What we have been hearing about Tony Kornheiser, the host of “Pardon the Interruption” which is broadcasted on ESPN, is that ESPN has suspended him. It has been reported that last week Tony Kornheiser made comments about the wardrobe of Hannah Storm during his show. Though he apologized for making his comments yet he has been suspended. One of the ESPN spokesmen said that Tony Kornheiser has been suspended just for few days.
Definitely you have been searching for what Tony Kornheiser said about Hannah Storm’ wardrobe? He said that Hannah Storm was in a very tight shirt he also said that Hannah Storm was dressed a horrifying outfit. To deliver such words about someone is indeed not a favorable thing so that Tony Kornheiser has been facing the music.
Tony Kornheiser said that Hannah Storm looks as she has sausage covering packaging around upper body. He also added that he knows that Hannah Strom is very good and he is not believed to be important of ESPN inhabitants. Tony Kornheiser also said that he will call her a Holden Caulfield fantasy at this instant.
Next day Tony Kornheiser started his radio show and said that he apologizes clearly and he is a sarcastic and seditious chap. He also added that he is in fact not a gnome and he knows that he has no right to pick holes in others personality. He also included he realizes that he did bad, he should not insult Hannah Storm and he is also not allowed to observe how someone is looking like and which kind of clothes someone is wearing.
ESPN did not provide the information regarding the day when Tony Kornheiser will rejoin his radio show.
Original Post By: Alex
Resource: http://news.about-knowledge.com/tony-kornheiser/
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
R.I.P. Edith ‘Jackie’ Ronne: ‘First U.S. Woman on Antarctica’
Edith “Jackie” Ronne was 28 years old when she set foot on Antarctica in 1947. It was a journey she never intended to take.
She was, according to the Washington Post, talked into joining the expedition by her explorer husband so she could, among other things, write stories about the expedition for the North American Newspaper Alliance and the New York Times. As part of the expedition team, she became the first U.S. women on Antarctica and, along with Canadian Jennie Darlington, the first woman to spend a winter on the continent. (The first woman on Antarctica: Norwegian Caroline Mikkelsen, in 1935.)
Ronne was 89.
Here’s the trailer for the documentary about the expedition she joined:
Original Post By: Michael Yessis
Resource: http://www.worldhum.com/travel-blog/item/r.i.p.-edith-jackie-ronne-first-u.s.-woman-on-antarctica-20090618/
She was, according to the Washington Post, talked into joining the expedition by her explorer husband so she could, among other things, write stories about the expedition for the North American Newspaper Alliance and the New York Times. As part of the expedition team, she became the first U.S. women on Antarctica and, along with Canadian Jennie Darlington, the first woman to spend a winter on the continent. (The first woman on Antarctica: Norwegian Caroline Mikkelsen, in 1935.)
Ronne was 89.
Here’s the trailer for the documentary about the expedition she joined:
Original Post By: Michael Yessis
Resource: http://www.worldhum.com/travel-blog/item/r.i.p.-edith-jackie-ronne-first-u.s.-woman-on-antarctica-20090618/
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Plane Crash Austin
Plane Crash Austin, Echelon Building Austin: Authorities are investigating an Austin plane crash that took place this morning at an office building in Northwest Austin, Texas.
Austin police say a small plane crashed into the seven-story building in the 9400 block of Research Boulevard, per the Austin Statesman.
CNN is reporting that the man set his house on fire, stole the plane and crashed it intentionally, citing a federal official.
The Dallas Morning News reports that the building is located on a major highway in the city.
CBS Radio News tweeted that the FBI has an office nearby the site in the same office park.
Austin police said at least two people were hospitalized and one person was unaccounted for.
Twitter updates around Austin are streaming in about the crash. The TweetPhoto image of the building seen here was posted by
Resource: http://gisnap.com/news/plane-crash-austin/
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Hotmail down | Hotmail service unavailable
Windows Live Messenger Services which includes Hotmail went down Tuesday morning.
A lot of troubled users encountered the “service unavailable” message when they tried to sign in to their Windows Live accounts and Hotmail accounts.
Windows Live Hotmail, formerly known as MSN Hotmail and commonly referred to simply as Hotmail, is a free web-based email service operated by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live group.
Update – MSNBC issued this statement:
“This morning, around 9:30am PST, the Windows Live ID sign-in service experienced a partial outage that caused some customers to not be able to sign into services using Windows Live ID for approximately one hour,” Microsoft said in a statement.
“The service is now restored to normal. Microsoft apologizes for any inconvenience this has caused customers.”
Original Post by: Ron Del Rosario
Resource: http://www.thedailyinquirer.net/hotmail-down-hotmail-service-unavailable/029562
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Fashion Icon Alexander McQueen Found Dead
British fashion designer Alexander McQueen was found dead Thursday at his home of an apparent suicide. He was 40. McQueen was discovered at his luxury flat in Green Park, central London, where it is believed he hanged himself. He died just days after the loss of his mother, Joyce. "It is a tragic loss," McQueen's office said in a statement to UK's Daily Mail. "We are not making a comment at this time out of respect for the McQueen family." The notable designer had a large list of celebrity clients including Lady Gaga, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jessica Alba, Beyonce and Naomi Campbell.McQueen's contemporary line, McQ, was scheduled to be shown at New York Fashion Week on Thursday afternoon. KCD, the PR company handling the show, says the presentation is canceled.
Born Lee Alexander McQueen, the designer was the youngest of six children and left school at 16 to work as a tailor apprentice at Savile Row's Anderson & Sheppard, whose clients included Prince Charles and Mikhail Gorbachev.
"At this stage it is inappropriate to comment on this tragic news beyond saying that we are devastated and are sharing a sense of shock and grief with Lee's family," his family says in a statement (via PEOPLE.) "Lee's family has asked for privacy in order to come to terms with this terrible news and we hope the media will respect this."
His death also comes just three years after his close friend Isabella Blow killed herself. Blow discovered McQueen during her tenure as fashion director of Tatler. According to friends, McQueen was so distraught by her death that he dedicated his spring summer 2008 show at Paris Fashion Week to his late friend.
In 1994, McQueen enrolled in London's prestigious Central Saint Martins Fashion School, and upon graduating, he set up his own label based in the East End of London. Openly gay, McQueen once described himself as the 'pink sheep of the family'. He married his partner, filmmaker George Forsyth, in the summer of 2000.
The celebrated designer won numerous industry accolades, including being named International Designer of the Year by the Council of Fashion Designer Awards. In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II made him a Commander of the British Empire for his contribution to fashion.
The news of McQueen's death has sent shock-waves through the big tent at Bryant Park, where New York Fashion Week is held.
Cindi Leive, editor-in-chief of Glamour magazine, said: "Everyone in this tent is shocked. ... He was obviously incredibly talented and had a creative energy. There was a real sense of energy in everything he did."
Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour issued the following statement: "We are devastated to learn of the death of Alexander McQueen, one of the greatest talents of his generation. He brought a uniquely British sense of daring and aesthetic fearlessness to the global stage of fashion. In such a short career, Alexander McQueen's influence was astonishing - from street style, to music culture and the world's museums. His passing marks an insurmountable loss."
Original Post By: PopEater Staff
Resource: http://www.popeater.com/2010/02/11/fashion-designer-alexander-mcqueen-commits-suicide/
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Bonnaroo 2010 Lineup Live Blog
As we recently reported, the Bonnaroo Music Festival will be rolling out their official 2010 lineup announcement today starting at noon EST, in continuation of their annual lineup tease-fest. However, a number of bands seemingly wanted to boost traffic to their own websites couldn’t wait to break the news to the world that they’ll be on this year’s lineup, so we’ve already got a number of artists confirmed.
Stay tuned to LMB, as we’ll be updating the lineup as all of the artists are confirmed throughout the day…Read more>>
Original Post By: whitperson
Monday, February 8, 2010
RIP, Jack Murtha
Democratic Congressman Jack Murtha died minutes ago at age 77.
Complications from gall bladder surgery.
He was a native of New Martinsville, West Virginia, and a Marine who was elected in 1974 as part of the Democratic class of congressmen following President Nixon’s resignation in disgrace.
Ironically from Abscam to his own Earmarks Incorporated chairmanship of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Murtha’s 35 years in Congress were tainted by scandal.
He became a liberal icon when he announced he opposed the war in Iraq a year after enthusiastically voting for it.
Rest in peace.
UPDATE: Chris Cillizza said a special election to fill the seat will likely be held on May 18, which is the primary election in Pennsylvania. I figure whoever wins that gets re-elected in November.
The Associated Press report:
HARRISBURG, Pa. — U.S. Rep. John Murtha, an influential critic of the Iraq War whose congressional career was shadowed by questions about his ethics, died Monday. He was 77.
The Pennsylvania Democrat had been suffering complications from gallbladder surgery. He died at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va., spokesman Matthew Mazonkey said.
In 1974 Murtha, then an officer in the Marine Reserves, became the first Vietnam War combat veteran elected to Congress. One of Congress’ most hawkish Democrats, he wielded considerable clout for two decades as the ranking Democrat on the House subcommittee that oversees Pentagon spending.
Murtha voted in 2002 to authorize President George W. Bush to use military force in Iraq, but Murtha’s growing frustration over the administration’s handling of the war prompted him in November 2005 to call for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops.
“The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion,” he said.
Murtha’s opposition to the Iraq war rattled Washington, where the tall, gruff-mannered congressman enjoyed bipartisan respect for his work on military issues. On Capitol Hill, Murtha was seen as speaking for those in uniform when it came to military matters.
Born June 17, 1932, John Patrick Murtha delivered newspapers and worked at a gas station before graduating from Ramsay High School in Mount Pleasant.
Military service was in Murtha’s blood. He said his great-grandfather served in the Civil War, his father and three uncles in World War II, and his brothers in the Marine Corps.
He left Washington and Jefferson College in 1952 to join the Marines, where he rose through the ranks to become a drill instructor at Parris Island, S.C., and later served in the 2nd Marine Division.
Murtha moved back to Johnstown and remained with the Marine Reserves until he volunteered to go to Vietnam. He served as an intelligence officer there from 1966 to 1967 and received a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.
After his discharge from the Marines, Murtha ran a small business in Johnstown. He went to the University of Pittsburgh on the GI Bill of rights, graduating in 1962 with a degree in economics.
He served in the Pennsylvania House in Harrisburg from 1969 until he was elected to Congress in a special election in 1974. In 1990, he retired from the Marine Reserves as a colonel.
“Ever since I was a young boy, I had two goals in life — I wanted to be a colonel in the Marine Corps and a member of Congress,” Murtha wrote in his 2004 book, “From Vietnam to 9/11.”
Murtha’s criticism of the Iraq war intensified in 2006, when he accused Marines of murdering Iraqi civilians “in cold blood” at Haditha, Iraq, after one Marine died and two were wounded by a roadside bomb.
Critics said Murtha unfairly held the Marines responsible before an investigation was concluded and fueled enemy retaliation. He said the war couldn’t be won militarily and such incidents dimmed the prospect for a political solution.
“This is the kind of war you have to win the hearts and minds of the people,” Murtha said. “And we’re set back every time something like this happens.”
In 2008, the Republican Party used Murtha’s words against him in TV ads aired less than a month before the election. The ads cited his criticism of the Haditha incident as well as his comment about “racist” voting tendencies of many western Pennsylvania residents. Still, Murtha handily won his 18th full term.
Murtha was a perennial target of critics of so-called pay-to-play politics. He routinely drew the attention of ethical watchdogs with off-the-floor activities from his entanglement in the Abscam corruption probe three decades ago to the more recent scrutiny of the connection between special-interest spending known as earmarks and the raising of cash for campaigns.
Murtha defended the practice of earmarking. The money, he said, benefited his constituents.
Murtha became chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee in 1989. The same year Paul Magliocchetti, a former subcommittee staffer, left Capitol Hill to found the now-defunct PMA Group. The lobbying firm, which specialized in obtaining earmarks for defense contractors, was one Murtha’s biggest sources of campaign cash.
In 2007 and 2008, Murtha and two fellow Democrats on the subcommittee directed $137 million to defense contractors who were paying PMA to get them government business. Between 1989 and 2009, Murtha collected more than $2.3 million in campaign contributions from PMA’s lobbyists and corporate clients, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks political money.
Shortly after the 2008 election, the FBI raided PMA’s offices as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. In a separate development in January 2009, FBI agents raided the offices of a defense contractor from Murtha’s district — Windber-based Kuchera Defense Systems Inc. — that had received millions of dollars in earmarks sponsored by Murtha while contributing tens of thousands to his campaigns.
A year later, Kuchera was suspended from bidding on government contracts because of allegations that it paid more than $200,000 in kickbacks to another defense contractor.
Around the same time, the House ethics committee was investigating the link between PMA-related campaign contributions and earmarks, but it had not named a subcommittee to look into possible violations by individual lawmakers.
