Worker Reprimanded For Flatulence

An employee at the Social Security Administration's Baltimore office has been formally reprimanded for "conduct unbecoming of a federal employee," specifically for disrupting co-workers "by passing gas and releasing an unpleasant odor."
According to the letter, issued in December and obtained by the Smoking Gun website, the employee, who has been identified as a 38 year old male but was not identified by name, had been informed by his supervisor during a "performance discussion" in May 2012 that his co-workers had complained about the gas issue in the past. The individual was referred to an "Employee Assistance Program" to look into whether the frequent and unpleasant incidents could be symptomatic of a medical issue.
It seems the problem continued for some time after that though. The letter, which has been redacted so as not to include names, runs five pages long and details numerous similar exchanges.
"On July 17, 2012, I spoke with you in regards to your releasing of bodily gas in the module during work hours," the letter reads. "I asked if you could make it to the rest room before releasing the awful and unpleasant odor…You said that you would try not to pass gas and that you would turn your fan on when it happens."
The letter lists 60 specific incidences of gas passing from this employee over the roughly seven month period between mid-May when the issue was brought up, and early December when the reprimand was issued.
A reprimand is essentially formal slap on the wrist and doesn't carry any tangible long-term punishment. However, the federal worker is being represented by a lawyer from the American Federation of Government Employees in conjunction with the letter.
The AFGE did not respond to email inquiries from ABC News about the case.

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Rebels surround air bases across Aleppo-commander

 Syrian rebels are surrounding bases and military airports loyal to President Bashar al-Assad across the northern province of Aleppo, a commander said, but are struggling to counter attacks from jet fighters which can fly even from besieged airfields.
Colonel Abdel-Jabbar Oqaidi, who heads the rebels' military council in the province, also told Reuters that his forces are fighting without any help from the Western and Arab governments which want Assad removed from power.
Oqaidi, who leads between 25,000-30,000 troops across Aleppo province, said the rebel strategy had shifted from fighting Assad's forces in the cities to surrounding his bases in the countryside - aiming to encourage defections and weaken the sites so they can be stormed.
This thrust has helped to loosen Assad's grip in the north and east of the country during a 21-month civil war which activists say has already killed more than 44,000 Syrians.
"We decided on this (strategy) lately," Oqaidi said in an interview at his command center in the Aleppo countryside. "The situation for us on the ground is really good."
Sitting behind a desk, next to the revolutionary tri-color Syrian flag, Oqaidi said his forces were now fighting less in heavily-populated urban areas.
"At the beginning ... we were forced to attack the (Assad) forces in the districts to kick them out so that they do not harm civilians," said Oqaidi, a soft-spoken man who wore two pins - one a flag, the other a crescent of the rebels' revolutionary flag - on his fatigues.
"After achieving fighting experience, we went back to the countryside to liberate the big military bases. These bases are fortified with tanks, rockets, artillery, mortars, in addition airplanes. The siege ... cuts off the supply lines to these bases and most importantly it helps elements to defect," he said, making it easier to eventually storm the bases.
