Rice, Beans and Razor Blades!

Indonesian man charged with blasphemy after atheist post.

2012-01-21T08:30:00.002-04:00

ADANG, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian police say a civil servant who posted "God does not exist" on Facebook faces a maximum penalty of five years behind bars for blasphemy.

Thirty-one-year-old Alexander Aan was taken into police custody Friday after his remarks triggered public outcry in West Sumatra province.

He was attacked by a mob on his way to work.

Indonesia, a predominantly Muslim nation of 240 million, recognizes the right to practice five other religions. But atheism is illegal.

Col. Chairul Azis, police chief in the West Sumatran district of Dharmasraya, says Aan was charged because he used the social networking site to spread beliefs that violate the law.

He says Aan also lied on his job application by claiming he was Muslim.

That's why we should not believe in invisible men!

California Woman offered sex for McNuggets!

2012-01-18T15:25:00.003-04:00

You CANNOT make this shit up!

Smiles are free, but sexual favors might cost you your McNuggets.

That is, if there were any takers when a women at a Los Angeles McDonald's allegedly offered customers sexual favors in exchange for theirs.

Khadijah Baseer allegedly tried opening customers' doors as they went through the drive-thru around 11 p.m. last Wednesday, asking to be paid in the breaded chicken bits if she performed sex acts, according to the Burbank Leader.

The paper didn't specify which acts were allegedly on offer, nor how many McNuggets the woman expected in return.

Various reports say she is known as a panhandler in the area.

Baseer, 31, was arrested on "suspicion of prostitution."

Are McNuggets THAT GOOD????

Video-postal de Navidad de "Boricuas Beyond"

2012-01-05T09:39:00.002-04:00

Todos los años la gente de Algaro comics y Boricuas Beyond, se vacilan la Navidad. Este año, no fue la excepción. Que lo disfruten.

Individuo le arranca los ojos a tio por control remoto.

2012-01-04T18:10:00.002-04:00

¡Empezamos el 2012 mal!

Joliet, Illinois. - Un residente de Illinois ha sido acusado de arrancarle los ojos a su tío en una disputa por la tenencia del control remoto de televisión.

Los agentes de la policía del condado de Will dijeron que fueron llamados en Nochevieja a una residencia de Joliet Township, donde descubrieron a un hombre de 62 años con los ojos ensangrentados.

El diario The Herald-News indicó que según las autoridades, al hombre le colgaban los ojos de sus cuencas y la víctima contó a los agentes que su sobrino intentó cegarlo con sus pulgares.

El agresor, de 32 años, fue detenido y acusado de agresión familiar con agravantes. El juez ordenó el martes su detención bajo fianza de un millón de dólares.

Mother shoots intruder to protect her newborn baby. 9-11 operator says it's okay.

2012-01-04T17:34:00.002-04:00

Do I approve of this. Absolutely! Mother of the year!

A young Oklahoma mother shot and killed an intruder to protect her 3-month-old baby on New Year's Eve, less than a week after the baby's father died of cancer.

Sarah McKinley says that a week earlier a man named Justin Martin dropped by on the day of her husband's funeral, claiming that he was a neighbor who wanted to say hello. The 18-year-old Oklahoma City area woman did not let him into her home that day.

On New Year's Eve Martin returned with another man, Dustin Stewart, and this time was armed with a 12-inch hunting knife. The two soon began trying to break into McKinley's home.

As one of the men was going from door to door outside her home trying to gain entry, McKinley called 911 and grabbed her 12-gauge shotgun.

McKinley told ABC News Oklahoma City affiliate KOCO that she quickly got her 12 gauge, went into her bedroom and got a pistol, put the bottle in the baby's mouth and called 911.

"I've got two guns in my hand -- is it okay to shoot him if he comes in this door?" the young mother asked the 911 dispatcher. "I'm here by myself with my infant baby, can I please get a dispatcher out here immediately?"

The 911 dispatcher confirmed with McKinley that the doors to her home were locked as she asked again if it was okay to shoot the intruder if he were to come through her door.

"I can't tell you that you can do that but you do what you have to do to protect your baby," the dispatcher told her. McKinley was on the phone with 911 for a total of 21 minutes.

When Martin kicked in the door and came after her with the knife, the teen mom shot and killed the 24-year-old. Police are calling the shooting justified.

"You're allowed to shoot an unauthorized person that is in your home. The law provides you the remedy, and sanctions the use of deadly force," Det. Dan Huff of the Blanchard police said.

Stewart soon turned himself in to police.

McKinley said that she was at home alone with her newborn that night because her husband just died of cancer on Christmas Day.

"I wouldn't have done it, but it was my son," McKinley told ABC News Oklahoma City affiliate KOCO. "It's not an easy decision to make, but it was either going to be him or my son. And it wasn't going to be my son. There's nothing more dangerous than a woman with a child."

Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T12:05:00.002-04:00

A very good 2012 to all, from all of us at "Rice, Beans and Razor Blades"!

Happy (or whatever) Festivus to all!

2011-12-23T16:31:00.002-04:00

Happy Festivus from all of us here at the Les'Shyerar Laboratories and Fried Chicken Shack!

Reactions to Kim Jung Il's death!

2011-12-19T10:34:00.002-04:00

Reaction from North Korea.

Reaction from the rest of the world...

'Nuff Said!

Kim Jung Ill- North Korean Dictator. 1941-2011

2011-12-19T00:49:00.003-04:00

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

2011-12-16T09:05:00.003-04:00

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

2011-12-15T15:30:00.003-04:00

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, "MASH", "Dragnet". 1915-2011

2011-12-07T22:46:00.000-04:00

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!

2011-11-30T21:37:00.004-04:00

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

2011-11-16T19:55:00.002-04:00

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.

2011-10-20T18:02:00.002-04:00

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

2011-10-20T09:00:00.002-04:00

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

2011-10-05T22:16:00.003-04:00

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

2011-10-02T02:17:00.000-04:00

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!

2011-09-22T16:59:00.003-04:00

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!

2011-09-16T22:52:00.003-04:00

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!

2011-09-16T13:08:00.003-04:00

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!

2011-09-16T12:50:00.003-04:00

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...

2011-09-11T12:00:00.005-04:00

NEW YORK
WASHINGTON DC.
SHANKSVILLE, PA.

To all the lost...

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

2011-08-30T07:56:00.004-04:00

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.

2011-08-24T06:05:00.005-04:00

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.

2011-08-22T12:18:00.001-04:00

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

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

2011-08-22T11:59:00.003-04:00

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!

2011-08-08T12:29:00.004-04:00

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!

2011-08-04T10:01:00.003-04:00

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

2011-07-29T18:54:00.004-04:00

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!

2011-07-29T06:34:00.003-04:00

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

2011-07-26T09:22:00.004-04:00

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

2011-07-23T23:18:00.005-04:00

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.

2011-07-22T12:11:00.004-04:00

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!

2011-07-21T15:04:00.002-04:00

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!"

Facundo Cabral, cantautor Latinoamericano. 1937-2011

2011-07-10T00:50:00.003-04:00

Hasta siempre maestro y camarada. Descansa en Paz.

Dr. Ricardo Alegria, Antropologo e Historiador Puertorriqueño. 1921-2011

2011-07-07T09:16:00.002-04:00

El antropólogo e historiador Ricardo Alegría falleció hoy en San Juan, dejando un enorme legado tras dedicar su vida a la promoción cultural de Puerto Rico y del resto de América.

Alegría falleció a los 90 años de edad en la Unidad de Coronaria del Centro Cardiovascular de Puerto Rico y el Caribe, donde en junio había sido sometido satisfactoriamente a un cateterismo y angioplastia luego de unos episodios de hipertensión.

El gobernador Luis Fortuño declaró cinco días de duelo en honor a la memoria de Alegría.

Le sobrevive su esposa, Carmen Pons de Alegría, y dos hijos.

La actriz Yohanna Rosaly reaccionó a la noticia destacando que el pueblo puertorriqueño tiene una "inmensa" deuda con él, por todo lo que ha representado para la cultura del País.

Recordó que Alegría fue instrumental, durante la década de 1950, en la Operación Manos a la Obra, bajo la administración del extinto gobernador Luis Muñoz Marín.

También fue el responsable del "desarrollo de todos esos valores culturales puertorriqueños a base de lo que es la esencia del ser puertorriqueño", señaló en una entrevista con Univisión Radio (WKAQ-AM).

Rosaly indicó que fue su profesor en el Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe, institución que fue su creación y dirigió, además de enseñar por varios años en su sede en el Viejo San Juan.

De igual manera recordó su contribución a la preservación histórica y arquitectónica del Viejo San Juan y la creación del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, entre otras cosas.

Primera Hora supo que las personas allegadas a Alegría planifican efectuar su velorio en la sede del Centro de Estudios Avanzados, en la calle del Cristo del casco antiguo.

Que descanse en Paz, un gran Puertorriqueño.

Via Primera Hora

Fool that predicted end of the world, moved to a nursing home.

2011-07-06T08:06:00.002-04:00

Harold Camping, the Alameda preacher who falsely claimed that the rapture would come on May 21, has been put in a nursing home. In addition to having his radio show yanked form the airwaves, the 79 89-year-old soothsayer could face the remainder of his life (presumably) inside an assisted-living facility.

"Camping's daughter confirmed that Camping moved from an area hospital to a skilled nursing home where he is undergoing therapy and rehabilitation to build is strength," reports SF Weekly.

Camping, if you recall, suffered a stroke on June 9.

As far as the failed rapture goes, Camping rescheduled the apocalypse start date to October 21, 2011.

Happy Fourth of July from Rice, Beans and Razor Blades

2011-07-04T17:48:00.002-04:00

US. Government sues Apollo 14 astronaut over lunar camera!

2011-07-01T10:48:00.003-04:00

Read this and laugh!

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government has sued a former NASA astronaut to recover a camera used to explore the moon's surface during the 1971 Apollo 14 mission after seeing it slated for sale in a New York auction.
The lawsuit, filed in Miami federal court on Wednesday, accuses Edgar Mitchell of illegally possessing the camera and attempting to sell it for profit.
In March, NASA learned that the British auction house Bonhams was planning to sell the camera at an upcoming Space History Sale, according to the suit.
The item was labeled "Movie Camera from the Lunar Surface" and billed as one of two cameras from the Apollo 14's lunar module Antares. The lot description said the item came "directly from the collection" of pilot Edgar Mitchell and had a pre-sale estimate of $60,000 to $80,000, the suit said.
Mitchell was a lunar module pilot on Apollo 14, which launched its nine-day mission in 1971 under the command of Alan Shepard. The sixth person to walk on the moon, Mitchell is now retired and runs a website selling his autographed picture.
He has made headlines in the past for his stated belief in the existence of extraterrestrial life.
"All equipment and property used during NASA operations remains the property of NASA unless explicitly released or transferred to another party," the government suit said, adding NASA had no record of the camera being given to Mitchell.
The suit said the government had made repeated requests to Mitchell and his lawyer to return the camera but received no response.
Mitchell's lawyer, Donald Jacobson, said NASA management was aware of and approved Mitchell's ownership of the camera 40 years ago.
"Objects from the lunar trips to the moon were ultimately mounted and then presented to the astronauts as a gift after they had helped NASA on a mission," Jacobson said.
Bonhams said in an emailed statement that the camera had been slated to be auctioned off in May when it learned about the ownership dispute from NASA. The auction house withdrew the camera from sale "pending further discussion between NASA and the consignor," a Bonhams spokesperson said.
The government is asking the court to stop Mitchell from selling the camera to anyone, to order its return and to declare that the United States has "good, clean and exclusive title" to the camera.

¡Dayanara Torres, la nueva Maripily!

2011-06-24T23:56:00.003-04:00

Esta individua es tan bruta, que no sabe lo que es una parodia.

La ex reina de belleza puertorriqueña Dayanara Torres envió una carta a los medios noticiosos de Puerto Rico en la que se queja de un artículo publicado en la sección de Sátira que mantiene Primera Hora los sábados en su versión impresa.

En el texto, se muestra indignación por el escándalo suscitado en su patria luego de la divulgación de las expresiones de la beldad, quien manifestó que su deseo es que sus dos hijos pronunciaran la letra “z” como el cantante español Enrique Iglesias, es decir, con acento madrileño, una pronunciación que no existe en el español puertorriqueño.

Según se desprende de la carta, la actriz parece haber confundió el género satírico y recordar las palabras que dijo a este periódico.

“Me encuentro sumamente triste y desilusionada al oír lo que en Puerto Rico está pasando y lo que se está hablando de mí y de una ‘supuesta entrevista’ con el periódico Primera Hora en Facebook”, dice Dayanara en la misiva de hoy.

La “supuesta entrevista” a la que Dayanara Torres hace referencia fue real y la realizó la reportera Frances Tirado. Fue publicada el sábado 11 de junio de 2011 junto con un vídeo con las expresiones de la artista, el cual se adjunta a esta nota. El texto fue escrito en el contexto de la participación de Torres en la Parada Puertorriqueña de Nueva York.

A continuación presentamos los párrafos de ese reportaje, publicado el 11 de junio de 2011, en los que se alude a las expresiones de Dayanara, que también se hacen evidentes en el vídeo que acompaña esta nota:

Dayanara, quien hace 18 años no participa en la Parada Puertorriqueña, desde que ganó la corona de Miss Universe, comentó a Primera Hora sentirse “contenta y feliz de estar aquí con ellas (Marisol y Zuleyka), y de poder participar en la parada. A Marisol hacía tiempo que no la veía y a Zuleyka la había visto en las novelas”.

Entre los planes de la ex reina toalteña se encuentra mudarse a Santiago de Compostela en España con sus hijos, Christian y Ryan, para que aprendan español, ya que, según explicó, es una inquietud que tiene hace tiempo.

Ellos toman clases de español de cuatro a cinco horas al día y están contentos. Escucharon una canción de Enrique Iglesias que decía corazón (con la pronunciación particular de la letra z) y me decía (uno de sus vástagos) ‘¿por qué dice corazón así?’, y les ‘dije así vas a hablar tú’”.

Estas expresiones de Dayanara Torres fueron recogidas también en la nota publicada en El Nuevo Día:

“Por su parte, Dayanara reveló que llevará a sus dos hijos, Cristian y Ryan -procreados en su matrimonio con el cantante Marc Anthony-, a España para que aprendan español. La modelo puertorriqueña permanecerá un mes en Santiago de Compostela, mientras sus pequeños toman unos cursos intensivos de verano en la lengua de su madre.

“Los nenes se encuentran conmigo, pues se quedaron presentando unos conciertos con los bandas de música a las que pertenecen el domingo. El martes llegan aquí con mi mamá y nos vamos para España. Ya están apuntados en la escuela; van a tomar de cinco a siete horas diarias de clases de español y están contentos. El otro día escucharon una canción de Enrique Iglesias y uno de ellos me preguntó por qué el decía corazón (acentuando el sonido de la z) y le respondí, ‘by the way, así vas a hablar tú’. Iba a ir a México, porque una de mis mejores amigas que es de allá, pero después decidimos España”, comentó.”- Fin del extracto de la nota de El Nuevo Día.

A base de estas expresiones de la Miss Universe 1993, vertidas en este reportaje publicado en la sección Así de Primera Hora, se realizó un artículo de sátira que publicó en la sección de Sátira de Primera Hora el sábado siguiente, 18 de junio de 2011.

“Sátira” es un subgénero literario en el que se expresa indignación hacia alguien o algo, con un propósito moralizador, lúdico o meramente burlesco, explica Robert C. Elliott en la entrada de Sátira de la Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004.

Una parte esencial de este estilo es añadir, quitar e inventar diálogos o situaciones con el fin de explicitar la ironía de una situación o persona, convirtiéndolos en ficción o personajes caricaturescos, explica esa fuente bibliográfica.

