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Wednesday 29 February 2012

Great Pacific Garbage Patch - Where does all the plastic go?

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch will soon include debris from the Japanese tsunami, while one million to 2 million tons of lumber, construction material, refrigerators, TVs, fishing boats and other fragments from Japanese coastal towns make their way across the Pacific.

Apple reveal latest iPad 3 comes in March ipad 4 in october

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc plans to introduce its latest iPad tablet at an event in the first week in March, the website AllThingsD reported, citing unnamed sources.
The event will be held in San Francisco, likely at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, which is Apple's preferred site for product launches, the website said.
An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.
Apple has typically introduced the latest versions of its iPad in the first few months of the year. The current iPad 2 was introduced on March 2, 2011. The original iPad was introduced at the end of January 2010.
Apple's iPad dominates the nascent market for tablets even though deep-pocketed rivals are taking aim at the lucrative segment. Amazon.com Inc's Kindle Fire, which sells at half the cost of an iPad, has chipped away at the lower end of the tablet market.
Apple iPad tablet sales doubled in the December quarter to 15.43 million units from a year earlier.

Sunday 26 February 2012

Buy Or Make Your Own Kombucha Tea

Buy Or Make Your Own Kombucha Tea


It’s super simple to make your own kombucha tea, which is awesome because the store bought sort can be super expensive. When you make kombucha, you’re basically hopping up a colony of healthy bacteria with sugar and caffeine. All you need to whip up a batch of your own kombucha tea is sugar, black or green tea bags, and a SCOBY (more on the SCOBY below!).

Kombucha tea is full of health benefits. This fermented food has lots of “good” bacterial, sort of like you’d find in yogurt, which is excellent for digestion. It also contains lots of B vitamins and vitamin C!
Kombucha Tea Recipe

Ingredients

* 1 gallon container with a lid
* SCOBY – you can get one from a friend or make your own
* 4 bags of green or black tea – you can experiment with different teas, as long as the tea you use is caffeinated.
* 1 cup of sugar
* 1 gallon of water
* cheese cloth or a cloth napkin
* rubber band

Directions

1. Boil your water, then combine it with the tea bags and the sugar in your container. You want to steep your tea for at least half an hour. Once the tea is steeped, you’ll need to wait until the water gets down to room temperature, so you won’t damage your SCOBY!
2. Drop the SCOBY into the tea mixture, cover the container with cheese cloth, and rubber band it shut.
3. Stick the container in a cool, dark place, like the back of a cabinet, and let it steep for 10 days.
4. Once your kombucha is ready, transfer the SCOBY along with enough kombucha to cover it to a separate container, put the lid on your kombucha container and refrigerate it.

That’s it! You’re ready to enjoy tasty, homemade kombucha tea. Sometimes when you’re making kombucha your SCOBY will multiply. If it does, you can hook up a friend who wants to start brewing her own kombucha!

High gas prices

Increased global demand for oil and ongoing international tensions over Iran’s nuclear program and its decision this week to cut off oil supplies to European countries have continued to fuel, so to speak, an eight-week surge in oil and gas prices that shows no signs of slowing anytime soon. In fact, the Oil Price Information Service predicts gasoline prices could top out as early as late April this year, breaking previous price records last set in July 2008, though AAA Arizona spokeswoman Michelle Donati said she’s skeptical the state, or the nation at large, would be able to maintain prices at that level for very long.

30,000 year old plant brought back to life

The name of this re-born plant is ‘The Silene Stenophylla’. This plant was buried by some squirrels 30,000 years ago. It was buried in Siberian permafrost. After 30,000 years later, The Silene Stenophylla was brought back from Siberian permafrost by using seeds buried by squirrels. For this 30,000 years, this seeds have been held in suspended animation by the cold. Scientists refer this as ‘frozen gene pool’.
This is great breakthrough. Those seeds could have been vanished or damaged long ago but still they were absolutely fine held in the frozen wastes. The seeds were dug out of the fossilized burrows of Arctic ground squirrels that roamed the bleak treeless tundra near modern day Kolyma in Russia during the Ice Age. After the seeds had brought out, powerful microscopes detected, they were the fruits of Silene Stenophylla. Silene Stenophylla is a small herbaceous plant that displays petite white flowers when blooms.

These seeds were preserved at a depth of 125 feet (38 metres) at sub-zero temperatures. Radio-carbon dating analysis indicated the plants age between 31,500 and 32,100 years old. This report was published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers said, “Because the squirrels’ pantries hugged ice wedges and icy sediment, their cache was quickly frozen and preserved without defrosting.” Dr David Gilichinsky, of the Soil Cryology Laboratory in Moscow, who is a lead researcher said, “The sediments were from an area known geologically as the Late Pleistocene and had a temperature of minus seven degrees centigrade that had ‘never thawed’”.

