Macrobolic’s BodyBlog

Does China plan on keeping any of their promises?

BEIJING - Some International Olympic Committee officials cut a deal to let China block sensitive Web sites despite promises of unrestricted access, a senior IOC official admitted on Wednesday.

Persistent pollution fears and China’s concerns about security in Tibet also remained problems for organizers nine days before the Games begin.

China had committed to providing media with the same freedom to report on the Games as they enjoyed at previous Olympics, but journalists have this week complained of finding access to sites deemed sensitive to its communist leadership blocked.

“I regret that it now appears BOCOG has announced that there will be limitations on Web site access during Games time,” IOC press chief Kevan Gosper said, referring to Beijing’s Olympic organizers.

“I also now understand that some IOC officials negotiated with the Chinese that some sensitive sites would be blocked on the basis they were not considered Games related,” he said.

Attempts at the main press center to access the Web site of Amnesty International, which released a report on Monday slamming China for failing to honor its Olympic human rights pledges, continued to prove fruitless by mid-week.

Other Web sites, including those relating to the banned spiritual group Falun Gong, are also inaccessible.

Beijing organizers said censorship would not stop journalists doing their jobs in reporting the Games.

“We are going to do our best to facilitate the foreign media to do their reporting work through the Internet,” BOCOG spokesman Sun Weide told a news conference.

“I would remind you that Falun Gong is an evil, fake religion which has been banned by the Chinese government.”

Reporters without Borders, a Paris-based media watchdog, said it was increasingly concerned that there would be many cases of censorship during the Olympics.

“We condemn the IOC’s failure to do anything about this, and we are more skeptical about its ability to ensure that the media are able to report freely,” the group said in a statement.

Skirting censorship
To combat the issue, Reporters Without Borders is encouraging journalists covering the Beijing Olympics to skirt censorship with tips on how to get around firewalls, lock computer files and find safe translators.

In a guide published on the Internet Wednesday, the Paris-based organization advised reporters Wednesday to conduct phone calls and write e-mails with the knowledge that they may be monitored.

China has backed away from a promise to lift all Internet blocks on foreign media.

The new guide will likely help only journalists who have not yet left for Beijing: The press freedom group says its Web site,  http://www.rsf.org, remains blocked in China. The guide is available at  http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=27991 .

Chinese officials assured news organizations “complete freedom to report” when bidding for the games seven years ago. The International Olympic Committee received further such assurances in April. But Kevan Gosper, a senior member of the IOC, said this week that the promise will apply only to sites related to “Olympic competitions.”

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This story actually made me quite mad. I have T-Mobile, and wasn’t even aware of this! If you have a cell phone, you need to read this:

By Bob Sullivan as found on www.redtape.msnbc.com
When Marco Zaldivar purchased four T-Mobile cell phones for his family a few years ago, he had no interest in text messages. They came anyway, and by 2007 unwanted texts were adding $20 to $30 to his bill every month, he claims. When he asked T-Mobile to shut off text service, the firm said that was impossible. Instead, he was given a Hobson’s choice — either sign up for a bundled text message plan with a monthly fee, pay $800 in early termination fees to cancel the service or turn the phones off for the remainder of his two-year contract.

Zaldivar decided on a fourth option — he’s suing T-Mobile for violating consumer protection laws. The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, got a small green light last week from a U.S. District Court in Seattle, which rejected T-Mobile’s motion to dismiss the case.

“When T-Mobile customer service told me I could always take the battery out of my phone to avoid the charges, I couldn’t believe this was happening to me,” Zaldivar, a corrections officer in California, said in an e-mail statement to msnbc.com. “It left me no choice but to try to stand up for myself, and others in the same situation.”

A number of the texts received by Zaldivar were unsolicited advertisements, said Zaldivar’s lawyer, Jeff Friedman. Even when unopened, his client was still charged for the messages, he said.

T-Mobile said it would not comment on the lawsuit, but a spokeswoman said the company has recently added a feature that allows consumers to essentially turn off texting.

“T-Mobile is committed to providing the best customer experience in wireless and does offer customers the ability to block chargeable text messages,” the spokeswoman said. “T-Mobile also has extensive filters built into the network to help detect and block spam text messages being sent to customer’s handsets that originate from internet IP addresses.”

Last year, when the Red Tape Chronicles explored the topic of text message spam, a T-Mobile spokesman said text message service could not be shut off because it was used for internal billing purposes.

