NOTHING TOXIC - Extreme Videos

爆笑反转剧

2011-06-13T13:46:00.001+08:00

TOP YB Vol.5 出生学说

2011-06-13T13:31:00.000+08:00

東日本大震災で、南三陸町志津川高校から見た津波の様子

2011-06-06T09:00:00.000+08:00

Virtual Plastic Surgery Software (VPSS)

2011-06-01T18:07:00.002+08:00

The Virtual Plastic Surgery Software (VPSS) is a photo warping software that will let you modify photos to simulate virtual plastic surgery results on anyone's face and body. As a specific purpose software, we developed a custom and convenient interface more suited for virtual plastic surgery simulation than anything you will find on general purpose, thousand dollars traditional software suits. Virtual Plastic Surgery Software (VPSS) is popular among plastic surgeons who want to discuss surgery outcome with their patients, plastic surgery candidates who want to preview the potential results of an aesthetic surgery, social network participants who want to improve their appearance, and people who want to have fun warping photos of faces, bodies, celebrities, and pets in a caricaturist fashion.

http://download.cnet.com/Virtual-Plastic-Surgery-Software-VPSS/3000-2192_4-10850334.html

A REALLY FUNNY AIROPLANE CRASH

2011-05-31T11:50:00.000+08:00

Would've been a nice short except for the awful acting by the driver.

Amazing robbery! Have To See!

2011-05-31T11:18:00.000+08:00

Funny robbery. A man try's to rob a store when the clerk attacks the man with a battle axe!

Pencuri Besi Di Jitra ( Stupid Robbery ) Scrap

2011-05-31T10:59:00.001+08:00

马来西亚警察万岁！万岁！万万岁！

Toto 4D robbery

2011-05-31T10:57:00.001+08:00

手脚好慢啊，在香港，美国早被抓了。马来西亚警察万岁！万岁！万万岁！

Robbery - Setia Indah ,Johor Bahru Malaysia 27th May 2011 0226hrs

2011-05-31T10:49:00.000+08:00

4 Idiotics attempted a robbery with dangerous objects, 1 suspected with a gun tucked behind his pants, a 'parang" .... this is life threaten to our citizens.
#Keselamatan Rakyat MESTI Diutamakan#
Please help to share this to everybody and your family.

Butterfly Music Cafe In Seremban AST: Invitation to Pre-party Celebration on 6th May 201...

2011-05-03T16:28:00.000+08:00

Butterfly Music Cafe In Seremban AST: Invitation to Pre-party Celebration on 6th May 201...: "To All Butterfly's members and Customers Ladies and Gentlemen, We would like to extend our invitation for you to join us in our Pre-par..."

reddit.com: submit

2010-03-30T15:38:00.000+08:00

reddit.com: submit

Rollerblader Ends Jump With Getting Owned By Car

2010-03-29T09:38:00.002+08:00

Idiot Bus Driver Runs Red Light Spearing Pedestrian In Crosswalk

2010-03-22T00:56:00.003+08:00

Rider Has Incredible Recovery After Getting Nailed by Pick Up Truck Rider Has Incredible Recovery After Getting Nailed by Pick Up Truck

2010-03-22T00:10:00.004+08:00

Osama warns Obama

2010-01-25T09:30:00.001+08:00

DUBAI - AL-QAEDA chief Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the botched Christmas Day bombing of a US airliner and vowed further strikes on American targets, in an audio message broadcast on Sunday.

The message aired by Al-Jazeera television warned US President Barack Obama the attack was meant as a similar message to Sept 11, 2001 when Al-Qaeda militants hijacked and crashed passenger jets into iconic American buildings.

The recording said it was a message from 'Osama to Obama', and IntelCentre, a US group that monitors Islamist websites, said it contained 'language used by bin Laden... in advance of attacks'. In the message, bin Laden praised as a 'hero' Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who allegedly tried to detonate explosives on a Northwest Airlines plane approaching Detroit on Dec 25 but was foiled by passengers.

'The message that was conveyed through the (attacked) plane of the hero Umar Farouk is to stress earlier messages delivered to you by the heroes of the 11' Sept attack, he said.

'That (message) is, that America should not dream of security until we enjoy it as a reality in Palestine.' The authenticity of the recording could not immediately be verified, but Al-Jazeera said the voice was bin Laden's and IntelCentre said it appeared to be genuine.

'From Osama to Obama: Had we been able to deliver our messages to you in words, we would not have sent them by planes,' the statement said. 'It is not fair that you (America) enjoy a good life while our brothers in Gaza endure the worst standard of living. Therefore, God willing, our attacks against you will continue as long as you maintain your support to Israel.' IntelCentre said it considered bin Laden's choice of the phrase 'Peace be upon those who follow guidance' as 'a possible indicator of an upcoming attack' in the next 12 months. -- AFP

'Turkey belongs in Europe'

2010-01-25T09:29:00.004+08:00

BERLIN - EUROPEAN Union president Spain feels that Turkey belongs in the 27-country bloc, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said in an interview published on Sunday.

Mr Moratinos said negotiations to admit candidate Turkey could be successfully completed if it met the so-called Copenhagen criteria - covering such areas as democracy, human rights and the rule of law - which is required for membership.

'It would bring Europe more advantages than drawbacks. There may be difference of opinions between EU member states (over Turkish membership), but all have agreed to wait and watch the negotiations,' Mr Moratinos told Germany's Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

Spain, which holds the EU presidency until the end of June, hopes to open accession talks with Ankara in four new policy areas and see progress in a dispute between Turkey and Cyprus which is blocking Ankara's bid.

'Turkey is a part of the European family of peoples. It is better to have Turkey inside the EU than to leave it standing outside,' Mr Moratinos said.

He added that the EU considers Turkey a partner of high strategic importance, specifically mentioning its diplomatic network in the Middle East and central Asia. -- REUTERS

Boy, 7, raises $113k for Haiti

2010-01-25T09:29:00.003+08:00

LONDON - A SEVEN-YEAR-OLD British boy told on Sunday how he raised more than 50,000 pounds (S$113,000) in a day for survivors of the Haiti earthquake by doing a sponsored bike ride.

Charlie Simpson set out to collect just 500 pounds for a UN Children's Fund (Unicef) appeal by cycling five miles (eight kilometres) around his local park in London - but his efforts inspired hundreds of people to donate online.

He started his fundraising efforts after seeing shocking images of children being pulled alive from the rubble in the Caribbean nation. 'I just think it was quite sad when I saw the pictures on the TV,' said the youngster.

His mother, Leonora, helped him create a sponsorship form and said the document quickly spread around the Internet and the enormous sum was donated in one day. 'He really felt strongly about this and thought that something had to be done,' she said. 'But what started off as a little cycle round the park with his dad has turned into something a lot bigger than that and we can't believe it.

'I am extremely proud of our Charlie, he's done really well. He's worked hard and he's raised a phenomenal amount of money so we couldn't ask for anything more.' Donations from his JustGiving website go to Unicef, which is leading emergency relief efforts on water, sanitation, education and nutrition as well as supporting child protection.

Unicef said it was the first time anyone had collected 50,000 pounds in one day for the fund and the money would make 'a huge difference'. 'It's always heartwarming when any child starts to respond and there's something quite special about a child in the UK reaching out to the children of Haiti,' said spokesman Michael Newsome. -- AFP

Haiti cops prepare for calamity

2010-01-25T09:29:00.001+08:00

PORT-AU-PRINCE - POLICE in the Haitian capital counted their loses and gathered their forces on Sunday, preparing for a surge in crime they are certain will follow the devastating Jan 12 earthquake.

Police leaders are still trying to determine how many officers can report for work and how many police stations are still operational.

Looting is widespread in this city struggling to recover from the powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake, but police say they have yet to see a wider rise in violent crime.

This hiatus is likely to be short-lived: the quake shattered the walls of the city's main prison, granting freedom to some 4,000 convicted criminals.

Police have doubled night patrols in Cite Soleil, a squalid Port-au-Prince slum with a population of one million people located next to the airport. 'They came back here, we know, but they are hiding in the alleys,' said Chief Inspector Rosemond Aristide, referring to gang leaders. 'There is no way to trap them - right now,' said Inspector Aristide, the top official at the Cite Soleil police station.

Looting, an ongoing activity in downtown Port-au-Prince, picked up on Sunday as excavators removed large chunks of debris, exposing both rotting cadavers and valuables. -- AFP

Climate group ups pressure

2010-01-25T09:26:00.000+08:00

NEW DELHI - FOUR nations led by China pledged on Sunday to meet an end-month deadline to submit action plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions and challenged rich countries to come up with funding to help fight global warming.

Environment ministers and envoys from Brazil, South Africa, India and China met in New Delhi in a show of unity by countries whose greenhouse gas emissions are among the fastest rising in the world. The bloc was key to brokering a political agreement at the Copenhagen talks in December and its meeting in India was designed in part to put pressure on richer nations to make good on funding commitments.

'We have sent a very powerful symbol to the world of our intentions,' the Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said at a joint press conference after seven hours of talks.

The group discussed setting up a climate fund to help nations most vulnerable to the impact of global warming, which it said would act as a wakeup call for wealthier countries to meet their pledges on financial assistance and give US$10 billion (S$14 billion) in 2010.

Rich countries have pledged US$30 billion in climate change funding for the 2010-12 period and set a goal of US$100 billion by 2020, far less than what developing countries had wanted.

The group in New Delhi said releasing US$10 billion this year would send a signal of the rich countries' commitment. The four said they were in talks to set up an independent fund for the same purpose, but gave no timeline or figure. 'When we say we will be reinforcing technical support as well as funds to the most vulnerable countries, we are giving a slap in the face to the rich countries,' Brazil's Environment Minister Carlos Minc said through a translator. -- REUTERS

Biden: U.S. to appeal Blackwater dismissal

2010-01-24T12:26:00.000+08:00

The U.S. will appeal a court decision dismissing manslaughter charges against five Blackwater Worldwide guards involved in a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday.

Biden's announcement after a meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani shows just how diplomatically sensitive the incident remains nearly three years later. A lawyer for one guard, noting that word of the intended appeal came in Iraq, accused the Obama administration of political expediency and said the U.S. was pursuing an innocent man, rather than justice.

Blackwater security contractors were guarding U.S. diplomats when the guards opened fire in Nisoor Square, a crowded Baghdad intersection, on Sept. 16, 2007. Seventeen people were killed, including women and children, in a shooting that inflamed anti-American sentiment in Iraq.

'Hope for Haiti' raises $58 million and counting

2010-01-24T12:24:00.000+08:00

Friday night's star-studded "Hope for Haiti" telethon has raised a record-breaking $58 million, with more donations continuing to pour in from around the world, the benefit's organizers announced Saturday.

The preliminary figure is a record for donations made by the public through a disaster relief telethon, according to a news release from telethon organizers.

Additionally, the "Hope for Haiti Now" album, a compilation of the night's musical performances made available on Apple's iTunes, was the No. 1 album in 18 countries Saturday. Sales figures for iTunes are still being calculated, and the preliminary figure of $58 million does not include donations from corporations or large private donors.

People will be able to make donations to "Hope for Haiti" via phone, Web, text messaging and regular mail for the next six months, according to the news release.

A moving performance by Alicia Keys opened Friday night's telethon, and actor George Clooney, serving as the Los Angeles host for the event, made the first appeal for donations to raise money for relief efforts after last week's devastating earthquake.

Video: 'Hope For Haiti Now'
Video: 'Hope for Haiti' Coldplay
Video: 'Hope for Haiti' Beyonce
Video: Clooney talks of telethon
RELATED TOPICS

* Haiti
* George Clooney
* Yele Haiti Foundation

"The Haitian people need our help," Clooney said. "They need to know they are not alone. They need to know that we still care."

The show was one of the most widely distributed prime-time televised benefits in history, appearing simultaneously on more than 25 networks -- including CNN, where Anderson Cooper reported live from Haiti during the event.

More than 100 actors, musicians and other celebrities answered phones in New York and Los Angeles after professional operators first talked to donors.

"Thank you so much for your donation," actress Reese Witherspoon told one caller. "You can't imagine how much love and great, wonderful energy is here today. People are doing everything they can to make a difference in these people's lives."

Several other calls were aired live, including with Julia Roberts, Steven Spielberg, Taylor Swift and Stevie Wonder.

Swift and Wonder were among the evening's musical performers. Others included Bruce Springsteen, Bono, Jay-Z, Rihanna, Shakira, Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Coldplay, Christina Aguilera, John Legend, Justin Timberlake, Kid Rock, Sheryl Crow, Keith Urban, Jennifer Hudson, Madonna, Dave Matthews and Neil Young.

Other celebrities appearing on the telethon included Jon Stewart, Brad Pitt, Tom Hanks, Morgan Freeman, Ben Stiller, Clint Eastwood and Denzel Washington.

Proceeds from the telethon will benefit Oxfam America, Partners in Health, the Red Cross, UNICEF, the U.N. World Food Programme, Yele Haiti Foundation and the Clinton Bush Haiti Foundation.

Track down agents to locate missing Indian nationals

2010-01-24T12:22:00.000+08:00

Track down agents to locate missing Indian nationals Recently, when government announced that approximately 40,000 Indian nationals went missing once their visas-on-arrival expired, it has sparked concerns from various parties including the non-governmental organizations Tenaganita and Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF).

Tenaganita director Dr Irene Fernandez commented that instead of focusing solely on these missing citizens, perhaps government should also track down the agents who are responsible in bringing them into the country. This is largely due to the fact that some of these Indian nationals were given inaccurate information by the agents when they first enter the country.

It is commonly known that certain illegal workers in the country are conned by the agents as they were often convinced to pay large sum of money since the conman usually sweet-talked them into believing that there are high salary jobs available in the country.

Once they arrived in the country, the workers realized that they have been conned. Left with no other option, these foreigners are forced to stay without visa or permit. Dr Irene said government must act wisely by tracking down the agents to find the missing Indian nationals. Most of the time, Indian nationals ended up working at restaurants or in plantation industry.

She pointed out that government must get to the core of the problem to solve it once and for all. Besides Dr Irene, MEF executive director Samsudin Baradan also pointed out that harsh punishments are needed to curb human trafficking problem in the country.

Haiti: Sea, land access improves; Two more aftershocks strike

2010-01-23T11:45:00.001+08:00

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (Jan 22, 2010) : Sea and land access for aid deliveries to Haiti improved Thursday as the United Nations along with the United States and other countries pledged long-term assistance to rebuild the quake-shaken country.

Two aftershocks with magnitudes 4.8 and 4.9 struck nine minutes apart in the region around Port-au-Prince, sending people running on land and rocking the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier anchored offshore.

Capital residents foraged for life's essential, standing in lines for food from the US 82nd Airborne in downtown Port-au-Prince or seeking refuge in the Stade Silvio Catore, once the scene of boisterous football matches.

Nepalese peacekeepers secured the drop zone for 14,000 individual meals and 14,000 litres of water, parachuted into an outlying suburb by the US military at one of the expanding aid distribution points.

A Haitian woman trapped for eight days without food or water was extracted from death's jaws by French rescue workers, bringing to at least 122 the number of those rescued by foreign teams since the Jan 12 magnitude-7 earthquake, US officials said.

Haitian Justice Minister Paul Denis had been reported killed in the rubble of his ministry building. But the Haitian ambassador to Berlin, Jean Robert Saget, said Thursday he was only injured.

In Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross said that efforts to get aid to victims were improving, but at least one million people were homeless and "living on the streets."

In the football stadium, a few hundred people have taken up residence and even put up tents, but they remain desperate for food, even as some supplies were arriving in other parts of the city.

"We want to eat, just a little bit. We want a few sips of clean water. Is that too much to ask for?" asked Roberson Joseph, a tour operator who ferried tourists between the Dominican Republic and Haiti until the quake.

"Right now we are living from day to day, to eventually die."

With 150 planes landing daily at Port-au-Prince airport, where the capacity has been vastly expanded under US military coordination, there was heavy congestion, and "finding free slots for large aircraft is still a challenge," said the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Tensions have risen around the US military's control of the airport, and officials have greeted the news that routes for aid delivery by sea and land were opening up.

French and US divers have partially opened part of the port, opening the way for the arrival of the first ship carrying 123 metric tons of food, water and medical supplies, UN and US officials said.

On land, a humanitarian corridor protected by 150 Dominican Republic troops was opened from Santo Domingo, easing the flow of relief supplies, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said in New York. Peruvian peacekeepers from the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) are also guarding the route.

For the first time, several bars and cafes opened in Petionville, an affluent neighbourhood that sits at a slight elevation and suffered less damage.

A supermarket reopened under the heavy guard of a private security force, surely to deter looters. In stark contrast, a large encampment of people left homeless is just steps away from the store.

A rum factory in the same neighbourhood remained closed, but Rhum Barbancourt was already for sale again from street vendors.

Several bars and cafes have reopened in Petionville.

One cafe served pizza and local Prestige beer, while a boy and his grandfather ate ice cream. The clientel slowling trickling in were generally affluent Haitians and foreigners, including many journalists, who are present in enough numbers to infuse some cash into a flat-lined economy through hotels, interpreters, drivers and money changers.

On the streets, women were selling paintings, huge canvases of city life before the quake, bursting with vibrant reds, oranges, greens and blues.

Street markets seem to be sprouting in every available space without rubble or burning garbage. Venders are selling bananas, pineapples and papayas, as well as green peppers, potatoes and even eggs, though most of the people now living on the street have no money to buy any of it.

Vehicle traffic, too, continues to build, though waits for fuel sometimes last half a day.

In some spots in feels like normal life, until the next aftershock.

The death toll of MINUSTAH troops and staff rose to 61, the worst losses ever for a UN mission. Another 180 troops and staff remain unaccounted.

US Air Force Commander Buck Elton, who heads the air operations in Haiti, headed off growing complaints by non-US aid groups that they have been shut out of the Port-au-Prince airport.

The French group Doctors Without Borders in particular had voiced frustration over being forced to divert to the Dominican Republic on Sunday despite its approved place in the landing scheme.

Speaking by telephone from Haiti, Elton said that the landing plan was divided with one-third each for international aid, US civilian aid and US military aircraft. Elton said the French plane in question had been scheduled to land at 3 pm Sunday, was diverted, and then came back and landed at 8 pm.

Elton said there are sometimes long delays on the ground, which force a diversion, caused by aircraft waiting for evacuees to arrive, or broken machinery. The airport, which in the pre-earthquake days handled 15 fixed-wing aircraft and 20 helicopters a day, is now handling 10 times that volume.