Monday 20 February 2012

It's Washington's Birthday, not Presidents Day

Like George Washington, we cannot tell a lie, so we must share a brutal truth. This is not Presidents Day.
Nor is it a national holiday designed to honor Abraham Lincoln along with Washington.
On the federal calendar, at least, Monday is still Washington’s birthday.
In fact, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968 — which moved the observance of Washington’s birthday from Feb. 22 to the third Monday in February — does not name Lincoln at all. Nor does it mention Presidents Day, Presidents' Day or even President's Day
So how did we end up with Presidents Day?
Confusion might be the easiest answer. Though Lincoln’s birthday, Feb. 12, was never a federal holiday, it was celebrated in some jurisdictions. When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, many people surmised — incorrectly — that it was to jointly honor both the Father of His Country and the Great Emancipator.
Adding to the perception is the fact that Lincoln’s birthday is a holiday in some locales and that some jurisdictions do honor both presidents today. Toss in ads screaming “Presidents Day Sale!” and the confusion spreads.
The Monday Holiday Act took effect in 1971. Along with moving Washington’s birthday, it created three-day holidays for Memorial Day, which had been celebrated May 30, and Veterans Day, which had been observed on Nov. 11.
The legislation did not please all. According to a United Press International report from 1968, Rep. James A. Haley (D-Fla.) called it “one of the most ridiculous bills ever brought before Congress.”
In an editorial, the Washington Post harrumphed: “Probably there is something to be said for the addition of a Monday holiday occasionally to the Saturday-Sunday weekend. But why should history be distorted in the process?”
A search of Los Angeles Times archives turned up a story from January 1968 by pollster Louis Harris, who wrote that the Harris Survey found that Americans opposed the three-day holiday bill 64% to 31%. (The brief story did not say how many people were polled.)
Harris said the survey showed that federal holidays, including Memorial Day, Veterans Day and Washington’s Birthday, “all have special meaning in their own right and are not looked upon as merely ‘another day off.’” 
Harris predicted that with all the other issues roiling the country in the turbulent '60s — the Vietnam War, racial strife, cultural change — Congress would not risk messing with the holidays. Well, Congress risked it.
These days some observers of American culture say that the law did indeed transform days packed with meaning into days to shop, barbecue or watch "Twilight Zone" marathons on cable.
In the case of Washington and Lincoln, Presidents Day reflects “a lack of interest in the men themselves and the lessons they can teach us,” Matthew Dennis, a professor of history and environmental studies at the University of Oregon, said in an interview.
Dennis explored the origins and meanings of American holidays in the book “Red, White and Blue Letter Days: An American Calendar.” Dennis writes that the public's passion for Washington and Lincoln has diminished for various reasons: the passage of time, their overexposure, and the difficulty of relating them to problems of modern life, such as environmental pollution and the global economy. “Presidents’ Day did not precipitate such decline; it expresses it,” he writes.
Washington has many lessons for the current age, Dennis told The Times. Washington clearly was a good leader and charismatic, with an admirable combination of dignity and integrity.
In the current cynical age, Dennis said, there’s a tendency to tear down heroes. Critics will note that Washington owned slaves and they'll then attack his character and accomplishments overall. Dennis advises a more balanced approach when assessing heroes — acknowledge the faults but honor the qualities and actions that indeed merit praise.
As for “Washington’s Birthday,” about a decade ago some members of Congress tried to restore the name to its proper place in American discourse.
They introduced the “Washington-Lincoln Recognition Act of 2001,” which called on all federal officials and entities to refer to the day as Washington’s Birthday. It also called on the president to issue an annual proclamation recognizing the anniversary of Lincoln’s birth, and it urged Americans to observe the day with “appropriate ceremonies and activities.”

Gas prices could soar past $4 this spring

Georgians are already paying their highest-ever February prices -- $3.51 a gallon, on average  -- a number that could soar past $4.50 by summer, some analysts said.
"Typically February reflects some of the lowest averages of the year, and we’re already breaking records," said Jessica Brady, spokeswoman for the AAA Auto Club South.
A year ago, Georgians paid $3.08 per gallon.
The highest-ever average price for Georgia is $4.01, a record set in July 2008. In Atlanta, the highest was $4.11, set in September of the same year.
Gas prices generally start to climb around March or April, when refineries begin producing fuels formulated for summer use. Those mixes are more expensive to make than the winter formulas, said Phil Embry, a gas tax consultant with the Georgia Oilmen's Association.
That yearly bump has been compounded this year by the threat of an armed conflict between Israel and Iran, one of the world's largest fuel suppliers. If Iran is no longer supplying as much to Russia and Europe, Americans can expect increased demand for oil from other sources to impact their prices at home, he said.
Crude oil pries in Asia jumped to a nine-month high of close to $105 a barrel Monday after Iran announced that it had halted oil exports to Britain and France. The move was part of an escalating dispute over Iran's nuclear program.
"You’re going to be looking at probably $4 a gallon by springtime; probably $4.50 by summer," Embry said. "If they go to war it will get higher than that."
Phillip Young, of Villa Rica, is among those who will feel the greatest pinch from the price. Young commutes to Marietta for work each day, logging about 90 miles daily. His wife also works in Atlanta, he said.
The couple said they'd move to be closer to their jobs, but can't sell their home in this market. So Young did the next best thing -- he swapped his Chevy Avalanche in favor of a more mileage-friendly Nissan Murano. And when he switched jobs last year, giving up his company car in the process, he negotiated mileage reimbursement into his contract.
"I've seen it go up 60 cents a gallon since I started paying for fuel. It's terrible," he said, adding that with increasing costs, "We'll have to find something to trim back on."
Higher gas prices could dampen consumer spending and slow the recent improvement in the U.S. economy, some analysts said. A 25-cent jump in gasoline prices, if sustained over a year, would cost the economy about $35 billion, according to an Associated Press report. That's only 0.2 percent of the total U.S. economy, but economists say it's meaningful, especially at a time when economic growth is only so-so. The economy grew 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter, a rate considered modest following a recession.