“The text messaging feature on your account is actually a mandatory feature and cannot be removed,” the spokesman said. “This feature is needed because it’s where voice mail and billing notifications are delivered.”
If Zaldivar’s lawsuit is given class-action status, T-Mobile could have a large case on its hands.

Friedman said about 17 million of the 27 million T-Mobile customers are not signed up for a text message bundle currently, and about 4 million of them have never sent a text message, indicating their lack of interest in text service. The lawsuit will attempt to include all those consumers in the class.
T-Mobile would not discuss how many subscribers pay for text message bundles.

The lawsuit maintains that T-Mobile, which is based in Bellevue, Wash., made text service “mandatory,” while never making that pre-condition “clear and conspicuous” in its contracts. That violates Washington state’s consumer protection laws, the lawsuit alleges.

“This is a matter of a long line of abuses, where people with the carrier have very little choice,” Friedman said. “(Zaldivar) was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. He felt trapped, and that he was put in an unfair position.”

Verizon, AT&T and Sprint allow consumers to shut down delivery of unwanted text messages.
The T-Mobile lawsuit comes at a time when all carriers are turning up the heat on consumers to sign up for monthly text bundles. In August, T-Mobile will increase its basic text message cost by 33 percent, from 15 cents to 20 cents per message. Other carriers made that jump earlier this year.

Consumers can avoid those high prices by signing up for a bundle — 400 messages for $5 a month, for example.

Critics say the basic price of text messages is excessive compared to other cell phone data-related charges. Because they carry only 160 text characters, text messages consume a tiny amount of bandwidth — about 1/4000th as much as a typical song, according to the blog GThing.net. But downloading a 4-megabyte song costs only about $1 on a standard cell phone data download service — or roughly five times the price of a single text message. At test message prices, music downloads would cost almost $6,000 each, the site argues. You can double-check the Gthing.net math here.

And remember, cell phone companies make 20 cents twice on each message — when it’s sent, and when it’s received.

Friedman says he expects a federal judge to rule on certification of the proposed lawsuit class by the end of the year.

RED TAPE WRESTLING TIPS• Many people are signed up for a per-message text plan and don’t realize it. If that’s you, shut it off now, before you get a bunch of text spam. Check with your provider. Now with T-Mobile on board, all the major providers essentially let you shut off texting.
• For most people, even light users, it’s worth signing up for at least a small text bundle. They are reasonably priced — as little as $3 per month – and act like insurance for that one month you are stuck in a train tunnel and find yourself sending 15 or 20 text messages. It’s odd for me to be recommending that you sign up for a service with a fee like that, but that’s just the way cell phone math works right now.
• If you have teenagers, seriously consider plans with unlimited text messages. Youngsters are capable of sending incredible numbers of text messages, so you’re best off insuring yourself against that.
• Even with an unlimited plan, you can still end up paying a lot for text messages – so-called “premium text messages” — which can cost $1-$10 each. These are texts sent to or from special subscription services, like dating services. One consumer who wrote to Red Tape found himself on the long end of a $10,000 bill not long ago. Even if you use text messaging, you should consider calling your carrier and asking that premium texting be disabled.

This was a question posed by a female viewer last night while my wife and I sat watching "I Am Legend" for the first time.

The question was posed during the scene in which Will Smith is performing some pullups on a bar with no shirt on. The reason I thought that this was so funny is that just because a person has a well defined physique, our culture these days must assume that the person is also using steroids. I blame the media misinformation and the government crackdown with this perception.

I was reading an article in MD by John Romano, in which one of the key players in bringing the negative light on steroids was Lyle Alzado. In the article, John Romano is talking about a book that many of you may have heard about, Steroid Nation, written by Shaun Assael. Lyle Alzado’s false accusation that steroids caused his untimely death is likely something that contributed the government to get into a hissy fit about steroids and cause all the misinformation that is so prevalent about them these days.

I suggest you read the article in this month’s Muscular Development, and maybe even buy the book, about which John Romano gave a positive review. You can also see the video on my bodyspace about the "other side" of the steroid debate, which is the one less heard.

This is the most ridiculous story I have heard in a long time. I think that this flight attendant needs to be reprimanded for "abuse of power". There was no dress code. He just thought that he would do this because he didn’t like how she dressed. I hate it when people think they can do that.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/20638479/?GT1=10357

By Mike Celizic

It doesn’t take much to get thrown off an airplane these days, as Kyla Ebbert found out when a Southwest Airlines employee told her she was too bare for the air. Two months later, she’s still trying to figure out what was wrong with her outfit.

