Tag Archives: Big Bird

Obama Spending Our Money Like A Drunken King

By Emma Karlin

We’ve heard about the government spending $1.5 million to determine why most lesbians are fat and almost twice that much to discover why they are drunks, but a peek under the White House rug shows much more willful waste of our money.

Barack Obama is arming Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood so they’ll be able to defeat our ally Israel in the next Middle East war. He gives the PLO hundreds of thousands of our dollars each year as well.

King Barack has eaten through $1.4 BILLION in happy lifestyle spending on him, Mooch, and their royal highnesses.

$505,000 of our tax dollars went to “to promote specialty hair and beauty products for cats and dogs” – yes cats and dogs!

The feds are lining someone’s pockets with $1 million a year to develop a menu for space travel with no such trips even scheduled.

They have stood over a latrine and peed away $27 million of our money to teach Moroccans how to make clay pots.

What could you do with $350,000? The feds gave it to Perdue University to fund a study to help golfers putt better.  How about $10,000? Do you think you could have spent 10k better than funding “talking urinal cakes” in Michigan?

The Department of Agriculture used $300,000 in tax money to get us to eat more caviar.   Can you buy caviar with food stamps?

We don’t have to wonder how the feds came to order a $30,000 study to determine that “Gaydar” (the ability to look at a person and correctly surmise he/she is gay) really works. The answer is yes, but of course the same people would say only homosexuals and not heterosexuals have this sense – bet on that.

They spend “millions of dollars” each week training “Asian call center workers.”

Obama’s government spends million more of our dollars to develop a Pakistani version of Sesame Street – presumably, Big Bird will show young jihadists how to cleanly chop off infidel heads.

Obama has made $147,138 tax dollars disappear by funding the American Museum of Magic in that great center of culture: Marshall, Michigan.

Everyone’s favorite “head exploder” has to be Obama’s spending $ 2.6 million to get hookers in China to drink less.

There are many more of these disgusting wastes of our money, but keeping this list in mind puts the slimy stunts Obama is blaming on the sequester in perspective.

Photo credit: terrellaftermath

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism

Algorithms Gone Wild: 3 Cases of Computers We Trusted Too Much

By Muneeza Iqbal

Facebook

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Remember a few years ago when Facebook (FB) started suggesting you “reconnect” with old friends, and some of its suggestions were exes and ex-friends you really didn’t need to be reminded of? That was an algorithm they used — and fortunately got rid of — to help people connect with friend’s they hadn’t had much recent activity with on the site.

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Because of embarrassing algorithm fails like this one, companies are slowly starting to delegate work away from the computers and back to humans. Twitter for example, has real people always ready to interpret the context of a search when there is a sudden surge in its frequency. When Mitt Romney referenced Big Bird during the presidential debates last year, there was a gush of people searching for “Big Bird.” A computer would automatically direct these people to “Sesame Street” related hits, but real humans knew otherwise.

Those automated algorithms remain the most obvious and efficient way to keep up with today’s fast-paced world: Computer programs can be better equipped to spot trends or even deal with consumers’ intricate demands than flesh-and-blood employees. But what happens when an algorithm fails? Putting a bit too much authority into the virtual hands of a program can — and has — led to some epic fails. Before they replace any more workers with software, companies might want to consider the following cases of good algorithms gone bad.

Random Rudeness on T-shirts

No so long ago, business was booming for Michael Fowler‘s online T-shirt company, Solid Gold Bomb. The tiny, five-worker company had became known for their customizable “Keep Calm and Carry On” T-shirts that let the consumer to modify the now-famous logo in countless ways. Fowler had designed an algorithm that would randomly select short, two-word phrases to follow “Keep Calm and … ,” thus creating a unique shirt that the customer could order. If they didn’t like what the computer picked, they could simply try again for a phrase more to their liking.

Slogans like “Keep Calm and Drink Beer” quickly became favorites. But then something went wrong. A few weekends ago, Fowler was relaxing in his Melbourne home when Facebook notifications started pouring in: death threats and accusations of misogyny. Turns out, the algorithm’s dictionary hadn’t been culled for potentially offensive content, and suddenly customers were being offered shirts with phrases like “Keep Calm and Hit Her.” Indeed, some had already been ordered. Fowler canceled them all, and deleted the offensive options — indeed, deleted almost all of the parody “Keep Calm” shirts — from the site. He claims these were just computer-generated images and that none had actually been printed.

Keep calm and hit her

The company has posted a lengthy apology on its site, but sales have plummeted and Fowler is afraid the company …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Weekly Wrap Up: "Fulfilling Our Obligations"

By Christopher Sponn

Watch the West Wing Week here.

Sequester Looming: On Tuesday, with just days left until a set of deep, across-the-board budget cuts are set to take effect, President Obama discussed what’s at stake for our country’s economy, security and future and pushed lawmakers to work out a deal for the American people.

