Barack Obama on Mount Rushmore? Maybe if some college professors have their way.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, seeing the face of Barack Obama on Mount Rushmore might stand a chance if the President’s popularity remains high. But the IRS scandal has seen Barack Obama’s approval ratings as President drop below 50 percent.

Polls show that three out of 10 college professors believe Barack Obama’s sculpted face will end up on Mount Rushmore. But they still recommend waiting until Barack Obama is out of office, saying, “History undoubtedly will accord President Obama a special place by virtue of being the first African-American president. It could be that he will be one of the great presidents, worthy of having his likeness carved on a mountain, but certainly not yet.”

The college professors list Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, as Barack Obama’s greatest achievement. There is even a “Campaign to Put President Obama on Mt. Rushmore” Facebook page. But recent comments have been very critical of President Barack Obama, saying things like:

“I agree Obama should be on Rushmore! Hanging from a tree to honor our founding fathers cause i’m sure they would string him up, too.”

“If we’re adding criminals to Mt. Rushmore they better add Nixon then too.”

“I think he should do something good — anything good — for our country before we consider that. I mean, something besides destroying our economy and dismantling the best health care system this world has ever known. Face it: The only reason anyone would back this idiotic idea is because of the color of his skin. And that, my friends, is racism at its worst.”

Do you think Barack Obama should be on Mount Rushmore?

Barack Obama On Mount Rushmore Predicted By Professors is a post from: The Inquisitr

New York – The “cronut craze” has taken the Big Apple by storm, leaving in its path a slew of generally unpleasant New Yorkers resorting to the black market to get their hands on this delectable pastry.

First thing’s first: What is a cronut? A cronut is the inspired how-have-we-never-thought-of-this-before combination of a croissat and a doughnut.

Since landing in New York, Ansel Bakery has had trouble keeping up with demand for the pastry, resulting in general unpleasantness among denizens of the greatest city in the world.

The first batch of cronuts sold out in 35 minutes, resulting in a six-cronut daily limit for New Yorkers. Still, all 200 in daily stock sell out just moments after the bakery opens at 8am, leaving plenty of people distraught, and even angry.

“One woman legitimately cried,” Ansel said on Twitter, continuing, “it is not OK to flip off our baristas because we are out of Cronuts.”

Other baristas have reported being flipped off by angry customers positively fevered over the missed opportunity a cronut has come to represent.

Though the cronut sells at the bakery for $5, the shortage has seen a vibrant black market trafficking in the pastry and selling it for up to $40 a pop.

Ads for the pastry have popped up on Craigslist, promising delivery for the “devine [sic] creations,” varying in cost depending on location. In Manhattan, you can get one for $20-$25, but in the stick of Brooklyn, the cronut craze will cost you a ridiculous $40.

The cronut black market has caused Ansel some concern, but the bakery promises to continue selling them at $5, with hopes to increase stock soon.

“Our Cronuts remain $5, and we hope to produce more by the day. Hopefully this will give Cronut lovers a more affordable and legal way to get Cronuts.”

So the question remains: Would you pay $40 to satisfy your cronut craze?

[Image via: Twitter]

Cronut Craze (And Shortage) Inspires General Unpleasantness In New York is a post from: The Inquisitr

Microsoft has been advised to sell its Bing services and Xbox devices.

The software company behind Windows has been advised to cut their losses in order to cut costs and maximize profits. However, as much effort as they’ve invested in both areas, the prospect seems extremely unlikely.

Microsoft has been pushing recently to integrate Bing into every service they now own. PC, Surface, tablets, Windows Phone, and even Xbox Live have all seen or been targeted for use with Microsoft’s Bing service. They are trying to turn Bing into more than just a search engine, much like Google, which recently interconnected nearly everything they do.

It is a debatable observation that Bing might actually be a better search engine than Google, possibly due to Google’s tendency to drop offending websites (such as Kim Dotcom’s Mega) from its search results because of too many complaints.

Microsoft was advised to sell or give Bing away to Yahoo or Facebook, as the service has been running in the red for years now. They were also advised to dump the Xbox devices and sell the services to Samsung or other electronics companies.

After everything Microsoft has put into the Xbox One, we doubt they will be ready to just let it go yet. Even in the light of consumer outrage over their inability to answer specifics at their reveal event last month, Microsoft still thinks they can pull enough sales between the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One to keep them profitable.

If Microsoft expects to remain profitable with the Xbox One, they should really consider retooling the whole console and giving the customers what they want, as previously reported in The Inquisitr, instead of denying rumors and then offering further details at E3 2013.

