Barack Obama picked Joe Bidon to be his running mate. Surprised? Kind of but not really. He has to pick somebody and I think people will see Joe Bidon as a counterpart to John Mcain. You know, another old white guy from back in the day. Plus Joe made some slightly religious remarks during the [...]
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Deadly Plane Crash in Spain
RID, Spain - A Spanish airliner bound for the Canary Islands at the height of the vacation season crashed, burned and broke into pieces Wednesday while trying to take off from Madrid, killing 149 people on board, officials said.
There were only 26 survivors in the mid-afternoon crash, said Spanish Development Minister Magdalena Alvarez, whose department is in charge of civil aviation. It was Spain’s deadliest air disaster in more than 20 years.
A police officer said the bodies were so hot that police could barely touch them and told El Pais newspaper the shattered wreckage bore no resemblance to a plane.
Dozens of ambulances rushed to the site as columns of smoke billowed from the wreckage. The prime minister broke off his vacation in southern Spain and rushed back to Madrid, heading straight for the airport.
“I have never seen anything like this in my life,” ambulance driver Luis Ferreras, who viewed the crash site, was quoted as saying by El Pais.
Spanair Flight JK5022 — bound for Las Palmas during the height of Europe’s summer vacation season — was just barely airborne when it veered right, crashed and broke into pieces, reports said.
Spanair spokesman Sergio Allard told a news conference the plane was carrying 175 people and the cause of the crash was not immediately known.
El Pais said the plane left an hour late because of technical problems. It eventually managed to get slightly off the ground but crashed near the end of the runway, El Pais said, quoting an employee of the national airport authority AENA.
Helicopters and fire trucks dumped water on the plane, which ended up in a wooded area at the end of the runway at Terminal 4.
A makeshift morgue was set up at the city’s main convention center, officials said.
The plane was an MD-82 on a codeshare flight with Lufthansa’s LH255, Spanair said. Departures from Madrid’s airport were suspended for several hours.
McDonnell Douglas was bought out by Boeing in 1997. Boeing spokesman Jim Proulx said the company would send at least one person to assist in the investigation of the crash as soon as it receives an invitation from Spanish authorities.
“We stand ready to provide technical assistance,” he said, reading from a prepared statement.
Allard said the plane last passed an inspection in January of this year and no problems with it had been reported since then. The plane is 15 years old and has been owned by Spanair for the past nine, he said.
In Copenhagen, Mats Jansson, the chief executive of Spanair’s owner, Scandinavian Airlines, said he had no information about the toll or the accident itself.
Last July, 199 people were killed in Brazil when an Airbus A320 belonging to TAM airlines skidded off the runway at Sao Paolo’s Congonhas airport before crashing into a nearby gas station and an air cargo building.
Five people died and 65 were injured on May 30 when the A320 belonging to Grupo Taca skidded off the end of the runway at Toncontin International Airport near the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa.
The deadliest disaster in aviation history occurred in Spain in 1977 as a result of a runway collision between two fully loaded Boeing 747s in the Canary Islands. A total of 583 people died.
In November 1983, a Boeing 747 operated by the Colombian airline Avianca crashed near Madrid as it prepared to land, killing 181 people.
In Feburary 1985, an Iberia Boeing 727 crashed near Bilbao in the Basque region, killing 148 people.
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Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer
Rocker John Mayer has hinted that magazine reports claiming he is romancing Jennifer Aniston are true–and admits he loves the press attention he is getting as a result.
The pair was snapped embracing on a Miami beach last week, prompting speculation they are an item.
Mayer had refused to speak out about the rumors until Monday night–when he almost revealed all to reporters at New York’s Costume Institute Gala.
The 30-year-old said of the tabloid claims, “You know what I did? I looked at it (the reports) and I said, ‘That’s about right.’ What am I going to say, ‘That’s not me?’”
