Current Events!

Here you can post interesting and bizarre daily news headlines that catch your attention!

Please choose topics of wholesome nature!

(CNN) -- Cafe owner Sam Lippert has come up with an
innovative way to cope with the recession: He's done away with pricing
and simply asks customers to pay what they want.


Cafe owner Sam Lippert says people have to look him in the eye and say what they think their meal was worth.

Lippert says sales and customer count has increased markedly since the change, and he's looking at adding more staff.

LINKENHOLT, England (Reuters) – An entire English village, complete with 22 houses and cottages, two blacksmiths and a cricket pitch, goes on sale this week.

Think you're interested? (Click here) for the full story! Goes on sale tomorrow!

Centenarian Inga Brinck Recalls Ketchikan's Early Days



Inga (Hanson) Brinck
Pioneers Home Prom Queen approx 1999
Front Page Photo Courtesy Louise & John Harrington

Ketchikan: Centenarian Inga Brinck Recalls Ketchikan's Early Days A Feature Story By DAVE KIFFER - When Inga (Hanson) Brinck was born, Ketchikan itself was just a child.

Brinck was born on March 9, 1909 and recently turned 100, probably the first person to reach the century mark after spending her entire life in the city of Ketchikan.

Inga Hanson was the daughter of pioneer Ketchikan businessman Louis Hanson who moved with his family from Juneau to Ketchikan in January of 1900.

"I really don't know when my father first came to Ketchikan," Brinck recalled in the 1999 Ketchikan oral history book "Clams on the Beach and Deer in the Woods." "But he had a trading boat, the Nellie Belle, and he traded in all the little hamlets around here."

Brinck said that Hanson - an immigrant from Norway - went up down the coast for many years prior to 1900.

Read the rest of this story here: http://www.sitnews.us/Kiffer/IngaBrinck/031709_inga_brinck.html

Mackey wins third consecutive Iditarod
'The people's musher' rides in at 11:38 a.m. with both arms raised

By Mary Pemberton | The Associated Press

NOME - When Lance Mackey's father won the 1978 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, he did it with one second to spare.

That isn't a scenario Lance Mackey ever wants to experience.

"I don't want to do that. I'd have a heart attack," Mackey said.



Mackey didn't have to worry. The 38-year-old son of Iditarod champion Dick Mackey crossed the finish line Wednesday in the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race hours in front of the competition, joining an elite group of only two other mushers to put together three consecutive wins.

He even had time to stop his team about a half mile outside Nome, where he went down the line, primping and thanking each of his 15 dogs before resuming the final stretch.

The crowd roared as Mackey came into view down Front Street.

About a block from the finish line, Mackey raised both arms in victory and rode that way into the chute at 11:38 a.m., hours ahead of his nearest competitors in the race.

Immediately after winning, he gave treats to his dogs, calling them the "real heroes."

"This never gets old," he said at the finish line as he hugged two of them.

Read the rest here:

http://juneauempire.com/stories/031909/sta_411759547.shtml

From MSNBC...


APEX, N.C. - A North Carolina family's dog didn't eat the children's homework, he ate mom's money.

Kelley Davis said she had an extra $400 in cash to deposit after working extra hours as a physical therapist. She told the News & Observer of Raleigh that on Friday she planned to deposit the money, but it wasn't in her pocket.

She remembered leaving it in the bedroom and it occurred to her that the family's 2-year-old greater Swiss mountain dog, Augie, might have eaten it.

Davis, 42, said when she took Augie for a walk Saturday, she found parts of three $100 bills and five $20s in his leavings. She washed them with a garden hose and hopes to find enough pieces to exchange them for cash.

See the video...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/29774045#29774045

I shook hands with Lance Mackey when i was up in Fairbanks this last summer. Also got to sit and listen to one of his speech and question times at the hotel i was staying at. Great guy, down to earth. NOt snopbish like alote of celebs can be.