Siguiendo esa línea, en el artículo de sátira publicado el 18 de junio y redactado por el reportero Héctor Aponte Alequín, se incluye, como permite este género, una cita inventada, partiendo de una interpretación de las expresiones de Dayanara.

En esta otra nota, que no es un reportaje, sino un artículo de sátira, se explica que la cita no fue expresada por la ex reina de belleza, sino que es una creación del autor, como parte del subgénero de sátira que se cultiva en la edición sabatina de Primera Hora.

A continuación los párrafos:

Luego de un análisis sociolingüístico que no se expone aquí para evitar tecnicismos, la “traducción” de los prejuicios de esta cita sería la siguiente:

“No les promuevo mi español porque es de Puerto Rico, o sea, feo e incorrecto, así que los tengo en clases dictadas por instructores mexicanos de California, que tienen una pronunciación mejor. Aun así, yo quiero que hablen más correcto todavía, así que nos vamos a mudar a España”.

Pero la lingüística y la historia la traicionan. Ninguna lengua es mejor que otra ni en forma ni en contenido.

Dayanara nunca dijo las palabras “feo e incorrecto”, pues esta cita ficticia es parte de la sátira hecha a sus citas reales; es una parodia, pero sí dijo lo siguiente para récord: “Ellos toman clases de español de cuatro a cinco horas al día y están contentos. Escucharon una canción de Enrique Iglesias que decía corazón (con la pronunciación particular de la letra z) y me decía (uno de sus vástagos) ‘¿por qué dice corazón así?’, y les ‘dije así vas a hablar tú’”..

Carta de Dayanara

A continuación, publicamos íntegra la carta enviada por Dayanara como reacción a esta sátira, incluidos los errores ortográficos de la ex Miss Universe:

This Press Release has now been sent out to the Puerto Rican media by Dayanara:

"Queridos amigos de la prensa:

Me encuentro sumamente triste y desilusionada al oír lo que en Puerto Rico está pasando y lo que se está hablando de mí y de una "supuesta entrevista" con el periódico Primera Hora en Facebook.

Hace dos semanas viajé a NY para unirme a Marisol y Zuleyka y hacer juntas la Parada Puertorriqueña. Me llenó de emoción poder hacerla ya que la última vez que la hice fue justamente 18 años atrás cuando gané el concurso! Durante esos 3 días hicimos numerosas entrevistas con los medios de la prensa de PR.

Recuerdo muy bien cuando nos preguntaron de nuestros planes para el verano y les contesté que mis niños y yo viajaríamos a España por un mes porque mis niños nunca han ido y porque también visitaríamos Irlanda donde está mi ahijado Diego, hijo de una de mis mejores amigas, Gladys (mejicana casada con un irlandés). Todos los años viajamos en grupo y ésta vez decidimos que iríamos nosotros hasta donde ellos en Europa.

Acordamos el poner a los 3 niños en clases de español, 4 horas al día para que se suelten más mientras conviven con otros niños en España.

JAMAS en la vida he hablado yo de que el español puertorriqueño era feo o incorrecto, esa es la ridiculez más grande que he escuchado en mi vida! y JAMAS en la vida he dicho que mis niños toman clases de español en CA con maestros mejicanos porque tienen mejor español. Al contrario, al leer esos reportajes lo que pensé fue que era lógico de dónde venía el comentario... pero como sabía que éste artículo era tan ridículo siempre pensé que los puertorriqueños se darían cuenta de que era algo inventado y que jamás saldría de mí.

Pero al ver lo que está sucediendo ahora, veo que no es así, que han creído ciegamente en el artículo y han hecho y desecho conmigo. Que pena que puedan creer semejante cosa! y que triste para mi que todo esto haya sucedido por el simple hecho de querer que mis hijos continuen estudiando español. Otras familias en EU podrían olvidar lo importante que es nuestro idioma y dejar que nuestras costumbres y tradiciones desaparezcan. Y qué mejor forma para nosotros que después que terminan la escuela, donde ya toman clases de español, lo continuemos en el verano, sea donde sea.

No tengo idea de dónde ha podido o de quién ha podido inventar semejantes mentiras con el simple hecho de destruir mi reputación... Que no ha sido otra mas que una donde mi orgullo de ser puertorriqueña no tiene limites ni medidas! Donde quiero que mis hijos aunque criados en EU sean tan puertorriqueños como yo con nuestras costumbres, tradiciones, música e idioma! Por eso estamos aquí hoy, por eso vamos a Puerto Rico todos los años donde siguen practicando el español (en verano o Navidades)... porque quiero que los nenes se sientan tan Boricuas como yo y sientan el mismo orgullo que siento yo.

Cómo se atreven a decir esas cosas de mí, cómo se atreven a inventar que yo hablaría mal de mi PAIS, o de como hablamos... Lo más que me ha dolido es que lo han creído.

Sé que a muchos les ha molestado el que no me comunico por Twitter o alguna otra forma en el internet. Pero todavía en estos momentos están tratando de terminar unas "cuentas de Twitter" con mi nombre que son falsas y que tienen personas haciendo creer que soy yo, contestando y añadiendo fotos con mis niños (que es prohibido por nuestros documentos de divorcio), etc.

Tan pronto pueda resolver ésta otra situación les dejaré saber... Porque hasta el sol de hoy NUNCA he tenido cuenta de Twitter!

Ojalá que por este medio mi pueblo vea el otro lado de ésta historia y ojalá se den cuenta de que existe gente muy mal intencionada que no le importa destruir la reputación de otros por el simple hecho de ganarse unos "chavitos" extra. (como dice la buena puertorriqueña que soy"!)

Un abrazo, Siempre,
Dayanara"

Via Primera Hora

Que carajo le paso a Dayanara. Parece que la corona de Miss Universe le jorobo la cabeza. A la verdad que la comemierderia de este país hace a la gente bruta. Si no mira el gobierno que nos gastamos.

Gene Colan, Comic Book artist. 1926-2011

2011-06-24T08:56:00.002-04:00

El artista responsable de la creación de super héroes como Daredevil y la serie satírica Howard the Duck, Eugene "Gene" Colan, murió esta madrugada a los 84 años.

La fanaticada de este ícono, incluído en el 2005 en el Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame, está de luto por la noticia, circulada desde temprano a través de comicmix.com y el propio blog del artista.

Colan nació el 1 de septiembre de 1926 y es más conocido como el artista de Marvel Comics, donde también trabajó en la clásica serie The Tomb of Dracula. También fue co creador del Falcón, el primer super héroe afroamericano de la corriente principal de este género.

Ryan Dunn, actor and stuntman "Jackass" franchise. 1977-2011

2011-06-20T15:33:00.004-04:00

PHILADELPHIA – "Jackass" star Ryan Dunn, who along with his cast mates made Americans cringe and snicker through vulgar stunts in their multimillion-dollar TV and movie franchise, was killed early Monday in a fiery car crash. He was 34.

Dunn, a daredevil whose most famous skits included diving into a sewage tank and shoving a toy car into his rectum, was driving his 2007 Porsche in suburban Philadelphia when it careered off the road, flipped over a guardrail and crashed into the woods before bursting into flames. A passenger was also killed, and speed may have been a factor in the crash, West Goshen Township police said.

The force of impact shattered the vehicle into several twisted and blackened pieces, leaving the Porsche 911 GT3 unrecognizable except for a door that was thrown from the crash and not incinerated. A 100-foot-long tire skid marked where the car left the roadway.

Both Dunn and his passenger were severely burned. Police said they were able to identify Dunn through his tattoos and hair, but the identity of his passenger was still unknown.

Dunn appeared on MTV shows "Jackass" and "Viva La Bam" and the three "Jackass" big-screen adaptations. He also was the star of his own MTV show, "Homewrecker," and hosted "Proving Ground" on the G4 cable network.

His longtime friend and fellow "Jackass" daredevil Johnny Knoxville tweeted on Monday afternoon, "Today I lost my brother Ryan Dunn. My heart goes out to his family and his beloved Angie. RIP Ryan, I love you buddy."

Dunn also starred in the yet-to-be-released film "Living Will." The film's website describes Dunn's character as a "party bum slacker (who) returns from the dead as a mischievous and perverted ghost."

In a statement, MTV praised Dunn's tireless humor and enthusiasm and said he would be missed.

"We are devastated by the tragic loss of Ryan Dunn — a beloved member of the MTV family for more than a decade," said Van Toffler, president of MTV Networks Music/Films Group. "The Jackass brotherhood will never be the same."

Dunn was born in Ohio and moved at age 15 to Pennsylvania, where he met Bam Margera on his first day of high school, according to a biography posted on his website.

Dunn, Margera, Christopher Raab (known as Raab Himself) and Brandon DiCamillo, under the moniker CKY for "Camp Kill Yourself," started making videos that featured them skateboarding and performing stunts.

Dunn was working as a welder and at a gas station when Knoxville, a friend of Margera's through the skateboarding circuit, asked the crew to allow their videos to be part of the series "Jackass," which became a hit on MTV and ran from 2000 to 2002.

Perhaps his most famous stunt, in 2002's "Jackass: The Movie," involved inserting a toy car into his rectum and going to an emergency room, where he made up a story that he was in mysterious pain after passing out at a fraternity party. Dunn's X-ray from the hospital became a popular T-shirt for "Jackass" fans.

In a 2000 stunt, he dived into a tank at a raw sewage plant wearing flippers, a mask and a snorkel.

A few hours before the 3 a.m. crash, Dunn tweeted a picture of himself drinking with two friends. The photo has since been removed.

Autopsies were to be conducted Monday, though it was unclear when the results would be released.

Ryan committed the ultimate act of Jackassery. May he rest in Peace

On your right, is the last known photo of Ryan Dunn
while alive. This photo was tweeted from Ryan's account. It was taken down after the accident.

As you can see, he's not drinking tea.

Clarence Clemons, Sax player for Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band. 1942-2011

2011-06-18T23:07:00.003-04:00

One of the best sax players in the world. May he rest in peace.

Obama no esta ni tres horas en la isla de Puerto Rico y se va con un Millón y medio de dolares. No dice nada nuevo.

2011-06-14T16:17:00.004-04:00

Hay que decirlo, Barack Obama sera o no sera muchas cosas, pero algo si es seguro. Es tremendo político y recaudador de fondos.

Después de semanas de preparativos y espera, los alzacolas y soplapotes coloniales, que habían reparado y pintado residenciales públicos y avenidas llenas de rotos, se sintieron muy orgullosos cuando a las 11:25am, el famoso "Air Force One" toco suelo borincano. De ahí bajo el cuadragésimo cuarto presidente de los Estados Unidos de America, Barack Hussein Obama II. Fue un ensueño para los que sueñan ser mas americanos que los americanos, ver como ese presidente color "Café-Au-Lait" (¿Negro? No Way!)con esa sonrisa llevadera y carismática, solamente vista en CNN y Time Magazine saludo al ese publico que lo esperaba y dijo en un podio, flanqueado por banderas Puertorriqueñas y Norteamericanas, mucho y nada. Y los arrodillados aplaudieron delirantemente.

Después se fue para la Fortaleza a reunirse con su lacayo...digo gobernador de la colonia. Lo mas probable es que hablaron de lo mismo, mas fondos para Puerto Rico para terminar las obras que empezaron con otros fondos, si no se los hubieran robado todo...digo si no se hubieran agotado.

Se reunió con el contrincante del otro partido político, y almorzaron en una panadería Gallega de San Juan, la cual sus dueños ahora hablaran risueñamente de la vez que el presidente de EEUU. se sentó a comerse un Medianoche con una botella de agua, cuando ni hace poco, algunos de los regulares de ese negocio lo tildaban de negro sucio, talibán y comunista.

De ahí salio para el Caribe Hilton, a un almuerzo de recaudación de fondos, el cual los comemier...perdón comensales pagaron $35,000. el plato. Una foto con Obama costaba $10,000. mas.

Y el sonriendo, hablo un poco y se quedo con los cheques.

A las 3:30pm llego inmediatamente al Aeropuerto de Isla Verde.

A las 3:39pm alzo vuelo hacia Washington D.C. Capital Federal del Imperio.

Yo me imagino que mientras alzaba vuelo, el revisaba lo que había pasado aquí, el Millón y medio de dolares que recogió, sonrió y diría; "Thanks for the loot, Suckers!"

Mientras tanto atrás se queda un país desangrado por el crimen, la droga, el abuso policíaco y la corrupción gubernamental. Un país dirigido por unos mequetrefes, que por un momento en sus patéticas vidas, jugaron a ser gente importante.

¿Y el resto de nosotros? Bien, gracias por preguntar.

Imagen Getty/AP

Passenger strips naked on board a flight, makes pilot turn back the plane.

2011-06-11T15:28:00.003-04:00

MADRID (AFP) – A German passenger stripped naked on an Iberia flight from Madrid to Frankfurt, forcing the pilot to turn the plane around so he could be removed, the airline said Friday.

"A German passenger took all his clothes off on the plane," on Thursday night, an Iberia spokeswoman said.

"Staff on board tried to dissuade him but he became aggressive and finally locked himself in the toilet. The pilot then decided to turn around and land in Madrid."

Once on the ground, police came on board and "took him away," the spokeswoman said. She said the airline has "no idea" why the man, who was not identified, decided to do what he did.

The passenger cooperated immediately when Guardia Civil police arrived and he was not arrested, said police spokesman Angel Blanco.

The Iberia pilot filed a complaint saying the passenger refused to obey crew instructions to sit down during the flight and then started shouting. But the complaint did not mention him stripping naked.

Police said the man was not drunk and they had no explanation for his behaviour.

Ok, no more alcohol for German passengers! This how World Wars and bad porn starts!

Chinese teen sells kidney to buy an iPad 2!

2011-06-03T19:45:00.005-04:00

Wait, what?

A teenager in China has sold one of his kidneys in order to buy an iPad 2, Chinese media report.

The 17-year-old, identified only as Little Zheng, told a local TV station he had arranged the sale of the kidney over the internet.

The story only came to light after the teenager's mother became suspicious.

The case highlights China's black market in organ trafficking. A scarcity of organ donors has led to a flourishing trade.

It all started when the high school student saw an online advert offering money to organ donors.

Illegal agents organised a trip to the hospital and paid him $3,392 (£2,077) after the operation.

With the cash the student bought an iPad 2, as well as a laptop.

When his mother noticed the computers and the deep red scar on his body, which was caused by the surgery, Little Zheng confessed.

In 2007, Chinese authorities banned organ trafficking and have introduced a voluntary donor scheme to try to combat the trade.

The cult of Mac is scary!

Jack Kevorkian, aka. Dr Death, assisted suicide advocate. 1928-2011

2011-06-03T18:55:00.003-04:00

Jack Kevorkian, who was dubbed "Dr Death" for helping some 130 people to die, has himself died of a pulmonary thrombosis, aged 83, in a Detroit hospital. He had endured a long struggle with heart and kidney problems. "It was peaceful, he didn't feel a thing," said Geoffrey Fieger, his former lawyer, as if summarising in one of the trials prompted by Kevorkian's willingness to test the legal bounds of assisted suicide.

He earned his nickname after he was charged, in 1990, for assisting Janet Adkins, a 54-year-old Oregon woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease, to kill herself. At a campsite near Detroit, he hooked Adkins up in the back of his Volkswagen van to a machine he called "the Thanatron", a homemade device that, when the patient pressed a button, dispensed sodium pentathol to knock the patient out, then potassium chloride to kill them.

The state of Michigan sought to press civil charges, but because Adkins in effect killed herself, and Michigan had no laws prohibiting assisted suicide, the charges were eventually dropped, though his licence to practice medicine was revoked in 1991.

Kevorkian's trial became a cause celebre. Fieger compared him to Socrates, while prosecutors warned that this was the first step on the slope to genocide. As Ron Rosenbaum, whose Travels With Doctor Death became a landmark essay, asked: "Is this the trial of Socrates or Dr Mengele?" It was a loaded question that Kevorkian himself often did little to defuse.

