He's a 19-year-old pipe layer; a deer-hunting, dirt-bike-riding former high school class president who still lives in his tiny Mississippi hometown. So why are the paparazzi hot on his trail?
Because Casey Aldridge is an expectant father — and the mother is 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears. And to hear Aldridge's uncle tell it, the daddy-to-be isn't quite ready to join Spears — the star of "Zoey 101" and the sister of pop star Britney Spears — in the spotlight.
"I don't think they are ready yet to sit down and talk to the media," Odus Jackson, a pastor in Gloster, Miss., told The Associated Press by telephone Thursday. "They haven't gotten their heads together yet."
Jackson said media were already swarming the southern Mississippi town — with a population of 1,073 at last census count — in search of Aldridge, not even 48 hours after the news came that Spears told OK! celebrity magazine about the pregnancy. She said she plans to raise the baby in her home state of Louisiana.
Jackson, 71, said Aldridge left before camera crews descended Wednesday and was going into hiding. Jackson said he spoke briefly with his nephew, who also lives in Gloster but was often out of town for work.
"He doesn't want to say the wrong thing to the media," Jackson said. "At the right time he will speak." It's unclear how Aldridge and the younger Spears met or where they spent time together. Jackson said his nephew briefly attended a junior college in Mississippi but now works for a pipe-laying company in Baton Rouge, La. He attended school at Amite School Center in nearby Liberty, Miss., where he played football and baseball, principal Dan Brewer said.
Brewer, who was not principal when Aldridge graduated last year, said the teen went to school with his daughter and has visited his home. Aldridge was class president, and was honored by his senior classmates as "campus favorite" and "most versatile."
"He was just a super dude," Brewer said.
Jackson said Aldridge enjoys deer hunting and rode dirt bikes. His parents, Joyce and Mark, currently live in Tennessee.
"He is a quiet guy," Jackson said. "That is why it is going to be very difficult to
corner him until everybody is ready to talk together on the same page. He doesn't like the limelight. He is going to hide as much as he can."
Jackson denied reports that his nephew and Spears, who was a guest at Jackson's home this past Thanksgiving, were no longer together.
"I think they are going to try to stay together," he said. "They certainly don't want to part."
Jackson said Aldridge has told family members that "he wants to go ahead and get married as soon as possible." Jackson added that the two do not want to "rush into it."
Source: www.APP.com
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Casey Aldridge, expectant father to Jamie Lynn Spears' baby
Queen Elizabeth II - Christmas Message 2007
LONDON (AFP) - Queen Elizabeth II, in her annual Christmas Day message to Britain and the Commonwealth, on Tuesday urged people to take responsibility for vulnerable individuals excluded by modern society.
The sovereign, 81, said the modern world could be a distant, hostile place where it was all too easy for people to turn a blind eye. The birth of Jesus Christ was a tale of a family "which had been shut out," the queen said in the pre-recorded broadcast. "The Christmas story also draws attention to all those people who are on the edge of society -- people who feel cut off and disadvantaged; people who, for one reason or another, are not able to enjoy the full benefits of living in a civilised and law-abiding community," she said. "For these people the modern world can seem a distant and hostile place. "It is all too easy to 'turn a blind eye', 'to pass by on the other side', and leave it to experts and professionals. "All the great religious teachings of the world press home the message that everyone has a responsibility to care for the vulnerable.
"Fortunately, there are many groups and individuals, often unsung and unrewarded, who are dedicated to ensuring that the 'outsiders' are given a chance to be recognised and respected.
"However, each one of us can also help by offering a little time, a talent or a possession, and taking a share in the responsibility for the well-being of those who feel excluded."
The broadcast Christmas speech is a tradition started by Queen Elizabeth II's grandfather king George V in 1932.
It is a personal message to the Commonwealth and a rare occasion where she does not need to seek the advice of ministers.
The queen reflected on the changes she has witnessed in the 50 years since making her first televised Christmas message in 1957.
Wearing the same three-stringed pearl necklace as then, she watched a black-and-white clip of the broadcast on a flatscreen television.
As a sign of the changing times, the queen posted her message on the video-sharing website YouTube for the first time in an attempt to reach out to younger audiences.
"One of the features of growing old is a heightened awareness of change," she said.
"To remember what happened 50 years ago means that it is possible to appreciate what has changed in the meantime. It also makes you aware of what has remained constant.
