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Tag: 911

  • AT&T the First Carrier to Use GPS for 911 Location

    AT&T the First Carrier to Use GPS for 911 Location

    AT&T claims it is the first US carrier to switch over to using GPS for 911 location.

    The majority of wireless carriers use cell phone towers to pinpoint the location of individuals calling 911. Unfortunately, the method isn’t always as precise as necessary. What’s more, depending on what call center receives the call, it can take longer than necessary for first responders to arrive at the scene, according to The Verge.

    AT&T is now implementing GPS location for 911, which should help address these issues. AT&T says the upgraded service won’t roll out nationwide at first, but the company already covers Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Guam.

    The company will continue to expand the service and says it will cover the entire nation by the end of June.

  • PSA: Update Microsoft Teams on Android Now

    PSA: Update Microsoft Teams on Android Now

    If you’re running Microsoft Teams on Android, you should update immediately to avoid a bug that crippled 911 calling.

    News broke Thursday that a bug in Microsoft Teams on Android could prevent users from calling 911. The issue occurred when Teams was installed, but the user was not logged in to the service..

    Microsoft has released an update to Teams that fixes the issues. All users should update immediately to avoid any issues.

  • Microsoft Teams and Android 10 or Later Preventing 911 Calls

    Microsoft Teams and Android 10 or Later Preventing 911 Calls

    Google is warning that having Microsoft Teams installed, but not logged in on Android 10 or later can prevent 911 calls.

    user on Reddit with a Pixel 3, running Android 11, reported being unable to successfully call 911 when their grandmother appeared to be having a stroke.

    My phone got stuck immediately after one ring and I was unable to do anything other than click through apps with an emergency phone call running in the background. This is all while the phone informed me that it had sent my location to emergency services. Sadly I couldn’t tell the person on the other end what apartment I was in, or what the actual emergency was as I was unable to speak to a human.

    Google investigated the incident and discovered an unexpected interaction between Android and Microsoft Teams. The issue only occurs on Android 10 or later, when Teams is installed but the user is not logged in to their Teams account.

    We determined that the issue was being caused by unintended interaction between the Microsoft Teams app and the underlying Android operating system. Because this issue impacts emergency calling, both Google and Microsoft are heavily prioritizing the issue, and we expect a Microsoft Teams app update to be rolled out soon – as always we suggest users keep an eye out for app updates to ensure they are running the latest version. We will also be providing an Android platform update to the Android ecosystem on January 4.

    In the meantime, Google recommends a couple of mitigation steps. If an individual needs Microsoft Teams, they should make sure they are signed in and stay signed in until the fix is released. On the other hand, if an individual has Teams but is not signed in, they are better off uninstalling the app and reinstalling it. Google says this will fix the issue temporarily, but an update from Microsoft will be required to permanently fix it.

  • Hostage Asks for Help via Pizza Hut App: ‘Get 911 to me’

    In Florida (where else), a quick-thinking woman and her children are safe after she placed the most important pizza order of her life.

    According to the Highlands County Sheriff’s Office, Cheryl Treadway used the ‘additional comments’ section inside the Pizza Hut app to order up some assistance.

    “Please help. Get 911 to me,” she typed. “911hostage help!”

    When the strange order came through to Pizza Hut, the employees recognized her as a frequent customer and called the police.

    “Deputies responded to the Pizza Hut and to the delivery location for the order. Upon arrival at the home, deputies were greeted by a female, Cheryl Treadway, carrying a small child in her arms. She related to deputies that her boyfriend, Ethan Nickerson, was in the home armed with a knife and that her other two children were also in the home with him. After she was escorted to safety, deputies approached the home. Lieutenant Curtis Ludden began to speak with Mr. Nickerson through the closed door of the home. After about 20 minutes, Lieutenant Ludden was able to talk him into coming out peacefully. The other two children were then removed from the home, unharmed,” says a report from the Sheriff’s department.

    Apparently, Treadway and Nickerson had been arguing. When Treadway tried to leave, Nickerson allegedly took her phone and threatened her with a “large knife”. At one point, Treadway convinced him to let her order a pizza.

    WFLA says that police think Nickerson was high on meth. Again, it is Florida.

    Treadway’s quick thinking may have saved her life, and thank god the kids are safe. Nickerson has been charged with aggravated assault, battery, and false imprisonment. No word on whether the pizza was ever delivered.

