Exhume Michael Jackson's Body !! "WTF"

Shocking plans are brewing to exhume Michael Jackson's body!
That's the despicable depth Jackson's private physician Dr. Conrad Murray will sink to in a desperate bid to beat a murder or manslaughter rap for administering a fatal dose of the powerful drug propofol to the King od f Pop. As the seven month long investigation wraps up with Dr. Murray clearly locked in the crosshairs, I'm sure his lawyers are considering a number of last ditch strategies , including digging up Jackson's body. The stunning analysis by Gunderson comes as L.A. lawmen turn up the heat on the so-called Dr. Death, who many believed believe murdered the superstar by delivering a fatal drug overdose. Cops quickly focused their investigation on Murray. Insiders say the results of the police probe may soon go to the grand jury. At the very least, sources say, the doctor faces involuntary manslaughter charges - and could be indicted for murder.

Even though three (3) autopsies have already been performed on Jackson, Gunderson believes Murray's lawyers will demand another exam done by thir own forensic specialists. They will use the results to shift the blame to a mysterious "DR.FEELGOOD" and claim that he, or she, is the real killer. Murray's defense will likely suggest that propofol was the least of the singer's problems and how many other doctors prescribed medicine to Jackson over the years, they'll ask this to cast doubt on the prosecution's case. Michael's family and friends are in an uproar. Digging up Michael would be absolutely outrageous, fumes one family member. I'm sure this would just be a ploy to cast doubts in the minds of jurors. But that's all it is -- a ploy.

Two private autopsies were also conducted at the request of Jackson's family and presumably came to the same conclusions as the coroner. But the results were never released. Murray,56. even admitted to cops he gave the potent anesthetic to Jackson in an effort to treat the King of Pop's chronic insomnia. But toxicology tests showed the Thriller singer had five(5) other powerful medications in his body. Even though brain, tissue, blood and bodily fluid samples from Jackson's body were preserved, Gunderson suspects they may have been used up in the three(3) autopsies. And fresh samples could only be obtained by exhuming the corpse.

Jackson's body is entombed in a marble Mausoleum, but with a court order his gold-plated casket could be removed and transported to a morgue or hospital where his body could be cut up again.Gunderson says hair analysis would also be critical because it could chronicle Jackson's drug use in recent years - and point an accusing finger at other doctors. Well preserved hair can be tested for drugs even hunderds of years later, notes Gunderson. Since it grows about half an inch a month, a single long strand could be a time line of what drugs a person might have taken as well as when and in what amounts. Murray's defense would likely argue that Jackson's drug addiction over the years is what made him vulnerable. And that Dr. Murray had only known him for a few weeks. The whole idea, Gunderson adds, would be to shift the attention from Murray to other doctors who had prescribed dope to Jackso, including an assortment of powerful painkillers. Jackson was also said to have taken heroin.

There's so much damning evidence against Murray for the propofol says the acclaimed private investigator. Of course, the prosecution will fight against any exhumation, but a cautious judge may deside that digging up Jackson for a fourth autopsy is the best way to answer key questions once and for all and avoid having any jury decision overturned. And that prospect has outraged people who were close to Jackson. His death was devastating for those who loved him and if a judge ever lets this happen, it will be an absolute sin, let him rest in peace, says the family friend.Stay tuned: the saga contines.
My spin on this: Even in death , Michael's soul is tormented: okay Michael it's time for you and Elvis to come and tell everyone enough is enough.
Kicking back and keeping it real:

yuk yuks

Let it snow, let it snow.

We don't care. We love snow in Canada

As long as we've got our snowblowers.

Scientists Seek to Solve 'Mona Lisa' Mystery by Exhuming Da Vinci's Bones

The legend of Leonardo da Vinci is shrouded in mystery: How did he die? Are the remains buried in a French chateau really those of the Renaissance master? Was the "Mona Lisa" a self-portrait in disguise?
A group of Italian scientists believes the key to solving those puzzles lies with the remains - and they say they are seeking permission from French authorities to dig up the body to conduct carbon and DNA testing. If the skull is intact, the scientists can go to the heart of a question that has fascinated scholars and the public for centuries: the identity of the "Mona Lisa." Recreating a virtual and then physical reconstruction of Leonardo's face, they can compare it with the smiling face in the painting.
"We don't know what we'll find if the tomb is opened, we could even just find grains and dust," says Giorgio Gruppioni, an anthropologist who is participating in the project. "But if the remains are well kept, they are a biological archive that registers events in a person's life, and sometimes in their death."
The leader of the group, Silvano Vinceti, said that he plans to press his case with the French officials in charge of the purported burial site at Amboise Castle early next week. But the Italian enthusiasm may be premature. In France, exhumation requires a long legal procedure, and precedent suggests it's likely to take even longer when it involves a person of great note such as Leonardo.
Jean-Louis Sureau, director of the medieval-era castle located in France's Loire Valley, said that once a formal request is made, a commission of experts would be set up. Any such request would then be discussed with the French Ministry of Culture.

Leonardo moved to France at the invitation of King Francis I, who named him "first painter to the king." He spent the last three years of his life there, and died in Cloux, near the monarch's summer retreat of Amboise, in 1519 at age 67. The artist's original burial place, the palace church of Saint Florentine, was destroyed during the French Revolution and remains that are believed to be his were eventually reburied in the Saint-Hubert Chapel near the castle.

The tombstone says simply, "Leonardo da Vinci;" a notice at the site informs visitors they are the presumed remains of the artist, as do guidebooks. As for the latest Italian proposal, Vinceti says preliminary conversations took place several years ago and he plans to follow up with a request next week to set up a meeting to explain the project in detail. This would pave the way for a formal request, he said.

The group of 100 experts involved in the project, called the National Committee for Historical and Artistic Heritage, was created in 2003 with the aim of "solving the great enigmas of the past," said Vinceti, who has written books on art and literature. Arguably the world's most famous painting, the "Mona Lisa" hangs in the Louvre in Paris, where it drew some 8.5 million visitors last year. Mystery has surrounded the identity of the painting's subject for centuries, with speculation ranging from the wife of a Florentine merchant to Leonardo's own mother.

That Leonardo intended the "Mona Lisa" as a self-portrait in disguise is a possibility that has intrigued and divided scholars. Theories have abounded: Some think that Leonardo's taste for pranks and riddles might have led him to conceal his own identity behind that baffling smile; others have speculated that, given Leonardo's presumed homosexuality, the painting hid an androgynous lover.

Some have used digital analysis to superimpose Leonardo's bearded self-portrait over the "Mona Lisa" to show how the facial features perfectly aligned. If granted access to the grave site, the Italian experts plan to use a miniature camera and ground-penetrating radar - which produces images of an underground space using radar waves-to confirm the presence of bones. The scientists would then exhume the remains and attempt to date the bones with carbon testing.
At the heart of the proposed study is the effort to ascertain whether the remains are actually Leonardo's. Once that is established they can delve into the mystery of who the 'Mona Lisa' is.

I would love for them to prove the subject was Leonardo himself. How he must be laughing at us. After more than five hundred years we are still trying to figure out who the mysterious lady is. It must be a source of great amusement for the spirit of Leonardo and it is his best prank of all. Thank you Leonardo for all the beauty you created.You sure left a lasting impression.

