Pray For Cheap Gas
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With the price of gas going through the roof, a Christian activist is urging Americans to ask God for help - and their prayers have been answered!
Rocky Twyman, a public relations consultant and church choir director from Maryland, started the Pray at the Pump movement last spring. Since then, gatherings of true believers praying and singing at gas stations have sprung up around the nation.
"God is the only one we can turn to at this point," Twyman explains. "Our leaders don't seem to be able to do anything about it. The prices keep soaring and soaring."
The 59-year-old crusader has had no trouble finding beleaguered consumers to join his movement. More than 200 people came to pray at a gas station in San Francisco alone. And at a Washington, D.C. gathering, Twyman declared: "Lord, the prices at this pump have gone up since last week. We know that You're able, that You have all the power in the world."
Groups often end the service by singing a new version of the spiritual We Shall Overcome with the lyric, "We'll have lower gas prices."
Now, Twyman and his followers are giving credit to God since prices began dropping significantly across the country.
"Given the inertia and silence of tis White House on a crisis that has people feeling hopeless, prayer is as good as anything," says Judy Dugan, research director of Consumer Watchdog.
A recent vigil at a Texeco in Huntsville, Alabama, seemed to prove the power of prayer when the price dropped three cents before the service was even completed!
"Prayer is the answer to every problem in life," Twyman says. "We call on God to intervene in the lives of the selfish, greedy people who are keeping these prices high."
"These prices will come down, just like the walls of Jericho came down in the Bible."
Money, Sex And Kids
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Hiding your spending habits from your spouse could end your marriage!
In a recent survey, 29 percent of people in committed relationships admitted to lying about money, and gender determined how they were blowing the budget.
"Women tend to buy clothes, makeup and personal indulgences like pedicures, while men spend more on the stock market, fantasy football and porn," says Tina Tessina, author of Money, Sex and Kids: Stop Fighting About the Three Things That Can Ruin Your Marriage.
"Your marriage is really a business and a secret spending undermines it in a serious way. It's like embezzling."
Avoid disaster by going over the finances together every month. Solving the problem with honesty and love will strengthen your union.
The Island Of Surtsey
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This is how life begins on a new, barren land. Scientists were thrilled when volcanoes off the coast of Iceland formed the island of Surtsey in the 1960s.
The remote island provided the perfect laboratory to study how life colonizes a new territory, and how our earliest ancestors might have left the oceans to stake a claim on the surface of terra firma.
The first seeds washed ashore in 1964, and the first mushrooms and bacteria were spotted the year after.
Since then, a whole new world has been blossoming from the ground up.
Japanese Matchmaking
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A new marriage fad is sweeping Japan as parents hold matchmaking conventions to get their kids married off!
By tradition, Japanese moms and dads support their youngsters until they leave the nest to wed. Until recently, that happened at a young age - but today's children are hanging around at home into their 20s and 30s.
To get them out of the house for good, concerned parents are hosting matchmaking parties and renting convention centers to find suitable partners.
"Many parents are very worried about their children who are well past the marrying age," explains a spokesman for O-Net, one of many new companies designed to introduce future husbands and wives.
"Many singles are feeling pressured by their parents."
Government figures show that between 1990 and 2005, the percentage of single men and women between the ages of 25 and 29 has nearly doubled.
"People who can marry for love are lucky," explains marriage counselor Michiko Saito. "Matchmaking is not about passionately falling in love - it's about slowly growing to love someone."
Sinatara Seals
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Ol' Blue Eyes is teaching fussy baby seals to mellow out - and zookeepers couldn't be happier that the ailing critters have got him under their skin!
Rob Meyer was working night and day to take care of four rescued seal pups at the Hunstanton Sea Life Sanctuary.
The sickly animals needed someone to watch over them because of a special feeding regimen that had staffers at the Norfolk, England, facility singing the blues.
But one night, Meyer was playing an album by his favorite crooner when he noticed the animals suddenly calming down.
"They all stopped braying like angry donkeys and lay quietly and listened," Meyer explains. "One of them even nodded off."
At first, his co-workers thought Meyer's idea to play Sinatra hits was ridiculous, but soon enough they started doing it his way.
"Justin Timberlake is more my thing, but the old crooner certainly seems to do the trick with the seal pups," admits Kirsty Sopp, 20.
Sanctuary chief Nigel Croasdale also hails the benefits of Sinatra's nightly serenade in blue.
