Firm enlists Winston the homing pigeon to transfer data – because he’s faster than broadband

A company is to start using a carrier pigeon to transfer data between its offices – because bosses believe it will be quicker than broadband.

IT experts at a firm in South Africa said it takes up to six hours to transfer four gigabytes of encrypted data between two of its offices which lie 50 miles apart.

Today staff at the financial services company will save valuable time by instead having the information transported by a homing pigeon named Winston.

Workers will attach a memory card containing the data to bird’s leg and let nature take its course.

Experts believe the specially-trained 11-month-old pigeon will complete the flight in just 45 minutes – and at a fraction of the cost.

Full Article

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Baptist church pulls plug on Pepsi products

BRANDON – A mega church that draws several thousand worshippers to Sunday services has pulled the plug on Pepsi products.

The last of 10 Pepsi vending machines were wheeled out the door this week at Bell Shoals Baptist Church and replaced with Coke machines, but the switch wasn’t spurred by a taste test.

Terry Kemple, a member of Bell Shoals Baptist and president of the Community Issues Council, said the church’s decision to boycott Pepsi products came after months of failed discussions with the soft drink company.

The council, formed “to promote and protect Judeo-Christian values” according to its Web site, and church officials asked the soft drink company to curb its support of groups, events and legal issues that “oppose traditional family values,” Kemple said.

The company, Kemple said, sponsors major gay pride parades and events across the country.

Full Tampa Bay Online Article

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Study: Parenthood Makes Moms More Liberal, Dads More Conservative

Parenthood is pushing mothers and fathers in opposite directions on political issues associated with social welfare, from health care to education, according to new research from North Carolina State University.

“Parenthood seems to heighten the political ‘gender gap,’ with women becoming more liberal and men more conservative when it comes to government spending on social welfare issues,” says Dr. Steven Greene, an associate professor of political science at NC State and co-author of the study. Greene and Dr. Laurel Elder of Hartwick College used data on the 2008 presidential election from the American National Election Studies to evaluate the voting behavior of men and women who have children at home. Parents who have grown children were not part of the study.

“Basically, women with children in the home were more liberal on social welfare attitudes, and attitudes about the Iraq War, than women without children at home,” Greene says, “which is a very different understanding of the politics of mothers than captured by the ‘Security Mom’ label popular in much media coverage. But men with kids are more conservative on social welfare issues than men without kids.” Men with kids did not differ from men without kids in their attitudes towards Iraq.

Full NCSU Press Release

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