The million dollar question at hand is do female emcees have to purvey and display sexual imagery to sell records in 2010????? Back in the day Queen Latifah, Lauren Hill, Da Brat in the beginning of her career, Salt-N-Pepa in the middle and at the end of their career,MC Lyte, Ms.Melody, Mama Mia X.,Missy Elliott and a few others never had to take it off to sell records and never had to purvey a certain negative stereotype to be accepted and sell major records. Every female rapper that i've named has sold millions of albums especially Lauren Hill being themselves and being talented and letting their talent speak for them for the most part. Lauren Hill no doubt will go down as the biggest selling female rapper with her 9X Platinum Classic Album "The Miseducation Of Lauren Hill" which is still the highest selling hiphop female album to date and I dont ever see another female emcee surpassing that with a single album. There are alot of talented female emcees such as LiL Kim,Foxxy Brown,Remy Ma,Trina etc. but many of them have displayed nearly as much sexual imagery borderline porn imagery than raw talent. Missy sold millions of records being herself and displaying raw talent and creativity and won with it big time. Talent always trump those negative and provocative images. In 2010 the list of female emcees in the game making noise or generating a buzz is very minimal and the few that are generating a buzz are constantly displaying their sexuality and sexual imagery. I say hell no, they can be original and talented and sell major units considering the current climate of the music business as far as sales. But I strongly believe that there's always room for the Lauren Hills, Queen Latifahs and Missy Ellliots of the world because their so unique at what they do and what all they bring to the table.So you decide do female emcees have to take it all off in 2010 to be successful and sell major records??????????????
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg unveiled changes to member profile pages on Sunday and said the movie "The Social Network" got "hugely basic" things wrong about the origins of the site.
Zuckerberg, in an interview with the CBS show "60 Minutes, said he turned down an opportunity to sell Facebook to Yahoo! for one billion dollars four years ago and made it clear he is in no hurry to take the company public.
The 26-year-old Facebook chief executive also defended his approach to the privacy of the social network's more than 500 million users, saying "we never sell your information."
"Advertisers who are using the site never get access to your information," he said. "It's against all of our policies for an application to ever share information with advertisers.
"Now, do we get it right all the time? No!" he said. "But it's something that we take really seriously."
The new profile pages highlight recent pictures in which a member has been "tagged" in a bar at the top of the page along with biographical information such as where a member is from, where they went to school, their relationship status and where they work.
"People love photos," Zuckerberg said. "Photos originally weren't that big a part of the idea for Facebook, but we just found that people really like them, so we built out this functionality."
The new profile pages should be available to all of Facebook's users by early next year, Josh Wiseman, a Facebook engineer, said in a blog post.
Facebook members can highlight their most important friends on their new profile, create new groups of friends or share activities and interests such as favorite musicians and sports teams.
Speaking of "The Social Network," Zuckerberg said "we took the whole company to go see the movie" and "I actually thought it was pretty fun.
"It's pretty interesting to see what parts they got right and what parts they got wrong," he said. "I think that they got every single T-shirt that they had the Mark Zuckerberg character wearing right. And they got sandals right and all that.
"But I mean, there are hugely basic things that they got wrong, too," he said. "They made it seem like my whole motivation for building Facebook was so I could get girls."
"60 Minutes" also featured an interview the Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Harvard University classmates who accused Zuckerberg of stealing their idea.
The twins reached a reported 65-million-dollar settlement with Facebook but are now claiming they were misled about the value of the company.
"He sabotaged our project; and he betrayed us," Tyler Winklevoss said.
Speaking of the Winklevoss twins, Zuckerberg said "it's hard for me to fully wrap my head around where they're coming from on this.
"You know, early on, they had an idea that was completely separate from Facebook," he said. "It was a dating site for Harvard. And I agreed to help them out with it.
"It wasn't a job, they weren't paying me, I wasn't hired by them or anything like that," he said. "That they would be upset about this all these years later is kind of mindboggling for me."
He said the movie makes "it seem like this whole lawsuit is such a huge part of Facebook's history" but "I've probably spent less than two weeks of my time worried about this lawsuit at all."
Asked if he felt any remorse, Zuckerberg said, "I mean, after all this time, I feel bad that they still feel bad about it."
Zuckerberg said he was offered a billion dollars for Facebook in 2006 by Yahoo! but turned it down.
"I think a lot of people at the time thought we should sell the company," he said. "But you know, I felt really strongly. I think, like, now, people generally think that that was a good decision."
Asked if there would be an initial public offering, Zuckerberg said: "Maybe."
"A lot of people who I think build startups or companies think that selling the company or going public is this endpoint... like you win when you go public. And that's just not how I see it," he said.
In a preview video of this Sunday’s 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl asks Facebook wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg for his thoughts on The Social Network. Zuckerberg, who once told the media that he wouldn’t even bother watching Aaron Sorkin’s depiction of Facebook’s inception, ended up taking all of his employees to see it with him. “I actually though it was pretty fun,” he told Stahl. Yet he also added, “But there were hugely basic things that they got wrong too.” Girls, he claimed, were not his motivation for starting Facebook, citing that he already had a girlfriend at that point.
Stahl seemed absolutely floored by the idea of a girl wanting to date Zuckerberg before he secured his Facebook fame. “Wait, what?” she asked. “Say that again? The girl, your current girlfriend, you were dating back then?”