"If Ol' Blue Eye helps make the job a little bit easier, then as far as I'm concerned, anything goes," he explains. "If visitors happen to spot the pups swinging side to side, now they'll know why!"
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM THEPAPNEWS!
Twin Family
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Twin brothers who married twin sisters have beaten million-to-1 odds by having a pair of twins themselves.
Sparks flew the minute Craig and Mark Sanders met Diane and Darlene Nettemeier 10 years ago at the Twins Day festival in Twinsburg, Ohio.
Five weeks later, the Sanders brothers traveled from their Houston, Texas, home to St. Louis, Missouri, to visit the Nettemeier sisters. They shared their first kiss after watching the Houston Astros play the rival St. Louis Cardinals.
Then the twins went on a double date to Las Vegas and won thousands of dollars at poker.
Sine Lady Luck was smiling on them, the fortunate foursome got engaged that day. They went on to have a joint wedding ceremony and built a pair of homes side by side in Houston.
There, Craig and Diane had identical twin sons of their own, Colby and Brady, now 7.
The twins' twins were followed by a non-identical son, Holden, 2, while Darlene and Mark had two non-identical daughters, Reagan, 7, and Landry, 5.
Together, the twin families operate the Web site Twinstuff.com(www.twinstuff.com), which gives information and advice on rearing twins, and the non-profit Twinstuff Outreach, dedicated to providing help to families of multiple-birth children.
Last year, Craig, 45, and Diane 38, headed back to Twins Day to show off Colby and Brandy.
Message In Bottle Pen Pals
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A pair of pen pals have returned to the sunny beach where their friendship started 40 years ago - thanks to a message in a bottle!
In 1968, Sandra Morris-Cpezla, of Villanova, Pennsylvania was an 8-year-old girl on a European cruise with her parents when she tucked a postcard into a bottle and dropped it over the side.
The note read: "Whoever finds this bottle, write to me," and included her address.
Three months later, Rosalind Causey found the bottle on the shore of Port Talbot, Wales, and wrote back, launching a lifelong correspondence.
The two women were separated by the Atlantic Ocean but led strangely similar lives. Each married and had two children, a boy and a girl. And their eldest children were born only 10 days apart..
They met in person for the first time in 1978, when Rosalind and her husband traveled to the U.S.
And in 2000, Rosalind's children, Rhiannon and Ivan, met Sandra's children, Austen and Ahna, during a trip to Disney World.
For their 40th anniversary, Sandra took a flight to the UK so that she and Rosalind could walk side by side on the beach where their friendship began.
Healing Galos Salt Cave
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Relaxing in a salt cave has been a European health remedy for a century. And now, the healing power of the white crystals has come to America.
Galos Cave in Chicago is one of the first facilities to open for business. Spa owner Ewa Chwala imported seven tons of salt from the Black Sea to create a soothing interior with pastel lighting.
The ceiling is lined with stalactites, the walls are a mixture of seashells and salt, while the floors are covered with 4 inches of large salt crystals. Patrons rest on chaise lounges, breathing in the salty air as a seaside soundtrack plays in the background.
Clinical studies have proved that inhaled saline reduces inflammation in the respiratory tract.
"I go whenever I feel like breathing something different than what's outside - something that's not polluted," says customer Carol Riehle.
Chwala claims a 45-minute session clears sinuses, lowers blood pressure, eases asthma and diminishes skin diseases, while increasing circulation and metabolism.
Chicagoan Agnes Judaz takes her kids to Galos whenever they catch a cold.
"If you have a stuffy nose or coughing, after three visits to the cave, it's gone," Judaz says.
Adds allergy expert Dr. Kris McGrath: "It's an alternative or natural therapy that goes along with standard care."
Treasure From The Trash
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The discarded contents of an abandoned storage unit turned into a $3.8 million windfall for a man who spent only $75 for a collection of priceless art treasures!
Neil King's bid for the collection was the highest of the day. Other customers at the Scottsdale, Arizona, auction laughed at him for spending so much on what looked like junk wrapped in newspapers.
But King had the last laugh when art appraisers declared that he'd bought priceless sculptures, letters and artistic tools of the Flagg family of Americana artists.
"It's like winning the lottery," says King, an auctioneer in nearby Mesa.
The artistic treasures had been kept in an old bus parked inside a storage facility. When Irene Flagg, 83, stopped paying the storage bill, the vehicle and its contents were put up for auction.
