NBey6's Blog

"Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties."

- Erich Fromm -

Mayor office: 5 known dead in Conn. explosion

By PAT EATON-ROBB and JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN, Associated Press Writers

Associated Press Writers 21 mins ago

MIDDLETOWN, Conn. – The mayor's office tells The Associated Press that five people are known dead in a power plant explosion in Connecticut.

A news release from the office of Middletown Mayor Sebastian Giuliano says at least 12 people are known injured from Sunday's explosion.

Deputy Fire Marshal Al Santostefano tells the AP that crews are still searching for survivors in the rubble.

An explosion blew apart the Kleen Energy Systems power plant as workers purged natural gas lines. The plant is under construction.

Midday & Evening

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392, 403, 514, 625, 736, 847, 958, 069, 170, 281

243, 354, 465, 576, 687, 798, 809, 910, 021, 132

105, 446, 733, 980, 000, 444, 555, 777

In Asheville, North Carolina and a $1M ticket was from Lincolnton, North Carolina. Wow, I know both winners must be ecstatic right about now, especially the $141M person. Congratulations and use your money wisely............"To much whom is given, much is required."

"Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes."

- Carl Jung -

Rainy TGIF 2-5-10 Rainy

284, 687, 997, 317, 432, 387, 997, 920, 855

152, 358, 864, 189, 188, 100, 733, 715, 599

051, 705, 825, 531, 3798, 0793, 1220, 1221

3344, 3729, 1937, 4434, 6622, 1276, 9225

Friday, February 5, 2010
Reporter: Fan heckled, spit at Jets' Ryan

ESPN.com news services

The obscene gesture for which Jets coach Rex Ryan was fined $50,000 came in reaction to a fan's heckling that included spitting, according to FoxSports.com's Jay Glazer.

Ryan, who this season led the Jets to the AFC Championship Game in his first year as an NFL head coach, "showed the greatest restraint," Glazer said Thursday on New York radio station WFAN.

Glazer said he saw the incident that occurred Saturday night at a mixed martial arts event in South Florida.

Ryan was caught in a widely circulated cell-phone photograph extending his middle finger, presumably at the heckling fan.

It wasn't clear why Glazer waited until late this week to reveal the details. The Jets issued the $50,000 fine Tuesday; the NFL on Wednesday announced Ryan would not be subject to any discipline from the league, which had investigated the incident.

"This was a guy who was going out of his way to incite a fight, to incite some sort of violence to get the head coach of the Jets to ruin his job and to really put Rex in a place he didn't need to be," Glazer said in the radio interview.

Glazer said he and Ryan were with 49ers linebacker Patrick Willis and Eagles defensive end Trent Cole.

"I mean it was unbelievable, and he just kept going on and on," Glazer said of the heckler. "Then he said, 'I hate you. I hope you die, you fat piece of crap,' and then spit at him."

Midday & Evening

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0127, 1127, 2127, 3127, 4127, 5127, 6127, 7127, 8127, 9127

"The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning, and does not stop until you get into the office."

- Robert Frost -

Drunk driving causes approximately one-third of all traffic fatalities in the United States.

- Provided by RandomHistory.com -

Midday & Evening

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"Whining is not only graceless, but can be dangerous. It can alert a brute that a victim is in the neighborhood."

 - Maya Angelou -

Transport chief: Stop driving recalled Toyotas

Transportation Secretary LaHood advises owners to seek repair at dealers

BREAKING NEWS

updated 7 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood suggested Wednesday that owners of recalled Toyota vehicles stop driving them and seek a repair for the sticking accelerator problems that have forced the automaker to recall a record number of autos.

Michelle Obama: What you see is the real me

Despite intense public scrutiny, first lady says she finds ‘comfort’ in her role

TODAY

updated 10:31 a.m. ET, Wed., Feb. 3, 2010

When she moved to the nation’s most prestigious address, Michelle Obama’s husband told her that rough times were ahead. The country was in recession, people were out of work, the political parties were in open warfare — and the man who was going to be blamed for it all was President Barack Obama.

But you won’t hear the first lady utter a peep of complaint.