My dad was actually in Anchorage when that volcano erupted. Thankfully, though, he drove on to Valdez. He's teaching a class or something for the Coast Guard. =P

WILLOW, Alaska – Alaska's Mount Redoubt volcano erupted five times overnight, sending an ash plume more than 9 miles into the air in the volcano's first emissions in nearly 20 years. Residents in the state's largest city were spared from falling ash, though fine gray dust fell Monday morning on small communities north of Anchorage.

"It's coming down," Rita Jackson, 56, said Monday morning at a 24-hour grocery store in Willow, about 50 miles north of Anchorage. She slid her fingers across the hood of her car, through a dusting of ash.

Ash from Alaska's volcanos is like a rock fragment with jagged edges and has been used as an industrial abrasive. It can injure skin, eyes and breathing passages. The young, the elderly and people with respiratory problems are especially susceptible to ash-related health problems. Ash can also cause damage engines in planes, cars and other vehicles.

Alaska Airlines on Monday canceled 19 flights because of the ash. In-state carrier Era Aviation canceled four, and Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage kept 60 planes, including fighter jets, cargo aircraft and a 747 commercial plane, in shelters.

Five of 20 Alaska state senators were scheduled on the morning flight from Anchorage to Juneau, which was canceled. As a result, consideration of a resolution accepting federal stimulus funds was put off until Wednesday.

The first eruption, in a sparsely populated area across Cook Inlet from the Kenai Peninsula, occurred at 10:38 p.m. Sunday and the fifth happened at 4:30 a.m. Monday, according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory.

The wind took the ash cloud away from Anchorage, toward Willow and Talkeetna, near Mount McKinley, North America's largest mountain.

There were reports of a quarter-inch of ash in Trapper Creek and up to a half-inch at a lakeside lodge near Skwentna.

Dave Stricklan, a hydrometeorogical technician with the National Weather Service, expected very fine ash.

"Just kind of a light dusting," he said. He said the significant amount of ash probably dropped immediately, right down the side of the volcano.

"The heavier stuff drops out very quickly, and then the other stuff filters out. There's going to be a very fine amount of it that's going to be suspended in the atmosphere for quite some time," he said. "The finer ash is going to travel farther, and any ash can affect aviation safety."

Jackson said she was taking a sip of coffee when she tasted something funny on her lips — ash. She was experiencing other affects, too.

"My eyes are itching really bad," she said as she hurried to get out of the store and to her car.

Jackson, who unexpectedly got the day off, hurried home from the grocery store to secure a motorcycle, snowmachine and vehicles under protective blue tarps.

The 10,200-foot Redoubt Volcano, roughly 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, last erupted during a four-month period from 1989-90.

In its last eruption, Redoubt sent ash 150 miles away into the path of a KLM jet and its four engines flamed out. The jet dropped more than 2 miles before the crew was able to restart all engines and land safely. The plane required $80 million in repairs.

The volcano became restless earlier this year. The observatory had warned in late January that an eruption could occur at any time.

Increased earthquake activity over the past 48 hours prompted scientists to raise the alert level for Mount Redoubt on Sunday.

On Sunday morning, 40 to 50 earthquakes were being recorded every hour.

A steam plume rising about 1,000 feet above the mountain peak was observed Saturday.

Three seismometers on the mountain were damaged in the eruption but seven others remained in place, said observatory geophysicist John Power.

The observatory planned a helicopter flight to the mountain Monday afternoon to sample ash, repair equipment and monitor flooding along the Drift River, which flows from a glacier of the same name.

Power said the history of past eruptions of Redoubt indicate the volcano could erupt again in the next few days or weeks.

"It's something we need to stay prepared for," he said.