Leonardo Invented an Autombile (1495)

One of many inventions by the mastermind Leonardo Da Vinci. Others include the helicopter, clocks, the submarine, a flying machine, solar power and dozens of others.

Is Young Hollywood Out Of Control ???

Socialite Casey Johnson's shocking death in filthy, rat infested squalor marks a tragic end for the poor little rich girl who desperately sought fame but never found it.
The gay 30-year-old heiress to the multi-billion dollar Johnson & Johnson fortune appears to be the latest victim of Hollywood's drug-fueled excesses - and her sad demise in Los Angeles was a crushing blow to her pal, troubled actress "Lindsay Lohan." The Mean Girl star, 23, was still reeling from the drug deaths of her friends Brittany Murphy and Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein, Nicole Richie's ex-fiance, when she got the word that Johnson"s body had been discovered and she burst into uncontrollable tears. "I'm so tired of losing friends to something as senseless as a drug over-dose," Lohan wrote on her Twitter page.

WAKE-UP PEOPLE!.....Now lets take a look at Lindsay's friends, The talk of the town is who'll die next:

Jason Wahler....His rap sheet is longer than his screen credits. He was arrested 4 times in 9 months. The 23-year-old reality show star was jailed again for assault.

Amy Winehouse.... The wild Grammy Award winner had a big hit with the song "REHAB" which is fitting because she has gone through several substance abuse-programs.

Kirsten Dunst....the 27 -year old Spiderman cutie is out of control flirting with any guy who gave her what she wanted.

Tara Reed.... is one of tinseltown's hellacious party girls. She sees nothing wrong with having fun.

Paris Hilton....she has served jail time for a DUI probation violation. Because of the places she go and the people who hang around her, she's literally faced with tempatation every night of the week.

Britney Spears... Although Britney, 28, made great strides in 2009 after her much pubilized meltdowns and head shaving, friends fear she's on the edge of another collapse after her dad's control of her finanical and business affairs was extended for another 6 months.

Alexa Joel...the 24-year old daughter of Piano Man Billy Joel and Up-town Girl model Christie Brinkley was rushed to the hosiptal after a suicide attempt over a romance breakup.

Redmond O'Neal...Despite a promise to his dying mother, Farrah fawacett, that he'd guit drugs, Redmond seems to be hopelessly in the grips of his deadly demons. After being clean and sober for 6 months the troubled redhead reportedly relapsed on his first 24-hour pass out of the court-ordered rehab. The tragic 24-year-old appears to have a death wish.

My spin on these death wishes: Rich or poor or maybe just in between, parents need to pay more attention to their kids and not leave it to someone else. And don't leave them to grow up on their own. Times are lean I know , but paying attention to what goes on in your kid's life is your responsibility as a parent or guardian. Always take time out from your busy schedules just to tell them you love them. ....As my PIC always says...time is so precious and short.
Kicking back and keeping it real:

An Alfred Hitchcock documentary on the Nazi Holocaust

This is the last of our holocaust articles (sigh of relief)

So many years ago and still so hard to write about. I'm glad I did but I'm glad it's over.

---

Never Forget

Extremely Graphic:

Viewer Discretion Advised

One hour in length:Click on picture

An Alfred Hitchcock documentary on the Nazi Holocaust Apr 18, 2007 - 52:59 a film the British Government deemed too grisly for release after World War II - has received its public debut on British television. Only fifteen minutes were shown.

Nazi Germany - Euthenasia (Murder of Mentally and Physically Handicapped)

Smoke rising from the chimney at Hadamar, one of six facilities which carried out the Nazis' Euthanasia Program. Hadamar, Germany, probably 1941.

A castle used as a euthenasia centre

Adolf Hitler - Fuehrer of Nazi Germany "The demand that defective people be prevented from propagating equally defective offspring. . . represents the most humane act of mankind." Mein Kampf, vol. 1, ch. 10

Forced sterilization in Germany was the forerunner of the systematic killing of the mentally ill and the handicapped. In October 1939, Hitler himself initiated a decree which empowered physicians to grant a "mercy death" to "patients considered incurable according to the best available human judgment of their state of health." The intent of the so called "euthanasia" program, however, was not to relieve the suffering of the chronically ill. The Nazi regime used the term as a euphemism: its aim was to exterminate the mentally ill and the handicapped, thus "cleansing" the Aryan race of persons considered genetically defective and a financial burden to society.

The idea of killing the incurably ill was posed well before 1939. In the 1920s, debate on this issue centered on a book coauthored by Alfred Hoche, a noted psychiatrist, and Karl Binding, a prominent scholar of criminal law. They argued that economic savings justified the killing of "useless lives" ("idiots" and "congenitally crippled"). Economic deprivation during World War I provided the context for this idea. During the war, patients in asylums had ranked low on the list for rationing of food and medical supplies, and as a result, many died from starvation or disease. More generally, the war undermined the value attached to individual life and, combined with Germany's humiliating defeat, led many nationalists to consider ways to regenerate the nation as a whole at the expense of individual rights.

In 1935 Hitler stated privately that "in the event of war, [he] would take up the question of euthanasia and enforce it" because "such a problem would be more easily solved" during wartime. War would provide both a cover for killing and free up hospital beds and medical personnel for the war effort. The upheaval of war and the diminished value of human life during wartime would also, Hitler believed, mute the expected opposition. To make the connection to the war explicit, Hitler's decree was backdated to September 1,1939, the day Germany invaded Poland.

Fearful of public reaction, the Nazi regime never proposed a formal "euthanasia" law. Unlike the forced sterilizations, the killing of patients in mental asylums and other institutions was carried out in secrecy. The code name was "Operation T4," a reference to Tiergartenstrasse 4, the address of the Berlin Chancellery offices where the program was headquartered. Physicians, the most highly Nazified professional group in Germany, were key to the success of "T4," since they organized and carried out nearly, all aspects of the operation. One of Hitler's personal physicians, Dr. Karl Brandt, headed the program, along with Hitler's Chancellery chief, Philip Bouhler.

T4 targeted adult patients in all government or church-run sanatoria and nursing homes. These institutions were instructed by the Interior Ministry to collect questionnaires about the state of health and capacity for work of all their patients, ostensibly as part of a statistical survey. The completed forms were, in turn, sent to expert assessors physicians, usually psychiatrists, who made up "review commissions." They marked each name with a "+," in red pencil, meaning death, or a "" in blue pencil, meaning life, or "?" for cases needing additional assessment. These medical experts rarely examined any of the patients and made their decisions from the questionnaires alone. At every step, the medical authorities involved were usually expected to quickly process large numbers of forms.

The doomed were bused to killing centers in Germany and Austria; walled-in fortresses, mostly former psychiatric hospitals, castles and a former prison --- at Hartheim, Sonnenstein, Grafeneck, Bernburg, Hadamar, and Brandenburg. In the beginning, patients were killed by lethal injection. But by 1940, Hitler, on the advice of Dr. Werner Heyde, suggested that carbon monoxide gas be used as the preferred method of killing. Experimental gassings had first been carried out at Brandenburg Prison in 1939. There, gas chambers were disguised as showers complete with fake nozzles in order to deceive victims ---prototypes of the killing centers' facilities built in occupied Poland later in the war.