Zuckerberg responded to her awkward disbelief by stammering out a “Yeah.”
Beyond this issue, however, he generally enjoyed The Social Network. He complimented the movie’s sartorial accuracy, saying that the wardrobe department got “every single t-shirt” right, as well as the sandals. Which is cool, except that we already knew that.
Forbes recently listed the Facebook founder as being worth $7 Billion Dollars........
Conrad Zdzierak has come clean after posing as a black man with a life-like mask during a mass robbery.
Hitting several banks in the Tri-State area, authorities were pursuing the wrong person, and arrested another man in his place due to the fraud persona.
As previously reported, The 30-year old man was held on a $3 million bond, with six counts of aggravated robbery.
Zdzierak pleaded guilty this past Monday in Hamilton County Ohio to one count of aggravated robbery and five counts of robbery, and could face up to 35 years in prison.
His sentencing will begin January 7, and as a part of his plea deal with prosecutors will be dismissed of 12 other charges.
Zdzierak stole around $15,000 using his silicone mask, which he bought from California based company, SPFXmasks.
The owner claims they do not condone illegal activity with their products, but that it was not the first time their masks had been used for criminal purposes.
(hiphopwired)
'El Ponchis': Child Assassin Arrested By Mexican Army
A 14-year-old suspected of acting as a killer for a drug cartel, has been detained by the Mexican army in Cuernavaca, Mexico, according to army officials.
The alleged murderer, nicknamed "El Ponchis" was captured at an airport attempting to board a flight with his 16-year-old sister. They were trying to flee to Tijuana, according to reports.
After their arrest, the siblings were transported to the office of the Mexican Attorney General's Office in Cuernavaca early Friday, where the boy told reporters that he was involved in at least four decapitations.
"I did it drugged and under threat that if I didn't, they would kill me," says the teen who later admitted to working for the cartel since he was 11.
Reports accuse his sister of getting rid of the bodies by discarding them on streets and freeways.
The attorney general for Morelos state says the brother and sister would be turned over to state authorities, who handle crimes committed by underage offenders in Mexico.
The war on drugs and violence continue in Mexico… Mexican officials announced they recently arrested a 14-year-old boy known as “El Ponchis” in connection with at least four beheadings.
The young assassin, believed to be working with a dangerous Mexican drug cartel, was caught at a Cuernavaca airport south of Mexico City with two cell phones that held photographs of tortured victims. He was fleeing to the United States, to enter likely illegally at the California-Mexico border into San Diego.
UPDATE: The boy’s identity has now been released to the press — he is Edgar Jimenez Lugo, and he has been killing for at least three years.
The Mexican army has arrested a 14-year-old boy on suspicion of being a hired killer for a drug cartel.
Officials said Edgar Jimenez, nicknamed El Ponchis, had been trying to catch a plane from Cuernavaca to the US with two of his sisters.
The military alleges that he took part in a number of beheadings under the influence of drugs supplied by the cartel.
Thousands have died in drug-related violence in Mexico in recent years.
The teenager is believed to have worked for the South Pacific drug cartel in Morelos state outside Mexico City, the army said.
An unnamed army official told AP news agency that Edgar Jimenez had admitted taking part in four murders, but had said he had been drugged and threatened with death if he did not participate.
The army source said one of the teenager’s sisters was accused of disposing of the bodies, AP reports. No charges have yet been filed.
A Charleston, South Carolina boy is in critical condition after he was hanged by his ankles in a closet and repeatedly beaten by three teenagers, according to authorities.
According to reports, police were called to a hospital Tuesday when the child's mother Shakera Suncelaree Wright, 18, brought 18-month old Louis Wright in with multiple signs of trauma, including face swelling and fractured ribs.
When questioned by authorities, Wright said she was visiting friend Tyrek Varnes, 16, at his home. Varnes had two other friends, a 14 and 15-year-old visiting him also. She went on to say the three teens "play-wrestled" with the boy and hit him until she told them to stop.
Later, according to Wright, she put her child in bed with Varnes and then went to the adjoining room to sleep. The next morning after noticing the child's “dazed” behavior, the mother eventually called an ambulance.
When the child arrived at the hospital, he was already suffering respiratory distress.
Attending physicians also noticed pronounced bruising throughout his torso and a CAT scan revealed five rib fractures, air and blood in his thorax, multiple lacerations of his liver, spleen and pancreas.
Wright and Varnes, along with the 14 and 15-year-old teens were all charged with infliction or allowing infliction to great bodily injury to a child. Varnes was charged as an adult, and he also confessed everyone's role in the toddler's abuse to police.
They could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of the felony charges.
CHARLESTON, S.C. -- An 18-month-old South Carolina boy is in critical condition after authorities say he was hanged by his ankles in a closet and repeatedly beaten by three teenagers.
Multiple media outlets report that the three teens, ages 14, 15 and 16, are accused of abusing Louis Wright of Charleston. The child's mother, Shakera Wright, has also been charged with allowing the beating to occur.
Police were called to a hospital Tuesday when the mother brought Louis in with face swelling, fractured ribs, bruises and lacerations to his spleen, liver and pancreas.
She told a social worker the teens "play-wrestled" with the boy Monday. She said they hit her son until she told them to stop.
Arrest warrants say the oldest teen admitted the abuse, calling it wrestling.
Man Arrested For Alleged Sexual Assault Of 2-Year-Old
A man in California has been arrested for raping a 2-year-old at a local store while her family was shopping.