    Image via WFLA

  • Dumb People Keep Calling 911 When Facebook Goes Down

    Apparently, people didn’t get the memo the last time this happened.

    As you may know, Facebook and Instagram suffered a major outage on Monday. It lasted about an hour. It was devastating.

    During this time, instead of doing literally anything other than calling 911 to report the Facebook outage, people actually called 911 to report the Facebook outage. Again.

    CBS San Francisco reports that five idiots called 911 to report that Facebook and Instagram weren’t working. Oh, and someone even called back to bitch.

    “Our lines are dedicated to handle life and death calls, and even though Facebook is important to a lot of people, it’s not a matter of life and death when it stops working,” a dispatcher told the site. “One caller even called back to tell me I was being rude because I told her it wasn’t a life threatening emergency.”

    I have baby photos to like. This is serious.

    As I’ve alluded to, this isn’t the first time this has happened. Facebook suffered a major outage last August, and so many people called 911 that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department had to issue a public plea. Please, pretty please, quit clogging up our lines with calls about Facebook.

    After initial reports that Facebook had been hit with some sort of cyberattack, the company issued a statement saying the whole this was self-inflicted.

    “Earlier today many people had trouble accessing Facebook and Instagram. This was not the result of a third party attack but instead occurred after we introduced a change that affected our configuration systems. We moved quickly to fix the problem, and both services are back to 100% for everyone,” said Facebook in a statement.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Andrea Tantaros On CIA Torture: ‘America is Awesome’

    Responding to a declassified CIA torture report concerning post-9/11 detainees, which included mentions of extreme waterboarding and “rectal feeding,” conservative political analyst and commentator Andrea Tantaros declared that “America is awesome.”

    The Senate Intelligence Committee poured $50 million into an investigation of the CIA’s torture tactics of the 119 captured militants after 9/11, and the 499 page report was released Tuesday. The document summarizes methods of torture utilized by CIA operatives that exceeded guidelines authorized by the White House, CIA officials and the Justice Department.

    The report describes severe methods allegedly incorporated by some CIA officers, who “deceived their superiors at the White House, members of Congress and even sometimes their own peers about how the interrogation program was being run and what it had achieved.”

    The report reveals that one detainee died of hypothermia while being shackled to a concrete floor, one was placed in total darkness for 17 days and some were kept awake for up to 180 hours. Waterboarding sessions which lead to repeated near drownings were described, and some prisoners were forced to stand on their broken legs. At least five were subjected to “rectal feeding” and “rectal rehydration.”

    During an appearance on FOX’s Outnumbered, a visibly perturbed Tantaros commented on the released documents – “the United States of America is awesome, we are awesome. We’ve closed the book on torture, and we’ve stopped doing it. And the reason they want to have this discussion is not to show how awesome we are. This administration wants to have this discussion to show us how we’re not awesome.”

    Tantaros added, “Sunlight at the CIA? I’m sorry, that’s one place I don’t need sunlight. I don’t think they need to give me a lot of transparency at the CIA. Look, thousands of Americans were killed after 9/11. The Bush administration did what the American public wanted, and that was do whatever it takes to keep us safe. These terror tactics have been stopped because as a country, we decided we are better than this. Which is my point. Then why are we putting out this memo?”

    Tantaros likewise took her frustration to Twitter:

    Tantaros presently rotates as a co-host on the Fox News Channel program The Five.

  • Freedom Tower: One World Trade Center Officially Open

    One World Trade Center is officially open for business. According to a New York Times report publishing company Condé Nast moved employees into the building on Monday, becoming its first tenant.

    Planning for the building, referred to as the Freedom Tower until 2009, began shortly after the terrorist attacks on the twin towers in 2001. By 2005 planners revealed the official design for the building.

    Led by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, construction for One World Trade Center began in 2006 and took nearly eight years. Lessons from the 2001 terrorist attacks have been incorporated into the building’s design. According to Silverstein Properties, the real estate company that owns the lease for the World Trade Center site, One World Trade Center has fireproofing, biochemical filters, and multiple backup emergency lights in excess of what New York City building codes require. The building also has extra-wide stairs and exits designed with evacuation in mind.

    “Lower Manhattan is poised to become one of the world’s most sought-after central business districts,” said Scott Rechler, vice chairman of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey. “This would have been hard to predict in the aftermath of the tragedy of 9/11.”

