Sunday, March 28, 2010

Two year old girl becomes the youngest member of Mensa with an IQ of 156...

Mensa InternationalImage via Wikipedia


A two-year-old girl has become the youngest member of Mensa with an estimated IQ of 156 ...



Elise Tan-Roberts was five months when she spoke her first word, calling her father "Dada". She was walking three months later and running two months after that.



Before her first birthday should could recognise her written name and by 16 months she could count to 10. She is now able to do the same in Spanish.


Inspired by the story of Georgia Brown, who also joined Mensa when she was two, her parents Louise and Edward, from North London, took her last month to see Professor Joan Freeman, a specialist education psychologist.



After Elise completed a 45-minute IQ test, Prof Freeman concluded in a written report that Elise was "more than very bright and capable - she is gifted."



Only those with an IQ of 148 and above, the top two per cent, qualify for Mensa. The average IQ is 100. For a child her age, Elise is in the top 0.2 per cent.



Her father, a 34-year-old motor consultant, said: "Our main aim is to make sure she keeps learning at an advance pace.



"We don't want to make her have to dumb down and stop learning just to fit in. But she's still my baby. I just want her to be happy and enjoy herself."




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Monday, March 22, 2010

Is the Healthcare legislation actually constitutional...

WASHINGTON - MARCH 03:  US President Barack Ob...Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Is health-care reform constitutional?





















With the House set to vote on health-care legislation, the congressional debate on the issue seems to be nearing its conclusion. But if the bill does become law, the battle over federal control of health care will inevitably shift to the courts. Virginia's attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli II, has said he will file a legal challenge to the bill, arguing in a column this month that reform legislation "violate[s] the plain text of both the Ninth and Tenth Amendments." On Friday, South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster and Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum announced that they will file a federal lawsuit if health-care reform legislation passes.

Acknowledgements: Washington Post


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Saturday, March 20, 2010

British man wins Lotto the day after his divorce came through...

LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 24:  Actress Gemma ...Image by Getty Images via Daylife
British man wins Lotto the day after his divorce came through...



A British man has won £ 2.3 million (NZ$4.9 million) on the lottery, just one day after the ink on his divorce papers dried.



Kevin Halstead spent last Friday boozing with his buddies after the divorce was completed.



The next day he bought a lottery ticket, the Daily Express reported.



The 50-year-old ended up winning half the jackpot, coming away with almost $5 million.



Mr Halstead said he held no ill feelings towards his ex-wife and the two were still good mates.



The couple split up about 13 years ago but weren't divorced until recently.



His ex-wife, 48-year-old Helen, told the Express she was not upset.



Mr Halstead plans to spend the money on a holiday and a pony for his 14-year-old daughter, Jessica.



Acknowledgements: MSN money


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Thursday, March 11, 2010

YouTube becomes a TV station tomorrow...

Image representing YouTube as depicted in Crun...Image via CrunchBase


YouTube becomes a TV station tomorrow, March13 2010...



Excom New Zealand

Provider Of Microsoft, Cisco, ITILTraining Courses & Certifications.




YouTube's first major move away from being a video-sharing site and towards an online TV destination begins early tomorrow morning when it begins streaming free live Indian Premier Cricket League matches.



The Google-owned YouTube yesterday unveiled eight sponsors, half of which are global brand names. HSBC, Hewlett Packard, Coca Cola, Samsung, Indian mobile phone company, Airtel, Honda motorcycles, an Indian university, and one of the teams, the Bangalore-based Royal Challenger team were named as sponsors of the initial 56 matches of this season.



YouTube does not disclose the dollar size of the sponsorship packages but interviews with executives have indicated that because this initiative is a new one they are not asking advertisers to pay over the odds.



At least 32, 30-second ads will appear during the play in each match watched live or on demand later.



The cricket deal is part of YouTube's ambition to become a destination for internet users as a place not just to upload content but watch it, in the form of movies, sport and concerts, said Leigh Terry managing partner of media buyers OMD.



"Rather than just going to YouTube and searching for a video they hope to become a destination much like a portal where people can go for a variety of content, not just sports," he said



"I have a feeling that this is just going to be the first [of others] to come."



Mr Terry said that while YouTube's success at attracting audiences was not in doubt - an estimated 36 million videos are watched by Australians each month - it had struggled to gain advertising dollars. "The audience hasn't been the problem, it's the quality and the exclusivity of the content," he said, adding that initiatives such as this addressed that.

ExcomEducation Google sets its sights on television dominance (telegraph.co.uk)


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Sunday, March 7, 2010

So Clive thought the law of physics didn't apply to him, the silly man...

So Clive thought the laws of physics didn't apply to him, the silly man...

ASCIIImage via Wikipedia


physics


First published at Qondio:






Clive was one of those rather dishonest people who have been described as a "career criminal". What a career? Yeah right!
He was obviously convinced that the law of physics didn't apply to him. He is also described as a man who thinks big in his dubious career of crime. Recently the British criminal stole a truck and loaded it up with 18 pallets of stolen nickel and copper worth 150,000 Pounds ($330,000. Yes, it was a huge haul alright, many would suggest it was too huge.

Police arrested Clive when the truck's suspension collapsed under the huge weight. Clive was also a recidivist offender - earlier in the day he had also stolen a car, overloaded it and broke its suspension too!

No chance of Clive completing the hatrick though - he is now doing time in one of Her Majesty's prisons.

Acknowledgements: Peter Petterson



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Tuesday, March 2, 2010

The KKK vs Students and the Trail of Dreams...

* Description: A Ku Klux Klan meeting in Gaine...Image via Wikipedia

The KKK vs. Students and the trail of dreams...

Early this year, four students embarked on a 1,500 mile march from Miami to Washington, D.C called the "Trail of Dreams" tour.

Their goal? To raise awareness about our failed immigration policies.

Their challenge? To do so while avoiding deportation and the wrath of anti-immigrant groups like the KKK.

These students are among the tens of thousands of those who graduate from high school in America each year but are prevented from applying for federal student aid for college or a job because of something entirely out of their control: they are undocumented.

Like many undocumented students, the Trails of Dreams marchers were each brought to the United States while young and have grown up like any other American - volunteering in their community, reaching the honor roll, and applying to top universities.

But our current immigration policies penalize them for decisions made by their parents long ago and prevent them from fully contributing back to the country they love. As one of many examples, one of the Trail of Dreams marchers, Felipe, was accepted to Duke University but had to pass up his dream of attending due to the lack of a Social Security number.

As they walk up the East Coast, the Trail of Dreams marchers are engaging communities in dialogue about the negative impact of our current immigration system. But they are not without opposition, and this past week as they entered Georgia they were greeted by an unwelcome counter-demonstration by a racist blast from the past: the Ku Klux Klan.

The KKK demonstrators accused the students of being part of a "Latino invasion," arguing that "God put each race in their respective continent and they were meant to stay there."

The student marchers' response? They didn't spew back hate, or point fingers, or threaten violence. Instead, they were joined by members of the NAACP and sang songs of freedom and justice.

The contrast between those fighting for tolerance and human rights and those filled with hate and fighting for discrimination couldn't have been starker. And it couldn't have been clearer which group is marching on the side of history.

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