credited to bendib.com
IHOP or International House of Pancakes has announced plans to give millions of pancakes for free in celebration of the National Pancake Day on the 24th of February 2009. IHOP is world-renowned for its buttermilk pancakes plans to set a goal to raise $1 million for Children’s Miracle Network, a non-profit organization helping children’s hospitals. From 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., IHOP restaurants nationwide will offer their guests a free short stack of buttermilk pancakes and, in return, ask guests to donate what they would have paid for the pancakes, or more, to local children’s hospitals and other local charities. Also, personalized Miracle Balloons will be sold for $1 each starting February 1 until the 24th.
For more information about IHOP’s National Pancake Day visit www.ihoppancakeday.com.
credited to dailycontributor.com
Police shot and killed Manuel Benitez on Tuesday after he held his 7-year-old son hostage. Benitez, a former child actor known as Mark Everett, was wanted for a 2004 murder in Hawthorne.
A gunman who took a 7-year-old boy hostage and was killed by police after a two-hour standoff at an El Monte Chinese restaurant was identified today as the boy's father, a former child actor who was a fugitive wanted for a 2004 slaying in Hawthorne, police said.
Manuel Benitez, who police said barricaded himself inside the restaurant with the child, was declared dead at the eatery soon after gunshots were fired, according to Los Angeles County sheriff's Lt. Liam Gallagher.
The boy also was injured in the shootout and was hospitalized in critical condition, although he does not have a life-threatening injury, police said.
Benitez, who is from Hawthorne, was wanted by police in connection with the June 2004 murder of his girlfriend, Stephanie Spears. According to police, Benitez used a dumbbell to beat Spears to death and fled with their then 3-year-old son.
Although the Sheriff's Department reported that Benitez was 38 years old, court documents and an FBI website on the kidnapping said he was born in September 1969, making him 39 at the time of his death. The FBI website also said his son was born in November 2001, making him 7 years old; earlier reports said the boy was 6.
According to the FBI, Benitez was a former child actor who used aliases, such as Mark Everett, Manuel Velasco and Mike Evers, to elude authorities. He also may have spoken several languages, including German, French, English, Spanish and Cantonese.
As a child actor, Benitez was best known for working under the stage name Mark Everett. He starred in commercials, TV shows and movies, including "Pee-wee's Big Adventure," "Stand and Deliver" and "Trapper John, M.D." according to the Internet Movie Database.
After years away from the camera, he reappeared in 2005 as a real-life fugitive featured on "America's Most Wanted." A state warrant was issued for his arrest that year. A federal warrant was issued in 2006, when he was charged with "unlawful flight to avoid prosecution." A $20,000 reward was offered for information leading to his capture.
The Tuesday afternoon incident began in the parking lot at Santa Fe Plaza, a strip mall at 3580 Santa Anita Ave. in the heart of El Monte, according to witnesses. It ended about 5:30 p.m., when a flash-bang grenade exploded and gunshots echoed inside the building.
Shortly afterward, authorities carried the boy out on a stretcher and put him in an ambulance.
Henry Villan, 35, was standing in the parking lot talking to a friend when he saw a man roughly dragging a young boy by his T-shirt.
"I just seen a guy taking a kid," Villan said.
At first, Villan thought nothing of it because he assumed that the man was the boy's father.
"Sometimes you see bad parents," Villan said.
An El Monte police officer, who had been called to the scene at about 2:30 p.m. to investigate reports of a transient man and a young boy, approached the pair and told the man to let go of the boy, said El Monte Police Det. Ralph Batres.
The man resisted and fled, pulling the boy with him. With the boy in a headlock and a gun held to the child's head, the man tried to enter the El Sombrero Restaurant, according to a restaurant employee.
"He tried to come in the front door, and one of our waitresses came in screaming," the employee said. An employee barricaded the door to stop the man from entering. After six or seven tries, the man tried another door.
When he couldn't get in, he gave up and ran across the parking lot to Tai Pan Chinese Food, where he barricaded himself and the child in a bathroom. He then "threatened to kill himself, the juvenile, and any responding officers," according to a news release from the Sheriff's Department.
Dozens of officers arrived at the scene, including several SWAT officers and a special crisis negotiating team that set up outside the bathroom and tried for two hours to convince Benitez to surrender.
During the negotiations, the man told police that he was getting tired and that he was going to harm the child, Gallagher said.
