SAN JOSE, Calif. (Oct. 30) - A spokesman for Southwest Airlines says the carrier has apologized to a mother who was kicked off a plane along with her unruly 2-year-old earlier this week.

Spokesman Chris Mainz said the airline called Pamela Root on Friday to apologize. He says Root also will receive a refund and a $300 travel voucher.

The crew bounced Root and her son Adam off the San Jose-bound flight because passengers could not hear preflight safety announcements.

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"He was yelling. It was pretty bad," Root acknowledged. "I'm sure it was annoying to the other passengers."

"But I've learned you need to focus on your child and do what's best for them and kind of not worry what everyone else says," she added.

Root said she was confident Adam's screams of "Go! Plane! Go!" and "I want Daddy!" would subside after the plane took off Monday in Amarillo, Texas.

The 38-year-old mom said she hoped to be compensated for the portable crib and diapers she had to buy for the extra night away from home.

Oh Utah...

SALT LAKE CITY (Oct. 30) -- A rap by four teenagers at a McDonald's has gotten them a bad rap in one Utah city.

The teens were cited by American Fork, Utah, police earlier this week for disorderly conduct after they rapped their order at a McDonald's drive-through.

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Video Courtesy of KSL.com

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The teens said they were imitating a popular video on YouTube. They rapped their order, which begins with, "I need a double cheeseburger and hold the lettuce ..." once quickly before repeating it more slowly.

Spenser Dauwalder said employees at the restaurant told him and his friends they were holding up the line and needed to order or leave.

The 18-year-old said nobody was in line. He and his three 17-year-old friends left without buying anything.

American Fork Police Sgt. Gregg Ludlow says a manager wrote down the car's license plate number and called police. The teens were later cited by officers at a high school parking lot outside a volleyball match.

"We thought, you know, just teenagers out having fun," Dauwalder told KSL Newsradio. "We didn't think it would escalate to that."

Disorderly conduct citations are issued when someone does something to cause annoyance or alarm, Ludlow said. The citation is an infraction similar to a speeding ticket, he said.

"It was not just that they were rapping; they continued to hold things up," Ludlow said.

He said the teens were asked several times to speak plainly and that ultimately the manager came outside.

The owner-operator of the McDonald's said in a statement that the issue was about employees' safety at the restaurant in American Fork, about 30 miles south of Salt Lake City.

"The employee in question felt that her safety was at risk as a result of the alleged actions of these individuals in the drive-through, not as a result of them rapping their order," franchisee Conny Kramer said in the statement. "As such, she contacted the local authorities."

But Sharon Dauwalder, Spenser's mother, said they will fight it nonetheless.

"We have to," she told The Associated Press on Thursday. "The citation is there."

Tyra Banks has gone too far for ratings on America's Next Top Model. She had the contestants dress-up in what is essentially black-face to alter their racial identities. I dont think she was even thinking. She always mentions how hard it is to be African American in the fashion business, but I just cant believe that she would overlook how offensive the use of black-face is.

In tonight's episode of 'America's Next Top Model,' Tyra Banks re-imagines the remaining contestants as biracial models through the use of skin darkening agents and ethnic costumes. Or, in other words, blackface.

Photos of the models -- Jennifer An, Nicole Fox, Laura Kirkpatrick, Sundai Love, Brittany Markert and Erin Wagner -- can be seen atEntertainment Tonight.

This isn't the first time that the use of blackface has caused controversy recently. Just two weeks ago, the French edition of 'Vogue' sparked outrage when it published a spread featuring Dutch model Lara Stone done up in full-body blackface, while earlier this month Harry Connick, Jr. blasted an Australian talent show for featuring a troupe of blackface performers on an episode he was guest judging. And two months ago, one of the characters in the 1960s-era 'Mad Men' performed a song in blackface.

Whether or not 'Top Model' and its host Tyra Banks will garner the same level of consternation remains to be seen, but there's no doubt that blackface remains as controversial a topic now as ever. Dating back to the mid-19th century, the practice of white performers darkening their skin to perform racial caricatures is considered highly offensive to most Americans, making the recent upswing in incidents difficult to explain.

