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Jack LaLanne, the fitness guru who inspired television viewers to trim down, eat well and pump iron for decades before diet and exercise became a national obsession, died Sunday. He was 96.
LaLanne died of respiratory failure due to pneumonia Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay on California's central coast ...
He maintained a youthful physique and joked in 2006 that "I can't afford to die. It would wreck my image." ...
LaLanne (pronounced lah-LAYN') credited a sudden interest in fitness with transforming his life as a teen, and he worked tirelessly over the next eight decades to transform others' lives, too.
"The only way you can hurt the body is not use it," LaLanne said. "Inactivity is the killer and, remember, it's never too late."A $21.7 billion development fund backed by celebrities and hailed as an alternative to the bureaucracy of the United Nations sees as much as two-thirds of some grants eaten up by corruption, The Associated Press has learned. ...
It was on the sidelines of Davos that rock star Bono launched a new global brand, (Product) Red, which donates a large share of profits to the Global Fund. Other prominent backers include former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan, French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, whose Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gives $150 million a year.
The fund's inspector general, John Parsons, said donors should be reassured that the fund is serious about uncovering corruption: "It should be viewed as a comparative advantage to anyone who's thinking about putting funds in here."Documented evidence of war crimes....
Ya think....?
Wasn't I just screaming about pre-crime...?
Damned excuses....
Pfeh....
Being evil again....
I wish Jesse were president....
Chewing up the Palestine Papers....
About the damn depressing size of it....
Got off with no time, but immediately arrested again... aaaaaiaiayeeee....
Creepy how short this page is, no?
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[click image]Argentina's powerful ex-president Kirchner diesI don't like this. What are they doing talking about his death sending the vampires into gales of market enthusiasm? [Obviously, stupid and greedy people will be encouraged by such talk, and as for the rest of us, they're just thumbing their noses at us. I mean, I know the answer to my own question.] This is no good. As my friend, Danny, would say: This stinks.
By Helen Popper and Nicolas Misculin — 1 hr 34 mins ago
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) — Former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, the current president's husband and a leading contender to succeed her in next year's election, died from a heart attack on Wednesday.
Kirchner, 60, was credited by many Argentines with putting South America's No. 2 economy back on its feet after a devastating 2001/02 economic crisis, but critics reviled his combative style and interventionist economic policies.
Argentine bond and stock prices rose on news of the death of the center-leftist, who kept a firm hold on the reins of power even after his wife Cristina Fernandez was elected to succeed him in 2007.
"It was a sudden death," Kirchner's doctor, Luis Buonomo, told Reuters after the former president died in the Patagonian tourist city of El Calafate, where he and Fernandez have a weekend home.
His death raises uncertainty about the government's strategy for next year's election, and might encourage Fernandez to seek a second consecutive term.
Kirchner was still a popular leader when he left the presidency but his approval ratings have since fallen sharply and his wife has emerged as the more popular of the two.
Kirchner started his political career in the Patagonian province of Santa Cruz, where he was governor for many years, and he was elected president as a virtual unknown in 2003 on the ashes of the economic meltdown,
A member of the dominant Peronist party, he quickly built strong alliances and oversaw a strong economic recovery that won him solid backing. He would almost certainly have won a second term in 2007 but instead chose to make way for his wife.
At the capital's pink presidential palace, the blue-and-white national flag was flying at half mast on Wednesday and supporters tied roses and messages of support to the railings, some reading "Thank you Nestor."
"It's very sad. Although we didn't support his policies, we didn't want it to end like this, I think the whole country will feel the same way," said psychologist Diana Arazi in downtown Buenos Aires, which was unusually quiet on Wednesday due to a national holiday called to conduct a census.
STATE CONTROL
Critics branded Kirchner's tough political style and strongly worded attacks on big business, journalists and political rivals as authoritarian.
When farmers rebelled over a tax hike on soy exports in 2008, he accused them of plotting a coup and told supporters to boycott companies that hiked prices. He increased state control over the economy and nationalized several companies.
Kirchner focused on cementing political alliances at home to shore up his administration and that of his wife, but he was secretary general of South America's regional grouping Unasur and had close links with fellow Latin American leftists such as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who called his death "a huge loss."