Murtha’s critics recall the Abscam corruption probe, in which the FBI caught him on videotape in a 1980 sting operation turning down a $50,000 bribe offer while holding out the possibility that he might take money in the future.
“We do business for a while, maybe I’ll be interested and maybe I won’t,” Murtha said on the tape.
Six congressmen and one senator were convicted in that case. Murtha was not charged, but the government named him as an unindicted co-conspirator and he testified against two other congressmen.
Murtha’s district encompasses all or parts of nine counties in southwestern Pennsylvania and embodies the region’s stereotypes of coal mines, steel mills and blue-collar values.
Constituents credited Murtha with bringing jobs and health care to the region, delivering hundreds of millions of dollars for local industry, hospitals and tourism. Critics derisively nicknamed Murtha the “king of pork” and said he used his position on the defense subcommittee to win favors.
Murtha often delivered Democratic votes to Republican leaders in exchange for the funding of pet projects. He wasn’t shy about such deals, once saying that “dealmaking is what Congress is all about.”
In 2006, when the Democrats captured control of the House for the first time in 12 years, Rep. Nancy Pelosi endorsed Murtha to become majority leader. Pelosi, D-Calif., went on to be elected as the first female House speaker, but caucus members picked Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., as their leader.
Resource: http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/9001
Complications from gall bladder surgery.
He was a native of New Martinsville, West Virginia, and a Marine who was elected in 1974 as part of the Democratic class of congressmen following President Nixon’s resignation in disgrace.
Ironically from Abscam to his own Earmarks Incorporated chairmanship of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Murtha’s 35 years in Congress were tainted by scandal.
He became a liberal icon when he announced he opposed the war in Iraq a year after enthusiastically voting for it.
Rest in peace.
UPDATE: Chris Cillizza said a special election to fill the seat will likely be held on May 18, which is the primary election in Pennsylvania. I figure whoever wins that gets re-elected in November.
The Associated Press report:
HARRISBURG, Pa. — U.S. Rep. John Murtha, an influential critic of the Iraq War whose congressional career was shadowed by questions about his ethics, died Monday. He was 77.
The Pennsylvania Democrat had been suffering complications from gallbladder surgery. He died at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va., spokesman Matthew Mazonkey said.
In 1974 Murtha, then an officer in the Marine Reserves, became the first Vietnam War combat veteran elected to Congress. One of Congress’ most hawkish Democrats, he wielded considerable clout for two decades as the ranking Democrat on the House subcommittee that oversees Pentagon spending.
Murtha voted in 2002 to authorize President George W. Bush to use military force in Iraq, but Murtha’s growing frustration over the administration’s handling of the war prompted him in November 2005 to call for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops.
“The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion,” he said.
Murtha’s opposition to the Iraq war rattled Washington, where the tall, gruff-mannered congressman enjoyed bipartisan respect for his work on military issues. On Capitol Hill, Murtha was seen as speaking for those in uniform when it came to military matters.
Born June 17, 1932, John Patrick Murtha delivered newspapers and worked at a gas station before graduating from Ramsay High School in Mount Pleasant.
Military service was in Murtha’s blood. He said his great-grandfather served in the Civil War, his father and three uncles in World War II, and his brothers in the Marine Corps.
He left Washington and Jefferson College in 1952 to join the Marines, where he rose through the ranks to become a drill instructor at Parris Island, S.C., and later served in the 2nd Marine Division.
Murtha moved back to Johnstown and remained with the Marine Reserves until he volunteered to go to Vietnam. He served as an intelligence officer there from 1966 to 1967 and received a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.
After his discharge from the Marines, Murtha ran a small business in Johnstown. He went to the University of Pittsburgh on the GI Bill of rights, graduating in 1962 with a degree in economics.
He served in the Pennsylvania House in Harrisburg from 1969 until he was elected to Congress in a special election in 1974. In 1990, he retired from the Marine Reserves as a colonel.
“Ever since I was a young boy, I had two goals in life — I wanted to be a colonel in the Marine Corps and a member of Congress,” Murtha wrote in his 2004 book, “From Vietnam to 9/11.”
Murtha’s criticism of the Iraq war intensified in 2006, when he accused Marines of murdering Iraqi civilians “in cold blood” at Haditha, Iraq, after one Marine died and two were wounded by a roadside bomb.
Critics said Murtha unfairly held the Marines responsible before an investigation was concluded and fueled enemy retaliation. He said the war couldn’t be won militarily and such incidents dimmed the prospect for a political solution.
“This is the kind of war you have to win the hearts and minds of the people,” Murtha said. “And we’re set back every time something like this happens.”
In 2008, the Republican Party used Murtha’s words against him in TV ads aired less than a month before the election. The ads cited his criticism of the Haditha incident as well as his comment about “racist” voting tendencies of many western Pennsylvania residents. Still, Murtha handily won his 18th full term.
Murtha was a perennial target of critics of so-called pay-to-play politics. He routinely drew the attention of ethical watchdogs with off-the-floor activities from his entanglement in the Abscam corruption probe three decades ago to the more recent scrutiny of the connection between special-interest spending known as earmarks and the raising of cash for campaigns.
Murtha defended the practice of earmarking. The money, he said, benefited his constituents.
Murtha became chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee in 1989. The same year Paul Magliocchetti, a former subcommittee staffer, left Capitol Hill to found the now-defunct PMA Group. The lobbying firm, which specialized in obtaining earmarks for defense contractors, was one Murtha’s biggest sources of campaign cash.
In 2007 and 2008, Murtha and two fellow Democrats on the subcommittee directed $137 million to defense contractors who were paying PMA to get them government business. Between 1989 and 2009, Murtha collected more than $2.3 million in campaign contributions from PMA’s lobbyists and corporate clients, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks political money.
Shortly after the 2008 election, the FBI raided PMA’s offices as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. In a separate development in January 2009, FBI agents raided the offices of a defense contractor from Murtha’s district — Windber-based Kuchera Defense Systems Inc. — that had received millions of dollars in earmarks sponsored by Murtha while contributing tens of thousands to his campaigns.
A year later, Kuchera was suspended from bidding on government contracts because of allegations that it paid more than $200,000 in kickbacks to another defense contractor.
Around the same time, the House ethics committee was investigating the link between PMA-related campaign contributions and earmarks, but it had not named a subcommittee to look into possible violations by individual lawmakers.
Murtha’s critics recall the Abscam corruption probe, in which the FBI caught him on videotape in a 1980 sting operation turning down a $50,000 bribe offer while holding out the possibility that he might take money in the future.
“We do business for a while, maybe I’ll be interested and maybe I won’t,” Murtha said on the tape.
Six congressmen and one senator were convicted in that case. Murtha was not charged, but the government named him as an unindicted co-conspirator and he testified against two other congressmen.
Murtha’s district encompasses all or parts of nine counties in southwestern Pennsylvania and embodies the region’s stereotypes of coal mines, steel mills and blue-collar values.
Constituents credited Murtha with bringing jobs and health care to the region, delivering hundreds of millions of dollars for local industry, hospitals and tourism. Critics derisively nicknamed Murtha the “king of pork” and said he used his position on the defense subcommittee to win favors.
Murtha often delivered Democratic votes to Republican leaders in exchange for the funding of pet projects. He wasn’t shy about such deals, once saying that “dealmaking is what Congress is all about.”
In 2006, when the Democrats captured control of the House for the first time in 12 years, Rep. Nancy Pelosi endorsed Murtha to become majority leader. Pelosi, D-Calif., went on to be elected as the first female House speaker, but caucus members picked Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., as their leader.
Resource: http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/9001
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Diabetic ketoacidosis
Socialite Casey Johnson’s cause of death was released by the coroner today, she died after slipping in a diabetic coma after her body went into diabetic ketoacidosis.
Diabetic ketoacidosis is a state the body falls in when there is too little insulin in the body to break down sugar in the body and have it enter cells for energy. In this deprived state, the body starts to break down fat for energy, and the person can fall into a coma. Once in the comatose state, if left untreated, this condition can be fatal as it was for Casey.
In other sad news, actress Brittany Murphy’s cause of death results have also been determined.
Resource: http://www.abreakingnews.us/diabetic-ketoacidosis.html
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Football: Brighton DT Ricky Heimuli signs with Oregon
One of the top five high school football prospects in the state of Utah, Brighton’s Ricky Heimuli, DT, has signed with the University of Oregon.
Heimuli made the announcement just minutes ago at a news conference at his school.
The 6-foot-2, 294-pounder rated four starts from Scout.com and chose Oregon over Utah, Washington and UCLA.
Heimuli also had interest in BYU, but a few weeks ago BYU coaches told him they no longer had a scholarship available for him unless he first goes on a church mission, or unless another player de-commits.
Heimuli said one of the deciding factors was his relationship with Oregon’s defensive line coach.
He said he plans to play for Oregon for a year, then leave on an LDS Church mission.
Resource: http://blogs.sltrib.com/recruiting/index.php?p=10662&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
Heimuli made the announcement just minutes ago at a news conference at his school.
The 6-foot-2, 294-pounder rated four starts from Scout.com and chose Oregon over Utah, Washington and UCLA.
Heimuli also had interest in BYU, but a few weeks ago BYU coaches told him they no longer had a scholarship available for him unless he first goes on a church mission, or unless another player de-commits.
Heimuli said one of the deciding factors was his relationship with Oregon’s defensive line coach.
He said he plans to play for Oregon for a year, then leave on an LDS Church mission.
Resource: http://blogs.sltrib.com/recruiting/index.php?p=10662&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
Monday, February 1, 2010
Jeffrey Whitaker
Scouting Report on Jeffrey Whitaker
On the Hoof: Very wide shoulders and thick upper body with a wide powerbase and athletic-looking legs. Whitaker has massive arms and really looks the part of a fit, run-stopping machine. He is built like a taller Brandon Thompson of Clemson.
Needs Improvement: He has to be more consistent with pad level at the point of attack and use more than a bull rush for his pass-rushing technique.
Most Impressive: Whitaker is one massive human being that takes up a lot of space along the line of scrimmage. He is just too strong to be pushed off the ball, and he does a nice job pursuing plays laterally.
Conclusion: Size alone makes him a candidate for playing time as a freshman, especially in short-yardage situations. If he can stay healthy and improve his ability to put pressure on the quarterback, he will become an all-league performer.
commits to Auburn2
Warner Robins (Ga.) four-star Jeffrey Whitaker, one of the nation's top defensive tackle recruits, announced Monday he plans to sign withAuburn. Whitaker chose Auburn over Georgia and Miami. Get the latest on the Tigers inside.
Jeffrey Whitaker chooses Auburn Tiger
Auburn recruiting update: Jeffrey Whitaker, Shon Coleman, D.J. Howard and more
Does University of Miami defensive tackle commitment Jeffrey Brown have the recruiting scoop on a couple of players Auburn has targeted?
Don't know, but he spent time with defensive tackle Jeffrey Whitaker and offensive lineman Shon Coleman when they visited Miami this weekend.
Here is his guess after their visit, according to Scout's SuperPrep.com...
Jeffrey Whitaker: "He liked it too but I think he's going to Auburn."
Shon Coleman: "I didn't talk to him much. I think he's going to Alabama."
We don't know if Jeffrey Brown is a recruiting guru, and he says he didn't get to know Coleman. We do know Coleman is an Auburn commitment and has not publicly wavered from that. His last words: He's "100 percent" committed to the Tigers. Whitaker is going to announce his intentions at his high school at Warner Robins, Ga., at 1 p.m., central time, Monday.
**It's no surprise to Auburn that Lincoln High School's D.J. Howard is considering other schools who have promised him a chance to play running back. The Birmingham News' own Doug Segrest has the latest on Howard this Sunday. Howard, anAuburn commitment, has visited Clemson and Kentucky the last two weekends. He says he'll announce which school he'll attend at his high school Wednesday.
**Auburn is still waiting on word on running back Marcus Lattimore. He'll announce Tuesday night.
**Patrick Swilling Jr., the son of the former NFL great, is a cornerback who is considering Auburn, among other schools. He doesn't have an Auburn offer. He tells his story in this Rivals story from Kentucky. He says he's also considering Kentucky, Tennessee and LSU. Swilling is 6-foot-3, 215, and he's from New Orleans.
**The Birmingham News' revised Super Seniors list will appear in Monday's newspaper.
Scoop: Auburn will be well represented, with four of the Top 10 and eight of the top 22. Auburn, of course, has the No. 1 players from other states (like running back Michael Dyer from Arkansas, wide receiver Trovon Reed from Louisiana, Coleman from Mississippi as well as the No. 1 junior college player in the nation in Cameron Newton). Of course, there's Lattimore from South Carolina, too...
Resource: http://antonfkip.blogspot.com/2010/02/jeffrey-whitaker.html
On the Hoof: Very wide shoulders and thick upper body with a wide powerbase and athletic-looking legs. Whitaker has massive arms and really looks the part of a fit, run-stopping machine. He is built like a taller Brandon Thompson of Clemson.
