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Reactions to Kim Jung Il's death!

Reaction from North Korea.



Reaction from the rest of the world...



'Nuff Said!

Kim Jung Ill- North Korean Dictator. 1941-2011

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Kim Jong Il, North Korea's mercurial and enigmatic leader whose iron rule and nuclear ambitions dominated world security fears for more than a decade, has died. He was 69.

Kim's death 17 years after he inherited power from his father was announced Monday by the state television from the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. The country's "Dear Leader" — reputed to have had a taste for cigars, cognac and gourmet cuisine — was believed to have had diabetes and heart disease.

North Korea has been grooming Kim's third son to take over power from his father in the impoverished nation that celebrates the ruling family with an intense cult of personality.

South Korea put its military on "high alert" and President Lee Myung-bak convened a national security council meeting after the news of Kim's death.

In a "special broadcast" Monday, state media said Kim died of a heart ailment on a train due to a "great mental and physical strain" on Saturday during a "high intensity field inspection."

Kim is believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008 but he had appeared relatively vigorous in photos and video from recent trips to China and Russia and in numerous trips around the country carefully documented by state media.

Kim Jong Il inherited power after his father, revered North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, died in 1994. He had been groomed for 20 years to lead the communist nation founded by his guerrilla fighter-turned-politician father and built according to the principle of "juche," or self-reliance.

In September 2010, Kim Jong Il unveiled his third son, the twenty-something Kim Jong Un, as his successor, putting him in high-ranking posts.

Even with a successor, there had been some fear among North Korean observers of a behind-the-scenes power struggle or nuclear instability upon the elder Kim's death.

Few firm facts are available when it comes to North Korea, one of the most isolated countries in the world, and not much is clear about the man known as the "Dear Leader."

North Korean legend has it that Kim was born on Mount Paekdu, one of Korea's most cherished sites, in 1942, a birth heralded in the heavens by a pair of rainbows and a brilliant new star.

Soviet records, however, indicate he was born in Siberia, in 1941.

Kim Il Sung, who for years fought for independence from Korea's colonial ruler, Japan, from a base in Russia, emerged as a communist leader after returning to Korea in 1945 after Japan was defeated in World War II.

With the peninsula divided between the Soviet-administered north and the U.S.-administered south, Kim rose to power as North Korea's first leader in 1948 while Syngman Rhee became South Korea's first president.

The North invaded the South in 1950, sparking a war that would last three years, kill millions of civilians and leave the peninsula divided by a Demilitarized Zone that today remains one of the world's most heavily fortified.

In the North, Kim Il Sung meshed Stalinist ideology with a cult of personality that encompassed him and his son. Their portraits hang in every building in North Korea and on the lapels of every dutiful North Korean.

Kim Jong Il, a graduate of Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung University, was 33 when his father anointed him his eventual successor.

Even before he took over as leader, there were signs the younger Kim would maintain — and perhaps exceed — his father's hard-line stance.

South Korea has accused Kim of masterminding a 1983 bombing that killed 17 South Korean officials visiting Burma, now known as Myanmar. In 1987, the bombing of a Korean Air Flight killed all 115 people on board; a North Korean agent who confessed to planting the device said Kim ordered the downing of the plane himself.

Kim Jong Il took over after his father died in 1994, eventually taking the posts of chairman of the National Defense Commission, commander of the Korean People's Army and head of the ruling Worker's Party while his father remained as North Korea's "eternal president."

He faithfully carried out his father's policy of "military first," devoting much of the country's scarce resources to its troops — even as his people suffered from a prolonged famine — and built the world's fifth-largest military.

Kim also sought to build up the country's nuclear arms arsenal, which culminated in North Korea's first nuclear test explosion, an underground blast conducted in October 2006. Another test came in 2009.

Alarmed, regional leaders negotiated a disarmament-for-aid pact that the North signed in 2007 and began implementing later that year.

However, the process continues to be stalled, even as diplomats work to restart negotiations.

North Korea, long hampered by sanctions and unable to feed its own people, is desperate for aid. Flooding in the 1990s that destroyed the largely mountainous country's arable land left millions hungry.

Following the famine, the number of North Koreans fleeing the country through China rose dramatically, with many telling tales of hunger, political persecution and rights abuses that officials in Pyongyang emphatically denied.

Kim often blamed the U.S. for his country's troubles and his regime routinely derides Washington-allied South Korea as a "puppet" of the Western superpower.

U.S. President George W. Bush, taking office in 2002, denounced North Korea as a member of an "axis of evil" that also included Iran and Iraq. He later described Kim as a "tyrant" who starved his people so he could build nuclear weapons.

"Look, Kim Jong Il is a dangerous person. He's a man who starves his people. He's got huge concentration camps. And ... there is concern about his capacity to deliver a nuclear weapon," Bush said in 2005.

Kim was an enigmatic leader. But defectors from North Korea describe him as an eloquent and tireless orator, primarily to the military units that form the base of his support.

The world's best glimpse of the man was in 2000, when the liberal South Korean government's conciliatory "sunshine" policy toward the North culminated in the first-ever summit between the two Koreas and followed with unprecedented inter-Korean cooperation.

A second summit was held in 2007 with South Korea's Roh Moo-hyun.

But the thaw in relations drew to a halt in early 2008 when conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office in Seoul pledging to come down hard on communist North Korea.

Disputing accounts that Kim was "peculiar," former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright characterized Kim as intelligent and well-informed, saying the two had wide-ranging discussions during her visits to Pyongyang when Bill Clinton was U.S. president.

"I found him very much on top of his brief," she said.

Kim cut a distinctive, if oft ridiculed, figure. Short and pudgy at 5-foot-3, he wore platform shoes and sported a permed bouffant. His trademark attire of jumpsuits and sunglasses was mocked in such films as "Team America: World Police," a movie populated by puppets that was released in 2004.

Kim was said to have cultivated wide interests, including professional basketball, cars and foreign films. He reportedly produced several North Korean films as well, mostly historical epics with an ideological tinge.

A South Korean film director claimed Kim even kidnapped him and his movie star wife in the late 1970s, spiriting them back to North Korea to make movies for him for a decade before they managed to escape from their North Korean agents during a trip to Austria.

Kim rarely traveled abroad and then only by train because of an alleged fear of flying, once heading all the way by luxury rail car to Moscow, indulging in his taste for fine food along the way.