Again, following procedures that would later be instituted in the extermination camps, workers removed the corpses from the chambers, extracted gold teeth, then burned large numbers of bodies together in crematoria. Urns filled with ashes were prepared in the event the family of the deceased requested the remains. Physicians using fake names prepared death certificates falsifying the cause of death, and sent letters of condolences to relatives. Meticulous records discovered after the war documented 70,273 deaths by gassing at the six "euthanasia" centers between January 1940 and August 1941. (This total included up to 5,000 Jews; all Jewish mental patients were killed regardless of their ability to work or the seriousness of their illness.)

A detailed report also recorded the estimated savings from the killing of institutionalized patients. The secrecy surrounding the T4 program broke down quickly. Some staff members were indiscreet while drinking in local pubs after work. Despite precautions, errors were made: hairpins turned up in urns sent to relatives of male victims; the cause of death was listed as appendicitis when the patient had the appendix removed years before. The town of Hadamar school pupils called the gray transport buses "killing crates" and threatened each other with the taunt, "You'll end up in the Hadamar ovens!" The thick smoke from the incinerator was said to be visible every day over Hadamar (where, in midsummer 1941, the staff celebrated the cremation of their 10,000th patient with beer and wine served in the crematorium).

A handful of church leaders, judges and doctors, along with many parents of the victims protested vigorously and encouraged church run institutions not to release their patients to T4 authorities. In response to such pressure Hitler ordered a halt to the T4 program in August 1941.

Gas chambers from some of the euthenasia killing centres were dismantled and sent to extermination camps in Poland to be used as part of the "final solution to the Jewish question."The "euthanasia" killings continued, however, under a different, decentralized form. Hitler's regime continued to send to physicians and the general public the message that mental patients were "useless eaters" and unworthy of living.Doctors were encouraged to decide on their own who should live or die. Killing became part of hospital routine as infants, children, and adults were put to death by starvation, poisoning, and injections. Killings even continued in some of Germany's mental asylums, such as Kaufbeuren, weeks after Allied troops had occupied surrounding areas.

Between the middle of 1941 and the winter of 1944-45, in a program known under code "14f13," experienced psychiatrists from the T4 operation were sent to concentration camps to weed out prisoners too ill to work. After superficial medical screenings, designated inmates Jews, Gypsies, Russians, Poles, Germans, and others were sent to those euthanasia centers where gas chambers still had not been dismantled, where they were gassed. At least 20,000 people are believed to have died under the 14f13 program.

Outside of Germany, thousands of mental patients in the occupied territories of Poland, Russia, and East Prussia were also killed by the Einsatzgruppen squads (SS and special police units) that followed in the wake of the invading German army in specially adapted mobile gassing vans.

In all, between 200,000 and 250,000 mentally and physically handicapped persons were murdered from 1939 to 1945 under the T4 and other "euthanasia" programs. The magnitude of these crimes and the extent to which they prefigured the "final solution" continue to be studied. To this day, the ethics of euthenasia are discussed with a view to helping terminal patients.

Forced Sterilization in Nazi Germany

"We do not stand alone". Nazi propaganda poster from 1936. The shield is inscribed with the title of Nazi Germany's 1933 'Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring' (their compulsory sterilization law). The couple is in front of a map of Germany, surroundedby the flags of nations which had enacted or were considering similar legislation.

Nazi Persecution of the Mentally and Physically Disabled:

The "sterilization Law" explained the importance of weeding out so-called genetic defects from the total German gene pool:

"Since the National Revolution public opinion has become increasingly preoccupied with questions of demographic policy and the continuing decline in the birthrate. However, it is not only the decline in population which is a cause for serious concern but equally the increasingly evident genetic composition of our people. Whereas the hereditarily healthy families have for the most part adopted a policy of having only one or two children, countless numbers of inferiors and those suffering from hereditary conditions are reproducing unrestrainedly while their sick and asocial offspring burden the community."

Some scientists and physicians opposed the involuntary aspect of the law while others pointed to possible flaws. But the designation of specific conditions as inherited, and the desire to eliminate such illnesses or handicaps from the population, generally reflected the scientific and medical thinking of the day in Germany and elsewhere.

Nazi Germany was not the first or only country to sterilize people considered "abnormal." Before Hitler, the United States led the world in forced sterilizations. Between 1907 and 1939, more than 30,000 people in twenty-nine states were sterilized, many of them unknowingly or against their will, while they were incarcerated in prisons or institutions for the mentally ill. Nearly half the operations were carried out in California. Advocates of sterilization policies in both Germany and the United States were influenced by eugenics. This sociobiological theory took Charles Darwin's principle of natural selection and applied it to society. Eugenicists believed the human race could be improved by controlled breeding.

Still, no nation carried sterilization as far as Hitler's Germany. The forced sterilizations began in January 1934, and altogether an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 people were sterilized under the law. A diagnosis of "feeblemindedness" provided the grounds in the majority of cases, followed by schizophrenia and epilepsy. The usual method of sterilization was vasectomy and ligation of ovarian tubes of women. Irradiation (x-rays or radium) was used in a small number of cases. Several thousand people died as a result of the operations, women disproportionately because of the greater risks of tubal ligation.

Most of the persons targeted by the law were patients in mental hospitals and other institutions. The majority of those sterilized were between the ages of twenty and forty, about equally divided between men and women. Most were "Aryan" Germans. The "Sterilization Law" did not target so called racial groups, such as Jews and Gypsies, although Gypsies were sterilized as deviant "asocials," as were some homosexuals. Also, about 500 teenagers of mixed African and German parentage (the offspring of French colonial troops stationed in the Rhineland in the early 1920s) were sterilized because of their race, by secret order, outside the provisions of the law.

Although the "Sterilization Law" sometimes functioned arbitrarily, the semblance of legality underpinning it was important to the Nazi regime. More than 200 Hereditary Health Courts were set up across Germany and later, annexed territories. Each was made up of two physicians and one district judge. Doctors were required to register with these courts every known case of hereditary illness. Appeals courts were also established, but few decisions were ever reversed. Exemptions were sometimes given artists or other talented persons afflicted with mental illnesses. The "Sterilization Law" was followed by the Marriage Law of 1935, which required for all marriages proof that any offspring from the union would not be afflicted with a disabling hereditary disease.

Only the Roman Catholic Church, for doctrinal reasons, opposed the sterilization program consistently; most German Protestant churches accepted and often cooperated with the policy. Popular films such as Das Erbe ("Inheritance") helped build public support for government policies by stigmatizing the mentally ill and the handicapped and highlighting the costs of care. School mathematics books posed such questions as: "The construction of a lunatic asylum costs 6 million marks. How many houses at 15,000 marks each could have been built for that amount?"

