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What the article fails to mention is that Debbie was dragged behind the car for almost 250 feet, her leg was almost severed, and her boyfriend had a compound fracture to his pelvis and head trauma & was not expected to live. Does 13.5 years seem just!? I think I'd feel better if he had to serve the time in a Mexican jail for God's sake!

The drunken driver, Luis M. Alvarez, was sentenced Tuesday to 13.5 years in prison for the fatal West Chicago crash, after which he fled the scene.

Alvarez, 25, formerly of Montgomery, faced three to 14 years in prison after pleading guilty earlier this summer to aggravated DUI. DuPage Circuit Judge Perry Thompson sentenced him Tuesday in an emotional court hearing.

"This was not an accident," Thompson said. "This was a crime. There are three broken families. They all pay a price in a different way."

Prosecutor Michael Pawl said Alvarez fled Sept. 22 after his red van struck the rear of a motorcycle near the intersection of Route 59 and Stimmel Street in West Chicago.

Rescuers found the motorcycle's driver, William F. Rezac, 55, of Warrenville and his female passenger, Deborah Atkinson, 51, of Lisle with severe injuries. Both were rushed to Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield.

A doctor pronounced Atkinson dead shortly later. Rezac was airlifted to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, where he initially was listed in critical condition, but survived the crash.
He was estimated to be traveling at least 78 mph in a 35 mph zone at the time of the crash.

"He fled and left these people dead and dying in the street," Pawl said. "The defendant chose to abandon his vehicle. He did not call 911. He did not get these people help. Instead, he chose to flee the state."

Alvarez, who is in the country illegally, has a criminal history that includes a 2000 DUI crash in which no one was injured. He also has two prior felony convictions for aggravated battery and obstructing justice.

Rezac survived, but he continues to suffer extensive physical injuries. Authorities also charged him with misdemeanor DUI after accusing him of driving intoxicated.

Alvarez must serve 85 percent of the prison term before being eligible for parole. He is expected to be deported after his term expires.

Tonight. Gustav hits, let's hope people've learned from their mistakes this time...

Everything about Hurricane Gustav live on four different Media at once
click the link : http://www.maroonspoon.com/wx/gustav.html

Russian Army Moving Against Georgian Forces Controlling Capital of Breakaway Province South Ossetia

NEW DELHI (AP) -- Police say the death toll in the deadly stampede at a Hindu temple in northern India has risen to 145.NEW DELHI (AP) -- Pilgrims stampeded at a mountaintop Hindu temple in northern India on Sunday, among them 68 women and children -- were killed in the crush that sent worshippers plummeting to their deaths over a broken railing.

As thens of thousands of people were walking up the hill, a railing on the mountain path collapsed during the crush, sending dozens of people over the edge, police said. Television channels showed blurred pictures of the lifeless bodies of several small children, apparently lying at the bottom of the path.Verma said the stampede may have been sparked by rumors of a landslide, but it was made worse when too many pilgrims tried to squeeze onto the narrow path.

Deadly stampedes are a relatively common occurrence at temples in India, where large crowds -- sometimes hundreds of thousands of people -- congregate in small areas lacking the facilities to control such big gatherings.

Sunday was the second day of the festival and authorities sought to reassure other pilgrims. "There is no need to panic, everything is normalized now," Verma said.

Astaroth: Normalized,,,yeah sure for India !

A new tribe has been found in Brazil that previously had zero contact with the modern world.One of South America's few remaining uncontacted indigenous tribes has been spotted and photographed on the border between Brazil and Peru. They were spotted by a low flying plane that only took photographs. On some of these you can see the tribesmen pointing bow & arrows at the plane.

Click here to read the story.

Click here to see the pictures.

Click here to watch the BBC Video.

Man kills neighbor over missing PS3

Being a protective console owner is one thing, but taking obsessive love for one's system to violent ends is a whole other ballpark. Take the story of Edward Keith Stoddard Jr. who was arrested last night in Dade City for murdering his neighbor over a missing PlayStation 3. He's accused of murdering neighbor Douglas F. Abrams when the two were arguing over the PS3 in question on April 24.

It's such a sad thing to hear that someone had to die over something so trivial. Sure, most of us love our systems, but not enough to kill for it. It's not clear whether the PS3 was the only reason for the murder, but even if it wasn't, it wouldn't matter. The story would end the same -- someone's dead, the other's in jail, and the PS3 still missing.

BERLIN (AFP) - A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected NASA's estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth, a German newspaper reported Tuesday, after spotting the boffins had miscalculated.