Of course, you can decide for yourself whether it's offensive when the episode airs tonight at 8PM ET on the CW. And perhaps that's all the explanation necessary.

Because we have a strange feeling that's what the producers intended all along.

This is so messed up. Some drunk man seeking revenge on his ex-girlfriend drove through her house. The problem is, that he drove into the wrong house, pinning down a couple who were lying in bed. Thank goodness they weren't really hurt. Their house, though is damaged badly.

(CNN) -- With motor fluid spraying their faces and the weight of a car numbing their bodies, two Nevada college students struggled to stay calm after a drunk driver allegedly tore into their home, ripping them from their slumber.

Kristin Palmer and Trent Wood were asleep in their home last week when a motorist allegedly drove into their bedroom around 4 a.m., mistakenly believing it was his ex-girlfriend's home.

The University of Nevada students spent almost an hour pinned between the car and their bed while emergency workers battled furiously to free them.

Somehow, the two left the scene with relatively minor scrapes and burns -- and a new lease on life, Wood said.

"When you experience something like that there's no limits anymore, you can try to do whatever you want to do," Wood told HLN's Mike Galanos. "We feel like we have more of a purpose, like we were meant to live."

Authorities say the motorist was drunk when he drove into the couple's home in Sparks, mistakenly believing it was the home of his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend.

Eric Cross is accused of drunken driving, battery with a deadly weapon, possession of a stolen vehicle, driving without a license and careless driving for his alleged role in the crash, which occurred October 21, according to the Washoe County Sheriff's OfficeVideo: Car lands on sleeping couple

"I thought the roof caved in from an earthquake because it's an old house," Woods said.Initially, Woods struggled to comprehend what had happened to him after being abruptly torn from his slumber.

Then, his girlfriend began screaming and parts of the car came into focus, helping Woods to groggily piece the scene together,

"I could see the tire to the right side and I was like, there's a car on top of me right now," he said. "That was really hard to get through my head."

As fluid poured from the car, burning Palmer's face, the couple feared that the car might explode with them underneath, he said.

Woods credited the slackness of the bed for preventing their legs from breaking altogether as the weight of the car pinned his girlfriend's entire body and his lower half to the bed.

"She was screaming really badly because I could actually move above my chest and neck, but she couldn't move anything," he said.

The couple calmed down somewhat after emergency workers arrived at the scene, using chainsaws to rip through the wall, Wood said.

About 42 minutes later, they had lifted the car enough to let the couple wiggle out from underneath it without it crushing their lower bodies.

"When the car was lifted and you could see blood circulating back through my legs, that was probably the happiest moment of my life: Yes! I'm not paralyzed," he said.

"I was so happy, hugging everyone and making sure Kristin was all right," he said. "I was just real happy to get out of there."

The couple is accepting donations through the Bank of America to replace items lost in the incident.

This is insane...

Law enforcement authorities have recovered 52 children and arrested 60 pimps allegedly involved in child prostitution, the FBI announced Monday.

More than 690 people in all were arrested on state and local charges, the FBI stated.

The arrests were made over the past three days as part of a nationwide law enforcement initiative conducted on the federal, state and local levels, the bureau said.

"Child prostitution continues to be a significant problem in our country, as evidenced by the number of children rescued through the continued efforts of our crimes against children task forces," Kevin Perkins, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division, said in a written statement.

"There is no work more important than protecting America's children and freeing them from the cycle of victimization."

The three-day operation, tagged Operation Cross Country IV, included enforcement actions in 36 cities across 30 FBI divisions nationwide. It is part of the FBI's ongoing Innocence Lost National Initiative, which was created in 2003 with the goal of ending sex trafficking of children in the United States.

The initiative, conducted with assistance from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, has so far resulted in the recovery of almost 900 children, according to the FBI. It has also led to more than 500 convictions.

I cant believe that child prostitution is such a major problem in the US. Its like modern day slavery, because it forces kids to participate in terrible acts, at the profit of their "employers".

