truesee's Blog

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Tom Phillips

9th March, 2010

Man marries pillow

Metro UK

True love can take many forms. In this case, it has taken the form of a Korean man falling in love with, and eventually marrying, a large pillow with a picture of a woman on it.

Lee Jin-gyu kisses his new bride, a pillow with a picture of anime character Fate Testarossa on it

Lee Jin-gyu fell for his 'dakimakura' - a kind of large, huggable pillow from Japan, often with a picture of a popular anime character printed on the side.

In Lee's case, his beloved pillow has an image of Fate Testarossa, from the 'magical girl' anime series Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha.  

Now the 28-year-old otaku (a Japanese term that roughly translates to somewhere between 'obsessive' and 'nerd') has wed the pillow in a special ceremony, after fitting it out with a wedding dress for the service in front of a local priest. Their nuptials were eagerly chronicled by the local media.
 
'He is completely obsessed with this pillow and takes it everywhere,' said one friend.
 
'They go out to the park or the funfair where it will go on all the rides with him. Then when he goes out to eat he takes it with him and it gets its own seat and its own meal,' they added.

The pillow marriage is not the first similarly-themed unusual marriage in recent times - it comes after a Japanese otaku married his virtual girlfriend Nene Anegasaki, a character who only exists in the Nintendo DS game Love Plus, last November.

World's Shortest Man Dead: He Pingping Dies At 21

First Posted: 03-15-10 03:16 PM   |   Updated: 03-15-10 04:16 PM

He Pingping, the world's shortest man, has died at the age of 21, AFP reports. Pingping was 2 feet, 5 inches tall. His death was announced by the a spokesman for the Guinness World records.

Pingping was filming a TV program called "The Record Show" in Italy when he developed chest problems, according to reports.

Born in China with a form of primordial dwarfism, Pingping was recognized as the world's shortest man in 2008.

"For such a small man, he made a huge impact around the world," Guinness World Records editor-in-chief Craig Glenday said, according to the BBC.

LINK TO VIDEOS

http://www.bing.com/videos/?FORM=MFEVID&publ=2BE19A43-506C-4905-B386-894988BC18EB&crea=STND_MFEVID_core_HuffPo_CustomVidLink_1x1&q=World's+shortest+man+&docid=1380500177360#

At end of life, new ways to offer a personal touch

More funeral homes create custom send-offs

 

Terry Probst, funeral director at Devanny Condron funeral home in Pittsfield, stands in the sales area of the funeral home on Thursday, March 11, 2010. Probst is trying some unconventional marketing techniques to generate business for the funeral home. (Matthew Cavanaugh for The Boston Globe)

 

Brian MacQuarrie

Globe Staff

March 15, 2010

 

PITTSFIELD — Above a flower-framed urn holding the ashes of Paul Winters, a super-sized tapestry of rock legend Frank Zappa greeted mourners at the Devanny-Condron Funeral Home. A gauzy print of John Lennon also faced the gathering, as did iconic pictures of Marilyn Monroe and Jimi Hendrix.

The friends of the deceased, eyes trained on the urn, sat quietly in neat rows of folding chairs as the driving chords of “Help!’’ and other Beatles songs provided background music. A video tribute to Winters, smiling and happy in life, played on a large screen.

Welcome to a growing trend in the long-sedate world of funeral directors, where hushed tones, heavy drapes, and calculated ritual are giving way to a customized send-off that is more party than predictable.

“My rule is this: I’ll do anything as long as it’s legal,’’ said Terry Probst, who manages the Devanny-Condron home with the passion of a promoter. Since he arrived in Pittsfield in September after a stint with the Navy, Probst has sponsored a chili cook-off, delivered birthday cakes to senior centers, offered free limousine rides to couples married 50 years or more, and scheduled a funeral home appearance by the Easter Bunny for an all-comers photo op.

“I want to set us apart from everyone around us,’’ Probst said.

