The New Craigslist Killer

Craigslist may have cleaned up its sex ads, but that isn’t keeping criminals off the site: In a particularly gruesome murder tale, Heather Snively and her in utero baby were murdered after looking for baby clothes on Craigslist. Korena Elaine Roberts stands accused of killing Snively, then extracting her baby and going to the hospital to pass it off as her own. Doctors quickly saw that Roberts had not given birth, and the baby died shortly thereafter. Snively, 21, had moved to Oregon just weeks ago in order to be with the father of her baby.

SOCIAL NETWORKING…GOOD FOR KEEPING IN CONSTANT CONTACT WITH THOSE THAT MATTER MOST…

What are Twitter and MySpace and Facebook good for? Apparently, to get a mob together to swarm all over Broad Street in Philadelphia, carjacking and attacking people. Just good, wholesome criminal activity. Nice to see the kids getting away from the computers and cell phones for some outdoor activity.

“It’s kind of a new dynamic that’s growing, with large groups of juveniles using the social networks to get out the word,” said Lt. Frank Vanore, the department’s spokesman. “We’re not going to tolerate it.”

A group of teens on foot hijacked a taxi at 12th and South Street after getting into a confrontation with the driver and drove the vehicle into a tree at 12th and Fitzwater. Two passengers were injured slightly, police said.

Other youths pulled a woman and her passenger from a Jeep and assaulted them and stole the driver’s purse. The driver is a paralegal from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, Vanore said.

Marauding teens, most between the ages of 14 and 17, also vandalized a Sunoco convenience store at Broad and Catharine Streets, he said.

Several juveniles were charged with violating the midnight curfew, Vanore said, but none were arrested for the more serious incidents.

Manscape? Do you?

As far as body-shaving advice goes, it may be the best a man can get – and it certainly has a lot of people talking.

A new series of Gillette videos, which are featured on the company’s Web site as well as on YouTube, show a cartoon man demonstrating how to shave different parts of the male anatomy, including the groin.

“Taking care of the hair down there certainly has its benefits,” the narrator explains in the video. “When there’s no underbrush, the tree looks taller.”

Michael Norton, a Gillette spokesman, said the grooming videos, which also offer tips for shaving the head, chest, back and armpits, were devised after consulting men.

“Guys told us they want to learn how to shave body parts other than the face,” he said. “We think it’s become a much more mainstream aspect of grooming.”

The ladies seem to agree.

“Women appreciate a well-groomed man,” said Amy Bailey, owner of The Beauty Mark, a Beacon Hill cosmetics boutique.

LAX = Worst airport in US

Los Angeles International Airport took it in the chin this week from an architecture magazine that ranked the airport the worst in the country.

According to Dwell magazine, “LAX suffers from a half century of insufficient and clumsy expansion. It is best described as a collection of drab terminals.”

The magazine also slammed the airport because there’s “nothing interesting to do to kill time during a layover” and the “terminals are painfully overcrowded and seating is limited.”

On the positive side, they did appreciate the Theme Building, calling it “LAX’s only architectural positive.”

LAX officials shrugged off the criticism, telling City News Service that the ranking didn’t surprise them since the facilities are nearly 50 years old.

“We are not surprised by the low ratings that we consistently receive for facilities that are nearing 50 years. For this reason, it is important that we proceed with our multibillion-dollar modernization program that aims to restore LAX’s competitiveness and restores LAX’s reputation as a customer-oriented airport,” said airport spokeswoman Nancy Castles.

I want some bugs!

When it comes to eating insects, 3-year-old Josephine Crawford has a reptilian role model.

“Elliot at my school likes meal worms, too,” Josephine said, referring to the Thackston School’s bearded dragon, as she pushed one of the crunchy bugs into her mouth.

Josephine, her mother and grandmother all came out to a presentation titled “Science Cafe: Edible Bugs” at Ijams Nature Center on Tuesday evening.

Jennifer Moore, the education director at Ijams, promoted entomophagy (en-toe-moff-a-gee), or bug eating, as a more sustainable alternative to eating larger animals like cows and pigs.

According to Moore, insects provide more protein per square acre of land used to raise them than do the larger animals, and some scientists believe that in a few decades, wide-scale big-animal meat consumption may no longer be feasible.

– Don’t eat brightly colored bugs, which may be poisonous or bad-tasting.

– Don’t eat any venomous insects unless the venomous parts, like stingers, are removed first.

– Don’t eat raw bugs – cook them to kill any harmful parasites that may be on them.

– Last but not least: Don’t eat bugs that feed on dung.