There had been reports that the US military was physically preventing Haitians from leaving the port, which US officials denied.

"The US government and the Haitian government have been advising Haitians not to try to cross from Haiti to the US ... in very unsafe craft in very rough seas," said Gordon Duguid, US State Department spokesman in Haiti.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the international community will continue its relief efforts, while planning to move to an early phase of recovery and reconstruction programmes in the impoverished nation. He met with US former president Bill Clinton, who is the UN special envoy for Haiti, to discuss the next phase after the humanitarian operation.

Clinton, who teamed up with US former president George W Bush to encourate private donations in the United States, said he would earmark some of the money raised to go to the reconstruction in Haiti. -- dpa

Storm-battered California hit with new deluge

2010-01-23T11:43:00.001+08:00

LOS ANGELES (Jan 21, 2010): The fourth and strongest winter rainstorm in a week clobbered normally sunny Southern California on Thursday, canceling flights, pounding beaches with huge waves and threatening to bring torrents of mud down on pricey hillside homes.

Californians, who have rarely seen rain during a three-year drought that left the state rationing water, found themselves deluged -- forced to drive through flooded streets, bail out and sandbag their homes or in some cases evacuate.

State Attorney General Jerry Brown, acting in place of traveling Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, declared a state of emergency in five counties.

Officials said a silver lining of the worst storms the state had seen in five years was waist-high snow dumped on mountain ranges that could ease critical water shortages, although they stopped short of calling the drought over.

The heavy rain and high winds forced Southwest Airlines to suspend most of its flights from four area airports at least until Thursday evening.

Nearly 2,000 homes were evacuated in the foothills north of Los Angeles that were left blackened and barren by last year's wildfires, as authorities feared that days of steady rain would bring down entire hillsides of mud and boulders.

But several residents on one slide-prone cul-de-sac in the community of La Canada-Flintridge, scene of last summer's massive Station Fire, chose to stay put and help authorities channel swift-flowing, muddy water away from their homes.

"The idea is, don't let it pile up there but keep it moving," said 59-year-old George Witkor. "We're trying to keep it flowing as long as we can. If it gets too deep, we are out of here."

At least two houses in La Canada-Flintridge sustained damage from mud and debris but no injuries were reported.

Flood warnings were issued for low-lying areas and beaches, some which were slammed by 25-foot (7.6 metre) waves.

Witnesses reported a tornado in Ventura County, north of Los Angeles, and authorities responding to the scene found a mile-long (1.6-km) path of destruction.

"One lady said her car hovered for a couple feet, spun around, then rammed into tree and blew out all the back and side windows," Ventura Police Sergeant Jack Richards said.

"I've been here for 25 years now and never saw a tornado hit like this before. We've had microbursts, I've seen water spouts, never had anything like this," Richards said.

Throughout the day, downed power lines knocked out power to more than 30,000 homes and businesses across California, and some schools also were closed or students kept indoors.

Interstate 5, the major artery connecting Southern California to northern parts of the state, was shut down because of snow at a mountain pass.

The desert resort city of Palm Springs has received half its average annual rainfall this week, and at least two deaths have been attributed to the storms, including a 21-year-old man crushed when a tall tree toppled on his house.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer declared a state of emergency after storms dumped snow on the high country, triggered flash floods and caused delays at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.-- REUTERS

Oil trades around US$54 on stock market rally

2009-03-25T01:04:00.000+08:00

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Monday that 15 employees who received some of the largest bonuses from American International Group Inc. have agreed to return the money in full.

The commitments amount to more than $30 million of the $165 million in bonuses awarded earlier this month by the troubled insurer.

Cuomo said he still hopes that more AIG employees will return their bonuses.

He expects his office will be able to recoup about $80 million of the money the insurer paid out - roughly the amount of bonuses paid to American employees.

AIG Chief Executive Edward Liddy told Congress last week that some of the employees were willing to give the money back.

AIG has come under heavy criticism because the bonuses were given to employees after the company received $170 billion in government bailout money.

Cuomo had sought the names of the employees who received bonuses from Liddy through a subpoena.

"I applaud the employees who are returning the bonuses," Cuomo said during a conference call with reporters.

"I think they are being responsive to the American people."

Cuomo said 9 of the 10 people receiving the largest awards have agreed to return their bonus.

Additionally, 15 of the top 20 bonus recipients have consented to returning their money.

Cuomo said some have refused to return the money, while others are still considering it.

"We are deeply gratified that a vast majority of Financial Products' senior leadership have expressed a willingness to forsake their recent retention payments," wrote spokeswoman Christina Pretto in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press.

She added that the company is continuing to review the responses of the other employees. Cuomo said he doesn't plan to release the names of the employees who have agreed to return the bonuses, and said there is no implied threat that if an employee doesn't consent to returning the bonus that their name will be released.

He said his office is continuing to assess the security of the employees.

About 400 employees and future employees in AIG's financial products division received bonuses.

Documents provided by AIG to the Treasury Department said the awards ranged from $1,000 to nearly $6.5 million.

Seven employees were to receive more than $3 million.

Last week Cuomo said AIG paid bonuses of $1 million or more to 73 employees, including 11 who no longer work there.

Separately, Connecticut's consumer protection division has subpoenaed AIG, demanding that the contracts and names of employees who received the bonuses be provided by March 27.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell has said she wants the division to determine whether the bonuses can be voided under the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act.

AIG's financial products division is headquartered in Wilton, Connecticut.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal says his office also demanded the bonus recipients' names and the amounts.

Last week, the House passed a plan to slap a punitive, 90 percent tax on bonuses paid to AIG employees whose family income surpasses $250,000.

Not all of the AIG employees earned more than the income threshold specified by the House bill.

But President Obama has signaled opposition to the House's tax bill on constitutional grounds.

The Senate is soon expected to take up its own plan on the tax. - AP

Latest NYSE, NASDAQ and other business news, from AP-Wire

US stocks surge on bank plan, Dow up 500 points

2009-03-25T01:01:00.000+08:00

Wall Street got the news it wanted on the economy's biggest problems - banks and housing - and celebrated by hurtling the Dow Jones industrials up nearly 500 points.

Investors added rocket fuel Monday to a two-week-old advance, cheering the government's plan to help banks remove bad assets from their books and also welcoming a report showing a surprising increase in home sales.

Major stock indicators surged more than 6 percent, including the Dow, which had its biggest percentage gain since October.

Analysts who have seen the market's recent false starts are still hesitant to say Wall Street is indeed recovering from the collapse that began last fall.

But the day's banking and housing news bolstered the growing belief that the economy is starting to heal, and that is what had investors buying.

"It's just hard to argue that there isn't an improvement in economic activity on the horizon," said Jim Dunigan, executive vice president at PNC Wealth Management.

The market began turning around two weeks ago on news that Citigroup Inc. was operating at a profit in January and February.

A spate of more upbeat economic reports helped the market build on its gains, although the rally stalled last Thursday and Friday.

Analysts said they saw more fundamental strength in Monday's buying than they saw at the start of the rally. Dave Rovelli managing director of trading at brokerage Canaccord Adams, said there appeared to be less short covering, which occurs when traders are forced to buy to cover misplaced bets that stocks would fall.

Short covering contributed to the market's surge after the Citigroup news.

"There is definitely new buying," he said. Rovelli also said the approaching end of the quarter can make money managers eager to buy into a market to make the statements they send to clients look stronger.

The market shot higher at the opening and kept going.

The Treasury Department said its bad asset cleanup program would tap money from the government's US$700 billion financial rescue fund and involve help from the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the participation of private investors.

The government's announcement was what the market had waited weeks to hear.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner had announced an outline of the program last month but provided few details then about how it would work, leading to a stock plunge that sliced 380 points from the Dow.

But while analysts were pleased with the market's performance Monday, they were also still cautious; Wall Street more than gave back its big yearend rally and continued falling during January and February.

Subodh Kumar, an independent investment strategist in Toronto, said the Fed's announcement that it would buy government debt and the details on plans to help banks are giving traders hope for recovery.

"The market is shedding some of its excess pessimism. That doesn't mean the market goes straight up," he said.

The National Association of Realtors' existing home sales report was overwhelmingly positive for investors although it showed a decline in home prices in February.

Investors are embracing any sign that a glut in homes for sale may be easing.

Monday's data followed a dose of good housing news last week as housing starts for February came in much better than expected.

The Dow rose 497.48, or 6.8 percent, to 7,775.86, its highest finish since Feb. 13.

It was the biggest point gain for the blue chips since Nov. 13 when they rose 552 points and the biggest percentage gain since Oct. 28. when they rose 10.9 percent.

It was the fifth biggest point gain in the Dow's history.

Broader stock indicators also surged.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 54.38, or 7.1 percent, to 822.92, crossing the psychological milepost of 800.

The Nasdaq composite index rose 98.50, or 6.8 percent, to 1,555.77.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 33.61, or 8.4 percent, to 433.72.

The Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index, which reflects nearly all stocks traded in America, jumped 7 percent.

That's a paper gain of about $700 billion.

More than 10 stocks rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 1.9 billion shares.

The Dow is now up 1,228 points, or 18.8 percent, from March 9, when it finished at its lowest point in nearly 12 years, although it's still down 1,000 points in 2009.

The S&P 500 is up 21.6 percent in that time. The Dow and the S&P 500 index remain more than 45 percent below their peak in October 2007.

Collapsing home prices and the damage they have caused banks are at the center of the economy's current problems and are a major focus for the stock market.

Banks have sharply curbed lending after becoming weighed down with loans that have gone bad, especially mortgages.

Investors had been largely disappointed in the government's efforts to date to restore the banks to health, but finally seemed encouraged by the long-awaited announcement of details for the bad loan cleanup plan.

"The actions that we're getting from a policy standpoint are very helpful in removing the sand from the gears," said Alan Gayle, senior investment strategist at RidgeWorth Investments.

"That is going to be good for the financials."

Shares of the country's largest banks, which have been pounded in recent weeks over concerns about their ability to weather the crisis, soared on Monday.

Citigroup Inc. jumped 19.5 percent, and Bank of America Corp. added 26 percent. Even banks seen as being on better footing posted big advances.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. rose 25 percent, while Wells Fargo & Co. rose 24 percent.

Investors welcomed the rise in home sales Monday although the biggest jump in nearly six years came as first-time buyers pounced on deep discounts of foreclosures and other distressed properties.

Analysts say it could be a nascent sign of recovery.

But only weeks ago traders might have dwelled on the 15.5 percent drop in median prices.

"It's like putting on a different pair of glasses and you think you saw something different today than you saw yesterday," Dunigan said.

Bond prices were mixed as stocks rose.

The moves were moderate as investors remained mindful of the Federal Reserve's plan announced last week to buy government debt to help drive down borrowing costs by reducing interest rates.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, rose to 2.68 percent from 2.64 percent late Friday.

The yield on the three-month T-bill was flat at 0.19 percent.

Oil rose $1.73 to settle at $53.80 a barrel and the dollar was mixed against other major currencies.

Gold fell.

The price of gold has risen in recent weeks as investors have worried about the faltering economy and a weaker dollar.

Overseas, Britain's FTSE 100 rose 2.9 percent.

Germany's DAX index rose 2.7 percent, and France's CAC-40 rose 2.8 percent. Japan's Nikkei stock average rose 3.4 percent. - AP

Home » Features » Data centers and infrastructure » IBM said to be poring over Sun's contracts IBM said to be poring over Sun's contracts

2009-03-24T05:01:00.001+08:00

Lawyers for IBM are examining Sun Microsystems' contracts and other documents in a due diligence process that could precede an acquisition, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing unnamed sources.

Such work is common before a merger and suggests that acquisition talks between Sun and IBM, which were reported earlier this week but have not been confirmed by the companies, are still under way. Examining the documents could take a number of days, the Journal said.

The work being done includes an examination of Sun's software license terms to see if any of them conflict with IBM's business practices, the newspaper reported. Sun offers most of its software, including its Solaris OS, MySQL database and Java programming language, under a variety of open-source licenses.

News of the supposed merger talks was broken by the Journal overnight on Tuesday, though Sun and IBM have not confirmed nor denied any discussions. IBM would pay between US$6.5 billion and $8 billion to buy the company, the Journal said Friday.

Observers have been puzzling over whether IBM is interested in Sun for its hardware or its software assets. IBM would gain some of Sun's large corporate customers and widen its lead in the enterprise server market, where it was just ahead of Hewlett-Packard last year, according to IDC.

There would also be significant overlap between the companies' product lines, however. Both have Unix server OS, a RISC chip architecture, at least one enterprise database and a whole line of middleware. Any deal would create uncertainty for customers as to which products IBM would continue to develop and support.

Sun has been struggling to grow its business, particularly lately with the recession. Some of its biggest customers were Wall Street banks that either no longer exist or are in dire straits themselves.

Despite the uncertainty it would create, an acquisition by IBM might be a better outcome for Sun's customers than some of the alternatives, said Dan Olds, principal analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group.

"The economic climate plays against Sun's recovery strategy. I think they have probably made as many cuts as they can without really changing what they do and having to drop something big," he said.

If the reports are accurate and Sun has decided to sell, the decision was probably driven by outside investors, notably Southeastern Asset Management, which increased its stake in Sun to more than 20 percent last year and has been pushing hard for a bigger return on its investment.

"I think those guys are driving the bus at Sun," Olds said. "This isn't a strategic thing or a Jonathan Schwartz thing; it's purely business."

Talk of an acquisition has pushed Sun's share price higher. It closed at $8.63 on Friday, up from $4.97 before the discussions were reported. IBM's share price initially slipped on the reports but recovered slightly on Friday, closing at $92.66.

S.Africa denies Dalai Lama visa over World Cup clash

2009-03-24T04:54:00.002+08:00

South Africa said Monday the Dalai Lama has been denied a visa to meet here with other Nobel laureates, arguing his visit would overshadow the country's preparations to host the 2010 World Cup.
His exclusion has prompted the Oslo-based Nobel peace prize committee to announce that it would not participate in the peace conference organised in Johannesburg, unless the 1989 peace prize laureate is granted an entry visa.
"Unless the South African decision is rapidly changed we will not go," Lundestad said.

The Tibetan spiritual leader was billed to attend a Peace Conference this week, backed by the Nobel Peace Committee and hosted by South Africa's three surviving laureates, former presidents Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Both Tutu and De Klerk confirmed they would no longer be attending the conference, casting doubt on the conference.

"He has confirmed he is not attending," Tutu's spokeswoman Tamu Matose told AFP.

Addressing local media Tutu said: "We are shamelessly succumbing to Chinese pressure. I feel deeply distressed and ashamed."

Former president De Klerk released a statement saying he would "reluctantly not participate in the peace conference... if a visa is not granted to enable the Dalai Lama to attend the conference as well."

The laureates were meant to discuss how soccer can help fight racism and xenophobia, as South Africa gears up for the 2010 World Cup.

But Thabo Masebe, spokesman for President Kgalema Motlanthe, told AFP that "there is no visa" for the Dalai Lama because his visit would draw attention away from the tournament.

Organisers of the conference had not consulted with the government before extending the invitation to the Dalai Lama, Masebe said.

"We in the South African government have not invited the Dalai Lama to visit South Africa, because it would not be in the interests of South Africa," he said.

"The attention of the world is on South Africa because of it being the host country for the 2010 World Cup, and we wouldn't want anything to distract from that," he added.

A spokesman for the spiritual leader said he was "very disappointed" by the decision.

"It is true that South Africa, under intense pressure from the Chinese authorities, have denied a visa to the Dalai Lama," spokesman Thubten Samphel told AFP in Dharamshala, India, home of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

"The Chinese government does not like any government to host the Dalai Lama because they feel his presence attracts media attention to the deplorable human rights conditions in Tibet," he said.

"African states are vulnerable to Chinese pressure because of huge Chinese investments there and so this is a case of business winning over human rights and good behaviour."

South African foreign ministry spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa denied pressure from China had played a role in the visa being denied.

"What is critical to know is we are an independent sovereign country which makes independent sovereign decisions," he said.

During a 1999 visit to South Africa, then-president Thabo Mbeki refused to meet with the Dalai Lama, citing scheduling difficulties, but local media blamed Chinese pressure for the brush-off.

China's minister counsellor at the embassy in Pretoria, Dai Bing, was quoted as saying in local media that his government had urged South Africa to deny the visit or risk damaging bilateral relations.

Dai told the paper that it was an "inopportune time" for the Dalai Lama to visit, coming just after the 50th anniversary of a failed uprising against China's rule of Tibet, which led to the exile of the region's most revered spiritual figure.

South Africa is China's key trading partner in Africa, accounting for 20.8 percent of the total volume of China-Africa trade in 2008 with total trade at some 100 billion rand (10 billion dollars).

US unveils public-private plan to buy up toxic assets

2009-03-24T04:50:00.001+08:00

The US Treasury unveiled a long-awaited plan Monday to buy up toxic assets clogging the financial system using government funds, loans to investors and guarantees to attract private capital.
The cornerstone of the plan is a "Public-Private Investment Program for Legacy Assets" funded with 75 to 100 billion dollars from the government -- an idea that has generated some praise but also skepticism.
Officials said this approach would "generate 500 billion dollars in purchasing power" and could expand to one trillion dollars.
The plan, the outlines of which were unveiled last month, is a key to helping the ailing banking system recover from massive losses suffered in the US real estate meltdown and stabilizing the economy.

The Treasury said the plan "ensures that private sector participants invest alongside the taxpayer, with the private sector investors standing to lose their entire investment in a downside scenario and the taxpayer sharing in profitable returns."

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in announcing the plan, "Our job is to try to fix this problem of the financial system at least cost to the taxpayer."

The statement said that "a broad array of investors are expected to participate" in the program including individual investors, pension plans, insurance companies and other long-term investors.

The Treasury and private capital will provide equity financing and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will provide a guarantee for debt financing, which will be used to buy up mortgages and mortgage securities that are frozen because of massive losses linked to the US housing meltdown.

The initiative will contain two elements, one for pools of mortgages to allow banks to sell these to investors; the second will be a fund directed by asset managers to allow public and private capital to buy distressed mortgage securities.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, said the plan "has a good chance of success."

"This plan relies much less on private investors and much more on direct government purchases of banks' troubled assets," Zandi said.

"Only a handful or so of private investors need to participate in this plan to establish workable auctions for the assets and thus determine a fair price for the assets."

Yet some analysts have been skeptical about whether these assets can be priced and sold under current market conditions, and whether banks holding them would be willing to sell at a deep discount, forcing a loss to be recognized.

