Barnes & Noble Chairman wants to separate physical stores from Nook e-business

With the Nook e-reader turning into little more than a "niche" market for Barnes & Noble, the Chairman, Leonard Riggio wants to buy out the physical stores and spin off their e-reader business as a separate company. With disappointing sales of the nook reader and their e-book business also down this past Christmas season, one has to wonder if perhaps Mr. Riggio is trying to save a sinking ship by tossing a heavy anchor overboard?!

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Winter Storm Q! Oh My!

Really? The National Weather Service is giving names to winter storms now? What's next? Are they going to start naming every thunderstorm that races across the US this year? "Thunderstorm Tobias is currently marching from the Mid-West to the Mid-Atlantic states!"

Does the National Weather Service have so little to do, or have they just decided that naming every freaking storm that crops up will make them seem more important? I can see the point of naming hurricanes and tropical storms, as they're large, long lasting dangerous weather systems that impact large populations. There is absolutely no sense in naming winter storms. I believe this is nothing more than an attempt at scaring the public and trying to make themselves seem more relevant than they are anymore. Get real folks, a few inches of snow and a little ice is nothing new or even noteworthy, it's called winter for a reason!

Cosmic Coincidence?

NASA is saying that without a doubt, the meteorite that hit the city of Chelyabinsk had nothing to do with the asteroid 2012 DA14, and that it was just a, "cosmic coincidence" that their arrivals were so close together. I'm sorry, but I find that a little hard to swallow. After all, it's the same scientists who are claiming that an asteroid the size of 2012 DA14 only comes along about once every 1200 years. Even meteorites the size of a double-decker bus are said to be very uncommon. So what are the chances that both these space bodies happened to grace us with their presence within twelve hours or so of each other?

Here's my guess, and let me stress, these are just my "opinion", and not facts in any way. I believe that the meteorite that hit Chelyabinsk was either a piece of 2012 DA14, or at the very least was a piece of debris that's been flying along beside it. Because of it's nearness to the larger mass of the asteroid, scientists missed seeing it. I think this is highly plausible, and let's face it, no one wants to admit that they screwed up and missed seeing something the size of a bus that ends up hitting the earth!

My second theory is going waaaay out on a limb, but why the heck not?! What if 2012 DA14 was actually on a trajectory to hit the earth? I mean look at how much damage that "meteorite" did over the Ural mountains. It only weighed an estimated 10 tons. 2012 DA14 weighs in at a hefty 130,000 tons! The government most likely wouldn't have told us if it had been, for fear of widespread panic. Just a couple of days ago, the United States launched a "satellite" into orbit. What if there had been no satellite and in actuality we'd launched a missile at 2012 DA14 in attempt to make it veer away from the Earth? After the ensuing explosion, a piece of it ends up entering the atmosphere and causing havoc over the Urals. Yeah, it sounds like something right out of a SyFy channel movie, but the fact is we may never know even if that were the truth since the government wouldn't want to take credit for averting a major disaster since there was still collateral damage.

Russian City Hit By Meteorite

Just hours ago, the Russian city of Chelyabinsk was rocked when a meteorite estimated to weigh approximately 10 tons exploded in the air above them. This occurred as the largest asteroid to pass close to Earth is getting ready to make it's fly-by, we hope! Asteroid 2012-DA14 is 150 feet across and weighs in at an estimated 130,000 tons! Imagine what would happen to the Earth should it hit us instead of missing us. Over 500 people are reported injured in Russia after the impacts from the exploding 10 ton meteorite. If estimates of the relative sizes of the objects are correct, 2012-DA14 would have 13,000 times the impact potential of the relatively small meteorite that hit Chelyabinsk, Russia.

This incident hi-lights the need to have a much stronger presence in space than the human species does now. If an asteroid the size of 2012-DA14 were to hit the Earth, it could very well be the end of us as a species.