Probst’s approach seems to be catching. Emilee High, spokeswoman for the National Funeral Directors Association, said personalized services are becoming increasingly popular as a new generation passes on.

“Baby boomers have had an impact on every aspect of society — and funeral service is no exception,’’ High said. “Families are seeking experiences that are different from those they perceive as part of a traditional funeral or memorial service.’’

A 2007 national survey commissioned by the association found that 23 percent of respondents wanted a “very personalized funeral.’’ And that figure, High said, appears to be rising at a time when the US death rate is static and per-funeral profits have plummeted since the 1980s.

Marc Gaudreau, an owner of the Beers & Story funeral homes in central Massachusetts, said the business must evolve. His services take shape during what he calls a “life interview’’ with the family of the deceased that usually lasts at least three hours.

The result can be a video of family photographs, watched in a separate room from the remains of the deceased. Other options are graveside music, burial with biodegradable urns, and funeral home displays of the favorite furniture of the deceased.

“I like to say there’s really no tradition anymore,’’ Gaudreau said. “You’ve always got to think about how you can get better.’’

Ellen McBrayer, a third-generation funeral director at the Jones-Wynn Funeral Home outside Atlanta, has seen the trend advance and evolve. In the 1950s, she said, all funerals seemed to be the same. But since the introduction of memorial DVDs at the beginning of this decade, she said, the move toward personal remembrances has taken hold and accelerated.

Her funeral home has distributed guitar picks to friends and family of a musician and provided butterscotch ice cream at the grave of a man who craved the sweet.

For the family of Paul Winters, who died at age 58, the upbeat service in Pittsfield hit all the right notes.

“He wasn’t a cookie-cutter kind of person, and he didn’t want to have a cookie-cutter kind of funeral,’’ Carri Winters said of her father.

Probst, a former Navy mortician, had never been to Massachusetts before he noticed an ad last year to manage the corporate-owned business. Now, he lives with his wife and three children in the funeral home that he wants to make synonymous with community service.

Veterans ride in his limousines in Memorial Day and Fourth of July parades; he works with the city’s veterans agent to welcome returning troops; and senior center birthday cakes are not offered solely to attract future customers, Probst said.

“I’ve been brought up that you should be giving back to the community,’’ said Probst, a native of Oregon. “With the Easter Bunny, for example, I don’t think we’ll have many seniors sitting on his lap.’’

Probst has also redecorated the funeral home, which opened for business in 1915, to lighten the ambience. Ponderous drapes have been replaced by shear material, dated wallpaper has given way to light-tan paint, and natural light is the preference.

Probst also has ordered a 75-gallon fish tank, which he believes will help mourners relax.

Although society is constantly changing, Probst said, “what is not changing is people’s fear of funeral homes and their fear of dying. Why can’t we lower that fear and lower that anxiety?’’

To Debbie Schilling, that approach helped make the December funeral for her 98-year-old uncle memorable. Bill Mahon, a Pittsfield native and lifelong baseball fan who attended the 1918 World Series in Boston, was buried in a casket adorned with the Red Sox logo. A 2004 World Series cap was on his head, and a bottle of his favorite Samuel Adams beer lay beside him.

“You couldn’t have celebrated his life any better, because that’s who my Uncle Bill was,’’ Schilling said. “I couldn’t have asked for a service or a send-off to be as magical or wonderful as that was.’’

Probst said he is conscious of what is appropriate and what is disrespectful.

So although he is considering sponsoring a murder-mystery dinner, Probst said, he will hold the event at another location.

“You’ll never see me do a haunted house or a circus here,’’ he said.

The end of the road for Barack Obama?

Barack Obama seems unable to face up to America's problems, writes Simon Heffer in New York.

Simon Heffer
Published: 8:16AM GMT 08 Mar 2010

The once mighty Detroit seems on the verge of being abandoned Photo: Jeffrey Sauger

It is a universal political truth that administrations do not begin to fragment when things are going well:  it only happens when they go badly, and those who think they know better begin to attack those who manifestly do not. 