Needs Improvement: He has to be more consistent with pad level at the point of attack and use more than a bull rush for his pass-rushing technique.
Most Impressive: Whitaker is one massive human being that takes up a lot of space along the line of scrimmage. He is just too strong to be pushed off the ball, and he does a nice job pursuing plays laterally.
Conclusion: Size alone makes him a candidate for playing time as a freshman, especially in short-yardage situations. If he can stay healthy and improve his ability to put pressure on the quarterback, he will become an all-league performer.
commits to Auburn2
Warner Robins (Ga.) four-star Jeffrey Whitaker, one of the nation's top defensive tackle recruits, announced Monday he plans to sign withAuburn. Whitaker chose Auburn over Georgia and Miami. Get the latest on the Tigers inside.
Jeffrey Whitaker chooses Auburn Tiger
Auburn recruiting update: Jeffrey Whitaker, Shon Coleman, D.J. Howard and more
Does University of Miami defensive tackle commitment Jeffrey Brown have the recruiting scoop on a couple of players Auburn has targeted?
Don't know, but he spent time with defensive tackle Jeffrey Whitaker and offensive lineman Shon Coleman when they visited Miami this weekend.
Here is his guess after their visit, according to Scout's SuperPrep.com...
Jeffrey Whitaker: "He liked it too but I think he's going to Auburn."
Shon Coleman: "I didn't talk to him much. I think he's going to Alabama."
We don't know if Jeffrey Brown is a recruiting guru, and he says he didn't get to know Coleman. We do know Coleman is an Auburn commitment and has not publicly wavered from that. His last words: He's "100 percent" committed to the Tigers. Whitaker is going to announce his intentions at his high school at Warner Robins, Ga., at 1 p.m., central time, Monday.
**It's no surprise to Auburn that Lincoln High School's D.J. Howard is considering other schools who have promised him a chance to play running back. The Birmingham News' own Doug Segrest has the latest on Howard this Sunday. Howard, anAuburn commitment, has visited Clemson and Kentucky the last two weekends. He says he'll announce which school he'll attend at his high school Wednesday.
**Auburn is still waiting on word on running back Marcus Lattimore. He'll announce Tuesday night.
**Patrick Swilling Jr., the son of the former NFL great, is a cornerback who is considering Auburn, among other schools. He doesn't have an Auburn offer. He tells his story in this Rivals story from Kentucky. He says he's also considering Kentucky, Tennessee and LSU. Swilling is 6-foot-3, 215, and he's from New Orleans.
**The Birmingham News' revised Super Seniors list will appear in Monday's newspaper.
Scoop: Auburn will be well represented, with four of the Top 10 and eight of the top 22. Auburn, of course, has the No. 1 players from other states (like running back Michael Dyer from Arkansas, wide receiver Trovon Reed from Louisiana, Coleman from Mississippi as well as the No. 1 junior college player in the nation in Cameron Newton). Of course, there's Lattimore from South Carolina, too...
Resource: http://antonfkip.blogspot.com/2010/02/jeffrey-whitaker.html
Friday, January 29, 2010
Jordan Hicks to make announcement today
Heralded linebacker Jordan Hicks of Lakota West High School in West Chester, Ohio, is expected to make his announcement later today on which scholarship offer he will accept.
Hicks will reveal his decision between Ohio State, Florida and Texas at his school at 1 p.m. ET. He is ranked as ESPNU's No. 4 prospect nationally.
It would mark the first time that Mack Brown has ever attracted a player out of Ohio and would be his biggest victory there since he upset Ohio State at Ohio Stadium early in the Longhorns' 2005 national championship run.
It will be hard to beat Jim Tressel and Ohio State for a top Ohio recruit -- and would be a rare occurrence during Tressel's recent coaching tenure with the Buckeyes.
Florida's influence in the recruiting battle has waned since Charlie Strong, who had been in charge of recruiting Hicks, accepted the head-coaching job at Louisville.
It will be an interesting announcement and one that potentially has huge ramifications for Texas and its defense. Attracting Hicks, who won the Dick Butkus Award, which is given to the nation's top high school linebacker, would be the biggest recruit for Texas so far.
Original Post By: Tim Griffin
Resource: http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/18684/jordan-hicks-to-make-announcement-today
Hicks will reveal his decision between Ohio State, Florida and Texas at his school at 1 p.m. ET. He is ranked as ESPNU's No. 4 prospect nationally.
It would mark the first time that Mack Brown has ever attracted a player out of Ohio and would be his biggest victory there since he upset Ohio State at Ohio Stadium early in the Longhorns' 2005 national championship run.
It will be hard to beat Jim Tressel and Ohio State for a top Ohio recruit -- and would be a rare occurrence during Tressel's recent coaching tenure with the Buckeyes.
Florida's influence in the recruiting battle has waned since Charlie Strong, who had been in charge of recruiting Hicks, accepted the head-coaching job at Louisville.
It will be an interesting announcement and one that potentially has huge ramifications for Texas and its defense. Attracting Hicks, who won the Dick Butkus Award, which is given to the nation's top high school linebacker, would be the biggest recruit for Texas so far.
Original Post By: Tim Griffin
Resource: http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/18684/jordan-hicks-to-make-announcement-today
Thursday, January 28, 2010
J.D. Salinger Dead: 'Catcher in the Rye' Author Dies At 91
NEW YORK — J.D. Salinger, the legendary author, youth hero and fugitive from fame whose "The Catcher in the Rye" shocked and inspired a world he increasingly shunned, has died. He was 91.
Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author's son said in a statement from Salinger's longtime literary representative, Harold Ober Agency. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, N.H.
"The Catcher in the Rye," with its immortal teenage protagonist, the twisted, rebellious Holden Caulfield, came out in 1951, a time of anxious, Cold War conformity and the dawn of modern adolescence. The Book-of-the-Month Club, which made "Catcher" a featured selection, advised that for "anyone who has ever brought up a son" the novel will be "a source of wonder and delight – and concern."
Enraged by all the "phonies" who make "me so depressed I go crazy," Holden soon became American literature's most famous anti-hero since Huckleberry Finn. The novel's sales are astonishing – more than 60 million copies worldwide – and its impact incalculable. Decades after publication, the book remains a defining expression of that most American of dreams: to never grow up.
Salinger was writing for adults, but teenagers from all over identified with the novel's themes of alienation, innocence and fantasy, not to mention the luck of having the last word. "Catcher" presents the world as an ever-so-unfair struggle between the goodness of young people and the corruption of elders, a message that only intensified with the oncoming generation gap.
Novels from Evan Hunter's "The Blackboard Jungle" to Curtis Sittenfeld's "Prep," movies from "Rebel Without a Cause" to "The Breakfast Club," and countless rock 'n' roll songs echoed Salinger's message of kids under siege. One of the great anti-heroes of the 1960s, Benjamin Braddock of "The Graduate," was but a blander version of Salinger's narrator.
"`Catcher in the Rye' made a very powerful and surprising impression on me," said Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon, who read the book, as so many did, when he was in middle school. "Part of it was the fact that our seventh grade teacher was actually letting us read such a book. But mostly it was because `Catcher' had such a recognizable authenticity in the voice that even in 1977 or so, when I read it, felt surprising and rare in literature."
The cult of "Catcher" turned tragic in 1980 when crazed Beatles fan Mark David Chapman shot and killed John Lennon, citing Salinger's novel as an inspiration and stating that "this extraordinary book holds many answers."
By the 21st century, Holden himself seemed relatively mild, but Salinger's book remained a standard in school curriculums and was discussed on countless Web sites and a fan page on Facebook.
On the Web Thursday, there was an outpouring of sadness for the loss of Salinger, as many flocked together on social networks to relate their memories of "Catcher in the Rye." Topics such as "Salinger" and "Holden Caufield" were among the most popular on Twitter. CNN's Larry King tweeted that "Catcher" is his favorite book. Humorist John Hodgman wrote: "I prefer to think JD Salinger has just decided to become extra reclusive."
Salinger's other books don't equal the influence or sales of "Catcher," but they are still read, again and again, with great affection and intensity. Critics, at least briefly, rated Salinger as a more accomplished and daring short story writer than John Cheever.
The collection "Nine Stories" features the classic "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," the deadpan account of a suicidal Army veteran and the little girl he hopes, in vain, will save him. The novel "Franny and Zooey," like "Catcher," is a youthful, obsessively articulated quest for redemption, featuring a memorable argument between Zooey and his mother as he attempts to read in the bathtub.
"Everyone who works here and writes here at The New Yorker, even now, decades after his silence began, does so with a keen awareness of J.D. Salinger's voice," said David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, where many of Salinger's stories appeared. "In fact, he is so widely read in America, and read with such intensity, that it's hard to think of any reader, young and old, who does not carry around the voices of Holden Caulfield or Glass family members."
"Catcher," narrated from a mental facility, begins with Holden recalling his expulsion from a Pennsylvania boarding school for failing four classes and for general apathy.
He returns home to Manhattan, where his wanderings take him everywhere from a Times Square hotel to a rainy carousel ride with his kid sister, Phoebe, in Central Park. He decides he wants to escape to a cabin out West, but scorns questions about his future as just so much phoniness.
"I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it?" he reasons. "The answer is, you don't. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it's a stupid question."
"The Catcher in the Rye" became both required and restricted reading, periodically banned by a school board or challenged by parents worried by its frank language and the irresistible chip on Holden's shoulder.
"I'm aware that a number of my friends will be saddened, or shocked, or shocked-saddened, over some of the chapters of `The Catcher in the Rye.' Some of my best friends are children. In fact, all of my best friends are children," Salinger wrote in 1955, in a short note for "20th Century Authors."
"It's almost unbearable to me to realize that my book will be kept on a shelf out of their reach," he added.
Salinger also wrote the novellas "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" and "Seymour – An Introduction," both featuring the neurotic, fictional Glass family that appeared in much of his work.
His last published story, "Hapworth 16, 1928," ran in The New Yorker in 1965. By then, he was increasingly viewed like a precocious child whose manner had soured from cute to insufferable. "Salinger was the greatest mind ever to stay in prep school," Norman Mailer once commented.
In 1997, it was announced that "Hapworth" would be reissued as a book – prompting a (negative) New York Times review. The book, in typical Salinger style, didn't appear. In 1999, New Hampshire neighbor Jerry Burt said the author had told him years earlier that he had written at least 15 unpublished books kept locked in a safe at his home.
"I love to write and I assure you I write regularly," Salinger said in a brief interview with the Baton Rouge (La.) Advocate in 1980. "But I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it."
Jerome David Salinger was born Jan. 1, 1919, in New York City. His father was a wealthy importer of cheeses and meat and the family lived for years on Park Avenue.
Like Holden, Salinger was an indifferent student with a history of trouble in various schools. He was sent to Valley Forge Military Academy at age 15, where he wrote at night by flashlight beneath the covers and eventually earned his only diploma. In 1940, he published his first fiction, "The Young Folks," in Story magazine.
He served in the Army from 1942 to 1946, carrying a typewriter with him most of the time, writing "whenever I can find the time and an unoccupied foxhole," he told a friend.
Returning to New York, the lean, dark-haired Salinger pursued an intense study of Zen Buddhism but also cut a gregarious figure in the bars of Greenwich Village, where he astonished acquaintances with his proficiency in rounding up dates. One drinking buddy, author A.E. Hotchner, would remember Salinger as the proud owner of an "ego of cast iron," contemptuous of writers and writing schools, convinced that he was the best thing to happen to American letters since Herman Melville.
Holden first appeared as a character in the story "Last Day of the Last Furlough," published in 1944 in the Saturday Evening Post. Salinger's stories ran in several magazines, especially The New Yorker, where excerpts from "Catcher" were published.
The finished novel quickly became a best seller and early reviews were blueprints for the praise and condemnation to come. The New York Times found the book "an unusually brilliant first novel" and observed that Holden's "delinquencies seem minor indeed when contrasted with the adult delinquencies with which he is confronted."
But the Christian Science Monitor was not charmed. "He is alive, human, preposterous, profane and pathetic beyond belief," critic T. Morris Longstreth wrote of Holden.
"Fortunately, there cannot be many of him yet. But one fears that a book like this given wide circulation may multiply his kind - as too easily happens when immortality and perversion are recounted by writers of talent whose work is countenanced in the name of art or good intention."
The world had come calling for Salinger, but Salinger was bolting the door. By 1952, he had migrated to Cornish. Three years later, he married Claire Douglas, with whom he had two children, Peggy and Matthew, before their 1967 divorce. (Salinger was also briefly married in the 1940s to a woman named Sylvia; little else is known about her.)
Meanwhile, he refused interviews, instructing his agent not to forward fan mail and reportedly spending much of his time writing in a cement bunker. Sanity, apparently, could only come through seclusion.
