Buzz Tag

Principal's wife, 49, 'has sex with of her husband's pupils, 14'

2010-06-14T02:15:00.001-07:00

Former Mayor/Principal's Wife Accused of Sexual Contact With One of His Students, 14 - Linda Lusk

First off, this isn't the first time we've heard a lawyer say "The truth will come out" after a story breaks that makes their client look really guilty. Unfortunately, we can't ever remember a case when "the truth" really did come out later to exonerate someone in a case like this. It's just something lawyers say before they tell their clients to plead guilty. We'll see if this story proves to be the exception to the rule.

Read about all of our Female Teacher Sex Scandal stories here

Second, there's lots of detail in this story, but here are the basics as we understand it: Linda Lusk, 49, used to be the mayor or Prosser, WA and is currently married to the principal at Prosser High School, the same place where the boy she's accused of having inappropriate contact with goes to school (ouch!). According to reports the two exchanged increasingly inappropriate texts over several months, including an allegedly topless picture she sent to him. On April 28, the kid had only a half day of school, so he walked over to Lusk's nearby house where--according to police reports--she led him into the bedroom and "eventually touched his penis and asked him to touch her breasts, which he did." Later she felt guilty and went to talk to the boys parents, not realizing that junior had already likely bragged to his friends which got the attention of police who showed up at Lusk's house two hours later.

Lusk, a Tyee High School graduate, is accused of sexting and having sexual relations with a 14-year-old boy. The allegations surfaced after Lusk herself contacted the boy's mother and informed her of the relationship Lusk her self described as "inappropriate," according to the request for a protection order against the former mayor.

But her attorney said there's more to the story. "Linda has a story to tell, and I think it's pretty compelling story to tell. And some day, her version will be told. Now's not the time, but the truth of what happened will come out," said attorney Scott Johnson. Johnson refused to elaborate as the investigation is ongoing. "There's a lot of rumor and innuendo, but I can tell you 99 percent of that is just untrue," she said. "Once all the investigation is done and once Linda gets a chance to tell her side, the actual truth will come out."

According to the statement of probable cause, the boy was questioned by his parents after they heard from Lusk. "She stated to me that she had grown very fond of my son over the past few years, and that he was a very great kid," the victim's mother wrote in the request for a protection order. "She informed me they had been texting each other for quite some time, and it had really gotten out of hand the past few months. She told me that it was inappropriate on her part and that she was sick to her stomach."

The boy told his parents "he had been exchanging texts with the defendant for a period of time," and that she had "sent him one text with a picture of herself partially undressed," the statement said. The boy said he "went to defendant's house during his lunch hour on an early release day" in April. "The juvenile, the 14-year-old boy, went to the defendant's house, she brought him into the bedroom and had sexual contact at that time," said Benton County Prosecutor Andy Miller.

How to work less and do better

2010-03-22T02:52:00.001-07:00

Think pulling all-nighters in your office, bringing work home with you, and never releasing that clutch of death on your Blackberry is the only way to succeed in your job? Wrong. According to a recently published Harvard Business Review study, that ‘always on’ work ethic is probably doing you more harm than good. Working more efficiently and taking designated time off each week can actually improve your attitude in the office, your dialogue among team members, and it can also help spark new innovative processes.
Learn how to work less and do better at Open Forum.

Glowing green sperm really get around

2010-03-21T01:38:00.001-07:00

Fluorescent sperm are revealing new details about exactly what happens during insemination and fertilization. Researchers genetically altered fruit flies so their sperm heads were fluorescent red or green allowing scientists to observe in striking detail what happens to live sperm inside the female.
“Despite nearly a century of intensive and innovative work on the reproductive biology of the fruit fly, much of what we know about the female reproductive tract is a mystery,” says Scott Pitnick, a professor of biology at Syracuse University. “Our jaws hit the floor the first time we looked through a microscope and saw these glowing sperm. It turns out that they are constantly on the move within the female’s specialized sperm-storage organs and exhibit surprisingly complex behavior.”
Full story at Futurity.

Top 5 infections you can pick up at the nail salon

2010-03-21T01:37:00.001-07:00

How can a desire for well-groomed nails lead you straight to the doctor's office? It's not uncommon for hands and feet to get nicked and cut with all of the buffing and clipping that goes on. And wherever you have open wounds and a lot of skin-to-skin and skin-to-surface contact, you have a very good chance of picking up some gross bacteria or viruses.
While the majority of nail salon visits won't send you on your way with anything other than an excellent manicure and pedicure, customers -- and salon workers -- are at risk of spreading disease. We've got five culprits to watch out for.

Athlete's Foot: Unfortunately, the pedicure baths of a salon provide a breeding ground.
Swine Flu: H1N1 is a highly contagious strain of the flu virus. The virus can survive outside the body for up to eight hours, meaning that an infected customer at a salon can unknowingly booby-trap the establishment with the virus.

Full list at HowStuffWorks.com.

Elton John's lover committed suicide after struggling to come to terms with sexuality

2010-03-14T11:18:00.000-07:00

Sir Elton John has disclosed that a former lover threw himself to his death under a passing lorry because he could not reconcile his homosexuality with his Christian beliefs.

Elton John said he was deeply traumatised by the suicide of the man Photo: REX

The singer, 62, said he was deeply traumatised by the suicide of the man, with whom he had been involved in a relationship before he "married" David Furnish, a film-maker 15 years his junior, in 2005.
"Years back I had a relationship, and I had absolutely no idea in the world he was going to do this... he threw himself under a truck," Sir Elton said. "There was so much grief."

Mr Furnish told The Sunday Telegraph that the lover, whom he declined to name, had taken his life because he was traumatised by the clash between his Christianity and his sexual inclinations.
"He was so tortured by the conflicting views between his sexuality and his strong religious beliefs that he chose to take his own life," said Furnish, whom Sir Elton "married" in a ceremony at Windsor Guildhall on the first day that civil partnerships could be performed in England. "It is very sad indeed."
Mr Furnish, a former advertising executive, added that "out of respect" for the dead man's family he would not name him.
Sir Elton, who has a fortune estimated at £175 million, said his grief had inspired him to provide financial support for a stage play that opened in New York last week.
The couple are producers of the play, Next Fall, which documents the relationship between two homosexual men: one a young Christian from the southern states of America; the other, a non-believer. One of the men suffers an accident.
"It's the right timing for this," said Mr Furnish. "The religious divide between Right and Left has gotten wider, and so the rights of gay people never got back to where it was heading."
Sir Elton added: "Look, we all need love. We all have the same fears and insecurities. We should all be allowed to be free."
The disclosure by the flamboyant musician is likely to provoke much speculation about the identity of his late lover.
Sir Elton was known for his sexual promiscuity during the 1970s and 1980s when he struggled with addiction to alcohol and illegal drugs, and suffered from bulimia.
On Valentine's Day 1984, the musician, who has claimed that everyone is bisexual to a degree, caused widespread surprise by marrying Renate Blauel, German recording engineer, When they divorced four years later.
Sir Elton said he was "comfortable" being homosexual.
Mr Furnish said of Sir Elton, whose first sexual experience had been with a woman, the secretary Linda Woodrow: "For many, many years, he had a lot of demons stored away; a lot of skeletons in his closet. And he's learnt that a happy and burden-free life comes out of being honest."
Among Sir Elton's ex-lovers was John Reid, his former manager, with whom he was involved in an unsuccessful £8 million High Court battle in 2000.
During the case, in which the singer claimed that Reid mishandled his business affairs, he admitted spending £30 million in less than two years, including almost £15,000 a month on flowers.

5 famous pairs of lips

2010-03-13T08:25:00.001-08:00

They're the most sensual part of the body that's out there for all the world to see. They're vulnerable and expressive. Good lips are crucial to sexual attractiveness.
While some celebrity lips are admired for a while, others become icons. These 5 famous lips are among the most recognizable celebrity lips you're sure to know. See five famous pairs of lips at HowStuffWorks.

Angelina Jolie: One sign of the fame of Angelina's lips: There are Web sites on which people devote a good deal of time and energy discussing whether they're real.
Mick Jagger: As if anyone would ever forget them, Mick Jagger's lips are now enshrined in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. At an auction in September 2008, the museum paid $92,500 for the Rolling Stones' lips and tongue logo original artwork.

Full list at HowStuffWorks.com.

'Snowball' Earth may have given birth to first animals

2010-03-12T08:01:00.001-08:00

Snowball Earth: New Evidence Hints at Global Glaciation 716.5 Million Years Ago

ScienceDaily (Mar. 5, 2010) — Geologists have found evidence that sea ice extended to the equator 716.5 million years ago, bringing new precision to a "snowball Earth" event long suspected to have taken place around that time.

Led by scientists at Harvard University, the team reports on its work in the journal Science. The new findings -- based on an analysis of ancient tropical rocks that are now found in remote northwestern Canada -- bolster the theory that our planet has, at times in the past, been ice-covered at all latitudes.
"This is the first time that the Sturtian glaciation has been shown to have occurred at tropical latitudes, providing direct evidence that this particular glaciation was a 'snowball Earth' event," says lead author Francis A. Macdonald, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard. "Our data also suggests that the Sturtian glaciation lasted a minimum of 5 million years."
The survival of eukaryotic life throughout this period indicates sunlight and surface water remained available somewhere on the surface of Earth. The earliest animals arose at roughly the same time, following a major proliferation of eukaryotes.
Even in a snowball Earth, Macdonald says, there would be temperature gradients on Earth and it is likely that ice would be dynamic: flowing, thinning, and forming local patches of open water, providing refuge for life.
"The fossil record suggests that all of the major eukaryotic groups, with the possible exception of animals, existed before the Sturtian glaciation," Macdonald says. "The questions that arise from this are: If a snowball Earth existed, how did these eukaryotes survive? Moreover, did the Sturtian snowball Earth stimulate evolution and the origin of animals?"
"From an evolutionary perspective," he adds, "it's not always a bad thing for life on Earth to face severe stress."
The rocks Macdonald and his colleagues analyzed in Canada's Yukon Territory showed glacial deposits and other signs of glaciation, such as striated clasts, ice rafted debris, and deformation of soft sediments. The scientists were able to determine, based on the magnetism and composition of these rocks, that 716.5 million years ago they were located at sea level in the tropics, at about 10 degrees latitude.
"Because of the high albedo of ice, climate modeling has long predicted that if sea ice were ever to develop within 30 degrees latitude of the equator, the whole ocean would rapidly freeze over," Macdonald says. "So our result implies quite strongly that ice would have been found at all latitudes during the Sturtian glaciation."
Scientists don't know exactly what caused this glaciation or what ended it, but Macdonald says its age of 716.5 million years closely matches the age of a large igneous province stretching more than 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) from Alaska to Ellesmere Island in far northeastern Canada. This coincidence could mean the glaciation was either precipitated or terminated by volcanic activity.
Macdonald's co-authors on the Science paper are Phoebe A. Cohen, David T. Johnston, and Daniel P. Schrag at Harvard; Mark D. Schmitz and James L. Crowley of Boise State University; Charles F. Roots of the Geological Survey of Canada; David S. Jones of Washington University in St. Louis; Adam C. Maloof of Princeton University; and Justin V. Strauss.
This work was supported by the Polar Continental Shelf Project and the National Science Foundation's Geobiology and Environmental Geochemistry Program.

One in SIX Americans has genital herpes

2010-03-12T07:33:00.001-08:00

*Highest rates found among blacks, women
*
By JoAnne Allen
WASHINGTON, March 9 (Reuters) - About 16 percent of Americans between the ages of 14 and 49 are infected with genital herpes, making it one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases, U.S. health officials said on Tuesday.
Black women had the highest rate of infection at 48 percent and women were nearly twice likely as men to be infected, according to an analysis by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About 21 percent of women were infected with genital herpes, compared to only 11.5 percent of men, while 39 percent of blacks were infected compared to about 12 percent for whites, the CDC said.
There is no cure for genital herpes, or herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2), which can cause recurrent and painful genital sores and also increases the likelihood of acquiring and transmitting the AIDS virus. It is related to herpes simplex virus 1, or oral herpes, which causes cold sores.
Several drugs are available to treat herpes symptoms and outbreaks, including acyclovir, which is available generically or under the Zovirax brand name, and valacyclovir, known generically as Valtrex -- both made by GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK.L). Ganciclovir, sold as Zirgan, is made by privately-held Sirion Therapeutics, Inc.
The CDC estimates that more than 80 percent of people with genital herpes do not know they are infected.
"The message is herpes is quite common. The symptoms can be often very innocuous," Dr. John Douglas of the CDC said in a teleconference.
"Because herpes is so prevalent it becomes ... a really important reason to use condoms on a consistent and correct basis with all of your partners," Douglas said.
Douglas said the increased rate of infection in blacks is not do to increased risk behavior but likely due to biological factors that make women more susceptible as well as the higher rate of infection within black communities.
The CDC estimates that there are 19 million new sexually transmitted disease infections every year in the United States, costing the health care system about $16 billion annually.

Four in five believe internet access is a fundamental right

2010-03-08T04:10:00.001-08:00

Four in five people around the word believe that web access is a fundamental human right, according to a new survey.

Seventy-eight per cent of the web users polled believe that the web offers them greater freedom.

The poll, which collated the answers from more than 27,000 people across 26 countries and was conducted on behalf of the BBC World Service, found that 87 per cent of intent users felt that web access should be a basic right. More than 70 per cent of non-users felt they should have access to the net.

In Japan, Mexico and Russia, nearly 75 per cent of respondents said they could not cope without their internet connection. Ninety per cent of those polled in Turkey believed web access was a fundamental human right, making it the strongest supporter of the widely held sentiment.

"The right to communicate cannot be ignored," Dr Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), told BBC News.
"The internet is the most powerful potential source of enlightenment ever created."
He said that governments must "regard the internet as basic infrastructure - just like roads, waste and water".
Seventy-eight per cent pollsters believe that the web gave them greater levels of freedom. This belief was most popular with the US respondents, who were also the respondents that were the most confident to express their opinions openly online.
However, many web users expressed concerns about the dangers of hacking, fraud and privacy. A majority of internet users in Japan, Germany, France, China and South Korea were not confident about expressing their opinions online.
But government regulation was not viewed as the correct method to solve these issues, with over half of the 27,000 respondents agreeing that that internet “should never be regulated by any level of government anywhere”.
Participants in South Korea, Nigeria and Mexico heavily agreed with this statement – however the belief was less popularly expressed by respondents in Turkey, Pakistan and China. Only 16 per cent of the Chinese respondents agreed with the need to ensure that governments refrain from regulating the web. China’s government has faced increasing scrutiny after Google, the largest search engine, threaten to leave the world’s biggest web market earlier this year, because of the country’s strict censorship rules and suspicions of untoward hacking.
"Despite worries about privacy and fraud, people around the world see access to the internet as their fundamental right," said Doug Miller, the chairman of GlobeScan which conducted the survey. "They think the web is a force for good, and most don't want governments to regulate it."

My boyfriend can't stop going on about the amazing sex with his ex

2010-03-08T03:10:00.000-08:00

I have been going out with my partner for two years and we are planning to move in together, but one thing threatens to derail our happiness. He has a tendency to mention his ex, with whom he lived for five years.

She was an extremely difficult and demanding woman, but he's given me the impression she was always passionate in the bedroom, and I can't help feeling that he thinks they had better sex than we do.

I don't want to seem haunted and jealous, but I really wish he would drop the subject. What should I do?

Some women have a maddening way of looming over their successors - even when they're dead, or miles away

This is a textbook case of Rebecca Syndrome, named in tribute to Daphne du Maurier's famous novel about a wealthy widower's second wife who finds her life haunted by her glamorous predecessor.

Some women have a maddening way of looming over their successors - even when they're dead, or miles away.

I'm afraid those women invariably are of a certain type: the femme fatale.
Just look at the way you describe your partner's ex: 'difficult', 'demanding' and 'passionate'.

I bet she's the sort of person who smashes plates, slams down phones and then uses sex to reel her victims back in.

Imagine how any woman who's ever dated a man after Angelina Jolie's had her teeth stuck into him must feel! A bit mousy and second-best is my guess.

And let's get one thing clear here: your resentment is not in the least bit irrational.
Nobody wants to be constantly reminded that they are the second Mrs de Winter. Particularly when the person doing the reminding is Mr de Winter.

Shame on your boyfriend for making you feel inadequate, when you're bending over backwards to be accommodating.

It seems to me that there's one of two things going on here and, without knowing him, I can't tell which it is.

He's either a) a complete dunderhead who has no grasp whatsoever of female psychology and is just being clumsy and needy, or b) he's manipulative and controlling and is deliberately trying to undermine you because he himself feels inadequate.

If the latter hypothesis chimes any bells then I would seriously reconsider your future with this man. A few nasty male specimens retain their girlfriends by constantly whittling away at their confidence and implying that they'll never match up to some mythical uber-vixen.

The majority of men are grateful that an attractive woman wants to have sex with them and wouldn't dream of adjudicating bedroom performance as if we were show ponies.

If your boyfriend's merely the clumsy kind (which seems more likely, since you love him), then the only way to proceed is to sit him down and tell him how insensitive he's being.

Ask him how he'd feel if you kept mentioning an ex-boyfriend and talking about the sex you'd had. He'd probably be hoofing it out of the door in a nanosecond.

I think it's possible that your chap has no idea how overshadowed you feel and that he doesn't actually think this ex was better in bed.

Most men find demanding, volatile women quite draining in the long run and prefer to make love than be forced to perform.

It's likely that he's working his way through a painful psychodrama by talking about the past relationship (using you as his therapist), but that the last thing in the world he wants is for you to imitate his ex.

I really do think that you need to look at the inner dynamics of your relationship, because the more confident you feel in your boyfriend's love, the less you'll worry about his ex.

Indeed, I have one female friend who was so confident of her husband's love that she was entirely happy to move into a flat that his first wife had decorated with hand-painted frescos, telling me with admirable sang froid she was pleased she didn't have to think about the decor.

More than that, she has the same Christian name as the first wife and they are both artists.

Is your own insecurity perhaps born of the fact that you sense a passion in your boyfriend's former relationship that is not coursing through your own?

It could, of course, be the case that you are dwelling so hard on his past that you are not concentrating enough on your present and future. Don't try and imitate his exlover when you could be creating sparks of your own.

Because you are in the process of taking a big step, by sharing a home, it might be sensible to consider some form of couples' therapy with a qualified relationship counsellor (try Relate or the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy's websites).

Give Rebecca's ghost a vigorous exorcism! Your new home's meant for two, not three.

Finger Fail: Why Most Touchscreens Miss the Point

2010-03-07T09:34:00.001-08:00

You’re not crazy, and neither are we: The touchscreen on the Apple iPhone really is more responsive than the screens on the BlackBerry Storm, the Motorola Droid, the Nexus One and many other phones, even though all of these devices use essentially the same touch-sensing hardware.

Though handset makers buy their touchscreens as components from the same select pool of suppliers, a good touchscreen experience requires more than just hardware. It requires a bit of design alchemy blending software, engineering and calibration for the perfect feel. Few smartphone makers have managed to get that balance right, say experts.
“If you think that no other touchscreen out there is as good as the iPhone, its not all in your head,” says Chris Verplaetse, vice president of the Moto Development Group, a product design and development firm. “It’s like asking what makes a Mercedes door close like a Mercedes door and a Hyundai door close like one though they use the same steel. There’s clearly a difference.”
Variables include engineering details such the calibration of the touch sensor so it can separate the signal from the noise, the quality of the firmware and the level of integration of the touch experience into the phone’s user interface. There are also more difficult-to-quantify things such as as the level of the company’s commitment to making the best touchscreen experience possible.
“Many layers account for the performance of a touchscreen,” says Verplaetse. “But it all comes down to how well the electronics and the mechanical hardware are integrated.”
As cellphones became more powerful, allowing users to surf the internet and check e-mail, handset makers started to add touch capability to their phones. The earliest screens were resistive touchscreens, where two thin metallic layers are separated by a narrow gap. A finger pushing down on the top layer makes contact with the bottom surface and the point of contact is computed by the accompanying electronics.
But resistive touchscreens didn’t make most consumers happy because they weren’t responsive enough — you had to really push and hammer away at the display with your fingernail or a stylus to get it to respond.
The capacitive touchscreen in Apple’s iPhone changed the game, because it’s not pressure-sensitive. Instead, this kind of technology responds to the electrical properties of your skin, not the pressure of your finger, to figure out where you’re touching the screen. For the first time, just a light tap could open an application or a flicking gesture could get the screen scrolling. Best of all, it seemed effortless.
A projected capacitive touchscreen — the kind that’s usually used in phones — has a glass insulator coated with a transparent conductive layer. The layer is etched into a gridlike pattern. When a finger touches the surface of the screen, it distorts the electrostatic field. That can be measured as a change in capacitance. The location of the touch is computed and it is passed on to a software application that relates the touch into actions for the device.
In theory, all capacitive touchscreens should offer consumers the same experience, but they rarely do, says Andrew Hsu, a technology strategist for Synaptics, one of the biggest touchscreen component makers.
“Capacitive touch-based handsets involve a lot of development work and quite a bit of engineering expertise in order to give them their ‘magical’ quality,” says Hsu.

It’s Not Just About Hardware

Smartphone users have no way to measure exactly how well the capacitive sensor system on their phone is actually working. Their perception is based on the feedback they see on the screen, says Hsu. That means a touchscreen could be quite fast and accurate, but if the visual display doesn’t keep up, it won’t feel smooth or responsive.
That’s where well-designed user interfaces and quality firmware come into play.
“Some systems are better at it than others,” says Hsu.
Synaptics ran tests comparing the iPhone touchscreen to the original BlackBerry Storm. They found that the Storm’s touchscreen sensor responded well, which pointed the finger at the underlying firmware.
It’s also a reason why BlackBerry maker Research In Motion was able to fix some of the lag and the bugginess of the screen that reviewers had initially complained about. Subsequent updates to the Storm’s software significantly improved its responsiveness to touch.
Another problem is separating signal from noise, which some phones are better at than others.
A perfectly designed and well-tuned capacitive sensing system would require no pressure to detect the presence of a user’s finger. But to get there, handset makers have to solve what Hsu calls the “needle in a haystack problem.”
The amount of signal that your finger contributes when it touches the sensor is very small compared to the noise already present in the system. To accurately sense it and compute its location requires some software magic.
“Even if you design the entire touchscreen right, once you put it into the device, there’s an impact from other sources that emit electromagnetic interference, such as the wireless unit,” says Hsu.
That’s where an ASIC, or application specific integrated circuit, is needed to measure and amplify the signals. Apple reportedly designed its own ASIC for the iPhone’s touchscreen, while most other companies buy an ASIC from one of the touchscreen chipmakers.

Finding the Right Balance

In January, Moto Labs, Moto Development Group’s research group, tested different touchscreens by using a drawing program to draw a few straight lines on the display. On a good touchscreen, users can draw clean, straight lines, say the researchers, while inferior touchscreens show lines that look jagged (see the photo above). The jagged lines happen because the sensor size may be too big, the touch-sampling rate may be too low, or the algorithms that convert gestures into images don’t faithfully represent user inputs.
Moto Labs’ tests showed the iPhone had the most precise lines, though there was loss of sensitivity around the edges. The HTC Droid and Nexus One also did well, while the Motorola Droid’s touchscreen came out at the bottom.
Though Palm Pre wasn’t included in that test, Moto says the Pre’s screen responded well. Meanwhile, a Palm Pre Plus user recently complained about the device’s poor touchscreen.
Palm wouldn’t comment about that particular complaint, but the company says the Pre and Pre Plus have been designed to optimize the touch experience. For instance, the Pre and the Pre Plus have a “soft arc” on the top surface to allow for gestures without interference from the edges. And Palm tries to tweak the touchscreen through firmware updates.
“We made touch a central part of the navigation on the device,” says Leslie Letts, a spokesperson for Palm.
Getting the perfect touchscreen experience is also a matter of finding the right balance for the display.
One reason why Apple’s touch sensor is so sensitive to light touch is that the company uses a 12-volt power source for the sensing lines in the touchscreen sensor, versus the 3- to 5-volt power source that most other component manufacturers have. That higher voltage drive takes a toll on the battery life because it uses up more power, but it also translates into more accurate sensing, which means a better touch experience, say researchers at Moto.
Other cellphone manufacturers are making the investments to catch up but it will be a while before all touchscreens work as well as Apple’s, says J. Daniel Hebert, CEO of Moto Development Group.
“There’s a big difference between deferring to a vendor and driving the performance of the system,” he says.
One final factor: Steve Jobs. His imperious management style may be off-putting, but he does exercise complete control over the final versions of his company’s products, and that hands-on approach at the company’s highest levels helps ensure that the whole experience works well — including the feel of the touchscreen.
“For a good touchscreen, you need someone who is a generalist who can ask more than whether the software is complete and whether the hardware is complete,” says Verplaetse. “Steve Jobs is an example of someone who probably asks, “Does this feel right?” when he’s looking at a new product.”

via wired.com

10 ways to drive traffic with LinkedIn

2010-03-07T09:03:00.001-08:00

In a guest post at Problogger, Lewis Howes explains ten ways to drive traffic to your blog using LinkedIn. Three of the ways are:

For crying out loud, complete your profile.
Customize your links.
Answer questions

Full story at Problogger.

Turn your favorite tee into a laptop sleeve

2010-03-06T11:11:00.001-08:00

Ahh, there’s nothing like your favorite old shirt—except this time it’s on your laptop. Literally. The folks at Hello Rewind take old shirts and transform them into new laptop sleeves, so you can enjoy your beloved tees all over again. What’s more, the company employs formerly sex trafficked women to help make the sleeves, allowing them to find a new source of income and handy, new skills. This way, you get a cool, new duds for your laptop and help other people at the same time.
Read the full story at the Hello Rewind site.

