Foot healed, Blanka Vlasic will return at NY meet

At the height of her success, high jumper Blanka Vlasic had to relearn how to leap.

There was really no other choice for the 29-year-old Croatian. A fragment of a bone in her left ankle broke off and embedded into her Achilles, requiring surgery to shave part of the tendon on her takeoff foot.

That was 16 months ago. Since then, she contracted a serious bacterial infection in her foot, missed the London Olympics where she would've been a favorite and spent many a grueling training session figuring out how to jump again off her repaired ankle, wondering if she would ever recover enough to be among the world's best.

On the mend, Vlasic returns to competition next week at the Adidas Grand Prix in New York, her first meet in nearly two years. Already, the jitters are building for the two-time world champion.

"To go out there and put on the spikes, to jump in front of a crowd? I just can't wait," Vlasic said in a phone interview from Croatia. "I can't wait to feel that pre-competition nervousness, the positive excitement, to be the part of that circuit again.

"I don't want to expect anything. But I still have my hopes."

There was a time when Vlasic was inching closer and closer to the world record of Stefka Kostadinova, a mark the Bulgarian has held for more than 25 years. At a meet in 2009, Vlasic cleared 6 feet, 9 3/4 inches, the best mark ever by someone other than Kostadinova, whose record stands at 6-10 1/4.

These days, Vlasic's nowhere near that form. Not yet anyway.

"I don't know if I'll be myself again," she said. "I cannot tell you how high I can go. I believe I will be able to jump as high as I used to. But I'm not obsessed over it. I can't think too much about height."

Instead, she's simply relishing her return, vowing to appreciate each step along the way.

"The worries I had before this were nothing," she said. "Why worry about centimeters or losing? I didn't have any right to be disappointed when I was healthy and had the opportunity to do what I like. It's sad that people understand that only when something happens and you don't have your abilities to do what you do best, what is your life calling."

After her surgery on Jan. 30, 2012, Vlasic had some setbacks that had her questioning if she would clear another bar. Like when she woke up one day in April 2012 and her foot was completely swollen. At first, she thought maybe she had pushed her recovery too far.

Turns out, one of her stitches didn't heal properly and became infected, she said.

Like that, she was sidelined again.

And like that, any realistic chance of being ready for the London Olympics was gone.

"I had some really dark moments," said Vlasic, who was on antibiotics for three months to clear the infection. "But what kept me going is the feeling that there was still something for me in high jumping. There was still something out there I didn't do that I still have to do. What was that? I didn't know.

"But I didn't feel in my soul that I was finished, that it was over for me."

Watching the London Games last summer was painful, simply because she had a good shot at winding up on the podium had she been healthy.

"For two days, I was in really bad shape," said Vlasic, who finished runner-up at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. "But then you accept it and make peace with it. It's not like I was ready and I just wasn't there. No, I wasn't ready. So, from that perspective, you accept it. There will still be other Olympic Games and world championships for me. I believe in that. I have faith in that."

Vlasic returned to high jumping last September. Nothing too ambitious, just a four-step approach to the bar in her training shoes.

From there, she graduated to a six-step approach and eventually to eight steps.

And then she tried jumping in her spikes, which didn't have as much cushion.

"Whole different story," explained Vlasic, who now wears a custom-built pair of spikes by Adidas. "You start to jump and you see how far, far away you are from huge jumps. When I put my spikes on, I was like, 'Am I ever going to run without pain?'"

By the end of November, Vlasic began feeling a little more like her old self, the jumper who everyone else was chasing before her injury.

Still, she really has no goals set for this season. Well, maybe to make it to the world championships in Moscow in August, but that's about the extent of it.

"I expect that this season will be a season of adjustment," she said. "But I feel a huge difference.

This (recovery) pushes you to your limits, to the places you never knew you had in yourself. When you come back from that dark place, you're stronger."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/foot-healed-blanka-vlasic-return-ny-meet-073000392.html

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Was Commander Hadfield?s Performance of Space Oddity the Most Expensive Music Video Ever?

Commander Chris Hadfield's cover version of Space Oddity took the internet by storm yesterday, but it got a lot of people thinking: does it amount to the most expensive music video ever made?

Fortunately, Randall Munroe of XKCD fame has set his mind to the task of answering that question on his What If? site. Firstly, it's worth noting there's no easy way to calculate an answer?but he's given it a good go. First, consider the location of the shoot:

The ISS is expensive, but there have been music videos set against an even more expensive backdrop. At a cost of roughly $400 billion, the US Eisenhower Interstate Highway System is probably the most expensive peacetime public works project in the history of mankind. If we?re including the entire ISS in the cost of Commander Hadfield?s video, any video shot on the American highway system should get the cost of the highway system added to its total. By that measure, the commander?s video would lose to U2?s Last Night on Earth, which was filmed on a section of I-670 in Missouri, and therefore cost more than the ISS and the Moon landing program combined.