The rebel Free Syrian Army is largely run by officers who had defected from Assad's forces. However, the opposition has struggled to peel off large numbers of defectors and only a handful of high-ranking officials have abandoned the government.
AIR FORCE PROBLEM
Oqaidi said his forces were currently surrounding three military airports - Kuweires, Neyrab and Menagh - and an air force intelligence building.
Assad has increasingly depended on his air force, which can still take off from bases despite being surrounded to strike at the poorly-equipped rebels.
"That's the whole problem. We have no problem except for the air force. We're used to the tanks fighting and their shelling, we have no problem except for the air force," said Oqaidi who estimated Assad had less than 100 functional planes left. The capture of one of the airports would be a strategic blow.
"We're used to taking over military bases that have tanks and APCs (armored personnel carriers) but we haven't been used to take over control yet of airplanes and God willing we'll have control of them soon," he said.
Oqaidi said Assad's forces were using helicopters plus Russian-designed MiGs and Sukhoi jets to strike at the rebels who still had no sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles.
In the central province of Hama, rebels shot down a government military jet on Monday, activists said.
However, Oqaidi said his forces were not getting any help from abroad, despite reports that Qatar and Saudi Arabia were arming rebel groups.
"We have not received aid from any Arab or foreign country, neither money or weapons. Just empty promises. It looks like no one wants Bashar al-Assad to fall in the near future until the country is completely destroyed and its infrastructure is completely destroyed. They don't care about Syrian blood."
SUNNI DEFECTORS
Oqaidi, who defected at the beginning of 2012, said more than 90 percent of Aleppo's countryside and about 80 percent of the once rich merchant city was under rebel control.
He played up the level of defections, particularly from the majority Sunni Muslim community, from Damascus forces which are largely commanded by members of Assad's Alawite sect.
"There are a lot of pilot defections, in general most of the Sunni pilots have defected," he said.
Referring to the Alawite pilots who remain, he said: "What are they defending? They know they're defending Bashar al-Assad who they know will leave them and escape. So they no longer have the will to fight. There is no principle, no aim to fight for."
Many soldiers had also defected after a recent siege of an army infantry college near Aleppo while the head of the college had escaped by plane, he said. "So their morale was devastated, because if the leader escapes, the rest of the elements had no will to fight."
Other troops gave themselves up while those who resisted were killed and a big portion were also captured, Oqaidi said, adding they were treated as prisoners according to Islam and the Geneva Conventions. The rebels also seized about 70 tanks, RPG rounds and Kalashnikov rifles.
At the sprawling complex, slogans and pictures praising Assad and his father as well as the army were riddled with bullets. Rooms, garages, and classes showed evidence of squalor and abandonment. Tanks and armored personnel carriers lay abandoned in fields as well as overturned army camouflage mattresses and spilled lentils.
"We thought we'd see heavy resistance. But they were defeated like rabbits," said Abu al-Nasr, a soldier from the Tawheed brigade who participated in the operation.