Chavez declared three days of national mourning and leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama and Chilean President Sebastian Pinera sent messages of condolence.
Felipe Sola, an Argentine lawmaker who split from the government to join the ranks of a dissident Peronist party wing, called his rival Kirchner "a formidable fighter."
"I've criticized him and I've defended him, but I've always admired his ability and recognized him as a unique politician," Sola said.
Kirchner also won praise for his efforts to bring military leaders to trial for human rights crimes committed during the nation's 1976-1983 dictatorship, in which as many as 30,000 people were killed in a crackdown on leftist dissent.
When his wife succeeded him, many commentators compared the power couple to another husband-and-wife political dynasty to dominate Argentine politics — former President Gen. Juan Domingo Peron and his famous wife Evita.
Although he never formally confirmed his candidacy, Kirchner was widely expected to run at the next presidential election in October 2011, but concerns over his health increased after he underwent arterial procedures in February and September.
His wife's government said Kirchner was rushed to hospital in the early hours of Wednesday after suffering an apparent heart attack. Fernandez was with him when he was taken ill.
Investors disliked Kirchner's unorthodox economic policies, such as price controls and export freezes to curb inflation. Those policies have largely continued during his wife's administration, and Argentine financial assets abroad rallied on news of his death.
"For Argentina, as a credit and a country that is the recipient of investors' money, there is no better scenario than having Kirchner out of the political arena," said Roberto Sanchez-Dahl, an emerging market debt manager.
Argentina's portion of the JP Morgan EMBI Plus sovereign bond index tightened 42 basis points to 540 basis points in morning trade, the tightest level in more than two years. The index overall was just 4 basis points tighter.
U.S.-traded shares of Argentina's BBVA Banco Frances SA rose 4.6 percent to $12.50 while Tele Argentina gained 9.71 percent to $24.97.
Argentina's financial markets were closed for the holiday.
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[click image]Dodd leaves it up to the Treasury Secretary....
Max Keiser on institutionalized lying....
Bigger blowout....
Turkey horning in on our action again....
Exterminating protest....
We're shocked, shocked....
Senate doesn't want your credit card interest rates lowered....
Wikileaks grounded....
Let's all move to Gitmo....
Whip them with a wilted lettuce leaf....
Relentless extreme capitalism....
Still only what not murdered journalists can report....
Get used to life imitating heist movies....
Yes, well, now that the passport's been yanked, it could get sticky....
Scientists' customary grasp of the dirt obvious....
Let's all move to Brazil....
No, really....
Another Clinton trainwreck impending....
Oh, well, they GOT their cloture today....
No, really, we're STUCK with this crap....
And probably worse than the even more awful we've so recently gotten....
Pretty soon I can stop aching for a real bathtub....
A good bookmark for safely following news re Wikileaks....
Quit Facebook, you jackass....
Wanna visit from the SS?
He's improving, but I'd still rather he read me books....
They're even threatening fascist media....
Exceptionally 99-like fashion statement....
Jane doing understatement?
If he were born later, Syd might've become a hacker instead of a rocker....
Maybe I should have held this post over until tomorrow so I coulda called it FASCIST FRIDAY....
Fifty times better president than ours....
An interesting person has died....
But the very first human-created life form has been born....
If we don’t stand up now then the world envisioned by Zbigniew Brzezinski may come to pass....
No, no, RIGHT now....
PRESIDENT GENGHIS P. YOO PLANS TO ADDRESS THE FINANCIAL CRASH WITH WWIII....
No, really....
We are threatening war over attempted medicine....
WE'RE BEING LIED INTO WAR AGAIN — QUIT BITCHING ABOUT REPUBLICANS....
Our closing society is almost slammed shut....
For jazz-loving murderating fuck haters....
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No one has to "marry" anyone else politically; no one has to embrace every tenet or belief that an anti-imperialist ally might hold. You simply have to say: "All of us, regardless of our other views, believe this truth to be self-evident: dismantling the empire will bring immediate and enormous benefits to our nation and to the world."
If in your travels you meet the Buddha, throw him through your tv set.
—Davis Fleetwood
I've found that culture, however useful and important, is neither the foundation nor the ceiling of human experience, even if it is commonly used for walls.
I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family. So I hope to see him often here in Egypt and in the United States. —Hillary Clinton