Sunday 19 February 2012

Elizabeth Smart marries at Hawaii at Mormon temple

Elizabeth Smart married her fiance Saturday at a Mormon temple in Hawaii, several months ahead of scheduled plans for the nuptials after news of her engagement last month drew widespread media attention. A family spokesman said the Utah woman who was kidnapped at knifepoint at age 14 and held captive for nine months married Matthew Gilmour on Oahu’s North Shore.

This May 25, 2011 file photo shows Elizabeth Smart talking to the media in front of the Frank E. Moss Federal Courthouse in Salt Lake City. A family spokesman says the Utah woman who was kidnapped at knifepoint at age 14 and held captive for nine months married Matthew Gilmour on Saturday Feb. 18, 2012 in Oahu. The 24-year-old Smart is a senior at Brigham Young University. She met Gilmour, of Aberdeen, Scotland, while serving a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mission in France.
“Elizabeth’s desire was for what most women want — to celebrate her nuptials in a private wedding with family and close friends,” family spokesman Chris Thomas said in a statement. “She decided, about a week ago, the best way to avoid significant distraction was to change her wedding plans and to get married in an unscheduled ceremony outside of Utah.”
The 24-year-old Smart is a senior at Brigham Young University. She met Gilmour, of Aberdeen, Scotland, while doing Mormon missionary work in Paris.
The couple wed at the Laie Hawaii Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in front of a small group of family members, Thomas said. The group then celebrated at a private reception and luau.
Smart and Gilmour got engaged last month and initially made plans to wed this summer.
“The bride and groom were beaming as they left the LDS Temple,” he added, noting the couple planned to go on an extended honeymoon in an undisclosed location.
“We’re just thrilled that she’s married,” her father, Ed Smart, told The Salt Lake Tribune, calling the ceremony a “kind of a spur of a moment thing.”
Onetime itinerant street preacher Brian David Mitchell was convicted in 2010 of Smart’s 2002 kidnapping and sexual assault. He is serving a life prison sentence.
Since her rescue, Smart has become increasingly involved in advocacy work for crime victims, forming the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, aimed largely at protecting children from abuse through prevention and education.
“Her wedding further demonstrates it is possible to rise above challenging circumstances to lead a happy and productive life,” Thomas said. “Once Elizabeth returns from her honeymoon, she looks forward to continuing her child advocacy work.”
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Thursday 16 February 2012

new reporter dies in syria Mr. Shadid

Mr. Shadid, 43, had been reporting inside Syria for a week, gathering information on the Free Syrian Army and other armed elements of the resistance to the government of President Bashar al-Assad, whose military forces have been engaged in a harsh repression of the political opposition in a conflict that is now nearly a year old.
The Syrian government, which tightly controls foreign journalists’ activities in the country, had not been informed of his assignment by The Times.
The exact circumstances of Mr. Shadid’s death and his precise location inside Syria when it happened were not immediately clear.
But Mr. Hicks said that Mr. Shadid, who had asthma and had carried medication with him, began to show symptoms as both of them were preparing to leave Syria on Thursday, and the symptoms escalated into what became a fatal attack. Mr. Hicks telephoned his editors at The Times, and a few hours later he was able to take Mr. Shadid’s body into Turkey.
Jill Abramson, the executive editor, informed the newspaper’s staff Thursday evening in an e-mail. “Anthony died as he lived — determined to bear witness to the transformation sweeping the Middle East and to testify to the suffering of people caught between government oppression and opposition forces,” she wrote.
The assignment in Syria, which Mr. Shadid arranged through a network of smugglers, was fraught with dangers, not the least of which was discovery by the pro-government authorities in Syria. The journey into the country required both Mr. Shadid and Mr. Hicks to travel at night to a mountainous border area in Turkey adjoining Syria’s Idlib Province, where the demarcation line is a barbed-wire fence. Mr. Hicks said they squeezed through the fence’s lower portion by pulling the wires apart, and guides on horseback met them on the other side. It was on that first night, Mr. Hicks said, that Mr. Shadid suffered an initial bout of asthma, apparently set off by an allergy to the horses, but he recovered after resting.
On the way out a week later, however, Mr. Shadid suffered a more severe attack — again apparently set off by proximity to the horses of the guides, Mr. Hicks said, as they were walking toward the border. Short of breath, Mr. Shadid leaned against a rock with both hands.
“I stood next to him and asked if he was O.K., and then he collapsed,” Mr. Hicks said. “He was not conscious and his breathing was very faint and very shallow.” After a few minutes, he said, “I could see he was no longer breathing.”
Mr. Hicks said he administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation for 30 minutes but was unable to revive Mr. Shadid.