"In my experience, the positive value of a happy family is one of the factors of human existence that has not changed.
"The immediate family of grandparents, parents and children, together with their extended family, is still the core of a thriving community."
She also paid tribute to the armed forces serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and hoped that people missing loved ones would find strength and comfort in their family and friends.
The queen ended her message by quoting from a traditional Christmas carol service.
"'Because this would most rejoice his heart, let us remember, in his name, the poor and the helpless, the cold, the hungry, and the oppressed; the sick and those who mourn, the lonely and the unloved'," she said.
"Wherever these words find you, and in whatever circumstances, I want to wish you all a blessed Christmas."
A Yuletide institution, the 10-minute broadcast is televised at 3:00 pm (1500 GMT) in Britain, as many families are recovering from their traditional turkey lunch.
It is broadcast at convenient local times across the 53-nation Commonwealth, a successor to the British empire which encompasses around a third of the world's countries and a quarter of the world's population.
Source: Yahoo News
Healer told to pay up after sex with clients
A disgraced North Shore healer has been ordered to pay $88,000 in damages after he duped two women into having sex with him when they came to him for counselling for previous rapes.
Geoffrey Mogridge - who claimed to be a clairvoyant, numerologist and natural 
health practitioner - encouraged the women to divulge personal information and manipulated the situation for his own sexual gratification, a Human Rights Review Tribunal decision said.
At one stage he even tried to force one of the women and another client to have sex with each other.
The sex, which happened in 2003 and 2004, was all unprotected and evidence suggested Mogridge was also having sex with other female customers.
Despite the decision and Mogridge being an unregistered health care provider, authorities are powerless to stop him from practising.
Mogridge told one woman an affair would help her to recover from a 1991 rape by an intruder in Europe.
Her husband also went to Mogridge for counselling and at one meeting was asked if he felt sexual arousal when talking to victims of sexual abuse such as his wife. The man replied that the question was "almost sick".
The woman told her husband about the relationship with Mogridge last year after disclosing another extramarital affair to him. The husband told the Herald yesterday that he and his wife were happy with the tribunal's decision.
"We didn't do it for the money because we don't think he can afford to pay us anyway. We just wanted to warn other women about him. "My wife is putting the whole thing behind her, she's been extremely courageous."
The second woman, who suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome, initially went to Mogridge for a numerology and healing reading but was told that she needed a massage before healing. Mogridge asked her to undress before he started massaging her shoulders, kissing her and touching her breasts. The woman, who has a long history of sexual abuse, including being raped by her father for several years until she was 7, had a sexual relationship with Mogridge for seven months. In May 2004 he tried to make her and another client have sex with each other.
"She spoke of being depressed and even at times suicidal," the tribunal said.
Mogridge, who represented himself and was allowed to cross-examine the women, said his extreme techniques were designed to push the women to a point where they would say no and then feel a sense of empowerment from having refused him.
"We have no hesitation in finding that Mr Mogridge exploited both [the women] sexually," the tribunal said.
He was found to be in breach of the Health and Disability (Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights) Regulations for the abuse at the clinic at his Hillcrest home.
The husband and wife were awarded $13,000 and $25,000 respectively and the other woman $50,000.
Source: NZ Herald
Monday, December 24, 2007
Track Santa Online...
The sky-watchers at the North American Aerospace Defense Command, a cooperative venture of the United States and Canada, will observe its 50th anniversary in 2008. This December, as it has for more than half of its existence, the service will also offer high-tech tracking of Santa's journey around the world.
As you can learn on NORAD's special Santa-tracking site, it all started in 1955 when a Colorado radio station mistakenly broadcast as a Santa "hotline" a phone number that was actually for NORAD predecessor the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD). Military staff on duty obligingly told the kids who called that they'd check their radar for Santa's progress.
Today, a toll-free number and Website are available for a new generation of Santa-watchers. In fact, NORAD has upgraded the site significantly with a sophisticated Santa-tracker based on Google Earth.
Kids impatient for time to pass can also learn about Santa lore (in six languages) and click around a map of his North Pole Village, peeking into shops and finding games and puzzles in such operations as Mrs. Claus' Alphabet Soup Kitchen and the Reindeer Training Academy.
Tracking Santa requires you install Google Earth, but from there the app runs independently, following the jolly one around the globe. You can click on videos of earlier sightings and also click to learn more about the various places he's already been. (NORAD's site makes it clear to concerned taxpayers that the bulk of this service comes with the help of corporate sponsors).