The purchase of these assets was the original purpose of the 700-billion-dollar Troubled Asset Relief Program passed by Congress last year, but which backed away from this idea.

Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman said the plan was based on "financial policy despair."

Krugman wrote on his blog that the main flaw in the plan "is the insistence that the bad assets on banks' books are really worth much, much more than anyone is currently willing to pay for them."

Andrew Busch at BMO Capital Markets said that "no one is sure whether banks will sell these assets to create the program. Other than that, the markets are loving it early."

To allow banks to sell loans, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will conduct an analysis to determine the amount of funding it is willing to guarantee. Investors will be able to bid on these, with financing available with a leverage ratio of up to 6-to-1.

For mortgage securities, the Treasury will approve up to five asset managers to handle these sales.

To reduce the likelihood that the government will overpay for these assets, private sector investors competing with one another will establish the price of the loans and securities purchased under the program. Treasury funds will be invested one-for-one on a side-by-side basis with investors.

Robert Brusca at FAO Economics said the Treasury is "providing low interest loans for a fund with an eight percent private capital stake matched by the government."

He said the government gets half the capital and half the funds gain "but it puts up 92 percent of the money," with investors "getting the same sweet deal as a home owner putting eight percent down and the ability to walk away unscathed if it does not work."

Germany: no sex please we're in recession

2009-03-22T17:40:00.001+08:00

Times are difficult down at Berlin's Pussy Club where a new all-in service is on offer: 70 euros for girls, drinks and food.
Like many of its counterparts, the brothel has been hit by the credit crunch and has had to come up with its own stimulus package for a trade that was legalised in Germany seven years ago.
The Belle Escort, another Berlin brothel, has never before faced problems, but the current financial crisis has triggered a sharp decline in clientele, said its owner Isabelle, without giving her surname.
Isabelle rejected the idea of "special deal prostitution" as offered by the Pussy Club but admitted: "We're in trouble.

"I'd estimate that we have at least 20 percent less people coming here," she sighed.

Monika Heitmann works for a support network for prostitutes in Bremen and can only confirm the problems the industry is facing.

"If customers can't even afford to spend money on housing, food and cars, then how can we expect them to spend money on sex?" she asked.

Heitmann has worked with prostitutes for over 20 years and says that business has been going downhill over that time.

"Thirty years ago prostitutes were really dedicated to their work," she said, adding that desperation was now forcing women into the sex trade.

At the beginning of this year, the owner of Frankfurt's oldest brothel, the FKK Sudfass, was forced to sell up after 37 years.

The building will be converted into a hotel over the next year.

Since 2001, prostitution in Germany has been legal and is relatively widespread, especially in big cities like Berlin, Munich and Hamburg, where women tout for business in the show windows of the infamous St Pauli district.

But social stigmatisation persists and Heitmann is concerned that prostitutes' trials and tribulations are not being taken seriously.

"There are a lot of women who come here and just don't know how to get on," Heitmann said. "The crisis means that customers want more service for less money. They're becoming pushy and even blackmailing the ladies."

Hoping for more success, many women are driven from the clubs to the kerbs to sell their bodies on their own terms.

An increasing number of men on a tight budget are also picking up prostitutes on street corners rather than in pricey brothels or "Eros Centres."

Some places have been forced to shut their doors and in January, sex-shop owners and porn producers pushed for state aid, taking their lead from the crisis-hit auto and banking industries.

Erotic trade federation official Uwe Kaltenberg, said that "economic aid would be judicious."

Heitmann is now afraid that waning turnover could damage the industry's reputation even more and that back-street prostitution could escalate.

Barbara Kavemann, professor at the Berlin Research Institute for Social Science and Women Studies, said the full impact of the financial crisis could not be determined because there was no concrete data.

"Firstly, prostitutes don't legally have to be registered, and secondly, who defines who is a prostitute?" said Kavemann.

But Isabelle and other brothel owners do not need empirical data or definitions to confirm the impact of the credit crunch on the sex industry has been hard.

"The only thing we can do now is keep our fingers crossed and hope for better times," she said, "and obviously I wouldn't say no to a state-funded cash injection."

Obama defends Geithner, budget

2009-03-22T17:38:00.001+08:00

US President Barack Obama, in an interview to be aired Sunday, threw his weight behind his embattled treasury secretary, saying Timothy Geithner would not be allowed to resign.
Should Geithner offer his resignation, Obama told CBS he would turn down that offer and respond: "Sorry buddy, you've still got the job," according to interview excerpts released Saturday.
Geithner has been under fire for his handling of the economic crisis and a political scandal over massive bonuses paid out by insurance giant American International Group, which has received bailout money funded by taxpayers.
AIG dished out 165 million dollars in bonuses to top executives, including some in the division blamed for putting the once-mighty insurer on life support.

US media reported Saturday that the insurance giant had actually paid 218 million dollars in bonuses, over 50 million more than had been disclosed. AIG has denied the reports.

In an interview with the CBS program "60 Minutes" to be broadcast Sunday, Obama said neither he nor Geithner had discussed a possible resignation by the treasury chief.

Obama also defended his 3.55-trillion-dollar budget and his 787-billion-dollar economic stimulus plan, but he acknowledged public frustration with continued economic woes.

"It's going to take a little bit more time than we would like to make sure that we get this plan just right. Of course, then we'd still be subject to criticism," he said.

"What's taken so long? You've been in office a whole 40 days and you haven't solved the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression," he quipped.

Earlier, in his weekly radio and video address, Obama said he remained committed to halving the deficit within four years and that his administration was scouring every corner of the budget to produce two trillion dollars in deficit reductions over the next decade.

"In total, our budget would bring discretionary spending for domestic programs as a share of the economy to its lowest level in nearly half a century," he said.

"And we will continue making these tough choices in the months and years ahead so that as our economy recovers, we do what we must to bring this deficit down."

The comments came as Congress was poised to begin debating this week the budget Obama's administration unveiled last month.

But the budget stumbled into hurdles Friday when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecast that the deficit could hit 1.845 trillion dollars this year under the Obama proposal, quadrupling the 2008 record shortfall.

The CBO said its latest budget deficit estimate for fiscal 2009, which ends on September 30, would amount to 13.1 percent of the country's total economic output.

Since its early January estimate of a 1.2-trillion-dollar gap, the CBO said the enactment of the stimulus plan, other measures to revive the economy and additional factors had hiked deficit projections for 2009 and 2010 by over 400 billion dollars.

Republicans immediately seized on the report to blast Obama's economic policies. "It's worse than even the most pessimistic predictions for this budget," said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.

"If there was ever any doubt that the administration's budget spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much, it's gone."

But Obama was quick to rebut his critics, arguing that his economic proposals offered a long-term solution to US structural problems and not "a wish list of priorities that I picked out of thin air."

The proposals "are a central part of a comprehensive strategy to grow this economy by attacking the very problems that have dragged it down for too long: the high cost of healthcare and our dependence on foreign oil; our education deficit and our fiscal deficit," he added.

Obama urged lawmakers not to shy away from the magnitude of problems they were facing, saying that Americans were watching them and waiting for them to lead.

"Let's show them that we are equal to the task before us, and let's pass a budget that puts this nation on the road to lasting prosperity," he said.

Liverpool determined to sustain the high

2009-03-22T17:35:00.003+08:00

Liverpool head into their match with Aston Villa desperate to avoid another feeling of anti-climax at Anfield.
The Reds know that they will have to win almost all of their remaining nine games in the Premier League to stand a chance of overhauling the leaders Manchester United.
But Rafael Benitez's team will be mindful that the last time they returned to a more modest league encounter, they suffered a major jolt.

Following the high of a 1-0 win over Real Madrid in the Bernabeu, their Premier League hopes suffered a major blow with a 2-0 loss against Middlesbrough.

While Villa are a more dangerous proposition than Gareth Southgate's team, Liverpool accept that this will be seen as another test of their staying power.

Liverpool's title push has often foundered at home, where they have regularly been stifled.

They remain unbeaten in the league at Anfield but have been held to draws in six of their 14 home games.

The 12 points they have dropped - against Stoke, Fulham, West Ham, Hull, Everton and Manchester City - are likely to prove costly come the end the season.

And Benitez, who is sure for a warm reception at Anfield after signing a new five-year contract, knows that his team can not afford any more slip ups if they are to maintain the pressure on Sir Alex Ferguson's men.

He said: "This week has been really good for us. To beat United away and score four goals is massive. But we cannot say anything if we don't go on to beat Aston Villa.

"If we want to be contenders and stay in the title race, clearly it depends on United. But we also have to win our games, starting with three points against Villa.

"The players know we have to win our games and try to be as close as possible to United. We can be talking and talking but all this doesn't matter unless we win.

"I'll think about Villa and see what the position is in a week. To win the title you always have to be almost perfect, and when you are four points behind and they have a game in hand, clearly you have to win almost every game."

The Spaniard has a full squad, apart from long-term absentee Philipp Degen to select from and although all the attention will be on whether the Reds can stay in touch with United, Villa are also coming under pressure.

Having spent much of the campaign pushing for a top four place, they have slipped out of the Champions League places with a miserable run that has seen them fail to win in seven matches in all competitions.

Although Benitez is assured of plenty of cheers from the Reds supporters, the reception given to Gareth Barry, who came close to moving to Anfield last summer, is likely to be far cooler.

Martin O'Neill knows all about how to come away from Anfield with a share of the spoils after picking up a 2-2 draw at Liverpool last season.

He is calling on a repeat of that performance to pull Villa out of their tail-spin and is sure that he can bring the Reds back down to earth.

He said: "They've had a fantastic victory against Manchester United at Old Trafford, they've beaten Real Madrid, so at this moment their form and results have been terrific.

"But last year we went up there, we fought back from a goal behind to get ourselves in front and conceded a late goal.

"What we have to do is keep hold of that self-belief and the players have got to try and remain as strong as possible. They are certainly capable of doing it."

South Koreans rout Venezuela to reach Classic final

2009-03-22T17:35:00.001+08:00

South Korea's finest players showed they have the talent to humble US Major League Baseball superstars, overwhelming Venezuela 10-2 to reach the final of the World Baseball Classic.
The reigning Olympic champions booked a berth in Monday's final at Dodger Stadium against the winner of Sunday's semi-final between defending Classic champion Japan, South Korea's arch rivals, and the United States.
Choo Shin-Soo, South Korea's only major leaguer, and Kim Tae-Kyun each blasted home runs while 22-year-old right-handed pitcher Yoon Suk-Min baffled a South American major league all-star squad that led the Classic in hitting.
"This was an unforgettable game," Choo said.

"In terms of skill level, I think there is no difference between Koreans and major leaguers. I've learned a lot from all the Korean players. I hope Koreans will advance to the major leagues in great numbers in the future.

"There's a major difference in style. Major leaguers are always aggressive. Korea is more patient in batting. We have better fundemental skills in terms of meticulousness and how we follow up with each other."

The Koreans, ousted in a semi-final by Japan in the inaugural 2006 Classic, can secure their global supremacy in the only tournament featuring US stars, a key for bragging rights with the sport now off the Olympic calendar.

"I had better be impressed," Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig said. "It's a remarkable performance to say the least."

Choo, who plays for the Cleveland Indians, smashed a three-run blow in a five-run first inning while Kim added a two-run homer, his third round-tripper of the tournament, in the second.

"This was very painful," Venezuelan manager Luis Sojo said. "In the first inning the Koreans showed they were here to win. They got a five-run lead and that was basically the game."

Both homers came off Venezuelan starter Carlos Silva, a Seattle Mariners right-hander who surrendered seven runs on six hits in only 1 1/3 innings.

"Choo knew about the pitcher and told us about him," Kim said. "We were able to anticipate the pitches. I knew a lot of sinkers would be thrown and that was helpful."

Yoon, an Olympic hero who led the Korean league with a 2.33 earned-run average last year, scattered seven hits and struck out four in 6 1/3 innings while four Korean relief pitchers blanked Venezuela the rest of the way.

"I felt great. I was proud and confident," Yoon said. "I was not nervous. They were major league batters but I didn't know who they were so I wasn't nervous."

Eight of nine Korean starters reached base in the first two innings off the Venezuelan major league "Dream Team", sending a clear message that South Korea's lack of major leaguers does not mean they lack world-class talent.

Sojo, a five-time World Series champion, expects to see more Korean major leaguers.

"There will be from now on. Trust me," Sojo said. "The way they play is exceptional. This kid, the way he pitched, it opened a lot of eyes. I don't know why there aren't more Koreans in the big leagues but there will be."

Venezuelan fielders made five errors, four in the first four innings, to aid the Korean cause.

Lee Yong-Kyu opened the game with a walk and reached second when Jeong Keun-Woo hit a fly ball to right field that was dropped by Venezuela's Bobby Abreu and muffed by shortstop Marco Scutaro when trying to force out Lee at second.

"I gloved the ball too early. My throw to Scutaro was too short," Abreu said. "That play cost us the whole rally. That out would have meant a lot."

Kim Hyun-Soo slapped a single into left field to score Lee and Kim Tae-Hyun lifted a single over second base to load the bases before Lee Dae-Ho plated Jeong with a ground out to Silva. That set the stage for Choo's homer.

Kim Tae-Kyun made it 7-0 on a homer just inside the left-field pole, taking the Classic lead at batting in runs on 11. He walked from the dugout and tipped his cap to Korea's loud fans among a crowd of 43,378.

"For a moment I felt like we were in Korea," Sojo said.

Yoon was in command from there.

"He's an excellent pitcher. He dominated the game," Abreu said. "He really knows how to switch his pitches. He's really strong, especially his changeup. He has good control."

China sees stimulus package bringing growth

2009-03-22T17:32:00.000+08:00

China's huge stimulus package is expected to contribute at least 1.5 percent to the nation's economic growth this year, a top official said Sunday, as the Asian giant continues to fight the crisis.
The stimulus package was unveiled in November in a bid to fight the impact of the global financial crisis.

China has set an economic growth target of about 8.0 percent this year, a level that the government says it needs in order to keep unemployment at a manageable level.

However, just over a week ago, Premier Wen Jiabao admitted this target would be difficult to achieve.

On Wednesday, the World Bank slashed China's economic growth forecast to 6.5 percent in 2009.

North Korea guards detain U.S. journalists

2009-03-20T11:52:00.001+08:00

A North Korean soldier looks south on the north side of the truce village of Panmunjom in the demilitarised zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas in Paju, about 55 km north of Seoul, in this December 6, 2008 file photo.
North Korean security officials have detained two Korean-American journalists who were filming across the Tumen River from the Chinese side of the border, South Korean media and diplomatic sources said on Thursday.
The arrests come at a time of mounting tension on the Korean peninsula, with the North accusing the United States and South Korea of using joint military exercises which end on Friday as preparations to invade the isolated state.

In Washington, a State Department official who spoke on condition that she not be named, said the United States had contacted North Korean authorities about the two, who were detained on Tuesday, and was seeking their immediate release.

"Two American citizens were taken into custody at the Tumen River border between China and North Korea by North Korean border guards," she said. "We have been in touch with North Korean authorities to express our concern about this situation and to secure the immediate release of our citizens."

A diplomatic source said the reporters were on the frozen Tumen river when taken by North Korean security guards. The Tumen runs along the eastern section of the border with China.

The YTN channel earlier quoted a South Korean government official as saying North Korean guards crossed the border into Chinese territory to arrest the two women on Tuesday after they ignored warnings to stop filming.

But the diplomatic source said it was not clear which side of the border they were on at the time.

YTN said the women worked for an online news company based in California but gave no other details. A media source said the two were working for Current TV, a U.S.-based online news company.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Beijing was investigating the report and declined to comment further. South Korea's foreign ministry also declined to confirm YTN's report.

YTN said a man was also with the pair from the same news organisation but managed to escape.

"It's difficult to comment on this matter because it involves a U.S. citizen, but our government is aware that a U.S. journalist is in detention in the North," the senior South Korean government official was quoted as saying.

Tensions have escalated on the Korean peninsula in recent weeks.

North Korea has said it will launch a missile early in April as part of its space communications programme, but the United States says the launch is intended to test a rocket that could potentially carry a warhead as far as U.S. territory.

North Korean Premier Kim Yong-il is visiting China, the nearest the impoverished state has to a major ally and a key source of economic aid.

China has avoided openly pressuring the North over its plans to launch the rocket.

In publicly reported comments to Kim, Chinese President Hu Jintao kept to that gentle approach, avoiding direct mention of the rocket issue.

"We hope all sides will take the broader perspective to appropriately resolve existing disputes," Hu told Kim, according to Chinese state radio news.

Austrian incest dad stuns court with murder plea

2009-03-19T06:17:00.002+08:00

Josef Fritzl, the Austrian accused of imprisoning his daughter and fathering seven children with her, stunned his court trial on Wednesday by changing his plea to guilty on all charges.
The retired Austrian engineer said he decided to admit the previously denied charges of murder and slavery after seeing his daughter Elisabeth describe her quarter century of sexual abuse in a dark, damp cellar.
Although Fritzl could yet avoid a life sentence, a psychiatrist told the court that the 73-year-old should be placed in a psychiatric facility as he regarded himself as having been "born to rape".
The defendant, who had tried to hide from photographers and TV cameras earlier this week, made a tearful confession, saying: "I plead guilty to the crimes I've been charged with. I'm sorry."

Media reports that Elisabeth had been smuggled into court the day before and speculation that a face-to-face confrontation with her may have triggered Fritzl's U-turn were fuelled by his own lawyer.

"If some of the victims were present (in court) yesterday, that certainly must have had a strong trigger effect," said Rudolf Mayer .

A court spokesman would not confirm Elisabeth's presence at the closed-door session on Tuesday.

The retired electrical engineer had pleaded guilty to incest, rape and sequestration on Monday but initially denied enslavement and murder, for which he faces a life prison term.

Under Austrian law, the final sentence is softened in the event of a confession.

Despite Fritzl's guilty pleas, the jury will nevertheless have to decide whether to convict him and on what charges. A verdict is expected Thursday.

Asked by the judge what caused him to change his plea, Fritzl replied: "My daughter's videotaped testimony."

Fritzl had to watch Elisabeth's testimony on Monday and Tuesday and was questioned about his treatment of her.

Elisabeth Fritzl, now 42, and her children have sought refuge in a specialist clinic during the trial to avoid publicity. Authorities are attempting to give them a new start in life under a new identity.

