Sarah Palin: Still not going to be president

So, Sarah Palin said on Saturday that she'd totally consider running for president in 2012, and I yawned. I mean, I giggled a little, and then I yawned, which is the same reaction I've had everytime someone involved in the World Wrestling Federation has declared for office. Then, for a day or two, as the Internet burbled with speculation and as David Broder warmed up his pen, I wondered if maybe I'd missed something -- like all of the other eligible Republican candidates swearing they'd sit 2012 out. But since Tim Pawlenty was still standing, I felt confident this wasn't the case. So why was everyone interested in Palin '12? Couldn't they see what a hoax this was?

Today I got my answer.

The Internet is (finally? again?) throwing an Anti-Palin Party. First, there's this woo-hoo poll that says Sarah Palin isn't so beloved (and is certainly not trusted) by the American people, unless you define "American People" as "three crazies who like tea." The Washington Post not only published a David Broder love letter to Mrs. Palin today, it published

Although Palin is a tea party favorite, her potential as a presidential hopeful takes a severe hit in the survey. Fifty-five percent of Americans have unfavorable views of her, while the percentage holding favorable views has dipped to 37, a new low in Post-ABC polling. There is a growing sense that the former Alaska governor is not qualified to serve as president, with more than seven in 10 Americans now saying she is unqualified, up from 60 percent in a November survey. Even among Republicans, a majority now say Palin lacks the qualifications necessary for the White House.

As Ta-Nehisi Coates points out, that means Palin's running worse numbers than that divisive, devilish Hillary Clinton ever did:

To put this bluntly--Sarah Palin is more hated than Hillary Clinton at any point in Clinton's political career, and yet engenders very little of the love that made Clinton a political force.

Things can be put even more bluntly than that, for which we must turn to Joe Biden, Vice President of the United States and Gaffestan, who said this very clearly in that folksy way of his: "Governor Palin appeals to a group of people who are generally frustrated, feel disenfranchised, are very conservative... Tea Party people, but beyond that. She has appeal beyond that as well. But I don't know that it represents anything approaching a significant portion of the population.”

The difference, of course, between Joe Biden's folksiness and Sarah Palin's is that sometimes Joe Biden knows what he's talking about. God love 'im. Remember when everyone on the campaign thought it was going to be Joe Biden who was more prone to embarrass his ticket? Oh ho ho. I love a good proved-'em-wrong moment.

Better than all of this, though: Someone went on Larry King's show (which was minus Larry King, so at least some things are staying normal) and tried to summon the Ghost and Spirit of Ronald Reagan by invoking his name in defense of the Great New Governor Maverick. Sadly, this failed, because sitting next to said summoner was Ronald Reagan's actual, living son, Ron Reagan Jr., who took the opportunity to call crazy where he saw it.

The entire exchange is worth reading, but a quick summary goes like this: Ron Reagan Jr. says his father would not have liked Sarah Palin "because she doesn't have a thought in her head." Pam Geller says this isn't true, that President Reagan would have loved her, and RR Jr. says maybe Pam sholdn't talk about a guy she never met. The satisfying point comes at the end:

Reagan: Is Pam still blathering about me and my father? Oh, you are. You still haven't met him, though, right? You still didn't know him, so you're just sort of making things up as you go along, right?

Geller: You never met him either. You know, you never met him either. Do you think you're making your father proud? Do you really think you're making your father proud?

Oh, yes. Now we have people -- let's call them Palinites -- who have moved beyond just questioning people's patriotism when they disagree. They now question family relationships. Yes, friends, what we've known all along is finally be played out on the bigger screen: to believe in Sarah Palin, you must reject facts and rewrite history.

Luckily, it looks like maybe only a small segment of the country is willing to do that. I'm getting around to making the very same point that TNC made in his post, which is this: Sarah Palin is not a major political force. She is the political equivalent to "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV." Which, by the way, she does now: she plays a political leader on TV, paid for by Fox. She is not now, nor does it seem she ever will be, a real political force in America.

TNC has said he's going to stop treating her as such; I feel it's time I do the same. I'm turning off The Sarah Show except as entertainment. If America doesn't take her seriously, why should I?

Chile earthquake triggers Pacific tsunami

Local television showed a building in flames in Concepcion, one of Chile’s largest cities with around 670,000 inhabitants. Some residents looted pharmacies and a collapsed grains silo, hauling off bags of wheat, television images showed.

SANTIAGO - A huge magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck Chile early on Saturday, killing at least 122 people, knocking down homes and hospitals, and triggering a tsunami that rolled menacingly across the Pacific.

TV Chile reported that a 15-storey building collapsed in the hardest-hit city of Concepcion, where buildings caught fire, major highway bridges collapsed and cracks opened up in the streets. Cars turned upside down lay scattered across one damaged bridge.

Residents huddled in streets full of rubble of masonry and glass from destroyed homes. Many were terrified by powerful aftershocks and desperately trying to call friends and family.

Chilean President-elect Sebastian Pinera said 122 people had been killed and the death toll could climb higher.

Tsunami warnings were posted around the Pacific, including the U.S. state of Hawaii, Japan and Russia.

Telephone and power lines were down in much of central Chile, making it difficult to assess the full extent of the damage close to the epicenter.

Chile is the world’s No. 1 copper producer, and the quake halted operations at two major mines.

"Never in my life have I experienced a quake like this, it’s like the end of the world," one man told local television from the city of Temuco, where the quake damaged homes and forced staff to evacuate the regional hospital.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake struck 70 miles (115 km) northeast of Concepcion at a depth of 22 miles (35 km) at 3:34 a.m. (0634 GMT).

The capital Santiago, about 200 miles (320 km) north of the epicenter, was also badly hit. The international airport was closed for at least 24 hours as the quake destroyed passenger walkways and shook glass out of doors and windows.

Chile’s Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, suspended operations at its El Teniente and Andina mines, but reported no major damage and said it expected the mines to be up and running in the "coming hours."

Production was halted at the Los Bronces and El Soldado copper mines, owned by Anglo American Plc, but Chile’s biggest copper mine, Escondida, was operating normally.

Chile produces about 34 percent of world supply of copper, which is used in electronics, cars and refrigerators.

TSUNAMI

President Michelle Bachelet said a huge wave hit the Juan Fernandez islands. Radio stations reported serious damage on the archipelago, where Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk was marooned in the 18th Century inspiring the novel Robinson Crusoe.

Bachelet, who flew over the worst-affected area, said residents were also being evacuated from coastal areas of Chile’s remote Easter Island, a popular tourist destination in the Pacific famous for its towering Moai stone statues.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a Pacific-wide tsunami warning for countries in Latin America, and as far away as the U.S. state of Hawaii as well as Japan, Russia, Philippines, Indonesia and the South Pacific. French Polynesia was also put on alert.

"Chile probably got the brunt force of the tsunami already. So probably the worst has already happened in Chile," said Victor Sardina, geophysicist at the warning center.

"The tsunami was pretty big too. We reported some places around 8 feet. And it’s quite possible it would be higher in other areas," he added.

An earthquake of magnitude 8 or over can cause "tremendous damage," the USGS says. The Jan. 12 quake that devastated Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince was measured as magnitude 7.0.

Bachelet urged people to stay calm and to remain at home to avoid road accidents. "With a quake of this size we undoubtedly can’t rule out more deaths and probably injuries," she said.

FLAMES, LOOTING

Local television showed a building in flames in Concepcion, one of Chile’s largest cities with around 670,000 inhabitants. Some residents looted pharmacies and a collapsed grains silo, hauling off bags of wheat, television images showed.

Broken glass and chunks of concrete and brick were strewn across roads and several strong aftershocks rattled jittery residents in the hours after the initial quake.

In the moments after the quake, people streamed onto the streets of the Chilean capital hugging each other and crying.

"My house is completely destroyed, everything fell over ... it has been totally destroyed. Me and wife huddled in a corner and after hours they rescued us," said one elderly man in central Santiago.

There were blackouts in parts of Santiago. Emergency officials said buildings in the historic quarters of two southern cities had been badly damaged and local radio said three hospitals had partially collapsed.