He was born Jacob Kevorkian in Pontiac, Michigan, to parents who fled the Turkish massacre of Armenians in 1915. In high school during the second world war, he established his credentials as a contrarian by learning both German and Japanese. After gaining his medical degree from the University of Michigan in 1952, he served as an army doctor, first during the Korean war and then in Colorado, where he taught himself the piano and became a devotee of Bach.

He returned to Pontiac as a hospital pathologist. Then he began proselytising for better use of dead bodies, even going to death row at a prison in Ohio to persuade the convicts to consider euthanasia in the hope that their organs could be reused. Years later he would write articles for a German magazine, Medicine and Law, appearing to condone some doctors in concentration camps because they advanced medical knowledge in the face of otherwise useless destruction. In 1961 he stirred national controversy by using blood from recent cadavers for transfusions. Time magazine called it "blood from the dead".

His career became patchy, employment as a pathologist alternating with an early attempt to set up a computerised diagnostic centre or a scheme to market a new kind of baseball cap. He wrote a number of books and essays, but by the time he set himself up as a "death counsellor" and expert on "bioethics", he had even been rejected as a paramedic. By then, however, he had also developed the Thanatron, using parts collected in junk shops. A later version, called the Mercitron, used carbon monoxide, which Kevorkian said imbued a pinkish tone to the flesh which left the dead body "better looking" than it had been in life.

Outside the realms of death, Kevorkian was an accomplished musician, composing and playing the piano and the flute on The Kevorkian Suite: A Very Still Life, a jazz disc released to bemused reviews in 1997. He also painted, allegedly sometimes using his own blood. A limited print release of six works was issued by a suburban Detroit gallery. One was used as an album cover by the "sludge metal" band Acid Bath.

The Adkins case was the first of six encounters with the law that Kevorkian faced throughout the 1990s, approaching them as increasingly farcical stages for political theatre, even donning 18th-century dress and entering the courtroom in stocks. Critics, however, pointed out cases in which Kevorkian failed to perform due psychiatric diligence, most notoriously one obsese woman with no medical problems, but in an abusive relationship with her former psychiatrist.

His legal odyssesy ended when, in November 1998, he gave the television programme 60 Minutes a film of him administering a lethal injection to Thomas Youk, a 52-year-old man in the final stages of ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, who was shown giving his informed consent. Kevorkian dared authorities to stop him, and they responded. He was convicted of second-degree homicide and sentenced to 10-25 years in prison.

He served eight years before being paroled on compassionate grounds while suffering from Hepatitis B, contracted while performing transfusions in Korea. He promised not to advise or help people with their deaths, but resumed being a very vocal public voice, though by now his eccentric profile made him unwelcome in many sectors of the assisted suicide movement.

Following his release, he became popular on the lecture circuit and television talk shows, adding Armenian issues to his topics. He published a prison memoir, GlimmerIQs, which included nonsense rhymes and limericks, and a book about overpopulation called When the People Bubble POPs.

In 2008 he ran for Congress in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and collected nearly 9,000 votes, or 2.6%. In 2010 he was the subject of a documentary film, Kevorkian, directed by Matthew Galkin. The same year Al Pacino won an Emmy for playing Kevorkian in Barry Levinson's HBO television drama You Don't Know Jack.

Kevorkian did not marry, and leaves no survivors. He never minded being called Dr Death. "Everyone is going to die," he said. "Aren't you interested in what's going to happen?"

• Jack (Jacob) Kevorkian, assisted suicide campaigner, born 26 May 1928; died 3 June 2011

Schwarzenegger admits fathering child with staff member

2011-05-17T10:55:00.005-04:00

And NOW we know why he and Maria Shriver are separating...

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has acknowledged he fathered a child with a member of his household staff more than 10 years ago.

"After leaving the governor's office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago," Mr Schwarzenegger said in a statement.

Earlier this month the former actor and his wife Maria Shriver said they were separating after 25 years of marriage.

Ms Shriver moved out of their Los Angeles mansion earlier in the year.

In his statement, Mr Schwarzenegger said: "I understand and deserve the feelings of anger and disappointment among my friends and family."

He and Ms Shriver have four children together between the ages of 14 and 21.

The 63-year-old former governor has maintained a high public profile and worked to revive his movie career since finishing a seven-year run as California governor in January.

Via BBC

Stephen Hawkings says the afterlife is a "fairy tale".

2011-05-16T13:15:00.002-04:00

Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking recently explained his belief that there is no God and that humans should therefore seek to live the most valuable lives they can while on Earth.

Guardian writer Ian Sample asked Hawking if he feared death in a story published yesterday. This was his response:

I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first. I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.

Hawking's 1988 book "A Brief History of Time" sold 9 million copies, and in it Hawking referenced God metaphorically as the force that could fully explain the creation of the universe.

But in 2010, Hawking told Diane Sawyer that "science will win" in a battle with religion "because it works."

"What could define God [is a conception of divinity] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God," Hawking told Sawyer. "They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible."

Hawking's latest book, "The Grand Design," challenged Isaac Newton's theory that the solar system could not have been created without God. "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to ... set the Universe going," he writes.

Hawking was diagnosed with the degenerative Lou Gehrig's disease at the age of 21. He lost his power of speech and for decades has talked through an electronic speech synthesizer. The device has allowed him to continue his research and attain a top Cambridge research post, which was previously held by Newton. His most famous theory explains how black holes emit radiation, according to The Guardian.

So if everyone is destined to power-down like computers at the end of their lives, what should humans do to lend meaning to their experience?

"We should seek the greatest value of our action," Hawking told the paper.

What other thing was found on Bin Laden's hard and flash drives? P.O.R.N.

2011-05-13T22:07:00.003-04:00

A stash of pornography was found in the hideout of Osama bin Laden by the U.S. commandos who killed him, current and former U.S. officials said on Friday.

The pornography recovered in bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, consists of modern, electronically recorded video and is fairly extensive, according to the officials, who discussed the discovery with Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The officials said they were not yet sure precisely where in the compound the pornography was discovered or who had been viewing it. Specifically, the officials said they did not know if bin Laden himself had acquired or viewed the materials.

Reports from Abbottabad have said that bin Laden's compound was cut off from the Internet or other hard-wired communications networks. It is unclear how compound residents would have acquired the pornography.

A stash of pornography was found in the hideout of Osama bin Laden by the U.S. commandos who killed him, current and former U.S. officials said on Friday.

The pornography recovered in bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, consists of modern, electronically recorded video and is fairly extensive, according to the officials, who discussed the discovery with Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The officials said they were not yet sure precisely where in the compound the pornography was discovered or who had been viewing it. Specifically, the officials said they did not know if bin Laden himself had acquired or viewed the materials.

Reports from Abbottabad have said that bin Laden's compound was cut off from the Internet or other hard-wired communications networks. It is unclear how compound residents would have acquired the pornography.

But a video released by the Obama administration confiscated from the compound showed bin Laden watching pictures of himself on a TV screen, indicating that the compound was equipped with video playback equipment.

Materials carted away from the compound by the U.S. commandos included digital thumb drives, which U.S. officials believe may have been a principal means by which couriers carried electronic messages to and from the late al Qaeda leader.

Three other U.S. officials familiar with evidence gathered during investigations of other Islamic militants said the discovery of pornography is not uncommon in such cases.

I guess, after 5 years in a little room on the third floor, "Death to America" can go so far!

Jackie Cooper, Actor "Skippy" and 70's Superman cuadrilogy. 1922-2011

2011-05-05T13:24:00.004-04:00

LOS ANGELES – Jackie Cooper, the former child movie star who won a best actor Oscar nomination at the age of 9 for "Skippy" and grew up to play The Daily Planet editor in Christopher Reeves' four "Superman" movies, has died. He was 88.

Cooper died from an undisclosed illness Tuesday at a Los Angeles hospital, agent Ronnie Leif said.

A handsome kid with tousled blond hair and a winning smile, Cooper had a memorable bit in the 1929 musical "Sunny Side Up" and appeared in eight of the popular "Our Gang" comedies, including "Pups Is Pups" and "Teacher's Pet." Those credits led to a test that won him the title role of "Skippy."

His other credits included "Sooky" and "The Love Machine."

"Great Caesar's Ghost!" RIP Jackie!

Man found crucified in a quarry in South Korea!

2011-05-04T17:16:00.002-04:00

Weird you want, weird you get!

A man’s body was discovered nailed to a wooden cross in an empty South Korea stone pit, supposedly next to a mirror so he could see himself suffer, according to a New York Daily News report.
Donning a loin cloth and crown of thorns, the man had a stab wound on his side and his feet and hands nailed to the cross, resembling the image of Jesus Christ in the bible’s description of his death. There were two smaller crosses on either side of the man.
Police found a hammer, nails, mirror, an electric drill, more pieces of wood, and a “how-to” guide for constructing crosses. The man’s SUV was also discovered near the stone quarry. Cops are unsure if this was a suicide or homicide, but neighbors claimed the man had intense religious beliefs.

Via The Daily Caller

Happy Star Wars Day everybody! May the Fourth be with you!

2011-05-04T13:24:00.003-04:00

And to commemorate this Geek holiday, we present a very funny Star Wars parody, made by fans. Enjoy!

Osama Bin Laden, Terrorist, general nuisance. 1957-2011

2011-05-02T15:52:00.003-04:00

Yup! Dead as a door nail. Good Riddance

Next Story!

Prohibición a tomar fotos de monumentos y parques publicos en San Juan, llena de ira al publico en general.

2011-04-29T11:31:00.004-04:00

Imagínese que usted va a sacar una foto de su familia en un parque publico en San Juan, y lo próximo es que un Policía Municipal te lo impida, ya que hay un estatuto que lo prohíbe.

Esto es lo que reseña El Nuevo Día.

Si se casa, se gradúa o tiene un quinceañero pronto y planificaba llegar hasta las diversas y hermosas plazas de la Ciudad Capital a tomar fotos con un trípode o tal vez algún lente profesional, sepa que para hacerlo necesita permiso del gobierno.

Y, claro está, como toda oficina gubernamental o municipal, sólo lo obtendrá de lunes a viernes en horario regular de oficina en las instalaciones de la Compañía de Turismo en el Viejo San Juan o en las oficinas de los centros urbanos de cada región de la Capital.

Un reglamento firmado por el hoy gobernador Luis Fortuño en 1994, cuando dirigía Turismo, y el Código de Desarrollo Económico del Municipio de San Juan, así lo estipulan, o al menos así es interpretado por los funcionarios.

La situación de los permisos de este tipo la vivió una pareja de jóvenes que llegó con un fotógrafo a Ventana al Mar, en el Condado, para retratarse donde él le pidió matrimonio.

No pudieron hacerlas, un sábado, porque allí se enteraron que necesitaban autorización y por ser fin de semana no pudieron tramitarla.

“No sabíamos nada, me molesté pero cambiamos de lugar porque el guardia no tiene la culpa. Pero pasó lo mismo en otros sitios”, contó molesta, aunque resignada, Raquel Bonilla, oriunda de Yauco, pero que reside en Manatí.

La situación fue constatada por INS al conversar con un guardia de seguridad en ese lugar.

“Ya no se puede retratar con trípodes, flash, lentes extendidos… Así como lo estás haciendo tú sí (con la cámara en mano), pero lo demás, para Turismo, es comercial”, indicó.

Los ciudadanos tienen que solicitar el permiso con, al menos, cinco días de anticipación.

Pero para los turistas, según testigos, en ocasiones la realidad es otra.

Jackmarie Ortiz, que trabaja en producciones teatrales y está colaborando en la producción de un largometraje local, sostuvo que, con incredulidad, observó cómo permiten a los turistas recién bajados de un barco crucero tomar fotos con sus cámaras profesionales, trípodes y demás, sin resistencia, contrario con lo que ocurre con los residentes locales.

“A los turistas no les dicen nada ni les piden permisos y lo que tienen por lente es el ‘supertubo’…”, recordó Ortiz del tiempo que trabajó en la taquilla del Teatro Tapia.

Además, contó cuán difícil se les hizo conseguir un permiso “para grabar una escena en la plaza del edificio donde está la Lotería Electrónica (en Hato Rey). Ni el policía que me lo prohibió supo decirme dónde conseguir el permiso”.

De hecho, en algunos casos los permisos tienen que estar acompañados por seguros de responsabilidad pública a favor de Turismo o el municipio de San Juan, para poder responder en casos de accidentes o daños.

La portavoz de Turismo, Annie Rodríguez, explicó que se trata de una medida para evitar el vandalismo, el terrorismo y otros delitos en la zona y proteger la propiedad que maneja la agencia.

Turismo cobra, según el reglamento, por pie cuadrado a utilizar y dependerá del tipo de actividad que se realice, si es privada, cultural, cívica o promocional.

Reacciona el Municipio de San Juan

Por su parte, Suyín Huertas, del municipio de San Juan, explicó que siempre se piden los permisos y se exige un seguro en caso de algún accidente, pero afirmó que nunca se ha cobrado (a ciudadanos o compañías) porque la exposición de las plazas sanjuaneras representa aumento en el turismo para la Capital.

Mientras, los residentes en el país deberán recordar acudir, de lunes a viernes, a las oficinas correspondientes de Gobierno para solicitar sus permisos, algunos pagando, para tomarse sus fotos en la concurrida y turística ciudad principal de la Isla, de lo contrario, pueden exponerse a multas por usar los espacios que pagaron y mantienen con sus contribuciones.

Indignación general La prohibición de sacar fotos en monumentos de San Juan generó ayer indignación y muestra de ello son los cientos de comentarios que colgaron ayer los usuarios de la página de El Nuevo Día en Facebook. “¿El gobierno es dueño de San Juan? ¿Qué nos pasa?”, reclamó una lectora. “¿No se supone que vivimos en una democracia? ¿Quién es el gobierno para hacer esto? Se trata de nuestra Isla. Y luego dicen que Puerto Rico lo hace mejor!!!! Ja”, comentó otra persona.“Me dan ganas de sacar la cámara y retratar todo en San Juan”, lanzó como reto otra lectora.

“¡No había escuchado estupidez más grande que esta!!!! Ah, ya sé, es que no hay nada que hacer... Puerto Rico no tiene problemas de criminalidad, drogas, asesinatos, la economía, la EDUCACIÓN!!!! y por eso, PIERDEN el tiempo en estupideces como esta...”, ironizó otro lector.

“¡Lean bien!!! Es si vas hacer sesión de fotos o utilizar equipo profesional, no cámaras comunes! Además, esto es un país democrático y libre de expresión. Qué los policías se pongan para su número, ellos están allí para seguridad, y no para velar cámaras! ¿Qué le pasa? ¡Están locos! ¡Todos en este gobierno!”, reclamó otra persona.

Por eso ¡A PROTESTAR!
El domingo 15 de Mayo, todos los que somos ciudadanos y fotógrafos amateurs y profesionales vamos a invadir las plazas y parques de San Juan y Condado y vamos a fotografiar. Para mas información y unirte a la manifestación ve a este enlace; La Gran Jornada Fotográfica en San Juan.

¡Yo voy a decir presente!

The new Dr. Kerworkian? 91 year old woman sells suicide kits over the Internet!

2011-04-28T18:55:00.003-04:00

Ah...The Internet. You can find almost anything on it! Including suicide kits!