Michael Hanley, GM Autoworker, Commutes 1,000 Miles To Keep Job

2010-02-23T08:26:00.000-08:00

JANESVILLE, Wis. — In the early dawn, after another week building cars, Michael Hanley leaves his job in Kansas. He quickly zips into Missouri, then heads up a ribbon of highway past grain silos and grazing deer, across the frozen fields of Iowa, over the Mississippi River and into the rolling hills of Wisconsin. Finally, he pulls into his driveway – 530 miles later.
It's one heck of a haul: more than 1,000 miles roundtrip, 16-plus hours of driving, every week.
"I like to say I gave up an eight-minute commute for an eight-hour commute," he says wearily, running a hand though salt-and-pepper hair as he watches his two sons play basketball for the first time this season.
After the aging General Motors plant where he worked for 23 years was idled about a year ago, Hanley faced a Hobson's choice: Stay with his family and search for an autoworker's salary ($28 an hour) in a county where more than 40 percent of its manufacturing jobs disappeared from 2006 to 2009. Or hang on to his GM paycheck and health insurance and follow the job, no matter where it leads.
In his case, it led to Fairfax, Kan., the same place his brother and two brothers-in-law – also GM workers, and now his roommates – landed. For others, it has been Indiana or Texas.
The long commute is not just a story of hard times, tough choices and a shrinking American auto industry. It's also a case study of what happens when an aging industrial town loses an anchor, when workers too old to start over and too young to retire are caught in a squeeze and when economic survival means one family, but two far-flung ZIP codes.
___
Hanley is not one to complain.
"GM has been good for us," he says. "This whole town knows that."

For 90 years, the sprawling plant – it started out building tractors – became a different kind of family business. Through the decades, sons followed fathers onto the line, sometimes rubbing shoulders as they built Chevy Cavaliers, Caprices, Tahoes, Suburbans and more.
Hanley's father and brother worked there. So did his father-in-law, two brothers-in-law and an assortment of uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews.
But as GM's financial troubles mounted, car and SUV sales fell and gas prices climbed, the automaker closed several plants, eliminating thousands of jobs.
Janesville – then the oldest of GM assembly plants – ended production of SUVs in December 2008, months before the automaker received billions of dollars in government loans and filed for bankruptcy. (The factory is on standby status; some hold out hope it will reopen one day.)
Some of about 1,200 remaining workers took buyouts or retired; some began new careers. Hundreds more stayed with GM, relocating, commuting or just waiting for an opening. The automaker has about 6,500 laid-off workers nationwide.
Even before the doors closed, Hanley began preparing for life after GM. He returned to college to complete two credits he needed for an accounting degree, but an offer in Kansas came first.
He didn't hesitate. Auto work these days is like playing musical chairs. You grab an opening where you can.
Hanley didn't want to lose his health insurance while his wife, Laura, was receiving costly chemotherapy treatments for a blood disease that will likely lead to cancer. The medical bills last year, she says, were in the tens of thousands of dollars.
"There's no way I could possibly go through one treatment without him having insurance," she says.
Like many other divided GM families, the Hanleys decided even though the job was important, there were reasons not to uproot everyone: Laura works at their sons' Catholic school, the boys are immersed in band, Scouts, basketball and church, and the sale of a house was an iffy and perhaps money-losing proposition.
Hanley knew it would be a trade-off – financial security for a lonely existence.
His eyes mist as he talks about what he misses: dinner with his family, coaching basketball, going to the YMCA with his boys, wrestling with them at night, attending their concerts and games, watching them grow up.
"It's an adjustment, not being home," he says. "I probably sounded cruel because I said I wouldn't miss my wife as much because she's going to be there when I come back, when I retire. But those years with the kids aren't going to be there. That's the hard part, not being able to be around them. ... I don't know if I really appreciated it before."
Hanley plans to commute another 18 months, until he turns 50, hoping for a retirement package then – something, he says, he "prays about every night."
Laura, meanwhile, does double duty as a single parent. It's all overwhelming – working, shuttling her sons around, keeping an eye on her elderly mother and worrying about her husband's long commutes.
"The kids are tired of seeing mom cry because she's stressed and seeing dad cry when he needs to go back to work," she says. "We're really close – the four of us. You can't talk to a lot of people, either. They have no sympathy. They say at least he's working."
And that's nothing to take for granted in this southern Wisconsin county where unemployment has been in the double-digits for more than a year.
For every one of about 4,500 GM and auto supplier jobs that disappeared, another was lost outside the industry, says Bob Borremans, head of the Southwest Wisconsin Workforce Development Board. The ripple effect was enormous: About 9,000 of the county's 75,000 jobs vanished.
The plant, itself, had long been a polarizing presence in the community, he says.
"Because of the benefits, the working conditions, the pay ... it was THE coveted job in the area," he explains. "In many cases, people, because of who they knew, were able to walk in and get a job there. That created animosity."
"There are those people who worked there who have lost something they thought would be around forever and provided them with a real good lifestyle," he adds. "But there are others, I would say, who were jealous of folks who had that opportunity. And they don't have a lot of sympathy for the stress the (GM) people are feeling these days."
___
After seven months of commuting, Brad Morrison measures his world in numbers.
_169,000 miles: The odometer reading on his 2002 Silverado.
_$180: The cost of gas for weekly trips between Fairfax (just outside Kansas City) and Wisconsin.
_Six years, two months. That's when Morrison will have 30 years at GM and can retire with a full pension. He'll be 49 then.
Morrison started at GM as a teen, married his high school sweetheart, Sarah, and they had three children. With "two in college and one in braces," he says, he didn't consider changing careers.
"I'm kind of trapped now," he says.
With his shock of white-blond hair, Morrison looks a decade younger than 43 but says 24 years of stooping, lifting car parts and standing have taken a toll – three surgeries on his knees, one on his left shoulder, another on his left wrist.
Now, he says, there's a grueling Monday to Friday work schedule, heading home at 2:40, arriving around 10 p.m., often too wired to sleep. On Saturdays, it's reconnect-with-the-family time. And that can mean more driving: His 15-year-old son's recent choral competition put him on the road five more hours one Saturday.
On Sundays, he heads back at about 1 p.m. – 39 hours after arriving.
"I'm worn down," Morrison says. "You never get any rest. You're always on the move. ... It's hard to have a family life or marriage. Try to be a husband or father at 500 miles away."
He never considers skipping a weekend. "I don't know how a wife or kids can be too much of a hassle," he says. "The hassle is just not having them with me."
Morrison and his wife, a school aide, talk several times a day. In between, they text each other with endearing "I miss you" and "I love you" messages. "We're hopeless romantics," he says. She concurs: "He's my best friend."
But living apart is more than an emotional strain. It's expensive, too.
Morrison refinanced his house to free up more money for monthly expenses that include gas – $720 when he drives alone – and $425 in rent and utilities for an apartment he shares with another Janesville transplant. (GM, in many cases, provides some compensation for workers who relocate.)
But this is just temporary.
The Morrisons decided they don't want to live this way; they plan to sell their Wisconsin house and Sarah and their youngest son, Austin, will move when the school year ends.
Though they'll be together, Morrison doesn't feel secure.
"This plant is no safer (from downsizing) than any other," he says. "I don't take my job for granted anymore. ... Do I regret working for them? No. It's good money. It was a good company back then. It still is."
"The auto industry is a lot like a roller coaster," he adds. "When the going is good and you're at the top, everything is boom. When it's times like this, you're at the bottom. But I still feel fortunate even to be there. I can still hold on. And I count my blessings for that."
___
John Dohner can be forgiven if he has that feeling of deja vu when he pulls into the parking lot of the GM plant outside Fort Wayne, Ind.
He has been there before. Decades ago.
Then a fresh-faced 20 year old, Dohner moved from Janesville to Indiana, following his job building pickup trucks. He returned to Janesville when a spot opened seven years later.
Now he's reversing course as a 44-year-old family man with a wife, three kids (21, 17 and 15), a house, a 13-acre farm and a good life almost 300 miles and one time zone away – a life he's not about to abandon.
Ditto for his job.
"I'm not going to walk away," he says. "I'm not giving them the satisfaction of giving them 25 years of my life and not get anything in return."
Like others, he has his eye on the prize: the 30-year finish line.
Dohner is among dozens of Janesville commuters who form a caravan every Saturday morning to make the 275-mile trek home. (He turned down a GM job in Kansas. The drive was too long, he said.)
Soon, one of his laid-off brothers will join him in Indiana; another still is waiting. Their father, John Sr., heads United Auto Workers Local 95.
With Dohner gone, his wife, Jane, has become skilled at everything from repairing water tanks to installing furnace filters. Her day starts at 4:45 a.m., when she and the kids feed the dogs, rabbits, cows, chickens and horses. The two boys take care of their dad's snow plow business. Dohner still keeps up his duties as chair of the tiny township (population 800), using vacation days to attend monthly meetings.
On Sundays, Jane gives her husband spaghetti casseroles, brownies and other dishes for the week, and waves goodbye.
It's much easier than last summer. She sat on the front porch and cried the first time he left. "You can't think of five years," she says. "I think I can't do it for so long. ... I just texted him Thursday night and said, 'This stinks.'"
But there seems no good solution.
"We built this place and worked so hard to get it to where it is, so do you want to leave?" she says, glancing outside at the tranquil snow-covered countryside where the dogs frolic and horses graze. "But some days," she says, "I think we should have all gone as a family."
___
Steve Kerl now knows about the rodeo, the Texas Rangers and traffic jams – all part of his new surroundings.
He works at the GM plant in Arlington, Texas. His home remains in Janesville, about 1,000 miles away, making it impossible to return more than a handful of times in the past year, though his wife, Kristy, and two children have visited.
When Kerl first drove down last March with his wife, they talked several times about turning around. He forged on, but his wife didn't like what she saw, so she returned home.
If it's any comfort, Kerl can look around the factory floor and see others who've picked up stakes, coming from Michigan, Tennessee, Missouri – and, of course, Wisconsin.
Kerl says he transferred to Texas because it was the only option then and auto jobs were fast disappearing. "I figured it would be better being on the inside looking out rather than the outside looking in," he says.
He wishes he could see his daughter's cheerleader activities and would have liked to have taken his son to college. "He's only going to be a freshman once," he says.
And yet, he's reluctant to gripe about his life.
"You can't put a negative spin on it and say you hate it. I'm working long hours, making good money," he says. "My kids' educations are being paid for. ... I can tell you right now that a lot of the people who took the buyouts are struggling now. They can't find a job anywhere."
It may get worse, too, this summer when health care and unemployment benefits expire for some former GM workers.
"I don't think the community has felt the entire blow yet," says the elder Dohner, the UAW local president. When the benefits are gone "and it's time to build roads and keep the schools open, everyone is going to realize there's a big, big hole."
Now 43, Kerl has seven more years to reach the 30-year milestone.
He doesn't expect he'll spend all that time in Texas. But that's fine.
"If they announced this plant was closing, I'd pack up my stuff and go to the next one," he says. "We'll get through it. I'm going to ride this to the end."

Holy Kaw! All the topics that interest us Life-sized Twilight body pillows for sale

2010-02-21T08:42:00.001-08:00

What’s creepier than a love interest who could suck your blood? How about a life-sized body pillow of a love interest who could suck your blood? Etsy’s sellin’ it.
Full story at Etsy (via io9).

16 unusual facts about the human body

2010-02-21T08:31:00.001-08:00

People will often say they know something "like the back of their hand" to indicate that they're familiar with it top to bottom. But how much do you actually know about your own body?
HowStuffWorks.com has 16 tidbits that will probably both shock and enlighten you. The next time someone says they know something "like the back of their hand" you should probably reply, "Oh really?"

Tongue Print: Don't stick out your tongue if you want to hide your identity. Similar to fingerprints, everyone also has a unique tongue print!
Bacteria: This may make your skin crawl: Every square inch of your skin has about 32 million bacteria on it, but fortunately, most of them are harmless.
Head Weight: No wonder babies have such a hard time holding up their heads: The human head is one-quarter of our total length at birth but only one-eighth of our total length by the time we reach adulthood.

Full list at HowStuffWorks.com

Meet Emily, the 4ft 10ins policewoman whose rifle is almost as big as she is

2010-02-12T09:50:00.001-08:00

Meet Britain's shortest female firearms officer, PC Emily Miller, who applied to join the force after seeing a job advertised in Cosmopolitan magazine.
Emily is a firearms officer with the Civil Nuclear Constabulary - a squad of 750 cops dedicated to protect nuclear power stations and radioactive material - and stands at just 4ft 10ins.
The 23-year-old even jokes how her Heckler & Koch assault rifle, which fires 750-rounds-a-minute, is almost as big as she is.

Short arm of the law: Firearms officer Emily Miller, who stands at 4ft 10in, is pictured with PC Bob Nagy in Didcot, Oxfordshire

Speaking to Police Review magazine today she said she applied to join the police after spotting an advertisement in Cosmo back in 2005.

She said that her height always attracts 'cocky comments', but that she is used to getting a ribbing from workers as she patrols her beat.
Emily told the magazine: 'A few of the site workers have said "That gun is nearly as big as you" - the usual banter. But I think they are used to seeing me now.'
And she revealed that other officers in her constabulary always know when she's been driving the police Land Rover because the driver's seat is so far forward.
She said: 'All I get is "Oh, Emily's been driving this car" just because they cannot get in it because the seat is so far forward."

I'd prefer a mini, me: Emily is dwarfed by her police Land Rover

The weight of carrying full kit - including a pistol and machine gun as she patrols the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire - was initially a shock to the mini-PC.

She revealed: 'We have got a belt with a Glock pistol on a leg holster. And with the body armour, tactical vest and G36 rifle, I think it is an extra stone and a half.'
Speaking about problems that come with her height, she added: 'I found it difficult doing the firing range from the sitting and kneeling positions because when I kneel I am so much smaller than everyone else.
'The target is a lot higher for me. I was trying to get myself into positions with the body armour on and I could not cross my legs and bend my arms in the right way.

Partners against crime: Britain's smallest PC Sue Day and PC Damien Galley who towers over the 4ft 10in officer at 6ft 4in and, right, the smallest male officer Robin Port, who is 5ft, pictured alongside his 6ft boss Inspector Matt Lawler

'I managed to get around it though, get some extra training and find ways that work for me.'
PC Miller said her height has never been an issue with the constabulary.
She said: 'I have never heard "You cannot do it, you are too short", it has always been "Give this way a go see if it works for you. If not, we will try and find a different way".'
One officer, who did not want to be named, said: 'Emily may be little, but she's the last one of us you'd want to mess with.
'She's a tough cookie and doesn't suffer fools gladly. She'll let you get away with one or two digs about her height, but then she'll let you have it - and believe me you won't forget that in a hurry.'
PC Miller is the latest short cop to speak out after the UK's two smallest cops - PC Sue Day, who is just half an inch shorter than PC Miller, at Wiltshire Police, and PC Robin Port, a five foot tall cop in Devon and Cornwall Police - revealed themselves last month.
Most forces inthe UK required female recruits to be at least 5ft 4ins until 10 years ago, when the Macpherson Report ruled the height restriction discriminated against those from ethnic backgrounds such as the Chinese, who are shorter.

Google Fashion Line Debuts: PHOTOS Of The Collection

2010-02-09T02:33:00.000-08:00

What's Google's next frontier? It could be fashion.
Google just debuted several high-end Google-inspired pieces created by finalists from the Fashion Fund for emerging fashion-designers.
Google explains,

Each [designer] was asked to create a one-of-a-kind item that was inspired by Google, whether it be the logo's colors, technology, or access to information. Anything was possible. The three designers featured here are Google favorites and their original designs have been reproduced for sale for a limited time. They are available for purchase in our online online Google Store. [sic]

The three designers whose work was chosen were Gary Graham,, Ohne Titel and House Of Waris' Waris Ahluwalia.
See pictures and descriptions of the winning Google-themed items in the slideshow below.

Proceeds from the sale of the items, which range from $85 to $300, goes to support the designers and the Vogue/Council of Fashion Designers of America Fashion Fund.

This 100% cotton, hand silk-screened tee shirt takes its inspiration from the Google map point and search results graphics. Gary has reinterpreted the map point -- a point of destination -- as a global symbol for where we are and where we're going by enlarging the map point, making it look “worn” away, and placing it over a backdrop of search results for the word ‘Peace.’ The distressed, vintage-looking tee shirts were hand silk-screened by Devil’s Rainbow in Providence, Rhode Island. ($85) (Description from the Online Google Store)

Want to buy a kidney? That’ll be $40,000, please

2010-02-08T05:21:00.001-08:00

Theoretically, living without certain organs (or pieces of some organs) is possible without interfering with a long, happy life. Some surgeries, however, are easier than others; it’s a much less complicated procedure to donate a kidney than a lung.
Kidneys are big on the black market. Based on the World Health Organization’s estimates of off-the-books deals, a kidney in India goes for about $20,000; in China, $40,000; in Israel, $160,000. Of course, the organ donor doesn’t collect all the money—there are plenty of fees that go along with an illegal donation. Then again, when an eBay user puts his kidney up for auction and the bids reached nearly six million dollars… The price might just be right.
DISCLAIMER: Selling your organs is currently illegal in the United States, and is tremendously risky anywhere. But you can always become a donor

.
Full story at Popular Science

Breaking down men's mag's “who’s hot?” numbers

2010-02-07T01:53:00.001-08:00

Dudes + hot chicks + math = graphs of hotness. Who says math can’t be sexy?
Asylum compared the celebrity hotties lists from Maxim, AskMen, and FHM to figure out the who makes the loins of men tingle the most. Averaging rankings from all three lad mags, Megan Fox topped the list, followed by Jessica Alba and model Marisa Miller.
The study in dudeism didn’t stop at crowning the queen of sexy as “researchers” broke the numbers down further to determine all sorts of tantalizing tidbits.
Full story at Asylum

. Oodles of news for dudes

Fans refuse to watch leaked first hour of the new series of Lost online

2010-02-05T09:28:00.000-08:00

Many viewers refusing to watch online, waiting for TV airing

By James Hibberd

"Lost" final-season premiere event in Hawaii

(No spoilers within!) The first hour of the final season of ABC's "Lost" has leaked online, and the reaction is not what industry insiders expected.

Though preview content for heavily serialized dramas such as "Lost" is typically frantically consumed online, the sixth season of the ABC hit has managed to build to such an epic level of anticipation that many fans are doing the unthinkable: refusing to watch the leaks.

When the opening scene from the premiere popped up online after a fan promotion Friday, users of one popular social network site voted to "bury" the video.

"Why spoil it now?" wrote one fan with the moniker MyWhiteNoise. "I'd rather watch it in hi-def and surround sound than ruin the surprise and watch some (low-quality) video."

To TV executives, such statements are like something from an alternative universe, the polar-bear opposite of how young, Web-savvy viewers typically respond to content. Fans usually embrace any short cut that skips the linear TV and advertiser-supported experience.

"We never had a show like 'Lost' before that had these kind of fans that love it so much that they don't want to know what happens before the premiere," said Michael Benson, co-executive vp marketing at ABC. "Fans feel like they own this thing, just like we do."

On Monday, fan commitment was given an even greater test when the entire premiere appeared on YouTube. The video was taken from hand-held cameras discreetly shooting during a fan screening on Oahu. The Hawaii event itself was a revelation -- can any other TV drama rally 12,000 fans to an island in the South Pacific? Some flew in to see just the 44 minutes of video that ABC will air Tuesday night.

Yet when the inevitable YouTube copies appeared on Sunday, many videos only received a few hundred hits as online fans registered their disinterest in crummy bootlegs.

"Are people so impatient that they would rather watch a cell phone camera version of the 'Lost' premiere than wait one day?" Kyool wrote on Twitter.

Indeed, the lavishly shot "Lost" is the original Must-See HD drama. Yet for its final bow, ABC's marketing effort has emphasized showing, well, nothing (at least, no new footage, which producers wanted to keep under wraps). Until last week, all trailers used material from previous seasons, which the ABC marketing team tried to turn into an advantage.

"We wanted to go back and retell the stories of the characters and the larger situation that they're in," said Marla Provencio, co-executive vp marketing at ABC.

Catching up viewers on the complicated drama has always a big part of the network's strategy with "Lost," but never more so than this year. After a serialized drama peaks, its ratings usually fall in a downward trajectory as infrequent viewers perceive themselves as being further and further behind the story. The season premiere of "Lost" has fallen each year since Season Two. Reversing that trend is a major challenge, and ABC has aired repeats (complete with on-screen pop-up information) and has circulated various forms of recap videos online.

Though viewers tend to tune in for a show's last episode, the final season as a whole typically isn't as fortunate. Industry estimates have "Lost" tracking about the same as last year, which would be a victory if the show manages to maintain its previous rating. But -- like with the online reaction to the video leaks -- ABC is hopeful that the "Lost" will surprise.

" 'Lost' is like 'American Idol,' it's not your everyday show," Benson said. "From the buzz we're seeing right now, there's an obsession with this show. So who knows?"

Surprise fan reaction to leaked 'Lost' hour

Many viewers refusing to watch online, waiting for TV airing

By James Hibberd

Feb 1, 2010, 08:01 PM ET

Wall Street 'Fight Clubs' On The Rise

2010-02-04T07:29:00.000-08:00

While some Wall Streeters may be buying guns for protection, others are simply learning to kick ass.

As the sport of mixed martial arts grows in popularity across the country, apparently many in the finance world are not content to be simply spectators.
In a scene straight out of Fight Club, bankers and traders are said to be trading in their gelled-hair and Armani ties for black eyes and cut lips at gyms around the city.

Max McGarr, a gym program director and professional fighter, told Bloomberg News, "We get a lot of finance guys. It's a good release from their job. If you lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's good to come here and get it out."

Richard Byrne, chief executive officer of Deutsche Bank Securities, also endorses the rise in popularity of the brutal sport, saying, "It's a great stress reliever."

One banker, John Cholish, even converted the top floor of his duplex apartment into a training gym.

Governor Paterson is currently lobbying to make MMA legal in New York, believing that it would add millions of dollars to the state budget.

And though he's not a banker, there's at least one New York teacher who'd probably agree.

The 15 Worst Movie Taglines Ever Written

2010-02-03T09:13:00.001-08:00

"Wow. Just wow." That's the tagline of this slideshow. When we set out to collect these, we had no idea how bad they'd be. Killer dolphins, math fails, title contradictions, they're all here. If you know of one we missed, shoot us an email!

The Day Of The Dolphin - "Unwittingly, he trained a dolphin to kill the President of the United States"

It's hard to believe this is a Mike Nichols film...it's also hard to believe you can accidentally train a dolphin to assassinate your political enemies.

Pajama Jeans: Stylishly comfortable

2010-02-03T08:48:00.001-08:00

Do jeans make your legs feel stiff and trapped, but you can’t quite convince yourself to cross to the fashion dark side of a 24-hour sweatpants wardrobe? Well, banish that denim stress and invest in a pair of Pajama Jeans, pants that look like jeans, but feel like sweats. Actually, they look like ill-fitting yoga pants with pockets.
Let us remember the words of Jerry on Seinfeld, “You know the message you’re sending out to the world with these sweatpants? You’re telling the world, ‘I give up. I can’t compete in normal society. I’m miserable, so I might as well be comfortable.’”
(Via Trendy on a Dime)

How a composting centre profits from food waste

2010-01-31T07:45:00.001-08:00

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In a process that will turn thousands of tons of rotting food, yard waste, and paper products into rich compost that will be used to help farmers grow crops and homeowners nurture their shrubs, the Wilmington Organic Recycling Center has opened a twenty million dollar industrial-sized composting plant. The center, built on a twenty-seven-acre brown-field site, charges clients fifty dollars a ton to dump their waste at the compost plant (less than the state-wide rate of sixty-one a ton to dump waste in one of the three landfills in the state).
The compost also reduces the volume of landfill waste, saves waste-disposal fees, cuts emissions of climate-changing methane, generates carbon credits for businesses, and returns soil nutrients to their source of origin.

10 ways to embrace change

2010-01-18T06:53:00.001-08:00

No matter how much effort you exert trying to control every aspect of your life, chances are you’ll be blindsided at least once by a major, unavoidable, life-altering change sure to rock your world to its core. You can choose to let the event completely throw you off course, or you can learn to embrace change. Here are ten ways to do just that.

1. Don’t do anything. Sit there. If you’re facing a massive rescaling of your life, your first impulse will be to go into a whirring spin of activity, which is exactly what I did right after I was fired. I later discovered there’s a lot of value to sitting quietly instead. In the realm of language learning, there’s a stage called the silent period: Adults may try to avoid going through it, but if you take a kid and plop her down in Paris for a spell, she’ll naturally clam up for a few months. When she opens her mouth, her French will have flowered. Making sense of a major change is a lot like that. You need to allow yourself a fallow period before you can blossom.
2. Mother yourself a little. When familiar routines suddenly dissolve, it can seem as if all your supports are gone. For a while after I lost my job, I had the sense that I was in free fall. It’s crucial, while absorbing the shock of the new, to make yourself feel well taken care of. Prepare nutritious meals for the week ahead. If you can spare the cash, have someone come in and clean the house. Yes, you need to take some time for yourself, but don’t let the pizza boxes pile up.

