Gloucester, VA - eBay Bans Sale Of Postions And Magical Charms

What's in My Potion Cabinet... (Photo credit: queercatkitten)

Image via CrunchBase

by Kellie Foxx-Gonzalez 

Oh Ebay. You were there for me when I was 12 and able to convince my mother that I absolutely needed a crappy alarm clock with James Marsters’ face on it, and you’re here for me now as I struggle to buy college books and make rent. Unfortunately, it looks like you won’t have my back when I graduate next year and need a spell that will ensure me a well-paying job right out of college: in their 2012 Fall Seller Update, Ebay announced that it will ban all sales of magic potions, charms, and spells effective August 30th.

Here’s the list of all the fun things you’re no longer allowed to buy on Ebay:

Advice; spells; curses; hexing; conjuring; magic; prayers; blessing services; magic potions; healing sessions; work from home businesses & information; wholesale lists, and drop shop lists

So I suppose that this is an effort on Ebay’s part to protect their users, as it’s probably safe to say that if a woman is trying to auction off her soul for a minimum of $2000, she’s probably trying to swindle you. On the other hand, I’m sure a lot of folks make a living off hawking their psychic prowess, which, in my opinion, usually boils down to being empathetic and giving good advice (which is a newly prohibited commodity as well). So what will become of these witches, wizards, and all-around magical folk? According to Ebay, they’ll have until September 1st to sell the rest of their items, after which their listings will be shut down and removed.

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GVLN - Order Your Drag Queen Barbie In Time For Christmas

 Mattel Commissions ‘Drag Queen’ Barbie

Ken's sexual orientation and faux relationship with Barbie has previously-been exposed by photographer Dina Goldstein. 

Taking a step further, Mattel has now commissioned the first ‘Drag Queen Barbie’. 

Designed by NYC’s design house The Blonds (David Blond and Philippe Blond), the gender-bending doll called ‘The Blonds Blond Diamond Barbie Doll’ looks no different from a regular Barbie doll—but takes after cross-dresser Phillipe Blond of the design duo. 

The ‘Drag Queen Barbie’ is dressed to the nines, with a bejewelled mini corset dress covered in faux gems, a floor-sweeping faux fox fur coat and glittery pump—everything from her eyelashes to her nail polish is also ‘made up’. 

The doll retails exclusively online at US$125, and will be out in December.

For more information and pictures please CLICK HERE.

The picture above is of the guy the drag queen Barbie has been designed after.  

Just what your grandson has always wanted.  Be sure to order yours before December to get it in time for Christmas.  Just when you think it can't get any worse.

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Gloucester, VA Economics - The Bretton Woods System

Campaign poster showing William McKinley holding U.S. flag and standing on gold coin “sound money”, held up by group of men, in front of ships "commerce" and factories “civilization”. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From U.S. Department of State
Nations attempted to revive the gold standard following World War I, but it collapsed entirely during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Some economists said adherence to the gold standard had prevented monetary authorities from expanding the money supply rapidly enough to revive economic activity. In any event, representatives of most of the world's leading nations met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944 to create a new international monetary system. Because the United States at the time accounted for over half of the world's manufacturing capacity and held most of the world's gold, the leaders decided to tie world currencies to the dollar, which, in turn, they agreed should be convertible into gold at $35 per ounce.

Under the Bretton Woods system, central banks of countries other than the United Stateswere given the task of maintaining fixed exchange rates between their currencies and the dollar. They did this by intervening in foreign exchange markets. If a country's currency was too high relative to the dollar, its central bank would sell its currency in exchange for dollars, driving down the value of its currency. Conversely, if the value of a country's money was too low, the country would buy its own currency, thereby driving up the price.

The Bretton Woods system lasted until 1971. By that time, inflation in the United States and a growing American trade deficit were undermining the value of the dollar. Americans urgedGermany and Japan, both of which had favorable payments balances, to appreciate their currencies. But those nations were reluctant to take that step, since raising the value of their currencies would increases prices for their goods and hurt their exports. Finally, the United States abandoned the fixed value of the dollar and allowed it to "float" -- that is, to fluctuate against other currencies. The dollar promptly fell. World leaders sought to revive the Bretton Woods system with the so-called Smithsonian Agreement in 1971, but the effort failed. By 1973, the United States and other nations agreed to allow exchange rates to float.

Economists call the resulting system a "managed float regime," meaning that even thoughexchange rates for most currencies float, central banks still intervene to prevent sharp changes. As in 1971, countries with large trade surpluses often sell their own currencies in an effort to prevent them from appreciating (and thereby hurting exports). By the same token, countries with large deficits often buy their own currencies in order to prevent depreciation , which raises domestic prices. But there are limits to what can be accomplished through intervention, especially for countries with large trade deficits. Eventually, a country that intervenes to support its currency may deplete its international reserves, making it unable to continue buttressing the currency and potentially leaving it unable to meet its international obligations.