___

Associated Press Writers Dan Joling and Mark Thiessen in Anchorage contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

Alaska Volcano Observatory: http://www.avo.alaska.edu

Jess wrote:My dad was actually in Anchorage when that volcano erupted. Thankfully, though, he drove on to Valdez. He's teaching a class or something for the Coast Guard. =P

oh thats good i just edited the storie forgot about paste and copy o well storie is underneath but thats cool that your dad was there and that he didn't get hurt

The 40th Annual Gospel Music Association Awards, most commonly known as the GMA Dove Awards, will air live on Thursday, April 23 at 8 pm et, only on Gospel Music Channel. Gospel music’s biggest night of the year features artists from every style of gospel/Christian music coming together for a night of music and celebration.


2009 marks the first time in history fans will help decide the winners of two key award categories: Artist of the Year and New Artist of the Year! Votes must be submitted between February 26 and April 23, 2009.

If you wanna vote go to www.gospelmusicchannel.com
and type in the gmc search box dove awards

I want to encourage anyone who can take part in this to do so!

March 26, 2009
Thursday


Ketchikan, Alaska - Local volunteers are needed to participate in a large scale maritime mass evacuation exercise in Ketchikan on April 29, 2009. The exercise is being jointly planned by the City of Ketchikan, Alaska, Holland America Line, Customs and Border Protection, and the U.S. Coast Guard.

Volunteers will role play passengers and crew that have been evacuated from a large passenger ship at sea. The main goal of the exercise is to practice accountability and shore side care for all the evacuated. A selected number of volunteers will be assigned as "injured" and processed through the medical response system, others will help exercise the Customs and Border Protection clearance procedures, and the remainder will test the ability of the response organization to account and track all evacuees. Although this exercise is based on a maritime incident, the processes exercised apply to all mass rescue events including airline or natural disaster incidents.

On exercise day, April 29th, volunteers will check in at 7:00 a.m. at the Ted Ferry Civic Center. Exercise play is expected to end by 2:00 p.m. A light lunch and snacks will be provided. Volunteers will be required to attend a short meeting at 6:15 p.m. on April 27 or 28, 2009 at the Ted Ferry Civic Center. At this meeting, role playing assignments and instructions will be provided.

Volunteers are requested to register at www.massrescue.us and review exercise schedules. Local volunteers are critical to the success of this exercise. Consider joining the fun and improving local emergency response. Get together with your friends, teammates, church members, or family and register together. For questions, please email rick.n.janelle@uscg.mil.

Ohio teacher says her Bibles left alone

MOUNT VERNON, Ohio, March 26 (UPI) --

An Ohio teacher says her colleague shouldn't be fired for having a Bible on his desk since she has two on hers.

Lori Miller testified at the long-running termination hearing of Mount Vernon,Ohio, middle-school teacher John Freshwater and expressed concerns that he was being singled out.

The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch said Thursday that while Freshwater was in trouble with the district for having a Bible and other religious displays in his classroom, Miller said no one ever told her she had to remove the two Bibles and other religious items she kept in her classroom.

"I still have a Bible on my desk and my administrators know that, and I have not been asked to remove them," said the seventh-grade match teacher.

Miller said she also played religious music in her room and openly prayed. "I would praise the Lord all the time in my classroom," Miller said. "I had kids come up all the time asking if I would pray for them."

The Dispatch said the off-and-on hearing that began last fall would continue after the district lawyer reviewed Miller's testimony.

Pole faces jail for stealing toilet paper

WARSAW, Poland, April 9 (UPI) --


Polish police arrested a 26-year-old man for stealing a toilet paper roll from a Warsaw restaurant, a crime that could cost him 10 years in jail.

The man, identified only as Edvin L., stole the paper roll worth 66 cents but in taking it he broke the box holding the roll, making the total damage $105, the Polish daily Dziennik said. Police were called by a restaurant manager who spotted the man hiding something under his jacket.

The daily said the man's theft was published on the Warsaw police Web site as one of their successful actions since January, adding his crime could lead to a prison sentence of 10 years.

In response to a Dziennik reporter's query, a woman in the Warsaw police headquarters explained it was a serious crime, which apart from stealing the paper roll, included the breaking of the box containing the roll, the newspaper said.