    At 1,776 feet, One World Trade Center is the tallest building in the U.S. The office tower is located in the World Trade Center complex in Manhattan, near where the twin towers stood before September 11, 2001. The building is 104 stories tall and has three million square feet of space including offices, a sprawling lobby, and an observation deck.

    Two more office towers are currently planned for the World Trade Center complex. Just last week Siverstein Properties announced that $1.6 billion in funding had been secured for Three World Trade Center, an 80-story skyscraper that will be located on Greenwich Street in Manhattan. The building is expected to be completed in 2018 and advertising media company GroupM has already signed on as a tenant.

  • 911 Butt-Dial Features Robbery Details, Bon Jovi

    A couple of cowboys will likely be riding their steel horses all the way to the clink after accidentally butt-dialing 911 shortly after they allegedly stole a man’s TV.

    Aaron Burrell, 37, and Yvonne Thyberg, 35, of Roswell, New Mexico detailed their crime to no doubt incredibly amused dispatchers after accidentally dialing 911 during their getaway.

    Here are some of the gems that police picked up from the unintentional broadcast:

    “You basically robbed them, dude.”

    “That was an adrenaline rush for a minute. You know what, that’s the first thing I’ve stolen.”

    “Yeah, we picked up this f-cking TV set totally and we f-cking wheeled it out the house.”

    “We should have gotten a lot more, but you know what, I’m looking at it like this – we got away safe, clean.”

    At one point, the couple starts blasting Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive” because of course they do. You really can’t make this up:

    In all, police have about 45 minutes of material from the butt-dial. Burrell even led police directly to the house, saying “we rolled over to Hervey Street and took it out of the f-cking house.”

    The funny thing about this – other than every single thing about this – is that this happens a lot more than you might think. A few years ago, a couple of idiots who had just stolen a bunch of video games from Target butt-dialed police, unknowingly detailing their crime to officers for over an hour. A couple of years ago a guy butt-dialed 911 during a drug deal. And just last year, Florida Man butt-dialed 911 and detailed a murder plot.

    Be careful, criminals. Your passcode won’t help you when it comes to making emergency calls.

    Image via Thinkstock

  • Annasophia Robb Talks Charity, Mother

    Annasophia Robb was at the annual Cantor Fitzgerald and BG&C Charity Day event on Thursday. It also happened to be 9/11, which is the purpose of the event.

    Charity Day was founded in order to remember the 658 Cantor and 61 Eurobroker employees lost in the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. However, it has grown exponentially since the beginning. The money goes to charities all over the world.

    The Cantor Fitzgerald and BG&C Charity Day event has raised over $113 million dollars over the years for victims of terror, abuse, and natural disaster among other things.

    Annasophia Robb joined a long list of celebrities like Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben Stiller, Michelle Williams, and Pamela Anderson.

    At the event, Annasophia Robb was asked about what her character strengths are.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3dU0f0t7Wc

    “My strengths are honesty and curiosity. With honesty, I’ve learned that it’s important to know the right time to share the truth. Growing up I was taught by my parents that I could do or be anything I chose.”

    Robb continued, “My parents always encouraged and supported my natural curiosity through exploration. In school, I loved to ask questions and wanted to know why the world worked the way it did. I believe it’s helpful for all kids to ask questions and figure out what they believe. They can seek to change things when they see why the world is a certain way.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktEYIBdPFII

    Annasophia Robb was especially influenced by her mother.

    “My mom has been a great role model for me, as well as my grandfather who is full of integrity, honesty, and kindness. I also learn a lot from my boyfriend who is so patient and a great listener.”

    Sounds like Annasophia Robb grew up to have a great head on her shoulders, just like I’m sure her parents intended.

  • AnnaSophia Robb Helps Raise Millions

    AnnaSophia Robb was one of the celebrities that were on hand to help raise money for charity at the Cantor Fitzgerald and BG&C Charity Day event on 9/11. She joined other celebs including Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben Stiller, and Michelle Williams.

    The event was started to remember the 658 Cantor and 61 Eurobroker employees lost in the 9/11 World Trade Canter attacks. However, it has grown over the years to benefit charities and victims all over the world who suffer tragedy, emergency, and terror attacks.

    The yearly event includes pretty hefty celebrity participation and, so far, has raised $113 million dollars for charities over the years.

    Shawn P. Matthews, Chief Executive Officer of Cantor Fitzgerald & Co., said,

    “We are very grateful to our clients for their ongoing support of Charity Day. I’d like to extend my heartfelt appreciation to all of our celebrity guests who graciously donated their time today, and to our clients and employees who helped to make Charity Day such an overwhelming success.”