The descent of Barack Obama's regime, characterised now by factionalism in the Democratic Party and talk of his being set to emulate Jimmy Carter as a one-term president, has been swift and precipitate. 

It was just 16 months ago that weeping men and women celebrated his victory over John McCain in the American presidential election.  If they weep now, a year and six weeks into his rule, it is for different reasons.

Despite the efforts of some sections of opinion to talk the place up, America is mired in unhappiness, all the worse for the height from which Obamania has fallen. 

The economy remains troublesome.  There is growth – a good last quarter suggested an annual rate of as high as six per cent, but that figure is probably not reliable – and the latest unemployment figures, last Friday, showed a levelling off.  Yet 15 million Americans, or 9.7 per cent of the workforce, have no job.  Many millions more are reduced to working part-time. Whole areas of the country, notably in the north and on the eastern seaboard, are industrial wastelands. 

The once mighty motor city of Detroit appears slowly to be being abandoned, becoming a Jurassic Park of the mid-20th century; unemployment among black people in Mr Obama's own city of Chicago is estimated at between 20 and 25 per cent.

One senior black politician – a Democrat and a supporter of the President – told me of the wrath in his community that a black president appeared to be unable to solve the economic problem among his own people. Cities in the east such as Newark and Baltimore now have drug-dealing as their principal commercial activity: The Wire is only just fictional.

Last Thursday the House of Representatives passed a jobs Bill, costing $15 billion, which would give tax breaks to firms hiring new staff and, through state sponsorship of construction projects, create thousands of jobs too.  The Senate is trying to approve a Bill that would provide a further $150 billion of tax incentives to employers.  Yet there is a sense of desperation in the Administration, a sense that nothing can be as efficacious at the moment as a sticking plaster.

Edward B Montgomery, deputy labour secretary in the Clinton administration, now spends his time on day trips to decaying towns that used to have a car industry, not so much advising them on how to do something else as facilitating those communities' access to federal funds.  For a land without a welfare state, America starts to do an effective impersonation of a country with one.  This massive state spending gives rise to accusations by Republicans, and people too angry even to be Republicans, that America is now controlled by "Leftists" and being turned into a socialist state.

"Obama's big problem," a senior Democrat told me, "is that four times as many people watch Fox News as watch CNN."  The Fox network is a remarkable cultural phenomenon which almost shocks those of us from a country where a technical rule of impartiality is applied in the broadcast media.  With little rest, it pours out rage 24 hours a day:  its message is of the construction of the socialist state, the hijacking of America by "progressives"  who now dominate institutions, the indoctrination of children, the undermining of religion and the expropriation of public money for these nefarious projects.  The public loves it, and it is manifestly stirring up political activism against Mr Obama, and also against those in the Republican Party who are not deemed conservatives. However, it is arguable whether the now-reorganising Right is half as effective in its assault on the President as some of Mr Obama's own party are.

Mr Obama benefited in his campaign from an idiotic level of idolatry, in which most of the media participated with an astonishing suspension of cynicism. The sound of the squealing of brakes is now audible all over the American press; but the attack is being directed not at the leader himself, but at those around him.

There was much unconditional love a year or so ago of Rahm Emanuel, Mr Obama's Chief of Staff; oleaginous profiles of this Chicago political hack, a veteran of that unlovely team that polluted the Clinton White House, appeared in otherwise respectable journals, praising the combination of his religious devotion, his family-man image, his ruthless operating technique and his command of the vocabulary of profanity.  Now, supporters of the President are blaming Mr Emanuel for the failure of the Obama project, not least for his inability to construct a deal on health care.

This went down badly with friends of Mr Emanuel, notably with Mr Emanuel himself.  His partisans, apparently taking dictation from him, have filled newspaper columns and blogs with uplifting accounts of the Wonder of Rahm: as one of them put it, "Emanuel is the only person preventing Obama from becoming Jimmy Carter". 