One account of Kim's lavish lifestyle came from Konstantin Pulikovsky, a former Russian presidential envoy who wrote the book "The Orient Express" about Kim's train trip through Russia in July and August 2001.

Pulikovsky, who accompanied the North Korean leader, said Kim's 16-car private train was stocked with crates of French wine. Live lobsters were delivered in advance to stations.

A Japanese cook later claimed he was Kim's personal sushi chef for a decade, writing that Kim had a wine cellar stocked with 10,000 bottles, and that, in addition to sushi, Kim ate shark's fin soup — a rare delicacy — weekly.

"His banquets often started at midnight and lasted until morning. The longest lasted for four days," the chef, who goes by the pseudonym Kenji Fujimoto, was quoted as saying.

Kim is believed to have curbed his indulgent ways in recent years and looked slimmer in more recent video footage aired by North Korea's state-run broadcaster.

Kim's marital status wasn't clear but he is believed to have married once and had at least three other companions. He had at least three sons with two women, as well as a daughter by a third.

His eldest son, Kim Jong Nam, 38, is believed to have fallen out of favor with his father after he was caught trying to enter Japan on a fake passport in 2001 saying he wanted to visit Disney's Tokyo resort.

His two other sons by another woman, Kim Jong Chul and Kim Jong Un, are in their 20s. Their mother reportedly died several years ago.

Christopher Hitchens- Journalist, Critic, Atheist. 1949-2011

On of my heroes from the atheist/humanist movement is gone.

Christopher Hitchens dies at 62

He died from pneumonia, a complication of the oesophageal cancer he had , at a Texas hospital.

Vanity Fair magazine, which announced his death, said there would "never be another like Christopher".

He is survived by his wife, Carol Blue, and their daughter, Antonia, and his children from a previous marriage, Alexander and Sophia.

Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter described the writer as someone "of ferocious intellect, who was as vibrant on the page as he was at the bar".

"Those who read him felt they knew him, and those who knew him were profoundly fortunate souls."

Hitchens was born in Portsmouth in 1949 and graduated from Oxford in 1970.

He began his career as a journalist in Britain in the 1970s and later moved to New York, becoming contributing editor to Vanity Fair in November 1992.

He was diagnosed with cancer in June 2010, and documented his declining health in his Vanity Fair column.

In an August 2010 essay for the magazine he wrote: "I love the imagery of struggle.

"I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient."

Speaking on the BBC's Newsnight programme, in November that year, he reflected on a life that he knew would be cut short: "It does concentrate the mind, of course, to realise that your life is more rationed than you thought it was."

Radicalised by the 1960s, Hitchens was often arrested at political rallies and was kicked out of the Labour Party over his opposition to the Vietnam War.
Continue reading the main story
"He could throw words up into the sky, they fell down in a marvellous pattern”

Denis McShane MP

He became a correspondent for the Socialist Workers Party's International Socialism magazine.

In later life he moved away from the left. Following the September 11 attacks he argued with Noam Chomsky and others who suggested that US foreign policy had helped cause the tragedy.

He supported the Iraq War and backed George W Bush for re-election in 2004.

It led to him being accused of betrayal: one former friend called him "a lying, opportunistic, cynical contrarian", another "a drink-sodden ex-Trotskyist popinjay".

But he could dish out scathing critiques himself. Bill Clinton he called "a cynical, self-seeking ambitious thug", Henry Kissinger a war criminal and Mother Teresa a fraudulent fanatic.

He also famously fell out with his brother, the Mail On Sunday journalist Peter Hitchens, though the pair were later reconciled.

Hitchens could be a loyal friend. He stood by the author Salman Rushdie during the furore that followed the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses.

Writing on Twitter after the announcement of Hitchens' death, Mr Rushdie said: "Goodbye, my beloved friend. A great voice falls silent. A great heart stops."

The MP Denis McShane was a student at Oxford with Hitchens.
“Christopher Hitchens was everything a great essayist should be: infuriating, brilliant, highly provocative and yet intensely serious”

Nick Clegg Deputy Prime Minister

He said: "Christopher just swam against every tide. He was a supporter of the Polish and Czech resistance of the 1970s, he supported Mrs Thatcher because he thought getting rid of the Argentinian fascist junta was a good idea.

"He was a cross between Voltaire and Orwell. He loved words.

"He could throw words up into the sky, they fell down in a marvellous pattern."
Prolific writer

The publication of his 2007 book God Is Not Great made him a major celebrity in his adopted homeland of the United States, and he happily took on the role of the country's best-known atheist.

He maintained his devout atheism after being diagnosed with cancer, telling one interviewer: "No evidence or argument has yet been presented which would change my mind. But I like surprises."

The author and prominent atheist Richard Dawkins described him as the "finest orator of our time" and a "valiant fighter against all tyrants including God".

He said Hitchens had been a "wonderful mentor in a way".

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who once worked as an intern for Hitchens, said: "Christopher Hitchens was everything a great essayist should be: infuriating, brilliant, highly provocative and yet intensely serious.

"He will be massively missed by everyone who values strong opinions and great writing."

Hitchens wrote for numerous publications including The Times Literary Supplement, the Daily Express, the London Evening Standard, Newsday and The Atlantic.

He was the author of 17 books, including The Trial of Henry Kissinger, How Religion Poisons Everything and a memoir, Hitch-22.

A collection of his essays, Arguably, was released this year.

Joe Simon - Co creator of Captain America. 1913-2011

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Joe Simon, who along with Jack Kirby co-created Captain America and was one of the comic book industry's most revered writers, artists and editors, has died. He was 98.

Simon's family relayed word of his death Thursday, posting a short statement on Facebook and telling The Associated Press through a spokesman that the 98-year-old Simon died Wednesday night in New York City after a brief illness.

"Joe was one of a kind," said Steve Saffel of Titan Books, a Simon friend who worked with him on his recent autobiography, "Joe Simon, My Life In Comics."

Saffel said that Simon, born in Rochester, N.Y., in 1913, "lived life on his terms and created incredible things in the process. It was a privilege to know him and to call him my friend."

Among his creations was a partnership with comic book artist and illustrator Jack Kirby. The duo worked hand-in-glove for years and from their fertile imaginations sprang a trove of characters, heroes, villains and misfits for several comic book companies in their Golden Age of the 1940s, including Timely, the forerunner of today's Marvel Comics; National Periodicals, the forerunner of DC; and Fawcett, among others.