A shadowy online company selling suicide kits recently claimed its first confirmed victim. Winston Ross talks exclusively with the entrepreneur behind it: a grieving 91-year-old woman.
The paramedics who showed up to Nick Klonoski’s house on Highland Drive four months ago discovered the 29-year-old’s lifeless body, covered up to the neck by a blanket. It was his brother Jake, detectives learned, who’d found Nick lying in his bed less than an hour beforehand, a clear plastic bag over his head, and a plastic tube running from the bag to an orange metal helium tank. Next to the tank was a white box, decorated with a butterfly, the box the plastic bag and tube had arrived in the mail in, with a book titled Final Exit inside.
“Is it the book and the kit?” asked the first police officers to arrive on the scene. The paramedics nodded knowingly. “Yep.”
These materials were assembled and sold to Klonoski last June for $60 by a company that calls itself the Gladd Group, which is not really a group at all. It’s a woman from the San Diego suburb of La Mesa, California, named Sharlotte Hydorn. She is 91 years old.
Each of the kits Hydorn assembles by hand is a simple contraption designed for a single purpose: people kill themselves with it by encasing their head in a bag of helium, which is lethal in pure form. People like Klonoski, the son of a U.S. district judge and whose funeral was attended by more than a thousand people. The Gladd Group’s estimated annual sales are $98,000. That means Sharlotte Hydorn sells more than 1,600 suicide kits every year.
“I’m too busy to cash the bloody checks,” she told The Daily Beast. “I haven’t made a deposit in three months.”
You have probably never heard of the helium-hood kit. Neither had Oregon State Sen. Floyd Prozanski, until he read a newspaper story published last month about Klonoski’s death. The horrified legislator quickly floated a bill to make it a Class C felony to sell such a kit. The first to testify at his April 11 hearing was one of Klonoski’s four brothers, Zach. Zach told the state senate judiciary panel that “my brother Nick was a beautiful person...It would be a disservice to him to remember him only for the way he died.”
Zach didn’t discuss his brother’s reasons for killing himself, but Nick’s mother, U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken, told police he’d been running every day and had been in an upbeat mood, despite battling a severe cold over the past several weeks. Klonoski’s brothers told the Eugene Register-Guard that he’d battled bouts of pain and fatigue for years without a diagnosis, that he was depressed about the effect that had on his life, and that he was worried he’d never regain his normal health.
“This is analogous to putting a gun-vending machine next to a depression clinic.”
Klonoski wasn’t terminally ill, so he wouldn’t have qualified for lethal prescriptions provided to eligible Oregonians under the state’s Death With Dignity Act, one of only two states that allow assisted suicide. But he was able to buy Hydorn’s kit on the Internet, to rent a helium tank from nearby Party City for $175, and do the job himself.
This, an emotional Zach testified at the hearing earlier this month, should be illegal.
“In a society where so many people suffer from depression and other mental-health disorders,” Zach said, “this company has found their niche in the market by peddling death. This is analogous to putting a gun-vending machine next to a depression clinic. The Gladd company, so named as to avoid suspicion in case family members happen to sign for or come across the package, made $60 off my brother’s death.”
Though Hydorn admits she did sell Zach’s brother his implement of death, she makes no apology for it. She has a story of her own.
It was 30 years ago, Hydorn said in an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast, that her husband, “a six-foot-four, wonderful, handsome, loving, intelligent man,” was dying of colon cancer. After several operations, the cancer had spread to his brain, and surgeons had cut a hole in his stomach, out of which came his excrement, into a bag.
“It was my duty, and I did it willingly, to empty that thing every three or four hours,” she said. “One time I ran out of bags and went all over town looking for a pharmacy that sold them. Even years after my husband died, I would wake up and say, ‘I’ve got to go get those bags.’ ”
No one should have to go through that, Hydorn said, to die a slow, painful death in a hospital bed. “Death should be with loved ones beside you, holding your hand."
Not long after her husband died, Hydorn met a man named Derek Humphry, a longtime advocate of assisted suicide and founder of the Hemlock Society, which has worked to change laws prohibiting the practice around the country. It was Humphry, in 1992, who penned Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying, which effectively serves as a manual for how to kill yourself and which Humphry told The Register-Guard sold 500,000 copies in the first six weeks.

And the Box Office Champion this week is...

2011-04-25T15:36:00.001-04:00

Via Deadline Hollywood / Nikki Finke

SATURDAY PM/SUNDAY AM, 5TH UPDATE: Studios tell me this Easter Weekend began and ended with rain and storms in 2/3s of the U.S. and the first huge "up" weekend of $125M, which is +34% from last year. Twentieth Century Fox's Rio 3D may be about a bird, but Friday and Saturday numbers showed "it's holding like a rock," a studio exec emailed me.

Lionsgate's latest in Tyler Perry's franchise, Madea's Big Happy Family, had the best per screen average of all the top-grossing pictures. This is, after all, Perry's sixth cross-dressing film; still, the last one opened to a $41M weekend and the one before to $30M and this will be even lower by end of day Sunday. scoring an "A-" CinemaScore was Fox 2000's Water For Elephants based on Sara Gruen's best-selling book and written by Richard LaGravenese and directed by Francis Lawrence.

Clearly, the classy ad campaign was intriguing for adults who don't rush out to see films, and for Robert Pattinson's Twi-hards who do. But this beautifully filmed but searing drama was considered a hard sell. It was also a fine weekend for Universal's holdover Hop from Illumination Entertainment after passing $100M. And Disneynature's African Cats narrated by Samuel Jackson played well for a niche nature movie that truly deserves to be seen, as evidenced by its "A-" CinemaScore. Full analysis coming. Here is the Top 10:

1. Rio 3D (Blue Sky Studio/Fox) Week 2 [3,842 Theaters]
Friday $10.6M, Saturday $10M, Easter Weekend $26.6M (-32%), Cume $81.1M

2. Madea's Big Happy Family (Tyler Perry/Lionsgate) NEW [2,288 Theaters]
Friday $10.5M, Saturday $9.1M, Easter Weekend $25.7M

3. Water For Elephants (Fox 2000/Fox) NEW [2,817 Theaters]
Friday $7M, Saturday $6.5M, Easter Weekend $17.5M

4. Hop (Illumination Entertainment/Universal) Week 4 [3,616 Theaters]
Friday $4.8M, Saturday $4.5M, Easter Weekend $12.4M, Cume $100.4M

5. Scream 4 (Miramax/Dimension/Weinstein Co) Week 2 [3,314 Theaters]
Friday $2.7M, Saturday $2.7M, Easter Weekend $7.1M (-62%), Cume $31.1M

6. African Cats (Disneynature/Walt Disney Studios) NEW [1,220 Theaters]
Friday $3.3M, Saturday $1.6M, Easter Weekend $6.4M

7. Soul Surfer (FilmDistrict/Sony) Week 3 [2,240 Theaters]]
Friday $2.3M, Saturday $1.9M, Easter Weekend $5.6M, Cume $28.6M

8. Insidious (FilmDistrict) Week 4 [2,130 Theaters]
Friday $2.1M, Saturday $1.9M, Easter Weekend $5.3M, Cume $44.1M

9. Hanna (Focus Features) Week 3 [2,383 theaters]
Friday $1.8M, Saturday $2M, Easter Weekend $5.2M, Cume $31.7M

10. Source Code (Summit) Week 4 [2,363 Theaters]
Friday $1.8M, Saturday $1.9M, Easter Weekend $5M, Estimated Cume $44.6M

Weird Tuesday post, just for you!

2011-04-19T15:40:00.003-04:00

Well, this happens as I'm bored to tears at my job. So in my travels thru the Intewebs, I happened to stumble upon a collection of very weird Album cover art, this from an era when music was on LP's (What's an LP? Ask your parents, you rascal and by the way; GET OFF MY PORCH!!!) Here's some smaples. The whole enchilada is right here! Click it, don't be afraid, you wuss!

Las mas taquilleras para el fin de semana de Abril 1-3, 2011

2011-04-05T10:27:00.001-04:00

En Estados Unidos:

1- Hop
2- Source Code
3- Insidious
4- Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
5- Limitless

En Puerto Rico

1- Hop
2- Source Code
3- Red Riding Hood
4- Limitless
5- Battle: Los Angeles

The world's worst music video ever?

2011-03-31T12:29:00.002-04:00

This is Friday by Rebecca Black.
Probably the worst music video ever made, with the worst song ever made.

Why put it here...

guess...

Dame Elizabeth Taylor DBE-Actress "Cleopatra", "Who's Afraid of Virgina Wolf". 1932-2011

2011-03-23T10:52:00.000-04:00

LOS ANGELES – Elizabeth Taylor, the violet-eyed film goddess whose sultry screen persona, stormy personal life and enduring fame and glamour made her one of the last of the old-fashioned movie stars and a template for the modern celebrity, died Wednesday at age 79.

She was surrounded by her four children when she died of congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she had been hospitalized for about six weeks, said publicist Sally Morrison.

"My Mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humor, and love," her son, Michael Wilding, said in a statement.

"We know, quite simply, that the world is a better place for Mom having lived in it. Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will live forever in our hearts."

Taylor was the most blessed and cursed of actresses, the toughest and the most vulnerable. She had extraordinary grace, wealth and voluptuous beauty, and won three Academy Awards, including a special one for her humanitarian work. She was the most loyal of friends and a defender of gays in Hollywood when AIDS was still a stigma in the industry and beyond. But she was afflicted by ill health, failed romances (eight marriages, seven husbands) and personal tragedy.

"I think I'm becoming fatalistic," she said in 1989. "Too much has happened in my life for me not to be fatalistic."

Her more than 50 movies included unforgettable portraits of innocence and of decadence, from the children's classic "National Velvet" and the sentimental family comedy "Father of the Bride" to Oscar-winning transgressions in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Butterfield 8." The historical epic "Cleopatra" is among Hollywood's greatest on-screen fiascos and a landmark of off-screen monkey business, the meeting ground of Taylor and Richard Burton, the "Brangelina" of their day.

She played enough bawdy women on film for critic Pauline Kael to deem her "Chaucerian Beverly Hills."

But her defining role, one that lasted long past her moviemaking days, was "Elizabeth Taylor," ever marrying and divorcing, in and out of hospitals, gaining and losing weight, standing by Michael Jackson, Rock Hudson and other troubled friends, acquiring a jewelry collection that seemed to rival Tiffany's.

She was a child star who grew up and aged before an adoring, appalled and fascinated public. She arrived in Hollywood when the studio system tightly controlled an actor's life and image, had more marriages than any publicist could explain away and lasted long enough to no longer require explanation. She was the industry's great survivor, and among the first to reach that special category of celebrity — famous for being famous, for whom her work was inseparable from the gossip around it.

The London-born actress was a star at age 12, a bride and a divorcee at 18, a superstar at 19 and a widow at 26. She was a screen sweetheart and martyr later reviled for stealing Eddie Fisher from Debbie Reynolds, then for dumping Fisher to bed Burton, a relationship of epic passion and turbulence, lasting through two marriages and countless attempted reconciliations.

She was also forgiven. Reynolds would acknowledge voting for Taylor when she was nominated for "Butterfield 8" and decades later co-starred with her old rival in "These Old Broads," co-written by Carrie Fisher, the daughter of Reynolds and Eddie Fisher.

Taylor's ailments wore down the grudges. She underwent at least 20 major operations and she nearly died from a bout with pneumonia in 1990. In 1994 and 1995, she had both hip joints replaced, and in February 1997, she underwent surgery to remove a benign brain tumor. In 1983, she acknowledged a 35-year addiction to sleeping pills and pain killers. Taylor was treated for alcohol and drug abuse problems at the Betty Ford Clinic in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

Her troubles bonded her to her peers and the public, and deepened her compassion. Her advocacy for AIDS research and for other causes earned her a special Oscar, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1993.

As she accepted it, to a long ovation, she declared, "I call upon you to draw from the depths of your being — to prove that we are a human race, to prove that our love outweighs our need to hate, that our compassion is more compelling than our need to blame."

The dark-haired Taylor made an unforgettable impression in Hollywood with "National Velvet," the 1945 film in which the 12-year-old belle rode a steeplechase horse to victory in the Grand National.

Critic James Agee wrote of her: "Ever since I first saw the child ... I have been choked with the peculiar sort of adoration I might have felt if we were in the same grade of primary school."

"National Velvet," her fifth film, also marked the beginning of Taylor's long string of health issues. During production, she fell off a horse. The resulting back injury continued to haunt her.

Taylor matured into a ravishing beauty in "Father of the Bride," in 1950, and into a respected performer and femme fatale the following year in "A Place in the Sun," based on the Theodore Dreiser novel "An American Tragedy." The movie co-starred her close friend Montgomery Clift as the ambitious young man who drowns his working-class girlfriend to be with the socialite Taylor. In real life, too, men all but committed murder in pursuit of her.

Through the rest of the 1950s and into the 1960s, she and Marilyn Monroe were Hollywood's great sex symbols, both striving for appreciation beyond their physical beauty, both caught up in personal dramas filmmakers could only wish they had imagined. That Taylor lasted, and Monroe died young, was a matter of luck and strength; Taylor lived as she pleased and allowed no one to define her but herself.

"I don't entirely approve of some of the things I have done, or am, or have been. But I'm me. God knows, I'm me," Taylor said around the time she turned 50.

She had a remarkable and exhausting personal and professional life. Her marriage to Michael Todd ended tragically when the producer died in a plane crash in 1958. She took up with Fisher, married him, then left him for Burton. Meanwhile, she received several Academy Award nominations and two Oscars.

She was a box-office star cast in numerous "prestige" films, from "Raintree County" with Clift to "Giant," an epic co-starring her friends Hudson and James Dean. Nominations came from a pair of movies adapted from work by Tennessee Williams: "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "Suddenly, Last Summer." In "Butterfield 8," released in 1960, she starred with Fisher as a doomed girl-about-town. Taylor never cared much for the film, but her performance at the Oscars wowed the world.

Sympathy for Taylor's widowhood had turned to scorn when she took up with Fisher, who had supposedly been consoling her over the death of Todd. But before the 1961 ceremony, she was hospitalized from a nearly fatal bout with pneumonia and Taylor underwent a tracheotomy. The scar was bandaged when she appeared at the Oscars to accept her best actress trophy for "Butterfield 8."

To a standing ovation, she hobbled to the stage. "I don't really know how to express my great gratitude," she said in an emotional speech. "I guess I will just have to thank you with all my heart." It was one of the most dramatic moments in Academy Awards history.

"Hell, I even voted for her," Reynolds later said.

Greater drama awaited: "Cleopatra." Taylor met Burton while playing the title role in the 1963 epic, in which the brooding, womanizing Welsh actor co-starred as Mark Antony. Their chemistry was not immediate. Taylor found him boorish; Burton mocked her physique. But the love scenes on film continued away from the set and a scandal for the ages was born. Headlines shouted and screamed. Paparazzi snapped and swooned. Their romance created such a sensation that the Vatican denounced the happenings as the "caprices of adult children."

The film so exceeded its budget that the producers lost money even though "Cleopatra" was a box-office hit and won four Academy awards. (With its $44 million budget adjusted for inflation, "Cleopatra" remains the most expensive movie ever made.) Taylor's salary per film topped $1 million. "Liz and Dick" became a couple on a first name basis with millions who had never met them.

They were a prolific acting team, even if most of the movies aged no better than their relationship: "The VIPs" (1963), "The Sandpiper" (1965), "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966), "The Taming of the Shrew" (1967), "The Comedians" (1967), "Dr. Faustus" (1967), "Boom!" (1968), "Under Milk Wood" (1971) and "Hammersmith Is Out" (1972).

Art most effectively imitated life in the adaptation of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" — in which Taylor and Burton played mates who fought viciously and drank heavily. She took the best actress Oscar for her performance as the venomous Martha in "Virginia Woolf" and again stole the awards show, this time by not showing up at the ceremony. She refused to thank the academy upon learning of her victory and chastised voters for not honoring Burton.

Taylor and Burton divorced in 1974, married again in 1975 and divorced again in 1976.

"We fight a great deal," Burton once said, "and we watch the people around us who don't quite know how to behave during these storms. We don't fight when we are alone."