Prosecutors have accused Fritzl of murder for letting a baby named Michael die shortly after birth in the cellar. Fritzl had maintained the baby was still-born and said he burnt the body in a boiler.

But he admitted Wednesday that he was present at Michael's birth and that he had developed breathing problems.

"I don't know why I didn't help," he told the court. "I should have noticed that the baby was not doing well. I just hoped it would survive."

A psychiatrist told the court that Fritzl felt he was "born to rape," and said he should be placed in a psychiatric facility because there was a risk he would commit new offences.

"The danger is still very much there that he will reoffend if he is not treated," said Adelheid Kastner.

"It is necessary that he continue being treated until he can no longer be classified as dangerous."

When Kastner quizzed Fritzl as to why he had chosen Elisabeth, the third-eldest of his seven legitimate children, as his victim, "his reply was that she was most like me. She was as stubborn as me, as strong as me. The stronger your opponent, the bigger the victory," she quoted him as saying.

Three children were brought up to live with Fritzl and his wife Rosemarie while three lived with Elisabeth and never left the dungeon until their release last April.

The trial was adjourned so the three judges could compile a catalogue of questions to help the jury decide whether Fritzl was guilty as charged.

The questions would be read to the jury Thursday, after which defence and prosecution would make their closing statements.

The jury would then retire to reach its verdict, which need not be unanimous, but requires a simply majority.

Once the verdict has been reached, the jury and judges would together consider what sentence to hand down.

They could decide to send Fritzl to a mental facility, court spokesman Cutka told journalists.

Experts and judges would then review Fritzl's case on a yearly basis.

"If the expertise concludes there has been an improvement and he can be released from such a facility, he will then serve any remainder of his sentence (in a prison)," Cutka said.

Injured actress Richardson flown to US: hospital

2009-03-18T10:31:00.000+08:00

Acclaimed actress Natasha Richardson suffered a serious head injury while skiing in Canada and was transferred Tuesday to the United States, hospital officials and media said.
"She was transferred at the request of the family," said Josee-Michelle Simard, a spokeswoman for Sacre-Coeur hospital in Montreal, where the 45-year-old actress was treated following Monday's accident.
The couple's two young sons, Michael and Daniel, are believed to be with relatives in New York.

Richardson's precise medical condition at the time of her release from the Canadian hospital was not immediately clear.

"We know that she has had an accident but we really do not know any more details," Kika Markham, Richardson's aunt, told the British media. "We are very concerned."

The British-born actress is the wife of Irish actor Neeson and the daughter of British stage and screen legend Vanessa Redgrave, 72.

Monday's mishap occurred at the Mont Tremblant ski resort where Richardson had a fall during a ski lesson on a beginner's trail, according to a statement by the Mont Tremblant ski resort in the Laurentian Mountains.

"She did not show any visible sign of injury," the resort said. But following strict procedures, the local ski patrol and her instructor accompanied her back to her hotel and "insisted she should see a doctor."

An hour later, Richardson "was not feeling good" and an ambulance was called to take her to the Centre Hospitalier Laurentien in Ste-Agathe, Quebec. She was later transferred to Sacre-Coeur hospital in Montreal, the resort said.

Officials said the family was to make a statement on Wednesday from the United States.

The website IrishCentral.com, which first broke the story, quoted a Montreal hospital insider as saying that Richardson had suffered a traumatic brain injury.

Neeson, who has been married to Richardson since 1994, flew to be with his wife following the accident from a movie set in Toronto, a publicist for the film "Chloe" told local media.

In 1998, Richardson won a Tony award for her role in the musical "Cabaret," and she has appeared in films "The Parent Trap," "Maid in Manhattan" and "Evening."

Other movie credits include "The Handmaid's Tale," "Gothic," "A Month in the Country," and "Nell" in which she appeared with Neeson, whose most celebrated screen turn was in the movie "Schindler's List."

Born in May 1963, Richardson was educated in London and trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in the city, which has groomed a host of British actors.

Her extensive stage experience includes a number of Shakespearean roles, among them Ophelia in "Hamlet" and Helena in "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

Her famed Redgrave clan is one of Britain's most famous stage and screen dynasties.

Vanessa, Corin and their sister Lynn are the children of Rachel Kempson and Michael Redgrave, who played in such British classics as the 1938 "The Lady Vanishes" and 1969 "Goodbye, Mr Chips."

Natasha Richardson's sister Joely is also an actress, who is currently starring in the television drama Nip/Tuck.

If government gets way, Ruth Madoff gets nothing

2009-03-18T05:49:00.000+08:00

NEW YORK (AP) - Prosecutors probing Bernard Madoff's massive fraud are determined to leave his wife with almost nothing after telling a Manhattan court that they consider more than $100 million in assets, most of it listed in her name, the fruits of her husband's crimes.

The government even included a $39,000 Steinway piano and $65,000 in silverware, both owned by Ruth Madoff, in items it said it will try to force the Madoffs to forfeit.

The list was in a three-page document filed in U.S. District Court late Sunday.

Brenda Sharton, a lawyer with a Boston firm representing several burned investors, said the government's aggressive approach with Ruth Madoff isn't surprising.

"I don't think it's unusual ... given the magnitude of the fraud," she said.

"It would be unusual if they didn't go after whatever assets they can get."

Bernard Madoff, 70, has been living in a small cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan since he pleaded guilty Thursday to securities fraud, perjury and nine other charges.

He could be sent to prison for up to 150 years at a June sentencing.

If prosecutors get their way, the Madoffs will have to give up all their assets, including three properties listed solely in Ruth Madoff's name; a $7 million Manhattan penthouse bought in 1984, an $11 million Palm Beach, Florida, home purchased in 1994 and a $1 million home in Cap d' Antibe, France.

Another $3 million home bought in 1979 in Montauk, New York, is jointly owned by the couple.

The government also said Madoff and his wife should forfeit:

_ $10 million in furnishings for all of the homes, along with accounts in Ruth Madoff's name that hold $17 million in cash and $45 million in securities.

_ "Bull," a $7 million yacht in France and its $1.5 million boat slip, and "Little Bull," a $320,000 Montauk boat, all in Ruth Madoff's name, as well as a $2.2 million fishing boat in Palm Beach, Florida, that is in Madoff's name.

_ A 1999 Mercedes SLK convertible in Florida, a 2001 Mercedes station wagon and a 2004 Volkswagen, estimated to be worth a total of $25,000.

Not mentioned in the document was $2.6 million in jewelry, although the government did say it would seek "all insured and readily salable personal property" in any of the Madoff properties.

Ruth Madoff has not been charged in the massive swindle.

But Karl Buch, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice, said the government filing shows prosecutors believe she knew about the scam.

"If the government had strong evidence she was an innocent third party, they wouldn't bring a forfeiture," he said.

The assets were first listed in a document made public Friday that listed the couple's combined assets at between $823 million and $826 million, most of it the estimated $700 million value of what is left of Madoff's businesses.

Defense lawyers haven't formally sought to retain any assets, but indicated previously that they might try to keep the Manhattan penthouse and $62 million in cash and securities for Ruth Madoff because those assets were not part of the fraud and were listed in her name.

The lawyers have noted that Madoff and his wife agreed to a freeze of their assets as the government and others recover as much as possible for investors.

Attorneys for Madoff, Ruth Madoff and a federal prosecutor's spokeswoman all declined comment.

So far, about $1 billion in assets have been identified for investors, just a small portion of the $65 billion Madoff told his 4,800 investors that he had on hand in November.

Authorities say they believe the figure included what would have existed if much smaller original investments had grown for decades.

At his plea, Madoff said he began what he thought would be a shortlived Ponzi scheme in the early 1990s in response to a recession.

He said he never recovered and continued making payouts to early investors with money from new investors.

Prosecutors say the fraud began in the 1980s, which would make it harder for Ruth Madoff to argue that she bought the Manhattan penthouse before the fraud began.

In September, Ruth Madoff filed for a homestead exemption to protect her Palm Beach, Florida, home as her primary residence.

It was granted in January, according to Palm Beach County property records.

Florida has some of the most protective laws in the country for debtors seeking to dodge creditors.

"Florida is what we call a debtor haven," said Miami bankruptcy attorney Timothy Kingcade.

But the money to buy the home cannot have resulted from fraud, Kingcade said, noting: "You can't go rob a bank and buy a home and be protected."

Health claims for eating fish causing harm -- study

2009-03-18T05:47:00.000+08:00

Sardines are cooked at a restaurant near the beach of Malaga, southern Spain, May 13, 2008. (REUTERS/Jon Nazca/Files)

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Claims about the human health benefits of eating more fish may be causing more environmental and social harm than good, according to a Canadian study published on Tuesday.

The health claims appear to be overblown, and many of the studies making them ignore the pressure increased consumption puts on the dwindling global fish stocks, according to the article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

"Governments and industry tell consumers to eat more fish because it is healthy... but where do we get these fish?" asked Rashid Sumaila, of the University of British Columbia's Fisheries Economics Research Unit.

With the collapse of many fish stocks near the United States, Europe and Japan, the pressure is now on developing countries to allow increased foreign access to their shores or to export the catch of local fishermen.

"In either case, the local markets of developing countries, where basic nutrition and health are challenges, are deprived of an important source of protein for the sake of the developed world, whose major problems are overnutrition and physical inactivity," the researchers wrote.

The report was prepared jointly by ocean and medical researchers, and coauthor by prominent Canadian writer and environmentalist Farley Mowat.

The researchers said while there are studies that indicate a benefit of consuming omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oils, there are also studies that indicate the benefits are minimal and fish eaters already tend to lead healthier lifestyles.

"In contrast to the uncertainty over the value of omega-3 in fish oils in the scientific literature, there is little doubt about the gravity of the fisheries crisis and the prospect of ongoing collapses of the fish stocks," the researcher wrote.

The article said there are also alternatives in the ocean to fish oils for omega-3 fatty acids, such as algae and plants, but warns more clinical study is needed before advocating their widespread use.

The researchers also discount expanding aquaculture because for some fish species, such as salmon, their high protein feed requires requires between 2.5 and 5 kilograms of fish for every kilogram the farm eventually produces.

Obama picks FDA chief, starts food safety panel

2009-03-15T17:26:00.001+08:00

US President Barack Obama (L) speaks to reporters in the Oval Office after meeting with Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva at the White House in Washington, March 14, 2009. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Saturday chose public health and biological threat expert Dr. Margaret Hamburg to run the troubled U.S. Food and Drug Administration and announced a Cabinet-level food safety group.

Obama also outlined measures to keep diseased cows from entering the food supply and promised to increase the number of FDA food inspectors and modernize food safety labs.

He selected Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Joshua Sharfstein to serve as Hamburg's principal deputy.

Hamburg is a former New York City health chief and she worked on policy issues in President Clinton's health department. She has experience on topics ranging from AIDS to reduction of biological threats.

"Dr. Hamburg brings to this vital position not only a reputation of integrity but a record of achievement in making Americans safer and more secure," Obama said in his weekly radio address.

If confirmed by the Senate, Hamburg will take over an agency battered by a string of often deadly food poisoning and drug safety issues, including an ongoing outbreak of salmonella in peanut products that forced the largest food recall in U.S. history.

The choice signals the FDA's priority under the Obama administration will be safety and not necessarily speeding through drug approvals.

The salmonella outbreak has made 683 people in 46 states sick, killed as many as nine and forced the recall of more than 3,000 products.

"When I heard peanut products were being contaminated earlier this year, I immediately thought of my 7-year-old daughter, Sasha, who has peanut butter sandwiches for lunch probably three times a week," Obama said.

"No parent should have to worry that their child is going to get sick from their lunch."

UNDERFUNDED, UNDERSTAFFED

Obama said outdated food safety laws were in part to blame. "Inspection and enforcement is spread out so widely among so many people that it's difficult for different parts of our government to share information, work together, and solve problems," he said.

The FDA "has been underfunded and understaffed in recent years, leaving the agency with the resources to inspect just 7,000 of our 150,000 food-processing plants and warehouses each year. That means roughly 95 percent of them go uninspected," he added.

Obama said he would assign his Health and Human Services secretary -- his nominee is former Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius -- and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to head a group to advise on ways to improve food safety laws.

Hamburg led an Institute of Medicine panel that reported on microbial threats in 2003. As New York City health commissioner, she battled an outbreak of drug-resistant tuberculosis fueled by the AIDS epidemic.

"There are few jobs in the federal government that are as tough or important as FDA commissioner," said Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives at Consumers Union.

Hamburg's nomination means the FDA will "have the leadership it needs at a time when it faces huge challenges," Halloran added.

LOW MORALE

Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak said he was pleased Obama went outside the agency for a new chief. He said the FDA had been "plagued by low morale, antiquated systems, inadequate funding and management more interested in protecting the companies they regulate than the American people."

Reports by outside experts have found the FDA underfunded and ill-equipped to manage its oversight of prescription drugs, medical devices, most foods and other products that account for about one-quarter of the U.S. economy.

Obama highlighted a new USDA rule to keep sick and injured cattle out of slaughterhouses to safeguard against mad cow disease.

He praised Sharfstein for "efforts to protect children from unsafe over-the-counter cough and cold medications" and a program to ensure people with disabilities have access to prescription drugs.

The pharmaceutical industry's main lobbying group praised Hamburg's selection but did not comment on Sharfstein, who did previous work for Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman, a harsh critic of drugmakers.

Hamburg "brings managerial skills that are essential for directing science-based activities," said Billy Tauzin, head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

Repaired space shuttle ready for launch try Sunday

2009-03-15T17:22:00.001+08:00

Space shuttle Discovery sits on launch pad 39A as rotating service structure rolls back at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida 2009. (REUTERS/Scott Audette)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) -- NASA will try again on Sunday to launch space shuttle Discovery on a construction mission to the International Space Station after fixing a fuel leak that triggered a delay last week.

Blastoff is set for 7:43 p.m. (2343 GMT) from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Engineers installed new seals in a fuel vent line, hoping that will solve the problem that postponed NASA's first launch attempt on Wednesday when hydrogen gas leaked from the shuttle's fuel tank, posing a fire hazard.

Technicians were unable to find the exact cause of the leak.

"I was a little surprised that we didn't find something more obvious because it was a healthy leak," shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach told reporters on Saturday.

Still, if the shuttle does not leak when it is fueled for flight on Sunday, it will be safe to fly, he added.

NASA plans to start filling the shuttle's tank with 500,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen at about 10:30 a.m. (1430 GMT) on Sunday.

NASA has until Tuesday to launch the shuttle or face a delay until April 7 to avoid a schedule conflict with a Russia-led Soyuz mission to replace the station's prime crew.

Discovery will be carrying the fourth and final solar power module for the U.S. part of the station, a $100 billion project of 16 nations. The crew includes Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who will be left behind to serve as a station flight engineer and the first Japanese to live on the outpost.

Two hoaxers arrested after German massacre

2009-03-14T00:39:00.001+08:00

Two new hoax Internet warnings of school shootings resulted in arrests on Friday in Germany and France, two days after a horrific massacre of 15 people near Stuttgart by a teenage gunman.
The latest hoaxes came after it was separately revealed that the perpetrator of Wednesday's bloodbath, 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer , had not warned of his intentions on the Internet, contrary to what investigators had previously been led to believe.
The arrests take to three the number of hoaxers picked up by European police over threats of copycat attacks made over the Internet. Swedish police arrested a teenager there on Thursday.
Those behind the hoax regional officials initially believed was a chilling warning by Kretschmer have yet to be discovered.

German police in Lower Saxony, hundreds of kilometres (miles) from the scene of Wednesday's rampage, said they arrested a 21-year-old man after he said in a chat room that he would carry out a similar crime.

"I have a gun and I'm going to kill everybody," read the chat-room message, which was alerted to police by a 16-year-old schoolboy in Wuerzburg.

The man, who has not been named and who faces up to three years in jail or a fine, said that it was meant "as a joke."

French police dealt with a similar situation, taking into custody an 18-year-old youth after he too posted a "joke" website warning of a shooting spree at a school in the Paris suburbs.

The youth arrested in France said he had posted the warning on Thursday as a joke, police said, adding that no weapons were found at his home. "In Raincy (high school) there will be blood -- I have weapons," this message read.

On Thursday, Swedish police detained a 17-year-old boy who was suspected of posting a picture of himself posing with a weapon on an Internet forum, along with a threatening message against a high school.

Also on Friday, a school at Ilsfed, near the scene of Wednesday's killing, was searched by police after another Internet threat but it turned out to be a false alert, local police spokesman Roberto Monaci told AFP.

Dressed in black combat gear and armed with a gun taken from his father's bedroom, Kretschmer went on the rampage starting at his old school in the town of Winnenden .

He shot dead eight girls, one boy and three female teachers. He then killed a passer-by outside a psychiatric clinic where he had been due to receive treatment, hijacked a car and shot two others at a car dealership.

By this time hundreds of armed commandos were on his trail, some in helicopters, and Kretschmer died in a shootout with police around 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the school. Police believe he shot himself.

The interior minister of the state where this took place said on Friday that the 17-year-old -- described as unremarkable and reserved if socially awkward and suffering from depression -- had announced his intentions on the Internet.

But on Friday the minister, Heribert Rech, admitted that he had been duped.

"Some crazy person obviously put out this dreadful false message," Rech was quoted as saying by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily. "It must have been made up afterwards."

Experts said that the chat never took place. Instead a screen shot of a faked conversation was placed on the Krautchan.net website, which said that the reference number was that of a completely unrelated dialogue.

"These days it is incredibly easy to manipulate data in chat rooms," Sebastian Clausz, a computer scientist from Dresden's Technical University told AFP.

After analysing Kretschmer's computer, on which he had spent hours playing "shoot-em-up" video games, a spokesman for local police said no trace had been found of the message.

The website said the warning was "a forgery."

The picturesque town near Stuttgart was still in a state of shock on Friday, with people laying flowers and candles outside the Albertville secondary school, which remained closed.

For the second evening in a row, Winnenden's church was overflowing, with the service transmitted outside on specially-erected screens.

Chancellor Angela Merkel will attend a memorial service on March 21 in the town, her spokesman said on Friday.

Two policemen injured in Wednesday's car park shootout were still in hospital, as were five pupils from the school, police said. Some the pupils had gunshot wounds and others had broken bones after jumping out of windows.

World Wide Web feels its growing pains

2009-03-14T00:37:00.001+08:00

The World Wide Web (WWW) on Friday marked its 20th anniversary and one of its founders admitted there are bits of the phenomenon he does not like.
The creation of the web by British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee and colleagues at the European particle physics laboratory (CERN) paved the way for the Internet explosion which has changed our daily lives.
In March 1989, the young Berners-Lee handed his supervisor in Geneva a document entitled 'Information Management: a proposal".