The characters the two created included the Newsboy Legion, the Boy Commandos and scores more, including Blue Bolt.

"Blue Bolt was the first strip Jack and I worked on together, beginning in 1940. He was a science fiction swashbuckler I created for Curtis Publishing, the company that put out the Saturday Evening Post," Simon told The Associated Press earlier this year. "They had decided to jump on the comic book bandwagon. Jack joined me with the second issue. Like Captain America, Blue Bolt got his powers from an injection, long before the baseball players were doing it."

For Timely, the duo created Captain America, debuting on the cover of "Captain America Comics" No. 1 in December 1940 with the champion of liberty throwing a solid right-hook at Adolph Hitler, an entire year before the United States entered World War II.

"Jack and I read the newspapers, and knew what was going on over in Europe. And there he was — Adolf Hitler, with his ridiculous moustache, high-pitched ranting and goose-stepping followers. He was the perfect bad guy, much better than anything we could have made up, so what we needed was to create his ultimate counterpart," Simon told AP.

"Cap is one of the great comic book icons, and as dangerous as the world is today — more than it was in the 1940s — we need him around more than ever to act as our moral compass," Simon said.

Mark Evanier, a comic industry historian and Jack Kirby biographer, noted that Simon, besides being able to write and draw, also knew how to edit comics.

"Joe himself was the first great real editor who brought to comics skills he'd learned elsewhere and had some perception of how to put a magazine together and how to make a professional looking publication," Evanier told The AP on Thursday. "He had some business acumen. He knew how to talk to publishers, he knew how to make deals."

He also knew the market, Evanier said, noting that Simon, along with Kirby, plunged head first into creating horror, crime, humor and romance comics in the aftermath of World War II.

Simon said earlier this year that creating the romance comics was a high point for him and Kirby because they "negotiated to own half of the property," something that had been an uncertain prospect in the industry.

"I'd like to think that we showed today's comic book writers and artists how they can do more than just make a living producing comic books, and hold onto the fruits of their labors," he said.

Simon is survived by two sons, three daughters and eight grandchildren.

Via AP

Harry Morgan, Actor, "M*A*S*H*", "Dragnet". 1915-2011

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Harry Morgan wasn't a star and didn't need to be. In "M-A-S-H," ''Dragnet" and so many other TV shows and movies, the veteran character actor proved as indispensable as any marquee name.

Imagine "M-A-S-H" without the no-nonsense but fair Army Col. Sherman Potter, who knew how to traverse the line between military discipline and wartime humanity.

Here's Potter, on his first day as commander of a Korean War hospital camp, discovering the moonshine-making operation run by his brilliant but wayward surgeons and holding his fire: "Had a still in Guam in World War II. One night it blew up. That's how I got my Purple Heart."

Or go back to the 1960s version of "Dragnet" and Morgan's tour of duty as police Officer Bill Gannon, playing droll foil to laconic Jack Webb's Sgt. Joe Friday. Or consider Morgan's stalwart judge at the center of an intellectual clash in "Inherit the Wind," the dramatization of 1925's so-called Scopes Monkey Trial on evolution.

The 1960 film included tour de force performances by Fredric March, who raged as a version of William Jennings Bryan, and Spencer Tracy, a craftily impassioned take on Clarence Darrow. Morgan held his own as a smart, small-town jurist trying to balance political pressure with justice.

Morgan, who died Wednesday at age 96 at his Brentwood home after having pneumonia, was in the top ranks of actors who could take a small role, or a small scene, and bring it deftly alive. He added richness to any comedy or drama smart enough to call on him.

And that happened over and over, from gritty Westerns including 1943's "The Oxbow Incident" and 1952's "High Noon" to fluffy TV series "December Bride" and "The Love Boat."

Morgan, a Detroit native born in 1915, was studying pre-law at the University of Chicago when public speaking classes drew him to the stage. He worked with a little-theater group in Washington, D.C., followed by a two-year stint on Broadway in the original production of "Golden Boy," with Karl Malden and Lee J. Cobb.

Morgan began his television career in 1954 when the medium was young.

He was one of the "foundational pieces of the industry," said "M-A-S-H" star Mike Farrell, who tried to gain Morgan a lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild. Such honors routinely go to stars but also belong to Morgan and other character actors who provide "the grit and the substance and the context" for so many films and TV shows, Farrell said Wednesday.

"Harry has been that, par excellence, for many years," he said.

Veteran writer-producer Ken Levine, who worked on "M-A-S-H" early in his career, recalled Morgan as a complete pro who left him awestruck.

"He could read a scene once, have it completely memorized, and perform it perfectly take after take," Levine said on his blog. "And then compliment a callow 26-year-old writer who wrote it and couldn't believe the great Harry Morgan was even in the same room, much less reading his words."

Morgan, a quiet scene-stealer in his work, was also modest in life. Daughter-in-law Beth Morgan said he was "very humble about having such a successful career," which included an Emmy Award for "M-A-S-H."

He'd never boast about the famed actors whom he had worked with and befriended, including Henry Fonda and Gregory Peck, but, if prompted, would happily share memories, Farrell said.

And Morgan knew what counted in life, as he proved at a news conference held when "M-A-S-H" ended in 1983. He was asked if working with the show's cast had made him a better actor, and Farrell recalled Morgan's reply: "I don't know about that, but it's made me a better human being."

Action Comics #1 sells for 2.16 Million Dollars!

Where the heck are my old comics????

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A rare and pristine copy of the first issue of Action Comics, famed for the first appearance of Superman, has set a record Wednesday for the most money paid for a single comic book: $2.16 million.

The issue, graded at 9.0, was auctioned starting Nov. 11 online at www.comicconnect.com. The starting bid was just $1 but there was a reserve price of $900,000. Neither the name of the buyer nor seller was disclosed.

It's the first time a comic book has broken the $2 million barrier. The issue was published in 1938 and cost just 10 cents.

"When we broke the record in 2010 by selling the Action Comics No. 1, graded at 8.5, for $1.5 million, I truly believed that this was a record that would stand for many years to come," said Stephen Fishler, CEO of ComicConnect.com and Metropolis Collectibles.

The previous record set in March 2010 was followed by the sale of another copy for $1 million. But neither of those issues was in as good a condition as the issue that sold Wednesday, though it's pedigree of setting records was already documented. Twice before it set the record for the most expensive book ever, selling for $86,000 in 1992 and $150,000 in 1997.

