perform that he can't perform again. The more he can't perform, the more anxious he gets and the vicious cycle spirals out of control. The treatment of this kind of impotence is centered on regaining confidence, whether it be in couples therapy with an understanding partner, or the placebo effect of simply having … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Adult Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Sixth Circuit Tackles Victor's/Victoria's (Little) Secret

May 21, 2010 By 1 Comment
f54894726edda0d062a29daaf79b04bf

Result: Victor's ain't so "Secret" anymore ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky.—All it took was an Army colonel who likes classy intimate apparel to spark a trademark dilution case that, over its decade-long existence, has been to the Supreme Court and back again—but now the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has weighed in on the controversy once again, with a majority finding that the world-famous Victoria's Secret brand had been damaged by a local interloper, originally calling itself "Victor's Secret." The controversy began shortly after Feb. 12, 1998, when the unnamed colonel saw an ad in an advertising giveaway publication distributed to residents at the military base at Fort Knox, Ky., which advertised the "GRAND OPENING just in time for Valentine's Day" of the strip-mall store Victor's Secret. The ad said the store offered "Intimate Lingerie for every woman," "Romantic Lighting," "Lycra Dresses," "Pagers" (?) and "Adult Novelties/Gifts." But something about the ad offended the colonel, who perceived the store's name as an attempt to use the Victoria's Secret trademark as a means to promote the sale of "unwholesome, tawdry merchandise"—so he sent a copy of the ad to Victoria's Secret headquarters, who in turn contacted store owner Victor Moseley to complain about the trademark ripoff. In response, Moseley changed the store's name to "Victor's Little Secret" (VLS), but that didn't satisfy the Victoria's Secret (VS) people, who sued Moseley in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky. That court found no evidence of actual confusion between the VS and VLS marks and ruled in VLS's favor on VS's infringement and unfair competition claims, but upheld VS's claim under the Federal Trademark Dilution Act (FTDA) and ordered VLS to stop using the infringing name—a ruling the Sixth Circuit affirmed. Eventually, the case wound up in the U.S. Supreme Court. "Noting that petitioners [VLS] did not challenge Victoria Secret's claim that its mark is 'famous,' the only question it had to decide was whether petitioners' use of their mark diluted the quality of respondents' mark," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for a unanimous court. "Reasoning from the premise that dilution 'corrodes' a trademark either by '"blurring its product identification or by damaging positive associations that have attached to it,"' the court first found the two marks to be sufficiently similar to cause dilution, and then found 'that Defendants' mark dilutes Plaintiffs' mark because of its tarnishing effect upon the Victoria's Secret mark.'" Trouble is, VS didn't present any evidence that VLS had actually caused financial or any other type of actual harm to VS's trademark, and based on its reading of the FTDA and a variety of cases brought under it, the high court ruled that even a showing of "likelihood of harm" by VLS's use of its name was insufficient to allow VS to prevail in its dilution suit. "Noting that consumer surveys and other means of demonstrating actual dilution … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Adult Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

China Sentences Swingers to Prison

May 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment
29102742e7c462fcee077a6e08e48ade

Sentences for the 19 people convicted of 'group licentiousness' range from two and a half to three and a half years in jail NANJING, China—19 Chinese swingers have been the first to be convicted under the “group licentiousness” law, created to replace the more general offense of “hooliganism.” Sentences ranged from two and a half to three and a half years in jail, with the organizer of the events the only one to receive the longer sentence. Originally, 22 people were tried. The organizer, Ma Yaohai, was the only defendant not to plead guilty. A twice-divorced computer science professor, Ma was arrested last year after being informed upon by a group of swingers caught by police in a hotel room. Ma had arranged the gathering, as he had on at least 17 other occasions, reported the New York Times. “The law against group sex, generally interpreted by judges as involving three or more people, is left over from an earlier law against ‘hooliganism’ that was used to prosecute people who had sex outside of marriage,” reported the Times. “The hooliganism law was scrapped in 1997. One notable swingers case took place in the early 1980s, when the leader of a swingers club involving four middle-aged couples was executed.” Nowadays, the Communist regime is far less intrusive in private lives than it used to be, and tens of thousands of Chinese engage regularly in swinging, according to Li Yinhe, a prominent Chinese sexologist. Still, the use of the “group licentiousness” law indicates the government is not ready to allow unfettered sexual activity without consequences, despite the fact that “sex toy shops and brothels—often thinly disguised as hair salons or massage parlors—proliferate across cities and even in many villages, while premarital sex is common among young couples,” according to the Times. It remains to be seen whether the recent swingers case, which received a lot of attention in China, sends the message the authorities are hoping for or whether it results in a backlash against the government by a populace increasingly used to its independence. Ma, who resigned his teaching job and now lives off savings and his mother’s pension, says he will appeal the verdict. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Adult Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Google Open Sources VP8, Offers WebM