In 1982, Taylor and Burton appeared in a touring production of the Noel Coward play "Private Lives," in which they starred as a divorced couple who meet on their respective honeymoons. They remained close at the time of Burton's death, in 1984.

Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born in London on Feb. 27, 1932, the daughter of Francis Taylor, an art dealer, and the former Sara Sothern, an American stage actress. At age 3, with extensive ballet training already behind her, Taylor danced for British princesses Elizabeth (the future queen) and Margaret Rose at London's Hippodrome. At age 4, she was given a wild field horse that she learned to ride expertly.

At the onset of World War II, the Taylors came to the United States. Francis Taylor opened a gallery in Beverly Hills and, in 1942, his daughter made her screen debut with a bit part in the comedy "There's One Born Every Minute."

Her big break came soon thereafter. While serving as an air-raid warden with MGM producer Sam Marx, Taylor's father learned that the studio was struggling to find an English girl to play opposite Roddy McDowall in "Lassie Come Home." Taylor's screen test for the film won her both the part and a long-term contract. She grew up quickly after that.

Still in school at 16, she would dash from the classroom to the movie set where she played passionate love scenes with Robert Taylor in "Conspirator."

"I have the emotions of a child in the body of a woman," she once said. "I was rushed into womanhood for the movies. It caused me long moments of unhappiness and doubt."

Soon after her screen presence was established, she began a series of very public romances. Early loves included socialite Bill Pawley, home run slugger Ralph Kiner and football star Glenn Davis.

Then, a roll call of husbands:

• She married Conrad Hilton Jr., son of the hotel magnate, in May 1950 at age 18. The marriage ended in divorce that December.

• When she married British actor Michael Wilding in February 1952, he was 39 to her 19. They had two sons, Michael Jr. and Christopher Edward. That marriage lasted 4 years.

• She married cigar-chomping movie producer Michael Todd, also 20 years her senior, in 1957. They had a daughter, Elizabeth Francis. Todd was killed in a plane crash in 1958.

• The best man at the Taylor-Todd wedding was Fisher. He left his wife Debbie Reynolds to marry Taylor in 1959. She converted to Judaism before the wedding.

• Taylor and Fisher moved to London, where she was making "Cleopatra." She met Burton, who also was married. That union produced her fourth child, Maria.

• After her second marriage to Burton ended, she married John Warner, a former secretary of the Navy, in December 1976. Warner was elected a U.S. senator from Virginia in 1978. They divorced in 1982.

• In October 1991, she married Larry Fortensky, a truck driver and construction worker she met while both were undergoing treatment at the Betty Ford Center in 1988. He was 20 years her junior. The wedding, held at the ranch of Michael Jackson, was a media circus that included the din of helicopter blades, a journalist who parachuted to a spot near the couple and a gossip columnist as official scribe.

But in August 1995, she and Fortensky announced a trial separation; she filed for divorce six months later and the split became final in 1997.

"I was taught by my parents that if you fall in love, if you want to have a love affair, you get married," she once remarked. "I guess I'm very old-fashioned."

Her philanthropic interests included assistance for the Israeli War Victims Fund, the Variety Clubs International and the American Foundation for AIDS Research.

She received the Legion of Honor, France's most prestigious award, in 1987, for her efforts to support AIDS research. In May 2000, Queen Elizabeth II made Taylor a dame — the female equivalent of a knight — for her services to the entertainment industry and to charity.

In 1993, she won a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute; in 1999, an institute survey of screen legends ranked her No. 7 among actresses.

During much of her later career, Taylor's waistline, various diets, diet books and tangled romances were the butt of jokes by Joan Rivers and others. John Belushi mocked her on "Saturday Night Live," dressing up in drag and choking on a piece of chicken.

"It's a wonder I didn't explode," Taylor wrote of her 60-pound weight gain — and successful loss — in the 1988 book "Elizabeth Takes Off on Self-Esteem and Self-Image."

She was an iconic star, but her screen roles became increasingly rare in the 1980s and beyond. She appeared in several television movies, including "Poker Alice" and "Sweet Bird of Youth," and entered the Stone Age as Pearl Slaghoople in the movie version of "The Flintstones." She had a brief role on the popular soap opera "General Hospital."

Taylor was the subject of numerous unauthorized biographies and herself worked on a handful of books, including "Elizabeth Taylor: An Informal Memoir" and "Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair With Jewelry." In tune with the media to the end, she kept in touch through her Twitter account.

"I like the connection with fans and people who have been supportive of me," Taylor told Kim Kardashian in a 2011 interview for Harper's Bazaar. "And I love the idea of real feedback and a two-way street, which is very, very modern. But sometimes I think we know too much about our idols and that spoils the dream."

Survivors include her daughters Maria Burton-Carson and Liza Todd-Tivey, sons Christopher and Michael Wilding, 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

A private family funeral is planned later this week.

¡Hoy William Shatner cumple 80 años de edad!

2011-03-22T18:03:00.004-04:00

Si, el actor que dio vida al Capitán James T. Kirk, al oficial de policía T.J. Hooker, al abogado Denny Crane y muchos otros personajes de drama y comedia. Nacido un 22 de Marzo del 1931 en Montreal, Canada. Antes de que se hiciera famoso, trabajaba en un pequeño establecimiento donde se fabricaban máscaras a medida para ocasiones especiales. Conservó este trabajo hasta que el mercado cerró provocando su despido. De ahí a actuar. Trabajo en muchas series de TV y en películas hasta que se convirtió en una estrella en la serie "Viaje A Las Estrellas" ("Star Trek") de 1966 al 1969.

El resto es historia.

Aquí algunos vídeos de su carrera.

¡¡¡¡¡KHAAAAAAAANNNNNNNN!!!!!

No water, power or food in vast swaths of Japan. Death figures might go up as high as 10,000.

2011-03-13T11:16:00.002-04:00

TAGAJO, Japan – People across a devastated swath of Japan suffered for a third day Sunday without water, electricity and proper food, as the country grappled with the enormity of a massive earthquake and tsunami that left more than 10,000 people dead in one area alone.

Japan's prime minister called the crisis the most severe challenge the nation has faced since World War II, as the grim situation worsened. Friday's disasters damaged a series of nuclear reactors, potentially sending one through a partial meltdown and adding radiation contamination to the fears of an unsettled public.

Temperatures began sinking toward freezing, compounding the misery of survivors along hundreds of miles (kilometers) of the northeastern coast battered by the tsunami that smashed inland with breathtaking fury. Rescuers pulled bodies from mud-covered jumbles of wrecked houses, shattered tree trunks, twisted cars and tangled power lines while survivors examined the ruined remains.

In Rikusentakata, a port city of over 20,000 virtually wiped out by the tsunami, Etsuko Koyama escaped the water rushing through the third flood of her home but lost her grip on her daughter's hand and has not found her.

"I haven't given up hope yet," Koyama told public broadcaster NHK, wiping tears from her eyes. "I saved myself, but I couldn't save my daughter."

To the south, in Miyagi prefecture, or state, the police chief told a gathering of disaster relief officials that his estimate for deaths was more than 10,000, police spokesman Go Sugawara told The Associated Press. Miyagi has a population of 2.3 million and is one of the three prefectures hardest hit in Friday's disaster. Fewer than 400 people have officially been confirmed as dead in Miyagi.

According to officials, more than 1,400 people were killed — including 200 people whose bodies were found Sunday along the coast — and more than 1,000 were missing in the disasters. Another 1,700 were injured.

Japanese officials raised their estimate Sunday of the quake's magnitude to 9.0, a notch above the U.S. Geological Survey's reading of 8.9. Either way, it was the strongest quake ever recorded in Japan

For Japan, one of the world's leading economies with ultramodern infrastructure, the disasters plunged ordinary life into nearly unimaginable deprivation.

Hundreds of thousands of hungry survivors huddled in darkened emergency centers that were cut off from rescuers, aid and electricity. At least 1.4 million households had gone without water since the quake struck and some 1.9 million households were without electricity.

While the government doubled the number of soldiers deployed in the aid effort to 100,000 and sent 120,000 blankets, 120,000 bottles of water and 29,000 gallons (110,000 liters) of gasoline plus food to the affected areas, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said electricity would take days to restore. In the meantime, he said, electricity would be rationed with rolling blackouts to several cities, including Tokyo.

"This is Japan's most severe crisis since the war ended 65 years ago," Kan told reporters, adding that Japan's future would be decided by its response.

In a rare piece of good news, the Defense Ministry said a military vessel on Sunday rescued a 60-year-old man floating off the coast of Fukushima on the roof of his house after he and his wife were swept away in the tsunami. He was in good condition. His wife did not survive.

A young man described what ran through his mind before he escaped in a separate rescue. "I thought to myself, ah, this is how I will die," Tatsuro Ishikawa, his face bruised and cut, told NHK as he sat in striped hospital pajamas.

Dozens of countries have offered assistance. Two U.S. aircraft carrier groups were off Japan's coast and ready to provide assistance. Helicopters were flying from one of the carriers, the USS Ronald Reagan, delivering food and water in Miyagi.

Two other U.S. rescue teams of 72 personnel each and rescue dogs arrived Sunday, as did a five-dog team from Singapore.

Still, large areas of the countryside remained surrounded by water and unreachable. Fuel stations were closed, though, at some, cars waited in lines hundreds of vehicles long.

The United States and a several countries in Europe urged their citizens to avoid travel to Japan. France took the added step of suggesting people leave Tokyo in case radiation reached the city.

As daylight breaks, the devastation of Japan's earthquake/tsunami is revealed.

2011-03-11T20:21:00.002-04:00

TOKYO – For more than two terrifying, seemingly endless minutes Friday, the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan shook apart homes and buildings, cracked open highways and unnerved even those who have learned to live with swaying skyscrapers. Then came a devastating tsunami that slammed into northeastern Japan and killed hundreds of people.

The violent wall of water swept away houses, cars and ships. Fires burned out of control. Power to a cooling system at a nuclear power plant was knocked out, forcing thousands to flee. A boat was caught in the vortex of a whirlpool at sea.

The death toll rose steadily throughout the day, but the true extent of the disaster was not known because roads to the worst-hit areas were washed away or blocked by debris and airports were closed.

After dawn Saturday, the scale of destruction became clearer.

Aerial scenes of the town of Ofunato showed homes and warehouses in ruins. Sludge and high water spread over acres of land, with people seeking refuge on roofs of partially submerged buildings. At one school, a large white "SOS" had been spelled out in English.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said an initial assessment found "enormous damage," adding that the Defense Ministry was sending troops to the hardest-hit region.

President Barack Obama pledged U.S. assistance following what he called a potentially "catastrophic" disaster. He said one U.S. aircraft carrier is already in Japan and a second was on its way. A U.S. ship was also heading to the Marianas Islands to assist as needed, he added.

The entire Pacific had been put on alert — including coastal areas of South America, Canada and Alaska — but waves were not as bad as expected.

The magnitude-8.9 offshore quake struck at 2:46 p.m. local time and was the biggest to hit Japan since record-keeping began in the late 1800s. It ranked as the fifth-largest earthquake in the world since 1900 and was nearly 8,000 times stronger than one that devastated Christchurch, New Zealand, last month, scientists said.

The quake shook dozens of cities and villages along a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) stretch of coast and tall buildings swayed in Tokyo, hundreds of miles from the epicenter. Prime Minister Naoto Kan was attending a parliamentary session at the time.

"I thought I was going to die," said Tokyo marketing employee Koto Fujikawa. "It felt like the whole structure was collapsing."

Fujikawa, 28, was riding a monorail when the quake hit and had to later pick her way along narrow, elevated tracks to the nearest station.

Minutes later, the earthquake unleashed a 23-foot (seven-meter) tsunami along the northeastern coast of Japan near the coastal city of Sendai in Miyagi prefecture. The quake was followed for hours by aftershocks. The U.S. Geological Survey said 124 were detected off Japan's main island of Honshu, 111 of them of magnitude 5.0 or greater.

Large fishing boats and other vessels rode the high waves ashore, slamming against overpasses or scraping under them and snapping power lines along the way. A fleet of partially submerged cars bobbed in the water. Ships anchored in ports crashed against each other.

The tsunami roared over embankments, washing anything in its path inland before reversing direction and carrying the cars, homes and other debris out to sea. Flames shot from some of the homes, apparently from burst gas pipes.

Waves of muddy waters flowed over farms near Sendai, carrying buildings, some of them ablaze. Drivers attempted to flee. The tarmac at Sendai's airport was inundated with thick, muddy debris that included cars, trucks, buses and even light planes.

Highways to the worst-hit coastal areas buckled. Telephone lines snapped. Train service was suspended in northeastern Japan and in Tokyo, which normally serves 10 million people a day. Untold numbers of people were stranded in stations or roaming the streets. Tokyo's Narita airport was closed indefinitely.

Police said 200-300 bodies were found in Sendai, although the official casualty toll was 185 killed, 741 missing and 948 injured.

A ship with 80 dock workers was swept away from a shipyard in Miyagi. All on the ship was believed to be safe, although the vessel had sprung a leak and was taking on some water, Japan's coast guard said.

In the coastal town of Minami-soma, about 1,800 houses were destroyed or ravaged, a Defense Ministry spokeswoman said. Fire burned well past dark in a large section of Kesennuma, a city of 70,000 people in Miyagi.

A resident in Miyagi prefecture who had been stranded on his roof, surrounded by water, mud and fallen trees, was rescued by a Self-Defense Force helicopter Saturday morning, TV video showed.

Officials declared the first-ever state of emergency at a Japanese nuclear power plant and ordered evacuations after the earthquake knocked out power to a cooling system at the Fukushima Daiichi facility near the city of Onahama, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo. They said radiation levels inside the facility had surged to 1,000 times more than normal.

Some radiation had seeped outside the plant, the nuclear safety agency said early Saturday, prompting calls for more evacuations of the area. Some 3,000 people have already been urged to leave their homes.

The Defense Ministry said it had sent dozens of troops trained to deal with chemical disasters to the plant in case of a radiation leak.

An American working at the facility said the whole building shook and debris fell from the ceiling. Danny Eudy, 52, a technician employed by Texas-based Atlantic Plant Maintenance, and his colleagues escaped the building just as the tsunami hit, his wife told The Associated Press.

"He walked through so much glass that his feet were cut. It slowed him down," said Pineville, Louisiana, resident Janie Eudy, who spoke to her husband by phone after the quake.

The group watched homes and vehicles carried away in the wave and found their hotel mostly destroyed when they reached it.

A large fire erupted at the Cosmo oil refinery in the city of Ichihara and burned out of control with 100-foot (30-meter) flames whipping into the sky.

Also in Miyagi prefecture, a fire broke out in a turbine building of a nuclear power plant, but it was later extinguished, said Tohoku Electric Power Co.

Japanese automakers Toyota, Nissan and Honda halted production at some assembly plants in areas hit by the quake. One worker was killed and more than 30 injured after being crushed by a collapsing wall at a Honda Motor Co. research facility in northeastern Tochigi prefecture, the company said.

Jesse Johnson, a native of Nevada who lives in Chiba, north of Tokyo, was eating at a sushi restaurant with his wife when the quake hit.

"At first it didn't feel unusual, but then it went on and on. So I got myself and my wife under the table," he told the AP. "I've lived in Japan for 10 years, and I've never felt anything like this before. The aftershocks keep coming. It's gotten to the point where I don't know whether it's me shaking or an earthquake."

Tokyo was brought to a near standstill. Tens of thousands of people were stranded with the rail network down, and the streets were jammed with cars, buses and trucks trying to get out of the city.

The city set up 33 shelters in city hall, on university campuses and in government offices, but many planned to spend the night at 24-hour cafes, hotels and offices.

NHK said more than 4 million buildings were without power in Tokyo and its suburbs.

Jefferies International Ltd., a global investment banking group, estimated overall losses of about $10 billion.

