Interesting Current Events

[VinReaper]

I thought that this would be a fun thread to start being that the forum is made of people from all over the world. So current events to me are most definitely different then current events to you! Let's make the world a little smaller and share all that's going on!

[VinReaper]

http://www.opencourse.info/astronomy/introduction/04.motion_moon/lunar_eclipse_total.gif

Lunar eclipse to occur Wednesday night

By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science WriterTue Feb 19, 7:48 PM ET

The last total lunar eclipse until 2010 occurs Wednesday night, with cameo appearances by Saturn and the bright star Regulus on either side of the veiled full moon.

Skywatchers viewing through a telescope will have the added treat of seeing Saturn's handsome rings.

Weather permitting, the total eclipse can be seen from North and South America. People in Europe and Africa will be able to see it high in the sky before dawn on Thursday.

As the moonlight dims — it won't go totally dark — Saturn and Regulus will pop out and sandwich the moon. Regulus is the brightest star in the constellation Leo.

Jack Horkheimer, host of the PBS show "Star Gazer," called the event "the moon, the lord of the rings and heart of the lion eclipse."

Wednesday's event will be the last total lunar eclipse until Dec. 20, 2010. Last year there were two.

The weather could be a spoiler for many in the United States. Cloudy skies are expected for most of the Western states with a chance of snow from the heartland to the East Coast, said Stuart Seto of the National Weather Service.

"It looks like it's going to be a hard one to spot," Seto said.

A total lunar eclipse occurs when the full moon passes into Earth's shadow and is blocked from the sun's rays that normally illuminate it. During an eclipse, the sun, Earth and moon line up, leaving a darkened moon visible to observers on the night side of the planet.

The moon doesn't go black because indirect sunlight still reaches it after passing through the Earth's atmosphere. Since the atmosphere filters out blue light, the indirect light that reaches the moon transforms it into a reddish or orange tinge, depending on how much dust and cloud cover are in the atmosphere at the time.

Wednesday's total eclipse phase will last nearly an hour. Earth's shadow is expected to blot out the moon beginning around 7 p.m. on the West Coast and 10 p.m. on the East Coast. West Coast skygazers will miss the start of the eclipse because it occurs before the moon rises.

Unlike solar eclipses which require protective eyewear, lunar eclipses are safe to view with the naked eye.

Later this year, in August, there will be a total solar eclipse and a partial lunar eclipse.

___

On the Net:

NASA's lunar eclipse page:
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/lunar.html

VR

[VinReaper]

Not a real story unfortunately. Snopes has debunked it, but its message of Patriotism still rings true. That feeling you get when you read it is what is important. :thumbs2:


http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o5/Nuffshows/Brutus.jpg

The K9 above is Brutus, a military K9 at McChord. He's huge - part Boxer
and part British Bull Mastiff and tops the scales at 200 lbs. His handler
took the picture. Brutus is running toward me because he knows I have some
Milk Bone treats, so he's slobbering away! I had to duck around a tree just
before he got to me in case he couldn't stop, but he did. Brutus won the
Congressional Medal of Honor last year from his tour in Iraq. His handler
and four other soldiers were taken hostage by insurgents.
Brutus and his handler communicate by sign language and he
gave Brutus the signal that meant 'go away but come back and find me.
The Iraqis paid no attention to Brutus. He came back later and quietly tore
the throat out of one guard at one door and another guard at another door.
He then jumped against one of the doors repeatedly (the guys were being
held in an old warehouse) until it opened. He went in and untied his
handler and they all escaped. He's the first K9 to receive this honor.
If he knows you're ok, he's a big old lug and wants to sit in your lap.
Enjoys the company of cats.

Original Post -Nuff

VR

[spider-man]

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o5/Nuffshows/Brutus.jpg

The K9 above is Brutus, a military K9 at McChord. He's huge - part Boxer
and part British Bull Mastiff and tops the scales at 200 lbs. His handler
took the picture. Brutus is running toward me because he knows I have some
Milk Bone treats, so he's slobbering away! I had to duck around a tree just
before he got to me in case he couldn't stop, but he did. Brutus won the
Congressional Medal of Honor last year from his tour in Iraq. His handler
and four other soldiers were taken hostage by insurgents.
Brutus and his handler communicate by sign language and he
gave Brutus the signal that meant 'go away but come back and find me.
The Iraqis paid no attention to Brutus. He came back later and quietly tore
the throat out of one guard at one door and another guard at another door.
He then jumped against one of the doors repeatedly (the guys were being
held in an old warehouse) until it opened. He went in and untied his
handler and they all escaped. He's the first K9 to receive this honor.
If he knows you're ok, he's a big old lug and wants to sit in your lap.
Enjoys the company of cats.

Original Post -Nuff

VR

:buttrock: That is freakin awesome!!!! on a side note what the hell is wrong with this forum. I thought I was back on dial up:mad:

[VinReaper]

:buttrock: That is freakin awesome!!!! on a side note what the hell is wrong with this forum. I thought I was back on dial up:mad:

Please read the other thread I have posted called Bandwidth explained! it is also in the General discussion section!

[VinReaper]

http://www.scantours.com/images/Norway/svalbard_map.jpg

Magnitude-6.2 quake hits Norway

By DOUG MELLGREN, Associated Press Writer 55 minutes ago

A magnitude-6.2 earthquake, the largest ever recorded on Norwegian territory, hit off the Arctic Svalbard islands early Thursday, the national seismic monitoring center said. No casualties or damage were reported.

The quake could have been catastrophic if it had hit a more densely populated area, said Conrad Lindholm, senior researcher of the seismic institute NORSAR.

"This is extremely rare," Lindholm said by telephone, adding it was the strongest quake in Norway since it started taking records about a century ago.

The Web site of the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 for the temblor, but did not say whether it was a record for Norway.

The quake was centered under waters, about 90 miles southeast of Longyearbyen, the main settlement on Svalbard, Lindholm said.

He said there could be aftershocks, but little chance they would move closer to the few settlements on the sparsely populated islands, some 300 miles north of the Norwegian mainland.

Small quakes are quite common in Norway and rarely cause damage.

Herdis Lien, one of roughly 1,800 residents of Longyearbyen, said on the state radio network NRK that she was woken up by the earthquake.

"I woke up because my bed was shaking, and everything was rattling in the house," she said. "It was very unpleasant."

The Svalbard governor's office told NRK that there were no immediate reports of damage, possibly because virtually all buildings in Longyearbyen are built on pilings driven into the permafrost, which can withstand more shaking than conventional foundations.

VR

[abarron]

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o5/Nuffshows/Brutus.jpg

The K9 above is Brutus, a military K9 at McChord. He's huge - part Boxer
and part British Bull Mastiff and tops the scales at 200 lbs. His handler
took the picture. Brutus is running toward me because he knows I have some
Milk Bone treats, so he's slobbering away! I had to duck around a tree just
before he got to me in case he couldn't stop, but he did. Brutus won the
Congressional Medal of Honor last year from his tour in Iraq. His handler
and four other soldiers were taken hostage by insurgents.
Brutus and his handler communicate by sign language and he
gave Brutus the signal that meant 'go away but come back and find me.
The Iraqis paid no attention to Brutus. He came back later and quietly tore
the throat out of one guard at one door and another guard at another door.
He then jumped against one of the doors repeatedly (the guys were being
held in an old warehouse) until it opened. He went in and untied his
handler and they all escaped. He's the first K9 to receive this honor.
If he knows you're ok, he's a big old lug and wants to sit in your lap.
Enjoys the company of cats.

Original Post -Nuff

VR

That is awesome.
That dog deserves a medal after that

[VinReaper]

That is awesome.
That dog deserves a medal after that

And got the greatest one even a man can get in this country. The CMH! The Congressional Medal of Honor.

It was well deserved.

VR

[VinReaper]

That is awesome.
That dog deserves a medal after that

Any great news from the UK! Please post it! I am sure there is!


VR

[abarron]

Not really.
Is cold the usual stuff

[abarron]

Ok try this from BBC

Gazza held after hotel incident
Former England footballer Paul Gascoigne has been detained under the Mental Health Act following an incident at a hotel in Newcastle.
Northumbria Police said a 40-year-old man was detained following an incident of disorderly behaviour at the Malmaison Hotel early on Wednesday.

Officers later visited Mr Gascoigne at Gateshead's Hilton Hotel after concerns were raised about his behaviour.

Police said he was not in custody and was now receiving medical treatment.

[VinReaper]

Ok try this from BBC

Gazza held after hotel incident
Former England footballer Paul Gascoigne has been detained under the Mental Health Act following an incident at a hotel in Newcastle.
Northumbria Police said a 40-year-old man was detained following an incident of disorderly behaviour at the Malmaison Hotel early on Wednesday.

Officers later visited Mr Gascoigne at Gateshead's Hilton Hotel after concerns were raised about his behaviour.

Police said he was not in custody and was now receiving medical treatment.

What did he do? Hit sounds like he had, what is to me, a regular Friday night out. LOL!

VR

[abarron]

This is the kinda place i live in

Child, 12, guilty of raping boy
A 12-year-old boy has been convicted of raping a younger boy in a garden in Bradford, West Yorkshire.
A jury at Bradford Crown Court heard a boy aged five was forced to perform a sex act on the older boy, in return for being allowed to play on a trampoline.

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has been cleared of similar charges against an eight-year-old.

He will be placed on the Sex Offenders Register and sentenced on 28 March. The incident happened last August.

The Crown Prosecution Service said it believed the 12-year-old boy was the youngest person to be convicted of rape in West Yorkshire.

Neil Franklin, chief crown prosecutor for West Yorkshire, said: "Any case where the perpetrator and victim are both children will always involve extremely difficult decisions and very careful judgement on the part of prosecutors, particularly where there is evidence of a sexual crime.

"We are satisfied that the right decisions were taken in dealing with this case."

[VinReaper]

This is the kinda place i live in

Child, 12, guilty of raping boy
A 12-year-old boy has been convicted of raping a younger boy in a garden in Bradford, West Yorkshire.
A jury at Bradford Crown Court heard a boy aged five was forced to perform a sex act on the older boy, in return for being allowed to play on a trampoline.

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has been cleared of similar charges against an eight-year-old.

He will be placed on the Sex Offenders Register and sentenced on 28 March. The incident happened last August.

The Crown Prosecution Service said it believed the 12-year-old boy was the youngest person to be convicted of rape in West Yorkshire.

Neil Franklin, chief crown prosecutor for West Yorkshire, said: "Any case where the perpetrator and victim are both children will always involve extremely difficult decisions and very careful judgement on the part of prosecutors, particularly where there is evidence of a sexual crime.

"We are satisfied that the right decisions were taken in dealing with this case."

What it failed to tell us is, "Where were the parents at this time?"

It is primarily there fault. The should be held equally if not more responsible then the child. The old adage you are a refection of your parents is more then an adage it is the truth.

What a terrible thing!

VR

[abarron]

I always blame the parents!!
Something i remind mine of constantly

[VinReaper]

I always blame the parents!!
Something i remind mine of constantly

Absolutely! You reap what you sow! In all senses of the words! :D

VR

[daveyyojimbo]

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o5/Nuffshows/Brutus.jpg

The K9 above is Brutus, a military K9 at McChord. He's huge - part Boxer
and part British Bull Mastiff and tops the scales at 200 lbs. His handler
took the picture. Brutus is running toward me because he knows I have some
Milk Bone treats, so he's slobbering away! I had to duck around a tree just
before he got to me in case he couldn't stop, but he did. Brutus won the
Congressional Medal of Honor last year from his tour in Iraq. His handler
and four other soldiers were taken hostage by insurgents.
Brutus and his handler communicate by sign language and he
gave Brutus the signal that meant 'go away but come back and find me.
The Iraqis paid no attention to Brutus. He came back later and quietly tore
the throat out of one guard at one door and another guard at another door.
He then jumped against one of the doors repeatedly (the guys were being
held in an old warehouse) until it opened. He went in and untied his
handler and they all escaped. He's the first K9 to receive this honor.
If he knows you're ok, he's a big old lug and wants to sit in your lap.
Enjoys the company of cats.

Original Post -Nuff

VR

Amazing! What an awesome dog! I'm gonna teach my chihuahua how to do that.

[VinReaper]

Hey Mods!

Again thanks for moving it here! I always make that mistake and put in the General Statue collecting forum by accident.


VR

[VinReaper]

"Girl" at school was 39-year-old man
Fri Feb 22, 2008 10:58am EST

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese man was arrested for trespassing this week after turning up at a high school dressed in a girl's uniform and a long wig, local police said.

Thirty-nine-year-old Tetsunori Nanpei told police he had bought the uniform over the Internet and put it on to take a stroll near the school in Saitama, north of Tokyo, on Wednesday, the daily Asahi Shimbun said.

When students standing outside the gates started to scream at the sight of him, he dashed inside the school grounds, hoping to blend in with the crowds of teenagers, the paper said.

They also screamed, forcing the man to flee, losing his wig in the process. A school clerk pursued him and stopped him at a nearby riverbank, the paper said.

Police confirmed the arrest of the man in school uniform and wig but declined to give further details.

(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds; Editing by Alex Richardson)

What is this world coming to?

VR

[hawkeyethearcher]

i watched this on tv today. they had a close up of the plane when it landed. everything was fine. the pilot did a wheely all the way tell he was slow enough and had to put the front down. it was pretty neat to watch since everyone was ok




MIAMI (Reuters)- An American Airlines jetliner with 138 people on board landed safely at Miami International Airport on Friday after being diverted because of a problem with its nose gear, officials said.

The single-aisle MD-80 will be taken out of service for checks, but the rest of American Airlines' 275-strong active fleet of MD-80s will continue flying, said a spokesman for the airline, which is a unit of AMR Corp.

The aircraft was American flight 862 from West Palm Beach, Florida, to Chicago's O'Hare airport, airport spokesman Greg Chin said. The plane circled the airport to burn off fuel before landing safely.

Problems with retracting front landing gear are rare, but not unprecedented, said American Airlines spokesman Tim Smith.

"This was not an extraordinary event," he said. "It is one we train for."

The 133 passengers on the flight will be put on a Boeing 737 flight to Chicago around 6 p.m. EST tonight, Smith said. Boeing's 737 is the usual single-aisle plane American operates out of Miami International Airport.

The MD-80, the workhorse of American Airlines' domestic fleet, was originally made by McDonnell Douglas, which is now part of Boeing. The plane type entered service in 1980 and was last produced in 1999.

A single-aisle, medium-range, twin-engined plane, it is designed to carry as many as 172 passengers, but usually carries around 140 in a typical configuration.

[VinReaper]

i watched this on tv today. they had a close up of the plane when it landed. everything was fine. the pilot did a wheely all the way tell he was slow enough and had to put the front down. it was pretty neat to watch since everyone was ok

Yeah I saw that as well. Incredible!

VR

[VinReaper]

Bizarre News Story!

Death Threat Elmo!!!

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/7742/elmobadqr7.jpg

http://www.tbo.com/video/xml/MGBBBA7WXCF.html


VR

[VinReaper]

http://blogs.ipswitch.com/archives/horse%20race.jpg

Horse racing bet makes man birthday millionaire
Tue Feb 26, 2008 11:43am EST

LONDON (Reuters) - A British man celebrated his 60th birthday in unexpected style at the weekend when a 50 pence ($1) bet on the horses turned him into an instant millionaire.

Fred Craggs, from Yorkshire in northern England, was not even aware of his win when he walked into a branch of the William Hill betting agency to see how he had done with his accumulator bet.

When he was informed of his good fortune he was said to have turned rather pale and muttered that he had better go home to tell his wife.

His coup was selecting eight winners running at various courses around the country -- starting with one called "Isn't That Lucky" and finishing with "A Dream Come True" -- at odds of 2,000,000 to one.

"This is the most amazing bet ever placed since betting shops were made legal in 1961," William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe said on Monday.

(Reporting by Jeremy Lovell; editing by Richard Balmforth)

[VinReaper]

http://images.jupiterimages.com/common/detail/32/51/23035132.jpg

A price to pay for saying "I don't"
Mon Feb 25, 2008 10:53am EST

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican brides and grooms who get cold feet before walking down the aisle will have to pay their significant other for the inconvenience, if a proposal by a local congressman is adopted.

In Mexico, weddings are big social events where large amounts of money are spent before the big day on gowns, tuxedos, catering and music bands and churches are even reserved years in advance.

Weddings of over 500, or even 1,000 guests, are frequently splashed across newspapers' social pages. According to Mexican tradition, the bride's family absorbs most of the expenses.

Jose Antonio Zepeda, a city deputy for President Felipe Calderon's conservative National Action Party, wants to introduce the idea of compensation for backing out of a wedding as part of changes to the capital's civil code.

"He or she who refuses to live up to a marriage commitment will pay for the expenses that the other party made in connection with the planned matrimony," Zepeda's proposal says.

Zepeda also wants lawmakers to give legal status to prenuptial agreements for those on their way to the altar in hopes it will make divorce settlements easier if the couple splits later on.

"We are looking to avoid emotional distress, cut divorce expenses and shorten the time that courts spend solving them," Zepeda told Reuters on Friday. The prenuptial agreement will be optional.

Divorce rates are on the rise in Mexico, which has a predominantly Catholic population of over 107 million. Currently, three out of 10 couples in Mexico City divorce, compared with just one in 10 in the 1970s, the congressman said.

Zepeda's proposal is expected to be voted by Mexico City's congress in March or April. If passed, it will only apply to heterosexual couples in the capital, which legalized gay unions in 2006.

(Reporting by Cyntia Barrera Diaz, editing by Jackie Frank)

[Ink]

our county auditor, got busted for tax fraud among other things yesterday

[hawkeyethearcher]

incase you are wondering what your tax dollars are going towards

AP - A killer who sued to have a sex change claims her body is becoming more masculine again because she's being denied treatment in prison as she awaits a ruling in her bid for the surgery. Michelle Kosilek, formerly known as Robert, said that for months she has not been allowed to have court-approved hair-removal treatment or access to a specialist to discuss her testosterone levels.

[VinReaper]

incase you are wondering what your tax dollars are going towards

AP - A killer who sued to have a sex change claims her body is becoming more masculine again because she's being denied treatment in prison as she awaits a ruling in her bid for the surgery. Michelle Kosilek, formerly known as Robert, said that for months she has not been allowed to have court-approved hair-removal treatment or access to a specialist to discuss her testosterone levels.

What is this world coming to? Are they kidding even entertaining stuff like that. If you commit a crime you should lose your rights. They aren't taken away from you when you commit a crime as heinous as murder, you forfeit them.

VR

[VinReaper]

http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/02/27/australia.snake.ap/art.snake.dog.ap.jpg

Snake eats family dog as kids watch

* Story Highlights
* 16-foot scrub python stalked family's pet for days, expert says
* Kids, ages 5 and 7, see their dog eaten by snake
* Snake digesting dog in zoo, will be released into wild

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) -- A 16-foot python stalked a family dog for days before swallowing the pet whole in front of horrified children in the Australian tropics, animal experts said Wednesday.

The boy and girl, aged 5 and 7, watched as the scrub python devoured their silky terrier-Chihuahua crossbreed Monday at their home near Kuranda in Queensland state.

Stuart Douglas, owner of the Australian Venom Zoo in Kuranda, said scrub pythons typically eat wild animals such as wallabies, a smaller relative of the kangaroo, but sometimes turn to pets in urban areas.

"It actively stalked the dog for a number of days," Douglas said.

"The family that owned the dog had actually seen it in the dog's bed, which was a sign it was out to get it," he added.

"They should have called me then, but (the snake) got away and three or four days later, I was called and went around and removed it" after the dog had been killed, Douglas said.

By the time Douglas arrived, all that could be seen of the dog was its hind legs and tail.

The zoo manager, Todd Rose, said pythons squeeze their prey to death before swallowing it whole. The 5-year-old dog would have been suffocated within minutes. VideoWatch snake handler show off dog-eating python »

"The lady who was there threw some plastic chairs at the snake, but you've got to remember that this is about 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of aggressive muscle," Rose said.

Removing the half-swallowed dog could have harmed or even killed the python, Rose said, because dogs have sharp teeth and claws that could do the snake internal damage if it were wrenched out.

The snake was still digesting the dog at the zoo Wednesday. It will soon be moved to the bush, Douglas said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

VR

[VinReaper]

http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/02/28/biker.meeting/art.cruiser.club.jpg
The robbers chose the wrong night to burst into the club where the Southern Cross Cruiser Club have their monthly meeting.


Hapless robbers target biker meeting

* Story Highlights
* Two masked, machete-wielding robbers burst into club and empty cash registers
* 50 bikers meeting in adjacent room hear commotion and intervene
* One would-be robber ends up hogtied; the other in hospital
* Police arrest men and charge both with attempted armed robbery

By CNN's Saeed Ahmed

(CNN) -- Two masked and machete-wielding men who barged into a club in Sydney, Australia, couldn't have picked a worse night for their robbery -- a monthly meeting of bikers.

About 50 burly bikers fought back with tables and chairs -- pretty much anything that wasn't bolted down. One would-be robber was tied up; the other in the hospital.

Police arrested both.

"These guys were absolutely dumb as bricks," Jerry Vancornewal, leader of the bikers, told CNN Thursday. "I can't believe they saw all the bikes parked up front and they were so stupid that they walked past in."

Vancornewal and his buddies were at the Regents Park Sporting and Community Club in Sydney when the two men wearing ski masks stormed in Wednesday night. They yelled at patrons to drop to the floor as they emptied cash registers at the bar.

Hearing the commotion from an adjacent room, Vancornewal and his pals with the Southern Cross Cruiser motorcycle club stomped through to the bar area to intervene.

"They (the robbers) thought they had the upper advantage with their knives and their machetes," Jim Webb, night supervisor of the club, told CNN. "They didn't expect to run into a bunch of guys carrying chairs and tables."

One of the would-be robbers crashed through a plate-glass door and jumped off a balcony.

"All he had to do was push the button and it automatically opened," Webb quipped.

New South Wales police said they arrested the 20-year-old man a short distance away.

The second man made a break for it through the club's service entrance, but the bikers tackled him near a neighbor's fence.

"We just grabbed him, crash-tackled him to the ground, hogtied him with electrical wire and left him for the cops," Vancornewal said.

Police confirmed in a statement that club patrons subdued the second man until officers arrived, but did not provide additional details. The suspect turned out to be a 16-year-old boy.

Both would-be robbers were charged with attempted armed robbery and "face disguised with intent to commit indictable offense," police said.

A third person, who was waiting in a getaway car, took off when the bikers threw pieces of furniture at him, Webb said. Police have not located him.

The Regents Park Sporting and Community Club is a place where locals come to enjoy drinks and take part in various games: cricket, soccer, lawn bowling. The biking enthusiasts meet there once a month to plan rides and other club activities.

In the last year or so, criminals have struck the club about 10 times, Webb said. And Wednesday night's incident, while unusual, wasn't the most memorable.

"We have these old bingo players and they are really serious about their games," Webb explained. "They do not like to be interrupted."

When robbers barged in one evening and announced that they were holding up the place, the players turned around and testily told them to be quiet.

"They were making it difficult for the players to hear the numbers being called," Webb said.

VR

[VinReaper]

http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/02/28/india.baby.ap/art.newborn.india.ap.jpg

Newborn survives fall through train toilet

* Story Highlights
* Newborn baby falls through the toilet on a moving train after being prematurely born
* Baby survives for 2 hours on the tracks before being found
* Toilets on Indian trains usually open directly onto track
* Baby has still not been named, was 10 weeks premature and weighed 3.22 pounds

AHMADABAD, India (AP) -- A newborn baby girl fell through the toilet in a moving train and onto the tracks moments after her mother prematurely gave birth, surviving nearly two hours before being found, relatives said Thursday.

The child's mother, who uses the single name Bhuri, was traveling with relatives on an overnight train when she went to the bathroom shortly before midnight Tuesday and unexpectedly gave birth to a baby girl, said Arjun Kumar, her brother-in-law.

"Later, she fell unconscious and the baby fell through the toilet," he continued. "Two stations later, we knocked at the door."

Bhuri opened the door, soaked in blood.

"When we asked her about what happened, she said the baby had fallen through onto the tracks," Kumar said.

Toilets on Indian trains usually have holes that open directly onto the tracks, and there were no indications Thursday that authorities doubted Bhuri's story or planned to investigate the incident.

Kumar said that after finding Bhuri, relatives pulled the train's emergency brake and told railway officials what had happened. A search was quickly organized, and guards at one of the stations the train had passed soon found the baby.

"She was on the rail track for almost 1½ to two hours," said Dr. Gautam Jain, a pediatrician at Rajasthan Hospital in Ahmadabad, in the western state of Gujarat, where the baby and mother were taken.

The child, who has not yet been named, was eight to 10 weeks premature and weighed only 3.22 pounds, Jain said. She had a low heart rate and body temperature.

"We do not expect such children to survive," Jain said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

New meaning to,"Throwing the baby out with the bathwater."

VR

[VinReaper]

Mother of two becomes Japan's oldest boxer at 44
Fri Feb 29, 2008 12:02pm EST

TOKYO (Reuters) - A 44-year-old mother of two has become Japan's oldest professional boxer after passing the Japanese board's license test.

Kazumi Izaki, who has daughters aged 21 and 14 and herself turns 45 next week, laced up her first pair of boxing gloves in 2001.

"She has passed," the Japan Boxing Commission (JBC) told Reuters Friday.

"This is first time she has held a JBC license and she is now Japan's oldest pro boxer."

Under JBC rules, applicants for a license must be under 32 but Izaki was allowed permission to fight because she previously won a Japanese title, albeit one not recognized by the country's governing body.

Hiroaki Yokota had held the distinction of being Japan's oldest professional boxer but the 46-year-old declined to renew his license.

"I try not to think about my age," the former aerobics instructor told reporters.

"I'm a mum but I'm going to give it everything I've got.

"I wanted to show my children that if you give up, then you're washed up!"

(Reporting by Alastair Himmer; Editing by John O'Brien)

[VinReaper]

Gun that killed JFK assassin in pop culture auction
Fri Feb 29, 2008 12:06pm EST

By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) - It is billed as the best pop culture collection ever assembled -- ranging from the gun used to kill the assassin of President John F. Kennedy to the Wicked Witch of the West's hat from "The Wizard of Oz."

Collected over the past 25 years by South Florida property developer Anthony Pugliese, the collection, which also includes a whip and the holy grail from "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," will be put up for auction next month in Las Vegas.

Arlan Ettinger, president of New York-based auction house Guernsey's, said the collection of 850 lots could fetch more than $5 million when it goes under the hammer at The Palms Resort and Casino on March 15 and 16.

"This collection is as good as it gets," said Ettinger, with "The Maltese Falcon" resin statuette sitting on his desk alongside the gun used to kill Kennedy's assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and the "Braveheart" sword from the Oscar-winning film.

"Most collections have one or two great things and then things trail off from there," he said. "This collection, there would have to be 100 items here, any one of which would be a star attraction anywhere else."

He said the Colt Cobra revolver used by Jack Ruby to kill Oswald in 1963, just days after Oswald was arrested for assassinating Kennedy, could fetch several million dollars alone. The initials of detectives who handled the gun are scratched on it.

"The whole world saw that unfold live and here's the very gun and the hat that Jack Ruby was wearing," said Ettinger, adding that the tag tied to Oswald's toe to identify his corpse and a lock of his hair were also to be auctioned.

Also up for grabs is the jacket worn by Beatle John Lennon in the "Imagine" video, the wedding dress worn by pop star Madonna in her "Like a Virgin" video, a "Superman" costume worn by Christopher Reeve, and an Andy Warhol paint brush.

Ettinger said Pugliese was selling his collection, which he had kept in a large vault at his offices, because it "had been his passion, but now has taken a back seat" to a green housing development he was working on.

Other items to be auctioned include a Federal Bureau of Investigation badge that belonged to the bureau's founder J. Edgar Hoover, a wig worn by Elizabeth Taylor for "Cleopatra," and the leather jacket worn by actor Brandon Lee when he was accidentally shot and killed while filming "The Crow."

(Editing by Eric Beech)

[VinReaper]

Jack the Ripper returns
Fri Feb 29, 2008 12:01pm EST

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - Jack the Ripper is about to return to the part of London he made his own private killing ground in one of history's most infamous unsolved crimes.

But in a country that has made headlines in the past week with the conviction of two serial murderers, the inhabitants of the now prosperous but once poverty-ridden East End of London need have no fears.

The return of the 19th century prostitute killer is in the form of an exhibition looking at the era, the area, the victims and the possible perpetrators of the crimes that shocked the nation and have since become a rich seam of popular fiction.

"We explore Jack the Ripper in the context of the East End and explain who lived there and what it was like to live there," said exhibition curator Julia Hoffbrand.

"The murders and the media interest they generated shone a light into a terrible conditions in the area which was riddled with prostitution, dirt, violence and crime," she told Reuters at a preview of the exhibition this week.

The lurid news coverage of the murders even prompted Queen Victoria to write asking if more could be done for the destitute women of the squalid, disease-ridden and vermin infested area.

The exhibition, which opens in London's Museum in Docklands on May 15 and runs to November 2, also peels away some of the myths surrounding the murderer whose identity remains to this day a topic of heated speculation.

It is commonly assumed that the Ripper killed and mutilated five young prostitutes.

But using police records the exhibition reveals that the authorities believed up to 11 murders may have been committed by the same person between April 1888 and early 1891.

"What emerges is the fact that an unknown number of women were actually murdered in the area at the time," Hoffbrand said.

Current theories also tend to focus on the killer being a member of the gentry -- and possibly even royalty -- wreaking his sadistic revenge on women from the gutter.

But Hoffbrand noted that most of the names mentioned in this context did not appear until after World War Two, and speculated that this previously absent class distinction may have been a result of the social upheavals that followed the conflict.

"The people mentioned at the time were Jews -- a group that had only recently moved into the East End -- doctors and radical socialists. They were all people who lived in the area. The outsider theories came many years later," she said.

The name came from a letter written in red ink in a flowing hand that was sent to the central news agency and starts: "I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they won't fix me just yet..." and was signed Jack the Ripper.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of lectures and talks and guided walks down the streets where the Ripper committed his bloody deeds 120 years ago.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.

VR

[VinReaper]

http://english.cri.cn/mmsource/images/2008/03/01/4086jigsaw.jpg

The last element, weighing 100 tonnes, of the ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) experiment is lowered into the cave at the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN (Centre Europeen de Recherche Nucleaire) in Meyrin, near Geneva February 29, 2008.

Physics lab completes world's largest jigsaw puzzle
Fri Feb 29, 2008 11:05am EST

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) - A 100-tonne wheel, the last piece of an ambitious experiment that scientists hope will help unlock the secrets of the universe, was successfully lowered into an underground cavern on Friday.

It is the final major element in the ATLAS particle detector, the largest of four detectors being hooked up to the world's most powerful particle accelerator which the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) hopes to start up around the middle of 2008.

"This last piece completes this gigantic puzzle," CERN said in a statement.

The wheel was lowered down a 100-metre shaft and aligned within a millimeter of other detectors at CERN, the world's leading centre for particle research located at a sprawling complex along the Swiss-French border.

The ATLAS detector will measure particles called muons expected to be produced in particle collisions in the accelerator, known as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

The LHC will recreate conditions just after the Big Bang, which many scientists believe gave birth to the universe, by colliding two beams of particles at close to the speed of light.

"As particles pass through a magnetic field produced by superconducting magnets, this detector has the ability to accurately track them to the width of a human hair," CERN said.

Experiments at the LHC, which lies in an underground tunnel measuring 17 miles in circumference, should allow physicists to take a big leap on a journey that began with Isaac Newton's law of gravity, it said.

Science has been unable to explain fundamental questions such as how particles acquire mass. The experiments will also probe the mysterious dark matter of the universe and why there is more matter than antimatter.

"Soon the first protons will be smashed together and the secrets of our universe will begin to unravel," CERN said.

CERN spokesman James Gillies said: "We know about 4 percent of the universe. The LHC might teach us about what the remaining 96 percent of the universe is made of, what cosmologists call dark matter."

Once the LHC starts running, it is likely to take a year for "new physics" to emerge, he said. Useful science is expected to continue unfolding for up to 20 years.

Some 10,000 scientists from around the world have worked on the complex apparatus since construction began in 1994.

The majority, some 6,000, are from CERN's 20 European member states although Americans are the largest single nationality (1,000), followed closely by Russians, according to Gillies.

Before the LHC can be started up, some 38,000 tonnes of equipment must be cooled to minus 456 degrees Fahrenheit for the magnets to operate in a superconducting state. This is done using many tonnes of liquid nitrogen and liquid helium.

"That is actually colder than outer space. It is a very big task," Gillies said. "It's essentially how a refrigerator works, it is just an extraordinarily large one and the temperature is incredibly cold."

VR

[VinReaper]

http://images.usatoday.com/sports/_photos/2006/10/05/roethlisberger.jpg

Ben Roethlisberger signs 8-year extension with Steelers
By DAN NEPHIN, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 7 minutes ago


PITTSBURGH (AP)—Ben Roethlisberger signed an eight-year extension worth $102 million with the Pittsburgh Steelers that makes him one of the NFL’s highest-paid players.

The deal includes more than $36 million guaranteed, and keeps Roethlisberger with the Steelers through 2015.

“Ben has been an outstanding leader on the field for the Steelers since his rookie year and we are very happy to know that he will be our quarterback for many years to come,” Steelers president Art Rooney II said Monday in a statement.

Roethlisberger turned 26 on Sunday and said the contract was a great birthday present.

“This is about being a Pittsburgh Steeler for as long as I can be. I love Pittsburgh,” Roethlisberger said. He said he “wanted to be like the Dan Marinos, like the John Elways, guys who played with one team their whole career.”

The Pro Bowl quarterback led the Steelers to a Super Bowl victory two years ago and has been the starter in all four of seasons he’s been with the team.

Roethlisberger threw 32 touchdown passes with only 11 interceptions in leading the Steelers to the playoffs this season, bouncing back from an injury-marred season.

He was hurt in a serious motorcycle accident in the 2006 offseason, then underwent an appendectomy. Although he started 15 games, his play was subpar. He threw 23 interceptions, three more than he had thrown in his first two seasons, and Pittsburgh failed to make the playoffs.

This season, he led the Steelers to a 10-6 record and the AFC North title before they were eliminated by Jacksonville in the playoffs.

Roethlisberger was the third quarterback taken in the ‘04 draft, behind Eli Manning and Philip Rivers, and the 11th choice overall. He started 13 games his rookie season and was voted offensive rookie of the year, the first quarterback to win the award since it was first given in 1957. The next year he led the Steelers to a Super Bowl victory.

VR

[VinReaper]

Boss bans smelly undies

The boss of a Serbian company has banned staff from coming into work with dirty underwear.

Milomir Gligorijevic said: "I am fed up with people with poor personal hygiene standards. I have now made it a sackable offence for people to come in without having a shower - or with dirty underwear."

He has also banned staff from smelling after eating garlic - warning that they need to make sure they brush their teeth - and use perfume and deodorant.

Gligorijevic, who runs a 30-staff stationery company in the capital Belgrade, sent out an official memo to all employees demanding they adopt good standards of personal hygiene.

The memo warned all employees to make sure they brush their teeth, take showers regularly and change their underpants every day.

He did not say how he would make sure his clean underpants rule was followed but warned it would be enforced.

I can't believe that this had to be enfoced! :confused:

VR

[VinReaper]

World's fastest commute!

http://www.ananova.com/images/web/1260018.jpg

A Swiss company has created the world's fastest ever road vehicle - a 340mph bullet-shaped cross between a motorbike and a car.

The Acabion GTBO looks like a jet fighter ****pit on wheels - with stabilisers - and has the power-to-weight ratio of a Formula One car

The high-performance vehicle is neither motorbike or car so designers had to invent a new category of vehicle called a Road Streamliner.

Its makers claim it could reach 300mph in 30 seconds - much quicker than the Bugatti Veyron which takes 55 seconds to reach its top speed of 250mph.

An electric version with a top speed of around 300mph is also planned and its designer, former Porsche engineer Peter Maskus, sees it as the future of high-speed, low-emission transport.

Dr Maskus said: "The Acabion GTBO minimises weight and maximises power and aerodynamic efficiency. The effects are just out of this world."

Manufacturers expect the GTBO to be in production and on the road within three years. The bad news is the asking price is likely to be £1.5million.

VR

[VinReaper]

World's first six-legged octopus discovered

http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2008/TECH/03/04/octopus.uk/art.hexapus.jpg

* Story Highlights
* Six-legged octopus has been dubbed a 'hexapus' by marine experts
* Octopodes have eight arms and legs and missing limbs usually grow back
* Experts say that Henry's two missing limbs stem from a birth defect

By CNN's Saeed Ahmed

(CNN) -- English marine experts have laid their hands on an octopus that's missing two of its own: a six-limbed creature that they have dubbed 'hexapus.'

Ordinarily, octopodes have eight arms and legs. And should they lose one or more in an accident, they can grow the limbs back.

Which is what makes 'Henry' -- as staffers at Blackpool Sea Life Centre in northwest England have dubbed their find -- so unique.

His missing limbs stem from a birth defect.

"If you look closer between the legs, there's webbing that attaches each of the arms together," John Filmer of the Sea Life Centre told CNN Tuesday. "You'd assume if he'd lost one of his legs in an accident, there would be space for an arm to grow back.

"But there's no space for two extra legs to grow back. That's just how he is."

Staffers called others zoos and aquariums and scoured the Internet to see if there were records of similar creatures.

"No one has ever heard of another case of a six-legged octopus," said display superviser Carey Duckhouse.

'Henry' was picked up from a local zoo along with seven other octopodes for a new exhibit at the center. No one noticed his missing legs until he attached himself to the inside of his glass tank.

They named him 'Henry' because it alliterated well with 'hexapus.'

"It has also been mentioned in the grapevine that he was named after King Henry the VIII who had six wives when he should have had eight," Filmer, the centre's marketing director, said.

Until Henry, the most famous six-legged octopus was one that appeared in a 1955 B-movie, 'It Came From Beneath The Sea.'

As was common of many science fiction movies of the era, the film was made on a shoestring budget -- and designers left off two legs from the creature because of budget contraints.

Octopuses are renowned for having three hearts, blue blood and the ability to alter their skin complexion in the blink of an eye.

But, said the center, "(e)ven these astonishing characteristics however are commonplace compared to Henry's unique tally in the leg department."

Shouldn't it be a SEXTOPUS and not an octopus? And what do they call it to be PC, HEXAPUS!!

I just thought I should put that out there!!!

VR

[Primal]

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o5/Nuffshows/Brutus.jpg

The K9 above is Brutus, a military K9 at McChord. He's huge - part Boxer
and part British Bull Mastiff and tops the scales at 200 lbs. His handler
took the picture. Brutus is running toward me because he knows I have some
Milk Bone treats, so he's slobbering away! I had to duck around a tree just
before he got to me in case he couldn't stop, but he did. Brutus won the
Congressional Medal of Honor last year from his tour in Iraq. His handler
and four other soldiers were taken hostage by insurgents.
Brutus and his handler communicate by sign language and he
gave Brutus the signal that meant 'go away but come back and find me.
The Iraqis paid no attention to Brutus. He came back later and quietly tore
the throat out of one guard at one door and another guard at another door.
He then jumped against one of the doors repeatedly (the guys were being
held in an old warehouse) until it opened. He went in and untied his
handler and they all escaped. He's the first K9 to receive this honor.
If he knows you're ok, he's a big old lug and wants to sit in your lap.
Enjoys the company of cats.

Original Post -Nuff

VR

I thought this story was too good to be true.
http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/brutus.asp

Cool story though. :D

[VinReaper]

I thought it was too good to be true.
http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/brutus.asp

Cool story though. :D

That's too bad!!!

I knew I should have checked out snopes first before posting it!

But I will still enjoy the patriotism it purveys.

Thanks Primal!

Also, should I take it down, since it is really not news?

VR

[Primal]

That's too bad!!!

I knew I should have checked out snopes first before posting it!

But I will still enjoy the patriotism it purveys.

Thanks Primal!

Also, should I take it down, since it is really not news?

VR

Maybe make a comment about the authenticity of the story right before it.

[VinReaper]

Maybe make a comment about the authenticity of the story right before it.

Will do!

VR

[Fremen]

And here I was going, 'Oh my god! Really!' :banghead:

[VinReaper]

And here I was going, 'Oh my god! Really!' :banghead:

LOL! Sorry!

Will check the sources next time. All the rest are true though!

VR

[Fremen]

:stick:

[Primal]

All the rest are true though!

VR

Wanna bet? :eplus2:























Actually I havent checked them yet. :laugh:

[VinReaper]

Wanna bet? :eplus2:





Actually I havent checked them yet. :laugh:

Actually it was the only one I got second hand! The others come straight from the Associated press, Reuters or CNN.

VR

[VinReaper]

:stick:

Ok! Ok! Relax! I said I was sorry!

All of you should be posting News from your areas!

VR

[VinReaper]

http://i.a.cnn.net/si/2008/football/nfl/03/04/favre.retire.ap/t1_favreinside.jpg
Quarterback Brett Favre has started every Packers game since Sept. 27, 1992. - John Biever/SI

Three-time MVP calling it quits following 17 seasons
Posted: Tuesday March 4, 2008 9:52AM; Updated: Tuesday March 4, 2008 11:10AM

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) -- Brett Favre has decided to retire from the NFL after 17 seasons.

"He has had one of the greatest careers in the history of the National Football League, and he is able to walk away from the game on his own terms -- not many players are able to do that," Packers general manager Ted Thompson said Tuesday.

Favre's agent Bus Cook said the 38-year-old quarterback told him of his decision Monday night.

"Nobody pushed Bret Favre out the door, but then nobody encouraged him not to go out that door, either," Cook said by phone from his Hattiesburg, Miss., office.

FOX Sports first reported Tuesday that the Green Bay Packers quarterback informed the team in the last few days. ESPN.com said that according to Favre's agent the quarterback told coach Mike McCarthy of his decision.

The news was a surprise to at least one of Favre's teammates. Most players expected Favre to return after a successful 2007 season.

"I just saw it come across the TV," Packers wide receiver Koren Robinson said, when reached on his cell phone by The Associated Press.

The 38-year-old Favre, a three-time NFL MVP and one of the NFL's grittiest players, has made his annual flirtation with retirement a winter tradition in Wisconsin. He has taken weeks and even months to make his decision after recent seasons, with Cheeseheads hanging on his every word.

But unlike the final game of the 2006 season -- when Favre provided a cliffhanger by getting choked up in a television interview as he walked off the field in Chicago, only to return once again -- nearly everyone assumed he would be back this time. They were wrong.

Only two years removed from perhaps his worst season, Favre had a resurgence in 2007. He broke several career records. Among them was Dan Marino's career mark for career touchdown passes. He powered the Packers to an NFC North title and a 13-3 regular-season record and earned his ninth Pro Bowl spot.

Surrounded by an underrated group of wide receivers who proved hard to tackle after the catch, Favre had a career-high completion percentage of 66.5. He threw for 4,155 yards, 28 touchdowns and only 15 interceptions.

It was a remarkable turnaround from 2005, Favre's final season under former head coach Mike Sherman, when he threw a career-worst 29 interceptions as the Packers went 4-12.