And the former beau of fellow beauties Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Love Hewitt has no problem being caught by crafty photographers: “Listen, this is not a scandal
Nastia Liukin Russian Gymnast
Anastasia “Nastia” Valeryevna Liukin (Russian: Анастасия “Настя” Валерьевна Люкина; born October 30, 1989) is a Russian-American artistic gymnast. She is the 2008 Olympic individual all-around gold medalist, the 2005 and 2007 World Champion on the balance beam, and the 2005 World Champion on the uneven bars. With nine World Championships medals, seven of them individual, Liukin is tied with Shannon Miller as the American gymnast having won the most World Championship medals.[1][2]
The daughter of two former Soviet champion gymnasts, Olympic gold medalist Valeri Liukin and World Champion rhythmic gymnast Anna Kotchneva, Nastia Liukin was born in Moscow and moved to the United States as a young child. She began gymnastics after spending time in the gym while her parents coached. Liukin is coached by her father at the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy, her family’s gymnastics club in Plano, Texas.
Liukin became a member of the U.S. junior national team when she was 12 years old and won the National all-around title at the age of 13. She was the all-around silver medalist at the 2003 Pan American Games. Since 2005, Liukin has been a key member of the U.S. senior team. She is a four-time all-around U.S. National Champion, winning twice as a junior and twice as a senior. She has been the U.S. senior National Champion on the uneven bars since 2005. Liukin has represented the United States at three World Championships, the 2003 and 2007 Pan American Games, and the 2006 and 2008 Pacific Rim Championships.
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Scarlet Johansson
Scarlet Johansson began acting during childhood, after her mother began taking her to auditions.[5] She made her film debut in 1994’s North. After appearing in several films during the late 1990s, including a very brief appearance in the Mandy Moore video for her single “Candy“, Johansson garnered praise and widespread attention for her performance in 1998’s The Horse Whisperer and 2001’s Ghost World.
She won the “Upstream Prize” for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for her performance in 2003’s Lost in Translation. The same year, she was nominated for two Best Actress awards at the Golden Globes, one for drama (Girl with a Pearl Earring) and one for comedy (Lost in Translation). She was also nominated for Best Actress for both films at the BAFTAs, and won Best Actress for Lost in Translation.
Johansson was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2004.[9] In the same year, she starred in the films The Perfect Score, In Good Company and A Love Song for Bobby Long, the last of which earned her a third Golden Globe Award nomination. Johansson was involved for a short time with the film Mission: Impossible III, but was not officially cast because of scheduling conflicts, although a falling out with the film’s star, Tom Cruise, had been both widely reported and publicly denied.[10] She was replaced by Keri Russell.
In July 2005, Johansson starred with Ewan McGregor in Michael Bay’s The Island, making her debut as a female lead in a mainstream action film. In the same year, she starred in the Woody Allen-directed drama Match Point, which opened in December. Johansson received her fourth Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress for the role, but lost to Rachel Weisz.
Johansson’s next film, Scoop, another collaboration with Allen, was released on July 28, 2006. The same year, she appeared in Brian De Palma’s The Black Dahlia, a film noir shot in Los Angeles and Bulgaria. Johansson has noted that she was a De Palma fan and had wanted to work with him on the film, even though she thought that she was “physically wrong” for the part.[11] Her reviews were mixed: CNN.com noted that Johansson “takes to the pulpy period atmosphere as if it were oxygen,”[12] whereas the Kalamazoo Gazette referred to Johansson as “miscast.”[13
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Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf Resigns
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf announced that he was making plans to step down from office. This guy has been a huge pain in the ass for the United States. I know, I know, George Bush calls him an ally of the United States buy is he? He has been letting Osama Bin Laden live there safe and sound (so the world believes) for the past seven years. Pakistan never really went after Al Queda the way he should have. I think Pervez Musharraf was a fair weather friend at best.
Now Pakistan is in a scary unstable way. This is bad news as they have nukes and lord only knows what will happen if one of those fanatical muslims gets their hands on one. I’m not really sure if the people of Pakistan hate us Americans too but the world is a dangerous place and I’m sure Pakistan could use a good friend like the United States. The US has given Pakistan billions with a b. What have they done for us?
Not much. I kind of liked Pervez Musharraf when I first heard him speak but he did not follow his words with real action. He only did just enough to keep the US off his back. Playing both sides of the field has cost Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf his seat in the office. Good Riddance! I’m glad he resigned.