Do you think Microsoft should just cut their losses and dump Bing and Xbox? Can they still pull off being profitable in spite of everything that’s happened recently?

Microsoft Advised To Sell Bing, Xbox is a post from: The Inquisitr

Was the Mars rat flown to the red planet as part of a secret NASA conspiracy involving animal experiments?

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, the Mars rat photo was snapped in September of 2012 by NASA’s Curiosity rover. According to UFO Sightings Daily, the creature is either a lizard or a Mars rat:

“This one also seems to resemble a rodent but also may be a lizard. With water existing on Mars in small amounts, its possible to find such desert animals wandering around.”

NASA believes that they have discovered evidence of water on Mars but a Mars rat is definitely not one of the officially listed discoveries. But UFO Sightings thinks there is a NASA Mars rat conspiracy:

“It’s a cute rodent on Mars. Note its lighter-color upper and lower eyelids, its nose and cheek areas, its ear, its front leg and stomach. Looks similar to a squirrel camouflaged in the stones and sand by its colors. Why would they not tell us about it? Because the squirrel would be expected to die eventually and that would get PETA [People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals] to fight against them in a court of law.”

The premise of the Mars rat conspiracy is that NASA might want to test Mars’ ability to support life with its more limited atmosphere. NASA estimates that a human would die if left unprotected on Mars’ surface for more than three minutes. So if the Mars rat photo is a real it would be quite a cruel animal experiment. Never mind the huge cost of rocketing a live rat to Mars.

What do you think about the Mars rat photo conspiracy theory?

Mars Rat Photo A Secret NASA Conspiracy? PETA Would Be Angry is a post from: The Inquisitr

Can a mammoth with blood flowing from its 10,000 year old carcass be the secret to cloning the extinct species that was wiped out, possibly by human Ice Age hunters, around 4,000 years ago?

As I previously reported, this week Siberian researchers headed up by Semyon Grigoriev, head of the Museum of Mammoths, claimed that they’d recently discovered a well-preserved female Siberian woolly mammoth. They supplied photographs to The Siberian Times, and there’s really no reason to doubt that they did find a mammoth.

Many well-preserved mammoths have been discovered in the frozen wastes of Siberian before, including at least one specimen with meat fresh enough that people ate it. Well, they tasted it anyway. And maybe it wasn’t that fresh, since Russian zoologist Alexei Tikhonov has been quoted as saying that it tasted like it had freezer burn.

However, Russian scientists don’t always enjoy a great reputation for veracity. In a 2012 scandal, a Russian team claimed that they’d drilled into a frozen Antarctic lake. They even presented Russian premier Vladimir Putin with water from the drilling effort — almost a year before they actually reached Lake Vostok in January 2013.

Earlier this year, Russians also claimed to have a discovered a new bacteria unrelated to almost all Earth bacteria in Antarctica — again, a “discovery” that was either a publicity stunt, an exaggeration, or an out-and-out hoax.

So the first hurdle we have to pass before we get DNA from the new mammoth find is to learn whether or not the blood really exists. It was supposedly flowing at 10 degrees below Celcius, well below freezing. Grigoriev waved that off by saying that the mammoth blood “had some cryo-protective properties.”

Assuming the blood is the real deal, the next step is to determine if it actually contains intact cells. A University of California, Santa Cruz ancient DNA expert, Beth Shapiro, told National Geographic that, “Without an intact, functional cell — one that can be de-differentiated into a stem cell in a petri dish — one cannot clone this animal.”

And Dr. Shapiro is skeptical that any intact cells could be found in a specimen, however well frozen, that’s 10,000 years old.

But say the South Korean specialists who are working on the project do get intact cells. What then?

Actually, from there, the project may then suddenly get really workable. If we knew more about the mammoth’s DNA, scientists might be able to piece together a genetic profile and then a living baby with the help of sex cells from Asian elephants, the Siberian woolly mammoth’s closest living relatives.

A recent success in recreating the complete genome of Neanderthal humans suggested that this step might be difficult but far from impossible.

An Asian elephant female would likely be used as the surrogate mother to any baby mammoth produced by cloning.

National Geographic pointed out that a recent attempt to clone the Pyrenean Ibex, which went extinct in 2000, failed when the baby died only minutes after birth. To me, that would suggest that it’s only a matter of better technical techniques before that cloning project will succeed.

Whether or not the recent find is exactly as described, the cloning effort will go forward with whatever material the Russians supply to their South Korean partners, Sooam Biotech Research Foundation.

