HLN jumps to first place in ratings with over 1 million viewers of sensational killer mom trialAlmost 24 hour a day coverage of the Casey Anthony trial in Orlando Florida has viewers riveted to their sets.
Could a callous and selfish 25 year old woman kill her own daughter to go partying, viewers are asking themselves.
Over 12,000 people will become paraplegics in North America this year.Most of them will be young, white males between 18 and 30 involved in motor vehicle, sporting or other accidents.
Don’t become one of this year’s sad statistics. Most of these life changing accidents are preventable.
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Musician Robbie Robertson (THE CANADIAN PRESS / Fred Chartrand)
“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.” Hunter S. Thompson
Robbie Robertson was recently Robertson inducted into Songwriters Hall of Fame. Robertson’s songwriting fame comes mainly from his work with The Band.
Update – Rock musician Levon Helm passes away
We loved The Band and their music. Guitarist Robbie Robertson is credited with writing most of their songs but according to band-mate Levon Helm Robertson stole them.
Before The Band, Robertson wrote no songs of any enduring interest. Continue reading
We Didn't Start The Fire
Boomers will win Jeopardy on Billy Joel’s recitation of news headlines as song lyrics in the 1989 hit We Didn’t Start the Fire.
The headlines cover 1949 (the year Joel was born) to 1989. It’s a list song like Bob Dylan’s Everything is Broken.
Sometimes songwriter’s create list songs when they are bored. Millions of people found Bill Joel resonated with them in We Didn’t Start The Fire which hit the top ten charts around the world.
The video depicts a post war family going through the 50′s, 60s, 70s and 80s with kitchen decor changes as clues. She looks amazingly like Lucille Ball from I Love Lucy.
We may not have started the war but we sure like to keep them going.
[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g']
Michael Moore, Academy-Award winning filmmaker and best-selling author. His films 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' 'Capitalism: A Love Story,' 'Bowling for Columbine' and 'SiCKO' are among the all-time top ten grossing documentaries.
By Michael Moore -
Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you’ll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It’s just that it’s not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.
Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.
Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer “bailout” of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can’t bring yourself to call that a financial coup d’état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true. Continue reading
Scott Creighton of Tampa, Fla., is having his Social Security disability checks garnished by the Education Department to pay down his debt on student loans. Seriously disabled borrowers are entitled to get federal student loans forgiven, but the program for deciding whether they qualify is opaque, dysfunctional and redundant. (Brian Blanco/ProPublica)
By Sasha Chavkin, Cezary Podkul, Jeannette Neumann, and Ben Protess, ProPublica
This article is a collaboration among ProPublica and the Center for Public Integrity, which are independent nonprofit investigative newsrooms; and the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, at Columbia University.
It was co-published with the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Tina Brooks can’t sit or stand for more than half an hour before the pain in her lower back becomes intolerable. She suffers severe headaches and memory loss, and she has lost most of the vision in her left eye. Five doctors and a judge from the Social Security Administration have all determined that she is fully disabled and unable to work.
A former police officer and mother of two, Brooks fractured a vertebra in her back, damaged three others in her neck, and suffered a concussion when she fell 15 feet down a steep rock quarry while training for bicycle patrol.
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STEREO Sun from NASA
By Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA
“This is a big moment in solar physics,” says Vourlidas. “STEREO has revealed the sun as it really is–a sphere of hot plasma and intricately woven magnetic fields.”
Each STEREO probe photographs half of the star and beams the images to Earth.
Researchers combine the two views to create a sphere. These aren’t just regular pictures.
STEREO’s telescopes are tuned to four wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet radiation selected to trace key aspects of solar activity such as flares, tsunamis and magnetic filaments. Nothing escapes their attention.
“With data like these, we can fly around the sun to see what’s happening over the horizon—without ever leaving our desks,” says STEREO program scientist Lika Guhathakurta at NASA headquarters.
“I expect great advances in theoretical solar physics and space weather forecasting.” Continue reading
Chicago under snow (Image: Jalopnik Silicon Valley Insider)
Nicollette Sheridan with my cousin Steve Pate - her hand has a bandage and he has no scars (inf.com photo)
The Daily Mail is reporting Nicollette Sheridan got thrown from her horse. Again?
“Nicolette’s boyfriend Steve, a wealthy financier. looked equally dashing in a black suit with an open neck white shirt.”
“The trendy steak house appears to be a favourite of the couple – just two weeks ago the pair were also seen arriving for a spot of dinner.” (Daily Mail)
She’s been heavy dating my cousin Steve Pate for ages now that the horse accident story seems… well … a little old.
It’s a better excuse than Tiger Woods came up with for his SUV accident.
My aunt from Texas assured everyone on the family mailing list that Steve has no scars or bruises on his face.
Maybe Nicollette did hurt her hand falling off the horse.
Edie Britt on Desperate Housewives, Nicolle’s old role, was a man-eater not a man-beater.
We all breathed a sigh of relief that Steve wasn’t taking it on the chin, if you know what I mean.
Those movie stars can be high strung fillies and Steve’s just a good old boy from Texas.
Steve is used to gorgeous women in Texas, but he also knows you can’t tell a Texas woman nothin’.
Steve CANNOT get Nicollette to wear a riding helmet. That might have saved her head but not her little finger, which is the item of faîte du bandage as they French say. Continue reading
By EFF Legal Analysis by Corynne McSherry
Over the past few days, the U.S. Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security and nine U.S. Attorneys’ Offices seized 82 domain names of websites they claim were engaged in the sale and distribution of counterfeit goods and illegal copyrighted works.
Setting aside the due process concerns inherent in seizing any website without notice or appropriate recourse for the owner, it appears that the “raid” has swept up several sites that are hardly in the business of willful copyright infringement.
For example, the the list of targets included OnSmash.com and RapGodfathers.com. Both sites are dedicated to promoting rap and hiphop, showcasing new artists and helping fans connect and share information about the music they love. According to the owners, they regularly and expeditiously process copyright infringement notices and take down links as appropriate. Indeed, OnSmash says the labels themselves are often the source of the links OnSmash makes available. In other words, they try to play by the rules. Moreover, the sites are not simply collections of links; rather, they provide a wide array of information and forums for speech, all of which was rendered inaccessible by the seizure. Continue reading
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison jubilant over suit with SAP (photo hellocompany.org)
When SAP purchased a TomorrowNow, an Oracle support company, in 2005 it was trying to expand its business by going after Oracle accounts.
This week a jury awarded Oracle $1.3 billion against rival SAP in the largest copyright infringement case in history.
The previous record for a jury award in a copyright lawsuit was the RIAA $136 million award against Media group for unlicensed distribution of music including Elvis Presley songs.
Many companies are in the dark on licensing. Failure to acquire software licenses legally can result in punitive fines and jury awards. Microsoft routinely audits its business customers for copyright and license infringement. Continue reading