Sunday 12 February 2012

2012 Grammy Awards Winners List

The 54th Annual Grammy Awards are being handed out on Sunday in Los Angeles.
LL Cool J hosts the ceremony, starting at 8:00 p.m., although winners in many categories will be announced before the telecast begins.
Check out the FULL LIST of winners below!
 Best Dance Recording
Skillrex, “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites”
Best Dance and Electronica Album
Skillrex, Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites
Best Tradition Pop Vocal Album
Tony Bennett, Duets II
Best R&B Performance
Corinne Bailey Rae, “Is This Love”
Best Rap Song
Kanye West, feat. Rihanna, Fergie and Kid Cudi, “All Of The Lights”
Best Rap Album
Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Best New Age Album
Pat Metheny, What It’s All About
Best Short Form Music Video
Adele, “Rolling In The Deep”
Best Long Form Music Video
Foo Fighers, “Back And Forth”

Best Improvised Jazz Solo
Chick Corea, “500 Miles High”
Best Jazz Vocal Album
Terri Lyne Carrington & Various Artists, The Mosaic Project
Best Jazz Instrumental Album
Corea, Clarke & White, Forever
Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album
Christian McBride Big Band, The Good Feeling
Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical
Skrillex, “Cinema”
Best Gospel Album
Kirk Franklin, “Hello Fear”
Best Complication Soundtrack
“Boardwalk Empire: Volume 1″
Best Score Soundtrack
“The King’s Speech”
Best Song for Visual Media
“I See The Light” (from Tangled)
Engineered Album, Classical
Aldridge: Elmer Gantry

Producer of the Year, Classical
Judith Sherman

Orchestral Performance
Gustavo Dudamel, Conductor (Los Angeles Philharmonic), “Brahms: Symphony No. 4″

Opera Recording
John Adams Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; Metropolitan Opera Chorus, “Doctor Atomic”

Choral Performance
“Light and Gold,” Eric Whitacre, Conductor

Small Ensemble Performance
Rinde Eckert and Steven Mackey (Eighth Blackbird), “Lonely Motel,  Music From Slide,”

Classical Instrumental Solo
Giancarlo Guerrero, Christopher Lamb (Nashville Symphony), “Schwantner: Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra”

Classical Vocal Solo
Joyce Didonato, “Diva Divo”

Contemporary Classical Composition
Robert Aldridge and Herschel Garfein, “Elmer Gantry”
Spoken Word Album (Includes Poetry, Audio Books and Story Telling)
Betty White, If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won’t)

Musical Theater Album
The Book of Mormon
Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package
The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story

Album Notes
Hear Me Howling!: Blues, Ballads & Beyond As Recorded by the San Francisco Bay

Instrumental Composition
Béla Fleck & Howard Levy, Life In Eleven

Instrumental Arrangement
Gordon Goodwin, Rhapsody in Blue

Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)
Jorge Calandrelli, Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me)

Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music Performance
Le’andria Johnson, “Jesus”