Many countries around the world embraced the concept of eugenics (the science of improving the population by control of inherited qualities). These countries made forced sterilization a law.it is so hard to believe that governments were condoning this atrocity so few years ago. Many scholars believe that Hitler based his whole racial cleansing program on the principles of eugenics set forth in the United States. In fact American scientists visited Germany and expressed approval of Hitler's methods.
Hitler took the idea to the next level. He started sterilizing the physically handicapped,the deaf,the blind and anyone considered (in Hitler's words) 'asocial'. Eventually, he stopped the sterilization program in favor of killing these people outright. Quicker, easier, cheaper and more efficient.

Compulsory Sterilization in the USA

Whatever it Takes - Never Again....Harping on an Old Theme?....So What?

Shooting, hanging, mass gassing of men, women and children, brutalities, tortures, atrocities, medical experiments - inhuman acts were an everyday occurrence during the Nazi genocide. We must never forget what occurred.

SS men left the most horrifying testimonies of the atrocities of the Holocaust during World WarII. They were Hitler's most ruthless henchmen, men often seen as the very personifications of evil.These masters of death were found to be quite psychologically normal. They were men in good standing, husbands, who morning and night kissed their wives, fathers who tucked their children into bed.
In 1933 approximately nine million Jews lived in the countries of Europe that would be occupied by Germany during the war. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed by the SS Men. The Holocaust was the systematic annihilation of six million Jews. 1.5 million children were murdered during World War II. This figure includes more than 1.2 million Jewish children, tens of thousands of Gypsy children and thousands of handicapped children.

In all, eleven million people died in concentration camps: 6 million Jews and five million political prisoners, patriots, rebels, gypsies,children and anyone who objected to the Third Reich. The world war launched by a single madman would claim the lives of fifty million people.Whatever it takes....NEVER AGAIN

Watch the video. Don't turn away; don't avert your eyes.

VERY GRAPHIC - VIEWER DISCRETION REQUIRED

Chemical Ali Executed in Iraq

Ali Hassan al-Majid, a former Iraqi official known as "Chemical Ali", has been executed by hanging, a government spokesman has announced.Majid, an enforcer in Saddam Hussein's regime and his cousin, had earlier been sentenced to death four times for genocide and crimes against humanity. Earlier this month, he was sentenced to death for ordering the gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988. It is believed that about 5,000 people died in the attack. Iraqi jets swooped over Halabja and for five hours sprayed it with a lethal cocktail of mustard gas and the nerve agents Tabun, Sarin and VX.

For both the Kurds and the Shias, "Chemical" Ali Hassan al-Majid personified the evils of Saddam Hussein's regime almost as much as Saddam himself.
His hanging could be seen as helping national reconciliation and the closing of an ugly chapter. But Sunnis, who were empowered under Saddam and among whom many have felt disenfranchised since his overthrow, may see Majid's demise as an act of revenge rather than one of justice.

Majid was "executed by hanging until death", Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement "The execution happened without any violations, shouting or cries of joy," he added, in sharp contrast to Saddam's death on the gallows in 2006 Iraqi state television, al-Iraqiya, broadcast pictures of what it said was the execution of Majid, although the BBC has not yet confirmed the authenticity of the images.
News of the hanging came shortly after three suicide car bombs struck in central Baghdad. It was not immediately clear whether the attacks were linked to his execution.

FOUR DEATH SENTENCES
Jan 2010: For ordering gas attack on Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988 in which 5,000 people died
March 2009: For the 1999 killings of Shia Muslims in the Sadr City district of Baghdad
Dec 2008: For his role in crushing a Shia revolt after 1991 Gulf War
June 2007: For role in six-month military campaign against ethnic Kurds, codenamed Anfal, in 1988.

But it was important to Iraqi Kurds to see him convicted of the Halabja attack, seen as one of the worst atrocities of Saddam Hussein's regime. The BBC correspondent says there will be great rejoicing or, at the very least, quiet relief among both Iraq's Shia and Kurdish communities, which have suffered greatly at his hands.

Majid - the King of Spades in the US military's pack of cards of most-wanted Iraqis - was arrested in August 2003. He refused to express remorse at any of his trials, insisting that he was acting in the interests of Iraqi security.
The Iraqi High Tribunal was set up to try former members of Saddam Hussein's mainly Sunni government and was the same one that sentenced the former president to death.

Focusing the Male Brain...Advice From an Expert

My hubby has a simple mind. He is attracted to moving objects and cartoons. This is a little trick I learned to get him into the bedroom.

From Osama to Obama - New Threats

Osama bin Laden endorsed the failed attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day and threatened new attacks against the United States in an audio message released Sunday that appeared aimed at asserting he maintains some direct command over al-Qaida-inspired offshoots.
However, U.S. officials and several researchers who track terrorist groups said there was no indication bin Laden or any of his top lieutenants had anything to do with or even knew in advance of the Christmas plot by a Yemen-based group that is one of several largely independent al-Qaida franchises.
A U.S. State Department spokesman said al-Qaida's core leadership offers such groups strategic guidance but depends on them to carry it out.
"He's trying to continue to appear relevant" by talking up the attempted attack by an affiliate, the spokesman, P.J. Crowley, said.

The one-minute message was explicit in its threat of new attacks. Like the airline plot, bin Laden said they would come in response to America's support for Israel.
"God willing, our raids on you will continue as long as your support for the Israelis continues," bin Laden said in the recording, which was released to the Al-Jazeera news channel.
"The message delivered to you through the plane of the heroic warrior Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a confirmation of the previous messages sent by the heroes of the Sept. 11," he said of the Nigerian suspect in the Dec. 25 botched attack.
"If our messages had been able to reach you through words we wouldn't have been delivering them through planes."
Directing his statements at President Barack Obama -( "from Osama to Obama," he said )- bin Laden added: "America will never dream of security unless we will have it in reality in Palestine."

The message, which White House officials said could not immediately be authenticated, raised again the question of how much of a link exists between al-Qaida's top leadership along the Afghan-Pakistani border and the handful of loosely affiliated groups operating in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa and Iraq.
The al-Qaida leader, who was last heard from in September, seemed intent on showing he remains more than an ideological figurehead, as most analysts have suggested he has become during the terror network's evolution into decentralized offshoots. But some questioned whether al-Qaida's core leadership was involved.

"They weren't putting the final touches on this operation," said Evan Kohlmann, a senior investigator for the New York-based NEFA Foundation, which researches Islamic militants.
Still, the Saudi and Yemeni leaders of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, have a long history of direct personal contact with bin Laden. It is plausible that - if they were able to - they would have informed bin Laden of the airliner plot and sought his approval, Kohlmann said.
There was no way to verify the voice on the audio message was actually bin Laden's, but it resembled previous recordings attributed to him. U.S.-based IntelCenter, which monitors militant messages, said the manner of the recording's release, its content and other factors indicated it was credible.
White House adviser David Axelrod told CNN's "State of the Union" that whatever the source, the message "contains the same hollow justification for the mass slaughter of innocents."

Trick Shot

Get 'Em While They're Hot Dad...They're Good

Almond Biscotti:

Ingredients:
1/4 cup finely chopped almonds
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons margarine
4 egg whites, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons almond extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degree F. Place almonds in a small baking pan. Bake 7 to 8 minutes until golden brown (watch carefully to avoid burning). Set aside.
Beat sugar and margarine in medium bowl with electric mixer until smooth. Add egg whites and almond extract; mix well. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in large bowl; mix well. Stir egg white mixture and almonds into flour mixture until well blended.