May 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment
cec9e3619c33a6307aaa5f4181c3d01e

LOS ANGELES — Google has announced the widely anticipated release of its VP8 video codec and launch of the WebM open web media project. In a move that is earning praise from the Open Source community, Google has joined forces with a variety of industry leaders to redefine video on the web — but not everyone is wildly enthusiastic about the prospects — and industry operators are now left to ask, "what real impact will the move have on adult?" "A key factor in the web's success is that its core technologies such as HTML, HTTP, TCP/IP, etc. are open and freely implementable," Jeremy Doig, Google's engineering director of video, wrote. "Though video is also now core to the web experience, there is unfortunately no open and free video format that is on par with the leading commercial choices." Addressing this shortcoming is WebM, which Doig describes as "a broadly-backed community effort to develop a world-class media format for the open web." Central to WebM is the high-quality VP8 video codec, which Google released under a BSD-style, royalty-free license. In addition to VP8, WebM incorporates the Open Source Vorbis audio codec and a derivative of the Matroska media container. "The team that created VP8 have been pioneers in video codec development for over a decade," Doig stated. "VP8 delivers high quality video while efficiently adapting to the varying processing and bandwidth conditions found on today's broad range of web-connected devices." Mozilla and Opera have joined Google Chrome in offering browser support for WebM, along with a host of other companies that see the importance of this technology to the future of online video and are now developing related products and services. "VP8's efficient bandwidth usage will mean lower serving costs for content publishers and high quality video for end-users," Doig added. "The codec's relative simplicity makes it easy to integrate into existing environments and requires less manual tuning to produce high quality results." "These existing attributes and the rapid innovation we expect through the open-development process make VP8 well suited for the unique requirements of video on the web," he concluded. For its part, Microsoft says it will support VP8 for users that have it already installed on their systems, but the codec's integration into its software will not be anytime soon. Rather, Redmond claims that it will exclusively support H.264 as its HTML5 video codec of choice — despite the patent concerns that could see webmasters having to pay Acacia-style end-user royalties on H.264 video after 2016. Largely intended to facilitate open HTML5 video, one problematic area for adult operators and other content rights holders is the lack of DRM support offered by VP8, coupled with the overall problems of providing DRM via HTML5's new video tag — problems which may have to rely on old-school techniques for a partial solution. "Watermarking is still possible with WebM or any codec," Google … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Adult Tagged With: , , , ,

Travelers to Australia to Be Searched for Porn

May 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment
ba96dc43d48ba830eda8d506115bc1a0

DEAKIN WEST, Australia — Australian customs officers have been given new powers to search arriving passengers' laptops, thumb drives and mobile phones for pornography, according to the Australian Sex Party. Fiona Patten, president of the Australian Sex Party, is demanding an inquiry into why a new question appears on mandatory questionnaires asking travelers if they are carrying pornography. Patten quoted a senior Australia customs official, Richard Janeczko, who recently said that that materials “stored on electronic media devices such as laptops, thumb drives and iPhones” are on their target list. The "pornography" question has appeared on questionnaires since September but it had received little to no coverage in the media. “If you and your partner have filmed or photographed yourselves making love in an exotic destination or even taking a bath, you will have to answer ‘Yes’ to the question or you will be breaking the law,” Patten said. "Travelers must now also declare perfectly legal materials such as Category 1 and 2 Restricted magazines, X18+ films and quite probably a large section of R18+ films which have explicit sex in them." Patten said that by answering yes to the new Question 1 on the declarations, people would then be asked whether they are declaring a weapon, illicit drugs or pornography. When they answered "pornography" their belongings would then be examined by customs officers. If people were at all embarrassed by the question, often surrounded by family and friends, they could be taken into a private room and even have their person searched. Patten said the change marked the beginning of a new era of official investigation into people’s private lives — being investigated or searched on the basis that you might have legal material in your possession. She also said the changes were part of a continuation of the "demonization of sex" by Christian leaders of both major parties. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Adult Tagged With: , ,

