Happy Black Friday

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving which is observed by buying shit.

Throng Of 2,000 Shoppers Bum-Rush L.I. Wal-Mart

Worker, 34, Trampled, Dies; Nassau Cops: Pregnant Woman, 3 Others Injured By Unruly 'Black Friday' Mob

Reporting
Jennifer McLogan

VALLEY STREAM, N.Y. (CBS) ― We're used to seeing scenes like this across the country -- people running, pushing, trying to get their hands on the great bargains. But on Friday – better known as "Black Friday" to millions upon millions of holiday shoppers across the country, a scene like this turned deadly as a mob stampeded over a security guard at a Long Island Wal-Mart.

The heavy glass and steel sliding doors were literally knocked off their hinges in the shopper-stampede-to-be-first. Then the wave of humaity caved in on defenseless Wal-Mart workers as they opened early -- 5 a.m. -- for the annual bargain hunting ritual that kicks off the morning after Thanksgiving.

"The crowd pushed so forcefully that they crashed the doors down and one of the workers from Wal-Mart was pushed to the floor as the crowd entered the store, many of them running," said Det. Lt. Michael Fleming of the Nassau County Police Department.

Cell phone video obtained by CBS 2 HD shows Jdimytai Damour, a 34-year-old part-time employee hired as a holiday temp. He was crushed in the onslaught and pronounced dead an hour later. As responding Nassau police and paramedics tried to save him, they were also jostled and pushed to the ground.

"The man got trampled, stomped on -- everybody banged through the doors," witness Terrence Howard said.

Witness Kimberly Cribbs said all those people who got in went right on shopping after the worker was run over.

"Oh yes, they're savages," Cribbs said.

As 2,000 customers surged ahead, several hundred began cutting the line creating mass chaos. Many bargain-hunters said they watched in horror.

"Pushing in, pounding through the doors to get TVs and electronics," Sean Newman said. "I will never do this again as long as I live. I wish I was never here this morning."

Three other shoppers and a 28-year-old pregnant woman who suffered minor injuries were also taken to hospitals for observation.

"I am happy to report that she did not miscarry and that baby will be okay," Det. Lt. Fleming said.

Eight hours later under police watch the Wal-Mart reopened.

Police have seized surveillance video. Some in the crowd may face criminal charges, amid questions if Wal-Mart's security was adequate as they promoted huge sales.

Wal-Mart issued a statement, which reads: "Our thoughts and prayers are with his family at this difficult time. We are working closely with the Nassau county police as they investigate what occurred."

CBS 2 HD has also heard a report about an incident when the Farmingdale Wal-Mart opened Friday morning. The person involved was not injured.

Planes, Trains and Plantains

This is what I was talking about last night...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nut Cases Of The World Unite

I don't know why (maybe Edge subscribed for comic value) but i get these e-mails from the "Citizen Electoral Council of Australia" - Fruit Cakes!


LaRouche’s Nov. 22 warning:
The British will attempt to assassinate President-Elect Obama
On November 22 Lyndon LaRouche issued his most emphatic warning to date on the danger of a British-authored assassination of President-elect Barack Obama. Using the occasion of the 45th anniversary of the British-run assassination of President John F. Kennedy, LaRouche warned that the greatest danger of an assassination of the President-elect would be before the scheduled Jan. 20, 2009 inauguration—while George W. Bush is still the President and while Dick Cheney is still in office as his Vice President.

“The most dangerous and devastating thing that could happen to the United States, and, by extension, to the world as a whole, is an assassination of Barack Obama, while George Bush is still occupying the White House. This means that the greatest danger is the period between today and Jan. 20, 2009, when Barack Obama is to be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States,” LaRouche declared.

“The opportunity to create the kind of national emergency, from which American democracy would never re-emerge, is too overwhelming for the British to pass up,” LaRouche emphasised. “Look at the global financial disintegration, which has been underway since July 2007, precisely as I warned in my July 25, 2007 webcast. The Anglo-Dutch liberal system of globalisation, free trade, and unfettered speculation is dead. What the British financial oligarchy fears, under these current conditions, more than anything else is an American revival of the policies last seen during the Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Their hatred of FDR almost matches their hatred of Abraham Lincoln. And the British, as the official record even shows, assassinated President Lincoln.”

LaRouche explained, “Lincoln was just reelected to a second term as President, and the British were horrified at the prospects of what Lincoln would do. The British-sponsored Confederacy was defeated, and they hated everything that Lincoln represented, and everything that Lincoln was now in a position to do, with an industrially developed United States, poised to become a continental republic, with the completion of the Trans-Continental Railroad.”

From the earliest days of our republic, LaRouche explained, “the British have assassinated American republican leaders, beginning with the assassination of former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, at the hands of British East India Company traitorous agent Aaron Burr, continuing with the assassination of President Lincoln, President William McKinley, and President John F. Kennedy, 45 years ago today.

“The British know that an assassination of President-elect Obama, while George Bush is still in power, would tear the United States apart, and lay the basis for the kind of lockdown of the system, that would mean the end—after more than 200 years—of our Constitutional Republic. What happened, under Bush and Cheney, following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, gives a taste of the kind of top-down repression that Cheney and his puppet George W. Bush would impose, under the conditions of chaos set off by an assassination of the President-elect,” LaRouche explained.

“I consider it the very top national security priority to prevent this British treason. If there is so much as an attempt on the life of the President-elect, as the British media has been promoting it, ever since election day, the whole world shall know the address from which the plot was hatched,” LaRouche concluded.

Flupdate: episode 5 - all knowledged up!

