Lawmakers says she learned a lot at Hooters

Rep. Julia Hurley, newly elected to the Tennessee House, credits her work at Hooters with helping her win her seat in what’s regarded as a conservative district.

Fake Robot Baby Provokes Real Screams

Uncanny valley, heard of it? No worries, you're knee-deep in it right now. It's the revulsion you feel to robots, prostheses, or zombies that try, but don't quite duplicate their human models. As the robot becomes more humanlike, however, our emotional response becomes increasingly positive and empathetic. Unfortunately, the goal of Osaka University's AFFETTO was to create a robot modeled after a young child that could produce realistic facial expressions in order to endear it to a human caregiver in a more natural way. Impressive, sure, but we're not ready to let it suckle from our teat just yet.

Sealy Super Bowl After Glow Commercial

The Sealy Super Bowl 2011 Commercial entitled ‘After Glow’ is smart and cute. The couples “enjoy all the benefits of the new Sealy Posturepedic” bed. It isn’t too hard to figure out what these undressed couples were doing!

Lady Gaga Romance Rumor

It can't be easy dating Lady Gaga: When you're not picking glitter off everything you own, or trying to get the scent of bodily fluids off your clothes, you're staring at the meat in the fridge, wondering if it's dinner or designer wear. So color us unsurprised that Life & Style claims the popster's back-on romance with longtime love Luc
Carl has hit a speed bump. "Gaga and Luc are fighting a lot," says a snitch. "Their relationship has never been perfect -- it's always been tumultuous -- but now it's hanging by a thread." Click on for a less depressing romance rumor …

Amazing Art Project from Google

Google launched a terrific service for the naming of Google Art Project. Now you have a great opportunity to not getting up off the couch to run through the galleries and museums around the world, read all the interesting information about the selected objects, and even create your own collection of art objects from the world's masterpieces, which are shown with amazing accuracy and a survey of 360 degrees. And as you can in the smallest detail view images. The quality of each masterpiece - 7 giga pixels!

Google has already said - the project is not commercial and does not bring profits. It is designed for anyone who would like to visit museums in the world, but has no such opportunity. Moreover, it also provides an opportunity to consider the fine details of paintings that, in principle, sometimes unrealistic, even in the museum or gallery.

At this point in the project involved 17 museums of the world:

- Old National Gallery in Berlin (Germany)
- Art Gallery in Berlin (Germany)
- The Hermitage in St. Petersburg (Russia)
- Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (Russia)
- Versailles in Paris (France)
- Museum of Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid (Spain)
- Centre of Art Reina Sofia in Madrid (Spain)
- Uffizi Gallery in Florence (Italy)
- The National Gallery in London (England)
- The Tate Gallery in London (England)
- Museum Kampa in Prague (Czech Republic)
- Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam (Netherlands)
- Reyksmuzey in Amsterdam (Netherlands)
- Freer Art Gallery in Washington (USA)
- Frick Collection in New York (USA)
- Museum of Modern Art in New York (USA)
- Metropolitan Museum in New York (USA)

No cheerleaders for Super Bowl (Video)

Halle Berry Clashed with Daddy Aubry

 

Actress Halle Berry is a woman who knows what she wants - and what she doesn't want. Reality television star Kim Kardashian meeting her little girl is something she very clearly doesn't want.

Halle Berry, who is going through a bitter custody dispute with ex boyfriend Gabriel Aubry, the father of her 3-year-old daughter Nahla, was very "aggravated" with Aubry when he was seen socializing with the likes of reality television star Kim Kardashian back in November.

Dapper TV Show Dioramas

The Prime Big Series Commercial is on a Miniature Scale

Plastic figurines and creative dioramas have been popping up all over the place, so it’s no surprise that this Prime Big Series promo has decided to hop on the miniature bandwagon. A Belgium TV chain, it has decided to market their hit shows such as ‘Mad Men,’ ‘Lost,’ and ‘Six Feet Under’ in this quite adorable direction.

Unfortunately, there is no information about who created this Prime Big Series commercial, but you can at least enjoy the full clip via the featured video.

PRIME BIG SERIES - SMALL SCREEN from steven huybrechts on Vimeo.

Anderson Cooper beaten

CNN star reporter Anderson Cooper is on the streets of Egypt,covering the political protests. As violence erupted in Cairo’s central Tahir Square in Cairo (see where that is), he and other journalists reportedly became part of the story.

Lake Shore Drive A Disaster; Drivers Stuck For Hours

Lake Shore Drive remained closed Wednesday afternoon, as city workers continued removing stranded vehicles from the roadway in an effort to reopen the road as soon as possible.