More tips and tricks for living the life you want.
Photo credit: Fotolia

The strange, hypnotic power of Sarah Palin

2010-01-18T05:24:00.001-08:00

A reader writes:

I teach in a well-off suburban public high school in the midwest. My students excel; they're hardworking and ambitious. My class is a demanding elective. The subject matter includes lots of critical thinking. Politics is a common topic. We have frequent opinionated political discussion which usually feeds rich, committed writing. These kids are well above the average high school student in nearly every way--communication skills, experience, close reading, careful pessimism, involvement. They are mature enough to balance the value of strong personal or family opinions with the value of balance in public discussion or their school research and writing. They can evaluate an audience. They succeed and come off as smart, articulate, mature, and balanced.
Except when it comes to Sarah Palin.

My conservative students can't discuss or write about Palin to my satisfaction. These conservative kids can be intelligently critical of Obama and his policies; of the wars; of Bush and torture and the Constitution, and so on. They can make arguments that touch on religion and social issues they care strongly about without sliding into emotion or fallacy. They can dispute with the other students in a thoughtful and orderly way over most issues.
But when Palin enters the conversation, they become adamant, unthinking partisans. The eyes go blank. They seem starstruck and smile a lot (girls and boys.) They do not dispute evidence that she was unqualified or ill informed; they just ignore it. When they returned from an appearance Palin made nearby, four of my students behaved like they'd seen Miley Cyrus, not a potential leader of the free world. When it comes to Palin 2012, they tend to nod knowingly with a little secret smile and say "You'll see."
And any political argument that flows from or around Palin becomes empty, uncompromising, and irrational. Suddenly they say "believe" or "trust" or "faith" a lot. They are suddenly uninterested in reading or checking claims, or even discussing issues. It's all personality and emotion all the time. This is a real problem. I don't think it's me. I am a very experienced teacher and I've always had good success in maintaining a challenging neutrality for these students. They usually can't even figure out how I vote. I've never had any trouble before keeping them in a productive path while respecting their opinions. But when Palin appears, their writing becomes unsatisfactory, their arguments become vague, their logic becomes spotty, their evidence contradictory or false.
I've happily worked with writers who idolized Brigham Young and Jesse Helms (and Jesse Jackson and Ralph Nader, too.) In these classes I usually find conservative students very good at polishing arguments, making cases, and improving their writing. But Palin seems to suck the logic out of the room. The factual basis of claims is integral to my kids' work, and Palin--maybe just her, maybe her phenomenon, I don't know--makes that difficult, and worse every week as her wild discrepancies mount.
I risk parent trouble and the imputation of bias if I do as my teacher's experience, training, and conscience dictates. I fear that this is a true break from the already tenuous connection to reality represented by the American far-right. I'll say this--it is the first time I can remember that I had real trouble helping students write well when they were already engaged enough to care about politics.

Story of Newton's encounter with apple goes online

2010-01-18T01:18:00.000-08:00

This undated photo released by the Royal Society via PA shows Sir Isaac Newton. Photo Courtesy: AP

An 18th-century account of how a falling piece of fruit helped Isaac Newton develop the theory of gravity is being posted to the Web, making scans of the fragile paper manuscript widely available to the public for the first time.

Newton's encounter with an apple ranks among science's most celebrated anecdotes, and Britain's Royal Society said it was making the documents available online Monday.

Royal Society librarian Keith Moore said the apple story has managed to keep its polish in part because it packs in so much — an illustration of how modern science works, an implicit reference to the solar system and even an allusion to the Bible.

When Newton describes the process of observing a falling apple and guessing at the principle behind it "he's talking about the scientific method," Moore said.

"Also the shape of the apple recalls the planet — it's round — and of course the apple falling from the tree does indeed hark back to the story of Adam and Eve, and Newton as a religious man would have found that quite apt."

The incident occurred in the mid-1660s, when Newton retreated to his family home in northern England after an outbreak of the plague closed the University of Cambridge, where he had been studying.

The Royal Society's manuscript, written by Newton's contemporary William Stukeley, recounts a spring afternoon in 1726 when the famous scientist shared the story over tea "under the shade of some apple trees."

"He told me, he was just in the same situation, as when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind," Stukeley wrote.

"It was occasion'd by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself ... Why should it not go sideways, or upwards? But constantly to the earth's center? Assuredly, the reason is, that the earth draws it. There must be a drawing power in matter."

Stukeley's account joins the long-lost notes of Newton's 17th-century scientific rival Robert Hooke on the Royal Society's Web site.

Users can flip through both documents using the same page-turning software used to browse Leonardo's sketches and Jane Austen's early work on the British Library's site.

The Royal Society is an academy of scientists founded in 1660 to gather, discuss and spread scientific knowledge. It is marking its 350th anniversary this year by putting more than 60 of its most important scientific papers online.

KFC Racist Commercial 'give black people fried chicken to clam them"

2010-01-11T09:03:00.001-08:00

This KFC commercial is mind blowing in its insensitivity and cluelessness.
From the Mahalo topic page: "Australia's Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) apologized over a commercial after receiving complaints that it was racist in January 2010. The commercial featured a Caucasian cricket fan seated in the midst of West Indian cricket fans who were dancing in their seats and playing steel drums. The white man in the commercial says, "Need a tip when your stuck in an awkward situation?" He then passes the West Indian people a bucket of KFC chicken. The people around him take the fried chicken and become suddenly quiet. He then says, "Too easy." The commercial is for "KFC's Crowd Pleaser," which is a "Backyard Bucket" special including a bucket of chicken and side dishes.3 Those who were offended by the KFC commercial complained that it depicts the stereotype that black people like fried chicken."

http://www.mahalo.com/kfc-commercial-racist

Additional racist and insensitive ads companies have apologized for:

Racist Intel Ad

http://www.mahalo.com/racist-intel-ad

The Gay Heinz Ad

http://www.mahalo.com/gay-heinz-ad

Snickers eat some Nuts Ad

http://www.mahalo.com/snickers-get-some-nuts-ad

Absurdly insensitive 9/11 PSA

http://www.mahalo.com/9-11-terror-ad-wwf-brazil

31 places to go in 2010

2010-01-10T09:52:00.001-08:00

After reading those 10 tips to slash travel costs, you can use your newfound money-saving expertise to travel to one of the NYT’s “31 places to go in 2010.” This list is definitely worth a read, since most of the destinations are not often considered top travel destinations. Example? How about the first five as a taste:

1. Sri Lanka
2. Patagonia Wine Country
3. Seoul
4. Mysore
5. Copenhagen

See the full list.

Community building lessons from Threadless

2010-01-09T06:45:00.001-08:00

Chicago-based Threadless has built a thriving t-shirt empire one quirky tee at a time and the company’s community-centered business model has a lot to do with that success. Cam Balzer, the vice president of marketing at Threadless, sat down with Forbes to discuss the company’s community-centric business approach.

Forbes: What advice do you have for other companies looking to build their social media strategies?
Balzer: The secret isn’t growing a huge fan base. We have 100,000 Facebook fans, but those fans have all come to us organically. We believe the more organic the growth, the more loyal the fans, the more likely they will be repeat customers.
The other key is that we act like humans on our own site and social networking sites. We act like we’re interacting with our friends, posting videos of our employees talking about their favorite bands. It’s not all direct promotion; it’s human.

Check out the full interview for great insights on how to grow a devoted community around your brand.

Memorable Advertising Campaigns

2010-01-09T06:44:00.001-08:00

Vincent Dixon has produced award winning images and helped to create many memorable advertising campaigns.

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Victoria's Secret Model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley Believes In Boob Padding, 'Chicken Fillets'

2009-12-23T01:03:00.000-08:00

We already unearthed one of Victoria's secrets: the 20 layers of butt makeup necessary to get the girls runway-ready. But here's another classified tip courtesy of model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in the Times UK: Bust out your 'chicken fillets.'

"I do believe in chicken fillets. I'm not saying you have to use them, but if anyone knows me and sees me in a photoshoot, well, there are friends in there. I'm not a fan of that whole push-up look in the day. But, of course, you do need a lift with a sexy dress, so do what you've got to do, girls--shove them in there. I've been known to have three in at a time for shoots--plus padding."

She also revealed that she won't do a lingerie shoot unless she's tanned.

"I think most women will admit that they look better when they're brown. I fake tan--but I don't recommend sunbeds--and at work, they'll put body make-up on."

Chicken? Tanning? Doesn't Rosie have any advice for those of us who operate on the lazy end of the sexy spectrum?

"Good sexy bedroom hair should be just a little tousled, nothing too neat. Also, drink a big bottle of water every day, as it will take away puffiness--Fiji is best. Everybody rolls their eyes at this tip, but it does work--water is the drug of God, that's what I say."

Check out Rosie's plan in action in the Pirelli 2010 Calendar.

Mind games on the menu: The psychological tricks restaurants use to part us from our money

2009-12-21T11:48:00.000-08:00

REX FEATURES

Meals for two don't always represent the best value for money

It's all too much to do: you're sitting down at your restaurant table at the same time as trying to regale someone with a witty anecdote about the crashing price of oilseed rape, and before you know it you've ordered starters, main course, wine. You think little of it until the time comes to pay and the bill is equivalent to the GDP of an oligarch-free former Soviet republic. So why is it so easy to overspend in restaurants?

Well, according to William Poundstone, the American author of Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It), published next January, one of the main factors leading us to purchase certain food items is the way they are presented to us – on the menu, for example.

Menus, he says, employ a litany of psychological tricks to ensnare the unwary diner. With a combination of pictures, bold fonts and careful positioning of items, the savvy restaurant owner will have you parting with your cash quicker than you can say: "Hey! It's still 10 days until pay-day!"

In his analysis, he reveals various terms used in such dupe-ology, including "puzzles, anchors, stars and plowhorses".

"A star is a popular, high-profit item; in other words, an item for which customers are willing to pay a good deal more than it costs to make," he explains. "A puzzle is high-profit, but unpopular. A plowhorse is the opposite – popular yet unprofitable. Marketing consultants employed to assemble many of the most high-profile restaurants' menus try to turn puzzles into stars, nudge customers away from plowhorses, and convince everyone that the prices on the menu are more reasonable than they look."

Poundstone says it's not just restaurants committing such consumer crimes: supermarkets use loyalty cards to work out how often people like buying different things, so that they know which items they can raise the price of without anyone noticing. "If you buy hamburger all week they know that, so they don't raise the price of it because you would notice," he explains. "They only raise the price on things you might buy every so often. So they advertise all the discounts, but really that is how they make their money."

There is also the classic '99p' rule. "That can be a big motivator," he continues. "Psychological studies have suggested that people are more likely to buy something that is £29 than something that is £25. One of the theories is that with £29 we think it was originally £30 but it has been discounted." Then, there are classic principles regarding eye-level of the shop display. "If it has a photograph and is at eye-level, then we're more likely to buy it," he continues. "It's the same with restaurants and pictures of food."

He goes on to explain why Starbucks gives its coffees mystifying names like tall, grande and venti. "Psychological studies have shown that when consumers are given a choice like this, and when they don't have a compelling reason to pick one over the other, they pick the middle option," he says. "Starbucks has considerable power to nudge customers into ordering however big a coffee they'd like to sell, just by making it the middle size of three options. You'll see a lot of three-way choices like this elsewhere, with pizzas, fast-food and soft drinks."

Poundstone's book refers to a swathe of academic research. The definitive study was published in 1983 by Joel Huber and Christopher Puto, of Duke University in North Carolina. "They had people choose between a bargain beer that cost $1.80 and a premium beer that cost $2.60," he explains. "Everyone was informed that quality rose with price. About two-thirds of the people were willing to spring for the better beer. Then Huber and Puto repeated the experiment, except that this time there was third choice, a rock-bottom cheap beer costing $1.60. This time nearly half the people chose the original bargain beer – the $1.80 one, which was now the "middle" option. The super-cheap beer 'legitimised' the moderately cheap one, and more were willing to buy it."

He says, "The Huber-Puto experiment is now a classic of marketing science. It shows that, in many contexts, consumers really don't know what they want and can be manipulated by the way a choice is presented."

With a restaurant meal being among the most glaring examples of consumers being swindled out of their hard-earned cash, what are the menu "tricks" used to lure in the unwary diner? Here Poundstone explains how to tell your genuine bargain from your pocket-burners.

Upper right-hand corner

"The first thing people do when they open the menu is look at its upper right-hand corner," Poundstone explains. "A variety of the experts I consulted reckon the geography of the menu is very important when people decide what they are going to have," he continues. Eateries tend to place in the menu's top right-hand corner an item which is high-profit and has great tone-setting significance. This 'anchor' is often an expensive item like a plate of seafood. "They don't care whether they sell a lot of it because it's so costly," continues the author. "If you're going to blow a lot of money on it, it will be the chef's lucky day." The item is in fact mainly there to elevate in people's minds the price of what it is reasonable to pay across the rest of the menu – if you subsequently spot a £30 steak it won't seem so extravagantly priced. "If you start putting high numbers out, then people raise their estimations of what's reasonable." When we're making split-second decisions, he says, the effects of 'anchoring' are heightened.

Pictures

"There's a big taboo about pictures in classy restaurants – you wouldn't normally get them in the classy places," says Poundstone. "But they can be very powerful motivators. If there's a picture of an entrée you are much more likely to order it. It's generally just the high-profit stuff that has pics, because it costs money, though it's a very good way of pressing the button."

Bundling

"The whole idea of 'prix fixe', or the 'combo' meals that you might get in fast-food restaurants, is that for a given price it is harder to compare what you're getting," he explains. "If it's £30 for two scallops, it's easy for you to work out that you're being cheated. But if they say £30 for two scallops and vegetables and something else, it's hard to work out how much you have paid for each thing."

The benefit of boxes

Boxes are a simple way of getting people's attention. Restaurants often box off things that are high-profit. The opposite of that is 'menu Siberia', which are the items which are not high-profit but which restaurant owners do not want to take off the menu in case their regular customers go somewhere else to get them. They might have text explaining them. "Fewer people will order them, but if they want to find them they will."

The price comparison cheat

"You don't want to list all of your items in a straight column running down the page because it's really easy for the customer to see what the cheapest thing is and then order that," says the writer. He also says that dots leading from the item to the price are generally avoided because it aids in easy comparison between different items on the menu. "All of this sounds quite silly when you first hear it," he adds. "But 99 per cent of the decisions we make in our lives are not all that important. When you're ordering you're probably paying attention to the conversation you're having and you're not really paying attention to what you're ordering. So these subtle changes can make a big difference to an owner's profit margins. All of this is based on a series of psychological experiments involving people looking at a screen and making choices with different menu systems. Very respected economists have done research into who makes what choices, and it's been picked up by people who are looking to earn a quick buck."

The right next-door

The 'anchor' often has a slightly cheaper, yet still expensive, item placed next to it. Comparatively, the second item now seems like a bargain.

Meal for two

"These are some of the most expensive things on the menu," explains Poundstone. "A lot of people figure that this is probably a good deal. That's not always the case. You have to divide by two to compare, and if you're in a restaurant trying to make witty conversation you probably aren't going to bother to do that division in your head. It's a very slight smokescreen, but it's enough to make you not pay attention to what you are paying."

Offering a choice of portion size

"You're offered the same dish in different sizes, and it's a kind of can't-win proposition," he says. "People often opt for the cheaper option to save money, but often that size is half of a proper portion. But if you think it's not enough food you can't complain because you went for it. It often encourages people to upgrade their portion and pay double the money. It's a kind of 'heads I win, tails you lose' scenario."

Russell Hantz Oil Company Does Not Exist!

2009-12-21T09:51:00.000-08:00

Are you following CBS “Survivor” for the past week? Then you must know Russell Hantz. He is not the Survivor winner, but he was voted the Survivor Samoa “Sprint Player of the Season” by fans.

In the 19th installment of the reality series, Survivor: Samoa, 26 year old Natalie White won the first prize. Russell wouldn’t go home empty-handed, however: the surprisingly tearful runner-up won the $100,000 fan favorite prize for Player of the Season.

According to source, Russell Hantz is a 36-year-old married, father of four. He stands at 5′6″ . He owns his own oil company, believed to be called Hantz tankering service. Russell Hantz’s oil company has made him a multimillionaire.

But there have been question whether Russell Hantz actually owns a oil company since he has been lying greatly on the show to his tribemates. He told them that he is a fireman who lost his home and dog Rockey to hurricane Katrina.

Meanwhile, rumor is spreading that Russell Hantz will be on the Survivor Season 20, Heroes VS. Villain’s, so let’s hope for that. He is the ultimate villain!

Readers, what do you think about Russel Hantz, Survivor Samoa Sprint Player of the Season? Is he lying about his personal life in his public bio about being an oil company owner?

Extreme fear: could you handle it?

2009-12-15T09:24:00.001-08:00

When disaster strikes, whether you live or die depends on how you react to the crisis…

Jeff Wise

Illustration: Matt Murphy

If you suddenly found yourself in a life-or-death crisis and had to make a decision that would either save your life or end it, are you confident you'd make the right one? People in the state of Victoria, Australia, faced just such a decision in February and March this year. For five weeks, catastrophic brush fires swept across the state. Government policy held that when fire threatened a neighbourhood, homeowners were to make a choice: stay and fight to save their houses, or evacuate early. They were explicitly instructed not to wait until the flames were close. Trying to run from an advancing wildfire is the surest way to die in it.
The choice made sense in strictly rational terms. But in the wake of the devastation, a vociferous debate arose over the wisdom of the policy: can people be expected to make rational decisions, critics asked, when they're surrounded by 1,200C flames raging four storeys high?
Most people have never faced imminent, lethal danger, and so couldn't possibly know how they would react to the experience of extreme fear. But, as thousands of Australians found out, danger can overtake us with surprising speed.
Everyone in Melbourne knew that Saturday 7 February 2009 was going to be brutal. The southern summer had been a scorcher, with temperatures the previous week climbing above 43C (110F) three days in a row. That day the mercury was forecast to climb even higher. Winds were strong and a long drought had left the vegetation brittle and dry.
In Glenburn, a farming community outside the city, Victoria University professor Ian Thomas spent the day listening for weather updates on the radio. An engineer, Thomas specialised in calculating the risk of fire in buildings. His house and lawn were surrounded by trees on all sides and abutted the eucalyptus forest of Kinglake national park: "We didn't need the forecast to tell us that it was dangerous," he says.
At about 11am, high winds knocked down a power line that ran through pasture 25 miles to the north-west. Within hours, a roaring wall of flames was burning eastward. Then, at about 4pm, the temperature suddenly dropped. "We started to relax," Thomas says. "Nothing big had happened." Soon after, the power went out. Fifteen minutes later it came back on, then died again.
What the radio broadcasts had failed to report was that the wildfire had spread all the way to the town of Kinglake, less than 10 miles from Thomas's home. The cooler breeze had fanned the flames to new intensity, and was driving them towards Glenburn at freight-train speeds. The first inkling of trouble came when a couple who lived nearby, Lou and Cheryl Newstead, pulled into the Thomases' driveway. They brought news that their son had just called to tell them the fire was heading their way. As they talked, the wind that was blowing in from the south darkened with smoke. Ash and glowing embers started dropping out of the air.
"We went from not having any particular worries to having fire in our immediate vicinity very quickly," Thomas says. The decision point – stay or go – had arrived faster than anyone had anticipated. The neighbours decided to evacuate; the Thomases, to stay and defend. "My thinking was that they were foolish in driving off in that situation," Thomas says. "They didn't know what they were driving into." But his own situation was scarcely better. With the power out and the fire on their doorstep, the Thomases were entirely on their own. What they would not find out until much later was that the fire that was racing towards them had already become the deadliest single blaze in Australian history.
The fire exploded up the ridge at 80mph. Hardest hit was a tidy neighbourhood of homes along Pine Ridge Road, Kinglake, where a triangle of land was flanked on two sides by steep hillside. Topography that once provided fine views over the southern plain now exposed them to fire from two directions at once. The entire community was caught unawares. There was no time to contemplate the options.
Rob Richings, a service technician, decided to make a run for it once the windows of his house started to explode from the heat. "It's against the rules, but this wasn't a normal bush fire," he later said. As it was, he managed to drive through the flames and reach safety. Many others did not. Disoriented in the smoke, cars crashed into each other on the jammed road. Flames melted tyres and exploded fuel tanks. In one car, six people died together when their vehicle was consumed by fire.
Staying put was just as much of a gamble. Another neighbour, Tina Wilson, planned to take her three children to the nearby home of Paul and Karen Roland, who were holed up with their two daughters. "The house has got sprinklers on the roof and we'll be fine," Wilson told her partner over the telephone. "I'll call you soon." Soon after, Karen Roland phoned her sister. "It's too late!" she yelled over the roar of the fire. "We're trapped!" They all perished.
By the time the fire was burning its way through to the Thomases' tree line, 70 people were dead. Thomas had counted on his sprinkler system to protect his house and garden from the fire, but the pump was electric and the power lines were down. If he and his wife were going to fight the fire, they'd have to do it by hand, with buckets. The smoke grew so thick that it was impossible to see more than a few feet. "It was like a steam train coming at you," he says.
Soon the fire had surrounded the house. Thomas and his wife had committed themselves to their decision. Whether or not it was the right one, they had no way of knowing. All they could do was handle themselves as best they could.
The first step to dealing with a crisis is acceptance. Studies of disasters have found that many people remain in denial in the face of evident danger. Nightclub patrons continue to dance and order drinks as smoke fills a burning hall; passengers on a sinking ferry sit and smoke cigarettes as it lists ever more ominously to one side. This denial is driven by a mental phenomenon called "normalcy bias". Psychologists say that people who have never experienced a fatal catastrophe have difficulty recognising that one could be unfolding.
For those who do accept what's happening, the most terrifying part of a crisis is likely to occur at the very beginning, while the full scope of the danger remains unclear. Anticipatory fear is often worse than the experience itself. Performers who throw up before every performance never throw up on the stage itself. The scariest part of jumping out of a plane is the instant before you leave the door. Psychologist Seymour Epstein conducted a study in which novice jumpers were fitted with heart-rate monitors that measured their pulse as their plane climbed upward toward its release point. He found that their heart rates got faster and faster until just before they jumped, declining precipitously once they were actually out of the plane. The most stressful part of the experience was the anticipation.
Uncertainty in the face of danger magnifies stress by forcing a person to think about a wide range of possible outcomes and weigh the strategies for dealing with those outcomes. It also allows worst-case scenario thinking. A key early step to combating fear is to find out as much information as possible about the threat at hand.
When we're facing a life-threatening situation for the first time, one of the biggest uncertainties we face is what will happen inside our own minds. Having been in danger before can help. When Dave Boon's car was struck by an avalanche on a road near Denver, US, he benefited from having been in another, very different, life-threatening situation two years earlier. He'd been white-water rafting when his boat was swept by the force of a rapid below an overhanging rock. Boon didn't panic, and the force of the water eventually pulled him free. Two years later, as he found himself tumbling end-over-end inside the avalanche, he knew he wouldn't panic then, either. And that was a powerful piece of information.
The more control a person has over a threatening situation, the less anxiety it provokes. Numerous experiments have shown that being out of control of a negative situation leads to the release of the stress hormone cortisol. Engaged in useful activity, it's easier to stop thinking about your internal experience of fear and instead focus usefully on external things, such as improving your situation.
Some people, such as optimists and extroverts, are generally more prone to take an active approach in a crisis. So are people who see themselves as capable of shaping the outcome of whatever situation they find themselves in. A related concept is self-efficacy, a person's belief that he or she is capable of accomplishing a given task. People with these character traits tend to perceive and take advantage of opportunities to change the situations they find themselves in.
These are the sorts of people you want with you when the going gets hairy. In 1967, a raging winter storm trapped mountain climber Art Davidson and two friends in an ice cave near the summit of Denali, Alaska. Days went by as they slowly succumbed to hypothermia and starvation, nearly immobile in their tiny hole. They kept themselves going by making careful plans about the only thing over which they had any control, their meagre rations. When the food ran out, they managed to find another problem to grapple with: how to locate a cache of fuel that one of them remembered was hidden nearby. By stringing together a series of meagre hopes, they managed to survive six days, at which point the weather broke and they escaped down the mountain.
Reframe
An alligator can't make you scared. A skidding car can't make you scared. The only thing that can make you scared is your mind's interpretation of those things. Fear is a phenomenon that resides entirely within your brain. That's why the most powerful method of all for controlling fear is reappraisal. But some people are better at reappraisal than others. Studies have found that people who are able to think of events as challenging rather than threatening are able to cope better with their emotions, have more positive feelings, and are more confident.
Marc Taylor, in a study of military personnel undergoing hyper-realistic combat training, found that subjects who relied on positive reappraisal to cope with their situation had lower levels of stress hormone in their bloodstream. Contrast that useful kind of positive thinking with the negative appraisal that's common to people in the throes of social anxiety.
Sir Laurence Olivier was among the most gifted actors of the 20th century. But in 1964, when Olivier was 57 and had been performing for more than four decades, he was gripped by stage fright. On the opening night of Ibsen's The Master Builder, in which he had a starring role, he froze. It was the moment that actors dread.
For those of us who have not experienced stage fright, it's difficult to grasp the impact of such a moment. But the terror is equivalent to that aroused by actual, mortal danger. The sympathetic nervous system launches into full overdrive, generating a physiological response appropriate to a life-or-death crisis. Actors say the sensation is a good deal like plummeting from a great height.
Like a panic attack, stage fright often occurs in the wake of other stress in a person's life. And as with most forms of anxiety, once unleashed, it's a demon that continues to lurk in the margins of awareness, always threatening to reappear.
Cognitive behavioural therapy is a powerful tool in overcoming anxiety disorders. Patients are taught to recognise when they're thinking unrealistically negative thoughts, and then deliberately to reassess the situation in a more positive light. But one doesn't need to go to a professional therapist. Anyone who's trying to get a grip on their emotions in the heat of a crisis can simply find someone to share their feelings with – or even say them aloud to themselves – in order to regain some control over their mental systems.
As the fire raced toward the Thomases' home, they had no time to express their fear. They were too busy taking action. The fire swept through the trees surrounding their house until it was blazing around them in all four directions. With a crack, a huge gum tree shuddered and crashed on to their driveway, blocking them in. The fire kept creeping forward and the Thomases kept patrolling, checking their most vulnerable points, hurriedly lugging buckets of water to counter each new thrust. Keeping continuously active helped to keep fear at bay.
As time went on, their growing store of information about the fire also reduced the stressfulness of the crisis. "The longer it went on, in a sense the more comfortable we got with it," Ian Thomas says, "because we started to feel that we'd already been to some degree successful, and we stood a chance of continuing to be successful."
Finally, at around 2.30am, the situation appeared to stabilise. The fire had crept to within 15ft of the house, but the flames in the immediate vicinity were now out and the carpet of burned-out grass formed a protective barrier. Together, the weary couple collapsed and slept fitfully for three hours, keeping the blinds open so they could check for flare-ups.
But the fight was not over. With the coming of the dawn, the wind began to build, whipping smouldering embers back into flame. Pockets of unburned vegetation erupted like roman candles. Thomas staggered outside to douse the most threatening flare-ups, but he was weak from the night's fight and suffering from heat stroke. He could not take even a sip of water without throwing up. Gradually, the flare-ups became less menacing and the Thomases began to relax. Except for their house, their property had been incinerated. But they were alive.
The catastrophe of 7 February 2009 dwarfed any of Victoria's past wildfires. But it was just the beginning. The fire season in Victoria would ultimately claim 210 lives, destroy more than 2,000 homes and lay waste to a million acres of countryside. In the aftermath, the people of Victoria were left wondering whether the "stay or go" policy was to blame for unnecessary deaths. Some argued that the policy should be scrapped in favour of mandatory evacuation. Thomas disagrees – in his case, his and his wife's action had saved their house. "Being afraid puts you under stress, and that makes it much more difficult to make completely rational decisions," he concedes. "But in the end most people have a very strong survival instinct. They find ways to deal with the situation."