According to a news report by KTVU, police arrested Eugene Melendres Ramos for sexually assaulting a 2-year-old girl in a Dollar Tree store in Union City, California.
The report states that the toddler walked away from her grandmother to put back some Christmas ribbon when she was abducted by Ramos, taken to a nearby aisle and raped.
Witnesses say that they heard a woman screaming and saw Ramos running after the grandmother discovered Ramos on top the toddler with his pants down and the toddler's pants and diaper removed.
Police state that a fellow woman shopper gave chase and grabbed Ramos slowing him down, but ultimately it was the act of two men that stopped Ramos from escaping and allowed the police to apprehend him.
Ramos has a previous molestation charge from the attempted rape of a 7-year-old, authorities state that he is being held on $350,000 bond.
SMH, what a sicko. I hope they give him life.
(hiphopwired)
The Yankees and Derek Jeter will finalize a three-year deal today after hammering out the final details on a contract that will pay Jeter between $15 million and $17 million a year, according to a person briefed on the situation.
The contract includes a tricky option for a fourth season, neither a vesting situation nor a club option. It is linked to what happens across the three guaranteed years.
The deal with the 36-year-old captain and shortstop ends a month of negotiations that at times became strained, smothered the Yankees’ universe, and divided the fan base.
Notable Achievements::::
1994 The Sporting News & Baseball America Minor League Player of the Year, Tampa Yankees, Florida State League, Albany-Colonie Yankees, Eastern League & Columbus Clippers, International League
1996 AL Rookie of the Year Award
1996 Topps All-Star Rookie Team
11-time AL All-Star (1998-2002, 2004 & 2006-2010)
2000 All-Star Game MVP
2000 World Series MVP
5-time AL Gold Glove Winner (2004-2006, 2009 & 2010)
4-time AL Silver Slugger Award Winner (2006-2009)
AL Runs Scored Leader (1998)
AL Hits Leader (1999)
2-time AL Singles Leader (1997 & 1998)
20-Home Run Seasons: 3 (1999, 2001 & 2004)
100 RBI Seasons: 1 (1999)
100 Runs Scored Seasons: 13 (1996-2002, 2004-2007, 2009 & 2010)
200 Hits Seasons: 7 (1998-2000, 2005-2007 & 2009)
Won five World Series with the New York Yankees (1996, 1998, 1999, 2000 & 2009)
Derek Jeter was born in Pequannock, New Jersey to Charles and Dorothy Jeter; however, most of his childhood was spent in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is of mixed race. Jeter grew up as a Yankee fan, going to Yankee games in the summers that he spent with his grandmother in New Jersey. Jeter was a star baseball player at Kalamazoo Central High School, where he also played basketball, and in 1992 he was named High School Player of the Year by the American Baseball Coaches Association. Although he received a baseball scholarship to attend the University of Michigan, he followed his dream of playing for the New York Yankees after they drafted him with the 6th pick overall in the 1992 amateur draft. However, after the 1992 Summer League he did attend the University of Michigan.
Streetwize's top 25 hip hop love songs of all-time list consists of classic songs by: LL Cool J, Jay Z., MC Shan, Big Daddy Kane, Heavy D., Method Man, Nelly, Whodini, Gangstarr, Lost Boyz, Bow Wow, P.Diddy, DMX, 2pac, etc. etc. Check out part one below!!!!!LL Cool J., Jay Z., MC Shan, Heavy D., Big Daddy Kane, Whodini.......
R&B singer Keri Hilson has stepped forward to defend the controversial, explicit content depicted in her latest music video, "The Way You Love Me."
"Perez, I don't wanna be held and caressed every night. Sometimes I do wanna be f*cked," she said in the interview. "I can't allow other people to dictate, or the media to dictate, what I can and can't do...I'm a freak. It's no surprise. I'm a freak! I've been a freak on other songs and in other videos." (Perez TV)
The video for "The Way You Love Me" opens with singers JoJo, Faith Evans, Dawn from Dirty Money and Hilson talking amongst an arsenal of guns. The acting is offensive enough, but Hilson (who was last seen atop a pink castle float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade) soon sheds her clothes. Sweating and gyrating all over the place, Hilson thrusts her pelvis into the camera enough times that you could give her a Pap smear. (Examiner)
Keri Hilson drops the good girl act and gets a little raunchy in the video promo for “The Way You Love Me” — the third single off of her sophomore album, No Boys Allowed, due Dec. 14.
In the brand-new video for her head-banging, rock-tinged "The Way You Love Me," Hilson, strapped into a leather bikini, bypasses the R&B book of double entendres as she delivers a jaw-dropping chorus, exhorting her man to "F--- me, f--- me."
Directed by veteran choreographer Laurie Ann Gibson, with a look from Rick Ross, the clip set the Net ablaze after it premiered on a hip-hop site earlier this week. A platinum-blond Keri gyrates, thrusts, licks and gets (way) low as she laces the song with enough saucy language and expletives to make your favorite rapper blush. Singer JoJo, Dawn Richard of Diddy-Dirty Money and Faith Evans team up with Hilson in the clip, rounding out her black-clad crew of female assassins.
Now, her detractors are crying foul online, accusing the singer of swerving into a racy lane just for page views and album sales. In a live-stream interview on Thursday with a visibly embarrassed Perez Hilton, Keri addressed the bubbling controversy.
