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Migraine headache
1. What every clinician should know
Migraine is a neurologic disorder with attacks that generally will include throbbing pain, activity intolerance, nausea, and light and sound sensitivity. In about 30% of individuals, attacks are preceded by an aura—most commonly visual phenomena that migrate across the visual field. Migraine affects roughly 12% of the U.S. population. However, it affects women three times more often than men and occurs most commonly in the years with childbearing potential. There is perhaps a 25% to 33% chance that a woman who becomes pregnant will have preexisting migraine.
Approximately 30% of persons with migraines have auras. Visual symptoms are the most common auras. Sensory symptoms are the second most common. The typical visual aura begins as a small area of scintillation (bright flashing light) partially surrounding an area of decreased vision, the scotoma, which may be dark, gray, or clear but blurred.
This perception grows in one or two visual fields over 5 to 60 minutes and is usually followed by a migraine headache. It may also be followed by a tension-type headache or no headache at all. Migraine with aura poses a small increased risk of stroke, particularly in women who smoke or take estrogen-containing birth control pills.
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Two percent of the population has chronic migraine, a much more disabling and impactful disease than episodic migraine. Unemployment due to chronic migraine is much more common than that due to episodic migraine, and quality of life in chronic migraine is substantially worse than in episodic migraine. Analgesic use more than 15 days per month, triptan (e.g., sumatriptan) use more than 8 days per month, and barbiturate or opioid use more than 4 days per month are risk factors for chronification of headaches. Other risks include obesity and stressful life events.
Migraine may develop for the first time during pregnancy, although this is not common. Rising or sustained high estrogen levels have been proposed as the mechanism of migraine relief that often occurs during pregnancy. This mechanism, however, cannot explain the worsening or new appearance of migraine that sometimes occurs.
The rapid fall of estrogen levels may be responsible for menstrual and postpartum migraine. Women with a prior history of migraine are more likely to develop postpartum migraine.
Migraine relief during pregnancy may be due to the differential effect of estrogen on neurons and glia. Although rising or sustained estrogen levels decrease headache in most women, these changes induce headache in some women.
Migraine pain may be due to increased reactivity of trigeminal nucleus caudalis glial cells, which may be dampened by high estrogen and progesterone levels. During late pregnancy, women have elevated pain thresholds. Estrogen levels do not differ in nonpregnant women with or without menstrual migraine.
Course of migraine during and after pregnancy
Approximately 60% to 70% of women with migraines will improve during pregnancy, while some women who have not had migraines will experience their first migraine headache. Migraine with aura probably improves less than migraine without aura.
Primiparous women may be more likely to improve. Case reports of migraines that occur for the first time during pregnancy emphasize the presence of focal neurologic symptoms (migraine with aura), probably because patients with these dramatic presentations are more likely to be referred to a specialist. In a series of 10 women with pregnancy-related headache and focal neurologic symptoms (visual or sensory aura, dysphasia, weakness, or a combination of these symptoms), two presented in the first trimester, six in the third trimester, and two postpartum.
Menstrually related migraine (a lack of headache improvement in the first and third trimesters), second-trimester hyperemesis, and a pathologic pregnancy course were associated with a lack of headache improvement in the second trimester.
Migraine is a disorder of recurrent headaches manifesting in attacks lasting 4 to 72 hours. Typical characteristics of the headache are unilateral location, pulsating quality, moderate or severe intensity, aggravation by routine physical activity, and association with nausea and/or photophobia and phonophobia.
The diagnostic criteria of the International Classification of Headache Disorders, 3rd edition (ICHD-3) are listed below. Note that migraine has a broad clinical spectrum. Two individuals may satisfy completely different pain criteria and have different associated symptoms—yet both will have migraine.
Diagnostic criteria:
A. At least five attacks fulfilling criteria B–D
B. Headache attacks lasting 4 to 72 hours (untreated or unsuccessfully treated)
C. Headache has at least two of the following four characteristics:
- Unilateral location
- Pulsating quality
- Moderate or severe pain intensity
- Aggravation by or causing avoidance of routine physical activity (e.g., walking or climbing stairs)
D. During headache at least one of the following:
- nausea and/or vomiting
- photophobia and phonophobia
E. Not attributed to another disorder
2. Diagnosis and differential diagnosis
The diagnosis of migraine is made clinically based on diagnostic criteria and the exclusion of a secondary cause to headache. To exclude secondary headache, assess for red flags and order subsequent diagnostic testing, if indicated (See Table I).