In 1960, Chile was hit by the world’s biggest earthquake since records dating back to 1900. The 9.5 magnitude quake devastated the south-central city of Valdivia, killing 1,655 people and sending a tsunami which battered Easter Island 2,300 miles (3,700 km) off Chile’s Pacific seaboard and continued as far as Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines.

Saturday’s quake shook buildings as far away as Argentina’s Andean provinces of Mendoza and San Juan. A series of strong aftershocks rocked Chile’s coastal region from Valdivia in the south to Valparaiso, about 500 miles (800 km) to the north.

The United Nations and the White House said they were closely monitoring the situation in Chile and the potential threat of tsunamis in the Pacific.

A State Department official said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was being kept apprised of the situation in Chile, which she is due to visit on Tuesday on a Latin American tour.

Kristen Stewart Serves Jury Duty In Prostitution Case

Earlier this week, "Twilight" star Kristen Stewart was on jury duty, and now details about the case she sat on are emerging. Stewart was reportedly a member of a Los Angeles County jury that was deciding the fate of a man accused of trying to solicit a prostitute.

Stewart sat on a three-day trial; the defendant was found not guilty of trying to pay an undercover police officer for sex. The man pleaded not guilty, with his defense attorney arguing that since he does not speak English very well, he didn't understand the situation he was in with the undercover cop and was therefore innocent.

TMZ further reported that when the trial was over, Stewart asked to keep her juror badge and was allowed to. However, a security guard who posed for a photo with the actress at the courthouse earlier this week may be in hot water for snapping a shot of Stewart.

The security guard reportedly asked to take a photo with Stewart, who did so. The photo was then posted online by the guard's friend's wife before it was quickly picked up by various media outlets and made public. Now it seems that the people involved may have violated some rules and may lose their jobs for taking a picture with the actress.

"Cancelled because unfortunately the photo that went up from Kristen in court was stolen and put on several blogs and got to the media and reached the ears of the court," the wife wrote online. "Right now my husband and the security guard are in trouble for it having gone up and second because it is confidential when celebrities are in court. Now I feel bad. ... I am really scared, because I think it is possible that they could lose their jobs."

Kristen Stewart has called her turn as a teen runaway-turned-stripper and prostitute in "Welcome to the Rileys" the most personal performance of her career. According to director Jake Scott, audiences will see an entirely new side of the "Twilight" superstar in the indie flick.

"It's an emotionally naked performance," Scott told MTV News at the Sundance Film Festival. "She really exposed herself in that way."

One way in which she didn't expose herself was in the flesh. While Stewart does show off some skin onscreen, she never appears fully in the nude, nor do any of the scenes play as sexy. Instead they're dark, often sad portraits of a young girl forced into compromising situations and the pitiful men who prey on her vulnerability. Highlighting these story elements, rather than salacious ones, was something Scott set out to accomplish.

"I don't think the film's about a stripper," he said. "I think the film's about a damaged child who happens to be a stripper. I actually de-emphasized that part of it. It's too easy to get caught up and seduced by the idea of the stripper."

Scott and Stewart did do some research in New Orleans. They visited strip clubs and talked to the dancers, learning their stories as a way to present an accurate portrait of a teen in crisis. "Some of them were more reliable than others," he said. "Kristen actually ended up working with a girl who was a very good, useful guide for her. She went and danced in the strip club. She learned the ropes.

"She went for it," Scott added. "She got dirty. I think she was dying to do something like this. I think it comes across, to really investigate something outside of her life realm."

Julia Mancuso hopes to regain her timing in Vancouver

Struggling American skier Julia Mancuso got a boost Wednesday by posting the fastest time in an opening downhill training session.

Lindsey Vonn, a winner of the opening four downhills this season, was eighth.

Mancuso, seeking her first World Cup win in nearly three years, sped down the Olympia delle Tofane course in 1 minute, 40.17 seconds.

"I've had good training runs this year. I just have to have everything come together for the race," Mancuso said.

Swiss skiers Fraenzi Aufdenblatten and Nadia Styger placed second and third, 0.24 seconds and 0.44 behind, respectively. Overall World Cup leader Maria Riesch of Germany was fourth.

Mancuso posted the first podium finishes of her career in Cortina four years ago on the eve of the Turin Games, when she upset the favorites to win the gold medal in giant slalom.

"Right now, the speed is definitely in a better place for a medal than (giant slalom), but anything is possible," Mancuso said. "It would be a great deja vu if this weekend has some podiums on it."

Overall, Mancuso has one victory and six podium places in her career in Cortina. But last season, her results here were 24th, 29th and 30th.

Mancuso's best results this season were two 10th-place finishes, in a downhill and a super-G.

The session was run in perfect conditions, with hard snow and sunny skies. Still, the last skier on the course, Marie-Pier Prefontaine of Canada, fell through the finish line. She was carried away on a stretcher and taken to a hospital.

Another training run is scheduled for Thursday, followed by a super-G race Friday. A downhill is scheduled for Saturday and a giant slalom on Sunday.

After Cortina, the women have only one more weekend of racing — in St. Moritz, Switzerland — before the Vancouver Olympics, which open Feb. 12.

Julia Mancuso's image, calculated or not, was important to her. Winning an Olympic gold medal with a tiara on her head, reveling in the idea that her coaches called her a "princess," surfing and swimming and being the picture of good health in the waves of Maui, posing seductively in lingerie and ski boots -- it all became part of who she was and is, "probably the most honest athlete out there," according to Chemmy Alcott of Great Britain, her good friend and fellow World Cup skier.

Mancuso was to carry that image into this month's Vancouver Olympics. Mancuso, not Lindsey Vonn, is the only female American Alpine skier with an Olympic medal to her credit, the gold in the giant slalom won four years ago in the Italian village of Sestriere. Mancuso is the skier featured in fashion shoots in outdoors magazines, her hair done up, her clothes just so, the one with the blog and the Web site that features a "shopping" section.

A year ago, though, this was not at all what she was able to project. Her image -- fresh-faced golden girl from the hills around Lake Tahoe, Calif. -- was being tarnished by injuries that led to poor performances, not to mention near collapse.

"She was crying all the time at the end of her races," said Kazuko Ikeda, a former Olympic skier from Japan who now works closely as a Pilates instructor and coach with Mancuso. "People who have known her a long time, they said they never saw her like that, crying so much. It was very hard."

Mancuso enters the Olympics in something of an awkward position. Four years ago, her dominant, aggressive, gold medal-winning performance was overshadowed by the implosion of fellow American Bode Miller, who was supposed to win multiple medals and spectacularly won none. She is now 25 -- in what should be the prime of her career, the same age as multi-medal favorite Vonn -- yet she is coming off two injury-filled seasons, seasons filled with far more pain than progress. In 21 World Cup races this year, she has finished no better than eighth. She has failed to finish or failed to qualify for the second run nine times.

How, then, can she enhance her image in Vancouver when tough times have hit her leading up to what might have been a marquee Olympics?

"Timing is everything," Mancuso said.

Injuries and pain

This is a concept about which Mancuso has thought a great deal over the past few years. Her best season on the World Cup circuit came after her performance in the Olympics, when she finished third in the overall standings -- the rankings that show the most well-rounded skiers on the planet. She seemed to be progressing. No one outside of Europe, where skiing can seem like a lifestyle and Mancuso has an avid following, seemed to notice.

"There wasn't a lot of attention on ski racing because the Olympics were over, and it was like zero attention in the U.S.," Mancuso said. "It's almost like people don't even remember in the U.S. They have no idea.

"Then the next year, I still had some great results, but for some reason, it was really difficult because I was getting a lot of criticism because my year before was so good. And it's always like: How do you balance staying positive with yourself? Because I feel like that had a lot to do with the next year being even worse, because my confidence -- even though I ended up eighth in the world overall, I had a great season -- but it wasn't good enough for some people, and I let that get to me."

Her back also got to her. So did her hip. During nearly all of the 2009 season, Mancuso had one problem or another. Again, the timing. Why, in the season prior to an Olympic year, were her performances deteriorating? From 2006 through 2008, she had 18 podium finishes -- those in the top three -- across four disciplines. In 2009, when she could have built on the image of an Olympic champion as another Games approached, she finished no race better than sixth.

