Today's word of the day (verse)

Matthew 6:3, 4 KJV

"But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly."

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Vikings LB Erin Henderson arrested for DUI again

Vikings LB Erin Henderson arrested for DUI again
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/vikings/2014/01/02/erin-henderson-arrested-dui-linebacker/4289711/

Jose

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Today's word of the day 2 January 2014

1 Corinthians 13:2 KJV

"And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing."

Jose

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Fresh Prince of Bel-Air's James Avery Has Died

Fresh Prince of Bel-Air's James Avery Has Died
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20771127,00.html

Jose 

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A look at the top 10 charitable gifts of 2013

A look at the top 10 charitable gifts of 2013
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/look-top-10-charitable-gifts-2013

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Shoppers wait for Colorado pot shops to open

Shoppers wait for Colorado pot shops to open
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/shoppers-wait-colorado-pot-shops-open

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Article: Palestinian ambassador to Czech Republic killed by blast

Palestinian ambassador to Czech Republic killed by blast
http://www.theglobeandmail.com//news/world/palestinian-ambassador-to-czech-republic-killed-by-blast/article16158236/?click=dlvr.it

Jose 

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Article: Freight train burning after derailment in N. Dakota

Freight train burning after derailment in N. Dakota
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/30/north-dakota-train-derailment/4253543/

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Article: Duck Dynasty Pair Due on Fox News’ NYE Show

Duck Dynasty Pair Due on Fox News' NYE Show
http://entertainment.time.com/2013/12/30/duck-dynasty-pair-due-on-fox-news-nye-show/

Shared from TIME on Flipboard. Download Flipboard for free here.

Jose A. Aviles

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Rev. Jackson: Phil Robertson 'More Offensive' Than Rosa Parks Bus Driver

Jesse Jackson has decided to weigh in on the inflammatory comments that Phil Robertson made to GQ about gays and African Americans.

In an interview with Drew Magary, the "Duck Dynasty" star said the Nazis needed Jesus, that he never saw the mistreatment of African Americans while growing up in Louisiana before the civil rights era and that homosexuality was a sin.

A&E has already suspended Robertson, but Reverend Jackson, his Rainbow PUSH Coalition and GLAAD are demanding to meet with network execs, along with Cracker Barrel's CEO, to discuss the future of all "Duck Dynasty" memorabilia or content.

"These statements uttered by Robertson are more offensive than the bus driver in Montgomery, Alabama, more than 59 years ago," Jackson said in a statement obtained by ABC News.

"At least the bus driver, who ordered Rosa Parks to surrender her seat to a white person, was following state law. Robertson's statements were uttered freely and openly without cover of the law, within a context of what he seemed to believe was 'white privilege.'"

The release, dated Dec. 23, requests a meeting within 72 hours with A&E and Cracker Barrel execs and urges the network to uphold Robertson's suspension.

Jackson and GLAAD said they believe it's not right for a personality with such a large platform to benefit from such comments.

On Sunday, Robertson defended his comments about gays and blacks to a small Bible study group in West Monroe, La.

"I will not give or back off from my path," he reportedly said Sunday.

Robertson added that his GQ comments were quotes from the Bible. "I didn't think much of it at all, but it seems a lot of other people did," he said.

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Dying man says goodbye to his dog

Last week, Mike Petrosino, a 21-year-old who was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer, was given a chance to say goodbye to his dog, Rusty, who was brought to Massachusetts General Hospital for a final visit.

Not surprisingly, the heartbreaking photo of the moment — shared by Petrosino's family members — has gone viral since a friend posted it to Reddit.  

“My friend Mike was diagnosed with cancer in the 8th grade," the friend explained on Saturday. "He was given a 3% chance to survive the first year. Two days ago we found out that after 8 years, the amputation of his leg, and four rounds of cancer that there’s now nothing that they can do. This picture was taken by his brother yesterday."

“Rusty was very emotional when Mike said his finale goodbye,” John Petrosino, Mike's brother, told The Blaze. “Every time I come home these past two days, he sits near Mike’s favorite couch and whines, which is rare from him.”

An online fund to help pay Petrosino's medical bills has raised more than $7,600. "I just got back from Mass General and got to say goodbye with a bunch of old friends,” the friend added. “He’s the bravest guy I’ve ever met and all he did the entire day was make sure everyone else was okay.”

