Daily Archives: July 5, 2011
Verizon is eliminating the unlimited data plans!!
An employee holds out an iPhone for a customer at a Verizon store in Boston, Massachusetts February 10, 2011. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
NEW YORK — Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. mobile provider, will stop offering customers unlimited data service plans on July 7, meaning higher prices for heavy users of services such as mobile Web surfing.
Verizon Wireless plans to charge $5 more per month than its biggest rival, AT&T Inc, which stopped offering unlimited data services last year. Unlike AT&T, Verizon is not offering any new cheaper option for low data users.
Under its new terms, customers who limit their data use to 2 gigabytes (GB) will pay $30 a month, according to the venture of Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group Plc, which currently charges its customers $30 per month for unlimited data use.
To put this in perspective, 2 hours of streaming music to your cellphone every day would generate 9GB of data downloads, according to the Verizon Wireless online data use calculator.
In comparison, AT&T charges $25 for 2GB of data and also offers a $15 per month plan for customers who only use 200 megabytes of data.
AT&T has said the lower priced plan helped it add millions of new customers who might otherwise have not been willing to pay for wireless data services.
Customers who use more than their plan allows will have to pay $10 for every extra gigabyte of data they use, according to company spokeswoman Brenda Raney. This charge is in line with what AT&T offers today.
Verizon’s heavier data users will also be able sign up for a $50 per month plan for 5GB or $80 a month for 10GB, Raney said.
Since Verizon is not cutting its lowest monthly fee for data services, Pacific Crest analyst Steve Clement said the move would be “relatively neutral for (Verizon’s revenue), with the potential for upside as people take larger buckets of data or start paying the fee for going over their limit.”
Customers who view data fees as a key factor might move from Verizon to rivals such as Sprint Nextel Corp, which still offers unlimited data services. But Clement expects that might not be a huge bonus for Sprint.
“The risk you run, I guess, is that people balk at caps and move to carriers that don’t cap data,” Clement said. “People make carrier decisions for lots of reasons. I don’t know if the amount of data is high on your list.”
Both Verizon and AT&T sell the Apple Inc iPhone, which created an explosion in demand for services such as mobile web-surfing and downloading of mobile applications.
Telecom shares were basically flat after the news, which was widely expected.
Verizon shares closed up 2 cents at $37.82 on the New York Stock Exchange, where AT&T shares were down 5 cents at $31.63. Sprint shares closed down 4 cents at $5.39, also on NYSE.
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I am very sad to see this happening. I actually joined Verizon because I enjoyed the fact that they weren’t going to charge users for unlimited data plans, considering that’s usually why most people are buying these phones. No one really talks on the phone any more, it’s all about internet browsing, emails, texting, music, cameras….everything BUT talking on the phone, which we already pay too much to not be doing. And to be MORE expensive than AT&T?! Come on, who are you guys kidding?!
Chantix: the stop-smoking drug that can kill you or lead you to kill
I am a smoker and have been for quite some years. Recently, I have begun trying the Blu Cigarette, which is water vapor with nicotine and has helped me (somewhat) to stop smoking AS MUCH. When I explained to people that I was attempting to quit using this method, many people asked why I hadn’t tried the drug Chantix yet? I’m going to be honest here. I like to smoke and if I can at least continue the act without hurting my lungs, that sounds more appealing than having to sit with smokers and engage in nothing. Also, I didn’t want to go to a doctor and be prescribed medicine for a problem that I knew I could willingly quit…at some point.
Now, I’m very happy with my stubborn addictive ways, because the verdict is out on Chantix, and it’s not good. Not only has the drug been linked to intense aggressiveness and violence, but it has also been linked to other issues as well, such as heart problems, suicidal thoughts (as well as actions), and etc. “Chantix has been banned by the Federal Aviation Administration for pilots and air-traffic controllers because it may cause loss of consciousness and blackouts. Truck and bus drivers are also not allowed to take the drug.” (CNN)
A drug with this many problems should not be prescribed to the nearly 7 million people that it has been, in the United States alone. I’ll go ahead and stick to my water vapor cig and lessened chance of heart attack, suicide, murder, irregular heart beat, etc. 
Other sites to check out in regards to this posting:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/07/05/chantix.smoking.suicide/
http://www.blucigs.com
“Kid Faces Prison Term for Leaving Sex Doll in High School Locker Room”
Brian Moylan —18-year-old Tyell Morton was arrested for leaving a blow-up sex doll in the bathroom at Rush Consolidated High School in Indiana. Now he could go to prison for eight years. Sure, it was a stupid joke, but that seems a mite harsh.
