via NY POST 

Apple juice in sippy cups is so last year!

Today’s fashionable New York City tots are going wild for a hot new trend in preschool potables — the babyccino!

Across Brooklyn, coffee shops have been attracting crowds of hipster moms and their pampered offspring by offering tiny cups of decaffeinated cappuccino suitable for little kids with adult palates.

“They just really like the taste of coffee,” said Barbara Albinus, who takes her 6-year-old girl and 9-year-old boy to the Cafe Regular in Park Slope for coffee. “I drink coffee every day of the year, so they like it, too.

THE BROOKLYN PAPER

JOE JR.: Shirley Worcester, 2, catches up on her reading while sipping a steamed-milk-only “babyccino” at Sit and Wonder in Park Slope.

“I only let them have it once in a while,” she said. “They’re already jumping off the walls [anyway].”

Cafe Regular barista Seth Lombardi said that on weekends, junior java junkies flood the place.

“We kind of have a joke around here on weekends,” Lombardi, 30, told The Post. “We greet people by saying: ‘Welcome to Cafe Regular day care. Are you dropping off or picking up?’ ”

The Root Hill coffee shop in Gowanus was taking the “day care” vibe a step further yesterday, playing a video of the animated film “Shrek” on a screen while several kids and their moms sipped beverages.

“I order coffee from here just about every day, and my son likes to have some when he’s with me. I guess he just acquired the taste over time,” said Melissa Foster, 41, whose 7-year-old son, Michael, was drinking a small iced babyccino.

The kiddie coffee cult is cropping up at Brooklyn coffee shops from Fort Greene to Prospect Heights.

Coffee-shop workers said babyccinos come in the decaf coffee variety and in a variety that is only steamed milk. The second is popular with kids as young as 2.

Natalie Ekberg, a barista at Root Hill, said the coffee drinks are to Brooklyn kids what Happy Meals are to children across the rest of America.

“A lot of kids come in here with their parents after school and actually ask for the decaf babyccino by name,” she said.

One of the top babyccino joints is Sit and Wonder in Park Slope.

“Our children love babyccinos!” Eric Worcester told The Brooklyn Paper after getting the steamed-milk-only version of the beverage for his children — Evelyn, 5, and Shirley, 2.

But doctors worry about the coffee trend.

Dr. Wendy Slusser of the Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA, said both decaf and regular coffee have a compound that robs kids of iron.

“Even kids with mild anemia, they might not pass out, but they might not perform as well in school or learn as well,” she said.

Not all Brooklynites are buzzed on the kiddie coffee trend.

“Having coffee drinks for kids? I just don’t understand that,” said Rebecca Grosso, 29, a customer at Cafe Regular.

Another customer, Christine Lubin, 30, of Park Slope, added, “Park Slope parents can be pretty righteous, so this doesn’t surprise me.

“I mean, why wouldn’t you get your kids hooked on fashionable coffee drinks?”

Read more: http://trade.cc/amyn

The detail in the decal was so small that the Vermont state trooper cleaning his patrol car had to get face to face with it to confirm that what he saw was really what he thought he saw.

The trooper, not identified by police, noticed that the one of the spots on the cow depicted on the state seal was oddly shaped.

Then it hit him: He was looking at a pig.

So he immediately reported it.

As police began looking into the matter, they learned that about 30 other police cruisers had the porcine-shaped spot on their decals too.

So how did the pig — often used as a derogatory term for police —  get there in the first place?

As it turns out, the emblems are printed by prison inmates with the corrections department’s print shop, which also makes the state’s stationary and license plates.

Inmates working there seem to have pulled a prank that Vermont police are not finding very funny.

Read the rest here.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxw4uZAezaI 450 300]

I wonder if the accident rate is highest in that zone ?

Fucking morons deserve to lose money.

Down 80%, after an early rally.

Full Article

Did you expect the truth ?

Some favorites from the post:

• When we get hot and steamy, you make me Too Big to Fail.
• NPR’s Planet Money @planetmoney: I’ll be your lover of last resort. #FedValentines
• Austan Goolsbee @Austan_Goolsbee: Roses are red. Violets are pink. Don’t listen to goldbugs. No one cares what they think.
• Joseph Weisenthal @TheStalwart: Roses are red, violets are blue, my balance sheet is expanding, just thinking of you.
• jimgeraghty @jimgeraghty: I love you. Do you love me? Submit your information for review & clearance under Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, PL 104-13.’

Funny shit here. 

via CNBC

As a professional matchmaker with an office in New York City, many of my clients are very successful, high profile Wall Street men.

I have spent the better part of 12 years learning all of their habits, their likes and dislikes when it comes to dating, women and relationships and what they want specifically from me, when I am matching them with women.

Hence, I know, better than anyone, what makes Wall Street men tick.

Here are a few tips for the women out there who are dating or would like to be dating a man on Wall Street:

1. Be prepared to charm him out of talking about work when he first arrives to the date. Unfortunately, a lot of guys on Wall Street have a hard time leaving work at the office; it’s your job to get his mind on you and off the S & P.

2. Learn a little something about the financial markets and notice if something huge happens on a given day, negative or positive. Things like the fact that Facebook is going public is not just financial news, it’s world news and you don’t want to seem clueless if you completely missed something like that. You don’t have to become an expert but at least if you know something you can participate in a conversation with your guy. Additionally, you need to be prepared that the volatility of the markets might make your guy’s mood unpredictable, especially on a day that his personal portfolio went down dramatically.

