Flight Cancellation Looming, State of Alarm Declared in Spain

Posted on December 5, 2010 by admin

Madrid Spain – It was uncontrollable for the state, as huge number of air traffic controllers strike. This left Spain’s air transportation crippled and at a standstill. Spain already declared a state of alarm to finally end this standoff between the state and the personnel of the airport. This is now becoming a huge problem as millions of travelers stranded. The State are now on a pursuit to jail all the controllers that will not return to their post.

The air traffic controllers’ launched their wildcat strike Friday evening in the culmination of a long-running dispute with the government over working conditions, work schedules and benefits.

Currently, Spain’s military took control of the nation’s airspace Friday night after air traffic controllers staged a massive sickout that is becoming a big burden to all the travelers on the eve of a long holiday weekend, forcing the government to shut down Madrid’s big international hub and seven other airports.

It was not immediately clear when airports would start operating again or whether military controllers would actually guide planes in and out of airports. Spanish flagship carrier Iberia SA said all of its flights in and out of Madrid were suspended until at least 11 a.m. Saturday.

Handfuls of passengers made it out of Madrid to destinations like Barcelona and Lisbon, Portugal, on buses provided by airlines. But the vast majority were forced to go home or to hotels with no information on when they might make their canceled flights. – AP

We will be providing more information on all the cancelled flights as it becomes available and we will update you on the latest happenings in Spain so stay tune here at OD.

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PayPal Withdrew Its Services To Wikileaks

Posted on December 5, 2010 by admin


The services which allows the controversial website Wikileaks to remain alive continue to withdraw its support this weekend. The latest among them is the online payment provider Paypal. The latter announced that that Wikileaks has violated the service provider’s policy “which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity,” thus prompting the cutting off of their services to them. If you would try to donate money to Wikileaks right now, it will give you an automated error message saying “This recipient is currently unable to receive money.”

Paypal is a subsidiary of the US-based online marketplace operator EBay Inc. It’s online payment services is one of the safest ways to accept donations from its supporters. So far, Paypal is most secure way of sending support to the website. Now that it has withdrawn its services to the website, the remaining ways to support them is via snail mail that would be sent to an Australian post office box, through bank transfers to accounts in Switzerland, Germany or Iceland, as well as through one “credit card processing partner” in Switzerland.

Wikileaks has posted a tweet just recently saying, “PayPal bans WikiLeaks after U.S. government pressure.”

The sites has been experiencing so much denial-of-service attacks this week. It’s website domain provider EveryDNS ceases to deliver traffic to the website wikileaks.org late Thursday. This prompted them to transfer from one website to another. These withdrawal of services boosted after the site released sensitive US diplomatic cables this week.

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Apple Cup 2010: Cougars vs Huskies Football Live Score and Coverage

Posted on December 5, 2010 by admin

Apple Cup 2010: Cougars vs Huskies Football Live Score and Coverage - Live from the Martin Stadium in Pullman, Washington, we are about to witness the Apple Cup 2010 featuring a clash and big showdown between the Washington State Cougars vs Washington Huskies. The final championship event will have a kick off time of 7:00 pm ET, Saturday, December 4, 2010.

The Cougars have done no better. They’re 2-9 right now, which includes a 1-7 mark in Pac-10 play. A win in the Apple Cup, however, would be a great way to end their season on a high note.

Furthermore, they are also looking to avenge last year’s 30-0 loss in Seattle. On the other hand, Washington leads the all time series 65-31-6, and have won 38 of those games at home in Seattle. They’ve won just 15 games in Pullman.

On the recent updates of the main event, the Washington Huskies put the Washington State in a meat-grinder, spitting the Cougs out after a 16-play, 98-yard touchdown drive that spanned 8:31. The Huskies did it on the ground, using 54 yards from Chris Polk to sustain the drive. Polk, with those 54 yards, is over 2,000 yards for his career.

So what are you waiting for, witness the much awaited event as the Apple Cup 2010 live coverage between the Washington Huskies vs Washington State Cougars will have will be at ESPN and in other popular sports channel on the same date and time.