Gospel Song
Kirk Franklin, “Hello Fear”
Gospel Album
Kirk Franklin, Hello Fear

Contemporary Christian Music Song
Laura Story, “Blessings

Contemporary Christian Music Album
Chris Tomlin, And If Our God Is for Us…

Latin Pop, Rock, or Urban Album
Maná, Drama Y Luz

Regional Mexican or Tejano Album
Pepe Aguilar, Bicentenario

Banda or Norteño Album
Los Tigres Del Norte, Los Tigres Del Norte and Friends

Tropical Latin Album
Cachao, The Last Mambo
Best Americana Album
Levon Helm, Ramble At The Ryman
Best Bluegrass Album
Alison Krauss & Union Station, Paper Airplane
Best Blues Album
Tedeschi Trucks Band, Revelator
Best Regional Roots Music Album
Rebirth Brass Band, Rebirth of New Orleans
Best Reggae Album
Stephen Marley, Revelation Pt 1: The Root Of Life
Best World Music Album
Tinariwen, Tassili
Best Children’s Album
Various Artists, All About Bullies… Big And Small
Best Comedy Album
Louis C.K., Hilarious
Best Recording Package
Caroline Robert (Arcade Fire), Scenes From The Suburbs
Best Boxed Or Special Limited Edition Package
Dave Bett & Michelle Holme (Bruce Springsteen), The Promise: The Darkness On The Edge Of Town Story
Best Historial Album
Paul McCartney, Band On The Run (Paul McCartney Archive Collection – Deluxe Edition)
Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical
Neal Cappellino & Mike Shipley, Brad Blackwood (Alison Krauss & Union Station), Paper Airplane
Best Surround Sound Album
Elliot Scheiner, Bob Ludwig, Bill Levenson & Elliot Scheiner (Derek & The Dominos), Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs (Super Deluxe Edition)
Best Egineered Album, Classical
Byeong-Joon Hwang & John Newton, Jesse Lewis (William Boggs, Keith Phares, Patricia Risley, Vale Rideout, Frank Kelley, Heather Buck, Florentine Opera Chorus & Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra) Aldridge: Elmer Gantry
Producer of the Year, Classical
Judith Sherman

Bobbi kristina Brown suffering anxiety after hearing news of mothers passing

Bobbi Kristina Brown, the only child of Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, seems to be taking her mother's death the hardest.
Beverly Hills Police told ABC News that an ambulance was called this morning to the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where Bobbi Kristina was staying with her mother, in response to a concern about her health. The 18-year-old was said to be suffering from anxiety.
According to a press release sent to ABC News, Bobbi Kristina was transported from the hotel at 10:26 a.m. local time to Cedars-Sinai Hospital and was "awake and alert" at the time.
A family source told ABCNews.com that she was being "treated for stress and anxiety." She has since been released.

It has been confirmed that 18-year old Bobbi Kristina Brown, only child of late singer Whitney Houston has been rushed to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles this morning at 10:28 AM, PST .
suffering from anxiety after hearing the shocking news of her mothers passing

Making matters worse, she was also denied to see the body of her mother upon arriving back at the Beverly Hilton hotel last night sending her into a rage according to eyewitnesses.
By Sunday afternoon, Brown was skipping his concert in Nashville to fly to Los Angeles to be with his daughter.

Saturday 11 February 2012

Whitney Houston dies - at Beverly Hilton Hotel


LOS ANGELES - Whitney Houston, who ruled as pop music's queen until her majestic voice and regal image were ravaged by drug use, erratic behavior and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown, has died. She was 48.
Houston's publicist, Kristen Foster, said Saturday that the singer had died, but the cause and the location of her death were unknown.