The Sin City VIP service that seduced Tiger Woods

2009-12-15T09:23:00.001-08:00

The art of adultery has been incorporated in the business models of Vegas clubs

By Guy Adams

AP/REUTERS

Rachel Uchitel and Kalika Moquin have both been linked with Tiger Woods

On any given evening at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, a long queue will stretch from the floor of the casino to the entrance of a nightclub called The Bank. There, crowds of fashionable punters wait patiently in line, sometimes for hours, for the opportunity to set foot on its glass-cased dancefloor, which is occupied by acres of cleavage and overhung by endless chandeliers. It is the City of Sin's "most desirable, cosmopolitan nightclub," according to promotional literature, which grandly adds that "like its namesake, the Bank [is] a sanctuary for all things precious".

Every now and then the expectant crowds will part so that a headset-wearing hostess can march through, accompanied by wealthy men who are known in the industry as "whales". They are ushered to a cordoned-off area overlooking the main arena, where they are brought extortionately priced drinks and assigned a "mood advisor," whose duties include plumping up the cushions and offering, with the words "blondes or brunettes, sir?" to drag willing young women off the dancefloor to join the party.

Tiger Woods was a whale. In fact he was one of the biggest and most coveted (a blue whale, perhaps?) in a multimillion-dollar industry that stretches from London and Ibiza to New York, Miami, Dubai, Vegas and any number of global "party towns". And it is testament to the success with which the VIP nightclub scene quietly facilitates the indiscretions of not just Woods, but scores of other actors and sportsmen, that the scandal which prompted him to quit golf "indefinitely" to concentrate on being "a better husband, father and person" took so long to emerge.

Video: Tiger's caddie speaks out

For the five years of his married life Woods kept his spectacular philandering secret from the media and his wife, Elin, who has just bought herself a home on a private island in Sweden and is reported to be planning to seek a divorce in the new year. He was also able to keep it from many of his closest associates, including his caddy, Steve Williams, who told a newspaper in his native New Zealand that he had no knowledge of Tiger's "indiscretions".

We must presume that word never reached the corporate sponsors who are suddenly wondering what to do with their soiled investments in the once squeaky clean star. Last night global consulting and outsourcing firm Accenture announced it was ending its sponsorship of Tiger Woods, saying the golfer was "no longer the right representative" after the "circumstances of the past two weeks." Woods still has Nike's "full support," but Gillette said it was "limiting his role," Tag Heuer and Accenture have removed his image from promotional literature, and AT&T is "evaluating our ongoing relationship," with Woods.

Finally, what many pop psychologists, including the BBC's normally austere golf pundit Peter Allis called Tiger's "addictive sex problem" was hidden from the sponsors of major golf events. They are now coming to terms with having bought into an entire sport whose market value has dropped drastically. When Woods was injured last season, television audiences for golf events fell by up to 48 per cent. Whether he now stays out until March (returning perhaps, in the run-up to the Masters in Augusta) or seeks a longer lay-off, billions of dollars have disappeared down a tabloid sinkhole.

With this much at stake, and given the scale of his carousing, it seems unbelievable that Tiger Woods took so long to fall. In the era of kiss-and-tell, in a country where blogs and supermarket magazines compete, on an hourly basis, to lend credence to the unlikeliest celebrity rumours, it's difficult to comprehend how one of the most recognisable men on the planet can have managed, for five long years, to secretly maintain a harem of cocktail servers, waffle waitresses, beauty queens and pornographic actresses.

Until, that is, you lift the velvet ropes of the VIP nightclub industry, where Tiger picked up almost all of his birdies. Despite their decadent public face, venues like The Bank are able to attract celebrity clientele willing to flex black AmEx cards on $500 bottles of Belvedere vodka and $20,000 methuselahs of Cristal champagne precisely because they guarantee client secrecy.

Woods has so far been linked to 13 young women. But the surprising fact is that, even now, only eight have actually been named (the others have retained lawyers to keep their identities secret). Of those eight, just four have publicly confessed to affairs.

The most interesting women, however, are two of the four who continue to strenuously deny affairs with the golfer. One is Rachel Uchitel, the New York socialite who was the first of the alleged mistresses to emerge in the wake of the late-night car accident that set Tiger's downfall in motion; the other is called Kalika Moquin. She works in the marketing department of the Light Group, which operates The Bank.

In a remarkably astute article published early last week, which ought to now be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the sexual habits of the rich and famous, the US sports blog Deadspin claimed that the biggest misconception in the unfolding scandal is that Uchitel and Moquin were Tiger's full-time lovers.

Instead, the blog claimed, their primary function was to act as party organisers, securing his entrance to fashionable nightspots. They would also, as Deadspin put it, "provide women for Tiger during his globetrotting excursions to various tournaments, charity functions and private-jet weekends with his Fortune 500 party pals that he seemed to enjoy so much". For this, they earned retainers estimated at $15,000 a month.

The twenty- or thirtysomething women that Uchitel or Moquin allegedly provided for Woods were not prostitutes. They might be flown to Las Vegas (or Melbourne, where Uchitel was caught going about her business by the National Enquirer) and given free accommodation. But they are neither paid for their troubles, nor expected to sleep with a "whale" unless they particularly want to.

They are, however, required to be discreet, which is why so many have maintained a dignified silence, despite vast chequebooks being waved in their general direction.

In Britain, footballers and soap stars pick up women in high-street bars and pay for it in tabloid headlines. In the US, icons of sport and entertainment, from Elvis onwards, have instead paid people like Uchitel and Moquin to protect their lucrative reputations.

It's a valuable service. Last week, Ms Uchitel came within two hours of giving a press conference explaining her role at the office of her Los Angeles lawyer, Gloria Allred. When it was cancelled, at the last minute, many wondered if she had been compensated for her silence. But perhaps a different calculation was in play. Maybe, after years of earning vast sums to co-ordinate the exotic private lives of people like Woods, she simply decided that her market value as the world’s most famously-schtum celebrity party organiser was worth more than a single kiss-and-tell could ever provide."

Keep Cadbury British! Don't crumble, Flake girls tell shareholders as they consider selling the chocolate giant

2009-12-15T09:22:00.001-08:00

The stars of the famous Cadbury Flake commercials last night backed The Mail on Sunday’s campaign to keep the company British.
Four of the most famous Flake girls – the models and actresses who appeared in what has been described as the sexiest advert on television – have spoken of their fears that Cadbury will fall into foreign hands.
The four Flake girls join a remarkable 21,694 Mail on Sunday readers who have joined our Keep Cadbury British Campaign since it was launched just three weeks ago.

Cadbury Flake girl Alyssa, 2007

American giant Kraft Foods has given Cadbury shareholders until January 5 to accept or reject an offer to buy them out of the company, as part of a £10.1billion hostile takeover bid.
Cadbury will attempt to defend the shares tomorrow in an appeal to those who may be considering taking up the offer.
Last night Hoima MacDonald, the original Flake girl who launched the iconic Sixties advertising campaign, said a takeover by Kraft Foods – which produces Hershey bars – should ‘not be allowed to happen’.
Mrs MacDonald, 61, went to Portugal in 1968 to film the advert in which she waded into a lake before nibbling on a Flake. She said: ‘Cadbury is British and it is unthinkable that it would ever be anything else. The company is as British as a traditional Sunday roast or a pint of bitter.
‘I was extremely upset to hear about the possibility of an American takeover. It must not be allowed to happen.
‘Anyway, the taste of Cadbury chocolate is quite unlike anything else, creamy and delicious. We must fight this tooth and nail.’

Sweet Memories: Catrina, 1983 (left) and Eva, 1971

Mrs MacDonald, who now helps to run a shop selling art in Alton, Hampshire, says she is still regularly asked about her days as the first Cadbury Flake girl.
The Streets star Mike Skinner and celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson, have already voiced their anger at news of the takeover bid.
Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, also said the Government would oppose any buyer who failed to respect the traditions of the chocolate maker.
One of the most recent of the 30 women to inherit the role of Flake girl, in 2007, is Alyssa Sutherland, 27, a supermodel from Australia. She is now based in New York, where she is building a career as an actress after a part in the film The Devil Wears Prada.
She said: ‘If Hershey took over Cadbury, I worry that they would change the recipe.’
Also keen to add her objection to the offer is Catrina Skepper, 47, now a
television presenter, who starred in the commercial in 1983.
Ms Skepper, who dated Prince Andrew shortly after the screening of her eating a Flake bar in a waterfall, said: ‘The traditions and the ethical values of Cadbury are so very British.
'The brand is as British as Coca-Cola is American. It should remain so.’
And Eva Rueber-Staier, who was the 1971 Flake girl after winning Miss World in 1969, was also concerned.
Austrian-born Ms Rueber-Staier, who now lives with her husband Brian in Pinner, North-West London, said: ‘It really would be a shame for this takeover to happen. It is a British institution, such a long-standing part of British culture with its traditions.’

Adrianne Curry: I Love To Play 'World Of Warcraft' Naked And Stoned

2009-12-10T09:07:00.001-08:00

Adrianne Curry, America's Next Top Model winner, recently announced via Twitter her favorite way to spend a Sunday: playing World of Warcraft "butt naked" and "stoned."
On Sunday she tweeted:

jumping into shower.going to spend my afternoon playing World Of Warcraft butt naked&stoned.Perfect Sunday!

She also took and tweeted out a picture of herself wearing a headset, sans clothes. (Caption, in case there was any confusion: "me...naked...playing World Of Warcraft"). Photo below.

Stephen King says 'Twilight' author Stephenie Meyer 'can't write worth a darn'

2009-12-10T09:06:00.001-08:00

According to Stephen King, J.K. Rowling is "a terrific writer" while "Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn."
Mr. King's views on Ms. Meyer's literary abilities came out during an interview with USA Weekend when he was asked if he believes his writing has been influential to today's up-and-coming scribblers, namely Ms. Rowling and Ms. Meyer.
Mr. King went on to compare Twilight to the creations of another writer he called "terrible" but who was "very successful": Erle Stanley Gardner, author of the Perry Mason lawyer/mystery series.
How does Mr. King explain the success of Twilight and books of its ilk? "People are attracted to the stories, the pace," says King. Twilight opens up "a kind of safe joining of love and sex...It's exciting and it's thrilling and it's not particularly threatening, because they're not overtly sexual. A lot of the physical side of it is conveyed in things like the vampire will touch her forearm or run a hand over skin, and she just flushes all hot and cold. And for girls, that's a shorthand for all the feelings that they're not ready to deal with yet."
As you can imagine, the internet is erupting with Twi-hards venting their wrath upon the honest head of Mr. King.

The books are loved by many, not only teens, idiot.

griped one fan. Another went quite a bit farther:

I think he's such a JERK! I'd like to say other things but we can't go swearing on here. What a moron! I haven't read his books, but what the heck?! He goes dissing Stephanie Meyer- I HAD to read all of her books b/c they were sooo good- and I'm 27- i have a complete life- the fact that he's like 'she writes pg material for hs girls" is such krap! What a donkey! Stephanie is OBVIOUSLY talented. WHo the heck asked for his opinion in the first place and why would he think he's qualified to critique her just b/c he's an author. What a limited mind he has!!! I feel like never picking up one of his dumb books! He is a machovanistic PIG! I had respect for him before b/c he's written so many best selling books but PUHLEASE! He's totally classless. He writes different types of books- why would he even comment on a totally differ type of book? I even went on his website and the way he answers his readers questions- he does it SoOO ARROGANTLY! AND he doesn't even have facebook or myspace or even a section on his website besides stupid Message forums (which I AM NOT GOING TO SIGN UP to just leave him a comment) so that we could leave him a COMMENT about his stupid CRITIQUES because he DOESN'T CARE WHAT THE PUBLIC THINKS (just look at the way he answers his fans' questions)! I could say more nasty things about him, but why even bother wasting my own personal time!

Any defenders of Mr. King willing to step up to the plate?
Cast your eye on the Book Examiner's defense of Mr. King: In defense of Mr. King, or What is good writing, anyway?
Take a look at Team Twilight and Team Potter defend their literary loves in the Book Examiner Twilight versus Potter debate.
So, what authors does Mr. King think are pretty darn great? Check out his list of recommended reading and a review of one of Mr. King's favorite series, Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games
Stephen King picks tunes for a desert island stint
Stephen King gushes about audiobooks and names his 7 recommended books for summer reading
10 reasons for the popularity of Twilight -- and the number one reason will probably surprise you
Harold Bloom disses Stephen King and J.K. Rowling
Did you know that Mr. King's first book, Carrie, was initally rejected by so many publishers, he kept a stack of rejection notices nailed to a spike in his bedroom? Take a look at more famous authors who overcame idiotic rejections on their way to fame
The five most annoying literary romance...and the 5 most romantic ones
The Deliciously Twisted Literary Character Hall of Fame and 10 books that will scare the hell out of you
10 best books for treating Harry Potter withdrawal

"Better Than Jackson Dying"

2009-12-09T08:41:00.001-08:00

Anyone think the media might be enjoying the Tiger Woods scandal?
The boss of Yahoo certainly seems to be.
“God bless Tiger,” Carol Bartz told a media conference in New York.
The Tiger story has been driving traffic on every part of the site, she said.
“This week we got a huge uplift: front page, news, sports, gossip. He just filtered through the whole place.
And, then, she said this:
“It is better than Michael Jackson dying. It is kind of hard to put an ad next to a funeral.”
Even if you admire her candour it hardly seems right to be weighing up the death of one celebrity against the ‘transgressions’ of another.
She may be saying what the whole world thinks, of course.
But the Woods story has been a boon for the usually low-key magazine ‘Beverage Digest’
It was reporting that sports drink maker Gatorade was dropping its ‘Tiger Focus’ line before the golf star hit the headlines (and a fire hydrant).
In the last day or so, media around the world has jumped on the Gatorade decision as some kind of sign of advertisers losing faith in the Tiger brand.
This is despite repeated statements from Gatorade that they made their decision months ago.
Beverage Digest revealed that the reason behind the decision was a 34 per cent drop in sales in the first months of the year.
One interesting line from the Wall Street Journal though. Research has shown that advertisers have been holding off showing Tiger ads on TV since the scandal broke.

The ten best world music albums of the Noughties

2009-12-09T08:28:00.001-08:00

Tinariwen impressed with The Radio Tisdas Sessions

10. Made In Medina by Rachid Taha
Now Africa Express’s Monsieur Rock El Casbah, Taha began the decade fusing electro-punk, disco and Algerian rai and never to more thrilling effect than on this electrifying assault on taste. Barra Barra and Garab still sound like an approaching apocalypse.
9. Nothing’s In Vain by Youssou N’Dour
The Senegalese superstar appeared a spent force in the 1990s, so his artistic rebirth came as some relief. With this acoustic album, he turned African artists’ eyes inward, to celebrate and strengthen indigenous culture rather than chase foreign patronage.
8. Très Très Fort by Staff Benda Bilili
The Zaireans’ back story involves polio, poverty and wheelchairs, but this was all about the funk. When these guys tell you to get up and dance like a sex machine, you know they won’t take “Sorry, my feet are sore” for an answer.
7. Specialist In All Styles by Orchestra Baobab
The best old-style Cuban album of the decade came from a group of sexagenarians in Senegal whose heyday had been the 1970s. Reunited, they rolled back the years and happily discovered they were what the world had been waiting for.
6. Fado Curvo by Mariza
Mariza took a discredited old music (in this case, fado, the Portuguese blues), made it contemporary and sexy and sold it to an audience that had previously ignored it. One appearance on Later With Jools Holland and she was a star.
5. Moffou by Salif Keita
Keita loves to experiment – not always successfully - with unlikely musical genres, but this lush return to simplicity may be his masterpiece. His voice (and those of his backing vocalists) is simply astonishing, the arrangements are superb and the playing immaculate.
4. Buena Vista Social Club Presents Cachaito
The bass player was the unsung hero of the Buena Vista saga, but put centre stage he produced arguably the best album of the series. An eclectic, free-wheeling yet accessible odyssey into Cuban jazz, its inventiveness never fails to surprise.
3. The Living Road by Lhasa
Is it her circus background that encourages Lhasa de Sela to terrify her listeners from the safety of the shadows? Her second album, sung in Spanish, French and English found her making merry in Nick Cave and Tom Waits’ territory.
2. Dimanche A Bamako by Amadou & Mariam
After 25 years making great soul-inspired albums, the husband-and-wife duo teamed up with the impish Manu Chao and let him rewrite their rule book. It’s a hot Sunday in the Malian capital and everybody wants to party. This is the soundtrack.
1. The Radio Tisdas Sessions by Tinariwen
The Tuaregs’ debut, recorded in a Saharan radio station, is the sound of the sands, stones and emptiness, filtered through a woozy wall of guitars. Today they are genuine rock stars, but this, in all its ragged glory, is the one.

Why Men Should Fear the Rape Fantasy

2009-12-09T08:18:00.000-08:00

Of course you'd never force yourself on a woman, but what if she asked you to? Inside the most dangerous erotic play of all

By Anna David

Jim was hiding between two bushes in the back yard, but lack of space was the least of his concerns. Standing next to a window so that he had a perfect view into a woman's bedroom—where, dressed in a thigh-length pink negligee, she was masturbating to porn—Jim had one main worry: that the woman's neighbors would see what he was doing, or worse, what he was about to do.
Jim (not his real name), a 40-year-old Bay Area aviation manager, wasn't an ordinary Peeping Tom: The woman inside the house—let's call her Tina—had given him her address and told him when to show up. She'd also left the back door unlocked so that he could easily get in. Her instructions, however, were more explicit than that: He was to slap her across the face, throw her against the wall, and tie her up with rope she'd left for that very purpose. Jim, you see, was there to fulfill her sexual fantasy—or to try to.
"After we'd been out maybe four or five times, she'd e-mailed me a very detailed and explicit rape fantasy that she said she wanted us to act out," Jim says of the attractive single mother he met on the S&M chat group called bondageagogo. "Reading it was a turn-on, because it was very sexual, but I wasn't turned off by the violence, either: She made it clear that her reactions to violence were positive. I was only apprehensive because I wasn't sure how realistic I could be for her."
Although Tina said she was pleased with Jim's performance ("Her only complaint was that it was too short," he says) and the two of them took a post-rape shower together, Jim never felt comfortable making this particular dream come true for her again, and they amicably parted ways a few months later. "I was happy to help her out, but this was never my thing," says Jim, who describes himself as "not exactly your typical alpha male." "I knew that if it got to the point where I started to think of that as normal, it would affect my personal life."
While the definition of normal is subjective, the popularity of fantasies like Tina's is not: In a 2009 study published in the Journal of Sex Research that evaluated female undergraduates at the University of North Texas, 62 percent of the women admitted to having rape fantasies, and 91 percent of those said their fantasies were either wholly or partially "erotic." Even in a mainstream movie like When Harry Met Sally, Sally told Harry that she dreamed of a "faceless guy" ripping off her ever-altering clothes. But just as there's a difference between Harlequin daydreams and full-on rape fantasies, there's a difference between knowing your girlfriend is turned on by sexual-assault scenarios and being asked to act one out.

Obviously—and thankfully—the vast majority of men learn early that forcing themselves on women is wrong. But pretending to rape a woman in order to get her off is a far cry from actually raping her. "This fantasy has little resemblance to her real desires. Nor does it mean that she's actually been abused or raped," says Dr. Gail Saltz, a psychiatrist and the author of The Ripple Effect: How Better Sex Can Lead to a Better Life—which says that rape is the most common female sexual fantasy. The primary appeal for women, as Saltz sees it, is the concept that "someone would take them at all costs—the idea that 'I'm so unbelievably desirable that he just loses his mind.'" Many experts believe that women use the fantasies to alleviate guilt. "The common theme is that these women somehow feel bad about being sexual," says addiction specialist and radio host Dr. Drew Pinsky. "These fantasies give them license to say, 'I couldn't help myself—I was being raped' as an excuse."
Laura (not her real name), a 26-year-old author of young-adult fiction, was drawn to play out rape fantasies because they offered an escape from her over-ordered life. "I'm so on top of everything all day, so it's a release to have someone else take control and dominate," she says. She's never used safe words or laid out the specifics of what she wants from the role-playing, and one of the three men she's had "rape" her went too far. "He pushed me really hard and pulled my hair, and I wanted him to stop and he wouldn't," Laura recalls. "I wasn't sure if it was still a scene we were acting out or not." According to experts, it's crucial that couples establish boundaries and agree on safe words before attempting to re-create a rape fantasy. Just ask 25-year-old T.J., a stay-at-home dad in Texas, who began regularly acting out these scenarios with his wife. One night she told him that she wanted him to go further, so "I grabbed her from behind and shoved her down," T.J. says. "She was pretty much fighting me tooth and nail." In the process, T.J. (not his real name) found he had tapped into memories of being molested by a couple when he was 12. "I really lost it. A lot of anger and bitterness and rage came up," he says. "And it actually really turned me on to get in touch with that rage. And then I got dependent on it: Now I can't keep it up for regular sex." The good news for T.J. is that his inability to perform has been pretty much a nonissue. The bad? The reason is that his wife "got completely freaked out by what happened—we didn't even talk to each other for a few days afterward," and their sex life has dropped off precipitously.

Like with most psychological phenomena, there's no direct explanation for why some women are turned on by the notion of force while others are aroused by the idea of making love in a field of daisies—only speculation. "I believe it's related to childhood experiences of being reprimanded or controlled or overpowered," Saltz says. "Early, primitive feelings of aggression are often wrapped up with libido." That might explain the case of 34-year-old Nicole (not her real name). "When I was growing up, my parents really made me feel like my emotions made me unlovable," she says. The rape fantasy appeals to her because, she says, "it's like someone's angry or unhappy with you but still paying a lot of attention to you—as opposed to in real life, when, if you're acting unlovable, people just leave you alone."
Regardless of what gives it allure, the rape fantasy is a powder keg of sexual politics. Common sense dictates that you always consider worst-case scenarios when deciding whether or not to duct-tape a woman's mouth shut as she begs you to stop. Although Josh (not his real name), a 28-year-old from Mississippi, didn't end up in cuffs after he followed his then girlfriend's directions to break into her house and hold her down during rough sex, he's aware that he could have. "About a year after that, she attacked me when I tried to stop her from going after her mom with a kitchen knife," he says, adding that his ex was bipolar. "When I was fulfilling her fantasy, I was in that early, puppy-dog-love stage, where I would have done anything to please her. It was only later that I realized I could have really gotten into trouble."
Ironically, according to some experts, it's an increasing problem that many men are not educated about their right to draw the line. "You don't want to be in a position where you're going to be doing something that's really horrifying to you," Saltz says. "Keep in mind that you can always say, 'Let's go carefully' or 'No.'" Now men who understand that no means no just have to hope that women do too.

Should You Get a Sex Coach?

2009-12-09T08:16:00.000-08:00

Some guys have discovered the cure for the bedroom blues—another woman.