Spray two 9x5-inch loaf pans with non-stick cooking spray. Evenly divide dough between prepared pans. Spread dough evenly over bottoms of pans with wet fingertips. Bake 15 minutes or until knife inserted into centers comes out clean.
Remove from oven and turn onto cutting board. As soon as loaves are cool enough to handle, cut each into 16 (1/2-inch thick) slices. Place slices on baking sheets covered with parchment paper or sprayed with cooking spray. Bake 5 minutes; turn over. Bake 5 minutes more or until golden brown. Serve warm or cool completely and store in airtight container.

Take Your Pick Dad...Keep Nee in the Kitchen

BANANA LOAF: Sugar Free

Ingredients:
2-1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup honey-crunch wheat germ
1/4 teaspoon baking Soda
1/2 cup rolled oats, uncooked
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup egg substitute, thawed
1/3 cup walnuts, chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/2 sticks margarine
1-1/2 cup mashed bananas
6 ounce can frozen apple juice concentrate, thawed

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease 9"x5" loaf pan.
In large bowl, mix first 7 ingredients.
With pastry blender, cut in magarine until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Stir in bananas, undiluted apple-juice concentrate, egg substitute, walnuts, and vanilla just until flour is moistened.
Spoon batter into pan.
Bake 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center of bread comes out clean.
Cool bread in pan on wire rack 10 minutes; remove from pan and cool slightly.
Serve warm, or cool completely to serve later.

********************************
PUMPKIN PIE: Sugar Free

Ingredients:
1 (9-inch) pastry shell
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1-1/2 cup pumpkin (canned)
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
2 eggs; beaten
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 cup low-fat milk
1/4 tsp Salt
3 tbsp liquid cal-free sweetener
1 pinch ground cloves
2 tbsp brown sugar, packed
Top with whipped cream

Directions:
Prick pastry shell with a fork. Bake in 450F oven for 8 min.
Stir together pumpkin, egg, milk, sweetener, sugar and seasonings. Pour into partially baked pie shell.
Bake in 350F oven for 50 minutes or until center is almost set. Cool slightly and then refrigerate. Cut into 8 wedges and serve each with whipped cream or 2 tbsp light vanilla ice cream.
Nutritional Information (Per Serving)

Calories:
173
Protein:
5 g
Fat:
9 g
Carbohydrates:
20 g
Exchanges:
1/2 Starch/Bread, 1-1/2 Fat, 1 Dairy, 1/2 Fruit

*************************************
CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES: Sugar Free

Ingredients:
1/4 c. margarine
1 tbsp. granulated fructose
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 c. flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c. mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Cream together margarine and fructose, beat in egg, water and vanilla. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in sifter. Sift dry ingredients into creamed mixture, stirring to blend thoroughly. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoonsful onto lightly greased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake at 375 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes. Makes 30 cookies.

If these don't appeal to you Dad, I have a million of 'em....Jeannie

Rescued After Eleven Days

Rescuers could hear knocking and finally managed to free the trapped man:

A 24-year-old man has been rescued alive from the rubble of a ruined hotel in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, 11 days after the earthquake. It came hours after Haiti's government declared a formal end to the search for survivors. Onlookers cheered as Wismond Exantus - smiling and apparently in a good condition - emerged on a stretcher from what remains of the Napoli Inn Hotel. He later told reporters that soft drinks and snacks had kept him going.

It took two-and-a-half hours for the rescue of Wismond Exantus to take place.It might never happened, had not a member of his family approached a Greek journalist on the street and said they had heard noises coming from underneath a building.The Greek journalist said he also heard the noises, and approached a Greek rescue team. They then went into operation in combination with French and American teams, and pulled the man free from the rubble.
As he was gingerly put on a stretcher and carried towards a waiting ambulance, Wismond Exantus smiled. He didn't say anything but he was, if not totally unharmed, clearly in a very good state of health.

"I survived by drinking Coca-Cola and I ate some little tiny things," Mr Exantus, who worked in the hotel's grocery store, told news agency AFP from his bed in a French field hospital.
"Every night I thought about the revelation that I would survive," he was quoted as saying. Greek, French and US rescue teams were involved in the operation to bring him out of the remains of the hotel. A French rescue worker, Lt Col Christophe Renou, described his survival as "a miracle". He said rescuers had managed to get water to him while they worked to dig him out.

Lt Col Renou said the man had probably been helped by the fact that the 5-6m (16-20ft) of debris above him was largely wood, rather than concrete. He said the man had told his rescuers that another four people were trapped with him but that they had stopped moving a couple of days ago. Some Haitians have objected to the announcement that search-and-rescue operations are to end - and the discovery of Mr Exantus might lend weight to their argument.

Government Doing Very Little About Asteroids

The United States is doing little to defend the planet against potentially devastating asteroids and is not doing the basic searches that Congress has ordered, according to a report released on Friday. While most of the really big and obvious threats are being found, almost nothing is being done to find the smaller objects that are arguably a more likely threat, the strongly worded report from the National Academy of Sciences said.
"It means we are not looking for the small ones which can cause huge damage on earth," astronomer Mike A'Hearn of the University of Maryland, who helped the committee write the report, said in a telephone interview.
"Why has nothing been done? I don't know," added A'Hearn, who was principal investigator of NASA'S 2005 Deep Impact mission to knock open the comet 9P/Tempel.

He said it was not clear whether the administration of President Barack Obama, who has declared his support for science but is struggling with an economic downturn and budget deficits, would work any harder to do more. The United States spends about $4 million a year looking for near-Earth objects, or NEOs, that might come too close. In 2005, Congress ordered a broader survey to find 90 percent of near-Earth objects 140 meters (460 feet) in diameter or greater.
Something this big could cause enormous regional damage. But Congress has not funded this search and neither former President George W. Bush nor Obama have asked for it.

A'Hearn's committee made several recommendations." Compared to other things the country is spending money on they aren't expensive," he said.
"The minimal sensible program is probably two and a half times larger than the current program," he added.
"To simply do what Congress asked in 2005 would likely cost $4 million", A'Hearn said.
And less than $1 million is being spent to study what could be done if it looked like something destructive was headed toward the Earth, the report found.
"At the very least, civil defense measures should be planned", A'Hearn said. "For an object up to 50 to 75 meters (164 to 246 feet), civil defense is the right answer. You simply evacuate the area where it going to hit," he said -- although he noted how difficult it is to evacuate areas where hurricanes are bearing down.

An object that size would create the equivalent of a nuclear explosion in the sky, blowing down trees, buildings and killing animals and people underneath it. Larger, more dangerous comets or asteroids could be deflected or blown up, but it would take years of planning to do so. And no one has systematically looked at the diplomacy and politics that would be involved.
"It wouldn't be a dramatic change in defense department budget to develop the capability to destroy near-Earth objects. On the other hand, there may be other countries that might not trust us to do it right," A'Hearn said. "Or a program could be interpreted as a weapons program and a threat, so diplomacy would be needed to ensure international cooperation and acceptance."

