Wednesday, April 10, 2013

First glimpse of deadly sinkhole in Florida (+video)

More than one month after a sinkhole opened up and swallowed a sleeping man in Florida, local authorities show what the deadly pit looks like inside. ?

By Mai Ng?c Ch?u,?Contributor / April 3, 2013

Jeremy Bush, right, is consoled by an unidentified woman last month as he sits outside a home where a sinkhole opened up underneath a bedroom, swallowing his brother, Jeffrey Bush, in Seffner, Fla.

Chris O'Meara/AP

Enlarge

Florida's Hillsborough County has made public the first footage inside the large sinkhole that cost the life of a Seffner man at midnight on Feb. 28.

Skip to next paragraph

' + google_ads[0].line2 + '
' + google_ads[0].line3 + '

'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // --> A short video clip, showing the sinkhole underneath a Seffner, Florida home that claimed the life of one of the residents.

The 54-second video, according to the local ABC-TV affiliate, was recorded hours after the hole swallowed Jeff Bush as he was sleeping in his bedroom.

Taken with a tiny camera mounted to a pole and passed through Jeff's bedroom window, the footage provides the clearest view of the sinkhole that officials estimate eventually grew to be 60 feet deep.

It shows that the walls and ceiling in Jeff's bedroom remained standing, while much of the floor collapsed into the crater.

Speaking to Bay News 9, Jeff's brother said the video helps him understand why rescuers were unable to recover the victim's body.

"It'll help people understand what was going on and what the county saw that everybody else couldn't see," said Jeremy, who in desperation jumped into the sinkhole to try to save his brother.?

Engineers who worked on the sinkhole, told ABCActionNews that, at that time, the sinkhole became fiercely steep, incredibly unstable, and too risky for anyone to jump in and try to save Jeff.

Jeff's family members were struck by the footage.?

"It looks totally different than what we saw then," Rachel Wicker, Jeff's sister-in-law, told ABCActionNews. Rachel said when she and her family ran to Jeff's bedroom, "all we've seen was a big hole. And Jeff has gone."

"You can't even see his bed," Jeremy said to Bay News 9. "It looks totally different than from when I seen it. It's much deeper. Like I said, you can't see anything that was in there, than what I seen before when I first jumped in," added Jeremy, who was?pulled out of the sinkhole by a Hillsborough County sheriff's deputy.

Hillsborough County officials said it was too dangerous to recover Jeff's body.?Instead, the pit was filled in and the home was demolished.

The two houses adjacent to the sinkhole were?evacuated as well, because the ground was thought to be unstable.?Officials said soil samples taken in the neighborhood have deemed the rest of the street safe.

Sinkholes are an increasingly deadly risk in Florida, due primarily to the region's geology, Marc Lallanilla wrote on LiveScience in early March:

The state is largely underlain by porous limestone, which can hold immense amounts of water in underground aquifers. As groundwater slowly flows through the limestone, it forms a landscape called karst, known for features like caves, springs and sinkholes.

The water in aquifers also exerts pressure on the limestone and helps to stabilize the overlying surface layer, usually clay, silt and sand in Florida. Sinkholes form?when that layer of surface material caves in.??

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/mwdLqoHhNfE/First-glimpse-of-deadly-sinkhole-in-Florida-video

ryder cup Kate Middleton Bottomless the Pirate Bay Hotel Transylvania eagles nfl schedule 2012 Fox News Suicide

CSN: Giants erase four-run deficit to beat Rockies

BOX SCORE

SAN FRANCISCO ? The Giants used a Mile High springboard to the NL West title last year. They beat the Colorado Rockies 14 times in 18 games.

They are off to a good start again this season, positioned to try for a three-game sweep after storming back from a four-run deficit to take a 9-6 victory Tuesday night at AT&T Park.

But this is not a template they should plan to follow very often. On an oddly warm night that had a very Coorsian vibe, Tim Lincecum got stomped for a five-run second inning that matched the worst beating he took in any single frame last year.

It took the first opposite-field home run of Brandon Crawford?s career, a three-run shot in the sixth inning, to give the Giants instant life. Then it took Hunter Pence?s 1000th career hit to tie it and one more rally against the Rockies? beleaguered bullpen to make a winner of reliever Santiago Casilla.

Pinch hitter Andres Torres hit a leadoff double in the eighth, Angel Pagan stung a tiebreaking single that nearly separated right-hander Matt Belisle from his clothes and the Giants tacked on two more to make it a less stressful save situation for Sergio Romo.

Lincecum?s problems are far from resolved ? he allowed six runs on four hits and four walks in six innings ? but the Giants have won in both of his starts. They only won consecutive Lincecum starts twice before the All-Star break last season.