They attack other Obama "sycophants", such as David Axelrod, his campaign guru, and Valerie Jarret, a long-time friend of Mrs Obama and a fixer from the office of Mayor Daley of Chicago who now manages – or tries to manage – the President's image.  These "sycophants" have, they argue, tried to keep the President above politics, letting Congress run away with the agenda, and gainsaying Mr Emanuel's advice to Mr Obama to get tough with his internal opponents.  This naïve act of manipulation has brought its own counter-counterattack, with an anti-Emanuel pundit drawing a comparison with our own Prime Minister and ridiculing the idea that Mr Obama should start bullying people too.

The root of the problem seems to be the management of expectations. The magnificent campaign created the notion that Mr Obama could walk on water. Oddly enough, he can't.  That was more Mr Axelrod's fault than Mr Emanuel's. And, to be fair to Mr Emanuel, any advice he has been giving the President to impose his will on Congress is probably well founded. 

The $783 billion stimulus package of a year ago was used to further the re-election prospects of many congressmen, not to do good for the country. America's politics remain corrupt, populated by nonentities whose main concern once elected is to stay elected; it seems to be the same the whole world over.  Even this self-interested use of the stimulus package appears to have failed, however.

Every day, it seems, another Democrat congressman announces that he will not be fighting the mid-term elections scheduled for November 2.  The health care Bill, apparently so humane in intent, is being "scrubbed" (to use the terminology of one Republican) by its opponents, to the joy of millions of middle Americans who see it as a means to waste more public money and entrench socialism. For the moment, this is a country vibrant with anger.

A thrashing of the Democrats in the mid-terms would not necessarily be the beginning of the end for Mr Obama:  Bill Clinton was re-elected two years after the Republicans swept the House and the Senate in November 1994. But Mr Clinton was an operator in a way Mr Obama patently is not.  His lack of experience, his dependence on rhetoric rather than action, his disconnection from the lives of many millions of Americans all handicap him heavily. 

It is not about whose advice he is taking: it is about him grasping what is wrong with America, and finding the will to put it right.  That wasted first year, however, is another boulder hanging from his neck: what is wrong needs time to put right.  The country's multi-trillion dollar debt is barely being addressed; and a country engaged in costly foreign wars has a President who seems obsessed with anything but foreign policy – as a disregarded Britain is beginning to realise.

There are lessons from the stumbling of Mr Obama for our own country as we approach a general election. Vacuous promises of change are hostages to fortune if they cannot be delivered upon to improve the living conditions of a people.

The slickness of campaigning that comes from a combination of heavy funding and public relations expertise does not inevitably translate into an ability to govern.  There is no point a nation's having the audacity of hope unless it also has the sophistication and the will to turn it into action. As things stand, Barack Obama and America under his leadership do not.

Boy, 6, has eye glued shut after nurse bungles treatment to cut head

Andy Dolan
Last updated at 3:48 PM on 15th March 2010

A six-year-old boy was left blind in one eye for almost a week after a surgical glue applied by a nurse to close a head wound dripped into his eye.

Lewis Farrell screamed in agony as the glue closed his eye shut during treatment at a hospital casualty unit for a cut forehead sustained in a playground fall.  

Today his mother, Becky Lewis, told how she fears the child may suffer permanent damage to his sight after the hospital blunder. 

Lewis Farrell was left in agony after surgical glue applied to a head wound trickled into his eye, leaving him unable to see out of it for almost a week

She accused staff at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham of being more interested in covering up for what they had done than apologising for the error.

Mrs Lewis said: 'The nurse asked Lewis to sit upright before squirting glue on to his head. She made no effort to stop the glue dripping down.

'Then as she turned around, it dripped into his eye. They should have realised something like this could have happened.

Since the incident, Lewis has woken up most nights suffering from nightmares.

'He is only six and it was terrifying for him and for me to see him like that.

'He was crying and shouting, "Mummy, I can't open my eyes" - he was hysterical.