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Kuwait to host Syria crisis meeting, envoy meets Assad

Kuwait will host an international conference next month to tackle Syria's humanitarian crisis, the ruling emir said on Monday, as foes of President Bashar al-Assad voiced frustration with international efforts to end the civil war.
In Damascus, special international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi met Assad but the Syrian opposition vented its anger at what it called a "silence" over the unabated killing of civilians by government forces, most recently in the central town of Halfaya.
Assad is under growing pressure from rebel forces in the 21-month-old war that activists say has killed more than 44,000 people. However, diesel from his main international ally, Russia, has arrived in Syria, providing the first significant amounts of the fuel in months to power industry and the military, generate electricity and heat homes during the winter.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also said he did not believe Assad's government would use chemical weapons, in remarks broadcast shortly after activists released reports of what they said was a poison gas attack in the city of Homs.
Kuwait's emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al Sabah, said the conference for Syrian donors would be held in late January in response to an invitation by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
"The Syrian wound is still bleeding, and the killing machine still continues, killing dozens of our brothers in Syria each day," the emir told a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Bahrain.
Last week, the United Nations appealed for $1.5 billion to help save the lives of millions of Syrians suffering a "dramatically deteriorating" humanitarian situation. The appeals are to help 4 million people within Syria and up to 1 million Syrian refugees in five other countries until next July.
Underlining how rebels are taking the battle close to Assad's doorstep, U.N. and Arab League envoy Brahimi had to drive overland to Damascus from Lebanon on the eve of his meeting with the president because fighting around the international airport has made it impossible to fly in.
Brahimi said his talks with Assad had dealt with possible solutions to a crisis. "I told him what I was seeing abroad and about the meetings I had with different officials in the region and abroad," he told reporters. "The situation in Syria still is a reason for worry. We hope that all the sides work toward the solution, as the Syrian people want."
OPPOSITION ANGER
Syria's opposition fumed at what it called silence over the unrelated killing of civilians by Assad's forces. On Sunday, dozens were killed in Halfaya and many more wounded. Activists blamed an air strike on a bakery where a crowd was queuing in the town, which was seized by insurgents last week.
"Silence over the massacres committed against the Syrian people is blackmail and a means to pressure the people, their revolution, and their leaders," said Moaz Alkhatib, who heads the opposition National Coalition.
However, Alkhatib did not accuse anybody directly for remaining mum over what would be one of the deadliest air strikes of the civil war.
Activists also said rebels in central Hama province shot down a government fighter jet on Monday during clashes outside a village loyal to Assad. Rebels have captured a string of military compounds around the country. Damascus is now being dragged into the conflict, with fighting in its southern districts and the suburbs on its eastern outskirts.
Brahimi's plan for an end to the Syrian crisis centers on a transitional government, but has left vague Assad's role. The opposition rejects anything but Assad's overthrow and says the government crackdown has been too fierce to accept dialogue.
POISON GAS REPORTS
With rebel gains growing, the army has been increasingly relying on its superior weaponry. It has used air strikes and even long range, Scud-type missiles, according to U.S. and NATO reports.
Western powers have warned Assad that using chemical weapons would be a "red line", which they implied would draw international involvement in the conflict. Syria repeated on Sunday that it would never use chemical weapons against its people.
In Moscow, Foreign Minister Lavrov told the Russia Today (RT) television channel that recent signs that parts of Syria's chemical arsenal were being moved - a development that alarmed Western governments - was an effort by the government to make the weapons more secure.
"Our information is ... that the latest reports about some movement of the chemical weapons was related to steps undertaken by the government to concentrate the chemical stuff ... at two sites, to make sure it is absolutely protected," he said.
This correlated with information the Americans had, he said.
The activists' reports of what they said was a poison gas attack in Homs could not be confirmed, as the government restricts media access in Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gathered activist accounts of the incident, which said that six rebel fighters were killed after inhaling smoke on the front line of Homs's urban battleground.
The Observatory, a British-based group with a network of activists across the country, called on the International Committee of the Red Cross to send a medical team to the area to determine what had happened.
DIESEL LIFELINE
An Italian shipowner said two cargoes of Russian diesel had reached the Syrian port of Banias this month. It was unclear who was behind the shipments and there was no evidence they violated international sanctions against Syria.
"(Our vessels) loaded two cargoes of gasoil in Russia at the beginning of December for delivery to the East Mediterranean. The charterer then asked us to deliver the volumes to Banias," said Paolo Cagnoni, who heads Mediterranea di Navigazione S.p.A., the family-run Italian tanker firm.
He declined to disclose the names of the vessel charterers and the recipient of the deliveries, which amount to around 42,000 metric tonnes of gasoil worth close to $40 million at current market prices.

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2012 a year of unparalleled justice for child sex abuse victims

