At Long Last, A Small Justice

When grisly images of their daughter's death went viral on the Web, the Catsouras family fought back. Two years later, a court rules in their favor.

These are the photos the Catsouras family wishes you would see.

Excerpt:

“They say losing a child is the worst thing a parent can endure. But for Christos and Lesli Catsouras, whose 18-year-old daughter, Nikki, was killed in a devastating car crash in 2006, there was something much, much worse.

Two weeks after their daughter's death, on Halloween day, Christos got a phone call from a friend. "Have you seen the photos?" he asked, hesitantly. Nine color close-ups of Nikki's mangled remains, still strapped into her father's crushed car, had been circulating around town by e-mail. Within days, the images went viral, popping up on hundreds of sites. Now a California court has handed the family an important legal victory.” Go here to read the entire story

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Sarah Palin to speak at the Redding Convention Center Feb.8 – Protestors Prepare Greetings

 Looks like some folks in Redding are planning to greet Sarah Palin, but they’ll be outside the building she’s being paid to speak at.

I guess they don’t want to pay to hear her speak. I wonder how much she’s being paid for this gig? Her last one netted $150,000.

 Looks like those Rednecks in Redding have got some some cash to spend.  

SARAH PALIN will be speaking at the Redding Convention Center on Monday, Feb. 8 at 3 PM and again at 7 PM, approximately for an hour each time.

The protestors plan on creating a “HIGHLY VISIBLE, peaceful presence” outside the center.

Read  The original press release here. from Redding progressives who are organizing these demonstrations.

The organizers are asking people to PLEASE POST & DISTRIBUTE FLYER EVERYWHERE YOU GO up till Monday morning. According to the protestors, “This is for everyone who could never quite picture Sarah Palin in the White House!” 

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Here’s what was happening in 1950 – the year I was born

If you would like to check out what happened in the year you were born go to infoplease.com

 

I love some of the movie posters from 1950. The one above is a perfect example of the trashy B-Movies that were churned out back then. 

World Events

• Korean War begins when North Korean Communist forces invadeSouth Korea.
• Sino-Soviet friendship treaty signed.
• Communist Chinese forces invade Tibet.

British atomic physicist Klaus Fuchs is convicted of spying for the Soviet Union. Background: The Cold War

World Statistics

Population: 2.556 billion
population by decade
Nobel Peace Prize:
Ralph J. Bunche (US)
More World Statistics...

U.S. Events

• Truman orders development ofhydrogen bomb (Jan. 31).
• Assassination attempt on PresidentTruman by Puerto Rican nationalists (Nov. 1).
• Era of McCarthyism begins.

U.S. Statistics

President: Harry S Truman
Vice President: Alben W. Barkley
Population: 152,271,417
Life expectancy: 68.2 years
Homicide Rate (per 100,000): 5.3
More U.S. Statistics...

Economics

US GDP (1998 dollars):  $294.6 billion
Federal spending:  $42.56 billion
Federal debt:  $256.9 billion
Consumer Price Index:  24.1
Unemployment:  5.9%
Cost of a first-class stamp:  $0.03

More Economics...

Sports

World Series

NY Yankees d. Philadelphia Phillies (4-0)

NBA Championship

Minneapolis Lakers d. Syracuse (4-2) No wonder I’m a Laker fan. It was destiny!

Stanley Cup

Detroit d. NY Rangers (4-3)

Wimbledon

Women: Louise Brough d. M. duPont (6-1 3-6 6-1)
Men: Budge Patty d. F. Sedgman (6-1 8-10 6-2 6-3)

Kentucky Derby Champion

Middleground

NCAA Basketball Championship CCNY d. Bradley (71-68)

NCAA Football Champions

Oklahoma (10-1-0)

World Cup

Uruguay d. Brazil (2-1)

Entertainment

Events

• Saturday morning children's programming begins.
• Phonevision, the first pay-per-view service, becomes available.
• Broadway classic Guys and Dollsdebuts at the 46th Street Theatre and becomes an instant hit. The show ran for three years and became one of the Great White Way's longest-running shows, with 1,200 performances.
• Charles Schulz introduces thePeanuts comic strip.