As it turned out, Irene was the only surviving sister of artist Monte Flagg and distinguished Western wood sculptor Dee Flagg, who painstakingly created lifelike replicas of cowboy icons like Wild Bill Hickok. Their great great uncle, James Montgomery Flagg, is best known for creating the famous 1916 "I Want You" Uncle Sam recruiting poster.
As part of a legal settlement, King sold the art and memorabilia to the newly established Bison Museum in Scottsdale and turned the profits over to Irene to cover her health care costs.
"I wanted to do the right thing," King explains.
U.S. Stonehenge
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A massive stone monument with 10 very un-biblical commandments carved into its granite surface is part of a satanic conspiracy and must be smashed to dust, a Christian organization claims.
The monument towers outside the town of Elberton, Georgia, and the group Resistance is pressuring local officials to destroy it.
The 19-foot structure is shrouded in mystery. A shadowy figure, who ironically called himself R.J. Christian, popped up in Elberton in 1979, commissioned the Elberton Granite Finishing Company to construct it, made arrangements to pay for it with a banker, named it the Georgia Guidestones - and vanished without a trace.
He left instructions for 10 commandments to be inscribed on the monument, including an admonition that the population of the world should be limited to 500 million to keep humanity in balance with nature.
That's what has Resistance spokesman Mark Dice in a holy rage. Since there are 6 billion people alive on Earth today, he interprets the commandment as a license to exterminate 5.5 billion souls.
"Regardless of anyone's religion," he thunders, "I think they would find it objectionable that this monument calls for the elimination of over 90 percent of the world's population!"
Woman who Sees Angels
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A woman who sees angels and communicates with them has revealed her astonishing adventures in a blockbuster memoir.
Author Lorna Byrne's book, Angels In My Hair (Random House), is already a best seller in her native Ireland and has landed a six-figure advance from Doubleday, who will publish it in America.
The 54-year-old redhead writes that her loving relationship with angels began when she was a child. And she claims the feathery beings walk among us 24/7.
"I see spirals of light behind people," Byrne explains. "Those are the people's guardian angels. We've all got one. They're usually about three paces behind us."
"And then I'm also seeing the other angels, too, the ones that I call the helpers and teachers. They're white and beautiful."
"All angels have a human appearance, but that's just for us, so we aren't terrified."
"To me, seeing angels is quite natural. It's been happening for so long. I'm only discovering now, when people ask me questions, that others don't find it natural."
Byrne came from a poor, Catholic family and endured an even more impoverished marriage while raising four children. But she never attempted to make money off her heavenly connections until the angels encouraged her to write the book, she says.
She's well aware that the stories she tells are a bit fantastic. For instance, the angels gave her a vision of her future husband Joe years before she met him. She married him even though the angels told her he would die before their kids were grown.
"I was allowed to see his soul after he died," she recalls. "It was beautiful."
Byrne says the angels show her people's souls, physical ailments and even tell her how long a person has to live. But such knowledge is a burden she's learned to accept.
"I have no doubt and no fear," declares the diminutive writer."
"I think I'm here to give people hope and courage to live life. We want to have faith that we have more, that we have a soul."
Above all, she wants to encourage others, whether they belong to a particular religion or not, to listen to their own angels.
"I know this to be true and the angels told me to write the book so people can connect more with them and with their souls," Byrne says.
Grumpy Old Man Facts
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Men become far crankier than women as they get older, an eye-opening new study reveals.
The findings should come as no surprise to fans of the movie Grumpy Old Men, which featured a cantankerous bunch of elderly gents.
A majority of the male participants in the study of nearly 10,000 people 55 and older indicated a higher rate of negative feelings, regardless of their home situation.
Gender is a powerful influence on whether a senior citizen has a more positive outlook on life. In fact, as mothers completed the cycle of raising their families, the more content they became.
"Females reported a higher quality of life than men for any marital status," says the English Longitudinal Study of Aging.
"Women in couples report the highest quality of life, while their husbands or partners report a significantly lower quality of life."
Money - or the lack thereof - is another significant factor in the happiness quotient of the elderly. And being at risk of a low income in retirement has an especially profound influence.
The male responses also indicated that both married and single men tended to have a glum attitude. Researchers consider this especially distressing since it's a proven fact that wives are the key to their husbands having longer, healthier lives!
Another striking finding was that divorced, separated or widowed people of both sexes had the worst level of well-being, while those who had always been single were on a par with married ones.