    AnnaSophia Robb, of Soul Surfer and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fame, was one of those celebrities.

    Robb does a lot of work in the family movie genre, and is so far free of child actor drama. She works a lot with the children’s charity TrueSpark. When asked how she deals with pressure as a young person, AnnaSophia Robb said,

    “I try to stay true to myself and notice when I feel pressured and then I check in with myself. I write letters to myself so that I fully understand my goals, my center, and my own life model. I believe it’s important to check in with what is truly in my heart and to live from there, rather than from a place of wanting to just satisfy others,”

    Robb continued, “I am respectful of others wishes, but I also have my own guiding light and I have to be true to myself. We can always push ourselves and raise the bar and I expect that all kids can do great things. I believe in our youth the way my parents believed in and supported me.”

    Sounds like great advice for any kid! Good luck to AnnaSophia Robb as she continues down her path!

  • Westboro Baptist Claims Plans to Picket 9/11 Memorial on 9/11

    In one of the more despicable moves they have tried, the Patriot Wing of the Westboro Baptist Church famously used the occasion of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., which leveled the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, to increase their public profile.

    While the rest of America banded together in support of one another, mourning the loss of our fellow countrymen in the Twin Towers and aboard those planes, the folks at Westboro saw a chance to drive their message of hate home. They did this by antagonizing the mourners, picketing the funerals of soldiers who went to fight those terrorists, and carrying signs that read “Thank God for 9/11” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers”.

    Now they are at it again. On today, the anniversary of the attacks of 9/11, Westboro announces plans to picket at the September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York, NY, which they derisively call the “Kleenex Museum”.

    “On September 11, 2001, God Almighty sent a message to a rebellious nation, like juggernauts through time and space, directly from the Throne of God, airplanes took down your pride. This nation REFUSED to hear that rod and who had appointed it!

    “Thirteen years have passed and this nation has refused to repent, and instead have waxed worse and worse, and today, you marry fags in this nation and pimp fag marriage all over the world! You also continue to murder 4 THOUSAND babies every day in this nation! You do all that with full knowledge of what God has to say about that. Meanwhile, you build that memorial to your rebellion and your in-your-face battle with God Almighty.”

    Westboro went on to quote from Fred Phelps’ original speeches about 9/11, demonstrating that they have always been just as callous about their stance on 9/11.

    “God hates America, and those calamities last Tuesday [September 11, 2001] are none other than the wrath of God, smiting fag America… That wasn’t any accident. That wasn’t any coincidence. There’s only America to blame for those tragedies.”

    “How many do you suppose of those hundreds of soldiers that died in the Pentagon last Tuesday were fags and dykes? And how many do you suppose were working in that massively composed building structure called those two World Trade Center buildings, Twin Towers? There were five thousand or ten thousand killed and, counting all those passengers in those airplanes, it’s very likely that every last single one of them was a fag or dyke or a fag enabler, and that the minute he died, he split hell wide open, and the way to analyze the situation is that the Lord God Almighty, pursuant to His threatenings and warnings, killed him, looked him in the face, laughed and mocked at each one of them as He cast each one of them into Hell!”

    “God hates America, and God demonstrated that hatred to some modest degree only last Tuesday — sent in those bombers, those hellacious 767 Boeing bombers, and it was a glorious sight. What you need to do is see in those flames — those sickening, twisting, burning, life-destroying flames, brightly shining from every television set around the world! You need to see in those flames as a little preview of the flames of Hell that are going to soon engulf you, my friend. Burn your soul forever!”

  • Mom Calls Police on Porn-Watching Son

    In you-might-be-struggling-with-self-validation-but-you’re-definitely-a-better-parent-than-this-lunatic news, a Spartansburg, South Carolina woman called 911 when she came home to discover that her 15-year-old son had been watching porn.

    The Smoking Gun obtained the police report, which states that Chavonda Gallman, a real estate agent, came home with her two-year-old daughter and one of her clients. Apparently, when her daughter turned on the TV, people be doin it on-screen. Incensed, Gallman figured it must be the work of her 15-year-old son, and proceeded to call the police.

    Sheriff’s deputies arrived at the house and likely explained to Gallman that watching porn wasn’t illegal and that her call was a giant waste of time and resources. They possibly informed her that the kid’s 15 and he’s going to watch porn – no matter what she does to try to prevent it. Life, uh, finds a way. It’s possible that the officers asked Gallman if she was one of the people who called 911 when Facebook was down last week.

