Archive for March, 2012

Herman Cain back with bizarre bunny-shooting ad

Tuesday, March 27, 2012 by:anna.gallegos@chron.com (Anna Gallegos)
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Despite dropping out of the race for the GOP nomination, Herman Cain continues his foray into politics, this time on YouTube.

Cain’s video, which was uploaded on the video-sharing site on Sunday, promotes his website sickofstimulus.com with a rabbit as a stand-in for small business.

“The rabbit is fine, but our current tax code is killing small business! The current tax code allows the Government to pick winners and losers by doling out favors and dividing the country with class warfare,” states Cain’s channel.

The video garnered attention after being removed for violating YouTube’s spam policy, according to Politico.

On Monday, YouTube pulled the video from their website with the following explanation: “This video has been removed as a violation of YouTube’s policy against spam, scams, and commercially deceptive content. Sorry about that.” A short while later, the video was returned to the video-sharing website.

YouTube said that the removal was a mistake. ”Occasionally, a video flagged by users or identified by our spam team is mistakenly taken down. When this is brought to our attention, we review the content and take appropriate action, including reinstating videos that had been removed,” a YouTube spokesperson told POLITICO.

Cain took to Twitter Monday to protest the video’s removal by calling it an infringement of free speech.

Despite the video being back online, YouTube viewers have not been kind with profanity-laced comments and over 950 dislikes.

Cain’s previous video, “This Is The Economy On Stimulus” was also criticized for showing a dead goldfish.

Chocolate may keep you thin, study says

Tuesday, March 27, 2012 by:anna.gallegos@chron.com (Anna Gallegos)
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(AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)

Small amounts of chocolate have already been proven to be good for your heart, but it may be able to help you slim down, according to a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The study suggests that regular chocolate consumption could lower a person’s BMI, an obesity indicator.

The link remains between the sweet stuff despite its high calorie count, according to BBC News.

And it appears it is how often you eat chocolate that is important, rather than how much of it you eat. The study found no link with quantity consumed.

According to the researchers, there is only one chance in a hundred that their findings could be explained by chance alone.

But the findings only suggest a link – not proof that one factor causes the other.

Scientists have also found that another junk food favorite, popcorn, might also be good for your health.

Emergency pizza button debuts in Dubai

Tuesday, March 27, 2012 by:Chris Preovolos
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Dubai gets all the cool stuff; weird man-made islands, all the air-conditioning you want, inflated hotel star rating systems, and now, an emergency pizza button.

So you are sitting in your high-rise rental, you’re getting hungry, but you’re too lazy too cook dinner, just press a button on a specialized electronic fridge magnet and the device uses your smart phone’s bluetooth connection to send a standard order to the neighborhood pizzeria.

If Batman wanted a pizza, this is how he’d order it:

Model hurt by propeller offered $200,000 settlement

Tuesday, March 27, 2012 by:Laura Weisman
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Lauren Scruggs modeling fashions for streetsofsparkle.com. (Courtesy streets of sparkle)

Correction:

The Courthouse News Service has issued a correction to this story:

DALLAS (CN) – A model who lost a hand and an eye to an airplane propeller did not “reject” an insurer’s settlement offer of $200,000 as Courthouse News reported Tuesday morning – she neither accepted nor rejected it, but asked a judge to clarify the meaning of the policy, NBC and the Dallas Morning News reported later Tuesday, citing the CNS report and Lauren Scruggs’ attorney.
Both NBC and the Morning News reported that attorneys for Scruggs and for Aggressive Insurance had reached an agreement on Scruggs’ complaint in Dallas County Court, the terms of which were not released.

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Original story:

Lauren Scruggs, the 23-year-old Texas fashion blogger who lost a hand and eye in a plane propeller accident last December, has rejected a $200,000 settlement and sued the plane’s insurer, according to the Courthouse News Service.

Scruggs’ complaint in Dallas County Court says the plane was insured by defendant Aggressive Insurance Services, as was a separate plane owned by (pilot Curt) Richmond. The policy for Richmond’s plane contained a provision that extends coverage to other planes he piloted.

Both policies had limits of $1 million per occurrence and a sublimit of $100,000 per passenger. Both policies define the term “passenger” as “any person, other than the pilot, who is in the aircraft or getting in or out of it,” according to her complaint.
Scruggs said Aggressive offered to pay her the $100,000 sublimit for each of the policies for a total settlement of $200,000. She said the insurer took the position that she was a “passenger” as defined by both policies.

Scruggs disagreed, saying that the sublimits are not applicable because she was not a “passenger,”and that “she was not in the aircraft or getting in or out of it at the time of the incident.”

Scruggs is represented by William Angelley with Hightower Angelley in Dallas.