"You know what? If you put it in context with my album, my album is called No Boys Allowed but really it means no bullsh-- allowed," she explained. "In this album, I was screaming in a room — just like I was screaming in the song — I was screaming in a room with all my girlfriends, yelling all the sh-- we really say."
Keri said the sentiment reflected in the song is exactly what her girls are apt to shout behind closed doors: "I don't want to make love tonight. Just f--- me, please!" She added, "I'm a freak, it's no surprise. I've been a freak on other songs ... and other videos."
But Perez, echoing what some of Hilson's critics have argued since the provocative clip dropped on WorldStarHipHop.com, asked Keri point-blank whether the steamy visual is a "calculated move" intended to stir up talk ahead of the December 21 release of her sophomore LP.
"Everything I wrote about is from that perspective: How do we really feel and think about certain things?" Keri insisted.
"You don't have to use sexuality to feel powerful," Perez countered.
The singer, who is performing at the "VH1 Divas" concert on Sunday, went on to explain that whether it's "Pretty Girl Rock" or "The Way You Love Me," her lyrics are meant to reflect a woman's many moods and shifting desires. "Perez, I don't want to be held and caressed every night. ... I'm talking about one man in the relationship. I'm not talking about being a slut and a whore," she said, before conceding, "It is racy."
Regardless of Internet chatter, Hilson said creative freedom will always win out. "I can't allow other people or the media to dictate what I can and can't do."
While she made no apologies for the NSFW video, she did say a clean version of the song is the one included on her album.
(mtv)
Why are the nations angry? Who are the nations that are angry at the resurrection of the dead?
The 18th verse of the 11th chapter of Revelation in the Bible plainly teaches us that these nations are angry and mad because of the rise of the dead and that God Himself was the source of the power behind the Resurrection or Rise of the mentally dead people (the Black man).
It is these slave-holders who have been the real cause of the mental death of the people the Revelation relates to as being deprived of justice. God comes to give them justice and to justify them as being equal to their slavemasters as human beings. As you know from the four hundred years of legal slavery and free slavery of the American so-called Negroes, they have never been recognized even as human beings. As one devil says, they are only three-fifths of a human being.
It is true that the history of our treatment by the devil slavemaster practically made our parents and ourselves less than human beings. This is why I teach that the main rights we should seek first are human rights.
The American so-called Negro fell in love with his slavemaster and his slavemaster's children because of unalike attracting them and their brothers in Africa; therefore, the manifestation of the enemy devil in the Resurrection makes the dead to see that which causes them to be mentally dead.
In the parable of the donkey who balked upon meeting with the angel, he saw that the burden he had been carrying on his back was false (Baal). So in the resurrection of the mentally dead so-called Negro, they are rising to the knowledge of self. This knowledge makes them balk or refuse to continue carrying the slavemaster as something to worship. This has angered the slavemaster as the donkey's refusal angered Baal.
Baal set about whipping and beating the donkey to force him as usual to carry and respect him as his master. This use of force to compel the once-slave (the Black Americans) to remain with them even now in order to make them members of their society is only false recognition of the Black American, this lost and now-found people of the Black nations of Asia and Africa.
This continuous cruelty by their White slavemasters, inflicted upon the American so-called Negro, has angered God as the cruelty the Egyptians inflicted upon the Israelites during the time of Pharaoh angered Jehovah. This is a repetition of Israel's history and of Pharaoh's evils in these modern times: the appearance of Jehovah and of Moses, the servant of Jehovah, to announce to Pharaoh the end of Israel's slavery. Pharaoh became angry and went to work and tried to obstruct and bring to naught Jehovah's delivery of Israel through his servant Moses. This brought Pharaoh to his end, and he and his army were cast into the Red Sea because they tried to prevent the freeing of Israel by their God Jehovah.
The angry nations refer to White America and Europeans, who are also enslavers of the Black man. Take for instance the part that England, Belgium, Germany, France and Italy have all played in the enslavement of Black Africans and Black people throughout Africa, Asia and here in the Americas (North and South America).
There is no such thing in the nature of White people as justice and freedom for Black people; especially not for Blacks in the Western Hemisphere. Now their anger is running them mad and they are attacking and killing each other. There is no such thing as peace among them, nor can they produce peace for others. The Holy Qur'an refers to this condition as the kindling up of hell (Chapter 81:12).
Never before have you witnessed the evil that is spreading far and wide every hour of the day in America and Europe; England and America being—not the first—but the chief—slavemakers of Black people. They dislike the idea of having Allah dispose of their power over the Negro, though they knew this was coming (the loss of their slaves).
This is the time of the increase of knowledge. God has given the Black man of America more light into this increase of divine knowledge than any Blacks elsewhere because He chose to make for Himself a great nation out of the former slaves of America.
White America is angry at God for resurrecting the Black slaves into the knowledge of self and his slavemaster. This means that they are entering into a war with Almighty God Allah to try to oppose the truth of God preached by the Messenger of God. Read the second Psalms.
(Excerpt from "The Fall of America," 1973.)
(THEFINALCALL)
(FinalCall.com) - For millions of her citizens, the American dream seems elusive as more fall into poverty each year.
While most statistics indicate an average of 37 million Americans live in poverty, some statistics say that number could be upwards of 43 million or more.