And other teams may be hunting the mammoths too, although not with such lofty goals. As the glaciers retreat in the face of global warming, other mammoth hunters are seeking the woolly mammoth tusks as a form of legal ivory that they can sell for $400 a pound.

Wildly popular living animals can be even more profitable. China leases each pair of pandas that it sends around to the world’s zoos for almost one million dollars a year.

What would you pay to see a living Siberian woolly mammoth? That blood, if it really exists, is worth more than gold.

[Woolly mammoths in Europe as they might have looked in life painting by Mauricio Antón and the 2008 Public Library of Science via Creative Commons]

[woolly mammoth reconstruction photo by Flying Puffin via Wikimedia Commons]

From Mammoth Blood to Living Mammoth Clone, Step By Step is a post from: The Inquisitr

Chicago, IL – A Downers Grove teen killed by lightning mere days before her high school graduation has caused a massive outpouring of grief by family and friends online.

Jennie Dizon, 17, was struck by lightning during Thursday’s storm, which resulted in her death. Officials said that her death was “consistent with a lightning strike” after she was found unconscious and not breathing in O’Brien Park, at 68th Street and Dunham Road in the early evening.

Dizon was pronounced dead at the scene.

The young high school senior was set to graduate from the Benet Academy on Sunday. Post-graduation, she was planning to study theater at the University of Cincinnati after a short trip to Europe.

Her father, Eric, called her death “God’s will” in a statement Friday.

The family believes that Dizon had gone to the park to write in the journal she frequently kept up with. A witness saw lightning strike, and then saw the teen on the ground. The witness then went to help Dizon, but she was unresponsive.

The Benet Academy released the following statement in light of Dizon’s death:

“Benet Academy is mourning the loss of senior Jennie Dizon, who passed into eternal life last evening, apparently having been struck by lightning during a thunderstorm.

“Throughout the day today, Benet’s chaplain, campus minister, counselors, administrators, and teachers have been available in the chapel, in their offices, in classrooms, and throughout the school building to offer assistance, comfort, and consolation to our students and members of the school community. Please join the entire Benet Family in remembering Jennie and the Dizon family in prayer.”

Others who knew the teen have expressed their grief on social media:

RIP #JennieDizon you were a good friend and a wonderful person. You are in a better place now.

— it’s Todd…¿¿¿¿¿¿ (@AubreTodd) June 1, 2013

Omg. UnbelievablePray for #JennieDizon

— Hannah Harvard (@hannahharvard) May 31, 2013

Boyz love.@bravantemdizon @ejyambao#michaeldizon#JennieDizon#weloveyouJennieinstagram.com/p/Z_JcPrFsY1/

— Kyle Tesoro (@kyletesoro) May 31, 2013

According to the National Weather Service, lightning strikes kill as many as 70 people a year in the United States, and injure more than 500.

Teen Killed By Lightning Mere Days Before Graduation [Video] is a post from: The Inquisitr

A kindergarten brawl broke out during a graduation ceremony.

The kindergarten brawl started when someone spilled their punch and resulted in another type of punch being thrown. The kindergarten brawl resulted in the arrest of eight people.

The kindergarten brawl began at Michael R. White Elementary School when two teenage girls started hitting each other and their families joined in while the kindergarten graduation ceremony was ending.

Cleveland police Commander Wayne Drummond said, “The brawl involved teenagers and adults, and the police were called when one participant pulled out a pipe and another a hammer, but no one was seriously injured.”

“No students enrolled at the school were involved,” said school district communications officer Roseann Canfora in an email.

The quick police response to the kindergarten brawl was important because of  heightened concerns about school security. City Councilman Jeff Johnson said the kindergarten brawl should shame the parents:

“It is embarrassing that parents during a kindergarten promotion cannot control themselves, and what we tried to do was respond quickly,and those that where arrested were charged with aggravated rioting and any parent involved in the fight should be banned from the building. We’re not going to have people coming into our schools, being disrespectful and fighting so I support them being hauled off.”

Do you think the kindergarten brawl indicates that parents are taking these graduation ceremonies way too seriously?

Kindergarten Brawl Breaks Out During Graduation Ceremony is a post from: The Inquisitr

Andrew Dodt was pretty happy when he hit a hole-in-one at the European Tour’s Nordea Masters this week. He was in disbelief when he hit another. Yep, a professional golfer hit two holes-in-one in a single round this weekend at the Bro Hof Slott Golf Course in Sweden.

CBS Sports reports that Dodt opened the weekend with a poor showing of 77 during his first round and needed to have a great second round to make the cut. Dodt stepped up to the task by hitting two holes-in-ones and five birdies to bring his score down to a 65.