Nico Marquardt used telescopic findings from the Institute of Astrophysics in Potsdam (AIP) to calculate that there was a 1 in 450 chance that the Apophis asteroid will collide with Earth, the Potsdamer Neuerster Nachrichten reported.

NASA had previously estimated the chances at only 1 in 45,000 but told its sister organisation, the European Space Agency (ESA), that the young whizzkid had got it right.

The schoolboy took into consideration the risk of Apophis running into one or more of the 40,000 satellites orbiting Earth during its path close to the planet on April 13 2029.

Those satellites travel at 3.07 kilometres a second (1.9 miles), at up to 35,880 kilometres above earth -- and the Apophis asteroid will pass by earth at a distance of 32,500 kilometres.

If the asteroid strikes a satellite in 2029, that will change its trajectory making it hit earth on its next orbit in 2036.

Both NASA and Marquardt agree that if the asteroid does collide with earth, it will create a ball of iron and iridium 320 metres (1049 feet) wide and weighing 200 billion tonnes, which will crash into the Atlantic Ocean.

The shockwaves from that would create huge tsunami waves, destroying both coastlines and inland areas, whilst creating a thick cloud of dust that would darken the skies indefinitely.

The 13-year old made his discovery as part of a regional science competition for which he submitted a project entitled: "Apophis -- The Killer Astroid."

SAINI SUNPURA, India - A baby with two faces was born in a northern Indian village, where she is doing well and is being worshipped as the reincarnation of a Hindu goddess, her father said Tuesday.

The baby, Lali, apparently has an extremely rare condition known as craniofacial duplication, where a single head has two faces. Except for her ears, all of Lali's facial features are duplicated — she has two noses, two pairs of lips and two pairs of eyes.

"My daughter is fine — like any other child," said Vinod Singh, 23, a poor farm worker.

Lali has caused a sensation in the dusty village of Saini Sunpura, 25 miles east of New Delhi. When she left the hospital, eight hours after a normal delivery on March 11, she was swarmed by villagers, said Sabir Ali, the director of Saifi Hospital.

American Idol moving to Canada

WINNIPEG, Manitoba, April 1 - Simon, Paula and Randy have all signed on to do ten more years of American Idol... as long as the show is broadcast from Canada. According to Idol judge Randy Jackson, "The American singers are just a little too pitchy, dog. We're looking for something cooler."

Alabama Legislature Lays Siege to Pi

By April Holiday

The Associalized Press

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- NASA engineers and mathematicians in this high-tech city are stunned and infuriated after the Alabama state legislature narrowly passed a law yesterday [March 30, 2008] redefining pi, a mathematical constant used in the aerospace industry. The bill to change the value of pi to exactly three was introduced without fanfare by Leonard Lee Lawson (R, Crossville), and rapidly gained support after a letter-writing campaign by members of the Solomon Society, a traditional values group. Governor Guy Hunt says he will sign it into law on Wednesday.

The law took the state's engineering community by surprise. "It would have been nice if they had consulted with someone who actually uses pi," said Marshall Bergman, a manager at the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. According to Bergman, pi (p) is a Greek letter that signifies the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It is often used by engineers to calculate missile trajectories.

Prof. Kim Johanson, a mathematician from University of Alabama, said that pi is a universal constant, and cannot arbitrarily be changed by lawmakers. Johanson explained that pi is an irrational number, which means that it has an infinite number of digits after the decimal point and can never be known exactly. Nevertheless, she said, pi is precisely defined by mathematics to be "3.14159, plus as many more digits as you have time to calculate".

Exxon Mobil Corp. on Friday posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company $40.6 billion as the world's biggest publicly traded oil company benefited from historic crude prices at year's end.

Exxon also set a U.S. record for the biggest quarterly profit, posting net income of $11.7 billion for the final three months of 2007, beating its own mark of $10.71 billion in the fourth quarter of 2005.

The previous record for annual profit was $39.5 billion, which Exxon Mobil made in 2006.

The eye-popping results weren't a surprise given record prices for a barrel of oil at the end of 2007. For much of the fourth quarter, they hovered around $90 a barrel, more than 50 percent higher than a year ago.

Crude prices reached an all-time trading high of $100.09 on Jan. 3 but have fallen about 10 percent since.

The record profit for the October-December period amounted to $2.13 a share versus $1.76 a share in 2006. Year-ago net income was $10.25 billion.

Also extraordinary was Exxon Mobil's revenue, which rose 30 percent in the fourth quarter to $116.6 billion from $90 billion a year ago.

For the year, sales rose to $404.5 billion the most ever for the Irving, Texas-based company from the $377.64 billion it posted in 2006.