"The whole season was like: 'Do I keep going? Do I not keep going?' " she said. "Something would bring me down right when things were going well again. That was the most difficult part. . . . It was just a long process. What would take most healthy people a day to learn would take me four days or almost a week. It was a two-month period where things really sucked."

The bottom came at the world championships in Val d'Isere, France. She crashed in the super-G. Then, as she approached the finish area in the downhill leg of a super-combined event, nearly two seconds off the pace, she skied off course. She dropped out of the next day's downhill. She was beaten.

"I think it got to the stage where Julia didn't realize that you could ski pain-free," Alcott said. "She was fighting it so much because she loves the sport, and she loves to ski, but there was this block in her. Maybe she couldn't feel it consciously, but subconsciously, there was a big block there."

Into the water

This season, then, has been about removing that block. Part of Mancuso's prescription for healing, be it physical or mental, is heading home -- to Hawaii, where she has lived for five years. There, she takes up the kinds of activities that would seem taboo for world-class athletes -- think stand-up paddle surfing -- and tries to, as she said, "get in the water every day." Alcott, likely Mancuso's best friend on the World Cup circuit, joined her in Maui last offseason and continued her surfing apprenticeship under Mancuso, one that began during a trip to Bali a couple of years ago.

Those lessons, too, give a glimpse into why the pain and suffering of the previous few seasons could eat at Mancuso. She is a natural-born athlete.

"She's not the best teacher," Alcott said. "She just thinks that everyone should be as naturally talented as she is. She's just like, 'Just copy how I do it.' So a couple of times I got stuck out on the reef."

In-season, Mancuso says, she thrives on speed. In the offseason, she thrives on maintaining good health and being outdoors. So she has incorporated time in the water into her regular workout routine. "She works so hard," Ikeda said, "but she wants to figure out how to have fun when she's doing it."

"I don't really need a vacation when I get home, because I'm home and it is a vacation," Mancuso said. "I'm psyched to start working out again and playing. It makes everything a lot easier."

That, then, is the new image she is forging, with her third Olympics just ahead. She is healthy, she said, but now less a princess and more a survivor, just trying to get her timing back. And she has stopped worrying, she said, about what people want her image to be.

"Just by having such a bad season now, I'm able to build off little things and take the good out of it and sort of start over and not even think about what's good for me, what people would say is a good result for me," Mancuso said. "I'm going into it as a new person."

That new person knows a bit more than she did entering the Turin Games. She understands, of course, what it feels like to have a defining moment of your career. She also understands that she doesn't want that moment to define her. Even the people who remember she won gold four years ago might not understand what she has been through since. The complete picture -- the success, the injuries, the frustration, the rebuilding -- isn't part of her public image, not yet. But it is a part of who she is.

"I guess it taught me a lot about what it feels like to win, too," Mancuso said, "because it sucks to be in the position where you don't even think you can win when you leave the start gate. . . .

"I just have to remember: For me, the biggest thing is just to stay focused on myself, and remember that the year that I won two world championship medals, I went into the season not ranked. Anything is possible, and I know that, even if other people don't."

Meghan McCain at UF: Lets return to civility

Meghan McCain called Wednesday for a return of civility to politics, but took some swings at the talk-show hosts that she said were breeding cynicism among young voters.

"We shouldn't let pundits two and three times our age speak for us," she said.

McCain, daughter of former presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. John McCain, spoke at the University of Florida to a crowd of several hundred filled mostly with students.

McCain, 25, wrote a blog while traveling on the campaign and currently is a columnist for The Daily Beast Web site.

Her mother, Cindy, made news last week by appearing in an ad campaign supporting gay marriage. Describing herself as a "progressive Republican," Meghan McCain said she believed members of the GOP could support gay rights while also taking traditional Republican positions such as being anti-abortion.

"You just can't be afraid to say 'Yes, I'm a Republican and yes, I'm for marriage equality and these things aren't mutually exclusive,' " she said.

Meghan McCain's positions have sometimes brought attacks from fellow conservatives. She brought up talk show host Laura Ingraham's criticism of her that included a swipe at the size of her read end.

"I was too fat to be a Republican," she said. "It made me feel great - too fat to be an elephant."

But she struck back at Ingraham and fellow conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, as well as liberal television host Keith Olbermann.

"Please, Keith and Rushes of the world, let's pipe it down a notch," she said.

She said the GOP can maintain its core ideals while broadening the appeal of the party. She said she was concerned that the party was pushing a new generation toward being Democrats.

Barbara Walters guest-anchors Sunday's edition of "This Week" from the Newseum studio in Washington, D.C. ... Meghan McCain will co-host Walters' "The View" Feb. 3 at 11 a.m. on ABC. ...

Rosanna Scotto will be busy tonight. First, she'll stop by the Dwight School at 6 p.m. to discuss what it takes to put on WNYW/Ch. 5's "Good Day New York" each day; from there, she'll shoot over to the Waldorf-Astoria to host the Friends of St. Dominic's 29th annual awards dinner, a benefit for the St. Dominic's Home, a nonprofit Catholic social-welfare agency.

Lindsey Jacobellis : Olympic snowboarding to be biggest, best yet

Four years ago, an American snowboarder named Shaun White wowed Olympic crowds by spinning his way to gold above the halfpipe, one of the marquee events of the Winter Games.

In Vancouver, Olympic snowboarding promises to be even bigger.

The halfpipe will be bigger, the air will be bigger and even a once-diminutive White, who's been spending more time in the gym, will be bigger.

No longer on the fringe of the mainstream sports world, snowboarding is now taken more seriously than ever.

"He was a pretty small guy - you see him now, the guy has worked out,'' Canadian halfpipe coach Tom Hutchinson said of White.

"He's gotten big because he realizes that the crashes are getting so hard. You need to be in good shape.''

If all goes according to plan at the Vancouver Games, Canada's snowboarding medal haul will be bigger, too.

White, back to defend his title, is an action-sports star whose presence in Vancouver will grab lots of attention.

But not to be lost under the mountain of hype is a Canadian snowboard team packed with podium potential in all three Olympic disciplines: halfpipe, parallel giant slalom and snowboard cross.

Team Canada will be led by Jasey-Jay Anderson, an alpine elder heading into his fourth Olympics, and a pair of women, Maëlle Ricker and Dominique Maltais, who have been burning up World Cup snowboard-cross courses.

Riders from Canada's supporting cast are also expected to snap up podium spots and help the country reach its Olympic snowboarding goal of five medals.

Since snowboarding debuted in 1998, Canada has won just two Olympic medals in the sport.

Ross Rebagliati won the first-ever Olympic snowboarding gold at the 1998 Nagano Games in giant slalom, even though he briefly lost the medal after testing positive for marijuana.

Canadians will again be looking to Maltais, who captured the 2006 bronze in the first Olympic snowboard-cross event, to win hardware in Vancouver.

Her unbridled discipline, sometimes referred to as NASCAR on snow, proved to be a popular addition to the Olympic lineup four years ago.

Four riders at a time attack the same narrow, treacherous track in the elimination rounds, offering spectators a spread of explosive crashes and daring moves.

Canada's medal hopes will also rest on the shoulders of Ricker, No. 1 in World Cup standings.

Ricker and third-ranked Maltais have reached the podium together in four of the five World Cup races this season.

Each of the Canadian men also have outside shots at the podium: Robert Fagan, Drew Neilson, Mike Robertson and François Boivin.

The courses are steeper, the banks are sharper and the snowboards are better, Maltais said.

"It just makes us faster,'' she said. "It was a new discipline and it just keeps improving.''

Fagan said the riders will be carrying a little more beef compared to 2006.

"Some of the boys walking around - for sure they could be hockey players,'' said Fagan, who spends more time in the weight room than ever before.

"Crashes happen all the time ... you need to make sure you're bouncing back really quick and the gym is the key for that.''

American Lindsey Jacobellis made headlines four years ago when she lost the gold medal while showboating on the second-last jump of the final.

Sensing a comfortable lead, Jacobellis reached down, grabbed her board as she sailed through the air. The hot-dogging trick threw her off balance and she fell on her back.