8 week scan - Fluppy is the jellybean shaped thing next to the round yolk sac (which will become the placenta a few weeks after this scan)

20 week scan - Fluppy is too big now to fit all in one screen, so we only get from her tummy up to her head. This is a profile shot. (you can see her right hand is bunched into a fist up near her face)

32 weeks - We're not having anymore scans, so this is really the only way I can photograph fluppy.

So we're in week 32 of this whole shebang and boy am I tired of it! As my girth expands, so does my tiredness and my achiness....yes girls and boys this week it's all about the back ache! I guess the upside is that I took Monday off to get a massage and no one batted an eyelid! sweet!

This Friday is my last day at work and as luck would have it, it's also our work Christmas party, so two birds with one stone works for me.

Saturday (just gone) Jules and I took ourselves across the road to the Hospital to do our "birthing workshop". We had to go the one day option as my doctor led us up the garden path and we missed out on the 7 week course. In hindsight I'm actually quite happy we knocked it over in one day. There was loads of information to absorb, but better than stringing it out for 7 weeks...there's only so many labour videos and knitted uterus' one can take!

Hopefully we're now as prepared as we can be to enter the huge unknown that is having our first baby!

You may also have noticed that I've included Fluppy's portfolio for you all, I'm sure there'll be loads more pictures when she finally arrives but you'll have to make do with these for now.

Btw, Fluppy this week is about 1.7 Kgs and measures about 28cms from head to bum. The doctor told me the other day that Fluppy is now upside down and should remain that way till birth. This is apparently very good as we don't want a breech birth (bum first) and have to have a c-section.

So anyway, come Monday next week I'll be a lady of leisure! Well...as leisurely as a 200Kg woman can be! We're on the home stretch now...only 8 weeks left ARGH!

I can't decide if this is adorable or grotesque. I'm in two minds about it.

A less confusingly named post

It’s not so long away now but I’ve a mountain to climb before I get to glorious ass-end of December when I can wade gently into the summer without a care. My work trips will be over and projects wrapped up in mid December, when I'll be ready to jettison out into the blissful festival of calories and sunshine of Chrissie.

Noodle and I are Christmassing and New Years Eving in Victoria, preceded by the great celebration of the birth of my brother and his brother in-law on the weekend before. I am also mindful of the January that looms – with people running off to do all manner of grown-up things, such as wedding and birthing etc. So I thought it might be nice to regroup and have a bit of an SRF Chrissie celebration once most of the madness has subsided and before we all divert off into family stuff.

(This is what came up when I googled "Christmas Ham"!)

Here is what I propose:

What: EOY SRF BBQ
Where: Hotel Fricholson
When: 2pm, Sunday December 14
Who: Y’all
Why: One last bash for 2008

Let me know if you can make it for catering purposes. It will be BYOB.

NEXT SRF EVENT:

Noodle's End-Of-Degree Drinks!

Come and help me celebrate the end of an era after my very last uni exam! Hurrah!

WHEN: Tuesday 18^th November, 6:00pm-ish (ie. after work for most of you)

WHERE: Gilroy's Hotel, St. Leonards

WHAT: Drinks and/or dinner

Ballet

Ok so this isn't actually ballet but there's some parallels I reckon, my favorite is the loop he does 3 minutes in, oh and the engine noise - which I'm sure Jeremy Clarkson would describe as 'biblical'.

Clever phones

So my clever phone has deleted all my contacts :( So If you have a spare moment can you flick on

phone number(s)
email
Address
Birthday

to my email address ( j[insert last name]@optusnet.com.au )

thanks!

I'll Never Love You More

So some of you from the SRFSS Stacey Lee may have already heard this but if you haven't - enjoy.


If I could figure out how to embed video like a journalist in Kandihar I would, but it remains beyond my ability.

Flupdate: episode 4 - Beached as bro!

Week 29! only 12 weeks left! I remember when I was 12 weeks with 29 left! How quickly has it gone? This week fluppy is 26 cm long and weighs a whopping 1.15kgs. Both of us are just packing on the weight now, fluppy needs to double in size before the birth and knowing my luck so will I!

My heartburn seems to have taken a slight break. It now starts at 8.15am (I can set my watch by it!) but it is at least responding to medication again, what a relief. Thought I was coming down with my 6th cold of the pregnancy on Friday, but by Sunday I felt much better and have returned to just a low level of achiness and congestion. Joy!

I'm getting really excited about meeting this little person. She kicks me hourly just to let me know she's getting stronger and that "it's not long now Mum!" such a weird thing to think this little person will call me Mum!

Can't stand work any longer, just going through the motions, but my brain has checked out. Only 5 weeks left at this desk! Just as well since I feel enormous and can really sympathise with that cartoon whale..."I'm beached as bro" everytime I try to get off the sofa!

My Work Fairwell (THIS FRIDAY)

For anyone that wants to tag along...

From Geoff:

After 8 long hard years of struggling, the time has come to bid a proper farewell to our lil’ Johnnie who has succumbed to the evil temptations of better working conditions, more money and less responsibility. (Yeah right, he basically got fired but to allow him to save face we all had to pretend he quit).

As a memory of his legacy we must raise our glasses and have a toast or a roast to his honour on Friday, November 7th where he will be welcomed into the club of those who’ve left before him. Thanks to our gracious host, Mr. Daniel (I am like Fish) Stevenson. Map to the house below and BYOB. Please pass this on to anyone who we might have missed.

MAP = http://tinyurl.com/6b5oxv

Next Challenge

OK Team - next sporting challenge laid down is the Bondi to Bronte Ocean Swim

A mere 2.2 - 2.5 KM paddle from Bondi Beach to Bronte Beach, can you think of a better way to spend a Sunday Morning?

Just click here to register!

Bring it on!