The tsunami hit Hawaii before dawn Friday, with most damage coming on the Big Island. The waves covered beachfront roads and rushed into hotels. One house was picked up and carried out to sea. Low-lying areas in Maui were flooded by 7-foot waves.

On the U.S. mainland, marinas and harbors in California and Oregon bore the brunt of the damage, estimated by authorities to be in the millions of dollars. Boats crashed into each other in marines and some vessels were washed out to sea.

Rescue crews were searching for a man who was swept away in northern California while taking pictures. Two people with him tried to rescue him, although they were able to return to shore.

Thousands fled homes in Indonesia after officials warned of a tsunami up to 6 feet (2 meters) high, but waves of only 4 inches (10 centimeters) were measured. No big waves came to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory, either.

Islands across the South Pacific were hit by bigger-than-normal waves, but no major damage was reported. Surges up to 26 inches (66 centimeters) high were reported in American Samoa, Nauru, Saipan and at the far northern tip of New Zealand.

In Tonga, water flooded houses in the low-lying Ha'apai islands early Saturday, police said. Thousands in the capital, Nuku'alofa, sought refuge at the king's residence on higher ground, Radio Tonga said.

The quake struck at a depth of six miles (10 kilometers), about 80 miles (125 kilometers) off Japan's east coast, the USGS said. The area is 240 miles (380 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo. Several quakes hit the same region in recent days, including one measured at magnitude 7.3 on Wednesday that caused no damage.

"The energy radiated by this quake is nearly equal to one month's worth of energy consumption" in the United States, USGS scientist Brian Atwater told The Associated Press.

Early Saturday, a magnitude-6.6 earthquake struck the central, mountainous part of Japan — far from the original quake's epicenter. It was not immediately clear if that temblor was related to the others.

Japan's worst previous quake was a magnitude 8.3 in Kanto that killed 143,000 people in 1923, according to USGS. A 7.2-magnitude quake in Kobe killed 6,400 people in 1995.

Japan lies on the "Ring of Fire" — an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretching around the Pacific where about 90 percent of the world's quakes occur, including the one that triggered the Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami that killed an estimated 230,000 people in 12 countries. A magnitude-8.8 temblor that shook central Chile in February 2010 also generated a tsunami and killed 524 people.

Photos, Info / AP

8.9 Earthquake hits in Japan. Giant tsunami wave hits Sendai, Japan.

2011-03-11T08:18:00.005-04:00

Reports coming in from Japan, put the casualty figures around 50 dead, with many missing, so the figure will rise very fast. The Tsunami wave is racing across the Pacific. It will hit the Hawaiian Islands at 9:07 am Atlantic Time. It will hit the west coast of the US at 11:37 am Atlantic Time. More as it come in.

Our thoughts are with the Japanese people.

Un año despues, el caso de Lorenzo González Cacho sigue sin solución.

2011-03-09T07:55:00.004-04:00

Lorencito fue asesinado en su cama, mientras su mamá y hermanas dormían hace exactamente un año.

Nadie sabe que paso.

Fiscalia no ha sometido un caso después de un año de investigación. ¿Sera que no tienen evidencia suficiente para radicar? ¿Habría una actuación indebida de la fiscal en la escena, la Lcda. Mariela Santini, al disponer de la evidencia?

¿Y Ana Cacho? ¿Dijo todo lo que sabia de aquella noche? ¿Tuvo que ver con la muerte de su hijo, estara encubriendo a quien lo mato, o como dice, no se entero de la muerte ya que estaba dormida?

A un año de la muerte de Lorenzo González Cacho, todavia no hay solución.

Pobrecito.

Aquí hay un vídeo de recordación de Lorencito. La música es por el fenecido Michael Jackson "Gone too soon". (No, no hay ninguna ironía aquí.)

Como digo una, digo la otra.

2011-03-08T10:45:00.004-04:00

La violencia no adelanta tus ideales. Los estudiantes de la UPR tenían ganada la guerra mediática. Las actuaciones abusadoras de algunos oficiales policíacos habían calado hondo en el sentir de los Puertorriqueños. Muchos de nosotros nos fuimos al apoyo de los estudiantes. La protesta es una forma legal y autentica para pedir cambio. Pero uno no puede pedir respeto, si uno mismo falta a el. Aun cuando a uno le faltan el respeto, la actuación debe ser de altura y no rebajarse a la barbarie del ofensor. Así entonces, se puede mantener la altura moral y por ende la razón.

La participación de los estudiantes universitarios en la agresión de la rectora del recinto es una vergüenza para todos los que apoyábamos la lucha estudiantil. Uno puede diferir de su pensar, debatirla en los foros públicos, puede protestar y pedirle que dimita. Pero de eso a la agresión verbal y física, dista mucho. Condeno totalmente esta agresión contra la rectora y retiro mi apoyo al movimiento estudiantil, hasta que puedan probar que ese abuso no fue cometido por ellos, mas allá de toda duda razonable.

No tolero el abuso de ninguna parte, ni de los policías, ni de los estudiantes.

Fotos - El Nuevo Día.

Un dia como hoy, El ataque al congreso de EE.UU. por parte de 4 Nacionalistas

2011-03-01T11:45:00.004-04:00

Mucha gente ve este día como el de un acto fútil y sin sentido. Yo soy de los que piensan que fue un acto de valentía y coraje desmedido.

Ir a la guarida del Imperio, preparados a ofrendar sus vidas por la causa de la independencia de Puerto Rico, es un acto de fe, mas allá de lo pensado. Este es el verdadero ejemplo de lo que debe ser la entrega por un ideal.

Aunque no estoy de acuerdo con la violencia, estoy totalmente de acuerdo con las razones y las causas de este acto.

Y si creen que estos actos son cosas del pasado, miren la actuación de los estudiantes aguerridos de la Universidad de Puerto Rico al entrar a la casa de las leyes, ahora antro de viciosos, mentirosos, abusadores y malversadores, interrumpiendo una actividad de glorificación del pillaje colectivo, en desafiante actitud pidiendo a viva voz la rectificación del mal de la maldita cuota, un castigo para el pueblo trabajador por la mala administración y malversación de los fondos públicos de estos "honorables".

Mientras mantengamos la lucha en contra de las injusticias de la colonia, el Pueblo de Puerto Rico mantendrá la esperanza y la vergüenza y dentro de poco saldremos de este atolladero y podremos de verdad resolver los problemas sociales y políticos de este país, no con eslóganes vacíos, sino con acciones certeras y bien pensadas, como todo pueblo libre y soberano.

Lolita Lebrón, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irvin Flores y Andrés Figueroa Cordero. La nación los saluda.

¡No contaban con su astucia! Estudiantes de las Universidad de PR salen más listos que los Senadores del Capitolio.

2011-03-01T06:21:00.003-04:00

Estudiantes de la UPR fueron mas inteligentes que los pillos y embusteros que pululan en el capitolio e irrumpieron durante una ceremonia de gratificación de estos criminales con nuestro dinero. Mientras develaban los bustos de los alza-colas imperiales, también conocidos como ex-gobernadores, los estudiantes, impecablemente vestidos, irrumpieron en gritos para parar la cuota de $800 en la universidad, deteniendo la ceremonia. La Policía esbirros coloniales, los sacaron a patadas y empujones, claro, obviando que hay criminales drogadictos y gordas embusteras en el capitolio. Vean el vídeo.

Sic Semmper Tyrannis!

The ful list of 2011 Oscar winners!

2011-02-28T07:13:00.000-04:00

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Melissa Leo, The Fighter

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Inception, Wally Pfister

BEST ART DIRECTION
Alice in Wonderland, Robert Stromberg, Karen O’Hara

BEST ANIMATED FILM
Toy Story 3

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
The Lost Thing, Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Social Network, Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
The King’s Speech, Screenplay by David Seidler

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
In a Better World (Denmark)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christian Bale, The Fighter

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
The Social Network, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

BEST SOUND MIXING
Inception, Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo, and Ed Novick

BEST SOUND EDITING
Inception, Richard King

BEST MAKEUP
The Wolfman, Rick Baker and Dave Elsey

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Alice in Wonderland, Colleen Atwood

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Strangers No More, Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT
God of Love, Luke Matheny

BEST DOCUMENTARY
Inside Job, Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Inception, Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb

BEST EDITING
The Social Network, Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter

BEST SONG
“We Belong Together,” Toy Story 3, Randy Newman

BEST DIRECTOR
Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech

BEST ACTRESS
Natalie Portman, Black Swan

BEST ACTOR
Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

BEST PICTURE
The King’s Speech

And the box office champion this week is...

2011-02-22T06:28:00.000-04:00

LOS ANGELES – Liam Neeson has proven himself a known quantity again at the box office.

Neeson's thriller, "Unknown," debuted as the No. 1 movie with $21.8 million, following in the footsteps of his 2009 action hit "Taken," according to studio estimates Sunday.

Another action tale, "I Am Number Four," opened at No. 2 with $19.5 million.

A Warner Bros. release, "Unknown" stars Neeson as a botanist who awakens from a coma to find his wife claims she does not know him and that another man has taken his identity.

DreamWorks' "I Am Number Four" stars Alex Pettyfer as a teenage alien refugee on Earth who develops superpowers to battle the evil invaders that destroyed his planet. It was the first DreamWorks movie released under the company's distribution deal with Disney.

While "I Am Number Four" held youth appeal, "Unknown" was a rare No. 1 film that did most of its business among older crowds. According to Warner, 54 percent of the movie's audience was 50 and over and 89 percent was 25 and over.

The 58-year-old Neeson has had action roles before but found unexpected success as an all-out action hero with "Taken," a $100 million hit.

"He's the new man. He's stepped up to the plate. Put him in the right role and he's every man's action star," said Dan Fellman, head of distribution at Warner.

Two movies that opened the previous weekend held the next two spots in the top 10.

Disney's animated comedy, "Gnomeo & Juliet," was No. 3 with $19.4 million, finishing so closely to "I Am Number Four" that the two movies could change rankings when studios release final numbers Tuesday, after the long President's Day weekend. "Gnomeo & Juliet" raised its total to $50.4 million.

Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston's romance "Just Go With It," which had been No. 1 the previous weekend, fell to fourth place with $18.2 million. The Sony release lifted its total to $60.8 million.

The weekend's other new wide release, Martin Lawrence's comedy, "Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son," was No. 5 with $17 million. The 20th Century Fox sequel has Lawrence reprising his role as a federal agent who goes undercover as a hefty woman to crack a case.

Hollywood finally broke a long downturn in business during which revenues were off 14 straight weekends compared to last year's.

This weekend, receipts totaled $144 million, up 7.7 percent compared to the same period last year, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com.

But compared to President's Day weekend in 2010, which fell a week earlier, revenues this time were down 30 percent.

"This was certainly not a record President's Day weekend by any stretch, but it was a good weekend," said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian. "It was solid but not spectacular, but at least it broke the down streak."

Two top contenders at next Sunday's Academy Awards hit the $100 million mark.

The Weinstein Co. drama "The King's Speech," the best-picture front-runner, pulled in $6.6 million to lift its total to $103.3 million. Fox Searchlight's psychosexual thriller, "Black Swan," took in $1.3 million and raised its haul to $101.5 million.

Colin Firth of "The King's Speech" and Natalie Portman of "Black Swan" are considered the favorites for the lead-acting Oscar awards.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Tuesday.

1. "Unknown," $21.8 million.

2. "I Am Number Four," $19.5 million.

3. "Gnomeo & Juliet," $19.4 million.

4. "Just Go With It," $18.2 million.

5. "Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son," $17 million.

6. "Justin Bieber: Never Say Never," $13.6 million.

7. "The King's Speech," $6.6 million.

8. "The Roommate," $4.1 million.

9. "The Eagle," $3.6 million.

10. "No Strings Attached," $3.1 million.

Matan a hombre por comer popcorn ruidosamente.

2011-02-21T21:14:00.004-04:00

Santiago - Si bien la película "Black Swan" contiene escenas bastante violentas, lo que ocurrió en un cine de Letonia sobrepasó la ficción de la película dirigida por Darren Aronofsky.

Un hombre fue asesinado en una sala de Riga, la capital del país, tras causar la molestia de otro espectador por comer el tradicional paquete de "popcorn' de forma demasiado ruidosa.

De acuerdo a "The Guardian", el victimario, un joven de 27 años, habría tenido una fuerte discusión con otro hombre de 43 años que se sentaba junto a él en el cine, acusándolo de hacer demasiado ruido en su consumo de "popcorn".

El incidente, ocurrido en una de las salas más importantes del país, se produjo cuando corrían los créditos finales de la película, momento en que el joven sacó una pistola -legalmente registrada- y le disparó a la víctima.

De inmediato otras personas presentes en la función llamaron a la policía, para luego descubrir que quien ejecutó el disparo era precisamente un graduado de la academia de policía, que además poseía un doctorado en derecho de la Universidad de Letonia. El joven esperó a las autoridades y no puso problemas para su arresto.

¡Diache! Háganle caso a los anuncios de Caribbean Cinemas.

The Craziest Japanese video ever!!!!!!

2011-02-16T15:46:00.002-04:00

And the most homoerotic too! This is NSFW! or kids!!!!

You cannot exaggerate Japan!

¡Feliz Día de San Valentin! Happy St. Valentine's Day!

2011-02-14T08:29:00.002-04:00

Y para todos ustedes...J.Geils Band con Love Stinks!

Man stabbed during an illegal cockfight...by the rooster!

2011-02-08T12:06:00.003-04:00

You can't make this stuff up.

A man attending an illegal cockfight in California died after being stabbed in the leg by one of the birds, officials have said.

The cock had a knife attached to its limb to take part in the gambling fight in Tulare County, central California.

Jose Luis Ochoa, 35, was declared dead in hospital where he arrived some two hours after being injured.

The coroner's report said he had suffered an accidental "sharp force injury" to his right calf.

It was not immediately clear if a delay in seeking medical attention was a factor in the death.

"I have never seen this type of incident," Sgt Martin King, who had worked in the sheriff's department for more than two decades, told the Bakersfield Californian on Sunday, when the incident happened.

Other dead roosters and materials suggesting cockfighting were found at the location, reports said, but no arrests were made.

Mr Ochoa, reportedly a regular participant in organized cockfights, had already been fined for owning or training an animal for fighting, according to court records cited by the newspaper.

Though cockfighting is illegal in the US, California is a popular destination state for people involved in the sport as raising the gamecocks, organizing matches and attending fights as a spectator are all classified as misdemeanors on the first offense, rather than more serious criminal offenses in the state.

I can see the coroner's report; Cause of Death - Cock.

Los mejores comerciales del Super Bowl 2011. (En mi humilde opinion.)

2011-02-07T15:55:00.002-04:00

El Super Bowl del 2011 ya es historia, y con el sus comerciales. Veamos alguno de los mejores de esta entrega.

Volkswagen- "The Force"

NFL - "Best Fans ever"

Bud Light - "Product Placement"

Pepsi Max - "Love hurts"

Doritos "Crash The Super Bowl Winner - Pug Attack!"

Ah, Green Bay le gano a Pittsburgh 31-25.

Nito Méndez, Cantante folklórico Puertorriqueño. 1941-2011

2011-02-05T17:16:00.004-04:00

El cantante de música romántica y folklórica Nito Méndez, quien popularizó "Tú eres la causante", falleció el viernes en su residencia en Moca, según confirmó hoy Carlos Westerband, director de prensa de la compañía Serval Records.

Juan Méndez Lorenzo, su verdadero nombre, murió a los 69 años de edad, víctima de un tumor cerebral.

Méndez Lorenzo, quien nació el 29 de agosto de 1941, era considerado uno de los grandes exponentes de los años ’50 y ’60, causando revuelo con números como "El Cristo Llorado" y "A cada Santo una vela".

"Siempre se comentaba en Puerto Rico que las navidades no eran navidades sin un tema de Nito Méndez", subrayó Westerband.