Starting pitching report

Lincecum used to have a plumber?s wrench in his bag when a teammate would make an error behind him or a few hits would find turf. But the second inning sprayed out of control, just like so many of the rallies he couldn?t stop last season.

The drip-drip-drip started as it usually does, with a four-pitch walk to Troy Tulowitzki. Then Michael Cuddyer hit a ground ball to Scutaro?s left and the second baseman tried to spin and get the lead runner rather than take the surer out at first base.

It was a bad decision. The throw wasn?t nearly in time, and it was off line as well ? allowing Tulowitzki to take third base when Pablo Sandoval had to abandon the bag to chase down the ball in shallow left field.

Lincecum nearly minimized the damage. Todd Helton hit an RBI ground out, and after power threat Wilin Rosario drew a walk, Lincecum struck out Chris Nelson on a nasty slider. There were two outs and the pitcher?s spot coming up.

But Lincecum got to 2-2 before missing on consecutive fastballs to Juan Nicasio, including a full-count pitch that wasn?t close. It was the second consecutive start in which Lincecum walked the opposing pitcher (and he?d walk Nicasio again in the fourth, too.)

Then came the floodgates ? a two-run double from Dexter Fowler, who memorably tripled off Lincecum last year, and then a two-run single from Josh Rutledge.

That completed the damage in a five-run inning. Hard as it might be to believe, that matched the most runs Lincecum allowed in an inning last season (a five-run sixth May 25 at Miami).

The issue, once again, was fastball command. Lincecum had plenty of movement on his curve and changeup, but he couldn?t entice more swings. That?s because he threw just six strikes among 15 fastballs in the second inning.

Clearly, Lincecum remains a work in progress. But if he?s shown clear improvement in any area from last season, it?s improved conditioning and stamina. Even after a 32-pitch second inning, he was able to catch his breath and make it through the sixth inning on 104 pitches, allowing only a solo homer to Tulowitzki in his final four frames.

The upshot: Last year?s Lincecum probably doesn?t last as long, and would have overtaxed the bullpen as a result.

Bullpen report

Jose Mijares began the seventh and left a runner at second base for George Kontos, who preserved the tie when he got Tulowitzki to fly out.

Casilla pitched a scoreless eighth to receive the decision and Romo worked another 1-2-3 ninth inning to record his fifth save in five opportunities.

Romo has retired 15 of 16 batters faced this season, allowing just one hit and no walks while striking out eight.

At the plate

The early innings were more about missed opportunities than the 2-0 lead that the Giants were able to hand Lincecum. Pence?s infield single drove in a run in the first inning but Hector Sanchez flied out to strand the bases loaded.

Scutaro managed a clutch hit in the second inning when he punched his second single of the game ? both of them to left field ? with two outs to drive in Crawford. The two crisp hits were a good sign for Scutaro, who entered in a 3-for-27 slump.

The Giants slugged their way back into the game in a four-run sixth, with an unlikely power source leading the way. After Nicasio committed the grave sin of walking Gregor Blanco and Sanchez to start the inning, Crawford greeted right-hander Adam Ottavino by smacking his 2-0 fastball to left-center field for a three-run homer

It was just Crawford?s second home run in 363 career plate appearances at AT&T Park ? and it was the first time he parked one the opposite way in the big leagues.

Crawford offered a sly smile as he crossed the plate, clearly not used to trotting on a ball hit anywhere to left field. Wherever they go, he makes his homers count. Of his eight career shots, three of them are three-run shots and two are grand slams.

The Giants still trailed 6-5, but they made up the rest quickly enough. Nick Noonan hit a pinch single, Pagan followed with a single and Scutaro sacrificed for the first out of the inning. After an intentional walk to Sandoval loaded the bases, Pence came through with his 1000th career hit to move everyone up 90 feet and tie the game.

Brandon Belt grounded into a double play to stall the rally at four runs, though.

The bench was key in the late innings. In addition to Noonan?s pinch hit, Torres proved adept off the bench with his double off Belisle to start the winning rally.

The Giants had 14 hits and everyone in the starting lineup except Belt managed to reach via hit or walk.

In field

Aside from Scutaro?s bad decision in the second inning , the Giants didn?t give away any outs. Sandoval made the defensive play of the game, ranging far into foul ground to snag Helton?s pop-up near the Giants bullpen.

Attendance

The Giants announced 41,910 paid, and the sellout crowd received snow globes depicting the World Series parade in front of City Hall. If you look hard enough, you can see a tiny little Bruce Bochy pushing his Rolls-Royce after it ran out of gas.

Up next

The Giants complete their first homestand and wrap up their three-game series with the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday afternoon. The Giants will try to win for a 16th consecutive time with Barry Zito (1-0, 0.00) on the mound. He?ll be opposed by left-hander Jeff Francis (1-0, 1.50). The Rockies just can?t quit that guy.