The supervisor described its as "vague, but exciting" and later gave it the go ahead, according to CERN.

"It was really in the air, something that had to happen sooner or later," said former CERN systems engineer Cailliau, who teamed up with Berners-Lee.

They drew up the global hypertext language -- which is behind the "http" on website addresses -- and came up with the first web browser in October 1990, which looks remarkably similar to the ones used today.

"Everything that people talk about today, blogs and so on, that's what we were doing in 1990, there's no difference. That's how we started," Cailliau told Swiss radio RSR.

The WWW technology was first made available for wider use on the Internet from 1991 after CERN was unable to ensure its development, and the organisation made a landmark decision two years later not to levy royalties.

Cailliau still marvels at developments like wikipaedia that allow knowledge to be exchanged openly around the web, but never imagined that search engines would take on the importance they have assumed today.

"A search engine is very centralised... while the web is totally decentralised, I couldn't have predicted the things that it does," he said.

But the commercial development of the web still irritates some of the founders.

"There are some things I don't like at all, such as the fact that people have to live off advertising," said Caillau, who preferred the idea of direct "micro payments" to information providers.

"And there's the big problem of identity, of course, the trust between the person who is consulting and the person who provides the page, as well as the protection of children," he added.

Berners-Lee, now a researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States and a computer science professor at Southampton University in Britain, still heads the World Wide Web Consortium that coordinates development of the web.

Lynn St. Amour, chief executive of the Internet Society, said the web is often wrongly confused with the wider Internet.

"The Internet is a vast network of networks, interconnected in many different physical ways, yet all speaking a common language," she explained.

"The Web is one -- albeit, the most influential and well known -- of many different applications which run over the Internet."

"The great achievement of Tim Berners-Lee was to recognise the power and potential in the Internet," she added.

Poland hopes to complete U.S. shield talks in April

2009-03-13T02:04:00.001+08:00

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland hopes to complete technical talks on stationing parts of a U.S. missile defence shield on its soil next month, the country's defence minister was quoted on Thursday as saying.

President Barack Obama's administration is reviewing U.S. security policy, including the shield plan, prompting speculation he might shelve a project that has irritated Moscow, with which Washington wants to mend ties.

NATO member Poland has said it still expects the project, designed to counter possible threats from what it calls rogue states such as Iran, to go ahead eventually after the review.

"We have had the penultimate round of talks (on technical issues) and I hope we will finalise negotiations in April," Defence Minister Bogdan Klich told the newspaper Rzeczpospolita in an interview.

Under the deal, agreed last year, Poland will host 10 ground-based interceptors. In return, Warsaw secured a U.S. promise that a Patriot missile battery would be stationed on its territory for a period before the end of 2009.

Warsaw sees the Patriot commitment as a symbolic security guarantee from its U.S. ally to counter an assertive Russia.

"I believe the Americans will stand behind their earlier declarations and that the Patriot rocket battery will come to Poland before the end of this year," Klich said.

U.S. and Polish diplomats say the Patriot deployment will go ahead independently of any decision on the missile shield.

Moscow sees the shield project as a threat to its security. Washington says it is aimed not against Russia but against Iran and possibly terrorist groups which might acquire weapons of mass destruction in the future.

Debris briefly forces astronauts from space station

2009-03-13T02:03:00.001+08:00

MIAMI (Reuters) - The astronauts aboard the International Space Station briefly evacuated to a Russian escape spaceship on Thursday when a piece of space debris came too close, NASA said.

The debris was an old motor that probably was once a part of the space station, NASA spokeswoman Laura Rochon said.

The Russian Space Command said the debris had passed the station and the crew were in no danger and had returned.

Iraq shoe thrower sentenced to three years in jail

2009-03-13T01:59:00.002+08:00

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi reporter who hurled his shoes at former U.S. President George W. Bush was convicted of attempting to assault a foreign leader on Thursday and jailed for three years, dismaying many Iraqis who regard him as a hero.

Muntazer al-Zaidi, 30, who pleaded not guilty to the charge, told the Baghdad court: "What I did was a natural reaction for the crimes committed against the Iraqi people."

Outside the courtroom, wails erupted from Zaidi's family and other supporters when they heard the verdict. One of his brothers fainted and his sister Ruqaiya burst into tears, shouting: "Down with Maliki, the agent of the Americans".

Zaidi earned instant global fame in December when he threw his shoes at the visiting U.S. leader, who spearheaded the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and called him a dog at a news conference.

Dhiaa al-Saadi, the head of Zaidi's defence team, condemned the sentence as harsh and said it would be appealed.

The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who was standing next to Bush at the news conference and tried the block a shoe, described the incident as a "barbaric act".

At the start of his trial in February, Zaidi said Bush's smile as he talked about achievements in Iraq had made him think of "the killing of more than a million Iraqis, the disrespect for the sanctity of mosques and houses, the rapes of women".

Enraged, he removed his shoes and hurled them one by one at Bush, shouting "This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog". Bush ducked, and was not hit by the flying footwear.

In the Middle East, hitting someone with a shoe is considered a major insult.

PARDON?

Zaidi's lawyers failed to convince the court to reduce the charge to insulting, rather than attempting to assault, a visiting head of state. The journalist, who has been detained since December, had faced jail time of up to 15 years.

A political analyst said the final verdict was a light one.

"Most people supported Zaidi and liked what he did, so the verdict reflects public opinion," Hazem al-Nuaimi said.

Zaidi's employer al-Baghdadiya television and a journalist advocacy group pinned their hopes on an appeal or pardon.

"We are confident of his innocence, if we understand his motives and the atmosphere created by the occupation," Baghdadiya said in a televised statement.

"It is now left to wait for a presidential or prime ministerial pardon, because we cannot accept an Iraqi journalist behind bars," said Iraq's Journalistic Freedoms Observatory.

Support for Zaidi in Iraq, where the U.S.-led invasion unleashed years of sectarian bloodshed, has not been universal. Some said a guest of Iraq should not be insulted, and that the incident embarrassed the country and its journalists.

But Zaidi has also been hailed in Iraq and across the Middle East as a hero. His action against Bush has been adopted by many as an act of protest, and shoe-throwing has caught on globally.

"The case is politicised and is an attempt to take revenge on Zaidi. I believe the judges were under political pressure," said Ahmed al-Masoudi, a spokesman for anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's parliamentary bloc.

However, Ali al-Adeeb, a senior member of Maliki's Dawa party, dismissed the charge.

"If this case was politicised, the punishment would have been harsher, but it was dealt with legally."

U.S. tries to play down naval confontation with China

2009-03-12T09:02:00.000+08:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States sought on Wednesday to play down a confrontation between Chinese and U.S. naval vessels as the two sides held high-level talks on reviving growth and reining in North Korea's nuclear program.

Tensions between the two countries rose over a weekend incident in the South China Sea in which five Chinese ships jostled with a U.S. Navy survey vessel off China's southern Hainan island, a major base for Beijing's expanding navy.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she raised the issue with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, who was to see U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner later in the day and, in a rare gesture, to meet President Barack Obama on Thursday.

"We both agreed that we should work to ensure that such incidents do not happen again in the future," Clinton told reporters after a meeting with Yang. They also discussed human rights, North Korea and the ailing global economy.

Clinton said the there was "a range of options," including action in the U.N. Security Council, that could be pursued against North Korea if it tests a long-range ballistic missile, which she said would be a "provocative" act.

She also repeated the long-standing U.S. request that North Korea return to the negotiating table to discuss a multilateral deal under an aid-for-disarmament deal in which Pyongyang agreed to abandon its nuclear programs.

Grappling with North Korea, which tested a nuclear weapon in 2006, is one of a host of issues on a U.S.-Chinese agenda that also covers reviving global growth and restraining global climate change.

Clinton was harshly criticized by rights groups for her comment in Asia last month that U.S. concerns about human rights in China "can't interfere with" joint work on the economy and other issues.

She sought to rebut the criticism, saying that the United States will always raise human rights with China but that it aimed to do so in a way that produced results.

"Human rights is part of our comprehensive dialogue. It doesn't take a front or a back seat or a middle seat," she told reporters. "It is part of the broad range of issues that we are discussing, but it is important to try to create a platform for actually seeing results from our human rights engagement."

Arsenal defeat Roma on penalties in Champions League

2009-03-12T09:01:00.000+08:00

AS Roma's Max Tonetto skied his penalty miles over the bar to hand Arsenal a place in the Champions League quarter-finals following a tense match that went to the spot-kick lottery on Wednesday.
Arsenal won the shoot-out 7-6 thanks to Tonetto's sudden death miss after Eduardo and Mirko Vucinic had seen their earlier efforts saved by goalkeepers Doni and Manuel Almunia respectively.
It means all four English teams made it through to the last eight with Italy's three representatives all bowing out -- it is the first time in seven years no Italian team has made it through to the quarters.
The game ended 1-0 to the hosts after 90 minutes, matching the score the Gunners had won by in London two weeks ago.

Despite the four English teams in the next round, Wenger named Barcelona as his favourites to lift the title.

"England can be very proud to have four teams through for the second year now," he said.

"It was very close between Chelsea and Juventus. Between us and Roma it was very close and I heard that Inter (Milan) played well against (Manchester) United, so it looks like Italy are coming back.

"But I give you as favourite a non-English team hoping and English team wins it."

With a first leg deficit to overcome Roma needed all the help they could get but while talisman Francesco Totti was passed fit, France centre-back Philippe Mexes was ruled out with the flu.

It meant that Malian Souleymane Diamoutene -- a transfer window signing from Lecce -- came into the side to make his Champions League debut.

Things looked desperate after just five minutes as Roma's other first choice centre-back Juan walked off the pitch with a hamstring problem.

However the Roma physios patched him up and sent him back on a couple of minutes later and with good reason as it was the Brazilian who slotted in the opener.

Roma opened up Arsenal's right side with some slick passing on nine minutes allowing Totti to cross into the box.

The ball passed between William Gallas and Emmanuel Eboue and was missed by Rodrigo Taddei but Juan, who had stayed up a long time following a corner, was free at the back post to control the ball and slide it under Almunia.

Despite the defeat, Roma coach Luciano Spalletti said he was proud of his patched-up team.

"After a night like this we should be proud, we're going out of the Champions League with our heads held high," he said.

"In the changing rooms I told the lads that they gave their all and they should feel proud."

Roma twice went close to a second on 23 minutes as Marco Motta broke into the box. Almunia saved his near post effort but Motta kept the ball alive and it came out to Taddei whose shot Almunia tipped around the post.

However Juan couldn't continue much longer and Roma were forced into a defensive rejig with John Arne Riise moving into the centre and Julio Baptista coming on in midfield.

Arsenal were creating only half chances and Abou Diaby headed the best straight into Doni's arms from a Samir Nasri cross.

On the stroke of half-time Roma were screaming for a penalty as Motta went down in the box with Gael Clichy chasing him but the referee rightly ignored the appeals.

Roma's makeshift defence was looking vulnerable and on 58 minutes a terrible Riise mistake on the halfway line let Eboue run away down the right but the Ivory Coast international failed to pick out Nicklas Bendtner.

The game was on a knife edge and both sides seemed unwilling to commit too much in attack although Diaby did create some space before firing wide.

With 11 minutes left Roma opened Arsenal up at the back as the ball was switched quickly from Taddei to Totti to Baptista but the Brazilian, playing against his former club, slipped with the goal at his mercy and failed to trouble Almunia.

Arsenal had two good late chances but Robin van Persie's shot was deflected wide and Kolo Toure headed over from close range.

The extra 30 minutes failed to produce any clear cut chances and so the game headed to the spot-kick lottery. And Tonetto's woeful effort sealed Roma's fate.

Dow jumps more than 300 as Citi announces profit

2009-03-11T01:27:00.001+08:00

NEW YORK – Wall Street got some good news from Citigroup, and responded with a huge rally. Led by financial stocks, the market made its first big move upward in weeks Tuesday after Citigroup Inc. said it had operated at a profit during the first two months of the year. All the major indexes soared more than 4.5 percent, and the Dow Jones industrials shot up more than 300 points.

Still, while word of Citi's performance at least temporarily broke a months-long torrent of bad news from the banking industry, analysts weren't ready to say the stock market was at a turning point and about to barrel higher.

"To have a sustained rally, we have to have a shift in sentiment," said Kurt Karl, chief U.S. economist at Swiss Re. "One day isn't going to make a trend.

But the Citigroup news offered investors some hope that the first quarter will show some signs of improvement.

In a letter sent to employees Monday, Citi Chief Executive Vikram Pandit said the first-quarter performance so far has been the bank's best since the third quarter of 2007 — the last time it recorded net income for a full period. Based on historical revenue and expense rates, Citi's projected earnings before taxes and one-time charges would be about $8.3 billion for the full quarter.

Pandit declined to say how large credit losses and other one-time items have been that would at least partially offset profit.

Citi shares jumped nearly 40 percent while Bank of America Corp. was up more than 26 percent; both are Dow components and helped propel the average higher. Other banking stocks also rose sharply.

Financial stocks have been a primary driver in a market collapse that has left the major indexes at their lowest point in more than a decade. Every report of loan losses and asset writedowns have sent banking stocks to incredible lows — Citi fell below $1 a share last week. And fears that hundreds of billions of dollars in government bailouts wouldn't be enough to save the big banks exacerbated the fears on the Street.

But Ben Halliburton, chief investment officer of Tradition Capital Management warned that the advance was likely just another bear market rally.

A bear market is defined as a drop of 20 percent from a market peak — and stocks passed that point last year and continued to plunge, leaving the Dow and S&P 500 at less than half the record highs they reached in October 2007. A bear market rally is an advance that lifts stocks off their lows, but that quickly evaporates as pessimism remains in the market.

"I would be surprised to see us trade back over 800 in the near term," Halliburton said, referring to the Standard & Poor's 500 index. "The news coming out on the economic front will continue to be rather gloomy."

Analysts suggested that the market's gains, especially among financial stocks, could be attributed to short covering, an investment strategy that tends to drive rallies in volatile markets. Short-sellers are traders who sell borrowed stock and then buy it back later on the hopes that the price will fall. If they believe a stock will be going up, they have to "cover" their positions, or buy shares to repay the loan.

Still, short covering does come in response to a more upbeat sentiment in the market. The question during a short covering rally is whether there is enough positive sentiment to sustain the advance.

Investors were further encouraged by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke who called for a revamp of the country's financial regulatory system. Speaking before the Council of Foreign Relations, Bernanke said "too big to fail" companies must be subject to more rigorous supervision to prevent them from taking on excessive risk. Bernanke's remarks come as the Obama administration and Congress begin to devise their overhaul strategies.

In early afternoon trading, the Dow jumped 302.82, or 4.6 percent, to 6,849.87. Dow stocks with the biggest gains included General Electric Co., which rose $1.51, or 20.4 percent, to $8.92. GE has a big financial services division, so it tends to move with banking stocks.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 36.51, or 5.4 percent, to 713.04, while the Nasdaq composite rose 74.98, or 5.9 percent, to 1,343.62.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 21.10, or 6.2 percent, to 364.36.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by 14 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 903.9 million shares.

Citigroup's announcement proved to be the dose of good news Wall Street had been waiting for to spark a bounce, but there was still plenty of pessimism in the market.

"There's nothing that anybody can do to turn the market around," said Harry Rady, chief executive of Rady Asset Management. "This is just a little bear-market blip."

"Citigroup is falling apart. For them to say they are having the best quarter since 2007, I don't believe it," he said.

Halliburton was hesitant to put much stock in Citigroup's announcement for fear of rising loan losses that could eat away at the operating profit. As long as housing prices are declining and loan defaults are increasing, "they are going to have to take asset writedowns," he said. "I don't think this is a game changer."

Government officials have been examining additional ways to stabilize the bank should further problems arise, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal Tuesday citing people familiar with the matter. Late last month, in its third attempt to rescue the bank from collapse, the Treasury Department moved to take up to a 36 percent stake in Citi.

News of more job cuts, a particular sore spot for investors, was not enough to deter the market's upward swing Tuesday.

United Technologies Corp. said it plans to cut 11,600 jobs. The manufacturing conglomerate also lowered its 2009 profit forecast because of an anticipated decline in revenue. Shares jumped $2.52, or 6.7 percent, to $40.08.

Also Tuesday, the Commerce Department said wholesale inventories declined 0.7 percent in January, versus a 1.4 percent decline in December. This was better than the 1 percent drop economists had expected.

Big gainers included tech and industrial stocks. Caterpillar Inc. rose $2.55, or 10.7 percent, to $26.47. Among tech stocks, Intel Corp. rose $1.04, or 8.3 percent, to $13.59. Cisco Systems Inc. rose $1.08, or 7.9 percent, to $14.70.

Bond prices were mixed. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, jumped to 2.97 percent from 2.88 percent late Monday. The yield on the three-month T-bill, considered one of the safest investments, was unchanged from late Monday at 0.23 percent.

The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices sank.

Light, sweet crude for April delivery rose 23 cents to $47.30 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Buoyed by the gains in the U.S., European markets soared. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 4.83 percent, Germany's DAX index jumped 5.26 percent, and France's CAC-40 gained 5.59 percent. Earlier Tuesday, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index jumped 3.08 percent, while Japan's Nikkei stock average fell 0.44 percent.

Stem cell advocates finally get their Obama moment

2009-03-10T08:44:00.001+08:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Dr. Irving Weissman is so excited, he flew cross-country for the event. Larry Soler of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation will "Twitter" his impressions.

Other experts are sending out e-mails sprinkled with exclamation points.

They are all gushing about President Barack Obama's decision to lift some restrictions on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research on Monday.

Investors are rushing to get in on the changes, sending up shares of biotech companies that focus on stem cell research, including Geron INC., whose shares shot up 23 percent to $4.80 as Obama spoke, and StemCells Inc, whose shares were up 43 percent to $1.98.

Researchers were prominent in an audience of advocates and politicians invited to the White House announcement.

"I've been working and speaking out about the ban for about eight years, and now I want to be there," said Weissman, director of Stanford University's Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine Institute.

"We can lift the bureaucracy that has been established to scrutinize every purchase by every lab, and move forward with this important research."

In August 2001, then-president George W. Bush reversed a decision by the National Institutes of Health to allow federally funded researchers to work with human embryonic stem cells. Bush and others object to their use on ethical and religious grounds because the powerful cells come from days-old human embryos.