Dodt hit his first ace on the 11th, a 175 yard par 3. The shot lifted Dodt’s spirits as he continued to cut strokes from his score. On the 7th hole (his 16th for the day) Dodt hit a 208 yard shot for another ace.

Dodt still trails leader Matteo Manassero by 11 strokes but the 27-year-old Australian golfer definitely has bragging rights at the course.

Hitting a hole-in-one is a pretty rare event and hitting two almost never happens. According to the Devil Ball, an amateur golfer has about a 67 million to 1 chance of hitting two holes-in one during the same round. A professional golfer’s chances may be slightly better but according to the Golf Channel it has only happened once before.

Yusako Miyazato hit two aces during the Reno-Tahoe Open in 2006.

Here’s a look at Dodt’s score card.

Golfer Hits Two Holes-In-One In One Round is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Boy Scouts are continuing to see a backlash after ending a ban on gay Scouts last week.

The recent vote to end the ban on gay Scouts was approved last week by delegates from the Boy Scouts of America. The vote won the approval of 61 percent of the 1,232 National Council delegates.

Since voting to allow gay scouts, the organization has seen some longtime members and supports speak out, even as more progressive groups praise the change.

One of those leaving the Scouts over the end of the gay scout ban is Aaron Butler, a Minnesota man who leads his 8-year-old son Evan’s pack. Butler told NBC News that he decided to leave the Boy Scouts after the ban was lifted.

“It was a big disappointment … he cried for about 10 minutes because I told him that the Boy Scouts were not honoring their own law,” Butler said. “They say it — ‘On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep [myself] physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight,’” he said.

Evan said he feels bad about having to leaving, saying he knew the decision was related to the vote to end the gay Scout ban.

“It was between honor and God, and not honoring God. And [not] honoring God got more votes,” Evan said.

Other longtime Boy Scouts supporters have pulled their entire families from the Boy Scouts, and some churches have joined in the Boy Scout protest as well. They said that Boy Scouts never actively discriminated against gay Scouts, as it never asked about their sexual orientation.

Some churches have now cut Boy Scout ties, and important loss given that they sponsor about 70 percent of the 100,000 charted Boy Scout units in the United States.

“We’re going to have a long, hard discussion of our support for our local troop,” said Dallas Pastor Gregg Simmons. “How will they maintain ‘morally straight’? They have stripped that statement of all meaning. You’re not just teaching young men how to build campfires.”

While the ban on gay Boy Scouts has been lifted, there is a still a rule against homosexuals serving in the organization’s leadership.

Boy Scouts Continuing To Face Backlash After Ending Gay Ban is a post from: The Inquisitr

A hero mother swan was shot on the Thames River in the United Kingdom by what was reportedly an airgun while she was covering a nest full of hatching eggs. Despite being bloodied, the brave mother wasn’t willing to abandon her emerging baby swans, called cygnets.

Witnesses called Swan Lifeline, and a team of five canoes that included the charity’s treatment coordinator Wendy Hermon hurried out to save the family. Hermon told the Windsor Express:

“The female swan was badly hurt and her chicks were about to hatch. We could hear one tapping inside the egg. One egg was already cracked from the inside.”

Apparently, the whole family had been targeted by the shooter. The father swan too was discovered shot with two wounds in his neck. However, he was feisty enough to give the rescue team from Swan Lifeline a two hour chase before they could bring him in to safety.

Both adult swans had bashes of some kind on the beak, which might mean that someone used a catapult to pelt them with rocks, in addition to shooting at them with the airgun.

Both adult swans are recovering at the Swan Lifeline treatment center. Four cute baby swans have now been successfully hatched out as well.

Wild mute swans in England have been protected under the Act for Swans which dates back to 1576. All wild, unmarked swans belong to the king or queen of England and are protected under that ancient law. They also share in the protection enjoyed by nesting birds under the 1981 Wildlife Act.

The local police are actively seeking out the people who hurt the swans. They have stepped up cycling patrols along the Thames River and are also asking for more information on social media.

PC Bowden: Report of youths firing catapults at wildlife on the Thames yesterday. Any info please call me on 101.

— TVP Windsor (@TVP_Windsor) May 30, 2013

A photo from an earlier swan rescue demonstrates the challenges faced by the Swan Lifeline.

Great team effort on rescue at Oxford yesterday. Thanks guys. twitter.com/SwanLifeline/s…

— Swan Lifeline (@SwanLifeline) May 13, 2013

Cruelty to swans or their eggs can carry a 5,000 £ fine or six months in jail, so abusing the royal birds is not viewed as a harmless prank. Are you surprised that a hero mother swan could be so brave after being shot?