By Sean McManus,

Bob (not his real name), a 30-year-old financial adviser in West Palm Beach, Florida, was having a hard time getting it up. Because of the limp economy, he worked long hours to pull in much-needed cash—and the routine was killing his sex life. When he was with his wife, he just couldn't perform. Masturbation came easy, however: He did the deed three times a week, sometimes with the aid of porn, saying it helped him "relieve stress." This went on for six months before Bob's wife suggested therapy.
The two agreed to see a 30-year-old psychologist named Rachel Needle, who specializes in sexual dysfunction and sexual compulsiveness. She diagnosed Bob with psychogenic erectile dysfunction, essentially ruling that his problem was between his ears, not his legs. The stress of work combined with guilt over his porn habit was making him anxious—and flaccid in bed with his wife.
Needle eased Bob's anxiety by telling him that looking at porn—even introducing porn-driven fantasies into the bedroom—is perfectly acceptable. She recommended homework—more specifically a regimen of "non-demand sensate focus exercises"—through which Bob and his wife proceeded from heavy petting to self-masturbation to oral sex without the pressure of intercourse. The strategy worked—Bob's erections returned after a few sessions—but talking openly about sex with his wife and Needle also played a big part in his recovery. It surely didn't hurt that Needle has wavy, sandy-blond hair, a beaming smile, and a perpetual tan. Putting it plainly, she's kind of hot, and sitting there with Needle and his wife, engaging in often explicit sexual conversation . . . Let's just say that a guy might not mind going to therapy. "Most people are anxious talking about stuff they've never talked about before," Needle says. "With Bob, I started using humor and then he used humor and the whole experience was nice and light."
Sexual dysfunction may not be the stuff of dinner conversation, but it's hardly a taboo subject any longer. A steady barrage of Viagra and Cialis advertising has seen to that. And when a celebrity like David Duchovny admits to sexual addiction and agrees to enter treatment, as he did in late August, it encourages others to open up about their bedroom nightmares. But don't discount the contribution of a bold generation of young female counselors who have succeeded in lifting the veil of shame, making it easier for young couples to seek help for their damaged love lives.

Equal parts sex kitten and sex therapist, Dr. Joy Davidson is the poster babe for this new breed of professional. Based in New York, she has become the go-to sexpert for cable news; her website, joydavidson.com, is a virtual candy store for self-help, offering clips such as "New Tricks for Better Sex: Cowgirl."

When it comes to improving a man's sex life, Davidson is all about open dialogue, and she's unabashed about being sexy herself. She cautions, however, that owning up to sexual dysfunction and getting your mojo back can be very difficult. "It's a long process that involves many different approaches," she says. "It requires a commitment to homework," and, for young men in particular, a shift in the way they "experience themselves sexually."
Men with debilitating performance issues can point to any number of environmental causes. Dr. Betsy Crane, director of the Human Sexuality Education Program at Widener University, in Chester, Pennsylvania, is concerned about Internet porn because she fears it can lure "normal" guys into measuring themselves against porn stars. The aforementioned Viagra and Cialis ads, which make erectile dysfunction seem like a bout of hay fever, may also foster anxiety, she says. And as if that weren't enough, average Joes have to contend with the advance of metrosexual culture and homoerotic imagery—chiseled bodies; above-average packages; exceptional good looks. Add to that a marked rise in the use of antidepressants and an economy on the skids, and you get "a lot of social changes that are affecting young men's sex lives," Crane says.
Chicago therapist Kimberly Sharky, 30, can also relate to her clients' problems, particularly those linked to the burdens of work. "There are things young professionals can do," she says, "like send a different text message—one that builds sexual energy, something like 'I'm in this meeting and all I can think about is getting my hands on you.'"

One of her patients, Don (not his real name), a 33-year-old physical trainer, was driven to therapy by tedium. He had dated his wife for a decade before they married. By the time he reached his honeymoon, his sex life was in the doldrums. Instead of newlywed bliss, he says, he was experiencing a lack of desire more often found in men in their forties. "It became the 600-pound gorilla masturbating in the living room," he says.
The sessions with Sharky provided the boost Don needed. He talked with her about looking for pointers at a tantric workshop, and even broached the idea of keeping a girlfriend on the side. Many experts would dismiss that notion instantly, but Sharky was more open-minded. "She was comforting, not judgmental," Don says. Instead of shooting the suggestion down, she explained the challenges of a polyamorous relationship, stressing the importance of setting clear limits and managing expectations with his wife.
And therein lies the allure of the thirtysomething sexpert: Not only is she pleasing to the eyes but she's also familiar with the social mores of her peers and the sexual vocabulary of the day. And therefore she's likely to greet you with a sympathetic ear.
So is it okay to lust after your therapist?
"It's extremely normal and expected," Needle says, "given the intimacy, safety, and comfort established in a therapeutic relationship. The therapist is warm, accepting, trusting, empathic. All of these are characteristics people desire in a partner."

Just don't expect reciprocation. That sort of thing is still off-limits.

The Five Creepiest Substitutes For a Woman

2009-12-09T08:08:00.001-08:00

We admit it: Women can be difficult. Consequently, scientists (and in some cases, seamstresses), have been working around the clock to develop new products that liberate you from the impossible demands associated with actual human contact. Here are some recent masterpieces:

By The Debriefer

November 6, 2009

The Fleshlight

You know, like a flashlight! Except with a vagina! This discrete plastic canister secretly houses a washable pink silicon rubber "masturbation sleeve," available in 7 different textures—from "vortex" to "speed bump"—and a variety of orifices, including "mouth," "lady," and "butt" (use your imagination). Also available from the company: "Sex in a Can"—which kind of looks like an energy drink. Except with a vagina.
The Funktionide

German designer Stefan Ulrich thinks "people will turn to robots for the illusion of a living presence to satisfy their emotional needs." So he built the Funktionide, which is essentially a giant white body pillow with one crucial difference: It breathes. Thanks to "electroactive polymers" that change shape when an electric current is applied, the Funktionide provides very lonely Germans "with an atmosphere of presence thus counteracting the feeling of loneliness." Because staying home on a Saturday night with your shape-shifting pillow won't feel lonely at all.
RealDolls

Not just for Lars anymore, these things are fully functioning (and I think we all know the primary function), ultra-realistic, life-size, fleshlike companions. You can build your own special "lady" online like something out of Weird Science, and the nice people at Abyss Creations will assemble her for you. The bad news is that pubic hair costs an extra $100. But the good news is they're now shipping free! Which is more than you can say for most mail-order brides. Plus, they're fully serviceable (as in repairable, you pervert).
"Moe" Pillows

It was only a matter of time, really, before the country that gave us vending machines of soiled schoolgirl panties one-upped itself. No doubt you're already aware of a subculture of Japanese men who want nothing more than to do it with anime characters. Well, over the last few years its members have begun applying their muses' likenesses to huge pillowcases, stuffing them, and subsequently falling in love with them. Now you can too!

The Flip Hole

Already a winner by virtue of its name alone, the Flip Hole also (perhaps not so surprisingly) hails from Japan—where a crack team of masturbatologists toiled long and hard to bring you a self-pleasuring device so advanced, so technologically superior, it makes an actual vagina seem quainter than a Jensen steam engine. Its interior contains such inscrutable features as the "Click Orb," "Side Rib," and "Wing Gate." And the promotional video makes you feel like you're docking in some scary alien spaceship from the future. Which is probably what entering a real vagina seems like to the people who buy this thing.
Honorable Mention: the "Autoblow" Robotic blow job

Didn't Harrison Ford get one of these in Blade Runner—like, 27 years ago?

Movie review: Clooney’s ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ is mighty fine, if not quite fantastic

2009-11-10T09:16:00.001-08:00

Review: ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ is mighty fine

It may not merit the adjective in its title, yet the animated yarn “Fantastic Mr. Fox” offers some of the most goofy fun you’ll have at a theater this season.
With George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Bill Murray leading the top-notch voice cast, director Wes Anderson has found an ideal story and medium — stop-motion animation — to bring his cockeyed vision to the cartoon world.
Brits may be annoyed at this latest Americanization of one of their beloved literary works. Yet in the hands of Anderson (”The Royal Tenenbaums,” ”Rushmore”), Roald Dahl’s illustrated children’s book gets loving treatment and a distinct handcrafted style that sets it apart from the sleek computer-generated imagery dominating animation today.
This story of a poultry-thieving fox and the evil farmers waging war on him is a delightful whirlwind of mayhem and high spirits. It’s lightweight fun, yet “Fantastic Mr. Fox” succeeds on all levels, presenting cute and clever little varmints to charm children while offering adults merry screwball humor that slyly stretches the film’s family-friendly PG rating.
Clooney provides vocals for the title character, a fox who reluctantly gives up his glamorous but perilous chicken-snatching life at the behest of his wife (voice by Streep), who wants to raise a family in peace and quiet.
Years later, they have a nice new home that stretches the finances of Mr. Fox’s job as a newspaper columnist for the local animal community. The Foxes have a sullen teen son (”Rushmore” star Jason Schwartzman) whose insecurities are compounded by a visit from his handsome, talented cousin (Anderson’s brother, Eric, also an illustrator on the film).
His domicile in plain sight of the livestock and produce riches of farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean, Mr. Fox is unable to resist one last poultry caper, but his raids on all three farms bring down the mechanized wrath of the human world on all surrounding wildlife.

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Trapped underground with his family and a menagerie of angry neighbors, Mr. Fox marshals an inter-species rebellion against the humans that want to exterminate them.
The slightly clunky, coarse animation — little puppets on miniature sets, moved in tiny increments and photographed a frame at a time — beautifully complements this shaggy-dog story.
Some of the facial expressions the animators achieve with their furry puppets are as weirdly expressive as anything you’ll find in the human world, while the Wolfman-like close-ups of Mr. Fox at his most manic add to the energy of the film.
The wisecracks in Anderson and co-writer Noah Baumbach’s screenplay often are hilarious, as is the slang the animals use to cuss like sailors.
Clooney’s in his best smooth-talker form and Streep’s vocals are pure grace and class, supported by great drollery from Schwartzman and frequent Anderson collaborator Murray, providing the voice of a Badger who is Mr. Fox’s attorney.
Willem Dafoe provides menace as a rat guarding the poultry, while Michael Gambon lends sonorous voice to the main heavy, Farmer Bean (the farmers all have British accents, the animals American; since Clooney was cast first, Anderson decided to give the other creatures American accents for consistency).
These animals basically are humans in fur costumes, walking upright and relating to one another in neighborly isolationism, each family and species caught up in their private concerns.
Common foes and shared adversity break down their aloofness. The effect is rather like watching the kinship-building that goes on in Anderson’s live-action films as disparate blood relations and oddball strangers coalesce into something resembling a family.
A perfect family, no. But definitely one you won’t mind joining for an hour and a half.
“Fantastic Mr. Fox,” a 20th Century Fox release, is rated PG for action, smoking and slang humor. Running time: 88 minutes. Three stars out of four.
Motion Picture Association of America rating definitions:
G — General audiences. All ages admitted.
PG — Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.
PG-13 — Special parental guidance strongly suggested for children under 13. Some material may be inappropriate for young children.
R — Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
NC-17 — No one under 17 admitted.

Demi Moore to launch own beauty range

2009-11-10T09:09:00.001-08:00

American actress Demi Moore is said to be in talks to launch her own range of beauty products.

Moore, 46, is the current face of ‘All You’ve Ever Wanted’, a fragrance by the cosmetics label Helena Rubinstein.
And she revealed that the partnership has brought about a “very deep and serious conversation” about creating her own line, and she hopes she can settle a contract with bosses.

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“I feel like I have a greater creative opportunity in working with something where we could really form a true partnership and be really mutually beneficial,” Contactmusic quoted her as telling Women’s Wear Daily

'Penisaurus' survives as sex sells despite recession

2009-11-10T09:06:00.001-08:00

Models pose during the official opening of the sexuality lifestyle expo in Sydney.

An eight-foot penis wobbles into view, causing a ripple of excitement in the crowded showroom. "It's Penisaurus!" shouts a customer at the sexuality lifestyle exhibition in Sydney.

At Sexpo, the replica genitals are as big as the profits, as the adult industry emerges from the worldwide recession streamlined, globalised and hungry for more.

Tens of thousands of fans packed Sydney's Entertainment Quarter for the recent adult show, with Penisaurus and Tittysaurus -- an enormous pair of walking breasts -- only part of the attraction.

There's the grotesque Penis Man, another Sexpo mascot studded with dozens of male genitalia, as well as floor displays and even a fairground ride: the dubiously named Gerbil Train.

Nude showgirls writhe in simulated ecstasy, big-name porn stars appear on stage and of course there's Pricasso, the artist who paints with his penis and buttocks.

There's strip poker, lap-dancing, and a surf simulator where customers can ride a board naked and win their height in beer and porn. Plus there's a peep show, amusements, a throw-the-dildo competition, and even a hypnotist.

Meanwhile, dozens of stalls are doing brisk business selling the latest in vibrators, toys, lingerie and imaginative sex equipment.

Customers browse the We-Vibe, a U-shaped vibrator which has taken the industry by storm, and the popular Sex Sheet, a non-slip bedspread featuring handles and manacles.

Adultworld's John Buckland, who was running seven stalls, was expecting to sell thousands of 20-40 dollar (18-36 US) 'show bags', each containing a magazine, DVD, calendar, a "huge" vibrator and lubricant.

"I'll sell 2,000 Hustler bags, I'll sell 2,000 Penthouse bags," he said.

"We're selling a hell of a lot more adult products in the last 12 months. I've been in the business 16 years, there's been a massive increase."

It all translates into a healthy business for Sexpo, now in its 13th year and enjoying rapid growth without a downturn in sight, economic or otherwise.

"We've had our best year ever and it's been probably the worst economic year since the early 1990s," said general manager Rob Godwin.

"We went into this year's Perth show a bit aware of the financial crisis, but by the Sunday we had 30 stands sold out of stock -- literally nothing left on their stands.

"They were flying in stock overnight to sell."

Adult exhibition

More than 60,000 customers were expected at the Sydney show, one of four in Australia and three in South Africa which will attract a total of 300,000 people this year.

Sexpo, which bills itself as the world's leading adult exhibition, is launching in New Zealand next year and is planning its first London show in 2011, as well as a partnership in the United States.

"We're the biggest adult lifestyle show in the world -- we're a global brand," Godwin said. "We grew 35 percent last year. I want Sexpo to go out to the world."

Fiona Patten, Sexpo spokeswoman and convenor of the Australian Sex Party (motto: "Where YOU Come First!") said it was a sign the adult industry had fared well in the financial crisis.

"It's been coined the lipstick economy. When you can't afford those big luxuries you buy the little things, and I think the sex industry fits into that," she said.

"You can't afford a romantic dinner but you can afford a DVD and a toy and you can have fun in another way."

The industry has also been helped by a steady push into mainstream retail outlets and a surge in interest among younger customers, who made up a large portion of the Sexpo crowd.

"The adult industry is entering into other places. You're starting to see vibrators sold in (pharmacy and beauty chain) Priceline. You're starting to see that kind of mainstreaming which I think is really healthy," Patten said.

"We've found Sexpo has been generally increasing. Our demographic is changing though -- we're finding our age bracket is going down and ticket sales are going up."

Youthful clientele

According to Godwin, it's also been a time of consolidation with a series of smaller shops and businesses replaced by bigger, more dominant players.

"There's some new companies coming to the marketplace but you'll find it's the larger companies that are dominating," he said.

"What you'll find in America, England, Europe and Australia, people that own their brand and have a recognised brand will succeed. Our sister company Club X's sales have grown this past year.

"It's all about owning the brand. The porn stars that are still succeeding in America and Europe are the ones that own their own content and own their trademark, which Sexpo do."

Adultworld, with seven stalls and locations, is one of the businesses with a significant presence at Sexpo while smaller enterprises are few and far between.

"A lot of independent businesses went out of business because they couldn't afford to keep up," said Adultworld operations manager Paul Roberts. "The larger ones kept going because they could afford to bring in the stock."

Independent retailer Veronica Richards was forced to look on enviously from her Sexias stall, selling self-designed lingerie.

"With larger companies the market can be quite flooded," she said. "The product is more accessible so it's a lot cheaper. But I prefer quality rather than quantity."

For Sexpo's largely youthful clientele, it was simply an interesting day out.

"It's just a fun thing to do. We're from Hunter Valley (outside Sydney) and there's not a lot of interesting things to do out there for our age-group," said apprentice chef Whitney Barrett, 20.

"I think people are just exploring their sexuality, they're more open about it now."

Deer Takes On Lions at the National Zoo

2009-11-09T08:44:00.000-08:00

‘Wild DC – O Hai! – 6-12-09′
courtesy of ‘mosley.brian’
You can’t make this stuff up. A deer, a resident of Rock Creek Park, made a very unwise decision on Sunday. This poor deer decided to take one small step for deer…and one giant leap for deerkind – right into the lion exhibit at the National Zoo. Merry Christmas to the two female lions that quickly became interested in their new dinner menu. But WAIT – not so fast. This little deer is a survivor. NBC 4 has the full story here.
According to the article, the whole ordeal took about 45 minutes and ended up with the staff at the Zoo rescuing the deer after its valiant fight to get away. Pics or it didn’t happen, right? How about video. Even better. You must watch this video of the deer escaping the female lions as a large crowd cheers on Bambi! This is seriously like watching the Discovery Channel’s footage of a lion attack in Africa. Must watch.
(Watch the video after the jump)

Dear Mr. Deer,
You may not be smart…but you sure are brave.

Poor Little Bitch Girl, By Jackie Collins

2009-10-29T06:24:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Arifa Akbar

When Jackie Collins' debut novel was published in 1968, the romance writer Barbara Cartland branded it "nasty, filthy and disgusting". The World Is Full of Married Men delved into the sexually charged affairs of beautiful young things who sashayed, swaggered and slept their way around the Hollywood hills
. Four decades and 26 bestsellers later, readers may well wonder if, at 72, Collins still has what it takes to be nasty, filthy and disgusting.

Turn to the first page of Poor Little Bitch Girl and you find that age has not mellowed nor sanitised her prose: "Belle Svetlana surveyed her nude image in a full-length mirror, readying herself for a $30,000-an-hour sexual encounter with the 15-year-old son of an Arab oil tycoon." Whether you read the book with a straight face or enjoy its tongue-in-cheek subtext, Collins remains mistress of her own genre of Hollywood bonkbuster-cum-crime thriller.

In her latest yarn the reader is returned to the Santangelos, whose family tree began with Gino (the criminal son of Italian migrants) in the 1981 novel Chances and spawned a series. Belle Svetlana turns out to be an sobriquet for Annabelle Maestro, the alienated daughter of A-list actors whose mammoth egos run her out of Tinseltown until she is forced back when her mother is found dead. Denver Jones, a defence lawyer and surf-tanned sexual adventurer, is parachuted in to solve the crime.

Like Harold Robbins, Collins makes little attempt at realism beyond passing references to celebrity crimes and misdemeanours – Phil Spector, O J Simpson – and renegade starlets – Britney, Lindsay, even Amy Winehouse. At times her characters could have stepped out of Dynasty, but perhaps Collins is suggesting that the lives of the super-rich are frozen in a perpetual state of big-haired conspicuous consumption.

And then there are Collins' alpha-females. Wilful, libidinous and wonderfully predatory, they lack the urban neurosis of Candace Bushnell's New York clique, or the self-loathing babblings of Bridget Jones. Barbara Cartland would still be scandalised.

Meet the geeky Brit guy who has bedded 500 women!

2009-10-29T00:59:00.000-07:00

LONDON - A Brit man, who was ridiculed at school for being geeky, has managed to have the last laugh after he was crowned The World’s No1 Pulling Expert.

Adam Lyons, who has bedded more than 500 beautiful women including celebrities and supermodels, had to turn his life around totally before winning top prize at The World Pick Up summit in Hollywood, California.

Lyons, who had been voted in school as the person least likely to get a girlfriend, was determined to become a babe magnet, and he spent a year becoming a seduction expert.

“At school I was voted the boy most unlikely to ever get a girlfriend - it must be funny for those people seeing me now,” the Sun quoted him as saying.

“I turned my life around in my twenties by becoming obsessed with how to pick up women and dedicating my life to it.

“I would stand in Leicester Square at lunchtime and after work trying to get the phone numbers of every girl who walked past.

“I soon learned how to take it further and in no time I was doing the same in clubs every night of the week, sleeping with amazing women I could only have dreamed of back at school,” he added.

He now earns a living teaching pulling workshops in Europe and America.

Mystery “dream” man becomes internet hit!

2009-10-28T03:17:00.000-07:00

London, Oct 28 : A website asking people to give information on a mysterious man that thousands of people across the globe claim to have seen in dreams has become an instant hit.

The site, thisman. org, says that a woman first drew the face of the mystery man during a session with her psychiatrist three years ago, after he repeatedly appeared in her dreams, reports the Sun.

The site also claims that the woman confessed to have never seen or met the man.

When another patient saw the sketch on the psychiatrist’s desk, he also claimed to have dreamt of the man.

When the doctor sent the picture to his colleagues, some of their patients too recognized the man.

And now the picture that was posted on the Internet just two weeks ago, has become a phenomenon – the traffic on thisman. org has suddenly skyrocketed.

Although, thousands of people around the world claimed to have seen the face in their dreams, critics have dubbed it as a complete hoax.

Full Throttle Saloon and Conspiracy with Jesse ventura

2009-10-28T02:11:00.000-07:00

TRUTV BOOKS TRIO OF A. SMITH & CO. SERIES

LOS ANGELES (sinlung.com) -- Public health inspectors in Rhode Island, the world's largest biker bar in South Dakota and former wrestler/politician Jesse Ventura are all set to be the focus of new series on truTV in the coming weeks.

All three shows come from A. Smith & Co. with the company's Arthur Smith and Kent Weed among the executive producers.

First up is "Surprise Inspection," a two-part special airing this Saturday at 10:00/9:00c. The project, which will air as back-to-back half-hour episodes, follows a team of Providence inspectors as they "shine their flashlights into the darkest corners of some of the city's dirtiest places, including restaurants, hotels, convenience stores, gas stations, stadium concession stands, public swimming pools and health clubs."

Then on Tuesday, November 10 at 10:00/9:00c look for "Full Throttle Saloon." The four-part series gives an inside look at Michael Ballard's biker bar which is only open two weeks each year during the infamous Sturgis Biker Rally. The indoor/outdoor bar has "two large stages, its own campground and cabins, a burn-out area, a tattoo parlor and a sprawling dance floor."

Also on tap is "Conspiracy Theory With Jesse Ventura," due on Wednesday, December 2 at 10:00/9:00c. The seven-episode series features Ventura as he "sets out to uncover the truth behind the most compelling modern day conspiracy theories."

And finally, truTV will also roll out new seasons of "Most Daring" and "Operation Repo" on Wednesday, November 4 at 9:00/8:00c and Monday, November 9 at 10:00/9:00c, respectively.

Lyrics of 'Jump then fall' By Taylor Swift a Hit

2009-10-28T00:44:00.000-07:00

New Delhi, Oct 28 : Taylor Swift’s jump then fall has become a great hit on the internet. There is not doubt that she is an internet sensation but time and again she beats her own charts of popularity.

With the sort of music that she churns out for her fans every now and then that has given her amongst the biggest fan followings on the internet.

Taylor Swift has been winning one award after the other and we are sure she is going to get hundreds of award in the days to come. She is not only a great singer but an equally great human being and that is the reason that her fans love her.

Jump then fall Taylor Swift Lyrics

I like the way you sound in the morning
We’re on the phone and without a warning
I realize your laugh is the best sound
I have ever heard

I like the way I can’t keep my focus
I watch you talk, you didn’t notice
I hear the words but all I can think is
We should be together
Every time you smile, I smile
And every time you shine, I’ll shine for you

Whoa oh, I’m feeling you baby
Don’t be afraid to
Jump then fall
Jump then fall into me
Be there, never gonna leave you
Say that you wanna be with me too
So I’m a stay through it all
So jump then fall

I like the way your hair falls in your face
You got the keys to me
I love each freckle on your face, oh
I’ve never been so wrapped up, honey
I like the way you’re everything I ever wanted

I had time to think it oh, over
And all I can say is come closer
Take a deep breath then jump then fall into me
Cause Every time you smile, I smile
And every time you shine, I’ll shine for you

Whoa oh, I’m feeling you baby
Don’t be afraid to
Jump then fall
Jump then fall into me
Be there, never gonna leave you
Say that you wanna be with me too
So I’m a stay through it all
So jump then fall

The bottom’s gonna drop out from under our feet
I’ll catch you, I’ll catch you
And people say things that bring you to your knees
I’ll catch you
The time is gonna come when you’re so mad you could cry
But I’ll hold you through the night until you smile

Whoa oh, I’m feeling you baby
Don’t be afraid, please
Jump then fall
Jump then fall into me
Be there, never gonna leave you
Say that you wanna be with me too
So I’m a stay through it all
So jump then fall
Jump then fall baby
Jump then fall into me, into me

Every time you smile, I smile
And every time you shine, I shine
And every time you’re here
Baby I’ll show you, I’ll show you
You can Jump then fall, jump then fall
Jump then fall into me, into me, yeah

listen to the lyrics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IITsgFtVCzE

Abby Rike is the biggest loser

2009-10-28T00:27:00.000-07:00

Former Terrebonne Parish teacher gets booted from 'Biggest Loser'

Former Terrebonne Parish public-school teacher, Abby Rike, was the latest castoff from tonight's episode of NBC's eighth season of "Biggest Loser: Second Chances."

The 35-year-old woman who taught at H.L. Bourgeois and South Terrebonne high schools lost three pounds in a head-to-head weigh-in, which resulted in her five-person team being put up for elimination. Team members had to cast votes as to which team member would be voted off.

After the weigh-in, Rike put herself in the crosshairs and asked her remaining teammates to vote for her saying she accomplished what she wanted to accomplish, sending some on her team to tears.

Rike who started the show at 247 pounds lost a total of 46 pounds while on the show, but has lost more since being voted off, according to a testimonial at the end of the episode.

Rike's story of tragedy has touched many of this season's show's participants, including the two tough-as-nails personal trainers.

On the season's premiere episode, Rike conveyed her story of losing her husband and two children — a 5-year-old and 2-week-old — in a 2006 car crash.