    Even if they didn’t go that far, they did explain that he couldn’t be disciplined by the long arm of the law for a little midday stress release.

    The boy reportedly remained in his bedroom throughout the entire exchange.

    But apparently Gallman wanted something permanent out of this. According to the report,

    Mrs. Gallman advised that her son has been having behaviors [sic] issues and that he will not listen, talk back, and steal. Mrs. Gallman requested that a report be done to document to help track her son’s behavior and due to her daughter being exposed to porn.

    Persistent, if nothing else.

    Image via Thinkstock

  • Idiots Reportedly Called 911 When Facebook Was Down

    What the hell is wrong with people?

    About four hours ago, Facebook went down. Like really down. Many users worldwide were unable to access the social network at all, and those who did saw a service operating at a well-below optimal level. The outage lasted for as much as an hour for some – it was pretty bad. Productivity soared. Zuckerberg wept.

    Apparently, the struggle was so real, that people called in to report it as an emergency – at least according to Sgt. Burton Brink of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

    But wait – a wrinkle:

    Despite the LAPD’s insistence that no calls were made regarding the Facebook outage, Sgt. Brink maintained his position:

    Of course, it’s possible that calls came in to specific Sheriff station, or someone missed some calls. What motivation would Sgt. Brink have to make this up?

    I’ll choose to believe that people are that dumb. Because people are that dumb.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • The Market For Tragedy: 9/11 Museum Gift Shop

    Right now you can buy a $110 talking Osama Bin Laden action figure on eBay if your heart so desires. If you don’t want to waste your money, you have the option to download for free the Super Columbine Massacre RPG video game; the game “delves into the morning of April 20th, 1999 and asks players to relive that day through the eyes of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.”

    Yet, with these options available, some feel capitalizing on a tragedy or a touchy subject isn’t proper. The 911 Memorial at Ground Zero in New York tells the story of the 9/11 terror attacks with artifacts and displays, paying tribute to the lives of innocents and heroes lost that day.

    They also have a gift shop.

    The 9/11 museum offers a wide selection of souvenirs that include, but are not limited to: FDNY, NYPD and Port Authority Police T-shirts ($22) and caps ($19.95); earrings molded from leaves and blossoms of downtown trees ($20 to $68); police and firefighter charms by Pandora and other jewelers ($65); “United We Stand” blankets – you can even buy an FDNY vest for your dog.

    Admission costs $24 for adults, $18 for seniors and students, and $15 for kids ages 7 to 17.

    “To me, it’s the crassest, most insensitive thing to have a commercial enterprise at the place where my son died.” Diane Horning told the New York Post; her husband Kurt and her never recovered the remains of their son Matthew, 26, a database administrator for Marsh & McLennan.

    Around 8,000 unidentified bodies lay buried in a “remains repository” in an underground home of the museum.

    “Here is essentially our tomb of the unknown. To sell baubles I find quite shocking and repugnant,” Horning added.

    “I think it’s a money-making venture to support inflated salaries, and they’re willing to do it over my son’s dead body.”

    A sign outside of the shop, as well as a notice online reads that “All net proceeds from our sales are dedicated to developing and sustaining” the museum. Despite the gift shop raising controversy, there are other multiple avenues of which one can donate, volunteer, or become a member and get a 10% discount.

    Among the donators, a plaque outside the store reads “made possible through the generosity of Paul Napoli and Marc Bern,” both partners in a law firm which garnered $200 million in taxpayer-funded fees and expenses after suing the city representing roughly 10,000 Ground Zero workers.

    According to the museum’s website, the firm donated $5 million.

    Images via Wikimedia Commons, 911 Memorial

  • Ground Zero Victims Moved To 9/11 Museum

    The remains of 1,100 unidentified 9/11 victims were moved from the New York Medical Examiner’s office to a repository at Ground Zero on Saturday. Forensic experts had been working on identifying victims from the almost 8,000 bags of remains, however only 41% of the 2,753 victims have been identified and only 4 were positively identified from the remains in the last year.

    While the remains have been moved, officials say that this will not stop the efforts to identify the victims. “The repository provides a dignified and reverential setting for the remains to repose – temporarily or in perpetuity – as the work to identify the 9/11 victims continues,” said the medical examiner’s office in a statement. There are no current plans for testing the remains that have been moved, however as forensic technology develops, future identifications are hoped for.