Emerging Market For Water...Hotter Than Oil

According to a new NASA study, the Mid-East is losing fresh water reserves at an alarming rate. Countries like Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran are losing groundwater due to mismanagement and a 2007 drought. I think we need to start shipping water by the barrel over there and I think it should be going for about a $100 per barrel, give or take. Of course, if there are tensions anywhere in the world, it will negatively affect the price of water, and of course at the change of every season we'll have to increase the price due to the cost of switching over from the winter blend to the summer blend and things like that. I mean, you have to take into account the logistics of this sort of thing, supply and demand can be a tricky thing!

Sexist CBS Takes A Stand

Has anyone out there been reading about the sexist attitude that CBS is taking towards female performers for this year's Grammy Awards Show? Here's a link to a story that details the "requirements" for female performers to comply with as far as dress is concerned. It's absolutely ridiculous how they are singling out female performers and dictating to them what is appropriate dress. In my opinion every male performer at the Grammy's should strut out on stage wearing nothing more than a thong! No requirements are being made of them, as if only women can offend by displaying their skin. I'd love to see Justin Timberlake walk out on the stage leaving little to the imagination. Let CBS executives choke on their hypocrisy then!

What The Hell Were They Thinking?!

I was just reading about the man-hunt for Christopher Jordan Dorner, 33, who worked for the Los Angeles police department from 2004 to 2008. Here's a link to the story at the New York Times. While the details behind this story are tragic, and I feel for all the police officers and their family members involved, who have either been killed or hurt, you have to wonder just what kind of training these officers have. According to the story, two women delivering newspapers who just happened to be driving the same model and color of truck that the suspect is supposedly driving, were shot and wounded when police officers opened fire on them "mistakenly".

I'm sorry, but since when is it okay for police officers to open fire on the first "vehicle" that matches the description of a suspect vehicle without making absolutely sure that the people inside it actually are the suspects. In this particular case, I don't see how two women can be mistaken for one black man. What if it were the suspect, and he had a hostage in the vehicle with him? Apparently that doesn't matter anymore and the police are free to open fire whenever they want to. I for one am hoping that the officer's involved in that, "case of mistaken identity", are on an unpaid leave of absence right now, and that an independent review board will be looking into the procedures they followed, or more likely, didn't follow!

The New "Porn App" For Kids

Is there anyone who didn't see this coming? A new app service has been making waves on the Iphone and Ipad called, "Vine". The service, an off-shoot of Twitter, allows users to upload six second long video clips. The idea being a kind of Youtube for the Twitter generation. You know, people with really, really short attention spans!

Originally the app claimed it was appropriate for anyone twelve years old and up, but apparently there have been several incidents in which clips of porn have been available on the service. They've now updated the app so that users will see a warning about possible adult content and have to click a button affirming that they are seventeen years or older in order to view the content. Yeah, it's real hard for a child to figure out if they just click that button that they can get access to all the six second porn they want.

You know, I never liked Steve Jobs, but at least when he was at the helm at Apple, an app like this would have been stripped from the I-store the second this problem cropped up. At least he ran a tight ship and worried about his brand's reputation. While I think most people in this country take porn way too seriously, and should be more worried about the violence that we let children see every day, it just seems to me that this app is just asking for trouble with a capital "T".

No Skeets Were Killed In The Making Of This...

For the last few days, it seems like you can't go to any news website without seeing something about how President Obama is anti-gun. That he's going to take everyone's guns away and curtail all American's "right to bear arms".

Saturday morning, White House Senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer tweeted out a picture of President Obama shooting skeet. Apparently in a recent interview, the President stated that he does indeed shoot guns, that he shoots skeet often at Camp David.

Now a skeptical public is wondering why we've never heard of President Obama partaking in the sport of skeet shooting before. Maybe he does, and maybe he doesn't. The fact is they probably have file photos of every sitting president for every possible occasion. I'm sure there are photos of the President kissing a baby, shaking hands with a veteran, posing with an openly gay person...etc. etc.

The fact is, President Obama has been taking a hailstorm of bad press over his need to do something to satisfy the public outcry from the Sandy Hook shooting, and now the White House is trying to spin out a little damage control to repair the holes in the sails!