Movies

• Sunset Boulevard, All About Eve, Born Yesterday, The Third Man

Books

• Paul Bowles, The Delicate Prey
• Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles
• Ernest Hemingway, Across the River and Into the Trees
• Mary McCarthy, Cast a Cold Eye
• Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Family Moskat
• Wallace Stevens, The Auroras of Autumn
• Lionel Trilling, The Liberal Imagination

Entertainment Awards

Pulitzer Prizes
Fiction: The Way West, A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
Music: The Consul, Gian Carlo Menotti
Drama: South Pacific, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, and Joshua Logan

Oscars awarded in 1950
Academy Award, Best Picture: All the King's Men (Robert Rossen Productions; Columbia)

Nobel Prize for Literature: Bertrand Russell (UK)

1950 Emmy Awards

1950 Tony Awards

More Entertainment Awards...

Science

• Col. David C. Schilling (USAF) makes the first nonstop transatlantic jet flight in 10 hours and 1 minute (Sept. 22). Background: Famous Firsts in Aviation
• The first Xerox machine is produced.
• The first self-service elevator is installed by Otis Elevator in Dallas.
• Richard Lawler (US) performs the first successful kidney transplant at Loyola University. Background:Health & Nutrition

Nobel Prizes in Science

Chemistry: Otto Diels and Kurt Alder (both Germany), for discovery of diene synthesis enabling scientists to study structure of organic matter

Physics: Cecil Frank Powell (UK), for method of photographic study of atom nucleus, and for discoveries about mesons

Physiology or Medicine: Philip S. Hench, Edward C. Kendall (both US), and Tadeus Reichstein (Switzerland), for discoveries about hormones of adrenal cortex

Deaths

• Al Jolson
• George Orwell
• George Bernard Shaw

llinois Dem defiant after arrest history surfaces

It never ceases to amaze me what scumbags run for public office. They usually get busted for their bad deeds way after the fact (as demonstrated here), but generally are unrepentant and even defiant.

Cohen arrested in 2005 for allegedly holding a knife to a girlfriend's throat

Excerpt:

“A political newcomer who won the Democratic nomination for Illinois lieutenant governor said he has no intention of leaving the race after details emerged about his arrest for allegedly holding a knife to his former girlfriend's throat.

Scott Lee Cohen struck a defiant tone even after running mate Gov. Pat Quinn predicted he would have to leave the race. Cohen said people should wait for all facts to become known.”

AP PHOTO: According to the Chicago Tribune, police records show Scott Lee Cohen's (above) former girlfriend has been arrested for prostitution. He has denied hitting her and says their relationship was "tumultuous."

How many killer whales do you see?

For the answer go to the Source

To make his point Edward went out on a limb…

photo source

Man dies in rare fatal shark attack in Florida

Attackers may be juvenile great white sharks, research scientist says

Excerpt:

“A man kite surfing off a Florida beach died Wednesday after being surrounded and attacked by sharks.”

Go here to read the story

Iran sends mouse, worms, turtles into space

An image taken from Iran's  Press TV shows a Kavoshgar 3 rocket being launched on Wednesday. Photo by Abedin Taherkenareh / EPA

President: ‘Scientific arena is where we could defeat (West’s) domination’

“TEHRAN, Iran - Iran announced Wednesday it has successfully launched a 10-foot-long research rocket carrying a mouse, two turtles and worms into space — a feat President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said showed Iran could defeat the West in the battle of technology.”

Go here to read the whole story.

Doug thought he had his seat belt on and was too embarrassed to call for help…

Photo Source

Doctor casts new light on cat that can predict death

“When doctors and staff realized that a cat living in a U.S. nursing home could sense when someone was going to die, the feline, Oscar, was portrayed as a furry grim reaper or four-legged angel of death.

But Dr. David Dosa, who broke the news of Oscar's abilities in a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007, said he never intended to make Oscar sound creepy or his arrival at a bedside to be viewed negatively.” Go here to read the story.

AP – FILE PHOTO - In this July 23, 2007 file photo, Oscar, a hospice cat with an uncanny knack for predicting when patients are going to die.

Woman walks home with six-inch knife stuck in her neck

This ought to be an entry for Ripley’s Believe it or Not. Looking at that knife in her neck, it’s hard to imagine that the body can seal off pain through shock…but it does sometimes.

“Mugging victim Julia Popova calmly went home after being robbed on her way home from work - without realizing she had a six inch knife stuck into her neck.
The 22-year-old office worker had grappled with her attacker when he snatched her handbag as she walked to her parents' home in the Russian capital Moscow.
But she was so shocked by the ordeal she didn't know that the thug had buried a kitchen knife in her neck just fractions of an inch from her spinal cord.
Her horrified parents rushed her to hospital where surgeons managed to remove the blade without damaging Julia's spine.
"Shock had kicked in and her body prevented her from feeling any pain. She simply walked home without feeling the knife in her back," said one medic.”

Photo and text via Austrian Times