Jacobellis, who scrambled to her feet to salvage the silver, will be a gold-medal contender in Vancouver.

Pierre Vaultier of France has dominated the men's field this season with four golds and a silver in five events, while Americans Nate Holland and 2006 Olympic champ Seth Wescott remain top threats.

Heavy lifting in preparation for the Olympics hasn't been reserved for just the athletes, as warm temperatures and heavy rain have been melting snow off the hills of Vancouver's North Shore.

Organizers recently started pushing snow from higher elevations and hauling it in by the truckload to cover bare patches on Cypress Mountain, the site of all Olympic snowboarding events.

Regardless of the course conditions, Canada is expecting results from its snowboarding team.

Canada Snowboard received $8.2 million from Canada's $117-million Own The Podium program, created to help athletes win more medals than any other country at the Games.

The only sports to receive more funding are alpine skiing, freestyle skiing and long-track speedskating.

Canada's parallel giant slalom team invested a chunk of its share into designing a new mechanical plate system, which connects the bindings to the snowboard.

Anderson said the new equipment allows the team to ride faster around the gates.

"I know we're way ahead (of other countries) on the board side and on the plate side,'' said Anderson, 34, who has long struggled with technological problems.

The alpine racers have also added more power to their frames.

Alexa Loo's trainer told her to gain 10 pounds over the summer, but after months of stuffing her face and cramming in more workouts, she fell a couple of pounds short of the goal.

"Eight's a lot for a girl to put on over a summer,'' said Loo, who could surprise and hit the podium in the wide-open women's field.

"I did my best.''

Anderson, the reigning world champion, Matthew Morison and Michael Lambert, a star of MTV Canada's reality-TV show Over The Bolts, are all medal threats.

But they will likely have to beat a pair of strong Austrians - Benjamin Karl and Andreas Prommegger - on their way to the podium.

When asked recently about which country has the strongest team in parallel giant slalom, Karl, the World Cup points leader, only wasted half a second before giving an answer.

"For sure, the Canadians,'' Karl said. "There are three riders who can win every time.''

The evolution of snowboarding is even more evident in the halfpipe.

Boarders will drop down the seven-metre ice walls of Cypress Mountain's "superpipe,'' about a metre-and-a-half taller than the pipe at the 2006 Turin Games.

The superpipes enable riders soar higher - sometimes more than six metres above the top of the wall.

Athletes love the wider transition zones, considered safer than their predecessors.

"If it's done properly, it's so much more progressive,'' said U.S. podium contender Gretchen Bleiler, the 2006 Olympic silver medallist.

"You can drop in with so much more speed.''

Americans dominated the halfpipe four years ago, winning gold and silver in both the men's and women's events.

Top U.S. riders like White, Louie Vito, Bleiler, Hannah Teter and Kelly Clark expect to grab more medals, but the international field has been narrowing the gap.

In a few short years, the Chinese women's team, led by 2009 World Cup champ Liu Jiayu , have become a force.

Japanese riders like 2009 world champ Ryoh Aono and Kazuhiro Kokubo have developed into podium threats on the men's side.

Kokubo (bronze) and Switzerland's Iouri Podladtchikov (silver) joined gold-medal winner White on the podium at last week's Winter X Games.

"This year it's different - everyone's caught up,'' Bleiler said.

Any Canadian medals in the deep halfpipe fields would be considered a surprise.

The women - Sarah Conrad, Mercedes Nicoll and Palmer Taylor - and the men - Jeff Batchelor, Justin Lamoureux and Brad Martin - will have to really step it up for a podium spot.

The biggest difference in halfpipe has been the rapid development of new tricks.

White won halfpipe gold in 2006 with back-to-back 1080s - three full spins.

At the X Games, he landed back-to-back double corks and a Double McTwist 1260 in a single run. The difficult - and dangerous - moves involve multiple flips while spinning off-axis.

White, the man to beat in Vancouver, can't believe how much pipe riding has advanced.

"This year's been crazy because I've changed my run like 10 times because of the progression of all the riders around me,'' he said in an interview.

"It's come so far."

Caydee Denney : Skating pairs have complicated relationships

SPOKANE, Wash. — Boy meets girl. Boy picks up girl. Boy tries to not drop girl on her head.

This is the world of pairs figure skating and ice dancing, the beautiful sports where a woman and a man skate in perfect unison across the ice.

But how do these pairs hook up, how do they stay together and what is the secret to success?

Pairs skating — one of the few athletic pursuits where men and women compete as equals — turns out to have a lot of parallels to relationships in real life. Not the least of which is the potential for conflicts while in proximity to very sharp objects.

Pairs meet by accident. They are matched up by coaches or friends. They seek each other out on the Internet. Despite the success of the movie "Blades of Glory," pairs are always a male and a female, and the risk of decapitation during a skating routine is minimal.

At the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Spokane in January, all manner of pairs were on display. The most successful was Caydee Denney, 16, and Jeremy Barrett, 25, who won the U.S. senior pairs title and will be competing in the Vancouver Olympics.

ELLENTON — As a child, Amanda Evora idolized Olympic ice skating champion Kristi Yamaguchi.

Mark Ladwig’s mother dressed him in shorts with long johns underneath to get him on the ice as a child.

And Caydee Denney’s mother made her stand in a chair — well, a makeshift podium — as a toddler and hung a medal around her neck as if she’d just won Olympic gold, just like her favorite figure skater — Tara Lipinski.

The pairs skaters reminisced about their childhood dreams at a news conference Thursday inside the Ellenton Ice and Sports Complex.

After years of preparing for the chance to compete in the Winter Olympics, Evora, Ladwig, Denney and Jeremy Barrett will represent the United States as the country’s pairs squads in Vancouver.

The Games begin Feb. 12. The pairs competition is Feb. 14-15.

“We’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I want to look at it as a celebration performance,” said Evora, a Bradenton resident. “Getting to the Olympics was our goal, and we haven’t really competed against all of the athletes we are going to be up against. So the only thing we can do is skate our hearts out.”

The quartet departs from Manatee County on Monday.

Before they leave, Evora and Barrett will take part in a private dinner reception Saturday at FineCraft Custom Cabinetry Inc. in Sarasota.

The pairs earned their Olympic spots by finishing first and second at the U.S. Figure Skating National Championships last month in Spokane, Wash.

Since returning home, there’s been nonstop media attention and practices in front of hundreds of fans. But despite the hoopla, the skaters have remained focus.

“It’s been a little bit more of a challenge,” said Barrett, of Venice, who won gold in Spokane alongside Denney. “Like last week, we had 700 or 800 people coming in to watch us practice when we are used to zero. It was different, but we are still getting our job done. The goal is to go over and skate well. We want to skate like we did at nationals.”

At the Olympics, perfecting a routine is only part of the job. Superb choreography, music and costumes will also decide who lands gold.

“I think that is very important now at this level, to raise (the artistic) part of the skating,” said Denney, of Wesley Chapel. “The artistic side of it is really important, and it’s fun to play a character when I am out there.”

As for her favorite skater, Denney met Lipinski for the first time at Nationals.

“It was amazing just to talk to her and meet her. She’s a very noble person,” Denney said. “It was an honor.”

Now, Denney and the rest of the quartet have the opportunity to do what Lipinski accomplished in 1998 — win gold at the Olympics.

Danica Patrick crashes in NASCAR debut

Danica Patrick's NASCAR debut ended in a 12-car accident in the Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway.

Patrick was running in the middle of the pack when several cars wrecked in front of her just past the race's halfway point. She tried to duck low to avoid the spinning cars but was unable to dodge everything, slamming into the outside wall.

Her car then spun through the grass, but Patrick regained control and drove to the pits. Her crew pushed the car back to the garage with heavy damage to the front. She had been running outside the top 20 for most of the day until the accident.

Tony Stewart went on to win the race for the fifth time in six years.

"It's important to have realistic expectations," Patrick said. "There's going to be spikes in performance, I don't doubt that. But there's also going to be tough days. And today, I would say, was more of a tough day."

Patrick finished sixth in last week's ARCA event at Daytona, and felt comfortable enough to move her NASCAR debut up a week to the Nationwide season-opener.

The IndyCar star went into Saturday's start saying her main goals were finishing the race, staying out of trouble and learning as much as she can.

