Wednesday 8 May 2013

Colorado Massacre Suspect Pursues Insanity Defense

Colorado Massacre Suspect Pursues Insanity Defense, Defense lawyers for James E. Holmes, the former graduate student charged with opening fire on a packed Aurora movie theater last summer, said in court filings Tuesday that he intended to plead not guilty by reason of insanity in the attack.

Mr. Holmes, who is accused of killing 12 people and wounding dozens more, will enter the plea at hearing next week, his lawyers said. He faces 166 counts of murder, attempted murder and other charges, and prosecutors announced last month that they intended to seek the death penalty.

Earlier this year, after Mr. Holmes’s defense team said it was not ready to enter a plea, Judge William B. Sylvester entered a standard not guilty plea on Mr. Holmes’s behalf.

But defense lawyers have long signaled they would mount an insanity defense, saying in court documents and during a preliminary hearing that Mr. Holmes was mentally ill at the time of the attack.

A new judge in the case, Carlos A. Samour Jr., will rule on the plea change

33-year-old GM hired: GM Hired By Phoenix Suns After Poor Season

33-year-old GM hired: GM Hired By Phoenix Suns After Poor Season, By the professional basketball team Phoenix Suns on Tuesday after the team fell to the bottom of the NBA’s Western Conference in 2013. The Suns have hired Ryan McDonough to replace Lance Blanks as the teams new general manager in hopes of improving on a 25-57 record from this season.

Hiring McDonough instantly raised questions as it’s rare to find a team with executives in their 30′s. Dating back to the creation of the league, only a few men have been named the general manager of an NBA team at such a young age, including Rick Sund and Rob Hennigan.

Sund was named the Dallas Mavericks general manager in 1979 at the age of 28 to become the youngest ever to hold such a position. Hennigan is currently the youngest to oversee a team at 30-years-old. He we named the Orlando Magic’s general manager in 2012 and they have stuck with him ever since.

McDonough will join the Phoenix Suns after three years as assistant general manager for the Boston Celtics. The newly appointed executive worked his way up after joining the Celtics as a special assistant to basketball operations at 23-years-old. The Suns may have brought in a young guy, but this guy happens to have a lot of experience in an NBA front office. Abclocal reported

The Phoenix Suns are coming off their second worst record in franchise history, so it can’t be all that bad when they have a 33-year-old GM hired and ready to add some life to the organization.

They fired Lance Blanks on April 22nd and have now found themselves a man who was involved in two NBA title runs with the Celtics, including a championship in 2008.

Suns President of Basketball Operations Lon Babby released a statement about their newest employee and he looks to be very excited to have McDonough come aboard.

“Ryan distinguished himself among an impressive group of candidates for our GM position,” he said. “His natural leadership and communication skills will serve the Suns well.”

Now with a leader in the office they can focus on finding a leader for the court. Once the NBA playoffs are over, players will start varying their options and the Suns will do the same as they look to rebound after a terrible season in 2013 with their new 33-year-old GM hired and ready to go.

33-year-old GM hired

33-year-old GM hired, earlier on Tuesday, word was filtering around the usual NBA circles that the Phoenix Suns were attempting to hire Los Angeles Clippers forward Grant Hill as the team’s new general manager. That potential hire would come on the heels of the disastrous regime of since-fired GM Lance Blanks, and the work of another big name ex-player in Steve Kerr. It appeared that the Suns, as run by former Hill representative Lon Babby, were diving deep into business as usual.

It turns out that the team has decided to decidedly mix things up. Former Boston Celtics assistant GM Ryan McDonough is the team’s new personnel chief, and he’ll have quite the task ahead of him. The Phoenix Suns haven’t made the playoffs since 2010, and the team’s roster is filled with middling players with middle of the road contracts that, combined in an unholy alliance, only managed to win 25 games in 2012-13. The team has no coach. The team’s assistant coaching staff mostly quit in disgust last winter. Michael Beasley’s checks have the Phoenix Suns logo in the top corner. There is a lot of work to be done.