In an exclusive appearance Friday on TODAY, Ebbert modeled the outfit she says she wore on the flight in question. It consisted of a snug-fitting white top with a scoop neck that stopped just short of showing cleavage.

Over the shirt was a green sweater that buttoned underneath her bosom. It was finished with high-heeled sandals and a white denim mini-skirt with a fashionably frayed hem.

It was a lot more clothing than the 23-year-old college student wears on her job as a Hooters waitress. Her mother, Michele Ebbert, said she would have told her daughter if the outfit was inappropriate.

“But her outfit is fine, Michele Ebbert told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer. “She looks like every other college girl in San Diego.”

Not according to a Southwest employee identified only as “Keith,” who approached Ebbert after she had taken her seat on the plane and was listening to the flight attendants go through their pre-departure routine.

He asked her to step off of the plane and when they were in the jetway, he told her that her clothing was inappropriate and asked her to change her clothes.

“He told me, ‘I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to take a later flight. You’re dressed inappropriately. This is a family airline. You’re dressed too provocative to fly on this flight,’ ” she told Lauer.

Today show Kyla Ebbert models the outfit she wore on the Southwest flight Friday on TODAY.

“I said, ‘What part of it, the shirt, the skirt? Which part?’ “ Ebbert continued, recounting her conversation with Keith about her outfit. “And he said, ‘The whole thing.’“ I said, ‘I didn’t bring any luggage with me. I don’t have anything to change into. What can I do to make sure I can get onto that flight?’ I had a doctor’s appointment. I had to be there.”

“He said ‘You can go to the gift shop and you can buy something to wear there. Until then, you’re not flying on this flight,’ ” Ebbert said.

A compromise was finally reached when Ebbert promised to pull up her top, which wasn’t showing cleavage to begin with, and pull down her tiny skirt.

Ebbert went back onto the plane and to her seat, feeling that every eye on the plane was staring at her.

“I was humiliated. I was embarrassed. They all heard him lecturing me,” she said.

She asked for a blanket, covered her legs, and cried quietly all the way to Tucson. When she got off the plane, she called her mother.

“She was just devastated,” Michele told Lauer. “She said, ‘Mom, I can’t believe what just happened to me.’ She was. She said ‘I didn’t want to make a scene. I didn’t want to draw attention. I just sat there crying.’ ”

No apology  
When Michele saw a picture her daughter emailed from her cell phone, she couldn’t believe what had happened. She also thought to herself, “Oh, no. They don’t do this and get away with it.”

The San Diego Union-Tribune called Southwest Airlines and asked if the airline had a dress code. Could, for example, a woman board wearing a bikini top?

The newspaper on Tuesday quoted the Southwest agent it spoke with as saying, “We don’t have a problem with it if she’s covered up in all the right spots. We don’t have a dress code.”

The Ebberts had not gone public with the story, which happened two months ago, asking only for an apology from the airline. But none was forthcoming.

In response to a TODAY Show query, the airline sent the following statement: “Southwest Airlines was responding to a concern about Ms. Ebbert’s revealing attire on the flight that day.  As a compromise, we asked her to adjust her clothing to be less revealing, she complied, and she traveled as scheduled.  When a concern is brought to our Employees’ attention, we address that situation directly with the Customer(s) involved in a discreet and professional manner.  Fortunately, as an airline that carries approximately 96 million Customers a year, these situations are extremely rare.”

The Ebberts have engaged an attorney, Martin Reed, to help them decide what to do next.

Asked if he will file suit, Reed told Lauer, “We’ve not made that decision, yet. We’re considering all the facts and all the circumstances.”

“Initially, I just wanted an apology,” Kyla told Lauer. “At this point, just some acknowledgement that they were wrong. That would be better.”

What really tops the whole story off is that Ebbert wore the same outfit on the return flight to San Diego later that day. A female flight attendant also took note of it, according to Ebbert.

“I was complimented by the stewardess on my return flight,” she said.

So, what’s next, they won’t let me fly because of my crazy pants? "It’s hard to look cool in crazy pants. But I wear ‘em anyway, even thought they look whack, it’s my personal way of bringing the 80’s back". -Sum41

There are some supplement companies that are just overpriced or don’t make good products. But then there are companies like this one. They are attempting to file suit against various members of bb.com for "libel", among other things. It is perposterous! Read the thread here: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=3569901

Utterly ridiculous imo.