In 2009, 14.3 percent of all people in the U.S. lived in poverty, according to the National Poverty Center, an increase from 11.3 percent in 2000 and 12.7 percent in 2004.
UNICEF released a report stating that of the world's richest nations, the U.S. is one of the worst when it comes to child poverty, with Black, Latino and Native American children making up the largest percentage. The U.S. ranked in the bottom third in four out of six categories. Thirty-five percent of Black children live in poor families according to the National Center for Children in Poverty.
BlackDemographics.com notes that the poverty rate for Blacks as a whole reached 25.8 percent in 2009 and that a staggering 41 percent of households headed by single Black women live in poverty. And, according to the Center for American Progress, over half of the 37 million people living in poverty are women.
So why is the country still widely regarded around the world as the land flowing with milk, honey, and limitless opportunity unable to effectively eradicate what has become harsh reality for so many?
“It's not because we don't have the resources, it's that we choose not to invest our resources in terms of fighting poverty,” says Dr. Algernon Austin, director of the program on race, ethnicity and economy at the Economic Policy Institute.
U.S. economic policies over the past several decades have widened the inequitable gap that exists between the rich and the poor which has resulted in stagnation when it comes to reducing poverty, Dr. Algernon told The Final Call.
While corporate executives of Fortune 500 companies continue to get rich, the wages, work support and social benefit programs are not shared with the rest of the labor market and tax policies have favored and protected the wealthy, not the poor, he observes.
In the 1950s and 60s, the economy grew in a much more equitable fashion so income gains were not only seen in the top one or two percent but more broadly across American society than we see today adds Dr. Algernon.
The Census Bureau issues the official poverty rate threshold each year. The thresholds represent the annual amount of cash income minimally required to support families of various sizes, says the National Poverty Center. The 2009 poverty threshold rate for a single individual under 65 is $11,161, a parent with one child is $14,787 and two adults with three children is $25,603.
The formula determining threshold established in the 1960s is outdated many argue. Research consistently shows that, on average, families need an income of about twice the federal poverty level to meet their most basic needs notes the National Center for Children in Poverty. “Failure to update the federal poverty level for changes in the cost of living means that people who are considered poor today by the official standard are worse off relative to everyone else than people considered poor when the poverty measure was established,” says its website.
There is not only an underestimate of the economic crisis that poor Blacks are facing but there is significant ground being lost by what were considered middle and upper income Blacks which is pushing them into poverty or near poverty, says Dedrick Muhammad, a senior organizer and research associate for the Institute for Policy Studies.
Charles Jenkins at one time was unemployed and homeless. Now a community activist and advocate for the poor and homeless in Chicago, he says the number of people he works with range from those in extreme poverty to those considered the working poor.
It was already tough for many prior to the current economy, he observes.
Of the people that seek assistance at Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, an organization where he assists, “it's grossly more African American, in a lot of cases, people are seemingly hopeless,” he adds.
As the rich-poor, poverty gap continues to widen, a real and comprehensive national policy to address and combat these issues, with a focused strategy on what is best for the American labor force, must be implemented says Dr. Austin. Job creation programs even if of a temporary nature are needed Mr. Jenkins told The Final Call.
It does not appear the economy will make significant strides for the average person anytime soon, says Mr. Muhammad. “The breadth of the crisis will cause Americans to come together to demand some changes which might finally address some of the issues that African Americans, in particular but not alone, are facing as we try to get out of this Great Recession.”
(thefinalcall)
(CNN) -- State authorities discovered five children in south central Pennsylvania huddled in a condemned house without heat, running water or anything that could reveal their identities.
The children -- ranging in age from 2 to 13 -- have no birth certificates, no record of immunizations and no school records, having been largely kept away from society for several years, York County police Lt. Tim Utley said.
"You always have the occasion when people are living in poor conditions, but this was extreme," Utley said. "They're going to have to be assimilated into what's not considered normal for them."
The parents, Louann Bowers and Sinhue Johnson, were arrested over the summer, when the children were found.
They have been charged with five felony counts of child endangerment and are awaiting a court appearance Friday.
Case workers at York County Children and Youth Services learned about the children after receiving anonymous phone calls, Utley said.
The calls prompted workers to investigate the area; they alerted police after discovering the squalid conditions in which the children were living, he said.
Representatives for York County Children and Youth Services would not comment, citing the ongoing investigation.
Bowers maintains her innocence, her attorney said.
"She acknowledges that she should have done more for the children, but in no way were they in danger," Ronald Gross said. "[The parents] did not engage in many community-based activities and led a very private life."
Bowers ran away from home when she was 16, which may have contributed to her private adulthood, Gross said.
She gave birth to her sixth child Monday in York County prison, he added.
Johnson's attorney was not immediately available for comment
(CNN)
A few weeks back, we brought you a look at Tiger Woods' fine new $50 million bachelor pad. We follow that up today with the first look at Michael Jordan's swank digs in Jack Nicklaus' new "Bear's Club" development in Jupiter, Fla.
Analysis by Cary Lichtenstein of PGA National Real Estate indicates that Jordan paid $4.8 million for the land and $7.8 to build the mansion, and will likely have a total commitment of $20 million in the property when all is said and done. And while Woods' property comprises three lots with both ocean and Intracoastal Waterway access, Jordan's has neither, which could compromise its resale value. (See if you can bargain him down!)