And Ryan McDonough is 33 years-old. He, like a lot of us, had junior high-styled lawn mowing duties the last time the Suns made the Finals in 1993. He is the same age as Suns forward Luis Scola, and younger than Suns center Jermaine O’Neal.

He’s also, probably, the best hire the Suns could hope to make.
SB Nation’s brilliant Paul Flannery penned the go-to feature on McDonough earlier this year, pointing to the longtime Celtics employee (son of the fantastic former Boston Globe sportswriter Will McDonough) as the new face of the future NBA GM. Flannery’s piece is well worth your entire read, and here are just a few snippets:

When McDonough arrived in the winter of 2003, he found a scattered department. Even calling it a department may be a bit of a stretch. "It wasn’t so much a room as just a collection of loose VHS tapes," he says. "My job was, one, to get more tapes because there weren’t that many.

Also organize and edit what we had in a more efficient manner."
"Whether it’s your visual observations, statistical analysis, information you gather on background and personality, if you’re not using all that information you’re at a disadvantage," McDonough says. "The trick is how do you weigh all of that? More importantly where is that information coming from? Over time you figure out individually what’s most important to you as an evaluator and everybody does that differently."
[…]
The front office was small, just GM Chris Wallace and his assistant, a legendary Boston hoops figure named Leo Papile. McDonough made an impression on Wallace immediately.

"I thought he was a basketball junkie," says Wallace. "He loved this stuff. Totally immersed in it, which I think is one of the prerequisites for working in the NBA. Second, he had been around big-time sports at so many levels and association because of his father and his brothers. Third, he was very diligent, hard, hard worker who would do whatever it takes to get the job done and succeed."
[…]
He’s part of a new breed of talent evaluators who have been making inroads into the highest level of the NBA in recent years. His peers include men like Sam Presti in Oklahoma City, Masai Ujiri in Denver and Rob Hennigan in Orlando -- men who have already made the jump to running their own franchises. McDonough may get that chance one day as well. "He’s very good at what he does," Celtics coach Doc Rivers says. "He’ll be a GM. There’s no doubt about that."

Well, McDonough is a GM, now. And as skilled as the man is, there is a massive jump between, um, a suggester and a decider. Strategery is key.

There is scouting – identifying the right player at the right price within the correct context of an offseason, draft, or trade deadline – and there is GM’ing. “GM’ing” involves badgering Sam Presti until he sends you James Harden, it involves pouncing on a freaked-out front office that just saw a Chris Paul deal overruled because of “basketball reasons,” and it means developing a level of patience that somehow outlasts the long summer.
I can’t overstate how valuable that last part is.

It’s that last part that gets in the way when owners want to spend quickly and freely on the sort of mid-level contracts (Josh Childress, Channing Frye, and the Phoenix list goes on …) that have dotted the Suns roster over the last eight years, quick and insubstantial moves that later deny the team a chance at help when it counts pennies and declines to keep a first round pick. It’s the sort of patience that allows you to ride out a player as he explores restricted free agency after his rookie contract finishes. It’s the sort of patience that stops you from meddling or talking yourself into moves that could potentially lead to 42 wins in the heat of August. It’s a dry heat, in Phoenix. There are ways to get through this.

Will Ryan McDonough, upon moving from the trusted knowledge-spewer to the leader of men, be able to thrive given his newfound power? That remains to be seen. The NBA offseason is a bit of a candy store, and though the Suns ownership has proven to be cheap and hypocritical in the past, it can be talked into contracts.
McDonough isn’t coming into this ill-suited for the gig, though. He’s put in the hours, preparing for a chance like this.

Suns fans have put in the hours as well, especially during a Steve Nash-less 2012-13. They’re ready for the quick fix. Ryan McDonough has to be the one that tells them that the NBA doesn’t exactly work that way.