“The truth is, there are a lot of folks who are hurting. And there’s no way I’m going to sit here and complain; I’m sitting in the White House,” Michelle Obama told TODAY’s Matt Lauer during an exclusive, far-ranging White House interview that aired Wednesday.

It’s just over a year since Michelle Obama set up housekeeping at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And while she’s been much in the spotlight during that time, she maintains that she’s still the same person she always was.

“I still see myself as Michelle Obama, the girl who grew up in the South Side of Chicago — Marian and Fraser’s daughter. I’ve got this husband who does these interesting things — and I’m Malia and Sasha’s mother,” she said.

“I approach this position like I approach my life,” the first lady went on. “I try to be as authentically me as I can be, because it’s easier to maintain it. So what people have seen over the course of the year is really Michelle. And I find a level of comfort in that role.”

Juggling challenges
Mrs. Obama has already taken on the cause of addressing the special problems and concerns of military families. Now, she’s launching an initiative that could define her term as first lady. She’s taking on childhood obesity.

“There are the shocking statistics that are there,” Mrs. Obama said. “One in three kids are obese in this nation. And the numbers go up when you’re talking about the African-American and Hispanic communities. The most shocking sort of reality that really hits you is that, because the young generation is on track for the first time in this nation’s history of being less healthy, having a shorter life span than their parents.”

“Just like many working parents, it’s balance. People may have said I’ve taken on too many issues or what have you, but I usually work two or three days a week, and we try to pack everything into a day,” she explained. “I don’t work on the weekends. I don’t travel on the days that I’m not there.”

She doesn’t start work until the girls leave for school, and she returns to the White House living quarters when her daughters come home in the afternoon. The president joins them for dinner and doesn’t bring his job with him.

Roses and thorns
At the dinner table, the family plays a game called “roses and thorns,” which means each person reports the day’s good events — the roses — and the bad — thorns.

Lauer asked Mrs. Obama what her roses and thorns for the day would be.

“Well, the best thing is always dinnertime, so it hasn’t happened yet,” Mrs. Obama said. “Haven’t had a thorn yet.”

In fact, the first lady’s public perception is rosier than her husband’s. While President Obama’s approval numbers have dropped below 50 percent, Mrs. Obama’s have remained sky-high — around 70 percent.

“You were named to Forbes magazine’s most powerful women list, People magazine’s most beautiful list, Time magazine’s most influential list, and you made Maxim magazine’s list of hottest women,” Lauer told a bemused first lady.

“I didn’t hear that,” she said, laughing at the Maxim pick.

Shades of gray
The year has treated the first lady well, even as it has seemed to age her husband, whose hair is noticeably grayer than it was a year ago. Although Mrs. Obama said she hasn’t noticed that the president has aged, she does remind him about his hair.

“I tease Barack all the time,” she said. “The gray issue is interesting, because his mother, his grandfather, they were all completely gray. So he was going that direction anyway.”

If he’s gotten there a bit quicker, it’s just a reflection of how hard the job is — and the Obamas knew that coming in.

“Hope and change are hard-fought things,” Mrs. Obama said. “Barack warned us about this over the course of the campaign. He talked a lot about hope, but he said that with that comes compromise and sacrifice. And it’s painful, and it takes time. It’s true, and we’re sort of feeling the pain of that.”

She said the president is handling the pressure.

“He’s doing well,” Mrs. Obama said of her husband. “He is focused and clear-headed. He works very hard. And I think he’s handled the pressure with that same level of grace that he came here with.”

It may not have been an easy year, but Mrs. Obama wasn’t complaining.

“My goal overall is just to be helpful. I mean, fundamentally, I want to look back on this time and feel like I affected somebody’s life because I was here,” she said. “And if that’s kids, it’s wonderful. If I’ve shined the light on our military families, and they feel more appreciated, and the country is more focused on the care that we need to give to them; if people feel more sane in their work and family lives, if we have more kids teaching in schools, and doing national service, and people say that it’s because of me, that’s great.

“I feel blessed and privileged,” she told Lauer. “Our job is to work to ensure that more families feel the security that everyone wants living here in America.”