Source: http://www.csnbayarea.com/blog/andrew-baggarly/baggs-instant-replay-giants-9-rockies-6

pollyanna samuel adams snowy owl one for the money 10 minute trainer sarah burke death etta james funeral

Jury: Exxon owes $236 million for polluting groundwater in N.H.

LITTLETON, N.H. - A New Hampshire jury on Tuesday found Exxon Mobil liable for $236.4 million in a civil lawsuit that charged the oil company had polluted groundwater in the state with a gasoline additive used to reduce smog in the 1970s and 1980s.

Following a three-month trial, jurors deliberated less than two hours before finding that the world's largest publicly traded oil company acted negligently in contaminating the groundwater with the additive MTBE, said Jessica Grant, a lawyer who represented the state.

"We're very pleased that the jury held Exxon accountable for the harm its defective product caused to the state's groundwater resources and that they also held Exxon responsible for its negligence," she said.

Originally filed in New Hampshire court in 2003, the state charged that Exxon and other major oil companies knew that the additive was likely to contaminate groundwater and was more difficult to clean up than other pollutants. Some damages from the suit will help pay for the costs of testing and cleaning affected water supplies.

Exxon vowed to appeal.

"MTBE worked as intended to improve our air quality and the benefits of its use substantially outweighed the known risks," said spokeswoman Rachael Moore. "MTBE contamination in New Hampshire is rapidly decreasing and the state's current system for cleaning up gasoline spills ensures safe drinking water."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today considers the additive a potential human carcinogen, though much of the research on the chemical has focused on the health effects of inhaling it rather than drinking it. New Hampshire banned the substance in 2007.

Exxon was the only one of the 22 original defendants in the original suit to go to trial. Other defendants either had the suits against them dismissed or agreed to settlements.

Those included Canada-based Irving Oil, which agreed to pay $57 million last year, and Venezuela's state-owned Citgo Petroleum, which struck a $16 million agreement as the trial began.

The three-month trial on the suit, filed in state court, was moved to the state's federal courthouse in Concord to accommodate the large number of witnesses, lawyers and exhibits. The jury found that contamination had caused $816 million in damages in the state. Exxon's market share of 29 percent was used to compute damages, Grant said.

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653351/s/2a87440a/l/0L0Snbcnews0N0Cbusiness0Cjury0Eexxon0Eowes0E2360Emillion0Epolluting0Egroundwater0En0Eh0E1C9285282/story01.htm

cj wilson ellsbury brad pitt and angelina jolie brad and angelina herniated disc luke scott tom benson

HTC seen ?losing the window of opportunity? with HTC One after component shortages

With all this talk about the cord-cutting masses no longer wanting to subsidize TV channels they don't watch, it's a little surprising that one of the oldest, most widely available forms of TV is waning: over-the-air broadcast TV. Despite its attractive price of $0 per month and billions of advertising revenue, nobody ? including the broadcast networks, the tech companies that are out to disrupt them, and the cord-cutters and cord-nevers who hate cable ? is very enthusiastic about antennas. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/htc-seen-losing-window-opportunity-htc-one-component-182544158.html

zou bisou bisou tim tebow press conference tebow press conference trina rob dyrdek oberon donald driver

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Exxon Mobil must pay $236M in NH pollution case

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) ? Exxon Mobil Corp. was found liable Tuesday in a long-running lawsuit over groundwater contamination caused by the gasoline additive MTBE, and the jury ordered the oil giant to pay $236 million to New Hampshire to clean it up.

The jurors reached their verdicts in less than 90 minutes, after sitting through nearly three months of testimony. Lawyers on both sides were stunned by the speed with which they reached the verdict on liability and even more stunned when the jurors took barely 20 minutes more to fill out the damages verdict.

Juror Dawn Booker of Pembroke told The Associated Press that all 12 felt "very, very confident about our decision."

"We've been sitting there for three months listening," Booker said. "It was just cut and dry. We all pretty much had our own decision before we went in there.

"Honest to God, we put a lot of heartfelt thought into it," Booker said. Although the state's burden of proof was a preponderance of the evidence ? or 51 percent as the judge explained ? Booker said "it was way more than 51 percent for New Hampshire."

The panel awarded the state all $236 million it was seeking from Exxon Mobil to monitor and remediate groundwater contaminated by MTBE. The chemical was added to gasoline to reduce smog but was found to travel farther and faster in groundwater than gasoline without the additive.

"We appreciate the jurors' service during this long trial, but erroneous rulings prevented them from hearing all the evidence and deprived us of a fair trial," said Exxon Mobil lawyer David Lender. "We have strong legal and factual arguments to make on appeal."