Please standby here for more updates and results of Apple Cup 2010.

Posted in Football, Sports | Tagged | 2 Comments

Cartoon Pictures for Facebook Profiles Child Abuse Campaign

Posted on December 5, 2010 by admin

Recent news in the Internet has been escalating around because of the Cartoon Pictures for Facebook profiles. Most Facebook users had been replacing their profile picture by their favorite cartoon character. Together with these profile pictures, some Facebook status messages has an advocacy for upholding the urge for standing against the child abuse.

This phenomenon had been dominating Twitter and Google since yesterday. Images of Flinstones, Mickey Mouse, Smurfs, Barney and other Japanese cartoons had been seen. Some people got confused because of these cartoon profile pictures that lead to some minor misunderstandings.

However, several people is making fun out of it plus it shows how people lived up their childhood lives with these cartoons that spiced up their life during their childhood days.

This Cartoon Campaign advocacy is to spread a message regarding Child Abuse. Last November 19, a Facebook message had been widely spread saying that you change your profile picture to your favorite childhood cartoon character so as to be an invasion of childhood memories.

The duration of the said message is until Monday, 6th of December 2010.

The Facebook campaign is a little bit tricky that some critics say that it is not official and it doesn’t have any source. But this didn’t hinder Facebook users to join in the campaign and they are enjoying it even more.

Posted in Internet, Lifestyle, Politics | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

State of Alarm In Air Travel Declared In Spain

Posted on December 4, 2010 by admin


The Spanish government has declared a state of alarm in air travel Saturday after a vast number of its air controllers in the country abandon their work Friday. It has disrupted several travels throughout the weekend. This state of alarm is requiring all the air controllers to get back to work immediately or else they will face legal actions.

90% of the country’s air controllers participated in the act which has forced the authorities to close their airspace. The country’s flagship carrier Iberia Lineas Aereas de Espana SA cancelled all of its Spanish flights until Sunday morning. Majority of the passengers were not advised to go the airports and some international flights were also re-routed. The airspace will remain close until 7pm Saturday of Spain’s local time according to Airport authority AENA.

According to the post in Wall Street Journal, this incident escalated on Friday, after the government approved a series of economic measures that included the partial privatization of airport operator AENA, as well as the management of Madrid´s and Barcelona´s airports by private companies. It also introduced new criteria for calculating the working hours of air traffic controllers. The air controllers doesn’t like the new provisions which then led to their massive work strike.

According Deputy Prime Minister Perez Rubalcaba, these air controllers “were blackmailing citizens to obtain unacceptable privileges.”

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Cartoon Characters Filled Facebook’s Profile Pictures

Posted on December 4, 2010 by admin


If you happen to check your Facebook account today, you might notice that most of your friends changed their profile pictures into cartoon characters in their childhood. It nice to see those old cartoon characters that once in our lives brought joy when were sad.

“Change your facebook profile picture to a cartoon from your childhood and invite your friends to do the same. Until monday (Dec.6) there should be no human faces on facebook, but an invasion of memories. This is for violence against children.”This is the very statement that started everything. One of your friends might have posted this one in your wall or a member of your Facebook group spread this post.

In a span of few days, vast number of Facebook users changed their profile pictures to their favorite cartoon characters. Some are even posting popular lines that made the character famous. It has created long threads of comments from your friends which are often discussion of things in the past. An instant reminiscing of the past happened as this campaign goes on.

It’s the not the first time that Facebook did similar campaign. Not so long ago, Breast Cancer Awareness group did a campaign where women posted the color of brassiere that they are wearing. It was then followed by an intriguing wall post by women of places that they want to do something which is left secret. It may somewhat sound naughty but these wall post are places where women want to place their purse or hand bags.

If you want to spread a good information that fast and if you want it to be known to millions of people, then Facebook is the perfect place to have it.

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Asian Cities Ranked As Most Expensive To Live In

Posted on December 4, 2010 by admin


This year’s ranking of the most expensive cities to live in is finally out and majority on the top cities from Asia. The survey was done by ECA International, a consultancy that works with 1,500 multinational corporations. Its services would include country reports and allowance calculators and this year they made a ranking of the major cities in the world in term of cost of living. The survey comprise of expenses for food, clothing and drinks but it doesn’t include rent since companies typically offer a separate housing allowance according to ECA.