News of Houston's death came on the eve of music's biggest night — the Grammy Awards. It's a showcase where she once reigned, and her death was sure to case a heavy pall on Sunday's ceremony. Houston's longtime mentor Clive Davis was to hold his annual concert and dinner Saturday; it was unclear if it was going to go forward.
At her peak, Houston the golden girl of the music industry. From the middle 1980s to the late 1990s, she was one of the world's best-selling artists. She wowed audiences with effortless, powerful, and peerless vocals that were rooted in the black church but made palatable to the masses with a pop sheen.
Her success carried her beyond music to movies, where she starred in hits like "The Bodyguard" and "Waiting to Exhale."
She had the he perfect voice, and the perfect image: a gorgeous singer who had sex appeal but was never overtly sexual, who maintained perfect poise.
She influenced a generation of younger singers, from Christina Aguilera to Mariah Carey, who when she first came out sounded so much like Houston that many thought it was Houston.
But by the end of her career, Houston became a stunning cautionary tale of the toll of drug use. Her album sales plummeted and the hits stopped coming; her once serene image was shattered by a wild demeanor and bizarre public appearances. She confessed to abusing cocaine, marijuana and pills, and her once pristine voice became raspy and hoarse, unable to hit the high notes as she had during her prime.
"The biggest devil is me. I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy," Houston told ABC's Diane Sawyer in an infamous 2002 interview with then-husband Brown by her side.
It was a tragic fall for a superstar who was one of the top-selling artists in pop music history, with more than 55 million records sold in the United States alone.
She seemed to be born into greatness. She was the daughter of gospel singer Cissy Houston, the cousin of 1960s pop diva Dionne Warwick and the goddaughter of Aretha Franklin.
Houston first started singing in the church as a child. In her teens, she sang backup for Chaka Khan, Jermaine Jackson and others, in addition to modeling. It was around that time when music mogul Clive Davis first heard Houston perform.
"The time that I first saw her singing in her mother's act in a club ... it was such a stunning impact," Davis told "Good Morning America."
"To hear this young girl breathe such fire into this song. I mean, it really sent the proverbial tingles up my spine," he added.
Before long, the rest of the country would feel it, too. Houston made her album debut in 1985 with "Whitney Houston," which sold millions and spawned hit after hit. "Saving All My Love for You" brought her her first Grammy, for best female pop vocal. "How Will I Know," "You Give Good Love" and "The Greatest Love of All" also became hit singles.
Another multiplatinum album, "Whitney," came out in 1987 and included hits like "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody."
The New York Times wrote that Houston "possesses one of her generation's most powerful gospel-trained voices, but she eschews many of the churchier mannerisms of her forerunners. She uses ornamental gospel phrasing only sparingly, and instead of projecting an earthy, tearful vulnerability, communicates cool self-assurance and strength, building pop ballads to majestic, sustained peaks of intensity."
Her decision not to follow the more soulful inflections of singers like Franklin drew criticism by some who saw her as playing down her black roots to go pop and reach white audiences. The criticism would become a constant refrain through much of her career. She was even booed during the "Soul Train Awards" in 1989.
"Sometimes it gets down to that, you know?" she told Katie Couric in 1996. "You're not black enough for them. I don't know. You're not R&B enough. You're very pop. The white audience has taken you away from them."
Some saw her 1992 marriage to former New Edition member and soul crooner Bobby Brown as an attempt to refute those critics. It seemed to be an odd union; she was seen as pop's pure princess while he had a bad-boy image, and already had children of his own. (The couple had a daughter, Bobbi Kristina, in 1993.) Over the years, he would be arrested several times, on charges ranging from DUI to failure to pay child support.
But Houston said their true personalities were not as far apart as people may have believed.
"When you love, you love. I mean, do you stop loving somebody because you have different images? You know, Bobby and I basically come from the same place," she told Rolling Stone in 1993. "You see somebody, and you deal with their image, that's their image. It's part of them, it's not the whole picture. I am not always in a sequined gown. I am nobody's angel. I can get down and dirty. I can get raunchy."
It would take several years, however, for the public to see that side of Houston. Her moving 1991 rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" at the Super Bowl, amid the first Gulf War, set a new standard and once again reaffirmed her as America's sweetheart.
In 1992, she became a star in the acting world with "The Bodyguard." Despite mixed reviews, the story of a singer (Houston) guarded by a former Secret Service agent (Kevin Costner) was an international success.
It also gave her perhaps her most memorable hit: a searing, stunning rendition of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You," which sat atop the charts for weeks. It was Grammy's record of the year and best female pop vocal, and the "Bodyguard" soundtrack was named album of the year.
She returned to the big screen in 1995-96 with "Waiting to Exhale" and "The Preacher's Wife." Both spawned soundtrack albums, and another hit studio album, "My Love Is Your Love," in 1998, brought her a Grammy for best female R&B vocal for the cut "It's Not Right But It's Okay."
But during these career and personal highs, Houston was using drugs. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2010, she said by the time "The Preacher's Wife" was released, "(doing drugs) was an everyday thing. ... I would do my work, but after I did my work, for a whole year or two, it was every day. ... I wasn't happy by that point in time. I was losing myself."
In the interview, Houston blamed her rocky marriage to Brown, which included a charge of domestic abuse against Brown in 1993. They divorced in 2007.
Houston would go to rehab twice before she would declare herself drug-free to Winfrey in 2010. But in the interim, there were missed concert dates, a stop at an airport due to drugs, and public meltdowns.
She was so startlingly thin during a 2001 Michael Jackson tribute concert that rumors spread she had died the next day. Her crude behavior and jittery appearance on Brown's reality show, "Being Bobby Brown," was an example of her sad decline. Her Sawyer interview, where she declared "crack is whack," was often parodied. She dropped out of the spotlight for a few years.

Thursday 2 February 2012

punxsutawney phil the weather prognosticating groundhog day 2012

Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his lair to “see” his shadow on Thursday, in the process predicting six more weeks of winter.
But, at this rate, that might not be so bad.
The groundhog made his “prediction” on Gobbler’s Knob, a tiny hill in the town for which he’s named about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
Temperatures were near freezing when he emerged at dawn — unseasonably warm — and were forecast to climb into the mid-40s in a winter that’s brought little snow and only a few notably cold days to much of the East.

Thursday’s ceremony is largely that: Phil’s prediction is determined ahead of time by the Inner Circle, a group who dons top hats and tuxedos and decides in advance what the groundhog will predict.
Organizers expected 15,000 to 18,000 people to witness the furry creature’s prognostication ceremony just before 7:30 a.m. EST.
This year’s crowd was warmer than most. The average early-morning temperature usually hovers around 17 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett was among the spectators this year. Those who couldn’t make it to Gobbler’s Knob could follow the groundhog on Twitter and Facebook, or watch a webcast of the event on his website.
“What started as a small gathering in 1887 has now evolved into tens of thousands of visitors from around the nation and even the world coming to Punxsutawney to participate in this time-honored Groundhog Day tradition,” Corbett said.
The Groundhog Day celebration is rooted in a German superstition that says if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on Feb. 2, the Christian holiday of Candlemas, winter will last another six weeks. If no shadow is seen, legend says, spring will come early.
Phil has now seen his shadow 100 times and hasn’t seen it just 16 times since 1886, according to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club’s Inner Circle, which runs the event. There are no records for the remaining years.
The tradition attained a large following with the 1993 Bill Murray comedy “Groundhog Day,” in which a weatherman covering the event must relive the day over and over again. Before the movie came out, Phil was lucky to have an audience of 2,500, said Mike Johnston, vice president of the Inner Circle.
And while the group has records of Phil’s predictions dating back to 1886, what it doesn’t have is a tally of whether Phil was right.
Johnston said the reason is simple: “He’s never been wrong.” Phil is “incapable of error,” he said, because the groundhog smartly avoids being site-specific in his prognostications.
If Phil predicts six more weeks of winter, said Johnston, “I guarantee you someone’s going to have six more weeks of winter.”