Sammie wrote:Pole faces jail for stealing toilet paper

WARSAW, Poland, April 9 (UPI) --


Polish police arrested a 26-year-old man for stealing a toilet paper roll from a Warsaw restaurant, a crime that could cost him 10 years in jail.

The man, identified only as Edvin L., stole the paper roll worth 66 cents but in taking it he broke the box holding the roll, making the total damage $105, the Polish daily Dziennik said. Police were called by a restaurant manager who spotted the man hiding something under his jacket.

The daily said the man's theft was published on the Warsaw police Web site as one of their successful actions since January, adding his crime could lead to a prison sentence of 10 years.

In response to a Dziennik reporter's query, a woman in the Warsaw police headquarters explained it was a serious crime, which apart from stealing the paper roll, included the breaking of the box containing the roll, the newspaper said.

wow i thought the guy who threw a shoe at baracko bama and was thrown into jail was dumb

I don't actually have an article on it or anything, but I thought I could manage a small summary. If you don't want it on this thread, though, anyone with the power can delete this post.


According to a nine page report by the Department of Homeland Security, anyone anti-gay/lesbian marriage, pro-life, believing in the prophecy of the end times, among many other things, are considered "potential domestic terrorists". They're also "keeping a close eye" on T.E.A. (Taxed Enough Already) parties because they are especially potential. Our military troops returning from the middle east, who risked everything for our country and the people in it, make them potential as well.

I found this baffling. It's been all over the news and such, so you might have heard about it. If not, here you go.
My summary is small, like I said, but this is all I can recall. But it's enough to get a somewhat round-about idea, yes?

The Bible said this would happen... it's a pitty the good guys (Christians) are being spinned as "potential domestic terrorists".
Just proves that Satan's out there.

The "real" persecution of the Christians in America is about to begin, they've already began labeling our Gospel message as a "hate crime" & calling our respect of marriage and life "an act of hateful intolerance".

Frightening and saddening...


I guess I better put a Current Event on here.

The captain who was captured by the Somali pirates has been returned home today.

"""Moments later he bounded off the plane to whoops and cheers, with his arm around his daughter, Mariah.

Captain Phillips, dressed in a baseball cap and blue jumpsuit, thanked the Navy SEALS, whom he called “superheroes,” as well as his family and crew.

“Thank you for your prayers and support,” he said, describing himself as “just a seaman doing the best I can.”"""

