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