Given Favre's career resurgence, it was widely assumed that he was leaning toward returning for the 2008 season.

He even said as much just before the Packers' Jan. 12 divisional playoff game against Seattle, telling his hometown newspaper that he wasn't approaching the game as if it would be his last and was more optimistic than in years past about returning.

"For the first time in three years, I haven't thought this could be my last game," Favre told the Biloxi (Miss.) Sun Herald. "I would like to continue longer."

Those comments sent premature shock waves across the state -- all the way up to the governor's office, where the political version of a false start was committed.

"Like all Packer fans, I am thrilled that Brett Favre will return to action next year for the green and gold," Gov. Jim Doyle said in a statement. "Brett Favre's tremendous work ethic and willingness to go out and play hard every day represent the true spirit of Wisconsin. I am hopeful that with this announcement behind us, Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers can focus on the task at hand: defeating the Seattle Seahawks."

The governor's office later amended the statement to say Doyle was "excited to hear Brett Favre talking about returning to action next year."

It was another example of the state's fascination with the future of its favorite quarterback.

Favre then finished the season on a sour note, suddenly showing his age in the Packers' 23-20 overtime loss to the New York Giants in the NFC Championship game.

Favre struggled in subzero temperatures, throwing an interception on the Packers' second play from scrimmage in overtime to set up the Giants' game-winning field goal.

After that game, Favre was noncommittal on his future. McCarthy said he wanted Favre to take a step back from the season before making a decision. But it was widely assumed he would be back.

"I think he's going to come back," Packers receiver Donald Driver said in early January. "I wouldn't be surprised if he comes back. He's having a great year, so it'd be great to see him come back if he decides to."

Retiring Packers chairman Bob Harlan figured Favre would be back, too.

"Yeah, I think he'll be back," Harlan said, on his final official day as the Packers' top executive. "And I felt that way the last couple years, when we've had these long debates about it. I just think he's such a competitor that as long as he feels he can compete, he's going to keep coming back."

Still, in the week leading to the playoff game against Seattle, Favre said his injuries were starting to linger.

"I'm not getting any younger," Favre said. "I wake up some days and think I can't even touch my toes. I think about that. I think, well, next year is not going to be like some refreshing, awakening season where all of a sudden you're going to feel great. That's not going to happen.

"I carry some of these things with me that maybe you wouldn't see. I tend to dwell on them, at least internally, more than I used to. I don't write them off as quickly as I used to."

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

How about that one?!

VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.gsprotection.com/Logo/GermanFlag1.gif

Whose soldiers are chubby and unfit?
Tue Mar 4, 2008 11:32am EST

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's young soldiers are fat, smoke too much and don't exercise enough, a report on the armed services said on Tuesday.

"The public perception is that soldiers are slim, sporty and healthy. Unfortunately, the reality is very different," said Germany's army commissioner Reinhold Robbe as he presented the report.

Some 40 percent of soldiers between 18 and 29 are overweight compared to 35 percent among Germany's civilian population, said the report, which also found young male and female soldiers smoked too much and failed to do enough sport.

"I make no secret of the fact that these results worry me a lot," said Robbe, who blamed a passive lifestyle among troops. Once one of the world's most-feared fighting forces, Germany's armed forces now have about 245,000 uniformed staff.

Dogged by the legacy of World War Two, it is only nine years ago that Germany engaged in its first foreign combat operations since 1945, taking part in NATO air strikes in Yugoslavia.

Roughly 9,000 German troops are deployed today in global hotspots including Afghanistan and Kosovo.

(Writing by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Stephen Weeks)

VR

[VinReaper]

"Eat whale and save the planet" - Norwegian lobby
Mon Mar 3, 2008 5:51pm EST

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO (Reuters) - Eat a whale and save the planet, a Norwegian pro-whaling lobby said on Monday of a study showing that harpooning the giant mammals is less damaging to the climate than farming livestock.

Environmental group Greenpeace dismissed the survey, saying almost every kind of food was more climate friendly than meat.

The survey, focused on whale boats' fuel use, showed that a kilo (2.2 lbs) of whale meat represented just 1.9 kilo (4.2 lbs) of greenhouse gases against 15.8 for beef, 6.4 for pork and 4.6 for chicken.

"Basically it turns out that the best thing you can do for the planet is to eat whale meat compared to other types of meat," said Rune Froevik of the High North Alliance, which represents the interests of coastal communities in the Arctic.

"Greenhouse gas emissions caused by one meal of beef are the equivalent of eight meals of whale meat," the study said.

The Norwegian-based Alliance said it was the first to measure the "carbon footprint" of whaling. Fish and seafood was comparable to whale meat with relatively low emissions.

Norway and Japan, the two main whaling nations, are seeking new arguments to promote whale meat after years of condemnation from anti-whaling nations for breaking with a 1986 moratorium on all hunts meant to save many whale species from extinction.

Oslo says, for instance, that the small minke whales it hunts are plentiful in the North Atlantic and that a 2008 Norwegian quota of 1,052 animals will not harm stocks. The meat is eaten mostly as steaks or in stews.

GREENPEACE DISMISSIVE

Greenpeace said the threat of extinction was more important.

"The survival of a species is more important than lower greenhouse gas emissions from eating it," said Truls Gulowsen of Greenpeace. "Almost every food is more climate friendly than meat. Most fish and seafood has similarly low emissions."

The Alliance survey, covering eight of Norway's 30 whaling vessels, said they emitted 885 tons of carbon dioxide in 2007 by burning diesel fuel and landed 461 tons of whale meat. That meant an average of 1.9 kilos of emissions per kilo of meat.

By contrast, raising cows in developed nations requires use of tractors, ploughs and fertilizers to produce feed. The animals themselves generate methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, in their digestive tracts.

The Alliance said that the "carbon footprint" was up to the first sale -- for whales the landing point and for livestock the farm gate. Neither included processing or transport costs to shops.

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) will hold a special meeting in London this week to review deadlock between pro- and anti-whaling nations.

Froevik said the IWC had turned into a group devoted to banning whaling rather than allowing hunts under strict controls. "We compare it to a soccer club where the only rule is that soccer is forbidden," he said.

(Editing by Charles Dick)

I just don't get it!!! Has the whole world gone mad?

VR

[Nitefall]

I dunno VR. That's a good question! More and more I want to stay home and bury my head.

[VinReaper]

I dunno VR. That's a good question! More and more I want to stay home and bury my head.

Ditto!

VR

[Fremen]

Poor whales. :(

[VinReaper]

Poor whales. :(

Why? Did they have money before? J/K!

Not the fact that they are targeting whales, but the fact that they even think that way is what is frightening!

Those people are only here because we have interfered with Mother Nature's balance and messed up natural Selection!

VR

[Fremen]

:confused2 :bawling: :bawling:

[Fremen]

Girl Talk: Are Women Really Better at Language?

New research shows that young girls may learn language more completely than their male peers
By Nikhil Swaminathan

GIRL POWER: New research elucidates a biological mechanism for why girls show better language abilities than boys.
Jacek Chabraszewski/iStockphoto
Scientific literature has been littered with studies over the past 40 years documenting the superior language skills of girls, but the biological reason why has remained a mystery until now.

Researchers report in the journal Neuropsychologia that the answer lies in the way words are processed: Girls completing a linguistic abilities task showed greater activity in brain areas implicated specifically in language encoding, which decipher information abstractly. Boys, on the other hand, showed a lot of activity in regions tied to visual and auditory functions, depending on the way the words were presented during the exercise.

The finding suggests that although linguistic information goes directly to the seat of language processing in the female brain, males use sensory machinery to do a great deal of the work in untangling the data. In a classroom setting, it implies that boys need to be taught language both visually (with a textbook) and orally (through a lecture) to get a full grasp of the subject, whereas a girl may be able to pick up the concepts by either method.

The team was able to pinpoint the differences between the sexes by monitoring brain activity in a group of children (31 boys and 31 girls, ranging in age from nine to 15) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while the kids tackled language tasks. In the exercises, two words were either flashed in front of, or spoken to them; they had to determine whether the pair was spelled similarly (omitting the first consonant, as in "pine" and "line") and whether the words rhymed, such as "gate" and "hate" or "pint" and "mint." In some cases, the words fit neither criterion: "jazz" and "list" being an example.

Study co-author Doug Burman, a research associate in Northwestern University's communication sciences and disorders department, says the team saw greater activity in the so-called language areas of the girls' brains than in those of the boys. The areas included the superior temporal gyrus (implicated in decoding heard words), inferior frontal gyrus (speech processing), and the fusiform gyrus, which helps spell and determine the meaning of words. Activation of the latter two structures, in particular, seemed to correlate with the girls' greater language accuracy.

"For girls, it didn't matter if they heard the word or read the word," Burman says. "It does suggest that girls are learning [language attributes] in a more abstract form, and that's the ideal objective when we're teaching things."

Burman says that his team now plans to research whether girls' edge decreases with age, noting that some previous research suggests that the male sensory "bottleneck" may disappear as boys develop into adults.

[Fremen]

I find men grunt a lot.

[lord odin]

I find men grunt a lot.
It`s a genetic flaw.:laugh:

[VinReaper]

Of course women learn the language quicker! It is just sheer practice.

They just talk more!

Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah!
http://smileys.on-my-web.com/repository/Others/argument-001.gif


J/K LOL! :laugh:

VR

[VinReaper]

Man takes car on 2,000 mile test drive
Thu Mar 6, 2008 11:05am EST

CANBERRA (Reuters) - An Australian who took a new car on a 3,200 km (1,988 mile) six-day test drive from the city to the outback has been arrested, police said on Thursday.

The 30-year-old convinced a car dealer in the southeastern city of Melbourne to lend him a A$40,000 ($37,000) Honda Accord sedan last Friday and drove the equivalent of London to Istanbul before he was arrested near the town of Tennant Creek, deep in the outback of the Northern Territory.

"He drove from Melbourne to Adelaide to Alice Springs," Tennant Creek police Constable James Gray-Spence told Reuters.

He said the man was arrested without incident at a road block on his way north to Darwin after he failed to pay for fuel at a hamlet.

The test drive was the longest known to Australian police and topped a 500km theft on New Zealand's South Island in 2006.

"I think we've topped that with the 3,000 km mark," Gray-Spence said.

Melbourne car yard owner Ian McKenzie said the man would have had to have been in the car all day, every day to reach Tennant Creek.

"He seemed a legitimate gentleman. He stood at the desk right in front of a camera. He wasn't afraid of being photographed or videoed," McKenzie told the Herald Sun newspaper.

The man was charged with aggravated unlawful use of a motor vehicle and unlawful possession of property and will appear in court on Thursday.

(Reporting by Rob Taylor, editing by Jonathan Standing)

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.

Aussies and there walkabouts!

VR

[VinReaper]

Not necessarily News, but funny nonetheless!

To the guy doing my wife
Date: 2008-02-21, 1:43PM CST


To the guy doing my wife. You know who you are. Yes I know. No I am not angry, I would just ask a few things of you. After all you are giving it to my wife.

1. Please stop leaving the seat up, I keep getting blamed and it is starting to get old.

2. You may be giving me a chance to go fishing more often but please stop drinking all my beer. It is fine if you have a couple while you visit (god knows
I drink plenty before I find her attractive), but please leave me a few as I have to be there longer than you.

3.If you do drink the last one buy more or leave money on the counter I will pick some up.

4. Please replace the toilet paper when you use it all. For some reason my 5 year old son believes if its not there he does not have to wipe. We keep it under the sink, unless you can recommend a better spot?

5. After doing my wife please use something disposable to wipe off with. The basket of clothes on the right is mine and the clothes are clean as my wife does not do my washing, I run out of time rushing to work. Last week my sweatshirt was crusty (thanks).

6. Please do not tell my children that you are their uncle, they are young not mentally challenged.

7. Please stop turning the heat up, You pay nothing and MUD (Oil Company) is putting it in my a$$, my wife may like it but I think it hurts.

8. When she asks "do these pants make me look fat", say no. You may think giving a different answer will make her think twice about eating a gallon of ice cream a day but all you are doing is giving her a reason to go buy more pants that she will look just as fat in.

9. Stop eating the baked goods. The brownies you ate were from my mom for my birthday. My wife has not cooked anything that good for years and if she does she will not share.

10. Try shifting your weight when you sit on my chair. The recliner that I rarely have time for (soccer games and practice, basketball camp for the kids takes much of my time and I try to help with school work too) has a groove in it that forces me to roll to the left.

Lastly I would like thank you for taking her to lunch on Valentines Day. She was not as hungry as usual and only ordered one meal. I may be able to use the money I saved to take the children to a movie. I hope you can help me with these items, it may become awkward if I have to confront her. If you can do this for me I will give you a heads up on when I will be gone and for how long so that you don't feel rushed.

P.S. I am going to take the kids to the Great Wolf Lodge on the 3rd of April for four days, I have a bottle of vodka above the fridge if you find yourself low on beer.

Thanks This was not written by anyone named Jack S.

* Location: Omaha
* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

:laugh:

VR

[ANGRYCOMICMAN]

No double posting.
You lose 20 posts.

[VinReaper]

Referee sent into hiding after lookalike attacked
Fri Mar 7, 2008 12:17pm EST

http://d.yimg.com/eur.yimg.com//ng/sp/eurosport/20071029/16/1181307185.jpg

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian referee Mauro Bergonzi was sent into hiding by police after thugs tried to attack someone he looked like, the head of the country's referees' association has said.

Bergonzi awarded two contentious penalties in Napoli's 3-1 win over Juventus in October.

"A dangerous incident happened. A group of people encircled someone they thought was a referee, they tried to abduct him and continually punch him. The only thing was he just looked like the referee," Cesare Gussoni told Friday's La Repubblica newspaper.

"He was a bank manager, poor thing, and he managed to reveal this at the end to save himself from more blows. On the advice of the police, the referee was forced to live under protection and went to another province for two weeks."

Former leading referee Pierluigi Collina, who now appoints officials for Italian games, has been sent bullets in the post and has been given a police escort as supporters' anger grows following a number of controversial decisions this season.

Italy still remembers the 2006 match-fixing scandal, where Juve were demoted and other clubs had points deducted after being found guilty of procuring favorable referees for some matches.

Meanwhile, Bulgarian referee Valeri Petrovski is recovering in hospital after being beaten up near his home in Sofia, police said Friday.

"I was in the car, waiting for my wife, when two men attacked me with baseball bats and knuckledusters," Petrovski told reporters.

The 43-year-old Petrovski, considered one of the country's leading referees, began officiating matches in the Bulgarian top division in 1996.

Police said the incident was under investigation but did not confirm the attack was soccer related.

(Writing by Mark Meadows, additional reporting by Angel Krasimirov; editing by Miles Evans)

VR

[VinReaper]

No double posting.
You lose 20 posts.

Who gets them Gryffindor?

LOL!

VR

[ANGRYCOMICMAN]

Who gets them Gryffindor?

LOL!

VR

Yes.:mad:

[VinReaper]

http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photo_StoryLevel/071026/071026_beer_vmed_12p.widec.jpg


Beer drinkers beware:
Shortage to boost costs. Undersupply of one key ingredient — hops — could impact flavor too
The Associated Press
updated 4:00 p.m. ET, Fri., Oct. 26, 2007

SUNNYSIDE, Wash. - Fans of Snipes Mountain Brewery’s cloudy Hefeweizen relish the subtle wheat flavor of the bright, summery brew, and like beer drinkers everywhere, they know when their favorite brew tastes a little too hoppy or bitter.

Connoisseurs could be in for a surprise this year, and they may not be alone.

Small brewers from Australia to Oregon face the daunting prospect of tweaking their recipes or experimenting less with new brews thanks to a worldwide shortage of one key beer ingredient and rising prices for others.

Oh, and one other thing: Beer prices are likely to climb. How high is anybody’s guess. Craft brewers don’t have the means to hedge against rising prices, like their industrial rivals.

“I’m guessing, at a minimum, at least a 10 percent jump in beer prices for the average consumer before the end of the year,” said Terry Butler, brewmaster at central Washington’s Snipes Mountain.

Sales have been relatively flat in recent years among the country’s big three brewers — Anheuser-Busch Cos., Molson Coors Brewing Co. and SABMiller PLC. unit Miller Brewing Co — while small, independent brewers have experienced tremendous growth. The craft brewing industry experienced a 12 percent increase by volume in 2006, with 6.7 million barrels of beer. Sales among microbreweries, which produce less than 15,000 barrels per year, grew 16 percent in 2006.

Now the bright spot in the brewing industry is facing mounting costs on nearly every front. Fuel, aluminum and glass prices have been going up quickly over a period of several years. Barley and wheat prices have skyrocketed as more farmers plant corn to meet increasing demand for ethanol, while others plant feed crops to replace acres lost to corn.

A decade-long oversupply of hops that had forced farmers to abandon the crop is finally gone and harvests were down this year. In the United States, where one-fourth of the world’s hops are grown, acreage fell 30 percent between 1995 and 2006.

Australia endured its worst drought on record. Hail storms across Europe damaged crops. Extreme heat in the western United States hurt both yields and quality.

Big brewers can hedge against rising prices for raw ingredients and can negotiate better, longer-term contracts for ingredients, while smaller brewers generally are left with whatever is left.

Snipes Mountain saw its barley malt prices grow between 10-15 percent this year, and paid $12.35 per pound for Cascade hops, far beyond the $5.60 per pound allotted last year.

Those rising prices and, in some cases, shortages, may force Butler to rethink his lineup of 13 beers in the months ahead. He’ll also be tinkering with a Hefeweizen recipe that relies on Saaz hops, a mild variety popular with Bohemian pilsners, after severe weather in Europe dinged as much as 40 percent of the crop.

“Palate-wise, it may change the flavor a little bit, but only a little bit,” he said.

Brewers at Tommyknocker Brewery in Idaho Springs, Colo., already have been doing some tinkering of their own. Last year, a slim supply of bittering Hallertau hops forced them to substitute the Mount Hood variety, slightly altering their three lagers: Alpine Glacier Lager, Butt Head Bock and Ornery Amber Lager.

The brewery contracted for hops a year in advance, allowing it to switch back again this year, lead brewer Eric Rode said. But recipe tweaking is becoming more common, and it’s likely to continue, he said.

Those contracts also enabled Tommyknocker to hold the line on prices, with only a 50-cent increase per case wholesale, largely due to rising glass prices. The numbers could be much bigger when spiking costs of raw ingredients are factored in next year, he said.

So far, price increases have been pretty modest — less than a dollar a 12-pack at retail, said Harry Schuhmacher, editor of the online trade publication Beer Business Daily.

“Brewers are trying to take pricing up, but it’s hard when beer is pretty sensitive to pricing per volume. And when drinkers are leaving beer to go to wine and spirits,” he said.

On the other hand, smaller brewers have more pricing power than the big guys do.

“They’re able to increase pricing more without losing drinkers,” he said.

Big Sky Brewing Co. in Missoula, Mont., which distributes in 16 states, has increased the price of its Big Sky IPA by $1 a six-pack because barley prices doubled. The beer makes up only about 6 percent of the company’s line, led by the popular brown ale, Moose Drool.

Going forward, Big Sky will see what the big breweries do before making changes to pricing, brewmaster Matt Long said.

“Many of the craft brewers don’t do that. They continue to have six packs on sale half the time, and I don’t know how they can continue to operate that way,” he said. “The trend is going to be toward $10 six packs.”

But Long also said he doesn’t think that trend will last long.

“Maybe the pendulum will swing back,” he said. “It might not happen for the 2008 crop, but maybe at some point, it’ll come back halfway, which would be nice.”

It may be too soon to say if, or how high, prices might go up, said Paul Gatza, director of the Boulder, Colo.-based Brewers Association. The bigger hit for craft brewers might be to the fun side — testing ingredients and new or seasonal brews.

“I would think brewers will try to keep their existing beers in the marketplace if they can,” he said. “But this may put a damper on some of that innovation and experimentation for some of those hoppier beers, which is a shame.”
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21491206/

VR

[VinReaper]

Runaway bank teller captured on husband's tip
Thu Mar 6, 2008 11:02am EST

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia (Reuters) - A runaway Bosnian bank teller has been arrested after a tip-off by her husband and faces charges of stealing 1.1 million euros ($1.68 million) from bank depositors, police said on Thursday.

Sanja Meseledzija-Gvozdjar, 33, left on vacation from her job at Raiffeisen Bank in the Bosnian Serb capital last September and never came back. She was arrested this week in Belgrade, said criminal police chief Gojko Vasic.

She is suspected of embezzling funds from the bank's term deposit accounts from December 2006 to September 2007.

Her husband revealed her Belgrade hideout to the police and has reportedly filed for divorce and changed his name.

(Reporting by Mirna Soja; Writing by Maja Zuvela; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Not sure they thought about all the possible meanings of the title! Or maybe they did! It got me to read the article!

LOL! :D :laugh:

VR

[VinReaper]

Top Cellist, 59, Becomes Paramedic

By VERENA DOBNIK
The Associated Press
Saturday, July 21, 2007; 4:55 PM

NEW YORK -- A blaring ambulance siren and a mellow-toned cello: They hardly make perfect harmony.

But they're the main themes in the life of Nancy Donaruma, who is retiring from the New York Philharmonic to take on another job she loves _ as a full-time paramedic.

After 31 years in the top-tier orchestra, playing with conductors including Leonard Bernstein, Zubin Mehta and Lorin Maazel, the 59-year-old cellist will go from a hefty six-figure annual income to a "low five-figure" salary.

That's the price she's willing to pay to fulfill her lifetime fascination with medicine.

"I've always had an interest in how the human body works _ and doesn't," she said. "And I do like taking care of people."

Donaruma says her physical skill as a cellist _ manual dexterity and quick, supple fingers _ "is good for starting IVs and feeling pulses."

Other overlapping qualities are the ability "to be very focused and do something in an immediate fashion _ and not to make any mistakes."

Donaruma has even practiced her medical skills at the Philharmonic. In one case, a string player fainted onstage during a concert; Donaruma helped get the man off the stage and assessed his vital signs while a doctor was called. She also helped another musician who fell while walking off the stage.

She'll play her last official concert with America's oldest orchestra Sept. 14 under conductor John Williams.

The divorced mother of two grown children will still be very busy.

She'll keep playing in chamber music groups and solo recitals, performing favorite composers like Beethoven and Brahms. And she'll play for free for her paramedic friends at Alamo EMS, close to her home in upstate Poughkeepsie.

She has one word for her new job: "Exciting."

Playing with other musicians and being a paramedic both involve "a lot of teamwork and creativity," she says. "You have to be very creative in figuring out how to move a patient. You work with a partner, plus police and firefighters. Everyone has a job to do."

For the past several years, she juggled Philharmonic duties with paramedic courses at Dutchess Community College, while working several EMT shifts a month.

Once, as a student, she was watching a surgeon perform a hernia procedure, with music piped into the operating room _ a Philharmonic recording.

"So in my peepy little student voice, I said, 'Oh, I'm on that record.' And the surgeon said, 'What are you doing in here?'"
© 2007 The Associated Press

VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.freewebs.com/abbeyoftheholyrose/vatican_night.jpg

Vatican lists "new sins," including pollution
By Philip Pullella Posted Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:00am PDT

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Thou shall not pollute the Earth. Thou shall beware genetic manipulation. Modern times bring with them modern sins. So the Vatican has told the faithful that they should be aware of "new" sins such as causing environmental blight.

The guidance came at the weekend when Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the Vatican's number two man in the sometimes murky area of sins and penance, spoke of modern evils.

Asked what he believed were today's "new sins," he told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that the greatest danger zone for the modern soul was the largely uncharted world of bioethics.

"(Within bioethics) there are areas where we absolutely must denounce some violations of the fundamental rights of human nature through experiments and genetic manipulation whose outcome is difficult to predict and control," he said.

The Vatican opposes stem cell research that involves destruction of embryos and has warned against the prospect of human cloning.

Girotti, in an interview headlined "New Forms of Social Sin," also listed "ecological" offences as modern evils.

In recent months, Pope Benedict has made several strong appeals for the protection of the environment, saying issues such as climate change had become gravely important for the entire human race.

Under Benedict and his predecessor John Paul, the Vatican has become progressively "green."

It has installed photovoltaic cells on buildings to produce electricity and hosted a scientific conference to discuss the ramifications of global warming and climate change, widely blamed on human use of fossil fuels.

Girotti, who is number two in the Vatican "Apostolic Penitentiary," which deals with matter of conscience, also listed drug trafficking and social and economic injustices as modern sins.

But Girotti also bemoaned that fewer and fewer Catholics go to confession at all.

He pointed to a study by Milan's Catholic University that showed that up to 60 percent of Catholic faithful in Italy stopped going to confession.

In the sacrament of Penance, Catholics confess their sins to a priest who absolves them in God's name.

But the same study by the Catholic University showed that 30 percent of Italian Catholics believed that there was no need for a priest to be God's intermediary and 20 percent felt uncomfortable talking about their sins to another person.

(Editing by Keith Weir)

VR

[VinReaper]

Clinic: have vasectomy, watch NCAA hoops
Sun Mar 9, 5:54 AM ET

SPRINGFIELD, Ore.- For guys who park in front of the TV during college basketball's March Madness, the Oregon Urology Institute has a suggestion: Why not use that time to recover from a vasectomy?

"When March Madness approaches you need an excuse ... to stay at home in front of the big screen," the clinic's radio ad says. "Get your vasectomy at Oregon Urology Institute the day before the tournament starts. It's snip city."

Institute Administrator Terry FitzPatrick said men need two to four days to recover from the procedure — but not all take the time.

He's reserved a dozen appointment slots for March 19, the day before the first tipoffs of the NCAA Tournament, and another dozen for March 26, before the tournament's second week.

He reported filling 15 slots by Thursday afternoon and expects to fill all 24.

The sports radio station broadcasting the clinic's ads promises to send each patient a recovery kit of sports magazines, free pizza delivery and a bag of frozen peas.

Peas?

"The frozen peas are malleable enough that you can get them right in there and get the swelling down," FitzPatrick said.

VR

[joy_division]

pope adds more sins (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7287071.stm)what makes this interesting, is he has added paedophilia and having immense wealth as a sin - this coming from the church :banghead:

[lord odin]

Gov. Eliot Spitzer linked to prostitution ring.


Spitzer Is Linked to Prostitution Ring


By DANNY HAKIM and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Published: March 10, 2008
ALBANY - Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to a person briefed on the federal investigation.


Blogrunner: Reactions From Around the WebAn affidavit in the federal investigation into a prostitution ring said that a wiretap recording captured a man identified as Client 9 on a telephone call confirming plans to have a woman travel from New York to Washington, where he had reserved a hotel room. The person briefed on the case identified Mr. Spitzer as Client 9.

Mr. Spitzer today made a brief public appearance during which he apologized for his behavior, and described it as a “private matter.”

“I have acted in a way that violates my obligation to my family and violates my or any sense of right or wrong,” said Mr. Spitzer, who appeared with his wife Silda at his Manhattan office. “I apologize first and most importantly to my family. I apologize to the public to whom I promised better.”

“I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself. I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family.”

Before speaking, Mr. Spitzer stood with his arm around his wife; the two nodded and then strode forward together to face more than 100 reporters. Both had glassy, tear-filled eyes, but they did not cry.

The governor spoke for perhaps a minute and did not address his political future.

He declined to take questions and promised to report back soon. As he went to leave, three reporters screamed out, "Are you resigning? Are you resigning?", and Mr. Spitzer charged out of the room, slamming the door.

The governor learned that he had been implicated in the prostitution inquiry when a federal official contacted his staff last Friday, according to the person briefed on the case.

The governor informed his top aides Sunday night and this morning of his involvement. He canceled his public events today and scheduled the announcement for this afternoon after inquiries from The Times.

The governor’s aides appeared shaken before he spoke, and one of them began to weep as they waited for him to make his statement at his Manhattan office.

The man described as Client 9 in court papers arranged to meet with a prostitute who was part of the ring, Emperors Club VIP, on the night of Feb. 13. Mr. Spitzer traveled to Washington that evening, according to a person told of his travel arrangements.

The affidavit says that Client 9 met with the woman in hotel room 871 but does not identify the hotel. Mr. Spitzer stayed at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on Feb. 13, according to a source who was told of his travel arrangements. Room 871 at the Mayflower Hotel that evening was registered under another name.

Federal prosecutors rarely charge clients in prostitution cases, which are generally seen as state crimes. But the Mann Act, passed by Congress in 1910 to address prostitution, human trafficking and what was viewed at the time as immorality in general, makes it a crime to transport someone between states for the purpose of prostitution. The four defendants charged in the case unsealed last week were all charged with that crime, along with several others.

Mr. Spitzer had a difficult first year in office, rocked by a mix of scandal and legislative setbacks. In recent weeks, however, Mr. Spitzer seemed to have rebounded, with his Democratic party poised to perhaps gain control of the state Senate for the first time in four decades.

Mr. Spitzer gained national attention when he served as attorney general with his relentless pursuit of Wall Street wrongdoing. As attorney general, he also had prosecuted at least two prostitution rings as head of the state’s organized crime task force.

In one such case in 2004, Mr. Spitzer spoke with revulsion and anger after announcing the arrest of 16 people for operating a high-end prostitution ring out of Staten Island.

“This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure,” Mr. Spitzer said at the time. “It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring.”

Albany for months has been roiled by bitter fighting and accusations of dirty tricks. The Albany County district attorney is set to issue in the coming days the results of his investigation into Mr. Spitzer’s first scandal, his aides’ involvement in an effort to tarnish Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, the state’s top Republican.

[VinReaper]

I don't condone Mr. Spitzer's actions! I am not saying that I even back him politically. But when it comes to a man, his wife and family, all I can say is I hope the media, which they won't, have the decency to give him room to at least do right by them and work to gain their trust back or heal their wounds.

It is sad to see families fall apart no matter who they are or what position in society they hold.

People are people, just human beings and make mistakes.

Let he without sin cast the first stone! I seem to remember that from somewhere! Wink! Wink!:thumbs2:

The media has done their job by covering it. And now they should not make it a circus, get out of the way and let the law, fate and the Lord decide his and their fate!

VR

[Mandragora]

on one hand i think it is a disgusting thing to do . . . but i also feel it is a private thing to do.

but what gets me is that this is the type of crap the media spends its energy on.

[VinReaper]

Priest sent off for throwing shirt at referee
Tue Mar 11, 2008 6:33am EDT

ROME (Reuters) - A footballing priest has been sent off in a church tournament for throwing his shirt at the referee, Italian media reported Sunday.

The incident, reminiscent of Antonio Cassano's red card for Sampdoria last weekend, happened in the Clericus Cup with the actions of the Burkina Faso priest leading to Paul the Apostle's College being eliminated.

In a memorable day for Italian amateur football, the president of minor league club Doria has decided to pull his side out of the championship, the division below Serie C, because of anger at refereeing decisions.

"We are retiring the team," Franco De Rose told Italy's ANSA news service. "We are tired of having to submit to injustices every Sunday."

(Writing by Mark Meadows in Milan, editing by Miles Evans)

VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.reuters.com/resources/pictures/galleries/Stories/633404218615156250/Previews/04_mdf1420733.JPG

An employee takes a nap in a nap pod which blocks out light and sound at the Google headquarters in Mountain View, California March 3, 2008


Gotta LOVE

http://googlified.com/files/google-logo-plain-color.png




VR

[Fremen]

Hero dolphin saves stranded mother and baby whales facing death on New Zealand beach
Last updated at 12:26pm on 12th March 2008



It was an astonishing display of heroics within the animal kingdom.

Two distressed whales stranded on a New Zealand beach appeared heading for certain death this morning - until Moko the hero dolphine amazed would-be rescuers by guiding them to safety.

The two pygmy sperm whales, a mother and her calf, were found stranded on Mahia Beach, about 500 kilometres (300 miles) northeast of the capital of Wellington, on Monday morning, said Conservation Department worker Malcolm Smith.





Moko, whose legend has grown with the saving of two stranded whales, plays with a swimmer at Waikokopu Bay, Mahia, this summer

Rescuers worked for more than one hour to get the whales back into the water, only to see them strand themselves four times on a sandbar slightly out to sea. It looked likely the whales would have to be euthanised to prevent them suffering a prolonged death, Smith said.

"They kept getting disorientated and stranding again," said Smith, who was among the rescuers. "They obviously couldn't find their way back past (the sandbar) to the sea."

Along came Moko, who approached the whales and led them 200 metres (yards) along the beach and through a channel out to the open sea.

"Moko just came flying through the water and pushed in between us and the whales," Juanita Symes, another rescuer, said. "She got them to head toward the hill, where the channel is. It was an amazing experience. The best day of my life."

Anton van Helden, a marine mammals expert at New Zealand's national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa , said the reports of Moko's rescue were "fantastic" but believable because the dolphins have "a great capacity for altruistic activities."

These included evidence of dolphins protecting people lost at sea, and their playfulness with other animals.

"We've seen bottlenose dolphins getting lifted up on the noses of humpback whales and getting flicked out of the water just for fun," van Helden said.

"But it's the first time I've heard of an inter-species refloating technique. I think that's wonderful," said van Helden, who was not involved in the rescue but spoke afterward to Smith.

Smith speculated that Moko responded after hearing the whales' distress calls.

"It was looking like it was going to be a bad outcome for the whales ... then Moko just came along and fixed it," he said. "They had arched their backs and were calling to one another, but as soon as the dolphin turned up they submerged into the water and followed her."

After the rescue, Moko returned to the beach and joined in games with local residents, he said.

[VinReaper]

Hey Fremen!

Very Cool!

VR

[daveyyojimbo]

on one hand i think it is a disgusting thing to do . . . but i also feel it is a private thing to do.

but what gets me is that this is the type of crap the media spends its energy on.

Yeah, why wast time on unimportant stuff like the billions and billions that have been "lost" over in iraq or on nonbid contracts worth billions, stuff like that. :rolleyes2

[VinReaper]

NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigns
1 minute ago

Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced Wednesday that he is resigning, completing a spectacular fall from power for a politician whose once-promising career imploded amid allegations that he paid thousands of dollars for high-end prostitutes.

"I look at my time as governor with a sense of what might have been," Spitzer said, with his expressionless wife Silda standing at his side. "There is much more to be done, and I cannot allow my private failings to disrupt the people's work."

Spitzer says his resignation is effective Monday. He will be replaced by Lt. Gov. David Paterson, who will become New York's first black governor.

The scandal erupted two days ago when allegations surfaced that the 48-year-old Spitzer spent thousands of dollars on a call girl at a swanky Washington hotel on the night before Valentine's Day.

Spitzer was more composed than he was at his appearance two days ago, when he looked pale, drawn and glassy-eyed. The couple stood quietly Wednesday, inches apart; they never touched as they entered or left the room.

His wife took deep breaths as hundreds of photos were taken at close range. Each of Spitzer's words was accompanied by a rush of camera clicks.

"There is much more to be done, and I cannot allow my private failings to disrupt the people's work," he said.

Spitzer and his wife left their apartment around 11 a.m. and got into a black SUV to take them to his office. Cameras aboard news helicopters tracked the movement of Spitzer's three-vehicle motorcade from his apartment on the Upper East Side to his office in midtown Manhattan.

The announcement followed two days of furious activity. Calls for his resignation came immediately. Republicans began talking impeachment if he didn't step aside. Meanwhile, Spitzer stayed holed up in his Manhattan apartment, where he was reportedly weighing his options, including waiting to use resignation as a bargaining chip with federal prosecutors to avoid indictment.

The case involving Spitzer started when banks noticed frequent cash transfers from several accounts and filed suspicious activity reports with the Internal Revenue Service, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The accounts were traced back to Spitzer, leading public corruption investigators to open an inquiry.

A law enforcement official said Tuesday that Spitzer had spent tens of thousands of dollars with the call-girl service Emperors Club VIP. Another official said the amount could be as high as $80,000.

Still another law enforcement official said investigators found that during the tryst with a prostitute named Kristen, Spitzer used two rooms at Washington's Mayflower Hotel — one for himself, the other for the call girl. Sometime around 10 p.m., Spitzer sneaked away from his security detail and made his way to her room, the official said.

According to an affidavit, a federal judge approved wiretaps on the escort service's telephone in January and February. FBI agents in Washington had the Mayflower under surveillance when Spitzer was in town, a senior law enforcement official said.

The officials spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

Spitzer, a first-term Democrat, built his political reputation on rooting out government corruption, and made a name for himself as attorney general as crusader against shady practices and overly generous compensation. He also cracked down on prostitution.

He was known as the "Sheriff of Wall Street." Time magazine named him "Crusader of the Year," and the tabloids proclaimed him "Eliot Ness." The square-jawed graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law was sometimes mentioned as a potential candidate for president.

He rode into the governor's office with a historic margin of victory on Jan. 1, 2007, vowing to stamp out corruption in New York government in the same way that he took on Wall Street executives with a vengeance while state attorney general.

His term as governor has been fraught with problems, including an unpopular plan to grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and a plot by his aides to smear his main Republican nemesis. The prostitution scandal, some said, was too much to overcome.

Barely known outside of his Harlem political base, Paterson, 53, has been in New York government since his election to the state Senate in 1985. He led the Democratic caucus in the Senate before running with Spitzer as his No. 2.

Though legally blind, Paterson has enough sight in his right eye to walk unaided, recognize people at conversational distance and even read if text is placed close to his face. While Spitzer is renowned for his abrasive style, Paterson has built a reputation as a conciliator.

At a morning news conference, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, Spitzer's chief rival, said he had not yet heard from the governor but that he was moving on with the business of the state. Lawmakers were set to vote on budget bills Wednesday afternoon.

"We are going to partner with the lieutenant governor when he becomes governor," said Bruno. "David has always been very open with me, very forthright ... I look forward to a positive, productive relationship."

Bruno, though the next highest-ranking official, does not become lieutenant governor upon Paterson's ascension to governor. The lieutenant governor's office would remain vacant until the next general election in 2010 under state law. However, whenever Paterson is out of state or if he were to become incapacitated, Bruno would be acting governor.

VR

[daveyyojimbo]

Wow. I was starting to think he was going to fight it out. I guess if it had been a mistress instead of hookers, maybe?

[VinReaper]

Wow. I was starting to think he was going to fight it out. I guess if it had been a mistress instead of hookers, maybe?

Yeah! He didn't just cheat on his wife. He broke the law! That is the major problem he is going to have!

VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/03/3-11-08-salmon-led.jpg

Salmon sperm used to intensify LEDs, grossify everyone
Posted Mar 11th 2008 3:43PM by Nilay Patel

See, the problem with bioengineering isn't moral or ethical dilemmas, or even homicidal robo-droids enslaving humanity. It's that if you let researchers go wild, eventually they'll find a way to make LEDs out of salmon sperm, threatening the sanctity (and sperm-free-ness) of your entire gadget-based lifestyle. Yet that's exactly what Professor Andrew Steckl of the University of Cincinnati has managed to do, using the DNA found in salmon sperm to enhance the brightness of LEDs. The so-called BioLEDs are being developed in cooperation with the Air Force (yes, the Air Force -- they had a "good source" of salmon sperm, apparently) and they've been so successful that Steckl has been getting salmon sperm from researchers worldwide "wanting to see if their sperm is good enough." Steckl says that since salmon sperm is considered a waste product of the fishing industry, BioLEDs are particularly green -- kind of like our faces right now.

Read the comments on their forum about this:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/11/salmon-sperm-used-to-intensify-leds-grossify-everyone/



VR

[daveyyojimbo]

:puke2: :laugh:

[VinReaper]

:puke2: :laugh:

I thought so too!

Hysterical!!

VR

[VinReaper]

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/03/12/art.kevorkian.gi.jpg

Kevorkian to run for office
March 12, 2008 - Posted: 01:54 PM ET

Kevorkian is planning a bid for Congress.

(CNN) – Jack Kevorkian, the assisted suicide advocate currently on parole from prison, is planning a run for Congress, a Detroit newspaper reported Wednesday.

According to the Oakland Press, Kevorkian is planning to mount an independent bid in Michigan's 9th District seat currently occupied by Republican Joe Knollenberg.

"We need some honesty and sincerity instead of corrupt government in Washington," Kevorkian told the paper. He also said his plans are in the "formative stage" and he would make a formal announcement next week.

Nate Bailey, a spokesman for Knollenberg, told CNN "the congressman is working on turning Michigan’s economy around and bringing jobs to Oakland County…He’s focused on working for the people of Oakland County, not on politics."

The one-time pathologist needs to gather 3,000 signatures in order to appear on the ballot as an independent candidate.

Kevorkian has said he has helped well over 100 people die during the 1990s. In 1998, he was formally convicted on second degree homicide for assisting in the death of Thomas Youk, who suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease.

He was released from prison on parole in June.

Oakland County Prosecutor Dave Gorcyca, who was responsible for sending Kevorkian to jail, told the paper he thinks the candidacy is merely a "publicity stunt."

CNN has been unable to get a comment from Kevorkian.

– CNN Ticker Producer Alexander Moone

VR

[VinReaper]

Flying trampoline halts high-speed train
Thu Mar 13, 2008 8:12am EDT

BERLIN (Reuters) -A German high-speed train was forced to make an emergency stop when a trampoline was blown on to the tracks from a nearby garden, police said on Wednesday.

The Intercity Express (ICE) was traveling from Cologne to Vienna and was forced to stop outside Bonn, Cologne police spokesman Frank Freund said in a statement. "The ICE only came to a halt 300 yards after the blockage," Freund said. The train sustained damage to its front lights but after checks was allowed to continue.

(Reporting by Carolyn Palmer)

So the moral to the story is never take high speed trains that go through neighborhoods where people have unsecured trampolines in their yards! :banghead:

:D

VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-07/01/xin_2107010117016013062816.jpg

Spacecraft zips over Saturn's geyser-spurting moon
Wed Mar 12, 2008 5:13pm EDT

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A spacecraft whizzed past Saturn's moon Enceladus on Wednesday and through a huge geyser spurting from its south pole, collected samples of ice and gas shooting about 500 miles into space.

Scientists involved in the joint U.S.-European mission are hoping observations and samples collected by the Cassini spacecraft will enable them to better understand one of the most dramatic geological features of the entire solar system.

Geysers reminiscent of the famed Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park in the United States -- only on a massive scale -- are shooting continuously off Enceladus at about 900 miles per hour (1,450 kph). It is one of about 60 moons of Saturn.

Some scientists think the source of the geysers may be heated liquid water -- perhaps even an ocean -- under the frozen surface of Enceladus (pronounced en-SELL-ah-dus).

The geysers may also be the source of the particles in one of Saturn's rings.

Amanda Hendrix, a scientist involved in the mission from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said Cassini was passing as close as 30 miles above the surface, although not that close around the geysers.

Hendrix said Cassini was about 120 miles above the moon's surface as it flew through the edge of a plume erupting from the south pole.

Hendrix said its findings were not immediately available, but preliminary results could be made public on Thursday.

"We will measure ice particles and vapor, and different kinds of gases -- water vapor for sure, and we'll see what other kinds of gases are present," Hendrix said.

Cassini's instruments will try to determine the density, size, composition and speed of the gas and particles shooting off the surface. In addition to ice, the plumes seem to contain carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia in small amounts.