Attorney General Michael Delaney said he anticipates an appeal and doesn't expect to see the money "anytime soon." He said the case and the verdict are historic.

The verdict is more than twice the $105 million jurors awarded the New York City Water District in 2009 in its case against Exxon Mobil over MTBE contamination. That case is on appeal.

Sher Leff, a California law firm that won the New York City verdict, was hired by the state of New Hampshire at the outset of its 2003 lawsuit to try its case against Exxon Mobil.

Jessica Grant, the state's lead lawyer, said it was the largest verdict ever in an MTBE case, though a financial analyst noted that the award represents about two days' worth of profit for the company.

Jurors found that Exxon Mobil was negligent in adding MTBE to its gasoline and that it was a defective product. They also found Exxon Mobil liable for failing to warn distributors and consumers about its contaminating characteristics.

The jury determined that the hazards of using MTBE gasoline were not obvious to state officials, who opted into the reformulated gasoline program in 1991 to help reduce smog in the state's four southernmost counties.

Jurors also rejected Exxon Mobil's defense that more than 300 junkyard and gas station owners not named in the lawsuit were responsible for much of the contamination. They also absolved the state of responsibility for the contamination.

The jury found damages in the amount of $816 million, but that award was reduced to 28.9 percent of the total ? reflecting Exxon's market share of gasoline sold in the state between 1988 and 2005.

Lawyers for Exxon Mobil argued the company used MTBE to meet federal Clean Air Act mandates to reduce air pollution and should not be held liable for sites contaminated by other retail businesses.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified MTBE as a "possible human carcinogen." New Hampshire banned its use in 2007.

The state says more than 600 wells in New Hampshire are known to be contaminated with MTBE and an expert witness estimated the number could exceed 5,000.

Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil was the sole remaining defendant of the 26 the state sued in 2003. Citgo was a co-defendant when the trial began in January, but it began settlement negotiations with the state and withdrew from the trial. Citgo ultimately settled for $16 million, bringing the total the state has collected in MTBE settlement money to $136 million.

Fadel Gheit, managing director of oil and gas research and a senior analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., said the verdict won't put a dent in Exxon Mobil's bottom line.

"Exxon will probably make close to a $40 billion profit this year, Gheit said. "That's (the award) two days' work."

He said it's no surprise that Exxon Mobil would take the 10-year-old lawsuit to trial, saying the company "will make you sweat for every dollar you think you're going to get." Company leaders view it as a matter of principle, he said.

"Exxon is the only company I know of that will fight to the last minute," Gheit said. "I understand their mentality. Everybody thinks they can milk this cow."

The trial was the longest state trial in New Hampshire history and the verdict the largest jury verdict in state history, eclipsing the $21.6 million awarded in 2010 in a drug products liability case.

Jurors had more than 400 exhibits to sift through, including memos and reports dating back decades. Those memos included some dating back to 1984 in which Exxon Mobil researchers warned against using MTBE gasoline because of the extensive harm it can do to groundwater.

Grant, the attorney representing the state, said it was pleased the jury held Exxon Mobil accountable for widespread groundwater contamination.

"The finding of Exxon's negligence is particularly important because it shows the jury understood that this problem could have been avoided," she said.

Attorney Matt Pawa of the Pawa Law Group in Boston, who has been involved in the case from the start and brought in the Sher Leff firm, said perserverence paid off.

"When you seek justice against one of the world's biggest corporations, you have to stick it out for the long haul."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/exxon-mobil-must-pay-236m-nh-pollution-case-172710602.html

crossbow airhead atherosclerosis steven tyler tropic thunder carnie wilson missing

Beaten on Gay Marriage, Rightbloggers Begin Berating Straights ...

tomt200.jpgMaybe it's because everyone's sick of fighting over gay marriage. Maybe it's because our rightblogger friends' tactic of Adam-and-Steving the issue hasn't helped their increasingly hopeless cause, even within the Republican Party. In any case some of the brethren are working a new angle.

Well, not totally new. There has long been a body of conservative thought about how it's actually straight marriage that needs fixing, and in these dark days for the anti-gay cause, that kind of thinking is catching on with rightbloggers. The basic premise: Straights better marry fast and early, because something something values.

Conservatives have been concerned with declining marriage rates for ages -- usually on goddamn-hippies, too-much-sex grounds. Some of them have called for laws to be changed to redress the balance. They've denounced no-fault divorce, for example, on the grounds that marriages are a pure social good even when they're miserably unhappy. "No-fault divorce laws were a mistake that encouraged marital irresponsibility," wrote some guy who's President of one of the hundreds of rightwing organizations that have "Marriage" in the title. "No Fault Divorce Was the Bullet to the Brain of Marriage," cried Mark Shea.