The Jordan estate has 11 bedrooms, a two-story guard house and an athletic "wing" with a basketball court (of course). You'll note that the property isn't far from the golf course, but we're betting Jordan won't have to sneak onto the course at twilight to get in a few holes.
While everyone's attention is focused on the supposed 'King' the greatest basketball player of all time has a plush new $12.4 million home. Michael Jordan just bought a mansion in 'The Bears Club', devloped by Jack Nicklaus, in Jupiter, Florida.
Jordan reportedly paid $4.8 million for the land, and another $7.6 million for construction of the home. The mansion has 11 bedrooms, a guard-house, a media center, and of course, a basketball court.
The Bears Club is comprised of 55 residences which start at $4 million and can go for as much as $20 million.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/check-out-michael-jordans-new-124-million-mansion-2010-12##ixzz173dCSUox
NASA scientist discovers arsenic-based alien life form – on Earth
News that NASA has discovered a new life form based on arsenic broke Thursday morning. The scoop leaked a few hours before a much-anticipated NASA press conference related to the search for extraterrestrial life. NASA’s discovery was actually made on Earth, where a life form based on arsenic was found in a toxic California lake.
NASA finds life in Mono Lake arsenic
A NASA researcher discovered life in the form of a microbe that thrives in the arsenic-laced waters of Mono Lake in California. In an announcement of Thursday’s press conference earlier this week, NASA said it had discovered evidence that will impact the search for extraterrestrial life. The fact that the life form was discovered on Earth may be a let-down for those who hoped for a more exotic discovery from NASA. But life that can survive in arsenic leads scientists to believe many more planets exist supporting life than previously thought.
NASA’s terrestrial alien
The microbe in poisonous Mono Lake was discovered by geobiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon. Simon found that the microbe uses arsenic in place of phosphorus — an element previously considered vital for all forms of life on Earth. All life on earth shares the basic components of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulphur and phosphorous. Wolfe-Simon’s bacterium substitutes arsenic for phosphorous. Arsenic was considered highly toxic to all forms of life until Wolfe-Simon’s discovery. The geobiologist had suggested earlier that the alien ecosystem of Mono Lake could have started life on a different evolutionary tangent, and apparently she was right.
What Wolfe-Simon’s discovery means
Based on what they knew before Wolfe-Simon’s discovery of life that is part arsenic, astrobiologists believed phosphorous had to be present in a planet’s atmosphere for lifeforms to take hold. That approach to life on other planets has been turned on its head by an alien life form living on our own world. In an interview about her work at Mono Lake in The Sunday Times earlier this year, Wolfe-Simon said that in the search for life on other planets, “This may help us to develop tools to look for something we have never seen.”
In a press conference later today, NASA will announce a breakthrough discovery: Bacteria in California's Mono Lake that subsist off of arsenic. Initially, this admittedly does not seem like very exciting news at all, but as Ron Burgundy would put it, with noted understatement, it's "kind of a big deal." The ability to thrive on arsenic differentiates this bacteria from all other known forms of life on the planet, which rely on the six building blocks of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorous, and sulfur. Thus the find alters our conception of how and where life can arise and the search for life on other planets.
No, that’s not some image snapped on another planet; it’s a photo taken at Mono Lake, California, the poisonous location where NASA scientists have discovered bacteria made out of arsenic. What’s the big biological deal? It’s the first time that they’ve found a new life form that doesn’t share DNA blocks with any other being on Earth. In other words: Aliens. They’re probably not just like us. More will be revealed today at a press conference at 2pm EST — which is just 30 minutes away! Do you find this as exciting as we do? Or did we grow up watching too much ALF?
(CNN) -- Heavy snow has shut down Interstate 90 near Buffalo, New York, leaving motorists stranded for more than 12 hours as of Thursday morning, with more snow on the way.
Shifting winds from the storm front that is moving through the eastern United States this week have put the city of Buffalo in the path of a lake effect snow band that forecasters said covered some areas with as much as 24 inches of snow in 24 hours.
Sam McMahon, who has been trapped on the interstate since 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, told CNN meteorologist Reynolds Wolf that while he has seen snow like this before, there is something unique about this storm.
"In terms of snowfall, I have seen snowfall like this before but I have never been stuck in a situation like this on the thruway this extreme," he said. The University of Buffalo student was heading home Wednesday evening and when he hit slow traffic. "By 9 o'clock we were stopped," he said. "Since 9:30 last night I haven't moved an inch."
Authorities are trying to keep the stranded motorists warm and hydrated. Officers and firefighters have been delivering water and gasoline to vehicles in need throughout the morning hours.
Lake effect snow warnings have been issued by the National Weather Service for areas on the eastern ends of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. "In lake effect snow the weather can vary from locally heavy snow in narrow bands to clear skies just a few miles away," the advisories said, warning travelers to be prepared for rapidly changing conditions.
Forecasters said an additional 10 to 14 inches of snow is likely from "the most persistent bands" over the city of Buffalo through 11 p.m., adding up to a total accumulation of around 3 feet at the deepest.
Another band is expected to drop 10 to 14 inches of snow south of the city through 6 a.m. Friday, with a total accumulation of up to 2 feet in those areas, the National Weather Service said.
"The heavy wet nature of the snow will bring down some tree limbs and produce scattered power outages," it said.
On the eastern end of Lake Ontario, Oswego, Jefferson, and Lewis counties were told to expect additional snow accumulations of 6 to 10 inches through 6 a.m. Friday, making a total accumulation of up to 18 inches from the storm in isolated areas.