The possibility of heated water has some scientists wondering whether Enceladus might harbor conditions that could support life, even if only microbial organisms. Liquid water is thought to be a necessary ingredient for life.

"If there is hot, liquid water under the surface, then that does bring in the question of whether life could exist there," Hendrix said.

"Since we're sensing the composition of the plume, really what we're sensing is the composition of the sub-surface region -- because the gas and the particles are coming from underneath the surface," Hendrix added.

Enceladus, with a diameter of 310 miles, is one of the solar system's brightest objects. Encased in ice, it reflects almost 100 percent of the sunlight that strikes it. It is one of Saturn's innermost moons.

The U.S. space agency does not believe that flying through the plume posed much threat to the spacecraft because the particles are so small. Cassini often passes through regions made up of dust-size particles in its ongoing mission around Saturn.

Cassini in 2005 revealed for the first time that geysers were erupting off Enceladus. The spacecraft is due to fly by Enceladus three more times in 2008.

(Editing by Maggie Fox and Cynthia Osterman)

VR

[joy_division]

this story is really hard to believe

German TV station to air Sitcom "'Allo 'allo" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7286459.stm)

A BBC spokesman said the show "had not been picked up in Germany until now due to the subject matter". :redface:

The show's 85 episodes, which poke fun at the Gestapo, French Resistance and the British, will be dubbed into German for its new audience.

[VinReaper]

this story is really hard to believe

German TV station to air Sitcom "'Allo 'allo" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7286459.stm)

A BBC spokesman said the show "had not been picked up in Germany until now due to the subject matter". :redface:

The show's 85 episodes, which poke fun at the Gestapo, French Resistance and the British, will be dubbed into German for its new audience.

That is very funny! I didn't think that they would be that uptight about the subject matter.

VR

[VinReaper]

Hey the Mods removed my Puppy Paws story! Oh well, I guess some are squeamish!

VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.calacademy.org/exhibits/xtremelife/images/enceladus.jpg
Software "hiccup" undermines trip past Saturn moon

Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:31am EDT - By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A software malfunction prevented a key piece of equipment on the Cassini spacecraft from recording data as it flew through the plume from a geyser shooting off a moon of Saturn, NASA said late on Thursday.

NASA called the problem "an unexplained software hiccup" that came at a very bad time, preventing Cassini's Cosmic Dust Analyzer instrument from collecting data for about two hours as it flew over the surface of the moon Enceladus on Wednesday.

A key objective of the fly-by was to determine the density, size, composition and speed of particles erupting into space from the moon's south pole in a dramatic plume.

Bob Mitchell, Cassini program manager, said the problem meant that the instrument did not collect data as the craft flew through the plume -- a process lasting under a minute.

"When it went through the plume, it was not working properly," Mitchell said in a telephone interview, expressing disappointment. "We had tested that software very carefully. We don't know why it didn't work properly."

The Cassini spacecraft, studying the giant gaseous planet Saturn and its moons in a joint U.S.-European mission, flew as close as 30 miles over the surface of Enceladus (pronounced en-SELL-ah-dus) on Wednesday.

"During the fly-by, the instrument was switching between two versions of software programs. The new version was designed to increase the ability to count particle hits by several hundred hits per second," NASA said in a statement.

"The other four fields and particles instruments on the spacecraft, in addition to the ion and neutral mass spectrometer, did capture all of their data, which will complement the overall composition studies and elucidate the unique plume environment of Enceladus," NASA said.

The Cassini spacecraft, which first spotted the geysers in 2005, flew over the moon at 32,000 miles per hour (51,500 kph) in the first of four fly-bys of Enceladus scheduled this year.

One of about 60 moons of Saturn, Enceladus is considered among the most intriguing bodies in the solar system, owing to the geysers that spurt from fractures in the surface at the south pole and spew material about 500 miles into space at about 900 miles per hour (1,450 kph).

Enceladus, whose diameter is 310 miles, is one of the solar system's brightest objects. Encased in ice, it reflects almost all of the sunlight that strikes it.

Some scientists surmise hot water must exist under the surface to eject these plumes. The presence of liquid water raises the possibility Enceladus may boast conditions conducive to the development of life, perhaps in the form of microbes.

NASA said images taken by the spacecraft showed that the north polar region is much older and more pockmarked with craters of various sizes than much of the southern hemisphere, in particular the south pole.

The images show craters that were caused by impacts of objects onto the moon's icy surface in varying stages of alteration by tectonic activity and probably from past heating from below the surface, NASA said.

Enceladus is one of Saturn's innermost moons. The eruptions from its geysers seem to be continuous, generating an enormous halo of fine ice around the moon and supplying material to one of Saturn's famed rings.

VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.cardsunlimited.com/largeimage/Balloons.jpg

Honey, will you marry... Oh. Never mind...
Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:34pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - It is the one moment every man wants to get right -- and which London floor-fitter Lefkos Hajji could hardly have got more wrong.

The luckless 28 year-old's dreams of giving his sweetheart, Leanne, 26, the ultimate proposal have literally vanished into thin air.

Hajji, of Hackney, east London, had concealed a $12,000 engagement ring inside a helium balloon. The idea was that she would pop the balloon as he popped the question.

But as he left the shop, a gust of wind pulled the balloon from his hand and he watched the ring -- and quite possibly the affections of his girlfriend -- sailing away over the rooftops.

"I couldn't believe it," he told The Sun newspaper.

"I just watched as it went further and further into the air.

"I felt like such a plonker. It cost a fortune and I knew my girlfriend would kill me."

Hajji spent two hours in his car trying to chase and find the balloon, without success.

"I thought I would give Leanne a pin so I could literally pop the question," he said.

"But I had to tell her the story -- she went absolutely mad. Now she is refusing to speak to me until I get her a new ring."

He is hoping the ring will still turn up.

"It would be amazing if someone found it," he added.

(Reporting by Peter Apps. Editing by Steve Addison)

VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200803/r233351_935069.jpg

New ladies' vodka gives doctors a headache
Mon Mar 17, 2008 2:03pm EDT
By Dmitry Solovyov

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Igor Volodin believes vodka is no more harmful than chocolate. He is proud to be the first Russian to produce the spirit in a special women's version, designed to be sipped with salad after a workout in the gym.

Touted as a glamour product for upwardly mobile women in booming Russia, Damskaya or "Ladies" vodka worries doctors, who fear a fresh wave of female alcoholics in a country already suffering one of the world's worst drink problems.

The Moscow Serbsky Institute for Social and Forensic Psychiatry says Russia has 2.5 million registered alcoholics, but adds the real figure is seven times higher -- more than 10 percent of Russia's population of 142 million.

Yuri Sorokin, a psychologist running a Moscow rehabilitation center for drug addicts and alcoholics, said 60 percent of those he treats for alcoholism are women, including the wives of Russian millionaires.

"I believe that female alcoholism is a huge problem in Russia. I believe it is as huge and hidden as the underwater part of an iceberg," he said.

Adverts for the new "Ladies" vodka show the elegant, violet-tinted bottle wearing a pleated white skirt which is blown upwards to reveal the label.

The images confront commuters on Moscow's metro, grab the eye on the street and leap from the pages of women's magazines.

"Between us, girls ..." runs the slogan on the adverts, which tout the product as an ideal tipple for hearty hen parties.

"Women need a drink of their own," said Volodin, sitting next to an array of his "Ladies" vodkas, which comes in lime, vanilla and almond flavors, or just straight for ****tails.

"In Moscow, there are pink taxis for ladies, there are light cigarettes," he said. "But there was no vodka, and we asked ourselves: 'Why?' ... More people suffer from diabetes in Russia than from alcoholism, but no one bans chocolate advertisements."

Sales on Russia's vodka market are estimated to be worth around $15 billion a year, with a total annual volume of some 2.2 billion liters, Volodin said.

Annual market growth in value is seen at 15 percent, he said, thanks to rising incomes and higher sales of premium vodkas like "Ladies."

HEADY BOOM, BITTER HANGOVER

Volodin heads the Deyros company, which has been selling strong spirits on the Russian market for more than 10 years.

"Ladies," launched in December, is produced at a distillery in Russia's second city of St Petersburg and retails at around 300 roubles ($12.5) in upmarket shops in big cities. Volodin is targeting successful, well-educated, married women with money.

"Of course, $12 per bottle is too expensive for a village woman," Volodin said, forecasting March sales of "Ladies" at 115,000 bottles and putting the 2008 full-year figure at over 2 million. "But we can't make bad vodka for women."

Volodin says his vodka is pure and free of by-products, like fusel oils, which can cause a heavy hangover. He says because of its mellow taste, it can be taken with salads and other light meals, even by those regularly working out in gyms.

Russia, buoyed by windfall revenues for oil, gas and metals exports, has enjoyed its biggest economic boom in a generation. Wages in the cash-laden economy have rocketed.

But high salaries and growing consumption of expensive alcohol have not led to moderation in drinking, said psychologist Sorokin.

The joblessness and despair of Russia's wild capitalism of the 1990s have now been replaced by the psychological vacuum of the newly-rich, he said.

Olga, a woman in her 20s, was buying a bottle of "Ladies" in an expensive supermarket in Moscow for a party with her friends.

"I saw the ad in the metro and decided to taste it," she said. "I just loved the design."

Sorokin said he expected an influx of new patients in about six months.

"When such strong marketing experts are involved, I will never be jobless," he sighed.

(Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Clar Ni Chonghaile)

VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.st-patricks-day.com/images/st_patrick1.jpg

http://www.st-patricks-day.com/images/st_patrick2.jpg

ABOUT SAINT PATRICK

Saint Patrick is believed to have been born in the late fourth century, and is often confused with Palladius, a bishop who was sent by Pope Celestine in 431 to be the first bishop to the Irish believers in Christ.

Saint Patrick was the patron saint and national apostle of Ireland who is credited with bringing christianity to Ireland. Most of what is known about him comes from his two works, the Confessio, a spiritual autobiography, and his Epistola, a denunciation of British mistreatment of Irish christians. Saint Patrick described himself as a "most humble-minded man, pouring forth a continuous paean of thanks to his Maker for having chosen him as the instrument whereby multitudes who had worshipped idols and unclean things had become the people of God."

Saint Patrick is most known for driving the snakes from Ireland. It is true there are no snakes in Ireland, but there probably never have been - the island was separated from the rest of the continent at the end of the Ice Age. As in many old pagan religions, serpent symbols were common and often worshipped. Driving the snakes from Ireland was probably symbolic of putting an end to that pagan practice. While not the first to bring christianity to Ireland, it is Patrick who is said to have encountered the Druids at Tara and abolished their pagan rites. The story holds that he converted the warrior chiefs and princes, baptizing them and thousands of their subjects in the "Holy Wells" that still bear this name.

There are several accounts of Saint Patrick's death. One says that Patrick died at Saul, Downpatrick, Ireland, on March 17, 460 A.D. His jawbone was preserved in a silver shrine and was often requested in times of childbirth, epileptic fits, and as a preservative against the "evil eye." Another account says that St. Patrick ended his days at Glastonbury, England and was buried there. The Chapel of St. Patrick still exists as part of Glastonbury Abbey. Today, many Catholic places of worship all around the world are named after St. Patrick, including cathedrals in New York and Dublin city

Why Saint Patrick's Day?
Saint Patrick's Day has come to be associated with everything Irish: anything green and gold, shamrocks and luck. Most importantly, to those who celebrate its intended meaning, St. Patrick's Day is a traditional day for spiritual renewal and offering prayers for missionaries worldwide.

So, why is it celebrated on March 17th? One theory is that that is the day that St. Patrick died. Since the holiday began in Ireland, it is believed that as the Irish spread out around the world, they took with them their history and celebrations. The biggest observance of all is, of course, in Ireland. With the exception of restaurants and pubs, almost all businesses close on March 17th. Being a religious holiday as well, many Irish attend mass, where March 17th is the traditional day for offering prayers for missionaries worldwide before the serious celebrating begins.

In American cities with a large Irish population, St. Patrick's Day is a very big deal. Big cities and small towns alike celebrate with parades, "wearing of the green," music and songs, Irish food and drink, and activities for kids such as crafts, coloring and games. Some communities even go so far as to dye rivers or streams green!

St. Patricks Day gift baskets are a great way to celebrate the holiday. Send gift baskets to your family and friends and surprise them with beer baskets to enjoy on the holiday. Celebrate St. Patrick and make this year a memorable one.


VR

[VinReaper]

Drug smuggler caught as swallowed capsules burst
Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:08pm EDT

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) - An American in Costa Rica was caught smuggling nearly a pound of cocaine (0.4 kg) in his stomach after he went into convulsions on a plane bound for Miami, police said on Friday.

The 22-year-old man swallowed dozens of capsules stuffed with the drug before boarding a plane on Thursday in the Costa Rican capital, San Jose.

Police said he started to vomit and convulse before the plane took off and was rushed to a hospital where he was still recovering on Friday.

"They had to open him up too remove the capsules," said police spokeswoman Marielos Barbosa.

The man, identified only by his last name, Keller, was the second American arrested this month at the airport for smuggling cocaine in his stomach.

The Central American country works with U.S. authorities to try to stop drug shipments reaching the United States from producer countries in South America.

The Costa Rican Coast Guard has captured dozens of tons of cocaine being moved up the country's coast over the last few years.

(Reporting by John McPhaul; writing by Jason Lange, editing by Todd Eastham)

My thoughts: GOOD! What a DUMBA$$! And why waste critical healthcare on these guys. There are needy children that need it more. Let them perish and give it to the ones that deserve it. I know I am harsh, but so is life! :eplus2: :D

VR

[VinReaper]

http://img.slate.com/media/73000/73370/Frenkel_WineSniff-spot.jpg

Lloyd's insures winemaker's nose for $8 million
Tue Mar 18, 11:27 AM ET

The Lloyd's of London insurance market has insured the nose of a leading wine maker and taster for 5 million euros ($7.9 million), covering the Bordeaux producer against the loss of his nose and sense of smell.

Lloyd's is famous for creating policies for giant corporations but also for insuring celebrity limbs, from Fred Astaire's legs to the hands of Rolling Stones' Keith Richards.

It said on Tuesday that Ilja Gort, the Dutch owner of Chateau de la Garde in Bordeaux, producer of Tulipe Wines, said his nose could distinguish millions of different scents and was essential to guarantee the quality of his wines.

"The nose and sense of smell of a winemaker are as important as the fingers of a chef," Jonathan Thomas, lead underwriter at Watkins Syndicate who co-insured the policy.

Lloyds worked with Allianz Nederland and British reinsurance broker Benfield to create the policy, co-insured by Watkins.

Gort's will not be the first nose insured by Lloyd's, which famously insured U.S. comedian Jimmy Durante's trademark. It also insures the taste buds of restaurateur Egon Ronay.

(Reporting by Clara Ferreira-Marques)


VR

[pablocruze]

Doctor Uses Electric Drill to Remove Brain Tumor
Posted Mar 19th 2008 8:01PM by Tim Stevens

http://i28.tinypic.com/3004687.jpg

Think of brain surgery and you probably think of a room full of doctors and nurses each holding specialized equipment, surrounding a patient draped in sterilized blankets in a room of polished stainless steel and glass.

Imagine a guy holding a rechargeable handheld drill and using it on someone's head, though, and you'd probably think it was a scene from a horror movie and not a medical documentary. But in an upcoming documentary to be shown on the U.K's BBC, that's exactly what a British doctor uses for an emergency surgery on a woman in the Ukraine.

The woman, Marian Dolishny, was fully conscious when Dr. Henry Marsh used a 9.6 volt rechargeable drill from manufacturer Bosch to drill into her skull. Thankfully she was at least given a local anesthetic, but it must have been quite a sensation to have an off the shelf drill bit chewing into her noggin.

Dr. Marsh is a frequent visitor to Ukraine, where he charitably performs no-charge surgeries. On this particular occasion, he didn't have the official tools required for this sort of surgery, but, as he mentions in the documentary, his use of the electric drill "shows how with improvisation you can achieve a lot."

[VinReaper]

Holy smoke!! That has got to sting a little! And I am sure it left a mark! :D


VR

[pablocruze]

Holy smoke!! That has got to sting a little! And I am sure it left a mark! :D


VR

I wonder what size drill bit he used...:confused:

[VinReaper]

http://img.metro.co.uk/i/pix/2008/03/EBayNNP_175x125.jpg

Fed up man sells life on eBay
Sunday, March 16, 2008

A lonely heart is looking to start afresh by selling his life on eBay – including access to his friends.

Ian Usher is offering his custom-built house, Mazda car, 140mph motorbike, jet-ski and even his job to the top bidder on the auction site.

Mr Usher says he has led 'a dream life' after emigrating to Perth, Australia, six years ago but wants to make a clean break after splitting with his wife, Laura.

The 44-year-old, who is originally from Darlington, added: 'Despite my life being busy and fulfilled, I still miss her so much. Everything around me is a reminder of the wonderful past we shared.'

The auction starts at one Australian dollar (46p) and the winning bidder is expected to pay at least £230,000 to live Mr Usher's lifestyle to the full.

The successful bidder will even be given a fortnight's trial with Mr Usher's employer, who owns a rug store in Perth.

'My aim is to walk away at the end of the eBay auction with my wallet in one pocket, my passport in the other and go to the airport and jump on the first plane,' he said.

The bidding opens on June 22.

Log onto www.alife4sale.com for further details.

VR

[cblakey1]

http://www.local10.com/news/15653344/detail.html?rss=mia&psp=news

[VinReaper]

Charges Filed Against Boyfriend of Kansas Woman Stuck to Toilet
Thursday , March 20, 2008

NESS CITY, Kan. —
A man whose girlfriend authorities say spent nearly two years in a bathroom in their house, sitting on the toilet so long that the seat adhered to her body, has been charged with mistreatment of a dependent adult.

Kory McFarren, 37, was charged Monday in Ness County District Court.

McFarren called the Ness County Sheriff's Office in late February to say something was wrong with his girlfriend. When authorities arrived at the home, they found Pam Bab****, 35, stuck to the toilet, which they think she had sat on for about a month.

McFarren told authorities that Bab**** feared leaving the bathroom and may not have left it in two years, although said he was unsure how long she was in there. He said that he took her food and water daily, and that he repeatedly asked her to come out but that she usually replied "maybe tomorrow."

"The only thing I am guilty of is I didn't get her help sooner," McFarren told The Associated Press nearly a week ago.

Ness County Attorney Craig Crosswhite said the mistreatment charge most closely fit the situation.

"I looked at the statutes and spoke to the attorney general's office," he said. "This was a very unusual set of circumstances, and this is the law that most closely applied to the situation."

Authorities said Bab**** sat on the toilet so long that open sores developed and caused her to become attached to the seat. Sheriff Bryan Whipple has said that he used a pry bar to remove the seat from the toilet, and that the woman was taken to the hospital with the seat still attached.

"She would have to be sleeping on the toilet," Whipple said.

Doctors at a Wichita hospital where Bab**** was taken told McFarren that an infection in her legs had damaged her nerves and could leave her in a wheelchair. She was still at the hospital Wednesday night.

McFarren's first court appearance will be in April, Crosswhite said.

Are people out of their minds? http://planetsmilies.net/confused-smiley-17429.gif (http://planetsmilies.net)(Rhetorical Question)


VR

[VinReaper]

http://streetknowledge.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/don-imus.jpg

Shock jock named king of politically incorrect
Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:30am EDT
By Arthur Spiegelman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Nappy-headed hos," the phrase that cost radio shock jock Don Imus his job and triggered a debate on how far free speech can go, was named on Thursday as the most egregious politically incorrect turn of phrase in 2007.

Trailing behind that phrase in the annual survey by Global Language Monitor (www.LanguageMonitor.com), a word usage group, were "Ho-Ho-Ho" and "Carbon Footprint Stomping," said the group's president Paul JJ Payack.

"Ho-Ho-Ho" made the list after a staffing company in Sydney, Australia suggested to prospective Santas they drop their traditional greeting in favor of "Ha-Ha-Ha" so as not to invoke images of the derogatory slang term for women.

"Carbon Footprint Stomping" is a phrase used to describe flaunting environmentally "green" activities by doing things like driving gas-guzzling Hummers and flying private jets, which in these energy-conscious times might be considered the height of political incorrectness.

New York-based Imus was fired from his popular morning radio program by CBS in April 2007 after a national controversy erupted over his use of the "Nappy-headed" phrase to describe the Rutgers University women's basketball team. Imus later apologized and met with the team to ask for forgiveness.

Last November, he was hired by a different network.

"It is no surprise that 'Nappy-headed hos' was selected as the top politically incorrect word or phrase for 2007," said Payack. "A year later that phrase is still ricocheting about the Internet, even affecting Christmas-season Santas in Australia "

Among other examples on the list are:

"Fire-breathing Dragon" -- Children's book author Lindsey Gardiner was asked to eliminate a fire-breathing dragon from her new book because publishers feared they could be sued under health and safety regulations.

"Wucha dun did now?" -- The subtitle of a "Ghetto Handbook" distributed by a Houston school district police officer to enable readers to speak "as if you just came out of the 'hood."

"Gypsy skirt" -- The colorful layered skirt was given a new name, "Traveler Skirt," since police in Cornwall, a county in southwest England, believed the term "Gypsy Skirt" might be considered offensive to Gypsies.

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte and Todd Eastham)


VR

[VinReaper]

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Pope baptizes Italy's most prominent Muslim during Vatican Easter service

VATICAN CITY--Italy's most prominent Muslim, an iconoclastic writer who condemned Islamic extremism and defended Israel, converted to Catholicism Saturday in a baptism by the pope at a Vatican Easter service.

An Egyptian-born, non-practicing Muslim who is married to a Catholic, Magdi Allam infuriated some Muslims with his books and columns in the newspaper Corriere della Sera newspaper, where he is a deputy editor. He titled one book "Long Live Israel."

As a choir sang, Pope Benedict XVI poured holy water over Allam's head and said a brief prayer in Latin.

"We no longer stand alongside or in opposition to one another," Benedict said in a homily reflecting on the meaning of baptism. "Thus faith is a force for peace and reconciliation in the world: distances between people are overcome, in the Lord we have become close."

Vatican Television zoomed in on Allam, who sat in the front row of the basilica along with six other candidates for baptism. He later received his first Communion.

Allam, 55, told the newspaper Il Giornale in a December interview that his criticism of Palestinian suicide bombing provoked threats on his life in 2003, prompting the Italian government to provide him with a sizable security detail.

The Union of Islamic Communities in Italy — which Allam has frequently criticized as having links to Hamas — said the baptism was his own decision.

"He is an adult, free to make his personal choice," the Apcom news agency quoted the group's spokesman, Issedin El Zir, as saying.

Yahya Pallavicini, vice president of Coreis, the Islamic religious community in Italy, said he respected Allam's choice but said he was "perplexed" by the symbolic and high-profile way in which he chose to convert.

"If Allam truly was compelled by a strong spiritual inspiration, perhaps it would have been better to do it delicately, maybe with a priest from Viterbo where he lives," the ANSA news agency quoted Pallavicini as saying.

The nighttime Easter vigil service at St. Peter's Basilica marked the period between Good Friday, which commemorates Jesus' crucifixion, and Easter Sunday, which marks his resurrection.

Benedict opened by blessing a white candle, which he then carried down the main aisle of the darkened basilica. Slowly, the pews began to light up as his flame was shared with candles carried by the faithful, until the whole basilica twinkled and the main lights came on.

The pope administers baptism "without making any 'difference of people,' that is, considering all equally important before the love of God and welcoming all in the community of the Church," said the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi.

Allam, who has a young son with his Catholic wife and two adult children from a previous relationship, indicated in the Il Giornale interview that he would have no problem converting to Christianity. He said he had even received Communion once — when he was 13 or 14 — "even though I knew it was an act of blasphemy, not having been baptized."

He did not speak to the press Saturday and his newspaper said it had no information about his conversion.

Allam said in the interview that he had made a pilgrimage to Mecca, as is required of all Muslims, with his deeply religious mother in 1991, although he was not otherwise observant.

"I was never practicing," he was quoted as saying. "I never prayed five times a day, facing Mecca. I never fasted during Ramadan."

Allam also explained his decision to title a recent book "Viva Israele" by saying he wrote it after he received death threats from Hamas.

"Having been condemned to death, I have reflected a long time on the value of life. And I discovered that behind the origin of the ideology of hatred, violence and death is the discrimination against Israel. Everyone has the right to exist except for the Jewish state and its inhabitants," he said. "Today, Israel is the paradigm of the right to life."

In 2006, Allam was a co-winner, with three other journalists, of the $1 million Dan David prize, named for an Israeli entrepreneur. Allam was cited for "his ceaseless work in fostering understanding and tolerance between cultures."

There is no overarching Muslim law on conversion. But under a widespread interpretation of Islamic legal doctrine, converting from Islam is apostasy and punishable by death — though killings are rare.

Egypt's highest Islamic cleric, the Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, wrote last year against the killing of apostates, saying there is no worldly retribution for Muslims who abandon their religion and that punishment would come in the afterlife.

On Wednesday, a new audio message from Osama bin Laden accused the pope of playing a "large and lengthy role" in a "new Crusade" against Islam that included the publication of drawings of the Prophet Muhammad that many Muslims found insulting.

Lombardi said Thursday that bin Laden's accusation was baseless. He said Benedict repeatedly criticized the Muhammad cartoons, first published in some European newspapers in 2006 and republished by Danish papers in February.

VR

[VinReaper]

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Man declared dead, says he feels 'pretty good'

OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma (AP) -- Zach Dunlap says he feels "pretty good," four months after he was declared brain dead and doctors were about to remove his organs for transplant.

Dunlap was pronounced dead November 19 at United Regional Healthcare System in Wichita Falls, Texas, after he was injured in an all-terrain vehicle accident. His family approved having his organs harvested.

As family members were paying their last respects, he moved his foot and hand. He reacted to a pocketknife scraped across his foot and to pressure applied under a fingernail. After 48 days in the hospital, he was allowed to return home, where he continues to work on his recovery.

On Monday, he and his family were in New York, appearing on NBC's "Today."

"I feel pretty good. but it's just hard ... just ain't got the patience," Dunlap told NBC.

Dunlap, 21, of Frederick, Oklahoma, said he has no recollection of the crash.

"I remember a little bit that was about an hour before the accident happened. But then about six hours before that, I remember," he said.

Dunlap said one thing he does remember is hearing the doctors pronounce him dead.

"I'm glad I couldn't get up and do what I wanted to do," he said.

Asked if he would have wanted to get up and shake them and say he's alive, Dunlap responded: "Probably would have been a broken window that went out."

His father, Doug, said he saw the results of the brain scan.

"There was no activity at all, no blood flow at all."

Zach's mother, Pam, said that when she discovered he was still alive, "That was the most miraculous feeling."

"We had gone, like I said, from the lowest possible emotion that a parent could feel to the top of the mountains again," she said.

She said her son is doing "amazingly well," but still has problems with his memory as his brain heals from the traumatic injury.

"It may take a year or more ... before he completely recovers," she said. "But that's OK. It doesn't matter how long it takes. We're just all so thankful and blessed that we have him here."

Dunlap now has the pocketknife that was scraped across his foot, causing the first reaction.

"Just makes me thankful, makes me thankful that they didn't give up," he said. "Only the good die young, so I didn't go."

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

VR

[VinReaper]

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Circus "slave" forced to swim with piranhas
Tue Mar 25, 2008 4:51pm EDT

ROME (Reuters) - Police rescued two teenage Bulgarian sisters from a circus in southern Italy which forced one of them to swim with flesh-eating piranhas for the amusement of guests, police said.

While the 19-year-old sister swam in a transparent tank, the younger, 16-year-old was forced into a container where the circus staff tossed snakes at her. She was injured by one of the snakes, police said.

Police arrested three Italians who ran the circus south of Naples, in Salerno province, accusing them of forcing the sisters to live in virtual slavery.

The women were paid 100 euros ($155.8) per week and lived in a trailer that had previously been used to transport animals, they said.

(Writing by Phil Stewart; Editing by Caroline Drees)


VR

[VinReaper]

Family ties: Candidates' ancestry makes for strange bedfellows

(CNN) -- Perhaps, now the candidates will play nice.

For all their insistence on how unlike they are from one another, the three U.S. presidential candidates share some noteworthy family connections, the New England Historic Genealogical Society has found.

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, who has made his opposition to the Iraq war a linchpin of his campaign, is distantly related not only to President George W. Bush but also to another wartime leader -- former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Because of his shared ancestry with President Bush, Obama is also indirectly related to his rival on the Republican side, Sen. John McCain.

McCain, it turns out, is a sixth cousin of First Lady Laura Bush.

Meanwhile, Sen. Hillary Clinton, is related to beatnik author Jack Kerouac, Canadian Prime Minster Pierre Trudeau and Camilla Parker-Bowles, wife of Prince Charles of England.

Clinton also shares ancestors with Grammy Award-winning singers Celine Dion and Madonna.

The senator won a Best Spoken Word Grammy for the audio version of her book, "It Takes a Village." Rival Obama also snagged one in the same category for his book "The Audacity of Hope."

Conservatives who sometimes accuse Democrats of being in bed with liberal Hollywood elites may have been handed one more round of ammunition by the Society's findings.

Clinton, the Society said, is related to Angelina Jolie. And Obama is related to Jolie's boyfriend Brad Pitt.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society, founded in 1845, says it is the oldest such organization in the country. Members spent three years tracing the lineage of the candidates.

Among its other findings:

McCain, the Vietnam War veteran who spent five years as a prisoner of war, descends from a long line of kings: Scottish King William the Lion, English King Edward I and French King Louis VII.

Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, is "related to millions of contemporary Americans - perhaps even a significant percentage of the population," the researchers said.

He is cousins with six U.S presidents, including Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman and Gerald Ford. He is also linked to American artist Georgia O'Keefe, the Duchess of Windsor and two men who signed the Declaration of Independence.

Most surprisingly, Obama -- the man who could become America's first African-American president -- is linked by ancestry to Robert E. Lee, who commanded the armies of the Southern slave-holding states during the American civil war.

Bedfellows, it turns out, make for strange politics.

VR

[cblakey1]

Man Accidentally Kills Wife During Botched Satellite TV Install

Posted Mar 26th 2008 7:20PM by Tim Stevens
Filed under: Audio/Video, TV
Man Shoots Wife During Botched Satellite TV Install

You know those annoying pro-cable commercials that always talk about how awful or expensive it is to install a satellite dish, and how comparatively easy, cheap, and dependable cable is? Yeah, well, they don't have anything on this story out of Sedalia, Missouri, where a husband has admitted to shooting his wife during the install of a home satellite TV system.

Amazingly the husband, Ronald Long, was trying to use a .22-caliber pistol to shoot a hole through the wall in the couple's home to enable them to run a wire through to the television. His first shot was apparently unsuccessful in penetrating the wall and his second shot somehow hit his wife in the chest, 34-year-old Patsy Long. She was pronounced dead on Saturday night.

Ronald could now be charged with manslaughter, though prosecutors haven't confirmed whether that is their intention. It also remains to be seen whether the cable companies will start filming new ads about these new potential dangers of satellite dish installation, but we wouldn't put it past them.

[VinReaper]

That guy is either the dumbest or the smartest guy ever!!!

:D

VR

[VinReaper]

Russian farmer sues space agency for falling rocket
Thu Mar 27, 2008 8:40am EDT

By Natalya Sokhareva

BARNAUL, Russia (Reuters) - A shepherd is suing Russia's space agency for compensation after he said a 10-foot-long chunk of metal from a space rocket fell into his yard, just missing his outdoor toilet.

Boris Urmatov, who is asking for 1 million roubles ($42,000) from the Roskosmos agency, lives in a small village that lies underneath the flight path of rockets taking off from the Baikonur launchpad Russia leases in nearby Kazakhstan.

"Something woke him up in the night, like something exploded. Since he's visually handicapped he didn't notice the fallen rocket parts," Urmatov's sister Marina told Reuters from the village of Kyrlyk, in Russia's Altai region.

"But in the morning in front of the shepherd hut he saw this enormous metal casing, as smooth as an egg," she said by telephone from the village, which is 2,175 miles east of Moscow. "It nearly crushed the outhouse."

She said her brother was seeking damages to compensate him for the stress he suffered.

Residents in the neighboring village of Ust-Kan said rocket pieces regularly rain down on their area. Parts of the surrounding countryside are designated special zones where people may not go during the launches.

"Sometimes it's smooth metal casings, sometimes it's bolts. I remember something like an engine fell once," said Anatoly Kazakov, an Ust-Kan resident.

"THEY FLY, THEY FALL"

Roskosmos said it regularly warns residents when a launch is scheduled, and in a history stretching back over 50 years and 400 rockets, only a few space-bound rocket parts have fallen outside designated areas.

"Technologically speaking, these parts are supposed to fall off during a launch. They fly, they fall, they fly, they fall. It's how they work," said Roskosmos spokesman Alexander Vorobyov.

He said Roskosmos regularly sends out an investigation team to check on reports of damage from rocket parts, but it could only pay compensation if a court rules for damages.

"If a court determines that, yes, those are rocket parts, they fell on his land, then for sure he will be compensated. No question about it. We live in a civilized, law-abiding country," Vorobyov said.

Izvestia newspaper said Roskosmos had only once paid out compensation over rocket debris to a private individual -- 10,000 roubles in 2001 -- when a piece fell on his yard as he was outside chopping wood.

"What is abnormal is when somebody gets greedy, and it turns out the parts did not fall on his land, but that they were dragged there. Those moments are not good," Vorobyov said.

"But those are individual instances. We in no way refuse to pay out compensation. It just has to go through the court system."

(Writing by Chris Baldwin, editing by Richard Meares)

VR

[VinReaper]

Dad Gets 25 Years for Microwaving Baby
By JUAN A. LOZANO,
AP Posted: 2008-03-27 12:31:56

GALVESTON, Texas (March 26) - Minutes after a jury sentenced him to 25 years in prison for severely burning his daughter in a microwave, a teary-eyed Joshua Mauldin listened one more time to details about the pain he had caused his child.

Joshua Mauldin's baby daughter Ana suffered second- and third-degree burns to her left ear, cheek, hand and shoulder after the attack last year.
AP

Joshua Mauldin's baby daughter Ana suffered second- and third-degree burns to her left ear, cheek, hand and shoulder after the attack last year.
His daughter Ana's foster mother fought back tears as she detailed how after being injured, the girl's left hand was so burned that there was no skin, no muscle, no fat, only tendon and bone.

Ana suffered second- and third-degree burns to her left ear, cheek, hand and shoulder and has required several skin grafts. Part of her left ear had to be amputated.

Her foster mother, Heather Croxton, testified about Ana's screams as she's undergone painful surgeries and physical therapy that will continue for years.

"There is no excuse for your actions and I hate that one day you will be set free and allowed to move on with your life while Ana continues to pay for your actions," she told Mauldin during her emotional victim impact statement Wednesday.

Mauldin, 20, was sentenced after jurors deliberated for 6½ hours over two days. They also fined him $10,000.

Jurors had rejected Mauldin's claim he was insane at the time he put his then-2-month-old daughter in a Galveston hotel-room microwave and turned it on for 10 to 20 seconds. They convicted him Tuesday of felony injury to a child.

Just before putting her in the microwave in May 2007, Mauldin had punched Ana and placed her in the room's safe and refrigerator.

Prosecutors had wanted Mauldin to be sentenced to the maximum of life in prison.

But Galveston County prosecutor Xochitl Vandiver said she was satisfied with the decision. Mauldin has to serve at least half his sentence before being eligible for parole.

"I feel Ana will be well into adulthood when her father (is paroled) and that in and of itself is a great thing," she said.

Sam Cammack III, Mauldin's attorney, had asked jurors to consider his client's long history of mental illness and sentence him to probation so he could be treated at a hospital.

Cammack expressed disappointment in the sentence. "He still doesn't get the treatment for mental illness that he needs," Cammack said. "He's not going to get that in prison."

Jurors did not wish to comment after the trial concluded.

Prosecutors said Mauldin hurt his daughter because he was angry that he was in a loveless marriage and he didn't want to take care of the infant. They also said Mauldin had a history of violence and of lying about being mentally ill to get out of trouble.

Cammack said Mauldin has been wracked by mental illness since he was 10. Mauldin claimed he started hallucinating when he was left alone in the hotel room with his daughter, feeling like mud was running up his body and consuming him.

Mauldin at first told police his daughter had been severely sunburned, later changing his story and saying he had accidentally spilled hot water on her while making coffee.

After the sentence was handed down, Joanie Mauldin still insisted her son was insane. She blamed herself for not getting her son help and for Ana's injuries.

"I pray he gets help. But I don't see it happening in a penitentiary," she said, insisting her son loved his daughter. "Nobody in their right mind would cook a child."

The girl's mother, Eva Mauldin, refused defense attorneys' requests to testify and lives in Arkansas. A trial to terminate the Mauldins' parental rights is scheduled for April.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2008-03-27 09:08:02

Its a sad day for our society and world in general when people have thoughts such as these and then act upon them.


VR

[VinReaper]

http://msnbcmedia1.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photo_StoryLevel/080327/080327-nipple-rings_hmed-4p.hlarge.jpg

Nipple rings fall foul of airport check
Fri Mar 28, 2008 11:03am EDT
By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A woman who claims she was ordered by federal airport screeners to remove her nipple rings with pliers demanded an apology from the U.S. Transportation Security Administration on Thursday.

Mandi Hamlin, 37, also called for an investigation into the February 24 incident in Lubbock, Texas, saying that snickering male agents violated TSA policy by forcing her to remove the jewelry.

"I felt surprised, embarrassed, humiliated, scared and angry," Hamlin told reporters at the offices of her Los Angeles attorney, Gloria Allred.

"This situation was totally out of control. I will not sit quietly. No one deserves to be treated this way."

The TSA, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security that was set up after the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, said it was investigating the incident but that agents were trained to search people with piercings in "sensitive areas" with dignity and respect.

"TSA is well aware of terrorists' interest in hiding dangerous items in sensitive areas of the body, therefore we have a duty to the American public to resolve any alarm we discover," the agency said in a written statement.

The TSA said incidents of female terrorists hiding explosives in "sensitive areas" were on the rise and provided a picture of a "bra bomb" that was used in training its agents.

Allred said the incident began when Hamlin, who has a number of piercings, set off a hand-held metal detector and told a TSA officer that her nipple rings were the problem.

A small group of TSA officers gathered around Hamlin, Allred said, and told her she would have to remove the jewelry from her nipples if she wanted to board her flight.

Hamlin went behind a curtain and removed one of her nipple piercings but could not budge the other, tearfully telling the officers it could not be taken out without pliers, Allred said.

"As Ms. Hamlin struggled to remove the piercing behind the curtain, she could hear a growing number of predominantly male TSA officers snickering in the background," the attorney said.

Allred said TSA policy called for a pat-down under such circumstances but did not require the piercings to be removed.

(Editing by John O'Callaghan)

VR

[VinReaper]

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Ford sells Jaguar, Land Rover to Tata
By TOM KRISHER, AP Auto WriterWed Mar 26, 6:23 PM ET

After spending billions of dollars on Jaguar and Land Rover, Ford Motor Co. gave up on the storied British automakers Wednesday and unloaded them to India's Tata Motors Ltd. for a mere third of the original purchase price.

The deal is another sign of the growing economic muscle of India and something of an economic role reversal, with two icons of British industrial might expanding the global reach of a premier conglomerate in the former British colony.

Ford nets about $1.7 billion, a far cry from what it paid for the properties — $2.5 billion for Jaguar in 1989 and $2.7 billion for Land Rover in 2000. Counting losses and product development, analysts figure Ford spent more than $10 billion on the brands.

Those acquisitions, like General Motors' purchase of Saab and Chrysler's entanglement with Mitsubishi, came when cash was rolling in at the U.S. automakers as drivers snapped up cars and pricey pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles.

But Ford's fortunes have changed, with slumping U.S. sales and billions in losses. The fire-sale price comes as the Dearborn, Mich.-based automaker concentrates on its main brands.

"You have to cut your losses at some point," said Erich Merkle, vice president of auto industry forecasting for the consulting firm IRN Inc. in Grand Rapids. "It's been draining them of cash and resources."

Tata is India's oldest and largest conglomerate, with holdings in steel, information technology and autos. It should have the cash to save Jaguar and Land Rover and develop new products to better compete with luxury automakers, Merkle said.

The proceeds of the deal aren't enough to rescue Ford's finances, but the sale will allow the company to focus on restructuring its core brands, Merkle said. Ford does not break out financial results for its individual brands, but Merkle said Jaguar has never made a profit in the nine years Ford has owned it.

"They were a long time coming to the realization that this thing wasn't working," said Burnham Securities analyst David Healy.

Tata said Ford will continue to supply engines, transmissions and other components for five to nine years. The Indian company said it expects no significant changes for Jaguar and Land Rover's 16,000 workers, and its statements said it would preserve the heritage of the brands.

Indeed, British Labour Party lawmaker Richard Burden said Tata appeared to recognize the importance of "retaining the essential Britishness of the Jaguar and Land Rover brands."

Some workers were similarly optimistic about the sale and the investment it could bring, but others worried about the future.

"I am pleased I have kept my job. But for how long?" asked Paul Hoyte, 35, a Land Rover worker at Solihull in central England.

The sale raises Tata's profile on the world stage, said V.G. Ramakrishnan, lead auto analyst with the consulting firm Frost and Sullivan India.

"Many people will see this deal as the future of things to come — you will see more companies out of India acquiring global companies. They want to be seen as major global players," Ramakrishnan said.

Tata, which Ford named the preferred bidder for the British automakers in January, has made a slew of previous acquisitions, including Britain's Tetley Tea and Boston's Ritz Carlton Hotel.

Its Tata Steel Ltd. bought Britain-based Corus Group last year for $13 billion. And in January, Tata Motors unveiled the planet's cheapest car: a $2,500 four-seater that could change the global auto industry.

C. Ramakrishnan, Tata's chief financial officer, said the company paid for Jaguar and Land Rover using a 15-month, $3 billion loan but expects to replace that financing with a mix of equity and debt during the next several months.

Ford had hoped to turn Jaguar, which was founded in 1922, into a high-volume brand that could compete with BMW and Mercedes-Benz. But its entry-level X-Type sedan, introduced in 2001 to lure younger buyers, sold poorly and was criticized for conservative styling. Jaguar's U.S. sales were down 24 percent last year.

Land Rover, founded in 1948 — the year after India gained its independence from Britain — has fared better thanks to popular products such as the Range Rover Sport and LR2. U.S. sales rose 4 percent last year.

But unlike Jaguar, which has improved its quality rankings under Ford, Land Rover placed last in J.D. Power and Associates' rankings of initial quality and dependability in 2007.

Ramakrishnan acknowledged Jaguar's financial difficulties but said the brand is turning around, and he expects it to be profitable within two years.

"Land Rover is a highly profitable company ... and Jaguar is well on its way," he said in a conference call with reporters.

Ramakrishnan said the brands' existing management will continue.

Ford, which lost $12.6 billion in 2006 and $2.7 billion last year, has been looking to sell the brands for months. It has mortgaged assets to keep operating and expects to burn up $12 billion to $14 billion until 2009, when it plans to become profitable again.

Ford shares fell 13 cents to $5.87 Wednesday. They have traded in a 52-week range of $4.95 to $9.70.