One out of three wasn't what she had in mind.

"I wish I would have run up there at the beginning and felt more comfortable, but I just didn't," Patrick said. "And that just proves how hard it is out here, and how much there is to learn and how good all these drivers really are."

Patrick's car is co-owned by Sprint Cup series star Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was involved in his own crash later in the race. Earnhardt said the fact that Patrick wasn't running near the front Saturday doesn't mean she can't be competitive in NASCAR right away.

"This is such a different kind of racing than she'll do the rest of the season," Earnhardt said. "I think that everybody should just take Daytona for what it is."

She's also scheduled to run the next two Nationwide races, at California and Las Vegas.

Jennifer Lopez Caught in the Act and Continues TV Blitz With 'How I Met Your Mother' Cameo

Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony held court with a who's who of stars – everyone from Rihanna to six-time Grammy winner Beyoncé – at music mogul L.A. Reid's post-Grammy Awards dinner party at Cecconi's in West Hollywood. Lopez had some girl talk with Nicole Richie, before settling down to the table, while Anthony and Joel Madden stood nearby. Soon, Glee star Matthew Morrison joined his possible future costar Lopez at the table, and the two giggled and chatted like "old pals," an onlooker says. Guests enjoyed food like Kobe beef and gorgonzola sliders and wild mushroom risotto, while the Grammy telecast played on television screens in the restaurant.

Jennifer Lopez will attempt to "break" prime-time's most infamous womanizer, Barney (Neil Patrick Harris), when she guest-stars on "How I Met Your Mother" this season. Lopez, who tried her hand as a late-night host during "The George Lopez" show last week, seems to be making a habit of appearing on the small screen.

According to a press release, Lopez will play a self-help author, Anita Appleby, who writes about the ways "to train men into relationship machines through the power of denial." After she learns about Barney's treatment towards women from Robin (Cobie Smulders), Appleby wants to tame him.

"We couldn't be more excited about Jennifer Lopez joining us on 'How I Met Your Mother,' " executive producer and co-creator Carter Bays said of the latest celebrity cameo on his hit CBS comedy. "We're looking forward to a week of revealing outfits and sexy dance moves the likes of which this show hasn't seen since Regis Philbin guest-starred."

Lopez is also rumored to be making a guest appearance on "Glee." According to reports, the show's producers are trying to get her on the show to play a cafeteria worker. Coincidentally, Harris is also reportedly guest-starring on the Fox dramedy, according to Entertainment Weekly.

"Discussions are ongoing and we haven't gotten into the episode(s) [Lopez would] be appearing in," "Glee" executive producer Brad Falchuk told E! Online. Show creator Ryan Murphy told "Extra!"

The actress and singer, who began her career on TV as a dancer on "In Living Color," has been ramping up her appearances lately, beginning with her (unintentionally hilarious) performance of "Louboutins" at the American Music Awards in November. Her new album, Love?, was originally scheduled to come out in January, but it's since been pushed back to April.

Carrie Underwood is also set to make a cameo on "How I Met Your Mother," where she will play pharmaceutical sales rep and love interest for Ted (Josh Radnor) in an episode airing in March. In the past, "The Hills" stars Heidi Montage and Spencer Pratt have guested on the show, as well as Britney Spears who played love-struck receptionist Abby in 2008.

Taylor Swift, Beyonce rule the Grammy Awards

It's been a year of "Fearless" and fairytales for Taylor Swift.

The 20-year-old country cutie _ who has been on a winning streak for months with her hit album, "Fearless" _ won four Grammy Awards Sunday, including the night's top prize, album of the year.

"I did not see it coming tonight," she told reporters after the show. "This was a beautiful, beautiful surprise."

Earlier in the evening, Swift performed her song, "Today Was a Fairytale," which apparently became more and more true as the night went on. She also sang with one of her heroes, Stevie Nicks, on a mash-up that mixed Nicks' hit "Rhiannon" with Swift's award-winning "You Belong With Me."

Swift swiped the night's biggest prize, but Beyonce was the biggest winner. The multihyphenate entertainer made Grammy history as she collected six awards, the most won by a female artist in one night.

The 28-year-old diva won song of the year for her anthem "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It), a trophy she shared with three fellow writers. "Single Ladies" also won prizes for best female R&B vocal and best R&B song.

Her song "At Last" was named best traditional R&B vocal performance and "I Am ... Sasha Fierce" won best R&B contemporary album.

"This has been such an amazing night for me and I'd love to thank the Grammys," Beyonce said after winning best female pop vocal for "Halo." She also thanked her family and her husband, Jay-Z.

Swift said she was excited to find a place for her four awards, which included best country song and best female country vocal for "White Horse" and best country album for "Fearless."

Another country act to take a top award was the Zac Brown Band, which won best new artist.

Nashville rockers Kings of Leon celebrated throughout the night as the family band snapped up three trophies, including record of the year.

"I'm not going to lie, we're all a little drunk," said lead singer Caleb Followill. "But we're happy drunks."

Lady Gaga won two Grammys during the pre-telecast ceremony but didn't get to strut her headline-making outfits on stage during the prime-time show. She still showed her musical prowess, opening the program with her Grammy-nominated hit "Poker Face" before joining Elton John on a duet that melded her song "Speechless" with his classic "Your Song" in a performance that featured dueling pianos and glitter-painted faces.

Performances dominated the nearly three-and-a-half hour telecast. Usher, Celine Dion, Smokey Robinson, Jennifer Hudson and Carrie Underwood shared the stage during a tribute to Michael Jackson that also featured 3-D footage created for the comeback concerts Jackson was planning when he died.

Jackson's young children, Prince and Paris, accepted a lifetime achievement award for their late father.

"Through all his songs his message was simple, love. We will continue to spread his message and help the world," Prince said.

Haiti was also on the minds of many Grammy revelers, who wore red cross buttons in support of the devastated nation. Mary J. Blige joined Andrea Bocelli in a rousing rendition of "Bridge Over Troubled Water," which was not only designed to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the song's big Grammy wins, but to raise money for the people of Haiti. The performance, introduced by Haitian native Wyclef Jean, will be available via iTunes.com/target, with the funds going to earthquake relief.

Other standouts on stage included P!nk, who performed "Glitter in the Air" while dangling from the Staples Center ceiling on swaths of silk fabric, and the Black Eyed Peas, which were joined by dancers dressed as stereo speakers when they performed two songs from their Grammy-nominated album, "The E.N.D."

The Peas won three trophies, including best pop performance by a group for "I Gotta Feeling."

For Swift, the main feeling Sunday was elation.

"I just hope that you know how much this means to me ... that we get to take this back to Nashville," she said as she accepted the best-album honor. "Oh my God, our families are freaking out in their living rooms. My dad and my little brother are losing their minds in the living room right now."

Benicio Del Toro, Rick Baker Reveal How The Wolfman Comes To Life

When you set out to make a Wolfman movie, you know fans will be looking at the hairy, horrific title character even more closely than the thrills and drama. When Oscar winner Benicio Del Toro and legendary special-effects makeup designer Rick Baker set out to create the latest incarnation of the beast, they addressed the increased pressure by focusing their efforts in three distinct areas: the homage, the innovation and the anger.

"My manager and I, we went to Universal and proposed the idea of doing a remake of 'The Wolfman,' " Del Toro recalled of the origins of the project, which strike close to his heart since he credits his early viewings of Lon Chaney Jr.'s performance in the 1941 classic as his first comprehension of what an actor does. "When you're working with someone like Rick Baker, who's arguably the best makeup artist in the world, you just turn yourself into a canvas and let him do whatever he needs to do on your face."

" 'The Wolfman' is one of the movies that made me want to be a makeup artist," explained six-time Oscar winner Baker ("Men in Black," "Planet of the Apes"). "When I heard they were making this movie, I actually pursued this job. Usually I don't do that. So much a part of my being is the Wolfman, it was just so cool to be involved in a movie like this."