Cheap beer

Leave it to a couple of college boys to come up with a website that will tells Southern Californians where at any given moment they can find the 10 cheapest places to score beer in their hood.

Thriftybeer. com launched last week. Just go to the site and click on your city. It will bring up a list of the the 10 stores in your area where you can find the cheapest beer that day. Click on a store and it will show you the 10 cheapest beers for sale.

David Echanique, who is 25 and heading into his junior year at Cal State Fullerton, said his buddy Brandon McKenney, an Orange Coast College sophomore who is 23, came up with the idea for the site last year, but just for Fullerton (their hometown).

“I saw the bigger picture,” Echanique says. “We should do all of Southern California,” he told his friend.

The guys are, oddly enough, fans of Coors Lite. But they say they will take whatever is cheap. In the past, they have had to do like countless college kids before them: drive around looking for beer on sale. “We’d look online and wish there was a central database for this.”

David said they spent $2,000 on the site and researched 1,500 stores. “It was quite a task.” They vow to update the site daily for sales.

Baby mama?

On a spring day in 1953, two babies were born at Pioneer Memorial Hospital in the Eastern Oregon town of Heppner — DeeAnn Angell of Fossil and Kay Rene Reed of Condon. The girls would grow up, get married, have kids of their own and become grandparents. Then, last summer, Kay Rene’s brother, Bobby Reed, got a call from an 86-year-old woman who had known his mother and had also lived next door to the Angell family in Fossil.

“She said she had something she had to get off her chest,” Bobby Reed said in an interview with the East Oregonian newspaper of Pendleton, which reported the story Sunday.

Bobby met the woman at the nursing home where she lives. The woman said Marjorie Angell insisted back in 1953 that she had been given the wrong baby after the nurses returned from bathing them. Her concerns, however, were brushed off.

Then the old lady showed Bobby an old photo.

“It looked like Kay Rene in about 7th or 8th grade,” Bobby said.

But it was DeeAnn Angell’s sister.

“Kay Rene is not a Reed,” the woman insisted. “DeeAnn is a Reed.”

Bobby, obviously stunned, didn’t know what to do with the information. He didn’t want to hurt anyone; he didn’t want anything to change.

He finally decided to tell his two oldest sisters, and one of them told Kay Rene.

With both sets of parents dead, the Reed and Angell siblings compared notes and family stories, learning that rumors of a mix-up had been around for years. In early February, DeeAnn got a call from her sister, Juanita. “Do you remember those rumors of being switched at birth?” Juanita asked, and went on to provide the update.

I want chicken

Kentucky Fried Chicken, the fast-food chain, pulled the plug (at least temporarily) on its chicken giveaway.

The response to a free two-piece grilled chicken meal promotion, announced Tuesday on The Oprah Winfrey Show, was so overwhelming that many KFC restaurants nationwide quickly ran out of chicken and started turning customers away.

“The lines of customers wanting to redeem their coupon have been out the door and around the block, so we’re unable to redeem customer coupons at this time,” KFC President Roger Eaton said.

Instead KFC will issue customers a rain check to be used at a later date for a free grilled chicken meal. That meal will include the bonus of a free Pepsi drink.

Disney Parks stops scanning for topless riders on Space Mountain, Tower of Terror and other

Disney says it will no longer scan riders on Splash Mountain and three other rides for guests who feel the need to flash their breasts for souvenir photos.

Disney confirmed Tuesday that it has reassigned employees at Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure who watched for breast-baring riders because “actual inappropriate behaviors by guests are rare.”

Disneyland spokeswoman Suzi Brown says the changes took effect Sunday at Splash Mountain, Tower of Terror, Space Mountain and California Screamin’.

Riders are photographed on the attractions and can then buy souvenir copies. Some have exposed their breasts in hopes that the picture would make it onto a photo preview screen at the ride’s exit.

Whats your guilty pleasure?

Men don’t have “guilty pleasures.” We own, nay, celebrate what’s bad for us. Our obsessions are points of pride, not shame.

You’ll never see a guy wolf down a small mountain of waffles with a side of bacon and squeal, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I ate everything! I’m so ashamed.”

We will shamelessly sit in a nest of pizza crusts playing video games for endless hours. Unabashed tears will crawl out of the corners of eyes when the hometown team chokes at the last minute. Beer will be quaffed, their caloric potency mocked. These are the things that make life worth living.

Feeling bad about feeling good, even if the good is short-term, is for puritan chumps. If I could, I’d go out everywhere in my sweat pants.

Of course, overindulging has its prices. Sloth and gluttony are venial sins for a reason. But the whole idea of “guilty pleasures” is something that is lady-specific. Women feel shame over even tiny little hedonistic infractions.