Associated Press Writers Sam Dolnick in New Delhi, Jeff Karoub and Dee-Ann Durbin contributed to this report.


VR

[Ink]

hopefully american car makers can start moving in the right direction. I guess the new mustang did nothing for ford's bottom line

[VinReaper]

hopefully american car makers can start moving in the right direction. I guess the new mustang did nothing for ford's bottom line

I guess not! but the real estate market and stock market's lull and decline hasn't helped them either. Buyers have been holding off in spending on that second car as their weekend toy/fun car.

I feel it too since it directly reflects in my business as well. Luxury items, be it a car, art or a bottle of wine take the hit first!


VR

[VinReaper]

Vicar offers stress relief in grave
Fri Mar 28, 2008 11:05am EDT

BERLIN (Reuters) - A vicar in Germany who had the novel idea of helping parishioners escape the stresses and strains of daily life by letting them lie in an open grave was upset when intrusive journalists spoiled the atmosphere.

"I meant it as a meditative exercise," pastor Thorsten Nolting told Reuters. "I wanted people to think about what weighs on them down in the darkness and gather the energy to resist it."

Nolting, from the western German city of Duesseldorf, said his plan went "horribly wrong" when journalists' persistent questioning as parishioners were "laid to rest" earlier this week ruined the serenity of the occasion.

"It wasn't silent, as it should have been. They ruined it. (They) would not go away, even when I asked them," he said.

Extraverts who could cope with the incessant questioning were happy to climb down into the two meter long hole, and then rave about their "resurrection," Nolting said.

But a local newspaper said one man was still shaking, 20 minutes after his seven-minute spell in the dank grave ended.

(Reporting by Carolyn Palmer, editing by Tim Pearce)

VR

[lord odin]

Vicar offers stress relief in grave
Fri Mar 28, 2008 11:05am EDT

BERLIN (Reuters) - A vicar in Germany who had the novel idea of helping parishioners escape the stresses and strains of daily life by letting them lie in an open grave was upset when intrusive journalists spoiled the atmosphere.

"I meant it as a meditative exercise," pastor Thorsten Nolting told Reuters. "I wanted people to think about what weighs on them down in the darkness and gather the energy to resist it."

Nolting, from the western German city of Duesseldorf, said his plan went "horribly wrong" when journalists' persistent questioning as parishioners were "laid to rest" earlier this week ruined the serenity of the occasion.

"It wasn't silent, as it should have been. They ruined it. (They) would not go away, even when I asked them," he said.

Extraverts who could cope with the incessant questioning were happy to climb down into the two meter long hole, and then rave about their "resurrection," Nolting said.

But a local newspaper said one man was still shaking, 20 minutes after his seven-minute spell in the dank grave ended.

(Reporting by Carolyn Palmer, editing by Tim Pearce)

VR
I laid down in an open grave before it was no big deal.
I hope these people didn`t pay for it.

[VinReaper]

I laid down in an open grave before it was no big deal.
I hope these people didn`t pay for it.

I wouldn't mind charging people for it! Just another way to earn money for statues! :thumbs2:

LOL! :D

VR

[VinReaper]

Airline hires temps to fill plane
Mon Mar 31, 2008 11:52am EDT

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Flybe has given the term low-fare airline an entirely new meaning: it is paying 172 people to fly back and forth across England and the Irish Sea to help it meet a target for passenger numbers at Norwich airport.

Flybe was narrowly falling short of a target to deliver at least 15,000 passengers on the Dublin-Norwich route in the 12 months ending on Monday, which meant it would have to forego a 280,000 pound ($550,000) rebate from the airport.

After the airport rejected a request for a partial rebate for almost hitting the target, Flybe hired 172 temps for 30-40 pounds each, plus a free bar and in-flight entertainment, though it admitted "it probably sounds like an early April fool."

But Richard Jenner, managing director of the airport in eastern England, called the British carrier's move "ludicrous" and said the target had to be met by regular fare-paying passengers.

"The ludicrousness is on the Norwich side who in essence have tried to hold us to ransom, putting at risk routes into Norwich," Flybe Chief Commercial Officer Mike Rutter replied in a joint interview with Jenner on Irish public broadcaster RTE.

(Reporting by Andras Gergely; Editing by Jon Boyle)

VR

[VinReaper]

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Defuse Bombs With A Wii Remote
U.S. military adopts Nintendo's remote controller in bomb-defusing bots.
By Ben Silverman
Posted: 31 Mar 2008


You've used it to virtually swing a racket, smack a homerun and hurl a bowling ball. The U.S. military, however, wants to use it to defuse real-world bombs.

According to a report by New Scientist magazine, enterprising engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy have made it possible to control a bomb-defusing robot with the same Nintendo Wii remote that millions of gamers consider a natural extension of their hands.

The military has been working with the hardy Packbot for some time now, using the wheeled robot to sniff out and defuse explosives and landmines for U.S. soldiers. Traditionally, control over the bot has been accomplished with a joypad not unlike the kind that comes with an Xbox or a Playstation. That might seem like an easy fit for today's tech-savvy soldier, but head engineer David Bruemmer notes otherwise.

"Our tests show 90 per cent of the operator's workload goes into driving the robot rather than keeping an eye on the sensor data," he said.

By virtue of its unique motion-detection capabilities, the Wiimote has streamlined the process and allows operators to focus more on the collected data and less on how to steer the Packbot. Bruemmer and his crew have also tweaked the Wii's vibration feedback technology to "buzz" the operator when the Packbot detects something of interest in the field.

iRobot, manufacturers of the Packbot, know a thing or two about cleaning up sticky situations -- they first hit consumer paydirt in 2002 with their automated Roomba vacuum-cleaning robot.

More information on the Packbot can be found at the official site.


VR

[VinReaper]

http://d.yimg.com/a/p/sp/tools/med/2008/04/ipt/1207173316.jpg

GIANTS’ Super Bowl Ring
to have 1.5 carats in diamonds
Apr 1, 7:37 pm EDT

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP)—Big Upset. Big Super Bowl ring.

The New York Giants unveiled the design of their Super Bowl championship ring on Tuesday, a white gold sparkler that will feature about 1.5 carats in diamonds.

The new ring will even make seven-time Pro Bowl defensive end Michael Strahan happy.

Shortly after New York won the championship with a 17-14 win over the previously undefeated New England Patriots, Strahan said he wanted a “10-table ring.”

Giants Super Bowl XLII ring

Loosely defined: He wanted a ring that could be seen 10 tables away in a restaurant.

“There was some discussion about maybe one of the rings was too big,” said center Shaun O’Hara, who was among group of players and team executives who designed the ring with officials from Tiffany and Co.

“I threw out the fact that it was a big win, it was a huge win, so the ring should be designed accordingly,” O’Hara said. “Michael said it best when he said he wanted a 10-table ring. I think everybody is going to be very pleased with the design. It is very clean, very classy, but at the same time it is very strong.”

The ring’s top is covered in diamonds and features three Super Bowl trophies accented with marquise diamonds signifying the Giants’ Super Bowl XXI, XXV and XLII victories. The team’s “NY” logo is in bead set round diamonds, while “World Champions” is emblazoned in raised letters on the top and bottom bezel, with channel set diamonds on left and right bezel.

The ring’s shanks celebrate the Giants’ season, noting the team’s “Eleven Straight on the Road,” an NFL record; the NFL shield; and player name, along with player number in raised letters appear on one shank.

The final score, “Super Bowl XLII,” date (02.03.08) and ‘AZ’ appear on the other shank.

Giants spokesman Pat Hanlon would not disclose the price of the ring.

Tiffany has previously created Super Bowl championship rings for the Washington Redskins and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The company annually creates the NFL Vince Lombardi Super Bowl Trophy at its workshop in Parsippany, about 30 minutes from Giants Stadium.

The rings will be presented to the Giants players and coaches at a ceremony later in the spring.

:buttrock: :buttrock: :buttrock:

VR

[VinReaper]

http://d.yimg.com/news.aunz.yimg.com/xp/reuters/20080404/02/911911584.jpg

Diamond thong shown to the throng
Thu Apr 3, 2008 11:19am EDT

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A diamond thong worth S$168,000 ($122,000) was the highlight of a lingerie fashion show in Singapore on Thursday.

The Triumph Luxurious Diamond Thong had 518 brilliant-cut diamonds, totaling 30 carats, studded into the front of a black lace thong in a floral pattern. The skimpy underwear that left little to the imagination also had 27 white gold tassels hanging off it.

Danielle Luminita, a brunette model from Romania, was carried down the runway on the shoulders of two male models wearing only the diamond thong.

"It is very comfortable, it's not heavy or scratchy or anything," Luminita told Reuters backstage.

A spokeswoman for Triumph International, the lingerie company that commissioned the thong, said that the thong would be dry cleaned before going on display.

"It's a signature piece, obviously we aren't going to sell it," she said.

(Reporting by Melanie Lee)


VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.aolcdn.com/aolnews_photos/0e/05/20080403100309990041

Ex-Stripper Gets 99 Years in Murder Plot
2008-04-03 09:02:19

Mechele Linehan, 35, who until her arrest had been living a quiet life as the wife of an Olympia, Wash., doctor, was convicted in October of first-degree murder in the 1996 shooting death of Kent Leppink.

Prosecutor Pat Gullufsen said Linehan plotted with another man who hoped to marry her, John Carlin III, to lure Leppink to a rural trail, where Carlin shot him with a .44-caliber handgun.

The motive was a $1 million insurance policy that Linehan mistakenly believed named her as the beneficiary, prosecutors said.

Carlin was sentenced in January to 99 years in prison for firing the shots that killed Leppink.

Anchorage Superior Court Judge Philip Volland called the crime the worst in its category: premeditated, cold and cruel.

"It was a calculated homicide accomplished through deceit, deception and manipulation," Volland said. "It was done for the most venal of reasons and it was dismissed by the two participants in the most casual of ways. It was a man killed by his friend and his fiance."

Volland rejected the contention that Linehan was not a significant participant in Leppink's murder. The evidence showed her obtaining the life insurance policy on Leppink as she was deceiving him about her intentions to marry him, he said. She also used deceit to lure him to the murder scene.

"Just those facts are ones that support complicity in the event," Volland said.

Dozens of people who knew Linehan in the decade after Leppink's murder wrote letters supporting her, mentioning her generosity and volunteer service. But Volland said he could not offer a sentence different from the one he gave to Carlin.

"In my mind I can find no principal distinction between the puppet who pulls the trigger and the puppeteer who pulls the strings," Volland said. "In my judgment, Ms. Linehan was the puppeteer who pulled the strings."

Linehan showed no emotion as the sentence was pronounced. In a short statement, she said she was not the monster prosecutors and the press made her out to be.

"I beg you from the bottom of my heart to allow me the chance to go back to my family as soon as I possibly can," she told Volland.

She will be eligible for parole after serving 33 years.

Prosecutors said Linehan was inspired by a 1994 movie, "The Last Seduction," in which a woman coaxes her lover into killing her husband for money.

Leppink's body was found by utility workers on the ground near a lonely trail in Hope, more than an hour's drive from Anchorage. He had been shot three times with a .44 Magnum. Prosecutors say Linehan and Carlin had lured him to the desolate mining community by using a fictitious note that Leppink found, saying Linehan was holed up in a cabin. The cabin didn't exist.

Carlin and Linehan have denied they were responsible for Leppink's death. Neither testified.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.


VR

[cblakey1]

Man believes dead wife is contacting him on mobile


By Julia Bennett
IT looks like every house on the street, a normal semi with a bird-bath perched in the front garden.
But the unassuming facade of this home hides a ghostly secret which, almost four decades ago, drove a family to run in terror from "The Thornton Thing".

Today, its resident says he lives with a ghost – no longer the sinister apparition which reduced residents to sheer terror, but the spirit of his late wife.

See our Fylde's most haunted special

And in an amazing story, Frank Jones admits he believes wife Sadie is contacting him from beyond the grave... by mobile phone.

Frank, 59, says the spirit of Sadie and son Steven, who both died five years ago, are visiting him at home in Windsor Avenue, Thornton.

Mr Jones had his home exorcised 12 years ago following disturbing visits from a supernatural being, known as 'The Thing' which had forced another family to flee the house 37 years ago.

The Ross family told The Gazette in 1971 how the 'Thing' pulled at their bed covers while they were asleep. They also told how they sensed a vile smell and felt something breathing in their ears.

When Mr Jones moved into the house 20 years ago he was sceptical about the legend of the 'Thing'. But he soon changed his mind.

He said: "I just thought they were imagining it. But there was a lot of banging and an earthy smell in the house. Then one night I was lying in bed and a mist came across the room.

"I wanted to shout out at it, but I couldn't get my words out. My face seemed to be paralysed. It all got too much for me when that happened."

Mr Jones's daughter, Maureen, 30, also recalls experiences with the 'Thing', including taps coming on full force and the house being "ransacked".

She said: "You think people are exaggerating until you experience it. I was home alone one evening and suddenly heard these footsteps coming up the stairs.

"They went into my dad's bedroom and then I heard all the cupboards banging open. It sounded like burglars."

Mr Jones contacted Fleetwood Spiritualist Church for an exorcism to be carried out.

He added: "A lady came to cleanse the house. Sh
e said a man was trapped between two worlds."

But the strange goings on returned five years ago after Mr Jones suffered a double tragedy when his son Steven, 32, died from a brain tumour and wife Sadie, 69, died from a heart attack three months later.

Mr Jones, who runs his own scrap metal business, said: "Just after Sadie died I came home and I felt like I didn't want to go in the house.

"I got a missed call on my mobile, but it didn't ring. The call was from my own home number, but there was nobody in the house. Then when I went inside there was a smell like cigarettes which Sadie used to smoke and the smell of her perfume."

Mr Jones said the family has also received strange text messages, which they believe to be from her.

He added: "She always had a mobile with her. We buried her with her phone. There have been messages with words Sadie would say but there's no number.

[VinReaper]

Bizarre!!!

VR

[VinReaper]

Farmer cuts property in two to give to ex-wife
Fri Apr 4, 2008 1:38pm EDT

BELGRADE (Reuters) - A Serb farmer used a grinding machine to cut in half his farm tools and machines to comply with a court ruling that he must share all his property with his ex-wife, local media reported on Thursday.

Branko Zivkov, 76, told Belgrade daily Kurir he had been ready to give his wife Vukadinka her equal share of everything earned during their 45-year marriage, but was furious at being asked to give away half his farming equipment.

Instead, he bought a grinder and cut in two all his tools, including large items such as cattle scales, a harrow and a sowing machine.

"I still haven't decided how to split the cow," he told the newspaper. "She should just say what she wants -- the part with the horns or the part with the tail."

(Reporting by Ljilja Cvekic, Editing by Ellie Tzortzi)



This guy is my idol!!! :laugh:

VR

[VinReaper]

No happy returns as school bans birthday cake
Fri Apr 4, 2008 1:39pm EDT

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Children in a New Zealand school have been banned from bringing cakes to share on their birthdays, due to new government healthy eating guidelines.

Pupils at Oteha Valley primary school north of Auckland have been told they are allowed to celebrate their birthdays, but the cake must stay at home, the New Zealand Herald newspaper reported.

The Ministry of Education has been on a fat-busting crusade, introducing sweeping guidelines against unhealthy food in New Zealand schools.

Oteha Valley has a large number of pupils born in September and October, and there can be up to four cakes a week in some classes, principal Megan Bowden told the Herald.

It had gotten to the point where parents thought they were required to provide a cake for their child's birthday.

The school has advised parents in a newsletter to stop sending cakes to school from the next term.

A Ministry of Education spokesman told the Herald the government guidelines only applied to food sold on the premises, and schools did not need to monitor food brought in from outside.

(Reporting by Adrian Bathgate; Editing by Valerie Lee)

VR

[Vince-Vell]

Farmer cuts property in two to give to ex-wife
Fri Apr 4, 2008 1:38pm EDT

BELGRADE (Reuters) - A Serb farmer used a grinding machine to cut in half his farm tools and machines to comply with a court ruling that he must share all his property with his ex-wife, local media reported on Thursday.

Branko Zivkov, 76, told Belgrade daily Kurir he had been ready to give his wife Vukadinka her equal share of everything earned during their 45-year marriage, but was furious at being asked to give away half his farming equipment.

Instead, he bought a grinder and cut in two all his tools, including large items such as cattle scales, a harrow and a sowing machine.

"I still haven't decided how to split the cow," he told the newspaper. "She should just say what she wants -- the part with the horns or the part with the tail."

(Reporting by Ljilja Cvekic, Editing by Ellie Tzortzi)



This guy is my idol!!! :laugh:

VR


Aww god now thats a great story. he is my hero too.

[VinReaper]

Aww god now thats a great story. he is my hero too.

I couldn't agree more! :buttrock:

VR

[VinReaper]

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii206/vinreaper/GIFs/halfflag.gifhttp://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii206/vinreaper/MISC/06heston_a1_190.jpg

April 6, 2008
Charlton Heston, Epic Film Star and Voice of N.R.A., Dies at 84
By ROBERT BERKVIST

Charlton Heston, who appeared in some 100 films in his 60-year acting career but who is remembered chiefly for his monumental, jut-jawed portrayals of Moses, Ben-Hur and Michelangelo, died Saturday night at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 84.

His death was confirmed by a spokesman for the family, Bill Powers, who did not specify a cause. In August 2002, Mr. Heston announced that he had received a diagnosis of neurological symptoms “consistent with Alzheimer’s disease.”

“I’m neither giving up nor giving in,” he said.

Every actor dreams of a breakthrough role, the part that stamps him in the public memory, and Mr. Heston’s life changed forever when he caught the eye of the director Cecil B. DeMille. DeMille, who was planning his next biblical spectacular, “The Ten Commandments,” looked at the young, physically imposing Mr. Heston and saw his Moses.

When the film was released, in 1956, more than three and a half hours long and the most expensive that De Mille had ever made, Mr. Heston became a marquee name. Whether leading the Israelites through the wilderness, parting the Red Sea or coming down from Mount Sinai with the tablets from God in hand, he was a Moses to remember.

Writing in The New York Times nearly 30 years afterward, when the film was re-released for a brief run, Vincent Canby called it “a gaudy, grandiloquent Hollywood classic” and suggested there was more than a touch of “the rugged American frontiersman of myth” in Mr. Heston’s Moses.

The same quality made Mr. Heston an effective spokesman, off screen, for the causes he believed in. Late in life he became a staunch opponent of gun control. Elected president of the National Rifle Association in 1998, he proved to be a powerful campaigner against what he saw as the government’s attempt to infringe on a constitutional guarantee — the right to bear arms.

In Mr. Heston, the N.R.A. found its embodiment of pioneer values — pride, independence and valor. In a speech at the N.R.A.’s annual convention in 2000, he brought the audience to its feet with a ringing attack on gun-control advocates. Paraphrasing an N.R.A. bumper sticker (“I’ll give you my gun when you take it from my cold, dead hands”), he waved a replica of a colonial musket above his head and shouted defiantly, “From my cold, dead hands!”

Mr. Heston’s screen presence was so commanding that he was never dominated by mammoth sets, spectacular effects or throngs of spear-waving extras. In his films, whether playing Buffalo Bill, an airline pilot, a naval captain or the commander of a spaceship, he essentially projected the same image — muscular, steely-eyed, courageous. If critics used terms like “marble-monumental” or “granitic” to describe his acting style, they just as often praised his forthright, no-nonsense characterizations.

After his success in “The Ten Commandments,” Mr. Heston tried a change of pace. Working for another legendary Hollywood director, Orson Welles, he played a Mexican narcotics investigator in the thriller “Touch of Evil,” in which Welles himself played a murderous sheriff in a border town. Also starring Janet Leigh and Marlene Dietrich, the film, a modest success when it opened in 1958, came to be accepted as a noir classic.

A Biblical Specialty

But the following year Mr. Heston stepped back into the world of the biblical epic, this time for the director William Wyler. The movie was “Ben-Hur.” Cast as a prince in ancient Judea who rebels against the rule of Rome, Mr. Heston again dominated the screen. In the film’s most spectacular sequence, he and his co-star, Stephen Boyd, as his Roman rival, fight a thrilling duel with whips as their horse-drawn chariots career wheel-to-wheel around an arena filled with roaring spectators.

“Ben-Hur” won 11 Academy Awards — a record at the time — including those for best picture, best director and, for Mr. Heston, best actor.

He went on to star opposite Sophia Loren in the 1961 film “El Cid,” battling the Moors in medieval Spain. As a Marine officer at the Forbidden City in 1900, he helped put down the Boxer Rebellion in Nicholas Ray’s 1963 epic “55 Days at Peking.” In “Khartoum” (1966), he played Gen. Charles (Chinese) Gordon, who was killed in a desert uprising, led in the film by Laurence Olivier’s Mahdi. When George Stevens produced and directed “The Greatest Story Ever Told” in 1965, there was Mr. Heston, back in ancient Judea, playing John the Baptist to Max von Sydow’s Jesus.

He portrayed Andrew Jackson twice, in “The President’s Lady” (1953) and “The Buccaneer” (1958). There were westerns (“Major Dundee,” “Will Penny,” “The Mountain Men”), costume dramas (“The Three Musketeers” and its sequel, “The Four Musketeers,” with Mr. Heston as the crafty Cardinal Richelieu in both) and action films aplenty. Whether playing a hard-bitten landowner in an adaptation of James Michener’s novel “The Hawaiians” (1970), or a daring pilot in “Airport 1975,” he could be relied on to give moviegoers their money’s worth.

In 1965 he was cast as Michelangelo in the film version of Irving Stone’s novel “The Agony and the Ecstasy.” Directed by Carol Reed, the film pitted Mr. Heston’s temperamental artist against Rex Harrison’s testy Pope Julius II, who commissioned Michelangelo to create frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Mr. Heston’s performance took a critical drubbing, but to audiences, the larger-than-life role seemed to be another perfect fit. Mr. Heston once joked: “I have played three presidents, three saints and two geniuses. If that doesn’t create an ego problem, nothing does.”

Foray Into the Future

Mr. Heston was catapulted into the distant future in the 1968 science-fiction film “Planet of the Apes,” in which he played an astronaut marooned on a desolate planet and then enslaved by its rulers, a race of anthropomorphic apes. The film was a hit. He reprised the role two years later in the sequel, “Beneath the Planet of the Apes.”

It was all a long way from Evanston, Ill., where John Charles Carter was born on Oct. 4, 1923, and from the small town of St. Helen, Mich., where his family moved when he was a small boy and where his father ran a lumber mill. He attended a one-room school and learned to fish and hunt and to savor the feeling of being self-reliant in the wild, where his shyness was no handicap.

When his parents divorced in the 1930s and his mother remarried — his stepfather’s surname was Heston — the family moved back to the Chicago suburbs, this time Winnetka. He joined the theater program at his new high school and went on to enroll at Northwestern University on a scholarship. By that time, he was convinced he had found his life’s work.

Mr. Heston also found a fellow drama student, Lydia Clarke, whom he married in 1944, just before he enlisted in the Army Air Forces. He became a radio-gunner and spent three years stationed in the Aleutian Islands. After his discharge, the Hestons moved to New York, failed to find work in the theater and, somewhat disenchanted but still determined, moved to North Carolina, where they spent several seasons working at the Thomas Wolfe memorial theater in Asheville.

When they returned to New York in 1947, Mr. Heston got his first big break, landing the role of Caesar’s lieutenant in a Broadway production of Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra” staged by Guthrie McClintick and starring Katharine Cornell. The production ran for seven months and proved to be the high point of Mr. Heston’s New York stage career. He appeared in a handful of other plays, most of them dismal failures.

If Broadway had little to offer him, television was another matter. He made frequent appearances in dramatic series like “Robert Montgomery Presents” and “Philco Playhouse.” The door to Hollywood opened when the film producer Hal B. Wallis saw Mr. Heston’s performance as Rochester in a “Studio One” production of “Jane Eyre.” Wallis offered him a contract.

Mr. Heston made his film debut in 1950 in Wallis’s “Dark City,” a low-grade thriller in which he played a small-time gambler. Two years later, he did his first work for DeMille as a hard-driving circus boss in “The Greatest Show on Earth.”

Throughout his career he studied long and hard for his roles. He prepared for the part of Moses by memorizing passages from the Old Testament. When filming began on the sun-baked slopes of Mount Sinai, he suggested to DeMille that he play the role barefoot — a decision that he felt lent an edge of truth to his performance.

Preparing for “The Agony and the Ecstasy,” he read hundreds of Michelangelo’s letters and practiced how to sculpt and paint convincingly. When filming “The Wreck of the Mary Deare” (1959), in which he played the pilot of a salvage boat, he learned deep-water diving. And he mostly rejected stunt doubles. In “Ben-Hur,” he said, he drove his own chariot for “about 80 percent of the race.”

“I worked six weeks learning how to manage the four white horses,” he said. “Nearly pulled my arms right out of their sockets.”

As the years wore on, the leading roles began to go to younger men, and by the 1980s, Mr. Heston’s appearances on screen were less frequent. He turned to stage work again, not on Broadway but in Los Angeles, at the Ahmanson Theater, where he played roles ranging from Macbeth to James Tyrone in “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” He also returned to television, appearing in 1983 as a paternalistic banker in the mini-series “Chiefs” and as an oil baron in the series “The Colbys.”

Mr. Heston was always able to channel some energies into the public arena. He was an active supporter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., calling him “a 20th-century Moses for his people,” and participated in the historic march on Washington in 1963.

Inspired by Reagan

He served as president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1966 to 1971, following in the footsteps of his friend and role model Ronald Reagan. A registered Democrat for many years, he was nevertheless selective in the candidates he chose to support and often campaigned for conservatives.

In 1981, President Reagan appointed him co-chairman of the President’s Task Force on the Arts and Humanities, a group formed to devise ways to obtain financing for arts organizations. Although he had reservations about some projects supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Mr. Heston wound up defending the agency against charges of elitism.

Again and again, he proved himself a cogent and effective speaker, but he rejected suggestions that he run for office. “I’d rather play a senator than be one,” he said.

He became a Republican after Democrats in the Senate blocked the confirmation of Judge Robert Bork, a conservative, to the Supreme Court in 1987. Mr. Heston had supported the nomination and was critical of the Reagan White House for misreading the depth of the liberal opposition.

Mr. Heston frequently spoke out against what he saw as evidence of the decline and debasement of American culture. In 1992, appalled by the lyrics on “Cop Killer,” a recording by the rap artist Ice T, he blasted the album at a Time Warner stockholders meeting and was a force in having it withdrawn from the marketplace.

In the 1996 elections, he campaigned on behalf of some 50 Republican candidates and began to speak out against gun control. In 1997, he was elected vice president of the N.R.A.

In December of that year, as the keynote speaker at the 20th anniversary gala of the Free Congress Foundation, Mr. Heston described “a cultural war” raging across America, “storming our values, assaulting our freedoms, killing our self-confidence in who we are and what we believe.”

A Relentless Drive

The next year, in his 70’s, he was elected president of the N.R.A. In his speech at the association’s convention before his election, he trained his oratorical artillery on President Bill Clinton: “Mr. Clinton, sir, America didn’t trust you with our health care system. America didn’t trust you with gays in the military. America doesn’t trust you with our 21-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don’t trust you with our guns.”

He was in the news again after the shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., in April 1999, when he said that the N.R.A.’s annual membership meeting, scheduled to be held the following week in Denver, would be scaled back in light of the killings but not canceled.

In a memorable scene from “Bowling for Columbine,” a 2002 documentary about violence in America, the director, Michael Moore, visited Mr. Heston at his home and asked him how he could defend his pro-gun stance. Mr. Heston ended the interview without comment.

In May 2001, he was unanimously re-elected to an unprecedented fourth term by the association’s board of directors. The association had amended its bylaws in 2000 to allow Mr. Heston to serve a third one-year term as president. Two months after his celebrated speech at the 2000 convention, it was disclosed that he had checked himself into an alcohol rehabilitation program.

Mr. Heston was proud of his collection of some 30 guns at his longtime home in the Coldwater Canyon area of Los Angeles, where he and his wife raised their son, Fraser, and daughter, Holly Ann. They all survive him, along with three grandchildren.

Never much for socializing , he spent his days either working, exercising, reading (he was fond of biographies) or sketching. An active diarist, he published several accounts of his career, including “The Actor’s Life: Journals 1956-1976.”

In 2003, Mr. Heston was among the recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded by President Bush. In 1997, he was also a recipient of the annual Kennedy Center honors.

Mr. Heston continued working through the 1990s, acting more frequently on television but also in occasional films. His most recent film appearance found him playing a cameo role, in simian makeup, in Tim Burton’s 2001 remake of “Planet of the Apes.”

He announced in 1999 that he was receiving radiation treatments for prostate cancer, but said he would continue his film work and go on making appearances on behalf of Republicans running for office.

He had always hated the thought of retirement and once explained his relentless drive as an actor. “You never get it right,” he said in a 1986 interview. “Never once was it the way I imagined it lying awake at 4 o’clock in the morning thinking about it the next day.” His goal remained, he said, “to get it right one time.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 7, 2008
A front-page obituary and a headline in some editions on Sunday about the actor Charlton Heston misstated his age and the year of his birth. He was 84, not 83, and was born in 1923, not 1924.

God rest his soul! A sad day! A great actor, man and American! He will be missed!

VR

[cblakey1]

Cheerleader, Other Girls Beat Up Teen Girl , Tape the Crime
Video
VIDEO: Florida Teen Girl Beating Captured on Tape
Image still from the video

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Lakeland, Florida (WTSP) – Lakeland, Florida - The Polk County Sheriff's office released the video of a teenage girl who, as Sheriff Grady Judd puts it, was "lured so her friends could beat her."

The video shows what Judd says is the second of five beatings the 16-year-old received from people she knew. The attackers say they were upset with so-called "trash talk" the victim posted on her MySpace page, and they say they wanted to post their own video of the beating on MySpace and YouTube.

The sheriff says the victim was first beaten unconscious in a bedroom. When she awoke, she was on a couch in the living room, where the screaming and beatings continued.

"It is disgusting that the attackers find it funny and want to post something on the Internet showing someone nearly beaten to death," says the victim's mother.

Sheriff Judd is calling it one of the most disturbing videos he has seen in a long time and he hopes all those arrested will be tried as adults. They face charges ranging from felony battery, false imprisonment to kidnapping. The sheriff says the attackers "were relentless."

Even though those involved could face prison time, Judd says the teens showed no remorse after their arrests.

"When they were in a holding cell, they were all laughing," Judd says. "One of the teens arrested, who is a cheerleader, asked, 'Does this mean I'm going to miss cheerleading practice tomorrow?' The others were cutting up and said, 'It looks like we won't be going to the beach this weekend.'"

While the attackers can laugh off the incident, the victim's mother certainly can't.

"You never think it will happen to your family," she says. "To have this happen and see it... is hard to bear."

[VinReaper]

A sad state of affairs our country has come to, when the humility, compassion and remorse have been removed and replaced with selfishness, self-promotion/pompousness and a general lack of value, traditions and morality. :(


VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/ffximage/2008/04/08/470absolut.jpg

Absolut vodka pulls ad showing California in Mexico
Mon Apr 7, 9:36 PM ET

The distillers of Sweden's Absolut vodka have withdrawn an advertisement run in Mexico that angered many U.S. citizens by idealizing an early 19th century map showing chunks of the United States as Mexican.

The billboard ad has the slogan "In an Absolut World" slapped over a pre-1848 map showing California, Arizona and other U.S. states as Mexican territory. Those states were carved out of what had been Mexican lands until that year.

Although it was not shown in the United States, U.S. media outlets picked up on the ad, and after a barrage of complaints, Absolut's maker said on Sunday the ad campaign would cease.

Defending the campaign last week, Absolut maker Vin & Spirit said the ad was created "with a Mexican sensibility" and was not meant for the U.S. market.

"In no way was this meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues," a spokeswoman wrote on Absolut's Web site.

"Instead, it hearkens to a time which the population of Mexico may feel was more ideal," she wrote.

Absolut's blog cite has received more than a thousand comments since the ad campaign was launched a few weeks ago, with many calling for boycotts of the Swedish company.

"I have poured the remainder of my Absolut bottles down the sink," one blogger wrote.

A war between Mexico and the United States from 1846 to 1848 started with Mexico's refusal to recognize the U.S. annexation of Texas and ended with the occupation of Mexico City by U.S. troops.

At the end, Mexico ceded nearly half of its territory to the United States, forming the states of California, Nevada, Utah and parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming.

Mexicans remain sensitive about the loss and the location of the border. At the same time, the United States is fortifying barriers to keep out undocumented Mexican migrants.

Some Mexicans use the term "Reconquista" (reconquest) to refer to the growing presence in California of Mexican migrants and their descendants.

France's Pernod Ricard is taking over Absolut vodka, one of the world's top-selling spirit brands, after buying Vin & Spirit from the Swedish government at the end of March.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich, editing by Philip Barbara)

VR

[Vince-Vell]

Cheerleader, Other Girls Beat Up Teen Girl , Tape the Crime
Video
VIDEO: Florida Teen Girl Beating Captured on Tape
Image still from the video



Ok i just saw some news videos on this, and i cant get over how those sick biotchs are. Its a damn web page with just words. You don't go beating someone close to death over it, then have the balls to tape it and post it.

i hope they get tried as adults, cause for them to give those smart arsh comments in jail afterwards. They deserve to be thrown in jail.

[lord odin]

Ok i just saw some news videos on this, and i cant get over how those sick biotchs are. Its a damn web page with just words. You don't go beating someone close to death over it, then have the balls to tape it and post it.

i hope they get tried as adults, cause for them to give those smart arsh comments in jail afterwards. They deserve to be thrown in jail.
After being unconscious it only takes very little trauma to kill.
These idiots filmed it.

[cblakey1]

Ok i just saw some news videos on this, and i cant get over how those sick biotchs are. Its a damn web page with just words. You don't go beating someone close to death over it, then have the balls to tape it and post it.

i hope they get tried as adults, cause for them to give those smart arsh comments in jail afterwards. They deserve to be thrown in jail.

After being unconscious it only takes very little trauma to kill.
These idiots filmed it.

It's the mug shots of those kids that killed me. They look like damn sociopaths. And the cheerleader saying "I guess I'll miss practice tomorrow." Man, if I were their parent's I'd beat the sh!t out of each and every one of them. Then let the other parents take a whack at them singularly. One can only hope that juvenile detention gives them a taste of their own medicine.

[Vince-Vell]

It's the mug shots of those kids that killed me. They look like damn sociopaths. And the cheerleader saying "I guess I'll miss practice tomorrow." Man, if I were their parent's I'd beat the sh!t out of each and every one of them. Then let the other parents take a whack at them singularly. One can only hope that juvenile detention gives them a taste of their own medicine.

If i were the parents of those girls, i would side with the law. Ya i know that sounds harsh, but if you were to be so cruel to a human being like that i would disown the kid right there. Just like growing up with my parents, they sided with the law.

But then again i wouldn't allow my kids to have a my space page or even post crap on boards. I would get them a mac and just parent control the hell out of it on them. untill they were 18 and let them know if something like that happens, pack your bags and move out.

[hawkeyethearcher]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=uQt8SvzDocw&feature=bz301

according to one parent the girl got what she deserves for posting on myspace and not "backing it up". what the hell does that even mean. i hope she has a better defense for her kid then the cops are lying about everything caus when that video is seen by a jury its bye bye to those kids for a while.

[TNovak]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=uQt8SvzDocw&feature=bz301

according to one parent the girl got what she deserves for posting on myspace and not "backing it up". what the hell does that even mean. i hope she has a better defense for her kid then the cops are lying about everything caus when that video is seen by a jury its bye bye to those kids for a while.

If I were the parent of the girl that was beaten and one of the parents of the attacking girls said that, I would go over and beat the other parent unconcious with an ax handle for not backing up the a**hole comment about my daughter not backing up her comments.

[VinReaper]

De Grisogono Meccanico DG all-mechanical digital watch
by Paul Miller, posted Apr 11th 2008 at 3:21AM

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/04/de-grisogono-meccanico-dg.jpg

See, now we're torn. Do we spend our imaginary rainbow dollars on that Real Crystal LED Watch concept we saw the other day, or do we pretend like we could ever scrap together enough pennies to afford this very real De Grisogono Meccanico DG timepiece? The watch is apparently the first all-mechanical digital watch -- no LED trickery here -- and is sure to cost a fortune. Only 177 of 'em are being built.

VR

[VinReaper]

Heart Attacks And Drinking Warm Water

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii206/vinreaper/MISC/Heart001.jpg

This is a very good article. Not only about the warm water after your meal, but about Heart Attacks.

The Chinese and Japanese drink hot tea with their meals, not cold water, maybe it is time we adopt their drinking habit while eating.

For those who like to drink cold water, this article is applicable to you. It is nice to have a cup of cold drink after a meal.

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii206/vinreaper/MISC/HeartClog001.jpg

However, the cold water will solidify the oily stuff that you have just consumed. It will slow down the digestion. Once this 'sludge' reacts with the acid, it will break down and be absorbed by the intestine faster than the solid food. It will line the intestine. Very soon, this will turn into fats and lead to cancer. It is best to drink hot soup or warm water after a meal.


Common Symptoms Of Heart Attack...


Serious notes about heart attacks - You should know that not every heart attack symptom is going to be the left arm hurting. Be aware of intense pain in the jaw line.

You may never have the first chest painduring the course of a heart attack. Nausea and intense sweating are also common symptoms.

60% of people who have a heart attack while they are asleep do not wake up.

Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep.

Let's be careful and be aware. The more we know, the better chance we could survive.


http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii206/vinreaper/GIFs/Heart001.gif

VR

[lord odin]

Heart Attacks And Drinking Warm Water

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii206/vinreaper/MISC/Heart001.jpg

This is a very good article. Not only about the warm water after your meal, but about Heart Attacks.

The Chinese and Japanese drink hot tea with their meals, not cold water, maybe it is time we adopt their drinking habit while eating.

For those who like to drink cold water, this article is applicable to you. It is nice to have a cup of cold drink after a meal.

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii206/vinreaper/MISC/HeartClog001.jpg

However, the cold water will solidify the oily stuff that you have just consumed. It will slow down the digestion. Once this 'sludge' reacts with the acid, it will break down and be absorbed by the intestine faster than the solid food. It will line the intestine. Very soon, this will turn into fats and lead to cancer. It is best to drink hot soup or warm water after a meal.


Common Symptoms Of Heart Attack...


Serious notes about heart attacks - You should know that not every heart attack symptom is going to be the left arm hurting. Be aware of intense pain in the jaw line.

You may never have the first chest painduring the course of a heart attack. Nausea and intense sweating are also common symptoms.

60% of people who have a heart attack while they are asleep do not wake up.

Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep.

Let's be careful and be aware. The more we know, the better chance we could survive.


http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii206/vinreaper/GIFs/Heart001.gif

VR
I like the cold better.:buttrock:

[rychehitman]

Heart Attacks And Drinking Warm Water

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii206/vinreaper/MISC/Heart001.jpg

This is a very good article. Not only about the warm water after your meal, but about Heart Attacks.

The Chinese and Japanese drink hot tea with their meals, not cold water, maybe it is time we adopt their drinking habit while eating.

For those who like to drink cold water, this article is applicable to you. It is nice to have a cup of cold drink after a meal.

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii206/vinreaper/MISC/HeartClog001.jpg

However, the cold water will solidify the oily stuff that you have just consumed. It will slow down the digestion. Once this 'sludge' reacts with the acid, it will break down and be absorbed by the intestine faster than the solid food. It will line the intestine. Very soon, this will turn into fats and lead to cancer. It is best to drink hot soup or warm water after a meal.


Common Symptoms Of Heart Attack...


Serious notes about heart attacks - You should know that not every heart attack symptom is going to be the left arm hurting. Be aware of intense pain in the jaw line.

You may never have the first chest painduring the course of a heart attack. Nausea and intense sweating are also common symptoms.

60% of people who have a heart attack while they are asleep do not wake up.

Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep.

Let's be careful and be aware. The more we know, the better chance we could survive.


http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii206/vinreaper/GIFs/Heart001.gif

VR

great post, thanks!:thumbs2:

[VinReaper]

great post, thanks!:thumbs2:

Not a problem!

If it helps or saves one person, it was a worthwhile post! :D

And I always wondered why the Asian population lived longer lives overall!


VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/spitzer/spitzer-20061010-browse.jpg

German schoolboy, 13, corrects NASA's asteroid figures: paper
Tue Apr 15, 5:44 PM ET

A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected NASA's estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth, a German newspaper reported Tuesday, after spotting the boffins had miscalculated.

Nico Marquardt used telescopic findings from the Institute of Astrophysics in Potsdam (AIP) to calculate that there was a 1 in 450 chance that the Apophis asteroid will collide with Earth, the Potsdamer Neuerster Nachrichten reported.

NASA had previously estimated the chances at only 1 in 45,000 but told its sister organisation, the European Space Agency (ESA), that the young whizzkid had got it right.

The schoolboy took into consideration the risk of Apophis running into one or more of the 40,000 satellites orbiting Earth during its path close to the planet on April 13 2029.

Those satellites travel at 3.07 kilometres a second (1.9 miles), at up to 35,880 kilometres above earth -- and the Apophis asteroid will pass by earth at a distance of 32,500 kilometres.

If the asteroid strikes a satellite in 2029, that will change its trajectory making it hit earth on its next orbit in 2036.

Both NASA and Marquardt agree that if the asteroid does collide with earth, it will create a ball of iron and iridium 320 metres (1049 feet) wide and weighing 200 billion tonnes, which will crash into the Atlantic Ocean.

The shockwaves from that would create huge tsunami waves, destroying both coastlines and inland areas, whilst creating a thick cloud of dust that would darken the skies indefinitely.

The 13-year old made his discovery as part of a regional science competition for which he submitted a project entitled: "Apophis -- The Killer Astroid."


VR

[Vince-Vell]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/spitzer/spitzer-20061010-browse.jpg

German schoolboy, 13, corrects NASA's asteroid figures: paper
Tue Apr 15, 5:44 PM ET

A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected NASA's estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth, a German newspaper reported Tuesday, after spotting the boffins had miscalculated.

Nico Marquardt used telescopic findings from the Institute of Astrophysics in Potsdam (AIP) to calculate that there was a 1 in 450 chance that the Apophis asteroid will collide with Earth, the Potsdamer Neuerster Nachrichten reported.

NASA had previously estimated the chances at only 1 in 45,000 but told its sister organisation, the European Space Agency (ESA), that the young whizzkid had got it right.

The schoolboy took into consideration the risk of Apophis running into one or more of the 40,000 satellites orbiting Earth during its path close to the planet on April 13 2029.

Those satellites travel at 3.07 kilometres a second (1.9 miles), at up to 35,880 kilometres above earth -- and the Apophis asteroid will pass by earth at a distance of 32,500 kilometres.

If the asteroid strikes a satellite in 2029, that will change its trajectory making it hit earth on its next orbit in 2036.

Both NASA and Marquardt agree that if the asteroid does collide with earth, it will create a ball of iron and iridium 320 metres (1049 feet) wide and weighing 200 billion tonnes, which will crash into the Atlantic Ocean.

The shockwaves from that would create huge tsunami waves, destroying both coastlines and inland areas, whilst creating a thick cloud of dust that would darken the skies indefinitely.

