Alaska Volcano Observatory: Mount Redoubt Eruption

The Alaska Volcano Observatory is reporting that Mt. Redoubt has erupted three times in the last few hours. So far the Mt. Redoubt eruption has spit out 50,000 foot plumes leading to the National Weather Service issuing ash-cloud warnings for nearby Talkeetna, Willow and other Susitna Valley communities.

VOLCANIC ASH IS FALLING AND IS EXPECTED TO REACH THE SURFACE ACROSS THE SUSITNA VALLEY. PRELIMINARY INDICATIONS ARE THAT ASHFALL WILL BE VERY LIGHT. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... AN ASHFALL ADVISORY MEANS THAT ASH WILL BE DEPOSITED IN THE ADVISORY AREA. PEOPLE IN AREAS OF ASHFALL SHOULD SEAL WINDOWS AND DOORS. PROTECT ELECTRONICS AND COVER AIR INTAKES AND OPEN WATER SUPPLIES. MINIMIZE DRIVING. LISTEN TO YOUR RADIO STATION FOR FURTHER INFORMATION.

The Alaska Volcano Observatory has raised the alert level to WARNING and the aviation color code to RED.

There have been rumblings that the Alaskan volcano would erupt for the last couple of months. The volcano is in Southeast Alaska, not far from Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin's hometown of Wasilla, Alaska. It is a 10,197-foot peak and stands about 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, Alaska. It started shaking on Saturday, March 21st and then began erupting on Sunday night, March 22nd.

The Fighting Sullivans (1944)

The Fighting Sullivans (1944), which is being broadcast on TCM at 1:30pm ET today (3/21/09) is based on the real life heroic tragedy of five Iowa-born brothers who enlisted in the Navy together after Pearl Harbor and were all assigned to the USS Juneau.The brothers had reportedly stipulated that they serve together when they enlisted.

In November, 1942 during the Battle of Guadacanal, George, Francis, Joseph, Madison and Albert Sullivan perished together, along with 700 others, wiping out a generation of a family and changing military policy from then on when it came to assigning relatives to one theater of operations, (though, based on a number of fathers and sons and spouses recently assigned to Iraq and Afghanistan, that policy has eased in recent years).

While Thomas Mitchell as their father is deeply touching and Selena Royle as their mother is quite effective as well, the exaltation of such a waste of life, however noble, has always made me quite queasy, even as I feel compassion for the characters and respect for their self-sacrifice. I suspect that it is hard for me to watch from a present day perspective due to the subsequent wars that America has chosen to be involved in, and should be viewed as a heartfelt piece of propaganda, as well as a document reflecting its time. The film's power as a personal story may be overshadowed by the fact that the brothers were lost at a time when it was by no means clear that the Allies would win the war. As a movie directed by journeyman Lloyd Bacon, the film follows the boys as they grow up, the story rarely rises above the conventional, but, in the tragic scene in which the father played by the always believable Mitchell asks, with his voice cracking with pain as he comprehends the truth, "...all five?" remains one of the most powerful in American film history.

Not a movie guaranteed to make you appreciate war's glory, thank God, but unforgettable. This movie is available on dvd and vhs and may be readily found for purchase on the internet.

Fire breaks out at Empress Casino in Joliet

The Empress Casino in Joliet, IL is on fire. Joliet’s Empress Casino fire broke out at 10 am, reportedly in the casino’s kitchen. 5 fire trucks are on the scene located off US route 6.

New backup fire crews have been deployed to battle the blaze reportedly still not under control. No injury to persons have been reported.

The fire ripped through a section of the casino under construction says reports. The fire had begun in the kitchen, while a second fire destroyed a roof.

People who reportedly had hoped to cash in their winning were told they could use vouchers for a year after the fire.

Alexis Grace falls to American Idol's bottom three; Allison Iraheta is safe

Alexis Grace is paired with Adam Lambert as the last two finalists with one spot left in the bottom three. It's stupid--obviously Alexis is gone. Simon stands his ground with Adam, says his performance last night was absolutely dreadful, "no offense." Ha!