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GVLN World News - Coca-Cola to be booted out of Bolivia

English: Coca-Cola 375 mL cans - 24 pack (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Pravda.Ru

Coca-Cola, one of the planet's giant corporations, is to be unceremoniously booted out of Bolivia. The announcement was made by Bolivian Minister of External Affairs, David Choquehuanca, who stated that the date chosen, December 21, coincides with the end of the cycle in the Mayan Calendar, the end of capitalism and the start of a culture of life.

Coca Cola will be expelled from Bolivia on the date that the Mayan calendar enters a new cycle - December 21. According to the Bolivian Minister of Foreign Affairs, David Choquehuanca, the decision was taken to expel Coca Cola on the date of the end of the Mayan calendar so as to create a pretext for celebrating the end of capitalism and the beginning of "the culture of life" in community-based societies. The celebration will take place at the Southern Hemisphere's Summer Solstice on La Isla del Sol (Sun Isle) in Lake Titicaca.

"The twenty-first of December 2012 is the end of selfishness, of division. The twenty-first of December has to be the end of Coca Cola and the beginning of mocochinche (a local refreshing drink)," said the Foreign Minister at a political rally for Evo Morales. "The planets will line up after 26,000 years...it is the end of capitalism and the beginning of communitarianism," he added.

The Mayan Calendar

On December 21, 2012, the Mayan Calendar will reach the end. Of what? Not the end of the world, as many believe (and one hopes this time round people will not commit suicide waiting for aliens to come to save them hiding in the tail of a comet). The Mayan Calendar on the beginning of the Summer Solstice reaches the end of a 26,000-year cycle, implying the beginning of a new one.

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Gloucester, VA - Friends Can Share your Facebook Profile With Government, Court Rules

Image via CrunchBase

Federal investigators viewed the Facebook profile of an alleged gangster in the Bronx by asking his informant “friend” to show it to them. A judge ruled this was not unconstitutional because Facebook users can’t control what other people do with the information they post.
BY Jeff John Roberts

A federal judge has ruled that investigators can go through your Facebook profile if one of your friends gives them permission to do so. The decision, which is part of a New York City racketeering trial, comes as courts struggle to define privacy and civil liberties in the age of social media.

In an order issued on Friday, US District Judge William Pauley III ruled that accused gangster Melvin Colon can’t rely on the Fourth Amendment to suppress Facebook evidence that led to his indictment. Colon had argued that federal investigators violated his privacy by tapping into his profile through an informant who was one of this Facebook friends.

The informant’s Facebook friendship served to open an online window onto Colon’s alleged gangster life, revealing messages he posted about violent acts and threats to rival gang members. The government used this information to obtain a search warrant for the rest of Colon’s Facebook account. The Colon information is part of a larger investigation into crack-dealing and murder in the Bronx.

Judge Pauley III’s ruling is significant because it is the latest in a series of cases that defines how and when police can search social media.

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Gloucester, VA - Project Free TV Stream Free TV Shows

The Miami Vice intertitle. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Project Free TV, watch TV shows over the Internet for free.  We just went through their website and found a huge list of TV shows on the site that will keep anyone entertained for months to come.  Everything from newer sitcoms to older TV episodes.  They have Miami Vice seasons one through five.  You have the option of watching them on-line or downloading the individual shows.  The site does not stop at just TV shows.  They also have a very large list of movies.  On the top of the list on the site right now is Battleship.  And again, you have the option to either download the video or watch it on-line.  We checked out their download software which seems decent and it's free, however we were concerned with it being ad supported.

  With ad supported software, you end up having to view ads on the Internet that could make your Internet experience a real nightmare so we did not opt to load the software onto our systems.  We have book marked the site however as the video quality is more than decent and the speed is fine.  The videos we watched did not seem jumpy as can often happen for on demand streaming.  It's not to say that all the videos will be trouble free.  They seem to have multiple feeds for videos on the site and there is a rating system as to whether or not the feeds work properly.

  We have seen a number of free streaming TV sites in the past that were more of a joke than anything else.  This one seems like it's on target though.  You can't go wrong with free however, so it's well worth a look.

CLICK HERE to go to the site and check it out yourself.

If you like the site, give everyone a shout on the comments section below this post and let everyone know what you think.

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GVLN - Notes from the Largest Earth Day Rally of 2012- These People Are Nuts

By Pierre Lussier, Jour de la Terre Québec

Talking about what happened in Montréal at 2 o'clock on Sunday, the 22^nd of April, 2012, feels like describing a perfect storm touching the ground.

Photograph by Peter McCabe, Montreal Gazette.

12:30pm, Place des festivals

Basically, nothing out of the ordinary seems to be going on. I've organized the rally at COP 11 and sixteen Earth Days. I should be used to this by now. The difference now is that you just know you’re never ever going to be ready. Do I feel confident? Yes, I can deal with this, make it right. How many people will it be? How many people really fit into this place anyway? 100 K, yes; 150 K, I'm not sure; 250 K, never. I have to get this TV cart out of the way. It's the third time they’ve come and parked it in the middle of the place, and so it goes “you cannot park here” “yes but I'm live in 5,” “well, we're live 24-7, so for now please move on.” This is the center of what is soon to be a sea of people. No car please. NOW. How did I get here? Must have been that girl at the rave in 1995; she looked at me and then handed something to me. Or is it when the celebrated director, Dominic Champagne (LOVE, the story of the Beatles by Cirque du Soleil, Cabaret Neiges Noirs, etc.), came into Jour de la Terre offices.