At World magazine, Alisa Harris told the heartbreaking story of a couple that got divorced, thereby transferring misery from the wife to the husband, which Harris seemed to find unfair; "It's just too easy [to divorce]," the husband told Harris. "She could literally change her life overnight." We can see how conservatives would find this frustrating.

Conservatives have even been willing to let the evil federal government intervene to encourage marriage, at least when they're in charge, as with George W. Bush's $1.5 billion "promotion of marriage" program in 2004, an expenditure which, so far as we remember, none of the currently budget-conscious Republicans complained about at the time.

Some of the brethren have defended such programs on the grounds that they're cost-effective -- because marriage by itself makes people rich. In 2002 small-government conservative Rich Lowry of National Review criticized a welfare bill that would "pay -- and reward -- single moms for being single moms"; if we stopped paying them, Lowry reasoned, they might get married, and that would be super: "If [unwed fathers] were to marry the mothers of their children, 75 percent of the mothers would be lifted out of poverty," he claimed. "In roughly two-thirds of the cases, the mothers would be lifted out of poverty without even having to work themselves." Lifted out of poverty without working? They should bottle this "marriage" stuff!

This idea has persisted, even, we might say, metastasized; when Katie Roiphe postulated in 2012 on a future world without marriage, at National Review Heather Mac Donald snarled that "actually, we know already" what such a world would be like -- "It's called the ghetto." So, just as marriage can make everyone rich, lack of marriage can make everyone poor. It's that powerful!

In recent years, the idea that marriage makes you rich has become an important part of the marriage-mania schtick -- as has a pretense, calculated to draw in more soft-hearted auditors, of concern for the poor.

Take Charles Murray. He's the author of The Bell Curve, a book beloved of rightbloggers because it implies black people are intellectually inferior to white people. This may be why, when Murray considered the fate of America's under-married working class in his 2012 book Coming Apart, he said he had deliberately left black people out of his projections "as a way of clarifying how broad and deep the cultural divisions in the U.S. have become," he said. Yeah, we get it, buddy.

Murray noticed that wealthier Americans were still getting married before having kids, while poorer Americans were not. But unlike you and us, Murray dismissed the idea that this had anything to do with the drastically reduced economic opportunities for blue-collar workers these days; rather, he thought it was because poor people didn't know that marriage and hard work are good for you -- because richer Americans had stopped telling them so, out of a "condescending 'nonjudgmentalism.'"

Murray suggested "the new upper class must start preaching what it practices," i.e. wealthier Americans should go out among the poor and prosletyze for "marriage and the work ethic," i.e., nag them about it, which if effective would then make everybody rich, or at least the white people.

Murray seems to have been inspired by W. Bradford Wilcox, director of something called the National Marriage Project, who said in 2010 that "family breakdown inhibits the accumulation of assets" -- that is, unwed parenthood leads to poverty, not the other way around.

Wilcox at least had a more entertaining, if no more believable, reason for the downtick in marriage than Murray: he said the lower classes had fallen victim to a sentimental idea about marriage -- a "soul mate" model rather than a more rugged "'institutional' model" (why, it even sounds like something used in factories!). "More and more Americans think that marriage is about an intense and fulfilling couple-focused relationship," complained Wilcox, which is ridiculous -- it's about pooping out kids and working till you have a stroke. But the poor insist on a soul mate thing they can't afford, said Wilcox, and since the "emotional and sexual intensity of the couple relationship waxes and wanes," they naturally wind up unmarried with squalling brats in a trailer, unlike those who never expected to quote-unquote love their partners.

Like Murray, Wilcox believed in nagging -- "highly educated Americans," he said, "need to put their privilege in service of the public good by doing a better job of extending their marriage mindset to the rest of America." He didn't say how it would work, but we like to think he sent troupes of pro-marriage troubadours to wander the hinterlands, singing songs of conjugal wealth transference.

Flash forward to 2013: As they found themselves in a post-gay-marriage-acceptance landscape, some rightbloggers who don't normally go on about straight marriage have been taking up the subject -- and from their writings we get the distinct sense that they don't mind switching targets as long as they still get to hector somebody about their personal lives.

Reihan Salam, one of the young rightbloggers promoted by the praise of David Brooks and others, took a Wilcoxian view: Degenerate moderns, he complained, had abandoned a "conjugal view of marriage, in which procreation and lifelong marital fidelity are central," and adopted one whereby "children, once at the center of marriage, have now become negotiable, and what used to be negotiable -- love, companionship, sex -- has moved to the center."