Randy says he loved Adam's take on Ring of Fire, makes a point of saying it was Jeff Buckley's arrangement. He's forced to say who's in the bottom three, he says Allison, drawing laughs as he doesn't even remember Alexis' name. That can't be a good sign.

And sure enough, Alexis is in the bottom three, and she doesn't look happy. And one person is going back to safety, Ryan says -- what a silly way to put it, like it's a kid's game.

And it's Allison who's safe, which is good. So either Alexis or Michael are gone....

Oregon Lottery Raffle Results For St. Patrick's Day

Oregon Lottery Raffle Results For St. Patrick's Day
The demand for the Oregon lottery St. Patrick's Day raffle results was so high that we first could not get to the Oregon Lottery website and got an error message at www.oregonlottery.org.

However, Oregon Lottery just announced the raffle results for its first ever St. Patrick's day raffle and the results are bellow.

The raffle results numbers of the One million St Patrick's day Oregon lottery are 246114.

The lottery results for the $20,000 prizes are the following.

007561
042722
059786
105419
136981
137213
144765
178468
182928
246129

There are also numerous 100 dollar prizes in Oregon lottery's St. Patrick's day raffle that is out of the scope of one story. The results can't simply fit in this story. One needs to check them at wwww.oregonlottery.org. No wonder the orginzers had said that St. Patrick's day Oregon Lottery raffle will have many great odds.

Oregon Lottery website showed that all the tickets were sold out.

Earlier the Oregon lottery organizers had announced on their wesite that they would hold a St. Patrick's Day Raffle, the Oregon Lottery’s exciting new on-line raffle game. RaffleSM is a game with limited tickets, great odds, and all 1,011 prizes are cash prizes! It’s simple to play. The top prize is $1 million dollars.

Article source

Alice Waters' Crusade For Better Food

When it comes to food, Alice Waters is a legend. At age 64, she has done more to change how we Americans eat, cook and think about food than anyone since Julia Child.

Waters was only 27 years old in 1971 when she opened her French bistro Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., today considered one of the finest restaurants not just in the United States but in the world.

Waters has produced eight cookbooks, but she's more famous as the mother of a movement that preaches about fresh food grown in a way that's good for the environment. The movement, now called "slow food," is a healthy alternative to "fast food."

You might think this appeals only to the Prius-driving, latte-sipping upper crust, but Waters' ideas have gone mainstream.

more

Bitten the movie

Nightshift paramedic Roger (Jason Mewes) thinks his life sucks, until he meets Vampire Danika (Erica Cox). But how far is he willing to go for the bloodthirsty bombshell? Black comedy.

Bitten on IMDB

Former WWE Superstar Andrew "Test" Martin Found Dead at 33

Former WWE Superstar Andrew "Test" Martin passed away last night at his home in Tampa, Florida at the age of 33, just four days away form his 34th birthday. We don't have many more details right now, but reports say he was found in his apartment. Tampa area authorities have declined to confirm it is Martin but word within the wrestling industry has been widespread.

Despite his earlier writings about the drug scene in the wrestling business, Martin ended up suspended under the WWE Wellness Policy and was released shortly afterwards. At the time, Martin claimed it was a mutual release that he asked the company for. Martin made a few appearances for TNA that year but there was a feeling that his huge physique was neon sign for the impending US Congress investigation into the business and also a feeling that his attitude didn't go over well with the TNA locker room, so he wasn't brought back. Test talked about retiring from the business but has made several appearances overseas since then, working a match in Japan last month. Martin was scheduled to leave this for a wrestling tour of Europe that would have made stops in several countries.

Syracuse won - heart-stopping 6-overtime

Syracuse won an exhausting back-and-forth Big East Tournament quarterfinal game against Connecticut 127-117, a game that went into 6 overtime periods and lasted into this morning. The matchup went down into the record books as the longest game in Big East Tournament history. The game lasted nearly four hours.