The 13-year old made his discovery as part of a regional science competition for which he submitted a project entitled: "Apophis -- The Killer Astroid."


VR



"Day after tomorrow".........:confused2

[TNovak]

Der Duetche bub ershreken :(

[Primal]

1 in 450 chance?!?!?!?
Those are great odds when you consider the size of the universe. :(

[VinReaper]

Windows XP going off market in June: What it means
Mon Apr 14, 2008 5:28PM EDT

Microsoft originally announced over a year ago that Windows XP would be going off the market in January 2008. XP was later given a brief stay of execution, to June 30, 2008. That deadline is fast approaching, which has led to much panicking from people who aren't quite sure what XP's "going off market" means, exactly.

People are still as confused as ever. So let's take a stab at clarifying, once again, what's going to happen by answering some frequently asked questions about XP's imminent disappearance.

Will Windows XP really no longer be on sale after June 30? Sorry for the double negative, but no. All this means is that Microsoft will stop selling the OS. Finding a computer with XP preinstalled will likely be very difficult, as well. However, you'll still be able to find copies for the foreseeable future, and likely the unforeseeable one, too. See for yourself: You can find copies of just about any Microsoft product, including ancient versions of Windows and even MS-DOS, by simply searching online. But hang on to your current copy of Windows XP. You may need it down the road if you don't want to move to Vista.

Will I be forced to upgrade to Vista soon? No. But it will get harder and harder not to, especially since new software and peripherals are likely to stop working with XP. That could take years.

Will my XP machine stop working in June? No, but Microsoft will stop releasing non-security software updates to the masses on April 14, 2009. But let's be clear: XP will continue to "work" even after this point.

Will Microsoft shut off product activation for XP after June? No, that would be crazy. While no one has said this will happen, it's conceivable that Windows could shut down product activation for XP at some point. But that would only happen after XP reaches its end-of-support term (when all support plans expire). The good news for you: That happens on April 8, 2014, which should be plenty of time to get the kinks worked out of Vista-or switch to a Mac, Linux, or anything else. Bottom line: Your copy of XP will work, totally legally, for at least six more years.

What about after 2014? Well, that's unclear. But it's possible XP will stop being installable at that point. Microsoft's official policy is that these dates have "no affect [sic] on how long you can use a product," which may imply product activation will work forever. However, two things come to mind:

1) Even the most die-hard XP enthusiast will probably be ready to upgrade at that point (as XP will be nearly 15 years old, and your PC will be dead by then, I'm sure).

2) Even if Microsoft shuts off product activation, the hacker community will certainly make dozens of tools to let you continue using XP with abandon. Fret not.

Can I install XP on a PC that has Vista already on it? Yes. You can delete any partition with any OS on it (and reformat it) during the installation of XP. If you're feeling brave, you can even run both OSes at the same time by setting up a dual-boot machine.

Whew! Does that clear everything up? Feel free to continue sending your queries and adding your comments below.

Note: This post was originally created in April 2007 and updated with new and changed information in April 2008.

VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/04/dcba_p1220108.jpg

Video: Urinal Elephants invade Japan
by Thomas Ricker, posted Apr 22nd 2008 at 6:23AM

Uh oh. Best hide the nuts and urinal cakes 'cause a herd of baby blue elephants with little yellow hats are on the loose in Japan. Meet the Urinal Elephant, otherwise known as the Dasubee toilet scrubbing robot. Back 'er up to a ceramic throne of human effluence and watch big blue wipe down your man-stew with the lumbering grace of a robotic elephant. Video? You betcha, right after the break. -Engadget

Link to Video: Dasubee toilet scrubbing robot (http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/urinal-elephants-invade-japan/)


Be sure you read the comments under the video! They are hysterical! :D

VR

[VinReaper]

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii206/vinreaper/Girls%20Girls%20Girls/megan-fox-02.jpg

Megan Fox crowned sexiest woman in the world
Wed Apr 23, 10:15 PM ET

Actress Megan Fox was named the world's sexiest woman on Wednesday by an annual online poll, while the world's most Googled woman, Britney Spears, barely scraped in at No. 100 after a shocker of a year.

Fox, 21, who starred in last year's hit movie "Transformers," grabbed the title from actress Jessica Alba, 26, topping online men's magazine FHM Online's (www.FHMonline.com) reader poll of the 100 Sexiest Women in the World for 2008.

Alba dropped to No. 3, coming behind American actress and former model Jessica Biel but ahead of Canadian actress Elisha Cuthbert who was ranked fourth after appearing in horror movie "Captivity" last year. U.S actress and singer Scarlett Johansson, 23, rounded out the top five.

"Megan Fox is the deserving winner of this year's FHM title. She's young, she's hot, she's a rising star and her sex appeal has definitely transformed this year's list. She's got a great future ahead of her," said FHM Online U.S. Editor JR Futrell.

Fox debuted on the list at No. 68 in 2006 and was ranked No. 65 last year. But playing the lead female role in "Transformers," a blockbuster $700 million hit at worldwide box offices, markedly raised her profile.

Also in the top 10 were Emmanuelle Chriqui, Hilary Duff, Tricia Helfer, Blake Lively and Kate Beckinsale.

Newcomers to the list included Victoria Beckham, aka Posh Spice from British pop band the Spice Girls, who moved to Los Angeles with her husband, English soccer player David Beckham, last year. She made her debut at No. 99.

Spears, 26, whose career has been buried under an avalanche of personal and mental health problems, managed to make the list at No. 100, a steep decline from 2004 when she was voted the world's sexiest woman.

FHM's 100 Sexiest Women in the World poll is now in its 14th year with nearly 9 million votes cast this year by FHM readers worldwide to choose the sexiest women in film, television, music, sports, and fashion.

This year's list also included reality TV stars to reflect the genre's increasing popularity with three girls from the "The Hills" making the list, including Heidi Montag at No. 44 and Audrina Patridge at No. 80 and Lauren Conrad at No. 95.

From "Dancing with the Stars," actress Shannon Elizabeth returned to the list at No. 46 after being absent last year. She was joined by Cheryl Burke at No. 40 and Karina Smirnoff at No. 78, who made their debuts.

"It's no surprise to us that so many reality stars made this year's list," said Futrell. 'The Hills' is one of the most popular shows on MTV, and 'Dancing with the Stars' is the No. 2 reality show in America after 'American Idol.' We expect even more to be added next year."

(Writing by Belinda Goldsmith, Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

AND SHE DEFINITELY DESERVES THAT TITLE! :buttrock:

VR

[Jesse321]

[FONT="Trebuchet MS"]Windows XP going off market in June: What it means
Mon Apr 14, 2008 5:28PM EDT

What it means is that the next computer I buy will be a Mac ... that's what it means. :thumbs2:

[TNovak]

I don't know if she'd be my first choice, maybe she would, she'd definitely be in the conversation :buttrock: :buttrock:

[Alex655321]

She is a hottie for sure :thumbs2:

[Vince-Vell]

What it means is that the next computer I buy will be a Mac ... that's what it means. :thumbs2:

Good man! thats what i like to hear!!!!

MACS RULE!!! :buttrock: :buttrock:

[VinReaper]

I don't know if she'd be my first choice, maybe she would, she'd definitely be in the conversation :buttrock: :buttrock:

For all of those that don't pic her first! Gofd Bless you! Leaves me closer to the front of the line if her man ever bites the dust! :buttrock:


:laugh:


VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/04/4-24-08-aromax-diffuser.jpg

Arologic wireless scenting solution makes PlugIns weep
by Darren Murph, posted Apr 24th 2008 at 11:46AM

We've seen wirelessly-enabled fish tanks, gardens and even sprinkler systems, so it's about time we saw a solution to blast out aromas in less-than-pleasant areas without having to wander in there with our poor nostrils exposed. Air Aroma's Arologic claims to be the world's first wireless scenting contraption, giving owners the ability to control a network of scent diffusers remotely. Within multiple "scent zones," scenters (that's what the cool kids are calling 'em these days) can "activate a scent, vary the intensity or even change the aroma." Regrettably, there's no pricing information to mull over just yet, but Arologic should be available in most of the firm's diffusers sometime in Q3.


VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/photos/2007/03/22/squid-cp-11848910.jpg
New Zealand scientists thaw 1,000-pound squid corpse
By RAY LILLEY, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 9 minutes ago

Marine scientists in New Zealand on Tuesday were thawing the corpse of the largest squid ever caught to try to unlock the secrets of one of the ocean's most mysterious beasts.

No one has ever seen a living, grown colossal squid in its natural deep ocean habitat, and scientists hope their examination of the 1,089-pound, 26-foot long colossal squid, set to begin Wednesday, will help determine how the creatures live. The thawing and examination are being broadcast live on the Internet.

The squid, which was caught accidentally by fishermen last year, was removed from its freezer Monday and put into a tank filled with saline solution. Ice was added to the tank Tuesday to slow the thawing process so the outer flesh wouldn't rot, said Carol Diebel, director of natural environment at New Zealand's national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa.

After it is thawed, scientists will examine the squid's anatomical features, remove the stomach, beak and other mouth parts, take tissue samples for DNA analysis and determine its sex, Diebel said.

"If we get ourselves a male it will be the first reported (scientific) description of the male of the species," Steve O'Shea, a squid expert at Auckland's University of Technology, told National Radio. He is one of the scientists conducting the examination.

The squid is believed to be the largest specimen of the rare deep-water species Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, or colossal squid, ever caught, O'Shea has said.

Colossal squid, which have long been one of the most mysterious denizens of the deep ocean, can grow up to 46 feet long, descend to 6,500 feet into the ocean and are considered aggressive hunters.

At the time it was caught, O'Shea said it would make calamari rings the size of tractor tires if cut up — but they would taste like ammonia, a compound found in the animals' flesh.

Fishermen off the coast of Antarctica accidentally netted the squid in February 2007 while catching Patagonian toothfish, which are sold under the name Chilean sea bass.

The squid was eating a hooked toothfish when it was hauled from the deep. Recognizing it as a rare find, the fishermen froze the squid on their vessel to preserve it. The national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa, later took possession of it.

The previous largest colossal squid ever found was a 660 pound female squid discovered in 2003, the first ever landed.

Researchers plan to eventually put the squid on display in a 1,800 gallon tank of formaldehyde at the museum in the capital, Wellington.

Colossal squid are found in Antarctic waters and are not related to giant squid found round the coast of New Zealand. Giant squid grow up to 39 feet long, and are not as heavy as colossal squid.

VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/04/4-28-08-iron-man-case-mod.jpg

Iron Man case mod shows lots of dedication, is still ugly
by Darren Murph, posted Apr 29th 2008 at 6:44AM Engadget.com

Let's go ahead and get this out of the way: we can't deny that the Iron Man Mark I case mod took some serious work (and skill). That being the case, it'd take a pretty hardcore fan of the character (or the new flick, we guess) to love this one with reckless abandon. Reportedly, the whole shebang was built in just three weeks, and while we're still waiting for the full work log, feel free to hit the read link for an array of angles.

VR

[ratchet]

Have I mentioned how much I like this thread?

[VinReaper]

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj140/GateToWire/EightBelles_Honeybee08_JC298.jpg

Unbeaten Big Brown comes through to win Kentucky Derby
By RICHARD ROSENBLATT, AP Racing Writer 39 minutes ago

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP)—Big Brown backed up his trainer’s boasts with an explosive finishing kick and won the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, a commanding victory turned somber by the fatal breakdown of the filly Eight Belles on horse racing’s biggest day.

The cheers for the winner’s 4 3/4 -length victory were cut short when Eight Belles, the runner-up, collapsed while galloping out near the second turn. She broke her two front ankles and was euthanized on the track minutes later.

“When we passed the wire I stood up. She started galloping funny. I tried to pull her up. That’s when she went down,” said her distraught jockey, Gabriel Saez.

Eight Belles was attempting to become the fourth filly to win the Derby.

The unbeaten Big Brown’s start from the outside post did little to hamper his charge when the 20-horse field turned for home at Churchill Downs. Under the urging of jockey Kent Desormeaux, the 2-1 favorite cruised to an easy victory to become the seventh unbeaten Derby winner with his fourth consecutive win. The last one was Barbaro in 2006.

That wasn’t the only reason thoughts of Barbaro were hard to ignore on this Derby Day.

The breakdown brought back memories of the 2006 Preakness, where Barbaro shattered his right rear leg just after the start. The colt was euthanized months later, after developing laminitis from the catastrophic injuries.

The tragedy undoubtedly drained some of the joy from Big Brown’s victory, which sends him to the Preakness in two weeks as the only 3-year-old with a chance to become the first Triple Crown champion since Affirmed in 1978.

“We’re ready to roll,” Big Brown’s confident trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. said.

All week, Dutrow told the world he had the best horse in the field—and the big bay colt justified every accolade tossed his way.

“I can’t describe the feeling that all of us have right now,” he said.

The colt became the first Derby winner since Regret in 1915 to have raced only three times previously. He is only the third in 60 years to win after racing in just two Derby preps—Sunny’s Halo in 1983 and Street Sense last year were the others.

In addition, Big Brown became the second winner to start from the No. 20 post. The gelding Clyde Van Dusen did it in 1929.

Big Brown covered the 1 miles in 2:01.82 in front of the second-largest crowd in Derby history at 157,770. He paid $6.80, $5 and $4.80.

Eight Belles paid $10.60 and $6.40, and Denis of Cork, at odds of 27-1, returned $11.60.

Dr. Larry Bramlage, the Derby’s on-call veterinarian, said the filly’s injuries were too severe to even attempt to move her off the track.

“She didn’t have a front leg to stand on to be splinted and hauled off in the ambulance, so she was euthanized,” Bramlage said.

Larry Jones, who trains Eight Belles paid tribute to his filly, who was scratched out of Friday’s Kentucky Oaks for a chance to take on the boys.

“There was no way to save her. She couldn’t stand,” Jones said. “She ran an incredible race. She ran the race of her life.”

Tale of Ekati was fourth, followed by Recapturetheglory, Colonel John, Anak Nakal, Pyro, Cowboy Cal, Z Fortune, Smooth Air, Visionaire, Court Vision, Z Humor, Cool Coal Man, Bob Black Jack, Gayego, Big Truck, Adriano and Monba.
Chelsea Clinton is seen before the 134th Kentucky Derby Saturday, May 3, 2008, at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky.
Chelsea Clinton is seen before…
AP - May 3, 7:37 pm EDT

The colt earned $1,451,800 for the win and boosted his earnings to $2,114,500 for owners IEAH Stables and Paul Pompa Jr. Pompa, who named Big Brown in honor of United Parcel Service, a client of his trucking business, sold a 75 percent interest in the colt to IEAH for about $3 million after his first race.

Desormeaux won the Derby for the third time, having won aboard Real Quiet in 1998 and Fusaichi Pegasus in 2000. Only three other riders have won more—Eddie Arcaro, Bill Hartack and Bill Shoemaker.

“It was smooth sailing all the way,” Desormeau said. “The horse was very comfortable.”

Big Brown was the third favorite to win in the past five years. Smarty Jones won in 2004 and Street Sense won last year.

All eyes were on Big Brown at the start. Dutrow called his colt the fastest of all and he proved it when Desormeaux gunned him close the lead on the mad dash to the first turn. Desormeaux did a masterful job of keeping Big Brown free and clear of any traffic issues.

As the field headed into the backstretch, Big Brown was in sixth place and just waiting for Desormeaux’s signal to make his move. It came around the far turn, and Big Brown took the lead at the top of the stretch and was never challenged to the wire.

“I don’t even know what we just did,” Dutrow said. “I can’t express my feelings, only that it was one of the most incredible feelings I ever had, and I can’t wait to feel it again.”

VR

[Mandragora]

can anyone tell me why they couldn't save eight bells?

i mean . . i know she can't stand . .but why can't they harness her up, or force her to lay down for a few weeks . .

i'm sure its a stupid question but i really want to know why they can't be healed

[VinReaper]

http://moreramblings.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/ironman_small.jpg

'Iron Man' makes super-strong debut

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- "Iron Man" was pure gold at the box office.

The Marvel Comics adaptation, starring Robert Downey Jr. as the guy in the metal suit, hauled in $100.7 million over opening weekend and $104.2 million since debuting Thursday night, the second-best premiere ever for a non-sequel, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The film also scored overseas with $96.7 million in 57 countries where it began opening Wednesday, putting its worldwide total at $201 million.

Distributed by Paramount, "Iron Man" was the first release by Marvel Studios, which has begun financing its own productions after such studio-backed hits as the "Spider-Man," "X-Men" and "Fantastic Four" flicks.

"We could not have hoped for a better way for Marvel Studios to blast off," said David Maisel, chairman of the unit, a division of Marvel Entertainment, which stands to pull in a greater share of box-office receipts and merchandising money by financing movies itself.

Debuting in second-place with $15.5 million was Sony's romantic comedy "Made of Honor," starring "Grey's Anatomy" heartthrob Patrick Dempsey as a man who tries to woo his best pal after she asks him to be "maid of honor" at her wedding.

With rave reviews from many critics, "Iron Man" features Downey as billionaire arms designer Tony Stark, a boozy womanizer who builds a high-tech suit and becomes a superhero, mending his ways after he's taken captive and sees firsthand the devastation his weapons cause.

Directed by Jon Favreau, the film also stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges and Terrence Howard.

Despite the huge "Iron Man" opening, Hollywood's overall business was down compared to the same weekend last year, when "Spider-Man 3" had a record debut of $151.1 million. The top-12 movies took in $154.1 million, off 15 percent from a year ago.

"Nonetheless, 'Iron Man' did better than expected," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. "This is certainly the shot in the arm the marketplace has needed."

After a sleepy few months, movie attendance this year is running 6 percent behind that of 2007, so the arrival of "Iron Man" may jump-start the box office as the busy summer season begins.

"If that first May movie is a big hit, it tends to lead to a big summer," said Rob Moore, Paramount vice chairman. "There hadn't been a big event movie yet this year. So you have the first event movie of summer, and people go, 'And I hear it's really good. All right, I'm in.'"

"Iron Man" was the 10th-biggest opening of all-time and the fourth-biggest for a superhero movie. Among non-sequels, it came in behind only the first "Spider-Man," which premiered with $114.8 million.

"If we have to, we're happy to come in second to another Marvel property," Maisel said. "It emphasizes how lucky we are to have such a powerful brand that's not loved by just comic-book fans but also general movie fans."

The next Marvel production arrives in June with "The Incredible Hulk," distributed by Universal and starring Edward Norton.

In limited release, David Mamet's martial-arts drama "Redbelt" opened solidly with $68,646 in six theaters. Released by Sony Pictures Classics, "Redbelt" stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as an honorable instructor caught up in corruption in the world of mixed martial-arts competitions.

Paramount Vantage's "Son of Rambow," a comic tale of two British boys making their own "Rambo" movie, also opened well with $52,549 in five theaters.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Was an awesome movie and happy they finally did one right! :buttrock:

VR

[VinReaper]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/05/05/world/05myanmar-span-600.jpghttp://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2008/05/05/svBURMA_wideweb__470x272,0.jpghttp://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/images/attachement/jpg/site1/20080505/0013729ece6b0988b92a01.jpg

Burma death toll at 10,000
Published: Monday, 5 May 2008, 8:34AM

The death toll following a cyclone in Burma has risen to 10,000, according to the military regime.

Foreign Minister Nyan Win said the Burmese government also estimates 3,000 people are missing.

The UN says Burma has agreed to accept offers of international aid offers and shipments are being prepared at once.

Hundreds of thousands of people are without shelter and drinking water after Cyclone Nargis ripped through the Irrawaddy delta and the country's commercial capital Rangoon on Saturday.

Neighbouring Thailand announced it would fly in on Tuesday a first planeload of emergency assistance requested by the government in Burma, also known as Myanmar.

A Thai government spokesman said the ruling junta had asked for food, medical supplies and construction equipment.

Military authorities and foreign aid workers are struggling to assess the full extent of the damage caused by the Category 3 storm, which packed winds of 190 km (120 miles) per hour.

"The government is having as much trouble as anyone else in getting a full overview. Roads are not accessible and many small villages were hit and will take time to reach," said Terje Skavdal, regional head of the UN office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).

A human rights group based in Thailand said Burmese soldiers and police killed 36 prisoners after a riot at Rangoon's notorious Insein prison in the chaotic aftermath of the cyclone.

The military junta, who renamed the country Myanmar, have promised to hold a referendum on a new constitution on May 10.

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.

:( My mother's home town!

VR

[VinReaper]

Have I mentioned how much I like this thread?

You haven't but! I thank you sir!!

I will do my best to keep it flowing. And please feel free to add to it as much as you wish!!! I am sure interesting tidbits cross your path from time to time!

Thanks again! :thumbs2:


VR

[VinReaper]

can anyone tell me why they couldn't save eight bells?

i mean . . i know she can't stand . .but why can't they harness her up, or force her to lay down for a few weeks . .

i'm sure its a stupid question but i really want to know why they can't be healed

I am sure its not a stupid question. I don't know myself.

I found this website that discusses the euthanization of horses in depth.

LINK: Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs: Euthanasia of Horses (http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/horses/facts/info_euthanasia.htm)

I will read it more in depth myself!

VR

[VinReaper]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/05/05/world/05myanmar-600.jpg

Myanmar state radio says cyclone death toll soars above 22,000
2 minutes ago

The toll from the cyclone that battered Myanmar last weekend rose above 22,000 dead and 41,000 missing Tuesday as the international community prepared to rush in aid, state radio reported.

A news broadcast on government-run radio said that 22,464 people have now been confirmed dead from Cyclone Nargis, which tore through the country's rice bowl and biggest city of Yangon early Saturday.

The broadcast added that 41,000 were still missing, raising fears the death toll would soar.

Relief efforts for the stricken area, mostly in the low-lying Irrawaddy River delta, have been difficult, in large part because of the destruction of roads and communications outlets by the storm.

In the cyclone's aftermath, state radio reported that the government was delaying a constitutional referendum in areas hit hardest.

Saturday's vote on a military-backed draft constitution would be delayed until May 24 in 40 of 45 townships in the Yangon area and seven in the Irrawaddy delta, which took the brunt of the weekend storm, the radio said.

It indicated that the balloting would proceed in other areas as scheduled.

The U.N. World Food Program, which was preparing to fly in food supplies, offered a grim assessment of the destruction: up to a million people possibly homeless, some villages almost totally destroyed and vast rice-growing areas wiped out.

"We hope to fly in more assistance within the next 48 hours," WFP spokesman Paul Risley said in Bangkok. "The challenge will be getting to the affected areas with road blockages everywhere."

Based on a satellite map made available by the United Nations, the storm's damage was concentrated over about a 11,600-square-mile (30,000-square-kilometer) area along the Andaman Sea and Gulf of Martaban coastlines — less than 5 percent of the country.

But the affected region is home to nearly a quarter of Myanmar's 57 million people.

Images from state television showed large trees and electricity poles sprawled across roads as well as roofless houses ringed by water in the delta, regarded as Myanmar's rice bowl.

Aid agencies reported their assessment teams had reached some areas of the largely isolated region but said getting in supplies and large numbers of aid workers would be difficult.

Richard Horsey, Bangkok-based spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid, said the airport closest to the delta region was located in Yangon.

"For those places accessible by land, there will be cars and trucks from those areas to meet at the halfway point with vehicles from Yangon," he said. "For remote areas, assessment teams and assistance teams will need to go by helicopters and boats."

The delta is riddled with waterways but Horsey said they are not easily accessible, even during normal times.

"More or less all the land lines are down and it's extremely difficult to get information from cyclone-affected areas. But from the reports we are getting, entire villages have been flattened and the final death toll may be huge," said Mac Pieczowski, who heads the International Organization for Migration office in Yangon, in a statement.

The country's ruling military junta, which has spurned the international community for decades, urgently appealed for foreign aid at a meeting Monday among Nyan Win and diplomats in Yangon.

"Instead of waiting for figures on casualties and damage, it will be practical to send humanitarian aid to victims as soon as possible," Relief and Resettlement Minister Maj. Gen. Maung Maung Swe told a press conference Tuesday.

The appeal came less than a week ahead of the referendum on a military-backed constitution that the junta hoped would go smoothly in its favor, despite opposition from the country's feisty pro-democracy movement. However, the disaster could stir the already tense political situation.

A military transport plane flew from Bangkok to Yangon on Tuesday with emergency aid from Thailand while a number of other countries and organizations said they were prepared to follow.

The United States, which has slapped economic sanctions on the country, said it likewise stood ready, but that a U.S. disaster team must be invited into the country.

"Our biggest fear is that the aftermath could be more lethal than the storm itself," said Caryl Stern, who heads the U.N. Children's Fund in the United States. UNICEF said it had dispatched five assessment teams to three of the affected areas and lifesaving supplies were being moved into position.

Other countries, from Canada to the Czech Republic and Singapore, reacted quickly to the crisis with pledges of aid.

The European Commission was providing US$3.1 million (euro2 million) in humanitarian aid while the president of neighboring China, Hu Jintao, promised assistance without offering details.

The diplomats said they were told Myanmar welcomed international aid including urgently needed roofing materials, medicine, water purifying tablets and mosquito nets. The Thais were sending a shipment of supplies.

The appeal for assistance was unusual for Myanmar's ruling generals, who have long been suspicious of international organizations and have closely controlled their activities.

The wife of the U.S. president said her country was ready to pump aid into Myanmar for recovery efforts, but that the ruling junta must accept a U.S. disaster response team.

First lady Laura Bush, who has been the administration's chief voice on human rights and political conditions in Myanmar, faulted the junta for proceeding with the constitutional referendum, and criticized government leaders for not sufficiently warning citizens about the storm.

"We know already that they are very inept," she said.

There was little sign of official efforts to repair the damage in Yangon, but the worst-hit areas were in the countryside, now largely inaccessible by road because of the storm damage.

"The combination of the cyclone and the referendum within a few days of each other makes an angry population angrier and vulnerable and makes the political situation more volatile" than it has been since last year's massive pro-democracy demonstrations, said Monique Skidmore, a Myanmar expert at Australian National University.

At least 31 people were killed and thousands more were detained when the military cracked down on peaceful protests in September led by Buddhist monks and democracy advocates.

The government had apparently taken few efforts to prepare for the storm, which came bearing down on the country from the Bay of Bengal late Friday.

"The government misled people," said Thin Thin, a grocery story owner in Yangon. "They could have warned us about the severity of the coming cyclone so we could be better prepared."

Yangon was without electricity except where gas-fed generators were available and residents lined up to buy candles at double the usual price. Most homes were without water, forcing families to stand in long lines for drinking water and bathe in the city's lakes.

:(

VR

[cougartrace]

I feel so bad for those people. And it's a shame their military government won't let people help:banghead:

[VinReaper]

I feel so bad for those people. And it's a shame their military government won't let people help:banghead:

You're tellin me!

My mother is from their and we still have some family there! We contacted some friends there to look for them. Fingers Crossed.

(I am Half IRISH & HALF BURMESE, both sides make me first generation of each)

VR

[cougartrace]

You're tellin me!

My mother is from their and we still have some family there! We contacted some friends there to look for them. Fingers Crossed.

(I am Half IRISH & HALF BURMESE, both sides make me first generation of each)

VR

I hope your family is okay, Pat :(

[VinReaper]

I hope your family is okay, Pat :(

Thanks Coug!:thumbs2:

They are more my mother's distant relatives. I have never met them, but they are blood and people all the same! :D

VR

[VinReaper]

http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/07/myanmar.aidcyclone/art.girl.gi.jpg

U.S. envoy: Myanmar deaths may top 100,000

YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) -- The death toll from the cyclone that ravaged the Irrawaddy delta in Myanmar may exceed 100,000, the senior U.S. diplomat in the military-ruled country said Wednesday.

"The information we are receiving indicates over 100,000 deaths," the U.S. Charge D'Affaires in Yangon, Shari Villarosa, said on a conference call.

The U.S. figure is almost five times more than the 22,000 the Myanmar government has estimated.

The U.S. estimate is based on data from an international non-governmental organization, Villarosa said without naming the group. She called the situation in myanmar "more and more horrendous."

Villarosa also said about 95 percent of the buildings in the delta region were destroyed when Cyclone Nargis battered the area late Friday into Saturday.

Little aid has reached the area since Nargis hit, and on Wednesday crowds of hungry survivors stormed reopened shops in the devastated Irrawaddy delta.

The United Nations urged the military junta to grant visas to international relief workers amid estimates of one million homeless.

Charity workers have gathered at Myanmar's embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, with vehicles, emergency food supplies and medicine, waiting for their visa requests to be approved.

"We need this to move much faster," said John Holmes, UN humanitarian chief, after reading a statement from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

There were earlier reports of "civil unrest" in the worst-hit areas where people are scrambling for limited food supplies, a U.N. spokesman told CNN.

In the flood-soaked Irrawaddy delta townships, U.N. assessment teams observed "large crowds gathering around shops -- the few that were open -- literally fighting over the chance to buy what food was available," World Food Program spokesman Paul Risley said Wednesday from his office in Bangkok.

There were also also reports of price gouging in urban areas around Yangon, Myanmar's largest city and former capital. VideoSee amateur video of the cyclone's impact. »

"There were long lines of people trying to buy what food was available, even at those higher prices," Risley said.

The delta, Myanmar's rice-growing heartland, has been devastated by Cyclone Nargis, threatening long-term food shortages for survivors, experts said.

"We can't delay on this -- this is a huge disaster and the longer (Myanmar) waits the worse it's going to become," International Rescue Committee spokesman Gregory Beck said.

The Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that five states hit hardest by Saturday's cyclone produce 65 percent of the country's rice, The Associated Press reported.

"There is likely going to be incredible shortages in the next 18 to 24 months," Sean Turnell, an economist specializing in Myanmar at Australia's Macquarie University told AP.

Holmes said 24 countries had pledged financial support, with a total of $30 million expected in aid.

The WFP, which has started feeding the estimated one million homeless, said there were immediate concerns about salvaging harvested rice in the flooded Irrawaddy delta. PhotoAn iReporter documents the destruction »

The cyclone battered the country with winds of 240kph (150mph) and 3.5 meter (11.48 feet) storm water surges.

Damage was also extensive in the country's largest city, Yangon. Much of the former capital is without power and littered with debris and fallen trees. PhotoSee photos of the destruction »

CNN's Dan Rivers, the first Western journalist into the devastated town of Bogalay, said Wednesday that it was difficult to find the words to describe the level of destruction. VideoWatch Rivers' report from Bogalay »

"Ninety percent of the houses have been flattened... the help that these people are getting seems to be pretty much nonexistent from what we've seen."

He saw members of Myanmar's army clearing roads, but handing out little food or medicine.

"There has been scant help, really. I think we saw one or two Red Cross vehicles in the entire time we were driving," Rivers said of his travels over a 12-hour period. Learn more about Myanmar »

Hundreds of World Vision staff are already in Myanmar with limited supplies, according to Bangkok spokesman James East.

Tons of supplies have been readied in Dubai and can be brought in quickly once clearance is given.

"Even when aid comes in, it's going to be a logistical nightmare to get it out to the remote delta region," East said.

However, Yangon is almost back to normal, World Vision health adviser Dr. Kyi Minn said. Roads have been cleared of debris, and electricity and potable water are available.

The Myanmar Red Cross has been handing out relief supplies, such as clean drinking water, plastic sheeting, clothing, insecticide-treated bed nets to help prevent malaria, and kitchen items, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said. VideoWatch the cyclone's destruction »

The United States has pledged $3.25 million and offered to send Navy ships to the region to help relief efforts -- if Myanmar's government agrees.

The U.S. military has flown six cargo helicopters onto a Thai airbase, as Washington awaits permission to go into the south Asian country, two senior military officials told CNN's Barbara Starr.

Other countries and world bodies including Britain, Japan, the European Union, China, India, Thailand, Australia, Canada and Bangladesh have also pitched in.

Based on a satellite map made available by the U.N., the storm's damage was concentrated over about a 30,000-square-kilometer area along the Andaman Sea and Gulf of Martaban coastlines, home to nearly a quarter of Myanmar's 57 million people.

VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200805/r249566_1023966.jpg

China quake death toll rises to about 10,000
By WILLIAM FOREMAN, Associated Press Writer 7 minutes ago

A powerful earthquake toppled buildings, schools and chemical plants Monday in central China, killing about 10,000 people and trapping untold numbers in mounds of concrete, steel and earth in the country's worst quake in three decades.

The 7.9-magnitude quake devastated a region of small cities and towns set amid steep hills north of Sichuan's provincial capital of Chengdu. Striking in midafternoon, it emptied office buildings across the country in Beijing and could be felt as far away as Vietnam.

As Tuesday dawned, rescuers were frantically searching for more survivors, but rain was compounding the difficulty. Premier Wen Jiabao, who flew to the region, said rain was forecast for the next several days.

The government was pouring in troops to aid in the disaster recovery. Xinhua said 16,000 were in the area and 34,000 more were en route.

Snippets from state media and photos posted on the Internet underscored the immense scale of the devastation. In the town of Juyuan, south of the epicenter, a three-story high school collapsed, burying as many as 900 students and killing at least 50, the official Xinhua news agency said. Photos showed people using cranes, mechanical hoists and their hands to remove slabs of concrete and steel.

The news agency reported on Tuesday that another 1,000 students and teachers were buried and feared dead when a high school collapsed in Beichuan county. The building was reduced to a pile of rubble two yards high, it said.

Buried teenagers struggled to break free from the rubble in Juyuan, "while others were crying out for help," Xinhua said. Families waited in the rain near the wreckage as rescuers wrote the names of the dead on a blackboard, Xinhua said.

Parents of the dead students built makeshift religious altars at the site, resting the corpses on any available piece of plywood or cardboard, and burning paper money and incense in a traditional honor for their child in the afterlife, according to NPR's Melissa Block.

The earthquake hit one of the last homes of the giant panda at the Wolong Nature Reserve and panda breeding center, in Wenchuan county, which remained out of contact, Xinhua said. But the agency reported that 60 pandas at another breeding center in Chengdu were safe.

In Chengdu, it crashed telephone networks and hours later left parts of the city of 10 million in darkness.

"We can't get to sleep. We're afraid of the earthquake. We're afraid of all the shaking," said 52-year-old factory worker Huang Ju, who took her ailing, elderly mother out of the Jinjiang District People's Hospital. Outside, Huang sat in a wheelchair wrapped in blankets while her mother, who was ill, slept in a hospital bed next to her.

The overall death toll increased to about 10,000, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday. It said nearly 10,000 people died in central China's Sichuan province alone and 300 others in three other provinces and the mega-city of Chongqing.

Worst affected were four counties including the quake's epicenter in Wenchuan, 60 miles northwest of Chengdu. Landslides left roads impassable Tuesday, causing the government to order soldiers into the area on foot, state television said, and heavy rain prevented four military helicopters from landing.

Wenchuan's Communist Party secretary appealed for air drops of tents, food and medicine. "We also need medical workers to save the injured people here," Xinhua quoted Wang Bin as telling other officials who reached him by phone.

To the east, in Beichuan county, 80 percent of the buildings fell, and 10,000 people were injured, aside from 3,000 to 5,000 dead, Xinhua said. State media said two chemical plants in an industrial zone of the city of Shifang collapsed, spilling more than 80 tons of toxic liquid ammonia. The news agency said about 600 people died in Shifang and up to 2,300 were buried by rubble.

Though slow to release information at first, the government and its state media ramped up quickly.

Wen, a geologist by training, held an early morning emergency meeting near Chengdu and ordered troops and police to clear the road north to Wenchuan.

"We must try our best to open up roads to the epicenter and rescue people trapped in disaster-hit areas," he said. Wen said the earthquake "was more serious" than expected.

Television footage showed large boulders and downed trees blocking the road to Wenchuan.

Disasters always pose a test for the communist government, whose mandate rests heavily on maintaining order, delivering economic growth, and providing relief in emergencies.

Pressure for a rapid response was particularly intense this year, with the government already grappling with public discontent over high inflation and a widespread uprising among Tibetans in western China while trying to prepare for the Aug. 8-24 Beijing Olympics.

"I am particularly saddened by the number of students and children affected by this tragedy," President Bush said in a statement.

U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said no aid requests had been made by China.

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge sent his condolences to President Hu Jintao, adding: "The Olympic Movement is at your side, especially during these difficult moments. Our thoughts are with you."

The quake was the deadliest since one in 1976 in the city of Tangshan near Beijing that killed 240,000 — although some reports say as many as 655,000 perished — the most devastating in modern history. A 1933 quake near where Monday's struck killed at least 9,000, according to geologists.

Monday's quake occurred on a fault where South Asia pushes against the Eurasian land mass, smashing the Sichuan plain into mountains leading to the Tibetan highlands — near communities that held sometimes violent protests of Chinese rule in mid-March.

Much of the area has been closed to foreign media and travelers since then, compounding the difficulties of getting information. Roads north from Chengdu to the disaster area were sealed off early Tuesday to all but emergency convoys.

In Chengdu, the region's commercial center, the airport closed for seven hours, reopening only for emergency and a few outbound flights. A major railway line to the northeast was ruptured, stranding about 10,000 passengers, Xinhua said. Although most of the power had been restored by nightfall, phone and Internet service was spotty and some neighborhoods remained without power and water.

Nervous residents spent the night outside, some playing cards or heading to the suburbs. State media, citing the Sichuan seismology bureau, reported 313 aftershocks.

"Traffic jams, no running water, power outs, everyone sitting in the streets, patients evacuated from hospitals sitting outside and waiting," said Ronen Medzini, an Israeli student in Chengdu, via text message.

When it hit shortly before 2:30 p.m., the quake rumbled for nearly three minutes, witnesses said, driving people into the streets in panic.

"It was really scary to be on the 26th floor in something like that," said Tom Weller, a 49-year-old American oil and gas consultant staying at the Holiday Inn. "You had to hold on to something like that or you'd fall over. It shook for so long and so violently, you wondered how long the building would be able to stand this."

While most buildings in the city held up, those in the countryside tumbled. On the outskirts of Chongqing, a school collapsed, killing at least five people. Residents said teachers kept the children inside, thinking it was safer.

The city of Mianyang ordered all able-bodied males under 50 to take water and tools and walk or drive to Beichuan, where most of the buildings had collapsed.

State TV broadcast tips for anyone trapped in the earthquake. "If you're buried, keep calm and conserve your energy. Seek water and food, and wait patiently for rescue," CCTV said.

China's two stock exchanges suspended trading Tuesday in 66 companies based in the region in an effort to minimize potential disruptions from the disaster. In Tokyo, Toyota Motor Corp. spokesman Toshiaki Hori said production had been suspended at the company's Chengdu factory.

Although initially measured at 7.8 magnitude, the U.S. Geological Survey later revised its assessment of the quake to 7.9. Its depth — about six miles below the surface, according to the USGS — gave the tremor such wide impact, geologists said.

The earthquake also rattled buildings in Beijing, 930 miles to the north, causing evacuations of office towers. People ran screaming into the streets in other cities, where many residents said they had never felt an earthquake.

In Beijing, where hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors are expected for the Olympics, stadiums, arenas and other venues for the games were undamaged.

Li Jiulin, a top engineer on the 91,000-seat National Stadium — known as the Bird's Nest and the jewel of the Olympics — was conducting a site inspection when the quake struck. He told reporters the building was designed to withstand a 8.0 quake.

"The Olympic venues were not affected by the earthquake," said Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing organizing committee. "We considered earthquakes when building those venues."

Some 660 miles to the east in Anhui province, chandeliers swayed in the lobby of the Buckingham Palace Hotel. "We've never felt anything like this our whole lives," said a hotel employee surnamed Zhu.

The massive Three Gorges dam, the world's largest about 350 miles to the east of the epicenter, was not affected, according to the information office of State Council Three Gorges Construction Committee. The area around the enormous dam remains increasingly precarious as rising waters in the reservoir have led to landslides.

My prayers go out to all those affected by this horrible event!

VR

[VinReaper]

http://d.yimg.com/ca.yimg.com/p/080412/afp/icpsmwt96120408223857photo00.jpg

Freud's large nude sets art world record
By Melissa Gray - CNN

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A picture of an overweight woman lying naked on a couch, painted by the British artist Lucian Freud, set a record Tuesday night for the most money paid for any work by a living artist.

The 1995 life-size painting -- "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping" -- fetched $33.6 million during bidding at Christie's auction house in New York. The previous record was for "Hanging Heart," a painting by Jeff Koons that sold for $23.5 million, said Rik Pike, a spokesman for Christie's.

Freud's painting depicts Sue Tilley, a manager of a government-run job center in London, lying on her side on a worn-out couch with nothing to hide her folds of flesh.

Christie's calls it a "bold and imposing example of the stark power of Lucian Freud's realism," depicting "the forceful and undeniable physical presence of people and things."

Tilley, now 51, told CNN she was initially embarrassed to pose naked for the artist but soon grew comfortable in the studio -- so comfortable, in fact, that she confessed to falling asleep while posing.

"I didn't mind if he noticed," she said.

The painting challenges modern notions of beauty and elicits a reaction from everyone who sees it. That may have been precisely the aim of Freud, who told London's Tate Gallery in 2002 that he wanted his paintings to "astonish, disturb, seduce, convince."

Though some regard the painting as shocking -- ugly, even -- that is also the appeal for collectors, said Michael Hall, editor of Apollo Magazine in London.

"There's a reaction against art that's regarded as too pretty," he said.

Hall said a more conventionally beautiful painting would not be able to fetch such a large amount.

"It's the sort of thing that everyone immediately wants to voice an opinion about," he said of the painting. "It challenges conventional taste ... and people do find that rather exciting and interesting to talk about."

Collectors may also view this as a rare chance to buy something by a prolific artist painted at the peak of his work, he said.

Freud, 85, has been described as Britain's greatest living realist painter. He is the grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and came to London from Germany when he was a child.

With Tilley, Freud said he was "very aware of all kinds of spectacular things to do with her size, like amazing craters and things one's never seen before," according to the 2002 interview with the Tate. He added: "I have perhaps a predilection towards people of unusual or strange proportions, which I don't want to over-indulge."

Freud painted the portrait of Tilley over nine months in 1995. Tilley said she posed for eight hours a day, two or three days a week.

Tilley said Freud initially paid her £20 ($31) a day for posing, and the fee later went up to £33 ($51) a day.

She had been introduced to the artist through a mutual friend, Australian performance artist Leigh Bowery, who also posed for Freud. It was Bowery's idea for Tilley to work with Freud, so he arranged a meeting.

Tilley knew the meeting was more of an interview for the job of Freud's muse, and she didn't find out until later -- through Bowery -- that she'd gotten the job, she said.

"Lucian just said to Leigh, 'Oh, tell Sue she can start next week," Tilley said.

Tilley still works full-time at the job center in London's West End and calls her new-found fame "a bit bizarre." She laughs as she describes how she now has to arrange her schedule to accommodate media interviews.

She said she was excited to find out how much the painting sold for, but knowing it could set a record was "a bit scary."

"It's hard to put your head around it, really," she said. "But it's all good."


VR

[VinReaper]

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Lester throws no-hitter against Royals

Jon Lester can now add pitching a no-hitter to his already amazing list of accomplishments.