 Experts say 2012 was a year of unparalleled justice for child sex abuse victims, but whether the string of high-profile convictions will translate into a turning point for juvenile safety remains to be seen.
The year's headlines heralded the criminal convictions of former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky, Monsignor William Lynn of the Catholic Church's Philadelphia Archdiocese and ultra-Orthodox Jewish therapist Nechemya Weberman, a prominent figure in New York's Satmar Hasidic sect.
Sandusky, 68, was sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars for raping and molesting 10 boys, some in the campus football showers. Lynn, 61, was ordered to prison for up to six years for covering up for pedophile priests. Weberman, 54, faces up to 25 years' imprisonment when he is sentenced on January 9 for sexually abusing a girl during counseling sessions.
Each conviction hinged on the testimony of victims brave enough to shatter years of silence surrounding the abuse. Each verdict was reached by a jury determined to decide fairly in the shadow of a revered institution that, at best, ignored the crimes, sometimes for years.
"2012 is a landmark in the drive to reduce and deter community-based abuse," said Marci Hamilton, a law professor at Yeshiva University and an advocate for victims of clergy sex crimes.
"The key here is modern-day courage," Hamilton said. "It took extraordinary courage for survivors to break ranks from their communities and accuse those inside the community."
Decades of secretiveness have shrouded child sex abuse within institutions that turned a blind eye, said David Clohessy, director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
One development encouraging victims to come forward today is more women in law enforcement and criminal justice who may seem more approachable, experts say. Another is a growing acceptance of homosexuality, which could help ease the victims' humiliation, and the idea that survivors with calamitous lives may nevertheless be telling the truth, experts say.
"We're learning that victims inevitably seem troubled and flawed. It's very rare that someone can be sexually violated as a child and live a charmed, perfect life," Clohessy said.
Heightened publicity has also drawn out victims who now know they are not alone, said David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.
"The climate is so much better for survivors than it was a decade ago when they felt isolated and like a freak," Finkelhor said.
"Almost everyone knows this happens to other people now. It's not nearly as stigmatizing," he said.
The momentum in prosecuting child sex abuse cases depends upon many factors, including whether state legislatures broaden the time frame for victims seeking justice, a move under discussion in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
By the time a child victim is able to confront an assailant, a state's statute of limitations may prevent prosecution. If victims are still eligible to file civil lawsuits, however, the surrounding publicity may draw out other victims and could lead to subsequent criminal prosecutions, advocates say.
"When a predator is exposed in any way, in any form, it encourages victims, witnesses, whistle-blowers to step forward and perhaps file criminal charges," Clohessy said.
"Obviously, kids are safest when predators are jailed," he said. "Sometimes civil suits lead to criminal prosecution. Even when they don't, they warn people about a potentially dangerous child molester.

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Two drone strikes kill five in Yemen: officials

At least five people were killed in two drone strikes in south Yemen on Monday in what security and local officials said were attacks on suspected al Qaeda-linked insurgents.
Improving stability and security in Yemen is a priority for the United States and its Gulf Arab allies because of its strategic position next to the world's top oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, and shipping lanes, and because it is home to one of the most active wings of al Qaeda.
Monday's strikes were the first in almost two months by pilotless aircraft against suspected al Qaeda men in Yemen, an impoverished country of mountains and desert on the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula.
The United States has escalated its use of drones against al Qaeda in Yemen, where the group exploited mass anti-government unrest last year to seize swathes of territory in the south before being driven out by a military offensive in June.
The officials said the first drone strike hit a vehicle in a town in al-Bayda province, killing at least two suspected al Qaeda militants. One of those killed in the attack was a Jordanian citizen, a local official and a resident said.
Family members of the other man, a Yemeni called Abdul Raouf Naseeb, confirmed he was one of those killed.
A Yemeni al Qaeda militant of that name narrowly escaped a U.S. drone strike in November 2002 that killed several al Qaeda operatives including Qaed Salim Sinan al Harithi, an alleged plotter behind the bombing of the USS Cole off Yemen in October 2000 in which 17 U.S. sailors were killed.
In the second drone strike on Monday, at least three people riding two motorcycles and carrying pistols were killed by a missile in Hadramout province, a security official said, adding that they were suspected members of al Qaeda.
Residents said the Hadramout attack happened on the outskirts of the coastal town of al-Sheher. The residents said a fourth person was wounded in the strike.
The U.S.-backed military offensive drove the militants out of areas they seized in the south but has not prevented them from launching attacks that have dealt damaging blows to the army and security apparatus.
Naseeb had fled to al-Bayda from Lawdar province during a U.S.-backed military offensive in Lawdar earlier in 2012.

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France extends deadline for publishers' talks with Google

 The French government said it would extend to the end of January the deadline for talks between Google Inc and the French press to settle a dispute over the search engine's links to online news articles.
Press associations in France, and other European countries, want Google to pay when it displays links to newspapers in Internet searches.
In reply, Google has threatened to stop indexing articles from the French press.
Talks between the search engine and French publishers, which the government said are advancing, were expected to wrap up by the end of the year.
If no deal were struck, France would press ahead with a law that would force Google to pay for the right to provide links to online news articles.