When the bathroom door opened, police fired a flash bang into the bathroom and then shot Benitez. The boy was injured by a gunshot to his leg.
Police later discovered Benitez had two handguns -- a semiautomatic pistol and a revolver. Authorities are still searching for Benitez's mother, Elizabeth Velasco, who was originally wanted for questioning in connection with the young boy's disappearance.
credited to latimes.com
Children are filled with questions about Santa! How can he get to everyone’s house? Does Santa really see me when I’m sleeping? Where will he land the sleigh? How will Santa get in without a chimney? And on and on right up to bedtime on Christmas Eve!
Some questions may be hard to answer, but there is one that is easy – Where exactly is Santa right now? Yep, that’s an easy one!
Starting on Christmas Eve (6 a.m. EST) kids of all ages can track Santa’s journey around the globe! Just log onto the SANTA TRACKER and you can watch where Santa is, bringing toys to kids all around the world. How fun is that?
It is also a great way to keep the fun going, “I wonder where Santa is right now” followed by the parental, “I sure hope all the kids there are sleeping” This works well as Santa get closer and you can scoot your little one to bed before Santa arrives.
credited to examiner.com
NEW YORK — Lance Armstrong is going to be a father again.
Armstrong, who won the Tour de France seven consecutive years after overcoming testicular cancer, is expecting a baby with girlfriend Anna Hansen.
"Anna and I are thrilled to confirm that we are expecting in June and our families are ecstatic and grateful," Armstrong told The Associated Press on Tuesday night. "We are very much looking forward to what 2009 brings on many fronts. We appreciate respecting our privacy, as we are both eager to celebrate the holidays as a family."
Three years after retiring following his last Tour de France win, Armstrong announced in September his return to competition and the Tour de France in 2009. He called his comeback an attempt to raise global awareness in his fight against cancer.
CNN first reported the news of Armstrong's impending fatherhood on its Web site Tuesday night.
Diagnosed in 1996 with testicular cancer that had spread to his lungs and brain, doctors gave Armstrong less than a 50 percent chance of survival. Surgery and brutal cycles of chemotherapy saved his life.
Armstrong and his former wife Kristin had three children using in vitro fertilization with sperm he had banked before his chemotherapy.
credited to huffingtonpost.com
According to Ramazan Baydan, model 271 brogues are seeing an increase in sales at the Baydan Shoe Company. This is a result of the recent shoe-throwing incident that took place as President George W. Bush gave a press conference in Iraq. Due to the television audience that saw the incident, it is now being reported that the type of shoe thrown (Model 271 Brogues) are increasing in sales dramatically, and Ramazan Baydan is being forced to hire on new workers to meet the orders being placed for the shoes.During a press conference that President Bush was having with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a reporter in the audience took off one of his model 271 brogues and threw it at the podium where the President was addressing the audience. Before officials on site could stop him, the reporter was able to throw a second shoe as well, both times causing the President to duck out of the way of the flying shoes. The incident made news not only in Iraq, but around the world, and has quickly been the punch-line to many jokes about the President, and the reporter as well.
The press conference has turned in to a bit of a wind-fall for the maker of the model 271 brogues that were thrown, as according to reports from Britain's Daily mail being posted to CNN, the "Istanbul-based Ramazan Baydan has had to recruit an extra 100 staff to meet orders for 300,000 pairs of the Model 271 brogues." That is quite an increase in production, and adds to the total of 120,000 pairs that were ordered in the week at the event occurred. It is not only putting the shoe company on a world-wide scale, but turning it into an almost "rebellion" against the United States for people to go purchase them.
credited to associatedcontent.com
Hundreds of tired travelers lined up at ticket gates Sunday at Sea-Tac Airport hoping to find flights and leave the airport, where many had been stranded for more than a day.
Crosswinds at the airport led to the cancellation or delay of dozens of flights Saturday night and Sunday morning, leaving thousands of people with nowhere to go.
The cancellations hit Alaska Airlines particularly hard, and may continue into Monday. Alaska and Horizon Air canceled all flights at Seattle-Tacoma International and Portland International airports as of 2:45 p.m., in part because of a lack of de-icing fluid. Passengers with local residences were told to go home for the evening, and others were told to make their own hotel arrangements.
A port spokesman said the airlines are responsible for keeping their own planes de-iced, which is why some planes were still making it out of the airport on Sunday. Two runways remained open.