A'Hearn said he was not sure if Obama's declared support of science would extend to this program, or whether new space agency administrator Charlie Bolden would fight for it.
"The administration and the NASA administrator say nice words about science but it takes a while to implement things," he said.

Save a Bundle on Groceries

Sage Rich, a grocery shopping coach, cases the aisles of a Real Canadian Superstore in Nanaimo, B.C., with the zeal of a drug-sniffing police hound. Her mission is helping families buy nutritious food while saving themselves up to $400 a month on food bills. She zooms past a refrigerated section of cottage cheese. "Waste of time." She passes the sour cream and chip dip-"Doesn't matter."

At the sight of cold fresh juice, she makes a sweeping dismissive gesture. "Waste of money! Buy the Tetra Pak of juice instead. One litre." Rich collects flyers and coupons from all the big grocery stores. Experience tells her "Safeway sometimes has juice Tetra Paks four for five dollars. They're way, way less expensive. Fresh juice has a shelf life. Your kids don't drink it, it goes down the drain."

When Rich arrives in the frozen meat section, she's like one of the Arctic diamond miners she once cooked for. Here is the motherlode of savings. "In the Arctic, I didn't have fresh so I relied heavily on frozen meats and vegetables and that educated me on what were good products and what weren't. You don't lose any nutrient value in frozen meats. They're cheaper and, if anything, beef breaks down a bit more when it's frozen and it comes out a more tender product."

To prove her price point, she counts up the number of fresh skinless chicken breasts in a package. "Air-chilled la-la-la," she says, ridiculing the brand's fancy advertising slogan, as she runs a tabulating finger down the outside plastic wrap. "Count the chicken breasts. I think this is outrageous. There are seven breasts. Twenty dollars. That's almost three dollars a chicken breast. No."
In the frozen section, she hoists a large cardboard box of breasts like it's the Stanley Cup. "Here. Beautiful skinless boneless chicken breasts. $26.20. For sure there's 20 of them in here. Instead of three dollars each, they're a dollar each and they're huge!"

To those who wish to stick with fresh, free-range meat, Rich, who was raised on a farm in Prince George, B.C., suggests doing what her sister did. "Get together with your friends. Go for a drive in the country. Make a deal with a farmer, or put a notice at a feed store: 'Four people looking to buy 100 fryer chickens. Please phone.' "
"Then a farmer phones you and he goes and buys 100 chicks for three dollars each." The farmer raises and feeds your birds. "You communicate with the farmer a little bit" while the chicks mature, but not too much, she says. "You don't need to phone every month and ask, 'How are my birds doing?' " Rich's sister paid eight dollars a bird for her custom-ordered, "fully bagged" free-range fryer chickens. "For a fryer chick, you'll get a nice little plump five- or six-pound chicken and that bird is going to be absolutely delicious."

"I'm in the same boat as everyone else," she says, explaining why she believes her grocery coaching services are needed right now. "I don't want to be spending $100 every time I go shopping. I think a hundred a week for one person is high, I really do." Since last year's market crash, Rich has watched beef prices soar 30 per cent. Pork is the only decent deal on fresh meat, she says, "because of the swine scare. If you eat pork, go for it."

Even bread is expensive right now, she says. "You don't have to eat bread. Buy tortilla wraps: 12 to a pack for $2.59. Make wraps. That's 12 sandwiches. Or one night it's chicken quesadillas and in the morning it's scrambled egg burrito."
Marching through the produce section, Rich says, "I never buy real lemons for cooking. I buy bottled lemon juice. Strawberries are the big ticket item right now but they don't freeze well. You have to eat them in a certain time frame. They're not the greatest fruit for a family on a budget."

At the margarine section, she stops dead in her tracks. She's aware of the divisive butter-margarine argument, and takes a moment to deliver her opinion. "I don't think margarine is bad for you. I've never heard of anyone dying from it or getting any diseases. Some cooks go, 'Oh my God! You don't use butter?' Well, I think that's nuts. The price of butter? You think your family can tell when you make cookies without butter? Never! Why would you waste the money?"
Rich charges $60 for a three-hour consultation and coaching; $150 for coaching, shopping, cooking, and a two-week meal plan.

Do women really need this kind of consultation?? Years of experience of grocery shopping for a growing family must surely be the best teacher. But Ms Rich certainly is an enterprising woman. She has created a business out of a slumping economy and she charges a hefty fee. I think I'd shop around for a cheaper rate.

Mass Graves in Haiti...Ten Thousand a Day

Haiti - Workers are carving out mass graves on a hillside north of Haiti's capital, using earth-movers to bury 10,000 people in a single day even as relief workers warn that Haitians are still dying of injuries from the Jan. 12 quake for lack of medical care.
Clinics have 12-day waiting lists for patients, crushed arms and legs are festering and makeshift camps that have sprung up in parks, streets and vacant lots now house an estimated 500,000 people, many in need of food, water and a doctor.
"The next health risk could include outbreaks of diarrhea, respiratory tract infections and other diseases among hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in overcrowded camps with poor or nonexistent sanitation," said Dr. Greg Elder, deputy operations manager for Doctors Without Borders in Haiti.The death toll is estimated at 200,000, according to Haitian government figures relayed by the European Commission, with 80,000 buried in mass graves. The commission now estimates 2 million homeless.

Getting help in is still a challenge. Gen. Douglas Fraser, head of the U.S. Southern Command running Haiti's airports said Thursday that 1,400 flights are on a waiting list for slots at the Port-au-Prince airport that can handle 120 to 140 flights a day. At least 51 sizable aftershocks have jolted the city, sending nervous Haitians fleeing repeatedly into the streets - and keeping many sleeping in the open. Quakes of magnitude 4.9 and 4.8 followed in quick succession just before noon Thursday, prompted rescue crews to briefly abandon work on precarious, ruined buildings, though there were no reports of casualties or damage.

They followed a magnitude-5.9 tremor a day earlier that collapsed some structures.
In the sparsely populated wasteland of Titanyen, north of Port-au-Prince, burial workers said the macabre task of handling the never-ending flow of bodies was traumatizing.
"I have seen so many children, so many children. I cannot sleep at night and, if I do, it is a constant nightmare," said Foultone Fequiert, 38, his face covered with a T-shirt against the overwhelming stench. The dead stick out at all angles from the mass graves - tall mounds of chalky dirt, the limbs of men, women and children frozen together in death. "I received 10,000 bodies yesterday alone," said Fequiert.
Workers say they have no time to give the dead proper religious burials or follow pleas from the international community that bodies be buried in shallow graves from which loved ones might eventually retrieve them.
"We just dump them in, and fill it up," said Luckner Clerzier, 39, who was helping guide trucks to another grave site farther up the road.

There are 15 burial mounds at Clerzier's site, each covering a wide trench cut into the ground some 25 feet (8 metres) deep, and rising 15 feet (4.5 metres) into the air. At the larger mass grave, where Fequiert toiled, three earth-moving machines cut long trenches into the earth, readying them for more cadavers.