The Huskies retained their chairmen-of-the-board status, led by center Hasheem Thabeet. But the Orange offset the second-chance points by UConn, scoring off Huskie turnovers. UConn led at the halftime break, but SU caught up and took the lead 64-57 with less than four minutes to play in regulation.

After that, it was one heart attack play after the other.

The granddaddy came when Eric Devendorf drained a three-pointer at the end of regulation that looked like a game-winner. But officials ruled the ball left Devo's hands after time ran out. That sent the game into the first of six overtimes.

UConn packs up and goes home to get a rest before next week's NCAA tournament. SU advances to meet West Virginia in the conference semifinals later tonight.

Syracuse went into the game seeded No. 6 in the tournament. UConn was seeded No. 3.

Article source

'Diggnation' co-hosts talk online video, Twitter on 'Late Night With Jimmy Fallon'

When Jimmy Fallon appeared as a guest host on "Diggnation" in January to promote his new late-night talk show, he made clear that he was going after a different audience than broadcast TV was used to.

Now, in the second week of "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon," the "Saturday Night Live" alum is returning the favor. "Diggnation" co-hosts Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose will appear tonight as guests on his show.

"We sort of assumed it was going to be months before we got onto the show," Albrecht said.

The courtship of "Diggnation," a weekly online video show that's wildly popular among the geek crowd, shows how resolute Fallon has been in his quest to attract a tech-savvy audience.

"Late Night" producer Gavin Purcell has said that viewers can expect to see more product placement than they're used to. Purcell, who previously produced "Attack of the Show" on the G4 network, is pushing for gadgets, games and Web services to feature prominently.

In one gag, the camera zoomed in on audience members and then displayed silly fake Facebook status updates above their heads. A blogger from Engadget demonstrated the Palm Pre cellphone on the show. And Fallon used micro-blogging service Twitter to solicit interview questions for Cameron Diaz from fans.

Twitter has become a major promotional tool for Fallon and Co. The host has an account (@jimmyfallon); Purcell has one (@gavinpurcell); even the drummer ...

... for the Roots, the show's house band, tweets during taping (@qoolquest).

Rose, who is the founder of social news website Digg.com, and Albrecht are Twitter stars, with more than 264,000 and 54,000 followers, respectively. Unsurprisingly, Fallon is featuring the website on tonight's show.

Tonight's "Twitter experiment," as they're calling it, is to feature an audience member's account on the show and in messages on all of their Twitter pages. The idea seems to be to find out just how popular they can make him or her.

In the first hour since the group tweeted, asking people to follow amateur cartoonist Bryan Brinkman, his Twitter account amassed more than 7,800 new followers -- that's more than 100 new fans every minute. The experiment may get even more interesting once the show actually airs.

The gimmick may cause a tremor among the Internet crowd. But how a mainstream audience reacts to Rose, Albrecht and all the Twitter hubbub is a mystery that may not be answered for quite a while. After all, it's more difficult to poll reactions from folks who aren't constantly tweeting their every thought.

Albrecht was optimistic about the crossover. He estimated that 25% of viewers would be familiar with him and Rose, though he acknowledged that it could be fewer if much of former host Conan O'Brien's more mainstream audience is still watching.

"If he's building this new audience -- people who are connected into the Internet -- it could be as high as 50% to 60%," Albrecht said. "I mean, they may not watch our stuff, but [they'll] know the name Kevin Rose from Digg. And know he's got some blond guy sitting next to him every once in a while."

Fallon was less confident that his audience would be familiar with Rose and that "blond guy." The Diggnation pair are the only two guests on "Late Night's" online calendar whose names are accompanied by an explanation of who they are ("of Diggnation," it reads).

"I think a majority of my audience may not know the work these guys are doing on the Web," Fallon wrote in an e-mail interview. "I am a big fan of Diggnation."

On Diggnation, the co-hosts discuss the top stories of the week on Digg. The pair lounge with laptops on a living room couch while sipping beer and bantering about odd news and gadgets.