Lets elbow bump

Northeastern University plans to ask its roughly 5,000 graduates to forgo the traditional handshake as they collect their diplomas during Friday’s commencement ceremonies to prevent the spread of swine flu.

University officials made the decision this morning in consultation with Boston’s Department of Public Health and will alert graduates via e-mail this afternoon.

“There are no confirmed cases of swine flu that is in any way connected to Northeastern. We are acting out of an abundance of caution,” said Michael Armini, a university spokesman.

The university is also requesting graduates and family members to stay home if they are experiencing flu-like symptoms.

How does yours compare?

6 craziest phone bill charges
1.    Football fan charges $27,000 for streaming the Beats battle the Detroit Loins
A Chicago Bear’s fan to the core, Wayne Burdick of Schaumburg, Ill., had to cheer on his team — even while on a Caribbean cruise.
So using his laptop, a wireless card and Slingbox device that let him watch the game via an Internet connection, he tuned into watch the Bears battle the Detroit Lions.
2.    A teenager racked up a $4,800 bill in text messaging
Gregg Christoffersen called it a “heart attack in an envelope.”
When he saw the bill his 13-year-old daughter Dena had racked up by text messaging her friends, the Cheyenne, Wyoming, man was stunned.
In just one month, she sent and received enough text messages to justify (at least to the cell phone company) a nearly $4,800 bill.
3.    A man in Canada was charged $83,7000 for using the internet instead of his home computer
In 2007, a 22-year-old Canadian oil-field worker faced an astronomical $83,700 (C$85,000) cell phone bill, according to Reuters.
Piotr Staniaszek, who lived in rural Alberta, made headlines when his father brought his story to the media.
4.    Class action law suit over a $5,000 due to data usage
In March, an Oklahoma woman filed a lawsuit against AT&T and RadioShack after a new netbook landed her with a $5,000 bill for exceeding her monthly data cap.
For $99.99, Billie Parks purchased the lighter and cheaper laptop cousin from RadioShack in December, according to the popular technology blog Ars Technica. With her new Acer Aspire One she signed a two-year contract for AT&T’s mobile broadband service. For about $60 a month, the company offers 3G Internet access on the go.
In her complaint, Parks said that though she was warned by RadioShack that her first monthly bill might be a bit higher than expected, she was unaware that Internet data usage over 5GB would result in “astronomical additional charges running into the thousands of dollars,” Ars Technica said.
5.    The world record: a 218 Trillion dollar phone bill
Whenever you start to sweat the sight of your phone bill, think of this.
In April 2006, a Malaysian man received a $218 trillion phone bill and was ordered to fork over the money within 10 days or face prosecution, The Associated Press reported.
After his father died earlier that year, Yahaya Wahad said he disconnected his late father’s phone line. But Telekom Malaysia, the country’s largest telecommunications provider, later sent him a 806,400,000,000,000.01-ringgit (U.S. $218 trillion) bill.
The company said the bill was for recent phone calls and said if he didn’t pay up within 10 days he’d face legal proceedings.

Ford are being parents

Distractions, speed and failure to use seat belts are the main causes of fatal car crashes involving teens.
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That’s why Ford Motor Co. has created the MyKey feature for its autos starting with the 2010 Ford Focus. The new technology was demonstrated Tuesday morning at Sterling Regional High School in Somerdale.

“It will become standard across the line including Ford, Lincoln and Mercury,” said Violet Marley of Stratford, a MyKey technology representative for Ford. “I think the features are gentle reminders and not a controlling feature.”

Two keys are used — one for the parents and one for the teen driver, which is called the MyKey. The “admin” key, used by parents, is used to set limits. The speed is limited to 80 mph, the stereo volume is maxed out at 44 percent and a reminder chime can be set at 45, 55 or 65 mph.

“If the teen drives away without a seatbelt latched it will keep dinging and the radio will be muted until they are seat-belted,” Marley said. “There’s also a MyKey traction control that keeps kids from doing doughnuts and provides better traction.”

An average of 6,000 teens nationwide die annually and, since 2001, New Jersey alone has lost more than 400 teenagers to fatal car crashes.

Too perfect!

This takes brainiac to a whole new level

http://tinyurl.com/d95f9o

Sean Hannity Wants to Be Waterboarded….*cricket*

From FOX News Channel yesterday…italics are mine…

GRODIN: You’re for torture?

HANNITY: I am for enhanced interrogation. (oh ok, so if we call it something different and PC sounding, it’s ok)

GRODIN: You don’t believe it’s torture. Have you ever been waterboarded?