A bargain, then! But both the road and the ISS are used for things other than making videos?so what about cost compared to how much time the shoot took?

If you spread out the ISS?s price tag across all the astronaut-hours spent on board, you come up with about $7.5 million per person per day, or roughly $90 per second. That sounds like a lot, but at that rate, the five-and-a-half-minute video only runs about $30,000. Given that the video has probably done more for space industry than millions in public outreach, that?s a good deal.

And certainly not the most expensive music video ever made. Factor in that Chris Hadfield filmed the video himself, only earns in the region of $85 an hour, and is allowed some time off to relax while he's aboard the ISS, and the video seems like an absolute bargain. Check out the full What If? post for more detail?and to find out how much the guitar he played the song on cost to get into space. [What If?]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/was-commander-hadfield-s-performance-of-space-oddity-th-505329292

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John R. Talbott: How to Cure Hiccups

I can't remember who first showed me how to cure hiccups. I know it was late in life, sometime in my late thirties. The cure came too late to help me. But, ever since then I have been enormously grateful.

Not just for the relief it has provided me in times of need. More importantly, for the increased status it has given me at cocktail parties and bars when I demonstrate my magic and people stare at me with awe. If you think women are in awe of bankers and lawyers, you should see the looks they give someone who can control the supernatural.

We all know that there is no cure for hiccups. The suggested remedies border on voodoo pagan rituals. Scare the person senseless, drink out of the wrong side of the glass, etc.

So imagine my surprise when the cure worked on me. I quickly became a practitioner helping those long afflicted. Now, every cure doesn't work all the time on every person, but the success rate of this one is north of 50 percent, which is pretty good considering all the untreated cases out there. Imagine the productivity gains we could achieve if just 50 percent of all hiccups in the world were curable. Six billion people on the planet get hiccups at least once a month which translates into total potential productivity savings of $90 billion a year, about double the profitability of the world's largest corporation.

And, it is simple. No surgery involved. No need to change your religion. No relocation to a warmer climate required.

Simply take the hand of the person afflicted and squeeze hard on the surface of the fingernail of the pinky finger for ten seconds. That's it. If I could have packaged the idea I would have sold it for billions. I was told it works because there are acupressure points in the pinky that control and relax the throat, but because I don't believe in acupressure I found this explanation unsatisfactory. Maybe the pain in the finger gets the person to forget he has the hiccups. I don't know. To me it is just magic.

The jury is still out on whether the method can be self-administered. I have found varying degrees of success using myself and my pinky as test subjects.

But, here is the truly amazing part of the story. My dog, Chompsky (yes, named after Noam, but with a p) got the hiccups this morning. Chompky, sort of a border collie/golden retriever mix, only smaller and oranger, has a stubborn and independent streak worthy of his namesake. I live alone so there was no one around to ask what the hell I was doing, so I picked up Chompsky's paw and squeezed what would be his pinky toe if dogs had pinky toes. Immediately, his uncontrollable hiccups stopped. Chompsky looked at me as amazed as I looked at him. For the first time he truly understood why he called me master.

After three minutes of hysterical laughing, I managed to crawl my way to my computer to relay these incredible results to you. Again, not just to provide relief to the hundreds of millions of canine sufferers out there. No, here is the missing link. The tie that binds all species together. We truly are one giant family. Certainly, if other species have the same cure for hiccups then understanding consciousness, reasoning and emotions across species cannot be that difficult.

Some doctoral student needs to immediately expand my research to cats, just watch out for the claws. Although, I don't expect major productivity gains from curing cats as they really weren't doing anything momentous before they became afflicted.

If successful, I could see this growing into an entire new field of scientific discovery with the treatment of chickens, monkeys and mountain lions. The need for qualified researchers would be immense given the losses we would expect from pinky holding with mountain lions. This would truly represent the end of science as once we conquer this scourge is there really anything we can't do.

John R. Talbott is a best selling author and economic consultant to families whose books predicted the housing crash and the economic crisis. You can read more about his books, the accuracy of his predictions and his financial consulting activities at www.stopthelying.com

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-r-talbott/hiccups-cure_b_3264028.html

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IRS targeted groups that criticized the government, IG report says (Washington Post)

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Israeli PM criticized for installing bed on plane

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, third from left, speaks to Chinese President Xi Jinping, unseen, during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Thursday, May 9, 2013. (AP Photo/Kim Kyung-Hoon, Pool)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, third from left, speaks to Chinese President Xi Jinping, unseen, during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Thursday, May 9, 2013. (AP Photo/Kim Kyung-Hoon, Pool)

JERUSALEM (AP) ? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will seek alternate sleeping arrangements when traveling after receiving a sky-high bill for installing a customized bed on a recent flight to London, officials close to the Israeli leader said.