2 week observation of object

I observed an apple with a bite taken out of it for two weeks, and simplified it in a set of five drawings showing how the apple wilts.

Rant on a Rant

I have seen Levi jeans ads on TV that use excerpts from Walt Whitman's writing, "Go Forth". It really is an attention grabbing, emotional ad, but I think it really degrades Whitman's writing by using it for commercial purposes.

Ad Rant: Levi's celebrates America the beautiful...with $238 jeans and a greedy treasure hunt

Jami Bernard
Filed under: Ad RantText SizeAAA

Would you buy a pair of used-looking Levi's jeans from this man?

I would.

But I draw the line at using a great ad celebrating the pioneer spirit of America, along with Whitman's stirring words, as a springboard for a crass $100,000 treasure hunt.

For the past few months, Levi's has been piggybacking the poetry of Walt Whitmanon its "Go Forth" ad campaign, linking its jeans to the can-do, hard-scrabble, exuberant spirit of early America. It even has Walt himself as its pitchman.

You'd think that would be difficult, given that the poet died in 1892. But, like DNA, MP3s live on forever: There is an original, 36-second wax cylinder recording of what is presumed to be Whitman's voice reading four lines from his poem, America. Levi's cleaned up the soundtrack; you can download the scratchy original here.

His voice is as stirring and passionate as any bootstrapper this country ever produced, as he extols the richness of the American people:

Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love

Watching this ad gives me chills. The good kind.

The black-and-white visuals of New Orleans under siege are both stark and stirring. The people of all ages in this ad are kinetic, alive. They do backflips, ride horses, dance in the spray of fireworks. They are -- yes! -- strong, strong, ample, fair, enduring ... just as Whitman envisioned.



I don't think he envisioned, though, a treasure hunt sponsored by Levi's, whose contest rules limit the game to anyone 18 or older who resides within the 50 states.

In other words, the people who actually make Levi's jeans, in all their outsourced geography, are not eligible to play.

The ad gives the feeling of indefatigable spirit and grassroots revolution. It ends with a kiss, the ultimate sign of hope. Despite the opening image of a hunk of signage in the shape of the word "America," half-submerged in water, the message is that America is unsinkable. It gives hope that we will rebuild, that our past is our future.

It's a noble sentiment. Somehow, I don't feel the same about treasure hunts.

It's clever to link the words of that most American of poets with a brand that's been around since Whitman was in his 50s. (Maybe he even wore them -- despite what one commenter said on YouTube, that Whitman probably wore Gloria Vanderbilts to Studio 54. Hey, if Whitman's voice could survive, not to mention disco, then who's to say the guy's sartorial choices don't reverberate in some ghostly way around the pop-culture universe?)

I like the ad enough that I'm not going to get all righteous about using Whitman to sell jeans costing up to $238, even though he spent his life poor and evidently required barely any more luxuries than Thoreau over at Walden Pond.

It doesn't even bother me (well, it does, but not enough to march on it) that this ad is about America undaunted, rising from the ashes of hard times; yet, during modern hard times, Levi's gradually laid off thousands of workers and closed its last two American plants in 2003. Levi's now manufactures the majority of its clothing in anyplace BUT America. Naturally, that goes against the spirit and intent of Whitman. Not to mention against the spirit of Levi Strauss, the Bavarian immigrant who patented the process of putting rivets in denim, thus inventing jeans.


All of that's true, but here, for me, is the final straw: Levi's has followed up this lyrical, lovely, hope-inspiring campaign with ... a greed-inspired, insipid treasure hunt. (Yes, the winner of the $100,000 prize also gets to choose a charity that will receive $100,000 as well, but that doesn't mollify me.)

Interestingly, the most expensive pair of jeans that Levi's sells -- the Landmine, $238 -- carries that price tag partly because it recreates the worn, faded, torn look that has become so prized in jeans. The Levi's brand originally took off because its workpants were more durable than other clothing of the period, but you spend more today for the look people back then were trying to avoid: wear and tear.