“Biggest Loser: Second Chances” premiered Sept. 15 with a set of 16 compelling stories to go with the season’s 16 contestants.

Rike credits former constestand and local resident Vicky Vilcan with encouraging her to try out for the reality TV show.

“The Lord puts us in the right place at the right time I guess,” Rike said in an earlier interview with The Courier. “I started going to the Workout Co. in Houma when I ran into Brady and Vicky. That’s when I found out I had taught Brady’s sister when I was at H.L. Bourgeois.”

Vilcan, who began speaking at churches and other places after her stint on the show, said she can’t say enough about her new exercise partner and friend.

“She’s fantastic,” said Vilcan who finished third in season six. “It’s a blessing to see her on the show where she’ll get the chance to inspire others with her story.”

Rike, a native of Texas, keeps a home in Houma and the neighboring state.

“I just love the people and decided to come back after the crash. Texas is where I am from, but I look at Houma as being a second home to me,” she said.

“It’s been a great thing for me,” Rike added about her time on the show in a September interview. “It’s definitely been an incredible journey.”

Woman kills two motorists in accidents at same junction - seven years apart

2009-10-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

'Incompetent' woman caused two fatal crashes at same spot

A FEMALE driver who killed two motorists at the same intersection seven years apart has been criticised as incompetent by a coroner.

Mother of two Michelle Thiele caused the two fatal crashes by failing to look to her left when entering the intersection, South Australia's deputy coroner has found.
Thiele told deputy coroner Anthony Schapel she believed she was a competent driver despite causing the fatal crashes at a T-junction at Pompoota near Mannum, about 80km east of Adelaide.
"Both men died in collisions at the same location in almost identical circumstances and at the hands of the same motorist," Mr Schapel said in his coronial findings delivered today.
"They both died when that same motorist failed to give way to each of them at the same intersection."
In April 2000, Thiele caused a collision that killed 69-year-old car driver John Mitchell.
In June 2007, at the same intersection, Thiele's ute struck and killed 51-year-old motorcyclist Graham Bryant.
Having regard to Mrs Thiele's driving behaviour in both of these incidents ... I am driven to conclude that Mrs Thiele is a motorist of quite limited aptitude, competence and temperament," Mr Schapel said.

"She now has a driving record that by any standard is manifestly unacceptable."
Mr Schapel said the 2000 fatality was caused by Thiele's "failure to give way to the vehicle driven by Mr Mitchell".
He questioned how Thiele failed to see Mr Mitchell's yellow vehicle on a sunny day.
"If she had chosen to look, she would have easily seen it," Mr Schapel said.
Seven years later, Thiele again failed to look left when entering the intersection and struck a motorcycle driven by Mr Bryant.
The motorcycle collided with a side door of Thiele's ute, throwing Mr Bryant from the bike and killing him.
"It is highly unlikely in my view that she looked to her left at any time as she was approaching the intersection," Mr Schapel said.
"If she had ... there was no reason why she should not have seen Mr Bryant's motorcycle."
Thiele was fined $426 for failing to give way after the initial fatal accident.
After the second collision, she was found guilty of driving without due care and sentenced to eight months in jail, suspended after a one-month non-parole period.
Her driver's licence was disqualified for 18 months.
On appeal to the Supreme Court, Thiele's jail sentence was wholly suspended.
"To my knowledge there is no legal impediment to Mrs Thiele continuing to drive a motor vehicle once the period of disqualification has concluded," Mr Schapel said.

Human Evolution: Are Humans Still Evolving?

2009-10-27T09:29:00.001-07:00

Modern Homo sapiens is still evolving. Despite the long-held view that natural selection has ceased to affect humans because almost everybody now lives long enough to have children, a new study of a contemporary Massachusetts population offers evidence of evolution still in action.
A team of scientists led by Yale University evolutionary biologist Stephen Stearns suggests that if the natural selection of fitter traits is no longer driven by survival, perhaps it owes to differences in women's fertility. "Variations in reproductive success still exist among humans, and therefore some traits related to fertility continue to be shaped by natural selection," Stearns says. That is, women who have more children are more likely to pass on certain traits to their progeny. (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2008.)
Stearns' team examined the vital statistics of 2,238 postmenopausal women participating in the Framingham Heart Study, which has tracked the medical histories of some 14,000 residents of Framingham, Mass., since 1948. Investigators searched for correlations between women's physical characteristics - including height, weight, blood pressure and cholesterol levels - and the number of offspring they produced. According to their findings, it was stout, slightly plump (but not obese) women who tended to have more children - "Women with very low body fat don't ovulate," Stearns explains - as did women with lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Using a sophisticated statistical analysis that controlled for any social or cultural factors that could impact childbearing, researchers determined that these characteristics were passed on genetically from mothers to daughters and granddaughters.
If these trends were to continue with no cultural changes in the town for the next 10 generations, by 2409 the average Framingham woman would be 2 cm (0.8 in) shorter, 1 kg (2.2 lb.) heavier, have a healthier heart, have her first child five months earlier and enter menopause 10 months later than a woman today, the study found. "That rate of evolution is slow but pretty similar to what we see in other plants and animals. Humans don't seem to be any exception," Stearns says. (See TIME's photo-essay "Happy 200th Darwin Day.")
Douglas Ewbank, a demographer at the University of Pennsylvania who undertook the statistical analysis for the study, which was published Oct. 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), says that because cultural factors tend to have a much more prominent impact than natural selection in the shaping of future generations, people tend to write off the effect of evolution. "Those changes we predict for 2409 could be wiped out by something as simple as a new school-lunch program. But whatever happens, it's likely that in 2409, Framingham women will be 2 cm shorter and 1 kg heavier than they would have been without natural selection. Evolution is a very slow process. We don't see it if we look at our grandparents, but it's there."
Other recent genetic research has backed up that notion. One study, published in PNAS in 2007 and led by John Hawks, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, found that some 1,800 human gene variations had become widespread in recent generations because of their modern-day evolutionary benefits. Among those genetic changes, discovered by examining more than 3 million DNA variants in 269 individuals: mutations that allow people to digest milk or resist malaria and others that govern brain development. (Watch TIME's video "Darwin and Lincoln: Birthdays and Evolution.")
But not all evolutionary changes make inherent sense. Since the Industrial Revolution, modern humans have grown taller and stronger, so it's easy to assume that evolution is making humans fitter. But according to anthropologist Peter McAllister, author of Manthropology: the Science of Inadequate Modern Man, the contemporary male has evolved, at least physically, into "the sorriest cohort of masculine Homo sapiens to ever walk the planet." Thanks to genetic differences, an average Neanderthal woman, McAllister notes, could have whupped Arnold Schwarzenegger at his muscular peak in an arm-wrestling match. And prehistoric Australian Aborigines, who typically built up great strength in their joints and muscles through childhood and adolescence, could have easily beat Usain Bolt in a 100-m dash.
Steve Jones, an evolutionary biologist at University College London who has previously held that human evolution was nearing its end, says the Framingham study is indeed an important example of how natural selection still operates through inherited differences in reproductive ability. But Jones argues that variation in female fertility - as measured in the Framingham study - is a much less important factor in human evolution than differences in male fertility. Sperm hold a much higher chance of carrying an error or mutation than an egg, especially among older men. "While it used to be that men had many children in older age to many different women, now men tend to have only a few children at a younger age with one wife. The drop in the number of older fathers has had a major effect on the rate of mutation and has at least reduced the amount of new diversity - the raw material of evolution. Darwin's machine has not stopped, but it surely has slowed greatly," Jones says. (See TIME's special report on the environment.)
Despite evidence that human evolution still functions, biologists concede that it's anyone's guess where it will take us from here. Artificial selection in the form of genetic medicine could push natural selection into obsolescence, but a lethal pandemic or other cataclysm could suddenly make natural selection central to the future of the species. Whatever happens, Jones says, it is worth remembering that Darwin's beautiful theory has suffered a long history of abuse. The bastard science of eugenics, he says, will haunt humanity as long as people are tempted to confuse evolution with improvement. "Uniquely in the living world, what makes humans what we are is in our minds, in our society, and not in our evolution," he says.

People urged to give up meat to stop climate change

2009-10-27T03:22:00.001-07:00

People should give up eating meat to halt climate change, according to Lord Stern of Brentford, a leading authority on global warming.

Lord Stern predicts that eating meat could become as socially unacceptable as drink driving Photo: EPA

Lord Stern, author of the 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, predicts that eating meat could in the future become as socially unacceptable as drink driving.
Livestock farming has come under fire in recent years from environmental campaigners because methane from cattle and pigs is a significant source of greenhouse gases.

Lord Stern, a former chief economist of the World Bank, believes that the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December should call for an increase in the price of meat and other foods that contribute to climate change.
In an interview with The Times, he said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”
He added: “I think it’s important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating.
“I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is responsible.
“They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food.”
Meat producers reacted angrily to the suggestions.
Jonathan Scurlock, of the National Farmers Union, said: “Going vegetarian is not a worldwide solution. It’s not a view shared by the NFU. Farmers in this country are interested in evidence-based policymaking. We don’t have a methane-free cow or pig available to us.”
Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas. UN figures suggest that meat production is responsible for about 18 per cent of global carbon emissions, including the destruction of forest land for cattle ranching and the production of animal feeds.
However, British farmers say more money and support is needed to maintain the traditional countryside in the face of increased environmental demands from government.
New climate change targets to cut greenhouse gases by 80 per cent by 2050 will require farms to reduce methane produced by cows, cut use of fossil fuels and use less polluting fertilisers.
Landowners fear that the rules will add to increasing red tape from Europe and competition from abroad to make it even more difficult to make a living out of farming.
Up to 20,000 delegates from192 countries are due to attend the UN conference in the Copenhagen, which aims to thrash out a deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to prevent an increase in global temperatures of more than 2 degrees centigrade.

Paranormal Activity & Saw Vi Take Charge Of Pre-halloween U.s. Box Office

2009-10-26T09:04:00.001-07:00

Horror movies dominated the box office in America this past weekend (23-25Oct09) with PARANORMAL ACTIVITY beating out the sixth SAW movie as the nation’s top film.

The low-budget horror hit scored with a $22 million (£14.6 million) weekend take, while Saw VI opened with $14.8 million (£9.9 million).

Last week’s (18Oct09) chart topper, Where the Wild Things Are, drops to three while Law Abiding Citizen and comedy Couples Retreat round out the top five.

‘Best Job in the World’ winner to appear on Oprah Winfrey show

2009-10-25T00:28:00.001-07:00

WELLINGTON - ‘Best Job in the World’ winner Ben Southall is set to appear on the Oprah Winfrey talk show.

Winfrey interviewed Southall via satellite from Hamilton Island, where he has been appointed the honorary “caretaker”.

While the five-minute slot will be telecasted in US today, the screening date in Australia is yet to be fixed.

Southall will be seen talking about the merits of the region in a bid to lure international visitors.he guest spot has Queensland Premier Anna Bligh and Tourism Queensland bosses rubbing their hands in anticipation.

“Oprah has been the number one US talk show for 23 seasons and Ben’s appearance will deliver an unprecedented level of publicity for Queensland,” stuff.co.nz quoted Bligh as saying.

Southall was chosen from nearly 30,000 applicants as a publicity campaign of Tourism Queensland.

German artistes win hearts in Punjab

2009-10-25T00:02:00.000-07:00

Ludhiana, Oct.25 : Known for its rich culture and folklore, over the years Punjab has also contributed towards developing cultural ties with countries around the world.

Recently, students from Germany visited Punjab and showcased their culture and folk traditions.

Bagpipe tunes of German artiste Falk Paulet, heading the troupe of folk artistes. left the Punjabi students spellbound as it felt mesmerizing.

The visiting students had come to Punjab on the invitation of International folk ensemble – Punjab Cultural Promotion Council. The event, Punjab Multi-cultural Festival 2009, commemorated the 10th anniversary celebrations of the inception of the Council.

“In Germany, like India each state has its own culture. I think its same in India. I first heard Punjabi music in 2003 in Bulgaria and I liked this. So, I never forget the Punjabi music and folk music. This is why we are here,” said Falk Paulat, Bagpiper artiste.
Aimed at developing cultural ties between the youth, the event turned out to be fusion of world cultures.

Besides the German folk troupe, there were 12 other international artistes who presented Latin American, Russian, German, Irish, and Scottish dances.

Female German dancers fascinated the audience with traditional and belly dancing.

The event was both interesting and educational for students, as they presented their respective dance forms and tried to understand each other’s culture.

They also interacted with each other as part of the cultural exchange programme.

“By cultural exchange I understand, when globalization and modernization is the buzzword these days, the culture of Punjab should spread across the world. We are showcasing the Punjabi culture to guests from Germany. By staying in Punjab they are getting to know more about our culture. They are interacting with our children as well. I think it’s a big occasion. We should understand that the whole world is one family,” said Dolly Guleria, Punjabi folk singer.

In its decade-long journey, Punjab Cultural Promotion Council had given 500 international performances in 18 countries and has been part of the World Folk Competition twice.

Be it Gatka – the Sikh martial art or folk dances like Giddha and Bhangra its troupe members have presented them with great enthusiasm.

The Council’s contribution to promotion of Punjab’s culture and heritage through International Festivals and International Educational Cultural Exchange programs is noteworthy.

In January 2010, groups from Poland and Columbia will be performing in Punjab as part of cultural exchange programme. By Karan Kapoor (ANI)

Service for last Titanic survivor

2009-10-24T10:41:00.001-07:00

Millvina Dean's ashes were scattered on the water from where Titanic set sail

The ashes of a woman who became the last survivor of the Titanic have been scattered following a memorial service.

Millvina Dean was nine weeks old when the liner sank after hitting an iceberg in the Atlantic on its maiden voyage from Southampton on 15 April 1912.
Miss Dean died in a care home in Hampshire on 31 May at the age of 97.
Miss Dean's ashes were scattered from a small launch on the water of berth 43/44 at Southampton Docks, the terminal from which the ship set sail.
Miss Dean's partner Bruno Nordmanis scattered the ashes accompanied by a small group of friends and relatives and the port's chaplain, the Reverend Andrew Huckett.
It followed a service at St Mary's Church in Copythorne, Hampshire, on Saturday morning.
Youngest passenger
The disaster resulted in the deaths of 1,517 people, largely due to the lack of lifeboats on board.

Millvina Dean was nine weeks old when the Titanic sank

Miss Dean had been travelling with her family in third class from Southampton to America where they hoped to start a new life and open a tobacconist's shop in Kansas City.
Miss Dean's mother, Georgetta, and two-year-old brother, Bert, also survived but her father, Bertram, was among those who perished when the vessel sank.
Elizabeth Gladys Dean, better known as Millvina, was the Titanic's youngest passenger when her family boarded the liner.
Another baby on board, Barbara Joyce West, was nearly 11 months old when the vessel sank. She also survived.
Barbara Joyce Dainton, as she became when she married, died in October 2007, leaving Miss Dean the last Titanic survivor.

When 15 minutes of fame is not enough

2009-10-24T10:38:00.000-07:00

Media helicopters and military aircraft assisted in tracking the balloon

The case of the US couple accused of faking the disappearance of their son in a weather balloon is a reminder of the lengths people will go for fame in our celebrity-obsessed culture, says Professor Ellis Cashmore.
Celebrity is like a vampire's kiss - once bitten, the victim develops an uncontrollable desire for blood or, apparently in this case, fame.
Victims quickly become victimisers and prey on unsuspecting innocents.
It is not clear whether we can ever call the media innocents, although in the recent case of the Heenes, they were certainly turned into gullible victims.
The case raises the question of how far people will go to stay on the celebrity radar.
Baby Jessica case

Profile: 'Balloon Boy' family

Colorado residents Richard and Mayumi Heene are accused of faking the disappearance of their six-year-old son in a saucer-shaped mini-blimp.
If true, had they been thinking of the Baby Jessica case, in which an 18-month-old toddler was trapped in an abandoned well in Texas for 59 hours in 1987?
The story hijacked all others and dominated the American newspapers and airwaves for days.
There is even a movie based on the story, which ended happily with Jessica's rescue.
The Heenes' story had a different denouement, though one entirely in keeping with the celebrity-obsessed 21st Century.
Having twice featured on ABC network's Wife Swap, in which couples from different backgrounds exchange partners for a short period of time, Mr and Mrs Heene were something of reality TV veterans.
And if their plan was to bring the media like rats following the Pied Piper, they succeeded.
The story was colossal. The drama of the runaway weather balloon kept the nation spellbound for hours. Afterwards, the family gave numerous TV interviews.
TV shams
But now the couple face charges, and if convicted, they could enjoy another term as celebrities of sorts - prison sentences of up to six years.

The media were all over the story

The case is a reminder that TV is full of shams.
It is not uncommon in the US for people to make up lurid stories just to secure airtime.
Some people argue that is not such a bad thing. Celebrity culture has a democratic element - it is not just those with talent who get their moment of fame.
Potentially, anyone who can engage fans - by which I mean all of us - can be a celebrity.
But what of the culpability of the media? In the era of the internet, the media is locked in a race to process and distribute news.
Both print and traditional broadcast media are beginning to look like laggards, chasing the suppler and instantly reflexive online news.
Now, all kinds of media are inclined to skip the period of reflection that might, in the Heene case, have prompted suspicion.
Zealous media
And in terms of reality TV itself, it is not above ratings-boosting pranks.
Two years ago, the Dutch TV station launched The Big Donor Show (De Grote Donorshow), which was ostensibly a tasteless but ultimately worthy spectacle in which a woman decided to which one of three terminally ill patients she would donate her kidney.

Falcon Heene, six, was at the centre of his parents' hoax

The woman was later revealed as an actor, while the patients were real enough.
The producers argued that they wanted to highlight the chronic shortage of organ donations.
They did; they also drew handsome ratings and publicity from all over.
The entanglements of celebrity culture are such that nobody is entirely to blame - we are all part victim, part perpetrator.
The media is zealous in its enthusiasm for stories and, in many cases, the provenance or even propriety of those stories is of secondary importance.
The makers of Starsuckers, a documentary scheduled for release in the UK soon, fabricated a series of stories about celebs, fed them to newspapers and saw their handiwork appear in print.
Calculating?
While it is easy to dismiss the Heenes' apparent behaviour as the manic operation of people so possessed of celebrity culture that they would do literally anything to grab headlines, this is also misleading.
The Heenes could be seen as ingenious and, by some accounts, calculating aspirants - authorities reckon they planned the balloon scam as publicity for another reality show about bizarre scientific experiments - and they are not as untypical as we might comfortably assume them to be.
We cannot explore their exact motives if indeed they did perpetrate this stunt, but we could safely bet they were trying to earn themselves an extension on the lease of fame they gained through their earlier TV appearances.

The Heenes seem to have tired of the attention

It is possible that they have succeeded too - who knows for how long the Heene name is going to be registered in popular consciousness?
If time is spent behind bars, their fame could be perpetuated.
Despite signs of a decline, the reality TV shows in which the Heenes sought - and found - a limited fame will be around for years to come.
Ratings remain high and there is no denying they consistently interest us in a way no other genre can do.
The format is a perfect complement for a culture that rewards presence and punishes obscurity.
When Andy Warhol made his famous prediction about the universality of abbreviated fame, he couldn't have known how his prediction was to become a mandate.
We live in an age when it is almost everyone's bounden duty to pursue fame, or notoriety, by whatever means we can.
Perhaps we have all been caressed by the vampire.
Ellis Cashmore is professor of culture, media and sport at Staffordshire University, and author of Celebrity Culture.

Heigru Hidongba festival celebrated in Manipur

2009-09-17T05:50:00.000-07:00

Imphal, Sep.17 : "Move onward with the Lord within your heart and with the footprints of your ancestors in your eyes' is the greatest moral teaching from Heigru Hidongba ceremony held every year in Manipur.

Heigru Hidongba, a socio-religious ceremony, to exhibit the firm devotion of the descendants of the Great Grand Mantri Anandashai of Lord Bejoy Govindajee was recently held in Imphal.

Devotees brought offerings of Heigru (Amla) fruit to the almighty on the 11th day of Langban Manipuri month which coincides with September to bring prosperity to the community.

During this festival a special boat race 'Hiyang Tanaba' is held in the sacred Thangapat Moat of Sagolband, Bejoy Govinda in Imphal amidst singing of devotional songs and a lot of clamour.

It attracted a huge number of spectators on this occasion. "We have organized the ceremony so that we can come and pray together so that the ills of the society will be removed and also for peace to be restored in our land that is filled with violence. In other places, it is celebrated anytime as a festival but we celebrate it as it is our custom," said Boshana, organiser of the Heigru Hidongba festival.

"This is the 231st Heigru Hidongba Festival. The main theme of the festival is about preserving the age old traditional beliefs and customs of our culture," said Magochandra, a local resident.

Devotees converged at the Bijoygobinda Moat at Sagoband to witness the ceremony symbolising the unity, which was once deeply rooted amongst the Manipuris' ancestors and for their struggle for peace and freedom.

Devotees, today, believe that the ceremony brings prosperity to the State and overcomes ills of the society.

What College Students Don't Know

2009-09-13T09:37:00.000-07:00

Every Fall the professors at beloit college publish their Mindset List, a dictionary of all the deeply ingrained cultural references that will make no sense to the bright-eyed students of the incoming class. It's a kind of time travel, to remind us how far we've come. This year's freshmen were typically born in 1991. That means, the authors explain, they have never used a card catalog to find a book; salsa has always outsold ketchup; women have always outnumbered men in college. There has always been blue Jell-O.

In 1991 we were fighting a war in Iraq, and still are; health care needed reforming, and still does. But before despairing that some things never change, consider how much has. In 1991 the world watched a black motorist named Rodney King be beaten by L.A. cops, all of whom were acquitted; a majority of whites still disapproved of interracial marriage. Ask yourself, Would the people we were then have voted for a mixed-race President and a black First Lady?

That year, apartheid was repealed, the Soviet Union collapsed, the Dow broke 3000. The next year, the first commercial text message was sent; now there are more transmitted every day than there are people on the planet. In the time it took for toddlers to turn into teenagers, we decoded the human genome and everyone got a cell phone, an iPod, a GPS and a DVR. As the head-spinning viral video "Did You Know" informs us, the top 10 jobs in demand in 2010 did not exist six years ago, so "we're preparing kids for jobs that don't yet exist using technologies we haven't yet invented."

We have managed, rather gracefully, far more change than we predicted would come; it turns out that our past's vision of the future was not visionary enough. This is often the case: reality puts prophecy to shame. "Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote," declared Grover Cleveland in 1905. Harry Truman, in his 1950 State of the Union address to mark the midcentury, predicted that "our total national production 50 years from now will be four times as much as it is today." It turned out to be more than 33 times as large. "It will be gone by June," promised Variety in 1955--talking about rock 'n' roll. "It will be years--not in my time--before a woman will become Prime Minister," declared Margaret Thatcher in 1969.

Leaders rely on the future as a vaccine against the present. The Soviets have put a man in space? "I believe we should go to the moon," President Kennedy announces. "I have a dream," the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. declares as the world around him burns. Maybe the promise is realized, even surpassed; maybe it keeps receding, pulling us along. "The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time," Abraham Lincoln supposedly observed. Which is true for those in charge of creating it but maybe not for the rest of us. When we pause and look back, we get to see the past's future, know how the story turned out. Did we rise to the occasion? Did we triumph? Did we blink?

The past's power comes from experience, the lessons it dares us to dismiss on the grounds that maybe things will be different this time. The future's power is born of experiment, and the endless grudge match between fear and hope. We are having a dozen simultaneous conversations right now about change: in our institutions, our culture, our treatment of the planet and of one another.

It's tempting to just stand stock-still and squeeze your eyes shut and wait for the moment to pass, or else hoard canned goods and assume the worst. This has been an awfully ugly summer of argument, and you'd be forgiven for concluding that we've lost our will to face or fix anything. We'll just dance with the devils we know, thank you. But if you look past Washington, past Wall Street, turn down the volume and go outside and walk around, you'll find the parcels of grace, of ingenuity and enterprise--people riding change like a skateboard, speeding off a ramp, twisting, flipping, somehow landing with a rush of wind and wheels--and wonder that it somehow hasn't killed us yet.

When members of the freshman class of 2027 look back at our future, what's likely to surprise them most? Will they marvel that gays were once not allowed to marry--or that they ever were? That we waited while the planet warmed, or that we acted to save it? That we protected the poor, or empowered them, or ignored them? That we lived within our means, or beyond them? We'll make our choices one day at a time, but our kids will judge our generation for what we generate, and what we leave undone.

Woman died while hunting Ghost!

2009-09-13T07:33:00.001-07:00

In a bizarre incident, a woman died in Toronto while hunting for ghosts in a 134-year-old building that is said to be haunted. According to police sources, the 29-year-old woman fell three storeys to her death Friday morning at a building not far from the city centre while she and a man were hunting for ghosts. She fell while trying to jump from one level to another level in the building in the wee hours.

Nine years ago, 50-year-old artist and professor David Buller was stabbed to death in his studio in the building. Buller, who was an arts professor at the University of Toronto, was repeatedly stabbed Jan 19, 2001 in his second-floor studio in this Gothic building.

Ghost hunting is very common among thrill seekers in North America. In fact, the Toronto Ghosts and Hauntings Research Society, which is dedicated to investigating paranormal activities, has listed dozens of buildings in Toronto city which are haunted.

Commenting on the death of the woman, the society saidi in its blog: “Although we’d heard stories about (the building at) 1 Spadina Crescent, they are mostly about a ‘curse’…apparently, the building is considered ‘bad luck’ to departments housed there… but this is rumour and is not ‘ghostly’ related.

