Country music legend Eddy Arnold dies at 89

Legendary country music Hall of Fame member Eddy Arnold (pictured) is dead just short of his 90th Birthday.

Eddy Arnold, whose mellow baritone on songs like “Make the World Go Away” made him one of the most successful country singers in history, died Thursday morning, days short of his 90th birthday.

Arnold died at a care facility near Nashville.

His wife of 66 years, Sally, had died in March, and in the same month, Arnold fell outside his home, injuring his hip.

Folksy yet sophisticated, he became a pioneer of “The Nashville Sound,” also called “countrypolitan,” a mixture of country and pop styles.

“I sing a little country, I sing a little pop and I sing a little folk, and it all goes together,” he said in 1970.

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American Idol ratings down but show still strong

An article on ABC News online wonders if American Idol has lost it’s mojo.

Ratings for the TV juggernaut are down, but critics say the show is still strong.

The ABC article says:

It's huge. It's gigantic. It's an unmatched ratings machine that other networks would kill for. So why won't the rumors subside? Could "American Idol" really be in trouble?

Katie Lachter started watching "American Idol" during her last year of law school, which was the mercurial Fox talent show's first season. Now in its seventh incarnation, the show's parade of crooning, wannabe pop stars is still appointment TV.

"It's a really fun and an upbeat thing to watch," said Lachter, now a lawyer in New York. Around her law firm, she said, "it's definitely water cooler talk."

Anne Charity hosts a weekly "Idol" party in her Williamsburg, Va., home.

"We're a regular group of six," said Charity, a linguistics professor. "We like [Idol contestant] David Cook, because he's got that rock thing going on."

Lachter, 29, and Charity, 32, are in the heart of a demographic that television executives and advertisers love to court. But these days, that sought-after group of Idol watchers is shrinking:

It's been widely reported that ratings for the Fox Network show are down this season, with a steeper decline among viewers age 18 to 49.

The ratings drop has both "Idol" fans and foes to ask the same question: Is the seven-year ratings juggernaut on its way out?

I watched most of one American Idol show and never went back. I had more interesting things to do such as rearrange my sock drawer and dust the pantry shelves.

I do, however, know better than to put auctions on eBay that close while American Idol is on TV.

It’s a mindless show but my guess is that Fox will keep it going for a few more years.

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Street money

Is your city bogged by smog?

Pittsburgh edges out Los Angeles as the most polluted U.S. city according to the American Lung Association’s annual report on air pollution.

Los Angeles smog is shown bwlow:



Top 10 most polluted US cities (By short-term particle pollution):

1) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
2) Los Angeles, California
3) Fresno/Madera, California
4) Bakersfield, California
5) Birmingham, Alabama
6) Logan, Utah
7) Salt Lake City, Utah
8) Sacramento, California
9) Detroit, Michigan
10) Baltimore, Maryland / Washington, D.C.

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Unique car for sale advertisement

The following is reported to be an actual advertisement found in an Irish newspaper:

Automobile for Sale

1985 Blue Volkswagen.
Only driven 50 miles.
Only first gear and reverse ever used.
Never driven hard.
Original tires.
Original brakes.
Original fuel and oil.
Only 1 driver.
Owner wishing to sell due to employment lay-off.

Click here for a picture of the car.

Empty dream homes flood Las Vegas market

The aging process quickly hits homes in Las Vegas.

There are 600 million-dollar properties built since 2004 on the market -- and many of them are considered outdated.

They blow up aging casinos in this town. Now, some are wondering what to do about yesterday's desert dream homes.



Take the foreclosed million-dollar house realty agent Michael Antos recently showed.

To the untrained eye, the four-bedroom, five-bath retreat may appear top-drawer, shimmering with granite and marble throughout, and with posh touches like a pool with a sandy beach entry.

But Antos pointed out that the house was showing its age. After all, it was built in 2000. In Vegas, that makes it as dated as a coin-operated slot machine.

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Baseball star Canseco loses mansion to foreclosure

Former baseball star Jose Canseco (pictured) loses his home in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino to foreclosure.

Canseco owed more than $2.5 million on the 7,300 square-foot mansion.