HANNITY: No, but Ollie North has. (and you brought up Ollie North for what reason?)

GRODIN: Would you consent to be waterboarded? We can waterboard you?

HANNITY: Sure. (sure? Like sure like ‘sure I’ll do a hot dog eating contest…sure I’ll try rock climbing…’)

GRODIN: Are you busy on Sunday?

HANNITY: I’ll do it for charity. I’ll let you do it. I’ll do it for the troops’ families. (you’ll be tortured for charity to benefit the troops? Somehow I don’t think the troops will appreciate that)

Are you addicted?

A new study concludes that children can become addicted to playing video games, with some skimping on homework, lying about how much they play and struggling, without success, when they try to cut back.

In what is described as the first nationally representative study in the United States on the subject, researcher Douglas Gentile of Iowa State University found that 8.5 percent of American youths ages 8 to 18 who play video games show multiple signs of behavioral addiction.

“For some kids, they play in such a way that it becomes out of balance. And they’re damaging other areas of their lives, and it isn’t just one area, it’s many areas,” said Gentile, a psychologist and assistant professor whose study was posted online today by the journal Psychological Science.

To get at gaming addiction, Gentile adapted diagnostic criteria for pathological gambling into a series of questions about video game use. The questions became part of a 2007 Harris Poll survey of 1,178 children and teens. Gamers were deemed “pathological” if they reported at least six of the 11 symptoms.

Symptoms included spending increasing amounts of time and money on video games to feel the same level of excitement; irritability or restlessness when play is scaled back; escaping problems through play; skipping chores or homework to spend more time at the controller; lying about the length of playing time; and stealing games or money to play more.

Four times as many boys as girls were considered “pathological gamers.”

Gentile said he started his research with doubts about the possibility of addiction. “I thought this was parental histrionics — that kids are playing a lot and parents don’t understand the motivation, so they label it an addiction,” he said. “It turns out that I was wrong.”

What he found, he said, was that children considered pathological gamers did worse in school, had trouble paying attention in class and reported feeling “addicted.” They were twice as likely to report attention-deficit disorder or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

The study found that 88 percent of the nation’s children ages 8 to 18 play video games. With 45 million children of that age in the country, the study would suggest that more than 3 million are addicted “or at least have problems of the magnitude” that call for help, Gentile said.

“It’s not that the games are bad,” said Gentile, who is also director of research at the nonprofit National Institute on Media and the Family. “It’s not that the games are addictive. It’s that some kids use them in a way that is out of balance and harms various other areas of their lives.”

The study said that the findings leave many questions unresolved. The study could not say, for example, whether pathological game-playing caused poor school performance or whether “children who have trouble at school seek to play games to experience feelings of mastery.”

Gentile also said the research did not indicate what the warning signs of addiction might be or how to best treat such a problem.

Alright Fine, We’ll Talk About the Tea Parties

I didn’t want to give these idiots any relevancy, but since the nutjobs are sprouting up all over the place, I guess I’ll take some time to respond, however inane their arguments are.

Ok so I think the best way to do this is to just rattle off some facts (and some opinions) in list format for ease of reading:

Here’s are 10 questions for all you people at these so-called T.E.A. (Taxed Enough Already…cute isn’t it?) Parties ranting and raving about wasteful spending and deficits–

1. Why all of a sudden are  you upset about paying taxes?
2. Why all of a sudden are you upset about government spending?
3. Why all of a sudden are you upset about the bailout and the stimulus package?
4. Where have you been over the past eight years?
5. Where have you been while GWB and his Republican administration racked up the largest deficit in our country’s history?
6. Where were you when GWB and his administration would not include Iraq in the normal budget and would only pay for it with “emergency spending money” so he could hide the billions that were being funneled to private contractors (aka his friends) over in the Gulf to rebuild and secure a nation that we had just irresponsibly attacked for no good reason?
7. Where were  you when GWB passed the first stimulus package?
8. Where were you when Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt (i.e. more than equaled the entire debt burden produced by the previous 200 years of American history?
9. Where were you when GWB doubled it after Clinton eliminated it?
10. Where were you when Reagan (because of his insane cut taxes/raise spending economics) was forced to raise taxes TWICE to avert a fiscal catastrophe?!

I don’t mind if  you are worried about government spending. I will respect your views as much as their are LOGICAL and VIABLE with facts, history, and reality. But you Republicans and Libertarians and Fox News nuts at these tea parties don’t have facts, history, or reality on your side.

You protest when there is a Democrat in the Oval Office and a Democratic Congress. But you’re silent when there is a Republican President and/or Congress. You are currently a party that is living in a heaping pile of lies, revisionist history, and alternate reality.