In a statement, Exxon Mobil Chairman Rex Tillerson said the company continued to meet the world's energy needs through its "globally diverse resource base."

"Our long-term investment program, in projects often far from major consuming nations, continued to provide resources essential to the increasingly interdependent global energy supply network," Tillerson said.

Exxon Mobil produces about 3 percent of the world's oil.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=4227309

I've already had to take away dozen of my kids toys... Now this one. It's been on the hot toy list for 2008 for weeks. My daughter already has one and she's thrilled that we have to get rid of it. I was thinking about taking a handful of beads and eating them. CHEAP DRUGS! WOOHOO! ;-)

NEW YORK (CNN) -- U.S. safety officials have recalled about 4.2 million Chinese-made Aqua Dots bead toys that contain a chemical that has caused some children to vomit and become comatose after swallowing them.

Bindeez, which were named Australia's toy of the year, contain a chemical that converts into a "date rape" drug.

Scientists have found the popular toy's coating contains a chemical that, once metabolized, converts into the toxic "date rape" drug GHB, or gamma-hydroxy butyrate, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission spokesman Scott Wolfson told CNN.

"GHB is this drug that in low doses actually causes euphoria," said Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent. "In higher doses, it can cause people to go into a coma. It can cause seizures. It can cause something known as hypotonia, where all your muscles just become very flaccid.

"And it can cause people to become amnestic, meaning they forget everything that's about to happen to them, which is why it became a date-rape drug," Gupta said.

"So this is nasty stuff, and it appears that the chemical is actually converting into it in the body."

Read more: Toy contaminated with 'date rape' drug pulled - CNN.com

FANNIN COUNTY, Tex. -- One man is in prison after allegedly stabbing the driver he hitched a ride with over the weekend. The victim is recovering, but it's the details of the case that officials say make it unlike any they've ever seen.

Fannin County Sheriff’s Deputies received the original call at 2:40 on Saturday afternoon about a suspect involved in a stabbing located at the intersection of County Road 3830 and Highway 11. When deputies arrived on the scene they found that the case they were working on involved a lot more than they had planned.

Fannin County sheriff Kenneth Moore says he was shocked when he heard what happened this past Saturday just west of Wolfe City.

When deputies arrived on the scene they found James Wayne Evans, 43, a hitchhiker who confessed to stabbing the person who gave him a ride and apparently expected something in return.

"Whenever the individual that picked up the hitchhiker wanted more intimacy and that was about to happen, he determined at that point the intimacy would stop," said Fannin County Sheriff Kenneth Moore.

Officials say Evans was hitch hiking down Interstate 30 in Arlington when a white female known only as ‘Angie’ picked him up.

Soon thereafter, the 42-year-old driver invited Evans back to her horse barn just outside of Wolfe City.

When they arrived, the two became intimate, and officials say ‘Angie’ asked Evans to perform oral sex on her.

That’s when they say Evans got quite a surprise.

"(When he did) comply with the female subject, he found out it was in fact not a female, but a male," Sheriff Moore said.

Officials say Evans pulled out a knife and stabbed ‘Angie’-- who is a man-- multiple times.

‘Angie’ was flown to Parkland Hospital where he was treated and released.

Authorities warn regardless of the situation that picking up hitch hikers is never a good idea.

"You don’t know that individual walking down the highway. Why in the world would you stop and pick up someone you don’t know because in today’s environment that’s just not a safe thing to do," Moore said.

Evans was taken into custody and taken to the Fannin County Jail where bond has been set at $50,000.

Drugs hidden in Mr. Potato Head toy

SYDNEY, Australia - Customs officers discovered nearly 10.5 ounces of ecstasy tablets hidden inside a Mr. Potato Head toy sent to Australia from Ireland, the agency said Thursday.

Upon opening the parcel, the officers were greeted with the smiling face of the popular children's toy, which features a potato-like head and removable facial features. But when they removed a panel from the back of the toy, the officers found 10.34 ounces of ecstasy in a plastic bag.

The Australian Customs Service referred the matter to federal police, but no arrests were immediately made, the agency said. The maximum penalty for importing drugs to Australia is life imprisonment.

"Whilst this is one of the more unusual concealments that we have seen in recent times, people need to be aware that Customs officers are alert to unusual and often outlandish methods of concealment," Customs Director Post Karen Williams said.

Lifted from: CANOE - CNEWS



Over 100,000 cans, bottles of Moosehead stolen

By THE CANADIAN PRESS



MISSISSAUGA, Ont. - Drinkers of Moosehead beer in Ontario are being advised to stock up on their favorite brew after thieves made off with more than 100,000 cans and bottles.