    The decision to move the unidentified remains was made by former mayor Michael Bloomberg with the help of a consulting panel consisting of other city officials as well as families of 9/11 victims. The remains will not be on exhibit at the 9/11 Memorial Museum located at Ground Zero, but are placed adjacent to the memorial. Families will have access to a private room for reflection near the remains that is not open to the public.

    While a select few amongst the victims’ families were consulted regarding the move, there were those at the procession protesting the decision. “We were never given the opportunity to say that we did not want them in a museum,” said Rosaleen Tallon, sister of fallen firefighter Sean Tallon. “A museum is not a cemetery,” read another protestor’s sign. Sally Reganhard, vice president of a group of 9/11 victims’ families said, “We are outraged. There is anger and anguish. It’s an insult and a sacrilege. The city has refused to survey the families of the victims to get their opinion because they know the majority is against this plan.”

    The New York Medical Examiner’s office will continue to control access to the remains and the repository will be sealed off to museum visitors. The museum is set to open on May 21st, however a week before the official opening victims’ families, survivors, and rescue workers will have access to the memorial.

    Image via YouTube

  • USS Somerset Commissioned In Honor Of Flight 93

    On March 1, the USS Somerset was commissioned to become a Navy warship to honor Flight 93, which was hijacked and headed for Washington D.C., but crashed in Pennsylvania killing 40 passengers and crew. The plane was one of the four that was hijacked in September 11, 2001.

    The Navy ship was sponsored to be built on December 2007 by Mary Jo Myers, wife of General Richard Myers who is the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The ship was named USS Somerset after Somerset county in Pennsylvania where Flight 93 crashed in 2001. USS Somerset is the third ship to commemorate lives lost to the 9/11 attacks, the first and second ones are the USS New York and USS Arlington. It took $1.2 billion and four years to build the USS Somerset.

    According to Senator Pat Toomey, the ship was built in commemoration of the day America began to fight back.

    USS Somerset carried Marine Corps and the Navy during the ceremony. After hours of waiting, Mary Jo Myers finally said the words “Man this ship and bring her to life.”

    The sailors were stationed on the upper decks and the brow of the ship, looking like dwarves in the vessel that weighed 25,000 tons. Also in attendance were the shipbuilders, politicians, the military, and families of those who were killed in Flight 93.

    The President of Families of Flight 93, Gordon Felt, reminded the Marines and sailors to use the tragedy as motivation to serve the country. He also said that “heroism is not achieved, it is revealed.” – just like the passengers and crew of Flight 93 who set out on the morning of 9/11 not knowing what was going to happen.

    A lifeboat emerged as a door on the ship was opened and the ship’s horn then boomed loudly.

    The ship is set for leaving its homeport in San Diego on Tuesday morning. Reports say that the USS Somerset will also be utilized for humanitarian efforts. Captain Thomas Dearborn, the ship’s commanding officer, told his crew that they will be helping those in need in any way they can – through typhoons, volcanic eruptions, and even piracy.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • 9/11 ‘Truther’ Disrupts Super Bowl Press Conference (VIDEO)

    “Investigate 9/11. 9/11 was perpetrated by people within our own government.”

    Those were the words said by 30-year-old Matthew Mills, an independent journalist who decided to take matters into his own hands during the Super Bowl press conference on Sunday.

    As MVP Malcolm Smith of the Seattle Seahawks was about to speak, Mills stole the microphone and interjected with one of the most trendy and common conspiracy theories of the 2000s: the attack on the World Trade Center and events alike on September 11, 2001 was an inside job.

    The sudden interruption took the room by surprise and even had jaw-dropped Smith quite puzzled.

    Oddly enough, security officers didn’t immediately react to the confusion. Instead, an obviously irritated staff member shoved Mills off the podium.

    According to RT.com:

    “…he was escorted out of the area by public relations and arrested by police for trespassing. He was later released, but his ability to gain entry into the stadium without a press pass or a ticket raised questions about the security in place at the Super Bowl.”

    Mills reported to NJ.com that he initially wanted to get near the MetLife Stadium just to interview fans about the game, but then saw his opportunity to get closer to the press conference by boarding the employee bus.

    Mills says that he was wearing a press pass around his neck, but not the same one as those who were permitted entry into the press conference. After gaining admission pass the gate and into the stadium, he said he was “dumbfounded” that he had actually gotten that far.