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Runaway boat slams into house in Florida

Tuesday, March 27, 2012 by:Laura Weisman
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You’ve heard of cars running into houses, but a boat?

It happened Saturday in Lehigh Acres, Fla., near Fort Myers, when a boat on a trailer came unhitched from the vehicle that was towing it, according to witnesses, and veered into a duplex, according to WZVN-TV.

One witness we spoke to says after the boat separated from the tow vehicle, it then crossed a yard and hit the duplex at 4806 Leonard Boulevard.

“I came to the front and there was a boat in the house,” said neighbor Maria Pepin.

Pepin called 9-1-1 and then made an unusual phone call to the owners of the duplex letting them know there was a boat lodged in their house.

No one was home during the accident and the landlord was going to invite the family to stay with her until they could find other living arrangements.

Trayvon Martin attacked Zimmerman, new report says

Monday, March 26, 2012 by:Laura Weisman
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Trayvon Martin, left, and George Zimmerman. (File photos)

Trayvon Martin attacked George Zimmerman, knocking the man to the ground, jumping on top of him and slamming his head against the ground several times before the tables turned and Zimmerman shot him, the Orlando Sentinel is quoting law enforcement authorities as saying this afternoon.

Martin, 17 and unarmed, was killed Feb. 26 in the altercation, after Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain, followed Martin through his Sanford, Fla., development, sizing him up as a criminal, and telling a 911 dispatcher as much.

Sanford police told the Sentinel:

Zimmerman … had turned around and was walking back to his SUV when Trayvon approached him from behind, the two exchanged words then Trayvon punched him in the nose, sending him to the ground, and began beating him.

… Zimmerman began yelling for help.

Several witnesses heard those cries, and there’s been a dispute about from whom they came: Zimmerman or Trayvon.

Lawyers for Trayvon’s family say it was Trayvon, but police say their evidence indicates it was Zimmerman.

Zimmerman had a bloody nose, swollen lip and bloody cuts on the back of his head, according to police.

Transsexual beauty contestant booted from pageant

Monday, March 26, 2012 by:Laura Weisman
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Jenna Talackova, a 23-year-old Canadian beauty pageant contestant, has been kicked out of the Miss Universe Canada competition “because she did not meet the requirements to compete despite having stated otherwise on her entry form,” the pageant organization says on its website.

People magazine writes that Talackova “was born male but has identified as a female since age 4. She began hormone therapy at 14 and underwent gener reassignment surgery at 19.”

The Vancouver, British Columbia, native was ousted from the competition Friday.

The Province website reports that the 6-foot-1 Talackova wants to talk to an attorney before giving interviews, but has reportedly made a statement on Twitter:

“I’m disqualified, however I’m not giving up,” she wrote, defiantly. “I’m not going to just let them disqualify me over discrimination.”

Do you side with the contestant or the pageant producers in this one? Discuss in comments.

Chemists: Popcorn’s antioxidants top fruits, veggies

Monday, March 26, 2012 by:Laura Weisman
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Joe Vinson, Ph.D., study leader, readies a bowl for tests in the lab. (Terry Connors / ACS)

Scientists with the American Chemical Society say popcorn actually has more of the healthful antioxidant substances called “polyphenols” than fruits and vegetables.

In a new study, Joe Vinson, Ph.D., says the polyphenols are more concentrated in popcorn, which averages only about 4 percent water, while polyphenols are diluted in the 90 percent water that makes up many fruits and vegetables.

In another surprising finding, the researchers discovered that the hulls of the popcorn — the part that everyone hates for its tendency to get caught in the teeth — actually has the highest concentration of polyphenols and fiber.

“Those hulls deserve more respect,” said Vinson, who is with the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania. “They are nutritional gold nuggets.”

The overall findings led Vinson to declare, “Popcorn may be the perfect snack food. It’s the only snack that is 100 percent unprocessed whole grain. All other grains are processed and diluted with other ingredients, and although cereals are called “whole grain,” this simply means that over 51 percent of the weight of the product is whole grain. One serving of popcorn will provide more than 70 percent of the daily intake of whole grain. The average person only gets about half a serving of whole grains a day, and popcorn could fill that gap in a very pleasant way.”

Now if you smother your popcorn in butter and salt, you’re going to lose some benefits. But Dr. Vinson said the fat content in most servings of microwave popcorn is extremely low, especially “compared to potato chips.”

But do you lose the antioxidants when you microwave that popcorn? No, it actually releases polyphenols to be absorbed all the faster, Dr. Vinson says.

Who knew chemists could be full of such good news? They made this announcement at their convention last weekend and produced a video of their popcorn press conference, which is evidence that they will be keeping their day jobs:

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Video streaming by Ustream

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