Apparently Morton was caught on camera taking a package (which contained the doll) into the building and leaving without it and school officials freaked out and thought it was a bomb and locked down the building and called in the cops and bomb-sniffing dogs. Somehow this translates into Morton going to prison for close to a decade. If we all had to go to prison for the stupid unfunny stuff we did in high school, most of us would still be serving our sentences.
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- I have brought much more harmful and/or dangerous products to my high school than a blow up doll and was never threatened with jail time. This seems absolutely absurd. Lots of kids are getting high and drinking at school. I could see if he was performing acts with the blow up doll on school property (which he wasn’t), but simply leaving it in his locker?! Come on, there are much bigger things to be worried about these days. In fact, if anything, I think this promotes abstinence, which is what most school officials are wanting taught in health classes. School officials should be thanking the young man for thinking outside of the box.
“Being Gay is a Disease”
India Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad Says Being Gay Is A ‘Disease’
By On Top Magazine Staff
Published: July 05, 2011
Ghulam Nabi Azad, India’s health minister, has stirred controversy with comments he made against gay people, the BBC reported.
At a national meeting Monday of regional elected leaders on HIV/AIDS prevention, Azad said that being gay was “unnatural and not good for India.”
“It is a disease which has come from other countries,” he said.
“Even though it is unnatural, it exists in our country and is now spreading, making it tough to detect it,” Azad added.
“With relationships changing, men are having sex with men now. Though it is easy to find women sex workers and educate them on sex, it is a challenge to identify men having sex with men.” (The video is embedded in the right panel of this page.)
The comments come two years after India’s high court decriminalized gay sex.
Anand Grover, United Nations special rapporteur on health, called the comments “regrettable.”
“It’s unfortunate, regrettable and totally unacceptable that a minister of his stature … is still insensitive to vulnerable groups such as MSM [men who have sex with men],” Grover told the Hindustan Times.
Gay rights activist Mohnish Kabir Malhotra called on the minister to apologize.
“I think the minister needs to apologize immediately,” the AFP quoted him as saying. “He has insulted the entire homosexual community. Homosexuality is very much a part of nature and it even finds references in religious texts. To call it unnatural is absurd.”
- When you’re in a health profession, the only thing you should be commenting on are HEALTH issues. I understand that being gay, may lead to some health issues, but those same issues can be found in the heterosexual community as well. Your country has de-criminalized homosexuality, so get your head out of your ass and stop commenting on such issues. Please.
The case of the slain student, who was targeted because of his sexuality
An Oxnard student carefully planned and carried out the execution of a 15-year-old gay classmate because of his ongoing feud with the victim and his white supremacist belief that homosexuality is an abomination, a Ventura County prosecutor said Tuesday.
Brandon McInerney, now 17, is charged with murder in the 2008 shooting death of Lawrence King in a high-profile case that has rallied the gay community and triggered calls for greater protections of young homosexuals on school campuses.
King was bullied by McInerney and other boys at the school, Deputy Dist. Atty. Maeve Fox said in her opening statement in the trial, which is being conducted at a courthouse in Chatsworth. But shortly before his death, King had begun wearing high heels, makeup and earrings to school and had become more confident in himself, she said.
“Larry King for the first time in his life wasn’t taking it anymore,” Fox said. “And he started to give people what I prefer to call the proverbial chin. Only it was more profane. The proverbial ‘f … you.’”
The day before King was shot, the two boys had been bickering in a eighth-grade science class, she said. When King got up to get a drink of water, “Brandon said ‘I am going to shoot him.’ And this is what a student will testify to.”
The next day McInerney pulled a .22-caliber handgun out of his backpack and shot King in the head, authorities have said.
Before Tuesday’s hearing, McInerney’s older brother, James Bing, 25, told jurors outside the courtroom that “the fate of my brother is in your hands.”
Superior Court Judge Charles Campbell banished Bing from the courthouse for the duration of the trial, unless he is called as a witness.
“This is so obviously inappropriate,” Campbell said. “He is forbidden from attending this proceeding, until he is actually called for testimony.”
Prosecutors have added a hate crime allegation, arguing that McInerney’s actions were spurred in part by a hatred of gays, in line with his alleged neo-Nazi sympathies. If convicted, he faces 53 years to life in prison.
McInerney is being tried as an adult court under the provisions of Proposition 21, which allows prosecutors to bring murder charges against juveniles as young as 14 for certain serious crimes.
[Updated, 12:30 p.m.: McInerney’s lawyer, Scott Wippert, argued that King -- and not his client -- was the aggressor. He said King targeted McInerney for sexual harassment, making flirtatious remarks, and had humiliated him.