Bush said researchers could only use already-existing batches of the cells, which can morph into any cell or tissue type in the body. And they may use state or private funds for the work.

IMMEDIATE PROFITS

Michael West of Alameda, California-based biotech BioTime says his company stands to profit from Obama's decision almost immediately. It just bought dozens of stem cell batches, or lines, from a Chicago fertility clinic and wants to sell them to newly empowered researchers.

They come from embryos carrying the genes for cystic fibrosis, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, breast cancer, Huntington's disease and others -- embryos created via in vitro fertilization.

"It would be unethical to implant them, knowing you are going to create a child with a devastating disease," West said in a telephone interview.

But those cells will be perfect for studying these diseases in the hope of someday curing or preventing them. Under the Bush restrictions, federally funded researchers could not have touched them.

"Embryonic stem cells have this wonderful property of dividing without limit," said West.

Susan Solomon of the New York Stem Cell Foundation hopes Congress will work to lift the remaining restriction on human embryonic stem cell research.

An amendment that has been placed on the Health and Human Services Department's budget every year forbids federal funds to be used for research that directly involves human embryos. That means federally funded researchers cannot actually make human embryonic stem cells but have to buy them.

"The president is doing everything that he alone can do," Solomon said in an interview. "Hopefully he will provide Congress with the kind of environment that they need to do the right thing."

Solomon flew to Washington for the event. She joined the JDRF's Soler, who was assigned to send updates of the ceremony from his cell phone via Twitter, a social networking tool.

Arab role needed to solve Iran nuclear issue - ElBaradei

2009-03-10T08:43:00.002+08:00

VIENNA (Reuters) - The stand-off over the disputed Iranian nuclear programme cannot be resolved without the engagement of Iran's Arab neighbours, U.N. atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said on Monday.

He said a U.S. policy turnabout towards direct talks with Iran has boosted chances of a peaceful solution but the involvement of Arab states was crucial. Arabs have historically mistrusted Iran but are split over how to deal with it.

"I find it surprising that the Arab countries are not engaged in dialogue between Iran and the West. The neighbours so far have been sitting on the fence. Any solution to the Iranian issue has to engage the neighbours," ElBaradei said.

Middle East analysts say Gulf Arab states had little love for ex-U.S. President George W. Bush's hawkish, no-negotiations stance on Iran, fearing it could lead to a ruinous regional war.

But now they worry that any U.S. rapprochement with Iran could ultimately produce a nuclear-armed, non-Arab, Shi'ite Muslim superpower in their back yard and squeeze Sunni Muslim Arabs between two non-Arab nuclear power hubs, Iran and Israel.

Any collective Arab action on Iran, however, appears mired in chronic divisions over other issues including a 2002 Saudi-sponsored peace offer to Israel, opposed by some hardline or militant Arabs backed by Iran.

ElBaradei also said a Middle East security structure drawing in Iran, all Arabs and Israel, believed to have the region's only nuclear arsenal, would be an indispensable part of any Middle East peace arrangement.

A lack of security guarantees, he said, lay at the heart of Iran's motivation to pursue what would be virtual nuclear weapons status, since uranium enrichment can be used either for electricity generation or for material to detonate atom bombs.

Iran says its nuclear programme is to generate electricity.

"Iran could be a positive force in the region; it could also be a source of conflict and confrontation," ElBaradei told a foreign policy forum gathered in Austria's parliament.

The 66-year-old Egyptian, who won the Nobel Peace Prize along with the Vienna-based agency in 2005, will leave office in November after 12 years at the IAEA helm.

McCain, still center stage in U.S., battles big spending

2009-03-10T08:40:00.001+08:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - John McCain lost the 2008 U.S. presidential election to Barack Obama but has since won a leading role in Republican efforts to rein in Obama's big-spending economic revival plans.

In the past week, the Arizona senator helped head a Republican charge in the Democratic-led Senate that stalled a $410 billion bill to keep government operations funded through the end of this fiscal year, September 30.

"If it sounds like I'm angry it's because I am," McCain roared on the Senate floor. But after plenty of fiery debate, the bill was expected to win final congressional approval in the Senate on Tuesday and go to Obama to sign into law.

"I think it probably will (be passed) but I think we fought a good fight," McCain, 72, told Fox News on Sunday.

McCain complained the bill was packed with thousands of unneeded pet projects known as "earmarks", including measures to research pig odor, build a rodeo museum and construct wolf breeding facilities. Pledges to end such earmarks were central to McCain's Republican presidential campaign.

A frequent guest on TV talk shows, McCain appeared on Monday on CNBC where he again attacked Obama's policies. "We see the stock market continue to drop because of the message that is being sent, including, by the way, wasteful and unnecessary and excessive spending," McCain said.

Some Republicans targeted the spending bill because it relaxed certain limits on trade and travel to communist-run Cuba. But McCain's chief concerns were closer to home, focusing on the price tag and the "earmarks".

"McCain is trying to reestablish his bona fides as the Republican Party leader at a time when there really isn't a Republican leader," said Paul Light of New York University's Center for the Study of Congress.

"I don't think he's laying foundation for another White House run, but he is claiming center stage and laying down markers to judge Obama by," Light said.

Many Republicans in Congress quickly embraced outspoken opposition to Obama's plans. "Republicans are a lot more united and willing to take on the majority than usual so soon after a big election loss," said Stephen Hess, a congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution.

"Usually a party takes time to lick their wounds," Hess said. "They have moved quickly beyond that to be the party of opposition."

MCCAIN'S CELEBRITY STATUS

Hess said McCain had the celebrity status to take on the Democratic "superstar" Obama, who rode to the White House on a wave of popularity at home and abroad and still had very high poll ratings despite the deepening economic crisis.

McCain, 72, who survived five and one-half years as a prisoner during the Vietnam War, seems too old for another White House bid. But he plans to seek reelection next year to a fifth Senate term.

Dubbed a "maverick", McCain has often bucked Republican Senate leadership. And while he holds no elected leadership post, he is seen as a force by members of both parties.

"McCain has returned to be a strong and effective voice that Democrats hate when they disagree with him but praise when they agree with him," a Republican leadership aide said.

McCain was among those in Congress who pressured Obama to scale-back an emergency economic stimulus package to $787 billion from earlier highs of upward of $900 billion.

He denounces Obama's proposed $3.55 trillion budget as a blueprint for the greatest transfer of power from the private sector to the federal government since the administration of Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt over 60 years ago.

McCain has also reached across the political aisle to introduce legislation, including a bill backed by Obama to reduce the cost of prescription drug prices by allowing them to be imported from approved foreign facilities.

But he has made it clear that the Democrats will have to overcome his high-profile objections to big spending, taking on such Obama initiatives including a proposed bailout of the struggling U.S. financial sector.

"I don't think they made the hard decision and that is to let these banks fail," McCain told a weekend TV news program.

Can Chris Brown's career survive?

2009-03-09T14:28:00.002+08:00

As details about an alleged assault of Rihanna by her boyfriend, Chris Brown, emerged, fans and the entertainment industry grappled with what it could mean for the future of the young star's career.

Authorities charged Brown, 19, on Thursday with felony counts of assault and making criminal threats, the Los Angeles County, California, District Attorney's Office said. If convicted, the sentence could range from probation to four years and eight months in prison, officials said.

Brown appeared before a judge on Thursday, but the arraignment was delayed for a month at the request of his attorney.

Twenty-one-year-old Rihanna was allegedly attacked by Brown on a Los Angeles street before their scheduled performances at the Grammy Awards on February 8.

Message boards across the Internet were abuzz with reaction after the sworn statement by Los Angeles Police Detective DeShon Andrews surfaced. The statement painted a brutal picture of what allegedly happened in the early morning hours of February 8.

"Robyn F. [Rihanna's real name is Robyn Rihanna Fenty] turned to face Brown and he punched her in the left eye with his right hand," the affidavit stated. "He then drove away in the vehicle and continued to punch her in the face with his right hand while steering the vehicle with his left hand. The assault caused Robyn F.'s mouth to fill with blood and blood to splatter all over her clothing and the interior of the vehicle."

Emil Wilbekin, editor-in-chief of GIANT Magazine, said some readers were expressing outrage at Brown's alleged actions on postings at the GIANT Web site, writing that they hope Brown gets jail time and that justice is served.

"In Chris Brown's case, there are two things going on," Wilbekin said. "The first is that Chris is such a clean-cut young man and so this is a very shocking turn of events, because it's completely against what we know of his entertainment persona.

"The second part is that both [Rihanna and Brown] have very young female fans."

Brown, a native of small-town Tappahannock, Virginia, made the music scene with his 2005 debut album and the single, "Run It!", which quickly topped the Billboard music chart.

His good looks and athletic dance moves quickly rocketed him to teen idol status and he solidified that reputation with a successful follow-up album, movie and TV appearances and a Grammy nominated duet with "American Idol" winner Jordan Sparks.

Stories of troubled singers are nothing new to the entertainment industry. Many artists, including Whitney Houston and Britney Spears, have been able to survive the negative press and emerge with many fans still intact.

But industry insiders like Wilbekin point out that there is a marked difference between self-destructive behavior and allegedly causing harm to another person. iReport: Share your reaction to the Chris Brown allegations

Even though Brown issued a brief apology for the incident, Wilbekin said he believes the entertainer has been hurt by the silence emanating from his camp.

"He still has not made [an extensive] statement to the public, and particularly because a lot of his fans are young women, that's not going to go over well," Wilbekin said. "I think the fact that he's not come clean about it, which I understand for legal reasons, is an issue. Not saying anything at all is not helpful, especially not for his career."

Joann Killeen, president of Killeen Furtney Group, knows a bit about crisis communications -- her marketing and public relations firm initially represented California octuplet mom Nadya Suleman before later dropping her as a client -- and agrees that silence is not always golden.

Killeen said Brown's representatives may have erred by waiting a week before issuing a statement.

"By then everybody had an idea and a vision as to what happened," she said. "Unfortunately if you don't speak and frame the issue, state what happened, state the facts that you know, someone else is going to do it for you and you lose your position of being proactive and owning the story."

While she points out that America loves a comeback story -- like actor Robert Downey Jr., who was nominated for an Academy Award this year after multiple drug-related arrests in the past -- Killeen said the public can be much more forgiving about drug abuse than domestic violence.

"I think it's going to take a concerted effort on [Brown's] part to be very vocal about asking not only Rihanna for forgiveness, but he has to convince America that he's really going to work on resolving his anger issues and putting his life back together," Killeen said.

Despite the charges, some fans are vowing to take a wait-and-see approach.

"I'm sure there are people out there that feel betrayed," said twentysomething Brown fan Kadija White of Capital Heights, Maryland. "But there are probably some people like me who still are going to like his music."

However, Devi Dev, who does the entertainment segment on urban radio station 93.5 KDAY in Los Angeles, said listeners have been extremely vocal in their support for Rihanna and their sadness at the incident.

"A lot of the ladies are just like 'I feel so bad for her. Leave him girl, leave him' and the guys are being very defensive, saying women hit men, too," said Dev.

If Brown has any hope of surviving this, he is going to have to completely reinvent himself as an artist who appeals to older fans, Dev said.

"His fan base is teenage girls and the fact that he allegedly hit a young woman, his fan base is completely gone," she said. "No parent is going to want to support their child listening to his music or buying his music."

R.From : Lisa Respers France

N. Ireland police: Soldiers murdered as they lay on ground

2009-03-09T14:23:00.002+08:00

The execution-style killing of two British soldiers and wounding of four other people in Northern Ireland was "an attempt at mass murder," police said Sunday.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemned the Saturday night attack as "evil and cowardly," saying "the whole country is shocked and outraged."

The troops are the first British soldiers to be killed in Northern Ireland in 12 years, the Ministry of Defense confirmed.

They were shot as pizzas were delivered to their base in Massereene, in County Antrim, Detective Chief Superintendent Derek Williamson of the Police Service of Northern Ireland said Sunday.

Two other soldiers and two pizza delivery men were also wounded. The injuries were serious, a police spokeswoman said earlier.

Williamson called the attack "an attempt at mass murder," saying that two gunmen with automatic rifles fired an initial volley of shots, then moved forward and fired a second burst at people lying on the ground before fleeing in a car driven by a third person.

Police have not named the victims, but Williamson described them as "very young men in their early 20s." They were due to be deployed shortly to Afghanistan, he said.

"Our inquiries are concentrating on dissident republicans," said Williamson, referring to Catholic militants who refused to join the Irish Republican Army in supporting the Northern Ireland peace process.

The attack stirred memories of three decades of violence that has largely faded since the 1998 Good Friday Accord.

Thomas Burns, a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly who represents south Antrim, warned the attack could be a "devastating blow to the peace process," and a return to "bad old days again where people are being killed in open gun attacks. ... You wouldn't want ever to go back to those terrible, terrible old days of killing."

However, Brown said the murders would not derail the peace process in Northern Ireland.

"I assure you that we will bring these murderers to justice," he said. "No murderer will be able to derail a peace process that has the support of the vast majority of the people of Northern Ireland."

Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein, the former political arm of the IRA, said the attack was "wrong and counterproductive."

"Last night's attack was an attack on the peace process," he said. "Those responsible have no support, no strategy to achieve a united Ireland. Their intention is to bring British soldiers back on to the streets. They want to destroy the progress of recent times and to plunge Ireland back into conflict."

The U.S. State Department condemned the attack in a statement.

"We call on all parties in Northern Ireland to unequivocally reject such senseless acts of violence, whose intention is to destroy the peace that so many in Northern Ireland have worked so hard to achieve," department spokesman Robert Wood said.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Tensions in the region have ramped up in recent days.

Last week, Hugh Orde, chief constable of the Northern Ireland police, requested that a British military intelligence regiment help investigate what he called increased activity among dissident republican groups.

Sinn Fein warned against bringing in the troops, saying their presence would stir bad feelings among Catholics.

"There can be no place for so-called British Special Forces within any civic and accountable policing structures," Adams said Saturday.

Shaun Woodward, the British government minister responsible for Northern Ireland, pointed out that the soldiers killed were not there to police the province.

"Operation Banner has ended," he said, a reference to the 37-year British military deployment in Northern Ireland. The operation lasted from 1969 to 2007.

"The soldiers who are here now are actually for deployment elsewhere in the world," he said, calling the troops at the base "men and women about to be deployed to Afghanistan ... [doing] humanitarian work, protecting people's lives in another part of the world."

The attack happened about 200 yards from a police station where suspected militants are believed to have recently been detained and questioned.

William McCrea, a member of Parliament from the loyalist Democratic Unionist Party and a Presbyterian minister, was mourning what he called "a very grievous evening."

"Our soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan to defeat terrorism, but this is on our own doorstep," he said. "We can't go back to that."

Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. Split between Catholics and Protestants, it was racked for decades by violence between Protestants who wanted to remain part of the UK and Catholics who wanted to join the Republic of Ireland, which is independent.

Violence spilled over into Britain, with the IRA bombing cities including London and Birmingham. For nearly 30 years, British soldiers patrolled Northern Ireland in armored vehicles and hunkered down in bases surrounded by concrete walls and barbed wire.

Northern Ireland now has a power-sharing government and a prevailing peace that had been welcomed by all but radical splinter groups on both sides.

Police: $9.9 million embezzlement led to layoffs at firm

2009-03-09T14:19:00.000+08:00

A former official of a cabinet company that has laid off employees has been arrested on suspicion of embezzling $9.9 million from the company over seven years.

Annette Yeomans, who was chief financial officer for California-based Quality Woodworks, was arrested Wednesday after a yearlong investigation, according to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department.

Because of the embezzlement, the San Marcos, California, company was forced to lay off employees and restructure, police said.

"She used these monies to gamble. She used them to remodel her home. She used them to buy expensive clothes, shoes, [including] a $4,000 pair of Italian shoes. She had more than 400 pairs of shoes in her closet," Sgt. Mark Varnau of the Sheriff's Department told CNN. "She had 160 high-end purses valued at $2,000 apiece."

Authorities started investigating Yeomans, 51, after her credit card company called Quality Woodworks, questioning the use of company checks to pay her credit card bills, police said.

"A sheriff's investigation revealed that on a weekly basis, Yeomans would spend $25,000 on her credit card and then pay off the balance the following Monday with company funds," according to a sheriff's department statement.

After the credit card company called, Quality Woodworks fired Yeomans and alerted police.

Yeomans had an attorney present when she turned herself in Wednesday, Varnau said, but he did not know the attorney's name. Attempts by CNN to locate and contact her attorney were unsuccessful on Sunday.

An investigation revealed that Yeomans spent nearly $25,000 to convert a bedroom in her home into a closet, featuring high-end cabinetry with granite countertops, a crystal chandelier and a 32-inch plasma television, according to Varnau. The 400 pairs of shoes were valued, on average, at $600 each, the sheriff's department said in the statement.

Yeomans is believed to have gambled away $6 million, Varnau said.

Yeomans' husband, who also worked at Quality Woodworks, is not suspected of involvement, he said.

"As far as we can tell, he was not aware of what she was doing," Varnau said. Her husband is a cabinet installer, he said, and "they certainly weren't working at the same level in the company."

"I think he just simply believed that she made a good wage and that she received bonuses and was being compensated well for the work that she did," Varnau said.

Yeomans reached an agreement with Quality Woodworks and turned over her possessions to the company so it could recoup some of the losses, Varnau told CNN.

"She lost her home, her cars, her clothes, every identifiable asset to try to pay back the company for the loss, and now she's facing prosecution," he said.

He estimated the company would be able to recover about $2 million.

Yeomans faces charges of grand theft and embezzlement, and is jailed with bail set at $10 million, said Varnau, who added that is one of the largest bail amounts he has seen.

Yeomans is believed to be a flight risk, he said, and "we're not completely satisfied we've identified all her assets."

Crazy people talk

2009-03-02T16:52:00.000+08:00

A doctor of psychology was doing his normal morning rounds when he entered a patient's room. He found Patient #1 sitting on the floor, pretending to saw a piece of wood in half.

Patient #2 was hanging from the ceiling, by his feet.

The doctor asked patient number 1 what he was doing. The patient replied, "Can't you see I'm sawing this piece of wood in half?" The doctor inquired of Patient #1 what Patient #2 was doing. Patient #1 replied, "Oh. He's my friend, but he's a little crazy. He thinks he's a lightbulb." The doctor looks up and notices Patient #2's face is going all red.

The doctor asks Patient #1, "If he's your friend, you should get him down from there before he hurts himself"

Patient #1 replies, "What? And work in the dark?"