    “I just said I was running late for work and I had to get in there. It was that simple,” he told NJ.com.

    Coincidently, Coach Peter Caroll of the Seahawk’s is rumored to be a 9/11 ‘truther’ as well. According to reports, Caroll confronted a former four-star general last year about his suspicions of the government’s involvement.

    Nonetheless, Mills’ scandalous interruption is bound to raise questions about security procedures during the Super Bowl.

    Image via Youtube

  • 911 Operator Laughs at a Woman on Fire [AUDIO]

    Imagine that an accident left your car and girlfriend on fire–pretty horrifying, right? Well, apparently it’s more of a laughing matter than anything to a 911 operator who got such a call. After Arizona resident Lalo Delgado called 911 to get help because his car and girlfriend were on fire, the operator who took the call can be heard chuckling:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDO4dm6q0uo

    Transcript of the 911 call:

    911: 911 what is your emergency?
    Caller: My car just kinda caught on fire, my girlfriend caught on fire.
    911: Is your girlfriend still on fire?
    Caller: No.
    911: No?
    (laughter in background)
    911: Ok. (chuckles) Umm… Is your vehicle still on fire?
    Caller: It’s hilarious huh?
    911: Sir, is your vehicle still on fire?
    Caller: I just heard you smirk… Inaudible.
    911: Ok, sir it wasn’t regarding that ok.
    Caller: Yeah, I just heard you laugh.

    “Her initial reaction was laugh and giggle in the background,” said Delgado. “It was very disturbing.” Delgado called back a few minutes later, just to make sure that his call was taken seriously:

    911: 911, what is your emergency?
    Caller: Yeah.
    911: Hello?
    Caller: Yeah I called in a few minutes ago and I just wanted to make sure you took me seriously.

    Should the 911 operator be fired? Respond below.

    Delgado’s girlfriend did eventually receive help and is recovering. Delgado thinks that the 911 operator’s response caused a delay in response time, which possibly caused his girlfriend’s suffering and burns to be worse than they would have been had the 911 operator immediately sent help, instead of getting a fit of giggles.

    “If she wasn’t there playing around giggling and would have been right on it,” he said. “One minute, two minutes, every minute counts man.”

    Police with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department disagree that the 911 operator’s laughter caused any delay. “We did not perform as I expect or the citizens of this county expect us to,” said Captain Jim Berry. “We’re going to correct that. Certainly I can understand why he was upset. I would be too. We’re investigating what the laughter was about.”

    The 911 operator hasn’t been suspended during the investigation and is still taking calls. “Hopefully the next person that calls 911 doesn’t get laughed at,” said Delgado.

    Images via YouTube

  • Mali Explosion: Will Terror Spread to Europe and America?

    In the aftermath of suicide bombings in the vicinity of a military camp in Mali’s northern city of Timbuktu on Saturday, Malian armed forces and Islamic separatists exchanged heavy gunfire in the center of the northern town of Kidal on Sunday.

    Mali, a former French colonial subject, was cobbled together by combining real estate from Arab-Berber dominated North-Africa and Black dominated Sub-Saharan Africa. Ethnic and religious divisions have led to outbreaks in violence and tension throughout Mali’s history.

    But with the rise of Arab Spring and adherence to purer forms of Islam, violence has reached a new level of brutality as Islamic rebels become increasingly confident that their cause is right, and Allah is on their side. The rebels have gone so far as to suspend all peace talks as they anticipate the fall of the Mali government and the restoration of Caliphate, or Islamic theocratic rule all over Africa and West Asia.

    The naked escalation in violence has thrown an egg in the face of France’s Socialist President Francois Hollande who claimed victory over Islamic rebels less than two weeks ago amid photo-ops with Malian leaders.

    Carnage in Mali is unlikely to subside as the region is witnessing an unprecedented population explosion despite grinding poverty and squalor, a feature common to many other Muslim majority countries including Afghanistan and Pakistan. Malian fertility rate is at least 6 births/woman, compared to 1.4 births/woman for Europe and Japan, and 1.9 births/woman for United States.

    Fertility Rate, births/woman

    European and North American governments have done little to nothing to provide access to contraception and family planning to attain sub-replacement fertility rates in order to alleviate poverty, hunger, desperation and violence in Mali, and in a broader context, Africa.

    The recent Kenya mall shootings which took the lives of dozens of innocents were the handiwork of Somali terrorists several of whom trace their residency to United States and United Kingdom.