“So these cuts are not smart. They are not fair. They will hurt our economy. They will add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls,” said President Obama, as emergency respondents stood behind him. “This is not an abstraction — people will lose their jobs. The unemployment rate might tick up again.”

The President called for “a balanced approach to deficit reduction,” which ends tax loopholes and deductions for the wealthy, while targeting wasteful spending in the process.

Giving Every Child a Chance: Last Friday, President Obama headed home to Chicago to promote his proposals from the State of the Union address and emphasized the importance of protecting our children from gun violence, illustrating the importance of family in our communities.

“And so that means that this is not just a gun issue. It’s also an issue of the kinds of communities that we’re building. And for that, we all share a responsibility, as citizens, to fix it.”

President Obama wants to create “ladders of opportunity” for Americans who are “working to build a strong, middle-class life for themselves.” In order for millions to work their way up, they must have the right skills and good-paying jobs. The President presented pathways to get there in his State of Union address, which include high-quality preschool for every child, raising the minimum wage and sparking American manufacturing.

Medal of Valor: On Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden and Attorney General Eric Holder paid tribute to 18 remarkable individuals who have displayed exceptional courage, while risking their own lives, in order to protect fellow citizens. Recipients traveled to the White House for the Medal of Valor ceremony, which marks the highest national award for valor a public safety officer can receive. Watch the full ceremony here and learn more about the 18 heroes here.

“I love Big Bird”: Celebrating Let’s Move!’s third anniversary, First Lady Michelle Obama welcomed a special guest to the White House: Big Bird. The pair headed to the kitchen and hung out in the East Room to talk about fun ways to exercise and the ease of finding delicious fruits and vegetables. The First Lady started the Let’s Move! initiative in February of 2010 to start “solving the problem of obesity within a generation, so that children born today will grow up healthier and able to pursue their dreams.”

Follow the First Lady for updates and learn more about Let’s Move! here. Be sure to also see special behind the scenes video with the First Lady and Big Bird here.

Easter Egg Roll Lottery: On Thursday, the lottery officially opened for the 135th annual White House Easter Egg Roll. More than …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at The White House

Big Bird Visits the White House

By Marissa Duswalt

Editors Note: This blog was originally posted on letsmove.gov.

First Lady Michelle Obama invited Big Bird to to the White House to learn how easy and delicious it is to eat fruits and vegetables. Check out the latest PSAs from Mrs. Obama and Sesame Workshop celebrating Let's Move!'s third anniversary!

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at The White House

First Lady Michelle Obama and Big Bird Team Up to Help Get Kids Healthy

By The White House

New Let’s Move! Public Service Announcements Filmed in the White House
Encourage Kids to Eat Healthy and Get Active

Washington, D.C. – First Lady Michelle Obama and Sesame Street’s Big Bird teamed up to film two public service announcements encouraging kids to eat healthy and get active. The new PSAs, which can be viewed HERE and HERE, are launched as part of the third anniversary celebration of Let’s Move! – Mrs. Obama’s initiative to ensure that all our children grow up healthy and reach their full potential.

The new PSAs feature Mrs. Obama and Big Bird in the White House showing kids how easy and delicious it is to eat healthy snacks like fruits and vegetables and demonstrating fun ways to get active like dancing and jumping. Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street, will distribute these PSAs to 320 PBS Stations, Sesame Workshop’s partner channels as part of their Healthy Habits for Life Initiative. The PSAs are also posted on the Sesame Street and Let’s Move! websites.

These PSAs are part of the celebration of Let’s Move!’s third anniversary. Next week, the First Lady will kick off a two day nation-wide tour celebrating the anniversary by showcasing progress and announcing new ways the country is coming together around the health of our children.

Mrs. Obama launched Let’s Move! on February 9, 2010 to unite the country around our kids’ health and create real support for families to live healthier lives. Since then parents, business leaders, educators, elected officials, military leaders, chefs, physicians, athletes, childcare providers, community and faith leaders, and kids themselves have stepped up to improve the health of our nation’s children.

Thanks to these efforts, families now have access to more information to make healthier decisions for their children. Young people now have more opportunities for physical activity in their communities. Food in schools has been dramatically improved. More Americans now have access to healthy, affordable food closer to home. And the national childhood obesity rate has leveled off, and even declined in some cities and states.

More information on three years of healthy changes can be found here: http://www.letsmove.gov/blog/2013/02/08/lets-move-three-years-working-towards-healthier-generation-children

About Sesame Workshop

Sesame Workshop is the nonprofit educational organization that revolutionized children’s television programming with the landmark Sesame Street. The Workshop produces local Sesame Street programs, seen in over 150 countries, and other acclaimed shows to help bridge the literacy gap including The Electric Company. Beyond television, the Workshop produces content for multiple media platforms on a wide range of issues including literacy, health and military deployment. Initiatives meet specific needs to help young children and families develop critical skills, acquire healthy habits and build emotional strength to prepare them for lifelong learning. Learn more at www.sesameworkshop.org.

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Source: White House Press Office