"I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes," Holden says in "Catcher."
"That way I wouldn't have to have any ... stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. I'd build me a little cabin somewhere with the dough I made."
Although Salinger initially contemplated a theater production of "Catcher," with the author himself playing Holden, he turned down numerous offers for film or stage rights, including requests from Billy Wilder and Elia Kazan. Bids from Steven Spielberg and Harvey Weinstein were also rejected.
Salinger became famous for not wanting to be famous. In 1982, he sued a man who allegedly tried to sell a fictitious interview with the author to a national magazine. The impostor agreed to desist and Salinger dropped the suit.
Five years later, another Salinger legal action resulted in an important decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court refused to allow publication of an unauthorized biography, by Ian Hamilton, that quoted from the author's unpublished letters. Salinger had copyrighted the letters when he learned about Hamilton's book, which came out in a revised edition in 1988.
In 2009, Salinger sued to halt publication of John David California's "60 Years Later," an unauthorized sequel to "Catcher" that imagined Holden in his 70s, misanthropic as ever.
Against Salinger's will, the curtain was parted in recent years. In 1998, author Joyce Maynard published her memoir "At Home in the World," in which she detailed her eight-month affair with Salinger in the early 1970s, when she was less than half his age. She drew an unflattering picture of a controlling personality with eccentric eating habits, and described their problematic sex life.
Salinger's alleged adoration of children apparently did not extend to his own. In 2000, daughter Margaret Salinger's "Dreamcatcher" portrayed the writer as an unpleasant recluse who drank his own urine and spoke in tongues.
Margaret Salinger said she wrote the book because she was "absolutely determined not to repeat with my son what had been done with me."
Original Post By: HILLEL ITALIE
Resource:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/28/j-d-salinger-dead-catcher_n_440500.html
Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author's son said in a statement from Salinger's longtime literary representative, Harold Ober Agency. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, N.H.
"The Catcher in the Rye," with its immortal teenage protagonist, the twisted, rebellious Holden Caulfield, came out in 1951, a time of anxious, Cold War conformity and the dawn of modern adolescence. The Book-of-the-Month Club, which made "Catcher" a featured selection, advised that for "anyone who has ever brought up a son" the novel will be "a source of wonder and delight – and concern."
Enraged by all the "phonies" who make "me so depressed I go crazy," Holden soon became American literature's most famous anti-hero since Huckleberry Finn. The novel's sales are astonishing – more than 60 million copies worldwide – and its impact incalculable. Decades after publication, the book remains a defining expression of that most American of dreams: to never grow up.
Salinger was writing for adults, but teenagers from all over identified with the novel's themes of alienation, innocence and fantasy, not to mention the luck of having the last word. "Catcher" presents the world as an ever-so-unfair struggle between the goodness of young people and the corruption of elders, a message that only intensified with the oncoming generation gap.
Novels from Evan Hunter's "The Blackboard Jungle" to Curtis Sittenfeld's "Prep," movies from "Rebel Without a Cause" to "The Breakfast Club," and countless rock 'n' roll songs echoed Salinger's message of kids under siege. One of the great anti-heroes of the 1960s, Benjamin Braddock of "The Graduate," was but a blander version of Salinger's narrator.
"`Catcher in the Rye' made a very powerful and surprising impression on me," said Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon, who read the book, as so many did, when he was in middle school. "Part of it was the fact that our seventh grade teacher was actually letting us read such a book. But mostly it was because `Catcher' had such a recognizable authenticity in the voice that even in 1977 or so, when I read it, felt surprising and rare in literature."
The cult of "Catcher" turned tragic in 1980 when crazed Beatles fan Mark David Chapman shot and killed John Lennon, citing Salinger's novel as an inspiration and stating that "this extraordinary book holds many answers."
By the 21st century, Holden himself seemed relatively mild, but Salinger's book remained a standard in school curriculums and was discussed on countless Web sites and a fan page on Facebook.
On the Web Thursday, there was an outpouring of sadness for the loss of Salinger, as many flocked together on social networks to relate their memories of "Catcher in the Rye." Topics such as "Salinger" and "Holden Caufield" were among the most popular on Twitter. CNN's Larry King tweeted that "Catcher" is his favorite book. Humorist John Hodgman wrote: "I prefer to think JD Salinger has just decided to become extra reclusive."
Salinger's other books don't equal the influence or sales of "Catcher," but they are still read, again and again, with great affection and intensity. Critics, at least briefly, rated Salinger as a more accomplished and daring short story writer than John Cheever.
The collection "Nine Stories" features the classic "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," the deadpan account of a suicidal Army veteran and the little girl he hopes, in vain, will save him. The novel "Franny and Zooey," like "Catcher," is a youthful, obsessively articulated quest for redemption, featuring a memorable argument between Zooey and his mother as he attempts to read in the bathtub.
"Everyone who works here and writes here at The New Yorker, even now, decades after his silence began, does so with a keen awareness of J.D. Salinger's voice," said David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, where many of Salinger's stories appeared. "In fact, he is so widely read in America, and read with such intensity, that it's hard to think of any reader, young and old, who does not carry around the voices of Holden Caulfield or Glass family members."
"Catcher," narrated from a mental facility, begins with Holden recalling his expulsion from a Pennsylvania boarding school for failing four classes and for general apathy.
He returns home to Manhattan, where his wanderings take him everywhere from a Times Square hotel to a rainy carousel ride with his kid sister, Phoebe, in Central Park. He decides he wants to escape to a cabin out West, but scorns questions about his future as just so much phoniness.
"I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it?" he reasons. "The answer is, you don't. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it's a stupid question."
"The Catcher in the Rye" became both required and restricted reading, periodically banned by a school board or challenged by parents worried by its frank language and the irresistible chip on Holden's shoulder.
"I'm aware that a number of my friends will be saddened, or shocked, or shocked-saddened, over some of the chapters of `The Catcher in the Rye.' Some of my best friends are children. In fact, all of my best friends are children," Salinger wrote in 1955, in a short note for "20th Century Authors."
"It's almost unbearable to me to realize that my book will be kept on a shelf out of their reach," he added.
Salinger also wrote the novellas "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" and "Seymour – An Introduction," both featuring the neurotic, fictional Glass family that appeared in much of his work.
His last published story, "Hapworth 16, 1928," ran in The New Yorker in 1965. By then, he was increasingly viewed like a precocious child whose manner had soured from cute to insufferable. "Salinger was the greatest mind ever to stay in prep school," Norman Mailer once commented.
In 1997, it was announced that "Hapworth" would be reissued as a book – prompting a (negative) New York Times review. The book, in typical Salinger style, didn't appear. In 1999, New Hampshire neighbor Jerry Burt said the author had told him years earlier that he had written at least 15 unpublished books kept locked in a safe at his home.
"I love to write and I assure you I write regularly," Salinger said in a brief interview with the Baton Rouge (La.) Advocate in 1980. "But I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it."
Jerome David Salinger was born Jan. 1, 1919, in New York City. His father was a wealthy importer of cheeses and meat and the family lived for years on Park Avenue.
Like Holden, Salinger was an indifferent student with a history of trouble in various schools. He was sent to Valley Forge Military Academy at age 15, where he wrote at night by flashlight beneath the covers and eventually earned his only diploma. In 1940, he published his first fiction, "The Young Folks," in Story magazine.
He served in the Army from 1942 to 1946, carrying a typewriter with him most of the time, writing "whenever I can find the time and an unoccupied foxhole," he told a friend.
Returning to New York, the lean, dark-haired Salinger pursued an intense study of Zen Buddhism but also cut a gregarious figure in the bars of Greenwich Village, where he astonished acquaintances with his proficiency in rounding up dates. One drinking buddy, author A.E. Hotchner, would remember Salinger as the proud owner of an "ego of cast iron," contemptuous of writers and writing schools, convinced that he was the best thing to happen to American letters since Herman Melville.
Holden first appeared as a character in the story "Last Day of the Last Furlough," published in 1944 in the Saturday Evening Post. Salinger's stories ran in several magazines, especially The New Yorker, where excerpts from "Catcher" were published.
The finished novel quickly became a best seller and early reviews were blueprints for the praise and condemnation to come. The New York Times found the book "an unusually brilliant first novel" and observed that Holden's "delinquencies seem minor indeed when contrasted with the adult delinquencies with which he is confronted."
But the Christian Science Monitor was not charmed. "He is alive, human, preposterous, profane and pathetic beyond belief," critic T. Morris Longstreth wrote of Holden.
"Fortunately, there cannot be many of him yet. But one fears that a book like this given wide circulation may multiply his kind - as too easily happens when immortality and perversion are recounted by writers of talent whose work is countenanced in the name of art or good intention."
The world had come calling for Salinger, but Salinger was bolting the door. By 1952, he had migrated to Cornish. Three years later, he married Claire Douglas, with whom he had two children, Peggy and Matthew, before their 1967 divorce. (Salinger was also briefly married in the 1940s to a woman named Sylvia; little else is known about her.)
Meanwhile, he refused interviews, instructing his agent not to forward fan mail and reportedly spending much of his time writing in a cement bunker. Sanity, apparently, could only come through seclusion.
"I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes," Holden says in "Catcher."
"That way I wouldn't have to have any ... stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. I'd build me a little cabin somewhere with the dough I made."
Although Salinger initially contemplated a theater production of "Catcher," with the author himself playing Holden, he turned down numerous offers for film or stage rights, including requests from Billy Wilder and Elia Kazan. Bids from Steven Spielberg and Harvey Weinstein were also rejected.
Salinger became famous for not wanting to be famous. In 1982, he sued a man who allegedly tried to sell a fictitious interview with the author to a national magazine. The impostor agreed to desist and Salinger dropped the suit.
Five years later, another Salinger legal action resulted in an important decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court refused to allow publication of an unauthorized biography, by Ian Hamilton, that quoted from the author's unpublished letters. Salinger had copyrighted the letters when he learned about Hamilton's book, which came out in a revised edition in 1988.
In 2009, Salinger sued to halt publication of John David California's "60 Years Later," an unauthorized sequel to "Catcher" that imagined Holden in his 70s, misanthropic as ever.
Against Salinger's will, the curtain was parted in recent years. In 1998, author Joyce Maynard published her memoir "At Home in the World," in which she detailed her eight-month affair with Salinger in the early 1970s, when she was less than half his age. She drew an unflattering picture of a controlling personality with eccentric eating habits, and described their problematic sex life.
Salinger's alleged adoration of children apparently did not extend to his own. In 2000, daughter Margaret Salinger's "Dreamcatcher" portrayed the writer as an unpleasant recluse who drank his own urine and spoke in tongues.
Margaret Salinger said she wrote the book because she was "absolutely determined not to repeat with my son what had been done with me."
Original Post By: HILLEL ITALIE
Resource:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/28/j-d-salinger-dead-catcher_n_440500.html
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Watch Apple Tablet Announcement Event Live
Apple Tablet Announcement Event Live – The CEO of Apple named “Steve Jobs, Today announced the worlds most latest technology gadget called Apple Tablet from the most Popular company Apple. gestures, a fingerprint-reader with up to five profiles, and support Verizon and AT&T networks.Tech analysts expect CEO Steve Jobs to unveil a thin slab with a 10-inch multi-touch screen. Aside from the iTablet, Apple’s announcement could also cover the additional three possible topics, the Verizon iPhone, iLife, and iPhone OS 4.0. The Apple Announcement Event today may cover a Verizon iPhone release date.
Read more: http://www.timesasia.net/apple-tablet-announcement-event-live-18261192.htm#ixzz0duh6hkEh
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Pope John Paul II flagellated himself,mulled resigning, book says
A new book launched this week says the late Pope John Paul II flagellated himself regularly and signed a secret document saying that he would resign instead of ruling for life if he became incurably ill.
Shotlist
VATICAN CITY CTV - A new book launched next to the Vatican on Tuesday (Janaury 26) said the late Pope John Paul II flagellated himself regularly to emulate Christ's suffering and signed a secret document saying that he would resign instead of ruling for life if he became incurably ill.
The book, called "Why a Saint? was written by Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the Vatican official in charge of the process that could lead to Roman Catholic sainthood for John Paul. It includes some previously unpublished documents.
John Paul, who died in 2005, was sick and suffering in several periods of his papacy. He was shot and nearly killed in 1981, he underwent several operations, including one for cancer, and suffered from Parkinson's disease for more than decade.
The book reveals, that even when he was not ill, he inflicted pain on himself, known in Christianity as mortification, so as to feel closer to God.
"What emerges from this (sainthood) procedure, it is clear, the aspect of penitence was present in the life of John Paul II,' said Oder. "It is difficult to say in what measure it was present but it should be seen as part of his profound relationship with the Lord," he added.
"In Krakow as in the Vatican, Karol Wojtyla flagellated himself," Oder writes in the book, citing testimony from people in the late pope's close entourage while he was bishop in his native Poland and after he was elected pope in 1978.