The 24-year-old lefty, who survived cancer to pitch the clincher of Boston’s 2007 World Series victory, shut down Kansas City 7-0 Monday night for the first no-hitter in the majors this season.

“Really, words can’t describe it right now,” Lester said.

Lester (3-2) allowed just two baserunners, walking Billy Butler in the second inning and Esteban German to open the ninth. He struck out nine, including Alberto Callaspo to end the game.

Lester and manager Terry Francona met for a long, hard embrace when it was over.

“He just said he was proud of me,” Lester said. “I’ve been through a lot the last couple of years. He’s been like a second dad to me. It was just a special moment right there.”

Center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury made a diving catch of Jose Guillen’s line drive to end the fourth—the best defensive play of the game. Lester also got help from first baseman Kevin Youkilis, who made a nice scoop on shortstop Julio Lugo’s throw after David DeJesus hit a grounder in the third.

The fans really got into it for the final out of the seventh, rising to their feet when Lester fanned Guillen on a 93 mph fastball. They remained standing for the entire ninth inning, flashes popping, screaming at full throat when defensive replacement Callaspo fell behind 0-2.

Lester pumped both fists in the air after Callaspo reached for a high and outside 1-2 fastball.

Lester jumped into catcher Jason Varitek’s arms before they were both mobbed by teammates running out of the dugout. After Lester hugged Francona, the pitcher tipped his hat to the Fenway Park fans for one more big cheer.

Boston’s last no-hitter was pitched by Clay Buchholz, who shut down the Baltimore Orioles in just his second major league start last Sept. 1.

Mel Parnell was the last Red Sox lefty to throw a no-hitter, beating the Chicago White Sox on July 14, 1956.

Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan is the only other person in history to no-hit the Royals.

Luke Hochevar (3-3) allowed seven runs on five hits and six walks in six innings.

Congrats John Lester!

VR

[ratchet]

I just watched this - congrats to him - it was unbelievable!!!!!!!

[VinReaper]

I just watched this - congrats to him - it was unbelievable!!!!!!!

I bet!!

I am not a Boston fan. I am a Mets fan and do support the Yankees, being a NY team, but you have to be happy for a guy that has come back from such opposition. More power to him! :buttrock:


VR

[pablocruze]

Yankee fan charged with second-degree murder
after argument at bar full of Red Sox fans


The Red Sox-Yankee rivalry was sadly taken up a notch according to this AP story:

NASHUA, N.H. -- After a Red Sox-Yankees argument spilled outside a bar, a Yankee
fan aimed her car at a group of people to scare them and didn't brake, hitting and
killing a man, authorities and witnesses said.

The Yankees fan, Ivonne Hernandez, was arraigned Monday on reckless second-degree
murder and drunken driving charges and was held without bail. She did not enter a plea.

Hernandez, 43, was speeding early Friday toward a small group that included the man,
Matthew Beaudoin, 29, and never hit her brakes, a prosecutor said Monday.

"She accelerated at a high speed for about 200 feet. She went directly at this group of people,"
prosecutor Susan Morrell said. "She indicated to police that she wanted to scare this group
of people. She thought they would get out of the way."

Beaudoin died of massive head trauma at a hospital, Morrell said.

Hernandez, of Nashua, was arrested at the scene. She said she had been drinking and refused
to take a breath-alcohol test, said Morrell. Hernandez said she had been in an argument with the group.

Hernandez's public defender, James Quay, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Authorities won't describe the argument, but witnesses said it heated up when Hernandez identified
herself as a New York Yankees fan. Like the rest of New Hampshire, Nashua, 45 miles
northwest of Boston, is Red Sox country.

Bartender Tanya Moran said the argument spilled outside, and at least one person in
a group that included Beaudoin began chanting against the Yankees when they saw a
Yankees sticker on Hernandez's car.

Hernandez allegedly gunned her car and struck Beaudoin and Maria Hughes, 21. Hughes
had only minor injuries, which Beaudoin's sister Faith said was because her brother shielded
Hughes, a friend.

[VinReaper]

What is this world coming to?!!!

What has happened to American Values, traditions and our National past-time! :(

VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.nndb.com/people/888/000022822/dick-martin-crop.jpg

'Laugh-In' comic Dick Martin dead at 86

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Dick Martin, the zany half of the comedy team whose "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" took television by storm in the 1960s, making stars of Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin and creating such national catch-phrases as "Sock it to me!" has died. He was 86.

Martin, who went on to become one of television's busiest directors after splitting with Dan Rowan in the late 1970s, died Saturday night of respiratory complications at a hospital in Santa Monica, family spokesman Barry Greenberg said.

"He had had some pretty severe respiratory problems for many years, and he had pretty much stopped breathing a week ago," Greenberg said.

Martin had lost the use of one of his lungs as a teenager, and needed supplemental oxygen for most of the day in his later years.

He was surrounded by family and friends when he died just after 6 p.m., Greenberg said.

"Laugh-in," which debuted in January 1968, was unlike any comedy-variety show before it. Rather than relying on a series of tightly scripted song-and-dance segments, it offered up a steady, almost stream-of-consciousness run of non-sequitur jokes, political satire and madhouse antics from a cast of talented young actors and comedians that also included Ruth Buzzi, Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson, Jo Anne Worley and announcer Gary Owens.

Presiding over it all were Rowan and Martin, the veteran nightclub comics whose standup banter put their own distinct spin on the show.

Like all straight men, Rowan provided the voice of reason, striving to correct his partner's absurdities. Martin, meanwhile, was full of bogus, often risque theories about life, which he appeared to hold with unwavering certainty.

Against this backdrop, audiences were taken from scene to scene by quick, sometimes psychedelic-looking visual cuts, where they might see Hawn, Worley and other women dancing in bathing suits with political slogans, or sometimes just nonsense, painted on their bodies. Other times, Gibson, clutching a flower, would recite nonsensical poetry or Johnson would impersonate a comical Nazi spy.

"Laugh-In" astounded audiences and critics alike. For two years, the show topped the Nielsen ratings, and its catchphrases-- "Sock it to me," "You bet your sweet bippy" and "Look that up in your Funk and Wagnall's" -- were recited across the country.

Stars such as John Wayne and Kirk Douglas were delighted to make brief appearances, and even Richard Nixon, running for president in 1968, dropped in to shout a befuddled sounding, "Sock it to me!" His opponent, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, was offered equal time but declined because his handlers thought it would appear undignified.

Rowan and Martin landed the show just as their comedy partnership was approaching its zenith and the nation's counterculture was expanding into the mainstream.

The two were both struggling actors when they met in 1952. Rowan had sold his interest in a used car dealership to take acting lessons, and Martin, who had written gags for TV shows and comedians, was tending bar in Los Angeles to pay the rent.

Rowan, hearing Martin was looking for a comedy partner, visited him at the bar, where he found him eating a banana.

"Why are you eating a banana?" he asked.

"If you've ever eaten here, you'd know what's with the banana," he replied, and a comedy team was born.

Although their early gigs in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley were often performed gratis, they donned tuxedos for them and put on an air of success.

"We were raw," Martin recalled years later, "but we looked good together and we were funny."

They gradually worked up to the top night spots in New York, Miami and Las Vegas and began to appear regularly on television.

In 1966, they provided the summer replacement for "The Dean Martin Show." Within two years, they were headlining their own show.

The novelty of "Laugh-In" diminished with each season, however, and as major players such as Hawn and Tomlin moved on to bigger careers, interest in the series faded.

After the show folded in 1973, Rowan and Martin capitalized on their fame with a series of high-paid engagements around the country. They parted amicably in 1977.

"Dan has diabetes, and his doctor advised him to cool it," Martin told The Associated Press at the time.

Rowan, a sailing enthusiast, spent his last years touring the canals of Europe on a houseboat. He died in 1987.

Martin moved onto the game-show circuit, but quickly tired of it. After he complained about the lack of challenges in his career, fellow comic Bob Newhart's agent suggested he take up directing.

He was reluctant at first, but after observing on "The Bob Newhart Show," he decided to try. He would recall later that it was "like being thrown into the deep end of the swimming pool and being told to sink or swim."

Soon he was one of the industry's busiest TV directors, working on numerous episodes of "Newhart" as well as such shows as "In the Heat of the Night," "Archie Bunker's Place" and "Family Ties."

Born into a middle-class family in Battle Creek, Mich., Martin had worked in a Ford auto assembly plant after high school.

After an early failed marriage, he was, for years, a confirmed bachelor. He finally settled down in middle age, marrying Dolly Read, a former bunny at the Playboy Club in London. Survivors include his wife and two sons, actor Richard Martin and Cary Martin.

At Martin's request, there will be no funeral, Greenberg said.

Martin lost the use of his right lung when he was 17, something that never bothered him until his final years, when he required oxygen 18 hours a day.

Arriving for a party celebrating his 80th birthday, he fainted and was treated by doctors and paramedics. The party continued, however, and he cracked, "Boy, did I make an entrance!"



VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.triviatribute.com/images4/harveykorman4.jpg

Comic actor Harvey Korman dies at 81

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Comic actor Harvey Korman has died at 81, according to the UCLA Medical Center.

Korman died at the center four months after suffering complications from the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm.

"It was a miracle in itself that he survived the incident at all. Everyone in the hospital referred to him as 'miracle man' because of his strong will and ability to bounce right back after several major operations," said Korman's daughter, Kate Korman. "Tragically, after such a hard-fought battle, he passed away."

Korman was a regular on "The Carol Burnett Show" from 1967 through 1978, for which he won Emmy awards in 1969, 1971, 1972 and 1974. He also won a Golden Globe for his work on the series.

The lanky Korman also appeared in Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles" (as the sneering Hedley Lamarr), "High Anxiety" and "History of the World, Part 1."

He starred in his own short-lived situation comedy, "The Harvey Korman Show," in 1978, in which he portrayed Harvey Kavanaugh opposite Christine Lahti, who played his wife, Maggie.

He made dozens of appearances in other television shows and movies during his lengthy show-business career, including providing voices for several animated productions. Among those was The Great Gazoo, a helmeted space man who appeared in some episodes of "The Flintstones."

Angie Horejsi, an assistant to Burnett, told The Associated Press that Burnett was devastated by Korman's death: "She loved Harvey very much," Horejsi said.

The AP also reported that Brooks described Korman as a "dazzling" comic talent.

"You could get rock-solid comedy out of him. He could lift the material. He always made it real, always made it work, always believed in characters he was doing," he said, according to AP.

Korman was born in Chicago, Illinois. His first marriage, to Donna Ehlert in 1960, ended in divorce in 1974. He married Deborah Fritze in 1982. Both marriages produced two children.

Korman landed some sketch work on "The Red Skelton Show" in 1961, followed by a four-year stint on "The Danny Kaye Show," which led to his joining Carol Burnett in 1967.

In addition to his wife and daughter, Korman is survived by three other adult children -- Laura, Maria and Chris -- and three grandchildren.


VR

[VinReaper]

Gentlemen!! Thanks for the Memories!!!!


Thanks for all the laughs!

RIP!


VR

[VinReaper]

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/TECH/space/05/30/space.beer.ap/art.beer.ap.jpg

Thirsty? Try some refreshing 'space beer'

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Japanese beer-lovers can anticipate an out-of-this-world brew: suds made with barley descended from grains that traveled in outer space.

The "space beer," to be test-brewed by Sapporo Breweries Ltd., will come in a pilot edition of 100 bottles to be ready in November, said company spokeswoman Momoko Matsumura.

The beer will be made with barley -- to be harvested this weekend -- descended from seeds that spent five months in 2006 aboard the International Space Station.

"We're really looking forward to tasting it when it's ready," Matsumura said.

The barley project started when Sapporo teamed up with Okayama University biologists working with the Russian space team.

The team took 0.9 ounce of barley into space for storage inside the space station from April to September 2006.

The project is part of biological studies of the adaptability of plants to environmental changes and the impact from stresses such as space travel.

Sapporo planted 0.14 ounce of the barley grains that returned from space at its research farm northeast of Tokyo in March 2007.

The seedlings were harvested last November. The company expects to harvest 100 pounds of the third-generation grains on Saturday for use in the space beer.

Sapporo isn't planning to sell the special brew, at least for now, and hasn't decided how it will distribute the planned 100 bottles, Matsumura said.

So far, scientists have not found any difference between space barley and the Earth-confined version, she said.


VR

[VinReaper]

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/TECH/05/29/tiny.bowl.ap/art.bowl.ap.jpg

Microscopic ramen bowl believed to be world's smallest

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Japanese scientists say they have used cutting-edge technology to create a noodle bowl so small, it can be seen only through a microscope.

Mechanical engineering professor Masayuki Nakao said Thursday that he and his students at the University of Tokyo used a carbon-based material to produce a noodle bowl with a diameter of 1/25,000 of an inch.

The project was aimed at developing nanotube-processing technology.

Nakao said the Japanese-style ramen bowl was carved out of microscopic nanotubes.

Nanotubes are tube-shaped pieces of carbon, measuring about 1/10,000 of the thickness of a human hair.

The ramen bowl experiment included a string of "noodles" that measured 1/12,500 of an inch in length.


VR

[ratchet]

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/TECH/05/29/tiny.bowl.ap/art.bowl.ap.jpg

Microscopic ramen bowl believed to be world's smallest

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Japanese scientists say they have used cutting-edge technology to create a noodle bowl so small, it can be seen only through a microscope.

Mechanical engineering professor Masayuki Nakao said Thursday that he and his students at the University of Tokyo used a carbon-based material to produce a noodle bowl with a diameter of 1/25,000 of an inch.

The project was aimed at developing nanotube-processing technology.

Nakao said the Japanese-style ramen bowl was carved out of microscopic nanotubes.

Nanotubes are tube-shaped pieces of carbon, measuring about 1/10,000 of the thickness of a human hair.

The ramen bowl experiment included a string of "noodles" that measured 1/12,500 of an inch in length.


VR

Wow... why?

[VinReaper]

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.switched.com/media/2008/05/ebaywife.jpg

Man Tries to Ditch Cheating Wife on eBay
by Terrence O'Brien, posted May 15th 2008 at 4:37PM

The Internet has provided many ways for shaming those who have wronged you, and we thought we'd seen them all. That is, until Paul Osborn decided to auction off his "adulterous, lying, cheating, b!tch, wh0re of a wife on eBay (his words).

Paul found out that his wife and mother of his children, Sharon, was having an affair with a co-worker. His response was to throw her out of the house and post an "auction" for her on eBay. We use quotes around "auction" because in the listing Paul specifically states, "please do not bid on her because she is worth sod all." Paul also used the eBay listing to out her lover Richard Drew, who is also married. Paul provided phone numbers and addresses for both Richard and Sharon. Naturally, eBay took the listing down pretty quickly.


VR

[VinReaper]

Wow... why?

Who knows!!! Just to do it I guess!


VR

[VinReaper]

Antarctica base gets 16,500 condoms before darkness
Mon Jun 9, 1:24 PM ET

One of the last shipments to a U.S. research base in Antarctica before the onset of winter darkness was a year's supply of condoms, a New Zealand newspaper reported Monday.

Bill Henriksen, the manager of the McMurdo base station, said nearly 16,500 condoms were delivered last month and would be made available, free of charge, to staff throughout the year to avoid the potential embarrassment of having to buy them.

The base only has a skeleton staff through the long winter.

"Since everybody knows everyone, it becomes a little bit uncomfortable," Henriksen told the Southland Times newspaper.

About 125 scientists and staff are stationed at McMurdo base, the largest community in Antarctica, during the winter months when there is constant darkness.

The first sunrise will occur on August 20 and McMurdo's population will start to increase again in September when supply flights resume, peaking at more than 1,000 during the summer period.

Not that I am prejudice but I hope that there are some women there!!! :laugh:

VR

[ANGRYCOMICMAN]

Yo Einstein!
It's down there.

[VinReaper]

Yo Einstein!
It's down there.

What are you talking about? Who are you with when you're posting? :laugh:




:D
VR

[VinReaper]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/06/12/world/23633785.JPGhttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/images/photo/2008/06/12/20080613FAT/23633731.JPG

Japan, Seeking Trim Waists, Measures Millions
By NORIMITSU ONISHI June 13, 2008 NYT

AMAGASAKI, Japan — Japan, a country not known for its overweight people, has undertaken one of the most ambitious campaigns ever by a nation to slim down its citizenry.

Summoned by the city of Amagasaki one recent morning, Minoru Nogiri, 45, a flower shop owner, found himself lining up to have his waistline measured. With no visible paunch, he seemed to run little risk of being classified as overweight, or metabo, the preferred word in Japan these days.

But because the new state-prescribed limit for male waistlines is a strict 33.5 inches, he had anxiously measured himself at home a couple of days earlier. “I’m on the border,” he said.

Under a national law that came into effect two months ago, companies and local governments must now measure the waistlines of Japanese people between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkups. That represents more than 56 million waistlines, or about 44 percent of the entire population.

Those exceeding government limits — 33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women, which are identical to thresholds established in 2005 for Japan by the International Diabetes Federation as an easy guideline for identifying health risks — and having a weight-related ailment will be given dieting guidance if after three months they do not lose weight. If necessary, those people will be steered toward further re-education after six more months.

To reach its goals of shrinking the overweight population by 10 percent over the next four years and 25 percent over the next seven years, the government will impose financial penalties on companies and local governments that fail to meet specific targets. The country’s Ministry of Health argues that the campaign will keep the spread of diseases like diabetes and strokes in check.

The ministry also says that curbing widening waistlines will rein in a rapidly aging society’s ballooning health care costs, one of the most serious and politically delicate problems facing Japan today. Most Japanese are covered under public health care or through their work. Anger over a plan that would make those 75 and older pay more for health care brought a parliamentary censure motion Wednesday against Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, the first against a prime minister in the country’s postwar history.

But critics say that the government guidelines — especially the one about male waistlines — are simply too strict and that more than half of all men will be considered overweight. The effect, they say, will be to encourage overmedication and ultimately raise health care costs.

Yoichi Ogushi, a professor at Tokai University’s School of Medicine near Tokyo and an expert on public health, said that there was “no need at all” for the Japanese to lose weight.

“I don’t think the campaign will have any positive effect. Now if you did this in the United States, there would be benefits, since there are many Americans who weigh more than 100 kilograms,” or about 220 pounds, Mr. Ogushi said. “But the Japanese are so slender that they can’t afford to lose weight.”

Mr. Ogushi was actually a little harder on Americans than they deserved. A survey by the National Center for Health Statistics found that the average waist size for Caucasian American men was 39 inches, a full inch lower than the 40-inch threshold established by the International Diabetes Federation. American women did not fare as well, with an average waist size of 36.5 inches, about two inches above their threshold of 34.6 inches. The differences in thresholds reflected variations in height and body type from Japanese men and women.

Comparable figures for the Japanese are sketchy since waistlines have not been measured officially in the past. But private research on thousands of Japanese indicates that the average male waistline falls just below the new government limit.

That fact, widely reported in the media, has heightened the anxiety in the nation’s health clinics.

In Amagasaki, a city in western Japan, officials have moved aggressively to measure waistlines in what the government calls special checkups. The city had to measure at least 65 percent of the 40- to 74-year-olds covered by public health insurance, an “extremely difficult” goal, acknowledged Midori Noguchi, a city official.

When his turn came, Mr. Nogiri, the flower shop owner, entered a booth where he bared his midriff, exposing a flat stomach with barely discernible love handles. A nurse wrapped a tape measure around his waist across his belly button: 33.6 inches, or 0.1 inch over the limit.

“Strikeout,” he said, defeat spreading across his face.

The campaign started a couple of years ago when the Health Ministry began beating the drums for a medical condition that few Japanese had ever heard of — metabolic syndrome — a collection of factors that heighten the risk of developing vascular disease and diabetes. Those include abdominal obesity, high blood pressure and high levels of blood glucose and cholesterol. In no time, the scary-sounding condition was popularly shortened to the funny-sounding metabo, and it has become the nation’s shorthand for overweight.

The mayor of one town in Mie, a prefecture near here, became so wrapped up in the anti-metabo campaign that he and six other town officials formed a weight-loss group called “The Seven Metabo Samurai.” That campaign ended abruptly after a 47-year-old member with a 39-inch waistline died of a heart attack while jogging.

Still, at a city gym in Amagasaki recently, dozens of residents — few of whom appeared overweight — danced to the city’s anti-metabo song, which warned against trouser buttons popping and flying away, “pyun-pyun-pyun!”

“Goodbye, metabolic. Let’s get our checkups together. Go! Go! Go!

Goodbye, metabolic. Don’t wait till you get sick. No! No! No!”

The word metabo has made it easier for health care providers to urge their patients to lose weight, said Dr. Yoshikuni Sakamoto, a physician in the employee health insurance union at Matsush!ta, which makes Panasonic products.

“Before we had to broach the issue with the word obesity, which definitely has a negative image,” Dr. Sakamoto said. “But metabo sounds much more inclusive.”

Even before Tokyo’s directives, Matsush!ta had focused on its employees’ weight during annual checkups. Last summer, Akio Inoue, 30, an engineer carrying 238 pounds on a 5-foot-7 frame, was told by a company doctor to lose weight or take medication for his high blood pressure. After dieting, he was down to 182 pounds, but his waistline was still more than one inch over the state-approved limit.

With the new law, Matsush!ta has to measure the waistlines of not only its employees but also of their families and retirees. As part of its intensifying efforts, the company has started giving its employees “metabo check” towels that double as tape measures.

“Nobody will want to be singled out as metabo,” Kimiko Shigeno, a company nurse, said of the campaign. “It’ll have the same effect as non-smoking campaigns where smokers are now looked at disapprovingly.”

Companies like Matsush!ta must measure the waistlines of at least 80 percent of their employees. Furthermore, they must get 10 percent of those deemed metabolic to lose weight by 2012, and 25 percent of them to lose weight by 2015.

NEC, Japan’s largest maker of personal computers, said that if it failed to meet its targets, it could incur as much as $19 million in penalties. The company has decided to nip metabo in the bud by starting to measure the waistlines of all its employees over 30 years old and by sponsoring metabo education days for the employees’ families.

Some experts say the government’s guidelines on everything from waistlines to blood pressure are so strict that meeting, or exceeding, those targets will be impossible. They say that the government’s real goal is to shift health care costs onto the private sector.

Dr. Minoru Yamakado, an official at the Japan Society of Ningen Dock, an association of doctors who administer physical exams, said he endorsed the government’s campaign and its focus on preventive medicine.

But he said that the government’s real priority should be to reduce smoking rates, which remain among the highest among advanced nations, in large part because of Japan’s powerful tobacco lobby.

“Smoking is even one of the causes of metabolic syndrome,” he said. “So if you’re worried about metabo, stopping people from smoking should be your top priority.”

Despite misgivings, though, Japan is pushing ahead.

Kizashi Ohama, an official in Matsuyama, a city that has also acted aggressively against metabo, said he would leave the debate over the campaign’s merits to experts and health officials in Tokyo.

At Matsuyama’s public health clinic, Kinichiro Ichikawa, 62, said the government-approved 33.5-inch male waistline was “severe.” He is 5-foot-4, weighs only 134 pounds and knows no one who is overweight.

“Japan shouldn’t be making such a fuss about this,” he said before going off to have his waistline measured.

But on a shopping strip here, Kenzo Nagata, 73, a toy store owner, said he had ignored a letter summoning him to a so-called special checkup. His waistline was no one’s business but his own, he said, though he volunteered that, at 32.7 inches, it fell safely below the limit. He planned to disregard the second notice that the city was scheduled to mail to the recalcitrant.

“I’m not going,” he said. “I don’t think that concerns me.”

I am sure it is our American way of life, which is toxic especially food wise, that is the cause. I travel to Japan frequently and see it changing everyday there. Denny's owns 7-Eleven and there is one on every corner in Tokyo now. Obviously different candy and such, but the Big Gulp and other staples are in their and permeating their way of life. Yes I know its business. But I am just pointing out that it is what is happening.

Don't get me wrong I love my country, have fought for it and would do it all over again. But the fast food and over consumption of everything is toxic. The gluttony of our society is out of control.

There should be no Big Gulps! LOL! JMO

VR

[VinReaper]

http://apudgeisasandwich.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/akafishtaco.jpghttp://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/SHOWBIZ/TV/06/12/people.benjones.ap/art.jones.ap.jpg

'Hazzard's' Cooter: I was out of control

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ben Jones figures he drank 43,000 beers; drank 2,000 jugs of whiskey, wine, gin and vodka; and smoked pounds of pot in the 20 years he was out of control.

"I'd wake up in jails just wondering how I got there. Vomit on my shoes and blood on my shirt," the 66-year-old actor said.

Jones had to hit rock bottom before things could get better. That happened September 26, 1977.

"I really was literally dying, and I knew it," he said. "I was in this free-fall, five-week drunk, and I felt indescribable terror."

With the help of a friend, he quit drinking cold turkey.

"A year later," he said, "I walked into an audition and was cast in what was to become one of the greatest television shows in the history of entertainment."

That was "The Dukes of Hazzard." Jones would play the wisecracking mechanic Cooter on the popular TV series from 1979 to 1985.

In 1988, Jones was elected to Congress as a Democrat. Considering what he'd gone through, it was an emotional moment being sworn in.

"That all seemed dreamlike to me," he said. "That's when it hit me, what a blessing I had been given and I just started crying."

Jones lost his bid for a third term in 1992 after Georgia's districts were redrawn.

He's written about his ups and downs in his autobiography, "Redneck Boy in the Promised Land."

"My life is not a story about falling down," he said, "it's a story about getting up. I think people could relate to that and they could relate to alcoholism and all that behavior that goes with it, because it's a common disease."


VR

[VinReaper]

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20080611/capt.9272740387c14c4fa1694bc1ab0aaa14.twins_indians_baseball_ohmd103.jpg

Twins Baker strikes out 4 in an inning
3 hours, 5 minutes ago

MILWAUKEE (AP)—Minnesota starter Scott Baker struck out four in the third inning of Sunday’s game with the Milwaukee Brewers, becoming the first Twins pitcher to accomplish the feat.

Baker started the inning by striking out Ryan Braun swinging, then got Prince Fielder to strike out, but the ball bounced far away from catcher Mike Redmond.

That allowed Fielder to easily reach first on the wild pitch. Baker then struck out Russell Branyan and Mike Cameron looking on three pitches apiece to end the inning.

The last pitcher to accomplish four Ks in an inning was Brad Penny on Sept. 23, 2006, for the Dodgers against the Diamondbacks.

Baker was the first AL pitcher to do it since Kazuhiro Sasaki on April 4, 2003. Sasaki, pitching for Seattle, struck out four in a row in the ninth against Texas.


VR

[VinReaper]

The 3,000 Mile Oil Change Myth
By Bill Siuru, Greencar.com

According to a recent study by the California Integrated Waste Management Board, 73 percent of California drivers change their oil more frequently than required. This same scenario no doubt repeats itself across the country. Besides wasting money, this translates into unnecessary consumption of $100-a-barrel oil, much of it imported.

Using 2005 data, the Board estimates that Californians alone generate about 153.5 million gallons of waste oil annually, of which only about 60 percent is recycled. Used motor oil poses the greatest environmental risk of all automotive fluids because it is insoluble, persistent, and contains heavy metal and toxic chemicals. One gallon of used oil can foul the taste of one million gallons of water.

MORE AT Greencar.com

• » 5 Easy Ways to Cut Your Gas Bill (http://www.greencar.com/features/cut-gas-costs/)
• » Will A hybrid Car Really Pay Off? (http://www.greencar.com/features/will-hybrids-pay-off/)

It’s been a misconception for years that engine oil should be changed every 3000 miles, even though most auto manufacturers now recommend oil changes at 5,000, 7,000, or even 10,000 mile intervals under normal driving conditions.

Greatly improved oils, including synthetic oils, coupled with better engines mean longer spans between oil changes without harming an engine. The 3000 mile interval is a carryover from days when engines used single-grade, non-detergent oils.
For several years, automakers like General Motors, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz have installed computerized systems that alert drivers via an instrument panel light when it’s time to change oil. As an example, the General Motor Oil Life System (GMOLS) analyzes the engine temperature, rpms, vehicle speeds, and other driving conditions to calculate the rate of engine oil degradation. Then, software calculates when the oil needs to be changed. Other systems work similarly.

Because of the many external conditions and parameters that have to be taken into account, calculating the precise maximum service interval using mathematical models alone is difficult. Now, Daimler AG has developed a more direct and precise way to monitor oil quality directly on board a vehicle.

Daimler uses a special sensor integrated into the oil circuit to monitor engine oil directly. Oil doesn’t wear out, but rather dirt and impurities cause oil to lose its ability to lubricate properly, dictating the need for a change. Daimler uses the oil’s “permittivity,” that is, the ability to polarize in response to the electric field. If the engine oil is contaminated by water or soot particles, it polarizes to a greater extent and its permittivity increases.

To evaluate the quality of the oil, permittivity is measured by applying an AC potential between the interior and exterior pipes of an oil-filled sensor to determine how well the oil transmits the applied electric field.

Because not all impurities can be measured with sufficient precision via the electric field method, Daimler also measures the oil’s viscosity to detect any fuel that may have seeped into the oil. Daimler researchers measure viscosity while the vehicle is in motion by observing the oil's side-to-side motion in the oil sump. The slower the oil moves, the higher its viscosity. This movement is registered by a sensor and the viscosity is calculated on this basis.

A single sensor, along with the information already monitored by on-board computers, is sufficient to determine the various parameters of the engine oil. Daimler will likely use the technology first on its commercial vehicles. Here, large oil reservoirs mean larger quantities of oil can be saved. Plus, a predicted 25 percent increase between service intervals and reduced downtime will be of interest to fleets, and thus justify the added cost of installation.


VR

[Makkari1]

The 3,000 Mile Oil Change Myth
By Bill Siuru, Greencar.com

According to a recent study by the California Integrated Waste Management Board, 73 percent of California drivers change their oil more frequently than required. This same scenario no doubt repeats itself across the country. Besides wasting money, this translates into unnecessary consumption of $100-a-barrel oil, much of it imported.

Using 2005 data, the Board estimates that Californians alone generate about 153.5 million gallons of waste oil annually, of which only about 60 percent is recycled. Used motor oil poses the greatest environmental risk of all automotive fluids because it is insoluble, persistent, and contains heavy metal and toxic chemicals. One gallon of used oil can foul the taste of one million gallons of water.

MORE AT Greencar.com

• » 5 Easy Ways to Cut Your Gas Bill (http://www.greencar.com/features/cut-gas-costs/)
• » Will A hybrid Car Really Pay Off? (http://www.greencar.com/features/will-hybrids-pay-off/)

It’s been a misconception for years that engine oil should be changed every 3000 miles, even though most auto manufacturers now recommend oil changes at 5,000, 7,000, or even 10,000 mile intervals under normal driving conditions.

Greatly improved oils, including synthetic oils, coupled with better engines mean longer spans between oil changes without harming an engine. The 3000 mile interval is a carryover from days when engines used single-grade, non-detergent oils.
For several years, automakers like General Motors, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz have installed computerized systems that alert drivers via an instrument panel light when it’s time to change oil. As an example, the General Motor Oil Life System (GMOLS) analyzes the engine temperature, rpms, vehicle speeds, and other driving conditions to calculate the rate of engine oil degradation. Then, software calculates when the oil needs to be changed. Other systems work similarly.

Because of the many external conditions and parameters that have to be taken into account, calculating the precise maximum service interval using mathematical models alone is difficult. Now, Daimler AG has developed a more direct and precise way to monitor oil quality directly on board a vehicle.

Daimler uses a special sensor integrated into the oil circuit to monitor engine oil directly. Oil doesn’t wear out, but rather dirt and impurities cause oil to lose its ability to lubricate properly, dictating the need for a change. Daimler uses the oil’s “permittivity,” that is, the ability to polarize in response to the electric field. If the engine oil is contaminated by water or soot particles, it polarizes to a greater extent and its permittivity increases.

To evaluate the quality of the oil, permittivity is measured by applying an AC potential between the interior and exterior pipes of an oil-filled sensor to determine how well the oil transmits the applied electric field.

Because not all impurities can be measured with sufficient precision via the electric field method, Daimler also measures the oil’s viscosity to detect any fuel that may have seeped into the oil. Daimler researchers measure viscosity while the vehicle is in motion by observing the oil's side-to-side motion in the oil sump. The slower the oil moves, the higher its viscosity. This movement is registered by a sensor and the viscosity is calculated on this basis.

A single sensor, along with the information already monitored by on-board computers, is sufficient to determine the various parameters of the engine oil. Daimler will likely use the technology first on its commercial vehicles. Here, large oil reservoirs mean larger quantities of oil can be saved. Plus, a predicted 25 percent increase between service intervals and reduced downtime will be of interest to fleets, and thus justify the added cost of installation.


VR

And here I thought I was being a bad boy by not changing my oil every 3,000 miles. I change mine when I get extra money or every 20,000.

[VinReaper]

And here I thought I was being a bad boy by not changing my oil every 3,000 miles. I change mine when I get extra money or every 20,000.

You're just a man ahead of his time. :thumbs2:

VR

[Makkari1]

You're just a man ahead of his time. :thumbs2:

VR:laugh:

[pablocruze]

FOXNEWS.COM HOME > U.S.
Black Man Awarded $150,000 in Racism Lawsuit

Thursday, August 23, 2007


BUFFALO, N.Y. — A federal jury awarded a black man $150,000 in a racial discrimination lawsuit Wednesday.

Mark Pasternak, who is black, said he suffered mental distress and emotional damages while shopping online on a retail stores company website because there was a piece of furniture being sold specifically for black youths.

A seven-member all-white jury found that the retail leader discriminated against Pasternak and created a hostile web environment.

"I'm elated and overwhelmed," Pasternak told The Buffalo News Wednesday. "I feel like I've been to hell and back ... After all these years, the best feeling is, the jury heard his story and mine, and they believed me."

Pasternak's attorney, David Seeger, said his client felt abused from retail leader for three years while the company continued to promote racial disharmony.

Baines felt subjected to race-based slurs, furniture discrimination, and crude insults from family and friends, according to court papers and testimony.

Baines and his attorney, William Hites, did not return calls seeking comment.

According to court records, the state investigated the racial allegations in 1998. Target stores were fined $2,000 for their conduct, but continued to advertise in a racially based manner.

Pasternak claimed he experienced to insomnia, anxiety and depression and had to take several medical leaves of absence from work because of the mental anguish.

Brian Marchetti, a spokesman for the state office, had no immediate comment Wednesday.

"When I was growing up, I was always taught to stay away from racial slurs ... and epitaphs," Pasternak said. "This kind of conduct, from a retail leader who sells items to families with kids, really bothered me."



http://bitsandpieces1.blogspot.com/2007/11/actual-ad-at-targetcom.html

[VinReaper]

What is this world coming to?

Bad decision on the part of the retailer, maybe, but you don't entertain stupid lawsuits such as these.

These lawsuits are what have been dragging down this country for years now.

I agree PC, give us a break!


VR

[TNovak]

Baines felt subjected to race-based slurs, furniture discrimination, and crude insults from family and friends, according to court papers and testimony.



It's just sad that in 2008 we still have furniture discrimination :confused2

[VinReaper]

It's just sad that in 2008 we still have furniture discrimination :confused2

I don't think its discrimination! Its just a desire for better quality!

Hey you know you hate that stuff made from particle board too!!!

:D
VR

[VinReaper]

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/SHOWBIZ/06/23/carlin.obit/art.carlin.ap.jpg
Award-winning comedian George Carlin dies

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- George Carlin, the influential comedian whose routines used profanity, scatology and absurdity to point out the silliness and hypocrisy of human life, has died. He was 71.

Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, died of heart failure Sunday, according to publicist Jeff Abraham. Carlin went to St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon, complaining of chest pain, and died at 5:55 p.m. PT.

Carlin performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, and maintained a busy performing schedule, which included regular TV specials for HBO.

"He was a genius and I will miss him dearly," Jack Burns, who was the other half of a comedy duo with Carlin in the early 1960s, told The Associated Press.

Carlin was often quoted, his best lines traded like baseball cards. "Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?" began one famous routine. Another pointed out the differences between the pastoral game of baseball and the militaristic game of football: "Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. The baseball park! Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium."

Then there were the non sequiturs: "The bigger they are, the worse they smell," he observed.

He filled three best-selling books, more than 20 record albums and countless television appearances with his material.

He appreciated the impact his words made on fans.

"These are nice additional merit badges that you earn if you've left a mark on a person or on some people," he told CNN.com in 2004. "I'd say it's flattering, but flattery implies insincerity, so I call it a compliment."

Carlin was probably best known for a routine that began, "I was thinking about the curse words and the swear words, the cuss words and the words that you can't say." It was a monologue, known as "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television," that got Carlin arrested and eventually led to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The "Seven Dirty Words" bit prompted a landmark indecency case after New York's WBAI-FM radio aired it in 1973.

The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 that the sketch was "indecent but not obscene," giving the Federal Communications Commission broad leeway to determine what constituted indecency on the airwaves.

"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," Carlin said. "In the context of that era, it was daring.

"It just sounds like a very self-serving kind of word. I don't want to go around describing myself as a 'groundbreaker' or a 'difference-maker' because I'm not and I wasn't," he said. "But I contributed to people who were saying things that weren't supposed to be said." VideoWatch the impact of Carlin's seven dirty words routine »

In November, Carlin was slated to receive the 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, given by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

"In his lengthy career as a comedian, writer and actor, George Carlin has not only made us laugh, but he makes us think," Kennedy Center Chairman Stephen Schwarzman said in a statement. "His influence on the next generation of comics has been far-reaching."

In a typically wry response, Carlin said, "Thank you, Mr. Twain. Have your people call my people." VideoWatch an appreciation of Carlin »

Carlin was born on May 12, 1937, in New York. He dropped out of high school in the ninth grade and joined the Air Force, where his misfit ways continued -- he received three courts-martial and several punishments.

After leaving the military, he spent a few years in radio, where he met Burns. In 1960, the pair left to pursue a comedy career in Los Angeles. Burns told the AP that the Carlin of those years was "fairly conservative," but things changed when the two saw Lenny Bruce in the early '60s.

"It was an epiphany for George," Burns told the AP. "The comedy we were doing at the time wasn't exactly groundbreaking, and George knew then that he wanted to go in a different direction."

Carlin remembered a similar feeling, he told CNN.com.

"[His career] represented a lot of such honesty on the stage, the willingness to confront a lot of sacred cows and expose them," he said of Bruce. "He did it with a great deal of irreverence and with a lot of brilliance."

Carlin went solo in 1962. For most of the decade, he was a conservative-looking presence: clean-shaven, attired in jacket and tie, making his amused observations to audiences on "The Tonight Show" and "The Ed Sullivan Show."

But as the times changed, so did Carlin. He let his hair down, grew a beard and dressed in jeans and tie-dyed T-shirts. It was this Carlin who became a hit with college audiences in the early '70s and made such albums as "FM and AM" and "Occupation: Foole."

Carlin hosted the first broadcast of "Saturday Night Live" in October 1975.

He also appeared in movies, including "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" (1989), Kevin Smith's "Dogma" (1999) and "Cars" (2006). For the latter, he was the voice of Fillmore, the Volkswagen bus.

He starred as a cabdriver in his own sitcom, "The George Carlin Show," which ran from 1993 to 1995. He also played the character of Mr. Conductor on the PBS series "Shining Time Station" and lent his voice to two episodes of "The Simpsons."

Carlin was blunt about his own struggles. He suffered several heart attacks, one at Dodger Stadium during a baseball game. He also underwent treatment for drug and alcohol abuse.

He was relentlessly amused by humanity -- in one of his most famous lines, he pointed out that "if you're born in this world you're given a ticket to the freak show. If you're born in America, you're given a front-row seat" -- but refused to consider himself a cynic. He preferred "disappointed idealist."

It all went into his comedy. He was fascinated by language and euphemism, noting that "there's a reluctance to confront reality and a desire to soften unpleasant realities." In a different life, he said, he may have been a teacher.

Which he was, anyway.

"Part of what my impulse is with things I've said or done, I think it is an attempt to demystify these things, to take them out of the realm of the forbidden and the disgusting and the off-base, and to at least bring them into the discussion," he told CNN.com.

He is survived by his wife, Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law Bob McCall; brother Patrick Carlin; and sister-in-law Marlene Carlin. Carlin's first wife, Brenda, died in 1997.

CNN's Ed Payne contributed to this report.


RIP George!


VR

[patrickwm68]

Boy 'skinned and eaten' by his cannibal cult family after being held captive in a cellar

An eight year-old boy was skinned and his flesh fed to cannibal relatives after his mother kept him locked in a cellar, a court has heard.

Evil Klara Mauerova - a member of a sinister religious cult - wept in court as she admitted torturing her son Ondrej and his ten year-old brother Jakub.

The court also heard allegations that relatives had partially skinned eight-year-old Ondrej and then eaten the raw human flesh.

The two boys told how their mother and relatives had stubbed cigarettes out on their bare skin, whipped them with belts and tried to drown them.

The court heard how the family had sexually abused them and even made them cut themselves with knives. They said they were kept in cages or handcuffed to tables and made to stand in their own urine for days.

The sick abuse was discovered when a man in Brno in the Czech Republic installed a TV baby monitor to keep watch on his newborn child.

But it picked up a signal from an identical monitor next door showing one of the victims beaten, naked and chained in a cellar.

Sick Mauerova is understood to have intalled it so she could gloat over her victims' suffering from the comfort of her kitchen.

Police were called, and the boy and his brother, as well as what appeared to be a 13-year-old girl were freed.

At that time police did not realise the 13-year-old, who had been formally adopted, was really 34-year-old Barbora Skrlova - one of the children's torturers.

She later ran away to Norway but was found earlier this year by Czech cops who brought her back to the Czech Republic to face trial.

Her "brother", eight-year-old Ondrej, had been locked and chained in the cellar by his mother Klara for months.

He had been gagged so he could not scream and beaten as well. It later emerged his brother Jakub had also been abused.

Mauerova has admitted abusing her children but she said she had been manipulated by her sister Katerina and Skrlova.

All three of them had been part of a cult called the Grail Movement which claims to have hundreds of followers in Britain as well as tens of thousands of others worldwide.

Katerina Mauerova and Skrlova and another relative are all accused of involvement in the abuse of the boys.

The court has also heard claims that the abuse of the boys was co-ordinated by a man known only as the "Doctor" who sent mobile phone text messages to the Mauerova sisters telling them how to abuse the two boys.

Local media have said that the sinister figure could be one of the leaders of the Grail Movement the women were involved with.

[VinReaper]

What in heaven's name is wrong with people?

Those people should tortured for the rest of their lives and all Cult members should be hunted down and tortured as well!

See how they like it!

Then drop them all in one big hole and buried. Maybe a shrine with a statue of a Jackass on top of the mass grave. :mad:

VR

[Makkari1]

That is awesome.
That dog deserves a medal after that

A medal? give the dog a stake.

[Vince-Vell]

holy crap that is just sick. People are really messed up in this world.

[abarron]

FOXNEWS.COM HOME > U.S.
Black Man Awarded $150,000 in Racism Lawsuit

Thursday, August 23, 2007


BUFFALO, N.Y. — A federal jury awarded a black man $150,000 in a racial discrimination lawsuit Wednesday.