Lake Shore Drive was a disaster area overnight, as motorists found themselves stranded for up to 12 hours and ended up in the hospital.

As CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports, many motorists were just trying to get home, but the blizzard made that impossible.

Initially, Lake Shore Drive was moving smoothly as the evening rush began, but conditions began to deteriorate following several accidents. There were three accidents between Fullerton Parkway and Belmont Avenue 7:15 and 7:45 p.m., one of them involving a CTA bus. Shortly afterward, there were two more accidents in the northbound lanes just south of North Avenue.

The accidents caused cars and buses to back up, and as the snow piled up, vehicles became immobilized and off-ramps became impassable. Lake Shore Drive was closed at 7:58 p.m., and fire and police personnel worked to move as many cars as possible off the highway and remove people who could not get out on their own.

City officials said 700 to 900 cars were involved in the overnight traffic jam on Lake Shore Drive just south of North Avenue. In response, 13 ambulances were dispatched and remained on the scene all night, along with 26 fire companies with 130 firefighters.

Fire personnel were organized into two task forces with 30 firefighter-medics equipped on snowmobiles.

Police also dispatched 30 officers to the Drive, mayor’s chief of staff Raymond Orozco said.

Orozco said first responders tried to get to stranded motorists as quickly as possible, but winds of 60 to 70 mph and snow falling at a rate of 1 to 2 inches per hour made that extremely difficult.

Fire crews were unable to see even one car in front of them for a period of time, Fire Commissioner Bob Hoff said.

Before the city shut down the Drive, traffic had been crawling; it took upwards of an hour to travel only a mile. Many cars were without a full tank of gas, and ended up running out.

WBBM Newsradio 780 was flooded with calls from stranded motorists who said they had been stuck on Lake Shore Drive for over seven hours and saw people abandoning their cars.

Newsradio 780′s Lisa Fielding reports Sue Baker left her Hyde Park office around 5 p.m. and nearly seven hours later, she remained in the same spot, “We haven’t moved. It’s kinda scary. There are snow drifts on our cars now.”

Evanston attorney Craig Roeder says he got on Lake Shore Drive at 6 p.m. and headed north. He says he crept and crawled until just south of Fullerton Parkway, when traffic ground to a halt around 9:30 pm.

And there he sat, in whiteout conditions for six hours, until 3:20 a.m. when WBBM Newsradio 780’s David Roe was interviewing him on the phone.

Source: Chicago.cbslocal.com

Super Bowl and PETA ad

 NBC pulled the plug on a PETA pro-veggie commercial planned for the Super Bowl because it "depicts a level of sexuality exceeding our standards," according to NBC Universal's advertising standards executive, Victoria Morgan. The ad, which carries the tagline, "Studies Show Vegetarians Have Bet ter Sex," shows lingerie-clad stunners getting "intimate" with vegetables.

Teens arrested in kidnapping, assault

Seven high school students in suburban Philadelphia were arrested Monday following the kidnapping and assault of a 14-year-old, a local newspaper reported.
The victim had been hung from a fence post at an apartment complex, Upper Darby Police Superintendent Mike Chitwood was quoted as saying by the Daily Times of Delaware County.

"We're dragging them out in handcuffs," Chitwood said of the suspects as the arrests were happening.

"We want to send home a message that this type of behavior will absolutely not be tolerated," he added. "They hanged this kid from a steel fence. We have the video of them actually hanging this kid from the fence."

The victim did not sustain physical injuries but he did suffer "extreme mental anguish," Chitwood said.

Video of the assault will be released at a press conference at 1 p.m. ET, he added.

The suspects, all 16 or 17 years old, attend the Upper Darby High School.

Pop Up Cardboard Office

Inspired by pop up books, this mobile workstation comes with a desk and a chair that fold flat for easy storage and transportation.


Pop Up from abw on Vimeo.

Doc auctions tickets to surgery

Dr. Charlie Teo, an Australian surgeon, auctioned off the opportunity to watch him operate on cancer patients. The idea met with strong disapproval from a fellow doctor. But Teo defends the practice.

Crash reveals injured man in trunk

A man who police say was trying to sell his dark blue BMW M3 was in critical condition after a purported buyer made off with it.  The alleged car thief hit a cab  and ran away; police investigating the incident opened the trunk.  They are looking for this man.

utah trooper on leave for punching woman

A Utah Highway Patrol trooper is under investigation after a video showed him punching a woman several times during a traffic stop, a spokesman for the Utah Department of Public Safety said. See Video

A dashboard camera captured footage of Sgt. Andrew Davenport punching 53-year-old Darla Wright in August.