“Again, we cannot stress that our thoughts and prayers are with the woman’s friends and family during this sad time, and again, there is no reason for anyone at any time to trespass, break any laws, or put their safety or the safety of others at risk in pursuit of looking into ghostly lore and legend.”

'Thanks for coming to my husband's book launch... sorry he's not here!,'says Nigella as she attends by herself

2009-09-09T09:24:00.000-07:00

Charles Saatchi launched his new book last night at his own huge gallery in London's King's Road.
So it might have been reasonable to expect that he would come along and discuss his creation with the assembled audience.
But it was not to be. The art tycoon stayed away and left it to his wife, Nigella Lawson to explain the merits of his book to the guests, who included Vanessa Feltz, Jane Asher and Graham Norton.

A cracking read: at least that's what the author's wife thinks. Nigella poses with her husband Charles Saatchi's latest written work

Before feeling sorry for Nigella, it's worth remembering that this was probably not a surprise to her.
After all, this isn't the first time Nigella has been left to front a Saatchi opening all on her own.
Back in 2003, before they were married, she was put in a similar position when
Charles decided not to attend the opening of the spectacular Saatchi Gallery in Central London's historic County Hall building.

Stand by your man - even if he can't be bothered to be there himself. Nigella took the stage to conduct a question and answer session in her husband's absence

A picture of loyalty, Nigella coped admirably with the situation.
She conducted a question-and-answer session about the book, which contains reminiscences from the art collector's career as well as Saatchi's views on a range of subjects.
Despite the fact that the writer of the book being launched wasn't around, the guests, including Richard E Grant and Linda Barker, seemed to be enjoy themselves.

Pressing the flesh: Nigella coped admirably as she made small talk with interior designer Linda Barker and talk radio host Vanessa Feltz

Anyone concerned that Saatchi's absence was an act of monumental arrogance should think again, according to Nigella.
According to the TV cookery star, the reason behind his no-show was actually his humble dislike of 'standing around talking about himself.'
Others may not share this charitable view, although it was hard to disagree with her logic when she claimed: 'He never comes to anyone else's launches so he wasn't going to come to his own.'

Kate Moss storms out of GQ Awards in four-letter fury after host's risqué joke backfires

2009-09-09T09:21:00.001-07:00

It was meant to be harmless, but a cheeky joke from the presenter at an awards ceremony last night led to Kate Moss throwing one almighty tantrum.
The supermodel stormed out of the GQ Awards in true diva style after host James Nesbitt cheekily implied to the audience he'd had intimate relations with her.
Minutes later she was seem flouncing out of the backstage interview room and barging past Lily Allen, uttering: 'He’s so****ing rude,' before adding that she would ‘never come to one of these ****ing award ceremonies again'.

Scroll down to see an exclusive video of Kate...

Heading for the exit: Kate stormed past her embarrassed-looking friend Lily Allen as she stormed out of the GQ Awards last night

Alone: Lily was left cringing after Kate's dramatic exit who was angered by a joke by host James Nesbitt who implied he'd had intimate relations with her

Unfortunately for the 35-year-old her exit was caught on camera by a television crew who were filming rap star Dizzee Rascal and Lily at the time.

Lily, who Kate had earlier presented the Woman of the Year trophy to, could only manage a nervous giggle as her friend headed for the exit.

More...

Frock horror: Lily Allen and Kelly Brook make fashion faux pas at GQ Men of the Year awards

An irate Moss was then seen re-emerging and demanding someone find her lip-stick which she had mislaid in her temper.

Gritted teeth: Kate looked like she'd rather be elsewhere as she stood behind her friend Lily clutching her Woman of the Year gong at the GQ Awards last night

Controversial: James Nesbitt offended Kate with his quip to the crowd

Blemishes: Kate's skin was showing the strain of her partying lifestyle

The dramatic scenes were sparked after Kate and Lily left the stage and Nesbitt then told the audience: 'Kate Moss has still got it. Well, she should do, I gave it to her just before she came on stage.'
After some muted laughter from the awards show guests, he added: 'What? I'm talking about my telephone number.'
As she left London's Royal Opera House, she was pictured being bundled into a taxi, propped up by rocker boyfriend Jamie Hince.
After staring the day with lunch at Claridge's in Mayfair, she was unable to hide her spotty skin as she made her getaway last night, which was showing the strain of what had been a long day for the notorious hard-partying model.
It paved the way for what turned out to be an embarrassing night, which saw her launch herself into an impromptu pole-dance at the back of the Royal Opera House after arriving late for the event.

Enlarge

Time for bed? Kate arrives back at Claridge's hotel after the event

As she wrapped her slender figure around a column at the venue, she danced to the music and slipped off her black satin jacket, which caught on her wrist and dragged on the floor.
While doing her routine her dress rode up and she narrowly avoided flashing her underwear.
When she joined Lily in the winner's room to celebrate the singer picking up the Woman of the Year trophy, she looked like she would rather be elsewhere.
Clearly having sat though 20 winners collecting their awards and making their acceptance speeches had proved rather tiresome for the mother-of-one.
Earlier she admitted 'being terrible at these things' before presenting Lily with her award on stage.
As Lily smiled for photographers clutching her trophy, Kate leaned on the backdrop and let her head roll back.
Lily's composed display came in stark contrast to last year's GQ Awards when the star had a drunken on-stage row with Elton John as the pair hosted the ceremony.
She told him to 'f*** off' after he commented that she had been drinking a lot, before he quipped back that he could 'snort' her 'under the table'.
Last night was a different affair, however, and Lily, dressed in a black sheer dress, left the bad behaviour to Kate.

Rushing in: Kate and boyfriend Jamie Hince hurry into the Royal Opera House

Later on at the awards ceremony, Kate mingled with Hollywood hellraiser Mickey Rourke, who attended with his new girlfriend Elena.
She also interrupted Dizzee Rascal being interviewed in a stairwell of the venue as she ran around trying to find her lipstick before making her hasty exit back to Claridge's.
Lily and Kate struck up a friendship earlier this year and have been spending increasing amounts of time together.

Private dancer: Kate cavorts around a column in the Royal Opera House as she watches the GQ Men of the Year Awards

Strike a pose: The Croydon model tries to take off her jacket

Last month, they were spotted holidaying together on a yacht off the coast of the south of France.
Kate, who has made no secret of her wish for a rock career, has been supportive of Lily's new album and attended several of her gigs in the capital.
In March, the pair both attended the Chanel fashion show together - the French fashion house which both have modelled for.

Mingling: Kate talks to Hollywood lothario Mickey Rourke

In 2007, the pair were rumoured to be embarked in a feud over their respective clothing ranges.
While Kate is preparing to release her ninth collection for TopShop, Lily designed just one for rival high street store New Look, which failed to match Kate's impressive sales.
However, Lily later insisted she had nothing but praise for the model after she rescued her from bullies at the Glastonbury Festival several years ago.

Rushing out: Jamie bundles Kate into a waiting car after her sulky exit

Cover-up: Is Jamie trying to hide Kate's blemishes or her blushes?

Lily said: 'These girls were beating me up and she was the only person who stood in and said 'leave her alone you're being bullies.
'They stabbed me in the ear with a beer can and cut my ear open, I also had two black eyes - it was a bit of a nightmare.'
Kate wasn't the only model at last night's ceremony: also in attendance were Daisy Lowe and Rosie Huntingdon-Whiteley.

Starting early: Kate Moss seen yesterday afternoon going for lunch at Claridge's

X Factor judges floored by the Welsh Whitney..

2009-09-06T11:08:00.000-07:00

She arrived at the X Factor audition determined to deliver the performance of her life.
But even 18-year-old Lucie Jones couldn't have predicted just how successful her appearance before judges Simon Cowell, Cheryl Cole, Louis Walsh and Dannii Minogue would be.
Hailing from a small village outside Cardiff, where this week's auditions were held, Lucie told the panel: 'The X Factor is my ticket out of here. Out of the little village on top of a hill, with all the sheep.'

Born to sing: Lucie Jones performed Whitney Houston's notoriously difficult I Will Always Love You, leaving even Simon Cowell mesmerised

But things looked ominous when she announced she was going to perform the notoriously hard to sing Whitney Houston song I Will Always Love You.
'Are you sure you want to do that song?' a clearly unconvinced Simon asked.

But Lucie forged ahead and long before she had finished singing, Simon was beaming from ear-to-ear - as were all four judges.
The audience in the auditorium gave her a standing ovation.

'Vulnerability': The 18-year-old had a cheering section made up of residents from her small Welsh village

Over the moon: Lucie was ecstatic by the judges' response

A clearly moved Cheryl then told the teenager: 'I actually loved the vulnerability in your performance because it makes me think you don't realise how amazing you are.
'I think you can sing anything.'
An excited Louis added: 'Some people were born to sing. You were born to sing.
'Everything is going to change for you from this day on.'

Even Simon was uncharacteristically gushing - by his standards, at least.
He said: 'Lucie, this is why we came to Wales. [That was] one of the hardest songs in the world to sing. I like you.'
Lucie told the judges: 'This is my dream. I've never wanted to do anything else. I'm now one step closer.'
Cheryl, Simon, Louis and Dannii then all voted her through to the next round with a unanimous chorus of 'Yes'.

Cheryl was so impressed she came backstage to give Lucie a hug (above), while the teenager nervously waited with her parents before the audition (below)

But Lucie's adventures weren't over yet - Cheryl was so moved she popped backstage to give her a hug.
And she wasn't the only teen to impress the judges - schoolboy Lloyd Daniels from South Wales shone with an acapella version of R Kelly's Turn Back The Hands Of Time.
The petrified 16-year-old nearly blew his chance though when he first nervously launched into an accompanied rendition of the Jason Mraz song I'm Yours and hit a few bum notes.
Clearly spotting that talent lurked beneath his extreme anxiousness, Cheryl asked Lloyd to stop singing and then Simon asked him to sing acapella which was when his magic shone through.

After he'd finished to another standing ovation, Cheryl told him: 'I think you're the first person I'm going to say "You've got the X Factor to".'

Anxious: Schoolboy Lloyd Daniels has been dubbed the new X Factor heartthrob

Not everybody impressed though.
Dawn Thomas, a customer services worker, delivered such a toe-curling performance that Simon told her: 'I think every dog in Cardiff has just turned up outside the theatre.'
Elsewhere, pop duo Combined Effort - Jack and Kirsty - admitted that despite being engaged, they had split up just three days before the audition.
They explained that the relationship was called off after a series of rows about things like the washing up and going out.
Following their dreadful performance of Starship hit Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now, Cheryl told Jack: 'I think that she still likes you.'
Simon then encouraged him to ask her back out before the pair publicly reconciled.

Sexy: The girls from Project A performed Lady GaGa's Let's Dance

Other highlights of the Cardiff auditions included girlband Project A made up of Laura, Lucy, Amy and Lauren who are cheerleaders for a rugby team.

They performed Lady GaGa's Let's Dance, and wanted their rendition to appeal to everyone including mothers, but especially 'lads'.
Meanwhile, full-time mother Ashanti was supported by her children as she anxiously waited to perform Mary J Blige's I'm Goin' Down.
She needn't have worried though as the judges unanimously voted her through.

Full-time mother Ashanti's biggest fans are her children. The judges voted her through to the next round

Next up was young rugby fan Daniel, who said singing is more important to him than sport, before performing Let It Be by the Beatles.

Judges also saw French waiter Fouad, who hoped to emulate Mariah Carey's success - but they could barely recognise his version of her hit Vision Of Love.
He then sang Hero, prompting the audience to stand up and join in and the judges to laugh.
Another wannabe with lofty expectations, Allan's high-pitched voice left the judges cringing.
He launched into a bizarre version of Billy Ocean's When The Going Gets Tough to roars of laughter from the audience.

Allan (left) didn't have what it takes to get through the auditions, while Daniel (right) received the thumbs up with a strong rendition of The Beatles' Let It Be

Pop duo with the ex-factor: Despite ending their relationship three days before the auditions, Kirsty and Jack took to the stage as Combined Effort

Still in love: Kirsty and Jack embraced after Cheryl Cole and Simon Cowell encouraged them to get back together

Police baffled as dozens of 'suicidal' cows throw themselves off cliff in the Alps

2009-09-01T08:51:00.000-07:00

In the picturesque Swiss village of Lauterbrunnen, the locals are worried.

Dozens of alpine cows appear to be committing suicide by throwing themselves off a cliff near the small village in the Alps.

In the space of just three days, 28 cows and bulls have mysteriously died after they plunged hundreds of metres to rocks below where they were killed instantly.

Swiss mystery: Dozens of cows' bodies litter the valley floor after they mysteriously fell from the alpine cliff many feet above

In each case, local mountain rescue services using a helicopter had to be called in to remove the bodies because of the danger to the local groundwater of pollution.
A police spokesman said: 'There are no large carnivores living in the Alps anymore who would once have disposed of the bodies so they have to be moved.

'We are investigating because cows growing up in the mountains normally can estimate dangers and do not plunge down cliffs.'
According to local reports, there had been violent thunderstorms in the area which may well have spooked the animals.
Cows wandering at high altitude are a common sight across much of the Alps, where farmers let them loose to graze on the green plateaus above the villages.

Cows graze in the picturesque mountains and valleys of Lauterbrunnen, right

Often carrying large bells around their necks, most are dairy cows as the mix of vegetation and grasses at that high altitude are particularly good for milk and for making cheese.
Cows do occasionally fall to their deaths in these Alpine regions although it is rare for so many to fall in one particular place.
There has been speculation in the past that when this does happen it is because a tightly-grouped number have followed each other as they search for more grass.
Most scientists generally believe that animals are incapable of committing suicide.
Even lemmings, which by popular myth throw themselves off cliffs during mating season, do not take their own lives intentionally.
Instead, evolutionary pressures cause them to feel the urge to change habitat at which point they migrate in huge droves.
Sometimes, particularly in Scandinavia, they reach clifftops overlooking an ocean and, driven by the urge to cross a body of water, throw themselves off in order to swim to the other side.
They often die of exhaustion or drown as a result.
The myth came to the public's attention when a Disney wildlife film in the 1950s mocked up the lemming migration to make it look like the animals had committed suicide.

Fire near Los Angeles grows in size

2009-09-01T08:40:00.000-07:00

Smoke from the Station Fire rises over downtown Los Angeles Monday, Aug. 31, 2009. (AP Photo/Jon Vidar)

LOS ANGELES — A relentless Southern California wildfire raged Tuesday with 53 homes up in smoke, thousands more threatened and new rounds of evacuations as towering flames crackled close to foothill neighborhoods in the path of the blaze.

Flames plowed through half-century-old thickets of tinder-dry brush, bush and trees just 15 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. Firefighters awaited daybreak to learn the new extent of the 6-day-old fire, which is now expected to burn for weeks.

The size of fire in the Angeles National Forest grew to more than 190 square miles overnight, U.S. Forest Service Cmdr. Mike Dietrich said.

It was spreading in all directions early Tuesday, from Sunland on the western front of the fire to the high desert ranchlands of Acton on the northeast.

"Pretty much everywhere, right now, is the hot spot," forest spokesman Shane Rollman said.

Firefighters planned to set backfires to protect the Sunland area and will try to halt its northeastern spread with bulldozers to carve eight miles of firebreak in the Acton area, Rollman said.

Firefighters were keeping a close eye on the weather. Hurricane Jimena roared toward Baja California, but was not forecast to have much of a factor in firefighting efforts because it is expected to dissipate by the time it hits Southern California.

Meteorologist Curt Kaplan says there is a 20 percent chance of a thunderstorm in the fire area Tuesday, but that could end up being a bad thing because the storm could spawn 40-mph wind gusts. The one factor that's helped firefighters this week has been the lack of wind to drive the flames. Kaplan says temperatures will begin slowly cooling later in the week.
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The blaze threatened some 12,000 homes but had already done its worst to the suburban Tujunga Canyon neighborhood, where residents returned to their wrecked homes.

Bert Voorhees and his son on Monday fetched several cases of wine from the brackish water of their backyard swimming pool, about all he salvaged from his home.

"You're going to be living in a lunar landscape for at least a couple of years, and these trees might not come back," the 53-year-old Voorhees said. "Are enough of our neighbors going to rebuild?"

About 2,000 people were chased from their homes in triple-digit heat as fire bosses said it could take weeks to contain the fire. Fire spokesman Paul Lowenthal said Tuesday that the blaze is expected to be fully surrounded Sept. 15. Only 5 percent of the fire, the largest of several California wildfires, was contained so far.

Some people wouldn't leave. Authorities said five men and one woman refused several orders to evacuate a remote ranch in a canyon near Gold Creek. The Los Angeles County sheriff's office had initially said the people were trapped and could not be rescued.

"When we tried to get them out, they said they're fine, no problem, they didn't want to leave," said fire spokesman Larry Marinas.

Crews fighting the blaze also were contending with favorable fire conditions such as high temperatures topping 100 degrees and low humidity. Temperatures near the fire were expected to hit 102 degrees Tuesday, the National Weather Service said.

The swath of fire extends from the densely populated foothill communities of Altadena, La Canada Flintridge, La Crescenta, Tujunga and Sunland in the south to Acton.

Beth Halaas knew her creekside home in Big Tujunga Canyon was gone when she saw her favorite Norwegian dishware on television news. But she was desperate to see for herself and cajoled fire officials to escort her through barricaded roads.

"It's just stuff," she murmured, as her 5-year-old son Robert kicked at a deflated soccer ball in his sandbox. She raked ceramic cups from the ashes.

Two firefighters – Capt. Tedmund Hall, 47, of San Bernardino and firefighter Specialist Arnaldo "Arnie" Quinones, 35, of Palmdale – were killed when their vehicle plummeted off a mountain road on Sunday. Quinones' wife is expecting a child any week, and Hall has a wife and two adult children.

The 53 homes destroyed included some forest cabins, said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Dennis Cross. He did not know how many were full-time residences.

Fire crews set backfires and sprayed fire retardant at Mount Wilson, home to at least 20 television transmission towers, radio and cell phone antennas, and the century-old Mount Wilson Observatory. It also houses two giant telescopes and several multimillion-dollar university programs in its role as both a landmark for its historic discoveries and a thriving modern center for astronomy.

If the flames hit the mountain, some cell phone service and TV and radio transmissions would be disrupted.

T.J. Lynch and his wife, Maggie, were among residents who evacuated late Monday after the eerie orange glow on the horizon turned into flames cresting the hill near their Tujunga home.

"It's pretty surreal, pretty humbling, how your life is represented in these objects that you collect and then you have to whittle them down," he said, describing the difficulty of choosing what to bring with them.

He said his wife would miss the 1965 Mustang that she has owned since she was a teenager. He would miss the antiques that decorate their home.

"It's a beautiful place – is? Was? I don't know anymore," he said of their home.

The blaze in the Los Angeles foothills was the biggest but not most destructive of California's wildfires. Northeast of Sacramento, a wind-driven fire destroyed 60 structures over the weekend, many of them homes in the town of Auburn.

The 340-acre blaze wiped out an entire cul-de-sac, leaving only smoldering ruins, a handful of chimneys and burned cars.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday toured the Auburn area, where only charred remnants of some homes remained. At some houses, the only things left on the foundation are metal cabinets and washers and dryers.

East of Los Angeles, a 1,000-acre fire damaged one home, threatened 2,000 others and forced the evacuation of a scenic community of apple orchards in an oak-studded area of San Bernardino County. Brush in the area had not burned for a century, fire officials said. Flames burning like huge candles erupted between rocky slopes of the San Bernardino Mountains and the neat farmhouses below. A few miles away, a 300-acre wildfire that erupted on the edge of Yucaipa forced the evacuation of 200 homes.

___

Associated Press Writers John Antczak, Daisy Nguyen and Solvej Schou in Los Angeles and Samantha Young in Auburn contributed to this report.

Jaycee Lee Dugard's prison: First pictures of filthy backyard jail where religious fanatic held kidnapped girl

2009-09-01T08:32:00.000-07:00

These extraordinary pictures are the first glimpse inside the squalid back garden compound where Jaycee Lee Dugard was kept captive for 18 years.
A hand-painted 'Welcome' sign leads the way to a rundown world of tattered tents and outbuildings amid overgrown trees and bushes.
Police are now investigating evidence that Jaycee was 'brainwashed' by the religious fanatic who snatched her when she was 11.

Prison camp: A child's deckchair stands with two adult chairs in a dusty yard beside a collection of pot plants. Empty cans, a vase and an old saucepan lie discarded in front of a decrepit tent. Inside the tent is evidence of a cat lover - a row of books about cats, several cat toys and a 1,000-piece jigsaw entitled Cats

The first words Jaycee said to her mother when the pair were tearfully reunited were: 'Hi Mom, I have babies,' it has emerged.

The 29-year-old's stepfather also claims that she had developed a powerful emotional bond with her abductor, Phillip Garrido. Carl Probyn said: 'Jaycee has strong feelings with this guy. She feels it's almost like a marriage.'

No place like home: A hand-made 'Welcome' sign hangs from a tree at the rear of secret backyard where Jaycee Dugard and her daughters lived in sheds, tents and outbuildings. The innocence of the scene is underlined by three decorations, apparently a bell, a butterfly and a dove, under the sign. The trees and shrubs helped to conceal the backyard from neighbours

Experts have pointed out that although the makeshift compound where Jaycee and the two daughters allegedly fathered by Garrido lived included an 8ft by 4ft steel cage, it appeared unused. And Jaycee and the girls, aged 15 and 11, were allowed to play in the garden, in view of neighbours.

Her captor claimed to be a minister of a 'church' he called God's Desire and indoctrinated her with self-published religious tracts.
Jaycee never appealed for help, despite his repeated assaults. She is still undergoing extensive medical and psychological tests at a secret location in Northern California, where she is staying with her mother, Terry, and a half-sister under FBI protection.
One of America's leading hostage experts, retired FBI agent Clint Van Zandt, said: 'The relationship that can develop between hostages and kidnap victims and their captors is now known as "the Stockholm Syndrome", a type of emotional bonding that is in reality a survival strategy for victims of emotional and physical abuse.'

Chilling: One of the most ominous sights in the earth-floored compound is an 8ft by 4ft wire cage, half draped with a tarpaulin. It is not clear what use the cage might have been put to. Next to it is a crudely built hut with white sliding doors with two black metal clasps which suggest that it could be opened only from the outside. The hut was largely empty

A source close to the case said: 'The initial findings are that physically she is remarkably healthy but that some type of brainwashing clearly occurred.
'There were moments in the 18 years when she could have called attention to who she was.
'She hadn't forgotten her real identity. In fact, she remembers a remarkable amount about her old life. But from what we know so far about Mr Garrido, it seems he played mind games with her.
'It sounds simplistic, but the real prison was her brain.'

Chaos: The scene inside one of the dingy sheds. On the left is a microwave oven, catfood in a plastic container and two hanging vegetable baskets. The rest of the area seems to have been used as an office. There are three old swivel chairs and a reading lamp on a small table strewn with papers. The floor and shelves are covered in files, boxes and bric-a-brac

Jaycee may also have been forced to take part in orgies in the backyard where she was held, the News of the World reports.

A neighbour said he saw men lining up in Garrido's garden, before entering the tents 'one by one'.
Mike Rogers, 49, told the newspaper that he once peered through the garden fence during an 'excessively loud' party next door.
'What I saw was not normal,' he said. 'Eight to 10 men, mostly Mexican, would gather in a line in his garden drinking beer, yelling and screaming and swearing.

'They normally had a bonfire and I saw them entering the tent one by one. On a number of occasions I saw them bobbing up and down through the window and I thought, 'My God, there is something sexual going on in there'.

Toys and games: Two fluffy Furbies, an electronic toy from the Nineties, sit on a pile of computer discs next to a computer joy stick. The toys were robots which could speak. Many toys were scattered around the site, including Barbie dolls with limbs and heads missing. There were several threadbare teddy bears but little evidence of teenage culture such as pop posters

'I thought they had a prostitute or something in there. I thought it might have been some kind of sex party or something.
'I just hope that sicko wasn't pimping out Jaycee or those children. The thought makes me sick.'
But, despite being disturbed by what he had seen, Mr Rogers said he didn't think he had enough evidence to call police.

'I'd told my brother about the parties and he agreed that unless they got really out of control I should keep out of it,' he said.

Self help: This book has a particularly ironic title, given the circumstances of its discovery. The author, Jean Illsley Clarke, is an American expert in family relationships. Self-Esteem: A Family Affair, which came out in 1998, sought to help parents increase the confidence and happiness of their children by the subtle use of encouragement

Jaycee's stepfather Mr Probyn, who is being briefed regularly on the case, has disclosed that she is racked by 'guilt' because she 'bonded' with Garrido.
Her formal education ceased when Garrido allegedly snatched her in 1991 and Mr Probyn said he has been informed that her 'emotional age' is still that of an 11-year-old.
'She didn't try to get away,' he told The Mail on Sunday. 'It probably kept her alive. If she had been really spunky and fought and tried to escape, maybe she would have been killed.'