Until the 43-year-old Canseco retired in 2001, he was one of the most flamboyant U.S. baseball players.

Canseco was one of the first Major League Baseball players to admit using steroids in his tell-all 2005 book "Juiced."

His personal life has also been controversial with two divorces and several run-ins with the law for violence.

Canseco said a good portion of the money he earned in his heyday went to pay for his divorces. "I had a couple of divorces that cost me $7 or $8 million," he said.

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What will you do with your stimulus check?

Fox rethinking American Idol as ratings sag

Although American Idol is now in its sixth year and is by far the most-watched series on TV, ratings are slipping.

Last Wednesday's results show, which saw Irish singer Carly Smithson booted, was the lowest-rated episode in five years, according to trade reports.

"We're not in denial," Fox exec Preston Beckman told Broadcasting & Cable, the TV business weekly. "It's still the biggest show on TV, but that doesn't mean there are things we can't do.

One cable news analyst pointed out after the last week's Pennsylvania primaries, the Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama race has gotten so exciting, "it's even beating 'American Idol.' "

That doesn’t say much for ‘Idol.’

In spite of decreased ratings, the Fox mega-hit, minus a little of it’s shine, will probably continue to ‘dumb down’ America for a few more years.

Link

The worst of times at the New York Times

The ‘Gray Lady’ is up to her elbows in financial trouble.

The New York Times was nicknamed the "Gray Lady" for its staid appearance and style. In her heyday the “Lady” was regarded as a ‘newspaper of record’ because it was often relied upon as the ‘official and authoritative reference for modern events.’

In recent years, however, the Times has become editorially slanted to the liberal political left to the extent the paper has become the voice of the radical left-wing of the Democratic Party and as a result has lost much of its prestige.

Is the “Lady” now paying the price for her partisan editorial ways?

A report at the link below says:

New York Times' news room is bracing for a bloodbath in the next 10 days.

The word from inside is that approximately 50 unionized journalists have accepted the buyout proposal, and only another 20 non-union editorial employees have gotten on board.

That means the ax could fall on as many as 30 editorial people in the company's first-ever mass firing of journalists in its 156-year history.

It seems to be the worst of times for the New York Times.

Because of her extreme partisan editorial stance, she will get little sympathy from Republicans and moderate Democrats.

Link

Actor Blake loses court appeal but $30M judgement reduced

Actor Robert Blake (pictured) was acquitted of his wife Bonny Lee Bakley’s 2001 murder in a criminal trial.

Blake was later found guilty of wrongful death in a civil court and was ordered to pay $30 million to the estate of Bonny Lee Bakley.

Mr. Blake had challenged the jury's award in the subsequent civil wrongful death lawsuit, claiming the trial court made procedural errors and jurors committed misconduct.

The Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles found no jury misconduct and no reversible error by the trial court, but concluded that the $30 million in noneconomic damages awarded by the jury to Bakley's estate was excessive.

The court cut the judgement in half to $15 million.

The administrator of Bakley's estate may not consent to the reduction even though Blake filed for bankruptcy before the civil trial began.

Without consent by the Bakley estate to the reduction of the award to $15 million, the case will go back for a new trial on damages.

Blake is best known for his television role as a detective in "Baretta" and a convicted killer in the true crime film "In Cold Blood,"

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Origin of baseball term “can of corn”

Baseball fans know that a ‘pop fly’ or lazy fly ball, that is an easy catch, is called a “can of corn.”

The first time I heard the term was while listening to an old radio broadcast replay of a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball game. The play-by-play announcer Vin Scully (pictured) said, “on a 3-2 curve ball Pee Wee Reese hit a pop fly into short right field - it’s a can of corn.”

So what does a lazy fly at the ballpark have to do with a can of corn?

The phrase is said to have originated in the nineteenth-century and relates to an old-time grocer’s method of getting canned goods down from a high shelf. Using a stick with a hook on the end, a grocer could tip a can so that it would fall for an easy catch in his apron.

That explains the ‘easy catch’ but where does corn come into the equation?

In the very early days of baseball, the outfield was called the “corn field.” Especially in early amateur baseball the outfield may have been a farm field.