So, said Salam, maybe conservatives should forget about gay marriage and get to work on straight marriage. His buddy David Blankenhorn, founder of the Institute of Buzzword Buzzword -- who Salam said has "emerged as one of the leading critics of same-sex civil marriages," so you know he's hardcore -- had in a recent op-ed "called for a kind of truce. 'Instead of fighting gay marriage,' he wrote, 'I'd like to help build new coalitions bringing together gays who want to strengthen marriage with straight people who want to do the same.'" Gays and straights, scolding together! Unfortunately, Salam reported, "Many of Blankenhorn's erstwhile allies saw his op-ed as a capitulation, and as a result the Institute for American Values lost several members of its board." Maybe we should build him a statue.

At The Umlaut, Eli Dourado offered a Murrayesque explanation for why the poor weren't getting married: "A marriage is like a job -- financially lucrative, but inconvenient at times," he said, "so it could make sense that those who are especially averse to inconvenience would forgo both jobs and marriages and end up poor." Those marriage-shirking poors! Maybe this calls for a government marriage-training program? Doubtful -- in Dourado's view, government intervention has only made the situation worse: "Welfare policy has reduced the opportunity cost of childbearing out of wedlock for the poor," he wrote; "consequently, it makes sense that the poor are doing more of it." Maybe if we made them sing hymns first...

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, who normally focuses on how everything is Obama's fault, also caught marriage fever, telling readers of USA Today that "marriage inequality is one of the biggest things making people less equal, accounting for as much as 40% of the difference in incomes." (Lest you question his sincerity, Reynolds added, "I've been supporting gay marriage for a long time --? much, much longer than Barack Obama." Ah, good for him, he got it in there!)

Source: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2013/04/beaten_on_gay_m.php

david lee honduras prison fire do not call list sports illustrated westminster dog show 2012 words with friends words with friends

Phantom Flex4K camera unveiled, blasts through 1000 4K frames per second (video)

Phantom Flex4K camera blasts through 1000 4K frames per second video

Vision Research just upped the 4k speed barrier by a near order of magnitude with the launch of its Phantom Flex4K cinema camera at NAB. Starting at $110k, it builds on its Phantom Flex predecessor with up to 1,000 fps in 5 second bursts at 4k, 2,000 fps in 2k and 3,000 fps at 720p resolution -- speeds that'll net you almost three minutes of 4k video when played back at 24 fps. The full 16:9 Super 35 sensor-equipped model can be had with PL, PV Canon EOS or Nikon F/G mounts and will capture RAW or compressed footage in an "industry-standard," but as yet unspecified format. The Flex4K will also be available with a Phantom Cinemag IV, which will hold up to 2TB of data, or nearly 2 hours of RAW 4k footage at normal recording speeds. Other features include a Bluetooth transmitter and handheld Phantom RCU for remote operation, 12+ stops of dynamic range, HD-SDI video output and a camera control interface and form factor that hews to industry norms, according to Vision Research. If you're still reading after seeing the six-figure price tag, check the videos or More Coverage link after the jump for more.

Filed under:

Comments

Source: AbelCine

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/08/phantom-flex4k-camera-unveiled-at-NAB/

PSEG hocus pocus hocus pocus mta schedule PECO Hurricane Sandy update ellen degeneres

PFT: Goodell wants to take head out of football

Cincinnati Bengals v Atlanta FalconsGetty Images

As career implosions go, it doesn?t happen much more quickly than it did for cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha, who went in roughly 20 months from being the prize of the post-lockout free-agency class to a one-year, $1.35 million base deal.

But at least Asomugha is still in the league.

Defensive end Ray Edwards, who jumped from the Vikings to the Falcons after the lockout, was cut during his second season in Atlanta, and he never has been heard from again.

Except, of course, when knocking guys out with punches so ferocious they don?t even have to, you know, connect.

Edwards, who now embraces boxing in large part because the NFL no longer embraces him, is the subject of a slow-news-day profile in USA Today.? He claims he didn?t know about Nick Capes? plan to take a no-punch dive.? Edwards also claims that his football career didn?t deserve the knockout blow it received from the Falcons.

?When they say you?re a bad apple, they don?t want you on your team; Terrell Owens is evidence,? Edwards said.? ?Before [Owens] left the game, he was a 1,000-yard receiver, but he didn?t get a job because of people saying he?s a bad person.? It?s hard to get second chances in the NFL because it?s a product line coming out of college.

?I think [Falcons head coach] Mike Smith [gave me the problem player label] because me and him weren?t on the best of terms.? He felt someone was better than me, but I knew he wasn?t.? Players didn?t agree with him.? He just didn?t like me.?

Other football coaches are smart enough to factor in those potential personal conflicts.? Disregarding whatever the Falcons were saying, the Seahawks (who gave Owens a chance last year) brought Edwards in for a tire-kicking after he was cut.? But when defensive end Chris Clemons tore an ACL in the wild-card round, Pete Carroll and John Schneider dusted off concussion-lawsuit plaintiff Patrick Chukwurah for a divisional-round game at Atlanta ? even though Edwards surely would have had extra motivation (and maybe some inside information) to help Seattle win in the Georgia Dome.