Poignant playthings: A teddy bear lies abandoned on a trampoline in the parched area that acted as a playground. Just visible in the background is a yellow slide and a set of swings. Behind that can be glimpsed the wall of an empty swimming pool

Meanwhile Garrido's first victim, Katherine Callaway of Las Vegas, Nevada, who was kidnapped, raped repeatedly and held as a sex slave by Garrido in 1976, said: 'He's a monster.'
Callaway was a 25-year-old casino worker when Garrido hitched a ride in her car. He made her drive to a warehouse in Reno that had been prepared as a 'sex palace'.
Police now believe Katherine's abduction was, essentially, a 'trial run' for the kidnapping of Jaycee in South Lake Tahoe, California, years later.
Just as he built a labyrinthine backyard prison for Jaycee, Garrido created a makeshift cell for Katherine in the warehouse. It contained a movie projector, sex toys, a spotlight, wine and pornographic magazines.
At his trial, there was testimony that he used handcuffs to restrain her and that he used LSD, cocaine and cannabis.
Retired Reno police detective Dan DeMaranville, who worked on the case, said: 'I asked him after he confessed why he did it and he said it was the only way he could get sexual satisfaction.'
However, investigators have found no evidence that Jaycee - who was less than half Callway's age - was physically restrained.

Make-up for a captive: A stained flower-patterned box which might hold make-up or jewellery sits on a table in one hut. Three plastic boxes of cheap make-up and a hair brush lie on the table. A number of girls' hairbands have been wound around the brush handle

Tales of escape: Fantasy novel Shadow Bridge lies on a worn bedside cabinet. The 2008 book features an orphaned female puppeteer who travels through a mythical land of bridges, meeting strange characters. Also visible is another fantasy novel, A Game Of Thrones

A few years after Jaycee was kidnapped, her desperate grandmother visited a psychic. 'I wanted to find out if she was still alive,' said Wilma Probyn, 83.
'I didn't want to give up hope, but it was agonising to keep holding on. We had pretty much given up hope. The psychic said that Jaycee was alive, in Northern California with a couple, living happily and being looked after and going to school.
'It turns out she was alive but not happy. She didn't go to school and wasn't allowed to see a doctor.
'She was kept caged in an old shed for 18 years without contact with anybody, raped, and she's got two children by that creep, a sexual predator.
'We've always been hoping for the day when she'd be found but when I found out how she'd lived for the last 18 years, I wasn't happy. It's a shock.
'I'm delighted to have Jaycee back, but I'm saddened by how she was treated, living in squalor like that.
'Jaycee's 29 now but she's been cut off from the world since she was 11. We don't know if she'll ever be able to recover from this.'

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Tales of horror: The main author among these battered paperbacks is Dean Koontz, whose novels often feature sociopathic monsters. Crime novels by Patricia Cornwell and James Patterson and romances by Danielle Steel are also visible

Ancient Bird Feathers Had Iridescent Glow

2009-09-01T08:21:00.001-07:00

Jakob Vinther/Yale University

Scientists discovered that nanostructures found in this 40-million-year-old fossil were responsible for producing iridescent colors in the living feather.

Nanostructures preserved in feather fossils more than 40 million years old show evidence that those feathers were once vivid and iridescent in color, paleontologists say.
Iridescence is the quality of changing color depending on the angle of observation — it's what makes you see a rainbow in an oil slick.
Many insects, such as butterflies, display iridescent colors on their wings, as do many modern birds on their feathers.
The simplest iridescent feather colors are produced by light scattering off the feather's surface and a smooth surface of melanin pigment granules within the feather protein.
Scientists found smooth layers of these melanin structures, called melanosomes, when they examined feather fossils from the Messel Shale in Germany with an electron microscope.

"These feathers produced a black background with a metallic greenish, bluish or coppery color at certain angles — much like the colors we see in starlings and grackles today," said Richard Prum of Yale University, who was part of the team that studied the fossils.

For more than 25 years, paleontologists had thought these structures in similar feather fossils were bacteria that had digested the feathers at the time they were fossilized. The team had previously discovered that these structures were in fact not bacteria but melanosomes, which then allowed them to document the original color patterns. Following up on the new finding, they are racing to discover what additional coloration features may be found in fossil feathers.
"The discovery of ultra-structural detail in feather fossils opens up remarkable possibilities for the investigation of other features in soft-bodied fossils, like fur and even internal organs" that otherwise are not typically preserved, said study team member Derek Briggs, also of Yale.
The discovery could pave the way for determining color features of other ancient birds and even dinosaurs, the team said.
The new findings are detailed in the Aug. 26 online edition of the journal Biology Letters. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society and Yale University.

Border meet begins with Myanmar

2009-08-27T04:20:00.001-07:00

Imphal, Aug. 27 : A six-day Indo-Myanmar border liaison meet that began at Kalemyo in the neighbouring country today will focus on checking smuggling of arms, drugs and movement of militants.

This is the 37th such meeting to be held on both sides of the border in the past few years.

A 14-member delegation left for Myanmar today, Assam Rifles public relations officer Lt Col Prasant W. stated here. The delegates are scheduled to return here on August 31.

The delegation is being led by Maj. Gen. S.S. Pawar, chief of staff, headquarters 3 Corps, and assisted by Brig. Balbir Singh, Commander, 26 Sector, and Col Vijay Sahgal, colonel general staff of headquarters, Inspector General Assam Rifles (South). The meet is a landmark event where representatives of both the armies interact and co-ordinate border management activities. It helps to strengthen friendship between the two countries.

No details have been given on the agenda of the meeting, but sources said it would focus on cross-border smuggling of arms and drugs and movement of militants.

Security forces on this side of the border have been claiming that Manipur rebels take shelter in Myanmar. Intelligence reports also say that drugs and arms continue to sneak into Manipur.

The meeting is also significant in view of the steps taken by Delhi to fence the border.

Union home secretary G.K. Pillai had announced during his recent visit to Manipur that work on a 10km fence at Moreh in Chandel district would begin this year. The two countries conduct border trade through Moreh town.

Pillai said a plan to fence the entire Indo-Myanmar border had got delayed because of the lack of a clearly demarcated boundary line.

Fill her up! The world's highest garage attendant prepares space shuttle Discovery for launch

2009-08-26T10:03:00.001-07:00

Next time you find yourself tapping your foot impatiently as you fill up your car with petrol spare a thought for Nasa engineers.
They have the task of filling the space shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank with nearly two million litres of liquid hydrogen and oxygen. The process takes the best part of a day and leaves Nasa with a hefty energy bill.
The liquid oxygen is stored in the top of the nose cone while the liquid hydrogen makes up the bottom half of the tank. They are fed through to the three main engines at an impressive speed, with oxygen pumping through at 80,000 litres a minute and hydrogen at 215,000litres a minute.

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Perched 153ft above the ground a Nasa technician prepares the liquid oxygen tank on the US space shuttle Discovery. Today's launch was scrubbed after a faulty fuel valve was detected

And now the crew have been forced to stop half way through filling the enormous reservoir, after they detected an apparent problem with a valve in the fuel tank yesterday.

'When we went to close the valve (after the hydrogen tank was full) we didn't get an indication that it was closed,' Mike Moses, who oversees the shuttle program at the launch site, said.

More...

Who said anything about landing? The unmanned surveillance plane that can fly for five years non-stop

Engineers believe the problem to be with instrumentation that monitors the valve, and not the valve itself, which would position Nasa for another launch attempt on Friday morning. Anything more serious and the launch likely would be postponed until October.

The mission has already been delayed once due to stormy weather.

A furnace burns off extra fuel near the space shuttle Discovery on Monday. The launch has been delayed twice and could be put back to October

Discovery and its seven-member crew are preparing for a 13-day supply mission to the International Space Station. They are due to deliver new science racks, a freezer, a sleep station, a second treadmill, food and clothing. They will also carry up spare parts for the station, including an 1,800-pound ammonia coolant tank that will be installed during two of the spacewalks.
Among the experiments planned for the station is a bone-loss study that uses genetically altered mice as subjects. The mice are flying to the station aboard Discovery and will be left aboard until the next shuttle mission in November.

Nasa plans seven more shuttle missions to the space station including Discovery's flight.
The 16-nation, £60billion project is nearing completion after more than a decade of construction 220 miles above Earth.
The shuttles are being retired late next year or early 2011. NASA is working on a new type of spaceship called Orion that can travel beyond the station's orbit to the moon and other destinations.
After the shuttle program ends, the station will depend on Russian, European and Japanese vehicles, though none has nearly the lift capacity of the shuttle, which can haul 50,000 pounds.

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This graphic reveals the structure of the external fuel tank

Nasa astronaut Patrick Forrester, left, and European Space Agency astronaut Christer Fuglesang are seen preparing to board the space shuttle Discovery

Why nice guys are paid £1,500 less a year than their aggressive counterparts

2009-08-26T09:41:00.001-07:00

Raw deal: Nice guys are paid less in the workplace than those who are aggressive

It's a common saying that nice guys finish last, but there's been no proof - until now.

Research has shown that the genial do end up at the back of the queue, at least when it comes to pay packets.

A study into the link between personality and salary has found that nice people are paid nearly £1,500 a year less than those who are more aggressive in the workplace.

Researchers for the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex claim their study shows that the amiable are on average paid less.
Dr Cheti Nicoletti and Dr Alita Nandi looked at nearly 3,000 men aged between 24 and 64 living and working in the UK.
They grouped them into five personality types depending on their openness to experience, conscientiousness, level of extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
The research demonstrated that those who were nice earned approximately 6 per cent less, which equated to an average of 72p less per hour or nearly £1,500 a year.

The same pay deficit also applied to people with a high degree of neuroticism. Extroverts and those open to experience were paid the best, with those open to experience earning 9 per cent more than those who were not open, a difference of £1.04 per hour or £2,163 a year.

The pay differences - except for openness to experience - persist even after controlling for characteristics such as education, occupation, work experience, previous unemployment and training.

Dr Nicoletti said: 'The results clearly show that agreeableness and neuroticism are penalised in the workplace while extroversion is rewarded.'

However Dr Nandi added: 'While agreeableness is penalised in the labour market, it may make a person more socially acceptable, increase their social networks and finally lead to better mental health and well-being.'

Four swine flu patients cured in Meghalaya

2009-08-25T10:22:00.001-07:00

Four of the five persons suffering from swine flu were released from the hospital in Meghalaya today after health authorities confirmed that they were cured.

Meanwhile, another person who recently returned from Bangalore tested positive for H1N1 virus today. He was isolated immediately and was being treated at his residence.

Twenty-two-year-old William Lyngdoh is the sixth case of swine flu in the state. His family was also being treated as a precautionary measure.

State Director of Health Services K H Lakiang said four of the five persons, including the first swine flu case in the state were released from Shillong Civil Hospital.

"Doctors will monitor them for some time," Lakiang said.

Meanwhile, one of the patients, Mary Lyngdoh, was still undergoing treatment at the hospital and she too was improving.

Salwit Tongper, a 17-year-old footballer with the Sports Authority of India who had gone to England for coaching with Arsenal superstar club in Surrey, was the first swine flu patient in the state.

Four others also tested positive for H1N1 later. Three of them were suspected to have contracted the virus from Tongper.

Twitter a tool of healthcare information?

2009-08-25T09:01:00.001-07:00

Medics are contemplating the use of popular micro-blogging service Twitter as valuable means of healthcare information and medical alerts.
The social networking website, which lets a group of recipients receive short messages, or “tweets” simultaneously, has come under the consideration of physician groups, hospitals, and healthcare organizations who were looking at its benefit to communicate timely information both within the medical community and to patients and the public.
Twitter could also emerge as a significant tool for sharing time-critical information such as disaster alerts and drug safety warnings, tracking disease outbreaks, or disseminating healthcare information, experts believe.
Dr. Joseph C. Kvedar, Director of the Center for Connected Health (Partners Healthcare System, Boston, MA), said: “One way to look at Twitter is as a method of mass communication.”
However, warning bells were also sounded against the use of social media and Internet-based outlets to communicate medical information to preserve confidentiality and patient privacy in the clinical care setting, and to make sure that information sources were accurate, reliable, and current.
The article has been published in the Medical Connectivity section of the latest issue of Telemedicine and e-Health and the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association.

Andre's cookbook for single parents

2009-08-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

Singer Peter Andre is compiling a cookbook for the single parents and says it will have a combination of Greek, English and Australian recipes.

The singer is coming out with the book so that the single parents don't have to eat "beans on toast" every night, reports celebrifi.com.

"I am bringing out a cookery book. It's all in the very early stages at the moment but I love cooking so much that it's something I really want to do," he said.

"I'm hoping to feature a whole load of recipes from my Greek-Englian culture - that's Greek, English and Australian! There will also be some recipes in there for families, single parents, children's meals, barbeques and meals for one, because we all know beans on toast can get a bit boring," he said.

The 36-year-old star has been single since his split from model Katie Price earlier this year.

6 cops, 59 shots, 43 wounds, 1 dead man in Tenn.

2009-08-25T04:33:00.001-07:00

In this undated family photo provided by James Marine, Alonzo Heyward is seen. The fatal shooting of Heyward, 32, by Chattanooga police as he was carrying a rifle and threatening suicide has raised questions of possible excessive force. (AP Photo/family photo via James Marine)

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Alonzo Heyward carried a rifle around his low-rent neighborhood one day last month, ranting about suicide and ignoring the pleas of friends for hours before six Chattanooga police officers surrounded him on his front porch and decided it had to end.
His father says Heyward told the officers, "I'm not out here to hurt anybody."
But the police, who tried unsuccessfully to disarm Heyward, fired 59 rounds to kill him on July 18. The medical examiner found 43 bullet wounds in his chest, face, arms, hands, legs, buttocks and groin. Police contend Heyward was a danger to others and threatened the six officers.
Chattanooga police spokeswoman Jerri Weary described the case as "suicide by cop."
As questions continue to surround the shooting, Heyward's family and civil rights leaders take issue with the police response.
"We have a large concern about the amount of shots fired," said Valoria Armstrong, president of the NAACP branch in Chattanooga.
A Chattanooga Times Free Press editorial cartoon asked "IS THIS EXCESSIVE FORCE?" — spelling out the question with letters labeling the wounds in a drawing based on Heyward's autopsy report.
His father, James Marine, 61, does not believe Heyward really wanted to kill himself or that he was trying to commit "suicide by cop."
"He just needed somebody to talk to," Marine said. ... "I believe he was just depressed at that time."
A Tennessee Bureau of Investigation probe is ongoing. Federal and local authorities are awaiting the TBI report before they do their own examinations of the case. Hamilton County District Attorney Bill Cox said he wants to see the TBI report before deciding whether to pursue a criminal case.
Heyward, a 32-year-old moving company employee, was black. The six officers are white. They were temporarily placed on administrative leave but have since returned to work.
Police spokeswoman Weary said the officers confronted Heyward when they responded to a report of three men wrestling over a gun in the street just after 4 a.m.
Heyward's father said there was never any wrestling over the .44 Magnum rifle that his son was carrying and sometimes pointing at his chin.
Police said the officers tried but failed to disarm Heyward with a stun gun. Weary said Heyward ignored repeated commands to drop the rifle and officers fired when they felt threatened by the way he moved it.
Police accounts and a patrol car video indicate the shots were fired in three volleys, all within 30 seconds. Each officer used a .45-caliber pistol. Some officers emptied their magazines, reloaded and fired again, while others didn't fire all their bullets, Weary said.
Some of the gunshots ripped through the unoccupied front room of the house Heyward was renting from his employer, the owner of a local moving company. No one else was injured.
The FBI and Justice Department do not keep national "suicide by cop" statistics. FBI records from September 2008 show 391 "justifiable homicides" by law enforcement in 2007, up slightly from the previous year.
Eugene O'Donnell, a former policeman and prosecutor who is now a professor of police studies at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, said there is "no magic number" when it comes to officers firing at a suspect.
If death is believed to be imminent "there isn't anybody in the country who can tell the cops 10 shots and no more," O'Donnell said.
"Unfortunately this is replicated all over the country. When you send the police they bring deadly force with them. They come armed and they come predisposed to use force," O'Donnell said.
According to court records, Heyward had been charged three times in the past with domestic assault. The first two were dismissed. The third, from a January 2008 incident, remained pending at the time of his death.
He was sentenced in 2005 to 11 months, 29 days in the county workhouse for passing worthless checks, but the sentence was suspended for good behavior and he was given probation.
He also had a few driving related charges on his record, including a violation of the auto registration law for which he received a 30 day suspended sentence in 1997.
The morning he died, Heyward was distraught after returning from a party where he had been drinking, his father said.
"He didn't think anybody cared about him," Marine said.
Heyward was also upset about not seeing his children — a daughter and two sons — according to brother James Heyward.
The video shows that police were told Heyward was drunk and talking about killing himself before they started shooting.
Chattanooga police officers get two to four hours of training annually on dealing with people who are mentally ill or under the influence of drugs or narcotics. But Weary said the training could not be applied in this case because the situation was too fluid and unfolded too quickly.
Weary wouldn't say whether Heyward had a history of mental health problems, citing the ongoing investigation. Marine said his son had no history of mental illness.
Amanda Counts, Heyward's girlfriend, and neighbor Darrell Turner said they witnessed the shooting. They said Heyward was lying on the porch on top of the rifle when officers opened fire.
"Before the first shot was fired he was down," Counts said. "Not one time did he threaten anyone."
Citing the ongoing investigation, police declined to answer questions about Heyward's position when officers started shooting.
Counts and Turner both said that during the first brief interruption in the barrage of police gunshots, they heard Heyward ask, "Why are you shooting me?"
That cannot be heard in the recording provided by police.
Police Chief Freeman Cooper this month told Chattanooga radio station WGOW the simultaneous shooting by all six officers shows they acted properly.
"We are saying that our people did what we trained them to do," the police chief said.
The officers involved in the shooting had between three and six years on the force.
Heyward's father said he thinks a different police response could have brought the incident last month to a peaceful conclusion.
"I believe he would have put that weapon down," Marine said. "They should have said, 'Mr. Heyward, put the weapon down. We're here to help you.' ... He wasn't threatening no one."

Video appears in paper magazines

2009-08-21T11:08:00.001-07:00

Magazine publishers are beginning to experiment with new technologies

The first-ever video advertisement will be published in a traditional paper magazine in September.

The video-in-print ads will appear in select copies of the US show business title Entertainment Weekly.
The slim-line screens - around the size of a mobile phone display - also have rechargeable batteries.
The chip technology used to store the video - described as similar to that used in singing greeting cards - is activated when the page is turned.
Each chip can hold up to 40 minutes of video.
The first clips will preview programmes from US TV network CBS and show adverts by the drinks company Pepsi.

VIDEO TECHNOLOGY

Screen uses liquid crystal display (LCD) technology

Each is 2.7mm thick with 320x240 resolution

Can store 40mins of video

Battery can be recharged via mini-USB

Rechargeable battery lasts up to 70 mins

Developed by LA-firm Americhip

They will appear in 18 September editions of the magazine distributed in Los Angeles and New York.
It's believed the new technology will cost much more than normal print ads.
However, BBC correspondent Rajesh Mirchandani said that in an increasingly competitive market, advertisers have realised that it is more important than ever to create attention for their product.
He likened the technology to the Daily Prophet - a newspaper with moving pictures described in the Harry Potter books.
It is not the first time that publishers have experimented with digital technology in magazines.
Last year, for example, men's lifestyle magazine Esquire published the first using e-ink technology, with a cover that flashed in alternating patterns.
E-ink is the technology used in the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle electronic books.
Americhip, the developer of video-in-print, has also created magazine technology that appeals to various senses, including smell.

Microsoft asks for stay of Word injunction

2009-08-18T23:26:00.000-07:00

Microsoft on Tuesday asked an appeals court to halt an injunction that would force the company to stop selling Microsoft Word in its current form.
A judge last week issued an injunction that would force Microsoft to stop selling versions of Word with a custom XML function that a jury found infringes on a patent held by Canadian software maker I4i. The judge had ordered the injunction to go into effect 60 days after the ruling.
In its "emergency motion," made Tuesday, Microsoft asked an appeals court to halt that injunction and also to speedily hear the company's appeal, once it is filed.
Microsoft said that it is trying to remove the functionality found to infringe on I4i's patents, but unless it can do so, it would be forced to stop distributing Word in the U.S. market. "Already, Microsoft is expending enormous human and financial capital to make its best effort to comply with the district court's 60-day deadline," Microsoft said in the appeals court motion.
The software maker said the injunction could potentially keep Word and even Office off the shelves for months. "Unless Microsoft is able to redesign Word and push that redesigned version through its entire distribution network by October 10th...Microsoft and its distributors (which include retailers such as Best Buy and OEMs such as HP and Dell) face the imminent possibility of a massive disruption in their sales," Microsoft argues in the court papers.
Microsoft's motion is expected to be assigned to a three-judge panel that would consider the request. The software maker is also expected to file its full appeal shortly. On Friday, Microsoft made a motion to the trial judge in the case to allow the company to appeal the verdict without having to post a bond.
As noted in our earlier coverage, Microsoft has several options, including seeking remedy from the courts, creating a technical workaround that ensures Word is not infringing on I4i's patent, and settling with I4i.
In Tuesday's filing, Microsoft noted that, in the period since the jury's verdict, the U.S. Patent and Trademark office has provisionally rejected the patent in question upon a reexamination and said that the company meets the standard for staying the injunction because it is likely to win its appeal, will be irreparably harmed by the injunction, that i4i won't be harmed by the stay and that the public will "face hardship" if Word or Office is absent from the market for any period of time.
Earlier this year, in the same patent case, a federal jury also awarded Microsoft US$200 million in damages in the case. That amount, in part, was reached by determining that a reasonable royalty for the XML feature was US$98 per copy of Word, a figure that Microsoft noted in Tuesday's court filing is more than the retail price of some editions of Word.
For its part, I4i chairman Loudon Owen said last week that his company isn't seeking to crush Word, but rather just to get Microsoft to stop infringing on his company's patents. Owen declined to say what, if any, settlement talks have been taking place between the two companies.
Updates:
In a statement Tuesday, Owen added that the appeal was "fully expected given the significance of the case and the flagship status of Microsoft Word to the defendant. I4i will continue to vigorously enforce its patent," he added. "We firmly believe the jury verdict and judgment were both fair and correct and we have been vindicated through this process."
Microsoft spokesman Kevin Kutz added the following statement:

Today, Microsoft filed a motion with the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to seek an expedited review of its appeal and to stay the permanent injunction while the appeal is pending. These filings are not unusual in patent cases. As we've maintained throughout this process, we believe the evidence clearly demonstrates that we do not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid. We look forward to filing our appeal and to Court of Appeals review.

Oz teens increasingly betting mobile phones, virginity

2009-08-18T05:15:00.001-07:00

An Australian study conducted on youth gambling has discovered that teenagers are betting their mobile phones, running up debt on their parents' credit cards, and even wagering their virginity.

The research conducted by the Central Coast Problem Gambling Service found most teens over 14 have gambled for money or goods, whether it is in the playground, online or illegally at pubs and clubs, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

In accordance with the find, the service has responded by creating early intervention workshops that it hopes to extend to the Hunter through Woodrising Neighbourhood Centre in Lake Macquarie.

The study of 200 teens revealed that 62 percent of those under the age of 14 and 77 per cent of those aged up to 17 had gambled for money or items, including mobile phones and MP3 players.

Of those, a quarter had lost more than they had intended, and 6 per cent under 18 had played a poker machine.

Chris Davidson, manager at the Problem Gambling Service, said one girl confessed to losing her virginity over a bet, while another admitted he had stolen his parents' credit card and lost 3000 dollars in online betting.

Teens can bet online, mainly using overseas websites, with little more than their parents' drivers licence and credit card.

A counsellor for Woodrising, John Hazelwood, has worked as an adolescent and gambling counsellor in the region and said he had treated youths with poker machine habits.

He said the rising popularity of online gambling, especially online poker, meant many young people could hide their addiction.

Gina Carano versus Cristiane Cyborg Santos Fight Video

2009-08-17T11:21:00.000-07:00

In the end the much hyped fight between Gina Carano vs. Christiane Cyborg Santos wasn’t much of a fight at all and the result would be unexpected for many.

Local favorite Gina Carano went down without much of a fight in the first round itself. In fact she was so systematically beaten up by Cyborg that the referree was forced to stop the fight before 5 minutes.
Only once was Gina Carano able to make an impact in the whole fight which forced Cyborg to back down. However Gina’s stamina failed her and she was too defensive against Cyborg charging all-out. Christiane Cyborg Santos was exceptional in this fight. She continued to pound on Gina Carano and met with very little resistance.
A nagging doubt…
In the end, it was a one-sided affair. Gina Carano was no match for Christiane Cyborg Santos. Cristiane Cyborg Santos is the undisputed queen of MMA. However I have a nagging doubt after watching the fight for the second time. The fight was literally stopped at the bell. I understand that the referee had to make a decision observing the condition of Gina Carano, but couldn’t he have waited for just one second and see if Gina Carano could have made a comeback in the second round?
We did promise a video of the fight between Gina Carano vs Cyborg, didn’t we? Here is the link to the flv file (not sure about the source, found on the net) which you can download and play using VLC Player or any Flash player. Just double-click and most likely it will just play. The video is clean.

The Beatles still rule America

2009-08-16T10:20:00.000-07:00

Even after 40 years, ‘The Beatles’ still remain the most popular music band in America. The Fab Four were among the top four choices across all generations and were most popular in the age group 50 to 64, reports the Daily Express

In the survey conducted by Pew Research Centre, late king of pop Michael Jackson was popular among those in late teens and in 20s.

Coldplay and The Rolling Stones also made it to the top 20 list.

Americans in their 30s and 40s voted ‘The Eagles’ as their favourite band, while Frank Sinatra ruled the age group 65 and above.

Around two-thirds of all the respondents said they listened to rock music often or sometimes, placing it above country, r’n'b, hip-hop, jazz and classical.

Responding to the question: “Is 60s music the fairest of them all?” authors of the report stated: “No survey can provide a definitive answer. But boomers can lay claim to bragging rights on at least one front: The Beatles.

“They won the popularity contest with an impressive showing of strength across the generations of listeners.

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