Los restos del artista se encuentran en capilla ardiente en la funeraria Moca Memorial, localizada frente al Coliseo de Moca.

El sepelio se efectuará el lunes a las 10:00 de la mañana, pero una hora antes habrá una misa en la funeraria.

A Nito le sobreviven su esposa, Luz Celenia Pérez ,y cuatro hijos, Luz Maraira, Silkia, Alba y Juan Antonio.

Aquí tienen uno de los grandes éxitos de Nito Méndez "Tu eres la causante (De las penas mías.)

Que descanse en Paz.

Enero termina con 110 asesinatos, el mes mas violento en la historía de Puerto Rico.

2011-02-01T06:10:00.004-04:00

¿Y qué pasara en Febrero?

Esperemos que menos asesinatos, aunque sea porque este mes solamente tiene 28 días.

Pero aquí las cosas no mejoran, solo empeoran.

¿Y el gobierno?

¡Muy bien, gracias!

¿Y la Policía?

No los molesten. Están muy ocupados defendiendo al país de los revoltosos de la Universidad y tocándole las tetas a las mujeres arrestadas que no pueden defenderse.
Porque los Universitarios van a destruir este país, no los tira drogas, sicarios, pillos y políticos corruptos que nos carcomen como un cáncer.

Ah Pues Bien.

Me uno a la condena de esta agresión sexual por parte de la Policía.

2011-01-31T16:08:00.003-04:00

El Proyecto Caribeño de Justicia y Paz que dirige Wanda Colón emitió un comunicado denunciando lo que a claras luces es una agresión sexual contra una de las estudiantes al ser arrestada por desobediencia civil el pasado jueves 27 de enero. Dice el Comunicado que:

Es inaceptable que un Gobierno que presume de defender la "Ley y el Orden", permita la tortura a jóvenes esposados a la espalda y la humillación del toqueteo contra las estudiantes detenidas, a la vista de todo el mundo haciendo alarde de su impunidad.

Exigimos al Gobernador, al Superintendente de la Policía, a la administración de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, así como a la Procuradora de las Mujeres, a la Comisión de Derechos Civiles, al Senado y a la Cámara de Representantes, que atiendan de inmediato esta crasa violación de derechos civiles y humanos. Que se investiguen y procesen a los agresores sexuales de la policía y de la Fuerza de Choque que manifiestan un comportamiento inmoral y abusivo. Así como las múltiples quejas contra los policías por hostigamiento sexual hacia las estudiantes dentro del campus de la Universidad de Puerto Rico.

Estas agresiones machistas contra las estudiantes promueven la violencia y le falta el respeto a todas las mujeres del País, por el mal ejemplo que dan los que se suponen protejan a la ciudadanía y respeten sus derechos civiles y humanos.

En la blogosfera boricua se había denunciado desde el primer momento por Carmen Enid Acevedo en su blog Pesquisa Boricua que luego retomó Elco Lao en un post en el suyo con la foto que es prueba de lo que se denuncia.

And the box office champion this week is...

2011-01-30T19:37:00.001-04:00

NEW YORK – The Anthony Hopkins horror film "The Rite" topped the box office on a weekend notable for the bump many Oscar-nominated films received, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The Warner Bros. flick earned $15 million from just under 3,000 theaters. The PG-13, "Exorcist"-influenced movie drew most of its audience from the older-than-25 demographic.

In its 10th week of release, the Weinstein Company's "The King's Speech" earned $11.1 million while adding nearly 900 screens.

Now with a cumulative box-office haul of $72.2 million, the story of King George VI's triumph over his stuttering affliction continues to build momentum as the Oscar favorite for best picture. It led with 12 Oscar nominations on Tuesday, and its director, Tom Hooper, won best director from the Directors Guild on Saturday.

Last week's top film, the Natalie Portman romantic comedy "No Strings Attached," from Paramount, slipped to second with $13.7 million.

The other debut this weekend, CBS Films' action film "The Mechanic," which stars Jason Statham and Ben Foster, took in $11.5 million, tied for third with Sony's updated superhero film "The Green Hornet."

Heavily marketed, "The Rite" sought a PG-13 rating less to attract younger audience members than "not to offend" older fans of the 73-year-old Hopkins, said Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros.

Fellman credited the film's success to Hopkins, who remains a draw for moviegoers, especially in scary films that recall his famous performance as Hannibal Lecter in 1991's "The Silence of the Lambs."

"The King's Speech" saw the biggest increase after Oscar nominations were announced Tuesday, jumping 41 percent from its performance last weekend.

The Coen brothers' Western "True Grit" was up four percent in its sixth week, bringing its total to $138 million. "The Fighter," in its eighth week, and Portman's "Black Swan," in its ninth week, had only slight drop-offs from the prior weekend.

Still, it was hard to ignore the rising tide of "The King's Speech," which has usurped David Fincher's "The Social Network" as prognosticators' pick to win best picture at the Academy Awards on Feb. 27. Its star, Colin Firth, is believed to be a shoo-in for best actor.

"If I was in Vegas, I'd slip a few bucks on it," said Fellman of "The King's Speech." (Warner Bros.'s dog in the fight is Christopher Nolan's "Inception," whose chances for best picture are considered slim.)

The Screen Actors Guild, whose members make up a large block of academy voters, was to hand out their awards Sunday night.

"The Oscar bump is in full effect," said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian.

But the box-office opportunity for Academy Awards favorites is available partially because of the lack of blockbuster dominance in the marketplace. The weekend was Hollywood's 12th down-weekend in a row, meaning total box office was below that of the corresponding weekend a year earlier.

Last year's high January totals were largely due to the enormous success of James Cameron's 3-D epic "Avatar," which went on to become the highest grossing film ever.

"`Avatar' is casting a long shadow, making our comparisons week after week very tough," said Dergarabedian. "It's an anomaly. ... The marketplace is kind of doing what it's supposed to be doing."

Dergarabedian says the streak of down-weekends is likely to continue, possibly passing the 2005 record of 18 consecutive down-weekends.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. "The Rite," $15 million.

2. "No Strings Attached," $13.7 million.

3. "The Green Hornet," $11.5 million.

(tie) "The Mechanic, $11.5 million.

5. "The King's Speech," $11.1 million.

6. "True Grit," $7.6 million.

7. "The Dilemma," $5.5 million.

8. "Black Swan," $5.1 million.

9. "The Fighter," $4.1 million.

10. "Yogi Bear," $3.2 million.

In Memoriam...

2011-01-27T23:09:00.004-04:00

Los astronautas siempre han sido mis héroes. Ellos personifican el espíritu de descubrimiento del ser humano. Pero esta aventura ha costado vidas humanas. Aquí recordamos los astronautas que han perdido la vida por el sueño de la conquista del espacio.

APOLLO 1 (APOLLO/SATURN 204) - 27 DE ENERO DE 1967

VIRGIL "GUS" GRISSOM
EDWARD H. WHITE
ROGER B. CHAFFEE

TRANSBORDADOR ESPACIAL CHALLENGER (STS 51-L) 28 DE ENERO DE 1986

RICHARD "DICK" SCOBEE
MICHAEL J. SMITH
RONALD "RON" McNAIR
ELLISON S. ONIZUKA
SHARON CHRISTA McAULIFFE
DR. GREG JARVIS
JUDY RESNIK

TRANSBORDADOR ESPACIAL COLUMBIA (STS 107) 1RO DE FEBRERO DEL 2003

RICK D. HUSBAND
WILLIAM C McCOOL
DAVID M. BROWN
DR. KALPANA CHAWLA
MICHAEL P. ANDERSON
LAUREL B. CLARK
ILAN RAMON

Que en paz descansen.

Some 80's videos. Just beacuse...

2011-01-27T06:05:00.002-04:00

Cold morning, depressing news.

What's better than some music?

So here's some videos. Enjoy!

WARNING! Some of them are weird!

Las nominaciones para los Oscares han sido anunciadas.

2011-01-25T10:37:00.001-04:00

Ya han sido anunciadas las nominaciones para los premios de la Academia de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas (Los Oscares). Aquí la lista oficial de nominados.

MEJOR PELÍCULA
* Black Swan (Fox Searchlight) A Protozoa and Phoenix Pictures Production
Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver and Scott Franklin, Producers
* The Fighter (Paramount) A Relativity Media Production
David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Mark Wahlberg, Producers
* Inception (Warner Bros.) A Warner Bros. UK Services Production
Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, Producers)
* The Kids Are All Right (Focus Features) An Antidote Films, Mandalay Vision and Gilbert Films Production
Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte and Celine Rattray, Producers
* The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company) A See-Saw Films and Bedlam Production
Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, Producers
* 127 Hours (Fox Searchlight) An Hours Production
Christian Colson, Danny Boyle and John Smithson, Producers
* The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing) A Columbia Pictures Production
Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca and Ceán Chaffin, Producers
* Toy Story 3 (Walt Disney) A Pixar Production
Darla K. Anderson, Producer
* True Grit (Paramount) A Paramount Pictures Production
Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
* Winter's Bone (Roadside Attractions) A Winter's Bone Production
Anne Rosellini and Alix Madigan-Yorkin, Producers

MEJOR ACTOR PRINCIPAL

Javier Bardem in "Biutiful" (Roadside Attractions)
Jeff Bridges in "True Grit" (Paramount)
Jesse Eisenberg in "The Social Network" (Sony Pictures Releasing)
Colin Firth in "The King's Speech" (The Weinstein Company)
James Franco in "127 Hours" (Fox Searchlight)

MEJOR ACTOR SECUNDARIO

Christian Bale in "The Fighter" (Paramount)
John Hawkes in "Winter's Bone" (Roadside Attractions)
Jeremy Renner in "The Town" (Warner Bros.)
Mark Ruffalo in "The Kids Are All Right" (Focus Features)
Geoffrey Rush in "The King's Speech" (The Weinstein Company)

MEJOR ACTRIZ PRINCIPAL

Annette Bening in "The Kids Are All Right" (Focus Features)
Nicole Kidman in "Rabbit Hole" (Lionsgate)
Jennifer Lawrence in "Winter's Bone" (Roadside Attractions)
Natalie Portman in "Black Swan" (Fox Searchlight)
Michelle Williams in "Blue Valentine" (The Weinstein Company)

MEJOR ACTRIZ SECUNDARIA

Amy Adams in "The Fighter" (Paramount)
Helena Bonham Carter in "The King's Speech" (The Weinstein Company)
Melissa Leo in "The Fighter" (Paramount)
Hailee Steinfeld in "True Grit" (Paramount)
Jacki Weaver in "Animal Kingdom" (Sony Pictures Classics)

MEJOR PELÍCULA ANIMADA

How to Train Your Dragon (Paramount) Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois
The Illusionist (Sony Pictures Classics) Sylvain Chomet
Toy Story 3 (Walt Disney) Lee Unkrich

MEJOR DIRECCIÓN DE ARTE

Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney), Robert Stromberg (Production Design), Karen O'Hara (Set Decoration)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (Warner Bros.), Stuart Craig (Production Design), Stephenie McMillan (Set Decoration)
Inception (Warner Bros.), Guy Hendrix Dyas (Production Design), Larry Dias and Doug Mowat (Set Decoration)/span>
The King's Speech (Paramount), Eve Stewart (Production Design), Judy Farr (Set Decoration)
True Grit (Paramount), Jess Gonchor (Production Design), Nancy Haigh (Set Decoration)

MEJOR CINEMATOGRAFÍA

Black Swan (Fox Searchlight) Matthew Libatique
Inception (Warner Bros.) Wally Pfister
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company) Danny Cohen
The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing) Jeff Cronenweth
True Grit (Paramount) Roger Deakins

MEJOR DISEÑO DE VESTUARIO

Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney) Colleen Atwood
I Am Love (Magnolia Pictures) Antonella Cannarozzi
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company) Jenny Beavan
The Tempest (Miramax) Sandy Powell
True Grit (Paramount) Mary Zophres

MEJOR DIRECTOR

Black Swan (Fox Searchlight), Darren Aronofsky
The Fighter (Paramount), David O. Russell
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company), Tom Hooper
The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing), David Fincher
True Grit (Paramount), Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

MEJOR DOCUMENTAL (Largometraje)

Exit through the Gift Shop (Producers Distribution Agency) Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz A Paranoid Pictures Production
Gasland Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic A Gasland Production
Inside Job (Sony Pictures Classics) Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs A Representational Pictures Production
Restrepo (National Geographic Entertainment) Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger An Outpost Films Production
Waste Land Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley (Arthouse Films) An Almega Projects Production

MEJOR DOCUMENTAL (Cortometraje)

Killing in the Name- Nominees to be determined A Moxie Firecracker Films Production
Poster Girl -Nominees to be determined A Portrayal Films Production
Strangers No More- Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon A Simon & Goodman Picture Company Production
Sun Come Up -Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger A Sun Come Up Production
The Warriors of Qiugang- Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon A Thomas Lennon Films Production

MEJOR MONTAJE FILMICO

Black Swan (Fox Searchlight) Andrew Weisblum
The Fighter Paramount Pamela Martin
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company) Tariq Anwar
127 Hours (Fox Searchlight) Jon Harris
The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing) Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter

MEJOR PELICULA EXTRANJERA

Biutiful- Mexico
Dogtooth- Greece
In a Better World- Denmark
Incendies- Canada
Outside the Law (Hors-la-loi)- Algeria

MEJOR MAQUILLAJE

The Way Back (Newmarket Films in association with Wrekin Hill Entertainment and Image Entertainment) Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng
The Wolfman (Universal) Rick Baker and Dave Elsey

MEJOR PARTITURA MUSICAL ORIGINAL

How to Train Your Dragon (Paramount) John Powell
Inception (Warner Bros.) Hans Zimmer
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company) Alexandre Desplat
127 Hours (Fox Searchlight) A.R. Rahman
The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing) Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

MEJOR CANCION ORIGINAL

Coming Home from Country Strong (Sony Pictures Releasing (Screen Gems)) Music and Lyric by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey
I See the Light from Tangled (Walt Disney) Music by Alan Menken Lyric by Glenn Slater
If I Rise from 127 Hours (Fox Searchlight) Music by A.R. Rahman Lyric by Dido and Rollo Armstrong
We Belong Together from Toy Story 3 (Walt Disney) Music and Lyric by Randy Newman

MEJOR CORTOMETRAJE ANIMADO

Day & Night (Walt Disney) A Pixar Animation Studios Production Teddy Newton
The Gruffalo A Magic Light Pictures Production Jakob Schuh and Max Lang
Let's Pollute A Geefwee Boedoe Production Geefwee Boedoe
The Lost Thing (Nick Batzias for Madman Entertainment) A Passion Pictures Australia Production Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann
Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary) A Sacrebleu Production Bastien Dubois

MEJOR CORTOMETRAJE

The Confession (National Film and Television School) A National Film and Television School Production Tanel Toom
The Crush (Network Ireland Television) A Purdy Pictures Production Michael Creagh
God of Love A Luke Matheny Production Luke Matheny
Na Wewe (Premium Films) A CUT! Production Ivan Goldschmidt
Wish 143 A Swing and Shift Films/Union Pictures Production Ian Barnes and Sama

MEJOR MONTAJE DE SONIDO

Inception (Warner Bros.) Richard King
Toy Story 3 (Walt Disney) Tom Myers and Michael Silvers
Tron: Legacy (Walt Disney) Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague
True Grit (Paramount) Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey
Unstoppable (20th Century Fox) Mark P. Stoeckinger

MEJOR MEZCLA DE SONIDO

Inception (Warner Bros.) Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company) Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley
Salt (Sony Pictures Releasing) Jeffrey J. Haboush, Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan and William Sarokin
The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing) Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten
True Grit (Paramount) Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F. K

MEJORES EFECTOS ESPECIALES

Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney) Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (Warner Bros.) Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi
Hereafter (Warner Bros.) Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski and Joe Farrell
Inception (Warner Bros.) Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb
Iron Man 2 (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment, Distributed by Paramount) Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick

MEJOR GUION ADAPTADO

127 Hours (Fox Searchlight), Screenplay by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing), Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
Toy Story 3 (Walt Disney), Screenplay by Michael Arndt. Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
True Grit (Paramount), Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Winter's Bone (Roadside Attractions), Adapted for the screen by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini

MEJOR GUION ORIGINAL

Another Year (Sony Pictures Classics), Written by Mike Leigh
The Fighter (Paramount), Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson. Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson
Inception (Warner Bros.), Written by Christopher Nolan
The Kids Are All Right (Focus Features), Written by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company), Screenplay by David Seidler

Los Oscares se transmitiran el Domingo 27 de Febrero a las 9pm - Hora de Puerto Rico.