As of this writing, Santa and his team of reindeer (led by Rudolph, his red nose glowing) is still cruising across Eastern Europe. Here's a shot, but check it out for yourself at NORAD Santa.
Source: PC World
Man pays for new truck with loose change
FRANKFORT, Ind. - Paul Brant considers himself a penny pincher, but his savings in quarters and dollar coins really paid off.
Brant, 70, used more than $25,000 in change to help buy a new Dodge Ram half-ton pickup truck Friday — 13 years after buying another truck with spare change.
"(The old truck) didn't have four-wheel drive, and living in the country, I figured I better get a new one to help get me through the snow," he said.
Brant said he was raised to be thrifty. His father always paid in cash and saved up loose change to take vacations.
Brant has been storing his change for years, and estimated he had about $26,000 in coins for Friday's purchase. In 1994, he bought a Dodge pickup and a Dodge Neon using about $36,000 in quarters.
"As long as you don't put your hands back in the till, it really adds up," he said.
Brant stored his change in coffee cans, water jugs and piggy banks over the years, and was escorted by sheriff's deputies as he brought the rolled coins to the dealership.
A Mike Raisor Chrysler Dodge and Jeep employee who sold Brant the truck said the dealership called in an armored car to count and handle the coins.
"No bank wants to take them," Keith Gephart said.
Source: Yahoo News
Revealed: The seven great "medical myths"
Reading in dim light won't damage your eyes, you don't need eight glasses of water a day to stay healthy and shaving your legs won't make the hair grow back faster.
These well-worn theories are among seven "medical myths" exposed in a paper published Friday in the British Medical Journal, which traditionally carries light-hearted features in its Christmas edition. Two U.S. researchers took seven common beliefs and searched the archives for evidence to support them.
Despite frequent mentions in the popular press of the need to drink eight glasses of water, they found no scientific basis for the claim. The complete lack of evidence has been recorded in a study published the American Journal of Psychology, they said.
The other six "myths" are:
Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight
The majority of eye experts believe it is unlikely to do any permanent damage, but it may make you squint, blink more and have trouble focusing, the researchers said.
Shaving makes hair grow back faster or coarser
It has no effect on the thickness or rate of hair regrowth, studies say. But stubble lacks the finer taper of unshaven hair, giving the impression of coarseness.
Eating turkey makes you drowsy
It does contain an amino acid called tryptophan that is involved in sleep and mood control. But turkey has no more of the acid than chicken or minced beef. Eating lots of food and drink at Christmas are probably the real cause of sleepiness.
We use only 10 percent of our brains
This myth arose as early as 1907 but imaging shows no area of the brain is silent or completely inactive.
Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death
This idea may stem from ghoulish novels. The researchers said the skin dries out and retracts after death, giving the appearance of longer hair or nails.
Mobile phones are dangerous in hospitals
Despite widespread concerns, studies have found minimal interference with medical equipment.
The research was conducted by Aaron Carroll, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Regenstrief Institute, Indianapolis, and Rachel Vreeman, fellow in children's health services research at Indiana University School of Medicine.
Source: Yahoo News
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Man reunites with birth mother at work
Flaig's long search for his birth mother ended in early October when he learned that she was the woman he previously knew only as Chris, the head cashier at a Lowe's home-improvement store just outside Grand Rapids, in Kent County's Plainfield Township.
"I would walk by her, look at her from a distance, not knowing how to approach her," Flaig, 22, told The Grand Rapids Press for a story published Wednesday. "You don't come stocked with information on how to deal with this."
When Lowe's Cos. hired Christine Tallady to work at the store last April, she had no idea that the young delivery driver to whom she was introduced was her son.
She gave birth to him on Oct. 5, 1985, while she was single and not ready to be a mother. It was a difficult decision for her to give him up for adoption.
Tallady left the adoption record open, figuring that her son might someday want to contact her. She often thought of him, particularly on his birthday, but life went on. She got married and had two more children.
Flaig, meanwhile, always knew that he was adopted. His parents, Pat and Lois Flaig, supported him when he decided to search for his birth mother. They had done the same with their younger son, Scott, who found his birth mother almost a year ago.
When Steve Flaig turned 18 four years ago, he asked DA Blodgett for Children, the agency that arranged his adoption, for his background information.
It arrived a couple of months later and included his birth mother's name. He searched the Internet for her address but came up empty.