[swan with cygnets photo by Duzy Bartek via Wikimedia Commons]

Hero Mother Swan Shot But Won’t Abandon Babies is a post from: The Inquisitr

Google data seized by the FBI includes customer information.

A federal judge ordered the Google data be handed over to the FBI even in the case of warrantless searches.

Google had called the “government’s practice of issuing so-called national security letters to telecommunication companies, Internet service providers, banks and others was unconstitutional and unnecessary.” But apparently a Federal judge disagrees.

The FBI’s warrantless search on Google data could be used to collect unlimited kinds of private Google customer information, including user’s name, address, length of service, and phone billing records. The FBI can’t use NSLs to obtain anything else from Google, such as Gmail content, search queries, YouTube videos or user IP addresses.

National Security Letters, or NSLs, are typically divided into a request for user data and a gag order preventing the company from revealing the existence of the letter. Companies like Google seeking to challenge an NSL in court must petition to have the letter unsealed, which may potentially let the target of the NSL know the FBI is after them. But a NSL can’t be used by the FBI in ordinary criminal, civil or administrative matters, so the Google data being seized by the FBI would most likely be used in the hunt for terrorists.

Kurt Opsah, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is disappointed the judge allowed Google data to be given to the FBI without warrants:

“We are disappointed that the same judge who declared these letters unconstitutional is now requiring compliance with them.”

What do you think about Google data being seized by the FBI without warrants?

Google Data Seized By FBI With Warrantless Searches Has User Info is a post from: The Inquisitr

A developer of the Oculus Rift was killed in a police chase Thursday afternoon.

Andrew Scott Reisse was four miles away from the offices where the head-mounted virtual reality console Oculus Rift is being developed, when a police chase caused him to be struck and killed by fleeing gang members. Andrew was a computer graphics engineer in Santa Ana when the offending car cut his career and his life short. Co-workers called him a “brilliant mind.”

Andrew Scott Reisse, 33 years old, was a good walk from Oculus VR offices when he was involved in a hit and run while using the crosswalk. According to KABC-TV, the Dodge Charger that killed him crashed 100 feet down the road, where police captured the suspects attempting to flee the scene of the crime.

The chase had begun when police had gotten involved in a confrontation with a group of people including 26-year-old Gerardo Diego Ayala, which had escalated into gunfire and the fatal car chase which took the life of the Oculus Rift developer.

Co-workers of Andrew Scott Reisse made a statement on TV about the incident, “Andrew’s contributions span far and wide in the video game industry. His code is embedded in thousands of games played by millions of people around the world. Words can not express how sorely he will be missed or how deeply our sympathy runs for his family.”

The company stated, “Andrew was a brilliant computer graphics engineer, an avid photographer and hiker who loved nature, a true loyal friend, and a founding member of our close-knit Oculus family.”

Andrew Scott Reisse’s father, living in Virginia, said his son had moved to Southern California just last year to become co-founder of the Oculus Rift.

Santa Ana Police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna stated about the gang members involved in the car chase, “They ran through several red lights, including the one where they struck our victim.”  The driver, 21 year old Victor Sanchez, has been charged with murder. The others’ identities have not been released due to the ongoing investigation.

Our hearts go out to the co-workers and family of Oculus Rift developer Andrew Scott Reisse.

Oculus Rift Developer Killed In Police Chase is a post from: The Inquisitr

Another embarrassing taxpayer-funded IRS video has surfaced.

In March, a lame IRS parody of Star Trek with IRS employees as actors made for an agency training and leadership conference in Anaheim, Calif., prompted an apology from government officials. In another unfunny video that that was just turned over to House of Representatives investigators in a Friday “document dump” (so named for a technique for disclosing damaging information right before the weekend when no none would pay attention), IRS employees are shown learning how to line dance on stage.

Reportedly an Inspector General’s report is on the way that accuses the Internal Revenue Service of wasteful spending for that conference. According to Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel, “While there were legitimate reasons for holding the meeting, many of the expenses associated with it were inappropriate and should not have occurred.”

Upon receipt of the IRS dancing video, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Boustany was less-than-impressed with the tax collecting agency’s fancy footwork or its failed attempt at humor: “Whether it is the tens of thousands of hard-earned taxpayer dollars spent to produce frivolous entertainment for agency bureaucrats, or the IRS’s own admission that it targeted the American people based on their personal beliefs, the outrage toward the IRS is only growing stronger … Clearly this is an agency where abuse and waste is the norm and not the exception. It is clear that this is a broken agency that is empowered by a broken tax code. We need to fix this and make not only the agency, but the tax code, more effective and efficient.”

