Co-founder of Apple warns that storing data, email on the “cloud” could be disastrous

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Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with the late Steve Jobs, predicted “horrible problems” in the coming years as cloud-based computing takes hold.

Wozniak, 61, was the star turn at the penultimate performance in Washington of “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” monologist Mike Daisey’s controversial two-hour expose of Apple’s labor conditions in China.

In a post-performance dialogue with Daisey and audience members, Wozniak held forth on topics as varied as public education (he once did a stint as a school teacher) and reality TV (having appeared on “Dancing with the Stars”).

But the engineering wizard behind the progenitor of today’s personal computer, the Apple II, was most outspoken on the shift away from hard disks towards uploading data into remote servers, known as cloud computing.

“I really worry about everything going to the cloud,” he said. “I think it’s going to be horrendous. I think there are going to be a lot of horrible problems in the next five years.”

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Tens of thousands of fish die in Midwest as drought, heat take their toll

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About 40,000 shovelnose sturgeon were killed in Iowa last week as water temperatures reached 97 degrees Fahrenheit (36.1 Celsius). Nebraska fishery officials said they’ve seen thousands of dead sturgeon, catfish, carp, and other species in the Lower Platte River, including the endangered pallid sturgeon. And biologists in Illinois said the hot weather has killed tens of thousands of large- and smallmouth bass and channel catfish and is threatening the population of the greater redhorse fish, a state-endangered species.

So many fish died in one Illinois lake that the carcasses clogged an intake screen near a power plant, lowering water levels to the point that the station had to shut down one of its generators.

“It’s something I’ve never seen in my career, and I’ve been here for more than 17 years,” said Mark Flammang, a fisheries biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. “I think what we’re mainly dealing with here are the extremely low flows and this unparalleled heat.”

The fish are victims of one of the driest and warmest summers in history. The federal U.S. Drought Monitor shows nearly two-thirds of the lower 48 states are experiencing some form of drought, and the Department of Agriculture has declared more than half of the nation’s counties — nearly 1,600 in 32 states — as natural disaster areas. More than 3,000 heat records were broken over the last month.

Iowa DNR officials said the sturgeon found dead in the Des Moines River were worth nearly $10 million, a high value based in part on their highly sought eggs, which are used for caviar. The fish are valued at more than $110 a pound.

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Video: Now we’re Al-Qaeda’s allies?! Obama’s foreign policy idiocy continues

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This video is worth watching as the local Fox News commentator clearly isn’t spewing the typical “Obama talking points.” Instead, he questions, “Who exactly is the US supporting in Syria?”

 

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Clint Eastwood just made Mitt Romney’s day

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The Dirty Harry star and Oscar-winning director of Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby endorsed the Republican presidential candidate Friday night during a Sun Valley, Idaho fundraiser.

‘I think the country needs a boost,’ Eastwood told The Associated Press as he joined other Romney supporters for the private campaign event.

In February, Eastwood told Fox News that he wasn’t supporting any politician at that time.

Some saw the ‘halftime in America’ ad he made for the Super Bowl as a nod toward President Barack Obama. Eastwood responded then by saying he was not ‘politically affiliated’ with the president.

‘Now more than ever do we need Gov. Romney. I’m going to be voting for him,’ Eastwood told Romney supporters Friday night.

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Bomb disposal hero stuns 4 year old daughter by surprising her on big screen during show at SeaWorld

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A trip to SeaWorld turned into the surprise of a lifetime for a four-year-old girl who was reunited with her soldier father.

Army Specialist Eric Espinosa, who was responsible for finding, defusing or activating improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan, had not seen his daughter Alexis for a year.

But as his daughter watched an underwater show at SeaWorld Orlando’s Shamu Stadium, the army combat engineer turned up in a surprise homecoming.

The show began with a tribute to all retired servicemen and women in the audience, when Alexis saw that she had popped up on the big screen. Suddenly, behind her, appeared a man in military fatigues.

In confusion, the little girl looked around to see if her father was really there and she could not contain her excitement when he tapped her on the shoulder.

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Homosexuals, others protest Chick-fil-A yesterday, create “chaos”

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A day of protest at Chick-fil-A franchises around the country ended in chaos yesterday as thousands of gay couples gathered to oppose the company’s stance on same-sex marriage.

One branch of the fast-food restaurant was vandalised with graffiti accusing them of spreading ‘hate’, while another had to call police after being flooded with protesters and media.

Reports were also received of a restaurant being evacuated after a bomb threat which was later deemed to be a hoax.

The unrest marred a day when thousands expressed their support of marriage equality with public displays of affection outside branches of the popular chicken restaurant.

One protester went to extreme lengths to show his disdain for the chain’s anti-gay marriage stance – and ended up losing his job over it. Adam Smith, the former CFO of an Arizona-based medical device manufacturer, decided to take matters into his own hands by targeting an employee at a drive-thru window, videoing it and uploading it on to YouTube.

