Cave News

Starbucks sliding amid stiff competition

Ailing Starbucks is trimming the menu to help stop the bleeding.

The scent of ham, eggs, cheese and bacon will soon stop competing with the aroma of coffee in Starbucks stores as hot breakfast sandwiches become the first casualty of the company's battle to win back customers.

Starbucks blames a soft U.S. economy for their a second quarter in a row sales slide.

How much of the slide is due to competition from cheaper gourmet coffee offered by Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonalds?

Part of the problem is "cannibalization." The company has stores to close to each other they are forced to compete with each other.

It’s one thing to compete with other companies but to compete with other Starbucks stores is like eating your own.

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McCow

They’ll advertise anywhere.

Hey lady - is that a crowbar in your pants?

A woman has been charged with possession of burglary tools after police said a crowbar slipped out of her pants as she was lurking around a church in Sweetwater, Tennessee.

McMinn County Sheriff's Deputy Rick Shadrick pulled into the church parking lot early Saturday morning after he spotted a car parked near the building.

He found Jennifer Hunt, 35, walking from behind the building, where she said she was going to bathroom. When she was walking to her car to get her ID, a crowbar dropped from her pants.

The officer also found Hunt had a screwdriver and observed pry marks on church doors.

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Manure reduces development of lung cancer

Scientists have discovered that working with manure drastically reduces the risk of developing lung cancer.

Dairy farmers are five times less likely than the general populace to develop the disease, New Scientist magazine reports.

The study found farmers typically breathed in dust that consisted largely of dried manure, and all the bacteria that grew in it.

New Scientist said adults who had a greater exposure to germs than usual might build up a better resistance to bugs, including cancer.

What about politicians? They should never need to worry about lung cancer.

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NY Post scathingly denounces Hillary - endorses Obama

The New York Post endorses Barack Obama - sort of.

The endorsement of Obama is almost an afterthought as most of the page is a scathing denouncement of Hillary Clinton. A portion of the anti-Hillary tirade follows - the rest can be found at the link below:

Democrats in 22 states across America go to the polls next Tuesday to pick between two presidential prospects: Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

We urge them to choose Obama - an untried candidate, to be sure, but preferable to the junior senator from New York.

Obama represents a fresh start.
His opponent, and her husband, stand for déjà vu all over again - a return to the opportunistic, scandal-scarred, morally muddled years of the almost infinitely self-indulgent Clinton co-presidency.

Does America really want to go through all that once again?

It will - if Sen. Clinton becomes president.
Bill Clinton's thuggishly self-centered campaign antics conjure so many bad, sad memories that it's hard to know where to begin.

Suffice it to say that his Peck's-Bad-Boy smirk - the Clinton trademark - wore thin a very long time ago.

Far more to the point, Sen. Clinton could have reined him in at any time. But she chose not to - which tells the nation all it needs to know about what a Clinton II presidency would be like.

Tell us what you really think Mr. Murdock. Don’t hold anything back.

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Damaged cable kills Mideast Internet service

At the link below, ABC reports that it was a damaged cable that disrupted Internet service to much of the Mideast according to government officials and Internet service providers.

An official who works in the customer care department of DU [an Internet service provider] told The Associated Press that the reason for the outage was a fault on a submarine cable located between Alexandria, Egypt, and Palermo, Italy.

Internet service in much of the Mideast was slow, intermittent or non-existent.

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UK Police investigate 125 MPH speeder on YouTube video

PC World reports that a show-off in Britain posted a YouTube video showing a motorcyclist speeding in Sussex. Police are now investigating.

The three-minute YouTube clip appears to show a motorcyclist driving at 125mph.

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Scientists accidentally discover way to reverse memory loss

An article at the link below reports that scientists have accidentally found a way to reverse memory loss.

Scientists performing experimental brain surgery on a man aged 50 have stumbled across a mechanism that could unlock how memory works.

The accidental breakthrough came during an experiment originally intended to suppress the obese man's appetite, using the increasingly successful technique of deep-brain stimulation.

Instead of losing appetite, the patient instead had an intense experience of déjà vu. He recalled, in intricate detail, a scene from 30 years earlier.

More tests showed his ability to learn was dramatically improved when the current was switched on and his brain stimulated.

That’s a very expensive procedure just to make him lose his appetite so he could lose weight. Why not just take his food away?

Interesting accidental outcome to have the guy retain a hearty appetite while recalling things from his distant past.

It’s comforting to know that when my ‘forgetter’ starts getting better they can shove probes in my belfry so I can remember all the things I’ve been trying to forget.

Hmm…lets see…I did have something else to say about this but I forgot.

Since I don’t have any deep-brain probes handy, I’ll just eat a cheeseburger and publish this the way it is.

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EBay auction site announces big changes

We started selling on eBay over ten years ago. Since November, 1997, we watched eBay “grow up.” During that time we accumulating a feedback rating of over 9,000.

During that time, eBay also developed an operating philosophy that clearly favored buyers over sellers.

It seemed like sellers came to eBay almost as fast as buyers. It soon became apparent to serious sellers that nearly every change on the auction site bit into the seller’s profit.

EBay increased sellers fees in many ways. In order to get noticed, many sellers felt compelled to use the more expensive options such as bold listings - to name just one. Ebay kept finding ingeneous ways to increase selling fees.

Now eBay has unveiled sweeping new changes on the auction site. This includes two examples of lower costs to the seller.

Insertion fees will decrease. The "gallery" option fee will be dropped.

Buyers will no longer receive “feedback points.” Feedback is how a seller could determine if a bidder was a deadbeat or a serious, honest buyer.

Do the decreases in seller fees and feedback changes mean that eBay finally realizes that sellers are as important as buyers? No, not at all! Selling fees will actually increase proving that eBay still favors the buyer.

We have sold very little on eBay in the last three years. With the new changes, we see no reason to increase our activity on eBay.

More on the eBay changes here.

China quells dissent before Olympic games

China has a history of intolerance for political dissent and religious activity.

With fewer than 200 days before the Aug. 8 opening ceremonies, Beijing is in the full throes of preparations.

Roads and subway lines are being completed, and the city's new sports stadiums are nearly finished.

But with more than 20,000 journalists expected for the Games, Beijing is also tightening controls over information.

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