After 3 years at sea, hard hat on its way back to owner
By James Halpin | McClatchy Newspapers
ANCHORAGE - On a cold day more than three years ago, Jacoby Angleton was working as a roustabout on a dock at the Tesoro plant in Nikiski when a gust of wind lifted his favorite hard hat off his head and tossed it into the icy inlet waters below.
He watched it drift away, upside down, in the dark water, lost at sea. That was late 2005 or early 2006.
Then, long after he'd forgotten all about his lucky hat, the now 23-year-old oil-services worker based on the North Slope got a recent e-mail on his MySpace account from a California woman whose curiosity was piqued when she found the hat, still bearing his name, while she was walking on a beach near San Francisco.
"There's something about the mystery of finding stuff and you always wonder where it came from," said Sparrow Baranyai, a 47-year-old employee at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse Hostel in Pescadero, Calif., roughly 55 miles south of San Francisco. "It just was such an unusual thing to find that I had to dig further."
Baranyai Googled Angleton's name, found him through his MySpace Page and shot him an e-mail. After Angleton told her how and exactly where he lost the hat, she went to check it out on a map, she said.
"I just tracked it down and went, 'That's amazing, just amazing,' " she said.
Turns out, it may have traveled even farther than she suspected.
Most flotsam in the North Pacific gets caught up in the Pacific Subarctic Gyre - a 7,200-nautical-mile, swirling ocean current stretching from Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula to Southeast Alaska, said Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a Seattle-based oceanographer who studies currents.
Debris floating on the high seas travels, on average, about eight to 10 miles per day, and it takes an average of about three years for most debris to circumnavigate the gyre, he said.
"The average for many, many hundreds of objects is three years ... to go all the way around, and another half year to get down to California, so it fits," Ebbesmeyer said.
The gyre has famously kicked about all manner of flotsam. Back in 1990, a vessel lost 80,000 pairs of Nikes in high seas between Korea and the West Coast, many of which later washed up on the West Coast.
Then in 1992, a violent storm tossed thousands of rubber ducks, turtles and frogs off a cargo ship between China and Seattle. Some of them wound up in Alaska. Others are still circulating the high seas, Ebbesmeyer said.
Some debris, however, gets kicked out of the rotation when summer winds push south along the West Coast. That flotsam moves down the coast until joining with the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, which circulates from California to the Philippines.
The hard hat was apparently in the right position along the gyre when winds hit it, he said.
"The winds would start blowing from the north in July or August," Ebbesmeyer said. "The winds kicked it out of the Subarctic Gyre and it went down and started to go around the Subtropical Gyre, but somehow it got kicked into California."
Then, on March 30, Baranyai was walking the beach cleaning up plastic when she wandered into a cove only accessible at low tide in which she sometimes finds interesting shells and sea glass.
It was a little before noon when she found the hat, up on the beach and away from the surf, in "amazing condition," she said. Angleton's name was still intact and the stickers he had affixed to it were slightly torn but still legible, she said.
When Angleton got Baranyai's e-mail, he at first didn't reply, thinking it might have been a hat he had lost on the Slope.
Then Baranyai e-mailed him again and he got leery, wondering if it was a scam. He recalled that his lucky hard hat was white, had a label of his name on front and had North Road Racing, Kenai refinery and union stickers affixed. He asked Baranyai to describe it, and she did "to the T," he said.
"It's been a long time, so I was like, OK, it's got to be that hat because there's no other hard hat I dropped in the water," Angleton said. "I was really bummed out about it for a while because it was my favorite hard hat, but I thought it was gone forever."
Baranyai said she plans to send the hat home.

April 13, 2009
Monday


(SitNews) -The Alaska State House recently passed a bill that would exempt Alaska from observing daylight-saving time. House Bill (HB) 19, sponsored by Representative Anna Fairclough (R-Eagle River), was passed by the House on March 27, 2009.

In 1983, with congressional approval, Alaska consolidated its five time zones into two. This was done to better consolidate Alaska's communities and to enable better public services. Alaska Standard Time (AST) now covers most of the state, with only a few Aleutian Islands in the Hawaiian-Aleutian Time Zone. AST is one hour earlier than Pacific Standard Time and four hours earlier then Eastern Standard Time.

Rep. Fairclough sponsored this legislation in response to a number of concerns from constituents and other Alaskans regarding daylight-saving time. Her office has spent the interim and beginning of this legislative session researching the issue and asking for input from Alaskans.

In a recent news release, Rep Fairclough said is clear, from two statewide polls done in 2004 and 2005, that a strong majority of Alaskan's statewide favor the repeal of DST for a variety of reasons.

"The vote in the House shows that we recognize the health risks that come from changing the clocks twice a year," Fairclough said. "With the support of the House on record, we will go back to our communities and ask them to continue the discussion. It is important that we have a dialogue about the communication issues businesses may face if we discontinue DST in Alaska."

In a recent article by Charles Q. Choi stated, "Springing forward may both end and save lives. Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and their colleagues looked at myocardial infarction rates in Sweden since 1987 and found that the number of heart attacks rose about 5 percent during the first week of daylight saving time (called summer time in Europe). In the October 30, 2008, New England Journal of Medicine, they suggest that this rise may result from the disruption of sleep patterns and biological rhythms."

Representative Cathy Muñoz (R -House District 4 - Auke Bay) co-sponsored the bill.