Hospital has one wing and thousands of legs

A tiny hospital in Baralaba, Australia is fighting a poisonous spider infestation.

The Baralaba Multi Purpose Health Service will close for 24 hours starting Thursday morning so officials can fumigate the building to get rid of redback spiders (see photo) that have been found in large numbers in the main part of the hospital.

Redback spiders, common throughout most of the country, have a painful bite and a toxic venom, although an anti-venom is available.

The redback spider looks much like the black widow spider.

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Eat well to have a boy. Diet to have a girl

Mom's diet seen as factor in whether her baby will be a boy or girl.

Snips and snails and puppydog tails ... and cereal and bananas?

That could be what little boys are made of, according to surprising new research suggesting that what a woman eats before pregnancy influences the gender of her baby.

It is not proof, but it fits with evidence from test tube fertilization that male embryos thrive best with longer exposure to nutrient-rich lab cultures, said Dr. Tarun Jain. He is a fertility specialist at University of Illinois at Chicago who wasn't involved in the study.

It just might be that it takes more nutrients to build boys than girls, he said.

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Ferrari FXX pedal powered go cart

The Ferrari FXX is out of reach for almost everyone unless you happen to have an extra $1,720,000.00 laying around. And that’s not counting tax.

Well, here is the next best thing. It’s a cool FXX pedal powered go-cart by Berg Toys.

This is a very serious toy that even has an on-board chip to measure lap times and top speeds.

Link here and here.

Prius does more environmental damage than Hummer

There was an eye-opening article last year at the link below exposing the ‘not so green’ hybrid car underworld. In doing so, it compares the Toyota Prius to the Hummer.

The intent of the article is not to promote the Hummer but to use the fuel hungry behemoth as a comparison.

Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius.

The Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.

The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius’ battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist’s nightmare.

Wait, I haven’t even got to the best part yet.

When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes almost 50 percent more energy than a Hummer - the Prius’s arch nemesis.

The Prius costs an average of $3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000 miles - the expected lifespan of the Hybrid.

The Hummer, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles. That means the Hummer will last three times longer than a Prius and use less combined energy doing it.

So, if you are really an environmentalist - ditch the Prius. Instead, buy one of the most economical cars available - a Toyota Scion xB. The Scion only costs a paltry $0.48 per mile to put on the road. If you are still obsessed over gas mileage - buy a Chevy Aveo and fix that lead foot.

One last fun fact for you: it takes five years to offset the premium price of a Prius. Meaning, you have to wait 60 months to save any money over a non-hybrid car because of lower gas expenses.

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Drivers can give rude messages electronically

Now you can be nice (or rude) to other drivers the new hi-tech way.

Put this Drive-E-Mocion in your car rear window and communicate with other drivers.

Control this electronic device as you drive. It’s battery operated so there are no wires.

Single or multiple message options are available including smile faces, frown faces, polite words and some words that could get you in trouble.

Link

No more monster busses on Cuba streets

A change for the good under the guidance of Fidel Castro’s brother Raul.

The unwieldy busses (pictured) have been replaced by thousands of new city busses from China. One wonders how long before thousands of Chinese troops will arrive.

First comes the stink of diesel, then a metallic roar, and finally a tower of black smoke that tells you the "camello" (the camel) has reached your stop.

These hulking 18-wheeled beasts, iron mutants made of two Soviet-era buses welded together on a flatbed and pulled by a separate cab, have long been Havana's public transport nightmare — bumpy, hot and jammed with up to 400 passengers at a time.


Camellos have no shock absorbers, and every pothole sends a violent jolt through one's feet. At each stop more passengers crowd in — people carrying infants, backpacks, gardening tools and beer bottles stuffed with black market honey.

With no air conditioning, the tropical heat quickly becomes unbearable, and the stench sets in — fresh sweat and body odor, mixed with exhaust and rotting food. Those seated stick their heads out of the windows.

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Coat of many patterns

Valeta’s new jacket. When a quilter decides to make use of scraps, they sometimes make a coat of many colors … in this case, a coat of many patterns.

Obama’s thoughts on Pennsylvania primary