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Wells Fargo Web site troubles persist, U.S. OCC issues cyber alert

 Wells Fargo & Co customers on Friday had trouble accessing the bank's Web site for a fourth day, as a federal regulator reiterated the need for banks to have systems in place to ward off cyber attacks.
A spokeswoman for the No. 4 U.S. bank by assets said some customers may have intermittent access to their online banking, although the high volume of traffic that has flooded the site has declined.
"Our technical teams have been working around the clock to ensure our Web site is accessible to our customers," bank spokeswoman Bridget Braxton said. The bank has been posting apologies on its Twitter account.
Since September, a hacker activist group called the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters has said it was targeting major banks with so-called denial of service cyber attacks. These attacks can disrupt service by deluging Web sites with high traffic.
On Tuesday, the group said in an Internet posting that it would target the "5 major US banks." In a similar posting last week, it forecast attacks against banks that included PNC Financial Services Group Inc and U.S. Bancorp, which reported some disruptions.
A PNC spokesman on Friday said the bank's systems were operating normally. Spokespersons for Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co and U.S. Bancorp declined to comment. Citigroup Inc could not be immediately reached.
In its alert on Friday, the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates national banks and thrifts, said groups launching denial of service attacks had varying motives, from gaining public attention to diverting the attention of banks while launching simultaneous attacks to commit fraud or steal proprietary information.
"Banks need to have a heightened sense of awareness regarding these attacks and employ appropriate resources to identify and mitigate the associated risks," the alert said.
Banks should have sufficient staffing during attacks, work with third-party providers and share information with other banks, the OCC said.
Of five major banks, Wells Fargo on Friday had spurred the most complaints from users about access problems, according to the Web site SiteDown.co, which tracks customer reports. It listed 576 "downtime reports" in the past 24 hours.
Wells Fargo says it has 21 million active online banking customers.

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Facebook Poke App Is Frustrating as Hell

Facebook Poke: Startup Screen
Poke, the new iPhone app from Facebook, lets you send short messages, photos and videos to friends that automatically self destruct after a few seconds. If you have the Facebook app on your phone already, logging in is effortless.
Click here to view this gallery.
[More from Mashable: 2012′s Biggest Winners and Losers]
I was never a big poker on Facebook. When I joined the social network in 2007, giving someone a "poke" was still pretty common. It was a connection that stopped short of an actual friend request, a way to test the waters of a reconnection with, say, an ex.
The new app, Facebook Poke (as it's listed in the App Store), doesn't have much in common with poking of old. It's essentially a clone of other texting apps where all the messages have a built-in self-destruct. It's ideal for clandestine activities, shall we say.
[More from Mashable: Facebook Introduces Snapchat Competitor, Poke]
Here's how it works: Let's say you have a sudden urge to send one of your Facebook friends a photo of a, er, cucumber. But you don't want to just send them a cucumber pic that they could post and re-share to the world. Poke lets you send the pic, but the recipient will only have 1, 3, 5 or 10 seconds to view your majestic vegetable. And they need to press and hold the screen while viewing, or the pic goes away.
You can send photos, videos or text messages via Poke, although you can't use it for anything too elaborate since the message content lasts 10 seconds maximum. After that, boom. The message, whatever it was, is gone forever. There isn't even a record on the sender's phone (although a log of who you've poked and who's poked you still remains).
SEE ALSO: Feel Your Facebook Pokes With This Poking Machine [VIDEO]
Poke is pretty unforgiving. The recipient must press and hold the notification to see the content. Once you touch, the countdown starts, and there's no going back -- even if you let go. Videos just stop, with no chance of re-watching. You slip, and you're done.
I suspect Poke will engender a lot of frustration because of this limitation. You feel as if it should at least pause the countdown when you remove your finger.
The app also lets you just "poke" people -- meaning send a message with no content -- about the only way the app is similar to the old act of poking. Those are just simple notifications, and don't expire.
It gets more annoying: All your poke recipients need to download the app to see them. Poking only works on mobile right now, and Facebook's been careful to ensure notifications for incoming pokes only appear in its mobile apps.
Checking out your profile on the web won't reveal any trace of poking. On a smartphone, a note appears that encourages pokees to download the app.
What if someone does a screengrab of your poke, turning it into something more permanent? There's nothing you can do, but the app will inform you if someone does that, with a "flash" icon beside their name in your feed. If you see your ephemeral wild moment appear on Tumblr the next day, at least you'll know who to blame.
Poke isn't that intuitive. It displays some basic instructions when you first log in, but would benefit greatly from one of those tutorial overlays that have become ubiquitous among iOS apps. Also, I find it odd that your front-facing camera isn't selected by default. But maybe my expectation for the subject material of most pokes is off the mark.
You can add text and colored line drawings to any pics you send. That's helpful to get the attention on the thing in the photo you really want the person to look at in those three seconds of poke life.
At first I found it frustrating that Poke doesn't let you take horizontal photos or videos. But that's actually a good idea. If you think about it, if the only people seeing this content are people glancing at their phones for a few seconds, so vertical pics make total sense. In the time it took a person to turn their phone and the accelerometer to react, the message will probably be gone. If you want masterpieces, try Flickr.
Bottom line: Poke is an annoying app, but it probably has more to do with the nature of what it's trying to do than any design flaws. How do you like Poke? Let us know in the comments.