HB 19 has moved to the Alaska State Senate for consideration.

Daylight Savings Time was an idea that originated as an American domestic policy during World War I to save energy.

Hey guys, I'm sitting here in the hospital loby on the computure waiting for whenever the doctors take me to the prep room for surgery. it seems like i've been her for-ev-er... prayer please

up-date... I'm in the prep room with an iv in my arm waiting to talk to the different nurses. its going ok so far, the worst part is the waiting. there is no signal where i am so i cant text you guys so if you are reading ill be in this blog until the doc comes.

I'm going in! Lots of prayer please for a first surgery.

Out of surgery and back at the hotel... whew! The surgery went well, I survived, I'm doing good, and I'll be on the 3 oclock plane tomorrow for home. Thanks for your prayers!!!

Thursday
April 22nd

SEOUL (AFP) – It looks like a giant tent pitched by aliens who landed overnight in the yard of one of Seoul's ancient royal palaces.

Welcome to the Prada Transformer -- billed as the world's first shape-shifting building -- which can be lifted and rotated into different configurations to house art, film, fashion and other events.

"It's a kind of statement that architecture doesn't always have to be heavy... stable and repetitive," Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas told journalists at a preview Wednesday.

The structure, funded by the Prada Group, has four different shapes -- a hexagon, cross, rectangle and circle.

Construction cranes will lift and rotate the structure into different facades and floor plate configurations to create a new venue for each cultural event.

"When you rotate this building, its floor becomes walls and walls become the floor," said Alexander Reichert, senior architect of the Dutch-based Office for Metropolitan Architecture.

Situated next to the 16th century Gyeonghui Palace in the busy South Korean capital, the Transformer is also a visible symbol of the contrast between modernity and tradition, he said.

Koolhaas said architecture must accommodate many different activities. "That is the essence of architecture," he said.

"Waist Down - Skirts by Miuccia Prada" will make its Korean debut on April 25 at the Transformer, showcasing a collection of skirts by the Italian fashion powerhouse.

The exhibition space will be transformed into a cinema in June.

Miss USA 1st Runner-up for 2009


The first runner-up for Miss USA tells Fox News Channel that she may have lost her chance at the crown because of her answer to a question about same-sex "marriage." However, she says she had to stand on biblical truth.

On Sunday, Miss California Carrie Prejean, 21, was asked by blogger Perez Hilton, an open homosexual and one of the pageant's judges, about her stance on same-sex marriage. Responding, Prejean said she personally believed marriage should be between a man and a woman.

Carrie Prejean (1st runner-up, Miss USA 2009)"We live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what, in my country and in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman," she said. "No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised. I think that it should be between a man and a woman." (See YouTube video)

Although Miss North Carolina, Kristen Dalton, won the title, Prejean has made the rounds of television news and talk shows, addressing the controversy that her answer may have cost her the Miss USA crown. Prior to the interview segment of the pageant, Prejean reportedly was the hands-down favorite to win.

Appearing on Your World with Neal Cavuto on Tuesday, Prejean said she had "no regrets" about her answer.

Cavuto: "In this day and age, these kinds of views, we're told, are not politically correct -- [that] these are not the modern views."

Prejean: "Right -- and that's the thing I really need to think about: am I trying to be politically correct, or do I want to be biblically correct? And I think that I want to be biblically correct. All I could think about when I was standing there, answering that question was, 'Carrie, what are your beliefs?'"

The pageant contestant says she knew afterwards that she was not going to win because of her answer because she "had spoken from my heart, for my beliefs, and for my God..."

Prejean has shared that she is praying for Perez Hilton and has no animosity toward him -- despite his profanity-laced rant against her that he posted on his website following the pageant.

"I can only say to him that I will be praying for him," she told the Today show on Tuesday morning. "I feel sorry for him, I really do. I think he's angry, I think he's hurt. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. He asked me specifically what my opinion was on that subject, and I gave him an honest answer."