Panda Baby Sleeping

The Baby Panda that was born November 3rd at Zoo Atlanta seems to be doing well after his exam this morning.  Reporters were allowed to watch the exam and learned that the unnamed panda is healthy and well.

Dr. Hayley Murphy, director of veterinary services at Zoo Atlanta said ”His abdomen’s really round and full and that’s what we really like in a baby, that just tells us he’s eating well and his abdomen’s full of milk.”

Dr. Murphy also stated that at a month old the baby panda is still considered an infant and that as long as he’s warm and well fed he’ll be pretty content and happy.

The baby panda will get his name when he is 100 days old.  This is due to a Chinese tradition.

The baby’s mother Lun Lun and father Yang Yang have two other babies together.  Mei Lan (may lahn), who was born in 2006, and Xi Lan (she lahn), in 2008.  Although the Pandas are in the US, China still retains ownership of them as well as any unborn baby pandas.

The new panda baby isn’t on display to the public yet, but until she is revealed to the world you can watch her activity on Zoo Atlanta’s Panda Cam http://www.zooatlanta.org/1212/panda_cam

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GlaxoSmithKline Shells out $750 Million

-GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK) decided to shell out $750 million to settle fees that the drug generating company sold contaminated anti-nausea medication and infant ointment made in a now-closed Cidra plant in Puerto Rico.

The organization will pay $600 million in civil fines and $150 million in criminal fines, the U.S. Justice Department claimed inside a assertion Tuesday. As part of the settlement, Cheryl Eckard, an ex employee, will obtain $96 million. Eckard alleged that GlaxoSmithKline fired her instead of addressing the issues cited within the lawsuit.

The fees stem from allegedly adulterated drugs GlaxoSmithKline built at its Puerto Rico plant in between 2001 and 2005. The business’s antidepressant drug, Paxil, was allegedly found to have occurred without any controlled-release system, whilst anti-nausea medication Kytril and anti-infection ointment Bactroban may have been contaminated with microorganisms, according to the Justice Division.

“Adulterated drugs undermine the integrity of the FDA’s approval process, can introduce substandard or ineffective drugs on to the market and, in the worst cases, can potentially put patients’ health at risk,” explained Tony West, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil division, in Tuesday’s assertion.

PD Villarreal, GlaxoSmithKline’s head of worldwide litigation,stated inside a separate statement Tuesday that they are sorry that people operated the Cidra facility in a manner that was inconsistent with current Superb Production specifications and with GSK’s dedication to manufacturing top quality.

The organization in July stated they would accept a $750 million cost to second-quarter earnings related to the settlement finalized today. In all, GlaxoSmithKline stated they would file authorized charges in excess of $2 billion during the quarter mainly due to lawsuits related to its Avandia diabetes medicine. That product was alleged to have brought on heart attacks and strokes.

GlaxoSmithKline shares saw little change at $40.17 in Nyse buying and selling today.

We sit down with Cooper Webb for a look into his life

-igsoo.com Interview with Cooper Webb. Cooper was in town for the Branson USA amateur nationals race this weekend. He won every class he entered except the schoolboy class which he came in second but later was disqualified due to the fact that he couldn’t enter a 150 in that class.

This interview with Cooper shows that he is very respectful as well as talented. He is a class act indeed. Thank you Cooper and Bob for making this interview possible!

Cooper Webb Dominates Branson MX 2010

-I didn’t go to the race track today to get a story, but what I saw was so amazing that I had to find out more about this Cooper Webb kid that dominated every class he entered today.

Below are the race results from http://branson10.tracksideresults.com.  Cooper is on fire!

Here’s a video I found about Cooper on YouTube

Although I’m a huge motocross fan, I haven’t followed the amateur scene at all.  I do live close enough to Galena MO, that I try to make it to the nationals race each year and that was the case today.

As I sat watching the races, I started visiting with one of the spectators who filled me in on Cooper, telling me that he’s backed by Honda and Red Bull.  As we talked I watched Cooper decimate the competition with a riding style that looks both comfortable, and aggressive, Cooper is a complete natural when he’s on his bike.

Cooper wasn’t at his tent at the end of the day, but I did get a chance to talk to Bob, his Father.  Bob Webb seemed genuinely interested in taking time out of his day to talk to me and gave me a little background on Cooper’s success.

It turns out that Bob actually owns a surf/skate shop in North Carolina where he makes surf boards and figured that naturally Cooper would grow up to be a skater, or surfer.  Bob also used to do some motocross racing back in the 70’s.

When Cooper was 4 years old Bob decided that he was getting out of shape so he bought himself a dirt bike figuring he would hit the track again and get back in shape.  Cooper absolutely loved riding on the dirt bike with his dad, and instead of Bob getting to practice, he ended up taking Cooper around the track for every lap.  “He wouldn’t let me go around the track without him riding with me” Bob said.  Not only that, but Cooper kept asking “Dad, when are you going to buy me a dirt bike?”

Finally to make him stop asking, Bob told Cooper that he’d buy him a dirt bike as soon as he was able to ride his bicycle with no training wheels.  He figured he had at least 1 ½ – 2 years before that would happen, and he’d deal with the dirt bike issue then.

The same day that the training wheel conversation had taken place, Cooper went home and proceeded to take the training wheels off of his bike and teach himself to ride without them.  By the time Bob got home that evening, Cooper was jumping over his skateboard ramp with his bicycle, just as if he had been doing it for years.  Turns out he was a natural for two wheeled sports, but that wasn’t good news for Bob.  He thought that it was just too dangerous for a kid that young to have a dirt bike so he told Cooper that he wasn’t going to buy him one.