Old Faithful Global Warming Effects
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Old faithful, the most famous geyser in Yellowstone National Park, got its name because of its predictable eruptions. But global warming is causing such persistent drought conditions in the West that experts predict the tourist attraction could soon stop gushing forever.
Researchers for the U.S. Geological Survey say dry spells, variations in underground temperatures and lack of water caused longer and longer intervals between geyser eruptions. And climate change is the catalyst for all these trends.
"Long-term climate change looks like it can have a big effect on geysers," says Ken Verosub, a geophysicist at the University of California, Davis. "This could be bad news for tourism."
One Big Pig
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Roly-poly Naniue doesn't know what to think of salads. At only 2 years old, she is already obese - something all too common in domesticated potbellied pigs.
Her family bought her from a breeder, who told them to feed her three cups of pig chow a day, which is far too much. The family also fed Naniue high-sugar fruits, veggies and other snacks that every pig loves but shouldn't eat.
Finally, when the family's landlord decided Naniue couldn't stay at the house any longer, she came to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, where she's now eating a healthy, pig-appropriate diet.
She doesn't seem too excited yet about all the greens being feed to her, but she'll be a much healthier and happier gal in the long run.
For more information, check out their great site: www.bestfriends.org
Model T 100 Years
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At a time when we're all staggering under the cost of gasoline, Ford Motor Company is celebrating the 100th birthday of the Mode; T, the first mass-produced car that everyone - well, almost everyone - could afford.
To mark the occasion, Ford assembled 750 Tin Lizzies, as they were known, all of them in tip-top working order. It's largest get-together of the vintage vehicles since they rolled off the assembly line.
Starting in 1908, more than 15 million Model Ts were manufactured at Henry Ford's plant in Detroit. The line was discontinued 19 years later.
Historian John Heitmann says the Model T is the most important car ever built and that it transformed American life by enabling people to travel cheaply.
Ah, the good old days.
"It was the common car for the common person," Heitmann says.
XEROX IS DOING SOMETHING COOL
If you go to this web site, www.LetsSayThanks.com <http://www.letssaythanks.com/> you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq . You can't pick out who gets it, but it will go to a member of the armed services.
How AMAZING it would be if we could get everyone we know to send one!!! It is FREE and it only takes a second.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if the soldiers received a bunch of these? Whether you are for or against the war, our soldiers over there need to know we are behind them.
This takes just 10 seconds and it's a wonderful way to say thank you. Please take the time and please take the time to pass it on for others to do. We can never say enough thank you's.
Thanks for taking to time to support our military!
Churches Seek Greater Male Attendance
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Attendance at America's places of worship is up, but most of the church-goers are women. Now, pastors across the country are aiming to change that.
Aiming is the right word. They're busy injecting "guy" activities - like hunting - into their services so the boys will feel more at home in the house of the Lord.
A number of congregations are featuring "Beast Feasts," where outdoorsy parishioners invite non-churchgoing males to sink their teeth into game they've gunned down in the wild. Dessert consists of a large portion of Christian preaching.
Other ministries feature videos of car crashes, karate fights and rock bands belting out "muscular" Christian lyrics like, "No ,ore nice guy, timid and ashamed ... Grab a sword, don't be scared..."
For men whose manliness isn't tied up with blood and gore, some churches feature electronic gadgetry to entice worshipers.
Less drastic approaches include redesigning church interiors to replace pastels and flowers with stone floors and rough-hewn wooden beams. Some have even banished soft, sweet music.
The need is real. Women are 25 percent more likely than men to attend weekly services. Gals form the majority in 21 out of 25 Christian denominations in the United States.
David Murrow, author of Why Men Hate Going to Church, says religion has become too soft to appeal to men.
"We've wrapped the Gospel in a man-repellent package," he explains, urging pastors to put more "adventure, challenge, boldness, competition, hands-on communication, ferocity and fun" into their ministries.
Mark Estep, senior pastor at Spring Baptist Church near Houston, Texas, insists it's a man's job to lure other men to church.
"A man is far more apt to come to a church event if another man asks him," he says. "If his wife asks him, he'll interpret it as nagging."
UFFOs Set To Take Off
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Sky-watchers on distant planets may one day spy UFFOs - not UFOs - from Earth zooming overhead.
An engineer at the University of Florida (UF) plans to launch a scaled-down prototype of a flying saucer next year. If the "the University of Florida Flying Object (UFFO)" is successful, it'll pave the way for air travel and space flight without the need for liquid or solid fuel.