"It's kind of a perfect storm," port spokesman Perry Cooper said. "I've had people here for 20 years and they have never seen anything like this."
While a lack of de-icing fluid made the situation worse, Horizon spokeswoman Jen Boyer said the stretch of bad weather had exhausted the airlines' crews and equipment during the holiday rush.
"We've just been playing catch-up with the weather. ... We're running out of fresh crews and running into maintenance deadlines for the aircraft," Boyer said. "We still have three days to get everyone home for Christmas, and we're trying to get everyone there."
Passengers booked on a canceled flight may rebook on the next available flight without penalty or apply for a full refund of the unused portion of their ticket.
Akiko Onuma, a 21-year-old Scripps College student from California, flew into Sea-Tac on Saturday night from Ontario, Calif. She had a 9 p.m. Saturday connection to Lewiston, Idaho, on Horizon that was canceled.
"There were hordes of people -- literally hundreds of people -- trying to figure out what to do," Onuma said.
By the time Onuma got her bag at midnight Saturday, all the hotels were booked, she said, so she spent the night at the airport.
Onuma is now hoping to get out Monday morning on a flight to Walla Walla.
Terry Haybert of Tacoma was at the airport with his wife and 5-year-old daughter. He had a 1 p.m. flight to Portland on Sunday, which was canceled.
"This was the biggest mistake ever. We should've just driven," Haybert said of his holiday plans.
Joseph Gudall from Blairstown, N.J., flew from Newark to Seattle, hoping to get to Fairbanks, Alaska, on a 9 p.m. Saturday flight. The departure time kept getting pushed back until the flight was canceled at 1 a.m. Sunday, he said.
"It was a sheer disaster," Gudall said. "I never thought this could happen."
Gudall was booked on a 9 p.m. Sunday flight to Fairbanks. He was heading to Alaska to visit his daughter.
Alaska Airlines spokesman Paul McElroy said cancellations may continue into Monday if the weather doesn't improve.
"Since we're dealing with Mother Nature, it's really uncertain," he said. "We're hopeful that we can resume our schedule Monday, but we'll have to see."
On Sunday afternoon, airport staff handed out blankets and pillows to travelers, who were sprawled out over any available space.
Passengers should contact their carriers for flight status before heading to the airport, spokeswoman Terri-Ann Betancourt said.
Passengers whose flights are scheduled to leave Monday should allow extra time to get to the airport and they should expect long lines once they arrive.
People whose flights are canceled should rebook from home, Betancourt said.
Cooper said heavy winds had died down by early Sunday. But poor weather at airports in the Northwest and around the country remained a problem, he said.
"It's that systemwide domino effect," he said.
While airport restaurants and stores did not receive their deliveries Saturday, trucks were able to drop off goods on Sunday morning, Betancourt said.
"We should be OK with concessions," she said.
credited to seattlepi.nwsource.com
After a hiatus of more than a decade, poetry is returning to the inauguration of the American president.
The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies announced today that Elizabeth Alexander, a prize-winning poet at Yale University who grew up in Washington, will read at the swearing in next month of President-elect Barack Obama.
It is the first time that “poetry’s old-fashioned praise,” as Robert Frost called it, will be featured at the ceremony since Bill Clinton's second swearing in back in 1997.
Alexander, 45, would be only the fourth poet to read at a swearing in after Frost, who read at John F. Kennedy’s in 1961; Maya Angelou, who read at Clinton’s in 1993; and Miller Williams, who read in 1997, according to government officials.
Her Web site describes Alexander this way:
She is the author of four books of poems, The Venus Hottentot, Body of Life, Antebellum Dream Book, and American Sublime, which was one of three finalists for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize. She is also a scholar of African-American literature and culture and recently published a collection of essays, The Black Interior. She has read her work across the U.S. and in Europe, the Caribbean, and South America, and her poetry, short stories, and critical prose have been published in dozens of periodicals and anthologies. She has received many grants and honors, most recently the Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship for work that “contributes to improving race relations in American society and furthers the broad social goals of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954,” and the 2007 Jackson Prize for Poetry, awarded by Poets and Writers. She is a professor at Yale University, and for the academic year 2007-2008 she is a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.
You can read a selection of Alexander's poems on her web site -- or read one, "Ars Poetica #100: I Believe," below.