In October, around his 22nd birthday, Flaig took out the paperwork from DA Blodgett and realized he had been spelling his birth mother's surname wrong as "Talladay."
He typed "Tallady" into a search engine and came up with a home address that was less than a mile from the Lowe's store and just around the corner from where his adoptive parents raised him.
When he mentioned it to his boss, she said, "You mean Chris Tallady, who works here?"
Flaig was stunned: "I was like, there's no possible way."
On Dec. 12, on his day off, Flaig happened to be driving past DA Blodgett's offices, so he stopped in and told them of his find. An employee there volunteered to call Tallady for him.
Tallady, now 45, was surprised to get the call at Lowe's and astonished to learn that the son she had given up for adoption 22 years earlier was a co-worker.
"It was a shock," she said. "I started crying. I figured he would call me sometime, but not like this."
Flaig said he is eager to meet her other two children, 12-year-old Alexandria and 10-year-old Brandon, his half-siblings.
"I have a complete family now, all my kids," Tallady said. "It's a perfect time of year. It's the best Christmas present ever."
Source: Yahoo News
Tattooed privates prove not so private
Mayo Clinic Hospital administrators said Dr. Adam Hansen, chief resident of general surgery, admitted taking the photo with his cell phone on Dec. 11. The tattoo on strip club owner Sean Dubowik's penis reads: "Hot Rod."
Dubowik, who had undergone a gallbladder operation, said he learned of the photo Monday when the Mayo Clinic called.
"I got a strange call after my surgery from a doctor who said there was a problem. He said Hansen was on the phone and would explain," he said.
Dubowik, 27, said Hansen told him he took the picture while inserting a catheter into his penis. A member of the surgical staff made an anonymous call about the photo to The Arizona Republic on Monday.
"He told me he didn't want me to read about it in the newspaper first," Dubowik said.
Hansen wasn't available for comment Tuesday and has been placed on administrative leave. He could face a range of punishment from probation to dismissal.
"Patient privacy is a serious matter, and photographing someone in this manner without a good reason is something we will investigate down to the last detail," said Dr. Joseph Sirven, education director for Mayo Clinic Arizona, the hospital's parent organization based in Scottsdale.
Dubowik said he got the tattoo on a bet and that "it was the most horrible thing I ever went though in my life."
He said he planned to contact an attorney.
"The longer I sit here the angrier I get," he said.
Source: Yahoo News
Mountain for Santa
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan - This former Soviet republic has mountains honoring Communist and Russian leaders. Just in time for Christmas, authorities say they plan to name a snowy peak "Mount Santa Claus."
Three climbers set off Wednesday to scale the designated peak and bury a capsule containing the flag of Kyrgyzstan at the summit on Christmas Eve.
Why is a predominantly Muslim and former Soviet land honoring the jolly old elf?
"We want to develop tourism, and Santa Claus is an ideal brand to help us do this," said Nurhon Tadzhibayeva, an official with Kyrgyz tourist authorities.
Plans are afoot to hold an international Santa Claus congress in Kyrgyzstan in the summer, Tadzhibayeva said. The country also intends to hold annual games in which Santas from all over the world will test their chimney-climbing, sled-racing and tree-decorating skills.
Other Kyrgyzstan peaks bear the names of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin and former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
Source: Yahoo News
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Jamie Lynn Spears
The cable channel confirmed a report in the forthcoming edition of celebrity gossip magazine OK! that Jamie Lynn Spears is expecting a child. "We respect Jamie Lynn's decision to take responsibility in this sensitive and personal situation. We know this is a very difficult time for her and her family, and our primary concern right now is for Jamie Lynn's well being," Nickelodeon said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters.
Source: Yahoo News Photo
Jamie Lynn Spears, the 16-year-old star of the cable TV comedy series "Zoey 101" and sister of Britney, tells OK! magazine that she's pregnant and that the father is her longtime boyfriend, Casey Aldridge.
"It was a shock for both of us, so unexpected," she says. "I was in complete and total shock and so was he."
Spears is 12 weeks along and initially kept the news to herself when she learned of the pregnancy from an at-home test and subsequent doctor visit, she told the celebrity magazine, which hits stands in New York on Wednesday and the rest of the country by Friday.