The production values are fairly low, but the Revision3-produced Web show gets hundreds of thousands of downloads every week. The crowd is an advertiser's dream: young, tech-savvy males with plenty of disposable income.

And nowadays, when advertisers are becoming notoriously more difficult to wrangle, this is the type of audience that networks lust after.

-- Mark Milian

Article source

Alabama shooting spree suspect Michael McLendon kills 10 and self in Kinston

An Alabama man with an assault weapon burned down his mother's house around her, shot his grandparents, aunt and uncle dead, then killed five other people Tuesday before turning the gun on himself, authorities said.

Coffee County coroner Robert Preachers identified the shooter as Michael McLendon and said he was in his 30s. It was unclear if the mother, Lisa McClendon, who died, had been shot.

Authorities gave no motive for the rampage that claimed victims in several homes in the small towns of Kinston, Samson and Geneva and along the highway connecting them. Two of the dead were a sheriff deputy's wife and 3-month-old child.

Several other people were injured, including Geneva Police Chief Frankie Lindsey, who was saved by his bulletproof vest, and a state trooper wounded by flying glass when his car was hit with seven slugs.

Investigators Tuesday night were looking into possible shootings in other locations. "This is one of the most tragic events ever in Geneva County," state Sen. Harri Anne Smith said.

The carnage began in the late afternoon in Kinston, where Michael McLendon burned down his mother's home. Officials said McClendon then went to nearby Samson and shot his grandparents, aunt and uncle.

The sheriff deputy's wife and child were slaughtered in their mobile home, officials said. McClendon also killed another person at a Samson supply store and a woman at a service station, they said. The location of the shooting of the 10th victim was unclear.

Cops said McClendon fired randomly at people as his maroon Mitsubishi Eclipse traveled along Highway 52 toward Geneva's Reliable Metal Products, which makes grills and vents for heating and air conditioning systems, mainly for hotels.

"He was just driving down the street shooting at people sitting on their porches," Smith said. "A family was just sitting on the porch and they were shot."

Cops caught up with McClendon at Reliable, where he was said to be a past or present employee. After firing 30 rounds at the officers, he went inside and shot himself to death.

Article source

Lyrics: Rockin Robin, Michael Jackson

Author: Michael Jackson
Song: Rockin Robin
Album: The Essential Michael Jackson 2005

Tweedily deedily dee, Tweedily deedily dee
Tweedily deedily dee, Tweedily deedily dee
Tweedily deedily dee, Tweedily deedily dee
Tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet

He rocks in the treetops all day long
Hoppin' and a-boppin' and a-singin' his song
All the little birdies on J-Bird Street
Love to hear the robin go tweet, tweet, tweet

Rockin' robin
Rock, rock
Rockin' robin
Go rockin' robin
'Cause we're really gonna rock tonight

Every little swallow, every chickadee
Every little bird in the tall oak tree
The wise old owl, the big black crow
Flappin' their wings singin' go bird, go

Rockin' robin
Rock, rock
Rockin' robin
Go rockin' robin
'Cause we're really gonna rock tonight
Yeah, yeah

[Instrumental Interlude]

The pretty little raven at the bird man stand
Taught him how to do the bop and it was grand
He started goin' steady and "bless my soul"
He out-bopped the buzzard and the oriole

He rocks in the treetops all day long
Hoppin' and a-boppin' and a-singin' his song
All the little birdies on J-Bird Street
Love to hear the robin go tweet, tweet, tweet

Rockin' robin (tweet, tweedily dee)
Rock, rock
Rockin' robin (tweet, tweedily dee)
Go rockin' robin
'Cause we're really gonna rock tonight
Yeah, yeah

The pretty little raven at the bird man stand
Taught him how to do the bop and it was grand
He started goin' steady and "bless my soul"
He out-bopped the buzzard and the oriole

He rocks in the treetops all day long
Hoppin' and a-boppin' and a-singin' his song
All the little birdies on J-Bird Street
Love to hear the robin go tweet, tweet, tweet

Rockin' robin (tweet, tweedily dee)
Rock, rock
Rockin' robin (tweet, tweedily dee)
Go rockin' robin
'Cause we're really gonna rock tonight

Tweedily deedily dee, Tweedily deedily dee
Tweedily deedily dee, Tweedily deedily dee
Tweedily deedily dee, Tweedily deedily dee
Tweet, tweet

Report: Rep. Frank Says Uptick Rule Should Be Restored 'Within a Month'

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the head of the House Financial Services committee, said that the SEC should restore the so-called "uptick" rule within a month, Reuters is reporting.