Two tractor-trailers carrying 70,000 cans and 44,000 bottles of Moosehead Lager were stolen early Wednesday morning at a transport company's facility in Mississauga, Ont.



The beer company says the retail value of the load is $200,000.



"Moosehead drinkers in Ontario would be wise to stock up today," company spokesman Joel Levesque said in a release.



"We expect it may take until early next week to replenish the stolen beer."



This is the second time in three years that Moosehead has been hit with a major beer heist.



In August 2004, a truck containing 50,000 cans of Moosehead Lager bound for Mexico was stolen.



Only 14,000 of the cans were ever found.



"We can't believe that of all the beer available in Canada that Moosehead would be targeted again," Levesque said.

A fast food chain’s racy new advertising campaign has left at least one teacher’s organization demanding it be pulled.

The ad for St. Louis, Missouri-based Hardee’s Corporation features a sexy teacher, making provocative moves in front of the class while two students rap to a song called "Flat Buns,” according to a report on myFOXstl.com.

"How irresponsible can you get?” said the Tennessee Education Association in a statement on their website. ”At this very moment, there are female teachers in high school classrooms with 30+ students who are working hard to teach our children so that they can compete in today's world. It is unbelievably demeaning to every one of them to promote a television advertisement showing a young teacher gyrating on top of her desk while boys in the class rap about her body in order to sell hamburgers!"

Hardee’s claims the ad is obviously a spoof, pointing out that the target demographic for the ad is young men who find this type of ad campaign appealing.

The fast-food chain courted controversy before with a provocative hamburger ad featuring Paris Hilton.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Science is confirming what most women know: When given the choice for a mate, men go for good looks.

And guys won't be surprised to learn that women are much choosier about partners than they are.

"Just because people say they're looking for a particular set of characteristics in a mate, someone like themselves, doesn't mean that is what they'll end up choosing," Peter M. Todd, of the cognitive science program at Indiana University, Bloomington, said in a telephone interview.

Researchers led by Todd report that in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that their study found humans were similar to most other mammals, "following Darwin's principle of choosy females and competitive males, even if humans say something different."

Their study involved 26 men and 20 women in Munich, Germany.

Participants ranged in age from 26 to their early 40s and took part in "speed dating," short meetings of three to seven minutes in which people chat, then move on to meet another dater. Afterward, participants check off the people they'd like to meet again, and dates can be arranged between pairs who select one another.

Continue reading the most obvious thing ever...

That video isn't the reason for this post. I just couldn't find an image to use for this news article and I thought that was somewhat relative.

If you want to see the funniest thing to come from the Michael Vick dog fighting crap yet, you need to see this. Stories like this are the reason I watch fox news, oh, and because I'm republican. But that doesn't matter...

I guarantee you say "What the fuck" at the title alone!!!

This isn't my typical IHMC post, but since I can see many people falling for it (11 states already), I figured I would post it to MAYBE help you out...

JURY DUTY SCAM: This has been verified by the FBI (their link is also included below). Please pass this on to everyone in your email address book. It is spreading fast so be prepared should you get this call. Most of us take summons for jury duty
seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of scam has surfaced.
The caller claims to be a jury coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or sh e can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out any of this information and bingo; your identity just got stolen. The scam has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma, Illinois, and Colorado. This (scam) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into giving information by pretending they're with the court system. The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their web sites, warning consumers about the fraud.

FBI: Don't Fall for Jury Duty Scam

MILWAUKEE (AP) - Emergency workers labored through the night to rescue an ailing 500-pound man who was stranded on a stretch of the St. Croix River so shallow that rescue vehicles - including a hovercraft - were unable to approach.

Martin Rike, 39, of Pine City, Minn., was treated for chest pain at the Burnett Medical Center in Grantsburg on Tuesday morning and discharged that afternoon, his mother said.

Rike and three friends were floating down the river Monday afternoon when Rike's tube hit a rock and deflated, said Chief Deputy Steve Ovick of the Pine County Sheriff's Office in Minnesota.

Ovick had said Tuesday morning that Rike was rafting alone, but after speaking with more rescuers, he gave the following account:

Rike's group called 911 shortly after 8 p.m. to report that he was ill. A paramedic who arrived by helicopter stabilized Rike, but the pilot couldn't take him to a hospital.

"The aircraft that found him said they could not lift that amount of weight," Ovick said.

Complete story and video! - Believe me, the article isn't half a good as the vido

There are plenty of things that come to mind after reading that article, but I will just ask one question? What kind of raft was this dude on? I am assuming it was some heavy-duty, industrial raft, because most have a weight limit of...oh say 300 lbs.