deadly soccer riot Egyptians blame military for

CAIRO (AP) — A narrow stadium exit turned into a death trap. Crowds of Egyptian soccer fans fleeing supporters of the opposing team armed with knives, clubs and stones rushed into the corridor, only to be crushed against a locked gate, their rivals attacking from behind, survivors and witnesses said.
The result was the world's worst soccer violence in 15 years, with 74 people crushed, suffocated or stabbed to death.
Many Egyptians, from the public to lawmakers, on Thursday blamed the police and the country's ruling military for failing to prevent the rioting the night before in the Mediterranean coastal city of Port Said.
Prime Minister Kamal el-Ganzouri, in an emergency parliamentary session, announced he has dissolved the Egyptian Soccer Federation's board and referred its members for questioning by prosecutors about the violence. He also said the governor of Port Said province and the area's police chief have resigned.
Several lawmakers said the lapse was intentional, aimed at stoking the country's insecurity since the Feb. 11 fall of former leader Hosni Mubarak.
Some accused the police of allowing the riot to happen out of vengeance against the ultras — die-hard soccer fans who are bitter enemies of the police and have been among the most aggressive protesters over the past year.
The ultras, backers of Al-Ahly club, were at the forefront of violent protests a year ago that led to the collapse of the police force, and in more recent months, they have clashed with soldiers during rallies demanding an end to military rule.
In an emergency session, Parliament Speaker Saad el-Katatni, of the Muslim Brotherhood, accused security authorities of hesitating to act, putting "the revolution in danger."
"This is a complete crime," said Abbas Mekhimar, head of parliament's defense committee. "This is part of the scenario of fueling chaos against Egypt."
Protests and a march on the Interior Ministry were planned Thursday against the police force over the violence. In the morning, dozens of angry protesters sealed off Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the 18-day uprising that toppled Mubarak, while others blocked the street in front of the nearby state TV building in preparation for the rallies.
The riot at the stadium in Port Said erupted when fans of the local team, Al-Masry, stormed the field following a rare 3-1 win against Al-Ahly, one of Egypt's most popular clubs.
Al-Masry supporters, armed with knives, sticks and stones, chased Al-Ahly players and fans, who ran toward the exits and up the stands to escape, according to witnesses.
Lines of riot police in the stadium largely did nothing to intervene, witnesses said. At one point, the stadium lights went out, plunging it into darkness. At the time, the TV sportscaster announcing the match said authorities shut them off to "calm the situation."
"We were surprised the police let them in that easy. The numbers were huge," said Ahmed Ghaffar, one of the visiting Al-Ahly fans at the stadium.
As many Al-Ahly fans crowded into the corridor leading out of the stadium, they were trapped, with the doors at the other end locked.
"Layers of people" were "stuck over each other because there was no other exit," Ghaffar tweeted on Thursday. "We were between two choices, either death coming from behind us, or the closed doors."
He said Al-Masry fans beat Al-Ahly fans who fell on the floor.
Mahmoud Ibrahim, 22, a survivor who on Thursday was at a Cairo morgue where two of his dead friends were taken, said that after the lights went out, people were left "to kill each other."
He ran into the corridor. "We went down trying to get out and everyone was pushing. Under me was more than three people and I am being pushed. Everyone is pushing trying to breathe," he said.
Al-Masry fan, Mohammed Mosleh, who posted his account on Facebook, said he saw "thugs with weapons" on his side in the stadium where police presence was meager.
"This was unbelievable," he said. "We were supposed to be celebrating, not killing people. We defeated Al-Ahly, something I saw twice only in my lifetime. All the people were happy. Nobody expected this."
Health ministry official Hisham Sheha said the deaths were caused by stabs by sharp tools, brain hemorrhage and concussions. "All those carried to hospitals were already dead bodies," Sheha told stat TV.
TV footage showed Al-Ahly players rushing for their locker room as fistfights broke out among the hundreds of fans swarming on to the field. Some men had to rescue a manager from the losing team as he was being beaten. Riot police stood by, appearing overwhelmed.
The Interior Ministry said 74 people died, including one police officer, and 248 were injured, 14 of them police. A local health official initially said 1,000 people were injured and it was not clear how severely. Security forces arrested 47 people for involvement in the violence, the statement said.
Essam el-Erian, a Brotherhood lawmaker, said the military and police were complicit in the violence, accusing them of trying to show that emergency regulations giving security forces wide-ranging powers must be maintained.
"This tragedy is a result of intentional reluctance by the military and the police," he said.
A number of political parties called on the Egyptian parliament to pass no-confidence vote against the government of el-Ganzouri, a Mubarak-era politician appointed by the much-criticized ruling military council.
Osama Yassin, head of sports committee in parliament, said the parliament holds the interior minister, who is in charge of police, responsible for the violence. He demanded ouster of the prosecutor general Prosecutor-General Mahmoud Abdel-Meguid to guarantee "transparent investigations."
The Ultras, meanwhile, accused the military council and former members of Mubarak's regime of retaliating against them for their role in the uprising last year against Mubarak and in anti-military protests since.
"They want to punish us and execute us for our participation in the revolution against suppression," the Ultras of Al-Ahly group said in a statement. It vowed a "new war in defense of our revolution."
The ultras have long been bitter enemies of the police. Their anti-police songs, peppered with curses, have quickly become viral and an expression of the hatred many Egyptians feel toward security forces that were accused of much of the abuse that was widespread under Mubarak's regime.
The stadium riot came on the one-year anniversary of one of the most violent days of the 18-day anti-Mubarak uprising. On Feb. 2 last year, in what became known as the "Battle of the Camel," Mubarak loyalists on camels and horses attacked protesters at Tahrir Square, leading to nearly two days of battles with rocks, firebombs and slabs of concrete.