105-year-old bacon woman: I love it says elderly woman

105-year-old bacon woman: I love it says elderly woman, Revealed her love for bacon is making news today. The woman says that the key to her good health (well in to her 100's) is, you guessed it, bacon. On May 7, The Raw Story reported that Pearl Cantrell's love of bacon not only makes her happy but it also keeps her going.

"I love bacon, I eat it everyday. I don’t feel as old as I am, that’s all I can say. I love bacon, I could eat it for every meal — and I do," said Cantrell. Her age and her obsession with the delicious crispy pork pieces scored her a visit from the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile and it's making her a bacon celebrity across the internet.

The 105-year-old bacon woman couldn't wait to tell everyone just how much she loves bacon. Perhaps she shares that sentiment with millions of other people who truly believe that bacon makes everything better -- because, really. It does. Cantrell spoke with a local news station which is what really put her -- and her bacon -- on the map.

"Pearl Cantrell’s love of bacon is so strong that the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile made a stop through town last week to wish her a happy birthday, all because she told a local news station her amazing secret," The Raw Story reported.

The 105-year-old woman who simply loves bacon is from Richland, Texas.

Tuesday 7 May 2013

Kim Kardashian Cannot Wait For Pregnancy To Be Over

Kim Kardashian Cannot Wait For Pregnancy To Be Over, Kim is very excited to have her first child, but she's also just as ready for the pregnancy to be over. HollywoodLife.com reported that after health scares and many fashion faux pas, the thirty-two-year-old will be relieved once she gives birth.

A source told HollywoodLife.com that Kim has "had a miserable pregnancy."

On March 7, she was rushed off of a plane to a hospital in Los Angeles after becoming very sick. Kim was sobbing at the doctor's office in her show, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, fearing a miscarriage. Luckily, it was only a scare and both mother and child are healthy.

Her maternity fashion has been criticized by paparazzi and fans since her pregnant belly has started to show. The reality star must be ready to get her incredible body back and not appear on the cover of The New York Post with the headline, "What The Frock."

Kim may be surprised by the hardships that come along with pregnancy after watching her sister Kourtney's past experiences.

"Kourtney had such an easy time that Kim thought being pregnant would be fun," the source said. The source added that Kim "literally can't wait to pop that little thing out."

Perhaps these past months have affected Kim and her future plans. "Kim definitely does want more kids but not for a while," the source said.

These hurdles have not stopped Kim from making appearances. She showed off her pregnancy curves on Saturday in Houston, Texas to promote her line Kardashian Kollection at Willowbrook Mall with sisters Kourtney and Khloe.

Despite her approaching due date, the star has also been jetting around the world. On May 1, she was in London hanging out backstage at Beyonce's concert. Hours after returning stateside, she was back at LAX with her sisters to travel to another location.

Anna Nicole Smith's Daughter Dannielynn Looked Adorable At The Kentucky Derby

Anna Nicole Smith's Daughter Dannielynn Looked Adorable At The Kentucky Derby, adorable as she walked the red carpet with her dad Larry Birkhead at the 139th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 4 in Louisville.

Dannielynn Birkhead dressed up as Mary Poppins while her dad played Bert for the event, which brought out celebrities like Miranda Lambert, Lauren Conrad and Stephen Amell.

The 6-year-old is definitely following in the footsteps of her model mommy, showing off her best pose as she smiled for photographers. Dannielynn became the face of Guess Kids last year.

Justin Bieber Reportedly Attacked on Stage in Dubai

Justin Bieber Reportedly Attacked on Stage in Dubai, A fan grabbed Justin Bieber from behind while the pop star was on stage in Dubai tonight before he was hauled off by security ... this according to a local report.

According to the National, an English-language newspaper in Abu Dhabi, Bieber was at the piano when the alleged attacker, described as "a youth in a white shirt and jeans," rushed the stage.

Security quickly descended and grabbed the alleged attacker and removed him from the stage. Bieber's piano was knocked over in the ruckus and was eventually removed from the stage.

The National says Bieber continued the show as if nothing happened.