Mark Pasternak, who is black, said he suffered mental distress and emotional damages while shopping online on a retail stores company website because there was a piece of furniture being sold specifically for black youths.

A seven-member all-white jury found that the retail leader discriminated against Pasternak and created a hostile web environment.

"I'm elated and overwhelmed," Pasternak told The Buffalo News Wednesday. "I feel like I've been to hell and back ... After all these years, the best feeling is, the jury heard his story and mine, and they believed me."

Pasternak's attorney, David Seeger, said his client felt abused from retail leader for three years while the company continued to promote racial disharmony.

Baines felt subjected to race-based slurs, furniture discrimination, and crude insults from family and friends, according to court papers and testimony.

Baines and his attorney, William Hites, did not return calls seeking comment.

According to court records, the state investigated the racial allegations in 1998. Target stores were fined $2,000 for their conduct, but continued to advertise in a racially based manner.

Pasternak claimed he experienced to insomnia, anxiety and depression and had to take several medical leaves of absence from work because of the mental anguish.

Brian Marchetti, a spokesman for the state office, had no immediate comment Wednesday.

"When I was growing up, I was always taught to stay away from racial slurs ... and epitaphs," Pasternak said. "This kind of conduct, from a retail leader who sells items to families with kids, really bothered me."



http://bitsandpieces1.blogspot.com/2007/11/actual-ad-at-targetcom.html

So that guy for $150,000 because the didn't put a comma in the description??

Cos surely its meant to be a Kid's computer desk in the colour black right??

That is crazy

[VinReaper]

A medal? give the dog a stake.

I hope you mean steak! Since the dog isn't a vampire! :D


VR

[VinReaper]

Police Bust South Beach 'Brothel On Wheels'
Prostitution Crackdown Yields 75 Arrests

POSTED: 9:03 pm EDT June 24, 2008
UPDATED: 2:16 pm EDT June 25, 2008

MIAMI BEACH -- Miami Beach police made 75 arrests as part of a prostitution crackdown meant to clean up the city.

According to police, Christina Morta was operating what appeared to be a brothel on wheels; a bus with five prostitutes on board that made regular stops along South Beach.

"One of our undercover officers saw the bus driving up and down Collins Avenue, was able to get on the bus for a certain amount of money, and saw the illegal activity going on inside," said Miami Beach Det. Juan Sanchez

Morta allegedly charged $40 for patrons to board the quarter million-dollar bus. Once on board, prostitutes received even more money for performing lap dances and various sex acts, police said.

Police said Morta, the so-called madam, was also one of the prostitutes.

The police department conducted the sweep from Thursday, June 19 to Saturday, June 21 in what they call a prime example of the department's commitment to public safety.

In addition to the arrests, police collected a large amount of evidence from U.S. currency to narcotics and firearms. A missing person was also located.

VR

[VinReaper]

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/POLITICS/06/25/actor.senate.ap/art.landham.ap.jpghttp://parawe.iespana.es/Articulos/images/4.jpghttp://www.prisonflicks.com/images/48Billy1.jpg

Tough-guy actor eyes Senate seat

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (AP) -- Sonny Landham carved out a tough-guy reputation in a series of big-screen roles, from roughing up Sylvester Stallone to getting tossed out a window by Carl Weathers.

He pulls no punches in his newest role: Libertarian challenger to a man known for political toughness, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Now 67 and living in northeastern Kentucky, the man who played Billy Bear in "48 Hours" and was killed by an alien in "Predator" admits his action-movie days are behind him.

"I think I'm having wild action when I take two aspirin with my hot chocolate at night," he quipped.

The actor known for his powerful physique, booming voice and his American Indian heritage says he's serious about his longshot bid, because too many politicians are indifferent to voters' problems.

Landham refers to McConnell, a four-term Republican, as "Boss Hogg" after the corrupt politician from "The Dukes of Hazzard" TV show. He bluntly called Democratic candidate and millionaire businessman Bruce Lunsford an "elitist."

Even President Bush is a target: "He took us into a war on lies," Landham said, claiming the actual intent was "to put 'Big Oil' back into Iraq."

To qualify for the November ballot, Landham must collect at least 5,000 valid petition signatures by August 12. State Libertarian Party Chairman Ken Moellman said the petition drive began recently and he believes Landham will make it.

But the bid includes some campaign baggage that seems scripted for Hollywood, instead of socially conservative Kentucky. Early in his acting career in the 1970s, Landham bared it all in adult films.

Asked whether that could hurt him politically, Landham replied, "What can I do? That was a part of my life you cannot call back."

But he does express regrets.

"If I was going to do it now -- knowing that I'm going to have four children, knowing that I was going to run for office -- no, I wouldn't make that choice," he said. "But at the time I made the choice of getting a paycheck, staying alive for your big break."

Landham also served more than 2 ½ years in federal prison after being convicted of making threatening and obscene phone calls to his ex-wife. The conviction was thrown out by a federal appeals court that found he committed no crime.

Libertarians, with their "live and let live" philosophy, look past his history.

"We look at the character of the man today, not what he did 30 years ago," Moellman said, noting the actor "asked his Maker for forgiveness, and that's all you can ask a man to do."

He said Landham lives "a better lifestyle" today, residing in Ashland with his fifth wife and three of his children.

The cast of 1987's "Predator" featured two future state governors: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura. But the prospects of winning office seem far more remote for Landham.

Political scientist Michael Baranowski, of Northern Kentucky University, predicted minimal impact on the Senate race, though Landham could take some votes from McConnell.

"I'm not sure which is more of a hurdle for Landham, being a former porn actor or being a Libertarian Party candidate," he said. "But if the race between McConnell and Lunsford is tight enough, the votes Landham pulls from McConnell might be critical."

McConnell campaign adviser Scott Jennings said Landham won't push the Republican incumbent off his message of how he has "delivered for the commonwealth time and again."

This isn't the first dabbling in politics for Landham, who struggled to get odd jobs after being released from prison. Now he still dabbles in acting, but Social Security checks and an acting pension are his main income.

He flirted with running for governor as a Republican in 2003, left the GOP and promised an independent run. He ultimately stayed out and backed Republican Ernie Fletcher, who won.

Landham is as blunt on issues as he is skewering rivals. He equates abortion with murder. He supports scrapping the North American Free Trade Agreement. As for political correctness, he said, "PC is BS. Say what you mean, mean what you say."

Moellman said such unscripted frankness will grab voter attention.

"Sonny is very upfront," he said. "You ask Sonny a question, he'll tell you the answer. He isn't going to pull any punches, which is why I know this race is going to be a lot of fun."

Billy (Predator) for Sentae! (aka Billy Bear in 48 hrs) :D

VR

[TNovak]

Wow he still looks pretty good for 67

[VinReaper]

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/06/27/film.darkknight.first.ap/art.knight.ledger.jpg

A first look at 'The Dark Knight'

Editor's Note: The following Associated Press story about "The Dark Knight" contains spoilers. If you'd rather not know anything about the film, stop reading now.

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The buzz over Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker in "The Dark Knight" for the last several months was justified. With his final full film role, Ledger delivers what may be remembered as the finest performance of his career.

A press screening of the "Batman Begins" sequel Thursday night had the audience cackling along with Ledger's Joker, a depraved creature utterly without conscience whom the late actor played with gleeful anarchy.

(Warning: There are spoilers ahead, so stop reading now if you'd rather wait to find out details about "The Dark Knight.")

At times sounding like a cross between tough guy James Cagney in a gangster flick and Philip Seymour Hoffman's fastidious Truman Capote, Ledger elevates Batman's No. 1 nemesis to a place even Jack Nicholson did not take him in 1989's "Batman."

Nicholson's Joker was campy and clever. Ledger's Joker is an all-out terror, definitely funny but with a lunatic moral mission to drag all of Gotham, the city Batman thanklessly protects, down to his own dim assessment of humanity.

Spewing alternate personal histories for how he got the horrible scars on his face, the Joker hides behind distorted clown makeup that looks like a chalk drawing left out in the rain.

The Joker masterminds a series of escalating abductions, assassination attempts, murders and bombings, all aimed at calling out Batman (Christian Bale) and proving to the tormented vigilante hero that they are two sides of the same coin.

"You complete me," the Joker tells Batman, dementedly borrowing Tom Cruise's sappy romantic line from "Jerry Maguire."

Long before Ledger's death in January from an accidental prescription drug overdose, his collaborators on "The Dark Knight" had been describing his performance as a new high in the art of villainy for a comic-book adaptation.

Director Christopher Nolan, reuniting with "Batman Begins" star Bale, told The Associated Press earlier this year that Ledger came through with precisely what he had envisioned for this take on the Joker, "a young, anarchic presence, somebody who is genuinely threatening to the establishment."

"It was though they'd taken the Joker and all the colors, everything of it, and just kind of put him through a Turkish prison for a decade or so," Bale told the AP. "It's like he's gone through that personal hell to come out being this, if you can even call him mad, at the end here."

A best-actor Academy Award nominee for "Brokeback Mountain," Ledger has earned fresh Oscar buzz for "The Dark Knight," which could land him in the supporting-actor race.

Running just over two and a half hours, "The Dark Knight" is a true crime epic. Throughout, the Joker's bag of tricks is bottomless, twisted to the point of horror-flick sick.

"Some men aren't looking for anything logical," Michael Caine's butler Alfred tells Bruce, who's trying to decipher the Joker's motives. "Some men just want to watch the world burn."

Come July 18, when "The Dark Knight" lands in theaters, the world will be watching Ledger burn up the screen..

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

VR

[VinReaper]

How Technology Can Help Trim Auto Insurance
by M.P. McQueen
Saturday, June 28, 2008provided byWSJ

Plans Cut Rates for Drivers Who Use Devices That Track Their Habits at the Wheel

For years, drivers paid less for auto insurance if they reported low mileage. Now, insurers are using high-tech devices to track customers' habits, and offering deep discounts to those who not only drive less, but also cautiously.

In the U.S., Progressive Corp. and GMAC Insurance, a unit of GMAC Financial Services, are the first and the largest companies to roll out this type of plan. At least two smaller companies, including Unigard Insurance Co. of Bellevue, Wash., a unit of QBE Insurance Group of Australia, also are poised to start similar ones soon. Companies in Canada and Italy also have programs, and Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. is testing the same technology in Connecticut.

Drivers who participate in these plans have devices installed in their cars that, depending on the technology used, can track the number of miles driven, the speed at which cars are driven and even how often and how hard the brakes are used. By allowing their habits behind the wheel to be monitored, drivers get lower insurance rates -- or pay higher premiums if they're lead-footed road hogs.

Usage-based insurance pricing would mean an estimated two-thirds of households would pay less in premiums than they do now, according to a report by the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, a think tank. Researchers Jason Bordoff and Pascal Noel calculated average savings at about $270 per car, per year. Some analysts and insurers believe that after a slow start, usage-based insurance could take off now that higher gas prices are forcing consumers to drive less anyway.

Proponents of these plans say they also have the potential to help ease traffic tie-ups and reduce carbon emissions by rewarding customers for driving less. Fewer miles on the road also means fewer accidents -- and fewer claims for insurers. With pay-as-you-drive insurance, drivers in the U.S. would reduce their mileage by about 8%, with $51.5 billion in social benefits mostly from reduced congestion and accidents, according to the Hamilton Project.

Later this month, Progressive says it will re-launch and expand its program, formerly known as "TripSense." Currently available only in Michigan, Minnesota and Oregon, TripSense subscribers get a special device that plugs into their car's diagnostic port -- the place mechanics plug into when troubleshooting. The Progressive device, however, keeps track of when, how far, and at what speed the car is driven. Every six months, drivers must remove the device and upload stored information to a computer and send it to the company.

When Progressive's new usage-based program, known as "MyRate," is launched, the technology will require less driver effort. This program uses a telematic device, which gathers driver data and wirelessly transmits it over a cellphone network. Progressive says it will also track how often and how hard drivers brake and use the braking information when calculating rates. This system doesn't include a global positioning system, so it won't track a driver's whereabouts. Drivers get back a periodic report that tells them how many miles they've logged and other feedback about their driving habits. Based on the data, they'll receive discounts ranging as high as 60%, depending on the state.

Bad-Driving Surcharge

But the device could raise rates for some drivers. In some states where it's permitted by law, drivers would be assessed a 9% surcharge for logging excessive miles or driving at high speeds with hard braking, said Richard Hutchinson, a general manager for Progressive.

Progressive, which has 7.1 million auto policies in force nationally, says 34% of its customers in Michigan, Minnesota and Oregon who signed up via telephone or Internet (instead of their agent) have been choosing the usage-based programs since 2004. The new plan is expected to be available in six more states by the end of this year and will also be sold by independent agents, the company said.

Brandon Biniecki, a 23-year-old information-technology support technician in Monroe, Mich., says he signed up for Progressive's usage-based program in 2006 for his Chevy Cobalt, a compact car. He drives less than 18,000 miles a year and currently receives a 5% or 10% discount from the company every six months, he says. Mr. Biniecki says he doesn't mind being monitored in return for saving money, but admits he might not have signed up if a global positioning system, or GPS, was involved.

"That would be an invasion of privacy, with someone being able to know where I am at any given point in time," he says.

Other insurers include GPS in their monitoring devices. GMAC Insurance's Low-Mileage Discount Program with OnStar, which expanded to a total of 34 states last year, grants discounts to users of vehicles equipped with GM's GPS and communication systems. The company says that enrollments have increased 200% since last year, and that customer retention rates are higher for those using the device.

In order to receive a discount, the driver must subscribe to OnStar, which is generally free for the first 12 months to buyers of new GM cars, and costs $199 to $299 annually after that. New customers who agree to have odometer readings sent directly to GMAC Insurance will earn a 26% discount if they drive less than 15,000 miles annually. (Existing drivers earn discounts based on their actual mileage.) Even heavy drivers can still earn a 5% to 8% "safe driver" discount just for subscribing to the service. Low-mileage discounts increase in tiers as fewer miles are logged. For instance, someone who drives less than 2,500 miles a year can qualify for a 54% discount.

'I Didn't Believe It'

Don West, 74, a real-estate broker in Gresham, Ore., says he reluctantly switched his coverage to GMAC Insurance, leaving his longtime agent, a personal friend. Because he and his wife drove less than a combined 15,000 miles a year, their rate plummeted. Says Mr. West: "I was paying $2,000 a year in premiums for the Cadillac and the Hummer, and it dropped the premium the first year I was on GMAC to $886 dollars. I didn't believe it at first."

About 20,000 drivers currently participate in the GMAC low-mileage program with OnStar, says John O'Donnell, vice president of business development at GMAC Insurance, out of five million OnStar clients.

At this point, OnStar only relays odometer readings to GMAC Insurance, Mr. O'Donnell said. OnStar doesn't continuously track drivers' location and only pinpoints a car's whereabouts at certain times -- when the device is activated by a crash or the police receive a stolen-vehicle report, for example. "There is an opportunity to get other information, and as we do we will be able to correlate risk to actual driving behavior itself rather than more predictive factors," Mr. O'Donnell says.

VR

[VinReaper]

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/Heath-Ledger-joker03_bg.jpg

Could Heath Ledger really win an Oscar?

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Jack Nicholson's Joker was a blast. Heath Ledger's Joker is as dark and anarchic a figure as Randle McMurphy in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," the role that brought Nicholson his first Academy Award.

Ledger's performance in the Batman tale "The Dark Knight" is so remarkable that next January 22, the one-year anniversary of his death, he could become just the seventh actor in Oscar history to earn a posthumous nomination.

"I do think that Heath has created an iconic villain that will stand for the ages, and of course, I would love to see him get an award," said Christian Bale, who reprises his "Batman Begins" role as the tormented crime fighter. "But you know, to me, you can witness his talent, celebrate his talent within this movie. Anything else is gravy."

Superhero flicks usually are not the stuff Oscar dreams are made of. Yet Ledger delivered so far beyond anyone's expectations that he could end up as the second performer to win Hollywood's top honor after his death.

"He may be the first actor since Peter Finch. He may even win the damn thing," said Gary Oldman, who co-stars as noble cop Jim Gordon in "The Dark Knight," which hits theaters July 18.

Finch is the only person to win posthumously, earning the best-actor prize for 1976's "Network" two months after he died.

News of Ledger's death at age 28 from an accidental drug overdose broke just hours after the Oscar nominations were announced last January, darkening what normally is one of Hollywood's happiest days. The nominations next year fall on the same date because they were moved back two days from their traditional Tuesday announcement to avoid conflicting with the presidential inauguration.

With nothing remotely like the maniacal Joker among his credits beforehand, Ledger had been a surprising choice to fans, some feeling he was too young, others sensing he would not live up to the campy but earnest performance Nicholson gave in 1989's "Batman." (The role earned Nicholson a Golden Globe nomination, though he did not make the Oscar cut.)

As filming progressed last year, word began leaking from the set about the feverishly psychotic persona Ledger was creating.

With a marketing campaign heavily focused on the Joker, the movie trailers that followed presented a Joker with sloppy, ominous clown makeup that looked as though it had been applied in a windstorm. The brief footage revealed a character whose cackling humor cannot conceal the malevolent soul beneath.

"Whatever Heath channeled into, he's found something quite extraordinary," Oldman said. "It's arguably one of the greatest screen villains I think I've ever seen."

Fans were hooked, but some were skeptical when Oscar buzz for the performance started circulating after Ledger's death. Comic-book tales and other big action flicks rarely are taken seriously by awards voters, who are willing to honor them for technical achievements but generally not for acting.

Skepticism dissolved once Warner Bros. began screenings for "The Dark Knight."

"Heath Ledger didn't so much give a performance as he disappeared completely into the role," filmmaker and lifelong comics fan Kevin Smith said on his MySpace blog after seeing "The Dark Knight." "I know I'm not the first to suggest this, but he'll likely get at least an Oscar nod (if not the win) for best supporting actor."

Ledger's performance is surpassing even the sky-high expectations hardcore fans have going in.

"He was better than I thought he was going to be," said Bill Ramey, founder of the fan Web site Batman-on-Film.com, who caught an advance press screening. "I think he legitimately would deserve an Oscar nomination, not just out of sympathy to his passing, but because he was just fantastic in the movie. ... It's right up there with Hannibal Lecter," which earned Anthony Hopkins an Oscar for "The Silence of the Lambs."

Along with Finch, past posthumous Oscar contenders include James Dean, who was nominated for best actor twice after his death, with 1955's "East of Eden" and 1956's "Giant."

The other actors nominated after their deaths were Spencer Tracy (1967's "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"); Ralph Richardson (1984's "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes"); Massimo Troisi (1995's "The Postman"); and Jeanne Eagels (1929's "The Letter").

The aura surrounding Ledger since his death is a sign that, like Dean, he could endure as a mythic figure of talent silenced before his time. Ledger had a best-actor nomination for 2005's "Brokeback Mountain" and was considered a gifted performer just coming into his own.

That will not necessarily improve his Oscar chances. Dean had two shots after his death and lost both.

"The fact that only one actor has ever won an Oscar from the grave tells us that in general at the Oscars, the feeling is when you're dead, you're dead," said Tom O'Neil, a columnist for TheEnvelope.com, an awards Web site. "Maybe the point is that the Oscars are all about hugs. Nobody wants to hug a dead guy."

Oscar voters tend to hand out the trophies for heroic or sympathetic roles, so Ledger's supremely evil characterization could prove a drawback along with the action-genre stigma.

Yet there are notable instances when actors playing villains made such an impression that academy members could not resist voting for them.

Besides Hopkins as cannibalistic killer Lecter, bad guys who won include Fredric March in the title role of 1932's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"; F. Murray Abraham as Mozart's mortal enemy in 1984's "Amadeus"; Kathy Bates as a novelist's demented fan in 1990's "Misery"; Denzel Washington as a corrupt cop in 2001's "Training Day"; and Charlize Theron as a serial killer in 2003's "Monster."

The last two years have brought Oscar wins by Forest Whitaker as brutal dictator Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland," Tilda Swinton as a murderously ruthless attorney in "Michael Clayton," Daniel Day-Lewis as a savage oilman in "There Will Be Blood" and Javier Bardem as a psychopathic killer in "No Country for Old Men."

"When a performance as a villain is that memorable, it can be held up as being that much more special," said Chuck Walton, managing editor of online movie-ticket site Fandango.com. "Oscar voters have a lot of respect for actors willing to really let themselves go and inhabit darker roles."

Warner Bros. and the filmmakers are profuse in their praise of Ledger but have been diplomatic about the Oscar talk. Awards publicity generally pads a movie's box-office and DVD receipts, and the studio has cautiously avoided any appearance of profiting from the added attention Ledger's death has brought to the film.

"The Dark Knight" director Christopher Nolan sidestepped the Oscar question, saying that he was simply happy that early viewers were responding to the performance the way Ledger would have liked.

VR

[VinReaper]

I just received this e-mail from ebay!

Not sure if this helps anyone, but maybe if those that Paypal screwed over can make a big enough stink they may get something back.

Boost in seller protection--no limit, no more confirmed addresses!

Improved seller protection (http://pages.ebay.com/sell/June2008Update/FAQ/#5) from PayPal will soon provide all eBay sellers the same great coverage currently offered only to PowerSellers. Starting in September, all sellers will be protected on eligible transactions against claims, charge backs and reversals for unauthorized payments, and merchandise not received for items they ship to buyers in 190 markets worldwide--all at no extra cost. Even better: no more coverage limit. Plus you're covered for any shipping address--confirmed or unconfirmed--for items sold on eBay as long as you ship to the address on the transactions details page.


Click the link in the article and it will bring you to the new protection guidelines.

I hope this helps!

VR

[Primal]

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/POLITICS/06/25/actor.senate.ap/art.landham.ap.jpg

Holy! That's Sonny "ain't afraid of no man" Landham! :eek: :buttrock:

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/8751/predator04oo4.jpg

[VinReaper]

Exactly right!

I wish I could have found a sound bite of his laugh from the movie! :laugh:

VR

[Primal]

Exactly right!

I wish I could have found a sound bite of his laugh from the movie! :laugh:

VR

LOL And if you listen closely...that's the laugh the Predator imitated right before he exploded his portable mini-nuke. :buttrock:

[VinReaper]

http://www.vacantready.com/images/Nov07/ugly-hotel.jpg

North Korea's "Hotel of Doom" wakes from its coma
By Jon HerskovitzThu Jul 17, 3:56 AM ET

North Korea's phantom hotel is stirring back to life. Once dubbed by Esquire magazine as "the worst building in the history of mankind," the 105-storey Ryugyong Hotel is back under construction after a 16-year lull in the capital of one of the world's most reclusive and destitute countries.

According to foreign residents in Pyongyang, Egypt's Orascom group has recently begun refurbishing the top floors of the three-sided pyramid-shaped hotel whose 330-metre (1,083 ft) frame dominates the Pyongyang skyline.

The firm has put glass panels into the concrete shell, installed telecommunications antennas -- even though the North forbids its citizens to own mobile phones -- and put up an artist's impression of what it will look like.

An official with the group said its Orascom Telecom subsidiary was involved in the project but gave no details.

The hotel consists of three wings rising at 75 degree angles capped by several floors arranged in rings supposed to hold five revolving restaurants and an observation deck.

A creaky building crane has for years sat unused at the top of the 3,000-room hotel in a city where tourists are only occasionally allowed to visit.

"It is not a beautiful design. It carries little iconic or monumental significance, but sheer muscular and massive presence," said Lee Sang Jun, a professor of architecture at Yonsei University in Seoul.

The communist North started construction in 1987, in a possible fit of jealousy at South Korea, which was about to host the 1988 Summer Olympics and show off to the world the success of its rapidly developing economy.

A concrete shell built by North Korea's Paektu Mountain Architects & Engineers emerged over the next few years. A proud North Korea put a likeness of the hotel on postage stamps and boasted about the structure in official media.

According to intelligence sources, then North Korean leader Kim Il-sung saw the hotel as a symbol of his big dreams for the state he founded, while his son and current leader Kim Jong-il was a driving force in its construction.

But by 1992, worked was halted. The North's main benefactor the Soviet Union had dissolved a year earlier and funding for the hotel had vanished. For a time, the North airbrushed images of the Ryugyong Hotel from photographs.

As the North's economy took a deeper turn for the worse in the 1990s the empty shell became a symbol of the country's failure, earning nicknames "Hotel of Doom" and "Phantom Hotel."

Yonsei's Lee and other architects said there were questions raised about whether the hotel was structurally sound and a few believed completing the structure could cause it to collapse.

It would cost up to $2 billion to finish the Ryugyong Hotel and make it safe, according to estimates in South Korean media. That is equivalent to about 10 percent of the North's annual economic output.

Bruno Giberti, associate head of California Polytechnic State University's Department of Architecture, said the project was typical of what has been produced recently in many cities trying to show their emerging wealth by constructing gigantic edifices that were not related in scale to anything else around them.

"If this is the worst building in the world, the runners up are in Vegas and Shanghai," said Giberti.

(Additional reporting by Kim Junghyun; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Alex Richardson)


VR

[VinReaper]

http://friendsofdoom.com/gz/img/post/movies/2007-12-27-whysoserious_poster.jpg

'Dark Knight' sets weekend record with $155.34M
Sunday July 20 1:47 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (AP) Batman has sent Spidey packing as king of Hollywood's box-office superheroes.

"The Dark Knight" took in a record $155.34 million in its first weekend, topping the previous best of $151.1 million for "Spider-Man 3" in May 2007 and pacing Hollywood to its biggest weekend ever, according to studio estimates Sunday.

"We knew it would be big, but we never expected to dominate the marketplace like we did," said Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros., which released "The Dark Knight." The movie should shoot past the $200 million mark by the end of the week, he said.

ADVERTISEMENT
Hollywood set an overall revenue record of $253 million for a three-day weekend, beating the $218.4 million haul over the weekend of July 7, 2006, according to box-office tracker Media By Numbers.

"This weekend is such a juggernaut," said Nikki Rocco, head of distribution for Universal, whose musical "Mamma Mia!" debuted at No. 2 with $27.6 million.

Factoring in higher admission prices, "Spider-Man 3" may have sold slightly more tickets than "The Dark Knight."

At 2007's average price of $6.88, "Spider-Man 3" sold 21.96 million tickets over opening weekend. Media By Numbers estimates today's average movie prices at $7.08, which means "The Dark Knight" would have sold 21.94 million tickets.

Revenue totals for "The Dark Knight" could change when final numbers are released Monday.

The movie's release was preceded by months of buzz and speculation over the performance of the late Heath Ledger as the Joker, Batman's nemesis. Ledger, who died in January from an accidental prescription-drug overdose, played the Joker as a demonic presence, his performance prompting predictions that the role might earn him a posthumous Academy Award nomination.

"The average opening gross of the last five `Batman' movies is $47 million. This tripled that, and for a reason," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers. "A big part of that was the Heath Ledger mystique and a phenomenal performance that absolutely deserves the excitement surrounding it."

"The Dark Knight" reunites director Christopher Nolan with his "Batman Begins" star Christian Bale, whose vigilante crime-fighter is taunted and tested by Ledger's Joker as the villain unleashes violence and chaos on the city of Gotham.

Overseas, "The Dark Knight" added $40 million in 20 countries where it began opening Wednesday, including Australia, Mexico and Brazil. The film opens in Great Britain this weekend and rolls out to most of the rest of the world over the next few weeks.

"The Dark Knight," which cost $185 million to make, also broke the "Spider-Man 3" record for best debut in IMAX large-screen theaters with $6.2 million. "Spider-Man 3" opened with $4.7 million in IMAX cinemas.

"Every single show is sold out," said Greg Foster, IMAX chairman and president. "We're adding shows as much as we can, but we're at 100 percent capacity."

On opening day Friday, "The Dark Knight" also took in more money than previously counted, Fellman said. The film pulled in a record $67.85 million, up nearly $1.5 million from the studio's estimates a day earlier.

The previous opening-day record also had been held by "Spider-Man 3" with $59.8 million.

Women accounted for most of the audience for "Mamma Mia!", which Universal opened as counter-programming to the male-dominated audience for "The Dark Knight."

"With the crowded summer, we knew we would have to find the right weekend, and this seemed like the perfect one considering three-quarters of our audience was female," Rocco said.

Based on the stage musical set to the tunes of ABBA, "Mamma Mia!" features Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgard, Julie Walters and Christine Baranski.

The weekend's other new wide release, 20th Century Fox's animated family flick "Space Chimps," opened at No. 7 with $7.4 million.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. "The Dark Knight," $155.34 million.

2. "Mamma Mia!", $27.6 million.

3. "Hancock," $14 million.

4. "Journey to the Center of the Earth," $11.9 million.

5. "Hellboy II: The Golden Army," $10 million.

6. "WALL-E," $9.8 million.

7. "Space Chimps," $7.4 million.

8. "Wanted," $5.1 million.

9. "Get Smart," $4.1 million.

10. "Kung Fu Panda," $1.8 million.


VR

[VinReaper]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/07/24/garden/24granite.1-190.jpg
TESTING Reports of granite emitting
high levels of radon and radiation are increasing.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/07/24/garden/24granite-190.jpg
DETECTION Using devices like the Geiger counter
and the radiation detection instrument
Stanley Liebert measures the radiation
and radon emanating from granite like
that in Lynn Sugarman’s kitchen counters.

What’s Lurking in Your Countertop?
By KATE MURPHY - July 24, 2008

SHORTLY before Lynn Sugarman of Teaneck, N.J., bought her summer home in Lake George, N.Y., two years ago, a routine inspection revealed it had elevated levels of radon, a radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer. So she called a radon measurement and mitigation technician to find the source.

“He went from room to room,” said Dr. Sugarman, a pediatrician. But he stopped in his tracks in the kitchen, which had richly grained cream, brown and burgundy granite countertops. His Geiger counter indicated that the granite was emitting radiation at levels 10 times higher than those he had measured elsewhere in the house.

“My first thought was, my pregnant daughter was coming for the weekend,” Dr. Sugarman said. When the technician told her to keep her daughter several feet from the countertops just to be safe, she said, “I had them ripped out that very day,” and sent to the state Department of Health for analysis. The granite, it turned out, contained high levels of uranium, which is not only radioactive but releases radon gas as it decays. “The health risk to me and my family was probably small,” Dr. Sugarman said, “but I felt it was an unnecessary risk.”

As the popularity of granite countertops has grown in the last decade — demand for them has increased tenfold, according to the Marble Institute of America, a trade group representing granite fabricators — so have the types of granite available. For example, one source, Graniteland (graniteland.com) offers more than 900 kinds of granite from 63 countries. And with increased sales volume and variety, there have been more reports of “hot” or potentially hazardous countertops, particularly among the more exotic and striated varieties from Brazil and Namibia.

“It’s not that all granite is dangerous,” said Stanley Liebert, the quality assurance director at CMT Laboratories in Clifton Park, N.Y., who took radiation measurements at Dr. Sugarman’s house. “But I’ve seen a few that might heat up your Cheerios a little.”

Allegations that granite countertops may emit dangerous levels of radon and radiation have been raised periodically over the past decade, mostly by makers and distributors of competing countertop materials. The Marble Institute of America has said such claims are “ludicrous” because although granite is known to contain uranium and other radioactive materials like thorium and potassium, the amounts in countertops are not enough to pose a health threat.

Indeed, health physicists and radiation experts agree that most granite countertops emit radiation and radon at extremely low levels. They say these emissions are insignificant compared with so-called background radiation that is constantly raining down from outer space or seeping up from the earth’s crust, not to mention emanating from manmade sources like X-rays, luminous watches and smoke detectors.

But with increasing regularity in recent months, the Environmental Protection Agency has been receiving calls from radon inspectors as well as from concerned homeowners about granite countertops with radiation measurements several times above background levels. “We’ve been hearing from people all over the country concerned about high readings,” said Lou Witt, a program analyst with the agency’s Indoor Environments Division.

Last month, Suzanne Zick, who lives in Magnolia, Tex., a small town northwest of Houston, called the E.P.A. and her state’s health department to find out what she should do about the salmon-colored granite she had installed in her foyer a year and a half ago. A geology instructor at a community college, she realized belatedly that it could contain radioactive material and had it tested. The technician sent her a report indicating that the granite was emitting low to moderately high levels of both radon and radiation, depending on where along the stone the measurement was taken.

“I don’t really know what the numbers are telling me about my risk,” Ms. Zick said. “I don’t want to tear it out, but I don’t want cancer either.”

The E.P.A. recommends taking action if radon gas levels in the home exceeds 4 picocuries per liter of air (a measure of radioactive emission); about the same risk for cancer as smoking a half a pack of cigarettes per day. In Dr. Sugarman’s kitchen, the readings were 100 picocuries per liter. In her basement, where radon readings are expected to be higher because the gas usually seeps into homes from decaying uranium underground, the readings were 6 picocuries per liter.

The average person is subjected to radiation from natural and manmade sources at an annual level of 360 millirem (a measure of energy absorbed by the body), according to government agencies like the E.P.A. and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The limit of additional exposure set by the commission for people living near nuclear reactors is 100 millirem per year. To put this in perspective, passengers get 3 millirem of cosmic radiation on a flight from New York to Los Angeles.

A “hot” granite countertop like Dr. Sugarman’s might add a fraction of a millirem per hour and that is if you were a few inches from it or touching it the entire time.

Nevertheless, Mr. Witt said, “There is no known safe level of radon or radiation.” Moreover, he said, scientists agree that “any exposure increases your health risk.” A granite countertop that emits an extremely high level of radiation, as a small number of commercially available samples have in recent tests, could conceivably expose body parts that were in close proximity to it for two hours a day to a localized dose of 100 millirem over just a few months.

David J. Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University in New York, said the cancer risk from granite countertops, even those emitting radiation above background levels, is “on the order of one in a million.” Being struck by lightning is more likely. Nonetheless, Dr. Brenner said, “It makes sense. If you can choose another counter that doesn’t elevate your risk, however slightly, why wouldn’t you?”

Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking and is considered especially dangerous to smokers, whose lungs are already compromised. Children and developing fetuses are vulnerable to radiation, which can cause other forms of cancer. Mr. Witt said the E.P.A. is not studying health risks associated with granite countertops because of a “lack of resources.”

The Marble Institute of America plans to develop a testing protocol for granite. “We want to reassure the public that their granite countertops are safe,” Jim Hogan, the group’s president, said earlier this month “We know the vast majority of granites are safe, but there are some new exotic varieties coming in now that we’ve never seen before, and we need to use sound science to evaluate them.”

Research scientists at Rice University in Houston and at the New York State Department of Health are currently conducting studies of granite widely used in kitchen counters. William J. Llope, a professor of physics at Rice, said his preliminary results show that of the 55 samples he has collected from nearby fabricators and wholesalers, all of which emit radiation at higher-than-background levels, a handful have tested at levels 100 times or more above background.

Personal injury lawyers are already advertising on the Web for clients who think they may have been injured by countertops. “I think it will be like the mold litigation a few years back, where some cases were legitimate and a whole lot were not,” said Ernest P. Chiodo, a physician and lawyer in Detroit who specializes in toxic tort law. His kitchen counters are granite, he said, “but I don’t spend much time in the kitchen.”

As for Dr. Sugarman, the contractor of the house she bought in Lake George paid for the removal of her “hot” countertops. She replaced them with another type of granite. “But I had them tested first,” she said.

Where to Find Tests and Testers

TO find a certified technician to determine whether radiation or radon is emanating from a granite countertop, homeowners can contact the American Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists (aarst.org). Testing costs between $100 to $300.

Information on certified technicians and do-it-yourself radon testing kits is available from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Web site at epa.gov/radon, as well as from state or regional indoor air environment offices, which can be found at epa.gov/iaq/whereyoulive.html. Kits test for radon, not radiation, and cost $20 to $30. They are sold at hardware stores and online.

This is somewhat scary since I have dozens of friends that just have renovated their kitchens.

VR

[VinReaper]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/07/28/science/29tierney_600.jpg

Findings
July 29, 2008

10 Things to Scratch From Your Worry List
By JOHN TIERNEY

For most of the year, it is the duty of the press to scour the known universe looking for ways to ruin your day. The more fear, guilt or angst a news story induces, the better. But with August upon us, perhaps you’re in the mood for a break, so I’ve rounded up a list of 10 things not to worry about on your vacation.

Now, I can’t guarantee you that any of these worries is groundless, because I can’t guarantee you that anything is absolutely safe, including the act of reading a newspaper. With enough money, an enterprising researcher could surely identify a chemical in newsprint or keyboards that is dangerously carcinogenic for any rat that reads a trillion science columns every day.

What I can guarantee is that I wouldn’t spend a nanosecond of my vacation worrying about any of these 10 things. (You can make your own nominations in the TierneyLab blog.)

1. Killer hot dogs. What is it about frankfurters? There was the nitrite scare. Then the grilling-creates-carcinogens alarm. And then, when those menaces ebbed, the weenie warriors fell back on that old reliable villain: saturated fat.

But now even saturated fat isn’t looking so bad, thanks to a rigorous experiment in Israel reported this month. The people on a low-carb, unrestricted-calorie diet consumed more saturated fat than another group forced to cut back on both fat and calories, but those fatophiles lost more weight and ended up with a better cholesterol profile. And this was just the latest in a series of studies contradicting the medical establishment’s predictions about saturated fat.

If you must worry, focus on the carbs in the bun. But when it comes to the fatty frank — or the fatty anything else on vacation — I’d relax.

2. Your car’s planet-destroying A/C. No matter how guilty you feel about your carbon footprint, you don’t have to swelter on the highway to the beach. After doing tests at 65 miles per hour, the mileage experts at edmunds.com report that the aerodynamic drag from opening the windows cancels out any fuel savings from turning off the air-conditioner.

3. Forbidden fruits from afar. Do you dare to eat a kiwi? Sure, because more “food miles” do not equal more greenhouse emissions. Food from other countries is often produced and shipped much more efficiently than domestic food, particularly if the local producers are hauling their wares around in small trucks. One study showed that apples shipped from New Zealand to Britain had a smaller carbon footprint than apples grown and sold in Britain.

4. Carcinogenic cellphones. Some prominent brain surgeons made news on Larry King’s show this year with their fears of cellphones, thereby establishing once and for all that epidemiology is not brain surgery — it’s more complicated.

As my colleague Tara Parker-Pope has noted, there is no known biological mechanism for the phones’ non-ionizing radiation to cause cancer, and epidemiological studies have failed to find consistent links between cancer and cellphones.

It’s always possible today’s worried doctors will be vindicated, but I’d bet they’ll be remembered more like the promoters of the old cancer-from-power-lines menace — or like James Thurber’s grandmother, who covered up her wall outlets to stop electricity from leaking.

Driving while talking on a phone is a definite risk, but you’re better off worrying about other cars rather than cancer.

5. Evil plastic bags. Take it from the Environmental Protection Agency : paper bags are not better for the environment than plastic bags. If anything, the evidence from life-cycle analyses favors plastic bags. They require much less energy — and greenhouse emissions — to manufacture, ship and recycle. They generate less air and water pollution. And they take up much less space in landfills.

6. Toxic plastic bottles. For years panels of experts repeatedly approved the use of bisphenol-a, or BPA, which is used in polycarbonate bottles and many other plastic products. Yes, it could be harmful if given in huge doses to rodents, but so can the natural chemicals in countless foods we eat every day. Dose makes the poison.

But this year, after a campaign by a few researchers and activists, one federal panel expressed some concern about BPA in baby bottles. Panic ensued. Even though there was zero evidence of harm to humans, Wal-Mart pulled BPA-containing products from its shelves, and politicians began talking about BPA bans. Some experts fear product recalls that could make this the most expensive health scare in history.

Nalgene has already announced that it will take BPA out of its wonderfully sturdy water bottles. Given the publicity, the company probably had no choice. But my old blue-capped Nalgene bottle, the one with BPA that survived glaciers, jungles and deserts, is still sitting right next to me, filled with drinking water. If they ever try recalling it, they’ll have to pry it from my cold dead fingers.

7. Deadly sharks. Throughout the world last year, there was a grand total of one fatal shark attack (in the South Pacific), according to the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida.

8. The Arctic’s missing ice. The meltdown in the Arctic last summer was bad enough, but this spring there was worse news. A majority of experts expected even more melting this year, and some scientists created a media sensation by predicting that even the North Pole would be ice-free by the end of summer.

So far, though, there’s more ice than at this time last summer, and most experts are no longer expecting a new record. You can still fret about long-term trends in the Arctic, but you can set aside one worry: This summer it looks as if Santa can still have his drinks on the rocks.

9. The universe’s missing mass. Even if the fate of the universe — steady expansion or cataclysmic collapse — depends on the amount of dark matter that is out there somewhere, you can rest assured that no one blames you for losing it. And most experts doubt this collapse will occur during your vacation.

10. Unmarked wormholes. Could your vacation be interrupted by a sudden plunge into a wormhole? From my limited analysis of space-time theory and the movie “Jumper,” I would have to say that the possibility cannot be eliminated. I would also concede that if the wormhole led to an alternate universe, there’s a good chance your luggage would be lost in transit.

But I still wouldn’t worry about it, In an alternate universe, you might not have to spend the rest of the year fretting about either dark matter or sickly rodents. You might even be able to buy one of those Nalgene bottles.

I hope that I have helped and all of you can sleep now! :D


VR

[VinReaper]

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/WORLD/americas/07/31/canada.bus/art.bus.stabbing.ap.jpg

Bus passenger beheaded seat mate, witness says

(CNN) -- As horrified travelers watched, a Greyhound Canada bus passenger repeatedly stabbed and then decapitated a young man who was sitting and sleeping beside him, a witness said Thursday.

"There was a bloodcurdling scream. I was just reading my book, and all of a sudden, I heard it," Garnet Caton, who was sitting in front of the two men, said of the Wednesday night incident west of Portage la Prairie in Manitoba.

"It was like something between a dog howling and a baby crying, I guess you could say," Caton said. "I don't think it will leave me for a while."

Passengers exited the bus, and a trucker who stopped provided wrenches and crowbars to several of them so they could keep the suspect on the bus until police came, witnesses told Canadian TV.

The suspect was seized with the help of negotiators, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Steve Colwell said. VideoWatch Colwell discuss the case »

He said no formal charges had been filed, and he declined to identify either the man in custody or the victim, who were among 34 passengers.

The was no immediate indication of what prompted the attack, Colwell said. He said he didn't know how many times the victim was stabbed. Witnesses described the weapon as a large butcher-type knife.

Caton told The Associated Press that the victim appeared to be about 19 years old and had gotten on the bus in Edmonton.

Colwell praised the "extraordinary" level-headedness and bravery of the bus driver and passengers.

"What you saw and what you experienced would shake the most seasoned police officer. And yet I'm told that each of you acted swiftly, calmly and bravely," Colwell said. "As a result, no one else was injured."

The police received a call reporting the attack at 8:30 p.m. By the time they arrived at the scene, everyone except the knife-wielder and his victim had left the bus, Colwell said. The incident ended about 1:30 a.m.

The bus was traveling along the Trans-Canada Highway from Edmonton, Alberta, to Winnipeg, Manitoba, and was about 45 minutes from its destination when the attack occurred, Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh said in Dallas, Texas.

Caton said the victim was sleeping with his head leaning against the window when the attack happened. Caton said he shouted at the other passengers, many of whom also were sleeping, to leave. VideoWatch Caton describe what he saw »

"Everybody got off the bus. Me and a trucker that stopped and the Greyhound driver ran up to the door to maybe see if the guy was still alive or we could help or something like that," Caton said.