?If you don?t do what they tell to do in the NFL, exactly how they tell you to do it, you have a bad attitude,? Edwards said.? ?I have a bad attitude because I want to be on the field?? That sounds like a winning attitude to me.?

No, it sounds like a guy who knows better than his coach, and who doesn?t know when to accept the coach?s decision and move on.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/04/08/goodells-goal-is-simple-take-the-head-out-of-the-gam/related/

4 20 george zimmerman sheree whitfield weather dallas pat summitt real housewives of atlanta colton

Too early to call U.S. in a spring "swoon": Fed's Bullard

(Reuters) - A top Federal Reserve official downplayed the meager March jobs report, arguing he still expects unemployment to tick down to about 7 percent by year's end and suggesting the economy is not entering another spring "swoon."

St. Louis Fed President James Bullard pointed to a stronger Europe and more positive economic data beyond the employment report, which last week showed only 88,000 jobs were created last month in the United States.

However, Bullard, speaking on CNBC on Tuesday, added he was concerned that the drop in the unemployment rate to 7.6 percent, from 7.7 percent the previous month, was due to fewer Americans hunting for work.

"It's not changing my outlook so far. I'm inclined to look past the report because I think there are some mixed messages in there," including stronger average job growth over the last six months.

"This is a down number, but we'll see," he said. "I don't think we have enough evidence right now to say there's any kind of a swoon going on."

The Fed has tied the duration of its bond buying program to a "substantial improvement" in the labor market and plans to keep interest rates near zero until the unemployment rate falls to about 6.5 percent.

Investors are anxiously predicting when the central bank will taper or end its monthly purchases of $85 billion in bonds.

"Surely if we get into the low sevens (unemployment rate) everyone will say there's substantial improvement in the labor market," Bullard said.

(Reporting by Jonathan Spicer Editing by W Simon and Kenneth Barry)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/too-early-call-spring-swoon-feds-bullard-123902505--business.html

adrienne bailon yelp stock honda classic news channel 5 nashville weather jason varitek andrew breitbart dead

Monday, April 1, 2013

Texas county district attorney and wife found dead

(Reuters) - Authorities in Texas were investigating the deaths of the Kaufman County criminal district attorney and his wife on Saturday, in what news reports said was a shooting at their home.

The deaths of Criminal District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife follows the January slaying of Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse, who was shot and killed as he walked from his car to a Dallas-area courthouse.

"We are investigating the deaths of the Kaufman County district attorney and his wife," said Kaufman County Sheriff's Office spokesman Lieutenant Justin Lewis.

Lewis said the investigation was at a preliminary stage and that he had no further information.

The Dallas Morning News, citing unnamed sources, said that the couple was found shot at their home.

(Reporting by Tim Gaynor in Phoenix, Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Philip Barbara)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/texas-county-district-attorney-wife-found-dead-032732367.html

cnbc dexter dexter ny times paul mccartney Sandy Hook Victims new york times

Here's the Internet/cable TV ad they ought to run (video)

If only this wasn?t so true. The Internet and cable TV game is rigged in the US, and it?s consumers who lose.

The political class makes out okay because of the big dollars handed out every campaign season. As for the rest of us, we pay far more for cable TV, Internet, phone and cell service in the US than they pay in Europe, for example. Here in France, the phone, TV and Internet package starts at around 30 euros, or $36 ? and the speeds are generally faster than you?ll get as a standard package in most US cities (though, admittedly, customer service tends to be non-existent over here).

John was just telling me that in Washington, DC, he pays $180/month for basic Internet and basic cable TV, has to pay extra for HD (which is hardly some new-fangled technology at this point), and his package doesn?t include any premium movie channels at all. $180, that?s insane.

Thanks, Congress!

FYI ? there?s small amount of language in the video.

Source: http://americablog.com/2013/03/heres-the-internetcable-tv-ad-they-ought-to-run-video.html

oscar nominations C7 Corvette tom brady denver post Scandal denver broncos new england patriots

Phil Ramone, Grammy-winning producer, dead at 72

NEW YORK (AP) ? Phil Ramone, the masterful Grammy Award-winning engineer, arranger and producer whose platinum touch included recordings with Ray Charles, Billy Joel and Paul Simon, has died at 72, his family said Saturday.

Ramone's son, Matt Ramone, confirmed the death. The family did not immediately release details of the death, but Matt Ramone says his father was "very loving and will be missed."

Few in the recording industry enjoyed a more spectacular and diverse career. Ramone won 14 competitive Grammy Awards and one for lifetime achievement. Worldwide sales for his projects topped 100 million. He was at ease with rock, jazz, swing and pop, working with Frank Sinatra and Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney, Elton John and Tony Bennett, Madonna and Lou Reed.