    So will the influx of radicalized elements within West Asian and African immigrant populations in Europe and North America lead to more terror attacks? The answer can almost be prophesied, as Chechen attacks in Boston demonstrated not too long ago.

    [image from Youtube and Google Visualizer for World Bank data]

  • Declassified NSA Documents Reveal Privacy Violations

    Following pressure from lawsuits by both the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the federal government has released 14 documents concerning privacy violations committed by the NSA in their collection of private data from US citizens. Both lawsuits were based on what the ACLU and EFF believe is a misinterpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act. According to the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005, any data obtained under Section 215 of the Patriot Act:

    “must be `relevant’ to an authorized preliminary or full investigation to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a U.S. person or to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities. The provision also requires a statement of facts to be included in the application that shows there are reasonable grounds to believe the tangible things sought are relevant, and, if such facts show reasonable grounds to believe that certain specified connections to a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power are present, the tangible things sought are presumptively relevant.”

    What the 14 documents that were declassified reveal is that the NSA has not been following this revised version of the Patriot Act, but rather gathering whatever information they want despite the fact that they have had several rendezvous with the FISA court (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) regarding the legality of their collections. The FISA court is the court that issues surveillance warrants for perceived foreign threats on US soil. This court was established after the passing of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in the 1970’s, following the events of Watergate.

    The court cases filed by the ACLU and EFF concerned the actions of the NSA between the years 2006 to 2009. During this time, the NSA collected information on citizens that was not deemed legal under the warrant granted to them by the FISA court. In fact, in 2009 alone, the NSA flagged and gathered information on more than 17,000 citizens, and under 2,000 of those people were on the “flag” list given to the NSA by the FISA order, a list that was composed of people with reasonable articulable suspicion (RAS) of terroristic activity.

    The documents released by the federal government show several court hearings and proceedings that occurred between the NSA and FISA courts concerning this blatant disregard for person privacy. The best reason the NSA could come up for as to why they illegally collected information on more than 17,000 people in one year: “there was no single person who had a complete technical understanding of the BR FISA architecture.” In short, we had an entire governmental agency which specifically deals with the national security of arguably the most powerful nation on the earth, and not one of them could understand the BR FISA, which is a simple document outlining what is and what is not acceptable when gathering information concerning foreign threats within US borders…..

    So, what does all of this tell us? For one, it shows us that government officials may be even more clueless when it comes to legal standards than our friends at the ACLU and even the EFF. Secondly, it shows us that the American people can still use legal means to accomplish large and important goals (except for the fact that it took an extremely large illegal activity by Edward Snowden to even bring the subject to light, and despite the fact that the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, wants us to believe that this is another step toward government transparency ). Lastly, it shows us that the events of 9/11 have had much more lasting impact than any American could have imagined, and in ways that we would have never considered. While every American recognizes the events of that day as a tragic loss of American life, no American thought that we would now live in a country in which almost all of our civil liberties and freedoms have been compromised at the behest of “protection from terrorism”. So while this may be a small victory for the American people in regards of data privacy and government transparency, it still reveals how much we actually lost on 9/11, and how much the “terrorists” won.

    Image via Twitter

  • Firefighters Honored; Officials Climb 110 Stories

    In honor of the World Trade Center towers collapse on 9/11, a ceremony will take place this Sunday.

    Many law enforcement officials will climb the stairwells of the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel to remember all of those who lost lives on the day of the tragedy. Those loosing lives included 343 firefighters.

    According to the CBS 8 news-station, “The 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb, which begins just after 8 a.m., will raise money for programs that help injured firefighters and their families. Lt. Joe Torrillo, a retired Fire Department of New York firefighter who was trapped in the rubble of the World Trade Center and survived, is scheduled to speak about his experiences.”

    All of those who participate in the Sunday morning events will receive a badge and a photo of someone who lost their lives fighting on September 11 in 2001, CBS 8 also said.

    Many other events like this are taking place throughout the country. Today in Sacramento, firefighters climbed the Renaissance Tower in honor of those who served and lost lives on 9/11. Since the tower is only 28 stories, those climbing went up and down the staircases 4 times in order to climb 110 floors, in which the World Trade Center had.

    The local CBS Sacramento news-station, said that each one person who climbed the tower attached to their coat, a photo of a firefighter, police officer or other official who served on 9/11.

    [Photo via Youtube]