"In his closet, among his vestments, on a clothes hanger a particular kind of belt for his trouser hung which he used as a whip," Oder writes. "When he was bishop in Poland, he often slept on the bare floor so he could practice self-denial and asceticism," another line reads.
Many saints of the Church, including St. Francis of Assisi, St Catherine of Sienna and St. Ignatius of Loyola, practised flagellation and asceticism as part of their spiritual life.
The book also confirmed that as his health failed, John Paul prepared a document for aides stating that he would step down instead of ruling for life if he became incurably ill or permanently impaired from carrying out his duties as pope.
He signed the document on February 15, 1989, eight years after the failed assassination attempt. It had been the subject of many rumours and reports over the years but it's the first time it has been published in full in the book.
John Paul wrote that he would resign "in the case of infirmity which is presumed incurable, long-lasting and which impedes me from sufficiently carrying out the functions of my apostolic ministry."
In the end, the pope decided to stay on until his death, saying it was for the good of the Church. Had he stepped down, he would have been the first Roman Catholic pontiff to do so willingly since 1294.
"He knew that his resignation would have been necessary at the moment he would no longer be able to carry out his duties with a clear mind. But we know that he carried out his duties with a lucid mind right until the end," Oder told the media during the book launch.
John Paul moved closer to sainthood last month when Pope Benedict approved a decree recognising that his predecessor had lived the Christian faith heroically.
Original Post By: Mnet
URL Posted: http://mpelembe.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2010/1/26/4438999.html
Shotlist
VATICAN CITY CTV - A new book launched next to the Vatican on Tuesday (Janaury 26) said the late Pope John Paul II flagellated himself regularly to emulate Christ's suffering and signed a secret document saying that he would resign instead of ruling for life if he became incurably ill.
The book, called "Why a Saint? was written by Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the Vatican official in charge of the process that could lead to Roman Catholic sainthood for John Paul. It includes some previously unpublished documents.
John Paul, who died in 2005, was sick and suffering in several periods of his papacy. He was shot and nearly killed in 1981, he underwent several operations, including one for cancer, and suffered from Parkinson's disease for more than decade.
The book reveals, that even when he was not ill, he inflicted pain on himself, known in Christianity as mortification, so as to feel closer to God.
"What emerges from this (sainthood) procedure, it is clear, the aspect of penitence was present in the life of John Paul II,' said Oder. "It is difficult to say in what measure it was present but it should be seen as part of his profound relationship with the Lord," he added.
"In Krakow as in the Vatican, Karol Wojtyla flagellated himself," Oder writes in the book, citing testimony from people in the late pope's close entourage while he was bishop in his native Poland and after he was elected pope in 1978.
"In his closet, among his vestments, on a clothes hanger a particular kind of belt for his trouser hung which he used as a whip," Oder writes. "When he was bishop in Poland, he often slept on the bare floor so he could practice self-denial and asceticism," another line reads.
Many saints of the Church, including St. Francis of Assisi, St Catherine of Sienna and St. Ignatius of Loyola, practised flagellation and asceticism as part of their spiritual life.
The book also confirmed that as his health failed, John Paul prepared a document for aides stating that he would step down instead of ruling for life if he became incurably ill or permanently impaired from carrying out his duties as pope.
He signed the document on February 15, 1989, eight years after the failed assassination attempt. It had been the subject of many rumours and reports over the years but it's the first time it has been published in full in the book.
John Paul wrote that he would resign "in the case of infirmity which is presumed incurable, long-lasting and which impedes me from sufficiently carrying out the functions of my apostolic ministry."
In the end, the pope decided to stay on until his death, saying it was for the good of the Church. Had he stepped down, he would have been the first Roman Catholic pontiff to do so willingly since 1294.
"He knew that his resignation would have been necessary at the moment he would no longer be able to carry out his duties with a clear mind. But we know that he carried out his duties with a lucid mind right until the end," Oder told the media during the book launch.
John Paul moved closer to sainthood last month when Pope Benedict approved a decree recognising that his predecessor had lived the Christian faith heroically.
Original Post By: Mnet
URL Posted: http://mpelembe.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2010/1/26/4438999.html
Friday, January 22, 2010
Mets Acquire Gary Matthews Jr. From Angels
Uncertain when Carlos Beltran will be ready to play in 2010, the Mets have now acquired a backup — good-fielding, modest-hitting Gary Matthews Jr. of the Los Angeles Angels.The Angels signed Matthews to a five-year, $50 million contract after the 2006 season, and it quickly came to be seen as one of the worst contracts in baseball because of Matthews’s limitations as a hitter. He is owed $23 million over the final two years of his deal, and the Angels are expected to pick up most of the cost, making him a relatively inexpensive acquisition for the Mets.
The deal, in which the Mets are expected to surrender the relief pitcher Brian Stokes, is expected to be made official later Friday. It was confirmed by a baseball executive who did not want to speak publicly until the deal was announced.
Last season Matthews played in 103 games, had 316 at-bats, and hit .250, with 4 home runs and 50 runs batted in. As a Met, he is capable of playing center field in place of Beltran, although it is possible that the Mets will use him as a fourth outfielder, playing behind Jason Bay, Jeff Francouer and Angel Pagan, who had a good season offensively in 2009 and presumably is the first choice to play in center until Beltran returns.
But Pagan has been injury-prone as a Met. If he gets injured, Matthews will be there to step in.
As for Beltran, he is expected to return to the lineup at some point in May.
Original Post By: By JAY SCHREIBER
http://bats.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/mets-acquire-gary-matthews-jr-from-angels/
Thursday, January 21, 2010
The soap opera of John Edwards
He already admitted he had lied repeatedly about his affair with Rielle Hunter. Then in August 2008, after admitting he had become “increasingly egocentric and narcissistic,” he told the press he “will have nothing more to say.”
Then came “Game Change” revelations published in the New Yorker this month by journalists who belong to the MSM clique that scoffed at the tabloid story for so long:
“As for Elizabeth Edwards, she is reportedly now urging John to accede to Hunter’s demands and take responsibility for his paternity of Frances Quinn—a dramatic and no doubt painful turnabout from her position eighteen months ago. Confronted then with the Enquirer photo of her husband cuddling Hunter’s baby, she insisted to Palmieri that she still believed he was not the father. ‘I have to believe it,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Because if I don’t, it means I’m married to a monster.’”
The “monster’s” admission comes this morning to NBC News:
“I am Quinn’s father. I will do everything in my power to provide her with the love and support she deserves. I have been able to spend time with her during the past year and trust that future efforts to show her the love and affection she deserves can be done privately and in peace.
It was wrong for me ever to deny she was my daughter and hopefully one day, when she understands, she will forgive me. I have been providing financial support for Quinn and have reached an agreement with her mother to continue providing support in the future.
To all those I have disappointed and hurt these words will never be enough, but I am truly sorry.”
As usual, the confession is as calculated as an algebra exam. Edwards is preempting the publicity wave that will hit next month when a tell-all book by Andrew Young, a longtime aide to Mr. Edwards, is released. Young participated in a distraction ruse claiming he was the father of Hunter’s baby.
Like sands in the hourglass, these are the prolonged days of Edwards’ lies.
Then came “Game Change” revelations published in the New Yorker this month by journalists who belong to the MSM clique that scoffed at the tabloid story for so long:
“As for Elizabeth Edwards, she is reportedly now urging John to accede to Hunter’s demands and take responsibility for his paternity of Frances Quinn—a dramatic and no doubt painful turnabout from her position eighteen months ago. Confronted then with the Enquirer photo of her husband cuddling Hunter’s baby, she insisted to Palmieri that she still believed he was not the father. ‘I have to believe it,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Because if I don’t, it means I’m married to a monster.’”
The “monster’s” admission comes this morning to NBC News:
“I am Quinn’s father. I will do everything in my power to provide her with the love and support she deserves. I have been able to spend time with her during the past year and trust that future efforts to show her the love and affection she deserves can be done privately and in peace.
It was wrong for me ever to deny she was my daughter and hopefully one day, when she understands, she will forgive me. I have been providing financial support for Quinn and have reached an agreement with her mother to continue providing support in the future.
To all those I have disappointed and hurt these words will never be enough, but I am truly sorry.”
As usual, the confession is as calculated as an algebra exam. Edwards is preempting the publicity wave that will hit next month when a tell-all book by Andrew Young, a longtime aide to Mr. Edwards, is released. Young participated in a distraction ruse claiming he was the father of Hunter’s baby.
Like sands in the hourglass, these are the prolonged days of Edwards’ lies.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Pete Sheppard fired: Pete Sheppard hosting is over at WEEI
Pete Sheppard is fired by WEEI today. According to reports, Sheppard is removed from his job as a contributor and a host on sports radio WEEI. His show is entitled “The Big Show” which captures thousands of listeners daily on his program. The Entercomm Communications that owns the station took him out of his position.
“As we continue to operate in challenging economic times, it is with regret that we announce today that we have eliminated Pete Sheppard’s position as sports anchor on “The Big Show,” said Entercom New England vice president and market manager Julie Kahn and vice president of AM programming Jason Wolfe in a press release. “We’d like to thank Pete for his outstanding work . . . [and wish him] the best of luck in his future endeavors and remain extremely grateful for all his contributions over the past decade.”
Pete Sheppard firing surprises many especially his fans. He is on of the most popular radio anchor in Boston. He has been working at WEEI since 1994.
Resource: http://bubble20snarkgroup.com/pete-sheppard-fired-pete-sheppard-hosting-is-over-at-weei/
“As we continue to operate in challenging economic times, it is with regret that we announce today that we have eliminated Pete Sheppard’s position as sports anchor on “The Big Show,” said Entercom New England vice president and market manager Julie Kahn and vice president of AM programming Jason Wolfe in a press release. “We’d like to thank Pete for his outstanding work . . . [and wish him] the best of luck in his future endeavors and remain extremely grateful for all his contributions over the past decade.”
Pete Sheppard firing surprises many especially his fans. He is on of the most popular radio anchor in Boston. He has been working at WEEI since 1994.
Resource: http://bubble20snarkgroup.com/pete-sheppard-fired-pete-sheppard-hosting-is-over-at-weei/
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Cayman Islands Earthquake
Cayman Islands earthquake is the latest earthquake after at least three consecutive earthquakes across America and its states. First and major quake hit Haiti, second earthquake struck Venezuela and third quake rocked the Guatemala City and this fourth one has struck Cayman Island today at 9:20 am according to the local time.
It has been reported by the experts of United States Geological Survey that a quake with a magnitude force of 5.8 on the Richter scale smashed Cayman Island. It has been reported that tremor was lasted just for few moments and it was originated closer to Grand Cayman which is located in the southern parts of Cuba.
It has been verified by plenty of reliable sources that the recent quake, which was magnitude 5.8 on the Richter scale, was occurred with a depth of only sic miles below the earth. It has also been reported that last time a quake hit Cayman Island in the year of 2004. People rush out of their homes so that they could protect their lives.
No deaths, injuries and damages have been reported in the area yet but injuries and damage is really frightened. However, some sources have reported that the communication networks were affected in the area and telephone lines not working properly.
It has been reported by the experts of United States Geological Survey that a quake with a magnitude force of 5.8 on the Richter scale smashed Cayman Island. It has been reported that tremor was lasted just for few moments and it was originated closer to Grand Cayman which is located in the southern parts of Cuba.
It has been verified by plenty of reliable sources that the recent quake, which was magnitude 5.8 on the Richter scale, was occurred with a depth of only sic miles below the earth. It has also been reported that last time a quake hit Cayman Island in the year of 2004. People rush out of their homes so that they could protect their lives.
No deaths, injuries and damages have been reported in the area yet but injuries and damage is really frightened. However, some sources have reported that the communication networks were affected in the area and telephone lines not working properly.
Resource: http://news.about-knowledge.com/cayman-islands-earthquake/
Kevin Steele Tennessee Bound: Clemson Coach To Be Named Vols Defensive Coordinator (POLL)
Kevin Steele is headed to Tennessee, according to reports. Formerly an assistant at Alabama under Nick Saban and a linebacker at Tennessee in his playing days, Steele comes back to the SEC after a brief stint at Clemson.WATE reports that Steele will first meet with his Clemson players before making the announcement official.
Steele, who also served as defensive coordinator at Clemson, denied rumors that he was contacted by the Vols last week, though the rumors continued.
Steele will work under the Vols' new head coach Derek Dooley.
Resource: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/19/kevin-steele-tennessee-bo_n_428493.html
Friday, January 15, 2010
Venezuela Earthquake 2010
After Okhlahoma, it is the turn of Venezuela to get hit by a quake. An earthquake registering 5.6 of magnitude shock on the Richter’s scale hit Venezuela’s Sucre state today.