'The nursing sister kept saying, "I've never seen this before in my life", but no one apologised for what they had done to Lewis.

'The staff were trying to make excuses and cover up their error for each other and that made me so angry.'

Medics spent almost six hours trying to drip fluid into the eye to ease it open before eventually discharging Lewis home to his mother and father, Martin Farrell, a 26-year-old car parts engineer, with the patch and advice to keep bathing his right eye.

He has had to wear an eye patch since the incident last Tuesday and has been unable to return to school because the eye is still sore, with 'clumps' of glue still in and around it. 

Doctors called the glue's manufacturer who assured them that the product was water-based and posed no risk of permanent eyesight damage. 

But the couple, from Northfield, Birmingham, who have three other children, are planning to get a second medical opinion.

Mrs Lewis, a housewife, added: 'My concern is that if they say this hasn't happened before, how can they be sure about that?

'I will be getting a second opinion. There should be a standard practice in place to ensure that glue doesn't trickle into someone's eye.

'Lewis has been left mentally traumatised by the ordeal - he hasn't slept properly because he is suffering nightmares about what happened and not being able to see.'

Hospitals are increasingly using medical adhesives to close wounds instead of butterfly strips or stitches to avoid the uncomfortable and painful process of sewing and later removing stitches, particularly when children are involved.

The glue is chemically similar to that used in factories but has been sterilised and modified for medical use.

Gareth Duggan, a spokesman for University Hospitals Birmingham Foundation Trust, which runs Selly Oak Hospital, said new procedures had been put in place to prevent it happening again.

He said:  'Due to issues of patient confidentiality, we cannot comment on this case.

'But the Trust has reviewed its procedure and upon advice from consultant staff, an eye patch will be applied prior to application of tissue glue in any future closure of this nature.

'The adhesive used poses no risk to health or vision and loses its adhesive power over a period of one or four days, after which the eye opens normally.'

LINK TO PHOTOS OF BOY

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1258065/Boy-6-eye-glued-shut-nurse-bungles-treatment-cut-head.html#ixzz0iHR1T4CM

Edwards mistress: Still in love, living 'truth'

http://video.ap.org/?f=None&pid=MC_LaSP17F7gOe3oIzawkCQRlZYMbkDx

8 a.m. March 15, 2010

Party store customer swipes masked man's gun, kills him

The robber and two other men were robbing the Super Y party store at the corner of Middlebelt and Ecorse roads when the customer walked in with a woman at 9:30 p.m., Romulus Police Sgt. Corey Sadler said today.

"The male customer and the gunman began fighting each other for control of the weapon," Sadler said. "Pretty crazy, but it worked out for him. He was able to get control of the gun, and was able to shoot two rounds, fatally wounding the gunman."

Two other robbers who were forcing a store employee to empty the safe at gunpoint escaped out a back door. Police are still searching for them and the driver of the getaway car, a black, four-door 2004 Pontiac Grand Prix with license plate CCR0052, Sadler said. They were last seen driving north on Middlebelt.

Jaxon Van Derbeken

Chronicle Staff Writer 

Monday, March 15, 2010

Suzuki, Lea / The Chronicle

Suspicions of stolen cocaine and shoddy work have led police to shut down the crime lab.

It took San Francisco police two months to launch a criminal probe into a drug lab technician suspected of stealing cocaine evidence, even though her sister had told the lab she feared the woman had taken home a vial full of the drug, The Chronicle has learned.

The delay may have doomed scores of narcotics prosecutions in San Francisco, because drugs were tested at the lab after suspicions arose about the technician and the Police Department's ability to ensure the integrity of seized evidence.

"It's like peeling an onion," said Public Defender Jeff Adachi, whose attorneys represent most of the drug defendants in San Francisco. "Every time you pull off a layer, there's more problems."

The lab technician, Deborah Madden, 60, has not been charged with a crime associated with any theft of evidence at the lab, where she worked for 29 years until she retired Dec. 8. But suspicions that she stole and used cocaine - and her accusations that others in the lab were "sloppy" in their work - prompted police to shut down the drug lab Tuesday.