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US black teen, Gabby Douglas, makes Olympic history, publicly praises God

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By USWeekly Staff.  Gabby Douglas, 16, made history Thursday when the U.S. Olympic gymnast won the gold medal in the women’s all-around final competition. She became the first African-American to win the top prize.

“Someone mentioned that I was the first black American (to win the all-around gold), and I said, ‘Oh yeah, I forgot about that!’ I feel so honored,” she told reporters via The Associated Press after her win.

Gabby was raised in Virginia and began training at the age of 6. When she was 9, her father, Air Force Staff Sgt. Timothy Douglas, went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I just had to pray to God just to keep him safe and tell the angels to keep my dad safe and come home,” she recently explained to NBC Nightly News of her father being away.

After having to miss many of her competitions, Gabby’s father was able to attend her U.S. Olympic trials on June 29. It was the first time he had seen his daughter for the first time since October 2010, according to USA Today. Holding an American flag with “Go Gabby Douglas, Love, Dad” on the front, Gabby was thrilled to see her dad in the stands.

“I’m like, ‘Who’s calling my name?’ And then I look up. It was my dad and his friend, and I haven’t seen him in a while,” Gabby explained. “They were holding up the flag. And I almost felt like bawling. I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, Dad!”  Read more from this story HERE.

iTickets.com also reports:  Following her emotional win the 16 year old gave an interview with NBC and celebrated the moment by praising God and offering her thanks for an amazing blessing.

“It is everything I thought it would be; being the Olympic champion, it definitely is an amazing feeling. And I give all the glory to God. It is kind of a win win situation. The glory goes up to Him and the blessings fall down on me,” Douglas testified in the interview.

Later she also took to social networking site Twitter to continue her praise. She tweeted, Let all that I am praise the LORD; may I never forget the good things He does for me.

Douglas also stated on her Twitter account that she “loves my family, dogs & most importantly God.”

Douglas, a Virginia native, earned her spot on the U.S. Womens Gymnastics team after she defied expectations at the American Cup in March. She initially only competed in the cup as an alternate, but she outscored the favorite in the U.S. Gymnastic team, Jordyn Wieber.  Read more from this story HERE.

Are the Chinese winning Olympic medals through child cruelty & torture? (+video)

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By Matt Blake.  Her face etched with pain, a child trains for Olympic glory while her gymnastics trainer stands on her legs.

The cartoon space rockets and animal astronauts on her tiny red leotard are a stark and powerful reminder of this little girl’s tender age as she trains as hard as any adult athlete in the Western world.

Nanning Gymnasium in Nanning, China, is one of many ruthless training camps across the country to which parents send their children to learn how to be champions.

But while training techniques appear extreme to Western eyes, they provide an insight into why China’s athletes at London 2012 seem so easily able to swim, dive, lift and shoot their way to victory.

Gymnastic stars are known for starting at an incredibly early age, and this group of children appear no different as they battled to complete the demanding routines on bars, rings, and mats.  Read more from this story HERE.

Here is a video collage of Chinese children going through ruthless training, entitled “Chinese Olympics training or child cruelty?”:

 

Video: Allen West lambasts government dependency, asks “Whatever happened to the American Dream?”

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In this short but compelling video, Allen West talks about the federal farm bill and the fact that 80% of it consists of food stamp funding. He notes that the feds are encouraging even more dependency and warns that the American Dream is in real trouble.

U.S. Chamber: Law of the Sea Treaty Will Pass

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The head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce– the nation’s premier group representing business interests — said Thursday that he believes the U.S. Senate will pass the Law of the Sea Treaty during its next session.

Despite Tom Donahue’s prediction, the international treaty has been languishing in the Senate for three decades. Just last month, a total of 34 Republican senators went on record as opposing the treaty — and since a two-thirds vote of the Senate is needed to pass it, the treaty seemed as dead as ever.

Donahue told a breakfast of the American Security Project, a bipartisan think tank, that he believes some of those Republicans will change their minds, although it’s hard for them to align themselves with the nation’s top Democrat during a presidential election year.

According to Donahue, passing the treaty is vital to America’s economic and security interests. He says that without it, the United States will not have a seat at the table when it comes to developing offshore oil and gas beyond its 200-mile territorial limit.

Alaska Sens. Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski both welcomed the news, although a spokesperson for Begich seemed doubtful that Republicans could manage such an about-face.

But Murkowski, a moderate Republican, said she thought such a turnaround could indeed take place. She says that modifcations to the treaty have made it a much better deal for the U.S., and that it would be foolish for the U.S. not to adopt the updated version of the treaty.

“We have been doing serious mapping off the coast of Alaska off our northern waters,” Murkowski said. “And (the treaty provides) the opportunity to claim an area about the size of the state of California, that we could effectively annex as part of an area that would be able to control.”

More conservative Republicans disagree including Joe Miller, Murkowski’s former rival for her Senate seat.

“To transfer two-thirds of the earth’s surface over to the governance of the United Nations is just a crazy thought,” Miller said Thursday. “And whether or not there’s some short-term economic benefit, (it) is a terrible thing to do, if you love this country and are really supporting its continued sovereignty.”

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