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HTC upgrades Android devices faster than any of its rivals

The problem with Android has always been the erratic schedules manufacturers and carriers use to update devices. Due to custom user interfaces that are used to differentiate devices from the large pool of Android vendors, manufacturers often require more time to update devices than Google (GOOG) does for its own Nexus line of smartphones and tablets. Smartphone makers must then submit their update to the carriers for further testing, a process that can take months. This process leaves a majority of smartphones and tablets left running an old and outdated version of Android. ArsTechnica took an extensive look at the slow history of Android updates for smartphones from LG (006570), Motorola, Samsung (005930) and HTC (2498), on the networks of the four major U.S. carriers — Verizon (VZ), AT&T (T), Sprint (S) and T-Mobile. The results may surprise you.
[More from BGR: Fan-made tweak gives Apple a blueprint for better multitasking in iOS 7 [video]]
HTC fared the best when it came to updating its devices, with an average time of 4.8 months, although Samsung’s updating schedule dramatically improved with its Galaxy S III smartphone, which was updated in an average of four and a half months. Overall the company updated its devices in an average of 6.9 months, better than Motorola and LG, which averaged 8.6 months and 11.8 months, respectively. Motorola does not plan to update the DROID 3, Atrix 4G and Photon 4G, however, which is a reason for concern.
[More from BGR: Windows already threatening iPhone in Southern Europe]
On the carrier side of things, T-Mobile was found to be the most reliable with an average time of 5.8 months for updating devices. Sprint is the second best with an average of 6.5 months and unsurprisingly AT&T and Verizon are found at the bottom of the pack with average times of 7.8 months and 8 months, respectively.
In the end, if you are looking for a smartphone that will always be up-to-date with the latest version of Android, a Nexus device is your best bet. The unlocked version of the Galaxy Nexus receives its updates directly from Google, while the Sprint and Verizon variants experienced an average update time of only 2.5 months.
If you prefer a different device, an HTC or Samsung smartphone running on T-Mobile or Sprint will be updated in a timely manner, based on ArsTechnica’s findings.

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Google, Motorola plotting a so-called ‘X Phone’ to take on the iPhone and Galaxy S III

Motorola engineers are said to be working on a “sophisticated” smartphone that will “provide more potent competition” to the iPhone, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. Google (GOOG) hopes the handset, which is known internally as “X Phone,” will stand apart from existing devices, although the company is said to be running into some obstacles. The device will reportedly be equipped with a “top-notch” camera and photo software, which previous Google-branded  handsets have lacked. Motorola is also said to be interested in using a bendable display and materials that would make the X Phone more durable. Some of the phone’s features were said to be draining the device’s battery life, however, and the company is also said to be having difficulties with manufacturing and supply-chain management. The X Phone will reportedly be released next year, at which point Motorola engineers will begin work on an “X tablet.

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