"As soon as I found out for sure from the doctor, I took two weeks to myself where I didn't tell anybody," she says. "Only one of my friends knew because I needed to work out what I would do for myself before I let anyone's opinion affect my decision. Then I told my parents and my friends. I was scared, but I had to do what was right for me."
Spears broke the news to her mother, Lynne, just before the Thanksgiving holiday on Nov. 22, the magazine says.
"She was very upset because it wasn't what she expected at all," Spears says. "A week after, she had time to cope with it and became very supportive."
Lynne Spears, already grandmother to Britney's young sons, says: "I didn't believe it because Jamie Lynn's always been so conscientious. She's never late for her curfew. I was in shock. I mean, this is my 16-year-old baby."
She says her actress daughter, the telegenic heroine of the popular Nickelodeon series "Zoey 101" about students at a California boarding school, has known Aldridge for years and began dating him in high school.
Jamie Lynn, a high school junior, plans to raise the baby in her home state of Louisiana -- "so it can have a normal family life."
The third season of "Zoey 101" wraps up Jan. 4.
"I haven't spoken to (Nickelodeon) personally, but they have always been so great to me over the past years and have given me so many opportunities."
What message does she want to send to other teens about premarital sex?
"I definitely don't think it's something you should do; it's better to wait," she says. "But I can't be judgmental because it's a position I put myself in."
Source: Mainichi Daily News
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Man Marriages Dog
We have all heard the 'man bites dog' stories, but how about a real-life 'man marries dog' tale! This one takes the biscuit, and it could only happen in India, the land of the KamaSutra.
After he stoned the dogs he said his legs and hands got paralyzed, he lost hearing in one ear, and his speech was impaired. With doctors unable to help him, Selvakumar turned to an astrologer who told him he was cursed by the spirits of the dogs he had killed. He could undo the curse only if he married a dog and live with it, the soothsayer warned. Family members chose a stray female dog who was then bathed and clothed for the wedding occasion. Selvi the bride was brought to the temple by village women and a Hindu priest conducted the ceremony.The paper showed a picture of Selvakumar sitting next to his canine bride, which was adorned in an orange sari and flower garland. The paper said the groom and his family then had a feast, while the dog got a bun. It was reported that Selvi attempted to make a bolt for it -- apparently due to the big crowds -- but she was tracked down and returned to her new 'husband'.
"The dog is only for lifting the curse and after that, he plans to get a real bride," a friend of the groom said.
Deeply superstitious people in rural India sometimes organize weddings to dogs and other animals, believing it can beat certain curses.
Source: The Weird News
Monday, December 17, 2007
World's Most Premature Living Baby
This handout image from October 24, 2006, shows the world's most premature living baby, Amillia Sonja Taylor's, feet held in contrast with adult hands, just after her birth at Baptist Children's Hospital in Miami, Florida. Taylor, only slightly longer than a ballpoint pen at birth was due to be sent home in the coming days from a Florida hospital after four months of neonatal intensive care, the hospital said on February 20, 2007.Source: Yahoo Photos
Saturday, December 15, 2007
The Tales of Beedle the Bard
Online retailer Amazon revealed Friday it was the mystery buyer of British author J.K. Rowling's first book since the phenomenally successful Harry Potter series.
"The Tales of Beedle the Bard" was sold at auction at Sotheby's Thursday to art dealers on behalf of an unidentified client for 1.95 million pounds (2.72 million euros, 3.95 million dollars), 40 times its expected price.
All proceeds from the sale of the handwritten single volume will go to Rowling's charity, Children's Voice, which helps vulnerable children across Europe.
Amazon has published editorial reviews of the book's content and photographs on its website, although it did not reveal if it would also make extracts from the book available.
"Even before establishing her charity, J. K. Rowling had done the world a rare and immeasurably valuable service, enlarging forever our concept of the way books can touch people, and in particular children, in modern times," Amazon's founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos said in a statement.
Amazon has sold 12 million of the Potter books.
"The Tales" play a key role in the seventh and last Potter tome, "Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows", which came out in July, featuring as the volume of five wizarding fairy tales left to Potter's friend Hermione Granger by headmaster Albus Dumbledore.
One of the tales appears in "Deathly Hallows", but the remaining four are told in "The Tales" for the first time.
There are just seven of the books, bound in brown Moroccan leather covered with a silver skull motif and jewels. Rowling gave the other six to people involved with the Potter books.
The 42-year-old author has become a billionaire, with the tales of the boy wizard translated into 64 languages.
Source: Yahoo News