Archive for May, 2010
For love of the game
By Rick Reilly
ESPN.com
Marshall softball players Antanai Coleman, left, and Taylor Stigger try on catching gear with the help of Roncalli junior varsity coach Jeff Traylor.
We live in a world where Peyton Manning walks off the Super Bowl field without shaking anybody’s hand. Where Tiger Woods leaves the Masters without a word of thanks to the fans or congratulations to the winner. Where NFL lineman Albert Haynesworth kicks a man’s helmetless head without a thought.
So if you think sportsmanship is toast, this next story is an all-you-can-eat buffet to a starving man.
It happened at a junior varsity girls’ softball game in Indianapolis this spring. After an inning and a half, Roncalli was womanhandling inner-city Marshall Community. Marshall pitchers had already walked nine Roncalli batters. The game could’ve been 50-0 with no problem.
Full Article: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=5218228
25 Questions To Ask Anyone Who Is Delusional Enough To Believe That This Economic Recovery Is Real
So the following are 25 questions to ask anyone who is delusional enough to believe that this economic recovery is real….
#1) In what universe is an economy with 39.68 million Americans on food stamps considered to be a healthy, recovering economy? In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts that enrollment in the food stamp program will exceed 43 million Americans in 2011. Is a rapidly increasing number of Americans on food stamps a good sign or a bad sign for the economy?
#2) According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings were reported on 367,056 properties in the month of March. This was an increase of almost 19 percent from February, and it was the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its report back in January 2005. So can you please explain again how the U.S. real estate market is getting better?
#3) The Mortgage Bankers Association just announced that more than 10 percent of U.S. homeowners with a mortgage had missed at least one payment in the January-March period. That was a record high and up from 9.1 percent a year ago. Do you think that is an indication that the U.S. housing market is recovering?
Interpol issues global alert for stolen art
Paris, France (CNN) – Interpol has issued a global alert for a Picasso painting and four other works stolen from a Paris art museum — a sign that authorities believe thieves may have taken the paintings outside the country.
“These extraordinary paintings by these great masters are so recognizable that they will be difficult to sell in any market,” Jean-Michel Louboutin, Interpol’s executive director of police services, said in a statement released by the agency Saturday.
Prosecutors estimate that the oil paintings nabbed in a heist at the Modern Art Museum in Paris early Thursday morning could be worth 500 million euros ($617 million). In addition to Picasso’s cubist “Pigeon with Green Peas,” authorities said works by Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Amedeo Modigliani and Fernand Leger were also stolen from the city-run museum.
Full Article: http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/05/23/france.paintings.stolen/index.html?hpt=C1
Infographic: Privacy on Facebook Is Vanishing
BY Cliff Kuang
The chart was a personal project created by Matt McKeon, who by day is a researcher at IBM’s Visual Communication Lab (where Fernanda Viegas used to work).
It’s concentric rings show the groups who can see a given slice of information,
if you leave the default settings in place. Here’s the service in 2005:
Full Article: http://www.fastcompany.com/1642858/infographic-of-the-day-privacy-on-facebook-is-vanishing
Alliance for a Healthier Generation: Healthy Schools Program
Michelle Obama’s Plan to End Childhood Obesity Epidemic
Goal: Cut Child Obesity From 20% to 5% by 2030
By Daniel J. DeNoon
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD
May 11, 2010 — Spearheaded by Michelle Obama, a new presidential initiative would reverse the child obesity epidemic.
The goal, as set out in a report from the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity, is to reduce childhood obesity from 20% to 5% by 2030.
To accomplish this, the plan makes 70 recommendations for early childhood, for parents and caregivers, for school meals and nutrition education, for access to healthy food, and for increasing physical activity.
“For the first time, the nation will have goals, benchmarks, and measurable outcomes that will help us tackle the childhood obesity epidemic one child, one family, and one community at a time,” Obama says in a news release.
U.S. kids haven’t always been obese. Only one in 20 children ages 2 to 19 was obese in the 1970s. But around 1980 child obesity began to rocket to today’s stratospheric level: Nearly one in three kids is overweight or obese, and nearly one in five is frankly obese.
Full Article: http://children.webmd.com/news/20100511/michelle-obama-plan-to-end-child-obesity-epidemic
Waiting for Superman
about the film
director Davis Guggenheim (above)
screenwriter Davis Guggenheim, Billy Kimball
executive producer Jeff Skoll, Diane Weyermann
producer Lesley Chilcott
cinematographer Erich Roland, Bob Richman
editor Greg Finton, Jay Cassidy, Kim Roberts
music Christophe Beck
coproducer Eliza Hindmarch
As vote looms, Northern California ponders how to peddle legal pot
Eureka, California (CNN) – Tony Smithers has been answering a lot of questions lately about marijuana. Over coffee at Ramone’s Bakery & Cafe, he was polite but mildly irked to be fielding queries about a substance the federal government outlaws.
Smithers, the Humboldt County Convention and Visitors Bureau’s executive director, would rather talk about the county’s other natural resources: its forests, its rolling mountains, its 110 miles of coastline.
But with legalization on a statewide November ballot and with Humboldt situated in the Emerald Triangle, so named for its massive marijuana output, there have been distractions of late.
Read Tax Cannabis 2010’s summary of the initiative (PDF)
Read Full Article: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/05/12/california.marijuana.tourism/index.html?hpt=C1