Groundhog day 2012 will there be 6 more weeks of winter?

At 7:25 a.m. this morning, amidst mostly cloudy skies, and temperatures in the low 30s, Groundhog Phil saw his shadow in the little town of Punxsutawney, Pa.
According to folklore, Phil’s sighting of his own shadow means there will be 6 more weeks of winter. Had Phil not seen his shadow, it would have meant “there will be an early spring.”
If Phil’s forecast is right, it signals a dramatic reversal from the mild weather pattern affecting much of the country. Many parts of the central and eastern U.S. have seen temperatures 20 to 30 degrees above normal in recent days. On February 1, just 19% of the Lower 48 had snow cover compared to 52% at this time last year.
Historic odds heavily favor a forecast for winter to last deep into March. Since the Groundhog’s first prediction in 1887, Phil has seen his shadow 99 times and failed to spot it just 16 times. There are 9 missing years in the record, but Phil has issued an forecast without exception.
But just how accurate is the prognosticator of prognosticators?



This year, ring in Groundhog Day with your kids with these fun snacks, books, crafts and more.
To you it may be a five-second blip in the news, but for your kids, Groundhog Day (Feb. 2) is a fascinating cultural event.
Mark the occasion with these fun and festive ways to celebrate Groundhog Day with your kids.

Don Cornelius Commits Suicide 'Soul Train'

Cornelius, who became an icon defining black culture in America for decades, died at his California home Wednesday of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was 75.

CHICAGO — When this proud city welcomed back hometown hero Don Cornelius last year, it wasn’t just Chicago-style — it was “Soul Train” style, complete with Afro wigs, bell bottoms and hip-shaking in the streets.
The 40th anniversary celebrations for “Soul Train” traced a remarkable journey for a former Chicago police officer who got his start in broadcasting when he pulled over a radio executive in a traffic stop and then had to build up his pioneering show one step at a time.



'Soul Train' Creator Don Cornelius Commits Suicide

'Soul Train' Creator Don Cornelius Commits Suicide

Don Cornelius, creator of "Soul Train" died on Wednesday after shooting himself in the head, officials in Los Angeles said.

Police discovered the body of Don Cornelius, 75, at his house after responding to reports of shots fired in the wealthy, hillside area of Los Angeles called Sherman Oaks where he lived. The community is home to many celebrities and entertainment executives.

Soul Train Creator Don Cornelius Commits Suicide

"The death was reported as a suicide, a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head," said Los Angeles coroner's Assistant Chief Ed Winter.

Cornelius launched "Soul Train" in the early 1970s as a local dance show from Chicago. It relocated to Los Angeles the following year and became part of pop culture history by boosting the careers of young artists such as the Jackson Five, and older artists such as James Brown who were trying to tap into a younger audience.

As the smooth-talking host with a deep voice, Don Cornelius gave to hip youths of the '70s what "American Bandstand" creator Dick Clark offered to viewers in the early days of rock 'n' roll.

As the popularity of "Soul Train" grew, the show crossed over into mainstream TV and R&B artists broadened their fan base. "Soul Train" aired until 2006, making it the longest running U.S. series in first-run syndication.