By the end of the week, prosecutors had been forced to drop more than 90 drug cases, and police were trying to line up enough outside labs to test the drugs that officers seize in dozens of arrests every day.

Sister found cocaine

According to law enforcement officials with knowledge of the case, Madden's sister found cocaine in what appeared to be a lab vial at Madden's San Mateo home in December. Madden was away in an alcohol rehabilitation program at the time, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the criminal investigation is continuing.

The sister contacted the police lab with her concerns Dec. 16, the officials said. However, before police could examine the vial, the sister turned it over to Madden's rehabilitation counselor, who destroyed it, sources said.

The sister's account was detailed in a memo Dec. 17 by Madden's boss, Lois Woodworth, that was routed to the risk management section of the department, which deals with legal matters. The memo was not sent to the chief's office, for reasons that are unclear.

Woodworth started to check evidence that Madden had worked on and discovered that a previously sealed package of powdered cocaine appeared to have been reopened, officials said.

Later in December, Woodworth began an internal audit, reviewing 25 randomly selected evidence samples of cocaine. She discovered shortages of powdered cocaine in seven samples, including a 2-gram discrepancy in one.

Police probe delay

Woodworth reported her findings sometime in late December or early January to her supervisors at the lab. But it wasn't until Feb. 22 that the Police Department's special investigations division opened a criminal probe into Madden, the department said.

Chief George Gascón said he first learned about the lab problem that day. He said last week that he has ordered an internal investigation into how the matter was handled.

So far, he says, he does not know why there was a delay. "That's why there's an investigation," he said.

Police investigators met with prosecutors in District Attorney Kamala Harris' office Feb. 23, the day after the probe began, according to a timeline the Police Department issued last week. Prosecutors told the investigators, who were seeking charges against Madden, that there wasn't enough to build a case, said district attorney spokesman Brian Buckelew.

On Feb. 26, Madden gave a two-hour statement to police in which she accused fellow lab technicians of "sloppy work," saying they consistently lost or mishandled evidence, law enforcement officials say.

Consuming 'spillage'

She also admitted to consuming what she called "spillage" from cocaine seized in five samples of evidence, but did not specify which evidence packages the drug had come from, the sources say. That is a problem for prosecutors hoping to build a case, because they don't know which evidence samples to examine to prove that a crime happened.

Madden told the police investigators that she started using cocaine in October and took only residue that was left over on the wax paper that technicians use when weighing samples, officials said.

Then, on March 3, San Francisco police officers and San Mateo County sheriff's deputies searched Madden's San Mateo home. They allegedly found a gun and a small amount of cocaine.

They arrested Madden, who is not allowed to have a weapon because she is on probation from a 2008 misdemeanor conviction for domestic violence.

Neither Madden nor her attorney, Paul DeMeester, has commented on the suspicions about the lab thefts. DeMeester said only that results of tests Madden performed "should not be affected by any personal use."

Conviction controversy

The Police Department's handling of Madden's case has come under scrutiny in other areas.

Gascón admitted last week that police had failed to notify the district attorney about Madden's conviction, which prosecutors in turn would have been obliged to tell defense attorneys. A defendant's lawyer could use the information in court to call Madden's work into question.

Gascón called it a breakdown in communication; Adachi believes it was intentional.

The public defender said the most serious question in the lab scandal is whether the department failed to secure its evidence, maintaining a "chain of custody."

"If the chain of custody was in fact broken, it could jeopardize hundreds of cases," Adachi said. "Not only in cases where she allegedly tampered with evidence, but all of them."

LINK TO PHOTOS OF TECHNICIAN AND LAB

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2010/03/14/BAO91CECBI.DTL&object=%2Fc%2Fpictures%2F2010%2F03%2F14%2Fmn-sflab15_PH_0501328450.jpg

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/14/BAO91CECBI.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0iF35uJLa

March 14, 2010

Bigger people weigh on city budgets

Communities have to buy pricey stretchers

If the Madison Heights City Council adopts its proposed 2010-11 budget, the Fire Department will get two battery-powered stretchers at a cost of about $24,000.