"Twilight", lidera las nominaciones de "Los Razzies", los anti-Oscares.

2011-01-25T06:07:00.003-04:00

Las películas The Twilight Saga: Eclipse y The Last Airbender son las favoritas para la 31ra edición de los premios Razzies, considerados los “anti-Oscar”.

Esas dos producciones empataron con nueve candidaturas en unos galardones que destacan lo más negativo del año cinematográfico y que otorga anualmente la fundación Golden Raspberry Award, que publicó ayer la lista de nominados.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse y The Last Airbender disputan el dudoso honor de ser nombrado el peor filme de 2010 junto con The Bounty Hunter, Vampires Suck y Sex and the City 2.

Los protagonistas de Twilight, Taylor Lautner y Robert Pattinson, obtuvieron sendas menciones en la categoría de peor actor, lo mismo que Gerard Butler (The Bounty Hunter), Ashton Kutcher (Killers, Valentine’s Day) y Jack Black (Gulliver’s Travels).

Kristen Stewart (Twilight), fue nominada a peor actriz, lo mismo que Jennifer Aniston (The Bounty Hunter, The Switch), Megan Fox (Jonah Hex), Miley Cyrus (The Last Song), y el reparto femenino de Sex and the City 2 con Sarah Jessica Parker a la cabeza.

M. Night Shyamalan fue candidato por partida doble, por peor director y peor guión de The Last Airbender.

Los Razzie estrenaron una categoría para destacar los peores efectos de 3D, un premio al que optan las películas Cats & Dogs 2: Revenge of Kitty Galore, Clash of the Titans, The Last Airbender, Nutcracker 3D y Saw 3-D.

Jack LaLanne - Fitness Guru, Juicer spokeperson. 1914-2011

2011-01-24T00:39:00.004-04:00

(CNN) -- American fitness guru Jack LaLanne died Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, California, according to his long-time agent, Rick Hersh. He was 96.

The cause, said Hersh, was respiratory failure due to pneumonia. LaLanne had been ill for the past week. His wife, Elaine, was at his side, along with his family and friends, Hersh said. No funeral arrangements were announced, but his agent said plans were being made.

LaLanne spent decades talking about the healthful benefits of exercise and fitness. He opened his own health spa in California in 1936, years before the fitness craze swept the United States. LaLanne even designed the world's first leg-extension machine, along with several other pieces of fitness equipment now standard in the fitness industry.

He was born in San Francisco on September 26, 1914. A self-confessed sugar- and junk-food addict as a child, he went on to study bodybuilding and weight-lifting by the time he was in his late teens.

From the 1950s through the 1980s, LaLanne performed multiple feats of strength and endurance. His first such stunt was an underwater swim the length of the Golden Gate Bridge, loaded with 140 pounds of equipment, in 1954. He went on to stage many attention-getting events, including completing over a thousand pushups in a little over 20 minutes, and towing 65 boats filled with thousands of pounds of wood pulp in Japan.

LaLanne had his own workout program, "The Jack LaLanne Show." First broadcast nationally in 1959, the show went on to run for three decades.

In his later years, he was easily recognized because of late-night infomercials on on the benefits of juicing.

He also made many appearances on CNN's "Larry King Live" and was a friend of the talk show host. "There was no one like Jack LaLanne," King said Sunday night. "He would go on forever ... a true guru. I guess Charles Atlas from the old comic books would be the predecessor for Jack LaLanne."

But it wasn't simply LaLanne's physical prowess that impressed King. "Elderly people were encouraged by him because he just kept on going," King said, adding that modern fitness celebrities owe a debt of gratitude to the original impresario of exercise.

LaLanne's wife of 51 years released a statement on her husband's passing: "I have not only lost my husband and a great American icon, but the best friend and most loving partner anyone could ever hope for," Elaine said.

Fotos del evento "Rueda como Susan Soltero" en el campo del Morro.

2011-01-23T18:37:00.003-04:00

Lo prometido es deuda. Aquí están las fotos del evento "Rueda como Susan". Que se se diviertan.

And the box office champion this week is...

2011-01-23T16:59:00.002-04:00

LOS ANGELES – Audiences weren't afraid of committing to "No Strings Attached," making it the No. 1 movie at the box office in its opening weekend.

The romantic comedy from Paramount Pictures earned an estimated $20.3 million, according to studio estimates released Sunday.

Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman star as friends who try to maintain a purely sexual relationship with each other, even as they find they're falling in love. The strong supporting cast includes Greta Gerwig, Mindy Kaling, Lake Bell and Kevin Kline.

Last week's No. 1 movie, Columbia Pictures' action comedy "The Green Hornet," dropped to second place with $18.1 million. It has now made $63.4 million total. Seth Rogen stars as the title playboy-turned-superhero, based on the 1930s radio show, with Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou as his sidekick, Kato.

Much of the success of "No Strings Attached" could be attributed to the pairing of director Ivan Reitman and Montecito Pictures, which brought the movie in at a budget of just $25 million, said Don Harris, Paramount's executive vice president of distribution.

He thought audiences were drawn to the chemistry between the co-stars: "Natalie Portman couldn't be any hotter, and I think this is the kind of movie Ashton Kutcher had hoped to make and be in during his career. They go well together."

Portman just won a Golden Globe award for her portrayal of a ballerina gone mad in "Black Swan," the weekend's sixth-highest grossing film, and for which she's likely to receive an Academy Award nomination Tuesday. She recently announced she's expecting a baby with her fiance, Benjamin Millepied, who choreographed "Black Swan" and has a cameo in it.

Part of the allure of "No Strings Attached" also comes from the humor, which Harris said was a little edgier than expected in a romantic comedy.

"This was always intended to be an R," he said. "That's why I think these two were interested in being in the movie."

"No Strings Attached" was marketed as the perfect date movie, with its slogan: "Can sex friends stay best friends?", said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian.

"It's a so-called 'chick flick' because of the subject matter, but it had appeal for both men and women with the whole idea of being 'friends with benefits,'" Dergarabedian said. "For it to do $20 million is fairly impressive, considering it's rated R and January's not a hotbed of huge grosses, unless you're 'Avatar' and you're holding over."

It was the 11th weekend in a row that was down from the same time the previous year, when James Cameron's behemoth "Avatar" was still dominating from its debut at the end of 2009.

While Dergarabedian expected 2011 could be a record year at the box office, with total grosses surpassing $11 billion for the first time ever, "the huge year hasn't kicked in yet."

"I don't see much light at the end of the tunnel until March, when 'The Adjustment Bureau' and other movies open," he said, referring to the upcoming thriller starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. "We could be looking at a pretty sizable down streak."

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. "No Strings Attached," $20.3 million.

2. "The Green Hornet," $18.1 million.

3. "The Dilemma," $9.7 million.

4. "The King's Speech," $9.2 million.

5. "True Grit," $8 million.

6. "Black Swan," $6.2 million.

7. "The Fighter," $4.5 million.

8. "Little Fockers," $4.4 million.

9. "Yogi Bear," $4.1 million.

10. "Tron: Legacy," $3.7 million.

A rodar como Susan Soltero en el Morro hoy!

2011-01-23T11:18:00.004-04:00

Para algunos quizás sea una ridícula, pero para los que la conocen bien, simplemente es Susan. Y es que la periodista Susan Soltero siempre ha sido una mujer que se ha proyectado en pantalla muy carismática y con un alto sentido del humor. ¿Quién no ha gozado con sus ocurrencias?

No es raro verla haciendo de las suyas en pleno reportaje y en directo, así es Susan, muy espontánea y real. En días recientes, la periodista de Univision ha estado en boca de todos, y no es para menos, es que ha causado sensación la manera como Soltero rodó con micrófono en mano, Morro abajo cuando en plena entrevista le picaron unas hormigas.

No es que sean raras las locuras de esta comunicadora, pero, en esta ocasión, el público quedó tan “afectado” que el vídeo se ha paseado por toda la Internet causando sensación. Tanto así que este próximo domingo, en honor a ella, se llevará a cabo una actividad en El Morro llamada Rueda como Susan organizada en Facebook por Alvin Alozuldo Negrón, joven de 23 años,

“Esto surge como un vacilón, sólo por eso. Yo no puedo creer que una periodista haga eso. Diablo, yo no sé, pero vamos a rodar todo el mundo por ahí para abajo. Vamos a vacilar un montón”, expresó Alozuldo, natural de San Juan.

Alozuldo Negrón quedó anonadado cuando empezó a recibir respuestas de todas las personas que apoyarían su evento, pero de la misma forma es bien consciente que lo que es una actividad para divertirse podría tornarse en una desgracia si no se toman las medidas pertinentes.

“Yo sé que podrían ocurrir cosas negativas o algún accidente, por eso quiero que la gente llegue allí para poderles hablar y decirles que deben estar pendientes a que no haya alguna piedra o jeringuilla en el terreno”.

El joven confiesa que en sus años de infancia llegó a rodar por El Morro en varias ocasiones, pero desea que en está ocasión la gente la pase bien y lleven sus cámaras para que se graben y lo suban a la Internet.

“Yo quiero organizar a la gente en fila. Deben ir vestidos con camisas amarillas para poder identificarlos. Quizás esto pudiera parecer algo de nenes chiquitos, pero quién sabe si podamos hacerlo todos los años”, aseguró.

El joven, quien trató de comunicarse con Soltero por medio de su Facebook y no obtuvo respuesta, espera que ésta pueda asistir al evento que es en honor suyo.

“Yo traté de comunicarme con ella, pero no recibí respuesta. A mí me gustaría hacer este evento todos los años. Esto es para que la gente se divierta y salgan por un momento de sus preocupaciones y se olviden de lo negativo. Vamos a reírnos”.

Por su parte, la periodista se comunicó con nosotros para dejarnos saber lo contenta que se siente de que el público la apoye siempre.

La actividad comienza a las 3pm en el campo del Morro. Voy con mi cámara a ver la actividad.

Pondré las fotos después.

Anne Hathaway to play "Catwoman" in new Batman movie!

2011-01-19T21:10:00.001-04:00

LOS ANGELES – Anne Hathaway has clawed her way into the latest Batman movie, nabbing the role of Selina Kyle and her alter ego, Catwoman.

Warner Bros. announced the casting Wednesday for Christopher Nolan's latest film in the superhero saga, "The Dark Knight Rises." Hathaway will appear opposite Christian Bale, who's returning as Bruce Wayne and Batman.

The studio also announced that Tom Hardy, whom Nolan directed in last year's "Inception," will play one of Batman's enemies, Bane. "The Dark Knight Rises" is slated for release on July 20, 2012.

Hathaway, an Oscar nominee for 2008's "Rachel Getting Married," will co-host the Academy Awards with James Franco on Feb. 27.

Rice, Beans and Razor Blades!

Indonesian man charged with blasphemy after atheist post.

California Woman offered sex for McNuggets!

Video-postal de Navidad de "Boricuas Beyond"

Individuo le arranca los ojos a tio por control remoto.

Mother shoots intruder to protect her newborn baby. 9-11 operator says it's okay.

Happy New Year!

Happy (or whatever) Festivus to all!

Reactions to Kim Jung Il's death!

Kim Jung Ill- North Korean Dictator. 1941-2011

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

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

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

Action Comics #1 sells for 2.16 Million Dollars!

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

More on the death of Gadhafi.

Moammar Gadhafi, Libya's strongman, 1942-2011

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

Ofelia Dacosta, Actriz. 1927-2011

Ukrainian man dies after winning eating contest!

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

¡Hombre le arranca pene a otro hombre durante pelea!

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

In Memoriam...

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

"ET is not a nice guy" warn scientists.

More on Hurricane Irene.

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

Happy Birthday, Fantastic Four!

Another example that Japan puts acid in their water supply!

Amy Winehouse's Death Wager Wins One an iPod Touch

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

"Time Travel Impossible!" Say Hong Kong scientists

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

The Sitting Dead Man.

Russia classfies beer as alcoholic!

Facundo Cabral, cantautor Latinoamericano. 1937-2011

Dr. Ricardo Alegria, Antropologo e Historiador Puertorriqueño. 1921-2011

Fool that predicted end of the world, moved to a nursing home.

Happy Fourth of July from Rice, Beans and Razor Blades

US. Government sues Apollo 14 astronaut over lunar camera!

¡Dayanara Torres, la nueva Maripily!

Gene Colan, Comic Book artist. 1926-2011

Ryan Dunn, actor and stuntman "Jackass" franchise. 1977-2011

Clarence Clemons, Sax player for Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band. 1942-2011

Obama no esta ni tres horas en la isla de Puerto Rico y se va con un Millón y medio de dolares. No dice nada nuevo.

Passenger strips naked on board a flight, makes pilot turn back the plane.

Chinese teen sells kidney to buy an iPad 2!

Jack Kevorkian, aka. Dr Death, assisted suicide advocate. 1928-2011

Schwarzenegger admits fathering child with staff member

Stephen Hawkings says the afterlife is a "fairy tale".

What other thing was found on Bin Laden's hard and flash drives? P.O.R.N.

Jackie Cooper, Actor "Skippy" and 70's Superman cuadrilogy. 1922-2011

Man found crucified in a quarry in South Korea!

Happy Star Wars Day everybody! May the Fourth be with you!

Osama Bin Laden, Terrorist, general nuisance. 1957-2011

Prohibición a tomar fotos de monumentos y parques publicos en San Juan, llena de ira al publico en general.

The new Dr. Kerworkian? 91 year old woman sells suicide kits over the Internet!

And the Box Office Champion this week is...

Weird Tuesday post, just for you!

Las mas taquilleras para el fin de semana de Abril 1-3, 2011

The world's worst music video ever?

Dame Elizabeth Taylor DBE-Actress "Cleopatra", "Who's Afraid of Virgina Wolf". 1932-2011

¡Hoy William Shatner cumple 80 años de edad!

No water, power or food in vast swaths of Japan. Death figures might go up as high as 10,000.

As daylight breaks, the devastation of Japan's earthquake/tsunami is revealed.

8.9 Earthquake hits in Japan. Giant tsunami wave hits Sendai, Japan.

Un año despues, el caso de Lorenzo González Cacho sigue sin solución.

Como digo una, digo la otra.

Un dia como hoy, El ataque al congreso de EE.UU. por parte de 4 Nacionalistas

¡No contaban con su astucia! Estudiantes de las Universidad de PR salen más listos que los Senadores del Capitolio.

The ful list of 2011 Oscar winners!

And the box office champion this week is...

Matan a hombre por comer popcorn ruidosamente.

The Craziest Japanese video ever!!!!!!

¡Feliz Día de San Valentin! Happy St. Valentine's Day!

Man stabbed during an illegal cockfight...by the rooster!

Los mejores comerciales del Super Bowl 2011. (En mi humilde opinion.)

Nito Méndez, Cantante folklórico Puertorriqueño. 1941-2011

Enero termina con 110 asesinatos, el mes mas violento en la historía de Puerto Rico.

Harry Morgan, Actor, "MASH", "Dragnet". 1915-2011