Preliminary reports point out that the physical damage has been minimal so far and no victims have been reported. The area of focus for Venezuela earthquake 2010 centered for about 375 km with a depth of 11.7 km. in the east capital of Caracas. This matter of fact report is actually from the U.S. Geological Survey and not Venezuela state institute. The incident is supposed to have occurred at 1600 hrs GMT.
CNN was one of the first channels to shift focus on Haiti from their regular scheduled programming and this time too I was expecting them to show more. But since not much damage or any loss of life has been reported, there is not much to show yet.
I am keeping my ears to the ground and if any updates come out, I will let you know. However if you know of any development, please post below. Thanks.
Original Post By: Troy, Techbanyan
Preliminary reports point out that the physical damage has been minimal so far and no victims have been reported. The area of focus for Venezuela earthquake 2010 centered for about 375 km with a depth of 11.7 km. in the east capital of Caracas. This matter of fact report is actually from the U.S. Geological Survey and not Venezuela state institute. The incident is supposed to have occurred at 1600 hrs GMT.
CNN was one of the first channels to shift focus on Haiti from their regular scheduled programming and this time too I was expecting them to show more. But since not much damage or any loss of life has been reported, there is not much to show yet.
I am keeping my ears to the ground and if any updates come out, I will let you know. However if you know of any development, please post below. Thanks.
Original Post By: Troy, Techbanyan
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Larry Platt: Former Civil Rights General, Current American Idol Sensation
Larry Platt - sorry, General Larry Platt - made quite an impression on American Idol viewers last night.
The 63-year old ended the Atlanta auditions' broadcast with a single titled "Pants on the Ground." It's quickly become an Internet and Twitter sensation.
But who the heck is this guy? And how did he end up on the show? The Atlanta Journal-Constitution tracked Platt down and asked him a few questions over the phone. Apparently, he...
... "loved" his depiction on Idol. I thought it played "real good."
... thought of the song spontaneously three years ago when he saw a guy walking through downtown Atlanta with a baby in his arm and his pants slipping below his hips. “He had his underwear showing,” Platt said.
... was shot in the eye when he was three.
... refers to himself as “General” because "I'm a general of the civil rights movement." Records show that he did march with Martin Luther King Jr. and Hosea Williams in the 1960s.
... condluded the interview by saing: “Be a man. Don’t be walking around showing yourself to the world! I don’t think that’s right!”
Amen, General. Amen.
The 63-year old ended the Atlanta auditions' broadcast with a single titled "Pants on the Ground." It's quickly become an Internet and Twitter sensation.
But who the heck is this guy? And how did he end up on the show? The Atlanta Journal-Constitution tracked Platt down and asked him a few questions over the phone. Apparently, he...
... "loved" his depiction on Idol. I thought it played "real good."
... thought of the song spontaneously three years ago when he saw a guy walking through downtown Atlanta with a baby in his arm and his pants slipping below his hips. “He had his underwear showing,” Platt said.
... was shot in the eye when he was three.... refers to himself as “General” because "I'm a general of the civil rights movement." Records show that he did march with Martin Luther King Jr. and Hosea Williams in the 1960s.
... condluded the interview by saing: “Be a man. Don’t be walking around showing yourself to the world! I don’t think that’s right!”
Amen, General. Amen.
Pat Robertson's 'pact with the Devil' Haiti comments leave White House adviser Jarrett 'speechless'
The White House has added its voice to the growing chorus slamming the Rev. Pat Robertson's suggestion that a Haitian "pact with the Devil" brought about the earthquake that devastated the Caribbean nation.
Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to President Obama, said the Robertson's remarks left her "kind of speechless."
"That's not the attitude that expresses the spirit of the president or the American people, so I thought it was a pretty stunning comment to make," she said on "Good Morning America."
Robertson's organization has quickly backpedaled on the controversial comments.
In a statement on his Web site, a Christian Broadcasting Network spokesman says he didn't mean to imply the earthquake was the Haitians' fault, and that he was merely repeating a legend that has led "countless scholars and religious figures over the centuries to believe the country is cursed."
"If you watch the entire video segment, Dr. Robertson's compassion for the people of Haiti is clear," the statement read.
During an interview on CBN's "700 Club" Wednesday, Robertson alleged that Haiti's liberation from France was the result of a deal with the devil.
"They were under the heel of the French...and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, 'We will serve you if you'll get us free from the French,'" he said.
Robertson continued: "True story. And so the devil said, 'OK, it's a deal.' They kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got themselves free. Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other."
At least one prominent Christian leader joined the White House -- and a slew of left-leaning and liberal pundits -- in denouncing Robertson's comments.
"God loves the people of Haiti. He hasn't turned his back on Haiti," the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of the Rev. Billy Graham, said on "Good Morning America," condemning the remarks and adding he believed Robertson "misspoke."
The younger Graham's ministry is currently in Haiti doing relief work.
This isn't the first time Robertson sparked an uproar during times of tragedy.
In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Robertson said civil libertarians and gay rights groups bore responsibility for the strikes.
He has also said Hurricane Katrina was an expression of God's wrath over abortion, and said Ariel Sharon's stroke was God's vengeance for Israel's ceding land to the Palestinians.
Original Post By: Neil Nagraj
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to President Obama, said the Robertson's remarks left her "kind of speechless."
"That's not the attitude that expresses the spirit of the president or the American people, so I thought it was a pretty stunning comment to make," she said on "Good Morning America."
Robertson's organization has quickly backpedaled on the controversial comments.
In a statement on his Web site, a Christian Broadcasting Network spokesman says he didn't mean to imply the earthquake was the Haitians' fault, and that he was merely repeating a legend that has led "countless scholars and religious figures over the centuries to believe the country is cursed."
"If you watch the entire video segment, Dr. Robertson's compassion for the people of Haiti is clear," the statement read.
During an interview on CBN's "700 Club" Wednesday, Robertson alleged that Haiti's liberation from France was the result of a deal with the devil.
"They were under the heel of the French...and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, 'We will serve you if you'll get us free from the French,'" he said.
Robertson continued: "True story. And so the devil said, 'OK, it's a deal.' They kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got themselves free. Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other."
At least one prominent Christian leader joined the White House -- and a slew of left-leaning and liberal pundits -- in denouncing Robertson's comments.
"God loves the people of Haiti. He hasn't turned his back on Haiti," the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of the Rev. Billy Graham, said on "Good Morning America," condemning the remarks and adding he believed Robertson "misspoke."
The younger Graham's ministry is currently in Haiti doing relief work.
This isn't the first time Robertson sparked an uproar during times of tragedy.
In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Robertson said civil libertarians and gay rights groups bore responsibility for the strikes.
He has also said Hurricane Katrina was an expression of God's wrath over abortion, and said Ariel Sharon's stroke was God's vengeance for Israel's ceding land to the Palestinians.
Original Post By: Neil Nagraj
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Live-Blogging 4 Top Bankers on Capitol Hill
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission heard testimony about the financial crisis from four of the nation’s leading bankers: Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, John J. Mack of Morgan Stanley and Brian T. Moynihan of Bank of America. (Watch the live video here, via C-Span 2.) DealBook’s Zachery Kouwe live-blogged the hearing, with the most recent entries at the top:12:15 p.m. | Parting Shot at Blankfein: Before he adjourned the bankers’ panel, Mr. Angelides said he was troubled by Mr. Blankfein’s belief that Goldman would have made it through the crisis without government support. “You weren’t just a market maker, you were packaging and securitizing these products,” Mr. Angelides said. He asked what Goldman’s responsibility was. Mr. Blankfein replied: “We did not know what was going to happen at any minute. There were people in the market that thought the market was going down further” and others who thought it had hit the bottom. Mr. Blankfein said the firm’s responsibility is to accurately explain to sophisticated investors the products they are buying.
12:07 a.m. | Put It in Writing: Ms. Born asks each of the panelists to submit information in writing about their proprietary trading activities.
12:04 p.m. | “Failure of Risk Management”: Mr. Blankfein, responding to a question from Commissioner Brooksley Born, said A.I.G. was bent on taking a lot of credit risk. “It was a failure of risk management of colossal proportion,” he said of A.I.G.’s near-failure. It wasn’t necessarily about derivatives. He called for a central clearinghouse for derivatives and a standardized contract for some derivatives so they can be traded on an exchange.
11:56 a.m. | Proprietary Trading: “What in your view is proprietary trading and was your firm engaged in it?” Mr. Wallison asked Mr. Moynihan. The Bank of America chief executive responded that there is a challenge to define proprietary trading because, in many cases, the firm is offsetting risks associated with selling securities to customers and other market making activities.
11:50 a.m. | A Bearish Turn: “When was Goldman first alerted to the fact there were serious problems with subprime mortgages?” Mr. Wallison asked. Mr. Blankfein didn’t know exactly when the firm became aware of the the crisis, but he said the firm had turned bearish on housing prices in late 2006 and thought problems in the mortgage market would grow out of declining home prices.
11:46 a.m. | A.I.G. and Goldman: Peter J. Wallison, former general counsel at the Treasury Department, asked if A.I.G. had failed in September 2008, what would have happened to Goldman and its business. “They owed us and eventually paid us a lot of money,” Mr. Blankfein said. Goldman had $10 billion of exposure to A.I.G. and the firm had $2.5 billion in coverage against a possible default plus $7 billion in cash on the balance sheet, he said.
11:40 a.m. | The “Too Big to Fail” Issue: Mr. Blankfein said that if one of his competitors were failing tomorrow, he believed the government would step in to prevent the failure, although it would most likely not be to the benefit of equity holders.
11:36 a.m. | “A Wake-Up Call”: Keith Hennessey asks whether investors in the fall of 2008 were buying bank stocks because they believed there was an implicit guarantee from the government. Mr. Moynihan pointed to spreads in Bank of America’s debt during the crisis to explain that most investors were probably pricing in the fact that the institution would fail.
“I think Lehman sent a wake-up call to every investor our there who thought the government was going to rescue everyone,” Mr. Mack said.
11:25 a.m. | Complexity of Risk: Mr. Thompson asked Mr. Mack how firms should manage the risk associated with innovation. “I think our regulators have to focus on complexity because it continues to jump higher and higher,” Mr. Mack said. He added that regulators needed to be consolidated, but praised the Federal Reserve for its scrutiny of his firm’s internal workings.
11:18 a.m. | The Hearing Resumes: John W. Thompson asked Mr. Blankfein what products were created that served no purpose. Mr. Blankfein said that he was talking about off-balance-sheet vehicles that were not reflected in a company’s financial statements and that it was amazing that those investment vehicles were so widespread after Enron collapsed.
11:13 a.m. | More on Banker Bonuses: Mr. Mack was talking to reporters during the break. “What are people supposed to think when they see these bankers taking big bonuses?” one reporter asked. Mr. Mack noted that he did not get a bonus and that a lot of people had left the banking business over the last two years to take other jobs.
11:06 a.m. | Break Time: The hearing takes a quick break.
11:01 a.m. | “Eat Its Own Cooking”: Byron S. Georgiou, a lawyer who was involved in recovering assets from the Enron bankruptcy, wondered whether an investment bank’s fees for selling certain securities should not be in cash, but in a portion of the actual financial instruments they sold. That would make the firm “eat its own cooking.” He asked the panelists whether they believe in doing this.
“We did eat our own cooking and we choked on it,” Mr. Mack said, referring to toxic mortgage securities. He said that he would take payment in the form of stock or securities, but that it might create some issues with investors and could curtail a firm’s ability to lend.
Mr. Blankfein said he thought it would be hard to organize a method to put more onus on the underwriter. But, there should be more skin in the game. Mr. Georgiou asks if the banks have already instituted any of the clawback provisions.
10:53 a.m. | “A Place of Complacency”: Mr. Blankfein said that his firm noticed that lending standards and covenants on large corporate loans were much lower than usual, but that like the rest of the industry, the firm rationalized those looser standards by arguing that the world was getting wealthier and other excuses. “We talked ourselves into a place of complacency,” he said.
10:48 a.m. | Missing Signs of Too Much Risks: Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former director of the Congressional Budget Office, asked the panel why the traditional structure of an investment bank failed to figure out the excessive risks that were being taken. Mr. Blankfein said there needed to be more stress tests, which tests whether a bank can withhold various stresses to the system. Mr. Dimon said JPMorgan should have run a test that factored in what could have happened if home prices declined, something the bank did not do before the crisis.
Mr. Mack praised the Federal Reserve for its “diligence” in examining the nation’s banks. Mr. Moynihan said he wished Bank of America had better managed its risks on the consumer side of the banking business.
10:37 a.m. | Performance: Bob Graham asked Mr. Moynihan if Bank of America measures someone’s performance, in part, on how much a person contributes to the overall economy. Mr. Moynihan said a person’s performance was not directly correlated to how much benefit he or she would bring to the entire economy.