After much persuasion from his wife and Cooper, Bob gave in and bought him a PW-50.  Since that time Cooper hasn’t looked back.  He has gone on to win over 55 national titles including multiple titles at the prestigious Loretta Lynn race that is the granddaddy of amateur motocross.

Not only did I get to watch some great racing, I got a great story to boot!  Keep your eyes out for this kid; he’s making his way through the ranks.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in the ranks of the pros in a few years.  For now though it’s day to day training, school and practice.  Not looking too far ahead.  For more information about Cooper check out his website.  It’s a little outdated, but there’s some good information there.  http://cooperwebb.com/

UFO's Over China

China is in the news again for the recent claim of UFO’s being spotted overhead.  Recent reports state that a UFO was seen over one of the major Chinese airports and the airport was allegedly shut down in order to prevent the unidentified flying objects from crashing into passenger aircraft.

Reports state that there might have been as many as three different flights that were diverted from their Baotou destination to other airports after the spotting of a UFO last month.  Eye witness accounts reported by airport officials state that the UFO was “flat and tubular”.  The decision to shut down the airport was made after the object flew in close proximity to the airport.  The decision was made due to safety concerns.

This isn’t the first of such sightings in China this year.  During July, Xiaoshan, in Zhejiang province was shut down briefly following an alleged sighting of an “oddly-shaped, twinkling bright light”.  There was also a UFO sighting reported in Hong Kong earlier this year.

Is China under attack, or possibly just research by aliens?  What do they want from the Chinese?  Maybe they are looking for some good Chow Mein

Home Exercise Equipment Fraud

-Counterfeit Home exercise equipment reportedly bought and sold online.  It seems that banks and convenience stores aren’t the only targets for fraud in our on demand society.

Seattle PI blogs posted a story Friday claiming that Genevieve Rullan, a 34 year old woman from Seattle Washington was convicted and given a 30 day sentence for allegedly importing and selling home exercise equipment that was not the real deal.

According to the blog, court records stated that 210 counterfeit “Ab Circle Pro” machines were found at her home, and that prosecutors claimed that she sold over 1,000 counterfeit items on eBay in 2008 & 2009.

Along with the inception of eBay and other online commerce avenues, comes more opportunity for scammers to use their creativity to make money.

Importing goods from other countries has historically been left to major buyers, but the internet has allowed our global community easier access to these types of buyers.

In recent years eBay has become very competitive for suppliers as consumers are looking for bargains.  In order to compete when selling popular items, you must cut your profit margin to the bare bones.  Those suppliers with thin margins in the first place will be weeded out.  Others, like this case will seek counterfeit items to keep profits up.

Moral of the story: You can’t always know that you are getting the real McCoy, but buying on a reputable platform such as eBay, and using PayPal for payment can cover your assets if it turns out that you have been ripped off.  Both eBay & PayPal seek to protect their buyers, and have excellent buyer protection plans to safeguard your purchase.

AOL Buys TechCrunch

Sept 28, 2010.  -Today AOL continues on with their apparent agenda of technological domination with the acquisition of TechCrunch. The price is has not been made public, but anonymously reported to be $25 to $40 million.

TechCrunch the popular news site based in the Silicon Valley well known for covering technical and digital business issues has been on the scene for 5 years and has gained much respect and notoriety among news sources.

Tim Armstrong, Chief Executive Officer of AOL made the announcement, during a tech industry conference (TechCrunch Disrupt) hosted by AOL in San Francisco. Mr. Armstrong, former Google executive and Mike Arrington, from TechCrunch signed the deal on stage at the event.

Mr. Arrington agreed to stay on for at least three years. This should help the acquisition go more smoothly. According to the AOL statement, TechCrunch will remain independent as far as editorial content. Engadget was also bought by AOL under similar circumstances. Engadget’s founder Peter Rojas told The Atlantic “AOL left us alone, no one ever tried to meddle with the editorial or tell us what to do or not do.”

Work from home

– Are you a struggling construction business owner, due to the down turn in the housing market, many small construction companies and small business have failed and continue to fail at a ever alarming rate. The businesses that are prospering are doing so due to their ability to diversify. So why are you reading this? Probably because you’re facing a similar situation.

Many who once owned successful businesses focused in the housing market and new construction, are now facing decisions to lay employees off as well as re-structuring.  They are finding that if they are to survive, they must completely change their business model, which often times meaning taking their business a different direction.  One such business owner recounts his story of having to close up shop and start over.

Having to lay off nine employees was the worse part. But if i was to survive I had to immediately change my business model. So I sat back and recalled all of the jobs I use to do, and none of them came close to providing the economic means I needed. Except one computer programming coding etc. So I headed for Google and wondered how I could market those skills and found several websites where people posted their projects and people like me bid on them. Now as always I am one to do my research. And here’s where it got messy I found out via the various rip-off reporting sites that most of these freelancer marketplace outsourcing sites had all kinds of complaints against them. Then i started researching their fees and some of them were very very expensive. But then I found one and that’s what I am here to write about.

see http://icontractor.us

These guys are new to the game but they offer so much more. Unlike these other guys they have a awesome support department and the lowest fees on the market. The site performs much like eBay, as in where you can buy and sell products. And there is even a penny auction lowest unique bid format. Very interesting what they have done. Surely going to put a twist on the auction environment of goods and services.