How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?

2009-01-30T09:42:00.000+08:00

Such number as may be deemed necessary to perform the stated task in a timely and efficient manner within the strictures of the following agreement. Whereas the party of the first part, also known as 'the lawyers' and the party of the second part, also known as 'the light bulb' do hereby agree to a transaction wherein the party of the second part (light bulb) shall be removed from the current position as a result of failure to perform previously agreed upon duties, i.e. the lighting, elucidation, and otherwise illumination ofthe area ranging from the front (North) door, through the entryway, terminating at an area just through the primary living area, demarcated by the beginning of the carpet, any spillover illumination being at the option of the party of the second part (light bulb) and not required by the aforementioned agreement between the parties. The aforementioned removal transaction shall include, but not be limited to, the following steps:

1. The party of the first part (lawyer) shall, with or without elevation at his option, by means of a chair, step stool, ladder or any other means of elevation, grasp the party of the second part (light bulb) and rotate the party of the second part (light bulb) in a counter clockwise direction, said direction being non-negotiable. Said grasping and rotation of the party of the second part (light bulb) shall be undertaken by the party of the first part (lawyer) to maintain the structural integrity of the party of the second part (light bulb), notwithstanding the aformentioned failure of the party of the second part (light bulb) to perform the customary and agreed upon duties. The foregoing notwithstanding, however, both parties stipulate that structural failure of the party of the second part (light bulb) may be incidental to the aforementioned failure to perform and in such case the party of the first part (lawyer) shall be held blameless for such structural failure insofar as the non-negotiable directional codicil (counter-clockwise) is observed by the party of the first part (lawyer) throughout.

2. Upon reaching a point where the party of the second part (light bulb) becomes seperated from the party of the third part ('receptacle'), the party of the first part shall have the option of disposing of the party of the second part (light bulb) in a manner consistent with all applicable state, local, and federal statutes.

3. Once seperation and disposal have been achieved, the party of the first part (lawyer) shall have the option of beginning the installation of the party of the fourth part ('new light bulb'). This installation shall occur in a manner consistent with the reverse procedures described in step one of this self same document, being careful to note that the rotation should occur in a clockwise direction, said direction also being non-negotiable and only until the party of the fourth part (new light bulb) becomes snug in the party of the third part (receptacle) and in fact becomes the party of the second part (light bulb).

Drastic Diet

2009-01-07T09:43:00.000+08:00

A fellow was ordered to lose 75 pounds, due to VERY serious health risks. As he wondered how in the heck he would ever do it, he ran across an ad in the newspaper for a guaranteed weight loss program. ''Guaranteed my ass,'' he thought to himself, but desperate, he calls them up and subscribes to the 3 day/ 10 pound weight loss program.
The next day there is a knock at his door and when he answers, there stands before him a voluptous, athletic, beautiful babe dressed in nothing but a pair of NIKE running shoes and a sign around her neck. She introduces herself as a representative of the weight loss company.

The sign reads, ''If you can catch me you can have me!''

Without a second thought he takes off after her. A few miles later, huffing and puffing, he finally catches her and has his way with her.

After they are through and she leaves, he thinks to himself, ''I like the way this company does business.''

The same girl shows up for the next two days and the same thing happens. On the fourth day he weighs himself and is delighted to find he has lost ten pounds, as promised.

So, he calls the company and orders from them their 5 day/ 20 pound program. As expected, the next day there's a knock at the door and there stands the most stunningly beautiful, sexy woman he has ever seen in his life, wearing nothing but REEBOK running shoes and a sign around her neck that reads, ''If you can catch me, you can have me.''

He's after her in a shot. This girl is in great shape and it takes a while to catch her, but when he does, it's worth every cramp and wheeze. She is by far the best he's ever had. For the next four days, the same routine happens and much to his delight on the fifth day, he weighs himself and found he has lost another twenty pounds as promised!

He decides to go for broke and calls the company to order the 7 day/ 50 pound loss program.
''Are you sure,'' asks the representative on the phone, ''this is our most rigorous program...''
''Absolutely,'' he replies. '' I haven't felt this great in years!''

The next day there is a knock at the door and when he opens it he finds Richard Simmons standing there wearing nothing but pink racing spikes and a sign around his neck that reads, ''If I catch you, I have you!!'''

Thor and the Stranger

2009-01-07T09:42:00.000+08:00

Thor mopes on Mt. Olympus. Zeus asks him why he looks so depressed. Thor says that he misses the companionship and love of a woman. Zeus tells Thor that he will fix the problem by sending Thor down to Earth.

Thor lands in the backyard of a single woman. The two immediately start making love and continue all weekend.

After the weekend Thor is back at Mt. Olympus with a big grin on his face. Zeus asks Thor the great woman's name, but Thor admits that he never asked.

Horrified at his rudeness, Zeus sends Thor back down to find out the woman's name. Arriving in the same backyard, Thor calls out to the woman, "I wanted to tell you I'm Thor."

She yells, "You're thor? I'm tho thor I can hardly pith or thpit!"

Pierre the Fighter Pilot

2009-01-07T09:41:00.000+08:00

It's a beautiful day and love is in the air. Marie leans over to Pierre the fighter pilot and says, "Pierre, kiss me!" He grabs a bottle of merlot and splashes it on Marie's lips.

"What are you doing, Pierre?" asks the startled Marie.

"I am Pierre the fighter pilot! When I have red meat, I have red wine!" She smiles, and they start kissing.

Things began to heat up. Marie says, "Pierre, kiss me lower." He tears her blouse open, grabs a bottle of chardonnay and starts pouring it all over her breasts.

"Pierre, what are you doing?" asks the bewildered Marie.

"I am Pierre the fighter pilot! When I have white meat, I have white wine!" They resume their passionate interlude. Marie leans close to his ear and whispers, "Pierre, kiss me lower!"

Pierre rips off her underwear, grabs a bottle of cognac and pours it in her lap. He strikes a match and lights it on fire. Marie shrieks and dives into the river.

Standing waist deep, Marie throws her arms up and screams furiously, "Pierre, what in the hell do you think you're doing?"

Pierre stands up defiantly and says, "I am Pierre the fighter pilot! If I go down, I go down in flames!"

The Leprechaun's Three Wishes

2009-01-07T09:40:00.000+08:00

A guy walks into the bathroom and sees a very small man taking a leak. The little man looks at him and says "Hi! I'm a leprechaun! And because I like you, I'm going to grant you three wishes."

The man thinks for a moment and then says "I'd like a beautiful house."

"Granted. When you return home, you will have a gorgeous mansion."

"Great! Now I'd like a beautiful woman."

"Granted. When you return home, you will find a woman so amazing you will never look at another woman again."

"And I would love to have a huge penis."

"For that, you'll have to let me screw you in the ass."

The man hesitates, but since he wants a huge penis, he consents. As they're going at it, the man says "I can't believe I'm letting a leprechaun screw me in the ass!"

The little man says "I can't believe you thought I was a leprechaun."

Two neighbors are always competing.

2009-01-07T09:38:00.002+08:00

Two neighbors, John and Sam, are always competing.

One day John looks over the fence and spies Sam's wife, naked, watering the garden. When Sam gets home from work, John brags to him that he's seen his wife naked.

Sam wants revenge, so that night creeps over to John's yard and catches sight of John's wife performing oral sex.

The next day, Sam approaches John at the mailbox. "Hey, I saw your wife performing oral sex on you last night."

"Ha ha, the joke's on you," John says, "I wasn't home last night!"

Two Men and A Refrigerator

2009-01-07T09:38:00.001+08:00

Two men named Cecil and Scott live together. One very hot day, Cecil walked into the kitchen and found Scott with his butt up to the refrigerator.
Cecil said, "Scott, what the heck is your butt doing in the refrigerator?"
Scott said: "Because I wanted you to have something cool to slip into."

The Nuns and The Blind Man

2009-01-07T09:36:00.000+08:00

Two nuns are ordered to paint a room in the convent, and the last instruction of the Mother Superior is that they must not get even a drop of paint on their habits.

After conferring about this for a while, the two nuns decide to lock the door of the room, strip off their habits, and paint in the nude. In the middle of the project, there comes a knock at the door.

"Who is it?" calls one of the nuns.

"Blind man," replies a voice from the other side of the door.

The two nuns look at each other and shrug, and, deciding that no harm can come from letting a blind man into the room, they open the door.
"Nice gazongas," says the man, "where do you want these blinds?"

Stick of Dynamite

2009-01-07T09:19:00.000+08:00

A large, powerfully-built guy meets a woman at a bar. After a number of drinks, they agree to go back to his place. As they are making out in the bedroom, he stands up and starts to undress.

After he takes his shirt off, he flexes his muscular arms and says, "See that, baby? That''s 1000 pounds of dynamite!" She begins to drool.

The man drops his pants, strikes a bodybuilder''s pose, and says, referring to his bulging thighs, "See those, baby? That''s 1000 pounds of dynamite!" She is aching for action at this point.

Finally, he drops his underpants, and after a quick glance, she grabs her purse and runs screaming to the front door.

He catches her before she is able to leave and asks, "Why are you in such a hurry to go?"

She replies, "With 2000 pounds of dynamite and such a short fuse, I was afraid you were about to blow!"

Bad Food

2009-01-07T09:18:00.000+08:00

A Doctor was addressing a large audience:
"The material we put into our stomachs is enough to have killed most of us sitting here, years ago. Red meat is awful. Soft drinks corrode your stomach lining. Chinese food is loaded with MSG. High fat diets can be disastrous, and none of us realizes the long- term harm caused by the germs in our drinking water. But there is one thing that is the most dangerous of all and we all have, or will, eat it. Can anyone here tell me what food it is that causes the most grief and suffering for years after eating it?" After several seconds of quiet, a 75-year-old man in the front row raised his hand, and softly said, "Wedding Cake."

Fortune Cookie Say...

2009-01-05T16:01:00.000+08:00

-- Passionate kiss like spider's web. Soon lead to undoing of fly.

-- Virginity like bubble. One prick, all gone.

-- Man who run in front of car get tired.

-- Man who run behind car get exhausted.

-- Foolish man give wife grand piano. Wise man give wife upright organ.

-- Man who walk thru airport turnstile sideways going to Bangkok.

-- Man with one chopstick go hungry.

-- Man who scratches butt should not bite fingernails.

-- Man who eat many prunes get good run for money.

-- Baseball is wrong -- man with four balls cannot walk.

-- War doesn't determine who is right. War determines who is left.-- Wife who put husband in doghouse soon find him in cathouse.

Have a good laugh!!

2009-01-03T09:00:00.001+08:00

New Years resolutions you can keep..

2009-01-03T08:59:00.000+08:00

Are you sick of making the same resolutions year after year that you never keep? Why not promise to do something you can actually accomplish? Here are some resolutions that you can use as a starting point:
1. I want to gain weight. Put on at least 30 pounds. 2. Stop exercising. Waste of time. 3. Read less. 4. Watch more TV. I've been missing some good stuff. 5. Procrastinate more. 6. Drink. Drink some more. 7. Take up a new habit: smoking. 8. Spend at least $1000 a month on Ladies of the Night. 9. Spend more time at work. 10. Take a vacation to someplace important: like to see the largest ball of twine. 11. Stop bringing lunch from home: I should eat out more. 12. Quit giving money & time to charity. 14. Start being superstitious. 15. Have my car lowered and invest in a really loud stereo system. Get the windows tinted. Buy some fur for the dash. 16. Speak in a monotone voice and only use monosyllabic words. 17. Only wear jeans that are 2 sizes too small and use a chain or rope for a belt. Only wear white T-shirts with those fashionable yellow stains under the arms. 18. Personal goal: bring back disco.

New Years resolutions you can keep..

2009-01-03T08:57:00.000+08:00

Holiday Eating Tips - For The Sane

2008-12-26T09:07:00.000+08:00

I hate aspects of this time of year. Not for its crass commercialism and forced frivolity, but because it's the season when the food police come out with their wagging fingers and annual tips on how to get through the holidays without gaining 10 pounds.
1. About those carrot sticks. Avoid them. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Christmas spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door, where they're serving rum balls.
2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. Like fine single-malt scotch, it's rare. In fact, it's even rarer than single-malt scotch. You can't find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It's not as if you're going to turn into an eggnogaholic or something. It's a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It's later than you think. It's Christmas!
3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That's the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.
4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they're made with skim milk or whole milk. If it's skim, pass. Why bother? It's like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.
5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to control your eating. The whole point of going to a Christmas party is to eat other people's food for free. Lots of it. Hello? Remember college?
6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year's. You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you'll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food and that vat of eggnog.
7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don't budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the center of attention. They're like a beautiful pair of shoes. You can't leave them behind. You're not going to see them again.
8. Same for pies. Apple. Pumpkin. Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or, if you don't like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three. When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labor Day?
9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it's loaded with the mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, have some standards, mate.
10. And one final tip: If you don't feel terrible when you leave the party or get up from the table, you haven't been paying attention. Reread tips. Start over. But hurry! Cookieless January is just around the corner.

Merger of Christmas and Hanukkah

2008-12-24T08:53:00.000+08:00

Continuing the current trend of large-scale mergers and acquisitions, it was announced today at a press conference that Christmas and Hanukkah will merge. An industry source said that the deal had been in the works for about 1300 years.
While details were not available at press time, it is believed that the overhead cost of having twelve days of Christmas and eight days of Hanukkah was becoming prohibitive for both sides. By combining forces, we''re told, the world will be able to enjoy consistently high-quality service during the Fifteen Days of Chrismukah, as the new holiday is being called.
Massive layoffs are expected, with lords a-leaping and maids a-milking being the hardest hit. As part of the conditions of the agreement, the letters on the dreydl, currently in Hebrew, will be replaced by Latin, thus becoming unintelligible to a wider audience.
Also, instead of translating to "A great miracle happened there," the message on the dreydl will be the more generic "Miraculous stuff happens." In exchange, it is believed that Jews will be allowed to use Santa Claus and his vast merchandising resources for buying and delivering their gifts.
One of the sticking points holding up the agreement for at least three hundred years was the question of whether Jewish children could leave milk and cookies for Santa even after having eaten meat for dinner. A breakthrough came last year, when Oreos were finally declared to be Kosher. All sides appeared happy about this.
A spokesman for Christmas, Inc., declined to say whether a takeover of Kwanzaa might not be in the works as well. He merely pointed out that, were it not for the independent existence of Kwanzaa, the merger between Christmas and Chanukah might indeed be seen as an unfair cornering of the holiday market. Fortunately for all concerned, he said, Kwanzaa will help to maintain the competitive balance. He then closed the press conference by leading all present in a rousing rendition of "Oy Vey, All Ye Faithful."

New Male Performance Drugs

2008-12-21T01:30:00.000+08:00

With the success of Viagra, many new performance drugs for men go into development:

--PROJECTRA: Men given this experimental new drug were far more likely to actually finish a household repair project before starting a new one.

--COMPLIMENTRA: In clinical trials, 82% of middle-aged men noticed that their wives had a new hairstyle. Currently being tested to see if its effects extend to noticing new clothing.

--BUYAGRA: Married men report a sudden urge to buy their wives gifts after taking this drug for only two days. Still to be ascertained: whether the results extend to not minding when women spend money on themselves.

--ANTI-AGRA: Promises the exact opposite effect of Viagra. Currently undergoing clinical trials on U.S. Senators.

--NOSPORTAGRA: This drug makes men want to turn off televised sports and actually converse with other family members.

--FLATULAGRA: This complex drug converts men's noxious intestinal gases into air freshener.

--FLYAGRA: This drug shows great promise in treating men with O.F.D. (Open Fly Disorder).

--LIAGRA: This drug helps men lie more successfully when asked about their sexual affairs. Will be available in Regular, Grand Jury and Political Strength versions.

Blonde at the Appliance Store

2008-12-16T11:47:00.001+08:00

A blonde went to the appliance store sale and found a bargain. "I would like to buy this TV," she told the salesman.
"Sorry, we don't sell to blondes," he replied.
She hurried home and dyed her hair, then came back and again told the salesman, "I would like to buy this TV."
"Sorry, we don't sell to blondes," he replied.
"Darn, he recognized me," she thought.
She went for a complete disguise this time; haircut and new color, new outfit, big sunglasses, then waited a few days before she again approached the salesman. "I would like to buy this TV."
"Sorry, we don't sell to blondes," he replied.
Frustrated, she exclaimed, "How do you know I'm a blonde?"
"Because that's a microwave," he replied.

The Most Gruesome Death

2008-11-22T08:45:00.001+08:00

There was a long, long line of spirits at the gate waiting to get into heaven. Not all these spirits could fit into heaven, so the ones who died the worst death would be allowed in.

The first man in line started telling his story, "Well, Peter, you see, I knew that my wife was cheating on me so I decided to come home early from work one day to catch them in action. I got home and searched all over but I couldn't find him. Then when I walked out onto the balcony, there he was dangling off the darn thing by his fingertips. So I ran and got a hammer then started beating him with it and he fell. Well, the fall didn't kill him, because he landed in a bush so I picked up the refrigerator and threw it on him. Although that killed him, the strain gave me a heart attack, and here I am."

The next man came up and started his story. "St. Peter, I always work out on my balcony on the 14th floor of my apartment building. I was on my bike one day and I fell off when it flipped. I sailed over the rail and I thought ''Please God spare my life" and he did. I caught on to a balcony below me. I was even happier when a man discovered me hanging there. But all of a sudden he started beating my hands with a hammer so I fell again. But the dear Lord saved me again when I landed in a bush. But I'm here now because the guy threw his refrigerator on top of me."

It was now the third guy's turn to start his story. "Well, Peter, just picture this. I'm hiding butt naked in this married chick''s refrigerator....."

The Most Gruesome Death

2008-11-22T08:45:00.000+08:00

Sensitive Beer

2008-11-21T08:49:00.000+08:00

Three hicks were working on a telephone tower - Steve, Bruce and Jed. Steve falls off and is killed instantly.

As the ambulance takes the body away, Bruce says, "Someone should go and tell his wife."

Jed says, "OK, I'm pretty good at that sensitive stuff, I'll do it."

Two hours later, he comes back carrying a case of beer.

Bruce says, "Where did you get that, Jed?"

"Steve's wife gave it to me," Jed replies.

"That's unbelievable, you told the lady her husband was dead and she gave you beer?"

Well, not exactly", Jed says. "When she answered the door, I said to her, 'You must be Steve's widow'."

She said, "No, I'm not a widow!"