Ramone was on hand for such classic albums as The Band's "The Band" and Bob Dylan's "Blood On the Tracks." He produced three records that went on to win Grammys for album of the year ? Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years," Joel's "52nd Street" and Charles' "Genius Loves Company."

"I always thought of Phil Ramone as the most talented guy in my band," Joel said in a statement. "So much of my music was shaped by him and brought to fruition by him. I have lost a dear friend ? and my greatest mentor."

Ramone also was a pioneer of digital recording who produced what is regarded as the first major commercial release on compact disc, "52nd Street," which came out on CD in 1982. He was even part of political history, advising presidential administrations on how to properly record a news conference and helping to arrange the storied 1962 party for John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden that featured Marilyn Monroe crooning "Happy Birthday."

He thrived whether producing music for the stereo, television, film or the stage. He won an Emmy for a TV special about Duke Ellington, a Grammy for the soundtrack to the Broadway musical "Promises, Promises" and a Grammy for the soundtrack to "Flashdance."

He had uncanny instincts and made an art out of the "Duets" concept, pairing Sinatra with Bono, Luther Vandross and other younger artists, Bennett with McCartney and Barbra Streisand, and Charles with Bonnie Raitt and Van Morrison. In Ramone's memoir, "Making Records," he recalled persuading a hesitant Sinatra to re-record some of his signature songs.

"I reminded Frank that while Laurence Olivier had performed Shakespeare in his 20s, the readings he did when he was in his 60s gave them new meaning," Ramone wrote. "I spoke with conviction. 'Don't my children ? and your grandchildren ? deserve to hear the way you're interpreting your classic songs now?'"

A request from Sinatra led to another Ramone innovation: Singers performing simultaneously from separate studios.

A native of South Africa, he seemed born to make music. He had learned violin by age 3 and was trained at The Juilliard School in New York. Before age 20, he had opened his own recording studio, A&R Recording, where he served as engineer for such visiting artists as Count Basie and Sarah Vaughan. He had known Quincy Jones since he was a teenager and in his 20s became close to Streisand. By the end of the 1960s, he had worked on "Midnight Cowboy" and other movie soundtracks and would credit composer John Barry with helping him become a producer.

His credits as a producer, engineer and arranger make it hard to believe they belong to just one person: Joel's "The Stranger," Simon's "There Goes Rhymin' Simon," concert albums by Dylan and the Rolling Stones, such popular singles as Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant," Streisand's "Evergreen," Lesley Gore's "It's My Party," Judy Collins' "Send in the Clowns" and Stan Getz's and Astrud Gilberto's "The Girl from Ipanema."

The bearded, self-effacing Ramone was among the most famous and welcome faces within the business, yet he could walk down virtually any street unnoticed. He was not a high-strung visionary in the tradition of Phil Spector, but rather a highly accomplished craftsman and diplomat who prided himself on his low-key style, on being an "objective filter" for the artist, on not being "a screamer."

"The record producer is the music world's equivalent of a film director," he wrote in his memoir. "But, unlike a director (who is visible, and often a celebrity in his own right), the record producer toils in anonymity. We ply our craft deep into the night, behind locked doors."

Ramone's friendly style was especially welcomed by Joel. The singer-songwriter was already a popular artist in the mid-1970s, but he felt he lacked a sympathetic producer, one who appreciated Joel's bandmates as much as Joel. Ramone joined on for what became one of Joel's biggest successes, "The Stranger," released in 1977. As Joel explained at the time, Ramone fit right in with the musicians and encouraged everyone to relax and play more like they did on stage, like "rock and roll animals."

"We did songs in five takes instead of 15 or 20," Joel said. "He was one of the guys. We'd throw around ideas, kick the songs around, try them different ways and get them right. Sometimes we'd throw pizza at each other."

In a statement Saturday, Bennett said it was a joy to work with Ramone.

"Phil Ramone was a lovely person and a very gifted musician and producer," Bennett said. "He had a wonderful sense of humor and a deep love of music."

Ramone's many industry honors were returned in kind. He was chairman emeritus of the board of trustees of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) and produced Grammy tributes for James Taylor, Brian Wilson and other artists. He was an advocate for musical education and a trustee for the National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress.

His recent recordings included albums with Bennett, Simon, George Michael and Dionne Warwick.

"I still make records on the basis that three or four players and a singer, and the song, come together right there," he said recently for an interview on CBS.com. "It's a really strong way to work. I'm ready to work, musicians are ready to play. There's a feeling."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/phil-ramone-grammy-winning-producer-dead-72-171128987.html

Black Ops 2 Secede ben roethlisberger Diwali elmo Kevin Clash Walmart Black Friday 2012