The Weather Service is warning that the rate of snowfall, up to 2 inches per hour, will make travel extremely difficult. Roads will be snow covered and visibility will be severely reduced.
(cnn)
Just when you thought you’d never witness this in your lifetime:
That’s the message on 40 billboards around Nashville, proclaiming May 21, 2011, as the date of the Rapture. Billboards are up in eight other U.S. cities, too.
Fans of Family Radio Inc., a nationwide Christian network, paid for the billboards. Family Radio’s founder, Harold Camping, predicted the May date for the Rapture. According to Camping’s prediction, the Rapture will happen exactly 7,000 years from the date that God first warned people about the flood. He said the flood happened in 4990 B.C., on what would have been May 21 in the modern calendar. God gave Noah one week of warning.
Since one day equals 1,000 years for God, that means there was a 7,000-year interval between the flood and rapture.
“We hope that anyone would get a Bible out and try and prove that this is wrong,” he said.
To spread their message, Family Radio is also sending out caravans of RVs across the country, with the Rapture message. One should make its way to Nashville after the first of the year. They’re sending missionaries around the world to hand out tracts.
But he thinks only a small number of people — about 3 percent — will take the billboards seriously. (bossip)
When people are going to learn that "GOD" and Religion are not to be played with or misused for whatever purposes. Wake up, Wake up, Wake up!!!!!!Stop Believing The Hype!!!!!!(THA CHILL ONE)
Man, Google might have actually saved this kid’s life. After using the search engine to find web posts about his name, Zachary Garcia realized he was wanted for murder!
According to the police report, University of Florida student and grocery store employee Zachary Garcia was believed by authorities to be a 15-year-old who, along with three other teenagers, allegedly broke into a Davenport, Florida house on Sept. 23. The homeowner shot and killed one of the intruders. Because the death occurred during the commission of a felony, the three surviving suspects are charged with murder.
“I was just very shocked to find my picture and the article saying that I was convicted of a felony murder charge,” the innocent Garcia told Tampa Bay’s 10 News. “And I was just very shocked and angry that someone put my name up there and said I did something I didn’t do.”
Police are actually looking for another Florida resident, Zachery Garcia — first named spelled with an “e” instead of a second “a.”…
Whats even scarier is that he looks EXACTLY like the kid that the cops were looking for. Imagine trying to explain THAT sh*t to a cop at 2am on a dark road…
(BOSSIP)
A Milwaukee man is accused of killing a woman because she answered her phone while they were having sex.
46-year-old Garron Lewis has had a criminal complaint filed with charges of first-degree intentional homicide in the death of 44-year-old Sharron Dorsey over the Thanksgiving weekend.
The complaint said Lewis went to another man's house where he started crying when he told him that he had killed Sharron Dorsey. When the man asked why, Lewis said that he killed her because she answered her phone during sex.
The complaint also makes the allegation that Lewis confessed to a detective that he killed Dorsey by strangling her with his belt.
The Milwaukee County medical examiner's report said Dorsey died of asphyxiation due to strangulation.
(HIPHOPWIRED)
"INTUITION IS THE SUPRA-LOGIC THAT CUTS OUT ALL THE ROUTINE PROCESSES OF THOUGHT AND LEAPS STRAIGHT FROM THE PROBLEM TO THE ANSWER. INTUITION ISN'T THE ENEMY, BUT THE ALLY, OF REASON. ALL GREAT MEN ARE GIFTED WITH INTUITION. THEY KNOW WITH OUT REASONING OR ANALYSIS,WHAT THEY NEED TO KNOW..." ...INTUITION IS A SPIRITUAL... FACULTY AND DOES NOT EXPLAIN , BUT SIMPLY POINTS THE WAY...
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SUCCESSFUL PERSON AND OTHERS IS NOT A LACK OF STRENGTH,NOT A LACK OF KNOWLEDGE,BUT RATHER A LACK OF WILL. ALWAYS, BEAR IN MIND THAT YOUR OWN RESOLUTION TO SUCCEED IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANY ONE THING. THE ONLY LIMITATIONS YOU WILL EVER FACE WILL BE THOSE YOU... PLACE UPON YOURSELF. " I, WOULD ...RATHER TRY TO SUCCED AND FAIL THAN TRY TO DO NOTHING AND SUCCEED......
"INTUITION IS THE SUPRA-LOGIC THAT CUTS OUT ALL THE ROUTINE PROCESSES OF THOUGHT AND LEAPS STRAIGHT FROM THE PROBLEM TO THE ANSWER. INTUITION ISN'T THE ENEMY, BUT THE ALLY, OF REASON. ALL GREAT MEN ARE GIFTED WITH INTUITION. THEY KNOW WITH OUT REASONING OR ANALYSIS,WHAT THEY NEED TO KNOW..." ...INTUITION IS A SPIRITUAL... FACULTY AND DOES NOT EXPLAIN , BUT SIMPLY POINTS THE WAY...
(BIGG BLAKE)
(CNN) -- An act of civil disobedience 55 years ago -- Rosa Parks' refusal to move to the back of a city bus -- made the seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, a pivotal symbol in America's civil rights movement.
Wednesday marks the 55th anniversary of the civil disobedience on December 1, 1955.