And I said, "I'll bet you a case of Budweiser you are.

Texas Trooper

2008-11-19T16:31:00.000+08:00

Two guys are speeding through Texas when a state trooper pulls them over. The trooper walks up to the drivers side of the car, gets out his billy club and smacks the driver across the face. Stunned, the driver asks, ''Why did you do that??''
The trooper responds, ''You're in Texas now son, you have that license out and ready around here!''

''I apologize sir, I'm not from around here.''

The trooper then walks to the passenger side of the car, and taps on the window. The passenger rolls down his window and the trooper takes out his club and smacks the passenger across the face.

''What was that for?'' asked the passenger.

''I know your kind,'' says the trooper, ''About two miles down the road you would have looked at your buddy and said 'I wish that son of a bitch would have tried that crap with me!'''

Totally Bats

2008-11-10T08:29:00.000+08:00

Two bats are going for their midnight feed.
After an hour or so, one bat gets tired of looking and goes home with no blood.

The other bat comes home with blood dripping from its mouth. The first bat says enviously, "Where did you get all that blood from?"

The second bat replies, "Follow me. I`ll show you."

After awhile the second bat leads them to a cave. He says, "You see that wall over there?"

The hungry bat excitedly says, "Yes!"

Other bat says, "I didn't."

Milking it

2008-11-09T21:35:00.000+08:00

A woman and a baby were in the doctor's examining room, waiting for the doctor to come in.

The doctor arrived, examined the baby, checked his weight and found it somewhat below normal. The doctor asked if the baby was breast fed or bottle fed.

"Breast fed," the woman replied.

"Well, strip down to your waist," the doctor asked. She did. He pressed, kneaded, rolled, cupped, and pinched both breasts in a detailed, rigorously thorough examination.

Motioning for her to get dressed he said, "No wonder this baby is under weight! You don't have any milk."

"I know,"she said, "I'm his grandmother, but I'm glad I came."

The Local Strip Club

2008-11-04T10:55:00.001+08:00

Because Dave works hard at the plant and spends most evenings bowling or playing basketball at the gym, his wife thinks he is pushing himself too hard, so for his birthday she takes him to a local strip club.

The doorman at the club greets them and says, ''Hey, Dave! How ya doin?'' His wife is puzzled and asks if he's been to this club before. ''Oh no,'' says Dave. ''He's on my bowling team.''

When they are seated, a waitress asks Dave if he'd like his usual Budweiser. His wife is becoming uncomfortable and says, ''You must come here a lot for that woman to know you drink Budweiser.'' ''No, honey, she's in the Ladies Bowling League. We share lanes with them.'' A stripper comes over to their table and throws her arms around Dave. ''Hi, Davey,'' she says, ''Want your usual table dance?''

Dave's wife, now furious, grabs her purse and storms out of the club. Dave follows and spots her getting into a cab. Before she can slam the door, he jumps in beside her and she starts screaming at him.

The cabby turns his head and says, ''Looks like you picked up a real doozie this time, Dave!''

My Father, The Whorehouse Piano Player

2008-11-03T07:53:00.001+08:00

A grade school teacher was asking students what their parents did for a living. "Tim, you're first," she said. "What does your mother do all day?"
Tim stood up and proudly said, "She's a doctor."

"That's wonderful. How about you, Amie?" Amie shyly stood up, scuffed her feet and said, "My father is a mailman."

"Thank you, Amie," said the teacher. "What about your father, Billy?"

Billy proudly stood up and announced, "My daddy plays piano in a whorehouse."

The teacher was aghast and promptly changed the subject to geography. Later that day she went to Billy's house and rang the bell. Billy''s father answered the door. The teacher explained what his son had said and demanded an explanation.

Billy''s father said, "I'm actually an attorney, but how can I explain a thing like that to a seven-year-old?"

Bus Stop Blondes

2008-10-29T07:44:00.001+08:00

Two blondes are waiting at a bus stop.
When a bus pulls up and opens the door, one of the blondes leans inside and asks the bus driver:''Will this bus take me to 5th Avenue?''

The bus driver shakes his head and says,''No, I'm sorry.''

At this the other blonde leans inside, smiles, and twitters: ''Will it take ME?''

Tough Love

2008-10-28T08:36:00.004+08:00

A dying man smells his favorite oatmeal raisin cookies cooking downstairs. It takes all the strength he has left but he gets up from the bed and crawls down the stairs. He sees the cookies cooling on the counter and staggers over to them. As he reaches for one, his wife's wrinkled hand reaches out, smacks his and she yells:
"No, you can't have those! They're for the funeral!"

The Devoted Wife

2008-10-28T08:36:00.001+08:00

A devoted wife had spent her lifetime taking care of her husband. Now he had been slipping in and out of a coma for several months, yet she stayed by his bedside every single day. When he came to his senses, he motioned for her to come near him.
As she sat by him, he said, "You know what? You have been with me all through the bad times. When I got fired, you were there to support me. When my business failed, you were there. When I got shot, you were by my side. When we lost the house, you gave me support. When my health started failing, you were still by my side. You know what?"

"What, my dear?" she asked gently.

"You're a goddamn jinx!"

Respectfully Cheating

2008-10-28T08:35:00.000+08:00

Jack and Betty are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.
"Betty, I was wondering -- have you ever cheated on me?"

"Oh Jack, why would you ask such a question now? You don't want to ask that question..."

"Yes, Betty, I really want to know. Please."

"Well, all right. Yes, 3 times."

"Three? When were they?"

"Well, Jack, remember when you were 35 years old and you really wanted to start the business on your own and no bank would give you a loan? Remember how one day the bank president himself came over to the house and signed the loan papers, no questions asked?"

"Oh, Betty, you did that for me! I respect you even more than ever, that you would do such a thing for me! So, when was number 2?"

"Well, Jack, remember when you had that last heart attack and you were needing that very tricky operation, and no surgeon would touch you? Remember how Dr. DeBakey came all the way up here, to do the surgery himself, and then you were in good shape again?"

"I can't believe it! Betty, I love that you should do such a thing for me, to save my life! I couldn't have a more wonderful wife. To do such a thing, you must really love me darling. I couldn't be more moved. When was number 3?"

"Well, Jack, remember a few years ago, when you really wanted to be president of the golf club and you were 17 votes short?"

Name That Animal, Kids

2008-10-22T10:36:00.000+08:00

Eddie's first-grade class was having a game of Name That Animal. The teacher held up a picture of a cat and asked, "What animal is this?"
"A cat!" said Suzy.

"Good job! Now, what's this animal?"

"A dog!" said Ricky.

"Good! Now what animal is this?" she asked, holding up a picture of a deer.

The class fell silent. After a couple of minutes, the teacher said, "It's what your mom calls your dad."

"A horny bastard!" called out Eddie

Rabbi and Priest

2008-10-22T10:08:00.001+08:00

A Rabbi and a Priest buy a car together and it's being stored at the Priest's house. One day the Rabbi goes over to use the car and he sees him sprinkling water on it. The Rabbi asked, ''What are you doing?'' The Priest responded, ''I'm blessing the car.'' So the Rabbi said ''Okay, since we're doing that....'' and takes out a hacksaw and cuts two inches off the tail pipe.

Drinking Politics

2008-10-20T07:54:00.000+08:00

A man wearing a Democratic pin walks into a bar and sees a picture of President Bush hanging behind the bartender. He calls the bartender over and says, "You should take that picture down. George Bush is a blight upon this nation. He should be impeached."

The bartender, a life-long Republican, is completely offended. "Why you liberal piece of garbage. How dare you come into my bar and tell me how to run my business!"

"Listen, I'm the customer, so I'm always right." the man says. "That picture offends me, so I want you to take it down."

"That tears it," the bartender says, "How would you like it if I came into your bar and told you what to do?"

"Well, you'd be the customer, so you'd be right," the man says.

"Fine, then let's switch places," the bartender says.

So, they do. The man takes the bartender's place behind the bar, and the bartender walks outside, waits a moment, and then comes back inside. The bartender sits at the bar and says to the bar, "You should take that pin off. The Democrats are destroying our country with their liberal agenda."

"Sorry," the man says, "but we don't serve Republicans here."

Farmer and the Cow

2008-10-20T07:53:00.000+08:00

A farmer was in a bar drinking and looking all depressed.
His friend asked him why he was looking depressed and he replied, "Some things you just can't explain. This morning I was outside milking. As soon as the bucket was fill the cow kicked it down with his left foot so I tied up his left to a pole.

I began to fill up the bucket again and he kicked it down with his right foot, so I tied his right to a pole too.

As soon as I finished milkin'' him again he knocked down the bucket with his with his tail and I took off my belt and tied up his tail with my belt.

As I was tying up his tail, my pants dropped down, then my wife came out and well, trust me, some things you just can't explain!

Mexican Smuggler

2008-10-18T08:08:00.000+08:00

Juan comes up to the Mexican border on his bicycle. He's got two large bags over his shoulders.

The guard stops him and says, "What''s in the bags?""Sand," answered Juan.The guard says, "We'll just see about that get off the bike." The guard takes the bags and rips them apart; he empties them out and finds nothing in them but sand.

He detains Juan overnight and has the sand analyzed, only to discover that there is nothing but pure sand in the bags.The guard releases Juan, puts the sand into new bags, hefts them onto the man''s shoulders, and lets him cross the border.A week later, the same thing happens. The guard asks, "What have you got?""Sand," says Juan.The guard does his thorough examination and discovers that the bags contain nothing but sand.He gives the sand back to Juan, and Juan crosses the border on his bicycle.This sequence of events if repeated every day for three years. Finally, Juan doesn't show up one day and the guard meets him in a Cantina in Mexico."Hey, Buddy," says the guard, "I know you are smuggling something. It's driving me crazy. It's all I think about..... I can't sleep. Just between you and me, what are you smuggling?" Juan sips his beer and says, "Bicycles."

The BENEFITS of SEX

2008-10-13T07:47:00.003+08:00

Reading this is entertaining !!!
Be sure to read the final comment.

Did you know that we can determine if a person is sexually active or not by looking at her skin ?

1. Sex is a beauty treatment. Scientific tests have shown that a woman who has sexual relations produces big amounts of estrogen which makes hair shiny and soft.

2. To make love in soft and relaxed way reduces the possibilities of suffering from dermatitis and acne. The sweat produced cleans pores and makes the skin shine.

3. To make love allows to burn all the calories accumulate is this romantic love scene.

4. Sex is one of the safest sports. It strengthens and tonifies all body muscles. It is more enjoyabel than doing 20 lapses in the pool. And you don’t need special shoes !

5. Sex is an instantaneous cure against depression. It frees endorphines in the blood flow, creating a state of euphoria and leaves us with a feeling of well-being.

6. The more we make love, the more we have the capacity to do more. A body sexually active releases a higher amount of pheromone. This subtle aroma excites the opposite sex !

7. Sex is the safest tranquiliser in the world. IT IS 10 TIMES MORE EFFICIENT THAN VALIUM.

8. To kiss everyday allows to avoid the dentist. Kisses aid saliva in cleaning teeths and lower the quantity of acids causing enamel weakening.

9. Sex relieves headaches. Each time we make love, it releases the tension in brain veins.

10. To make love a lot can heal a nasal congestion. Sex is a natural antihistaminic. It helps fight asthma and spring allergies.

This message was sent to you so that you have good chances in sexual relations. It went around the world 9 times. It now arrived to you so that you can can in turn enjoy “Benefits from Sex”.

She will visit you 4 days after you have received this message, but only if you circulate it. If you do not, then you will never have good sexual relations again for the rest of your life. You will be celibate and your genital organs will rotten and fall off.

He sends copies to whoever needs sex (who does not need any ?). Do not send money, since the destiny of his genital organs does not have a price.

Do not keep this message, it must dissappear from you mailbox in 96 hours. Send 10 copies and see what happens in 4 days. This message must go around the world, so you must send it !!! This is the truth, even if you are not superstitious. Good sex, but remember : 10 copies of this message must be sent in 96 hours or never again in your life will you have good sexual relations !!!!

Man, Woman, Sleeping Compartment

2008-10-13T07:47:00.001+08:00

A man and a woman who have never met before find themselves in the same sleeping carriage of a train.
After the initial embarrassment they both go to sleep, the woman on the top bunk, the man on the lower.

In the middle of the night the woman leans over, wakes the man and says, "I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm awfully cold and I was wondering if you could possibly get me another blanket."

The man leans out and, with a glint in his eye, says, "I've got a better idea... just for tonight, let's pretend we're married."

The woman thinks for a moment. "Why not," she giggles.

"Great," he replies, "Get your own damn blanket!"

Shipwrecked

2008-10-13T07:46:00.000+08:00

A young wife, her boorish husband and a young good looking sailor were shipwrecked on an island. One morning, the sailor climbed a tall coconut tree and yelled, "Stop making love down there!"

"What's the matter with you?" the husband said when the sailor climbed down. '"We weren't making love."

"Sorry," said the sailor, "From up there it looked like you were."

Every morning thereafter, the sailor scaled the same tree and yelled the same thing. Finally the husband decided to climb the tree and see for himself. With great difficulty, he made his way to the top.

The husband says to himself, "By golly he's right! It DOES look like they're making love down there!"

Strangers on a Train

2008-10-07T09:57:00.000+08:00

A scientist gets on a train to go to New York. His cabin also has a poor farmer in it. To pass the time the scientist decides to play a game with the guy.

"I will ask you a question and if you get it wrong, you have to pay me one dollar. Then you ask me a question, and if I get it wrong, you get ten dollars. You ask me a question first." The farmer thinks for a while.

"I know. What has three legs, takes ten hours to climb up a palm tree, and ten seconds to get back down?" The scientist is confused and thinks long and hard about the question. Finally, the train ride is coming to an end. As it pulls into the station, the scientist takes out ten dollars and gives it to the farmer.

"I don''t know. What has three legs, takes ten hours to get up a palm tree and ten seconds to get back down?"

The farmer takes the ten dollars and puts it into his pocket. He then takes out one dollar and hands it to the scientist.

"I don''t know."

Drinking Politics

2008-09-18T09:33:00.001+08:00

Have a good laugh!

2008-09-17T13:11:00.000+08:00

How much would it cost to (telephone) call Malaysia from Hell? You'd be surprised!

Queen Elizabeth, Bill Clinton and Ahmad Badawi died and go to hell. But
the devil has only one phone there. Queen says, I miss my England , can I
use your phone and hear how my people are doing down there.

She calls and talks about five minutes. Then she asks:
Well devil, how much do I owe you for the call? The devil says: Five million pounds.
She writes him a cheque and goes back to her chair .

Clinton wants to make a call too. He says I wanna call the US . He talks about ten minutes,
then asks how much do I owe you devil? The devil says Ten million dollars.
He also writes a cheque and goes back to his seat

Badawi is jealous. He says I want to call Malaysia. He calls and talks for about an hour to his
son-in-law who is busy trying to find Mr.Petronas. Then he asks the devil how much
do I owe you?

The devil replies: only one dollar. Badawi is shocked and asks 'why so little?'.

The devils says: if you make a call from one hell to another, IT'S LOCAL CALL.

Alien Abduction

2008-09-16T10:47:00.000+08:00

Harry, Bill and Steve are sitting at the corner bar enjoying themselves, when Ted walks in looking distressed.

"Ted, you look awful. What's wrong?" Harry asks.

Ted says, "Last night I got really drunk, and then somewhere between here and my house, I was abducted by an alien?"

Everyone is shocked. "I heard about this kind of thing happening!" Bills says. "What did the alien do to you?"

"I don't remeber all the details," Ted says. "All I remember is being anally probed by the alien."

Everyone is horrified. "I heard that they'll do that!" Steve says. "What did the alien look like?"

Ted responds, "Carl."

Grass Eater

2008-09-12T09:38:00.001+08:00

A man was riding in the back of his limousine when he saw a man eating grass by the roadside. He ordered his driver to stop and he got out to investigate.
"Why are you eating grass?" he asked the man.

"I don't have any money for food," the poor man replied.

"Oh, please come to my house!"

"But sir, I have a wife and four children..."

"Bring them along!" the rich man said.

They all climbed into the limo. Once underway, the poor fellow said, "Sir, you are too kind. Thank you for taking all of us in."

The rich man replied, "No, you don't understand. The grass at my house is over three feet tall!"

作文名稱：我的家庭

2008-09-10T17:32:00.000+08:00

我出生在一個非常貧苦的家庭，記得小時候，爸爸的生活很無聊，整天只能數錢，媽媽也是，整天都在掃錢。

我家住在深山中，每次要出去買東西，都相當麻煩，開保時捷要 5 小時，開賓士也要4 小時；雖然家裡有直昇機，但是開到那邊很難找到停機位，相當的不方便。

我偶爾也會出去逛街，爸媽怕我被綁架，隨身有 20 多個保鑣保護著，大家看到我都嚇跑了，所以我從小就開始被排斥...... 因為家裡是在深山，每次到了冬天都非常冷，爸爸也說，出去買東西很麻煩，所以冬天沒有暖爐 ...沒有棉被 ...每天只能陪著爸媽燒錢取暖 ... 而睡覺的時候，也只能蓋著錢睡覺 (我覺得英鎊比較溫暖) 。

　記得小時候，有一次，因為房間太大，還來不及跑出房間，就尿褲子了。所以，爸爸在我房間放了一台小綿羊機車，好讓我能在 10分鐘以內，衝出 1000 坪的房間，穿越 5公里的走廊，到達 800 坪的廁所 (我常常在走廊迷路 ) 。

　爸爸又另外叫人加蓋了 20間 600坪裡面有著250 坪小廁所的破房間。爸爸說：以後如果尿濕了，直接換房間，如果房間不夠或是太小的話，再告訴爸爸，爸爸再叫人來多蓋幾間，我們的生活很辛苦，你要忍著點！！

現在想起來，爸爸真是個善良的人！！

　還記得有一次，家裡遭小偷，因為他用炸藥炸壞了我爸的保險箱，使得裡面的金幣不斷的往外滾出來，結果竟把那個小偷壓死了 ......我覺得那個小偷好可憐 ......
金幣壓死人是很痛的!! 他不像之前那個被鈔票悶死的小偷一樣幸運。

媽媽也常常告訴我，我們家生活非常困苦～要我學著吃苦～
　所以我從小養成了刻苦耐勞精神，我將來的志願，是要找 200 隻會吃錢的怪物，好把家裡的錢都吃光，為那些可憐的小偷報仇！！

嘉義市蘭潭國小六年一班黃淙暐

老師評語：去死啦！