I can't believe these people are still not receiving the care and help they need. There must be a way to provide for them. At least distribute antibiotics among the injured. Other countries should send their military to help.

"Swept Away ! " CSI: MIAMI

Anthony Mickael Hall guest stars as a death-row convict whose guilt comes into question on the emotionally gripping "February 1 episode of CSI:Miami.
Delko [Adam Rodriguez] returns to help Horatio [David Caruso] and his team uncover the truth behind this convict's murdered family, say co-exec producer Marc Dube.
Hall plays the agony of an innocent man who's wrongfully accused , while at the same time conveying the psychosis of a tortured soul who may have committed the ghastly crime .
Then, on February 8, the crime procedural goes where no CSI team has gone before when a murder on a space-ship requires them to conduct their investigation in unfamiliar territory.
A body falling from the sky leads our CSIs into the heart of space tourism, says Dube. When we find our victim died in orbit, the CSIs must relearn everything they know about forensics to solve a crime in zero-G.
My take on this: Maybe the team "Horatio" is trying to find a way out of this sinking CSI ship before it just disappears into the time space continuum. Well I can say one thing......To infinity and beyond!
Kicking back and having fun: Just keeping it real.

Good Riddance NBC...$45 Million Deal

Conan O'Brien bid NBC good riddance Thursday in a $45-million deal for his exit from "The Tonight Show," but his immediate future in television remains a question mark. The contentious two-week battle that would allow NBC to unseat O'Brien and move Jay Leno back to the program he hosted for 17 years, comes less than eight months after O'Brien took the "Tonight" throne from Leno. Under the deal, O'Brien will get more than $33 million, NBC said. The rest will go to his 200-strong staff in severance.

What happens next for O'Brien? "We don't know," his manager, Gavin Polone, said Thursday. "While we have had expressions of interest, we have not had any substantive conversations with anybody."
Ideally, said Polone, O'Brien "wants to get back on the air, doing the show he's doing now, as soon as possible."
There has been much speculation on where that might be. ABC (which airs "Nightline" and "Jimmy Kimmel Live!") has said it wasn't interested, while Fox, which lacks a network late-night show, expressed appreciation for his show - but nothing more. Comedy Central has also been mentioned as a future home.

Meanwhile, O'Brien might conceivably conduct off-camera business with his old bosses.
"We do have a continuing development relationship with Conan's (production) company," said Marc Graboff, chairman of NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios. "So we still keep the door open."
Leno, whose weeknight prime-time hour ends Feb. 11 after just five lacklustre months, will return to "Tonight" on March 1. The staff of "The Jay Leno Show" is expected to be kept mostly intact for "Tonight." Leno's viewer appeal will also prove intact when he resumes his rivalry with CBS host David Letterman, predicts Jeff Gaspin, chairman of NBC Universal Television Entertainment.
"We believe Leno will be very competitive right away," he said, "and that over time Leno will be the late-night leader again."

Compensation for O'Brien's staff and crew was the final hurdle in negotiations between NBC and O'Brien. O'Brien was said to have been "dug in" on the issue out of concern for the workers, while NBC said this week that it had already agreed to pay "millions of dollars to compensate every one of them" and deemed it a public relations "ploy."
On Wednesday night's show, speaking of a push to get a severance deal for his staff from NBC, O'Brien joked, "At first they thought I was gullible. They said the staff would be taken to a big farm, where they'd be allowed to run free forever."

Clearly, the differences were worked out. "Conan appreciated what NBC did to take care of his staff and crew, and decided to supplement the severance they were getting from the network out of his own pocket," Polone said.

O'Brien will be free to start another TV job after Sept. 1, NBC said. His final show will be Friday, with Tom Hanks scheduled to appear as well as Will Ferrell - his first guest when O'Brien debuted as "Tonight" host last June. O'Brien landed the "Tonight" show after successfully hosting "Late Night," which airs an hour later, since 1993. But he quickly stumbled in the ratings race against his CBS rival, David Letterman. Under Leno, the "Tonight" show was the ratings champ at 11:35 p.m. Eastern, but he proved an instant flop with his experiment in prime time.

Last week, NBC announced that the five-hour vacancy in prime time left by Leno will be filled by scripted and reality fare calculated to bring NBC affiliates a more robust lead-in audience for their local news than Leno had been delivering. A provisional slate of shows will include new and veteran NBC dramas, a comedy panel series produced by Jerry Seinfeld and "Dateline NBC."
It had been no secret that the 46-year-old O'Brien was scoring puny ratings numbers on "Tonight," averaging 2.5 million nightly viewers, compared with 4.2 million for Letterman's "Late Show," according to Nielsen figures.

It was even more obvious that "The Jay Leno Show," airing weeknights at 10 p.m. Eastern, was a disaster. Mostly justified by the network for its bargain-basement production budget, it not only was critically slammed but also found a disappointing popular reaction. It has averaged 5.3 million nightly viewers since its fall debut. By comparison, the season's top-rated 10 p.m. network drama, CBS' "The Mentalist," has an average audience of 17 million.

Denzel Washington: Book of ELI

Despite mixed reviews from critics , ELI has scored so far with movie audiences , coming in #2 with $38 million over the four-day holiday weekend after James Cameron unstoppable "Avatar; ELI even bumped Avatar off first for 0ne-day totals on Friday. The $38 million haul is the second highest in Washington's three decade career, behind only 2007's American Gangster, and by far the Hughes brothers highest earner period,( not just opening weekend) to date. If word of mouth continues to grow among religious audiences, ELI should soldier on to easily break the $100 million mark.
Let's sum up the biblical themes in "ELI" (spoilers ahead!)
In a dystopian United States nearly devoid of water and food, a well armed Eli walks the barren landscape " by faith not by sight." He has one goal: to head West with the world's only remaining Bible ( a King James version, to be precise) He believes he has been called by a " voice in his head" to deliver the Bible to the right hands qnd futher believes he's supernaturally protected from harm while on his prophetic mission.Yes , he kills a whole heckuva lot of people, but everyone he offs pretty much deserves his wrath (rapists, cannibals, thieves, killers), and he definitely seem invincible. Eli can quote entire passages of Scripture without so much as a stutter.
I'm really going to be interested to see how this move plays out with Christians, says Paul Asay, associate editor of "Fous" on the "family's Plugged In," an entertainment site for evangelical Christians. My guess is that evangelical leaders will have a difficult time fully embracing the film, but a lot of actual evangelicals will go.
Even though crities like The New York Post's Kyle Smith have called The Book of Eli a "Christian Blockbuster, the problem is the films's at-times gruesome violence ( dismemberment , rape, blood spatter) and standard R-rated language (nothing that would make Quentin Tarantino or Kevin Smith fans blush, but still the usual F-bombs). considering there are religious movergoers who think "Pixer and Harry Potter" movies are inapproprate, the body count in "Eli" may keep even curious devout audiences away.
On the other hand, star-and-producer Washington's cred in the Christian community ( Washington's the son of a Pentecostal pastor and outspoken about his faith -- coming in at # 2 in Beliefnet's list of the most powerful Christians in Hollywood) coupled with the story's explicit spirituality is likely to make R-shy viewers of faith reconsider.
After all," The Passion of Christ"(made by the most powerful Christian in Hollywood, Mel Gibson) was rated "R" too.
My take on this movie: I will definitely see the movie "Eli" and make up my own mind... My PIC and I just love us some Denzel.
Kicking back and having fun.