Everything from the clothes to the cane to the makeup itself is a tribute to the original film about a man haunted by the full moon and his inner beast waiting to be unleashed. "Benicio is a big Wolfman fan. He played Wolfman when he was a kid, and he had a poster of the Wolfman in his bedroom. He wanted to be Lon Chaney Jr.," Baker laughed. "We wanted the makeup to be exactly like that, and we were on the same page. We're both big fans of those films, which made us bond right away. But it needs to be amped up a little bit.

"At first, I was afraid. I was a little scared, because [I wondered,] 'Would a kid today accept a guy in makeup, when they are used to seeing CG things running around?' " he added, talking about stage two of their process, which fused the makeup homage with computer-enhanced innovation. "I just thought that if I took that original design, that [1941 version makeup artist] Jack Peirce did, and amp it up a little bit to make it a little more ferocious, more vicious, it would work."

"It took about four hours to get it down," Del Toro remembered of Baker's amazingly intricate process, which would have the actor getting into the chair at ungodly hours in the morning. "The process was magical in a way; it was piece by piece, and then suddenly — boom! There was a final product, and it looked cool and it looked scary. It was what you hoped for this monster to look like."

"Depending on your age, [you prefer CG or makeup]," Baker said. "Guys in my generation, with monster movies, they kind of pooh-pooh the CG stuff, but I think it's an interesting technique. It's another amazing trick, and when it's used properly, you can do some things we can't do with rubber. This film strikes a nice balance between the two — it's stupid not to utilize every trick in your bag of tricks."

That brings us to the third stage in the process, the one that most informed Benicio's performance: the anger. "The toughest part was taking it off," Del Toro remembered of the many miserable hours he spent under all that hot, furry costuming. "You work 16 hours with this thing. You're fed up, you're ready to go home, you're tired -- and then everybody has gone home and you're sitting there in the makeup trailer, and they're scraping the makeup off your face."

At the end of the day, however, Del Toro said he harnessed all the irritability of such elements into playing the Wolfman, who isn't exactly a chipper fellow while transformed. "That thing is locked up on your cheekbones," Del Toro remembered. "I had a team of people on the set with me, just to put blood or whatever on me, and one of the things they had to do was if I needed to talk to the director, I needed to do a sign, and then someone would come in, put gloves on, and go into my mouth and pull my teeth out — and then I could talk! Everything was a little bit difficult; everything. Nothing was completely easy with the makeup. But the final product is pretty cool, so I'm glad I did it."

EXCLUSIVE – LOST's Evangeline Lilly Weighs in on Romantic Pairings

Whether Jaters, Skaters, Jackets, or Suliets, LOST shippers are amongst the most enthusiastic on the planet. Part of LOST's appeal has been the excellently executed romantic triangle involving Jack, Sawyer, and Kate. Then, in season 3 the other's OB/GYN Juliet was thrown into the mix. The only ones who haven't been together since are Juliet and Kate, and Jack and Sawyer – except in cleverly edited fan videos (Brokeback Island, anyone?). In her recent visit to the Red Carpet event for the LOST Season 6 Premiere, Jo "Jopinionated" Garfein – representing TVOvermind – had the chance to put LOST star Evangeline Lilly in the hot seat with one question: which pairing works best for her. The answer may surprise you.

So in Ms. Lilly's opinion, the best pairing is that of Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell). Since we last saw Juliet bashing a nuclear bomb with a rock, should we take this to mean that there is no more romance in LOST season 6 that could have skewed Lilly's opinion? Are Skaters and Jaters out of luck, or is Evangeline just practicing the art of deflection? We'll begin to get some indication next week when LOST returns on Tuesday, February 2nd with a three-hour premiere event kicking off at 8:00pm EST.

In the meantime, keep checking TV Overmind for more of Jo's exclusive encounters on the Sunset at the Beach Red Carpet event.

Megan Fox Voted Worst Actress of 2009 By Movie Fans

SHE may be the hottest star in Hollywood but MEGAN FOX has been dealt a cruel blow by movie fans.

The Transformers star has been named the WORST actress of 2009.

Megan beat BEYONCE and HILARY SWANK to the dubious honour in a poll on US website.

And to add insult to injury Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was Worst Film of 2009 as well as the second-most Disappointing Film of the Year, after SACHA BARON COHEN'S Bruno.

Bizarrely, Transformers 2 also picked up the Best Action Movie accolade.

And the Foxy one didn't walk away completely empty handed - she was once more voted Sexiest Female Star.

Megan Fox and Cindy Crawford swear that vinegar is the key to staying slim, while Shilpa Shetty claims fizzy drinks cause wrinkles and Roger Moore warns that foie gras may give you a terminal illness.

Scientists have warned against the increasing number of celebrities who have used their high profile status to publicise a string of spurious theories on how to stay young, slim, beautiful and healthy.

The charity has singled out the worst offenders, including Transformers actress Miss Fox and Black Eyed Peas singer Stacy Ferguson, who extol the virtues of vinegar as a dieting and detoxing aid.

Miss Fox said this year: "It just cleanses out your system entirely. It will get rid of, for women who retain water weight from your menstrual cycle and all that, it gets rid of it really fast.

"I'm not one for dieting or exercising, 'cause I'm lazy and I have a really big sweet tooth, so I have to do cleanses every once in a while 'cause of the amount of sugar I take in."

Lucy Jones, a dietitian with the Whittington NHS Trust in London, said: "As attractive as it sounds, there is no magic pill, lotion or potion for a quick fix to weight loss. The body, including the liver, is a well-oiled detoxing machine, which will not be improved by vinegar, whether it be organic, apple cider, unfiltered, or your bog-standard malt vinegar."

Also criticised is Roger Moore, who claimed that eating foie gras can cause Alzheimer's, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, and is "a tasty way of getting terminally ill".

Commenting on the actor's claims, Miss Jones said: "No single food should be looked at in isolation or attributed to causing any disease or curing one."

Gwyneth Paltrow's views on the dangers of pesticides in foods have also come under the spotlight.

Dr John Cherrie, of the Institute of Occupational Medicine, said: "Gwyneth misses the point that it is the dose that makes the poison. The amounts in our food are very low and there is no evidence of any ill-effects."

Ellen Raphael, of Sense About Science, which offers to coach celebrities as part of its drive to increase the public's understanding of science, said: "People in the public eye have disproportionately "loud" voices, and with the internet misleading claims live on for a long time.

"This is an open invitation for celebrities to get in touch with scientists to check the facts before speaking out on subjects they know little about."

Anna Kendrick: Oscar Nominee!

Anna Kendrick (born August 9, 1985) is an American film and stage actress best known for the roles of Natalie Keener, in the 2009 film Up in the Air, and Jessica Stanley in the Twilight Saga film series. Her other work includes the films Camp and Rocket Science and the Broadway musical High Society. Kendrick is a Tony Award, Golden Globe and Oscar nominee.

Career
Kendrick "caught the [acting] bug" at the age of 10, when her parents would let her and her brother catch a bus from Portland, Maine, to New York City so that she could attend auditions. Her first appearance was the role of Dinah in the Broadway musical High Society in August 1998, at age 12, which earned her Theatre World Award, Drama Desk Award, and Tony Award nominations, the latter of which made her the third-youngest nominee ever after 10-year-old Frankie Michaels and 11-year-old Daisy Eagan, who both went on to win.

Afterward, she was featured in a number of other theater productions, including the musical A Little Night Music, before making her film debut in the 2003 musical comedy Camp, for which she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Chlotrudis Award and Best Debut Performance Independent Spirit Award for her portrayal of the character Fritzi Wagner.

In 2007 she appeared in her next film, Rocket Science, in which she portrayed Ginny Ryerson, a fast-talking high school debater. Although she says she found the role intimidating and challenging after watching an actual national collegiate championship debate, her performance was praised by critics] and she was nominated for a 2007 Independent Spirit Award in the category of Best Supporting Actress.

In late 2007, she auditioned for the role of Jessica Stanley in Twilight, a 2008 film adapted from the first book of the novel series by Stephenie Meyer. She had intended to do a mix-and-match audition with various actors, but was too ill and had to leave; she was, however, brought in for a later session where she was given the role. Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg said that the characters Jessica Stanley and Lauren Mallory from the book were combined to create the role. Kendrick reprises her role as Jessica in the Twilight sequel, New Moon.