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NYPD: Father throws son, himself off building

A father threw his young child off the roof of a 52-story Manhattan apartment building in a murder-suicide on the first day he was allowed to be alone with the boy amid an ugly custody battle with the mother, police officials said Monday.

"There was a history of domestic turmoil," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters.

Dmitriy Kanarikov picked up his 3-year-old son at 10 a.m. Sunday at a Manhattan police precinct — a neutral site negotiated in advance by the parents — to spend time with him for the first time "outside of some sort of institutional setting," Kelly said.

"He picked up the son and we all know now tragically he went to a building. ... (and) took the son to the roof," the commissioner said. "All indications are he threw him off and that's when he jumped himself."

A friend of Kanarikov had once lived in the building, located a short distance away from Columbus Circle and Lincoln Center. Investigators recovered a security video showing the father and son entering without being stopped by the doorman, and located Kanarikov's Lexus parked outside.

Officers responding to an emergency call reporting two jumpers from the building on the Upper West Side around noon Sunday found Kanarikov, 35, of Brooklyn, and the boy on the lower rooftops of two separate nearby buildings.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene and his son, Kirill Kanarikov, was pronounced dead at a hospital, police said. A witness said the boy was wearing Christmas pajamas.

The motive behind the tragedy remained murky on Monday. Kelly said there was no note found, and investigators have no evidence Kanarikov ever threatened to harm his son. However, at one point, he had told his wife that "unless she signed over the house to him and some undisclosed property, he was going to take the child," Kelly said.

Kanarikov and his wife married in 2009 and lived in Brooklyn, where their son was born a year later. They separated last year, and the mother and son moved to New Jersey and got an order of protection.

It's the second time this year that a parent and child have been involved in a fatal plunge from a New York apartment building.

In March, a woman clutching her baby son in her arms plunged eight stories out of a Harlem apartment window to her death, but the 10-month-old survived. Authorities found a suicide note in her home.

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Today's Verse

Isaiah 7:14 KJV

"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel."

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Cracker Barrel We Know How the Wind Blows Phil's Products are Back

Cracker Barrel execs have cracked after just one day ... lifting their ban on Phil Robertson's merchandise ... and it's the ultimate hypocrisy.

A Cracker Barrel rep now says the company had no choice but to cave after "Duck Dynasty" fans blasted them via email, phone and social media. 

Cracker Barrel decided to pull the products because it was so concerned about "equal treatment of all people" and "mutual respect."  In other words, they felt Phil was loathsome.

But so much for principles when the almighty dollar gets in the way.  Cracker Barrel now says, "You told us we made a mistake and you weren't shy about it ... you flat out told us we were wrong." 

And this is precious ... They say, "We apologize for offending you."

So here's the upshot.  On Saturday Cracker Barrel apparently felt Phil had offended gays and that's why they took a stand.  But 24 hours later they realized a bigger problem than offending gays is offending customers who pay for Cracker Barrel stuff.

So now the Cracker Barrel rep took the position the company should have taken in the first place:  "We respect all individuals' rights to express their beliefs."

How do Cracker Barrel execs move from office to office??? ... hard to do when you don't have a spine.

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Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis Enjoyed the Iowa-Penn State Wrestling Match

Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher took in the Iowa-Penn State wrestling match yesterday and sat near Hawkeyes coaching legend Dan Gable. A completely unscientific study suggests fans were more excited about the guy who doesn’t act.

To be fair, Gable has 16 more national titles and one more gold medal than the power couple combined.
Iowa City is turning into a hotbed of celebrity activity lately, as evidenced by the presence of Mike Golic at a swimming meet earlier this month.
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Prince (Artist formerly known as Prince) - Purple Rain MSG concert 2012

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US sends envoy to violence-plagued South Sudan

The United States and other foreign powers stepped up pressure on South Sudan’s feuding ethnic factions to settle their differences, as Washington dispatched an envoy to the violence-wracked region.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said he was sending a special envoy to encourage talks between opposing factions in the world’s newest country, which has erupted into brutal fighting with a mounting death toll.