Davenport is on paid administrative leave, said Brian Hyer, spokesman for the Utah Department of Public Safety.

Wright was speeding in Ogden when officers tried to pull her over, authorities said late Saturday. According to an incident report, the driver evaded police, and a chase ensued. Authorities stopped the woman by trapping her car between two vehicles.

"The suspect was still trying to escape, she had the accelerator floored and engine revving in an attempt to push our vehicles out of the way," Davenport wrote in an incident report.

Davenport said Wright would not roll down her window and gripped on the steering wheel.

On the video, Davenport is seen breaking the driver's side window, reaching into the car and repeatedly punching the woman.

"She refused to comply with commands to give us her hands," Davenport wrote. "Due to my close proximity to the suspect and my experience with Taser failure at such close distances, I delivered three close hand strikes to her head in an attempt to gain compliance with our commands. I did this to distract and stun her and to stop her from trying to drive off and strike our vehicles or possibly run us over. The strikes worked and we were able to grab her hands."

Hyer said investigations involve "multiple layers of reviews." It is unclear when the reviews might be completed.

"The Sgt. Davenport investigation is a personnel matter, and I am limited at what I can say," Hyer said. "There have been several reviews and an investigation, and right now we have a pending personnel matter."

Hyer confirmed to CNN that Davenport is a cousin of Utah Department of Public Safety Commissioner D. Lance Davenport, but police say the relationship will not affect the case.

Hyer said the commissioner told him he believes in doing the right thing.

"The commissioner expects all of his employees to be held accountable for his or her actions," Hyer said. "There is a relationship between Commissioner Davenport and Sgt. Davenport, but that's it. It has no bearing on this case."

CNN attempted to reach Sgt. Davenport, but the Department of Public Safety is not allowing him to speak, Hyer said.

The driver was eventually taken into custody on suspicion of driving under the influence, eluding police, reckless driving, assault on a police officer and resisting arrest. Attempts to reach her were unsuccessful.

Break-dancing Santa

The Asheville Convention &Visitors Bureau in North Carolina created this viral video featuring a break-dancing Santa to boost winter tourism. It took more than 22 hours to film the video in late November.
<br/><a href="http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/break-dancing-santa/20rr1lg6?q=Santa+Claus&rel=msn&from=en-us_msnhp&form=msn&gt1=42007&fg=sharenoembed" target="_new"title="Break-dancing Santa">Video: Break-dancing Santa</a>

Most Awesome New iPhone App

This app rocks. It translates languages automatically without an internet connection. So for instance you and your honey are on the beach in Spain and you happen to see this sign. Yeah OK like you would be looking at this sign, but you get the picture. It’s called the World Lens. So no need to spend all that money on learning how to speak Spanish or French. Now we wonder if we can get our money back from Rosetta Stone?

Best Songs of 2010

Once upon a time, we might have gauged the best "singles" of the year just ending, but popular music circa 2010 has shifted the conversation back to the fundamental – the song. The rules have changed with the proliferation of a la carte options for curious listeners: Conventional singles are multiplied by remixes, EP samplers, demos and alternate versions, giving MSN's contributors a vastly larger bucket of tunes to contemplate. Our top-ranked songs do include some well-known hits heard on radio or seen in videos, but our contributors' submissions tell a more tangled tale of fave musical moments.

 1. Cee-Lo Green:  "F--- You" (Elektra)
Of course, the unprintable title was the launch pad for Cee-Lo Green's overnight summer hit, its blunt message the righteous punch line to his fuming realization that finance has trumped romance. A nimble, infectious pop-soul arrangement and deft lyrics that are as witty as they are rude give Cee-Lo room to romp in a joyfully unbridled performance of comic exaggeration that inverts R&B machismo outright. The true test of the song may be its family-friendly version: It turns out that even with its expletives deleted and with a new title, "Forget You," it's delightful.

 2. Miranda Lambert: "The House That Built Me" (Sony Nashville)
Few artists have mapped out a modern country style as accessible, yet as authentic and personalized, as Miranda Lambert: The outsized persona she carves with combustible rockers never loses her Texas accent, while the take-no-prisoners ferocity of vengeful anthems such as "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," "Gunpowder & Lead" and last year's "White Liar" are matched evenly by her skill with tender, vulnerable ballads. On her CMA-winning and Grammy-nominated "The House That Built Me," she again touches on how family and community shape identity. It's an affecting meditation on innocence and a moving reassurance that she may have conquered Nashville but she's not about to go Hollywood.