Kendrick's theater singing experience gave her the opportunity to star in her next project, 2009's The Marc Pease Experience, where she appears opposite Jason Schwartzman and Ben Stiller as a high school senior involved in musical theater.

She appeared in the 2009 films Elsewhere, in which she plays her first lead character (a girl whose best friend (played by Tania Raymonde) goes missing), and in director Jason Reitman's Up in the Air, based on Walter Kirn's 2001 novel of the same name, alongside George Clooney and Vera Farmiga. For her role in Up in the Air, the National Board of Review named her Best Supporting Actress and she has also picked up nominations from both The Golden Globes and The Screen Actors Guild. She is set to appear in Edgar Wright's adaptation of the graphic novel Scott Pilgrim, titled Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

Esperanza Spalding

Esperanza Spalding, 23-year-old prodigy in singing, playing bass and interceptive dance. She's will perform at Church of the Good Shepherd, 100 Stockton St. in Riverside on Friday, Feb. 19 by 8 PM.

She is now a Chart Topping professional with a voice so sweet, skill with instruments with simply jaw dropping beauty.

If you would remember she performed at Grand Opera House in Wilmington on January 31st, on behest of an invitation from President Obama himself once during January 31st.

Esperanza Spalding is one of the hottest new jazz stars after being chosen by President Barack Obama to perform at the Nobel Peace Prize events in December. Esperanza Spalding, 23, appeared on Austin City Limits ladies' night at 11 PM on Saturday on a new edition of the long running concert series.

Esperanza Spalding will be performing in the Riverside Fine Arts series held on February 19, 2010. Esperanza Spalding will sing at 8 PM at the Church of Good Shepherd located on 100 Stockton Street in Riverside.

Esperanza Spalding recently gave a master class for jazz students in January 22 at the Interlochen Arts Academy. According to the Traverse City Record Eagle, Director Bill Sears stated about Esperanza Spalding, “She's as hot as anything going in the jazz world. The thing about her is that she's remarkably versatile due to the fact that she plays great and she also sings. If you watch any of her YouTube performances -- I've also seen her on TV -- she's an electrifying performer. She just captivates her audience with her stage presence. She's not only a great musician, she's able to sell the music in a beautiful way."

Born in Portland, Oregon, Esperanza Spalding has Welsh, Hispanic, Native American and African-American heritage. Esperanza Spalding taught herself violin at the age of 4. Esperanza Spalding played with the Chamber Music Society of Oregon until she was 15 and ended up as concertmaster.

Thanks to a one-year scholarship to a Portland performing arts high school, Esperanza Spalding discovered the bass. By age 17, Esperanza Spalding won a full scholarship to Berkley. Esperanza Spalding captivates the world today with her unique blend of jazz, pop, world music and soul.

Esperanza Spalding sings beautifully to the world in English, Portuguese and Spanish. In 2006, her solo album “Junjo” was released. In 2008, Esperanza Spalding gave us “Esperanza”.

Snow Totals

According to the latest updates, some areas in the US region is still in bad weather. We should be aware to prepare for the snow storm. It’s been reported that snow totals will still continue across the United States. And here’s the brief information on today’s snow storm.

Snow will continue across the region today on the backside of a departing low pressure system. Some areas will remain as rain during the morning across southeastern Virginia and the Delmarva before changing over to snow by the early afternoon. Snow will begin to taper off across northern Pennsylvania this morning with activity clearing out of Pennsylvania by the late afternoon.

Heavy snow will taper off across the D.C.-Baltimore-Philadelphia corridor by the mid-afternoon with snow ending during the evening. Mainly dry conditions are then expected across the region by the late evening and lasting through the overnight hours. Additional snowfall amounts will be 10-16 inches from northern Virginia through central Maryland into Delaware, southern New Jersey and southeastern Pennsylvania.

Across Pennsylvania and northern New Jersey, additional amounts of 3-9 inches will be possible between I-80 and I-76. In Virginia, amounts of 3-9 inches will be possible north of I-64 to the far southern extent of the D.C. metro area. Storm total amounts will be 12-20 inches from northwestern Virginia into Maryland, Delaware, southern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey.

Snowfall amounts will then quickly fall off north and south of this corridor with 2-6 inches for central Pennsylvania to northern New Jersey and southern Virginia. Highest totals will be from northeastern Virginia eastward to Delaware and southern New Jersey where 20 inches plus will be possible. Winds will also be quite gusty across the east with gusts to 35-45 mph being possible, especially in coastal areas. A few gusts to 50 mph will also be possible. Winds will then diminish through the overnight hours. Temperatures will run 3-7 degrees below normal across the north with readings 7-14 degrees below normal in the south.

Dry conditions are expected for tomorrow as high pressure builds in. Skies will remain mostly cloudy across the north but trend partly to mostly sunny to the southeast. Temperatures will again by 3-7 degrees below normal across the north with readings 7-14 degrees below normal for the south.

The county remains under a Level 3 snow emergency. According to the National Weather Service, an additional one to three inches is expected before the snow ends this morning around 10 a.m. or so.

That will bring snow totals to three to four inches throughout the county. Motorists can expect snow-covered roads and winds are expected to continue to gust to up to 35 mph, making visibility below 1 mile.

Today is expected to continue to be windy with a high of 27 degrees.

Ottawa County is not under a snow emergency.

Maryland is under a state of emergency today as a winter storm forecasters described as "extremely dangerous" spread across the area with potentially record-breaking snow totals and gale-force winds.

Accumulation rates as high as two to three inches an hour were seen overnight and buried the region in about two feet of snow.

If forecasters are right, another five to nine inches of snow could fall by the time the storm ends this evening. The national weather service reported varying measurements, from 32 inches in Elkridge to 5 inches in Salisbury.

Some 34,000 customers in the region were without power, and abandoned cars were scattered on state highways in the early morning today.

State highway spokesman David Buck said crews working overnight were struggling to keep one lane open on all highways, although they had fallen behind somewhat over the night as two to three inches an hour fell.

He said the crews were reporting 24 to 25 inches of snow had fallen along the I 95 corridor through Maryland with snow starting to pick up in Carroll County. "We have abandoned cars all over. People got curious as the sun came up ... People are waking up and thinking, 'Hey, time to go out. Wrong move,'" Buck said.

Motorists should not assume that if they can get out of their neighborhood they will find bare road, he said.

Many hours of the storm remain, Buck said, and people should stay home.

BGE spokeswoman Linda Foy said crews have already restored power to 26,000 customers overnight, but there are 34,000 customers currently without power, including about 8,600 in Baltimore County and 8,700 in Anne Arundel County. Crews from Tennessee and Kentucky are expected to arrive today with another contingent of lineman and support staff headed to Maryland from Ohio.

Blizzard warnings were posted through 10 p.m. today for the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay, from Anne Arundel south to St. Mary's County, where falling snow and winds of more than 35 mph early today were expected to reduce visibility to less than a quarter-mile before easing later in the morning. The weather service added southern Baltimore, Harford, Charles and Prince George's counties, plus Baltimore City andthe District of Columbia, to the blizzard warnings Friday night.

"This extremely dangerous storm is expected to produce record snowfall for the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., metropolitan areas," the National Weather Service said Friday night. "Travel conditions ... will be extremely hazardous and life-threatening. Help your state and local government first responders and transportation agencies by staying off the roads."

Before the first flake stuck Friday, schools across the state had closed or sent students home early. Many employers let workers telecommute or punch out early. Airlines canceled flights in and out of Baltimore, and Marylanders everywhere stocked up on food, shovels, beer and other essentials in anticipation of a long Super Bowl weekend at home in deep snow.

All day long Friday, forecasts from the National Weather Service and other sources escalated from the 1- to 2-foot range into 2- to 3-foot territory. Such totals would threaten all-time snow records in Washington and Baltimore.

Baltimore's biggest snowstorm to date is the 28.2 inches that fell Feb. 15-18, 2003. Washington's is the 28-inch "Knickerbocker Storm" of 1922. The storm was named for a Washington theater in which 98 people perished when the roof collapsed under the weight of snow.