“Now is the time for South Sudan’s leaders to rein in armed groups under their control, immediately cease attacks on civilians, and end the chain of retributive violence between different ethnic and political groups,” Kerry said, as he announced plans to dispatch Ambassador Donald Booth, his special envoy for Sudan and South Sudan, to the region.

The announcement came one day after President Barack Obama said in a message to Congress that the United States has deployed 45 troops to protect US personnel and assets in South Sudan.
African ministers also were stepping up pressure on President Salva Kiir to start talks with his former vice president Riek Machar, and met with the president Friday in the capital, Juba.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon denounced the violence for the second time in as many days, issuing an appeal Friday for renewed efforts to restore peace.
He called for “all parties to exercise restraint, and to cease hostilities”, one day after an attack on a UN base killed at least 11 civilians and two Indian peacekeepers.

Violence erupted after a meeting last week of leaders of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) failed to ease tensions in the party.

Kiir has accused Machar, whom he fired in July along with his entire cabinet, of staging an attempted coup. The former vice president has denied the charge, but his whereabouts are unknown.
Even as diplomatic initiatives were multiplying in South Sudan, the death toll continued to climb as violence spread between rival ethnic groups.

Six days into the battles between followers of Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and Machar, a Nuer, at least 500 people have been killed in Juba alone.

Foreign governments meanwhile scrambled to get their nationals out of harm’s way.
Obama said Thursday that the contingent of US troops sent this week “will remain in South Sudan until the security situation becomes such that it is no longer needed”.

“Although equipped for combat, this force was deployed for the purpose of protecting US citizens and property,” he added.

Obama has warned that hopes for South Sudan at its independence from Sudan in July 2011 are now “at risk”.

Britain sent a second military transporter to Juba on Friday to evacuate 93 people from the country.
China National Petroleum Corporation started pulling its workers out of South Sudan’s oil fields and other Chinese firms followed the move, China’s foreign ministry said.

Uganda said it also deployed special forces to get its nationals out of Juba and help secure the city.
The ethnic divide grew with reports from around the country of killings of Dinka and Nuer.
UN officials reported that up to 3,000 armed youths had gathered around a camp where 14,000 people have sought refuge at Bor, the main town in Jonglei state.

France’s UN envoy Gerard Araud said after emergency UN Security Council talks Friday that there was “heavy fighting” in Bor and worries about where the youths might be heading.
Troops loyal to Machar seized Bor on Wednesday.

The UN says more than 35,000 people are sheltering in its compounds across the country, and Juba airport was packed with foreigners scrambling to escape the chaos. Sphere: Related Content

‘Nymphomaniac’ Will Screen Uncut Version at Berlin Film Festival

The Berlin Film Festival will debut the uncut version of the first installment in Lar von Trier’s “Nymphomaniac.”

The grunting and grimacing epic stars Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jamie Bell, Uma Thurman and Shia Labeouf, and is hotly anticipated both because of von Trier’s controversial status and because its scenes of coitus are expected to be envelop-pushing.

The film unfolds with a sex addict (Gainsbourg) recounts her between the sheets past to a charming bachelor who finds her beaten up in an alley. The film will screen out of competition.

“The aesthetic [von Trier] has created in ‘Nymphomaniac’ is impressive and radical,” Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick said in a statement.

The original of “Nymphomaniac” was over five hours long, but has been whittled down in length and will be released in the United States in two parts. A shorter version will open in theaters beginning Dec. 25, 2013, making for a potentially awkward family excursion to the movies.

“Nymphomaniac,” the latest work by Danish director Lars von Trier, is drawing plenty of attention for its provocative trailers and NSFW advance clips. Now the filmmaker has revealed what’s really in the movie.

As you might expect, the film has no shortage of sex scenes. You will see Charlotte Gainsbourg getting spanked in one scene in the movie and in another having sex with Shia LaBeouf, who later will have intercourse with Mia Goth – but only after she has been in bed with Gainsbourg.
Pretty much every major character in the movie has sex at one point or another in the four-hour movie, the latest release from von Trier’s production company Zentropa.

“Provocation has been part of Zentropa’s strategy since its very beginning. Lars von Trier stands for artistic movies which should be anti-bourgeois and if he makes a sex-film, that would be even more titillating. Hence all the media attention,” said Anne Mette Lundtofte, author of a book about Zentropa.