Netanyahu found himself facing a public uproar on Sunday after Channel 10 TV reported over the weekend that he had spent $127,000 in public funds on a special sleeping cabin for the five-hour flight to attend Margaret Thatcher's funeral last month.

Netanyahu's office initially defended the decision, saying the prime minister had a busy schedule ahead of the flight and needed to be fresh for important meetings in Britain.

But following public criticism, officials close to Netanyahu said late Saturday that he had been unaware of the cost, and once informed, he ordered the bed be canceled on all future flights. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The Israeli prime minister's office does not have its own plane, such as the U.S. presidential aircraft Air Force One. Instead, Israeli leaders must charter a plane when traveling abroad. Some commentators claim it would be cheaper in the long run to purchase and maintain a special plane reserved for official travel of the prime minister and other officials.

The uproar comes at a delicate time. Netanyahu's government is in the process of drawing up a budget expected to include painful austerity measures and tax increases due to a widening deficit.

On Saturday night, several thousand people took to the streets in Tel Aviv and other cities to protest the expected budget cuts. Netanyahu was meeting Sunday with top officials to discuss likely cutbacks in the defense budget.

Micky Rosenthal of the opposition Labor Party called for an inquiry into the prime minister's "scandalous behavior" according to the Maariv daily on Sunday.

"We thought that nothing could surprise us anymore when it came to the Netanyahus' personal behavior. Well, we thought wrong," wrote Sima Kadmon, a political commentator in the Yediot Ahronot daily.

"It is unbelievable that not a single person in the prime minister's inner circle saw how reprehensible this was. Not a single person showed a tiny bit of common sense. There was no one who anticipated just how angry people would be when they learned about this," Kadmon said about the custom-made bed.

Earlier this year, Netanyahu stopped buying ice cream from his favorite Jerusalem parlor after an Israeli newspaper discovered his office was spending $2,700 a year for the treat.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-05-12-ML-Israel-Netanyahu/id-3af9cb9234f7411da09db6bc56c735a5

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Rescued women happy to be home, release first statements

CLEVELAND (AP) ? Three women rescued from a house a decade after they disappeared said Sunday that they are happy to be home and pleaded for privacy so they can heal and reconnect with their family.

An attorney for the women also said they are extremely grateful for the support of family, law enforcement and the community.

Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight remain in seclusion and released their first statements since they were found May 6 after Berry escaped and called 911.

Ariel Castro is suspected of imprisoning the women inside his house for nine years or more, allowing them outside only a few moments, and raping them. A DNA test also confirmed that Castro fathered a 6-year-old girl who Berry gave birth to in the house. The girl escaped the house with Berry.

Castro is being held on $8 million bond. The 52-year-old former school bus driver was charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape.

The women, now in their 20s and 30s, vanished separately between 2002 and 2004. At the time, they were 14, 16 and 20 years old.

Attorney Jim Wooley read statements attributed to all three women.

Knight, who was the first to disappear and the last of the three released from the hospital, said, "Thank you to everyone for your support and good wishes. I am healthy, happy and safe and will reach out to family, friends and supporters in good time."

Berry added: "Thank you so much for everything you're doing and continue to do. I am so happy to be home with my family."

And DeJesus, the youngest of the three, said: "I am so happy to be home, and I want to thank everybody for all your prayers. I just want time now to be with my family."

The Associated Press does not usually identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault, but the women's names were widely circulated by their families, friends and law enforcement authorities for years during their disappearances and after they were found.

The attorney for the women said none of them will do any media interviews until the criminal case against Castro is over. He also asked that they be given privacy.

"Give them the time, the space, and the privacy so that they can continue to get stronger," Wooley said.

Castro was represented at his first court appearance Thursday by public defender Kathleen Demetz, who said she can't speak to his guilt or innocence and advised him not to give any media interviews that might jeopardize his case.

Castro's two brothers, who were initially taken into custody but released Thursday after investigators said there was no evidence against them, told CNN that they fear people still believe they had something to do with the three missing women.

Onil and Pedro Castro said they've been getting death threats even after police decided to release them. Pedro Castro said he would have turned in his brother if he had known he was involved in the women's disappearance.

"Brother or no brother," he told CNN.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/women-rescued-cleveland-happy-home-144654384.html

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Weight Loss News Headlines - Yahoo! News

By David Jones NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - A tense weekend standoff in a Trenton, New Jersey, neighborhood ended early on Sunday with a hostage taker dead and three children, who had been held for 37 hours, rescued, authorities said. Police shot Gerald Tyrone Murphy, ending the standoff and saving the lives of three??

Source: http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/weightloss

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