That has been true for a couple of decades now, but it is particularly symbolic in light of the "Go Forth" ad's queasy subtext, that "true" America is about the kind of work and effort it takes to wear out your jeans, when anyone will tell you that most people would rather pay for "the faded look" than do the good, clean work it takes to weather their own clothes.

Source

EIJING, China (CNN) -- Eight days after they were trapped in an underground mine in northwest China, three coal mine workers were rescued early Sunday, state media said.

The three men were taken to a hospital in stable condition, the China Daily newspaper said.

The men had been stranded in the shaft of a mine in Shanxi province since an accident in the colliery on October 17.

Of the 27 workers in the shaft at the time of the accident, 24 escaped -- leaving the three trapped inside.

Mine accidents are common in China.

Earlier this month, 26 people died in a mine accident in central Hunan Province. The October 8 accident occurred when a brake failure caused two elevators carrying 31 miners in a tin-ore mine in Lengshuijiang city to plunge, rescuers told the newspaper.

Last year, 3,215 people died in China's coal mines, down about 15 percent from the 2007 toll, the State Administration of Work Safety reported.

Government figures show almost 80 percent of the country's 16,000 mines are illegal with lax work safety procedures.

I am so happy to hear that those workers made it out of the mine OK. But I really think that there should be more moderation of mining safety (not only in China)

FLYING ELEPHANT

This is awesome: free flights for life for a woman who gave birth on a plane in Malaysia. It seems like a bad precedent to set for women. haha I bet more pregnant women are going to be flying in their 8th and 9th months...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (Oct. 23) - A Malaysian woman who gave premature birth to a boy on board an airplane minutes before it landed will get free flights for life along with her child, an airline official said Friday.

Liew Siaw Hsia, 31, gave birth on budget carrier AirAsia's flight from Penang to Kuching on Wednesday.

AirAsia spokesman Nazatul Mokhtar said Friday that the flight was diverted to nearby Kuala Lumpur for an emergency landing when Liew started labor pains. He says Liew was 27 weeks pregnant, 11 weeks short of the full term.

A doctor on the flight helped the woman deliver while the plane was still 2,000 feet in the air in its final approach to land.

Mother and son were rushed to a nearby hospital after the plane landed, an airline statement said. Their condition late Friday was unknown, though Nazatul said earlier that they were both in good shape.

Nazatul says both Liew and her son will get lifetime of free flights.

Trompe L'oeil with homeless bedsheets?

We love it when our aesthetic passions line up with a good cause. The Home Duvetfrom Dutch By Design, a UK-based company specializing in contemporary home goods by Dutch designers, is a product that raises money for the homeless and manages to heighten awareness for the cause in a stylish way. We could see buyers loving the cause--benefiting the less fortunate--or being turned off by what they think are offensive designs.

A detail of the print on the Home Duvet. Photo: DutchByDesign.com

The duvet cover and pillowcases are decorated with a photographic print of a cardboard box, reminding the user that some people don't have a bed, let alone a home. The pattern has been so popular that Dutch By Design is introducing a second print that looks like pavement later this month.Thirty percent of the gross profits from the sale of both patterns will go toCentrepoint, a United Kingdom charity for homeless youth ages 16 to 25-years-old. Most of the time philanthropic home goods are simply stamped with a logo, like the pink breast cancer ribbon, or the design of the item doesn't address the cause for which the product raises funds. We applaud the attractive and meaning-filled design, and hope that other charities will partner up with clever design teams in the future. However, as someone who has worked with a homeless charity in the past, I am not sure what the homeless would make of this design. It is, after all, a wee bit creepy to dress your bed up like a cardboard box, isn't it?

way too harsh karma?

This is just weird...a woman lures paramedics out of their station by placing a fake 911 call. Trying to steal medicines from their station, she tries to sneak in but gets killed by the garage door.

CALDWELL, Idaho (Oct. 21) - Police say an Idaho woman who made a false 911 call to lure paramedics out of their station made a real emergency call minutes later when she got trapped under the station's garage door.

Melissa R. Farris died Oct. 2 of injuries suffered when she was crushed by the closing garage door at the Canyon County station.