Superior Ambulance Service -- which serves several metro Detroit cities, including Riverview, Detroit and Roseville -- is in the process of replacing all of its stretchers with motorized ones.

The Royal Oak Fire Department bought one of the stretchers about 18 months ago. And Southfield -- which was used as a model by Madison Heights when officials started considering the switch -- has used them for five years.

"There are so many obese people now, that it is not rare for us to go out and pick up a 300-pound person or a 400-pound person," Southfield Fire Chief Peter Healy said.

Officials say the stretchers, which typically can carry up to about 700 pounds, reduce knee, shoulder and back injuries. Cities such as Royal Oak and Madison Heights hope they also will reduce worker compensation costs.

"We put a lot of money into training these people, and we want to have them here full-term," Healy said.

He said that when the city started transporting patients in 2005, workers' comp cost Southfield about $75,000. The city, which also has implemented a morning stretching program for firefighters, saw that number drop to $58,000 by 2008.

Ken Sink, general manager of Superior Ambulance, said that runs for overweight patients account for only about 3% of all calls, but cause 30% of the injuries and workers' comp claims.

Madison Heights Fire Chief Kevin Scheid said firefighters have been injured from repeatedly lifting people.

The city also plans to spend $2,600 on two power chairs that help get patients down stairs.

Chris Way, director of marketing for EMS at Stryker -- the Kalamazoo-based manufacturer of medical devices that has sold many cities their equipment -- said two-thirds of the stretchers the company now sells are powered.

Way, who co-founded the company, said the trend is up. The motorized equipment, he said, reduces injuries and increases safety for patients.

"Anything we can do to reduce the stress on their bodies, I think will be beneficial," Scheid said. "You just hate to see the guys hurting themselves."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1257850/Super-sized-mother-determined-worlds-fattest-woman-years.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/14/robert-gibbs-health-care_n_498370.html

Principal signed Filipino teachers to buy, sell makeup

Liz Bowie

Baltimore Sun

March 14, 2010

The principal at the Institute of Business and Entrepreneurship High School recruited teachers to sell cosmetics. (Gene Sweeney Jr., Baltimore Sun / March 10, 2010)

White House Stands Ground On High Court Criticism

"Under the ruling of the Supreme Court, any lobbyist could go in to any legislator and say, 'If you don't vote our way on this bill, we're going to run a million-dollar campaign against you in your district.' And that is a threat to our democracy," Axelrod said. "It's going to further reduce the voice of the American people, and it's something we have to push back vigorously on."

Chief Justice John Roberts said this week that Obama's unusually open criticism was "very troubling" and questioned whether justices should attend the annual address.

"To the extent the State of the Union has degenerated into a political pep rally, I'm not sure why we're there," said Roberts, a nominee of Republican President George W. Bush who joined the court in 2005.

Roberts said anyone is free to criticize the court and that some have an obligation to do so because of their positions.

"So I have no problems with that," he said. "On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum. The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court, according the requirements of protocol, has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling."

Breaking from tradition, Obama used his January speech to criticize the court's recent decision allowing corporations and unions to freely spend money on political ads for or against specific candidates.

"With all due deference to the separation of powers, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign corporations -- to spend without limit in our elections," Obama said.

Justice Samuel Alito was the only justice to respond at the time, shaking his head and appearing to say, "not true," as Obama continued.

Gibbs defended Obama's remarks, as he has already.

"What's important is that, in the coming elections, the Supreme Court has basically ruled that anonymous political contributions can be given, and those contributions can be used to weigh in specifically for the election or defeat of a member of Congress or a senator," he said.

Axelrod spoke on ABC's "This Week," and Gibbs appeared to "Fox News Sunday."