Table I.
|stands for…
|for example…
|think of…
|Secondary risk factorsSystemic symptoms
|Fever, weight loss, fatigue,HIV, cancer, immune suppression
|Infection, inflammation, metastatic cancer, carcinomatous meningitis
|Neurologic symptoms/signs
|Altered consciousness, focal deficits
|Encephalitis, mass lesion, stroke
|Split-second, thunderclap
|Subarachnoid hemorrhage, and others
|New after age 50
|Temporal arteritis
|Prior historyPositionalPapilledemaPrecipitants
|First, newly progressive, or different from usualDramatic change upright vs. recumbentChange with neck positionVisual obscurationsDramatic, consistent triggering by cough, exertion, or first attack triggered by intercourse
|Any secondary cause can lead to change in patternIntracranial hypotension, orthostatic dysautonomiaCervicogenic headacheIntracranial hypertensionPosterior fossa pathology, vasospasm, CSF obstruction or leakChiari malformationAneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage
Adapted from Dodick DW. Pearls: Headache. Semin Neurol 2010;30(1):74-81.
There are numerous causes of secondary headache, but several deserve special consideration during pregnancy, as they may be confused with uncomplicated migraine. Headaches that are associated with pre-eclampsia may resemble migraine.
The headache of idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH, a.k.a., pseudotumor cerebri) is often indistinguishable from chronic migraine but may occur in the setting of excess weight and is often accompanied by papilledema, visual obscurations, and pulsatile tinnitus. Progressive visual loss, which is sometimes rapid, only occurs when there is papilledema. If IIH is suspected, an ophthalmologic consultation is appropriate.
Thunderclap headache, a severe headache reaching maximal intensity almost instantaneously (in less than one minute by definition), is not only concerning for aneurysmal rupture, but also of reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome (RCVS). In fact, RCVS commonly manifests with multiple attacks of thunderclap headache in the first week.
Segmental, multifocal intracranial arterial constriction may be seen on angiogram, but these may not be discernible until days or weeks after the initial thunderclap headache. RCVS may be complicated by seizures, small cortical subarachnoid hemorrhages, intracranial hemorrhages, and infarcts. An overlap syndrome exists between eclampsia, posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome, and RCVS.
In late pregnancy and early postpartum, women are at risk for venous sinus thrombosis. This may also present with a thunderclap headache, or more commonly, a relentless progressive severe headache that may resemble migraine.
Chronic migraine can be a complication of migraine. Headache frequency evolves to more than 15 days per month and is often daily and continuous. The headaches need not always have all the symptoms necessary to diagnose migraine. On many days the headache may resemble a tension-type headache.
Chronic migraine may be caused or complicated by the overuse of analgesics (acetaminophen, aspirin, nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs [NSAIDs]), opioids, barbiturate-containing medication, and triptans). In women, barbiturate-containing medications are the most potent for inducing the evolution of episodic to chronic migraine.
Medication-overuse headache (MOH)
Previously used terms: Rebound headache; drug-induced headache; medication-misuse headache
The diagnostic criteria of the International Classification of Headache Disorders,
3rd edition (ICHD-3) are listed below. Patients with a preexisting primary headache, who in association with medication overuse, develop a new type of headache or a marked worsening of their preexisting headache that, in either case, meets the criteria for "8.2 Medication-overuse headache" (or one of its subtypes), should be given both this diagnosis and the diagnosis of the preexisting headache. Patients who meet criteria for both "1.3 Chronic migraine" and "8.2 Medication-overuse headache" should be given both diagnoses.
Headache occurring on 15 or more days per month developing as a consequence of regular overuse of acute or symptomatic headache medication (on 10 or more, or 15 or more days per month, depending on the medication) for more than 3 months. It usually, but not invariably, resolves after the overuse is stopped.
General comment:
In the criteria set out below for the various subtypes, the specified numbers of days of medication use considered to constitute overuse are based on expert opinion rather than on formal evidence.
Diagnostic criteria:
A. Headache occurring 15 days per month in a patient with a preexisting headache disorder
B. Regular overuse for more than 3 months of one or more drugs that can be taken for acute and/or symptomatic treatment of headache
C. Not better accounted for by another ICHD-3 diagnosis
In most cases diagnostic testing is not needed. Diagnostic testing functions to exclude or diagnose other causes of headache, discover comorbid and coexistent disease that could complicate headache and its treatment, or help select and manage medications safely during and before initiating treatment.
To diagnose migraine without aura, one should ask specifically about severity, unilaterality, throbbing, and aggravation with activity, as well as nausea and light and sound sensitivity. To diagnose aura, ask about positive (flashing, shimmering, paresthesia) and negative (blurry, blank, dark, lack of feeling) sensory phenomena.
Also ask about growth of the involved area in the visual field or on the body, the duration of the symptoms, gradual movement of the symptoms across the visual field or body, and transition from one modality to the other (i.e., visual to sensory). For chronic migraine, pain should be present in more than 50% of days, and the headache should be associated with nausea or light and sound sensitivity in some of the days.
3. Management
Migraine management with medication can be construed as having three elements—acute, preventive, and "bridge" (a course of medications over a few days designed to break a cycle of intractable pain).