But in 2000, it was stolen and thought lost until it was recovered in a storage shed in California in April this year.

About 100 copies of Action Comics No. 1 are believed to be in existence, and only a handful of those in good condition.

After it was stolen, Fishler said, collectors figured it would never be found or, worse, would be destroyed.

"Clearly, I was wrong. Not in my wildest imagination could I have predicted that this legendary, stolen Action Comics No. 1 would be found, graded at 9.0 and break the record a year and a half later," he said.

Karl Slover, one of the last surviving munchkins from the "Wizard Of Oz" 1918 - 2011

DUBLIN, Ga. — Karl Slover, one of the last surviving actors who played Munchkins in the 1939 classic film, "The Wizard of Oz," has died. He was 93.

The 4-foot-5 Slover died of cardiopulmonary arrest Tuesday afternoon in a suburban Atlanta hospital, said Laurens County Deputy Coroner Nathan Stanley. According to friends, as recently as last weekend, Slover appeared at events in the suburban Chicago area.

Slover was best known for playing the lead trumpeter in the Munchkins' band but also had roles as a townsman and soldier in the film, said John Fricke, author of "100 Years of Oz" and five other books on the movie and its star, Judy Garland. Slover was one of the tiniest male Munchkins in the movie.

Long after Slover retired, he continued to appear around the country at festivals and events related to the movie. He was one of seven Munchkins at the 2007 unveiling of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame dedicated to the little people in the movie. Only three remain of the 124 diminutive actors who played the beloved Munchkins.

"He has a genuine immortality," Fricke said. "Of the 124 little people, he's one of the handful who got to enjoy this latter-day fame, to have people know who he was and be able to pick him out of the crowd in the movie."

Slover is the first of the three trumpeters to herald the Munchkin mayor when he makes his entrance. Slover had been cast to play the second trumpeter but switched when another actor got stage fight during filiming, said longtime friend Allen Pease, the co-founder of the former Munchkinland Market Days outside Chesterton, Ind.

"Karl didn't know what stage fright meant," he said.

Slover was born Karl Kosiczky in what is now the Czech Republic and he was the only child in his family to be dwarf sized.

"In those uninformed days, his father tried witch doctor treatments to make him grow," Fricke said. "Knowing Karl and his triumph over his early life, you can't help but celebrate the man at a time like this."

He was buried in the backyard, immersed in heated oil until his skin blistered and then attached to a stretching machine at a hospital, all in the attempt to make him become taller. Eventually he was sold by his father at age 9 to a traveling show in Europe, Fricke said.

Slover continued to perform into his late 20s, when he moved to the United States, changed his name and appeared in circuses as part of a vaudeville group known as the Singer Midgets. The group's 30 performers became the nucleus of the Munchkins.

He was paid $50 a week for the movie and told friends that Garland's dog in the movie, "Toto," made more money.

The surviving Munchkin actors found new generations of fans in the late 1980s when they began making appearances around the country.

"It wasn't until the Munchkins started making their appearances in 1989 that they call came to realize how potent the film had become and remained," Fricke said. "He was wonderfully articulate about his memories, he had anecdotes to share."

More on the death of Gadhafi.

The world only learned gradually this morning of the death of Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi. But now multiple news outlets are piecing together the dramatic account of Gadhafi's final moments.

Jalal al-Galal, a spokesman for the rebels' provisional governing alliance, the National Transitional Council told Reuters, that Gadhafi "was killed in an attack by the fighters. There is footage of that." Gadhafi is now officially the first leader killed as a result of the Arab Spring uprisings, as the Associated Press notes in its obituary of the leader.

According to reports from several sources, Gadhafi was fleeing a NATO-led rebel attack on the former leader's hometown of Sirte, which had been a last remaining stronghold for Gadhafi forces. According to the Reuters report, the rebels found the former Libyan strongman hiding in a hole in the ground; the rebel fighter who found Gadhafi said that the Libyan leader repeated "Don't shoot, don't shoot" upon his capture. The BBC reported that the same rebel fighter was "brandishing" a golden pistol which he said belonged to the Libyan strongman.

Al Jazeera English posted footage of Gadhafi's body on the street in Sirte. The Guardian has posted a longer version of the same clip. You can watch the footage below, but readers should be warned that it is very graphic:

Moammar Gadhafi, Libya's strongman, 1942-2011

Reuters quotes Abdel Majid of the Libyan transitional government as saying that a wounded Moammar Gaddafi has been captured.

Update at 8:39 am. ET: Bel Haj, the military chief for the National Transition Council, tells Al Jazeera that Gadhafi has been killed.

More as it comes in!

Steve Jobs, Co-Founder and CEO of Apple INC. 1955-2011

Steve Jobs, the mastermind behind Apple's iPhone, iPad, iPod, iMac and iTunes, has died, Apple said. Jobs was 56.

"We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today," read a statement by Apple's board of directors. "Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve. His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts."

The homepage of Apple's website this evening switched to a full-page image of Jobs with the text, "Steve Jobs 1955-2011."

Clicking on the image revealed the additional text: "Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple."

Jobs co-founded Apple Computer in 1976 and, with his childhood friend Steve Wozniak, marketed what was considered the world's first personal computer, the Apple II.

Shortly after learning of Jobs' death, Wozniak told ABC News, "I'm shocked and disturbed."
Industry watchers called him a master innovator -- perhaps on a par with Thomas Edison -- changing the worlds of computing, recorded music and communications.

In 2004, he beat back an unusual form of pancreatic cancer, and in 2009 he was forced to get a liver transplant. After several years of failing health, Jobs announced on Aug. 24, 2011 that he was stepping down as Apple's chief executive

A sad day for all of us who are Apple product owners. May he rest in Peace.

Ofelia Dacosta, Actriz. 1927-2011

La actriz Ofelia Dacosta falleció esta mañana en el Hospicio Jardín de Oro en Guaynabo, según confirmó a Primera Hora su hijo Jorge Acosta.

Acosta explicó que la veterana actriz, de 86 años, había venido sufriendo varias condiciones de salud y la semana pasada sufrió un infarto cerebral que la mantuvo en cama hasta la mañana de hoy, sábado, cuando finalmente falleció.

Dacosta se destacó en el quehacer cultural del país, comenzando en la actuación y la televisión tras su llegada a Puerto Rico desde Cuba en 1962.