King was encouraged in his effeminate behavior and dress by school administrators who said he was within his rights to dress that way, Wippert said.
For his part, McInerney was “a confused, emotionally torn 14-year-old from a violent home who saw no other way out than to shoot Larry,” Wippert said. “It was a heat-of-the-moment decision.”
“This is a very troubled young man,” he said of his client, who was living in a children's shelter at the time of the shooting because of problems at home. “Everyone knew and nobody did anything. He was in a helpless state.”
Wippert said McInerney was not a white supremacist but rather was working on a paper on Adolf Hitler for school and that is why he had white supremacist material in his room.
Wippert has said his client doesn't deny the killing. But he argues it was voluntary manslaughter because McInerney was provoked by King's repeated sexual advances.]
A voluntary manslaughter conviction would prevent a life sentence, making McInerney eligible for release before he’s 40, his lawyers said. A finding of second-degree murder would virtually assure that he wouldn’t be eligible for parole until he was in his 70s.
– Catherine Saillant
Photo: Brandon McInerney, left, was 14 when he shot gay classmate Larry King. Now 17, he is standing trial on first-degree murder and hate-crime charges. Credit: Los Angeles Times
- This is absolutely sick. To make a decision about how you feel at this age and KILL someone because of it, is pure ignorance. His parents are most likely to blame for his white supremacist outlook, which is rather pathetic. No child should have to worry that his own classmate would judge and kill him because of things he did in his personal life. And this statement in the article sent shivers down my spine: “McInerney’s lawyer, Scott Wippert, argued that King — and not his client — was the aggressor. He said King targeted McInerney for sexual harassment, making flirtatious remarks, and had humiliated him.”
So it’s the victim’s fault that he was murdered? Because of what the victim had said (or in my opinion, didn’t say) he is allowed to be brutally killed at a young age? Ridiculous.
Motorcyclist in protest against helmet law, crashes and dies.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A bare-headed motorcyclist riding in protest of New York state’s helmet law crashed, struck his head on the roadway and died from his injuries, state police said on Sunday.
Philip Contos, 55, was riding among a large group of motorcyclists staging an organized protest ride in western New York near Syracuse against the state law requiring all motorcyclists to wear helmets.
The Parish, New York, resident crashed on Saturday on Route 11 in Onondaga, New York, and was pronounced dead later at a local hospital, state Trooper Robert Jureller said.
“The doctor felt that the death could have been prevented if he simply had been wearing a helmet,” Jureller said. “He hit the brakes, lost control, was ejected and struck his head on the road. He suffered a skull fracture.”
(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by David Bailey)
I am sorry, but this has got to be one of the most ironic situations to date; A man trying to prove that riding a motorcycle without a helmet is a good idea, dies while riding a motorcycle with no helmet.
While it is rude to make fun of people, especially in these situations, it seems as though he still made a statement, like he had hoped. Unfortunately, while he was rebelling against the helmet law, and in turn he gave the protest much more publicity and has made it all that more apparent that bikers SHOULD be required to wear helmets.
Monkey steals camera and has photo shoot!
The primate went to investigate the equipment before becoming fascinated with his own reflection in the lens.
The Sulawesi or crested black macaque is extremely rare and critically endangered Photo: David J Slater/Caters
And it wasn’t long before the crested black macaque hijacked the camera and started snapping away sending award-winning photographer David Slater bananas.
David, 46, said: “One of them must have accidentally knocked the camera and set it off because the sound caused a bit of a frenzy.
“At first there was a lot of grimacing with their teeth showing because it was probably the first time they had ever seen a reflection.
“They were quite mischievous jumping all over my equipment, and it looked like they were already posing for the camera when one hit the button.
“The sound got his attention and he kept pressing it. At first it scared the rest of them
away but they soon came back – it was amazing to watch.
“He must have taken hundreds of pictures by the time I got my camera back, but not very many were in focus. He obviously hadn’t worked that out yet.
“I wish I could have stayed longer as he probably would have taken a full family album.”
David, from Coleford, Gloucestershire, was on a trip to a small national park north of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi when he met the incredibly friendly bunch.
The crested black macaque is extremely rare and critically endangered. These were part of a study group near a science base in the region, home to researchers from Holland.
David added: “I teamed up with a local guide because I knew about the apes and wanted to photograph them.
“I walked with them for about three days in a row. They befriended us and showed absolutely no aggression – they were just interested in the things I was carrying.
“They aren’t known for being particularly clever like chimps, just inquisitive.
“Despite probably never having any contact with humans before they didn’t feel threatened by our presence, and that’s why I could walk with them during the day.”
9:58PM BST 04 Jul 2011