10:28 a.m. | Stock and Clawbacks: Mr. Thomas asked Mr. Dimon if he had changed JPMorgan’s compensation structure since the downturn. Mr. Dimon said the bank had always paid 50 percent to 75 percent of total compensation in stock. For his part, Mr. Mack said the biggest change in compensation has been the institution of a clawback provision for bonuses to dissuade short-term risk-taking. Mr. Moynihan echoed that statement.
10:25 a.m. | Compensation and Stock: Responding to a question about compensation from Ms. Murren, Mr. Blankfein said overall compensation at the firm was down 40 to 50 percent in 2008 because of the economy. On the pros and cons of being a public company, Mr. Blankfein said the bulk of his compensation is still in company stock.
10:18 a.m. | Increased Scrutiny: Ms. Murren asked Mr. Blankfein if regulators should increase their scrutiny of an investment bank’s activities. Mr. Blankfein said that there should have been more before the financial crisis, but that Goldman has been regulated by the Federal Reserve only since it became a bank holding company.
10:14 a.m. | 100 Cents on the Dollar: Heather M. Murren asked Mr. Blankfein if he ever received any inquiries about getting less than 100 cents on the dollar for securities held by A.I.G. Mr. Blankfein said a subordinate believed there was a suggestion about possibly receiving less than 100 cents for A.I.G.’s assets, but the issue never rose to his level.
10:07 a.m. | Questions, Questions: Mr. Thomas asked the question that has been asked about a thousand times already: “If you knew then what you know now, what would you have done differently?” He also asked the four bankers on the panel to answer the questions, in writing, that appeared in Andrew Ross Sorkin’s DealBook column in The New York Times on Tuesday. He also referred to the questions on the Op-Ed page of The Times on Wednesday.
10:03 a.m. | “Nervous Position”: Responding to a question about whether Goldman would have survived despite government assistance, Mr. Blankfein said Goldman was in a “more nervous position than we otherwise wanted to be in,” but the firm never relied on the government assistance. “That being said, I don’t know what would have happened and I know for sure that no one else knows either,” Mr. Blankfein said.
9:55 a.m. | Car With Faulty Brakes: “It sounds like you’re selling a car with faulty brakes and then buying an insurance policy on the car,” Mr. Angelides said. Mr. Blankfein emphatically responded that the investors buying these products were sophisticated and some of the biggest institutions in the world. Mr. Angelides points out they represent the pension funds of teachers and firefighters
9:50 a.m. | Subprime Mortgages: Mr. Angelides pressed Mr. Blankfein about selling securities tied to subprime mortgages while at the same time betting against them. Mr. Blankfein said he “really needs to explain this because the press swirling around this. Because the firm was accumulating positions, “we have to go out ourselves and source the other side of the transaction,” he said. He said there was no simultaneous selling of securities and then betting against them.
9:47 a.m. | Negligent Behavior: Mr. Angelides asked Mr. Blankfein what the two most significant instances of negligent behavior by Goldman Sachs. In response, Mr. Blankfein said his firm got caught up in extending more and more leverage to private equity firms and other and, thus contributed to the froth in the market. Mr. Blankfein stops short of saying the firm was negligent.
9:44 a.m. | Defense of Compensation: The vast amount of our employees played no role in the financial crisis, Mr. Moynihan said, in defending the bank’s current compensation structure.
9:39 a.m. | Brian Moynihan’s Statement: Mr. Moynihan, who took the reins of Bank of America on Jan. 1, said one of the lessons of the crisis is that lending standards are important. Lenders need to pay more attention to whether borrowers can actually repay their debt.
He also touched on the third rail of banking right now: compensation.
9:37 a.m. Regulators did not have the ability or the tools to make sure the system did not take on too much risk., Mr. Mack said. He called for a systemic risk regulator and government-sponsored central clearinghouse for financial derivatives including credit default swaps.
9:32 a.m. “We experienced a classic run on the bank after Lehman Brothers collapsed,” Mr. Mack said, with Morgan Stanley’s stock plummeting to nearly $6 a share.
Mr. Mack said he appreciated the support from taxpayers.
The main problem with banks before the financial crisis was too much leverage, he said.
9:27 a.m. | John J. Mack’s Statement: The past two years have been unlike “anything” he’s seen in his entire career on Wall Street.
The financial crisis has also made clear that regulators simply didn’t have the tools or authority to protect the stability of the system as a whole, he says.
9:26 a.m.: Not surprisingly, Mr. Dimon says size alone and the combination of investment and commercial banking did not cause the crisis. That said, Mr. Dimon emphasized that “no institution should be too big to fail” and shareholders and bondholders, not taxpayers should bear the pain.
9:20 a.m. | Jamie Dimon Statement: “I want to be clear, I don’t blame the regulators,” Mr. Dimon of JPMorgan said, reading from his prepared statement, glasses perched on the tip of his nose. But he pointed out that the current system is broken and needs to be examined in order to help prevent another crisis.
9:16 a.m.: We couldn’t anticipate the extent of the financial crisis, Mr. Blankfein said. “Throughout 2007 we were committed to reducing our risk. The truth is that no one knows what it is going to happen” and that’s what we based our risk analysis on, he said.
9:12 a.m. “We lent money too cheaply” and didn’t recognize that a bubble was forming, Mr. Blankfein said. He added that government should have some regulatory function questioning whether “the system clearly needs to be structured so that private capital instead of public capital” comes to the rescue of financial institutions when they get into trouble.
9:09 a.m. | Lloyd Blankfein Statement: The Goldman chief, reading from his prepared statement, says that too many financial firms relied on ratings agencies’ edicts instead of doing their own due diligence. He’s running through other problems of the crisis, including a failure to see losses early enough to head off the crisis.
“We lent money out too cheaply, and with certain loans without the traditional safeguards,” he says, adding that firms were too concentrated in certain areas like leveraged loans.
9 a.m. | Phil Angelides Statement (PDF): Mr. Angelides, the commission’s chairman, opens the hearing by saying that the commission is probably the last hope for uncovering the causes of the financial crisis. The commission intends to fully investigate the causes of the meltdown, and those called up today may be called upon to testify again.
Placing a level of importance on his commission, Mr. Angelides says: “If we ignore history we are doomed to bail it out again.”
Preview: The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was established by Congress to examine the root causes of the financial crisis and the near-collapse of the banking system.
The commission’s proceedings are likely to be widely watched. Many have compared the investigation to the Pecora hearings during the Depression that scrutinized the 1929 stock market crash and brought tighter regulation to Wall Street, including the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial and investment banking.
The commission, made up six Democrats and four Republicans, is holding hearings on Wednesday and Thursday. Its chairman is Phil Angelides, a Democrat and a former California state treasurer who unsuccessfully tried to unseat Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006. Its vice chairman is Bill Thomas, a fellow Californian and former Republican congressman who was once the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.
The commission is expected to issue a report by Dec. 15, although there are concerns in Washington that it will arrive too late to influence the debate over regulatory reform. .
Resource: http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/live-blogging-4-top-bankers-on-capitol-hill/
Monday, January 11, 2010
A few questions that Bob Costas should aim at Mark McGwire
Today's admission from Mark McGwire raises plenty of sidebar questions and topics that we hope Bob Costas will address with the shamed slugger in tonight's MLB Network interview.
Here are a few them:
Why did he wait so long to confess? After retiring in 2001, McGwire turned into baseball's version of J.D. Salinger and disappeared completely from the spotlight. Did he only admit to using steroids so that he could take a hitting coach job with St. Louis?
How did he get the drugs? Who provided him with PEDs on the A's and Cardinals? Were his book-selling brother and Jose Canseco both right about injecting Big Mac themselves?
Why did he start using? Was he looking for a competitive advantage or just a way to overcome all those injuries that plagued him during his career?
Does this improve his Hall of Fame chances? McGwire was snubbed again during last week's Cooperstown voting, his third year on the ballot. Does he think that voters start to change their mind after his admission and apology?
Will this inspire other suspected users to also come forth? If this ultimately ranks a public-relations win for McGwire, does he think guys like Barry Bonds(notes), Roger Clemens(notes) or Sammy Sosa(notes) also fess up? Should they?
What does the Maris family think about this? Despite having a front row seat during the 1998 chase, Roger Maris' family eventually stopped acknowledging the home run totals of McGwire, Sosa and Bonds while returning their patriarch atop the home run record books. What's their response to this big McGwire news? Has he called them to apologize like he did with Bud Selig and Tony La Russa?
What did Tony La Russa know? The Cardinals skipper has already appeared on ESPN and MLB Network to flat out deny that he knew about McGwire's steroid use. Is he telling the truth?
What does he do from here? Sure, he's apologized, but does McGwire plan on speaking out against steroids to make sure that young ballplayers don't follow in his footsteps? Will he continue being candid about his use or will he end all queries with this statement and Costas interview?
Here are a few them:
Why did he wait so long to confess? After retiring in 2001, McGwire turned into baseball's version of J.D. Salinger and disappeared completely from the spotlight. Did he only admit to using steroids so that he could take a hitting coach job with St. Louis?
How did he get the drugs? Who provided him with PEDs on the A's and Cardinals? Were his book-selling brother and Jose Canseco both right about injecting Big Mac themselves?
Why did he start using? Was he looking for a competitive advantage or just a way to overcome all those injuries that plagued him during his career?
Does this improve his Hall of Fame chances? McGwire was snubbed again during last week's Cooperstown voting, his third year on the ballot. Does he think that voters start to change their mind after his admission and apology?
Will this inspire other suspected users to also come forth? If this ultimately ranks a public-relations win for McGwire, does he think guys like Barry Bonds(notes), Roger Clemens(notes) or Sammy Sosa(notes) also fess up? Should they?
What does the Maris family think about this? Despite having a front row seat during the 1998 chase, Roger Maris' family eventually stopped acknowledging the home run totals of McGwire, Sosa and Bonds while returning their patriarch atop the home run record books. What's their response to this big McGwire news? Has he called them to apologize like he did with Bud Selig and Tony La Russa?
What did Tony La Russa know? The Cardinals skipper has already appeared on ESPN and MLB Network to flat out deny that he knew about McGwire's steroid use. Is he telling the truth?
What does he do from here? Sure, he's apologized, but does McGwire plan on speaking out against steroids to make sure that young ballplayers don't follow in his footsteps? Will he continue being candid about his use or will he end all queries with this statement and Costas interview?
Friday, January 8, 2010
Artie Lange Suicide Attempt Confirmed
Artie Lange suicide attempt reports broke yesterday, thanks to the New York Post. But the Artie Lange suicide story was officially confirmed by police, confirming everyone's worst fears. The troubled comic was released from the hospital, according to authorities, but his next steps are uncertain. After Artie Lange's failed suicide attempt, there aren't many promising places for him to go from here, especially with his history.
Yesterday, the first reports came out that Lange stabbed himself nine times, with three deep wounds nearly killing him. Word had gotten out days earlier that he was in the hospital, but the New York Post Page 6 column broke the reasons why. Afterwards, Hoboken Police Det. Mark Competello confirmed the story.
Despite his stab wounds, doctors were able to save Lange's life and perform surgery. According to Det. Competello, he has been released from the hospital. What happens from there is unclear, given Lange's long history of addiction, and failed attempts to get on the wagon.
Howard Stern said on his show yesterday that he hadn't spoken to his sidekick. However, he did know of the suicide attempt, but he and Lange's family didn't want to make it public. The New York Post Page 6 foiled those attempts, which made Stern furious at whoever leaked the story.
According to Gather.com, Stern called the anonymous source a 'scumbag' and that he was 'p**sed off' that this was made public. But now that it has, fans and tabloids are trying to figure what made Lange fall off the wagon this severely.
The New York Post itself posted the last interview Lange gave before the suicide attempt, in late October. In talking to the Post's Mandy Stadtmiller, Lange claimed he had been clean since April, and had "so much to live for."
During that time period, Lange was celebrating his hit book, where he went in-depth about his notorious demons - including a past suicide attempt. He had a big hit online with his wild appearance on Joe Buck's new HBO show, and his career and personal life seemed to be going well.
Yesterday, the first reports came out that Lange stabbed himself nine times, with three deep wounds nearly killing him. Word had gotten out days earlier that he was in the hospital, but the New York Post Page 6 column broke the reasons why. Afterwards, Hoboken Police Det. Mark Competello confirmed the story.
Despite his stab wounds, doctors were able to save Lange's life and perform surgery. According to Det. Competello, he has been released from the hospital. What happens from there is unclear, given Lange's long history of addiction, and failed attempts to get on the wagon.
Howard Stern said on his show yesterday that he hadn't spoken to his sidekick. However, he did know of the suicide attempt, but he and Lange's family didn't want to make it public. The New York Post Page 6 foiled those attempts, which made Stern furious at whoever leaked the story.
According to Gather.com, Stern called the anonymous source a 'scumbag' and that he was 'p**sed off' that this was made public. But now that it has, fans and tabloids are trying to figure what made Lange fall off the wagon this severely.