“Ella llegó a Puerto Rico en el ‘62 y prácticamente desde la década del '70 comenzó su carrera compartiendo escenarios con Braulio Castillo, Axel Anderson, Mona Marti y Lucy Boscana, entre muchos otros”, comentó el hijo.

En la pantalla chica protagonizó el melodrama “Esclavos del rencor” con Benjamín Morales, Ricardo Palmerola y Orlando Rodríguez en una producción del Canal 2.

Otras telenovelas en las que participó Dacosta fueron: “Cuando la rival es una hija” donde laboró al lado de los actores Axel Anderson y Camille Carrión; “La sombra de Belinda”; “Preciosa” donde actuó como Flor; “Mili” proyecto en el cual interpretó a Sor Teresa y “Coralito” donde le dio vida a Ceferina. En la popular telenovela “Tanairí” encarnó a la soberbia Emperatriz y en “Escándalo”, compartió estelares junto a Charitín Goyco e Iris Chacón.

Acosta informó que los restos de su madre serán expuestos a partir de mañana domingo a la 1:00 p.m. en la Funeraria Buxeda donde el lunes se celebrará una misa a las 3:00 p.m. Luego sus restos serán cremados. “Se estará velando con la caja cerrada como era su deseo”, explicó Acosta.

El lunes en la mañana, el féretro estará expuesto en la Sala Antonio Paoli del Centro de Bellas Artes de San Juan, informó Myrna Casas, gerente general de esa institución.

A la actriz le sobreviven sus hijos Jorge, Ofelita y Néstor y sus nietos, biznietos y tataranietos. Su otro hijo Tinito falleció.

Que en Paz descanse, Doña Ofelia.
Aquí esta un vídeo de su intervención en la versión cinematográfica de la novela "El Hijo de Ángela Maria"

Ukrainian man dies after winning eating contest!

KIEV (Reuters) - A 77-year-old Ukrainian man won a jar full of sour cream for coming first in a dumpling eating contest and then promptly died, local media reported on Wednesday.

Ivan Mendel ate 10 dumplings in half a minute to win first place and a one-liter jar of sour cream in the contest held in the town of Tokmak in the southeastern Zaporizhya region on September 18, Fakty I Kommentarii newspaper said.

Shortly afterwards, Mendel became unwell and died, according to local news websites.

Dumplings, called "vareniki" in the former Soviet republic, are a staple of Ukrainian cuisine and are often stuffed with a range of fillings from mushrooms to cherries.

And remember kids, In the Ukraine, you don't eat dumplings, dumplings eat YOU!

3 Dead, 56 injured when pilot crashes into crowd at an air race!

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A vintage World War II-era fighter plane plunged into the grandstands Friday during a popular annual air show, killing at least three people, injuring more than 50 spectators and creating a horrific scene strewn with body parts and smoking debris.

The plane, flown by an 80-year-old pilot, spiraled suddenly out of control and appeared to disintegrate upon impact. Bloodied bodies were spread across the area as people tended to the victims and ambulances rushed to the scene.

Maureen Higgins of Alabama, who has been coming to the show for 16 years, said the pilot was on his third lap when he lost control.

She was sitting about 30 yards away from the crash and watched in horror as the man in front of her started bleeding after a piece of debris hit him in the head.

"I saw body parts and gore like you wouldn't believe it. I'm talking an arm, a leg," Higgins said "The alive people were missing body parts. I am not kidding you. It was gore. Unbelievable gore."

Among the dead was pilot Jimmy Leeward, 80, of Ocala, Fla., who flew the P-51 Mustang named the "Galloping Ghost," according to Mike Houghton, president and CEO of Reno Air Races.

Renown Medical Center spokeswoman Kathy Carter confirmed that two others died, but did not provide their identities.

Stephanie Kruse, a spokeswoman for the Regional Emergency Medical Service Authority, told The Associated Press that emergency crews took a total of 56 injury victims to three hospitals. She said they also observed a number of people being transported by private vehicle, which they are not including in their count.

Kruse said of the total 56, at the time of transport, 15 were considered in critical condition, 13 were serious condition with potentially life-threatening injuries and 28 were non-serious or non-life threatening.

"This is a very large incident, probably one of the largest this community has seen in decades," Kruse told The Associated Press. "The community is pulling together to try to deal with the scope of it. The hospitals have certainly geared up and staffed up to deal with it."

The P-51 Mustang crashed into a box-seat area in front of the grandstand at about 4:30 p.m., race spokesman Mike Draper said. Houghton said Leeward appeared to have "lost control of the aircraft," though details on why that happened weren't immediately known.

KRNV-TV weatherman Jeff Martinez, who was just outside the air race grounds at the time, said the plane veered to the right and then "it just augered straight into the ground."

"You saw pieces and parts going everywhere," he said. "Everyone is in disbelief."

Tanya Breining, off Hayward, Calif., told KTVU-TV in San Francisco: "It was absolute carnage. ... It looked like more than a bomb exploded."

Another witness, Ronald Sargis, said he was sitting in the box seat area near the finish line.

"We could see the plane coming around the far turn — it was in trouble," Sargis told KCRA-TV in Sacramento. "About six or seven boxes down from us, it impacted into the front row."

He said the pilot appeared to do all he could to avoid crashing into the crowd. Response teams immediately went to work, Sargis said. After the crash Sargis went up a few rows into the grandstand to view the downed plane.

"It appeared to be just pulverized," he said.

Leeward, the owner of the Leeward Air Ranch Racing Team, was a well-known racing pilot. His website says he has flown more than 120 races and served as a stunt pilot for numerous movies, including "Amelia" and "Cloud Dancer."

In an interview with the Ocala (Fla.) Star-Banner last year, he described how he has flown 250 types of planes and has a particular fondness for the P-51, which came into the war relatively late and was used as a long-range bomber escort over Europe. Among the famous pilots of the hot new fighter was WWII double ace Chuck Yeager.

"They're more fun. More speed, more challenge. Speed, speed and more speed," Leeward said.

Houghton described Leeward as "a good friend. Everybody knows him. It's a tight knit family. He's been here for a long, long time," Houghton said.

The National Championship Air Races draws thousands of people every year in September to watch various military and civilian planes race. They also have attracted scrutiny in the past over safety concerns, including four pilots killed in 2007 and 2008. It was such a concern that local school officials once considered whether they should not allow student field trips at the event.