3. Eminem (Featuring Rihanna): "Love the Way You Lie" (Aftermath)
Eminem's personal life and musical identity have long grappled with sexual rage erupting in cruel misogyny, giving this defining hit from his "Recovery" album undeniable power. Confronting the power struggles behind domestic violence, he turns the table on his own worst past rants. Recruiting Rihanna, whose own tabloid nightmare remains forever rooted in the issue, is both brave and brilliant, making this one of the year's most unflinching pop dramas.

4. Die Antwoord: "Enter the Ninja" (Cherrytree/Interscope)
The jury may be out for Die Antwoord's potential to launch an unexpected hip-hop variant straight outta Cape Town, but "Enter the Ninja," the breakout viral hit for this South African trio spearheaded by the self-appointed Ninja (born Watkin Tudor Jones), is a galvanic, splenetic burst of cultural references run through a blender. Together with his cryptic blonde foil Yo-Landi Vi$$er, the gaunt rapper unleashes a funny, furious and casually obscene diatribe rooted in the underdog, self-consciously vulgar Zef subculture. Die Antwoord means "The Answer" in Afrikaans, but for most Western listeners "Enter the Ninja" is more provocative for the questions it raises. As "singles" go, this one never got near Top 40 and never will.

5. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: "I Should Have Known It" (Reprise)
High Orthodox Rock fans looking for proof that the style will endure need look no further than Tom Petty, who began his career being parsed for his stylistic debts to '60s icons, then graduated to play alongside them, whether touring with the Dead or traveling with the Wilburys. After three decades, the Heartbreakers are lethally powerful players, as exploited by the mostly live performances tracked for "Mojo" and exemplified by the tight midtempo strut of this classic rocker.

6. LCD Soundsystem: "Drunk Girls" (Virgin)
LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy has made hipster ridicule a keystone in his crafty spin on rock-edged dance music, a ploy nearly perfected on the first single from this year's "This Is Happening" album. A hell-bent pace and the jubilant title chorus provide the party-hearty momentum even as Murphy captures the contradictions of a revved-up crowd and the woozy chemistry lessons of dance floor hookups.

7. Robyn: "Dancing on My Own" (Konichiwa/Interscope)
Trading early teen pop stardom for independence, Sweden's Robyn has spent the last decade forging her own kinetic dance sound as a singer, songwriter and producer with growing confidence and a willingness to collaborate. This year a series of EPs sharing the "Body Talk" title wound up yielding a potent full-length already studded with hits. None is more mesmerizing than this propulsive anthem that unfolds "under a black sky" looming over its tableau of partying abandon and abject heartbreak.

8. Broken Bells: "The High Road" (Columbia)
For ambitious contemporary musicians, multitasking and collaboration are strategic givens. In Broken Bells, Shins singer and principal songwriter James Mercer partners with producer Brian Burton, better known as Danger Mouse, to create indelible pop-rock songs as musically accessible as they are lyrically elusive. Their calling card was this hypnotic, mysterious anthem: Against an implacable midtempo march and seemingly accidental yet melodic electronic bleeps, the duo builds a vignette as puzzling as it is engaging, modulating from the menacing midnight imagery of its verses to a beautiful (but mystifying) coda. We can only guess at its meaning, but we keep hitting "play."

9. Far East Movement: "Like a G6" (Interscope)
East Los Angeles' Far East Movement broke out with this futurist tweak of club music, weaving hip-hop cadences, a shrewd Dev sample and electronic textures into a fizzy pulse that takes its title simile from a Gulfstream corporate jet. With its origins in the Korea Town community, Far East Movement augurs a next wave of pop's multicultural reinvention: "Like a G6" proved a massive hit with formidable chart credentials buoyed by digital sales.

10. Lady Antebellum: "Need You Now" (Capitol Nashville)
Their home base is Nashville, but Lady Antebellum's blueprint sounds closer to L.A. in its canny vocal partnership between Charles Kelley and Hillary Scott and the crisp acoustic decorations of multi-instrumentalist Dave Haywood. The title track of the platinum trio's second album powers its yearning after-hours confessions of unresolved passion with a surging chorus and a keening slide guitar that sounds equidistant from Laurel Canyon and Music Row, which helps explain its multiformat success and a mantel full of CMA, ACMA and CMT Awards. With four of their seven pending Grammy nominations propelled by the song, they may need a bigger mantel.