The Star Trek video released back in March cost the taxpayer an estimated $60,000. A video skit based on Gilligan’s Island that has yet to be released apparently was filmed at the same time. Both were  produced at the IRS television studio in Maryland, which itself reportedly cost the American people about $4 million in 2012.

Even Captain Kirk himself blasted the Star Trek parody at the time. William Shatner said he was “appalled at the utter waste of US tax dollars.”

Near the end of the footage, one of the employees admits that “And I thought doing the Star Trek video was humiliating.”

Watch the IRS line dancing video (with evidently some of the same employees as in the aforementioned Star Trek parody):

This week the IRS failed to comply with a Congressional deadline for turning over more documents pertinent to the ongoing investigation of the wrongful targeting of Tea Party and other politically conservative groups who had submitted applications for nonprofit status.

‘Dancing With The IRS’ Video Released is a post from: The Inquisitr

Will Smith and his son Jaden Smith could be starring in the biggest Blockbuster flop of the summer. The new movie, After Earth, brought in just over $9 million during its opening on Friday and is expected to make about $25 million for the weekend.

That will put the new sci-fi epic, which was made with a $130 million budget, behind Fast And Furious 6 and Now You See Me.

After Earth has been receiving abysmal reviews. Many critics have pointed out that the movie is basically a huge birthday present for his son Jaden.

7M Pictures writes: “It’s no better than Rebecca Black’s “Friday” video. It’s a bought-and-paid-for vanity piece for a spoiled teenager.”

And 7M Pictures wasn’t the only site to make the Rebecca Black connection.

The Aisle Seat writes: After Earth is the cinematic equivalent of Rebecca Black’s “Friday” – a parent-funded vanity project gone horribly wrong and thrust out into the world for the rest of us to not enjoy.”

Box Office Mojo that After Earth made $9.8 million during its Friday opening and is projected to make between $25 and $27 million by the end of the weekend. The numbers may not make it the biggest flop of the Summer (I mean, there is an “Grumpy Cat” movie in the works) but After Earth definitely didn’t live up to its big budget expectations.

Fast And The Furious 6 added another $10 million to its total on Friday and is expected to bring its domestic numbers above $150 million by the end of the weekend.

Are you going to the movies this weekend? Are you going to see After Earth?

‘After Earth’ Set For Box Office Flop After Abysmal Reviews is a post from: The Inquisitr

Pittsburgh Steelers offensive tackle Mike Adams was stabbed this weekend during an attempted robbery.

Adams was taken to the hospital to undergo surgery after he was stabbed in the stomach. Adams is expected to make a full recovery.

The offensive tackle wrote on Twitter:

“I had an angel looking out for me! (I’ll) be ok just gotta fight to get back harder then ever.”

Adams’ agent, Eric Metz, said that Adams was confronted by three men early this morning who wanted to steal Adams’ truck. The robbers didn’t get Adams’ truck but they did stab the NFL player in the stomach.

Adams played his rookie season with the Steelers in 2012. He started six games and won the Joe Greene Performance Award.

Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert said:

“We are aware of the situation regarding Mike Adams being stabbed earlier this morning … We are in direct communication with both Mike and his family. Mike is expected to make a full recovery.”

Second-year offensive tackle @channel75live (Mike Adams) was injured & is hospitalized after being stabbed in an apparent robbery attempt .

— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) June 1, 2013

I had an angel lookin out for me! Ill be ok just gotta fight to get back harder then ever

— Mike Adams (@Channel75live) June 1, 2013

NFL Player Stabbed: Steelers’ Mike Adams Hospitalized After Robbery Attempt is a post from: The Inquisitr

What happened during Tuesday’s Disneyland blast scare now seems clear enough. Prosecutors say that 22-year-old Christian Barnes, a soda vendor in Disneyland’s Toontown, placed dry ice in two water bottles.

At the end of his shift, Barnes left one of the bottles in his vending cart on the way out. He tossed a second bottle in a trash can.

Both ultimately exploded harmlessly but noisily, causing Disneyland officials to evacuate Toontown and bring a bomb squad to the scene. Barnes was arrested on a million dollar bond, which was lowered on Thursday to $500,000.

But he’s still being held to face felony charges of possession of a destructive device in a public place. Christian Barnes has already pled not guilty to any felonious intent in the Disneyland blasts, and it’s open to question how destructive the water bottle “bombs” actually were.