The competition is like a car race in the sky, with planes flying wingtip-to-wingtip as low as 50 feet off the sagebrush at speeds sometimes surpassing 500 mph. Pilots follow an oval path around pylons, with distances and speeds depending on the class of aircraft.

The FAA and air race organizers spend months preparing for air races as they develop a plan involving pilot qualification, training and testing along with a layout for the course. The FAA inspects pilots' practice runs and brief pilots on the route maneuvers and emergency procedures.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., issued a statement saying he was "deeply saddened" about the crash.

"My thoughts are with the families of those who have lost their lives and with those who were wounded in this horrific tragedy," he said. "I am so grateful to our first responders for their swift action and will continue to monitor this situation as it develops."

UPDATE 9/19/2011

Death toll stands at 9, 57 injured. New video of the horrific crash. (Viewer Discretion is advised!)

¡Hombre le arranca pene a otro hombre durante pelea!

Santiago (R. Dominicana)- Un haitiano le mutiló el pene de un mordisco a un compatriota en medio de una reyerta que se originó en el municipio de Jamao al Norte, de la provincia Espaillat, porque supuestamente la víctima mantenía una relación amorosa con su concubina.

La Policía identificó al herido como Elicson Pié, mientras que el agresor fue identificado como Reynaldo Pierre.

Según dijeron varios haitianos a los investigadores de la Policía, Pié es un hombre joven, mulato, de buena apariencia física, y que no trabaja pero se dedica a enamorar y conquistar a las mujeres de sus compatriotas.

La Policía dijo que Pierre se enteró que su compatriota Elicson había tenido relaciones sexuales con su esposa y al reclamarle ambos se enfrascaron en una pelea a puños.

Las autoridades dijeron que Pierre tiró a Pié al suelo, lo que aprovechó para cercenarle el pene de una mordida.

Varios haitianos que se dedican a trabajos agrícolas y de construcción en Jamao al Norte, situado al norte del país, celebraron en las calles con música típica de su país la agresión de que fue víctima su paisano.

El afectado fue ingresado en el Hospital de Jamao al Norte, donde los médicos hacen esfuerzos por recomponerle el miembro.

La Policía dijo que el agresor se encuentra detenido para ser puesto a disposición de la justicia.

Algunos haitianos narraron a la Policía que mientras muchos trabajan duramente en el campo y en la construcción, Pié vivía del sudor de otros, porque las mujeres con las que mantenía relaciones sexuales le daban comidas y dinero.

Todo lo que voy a decir es...

¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY COñO!!!!!!!!!!!! ¡¡¡¡ESO DUELE!!!!

14 year old girl stabs 37 classmates with a dirty hypodermic needle!

An it all happened right here in Arroyo, Puerto Rico!

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A 14-year-old girl went on a playground rampage with a hypodermic needle, stabbing 37 classmates, Puerto Rican officials said Thursday.
"She would stab one, run, stab another, run, like it was some sort of joke," Education Secretary Jesus Rivera Sanchez said about Tuesday's lunchtime attack on 12- to 14-year-olds at the Jose de Choudens middle school in the southern coastal town of Arroyo.
Health Department spokeswoman Margarita Casalduc said it was unclear if the syringe contained anything and further tests were needed to determine if it was contaminated. But the victims, accompanied by their shaken parents, gathered at a convention center to be tested for HIV and hepatitis C and to be given preventive medications.
Sanchez said counselors also were helping the victims and their parents.
Social workers were interviewing the alleged attacker to try to determine a motive, Justice Department spokesman Fidel Rodriguez said. He said no charges had yet been filed, but officials said she had been suspended from school.
Rivera said the girl first told investigators she found the syringe, but later said she stole an unused one while visiting a relative at a hospital and had planned to pierce her ear with it. He said it was not clear why she decided to attack her classmates.
A woman who answered the phone at the school said the director, Gloria Ramos, was not available for comment.

In Memoriam...

NEW YORK
WASHINGTON DC.
SHANKSVILLE, PA.

To all the lost...

Man tries to catch plane with snakes and turtles in his pants!

Ok, I'll say it...talk about trouser snakes!

It was almost a case of snakes on a plane. Instead it turned out to be snakes in some guy's pants. Seven of them, in fact, all exotic. Oh, and three tortoises.

Using a body scanner, Transportation Security Administration officers in Miami spotted all the reptiles stuffed inside nylon bags concealed in his pants. The unidentified man was trying last Thursday to get through a checkpoint on his way to Brazil on TAM Airlines, TSA spokesman Jonathon Allen said Monday.

U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife officers took custody of the critters and arrested the passenger.

It's not the airlines' first weird wildlife encounter. In 2007, a man tried to smuggle a tiny monkey under his shirt on a flight from Fort Lauderdale to New York. And a woman attempted to sneak 75 live snakes inside her bra in Sweden, in 1996.

Ok. I'm gonna let Samuel L. Jackson say it!

"ET is not a nice guy" warn scientists.

There have been 20-30 major Hollywood alien apocalypse movies released in the last year or so, and more are on the way. They’re unavoidable. As such, it’s no wonder that scientists have hostile aliens on the brain. Several researchers have released a study that says there is a good chance aliens will come and wipe us out if they think we’re irresponsible, expanding too quickly, or a number of other reasons, reports the IB Times. The researchers point to humanity’s own history of hostility toward unfamiliar humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas as evidence.

“Just as we did to those beings, the extraterrestrials might proceed to kill, infect, dissect, conquer, displace or enslave us, stuff us as specimens for their museums or pickle our skulls and use us for medical research,” says the study, published in the journal Acta Astronautica.

Another argument is that, by nature, if we contact aliens through programs like SETI, which will be relaunching in September, the aliens we contact will have to be more technologically advanced than us to even communicate properly. And if they have more advanced technology than us, they could come to harm us.

“A core concern is that ETI will learn of our presence and quickly travel to Earth to eat or enslave us,” says the study.

But what has really changed since programs like SETI began? Well there are more of us, but that’s about it. There will always be remote danger in discovering something (or someone) you don’t know. That’s science. Honestly, we think the only real danger here is in how much time scientists are spending watching the trailer for Battleship. Perhaps Hollywood is taking its toll.

(P.S. If you meet an alien, please don’t tell it that we’re planning on leaving earth anytime soon. Also, show it that you are compassionate and recycle. And whatever you do, don’t show it Avatar. Maybe then it won’t kill us all.)