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Farris, a former paramedic at the station, had been trying to crawl under the door after the ambulance left to respond to a nonexistent traffic accident she'd called in a few minutes earlier.

Caldwell Police Chief Chris Allgood says it may never be known why Farris was trying to gain access to the station

But according to a police report obtained by KBCI-TV, her sister told investigators that Farris may have been going after prescription medication stored in the station.

This is scary...

This is pretty scary how this man who is on America's Most Wanted list (second on the list) can change his appearace surgically including altering his fingerprints to avoid detection.

EL PASO, Texas (CNN) -- Eduardo Ravelo is described as a "ruthless killer" who has gone to great lengths to avoid law enforcement while contributing to the bloodshed that terrorizes the border between Texas and Mexico.

Authorities say the suspected hit man with close ties to the Juarez drug cartel has shaved his head, undergone plastic surgery and even manipulated his fingerprints to elude capture.

He heads the Barrio Aztecas gang, but Ravelo isn't flashy, FBI agents say. He keeps a low profile, living modestly.

On Tuesday, Ravelo was named to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, taking the second of three vacant slots. Watch the FBI discuss Ravelo's alleged crimes »

Officially, he's wanted on federal racketeering charges, but the FBI says Ravelo's criminal activities run much deeper. He is believed to be responsible for dozens of murders and assaults, as well as drug trafficking, extortion, weapons offenses and money laundering, FBI Agent Samantha Mikeska said. Watch the latest on Ravelo »

"He has no respect for human life," she said.

Mikeska is leading the hunt for Ravelo, who goes by the nickname "Tablas," which is Spanish for wooden plank. He's also called "Two-by-four" and is believed to be hiding with his wife and children, probably in a Barrio Aztecas-controlled neighborhood in Juarez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, Texas.

"Eduardo Ravelo rose to power within the Barrio Aztecas criminal enterprise because of his connections with the Juarez cartel and also [because] he's a ruthless killer and will basically carry out what theJuarez cartel wants him to do," Mikeska said.

Barrio Aztecas started as a Texas prison gang in the 1980s. Federal authorities say the profits from drug sales are often transferred to the commissary accounts of gang members in prison.

Ravelo came to his position atop the gang violently, the FBI agent said, killing the person whose place he took. His power comes from his close ties to the Juarez cartel. He has spent the past 15 years cultivating relationships with some of the highest-ranking cartel members.

Drug cartel leaders often align themselves with street gangs, employing gang members to carry out some of the cartel's most vicious work.

U.S. authorities say the commanders of the Juarez cartel often call on Ravelo to execute their enemies. In exchange, Ravelo and his Barrio Aztecas comrades get drugs to sell on the streets of Mexico and the United States.

FBI investigators say they believe that in March 2008, Ravelo carried out a hit on a captain in his own gang. Mikeska believes Ravelo stabbed him several times and shot him in the neck. Shortly after the murder, he became a Barrio Aztecas "capo," or captain.

In recent years, federal agents have arrested dozens of Barrio Aztecas' 3,500 members, with six of its leaders sentenced to life in prison.

But Ravelo has eluded authorities. He holds both U.S. and Mexican citizenship, federal authorities say, helping him escape across the border into Mexico with his wife and children.

While he may be staying out of sight, he's keeping up his violent work, Mikeska says, and he has the resources to do so.

"He has an entourage, he has bodyguards, he has armored vehicles to protect him from rival gangs and rival cartels," Mikeska says.

animation...so far!!!

progress report for animation project:

So far, I have finished 70 drawings on trace paper that I will scan into my computer and enter into IMovie or a similar animation-capable program. I hope to have finished the rest of my drawings by the weekend so that I can spend a good amount of time scanning them in and digitally arraigning them. I will also have to come up with some whimsical sound score. I am pretty darn excited about this project.

why neanderthal's skulls look different than modern man's

I thought this was pretty cool. This article says that neanderthal's skulls are shaped differently from modern man's skulls not by natural selection, but by Random genetic changes.