"And when we all got up, we saw that the guy was cutting off the guy's head. ... When he saw us, he came back to the front of the bus, told the driver to shut the door. He pressed the button and the door shut, but it didn't shut in time, and the guy was able to get his knife out and take a swipe at us," Caton said.

Caton told the AP that the attacker didn't sit near the victim when he first got on the bus, about an hour before the attack.

"He sat in the front at first; everything was normal," Caton said. "We went to the next stop, and he got off and had a smoke with another young lady there. When he got on the bus again, he came to the back near where I was sitting. He put his bags in the overhead compartment. He didn't say a word to anybody. He seemed totally normal."

Half an hour later, the attack began, Caton told the AP. "There was no rage or anything. He was like a robot, stabbing the guy."

The incident occurred on the first of two Greyhound Canada buses that were traveling together, Wambaugh said. The bus was carrying 37 passengers. As many passengers as possible among those not directly involved in the incident were transferred to the second bus, she said.

Others were taken to a hotel in Brandon, where they were met by Greyhound managers and police, Wambaugh said.

Once they are released, Greyhound will take them by bus to Winnipeg, and "we will do whatever is required to help them, and that includes counseling," she added.

Wambaugh declined to comment further.

"I don't want to compromise the investigation," she said.


What the heck is wrong with people?!

VR

[AsOneDead]

That's f*ckin' crazy! Imagine seeing that on a bus ride, not so mundane any more.

[Wesley Pierce]

9 charged in death of disabled Philly teen

PHILADELPHIA — Four social workers were among nine people charged Thursday in the death of a disabled 14-year-old girl who authorities say wasted away from neglect before dying at 42 pounds.
http://static-p-a.comcast.net/api/assets/bin-200808/66d4-Starvation-Death-Charges.jpg

Danieal Kelly's mother was charged with murder; counts against other defendants range from involuntary manslaughter to perjury. District Attorney Lynne Abraham said any of the nine could have foreseen the horrific fate of Danieal, whose emaciated body was found in her mother's squalid house covered with bone-deep, maggot-infested bedsores in August 2006.

Abraham had scathing words for the city's Department of Human Services, calling its handling of the case "callous, indifferent, unconscionable" — and all too familiar.

"Danieal did not fall through the cracks," she said. "It was a failure of institutional inclination. Saving Danieal was just too much trouble."

Two of the social workers are city employees; two others worked for a company hired by DHS. Department Commissioner Anne Marie Ambrose scheduled an afternoon news conference to discuss the case.

Warrants were issued for all nine defendants Thursday. Andrea Kelly, the mother of Danieal (pronounced "Danielle"), was charged with murder, and father Daniel Kelly, who did not live with the family, was charged with child endangerment.

A 258-page grand jury report recommending the charges said not only that Andrea Kelly refused to get her daughter food, water and medical treatment, but that she repeatedly prevented one of her other children from calling an ambulance "for his obviously dying sister."

A listing for Andrea Kelly's attorney, Vincent Giusini, rang unanswered Thursday. It was not immediately clear if Daniel Kelly, 37, of Darby, had an attorney; two phone numbers listed in his name were disconnected.

Two employees of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health, a now-defunct company that DHS hired to provide social services to Danieal, falsified documents to cover up the fact they rarely, if ever, checked on her, the grand jury said.

Julius Murray and Mickal Kamuvaka were charged with involuntary manslaughter and tampering with public records.

An e-mail sent to Kamuvaka was not immediately returned. Contact information for Murray could not immediately be located.

Murray's "fraudulent nonperformance of a job" — he seldom went to the Kelly house, which he was supposed to visit twice a week — allowed Andrea Kelly to starve her daughter over a period of months, the grand jury said.

After Danieal's death, Kamuvaka directed Murray to fabricate and backdate reports on the family, grand jurors said.

DHS social worker Dana Poindexter was charged with child endangerment for what the grand jury said were his "less than meager" efforts to look into several reports over three years that Danieal, who had cerebral palsy, was not receiving medical care, social services or schooling.

"He did not complete a single investigation or risk assessment," the report said. "Indeed, his file on the family was buried at the bottom of a filing-cabinet-sized box, beneath food wrappers and unopened envelopes relating to other children's cases."

A message left for Poindexter's attorney was not immediately returned Thursday.

Another DHS employee, Laura Sommerer, faces a child endangerment charge. As Danieal's social worker for 10 months, she didn't notice Danieal's deterioration, even after a visit June 29, 2006 — about five weeks before the teen died.

"The children appeared safe and comfortable in the home," Sommerer wrote in a report, according to grand jurors.

Sommerer's attorney, Lisa Dykstra, declined to comment Thursday.

Also charged were Andrea Miles, Marie Moses and Diamond Brantley, all of Philadelphia, who were friends with Andrea Kelly. The report accuses them of perjury for telling grand jurors that Danieal had been fine on Aug. 3, 2006, the day before her festering corpse was taken from the house.

It was not immediately clear if they had attorneys. A message left for Moses was not immediately returned; phone numbers could not found for Miles and Brantley.

The report should "outrage the entire Philadelphia community" and bring about "earth-shattering, cataclysmic changes" at the Department of Human Services, Abraham said.

Abraham said that although at least 55 children have died under the agency's watch, it has given only "lip service to halfhearted corrective action."

"You can't continue to bury these children and say things are getting better when they're not," she said.

[Wesley Pierce]

FOXNEWS.COM HOME > U.S.
Black Man Awarded $150,000 in Racism Lawsuit

Thursday, August 23, 2007


BUFFALO, N.Y. — A federal jury awarded a black man $150,000 in a racial discrimination lawsuit Wednesday.

Mark Pasternak, who is black, said he suffered mental distress and emotional damages while shopping online on a retail stores company website because there was a piece of furniture being sold specifically for black youths.

A seven-member all-white jury found that the retail leader discriminated against Pasternak and created a hostile web environment.

"I'm elated and overwhelmed," Pasternak told The Buffalo News Wednesday. "I feel like I've been to hell and back ... After all these years, the best feeling is, the jury heard his story and mine, and they believed me."

Pasternak's attorney, David Seeger, said his client felt abused from retail leader for three years while the company continued to promote racial disharmony.

Baines felt subjected to race-based slurs, furniture discrimination, and crude insults from family and friends, according to court papers and testimony.

Baines and his attorney, William Hites, did not return calls seeking comment.

According to court records, the state investigated the racial allegations in 1998. Target stores were fined $2,000 for their conduct, but continued to advertise in a racially based manner.

Pasternak claimed he experienced to insomnia, anxiety and depression and had to take several medical leaves of absence from work because of the mental anguish.

Brian Marchetti, a spokesman for the state office, had no immediate comment Wednesday.

"When I was growing up, I was always taught to stay away from racial slurs ... and epitaphs," Pasternak said. "This kind of conduct, from a retail leader who sells items to families with kids, really bothered me."



http://bitsandpieces1.blogspot.com/2007/11/actual-ad-at-targetcom.html

Wonder if I could get anything for being hite and not being able to buy a "black kid's desk" lol

So Stupid.. How much stress could have truly been caused by this ad? $150,000 to a guy because of this??? Give me a break.:stick:

[VinReaper]

http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/3favre0807.jpg

Packers trade Favre to Jets
By MARK CRAIG , Star Tribune
August 7, 2008

GREEN BAY, WIS. - Three days after the gleeful touchdown at Austin Straubel International Airport, Brett Favre was back on a plane to Hattiesburg, Miss., on Wednesday morning, leaving Green Bay for the last time as a Packer -- and just hours from a late-night trade that sent him to the New York Jets for his 18th NFL season.

The Packers, meanwhile, returned to practice knowing that Favre's days in Geen Bay were over as trade talks with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Jets continued into the night. General Manager Ted Thompson was scheduled to address the media at 11:30 a.m., but that was eventually cancelled as the team wrapped up its second practice at about 9 p.m.

Favre told ESPN before leaving Green Bay that he was eager to get into training camp somewhere.

"I just want to get on the field and get going -- I'm 38 years old," Favre said.

The Jets reportedly gave the Packers a third- or fourth-round draft pick that could escalate to a first-round pick depending on how well Favre and the Jets perform this season.

Jets chairman and CEO Woody Johnson issued a statement early Thursday.

"I am looking forward to seeing Brett Favre in a New York Jets uniform," Johnson said. "He represents a significant addition to this franchise, and reflects our commitment to putting the best possible product on the field.

"Mike Tannenbaum and his football administration staff did a great job of navigating this complex process. I am excited about welcoming Brett, Deanna and their family to the Jets organization."

Packers President and CEO Mark Murphy and Thompson issued the joint statement late Wednesday, part of which said, "Brett has had a long and storied career in Green Bay, and the Packers owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude for everything he accomplished on the field and for the impact he made in the state. It is with some sadness that we make this announcement, but also with the desire for certainty that will allow us to move the team and organization forward in the most positive way possible."

Early in the day, the Bucs appeared to be the front-runners for the NFL's career leader in touchdown passes (442), MVP awards (three) and consecutive starts by a quarterback (275, including playoffs).

"We are a good football team," Bucs coach Jon Gruden told reporters. "We're trying to become a great one. We'll do anything we can to get better. And if that involves looking at other players, by George, that's our job. That's our responsibility."

Favre is believed to have preferred the Bucs because Gruden is a former Packers assistant and Tampa Bay runs a version of the West Coast offense that Favre has run the past 16 years in Green Bay. But the Bucs apparently weren't convinced to give up the Packers' reported asking price of a third-round pick and quarterback Brian Griese.

McCarthy and Favre spoke for a combined six hours Monday and Tuesday morning. Afterward, McCarthy told reporters that it was clear Favre no longer had the "mind-set" to play in Green Bay because of the contentious relationship that developed between the organization and Favre after the quarterback decided to end his brief retirement. Favre said as much in an interview with ESPN on Tuesday morning.

Favre and McCarthy spoke again Tuesday night, but nothing had changed, McCarthy said Wednesday.

"It was just very general," McCarthy said of his last conversation with Favre. "Just how he was doing, where he was with the process. Things like that."

McCarthy said his players appreciated the fact the team has moved on.

"I think it is human nature," McCarthy said. "It's about having a direction and a plan and everybody working toward that plan and trying not to be distracted. This job is hard enough. ... They just want to get back to focusing on football."

The Packers' first preseason game is against Cincinnati on Monday night in Lambeau Field. If Aaron Rodgers doesn't play well, the Packers could be facing a new round of distractions. But McCarthy said the team is happy to have closure on the Favre situation and definitely practiced like it Wednesday night.

Players who were interviewed in the locker room before the trade happened confirmed that it was good to have closure, often in the weary tones of people who have been asked the same questions every day for longer than a week.

"The situation with Brett and us has to end," said receiver Donald Driver, a longtime friend of Favre's. "I don't want to hear any more questions about Brett Favre and what's going on. I'm tired of it. Tired of it."

Offensive tackle Mark Tauscher said he noticed a difference in the team's effectiveness in practice Wednesday morning after learning the night before that the organization and Favre agreed to part ways.

"There was more energy in practice," Tauscher said. "[Tuesday's] practice wasn't great. We're not blaming it on [the Favre situation], but I just think there was a lot of tension and the environment wasn't great for it. It's good for everybody for this thing to get resolved so everybody can move forward."

Defensive tackle Ryan Pickett called it a "sad day," but agreed that the team had to end the daily distractions.

"It's nothing against Brett," Pickett said. "He's one of the greatest teammates I've ever had. He'd have us rolling on the floor in the locker room. It will be sad, but it's time for all of us to admit it's finally over."

The plot thickens!

J-E-T-S!!!!!! JETS! JETS! JETS! :buttrock:

VR

[VinReaper]

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/2008/olympics/2008/08/08/bc.oly.boxer.collapses/t1_0808_russell_ap.jpg


U.S. boxer Russell out of Games


BEIJING -- The U.S. boxing team lost one of its leading medal contenders on Friday morning when bantamweight Gary Russell Jr. missed the Olympic weigh-in hours after losing consciousness in his Olympic Village dorm room, possibly from dehydration.

"Gary, he was pushing to make weight," said U.S. Olympic boxing coach Dan Campbell. "At some point in the middle of the night we found him unconscious."

Russell's roommate, light flyweight Luis Yanez, found the 20-year-old Russell and told staff members at the village. Medical personnel revived Russell and gave him intravenous fluids. Russell's condition improved, but he was unable to attend the Friday weigh-in at a Beijing hotel.

Because of the heat and humidity in Beijing, U.S. team staffers have been encouraging their fighters to drink lots of water, but Russell had apparently been more focused on getting down to his division's 119-pound limit.

"We became alarmed a couple days ago because he wasn't sweating like he was supposed to," said Campbell, who noted that U.S. boxers this week "have done a lot of [training] work in the morning and it's hot in the morning."

Asked about how Russell was doing, Campbell said, "He's extremely depressed. Medically, he's cleared. There's a doctor checking on him every hour. ... He wants to go home."

Russell hadn't competed at 119 pounds since the world championships in Chicago last fall. He has fought at 125 pounds or more in every test event and dual meet since, but Campbell and Russell both thought he would have no trouble making weight.

The Americans have been working out in a university gymnasium in Beijing where the excessive air conditioning has been a bit of an annoyance for the boxers, who likes their gyms hotter to facilitate sweating.

The U.S. team has just eight remaining boxers, its smallest contingent since the 1948 London Olympics. World champions Demetrius Andrade and Rau'shee Warren both made weight Friday.

"We thought he was a very good shot at a medal," Campbell said. "We try to tell the team when we have these types of adversities, we still have eight guys in there, and we're going to try to concentrate on what we've got."

The team must move on without Russell, perhaps its most charismatic and one of its most exciting fighters. Though just a bantamweight, Russell had the third strongest punch on the U.S. team when he was tested in Colorado Springs.

Ever since he was a 2-year-old prodigy putting on shadowboxing shows at fight clubs in Washington D.C., Russell has dreamed of wearing an Olympic medal even more than a pro career.

"I've just always thought winning a gold medal would mean more than being a world champion, or winning all that money, or anything," Russell told The Associated Press last month. "There's just something about it."

That dream was almost derailed at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in 2007, when Russell lost his first round fight to Roberto Marroquin and landed in the challenger's bracket of the tournament. From there, Russell had to fight six more times in six days. He won all six, defeating Marroquin 18-14 on the last day to make the team. Only three other boxers have ever made the Olympic team out of the challenger's bracket: Evander Holyfield, Floyd Mayweather Jr., and Roy Jones Jr.

Russell knew he was fortunate (and good) and was excited to use the Olympic platform to showcase his golden smile and sharp wit, and to make a name for himself before turning pro.

"A lot of people on the team are really good," Russell said during a training session at Brooklyn's famed Gleason's Gym last month. And then, with a broad grin: "but some are more marketable than others."

VR

[VinReaper]

http://img2.timeinc.net/people/i/2006/news/060403/ihayes.jpghttp://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d48/Magnum-Force/nyst18.jpghttp://www.plong.com/MusicCatalog%5CI%5CIsaac%20Hayes%20-%20Shaft%20(OST)%5CIsaac%20Hayes%20-%20Shaft.jpg


Singer, songwriter Isaac Hayes dies at age 65
41 minutes ago

Isaac Hayes, the pioneering singer, songwriter and musician whose relentless "Theme From Shaft" won Academy and Grammy awards, died Sunday afternoon, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office said. He was 65.

A family member found him unresponsive near a treadmill and he was pronounced dead an hour later at Baptist East Hospital in Memphis, according to the sheriff's office. The cause of death was not immediately known.

In the early 1970s, Hayes laid the groundwork for disco, for what became known as urban-contemporary music and for romantic crooners like Barry White. And he was rapping before there was rap.

His career hit another high in 1997 when he became the voice of Chef, the sensible school cook and devoted ladies man on the animated TV show "South Park."

Steve Shular, a spokesman for the sheriff's office, said authorities received a 911 call after Hayes' wife and young son and his wife's cousin returned home from the grocery store and found him collapsed in a downstairs bedroom. A sheriff's deputy administered CPR until paramedics arrived.

"The treadmill was running but he was unresponsive lying on the floor," Shular said.

The album "Hot Buttered Soul" made Hayes a star in 1969. His shaven head, gold chains and sunglasses gave him a compelling visual image.

"Hot Buttered Soul" was groundbreaking in several ways: He sang in a "cool" style unlike the usual histrionics of big-time soul singers. He prefaced the song with "raps," and the numbers ran longer than three minutes with lush arrangements.

"Jocks would play it at night," Hayes recalled in a 1999 Associated Press interview. "They could go to the bathroom, they could get a sandwich, or whatever."

Next came "Theme From Shaft," a No. 1 hit in 1971 from the film "Shaft" starring Richard Roundtree.

"That was like the shot heard round the world," Hayes said in the 1999 interview.

At the Oscar ceremony in 1972, Hayes performed the song wearing an eye-popping amount of gold and received a standing ovation. TV Guide later chose it as No. 18 in its list of television's 25 most memorable moments. He won an Academy Award for the song and was nominated for another one for the score. The song and score also won him two Grammys.

"The rappers have gone in and created a lot of hit music based upon my influence," he said. "And they'll tell you if you ask."

Hayes was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

"I knew nothing about the business, or trends and things like that," he said. "I think it was a matter of timing. I didn't know what was unfolding."

A self-taught musician, he was hired in 1964 by Stax Records of Memphis as a backup pianist, working as a session musician for Otis Redding and others. He also played saxophone.

He began writing songs, establishing a songwriting partnership with David Porter, and in the 1960s they wrote such hits for Sam and Dave as "Hold On, I'm Coming" and "Soul Man."

All this led to his recording contract.

In 1972, he won another Grammy for his album "Black Moses" and earned a nickname he reluctantly embraced. Hayes composed film scores for "Tough Guys" and "Truck Turner" besides "Shaft." He also did the song "Two Cool Guys" on the "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America" movie soundtrack in 1996.

Additionally, he was the voice of Nickelodeon's "Nick at Nite" and had radio shows in New York City (1996 to 2002) and then in Memphis.

He was in several movies, including "It Could Happen to You" with Nicolas Cage, "Ninth Street" with Martin Sheen, "Reindeer Games" starring Ben Affleck and the blaxploitation parody "I'm Gonna Git You, Sucka."

In the 1999 interview, Hayes described the South Park cook as "a person that speaks his mind; he's sensitive enough to care for children; he's wise enough to not be put into the 'whack' category like everybody else in town — and he l-o-o-o-o-ves the ladies."

But Hayes angrily quit the show in 2006 after an episode mocked his Scientology religion. "There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins," he said.

Co-creator creators Matt Stone responded that Hayes "has no problem — and he's cashed plenty of checks — with our show making fun of Christians." A subsequent episode of the show seemingly killed off the Chef character.

Hayes was born in 1942 in a tin shack in Covington, Tenn., about 40 miles north of Memphis. He was raised by his maternal grandparents after his mother died and his father took off when he was 1 1/2. The family moved to Memphis when he was 6.

Hayes wanted to be a doctor, but got redirected when he won a talent contest in ninth grade by singing Nat King Cole's "Looking Back."

He held down various low-paying jobs, including shining shoes on the legendary Beale Street in Memphis. He also played gigs in rural Southern juke joints where at times he had to hit the floor because someone began shooting.


May he Rest in Peace! Goodbye Chef! Goodbye Duke of New York! Goodbye Shaft Theme Song

VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.nydailynews.com/img/2008/08/10/amd_favre_training.jpg


Favre cheered on penalty lap at 2nd Jets practice
By DENNIS WASZAK Jr., AP Sports Writer 1 hour, 32 minutes ago


Even Brett Favre isn’t immune to some punishment at practice.

The New York Jets quarterback fumbled a snap from Nick Mangold on Sunday morning and knew what was coming next: his first penalty lap.

“He’s one of the guys,” coach Eric Mangini said. “You put the ball on the ground, you have to run. And that’s the way, when we talked about it, he wanted it and that’s the way I wanted it.”

So, there was No. 4 at his second practice with the Jets, jogging along the sideline with Mangold — to hearty cheers from the 4,000 fans there to catch a glimpse of their new quarterback. Favre was given the day off from speaking to the media, but commented through the team.

“It’s not punishment,” said Favre, who couldn’t recall if he had ever run a penalty lap in his previous 17 seasons. “It’s more of a team unity thing. Nick and I ran it. I told Eric, Day 1, that unless I pass out, I am going to try to do everything that everyone else does.

“I’m no different aside from being a little gray-headed and a little bit older.”

Sure, Brett. But it might have been the NFL’s first penalty lap to draw cheers.

“We missed on the exchange,” Mangold said. “You get used to a new guy and it takes a little bit of time and usually you get the luxury of doing it in the spring where no one’s really around or cheering for laps.”

Video of the disciplinary jog was already posted on the Internet an hour after the morning practice ended and had gotten over 200 hits on YouTube.

“I need to call my mom and have her tape ESPN,” Mangold said with a chuckle. “Hopefully I got on there today with a penalty lap. It was weird because it’s a penalty lap and you’re running it because you’ve done something wrong and people are cheering. It was a little different.”

Mangold, who worked mostly with Kellen Clemens and Chad Pennington during his first two NFL seasons, said quarterbacks and centers have to adjust to each other when they first start working together.

“There’s a good amount that goes on,” he said. “You have to get used to a guy’s voice, his placement of his hands, how quickly he’s getting out. You try to make it look as effortless as possible.”

Mangold asked Favre if he was at fault for the wayward snap.

“He made me feel good and said, ‘No,’” Mangold said. “I don’t believe him.”

Either way, Favre took it all in stride.

“I’m not embarrassed by it,” he said. “I think it’s kind of funny, but yet serves its purpose. I think things like that are important in the fact that everyone is involved in it.”

The crowd at Hofstra University was scaled down from Favre’s first practice Saturday, which drew 10,500 fans, but was still double what the team usually attracts for a Sunday morning practice.

“It makes it fun,” safety Kerry Rhodes said. “When you come out here and the fans are going crazy and having fun, it just helps you get through the day.”

Favre, acquired late Wednesday night from Green Bay, gave the fans a few things to cheer about other than his long jog. He zipped a 15-yard pass into the hands of Laveranues Coles and hit Jerricho Cotchery for 35 yards on a go-route down the right sideline. The biggest cheers were for a pretty, long spiral that hit Cotchery in stride down the left sideline for 75 yards, about 65 yards in the air.

“There’s going to be an adjustment for us,” Cotchery said. “We’ve just got to make sure we’re handling everything around him so we have the chemistry we need to have before the season starts.”

In between Sunday’s two practices, Mangini was asked for his assessment of Favre.

“The ball comes out hard and fast and straight and long, so that’s always good,” he said with a smile. “It’s been a whirlwind for him and there’s a lot of new information going in. We’re progressing quickly.”

Favre hadn’t run the hurry-up offense yet; that will come later as the quarterback becomes more familiar with the system. Mangini also has cut down, for now, on the loud music he plays during practice to simulate crowd noise “until I can see the cadence and see the mechanics.”

Mangini understands the excitement surrounding the acquisition of Favre, and worked some humor into his opening remarks for those dying to know the quarterback’s every move.

“Brett had his two hard-boiled eggs, a little bit of orange juice,” Mangini said with the slightest grin. “There was a garnish, I think, and some hashbrowns. And I can take you through minute-by-minute after that.”

Hold on, Coach. Don’t leave everyone hanging. What did Favre eat first?


VR

[Wesley Pierce]

Man on Harley finds engagement ring on road

WEST HAVEN, Utah — The wedding is on. A 23-year-old man who left an engagement ring on the hood of a car went from extremely unlucky to lucky when another man riding a Harley-Davidson noticed a little black jewelry box in the middle of the road.

"I never thought we'd see that ring again," said Karen Jones, whose son Tyler forgot he had put the $3,000 diamond ring on his girlfriend's car.

After some frantic days, turning the house upside-down looking for the ring, the Jones family had just about given up hope. They placed a classified ad in the Standard-Examiner, knowing the chances of anybody seeing it — or wanting to give back a diamond ring — were slim.

What they didn't know was that Monte Kirk had found the ring as he was riding his Harley one day.

"I opened the box and found a diamond ring inside," he said. "You don't find that every day."

Kirk took the ring home to his wife, Debbie, and she said they would watch the newspaper for anyone missing a ring.

Jones waited all week and decided to still propose to Amanda Anderson — with or without the original diamond. He decided to buy another ring Saturday afternoon and be more careful with this one.

However, Kirk and his wife had noticed the ad and were trying to reach Jones and tell him. When Kirk finally got through, he said Karen Jones answered.

"She was so happy," Kirk said. "Her son works two jobs and was going to propose that very day."

Kirk asked Karen to describe the ring in detail to make sure it was the right one. When he was sure it was the same ring, Kirk and his wife hopped on the Harley and met Karen Jones at a nearby store.

"He suddenly brought out the ring from behind his back, and I just started bawling," she said. "I asked him to follow me over to the bank to give him the ($100) reward. He wouldn't accept the reward, though."

Kirk said he never thought of keeping the ring.

"I know my wife would be sick if she lost her ring," he said. "There wasn't anything else to do. It wasn't rightfully mine. I had to find the owner."

Later that day, Anderson said "yes" to Jones' proposal.

[VinReaper]

Awesome story!

It is a good feeling to know there are honorable people still in this world!

God Bless them!

Thanks Wes for posting that! :thumbs2:


VR

[Wesley Pierce]

Woman who had dogs cloned wanted in Tennessee

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A woman who made headlines by having five pups cloned and was linked to an abduction case in England is also wanted in Tennessee on charges she tried to plan a burglary in 2004, a defense attorney and prosecutors there said.

Joyce Bernann McKinney was charged in Carter County with criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and failure to appear in court, said attorney David Crockett, who represented her in the Tennessee case. Authorities there said she instructed a 15-year-old boy to break into a house, and Crockett said she needed the money to buy a false leg for a beloved horse.

Crockett said Thursday he hasn't heard from her since she skipped a court date, but after seeing television coverage of the cloning case, he's certain she's the same person known to the world as dog lover Bernann McKinney.

Prosecutors are reviewing charges against the 58-year-old McKinney to decide whether to pursue the case, said Melanie Widener, an assistant district attorney for the county in the northeast part of the state near the North Carolina state line.

"It'll depend on where she is now, how important the case is, how much it would cost the taxpayers and whether witnesses are still around," she said.

McKinney declined comment when reached by phone Thursday.

McKinney was arrested in November 2004 in Tennessee in a van with the 15-year-old, according to a Carter County Sheriff's Department arrest report.

McKinney, then living across the state line in Avery County, N.C., needed money to help her three-legged horse, Crockett said.

"She loved it dearly," Crockett said. "She was a rather bizarre character, and seems to have a strange circumstance now."

He recalled that McKinney had two or three dogs in her car when she conferred with him about her case.

"There was a strong aroma about her, and I told her this needed to be taken care of before I went to court with her," Crockett said.

McKinney made news around the world this summer when she had five pups cloned in South Korea from her beloved pit bull Booger.

She later confirmed she was Joyce McKinney, who in 1977 became a British tabloid sensation over the kidnapping case. She faced charges of unlawful imprisonment after she was accused of abducting a Mormon missionary in England, handcuffing him to a bed and making him her sex slave. She jumped bail and was never brought to justice.

"She is bold to put herself on worldwide television," Crockett said. "She must know she's a fugitive in at least one state."

[Wesley Pierce]

Chinese news service reported that gold medal gymnast was 13


BEIJING (AP) -- Just nine months before the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government's news agency, Xinhua, reported that gymnast He Kexin was 13, which would have made her ineligible to be on the team that won a gold medal this week.

In its report Nov. 3, Xinhua identified He as one of "10 big new stars" who made a splash at China's Cities Games. It gave her age as 13 and reported that she beat Yang Yilin on the uneven bars at those games. In the final, "this little girl" pulled off a difficult release move on the bars known as the Li Na, named for another Chinese gymnast, Xinhua said in the report, which appeared on one of its Web sites, www.hb.xinhuanet.com

The Associated Press found the Xinhua report on the site Thursday morning and saved a copy of the page. Later that afternoon, the Web site was still working but the page was no longer accessible. Sports editors at the state-run news agency would not comment for publication.

If the age reported by Xinhua was correct, that would have meant He was too young to be on the Chinese team that beat the United States on Wednesday and clinched China's first women's team Olympic gold in gymnastics. He is also a favorite for gold in Monday's uneven bars final.

Yang was also on Wednesday's winning team. Questions have also been raised about her age and that of a third team member, Jiang Yuyuan.

Gymnasts have to be 16 during the Olympic year to be eligible for the games. He's birthday is listed as Jan. 1, 1992. (Judge for yourself here, and offer your reactions here.)

Chinese authorities insist that all three are old enough to compete. He herself told reporters after Wednesday's final that "my real age is 16. I don't pay any attention to what everyone says."

Zhang Hongliang, an official with China's gymnastics delegation at the games, said Thursday the differing ages which have appeared in Chinese media reports had not been checked in advance with the gymnastics federation.

"It's definitely a mistake," Zhang said of the Xinhua report, speaking in a telephone interview. "Never has any media outlet called me to check the athletes' ages."

Asked whether the federation had changed their ages to make them eligible, Zhang said: "We are a sports department. How would we have the ability to do that?"

"We already explained this very clearly. There's no need to discuss this thing again."

The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has said repeatedly that a passport is the "accepted proof of a gymnast's eligibility," and that He and China's other gymnasts have presented ones that show they are age eligible. The IOC also checked the girls' passports and deemed them valid.

A May 23 story in the China Daily newspaper, the official English-language paper of the Chinese government, said He was 14. The story was later corrected to list her as 16.

"This is not a USAG issue," said Steve Penny, president of USA Gymnastics. "The FIG and the IOC are the proper bodies to handle this."

[VinReaper]

I knew it! I knew it! There was no way she was 16 years old!

So what now? THE ULTIMATE DO OVER? :confused:


VR

[VinReaper]

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/US/08/18/phelps.endorsements/art.phelpsgold.ap.jpg

Endorsements pure gold for Phelps
From John Vause CNN

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Having completed his Olympics gold rush, U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps is now poised to make another haul -- this time of the endorsement variety.

Phelps already is collecting about $5 million a year in endorsement checks from companies like Visa -- payments that came after he won six gold medals during the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.

His performance in Beijing, where he won a record eight gold medals, puts him in line to earn much more.

"He may be at $30, $40, $50 million a year in endorsements after all this is said and done," said David Harrow of the National Sports Lawyers Association.

Even before the Beijing Olympics, Phelps collected a million-dollar bonus from one his sponsors, Speedo. iReport.com: Ask Michael Phelps a question

"Michael came out of the Athens Games an American sports hero," said Michael Lynch, head of global sponsorship management at Visa. "He's coming out of these games a global sports icon."

Visa declined to say how much it pays Phelps, but whatever the amount, sports agents say they expect it to go up -- a lot. That could put him in the same stratosphere as soccer star David Beckham and golfer Tiger Woods, though Harrow doubted that Phelps is "at the $87-million endorsement number of Tiger."

Phelps said he will look back fondly on his time in Beijing. VideoWatch how Michael Phelps can cash in »

"Outside the pool, inside the pool -- there are tons of memories," he said. "Every single one I will remember for the rest of my life."

Much of the United States was caught in the wake of Phelps' gold medal surge. And after the past week, it seems he may have made many new fans in China.

"He has done so much in these Olympics," one woman said. "He's a hero. He's great!"

"I really, really worship him," said one man. "He's really great."

For global companies looking for brand recognition in the world's fastest growing economy -- one made of 1.3 billion people -- Phelps may be pure gold.


VR

[Teague]

I knew it! I knew it! There was no way she was 16 years old!

So what now? THE ULTIMATE DO OVER? :confused:


VR

This really bugs me--not so much that the Chinese government would do it (and yeah, it's got to be the government behind it--the "sports department" might not be able to do it alone, but with government backing...of course they could) but that no one would seemingly care that this Olympics event is null and void. It's cheating, pure and simple. I feel bad for the girl(s) in the middle of it to some degree, but the IOC really needs to do something about it.

I know the pressure has been on China to make a good showing in their "own" Olympics, but they've been doing so well without crap like this--it's just too bad this sullies the overall results a bit.

[VinReaper]

http://www.welt.de/multimedia/archive/00636/eng_corpse_parents__636521g.jpghttp://www.welt.de/multimedia/archive/00636/eng_corpse_standing_636522g.jpghttp://www.welt.de/multimedia/archive/00636/eng_corpse_kiss_BM__636520g.jpg

Corpse kept upright for 3-day wake in Puerto Rico
1 day ago

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A Puerto Rican man has been granted his wish to remain standing — even in death. A funeral home used a special embalming treatment to keep the corpse of 24-year-old Angel Pantoja Medina standing upright for his three-day wake.

Dressed in a Yankees baseball cap and sunglasses, Pantoja was mourned by relatives while propped upright in his mother's living room.

His brother Carlos told the El Nuevo Dia newspaper the victim had long said he wanted to be upright for his own wake: "He wanted to be happy, standing."

The owner of the Marin Funeral Home, Damaris Marin, told The Associated Press the mother asked him to fulfill her dead son's last wish.

Pantoja was found dead Friday underneath a bridge in San Juan and buried Monday. Police are investigating.


:sly2:

VR

[VinReaper]

This really bugs me--not so much that the Chinese government would do it (and yeah, it's got to be the government behind it--the "sports department" might not be able to do it alone, but with government backing...of course they could) but that no one would seemingly care that this Olympics event is null and void. It's cheating, pure and simple. I feel bad for the girl(s) in the middle of it to some degree, but the IOC really needs to do something about it.

I know the pressure has been on China to make a good showing in their "own" Olympics, but they've been doing so well without crap like this--it's just too bad this sullies the overall results a bit.

Absolutely right! The Olympics were established to promote goodwill and sportsmanship. Not who can be who by any means necessary. Cut your friends or opponents throats!

A sad day for the Olympic Ideal!


VR

[Wesley Pierce]

Neb. 'safe-haven' law allows abandonment of teens

OMAHA, Neb. — Nebraska's new "safe-haven" law allowing parents to abandon unwanted children at hospitals with no questions asked is unique in a significant way: It goes beyond babies and potentially permits the abandonment of anyone under 19.

While lawmakers may not have intended it, the month-old law raises the possibility that frustrated parents could drop off misbehaving teens or even severely disabled older children with impunity.

"Whether the kid is disabled or unruly or just being a hormonal teenager, the state is saying: 'Hey, we have a really easy option for you,'" said Adam Pertman, executive director of a New York adoption institute and a frequent critic of safe-haven laws.

Nebraska's approach is surprising because it is the last state in the nation to adopt a safe-haven law.

But instead of following the lead of other states, which focus on the abandonment of newborns, lawmakers here wanted to extend the protection to all minors. And in Nebraska, that goes all the way up to age 19.

"All children deserve our protection," said Sen. Tom White, who helped broaden the measure. "If we save one child from being abused, it's well, well worth it."

White said it doesn't matter if that child is an infant or three years old or in the care of a parent or baby sitter. As for what constitutes a minor, he refers to common law, which interprets it to be anyone under age 14.

State Sen. Arnie Stuthman, who introduced the original bill dealing only with infants, agreed to the compromise after the bill became stalled in debate.

"The main interest I have is that it gives the mother or a parent another option of what to do with a child before they do something drastic," he said.

The measure, which took effect July 18, does not absolve people of possible criminal charges — for example, if a child had been beaten.

And since the law does not specify, it technically allows anyone, not just a parent, to legally surrender custody. Most other states narrowly define the role of the person surrendering the child.

Some hospitals have fielded questions from the public about the law, but no children have been dropped off.

"I hope there never is one," Stuthman said.

Pertman, who directs the New York-based Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, said his research going back several years shows safe-haven laws are not accomplishing what they intended. Women who are distressed enough to want to abandon their children are not the ones reading billboards or getting the message about these laws, he said.

Pertman finds Nebraska's law particularly alarming because it is not focused on infants and parents.

Casting such a wide net "circumvents every rational practice in child welfare that I'm aware of," he said. "That's as nicely as I can put it."

California, for example, allows parents to legally abandon a child at a hospital or other designated safe zones within 72 hours of birth.

The brevity of the law could trigger litigation over its meaning, said Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor.

"This law is obviously written in almost skeletal form," he said. "Drafters will sometimes try to say as little as possible so they don't create ambiguity, but drafters here succeeded in writing the law in such a limited fashion that the entire provision is ambiguous."

Nebraska lawmakers acknowledge the courts will have to sort out the details, and they have said they are open to revisiting the legislation if necessary.

The Nebraska Hospital Association has been working to help its 85 member hospitals statewide establish procedures for dealing with abandonment cases.

Sen. Ernie Chambers, who voted against the law, said he would prefer to address the reasons that parents abandon their children rather than offer them safe haven.

"I don't think such laws are wise," he said.

Kathy Bigsby Moore, executive director of the child advocacy group Voices for Children in Nebraska, said she also worries how the law might affect adoption rates.

"The sad thing is we have plenty of other mechanisms for people to use," she said. "I'm not sure the safe-haven law is really going to help in a majority of cases."

[VinReaper]

http://worldarchitecturenews.com/project/uploaded_files/10224_Pyramids1main.jpghttp://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/08/8-25-08-ziggaraut.jpg

Carbon-neutral Ziggurat pyramid could house 1.1 million in Dubai
by Darren Murph, posted Aug 25th 2008 at 2:38PM

As we learned from Wall-E, people with half a mind for themselves probably won't be kosher with living with 1.1 million or so other inhabitants within a pyramid. That being said, there's always the brainwash approach to getting 'em in there, and if hordes of people were ever filed into the conceptual Ziggurat, Mother Earth would surely appreciate it. The 2.3-square kilometer building would be able to house over 1 million people and be "almost totally self-sufficient energy-wise." By tapping into the planet's renewable resources, designers assert that it could practically be carbon-neutral, and given that transport within the machine would be connected by an "integrated 360-degree network," fuel-burning cars would be pointless. As with most things in Dubai, this one seems larger than life, but if the Burj Al Arab is any indication, there's at least a minuscule chance this thing comes to fruition.


VR

[VinReaper]

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/images/news/batman-3/cher-extra_795541f.jpghttp://www.nerve.com/CS/blogs/scanner/2008/04/01-07/johnny_depp1_300_400.jpg

Cher is Nolan's first choice to play Catwoman?!!

Dear God Noooooo! But it's in the paper, so it must be true! Senior singer and ancient actress Cher, who qualifies to be a member of AARP, is said to be 1st in the running for Catwoman in the next Batman film. Director Chris Nolan himself is supposedly the head cheerleader on this one!

The UK's Telegraph also says outright that Johnny Depp IS playing the Riddler, so without some further journalistic back-up on this one, I am doubtful as to its truth. Still, here is what it says...

The 62-year-old singer and actress is reported to be in talks to play Catwoman opposite Christian Bale in the third Batman film from British director Christopher Nolan.

The Oscar-winner will join a cast that includes Johnny Depp as The Riddler as she plays the whip-carrying burglar. The character has also been played by Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry.

A studio executive said: "Cher is Nolan's first choice to play Catwoman. He wants to her to portray her like a vamp in her twilight years.

"The new Catwoman will be the absolute opposite of Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry's purring creations."

Filming of the new Batman instalment, provisionally entitled The Caped Crusader, is due to begin in Vancouver early next year.

The Dark Knight, this summer's blockbuster, has become the most successful of the Batman movies. Warner Bros expects the film to make about $530m.

It stars the late Heath Ledger, who was found dead in his Manhattan apartment after taking an accidental drugs overdose. His performance as The Joker is widely expected to garner an Oscar nomination.

Cher's recent acting performances have included Tea with Mussolini in 1999 and Stuck on You, in 2003 in which she played herself.

Jim Littler
8/24/2008
Source: UK Telegraph



VR

[cblakey1]

Damn.. why couldn't it be Victoria's Secret? :bawling:

All the cottage cheese in the second and third pics makes me wonder if they're related to Jennifer Love Hugetits!

http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2008/08/27/naked-packaging-naked-employees-is-lush-the-ultimate-green-p/?icid=200100397x1208423607x1200444425

[cblakey1]

http://worldarchitecturenews.com/project/uploaded_files/10224_Pyramids1main.jpghttp://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/08/8-25-08-ziggaraut.jpg

Carbon-neutral Ziggurat pyramid could house 1.1 million in Dubai
by Darren Murph, posted Aug 25th 2008 at 2:38PM

As we learned from Wall-E, people with half a mind for themselves probably won't be kosher with living with 1.1 million or so other inhabitants within a pyramid. That being said, there's always the brainwash approach to getting 'em in there, and if hordes of people were ever filed into the conceptual Ziggurat, Mother Earth would surely appreciate it. The 2.3-square kilometer building would be able to house over 1 million people and be "almost totally self-sufficient energy-wise." By tapping into the planet's renewable resources, designers assert that it could practically be carbon-neutral, and given that transport within the machine would be connected by an "integrated 360-degree network," fuel-burning cars would be pointless. As with most things in Dubai, this one seems larger than life, but if the Burj Al Arab is any indication, there's at least a minuscule chance this thing comes to fruition.


VR

Beautiful and stunning! Kind'a reminds me of the Tyrell building in Blade Runner.

The future is upon us and that dude in Dubai is the visionary that could pull it off.

[VinReaper]

Beautiful and stunning! Kind'a reminds me of the Tyrell building in Blade Runner.

The future is upon us and that dude in Dubai is the visionary that could pull it off.

It would be amazing to see it happen! I agree!

VR

[VinReaper]

Damn.. why couldn't it be Victoria's Secret? :bawling:

All the cottage cheese in the second and third pics makes me wonder if they're related to Jennifer Love Hugetits!

http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2008/08/27/naked-packaging-naked-employees-is-lush-the-ultimate-green-p/?icid=200100397x1208423607x1200444425

:laugh:

Some of them were ok, but the bad ones really out-weighed, Literally, the good ones! :laugh:

VR

[cblakey1]

http://www.popeater.com/movies/article/david-duchovny-in-sex-addiction-rehab/152727?icid=100214839x1208520861x1200479557

Damn, I wish I had David’s problems. It’s no wonder with him starring in Californication and all. I wonder if it was Te’a Leoni who told him to get help so she could have a break? If I was him I’d be hittin’ that all the time!

http://images.absolutenow.com/rp/Leoni_77013921.jpg

I wonder if he helped himself to Gillian Anderson?

[VinReaper]

http://www.popeater.com/movies/article/david-duchovny-in-sex-addiction-rehab/152727?icid=100214839x1208520861x1200479557

Damn, I wish I had David’s problems. It’s no wonder with him starring in Californication and all. I wonder if it was Te’a Leoni who told him to get help so she could have a break? If I was him I’d be hittin’ that all the time!

http://images.absolutenow.com/rp/Leoni_77013921.jpg

I wonder if he helped himself to Gillian Anderson?


Now c'mon! If that's not a publicity stunt for the show I don't know what is! LOL!

And if he is actually addicted, then more power to him. Wake up Dave! You are surrounded my Class A tail! No Rehab needed! :laugh:

Just by stock in your favorite prophylactic company! :D

VR