The New York Post itself posted the last interview Lange gave before the suicide attempt, in late October. In talking to the Post's Mandy Stadtmiller, Lange claimed he had been clean since April, and had "so much to live for."
During that time period, Lange was celebrating his hit book, where he went in-depth about his notorious demons - including a past suicide attempt. He had a big hit online with his wild appearance on Joe Buck's new HBO show, and his career and personal life seemed to be going well.
KDKA-TV consumer reporter Yvonne Zanos dies
Yvonne Zanos, KDKA-TV's consumer reporter whose joyful personality burst through TV screens during her popular product test reports, died this morning from complications related to ovarian cancer. Her 60th birthday was Wednesday.Ms. Zanos, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in late 2007, began her local television career at KDKA in the 1970s, reporting for "Evening Magazine." That was followed by a brief stint working on a similar program in Kansas City, Mo., before Ms. Zanos joined WTAE as a general assignment reporter in 1984. She began working on the consumer beat in 1987.
In 1994 she briefly flirted with leaving Pittsburgh for a job in Dallas but changed her mind, saying her roots in Pittsburgh were too deep to make the leap to another market.
Ms. Zanos re-joined KDKA in 1997, sitting out on-air appearances for a year due to a non-compete clause in her WTAE contract. She also wrote a consumer column for the Post-Gazette from 2000 to 2007.
In 2005, Ms. Zanos began her popular "Does It Really Do That?" consumer product test segments that rated everything from a can opener to a robotic vacuum. Ms. Zanos did not just test a product one way but every way imaginable, telling the story of the product and its testers' experience along the way.
"I would have difficulty finding someone who was as universally well-liked here and in the community," said KDKA-TV general manager Chris Pike. "It's a cliche, but what you see is what you get. Her personality, which was fun and contagious, came through the TV screen. Viewers recognized that she was genuine and enjoyed what she did, and that allowed her to develop a real special connection with viewers."
Original Post By: Rob Owen, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10008/1026775-100.stm
Thursday, January 7, 2010
St. Louis shooting suspect was on trial against employe
Police run into a building as they search for a gunman who walked into an ABB Power Plant, with an assault rifle and began shooting Thursday, Jan. 7, 2010, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson) January 7, 2010 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- Early Thursday morning, Timothy Hendron took the fight against his employer from a federal courtroom to the company's headquarters, according to law enforcement sources in St. Louis. And instead of using an ongoing class action lawsuit to achieve his goals, Hendron is suspected of using an AK-47 assault rifle.
According to federal court records obtained by the ABC7 I-Team (Download a copy of the suit), the class action pension lawsuit in which Hendron was a named plaintiff was to resume trial at 8:50 Thursday morning. But at that very moment the Mr. Hendron, 51, had become the focus of a widespread manhunt in metro St. Louis. Authorities say Hendron had burst into the main offices of ABB power company and opened fire, killing one person and wounding four others.
Officers surrounded the building as they searched for the gunman who was initially believed to still be in the building.
The shooting occurred around 6:30 a.m. Fire Department spokesman Bob Keuss identified the suspected shooter as Timothy Hendron of Webster Groves. Those who know Hendron say he is a long time employee of the company, according to local press reports. Swiss-based ABB Group makes power transmission and industrial automation equipment and manufactures transformers at the St. Louis site. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch Web site, citing dispatcher reports, said some employees ran to the rooftop to escape the gunfire, while others hid in interior rooms.
he class-action federal lawsuit against ABB was filed by Hendron and several other employees in July, 2007. The suit charged that ABB's pension review committee mishandled employee finances and incurred unreasonable losses. Trial began on Monday in Kansas City federal court with Judge Nanette K. Laughrey presiding. Opening statements had taken place and witness testimony began. The case was to resume Thursday morning, a little more than two hours after the shots were fired and blood spilled at ABB in St. Louis.
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/iteam&id=7205858
Artie Lange Page 6: Artie Lange Stabs Himself Nine Times in Suicide Attempt
NEW YORK (CBS) Howard Stern sidekick Artie Lang is in the hospital after stabbing himself nine times in an apparent suicide attempt, according to Page 6 of the New York Post.Lange's publicist confirmed that the radio host was hospitalized. The Post says surgeons were able to save him despite heavy bleeding.
Lange's mother called police Saturday morning after entering his Hoboken, N.J. apartment and found the bloodied comedian, a law-enforcement source told the New York paper. "Lange sustained six 'hesitation wounds' and three deep plunges," the paper wrote.
The 42-year-old Lange has been absent from Stern's Sirius radio show for a month. On Monday's show, Stern said Lange isn't leaving the program and called him "a tremendous contributor."
Lange is a New Jersey native who lives in Hoboken and has battled drug addiction. In September, a New Jersey judge revoked his driving privileges for seven months after he admitted he was under the influence of prescribed sleeping pills in a minor traffic accident.
Orinigal Post By: Edecio Martinez
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
What Is A Hogchoker?
MYFOXNY.COM - Information on the Hogchoker fish from the Chesapeake Bay Program:
The unusual name "hogchoker" comes from farmers who used to feed these fish to their hogs. The hogs would often choke on the fishes' scaly, bony bodies.
Trinectes maculate
The hogchoker has a flat, rounded body that is dark brownish-gray on top and pale on the bottom. Adults have:
Small eyes that are both located on the right, or top, side of the head.
A rounded head with a small mouth.
Narrow, black vertical lines or rounded spots on the top side of the body.
Dorsal and anal fins that stretch around the body from the head to the tail.
MORE FROM CHESAPEAKE BAY PROGRAM
MORE ON HOGCHOKERS FROM WIKIPEDIA
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/national/100106-what-is-a-hogchoker
Anti-Whaling Vessel Damaged in a Collision at Sea
HONG KONG — An antiwhaling group said Wednesday that the new high-speed boat it had been using to harass Japanese whalers was badly damaged in a collision at sea.
Video taken from the deck of the Japanese whaling ship, Shonan Maru 2, showed its collision with the Ady Gil, a sleek black trimaran belonging to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a group that aggressively confronts the Japanese whaling fleet each year. The fleet focuses mostly on the Southern Ocean, the waters south of Australia and New Zealand that encircle Antarctica.
Sea Shepherd’s Australian director, Jeff Hansen, said in a telephone interview Wednesday said that the Ady Gil had not sunk, “but it’s in two pieces, and we’re trying to salvage what we can.”
A companion vessel, the Bob Barker, was used to rescue the crew, Mr. Hansen said. That boat, a former Norwegian whaling ship, was named after the former American game show host who donated $5 million to the group.
Mr. Hansen said one crew member on the Ady Gil was injured in the collision.
The Japanese video shows a frothy wake coming from the stern of the Ady Gil, although it is unclear whether the Ady Gil was moving. The Shonan Maru 2 was directing a water cannon at the Ady Gil before and during the collision, which is clearly seen on the video, and the nose of the Ady Gil was sheared off.
The Ady Gil, a former racing boat capable of speeds up to 57 miles an hour, was added to the Sea Shepherd fleet last October. At the time, the group’s founder, Paul Watson, said he would use the boat “to intercept and physically block the harpoon ships from illegally slaughtering whales.”
The Japanese Whaling Association calls Sea Shepherd “a terrorist group.”
Japan is one of the few nations that still permit whaling. Its vessels operate in the Antarctic under a loophole in an international whaling ban that allows the taking of whales for research purposes and the sale of the surplus meat.
The small Japanese fleet has a goal of about 1,000 whales this season, most of them minke whales. The Japanese vessels, which are escorted by a refueling and support ship, are expected to hunt whales until mid-March.
In recent years the Sea Shepherd group has been the only one to stalk the whaling fleet in an attempt to interfere with its operations and limit its catch.
“They’ve really upped the ante this year,” said Mr. Hansen of the Japanese whalers. “But we definitely won’t be leaving.”
Nicole Henry Croons The “Star Spangled Banner” At Orange Bowl
Jan 6, (THAINDIAN NEWS) Jazz singer Nicole Henry performed at an unusual platform for the display of her talents. After all, not many jazz songs go down particularly well with a football game. On the other hand, she was there to sing the American national anthem. Equally surprisingly, however, this was not the first time that Nicole Henry was performing prior to a match. However, according to her own admission, this was the first in some ways, though. She had never before performed before a congregation this big.The highly gifted singer, who was born in Pennsylvania but is currently based in Miami, was invited to perform the “Star Spangled Banner” prior to the beginning of the Orange Bowl in Miami. The game was scheduled to be held between the University of Iowa and the Georgia Tech University. The singer admitted that performing at such an occasion gives her a whole lot of hitherto unreceived exposure. She performed before a congregation of approximately 75,000 people, who had assembled to watch the game at the Land Sharks Stadium.
Moreover, a million more watched her on their television screens throughout the country. Despite having performed before at various other games, like the Miami Heat, Nicole Henry admits that it makes her nervous. In fact, so much so that she asks someone to stand beside her on the wings just to talk to her before she goes up on the stage, to keep the butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling at bay. She admits that singing the national anthem is a good experience, as she feels that it has a note of intimacy to it, more like the jazz songs she is accustomed to sing.
Original Post By: Madhuri Dey
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/entertainment/nicole-henry-croons-the-star-spangled-banner-at-orange-bowl_100300013.html
Connecticut’s Attorney General Will Seek Dodd’s Senate Seat
Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut’s Democratic attorney general, said Wednesday he would run for the United States Senate seat being vacated by Christopher J. Dodd, who plans to announce his retirement later in the day.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Blumenthal praised Mr. Dodd and said he would be “proud and honored” to succeed him in the Senate. Mr. Blumenthal said he plans to announce his candidacy Wednesday afternoon in Hartford.
Mr. Dodd had been facing an increasingly difficult re-election fight in the traditionally Democratic state of Connecticut, and party officials believe Mr. Blumenthal will be a stronger candidate against a Republican attempt to win a Senate seat that has been held by Democrats for 46 years.
Mr. Blumenthal, considered a golden boy of New England politics, had been biding his time for a moment like this.
He was expected to run for the seat vacated by Senator Joseph I. Lieberman when he ran for vice president in 2000, but Mr. Lieberman decided to remain on the Senate ballot as insurance. Mr. Blumenthal said in November that a run against Mr. Lieberman, now an independent, in 2012 “would be a challenge that I would welcome.”
While he has been waiting, Mr. Blumenthal has been re-elected five times as Connecticut’s top cop. During that tenure, he attacked Microsoft, tobacco companies and H.M.O.’s in the courtroom, and he has more recently gone after auctions of the possessions of Bernard L. Madoff and credit card rates.
While Republicans have seen an opening on Connecticut, they are far from united. Linda McMahon, a political novice who is the former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, is seeking the seat, as is former Representative Rob Simmons.
Democrats were giddy when Ms. McMahon first entered the race. In her former job, she actually performed in the wrestling ring as a matriarch in a dysfunctional, violent caricature of her family. But while the fights were fake, the cash she brings to the race is real. By November, Ms. McMahon had already spent $5 million on advertisements, and she has said she is prepared to spend $30 million of her own money in the race.
Ms. McMahon’s campaign hopes voters will appreciate her rags-to-riches story of losing her home and emerging out of bankruptcy as she and her husband tried to start their wrestling business. She is touting her business savvy to help repair the state’s Republican Party.
Meanwhile, Mr. Simmons has attacked Ms. McMahon for her late arrival to the Republican Party, noting that she has donated large sums to Democrats in the past. Mr. Simmons has long been a favorite of the party establishment, and he has accused Ms. McMahon of trying to buy support with donations to local committees and candidates. Mr. Simmons had spent $900,000 on his campaign by the end of November.
Mr. Simmons, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, was elected to Congress in 2000, but he lost his seat when the Democrats regained the House in 2006. And this campaign has also been a frustrating one so far for Mr. Simmons. Republicans originally encouraged him to take on Mr. Dodd, but many backed off when Ms. McMahon entered the race. Polls showed Mr. Simmons ahead of Mr. Dodd among Connecticut voters.
Though he had a relatively moderate voting record in Congress, Mr. Simmons has recently made efforts to court conservatives. He said he carries a “tea bag” in his pocket, in reference to the anti-big-government activist movement, and he has apologized for supporting cap-and-trade and union-friendly legislation in the House.
In addition to Ms. McMahon’s campaign, another outsider challenge could come from Peter Schiff, a financial broker and commentator who opened his first campaign office last month in Milford, Conn. Mr. Schiff has also attempted to court voters disaffected with the Republican mainstream.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee has said it will not intervene in a primary fight. “At the end of the day, this race is a referendum on Chris Dodd,” a spokesman for the group, Brian Walsh, said last week. “We believe primary voters should decide the Republican nominee.”
Now that Mr. Dodd is no longer a factor, it remains to be seen whether Republican leaders will tolerate a potentially damaging brawl.
Original Post By: By SARAH WHEATON
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/nyregion/07conn.html
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