In advance of its release,“Nymphomaniac” has been called “film porn,” a “sex-epic,” and a “porn-drama.”

But after seeing “Nymphomaniac” at one of its very first previews in Copenhagen, it’s clear that although sex is a major part of the movie, it’s not whole story.

In a classical porn movie the sole reason for a plot is to give the viewer a slight pause between sex scenes.

“Nymphomaniac” does have a real plot–it’s about a woman’s sexual journal. In the beginning Joe (in her young years played by Stacy Martin and by Gainsbourg when older)  together with her friend B. (Sophie Kennedy Clark) wanders around in a train and chases the men sitting in the compartments. The two girls have a competition: the one that gets the most men during the trip wins a bag with chocolate sweets.

In general, apart from scenes with oral sex, the onscreen activity is not as graphic as in adult fare (In addition, unlike in real porn, body doubles are used). Also, the film often portrays sex as a mechanical, unemotional act. Von Trier seems to want to show that appetite for sex is human, but that it also sometimes makes humans act inhuman.

Like in other movies by the Danish director, such as “Antichrist” or “Dogville,” things get worse and worse towards the end of the film which closes with the kind of ambiguous note you won’t find in porn movies.

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Nikki Haley: Governor and Bad Mother-Shut-Yo-Mouth

On Wednesday, Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina gave the people of her state reason to think twice about crossing her.
After Haley was presented with an honorary 4th degree black belt by Donna Smith from the state’s largest tae kwon do tournament, she broke a board with an open-handed punch. She even posted about it on her Facebook page.

Recently, Haley’s husband, Capt. Michael Haley, returned home from Afghanistan.
“Seeing him, I felt like I took my first breath in a year,” Haley said. “I think we will just appreciate this Christmas more because you truly do understand your blessings. When you know you could lose a loved one and to think of that every day, it reminds you truly to be thankful for what you have, and it really helps you understand that a lot of the small things don’t matter.”
Wednesday was the first time Capt. Haley spoke of his service in the Helmand provice of Afghanistan. While his unit was deployed, there were tense moments like when an explosive device hit his convey not once, but twice. Luckily, no one on his agricultural support team were injured.
Wednesday also brought about criticism of the Palmetto State’s governor. The 2013 report card from the state’s democratic leader gave Haley D’s and F’s on 11 matters, according to Carolina Live.

Jamie Harrison, chairman for the South Carolina Democratic Party, says that his state continues to fall further behind in education, economic mobility and safety for women.
“We need a governor for all the people of South Carolina, not just one segment of the population, but all of the people of South Carolina. These things are just systematic of the larger issue that we don’t have real leadership in this state,” said Harrison.
Good thing Harrison isn’t made of wood.
Governor Haley had previously declared the last Saturday of September as Tae Kwon Do Day in South Carolina. Her new black belt is emblazoned with her name in both English and Korean.
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Miley Just Released the Album Art for "Adore You" and You're Going to Be Shocked when You See It

Last week, Miley Cyrus announced that "Adore You" will be the third single off her sizzling hot Bangerz album. And while the song's official radio debut is still a few weeks away, she's already hinted at what the music video might look like-last night our Queen of Surprises Instagrammed the album art, and there's not a house party nor a construction tool nor a crop top in sight. This time, the boundary-pushing megastar is letting us see her softer side. See for yourself below!

Just like the love-laden track, it's totally sweet and romantic, but has a hint of melancholy, too. Swapping her signature bright red lip for a demure pastel hue, Miley poses with a bouquet of pink roses-AKA, the international symbol of "be mine." But instead of fresh, pristine blooms, the petals have already started to wilt and turn brown. The image has a faded effect, giving it a vintage kind of vibe. And it's not emblazoned with any eye-catching graphics, either-the name of the song is simply spelled out in tiny white letters. Sure, it's a much more minimalist approach than we'd expect from the statement-making singer, but it sure is worth a thousand words. And if there's one thing Miley's great at, it's keeping us guessing. 

The track itself is already a fan favorite (and top 10 song on iTunes), but it'll reach a whole new level of popularity once it officially takes over the radio on January 6. And while it's easy to speculate that the endearing slow jam will have an equally sentimental video to match, we're definitely not holding our breath-you just never know with this girl!


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