The uptick rule forces short-sellers to sell at a price higher than the previous trade. It was put in place by the SEC following the Great Depression and rescinded in 2007.

Here's a good explanation of the rule and its possible impact, from TheStreet.com:

"The rule was designed as a guardrail that slowed down the short-selling process, preventing shorts from driving the price of a stock at a faster clip.

In a short sale, an investor borrows stock from a broker, sells it to other investors, and hopes to buy it back at a lower price later before returning it to the original lender. The difference in the transactions is kept as a profit.

The SEC made the controversial decision to eliminate the uptick rule in June 2007 after its analysis showed it did little to prevent the manipulation of share prices. Of course, many market participants point to the move as the catalyst that helped short sellers thrive in 2008.

Even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, testifying before Congress, said if the rule were still in place it "might have had some benefit" in preventing the market meltdown."

"I've spoken to Chair (Mary) Schapiro of the SEC. I am hopeful the uptick rule will be restored within a month," Frank said, Reuters reports. "Mary is moving towards the uptick rule, which some people think is very important, some people think it's not important, nobody thinks it does any harm. I think that will go back (into effect)."

-- Frank Ahrens

Article source

Real Housewives NYC star Kelly Bensimon was arrested

You heard it right: Kelly Killoren Bensimon, Bravo's "Real Housewives of New York City" star was arrested for punching her boyfriend Nicholas Stefanov two days ago. Her beatdown causing him a black eye and cut face. She hit him "with a closed fist, thereby causing informant to suffer a laceration below informant's left eye and substantial pain" according to the criminal complaint.

When contacted by ET about doing an interview, Stefanov said: "I don't need to talk to 10 million people. There's one person I need to be talking to, and it needs to be her."

The TV star turned herself in on Thursday -- two days after the alleged incident.

"Last week, Ms. Bensimon was charged with a misdemeanor and has entered a plea of not guilty," her attorney tells ET. "We are confident that the charges are unfounded and we look forward to a quick resolution."

Kelly's legal rep went on to say that she is not engaged to Nicholas as some outlets have reported and that they were not together at the time of the alleged altercation. Although her side is happy to abide by the restraining order -- a given in domestic cases -- they are adamant that the case is unfounded.

Kelly is due back in court on March 31.

Article source

What is Acai Berry?

Many great things have been mentioned about acai berry.
It's unbelievable, but acai berry has been in the market for only 5 years. Acai fruit is a well-kept secret of the Amazon rainforest. It is of a deep purple color and grows wildly on top of palm trees. The acai fruit is distinctively rich in important nutrients such as protein, fiber, fatty acids, and vitamins.

One of the most important health benefits that acai berry can truly provide is the unique anti-aging power. In fact, acai has been recognized as one of the main super-foods for anti-aging.

For example, the amino acids and trace minerals that are found in acai, assist in better muscle contraction and regeneration; this helps slow down the damaging effects to the skin which cause the signs of aging.

Another example: the fatty acid in acai is high in monounsaturated oleic acid which together with omega 3 oils enter cell membranes and help to make them suppler; this in reality permits for neurotransmitters, hormones, and insulin receptors to work more efficiently, diminishing inflammation. Remember: inflammation is a top cause of the aging process.

Acai berry provides so many health benefits that it would be impossible to list them all in this article.
There is no wonder why this amazing fruit has become so popular around the world in such a short period of time. Nowadays anyone can experience the true power of acai berry.
Read more of the main health benefits that acai provides here.

Article source