At least one expert has told The Los Angeles Times that the charges are overblown. Missouri University of Science and Technology explosives expert Paul Worsey told reporter Joseph Serna:

“I don’t think the kid meant to cause a lot of damage, he’s just an idiot…Everybody calls everything a bomb now, right?…There aren’t enough terrorists to go around, so it’s obvious someone’s going to blow this out of proportion.”

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis forensic chemistry professor John Goodpaster told LAT that a dry ice “bomb” would have to be either very large or wrapped in shrapnel to cause harm — and, as far as we know, Barnes’ devices didn’t meet either of those criteria.

I’m going to show you what a large — and still harmless — dry ice explosion looks like so you can make up your own mind.

First, a warning: Please don’t try to pull off this prank and get yourself arrested as some kind of terrorist. I’m not gonna bail you out for being an idiot. Don’t copy this stunt and end like Christian Barnes.

Are we clear?

The purpose of demonstrating the dry ice “explosion” is so that you can see for yourself that the prank mostly creates a lot of smoke and noise.

I hate to play the race card, but a quick look around YouTube might suggest to the cynical mind that white kids have been setting off dry ice explosions for years without getting arrested.

Of course, in the Anaheim Police Department’s defense, there’s clearly a difference between setting off a scary-looking dry ice blast in the middle of the countryside and doing it in a crowded public place like Disneyland.

But I will note that the You Tube team had several bottles put together to get even that much of an “explosion.”

At the end of the day, I think The Los Angeles Time expert might be right. Christian Barnes was an idiot who picked the wrong place to play a stupid joke. I’m not convinced he’s a criminal.

But I’m not offended if you disagree, so feel free to fire away in the comments. What’s your take on the Disneyland blast?

[Disneyland Toontown photo by Jonnyboyca via Wikimedia Commons]

Disneyland Blast Debate, Were Dry Ice Explosions Harmless Pranks? [Video] is a post from: The Inquisitr

An infamous video game landfill in New Mexico has just been excavated. How about we just take those copies of E.T. and other bad games and shoot them into the Sun?

E.T. for the Atari 2600 was one of the first really bad games ever made. You played the alien creature and wandered about, looking for parts of a communication device to phone home. It was based on one of Steven Spielberg’s first blockbuster films, and a rush job at that, and paved the way for video games based on movies for decades to come. Movie tie-in games have usually always sucked for the same reasons. Even the ones you might have a little fun with usually end up getting on your nerves after a while.

It’s a simple fact that video games based on movies are made to suck. It may not be intentional, but even the best developers trying to rush a game out for consoles in the span of maybe six months will usually push out crap just to get it on the shelves in time. Just look at Activision, the king of movie tie-in crap-fests.

Developers like Activision may be perfectly fine with making games that are destined for the video game landfill, but that doesn’t mean we need to put them there. Perhaps every ten years we could have NASA take a shuttle full of bad games that have filled the “suckage meter” and eject the whole batch straight into our neighboring star? If we’re going to waste money paying developers to make these bad games, we might as well waste a little more getting those games off the planet.

While we’re at it, how about we take the games we’ve seen featured in videos by Angry Joe and the Angry Video Game Nerd, or even the Irate Gamer, and start with those?

There are so many bad games we don’t need inhabiting a video game landfill, never mind space on the planet, such as Superman 64, nearly every Tomb Raider after 2, and the recent ode to mediocrity, Fast and Furious: Showdown.

What bad games destined for the video game landfill would you like to see shot into the sun?

Video Game Landfill Faces Excavation, Why Not Shoot It And Other Bad Games Into The Sun? [Op-Ed] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Lou Reed’s liver transplant has gone well, according to his wife, musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson.

The 71-year-old rock guitarist, vocalist, and former Velvet Underground frontman recently received a liver transplant at a Cleveland hospital.

Reed, the “Walk on the Wild Side” soloist, was in a very bad way before the surgery according to Anderson but is in recovery. “It’s as serious as it gets. He was dying. You don’t get it for fun.” Reed cancelled several concert dates, including Coachella, in April without a specific explanation at the time other than a vague reference to unavoidable complications.

Added Anderson: “I don’t think he’ll ever totally recover from this, but he’ll certainly be back to doing [things] in a few months. He’s already working and doing tai chi. I’m very happy. It’s a new life for him.”

Reed has acknowledged his issues with alcohol and drugs in the past and even wrote a song for The Velvent Underground called “Heroin.” He also once said that “I take drugs just because, in the 20th century, in a technological age living in the city, there are certain drugs you have to take just to keep yourself normal like a caveman, just to bring yourself up or down. But to attain equilibrium you need to take certain drugs. They don’t get you high even, they just get you normal.”