In their latest survey, Tokyo ranked number 1. It being followed by last year’s top which is Luanda, Angola. The 3rd, 4th and 5th rank were taken by Nagoya, Yokohama and Kobe respectively. These Japanese cities reached this far because of the yen’s strength. 70% of the 50 Asian cities surveyed rose in world-wide rankings this year. If Asian cities rose up, European cities dropped as Euro weakens. One example is Paris. It ranked 16th last year but this year it lower down to the 24th spot.

This particular survey is very important for investors who are planning to start a business in a certain country as they would be considering the above mentioned expenses are part of it.

Posted in Asia, Business, World | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Groupon Declines Multi Billion Offer of Google

Posted on December 4, 2010 by admin


It has been the headlines of the majority of the tech-news lately that Google has offered $5.3 billion for Groupon, with a $700 million earnout as what has been reported by the website All Things D last Tuesday. This multi-billion offer, if accepted, would definitely make the owners of the Chicago based company, billionaires. In exchange, acquisition of Groupon would make Google emerge to the top of the standings against rivals Facebook Inc. and Yahoo Inc.

Groupon has been cited by a lot of merchants with its awesome business model and has been obviously becoming one of the fastest growing companies lately. Its name is a combination of group and coupon and it sells discounted products and services from local merchants such as restaurants and nail salons. Then it has been reported that the company would be getting out of its shell and would extend the selling by having Groupon Store wherein local merchants can sell deals targeted to users who have expressed interest in that kind of business instead of having the “deal of the day” service only.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704679204575647033055940528.html#ixzz176elvX98

After the speculations that Groupon would definitely accept the offer of Google, it has reported lately in Mashable.com that the offer has been declined and it will independent. They decided that it is better off in its own. This has shocked everyone and most has been thinking that Groupon has bigger plans and they could only do it if they’re on its own. Whatever would be their reason of rejecting the offer would the very thing that everyone should watch out. It would really be something bigger than could generate more than income than what has been offered by Google.

Posted in Business, Companies, Tech Industry News | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Taylor Swift Tickets for 2011 Tours On Sale Today

Posted on December 4, 2010 by admin

Taylor Swift Tickets for 2011 Tours On Sale TodayTaylor Swift’s Concert Tour is making waves after its Tickets for 2011 Tours are placed on sale today. If you are a Taylor Swift fan looking for some Taylor Swift Tickets for 2011 Tours Well you have come to the right place. Taylor Swift tickets will be placed on sale today, Friday. This is just a limited sale so hurry up. The singer will be performing live “Speak Now” in New York.

Fans can purchase these Taylor Swift Tickets in Foxborough, Mass., Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Jose and Sacramento. Taylor Swift Fans in Canada can also get their tickets in Toronto for her Two nights. The show will be taking place in June 25 and in September 3. As for the Full dates of the Taylor Swift Tickets sale, Its posted on her official website with the full dates of her concert.

What are you waiting for? Grab these Taylor Swift Tickets to her 2011 Concert Tour now and get an experience of a lifetime.

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Aretha Franklin Surgery Was A Success

Posted on December 4, 2010 by admin

Aretha Franklin Surgery Was A Success
People are eager to find out on what updates there are on the Aretha Franklin Surgery. Well for those who havent hear. The Surgery was a high success. For those who doesnt know who Aretha Franklin is and what her surgery was. Well here is what you need to enlighten you.

Aretha Franklin went into a super secret surgery that made all of Detroit praying for the success of the surgery. There are no announcement made as to what the surgery was. but everybody heard it right that Aretha Franklin when into a successful surgery.

According to the press, The surgery was a great success. we are still yet to know what really happened. but its good to know that everything went well with Aretha Franklin. She is known as the Queen of Souls, American singer, songwriter and pianist. Whatever it was, well the Aretha Franklin Surgery Was A Success. Everybody is thankful for that.

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