Ars Poetica #100: I BelievePoetry, I tell my students,is where we are ourselves,
is idiosyncratic. Poetry
(though Sterling Brown said“Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I’”)
digging in the clam flatsfor the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only wayto get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising)is not all love, love, love,
and I’m sorry the dog died.Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice,and are we not of interest to each other?
credited to washingtonpost.com
Good triumphed over....Vicky. And Heba.Michelle won $250,000 and the title of "The Biggest Loser" tonight, overcoming a childhood traumatized by divorce and, perhaps more importantly, beating out two fellow competitors who were seen as two of the most conniving and unappealing contestants in the show's history.
"I earned it," said Michelle, who joined the show as a duo alongside her mother, Renee, and immediately became a fan favorite both because of her doggedness in the gym and her kind, forgiving demeanor. Michelle had been estranged from her mother for years after her parents' divorce. America had a front-row seat as the two repaired their relationship and lost a combined 216 pounds.
Michelle alone lost 110 pounds, or an astonishing 45.45% of her body weight, to win the game and become only the second woman to win "The Biggest Loser" title.
For fans of the show, though, Michelle's victory was all the more sweet because it came at the expense of Vicky and Heba....
Heba, you may recall, came into the house as a bit of a bully -- make that a big loud bully -- who immediately began throwing her weight around to get her way. (Blame it on her husband, Ed, who apparently spends his life trying to do everything he can to make/keep her happy.)
She created divides and alliances in the house, and was the first to turn the tables on a competitor -- and then spent the rest of her time at the Biggest Loser ranch complaining bitterly and loudly at any smack of game playing that didn't suit her purposes.
Well, Heba finally got hers. Kinda.
In an odd twist of fate, Heba and Ed ended up competing for the third spot in the finals. The decision was left up to the public to vote between the two. Ed, being the dutiful husband, begged America to let his wife win. Heba also begged America to let her win.
America gave her the backhand: In a "landslide" vote, 84% of the votes cast were against Heba.
Heba didn't go home empty-handed, however. She was eligible for and won the $100,000 runners-up prize for losing 138 pounds, or 46.94% of her body weight.
In other words, if she had curried a little more favor with the public, she would have landed the third-place spot -- and she would have won.
Afterward, asked why America voted against her, she said "I guess there are just a lot of negative people out there who don't like to see success." (Heba, who said she wanted to join the show to lose weight so she could have a healthy pregnancy, said family planning is on hold for now: "I want to spend a summer where I can wear a bathing suit and not feel bad about myself. Call me when that's over.")
Vicky, meanwhile -- who was dubbed by trainer Bob Harper to be "Shakespearean" in her efforts to manipulate her teammates -- missed winning the $250,000 prize by 1 pound.
See? There is justice after all.
In an interview after the show, Vicky said she was unfairly depicted on the show. While she said the producers could have portrayed her positively as a mother struggling to balance work and family and improve the health of her two children, they chose to portray her as a schemer.
To hear her tell it, it was all camerawork.
She has been so widely reviled that she had to change her phone number because she was receiving death threats, and to this day continues to receive letters telling her what a horrible person she is.
"Most people hate my guts," Vicky said, later adding that perhaps so many people disliked her because she was a determined competitor who knew what she wanted and wasn't about to let anyone stand in her way. "Women need to be strong and they need to use their heads."
She also added: "I feel bad for the people who are writing those letters. They don't know me."
On a completely unrelated note:
It's impossible to say whether Vicky was misportrayed or not (although the fact that Mr. Nice Guy Bob Harper called her out for being manipulative suggests that she doth protesteth too much.)
But I can report firsthand that TV does not become Vicky.
She often looked haggard during the game, even after her makeover. In person, though, she is a head-turner, with clear, smooth skin, bright teeth and stunning green eyes.
credited to latimesblogs.com
A new map plotting deaths resulting from forces of nature reveals where Mother Nature is most likely to kill you.
People living in the South along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts have a higher likelihood of dying from a natural hazard compared to residents of the Great Lakes area and urbanized Northeast.
And while intense hurricanes and tornadoes steal headlines for their intense winds and overall destruction, the new map shows what other previous studies have found, that everyday hazards, such as severe winter and summer weather, and heat account for the majority of natural hazard deaths in the United States.
Cutter and Kevin Borden, also of the University of South Carolina, Columbia, analyzed nationwide data from 1970 to 2004. In addition to the South having high mortality from natural hazards, other risky areas included the northern Great Plains region where heat and drought were the biggest killers and the Rocky Mountain region (Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico) with winter weather and floods as top killers. The south-central United States is also a dangerous area, with floods and tornadoes posing the greatest threats.