What was stacking up to be a historic winter storm originated in the North Pacific, crossed the continent and picked up moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. Overnight, it was expected to "bomb out," or intensify, off the North Carolina coast and throw the equivalent of several inches of rain on the Mid-Atlantic states.

Bands of intense snowfall were expected, but none of that was apparent during daylight hours Friday. Light snow began to fall late in the morning. It arrived first in the Washington area, gradually spreading over Baltimore by 11 a.m., and later the Eastern Shore and points north.

With surface temperatures above freezing, little was sticking at first. Some Marylanders were quick to pronounce the much-ballyhooed storm a bust, but the night coverage validated closing and commuting policies put in place by many employers. A liberal leave policy was invoked for state workers Friday, giving them the option to head home early to avoid getting snared in a slippery evening rush hour.

Many commuters did leave work early. Traffic volume on the Beltway swelled soon after 1 p.m. But the pavement was no more than wet late into the afternoon, and highway speeds appeared normal.

Gov. Martin O'Malley joined the chorus urging Marylanders to "curl up with a book and stay off the roads," so highway crews could do their job.

"It's going to be a big snow," the governor told reporters at the state highway operations center in Hanover. "We are prepared to deal with whatever Mother Nature throws at us."

Bill Cosby Dead From Heart Attack?

Bill Cosby, actor and comedian, is rumored to be dead at age 72. There are not any reports so far that confirm or deny Bill Cosby’s death. The latest news about the health of Cosby was that his wife Camille found him passed out in his chair around Midnight of Feb. 6th. Camille called 911 and Cosby was rushed to Baystate Franklin Medical Center.

While the rumor of celebrity deaths on the internet have been a trend over the last year, at this time Cosby’s death cannot be ruled out. It is very possible that Cosby at the age of 72, had a heart attack and died, but we can only hope it is just a rumor.

Bill Cosby and wife Camille reside in Shelburne, MA and Cheltenham, PA. Cosby is well known for his hit TV series The Cosby Show.

William Henry “Bill” Cosby, Jr. (born July 12, 1937) was an American comedian, actor, author, television producer, musician and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs, then landed a starring role in the 1960s action show, I Spy. He later starred in his own series, TheBill Cosby Show, in 1969. He was one of the major characters on the children’s television show, The Electric Company, for its first two seasons, and created the humorous educational cartoon series, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, about a group of young friends growing up in the city. Cosby has also acted in a number of films.

BILL COSBY walks into the room, brushing crumbs from his shirt front and yawning. He sits at a computer and turns it on.
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William Henry “Bill” Cosby, Jr. (born July 12, 1937) is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer, musician and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs, then landed a starring role in the 1960s action show, I Spy. He later starred in his own series, The Bill Cosby Show, in 1969. He was one of the major characters on the children’s television show

During the 1980s, Cosby produced and starred in what is considered to be one of the decade’s defining sitcoms, The Cosby Show, which aired eight seasons from 1984 to 1992, and is still seen in syndication. The sitcom highlighted the experiences and growth of an upper-middle-class African American family. He also produced the hit sitcom, A Different World, which became second toThe Cosby Show in ratings. In the 1990s, he starred in Cosby, which aired from 1996 to 2000, and during the show’s last two seasons, hosted Kids Say the Darndest Things.

Diabetic ketoacidosis: Cause of death for Casey Johnson, Johnson and Johnson heiress

The cause of death for Casey Johnson, the Johnson and Johnson heiress, who died on Monday 4th January 2010, has been revealed as diabetic ketoacidosis, according to a statement released by the Los Angeles County coroner in the case; many speculated, including Casey Johnson's fiancé Tila Tequila, that Casey died of a prescription drug overdose. Casey Johnson was just 30 years old when she died.

Cause of death for Casey Johnson and Brittany Murphy not related

Similarities had been drawn between the death of Casey Johnson and actress Brittany Murphy who died December 20th 2009; it has now been confirmed that Brittany Murphy died of a massive heart attack due to complications caused by community acquired pneumonia, multiple prescription drug use and iron deficiency anemia. There were no confirmed connections as to the cause of death between Casey Johnson and Brittany Murphy.

What is Diabetic ketoacidosis?

Diabetic ketoacidosis is caused by a serious complication in diabetes; according to the Mayo Clinic, diabetes ketoacidosis develops when the body is not receiving enough insulin. There are a number of symptoms of diabetic ketoacidosis which often develop quickly.

I Pad : I Pad Apple Tablet & I Pad Price Release Date

I Pad : I Pad Apple Tablet & I Pad Price Release Date. lots of reports came in the it would cost around $999, good news it is going to cost $499 for the 16GB version with Wifi, $599 for the 32Gb version with WiFi and $699 for the 64GB version with WiFi.

It is true after all – Apple (the largest mobile devices company in the world at a value of over $50 billion, which is more than Nokia in terms of revenue) has finally announced the second coming of gadgetopia in the form of the iPad. As expected, Steve Jobs took to the stage to bring us news that has the entire gadget world riveted with the $499 (upwards) iPad occupying the middle ground between smartphones and laptops.

It is touted to be superior to any netbook and laptop for that matter, being able to be used in any direction that you want it with new drop downs in the e-mail interface as well as a large onscreen QWERTY to get those emails sent out in a flurry. Without any tactile feedback, we wonder how the public will get used to this compared to typing on a regular QWERTY keyboard.

As for the interface itself, it is more or less a much larger version of the iPhone, photo flicking and all (as expected). As for the iTunes store, it has been pre-loaded into theiPad itself. More details in the extended post.

Apple has their own processor inside with the 1GHz Apple A4 processor – we wonder how this will hold up against the Snapdragon, but here are the rest of the nitty gritty.

* 1GHz Apple A4 processor
* 16GB to 64GB internal flash memory
* 9.7″ IPS display
* Full capacitative multitouch capability
* 10 hour battery life (1 month standby)
* Built-in accelerometer and compass
* Speaker, microphone and 30-pin connector
* 0.5″ thin
* 1.5 lbs.
* Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
* Wi-Fi 802.11n connectivity

Cindy Crawford targeted in extortion plot

People reports that a 26-year-old German man is being accused of trying to extort $100,000 from Cindy Crawford and her husband Rande Gerber over a photograph of their 7-year-old daughter said to have been taken by a former nanny, according to court papers filed Thursday by the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office. L.A. TV station KTLA says the photo shows the girl, who is now 8, bound to a chair wearing shorts and a T-shirt, according to the court papers. An affidavit filed in the case reportedly states that the girl told her parents the photo was taken as part of a game of cops and robbers. Crawford and her husband said they did not know about the photograph and did not consent to it being taken.

Edis Kayalar, 26, a recent deportee to Germany, threatened to release the photo to the media if he was not paid $100,000. He has been charged with one count of extortion, which carries a prison sentence of up to two years. The nanny has not been charged.

A rep for Crawford released a statement to People: “Rande Gerber and Cindy Crawford intend to pursue any and all available legal action against anyone who aids the perpetrator in the distribution or sale of the photograph of their daughter.”

She’s the latest victim of an attempted extortion scheme, and Cindy Crawford is fighting back against her alleged blackmailer.

The former “House of Style” hottie and her husband Rande Gerber have been targeted by a friend of their former nanny who obtained a strange picture of their daughter Kaia when she was seven years old.

According to a report, Kaia was “bound to a chair and gagged” in the photo, which was explained as taken during the nanny’s cops and robbers game.

Crawford’s rep released a statement saying, “A criminal complaint was filed today in federal court in Los Angeles by the U.S. Attorney’s office and the FBI stating that Rande Gerber and Cindy Crawford have been the victims of an on-going extortion scheme. This crime has been committed by Edis Kayalar, an acquaintance of a former nanny employed by the family. Mr. Kayalar threatened to sell an image taken of the couple’s then-seven-year-old daughter. There was no previous awareness by Mr. Gerber and Ms. Crawford of the existence of the photograph when they were contacted by Mr. Kayalar. The photo was taken by the former nanny as part of a purported game without the knowledge of the parents. The couple reported the extortion threat to the police and the FBI began a criminal investigation in the matter. Rande Gerber and Cindy Crawford intend to pursue any and all available legal action against anyone who aids the perpetrator in the distribution or sale of the photograph of their daughter.”



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