3. While a Wall Street man tends to like a little bit of a challenge when it comes to dating, he still likes things to be convenient and easy for him. A lot of women think that if they play hard to get, they will land a Wall Street man. This is NOT the case. Yes, you should be confident and avoid being a pushover but, at the same time, you shouldn’t be difficult. You need to be accommodating or his schedule and time constraints or he will get frustrated and find another woman.

4. Tell stories that are short and sweet because the mind of a Wall Street man is always moving so rapidly and focusing on so many different things that his attention span for social stories is very short; don’t be insulted by this, just tell your stories in a way that he can listen. Save your long, draw-out stories for chit-chatting with your girlfriends.

Samantha Daniels
Professional Matchmaker
Samantha’s Table

5. Be sexy. Wall Street men tend to like women who are attractive and that other men notice when they walk in the room. This does not mean that you should look sleazy or inappropriate, this just means that you should bring your “A game” when you go out with him, whatever that is. Every man is attracted to a different look and a different type of woman so if he’s interested in you, he’s attracted to you but you need to maintain his interest by continuing to look your best.

6. Don’t get upset if he checks his BlackBerry or takes a call during a date; this is very common of a Wall Street man and has nothing to do with whether or not he likes you. The advice that I give Wall Street men about their need to bring business onto the date is that they should forewarn you when they first sit down that a call or a message is coming and apologize in advance.  Albeit the fact that this would be an easy thing to do, they won’t always remember to do it, so don’t get offended.

7. Don’t get upset if your Wall Street guy isn’t as romantic as you would like him to be. Men, by nature are never as romantic as women want them to be, but Wall Street men especially are very business-like and think practically not romantically. If you want him to be more romantic, you are probably going to have to lead the way, and teach him what you want.

8. Wall Street men tend to be attracted to women who are in industries other than Wall Street. This does not mean that if you work on Wall Street, you won’t end up with a Wall Street man, however his eye tends to be looking towards non-Wall Street women. Hence, if you are a Wall Street woman and you are interested in dating a Wall Street man, you need to make sure that you let him and others see that you are not all business all the time, that you have a soft, feminine, family-oriented and fun side when you are not in the office.

9. When it comes to getting you a gift, a lot of Wall Street men are all about extravagance over thoughtfulness. If you are a decadent woman, this will work well for you, but if you are a woman who prefers a man to be thoughtful over spending lavishly on something you don’t really want, you might be disappointed. This does not mean that a Wall Street man can’t be thoughtful, many are. However, a lot of Wall Street men are so busy making lots of money, that when they think to buy you something, they don’t care about the cost as long as it’s easy to get for you.

10. Don’t get upset if your plans get scheduled by his assistant. Even though, it is dating 101 for a man to pick up the phone and call you for a date or in this day and age to text you for one, many Wall Street men are so reliant on their assistants that they prefer to have you on their schedule just like a business meeting. Do not take offense to this; this does not mean that he likes you all the less, it just means that he likes to be organized and efficient and his assistant helps him accomplish this.

by Brian Merchant

For decades now, fossil fuel company executives and D.C. politicians have worked together to ensure that coal and oil prices stay low enough to keep the American people hooked. In his new book Greedy Bastards, Dylan Ratigan explains how “vampire industries” like oil and coal have forged “an unholy alliance with government based not just on the money that they contribute to political campaigns and spend on lobbying but on their ability to hypnotize us with false prices.”

Industry gets tax breaks, subsidies, military support in volatile regions, the right to use our air and water like a sewer, and assurance that the government will clean up its environmental messes. Politicians get campaign contributions, a steady flow of dirty energy, and a talking point to brandish about how they kept gas affordable.

But the American public just gets screwed.

Read the rest here.

by Zoe Fox

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been under fire from world leaders to step down this week. He’s also under fire from hacktivist group Anonymous, who leaked hundreds of his office’s emails on Monday.

While Anonymous is infamous for its hacking know-how, it doesn’t take a genius computer programmer to guess one of the passwords commonly used by Assad’s office accounts: 12345. The string of consecutive numbers is the second-weakest password according to a 2011 study.

Anonymous broke into the mail server of the Syrian Ministry of Presidential Affairs, accessing some 78 inboxes of Assad’s staffers, according a report from Israeli daily Haaretz. The password 12345 was associated with several of the accounts.

Mansour Fadlallah Azzam, the minister of presidential affairs and Bouthaina Shaaban, Assad’s media adviser, were among the victims of the inbox hacks.

Haaretz obtained and published one email that included documents intended to prepare the Syrian leader for his December 2011 interview with Barbara Walters. In the interview, Assad claimed the Syrian government was not killing its people.

“We don’t kill our people,” Assad told ABC “No government in the world kills its people, unless it’s led by a crazy person.”

Read the rest here.

(Reuters) – Move over, Cannes. Maine will be playing host to its first-ever international mustache film festival, part of its annual pageant that celebrates the bristly facial hair.

The festival set for March 30 in Portland will feature short films with storylines that involve mustaches or a main character who wears a mustache, said Nick Callanan, head of No Umbrella Media, a video production company organizing the event.

The idea for the mustache film festival, believed to be the first of its kind, grew out of an annual mustache pageant held locally to benefit arts and cancer research organizations, he said.

This year’s 2012 Stache Pag will feature contestants wearing all manner of mustaches, from handlebars to horseshoes, Callanan said. There are also the walrus and Fu Manchu styles, he said.

“It’s just about men expressing themselves,” he said.

Read the rest here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XxFYYP8040A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VhkDdayA4iA