Parks did not intend to get arrested as she made her way home from work that day. Little did the 42-year-old seamstress know that her acts would help end segregation laws in the South.
That evening after work, Parks took a seat in the front of the black section of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The bus filled up, and the bus driver demanded that she move so a white male passenger could have her seat.
But Parks refused to give up her seat, and police arrested her. Four days later, Parks was convicted of disorderly conduct.
The events triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system by blacks that was organized by a 26-year-old Baptist minister, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The boycott led to a court ruling desegregating public transportation in Montgomery, but it wasn't until the 1964 Civil Rights Act that all public accommodations nationwide were desegregated.
Parks, who died five years ago in Detroit, Michigan, at 92, still has the power to inspire.
"I think that she, as the mother of the new civil rights movement, has left an impact not just on the nation, but on the world," U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, said shortly after her death. "She was a real apostle of the nonviolence movement."
He remembered her as someone who never raised her voice -- an eloquent voice of the civil rights movement.
"You treated her with deference because she was so quiet, so serene -- just a very special person," he said, adding that "there was only one" Rosa Parks.
Facing regular threats and having lost her department store job because of her activism, Parks left Alabama for Detroit in 1957, where she later joined Conyers' staff.
Parks later co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development to help young people pursue educational opportunities, get them registered to vote and work toward racial peace.
"As long as there is unemployment, war, crime and all things that go to the infliction of man's inhumanity to man, regardless -- there is much to be done, and people need to work together," she once said.
Parks remained active on the lecture circuit into her 80s, speaking at civil rights groups and accepting awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999.
"This medal is encouragement for all of us to continue until all have rights," she said at the June 1999 ceremony for the latter medal.
(cnn)
Most historians date the beginning of the modern civil rights movement in the United States to December 1, 1955. That was the day when an unknown seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. This brave woman, Rosa Parks, was arrested and fined for violating a city ordinance, but her lonely act of defiance began a movement that ended legal segregation in America, and made her an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere.
Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama to James McCauley, a carpenter, and Leona McCauley, a teacher. At the age of two she moved to her grandparents' farm in Pine Level, Alabama with her mother and younger brother, Sylvester. At the age of 11 she enrolled in the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, a private school founded by liberal-minded women from the northern United States. The school's philosophy of self-worth was consistent with Leona McCauley's advice to "take advantage of the opportunities, no matter how few they were."
Opportunities were few indeed. "Back then," Mrs. Parks recalled in an interview, "we didn't have any civil rights. It was just a matter of survival, of existing from one day to the next. I remember going to sleep as a girl hearing the Klan ride at night and hearing a lynching and being afraid the house would burn down." In the same interview, she cited her lifelong acquaintance with fear as the reason for her relative fearlessness in deciding to appeal her conviction during the bus boycott. "I didn't have any special fear," she said. "It was more of a relief to know that I wasn't alone."
After attending Alabama State Teachers College, the young Rosa settled in Montgomery, with her husband, Raymond Parks. The couple joined the local chapter of the NAACP and worked quietly for many years to improve the lot of African-Americans in the segregated south.
"I worked on numerous cases with the NAACP," Mrs. Parks recalled, "but we did not get the publicity. There were cases of flogging, peonage, murder, and rape. We didn't seem to have too many successes. It was more a matter of trying to challenge the powers that be, and to let it be known that we did not wish to continue being second-class citizens."
The bus incident led to the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association, led by the young pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The association called for a boycott of the city-owned bus company. The boycott lasted 382 days and brought Mrs. Parks, Dr. King, and their cause to the attention of the world. A Supreme Court Decision struck down the Montgomery ordinance under which Mrs. Parks had been fined, and outlawed racial segregation on public transportation.
In 1957, Mrs. Parks and her husband moved to Detroit, Michigan where Mrs. Parks served on the staff of U.S. Representative John Conyers. The Southern Christian Leadership Council established an annual Rosa Parks Freedom Award in her honor.
After the death of her husband in 1977, Mrs. Parks founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development. The Institute sponsors an annual summer program for teenagers called Pathways to Freedom. The young people tour the country in buses, under adult supervision, learning the history of their country and of the civil rights movement. President Clinton presented Rosa Parks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996. She received a Congressional Gold Medal in 1999.
When asked if she was happy living in retirement, Rosa Parks replied, "I do the very best I can to look upon life with optimism and hope and looking forward to a better day, but I don't think there is any such thing as complete happiness. It pains me that there is still a lot of Klan activity and racism. I think when you say you're happy, you have everything that you need and everything that you want, and nothing more to wish for. I haven't reached that stage yet."
Mrs. Parks spent her last years living quietly in Detroit, where she died in 2005 at the age of 92. After her death, her casket was placed in the rotunda of the United States Capitol for two days, so the nation could pay its respects to the woman whose courage had changed the lives of so many. She is the only woman and second African American in American history to lie in state at the Capitol, an honor usually reserved for Presidents of the United States.
Kanye's latest opus continues his string of hit number one albums on the billboard's charts. "My Twisted Dark Fantasy" sold over a half a million units in its debut week besting runner up Nikki Minaj's highly anticipated "Pink Friday". Lil Wayne's protege' sold nearly 400,000 units her debut week, she's definetely on her way to becoming the first female to go platinum many years in the hiphop/rap genre. DefJam/Island Music Group has six of the top ten albums in the country chart wise and sales wise this week.