Subrata Roy's craft, called a "wingless electromagnetic air vehicle," is round and spins in the air, just like the flying saucers in sci-fi movies.
It takes off and lands vertically, hovers in the sky and can move in any direction. It has no moving parts to break down or wear out!
Instead of burning fuel, the UFFO uses electrodes on its surface to ionize the surrounding air, releasing negatively charged electrons, which will push against the neutrally charged air molecules near the craft to generate thrust.
That means the UFFO can function as an aircraft or spaceship requiring no fuel.
The vehicle will be made from ceramic material and Roy says there's theoretically no limit on its size.
Aleister Crowley And The Internet
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The 20th century's most infamous satanist predicted in 1916 that the devil would create the Worldwide Web and that his disciple, the Antichrist, would use it to capture the souls of children in America and the rest of the world.
'The Prince of Darkness has granted me a glorious vision of the future," sinister Aleister Crowley proclaimed to his followers. "The Evil One - blessed be his foul name! - will establish a network that will bind all the children of the world together."
"He will use devices called computers to do this. Parents, in their stupidity, will strive to make sure every child has one of these diabolical machines. They will think they are helping their children get an education, but they will be leading them into Satan's clutches.
"Beelzebub will put his most faithful servant, the Antichrist, in charge of this network. Demons will lurk there, waiting to grab the minds and hearts of innocent children."
"They will entice them with forbidden fruits - drugs and sex - and transform them into soldiers in Satan's secret army."
"When the Battle of Armageddon begins, these children will rise up against their parents, their churches and their governments. They will tear down everything that is good and noble."
"They will undermine the war against Satan's power and they will encourage others to sell their souls to our vile master."
"Parents will be unaware that they are raising a nest of venomous vipers in their homes, a secret force intent on evil and the destruction of everything previous generations held to be of value."
"If adults had any brains, they would smash these infernal machines and drag their children to church to be purified - but it is Satan's great fortune that few people have any brains."
"Parent will unwittingly lead their children into the fires of Hell."
The National Center For Atmospheric Research's Super Computer
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Admit it, the weather forecaster on your local TV station is more often wrong than right. But a new, super-powerful computer is about to change all that.
To accurately predict the climate, you must take into account millions of diverse factors, such as ocean currents in the Atlantic, ozone levels over Antarctica, how fast glaciers are melting in Greenland... the list goes on and on.
The amount of data that must be processed has overwhelmed even the mightiest computers - until now.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, has a muscle-bound new computer that's so powerful it would take every person in the world - 6 billion or so - armed with a calculator making one calculation per second for nine days to do what it can do in one second flat!
When it's up and running, the computer will break down weather forecasts into thousands of components and work on each one simultaneously.
A forecast that used to take days to put together - by which time it would most likely be out-of-date - will be done in a few hours.
The Mobile Shopping Assistant
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Don't forget your cell phone when you go grocery shopping - you might need it to get the best deal.
New technology will soon transform your phone into a Mobile Shopping Assistant (MSA). Using the portable squawk box to access a supermarket's Web page will allow you to find out everything you need to know about the product you're thinking of buying and compare its price to other brands, so you don't waste your money.
When you make your decision, you'll scan the product with your phone, which will record the price and keep a running tally.
Instead of standing in a checkout line, you'll just transmit your purchases over the phone and pay for them with a pre-selected credit card.
Radio frequency identification (RFID) means you'll never have to endure the frustration of failing to find the object of your desire on the shelves. An RFID chip embedded in each item will alert the store's staff that supplies are running low and need to be restocked.
Other advances will let you test-drive cosmetics to see if they suit your skin tone and hair color before you buy them, and even sample foods and beverages to make sure they pass your personal taste test.
The Filterbrella!
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Bottled water is a bad deal - it costs a lot and the plastic bottles it comes in pollute the environment when you throw them away.
A solution is at hand - if you live in a rainy region.
Designer Andrew Leinonen has come up with an umbrella that will keep you dry and wet your whistle at the same time. It'll also help your garden grow when you decide to replace it with a new one.
It's called Filterbrella because its canopy captures rainwater and funnels it through the rod, where it is purified by a carbon filter.
Then it drains into an attached bottle you can sip from when your throat gets parched.
At the end of its life, Filterbrella still has something to offer. It's made of biodegrable nutrients - bury it and it'll fertilize your flowerbed.