For 150 years, scientists have tried to decipher why Neanderthal skulls are different from those of modern humans," Weaver said. "Most accounts have emphasized natural selection and the possible adaptive value of either Neanderthal or modern human traits. We show that instead, random changes over the past 500,000 years or so – since Neanderthals and modern humans became isolated from each other – are the best explanation for these differences."

Weaver and his colleagues compared cranial measurements of 2,524 modern human skulls and 20 Neanderthal specimens, then contrasted those results with genetic information from a separate sample of 1,056 modern humans.

The scientists concluded that Neanderthals did not develop their protruding mid-faces as an adaptation to icy Pleistocene weather or the demands of using teeth as tools, and the retracted faces of modern humans are not an adaptation for language, as some anthropologists have proposed.

Instead, random "genetic drift" is the likeliest reason for these skull differences.

Balloon Boy Hoax

This is so stupid. An attention-seeking family looking to land a reality show faked their son flying away in a weather balloon. It turns out the whole thing was a scam and they are facing criminal charges as well as financial responsibilities. Because of their scam, the Denver Airport was forced to temporarily shut down for safety reasons, and air-force helicopters were called up to look for the balloon, costing thousands of taxpayer dollars. I think its completely disgusting that this family is getting so much media attention. I know its BAD attention, because pretty much everyone is angry about it who has read the news, but these attention seekers got pretty much what they want: national attention for their family. I think that news sources should have put this story on the back-burner once they exposed the truth. They shouldn't keep this family in the spotlight at all...

US authorities say the runaway balloon saga that gripped the United States was a hoax concocted by the entire family to drum up publicity for a future reality television show.

Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden told reporters on Sunday that Richard Heene and his Japanese-born wife Mayumi had fabricated Thursday's drama in which their six-year-old son Falcon was reported to have flown away on a home-made helium balloon.

The couple previously appeared in the reality show Wife Swap.

Falcon Heene was later discovered alive after hiding in an upstairs attic at the family home for several hours, a bizarre ending to a televised drama that drew immediate suspicions of a hoax.

Footage emerged over the weekend showing the moment the balloon lifted in the sky, with Richard and Mayumi Heene standing only metres away.

Alderden revealed at a press conference that the Heene parents had first met during a Hollywood acting class - and successfully conned officers last Thursday into thinking that they were distraught as the tension mounted. Mayumi Heene was reportedly born Mayumi Iizuka around 1964 in Japan.

"Needless to say they put on a very good show for us and we bought it," Alderden told reporters. "These people are actors ... we were manipulated by the family and the media were manipulated by the family.

"The plan was to create a situation where it appeared Falcon was in the craft and that his life was in jeopardy in order to gain a lot of publicity with the ultimate goal of gaining some notoriety and perhaps furthering their careers by gaining a contract for a reality TV show," Alderden explained.

Alderden also revealed for the first time that the Heenes' three sons - aged 10, eight and six - were also in on the scam.

Alderden confirmed that Heene and his wife are expected to face felony and misdemeanor charges of conspiracy, contributing to delinquency of a minor, attempting to influence a public servant, and filing a false report. The couple's children are unlikely to face charges because of their young age.

Seriously?

Dayton Police said one of the men accused in the armed robbery of a man in Dayton used a woman's bra to disguise his appearance.

An officer in the area of North Main Street and Santa Clara noticed something strange while patrolling the area late Sunday. A short time later, the officer heard a gunshot. He circled the block and found a male victim who said he was robbed at gunpoint of $10.

Police quickly tracked down the getaway car, and the four men inside ran off on foot. All of them were wearing black masks over their faces. It turns out that the driver's mask was actually a bra.

Just minutes later, police arrested Ryan Neal and Keanthony Strickland, both 19, and Gabriel Williams, 18 in connection with the robbery. They also recovered two loaded guns.

The fourth suspect remains on the loose.

If I were going to rob someone by gunpoint, I would certainly NOT do it wearing something ridiculous on. Its like robbing a bank with a chicken on your head...when you get caught and put in jail, think of all of the crap your cell mate will give you when he find out what you were wearing...