23^rd of January

Dominic was very disappointed that the 2011 rally protesting Canada's withdrawal from the Kyoto protocol did not attract more participants. He was now on a mission. He professed that one day he would mobilize 100,000 people, and that day was going to be Earth Day 2012. Already on the night of the failed rally against the failing Canadian government Dominic was drafting a manifesto for the common good. What he wanted was to go further than the anti-fracking movement that he was fightingfor; and me, I was in for the number. 100,000 people, all right, let’s do it. Soon after, Dominic got all his artist friends to attend a meeting at our offices. Along came all the key environmental organizations. We did not want to do anything ordinary, we did not want to do just another rally. Dominic came up with the idea of a human tree; he could ask his friends, a choreographer from Le Cirque and André Lavallée (the chief of staff of the Montreal mayor). I proposed the place to do it. We thought that the Mount Royal mountain would be the place. Where else could be more symbolic of Montreal and of the common good? The ideas were good but not without obstacles. First, we had to figure out who's doing it and then who was paying for it. Five environmental organizations: Greenpeace, Equiterre, David Suzuki Foundation, l'AQLPA and Jour de la Terre Québec, NGOs and the three biggest unions, CSN, CSQ and FTQ formed a committee of Jour de la Terre Québec.This committee would be autonomous and responsible for everything, including finances. It would communicate as 22 April http://22avril.org/.

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Save the earth while creating a huge crowd that blocks all traffic on a major highway and stops commerce plus creates tons of pollution and waste from all the garbage all these nuts left behind.  Yeah, all this makes sense.  And where did they all go to the bathroom?  250,000 people swarm a Canadian city to pollute the heck out of it and choke it.  Great idea for an earth day.  They have a video where they all look like a swarm of killer ants taking over a picnic.  The most anti green green movement anyone could care to see.  What other kind of bright ideas do these nuts have?  They call this sending their love to mother earth.  We call it hypocrisy.  

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GVLN - Mitt Romney Set To Pick Paul Ryan As Running Mate

Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, 2008 US presidential candidate. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jon WardBecome a fan

jon.ward@huffingtonpost.com

NORFOLK, Va. -– Mitt Romney will announce Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his running mate on Saturday, according to two sources with knowledge of the decision.

Ryan is a bold pick who will energize the Republican Party, but putting him on the ticket is fraught with risk and instantly puts Ryan's budget plan front and center in the 2012 campaign.

Romney will announce his choice in Norfolk on Saturday morning at the beginning of a four-day bus tour through key battleground states, the campaign said Friday night. The Weekly Standard reported earlier Friday that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has been asked to be ready to make the case for Ryan beginning Saturday.

Romney's alliance with the 42-year old Ryan has become the most dramatic development of the 2012 presidential campaign. Romney had been presumed for much of the last few months to be set on a safe pick, such as Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), or former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

But now, Romney, who is 23 years older than Ryan, will signal that he is willing to roll the dice. President Barack Obama's reelection campaign and Democratic political groups have been eager for Romney to pick Ryan, the architect of plans to slash government spending and overhaul entitlement programs that Democrats believe are political losers.

Both liberals and conservatives will be thrilled with Romney's choice.

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GVLN - America's Missile Defense System Operators Sure Do Love Porn

Seal of the United States Missile Defense Agency. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Government employees are just like you and me. Just like you and me, they wake up in the morning, put on some chinos, go to work and sit at a computer all day. Just like you and me, sometimes they get bored, so they surf the web a little bit. And — this is where we stray from the “just like you and me” trope — sometimes they watch hours and hours of hardcore porn at work. That’s right: gigabytes of filth are being downloaded from a government-controlled network onto government-issued computers and consumed during government-billed hours. These are your tax dollars at work, people.

It seems like there’s a government-worker-watching-porn-at-work scandal every single year, and 2012 is no exception. However, the stakes are a bit different this year since the government workers who got busted with smut also happen to control our ground- and sea-based missile defense system. Last Friday, the executive director of the Missile Defense Agency sent out a memo to his staff, scolding them for “engaging in inappropriate use of theMDA network.” John James Jr. clarified, “Specifically, there have been instances of employees and contractors accessing websites, or transmitting messages, containing pornographic or sexually explicit images.”

“Inappropriate” is certainly one word you could use to describe these Defense Department employees’ procrastination methods. “Dangerous” is another. James explained, “These actions are not only unprofessional, they reflect time taken away from designated duties, are in clear violation of federal and DoD and regulations, consume network resources and can compromise the security of the network though the introduction of malware or malicious code.” Indeed, cyber security experts warn that porn sites are especially susceptible to hackers who want to mine government networks for intelligence or even to launch an attack. So these guys are wasting your tax dollars and compromising national security.

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