High Court Nominee Kagan Worked on Obscenity, Free Speech Cases

May 21, 2010 By 1 Comment
87a95bee30c90ff355a77d0aed27733a

WASHINGTON — In a questionnaire to the Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan said that she filed an amicus brief on behalf of a client that challenged an obscenity case. She also revealed she has worked on numerous free speech cases. Kagan confirmed that she once represented the Recording Industry Association of America while in private practice in the case of Luke Records Inc. vs. Navarro, an appeal heard by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals relative to a district court's ruling that The 2 Live Crew's album "As Nasty As They Wanna Be" was obscene. The hip-hop group hit the spotlight in 1989 with its album "As Nasty As They Wanna Be," which included the single "Me So Horny." Florida's Broward County Sheriff Nick Navarro said it went too far with the lyrics, "I'm a freak in heat, a dog without warning. My appetite is sex, 'cause me so horny." U.S. District Judge Jose Gonzalez agreed with Navarro that the song was obscene, and 2 Live Crew appealed. Eventually, in 1992, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit heard the case and unanimously threw out the lower court's decision. Kagan, in the questionnaire, said: "We filed an amicus brief in the 11th Circuit on behalf of the RIAA and numerous record companies, challenging the decision of the district court that a musical recording was obscene under the standard set forth by the Supreme Court in Miller vs. California. I drafted the brief in the case, which stressed the difficulty of holding music obscene under prevailing constitutional law." The obscenity case paired up with Kagan's interests at the time. "Between 1991 and 1995, I wrote primarily about issues of free expression," she said. "My major work at this time proposed a theory of the 1st Amendment focused on the nature of governmental motives underlying speech restrictions." Kagan's other important cases dealt with free speech issues. She represented the National Enquirer, which was accused of libel by "a person mistakenly identified in the publication as being [pentecostal minister] Jimmy Swaggart’s father... We eventually settled the case on terms favorable to our client." She also worked in Byrd vs. Randi, in which "we represented defendant Montcalm Publishing. Randi made his mark by attacking spoon-bender Uri Geller's claims of having psychic powers. In the late 1980s, Randi called Byrd, an ally of Geller's who'd been put on probation for distributing sexually explicit material, a child molester. Byrd sued for libel, naming Randi and the publishers of his allegations. Red profile here … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Adult Tagged With: , , , , ,

Kai-Shing Tao Joins Playboy's Board of Directors

May 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment
6346cfb027cca6f9d7d0a594c88a74df

CHICAGO — Playboy Enterprises has elected Kai-Shing Tao to its board of directors. According to the company, Tao is an experienced global investor with a concentration in the greater China region and the U.S. with interests in real estate, consumer products, financial services, manufacturing and technology. "Shing's knowledge and experience with investments in Asia, and emerging markets in general, will be great assets for Playboy," said David I. Chemerow, chairman of PEI. "We welcome his perspective on joint ventures and his strategic commercial mindset." Tao is chairman and chief investment officer of Pacific Star Partners, a private investment group. "Playboy is an iconic company and I look forward to being a part of its continued global growth,” Tao said. “The company is in the midst of an exciting transformation, and I am eager to begin working with Playboy's CEO Scott Flanders and my fellow board members to help achieve its goals." Prior to founding Pacific Star Partners, Tao was a partner at FALA Capital Group, a single-family investment office, where he was responsible for the global liquid investments outside the operating companies. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Adult Tagged With: , ,

Twitter Launches Its 1st Official iPhone App

May 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment
c3f50eca3533be4a933e7ef9ebf4bb2b

SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter has launched its own iPhone app using the former app called Tweetie. The app, now officially called Twitter for the iPhone, offers browsable hot tweets and search for tweets from nearby Twitter users and top trends — all without logging in. And now new accounts can sign up for Twitter in the app without having to go to Twitter's website. The app works for both iPhone and the iPod Touch, just like Tweetie. But Tweetie 2.0 cost $2.99; Twitter for the iPhone is free. Adult industry professionals — particularly performers — have embraced Twitter for marketing their brands. XBIZ.com and XBIZ.net even have a presence on Twitter. XBIZ.net recently introduced a new feature to make tweeting easier and more efficient for industry professionals. The feature allows XBIZ.net users to post their status updates on both XBIZ.net and Twitter simultaneously. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Adult Tagged With: , , ,
« Older Posts