Cutter and Borden found that of the natural hazards, some were more deadly than others over the years, including:
"It is the chronic hazards like severe summer weather and severe winter weather and heat that are contributing the majority of the hazard fatalities, not fatalities associated with things like earthquakes or hurricanes," Cutter told LiveScience. She added that people and officials tend to be more prepared for big hurricanes and tornadoes, which could partly explain the lower mortality from these storms compared with everyday occurrences.
Overall, during the study period, nearly 20,000 people died due to natural hazards. For comparison, here are the top five causes of U.S. deaths in 2005, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
The natural hazards research, which will be detailed in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Health Geographics, was supported by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security through the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism.
credited to FOXNews.com
A slain 21 year old student who was being attacked by a stranger called 911 but no one came in time to her rescue, according to reports.The dispatcher who took the April 2 call from Brittany Zimmermann's phone shortly before she was murdered told investigators that she either didn't hear a scream or that "it didn't register as a scream."
The length of delay between the mishandled 911 call and when Madison police were sent to her West Doty Street apartment to find her brutally murdered haven't been made known to the public.
Investigators have however revealed in previously sealed court documents obtained by the Wisconsin State Journal that the delay time was 48 minutes.
Dane County has taken some harsh criticism from the public regarding the delay, and tough questions have been raised about whether a prompt response might have saved Zimmerman's life.
Police are still looking for her killer.
"We are working diligently on this case, have generated significant leads, and are making progress," said Joel De Spain of the Madison Police Department.
The police said they believe Zimmerman was attacked by a stranger. Her apartment door showed signs of forced entry.
credited to ibtimes.com
However, here are some interesting facts and pieces of information that you need to know about the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler registration. Some people have already experiences difficulties and unavailability of server while trying to register for Cherry Blossom 10 Miler.
Scurry & Whirl describes her failure experience with Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10 Miler registration.
Well I attempted to sign up. Got as far as confirm your registration, and then realized I was a dumbass and put my best 5 mile time instead of 10 mile pace. When I tried to edit it, I just got the Server Unavailable message. Then I realized I was a dumbass for doing that and I should have just hit complete register, and I could have changed the corral later.
Now I have just tried to resubmit, started from scratch 3 times. And every time I get to the last step it tells me server unavailable. My hopes are dashed. Now I have to find another good Ten Milers in the area happening around the same time.
The 37th running of the Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run and 5K Run Walk will be held on April 5, 2009.
Below is the information provided from Cherry Blossom about the details of the 10 miler registration.
Due to the legal requirement that each individual sign the waiver, online registration is limited to one individual at a time. This is necessary to avoid the practice of one individual signing up multiple individuals during a single on-line session. When this happens, the additional individuals are entering the race without signing the waiver. Family members wishing to enter as as a group will have to initiate a separate on-line process for each member, or can consider downloading copies of the mail-in entry form and submitting them together in an single envelope.
Registration to the Ten Mile is limited to the first 12,000 entrants; registration to the 5K Run-Walk is limited to the first 500 entrants.
The 5K Run-Walk is designed to accommodate individuals running or walking at a pace of 14-minutes per mile or slower (greater than 2 hours and 20 minutes for a 10-mile time). Registration for this event will open simultaneously with registration for the 10-mile run. The 5K Run-Walk will begin at 8:40 on Sunday, Apr. 5, 2009.
If you experience difficulty accessing the on-line registration link, hit your Refresh or Reload button. This seems to be a particular problem for AOL users.
If you have blocked pop-ups from appearing on your web browser, you may need to disable this function to proceed.
Some federal agencies may have Firewalls which prohibit credit card payment. We suggest that you enter by using a different Internet Service Provider or by using a mail-in entry form.
Last Year's Volunteers: If you were a volunteer last year you should have received your 2009 Guaranteed Volunteer Entry Instructions by email. You will be using electronic entry codes for online registration this year instead of printed entry forms. If you were a volunteer in 2008, and you did not receive an email containing your Guaranteed Entry Instructions, please send an email to michelle@cherryblossom.org. If you, or someone you know, would like to volunteer for the 2009 race, visit: http://www.cherryblossom.org/volunteer/volunteer.htm
Last year, on-line registration filled in 4 hours.
credited to huliq.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