You’re not protesting spending. You have rallied behind deficit spending for the past 30 years. You are protesting the fact that you lost the election in embarassing form. You are protesting because you are sore losers and you’re not willing to allow the “other side” even 100 days to try to right this enormous ship that has been diverted off track by your leaders.

Rather than taking to the streets to allegedly protest wasteful spending (by, ironically, wastefully spending on millions of tea bags), why don’t you all take some time to READ FACTS and LEARN HISTORY and deal with REALITY. Just for a change. Just to see where it leads you. You might upset your other ignorant, fire-breathing friends and family members, but you might just feel a little better inside yourselves.

Would you wear it?

Miguel Caballero makes bulletproof everything. He believes that what distinguishes his products is his simultaneous ability to cater to an individual’s fashion sense, security needs and lifestyle. There is no item too unorthodox for Caballero: He has tailored anti-ballistic underwear for a Colombian prison guard and a bullet-resistant blanket. The clothes work like this: Workers at sewing machines weave a nylon-polyester blend into flexible sheets to absorb the impact of a bullet. The more sheets layered into a garment, the more protection the garment offers.

No money for you!

Winning the Tennessee Lottery jackpot is a long shot, but a new bill, HB0818, would make it impossible for certain people.

“If you can’t afford the bare necessities and if you rely on the government for the bare necessities of life, you shouldn’t be taking what money you do have and blowing it on the lottery,” says Rep. Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville).

Campfield’s proposal is a hot topic among regular lottery players.

The bill states:

“This bill prohibits issuance of lottery prizes in the amount of $600 or more to any person who receives state or federal economic or medical assistance due to indigency.”

Arrie Chamberlain says the measure is unfair. She plays the lottery every week, is on the government’s food stamps program and has a job.

“If I work and go out and earn a living, why can’t I spend the money? Everybody else gets to. Just because I make less money and have more obligations doesn’t mean the state can tell me how to spend my money,” Chamberlain says.

But others don’t see it that way. Instead, they view it as a waste of taxpayers’ money.

“The government is giving you food stamps to survive on. If you need them and qualify for them, you shouldn’t use it for something else. I’m talking about lottery tickets, beer,” says lottery player David Borden.

Rep. Campfield is already taking heat for his proposal, but he expected it to spark some debate.

“I got emails from people that said you are destroying my chance for retirement. Well, if you are betting your retirement on a lottery ticket, that is not a good plan,” Campfield says.

If the bill passes, net lottery proceeds would decrease by more than $6 million per year. Campfield plans to introduce the bill this legislative session.

Source

I hope this is true!!!!

The police officer who pulled out his gun and threatened an NFL player with jail instead of allowing him inside a hospital where his mother-in-law was dying resigned Wednesday.

Officer Robert Powell had been placed on paid leave pending an investigation of the March 18 incident. “I made this decision in the hope that my resignation will allow the Dallas Police Department, my fellow officers and the citizens of Dallas to better reflect on this experience, learn from the mistakes made, and move forward,” Powell said in a statement issued through his attorneys. He had stopped Houston Texans running back Ryan Moats‘ SUV outside Baylor Regional Medical Center in suburban Plano after the vehicle rolled through a red light. The officer pulled out his gun and threatened Moats with jail as the player and his family pleaded to be allowed to go inside the hospital. Powell continued writing Moats a ticket and lecturing him even after a fellow officer confirmed that Moats’ mother-in-law was dying. Jonetta Collinsworth, 45, died of breast cancer before Powell allowed Moats to go inside the hospital. Powell’s resignation was first reported by Dallas-Fort Worth television station KTVT. He later issued an apology, and Moats said he would accept it. “I still hope to speak with the Moats family to personally express my deep regret, sympathy, and to apologize for my poor judgment and unprofessional conduct,” he said in the Wednesday statement. He also said he wanted to apologize to his fellow officers. A call to Dallas police was not immediately returned Wednesday. Dallas police Chief David Kunkle previously apologized to the family and said Powell acted inappropriately. He also lauded Moats’ restraint, noting that he did not try to seek special treatment by identifying himself as an NFL player. Moats, 26, explained that he had waited until there was no traffic before continuing through the red light. When Powell asked for proof of insurance, Moats grew more agitated and told the officer to go find it. According to video from a dashboard camera inside the officer’s vehicle, Moats’ wife, Tamishia Moats, and another woman disregarded Powell’s order to get back inside their vehicle, and they rushed into the hospital. After Powell yelled at Tamishia Moats to stay in the SUV, she said, “Excuse me, my mom is dying — do you understand?”

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