Via Digital Trends

ET Go Home, you F@#%!

More on Hurricane Irene.

She's gone, and fastly being forgotten! Bye Irene!

August 22nd. Hurricane Irene and my birthday, Coincidence?

As to underscore my 50th birthday today, Hurricane Irene decided to make landfall in PR in the early morning. What a way to celebrate a birthday!

Bye Irene, thanks for making this day extra special.

Here some of the damages made by Irene.

Happy Birthday, Fantastic Four!

August 8, 1961. Four days after the birth of Barack Obama and 12 days before my own, Jack Kirby and Stan Lee let loose another of their creations. After the Astounding X-Men, Marvel Comics debuted "The Fantastic Four" 50 years ago. Dr. Reed Richards, Sue Storm (nee Richards), Johnny Storm and Ben "The Thing" Grimm have become iconic in pop culture in general. But they never had a great movie adaptation.

Anyway, Happy Birthday FF!

Another example that Japan puts acid in their water supply!

In all seriousness, this video made me trip balls! It's called PONPONPON.

is by Kyary Pamyu Pamyu fom her Debut mini album "Moshi Moshi Harajuku" (means "Hello Harajuku").

Enjoy the trip!

Amy Winehouse's Death Wager Wins One an iPod Touch

A person's bad luck can be a fortune for others!

A woman has received an iPod Touch after correctly predicting the date Amy Winehouse would die on a website.

The website, created in 2007, has received hundreds of thousands of hits. Participators in the wager totaled 96,026, posting their predictions of when the famous singer’s death would take place.

On July 23, the day of Winehouse’s death, a note on the site read, “Out of all those entries only four were correct. The first person to do so did it on December 21, 2007 and we’ve called her the winner of the iPod touch. We will be contacting her via email.”

The website creators admitted that since they launched the site, they have received 237 emails where viewers accused them of “working for the devil in disguise.”

“Amy Winehouse has passed away. Let’s hope her demise is an example for young people in how not to deal with your problems. May she Rest In Peace and her music live on,” the note from site creators concluded on the day Winehouse died.

Winehouse received her first guitar aged 13 and began writing her own music a year later. Her powerful and deep contralto vocals combined with her use of R&B, soul, and jazz sounds won her five Grammy Awards in 2006.

The British singer suffered from substance abuse and participated in self-destructive behaviors such as drug and alcohol use.

Winehouse’s activities made her a regular in tabloid gossip from 2007 until her death last week. Found dead in her London apartment, the cause of her death remains unknown.

Mitch and Janis Winehouse, Amy’s parents, plan to set up an organization in her name for those who suffer from drug addiction.

There have been no comments from the woman who predicted Winehouse’s death four years in advance.

Pow! Zing! Marvel Comics KO's Jack Kirby's estate over copyrights!

LOS ANGELES - Marvel Worldwide, not the heirs of legendary comic book artist Jack Kirby, owns the rights to the iconic characters “Spider-Man,” “Iron Man,” “The Mighty Thor” and “The Incredible Hulk” a federal judge in New York ruled Thursday.

Kirby’s heirs claimed that the artist, who died in 1994, created the characters and owned their copyrights.

They also claimed copyright to lesser characters such as “Ant-Man,” “Nick Fury” and “The Rawhide Kid,” and to “The Fantastic Four,” “The X-Men” and “The Avengers.”

Marvel said it owned the characters.

In a 50-page decision, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon sided with Marvel. She ruled that Kirby was a freelance artist and that his was “work for hire,” and that Marvel editor Stan Lee wrote outlines for comics.

“The artists were always constrained by Lee’s plot outlines,” she wrote. “Lee retained the right to edit or alter their work, or to reject the pages altogether and not publish them if he did not like them.”

The judge wrote that Kirby “participated in the creation“ of the characters, but didn’t own them.

“The Kirby Works were created at the instance and expense of Marvel,” she wrote. “Therefore, Marvel is presumed to be their ‘author,’ and the holder of the statutory copyright as a matter of law.”

She also noted that “Kirby took on none of the risks of the successes of the many comic books he helped produce. His contribution to the enterprise was plainly critical, but Marvel, not he, bore the risk of its failure.”

The decision includes this note about “The Incredible Hulk“: “In that first issue, The Hulk had gray skin. However, the printer could not produce a consistent shade of gray throughout the book. By the second issue The Hulk had acquired his now-recognizable green skin. Lee picked the color green because there was no other green hero at the time.”

Disney, which now owns Marvel, issued a written statement saying, “We are pleased that in this case, the judge has confirmed Marvel’s ownership rights.”

Kirby’s family’s lawyer, Marc Toberoff, did not return several messages left at his office Thursday.

I don't think this is the last we hear from this.

"Time Travel Impossible!" Say Hong Kong scientists

Hong Kong physicists say they have proved that a single photon obeys Einstein's theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light -- demonstrating that outside science fiction, time travel is impossible.
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology research team led by Du Shengwang said they had proved that a single photon, or unit of light, "obeys the traffic law of the universe".
"Einstein claimed that the speed of light was the traffic law of the universe or in simple language, nothing can travel faster than light," the university said on its website.
"Professor Du's study demonstrates that a single photon, the fundamental quanta of light, also obeys the traffic law of the universe just like classical EM (electromagnetic) waves."
The possibility of time travel was raised 10 years ago when scientists discovered superluminal -- or faster-than-light -- propagation of optical pulses in some specific medium, the team said.
It was later found to be a visual effect, but researchers thought it might still be possible for a single photon to exceed light speed.
Du, however, believed Einstein was right and determined to end the debate by measuring the ultimate speed of a single photon, which had not been done before.
"The study, which showed that single photons also obey the speed limit c, confirms Einstein's causality; that is, an effect cannot occur before its cause," the university said.
"By showing that single photons cannot travel faster than the speed of light, our results bring a closure to the debate on the true speed of information carried by a single photon," said Du, assistant professor of physics.
"Our findings will also likely have potential applications by giving scientists a better picture on the transmission of quantum information."
The team's study was published in the US peer-reviewed scientific journal Physical Review Letters.

So "Back To The Future", "The Time Machine" "Dr. Who" and "Star Trek" are up the creek without a paddle!

Amy Winehouse, singer "Rehab" "I'm No Good" 1983-2011

With her gravelly voice and eclectic style, Amy Winehouse, 27, who has been found dead in London, won comparison with some of the great female singers such as Sarah Vaughan and Nina Simone.