Will Audiences Embrace Denzel's 'Book of Eli'?

Sugar Free Sunshine Orange cake

Sugar free Sunshine Orange Cake
Yield: Makes 12 servings
A carb-controlled dessert the whole family can enjoy:

Ingredients:
1/3 cup margarine
1/4 cup brown sugar replacement (Sugar Twin Brown)
1 teaspoon sugar replacement (Splenda or Sugar Twin)
1 large egg
1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup raisins, or finely chopped fresh apple
1 teaspoon grated orange zest (peel)
2/3 cup unsweetened orange juice

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly coat an 8x8x2-inch baking pan with cooking spray.
In a mixing bowl, combine margarine, sweeteners and egg. Beat on medium speed 2-3 minutes; scraping sides of bowl as necessary.
In medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon. Stir in raisins or apples and orange zest. Add to first mixture, alternating with the orange juice, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake 18-20 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cake in pan on wire rack.

Nutritional Information (Per Serving):
Calories:
120
Protein:
2 g
Sodium:
150 mg
Cholesterol:
25 mg
Fat:
6 g
Carbohydrates:
15 g
Exchanges:
1 Bread/Starch, 1 Fat

Reduced Sugar FROSTING / Butter Cream {Varieties}"Modified "Byheck's Grandma Pash" Recipe & numerous other sources"
*************************************
1/4 cup SPLENDA Sugar Blend
3 cups SPLENDA Sugar Substitute
2/3 cup cornstarch
4 tablespoons skim milk
1/2 cup margarine
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
*************************************
1. MIX well: SPLENDA Sugar Substitute, SPLENDA Sugar Blend, & Cornstarch [This will make SPLENDA Confectionary Blend]
2. In a large bowl CREAM: 1/3 of SPLEND & Margarine.
3. BLEND in Vanilla, 2 tablespoons of Skim Milk, & remaining SPLENDA
4. ADD as much of remaining Milk as necessary to obtain spreadable consistency. BEAT well
5. Spread quickly {Frosting will get drier & sticky)
*************************************
OPTIONS: Food Coloring: Add a few drops of your favorite coloring. Flavoring:
ALMOND: SUBSTITUE Almond Extract for Vanilla. 2 Drops of Yellow Coloring[May ADD chopped Almond pieces, after frosting cake]

CHOCOLATE: ADD: 2 squares of [melted] semi-sweet Chocolate with Vanilla [May ADD Chocolate Curls, after frosting cake]

COCONUT: ADD: 1/4 teaspoon Lemon Extract & 1/4 teaspoon Almond Extract, [May ADD 1/4 cup chopped Coconut Flakes, after frosting cake.]

LEMON: ADD 1/2 teaspoon of Lemon Peel / SUBSTITUTE Lemon Juice for Milk. 2 Drops of Yellow Coloring [May ADD Lemon Rind pieces, after frosting cake]

ORANGE: ADD 2 teaspoons of Orange Peel / SUBSTITUTE Orange Juice for Milk. 1 Drop of each Red and Yellow Coloring [May ADD diced Orange pieces, after frosting cake]

STRAWBERRY: SUBSTITUTE 1 teaspoon Strawberry flavoring for Vanilla. 2 Drops of Red Coloring [May ADD diced Strawberry pieces, after frosting cake]
*************************************
Yield: 2 layer cake or 12 cupcakes

Haiti Quake Moments After

This was filmed a few moments after the earthquake. Notice the dust in the air still hasn't settled.

US Begins Airdrops of Supplies...Haiti

Us army delivering supplies

Police confronting a gang of looters

Begging for food and water

Makeshift survivor camps offer no comfort and no water

The US had previously said airdrops might trigger riots.Now, however, the US military has begun airdropping food and water supplies into earthquake-hit Haiti. Some 14,000 ready-to-eat meals and 15,000 litres of water were dropped north-east of the capital Port-au-Prince, the US said. It had earlier said airdrops were too risky but congestion at the airport has hampered aid distribution. The US is now considering airdrops across Haiti.

More than 2,000 US marines are set to join 1,000 US troops in Haiti. They are equipped with heavy lifting and earth-moving equipment, a dozen helicopters and medical support facilities.
Their arrival comes amid widespread violence and looting. However, UN humanitarian chief John Holmes played down worries over security, saying that despite incidents of violence, the overall situation was calm. And the leading US general in Haiti, Lt Gen Ken Keen, said there was currently less violence in the capital Port-au-Prince - already a troubled city - than there had been before the earthquake.
Earlier, Gen Keen said up to 200,000 people have died in the disaster, which he said was of "epic proportions". Aid workers are starting to expand their efforts to earthquake-affected areas outside the capital, including Leogane, Gressier, Petit-Goave and the coastal town of Jacmel. '

The US Air Force C-17 dropped the relief supplies on Monday into a secured area five miles north-east of Port-au-Prince. The aircraft had flown out of Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina. Last week, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said airdrops had been ruled out because they might do more harm than good. Mr Gates warned that they could trigger riots if there was no proper structure on the ground to distribute supplies.

Delivering aid to the centre of Port-au-Prince is getting much more difficult, as anger fuelled by hunger reaches boiling point, and military escorts are needed for trucks carrying supplies.
Former US President Bill Clinton, who is a UN Special Envoy for Haiti, said co-operation between American and UN troops was improving the earthquake relief effort.
"The UN provides security and the Americans provide the logistics and

distribution. They know how to do it. So we are getting there," Mr Clinton said during a visit to Port-au-Prince on Monday.
The provision of clean water is still a major concern. Brian Feagans, of the aid group CARE, said, "People can survive a few days without food but we must try to avoid major outbreaks of waterborne disease."
Several agencies complained at the weekend about not being able to get aid through the heavily congested airport, which is being run by the US military.
But Mr Holmes said that initial issues were being resolved, with the introduction of the UN World Food Programme - which is currently feeding 100,000 Haitians - of a system to prioritize humanitarian flights. As hopes of finding survivors fade, Mr Holmes told reporters that there were now 43 search and rescue teams on the ground, with 1,700 people involved.
"More than 70 people have been pulled from the wreckage in the last few days," he said.
At least 70,000 people who died in the earthquake have already been buried.
Meanwhile, Haitian President Rene Preval has asked donors also to focus on Haiti's long-term needs.

Matt Frei, BBC News, Port-au-Prince
Looting is now the only industry here and this is the new rush hour of Port-au-Prince.
Anything will do as a weapon: a hacksaw, a stick, and of course all the machetes and guns that you cannot see.
Patience is running out and all the ingredients for unrest now exist: a whole city of destitute hoping for help, and at the same time you have a substantial criminal element and a history of violence. None of this bodes well for Haiti.
If the anarchy spreads, the US troops may soon find themselves patrolling the streets in what will look like a full-scale military operation.