Anderson and Reed live in New York, but the surgery was performed at the Cleveland Clinic instead because of the “dysfunctional” condition of medical care facilities in the Empire State, Anderson explained, noting that have the Cleveland Clinic has “the best results for heart, liver and kidney transplants.”

Among his many musical collaborations, Reed teamed up with Metallica for a 2011 album.

On his website, Lou Reed posted a message that said in part “I am a triumph of modern medicine, physics, and chemistry … I look forward to  being on stage performing, and writing more songs to connect with your hearts and spirits and the universe well into the future.”

[Image credit: Danny Norton]

Lou Reed Liver Transplant Believed Successful is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign potential saw its approval ratings drop due to Benghazi.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, according to previous Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential polls, Benghazi at first did not make a difference when it came to public perception of Hillary Clinton. The same happened to President Barack Obama with the IRS scandal. But the Benghazi scandal just won’t die.

There was even talk of a Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton ticket in 2016. But Hillary Clinton has been suffering from various health issues and the job as Secretary of State has wearied her out. Hillary Clinton even commented on the 2016 presidential polls, saying, “I’m not even posing those questions. I am really looking forward to stepping off the fast track that I’ve been on. I’ve been out of politics as Secretary of State. I don’t see myself getting back into politics.”

2016 presidential polls for Hillary Clinton show that her approval rating since leaving office as Secretary of State has dropped from 61 percent down to 52 percent. Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Polling Institute, explains Hillary Clinton’s 2016 approval rating:

“Her score is down substantially from her all-time high. One reason for her drop may be that 48 percent of voters blame her either a little or a lot for the death of the American ambassador in Benghazi.”

During the Benghazi hearings, Eric Nordstrom, the security chief in Libya, averred that Hillary Clinton “absolutely” would have been briefed on his and Stevens’ repeated requests for an increased security presence in Libya. Charlene Lamb told Nordstrom Benghazi security couldn’t be maintained “because there would be too much political cost” but we don’t know who in the Obama administration gave Charlene Lamb this idea. Hillary Clinton denied knowing about the denied requests for Benghazi security, which resulted in internal security being reduced from 34 people to just three. The Benghazi talking points were also altered by Hillary Clinton’s state department.

Despite Benghazi, Hillary Clinton is still more popular than other potential 2016 presidential candidates. Would you vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 knowing what we now know about Hillary Clinton’s involvement with Benghazi?

Hillary Clinton 2016 Approval Rating Poll Drops Due To Benghazi is a post from: The Inquisitr

Has the world’s first bird fossil, a Jurassic era specimen some 150 to 160 million years old, been found in a museum cabinet in China? According to a report published Thursday in Nature by Chris Woolston, a single Aurornis xui was found in the Fossil and Geology Park museum in Yizhou, China, where it had apparently been for some time after having been brought there by a farmer.

Now a debate has erupted over whether or not the specimen is truly the world’s earliest known bird — or if it’s just another feathered dinosaur fossil.

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels paleontologist Pascal Godefroit is the man who discovered the fossil. “In my opinion, it’s a bird,” he told Nature. But he admitted that his work is considered controversial because the “differences between birds and [non-avian] dinosaurs is very thin.”

Aurornis probably couldn’t fly. Instead, it was a glider. However, that isn’t a deal-killer, since many birds from widely separated families can’t fly — including penguins, ostriches, and even a parrot species, the kakapo.

However, it appears to be very primitive indeed, and whether or not you consider it a bird may depend on where you want to draw the line.

Luis Chiappe, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, said, “This is very birdlike, but it is not yet a bird.”

Of course, some paleontologists have made the same claim about Archaeopteryx, once popularly believed to be the oldest known fossil bird. A 2011 paper renewed the debate, saying that Archaeopteryx was a feathered dinosaur, but not a bird itself.

Since Archaeopteryx appears to be descended from Aurornis, if the Chinese specimen is accepted as a bird, Archaeopteryx will be too.

If Archaeopteryx is instead a Velociraptor-style feathered dinosaur and not a bird, then it would appear that powered flight evolved twice instead of just once.

To add to the confusion, in the modern world, if it has feathers, then it’s a bird.

Whatever the final taxonomy, Godefroit believed that museums like the one in Yizhou might hold hundreds of other new specimens waiting to be described.

Aurornis xui might be the first fossil bird only until we find one even older.

[Archaeopteryx "early bird" fossil photo by Elaine Radford]

New First Bird Fossil Contender Identified In China [Video] is a post from: The Inquisitr