But like another great singer, Janis Joplin, she had a talent for self destruction, and fought a long battle against substance abuse.

Amy Jade Winehouse was born on 14 September 1983 in the well-to-do area of Southgate, north London.

Her taxi driver father, Mitchell, was a jazz enthusiast and often sang songs to his daughter as she grew up.

She trained at the Susi Earnshaw Theatre School from the age of eight and, by the time she was 10, had formed a rap group with one of her best friends.

Winehouse later attended the prestigious Sylvia Young Theatre School.

She began writing music at the age of 14 and a former boyfriend sent a tape of her singing with a jazz band to an A&R man.

It led to a contract with the Island/Universal record label and a publishing deal with EMI.

Her debut album Frank, released in 2003, was described by The Times newspaper as "earthy, warm, lived-in and astonishingly versatile".

She co-wrote all but two of the songs and won praise for what one reviewer described as "the cool, critical gaze" in the lyrics.

Frank was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize for album of the year in 2004, and Winehouse won the Ivor Novello songwriting award for best contemporary song with Stronger Than Me.

But it was the critical praise that followed the release of her follow-up album in October 2006 that propelled her to international stardom.

Rehab, the first track released from Back to Black, reached number seven in the UK singles chart.

The song, about her refusal to attend an alcohol rehabilitation centre, generated huge publicity, with Winehouse frequently being photographed drinking on stage and in pubs.

In February 2007, she scooped the title for best British female at the Brit Awards and, four months later, she picked up song of the year at the Mojo Awards.

Winehouse was again nominated for the Mercury Prize and went on to be named artist of the year at the MTV Europe Music Awards in November.

But as her popularity soared, her health began to suffer and her behaviour became more erratic.

She appeared to be drunk on Channel 4's The Charlotte Church Show in 2006, and took part in Never Mind The Buzzcocks in a similar state.

Her weight plummeted during an exhausting schedule of promotional appearances and concerts in the UK and US.

She admitted punching a female fan at a gig in London and attacking her boyfriend when he tried to calm her down.

She confessed to self-harming and spoke of battles with eating disorders. And she shocked a journalist from US magazine Spin when she carved the name of then-boyfriend Blake Fielder-Civil into her stomach with a shard of mirror during an interview.

It was a break-up with Fielder-Civil that inspired much of Back To Black.

But she surprised fans, and her own family, when she secretly married him during a trip to Florida in May 2007.

In November of that year, there was further turmoil when Fielder-Civil was arrested and accused of inflicting grievous bodily harm and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Winehouse herself was arrested and released on bail in December 2007 but no charges were brought against her.

A month later she went into a rehab facility following the publication, by a tabloid newspaper, of pictures of a woman they claimed was Winehouse, allegedly smoking crack cocaine.

She played a number of gigs in 2008 but it became increasingly apparent that the turmoil of her private life was having a severe effect on her ability to perform.
Time out

Following a diagnosis of what could have been the onset of emphysema, she managed a creditable performance at Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday concert in June 2008.

But her performance at Glastonbury a few days later was described by one critic as "dismal" and tabloid interest centred on an incident where she appeared to punch a fan.

Amy Winehouse took some time off after a slew of festival appearances in 2008.

In 2009, she was found not guilty of assaulting a burlesque dancer at a charity ball in central London.

She made a low-key return to the stage in a surprise performance at her local pub in London in October 2010.

Earlier this year, Winehouse was admitted for treatment at the Priory clinic in south-west London.

Last month, she pulled out of her European tour after she was jeered at the first gig in Serbia for appearing to be too drunk to perform.

For 90 minutes, she mumbled through parts of songs and at times left the stage - leaving her band to fill in.

In her short career Winehouse gave us just a glimpse of what might have been, before she was undone by her own personal demons.

But the songs she recorded, and the string of awards they brought her, served to underline what a talent she was.

This ending is not surprising. It's just sad. Rest in peace.

The Sitting Dead Man.

In life his name was Carlos Cabrera. He used to live in the San José area of the San Juan Metroplex. He was a Gulf War Vet, that was loved and admired by his neighbors and family. He was killed last week, defending a boy from a couple of guys beating him with a baseball bat. He got hit in the head and died of his injuries. His last request was that his wake was in the favorite place in the area, the basketball court and in his favorite meditative position, with his favorite Salsa music blasting all around, no casket until the funeral, please.

So the family did just that. And another myth of Puerto Rican folklore has been created. The Sitting Dead Man. Following in the footsteps of other unusual wakes like "El Muerto Para'o" (The Standing Dead Man, article here) and "El Muerto en Motora" (Motorcycle Dead Guy, Article here.)

There was a Dead Guy on an Ambulance, but seriously, there's a lot of dead people on ambulances anyway.

From now on, Carlos Cabrera, known before as "Che Cabrera" (He was an ardent fan of Che Guevara) will be forever known as "El Muerto Senta'o" (The Sitting Dead Man)

May he rest in Peace.

Russia classfies beer as alcoholic!

Wait, What????

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has
signed a bill that officially classifies beer as alcoholic.

Until now anything containing less than 10% alcohol in Russia has been considered a foodstuff.

The move, signed into law on Wednesday, will allow ministers to control the sale of beer in the same way that spirits are controlled.

Russian alcohol consumption is already twice the critical level set by the World Health Organization.

Although vodka has long been the traditional tipple in Russia, beer has soared in popularity, being marketed as a healthier alternative to spirits.

Over the past decade, beer sales in Russia have risen more than 40% while vodka sales have fallen by nearly 30%.

Correspondents say it is common to see people swigging beer in the street and in parks as if they are drinking soft drinks.

It is not restricted to certain stores and is sold around the clock.

"The law brings some order into the sale of beer," Vadim Drobiz, director of the Centre for Federal and Regional Alcohol Market Studies, told US broadcaster Bloomberg.

Last year the Russian beer industry was hit by a 200% tax hike on its products as ministers sought to bring consumption under control.

The new measures - which come into effect in 2013 - will stop alcohol being sold in unlicensed kiosks, ban its sale from stores between certain hours and restrict its advertising.

In 2009 President Medvedev ordered the government to prepare draft laws on a package of measures to counter growing alcohol abuse.

And remember..."In Russia, you don't drink beer. Beer drinks YOU!"