Many women with migraine use migraine preventives and abortives prior to pregnancy. In anticipation of pregnancy, it is our practice to modify treatment as the woman attempts to become pregnant. Preventive agents are weaned, except the woman is often started or maintained on oral magnesium supplementation, which appears to function as a preventive. The last dose of a preventive should be given at least five half-lives before fertilization might occur. We ask our patients to stop the other "natural" preventives, including vitamin B 2 and coenzyme Q-10 (which are given at supraphysiologic doses in migraine prophylaxis), feverfew, butterbur, and any other they may be taking because they have not been studied in pregnancy.
By preference we modify the abortive plan to one that is appropriate for pregnancy. For some this is not practical, so we have the patient meticulously check pregnancy tests while attempting to become pregnant, then switch to an acute plan more suitable for pregnancy as soon as she knows she is pregnant.
The acute treatment of migraine consists of several classes of medication. Acetaminophen is probably the safest, but it is not very effective in migraine. NSAIDs are effective but are contraindicated in the third trimester. A patient may not recall instructions to stop using NSAIDs by the third trimester or other pregnant women in their third trimester may take NSAIDs because they observed their friend using during the first and second trimesters, but were never educated about the risks of third trimester use.
To date, no data have appeared indicating a concern for the use of triptans; sumatriptan has the greatest use and greatest experience favoring safety. Nonetheless, we rarely prescribe triptans during pregnancy given the relative lack of data. Virtually all dopamine blocking antiemetics are effective as acute migraine treatments and have an acceptable safety profile.
Opioids are effective and have a reasonable safety profile if used sparingly to avoid medication overuse headache, dependency, and maternal or infant withdrawal. Butalbital-containing drugs have a poor risk to benefit ratio. These drugs have the highest association with episodic migraine progression to chronic migraine.
Postpartum migraine treatment is resumed, as appropriate, for the patient's migraine frequency and severity. The medication selection is influenced by whether the patient is breastfeeding.
Preventive medications are listed in Table II, along with the typical effective doses.
Table II.
|FDA Risk*
|Preventive Therapy
|Anticholinergic effects
|Abortive Treatment
|Hepatotoxicity with chronic use at >200 mg/kg/day
|Dependence, medication overuse headache
|Sedation, diarrhea, extrapyramidal signs and symptoms
|Nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs
|Nausea, edema, GI bleed; premature closure of ductus arteriosus
|B/C; D in third trimester
|Rare transient headache, constipation, dizziness
|Sedation, respiratory depression, constipation, dependence/addiction; neonatal withdrawal syndrome
|Triptan sensation (neck and chest pressure, increase in headache)
|Weight gain, hair loss, tremor
|May need dose increase during pregnancy (CYP2D6)
|Hypotension, cough
|May need dose increase during pregnancy (CYP2D6)
|Propranolol, Metoprolol, Nadolol
|Hypotension, bradycardia, weakness, depression; possible fetal bradycardia, hypotension, and weakness in neonate
|Tingling, metabolic acidosis (which should be monitored in pregnancy); 20-fold increase risk of cleft lip/palate
|Some reports of neonates needing respiratory support and tube feeding
|Butterbur, feverfew, vitamin B12
|No data available
*Food and Drug Administration risk categories.
**Triptans approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treating migraine are sumatriptan, zolmitriptan, naratriptan, rizatriptan, almotriptan, frovatriptan, and eletriptan.
†For migraine indication, category D for epilepsy indication.
Adapted from; Lucas S. Medication use in the treatment of migraine during pregnancy and lactation. Curr Pain Headache Rep 2009;13:392-398.
4. Complications
Migraine is a fluctuating neurologic condition that can progress to a severe and disabling condition, leading to unemployment, affecting parenting ability, and causing irrevocable social harm. One concern is that during pregnancy, a time when abortive and preventive medications are often withheld, the migraine may progress to a debilitating and intractable stage. While this is not common, vigilance is appropriate.
The nausea and vomiting from migraine attacks may be so severe as to lead to weight loss and poor nutrition. We have seen many patients in whom the combined effect of severe chronic migraine and hyperemesis gravidarum requires aggressive intervention.
Migraine may be associated with low birth weight (odds ratio 3.0, confidence interval 1.3 to 7.0), but appears not to be associated with miscarriage, preeclampsia, or congenital anomalies.
Medication overuse is the principle complication of migraine that could lead to eventual worsening of the overall migraine or lead to use of medications that are harmful to the fetus.
5. Prognosis and outcome
Postnatal headache is common. While usually less severe than the patient's typical migraine, often it is bifrontal, prolonged, and associated with photophobia, nausea, and anorexia. It occurs within 1 week of delivery in approximately 35% of women. Migraines decrease within the first month after delivery in around half of women with migraine. Bottle feeding is associated with the first month recurrence.
While poorly controlled migraines during pregnancy could theoretically promote an ongoing increase in migraine frequency, by and large migraines during pregnancy will not have a long-term health consequence for the mother or child.
6. What is the evidence for specific management and treatment recommendations
"Headache Classification Committee of the International Headache Society. The international classification of headache disorders". Cephalalgia. vol. 33. 2013. pp. 679-808. (The pamphlet that defines how to classify headaches.)
Hoshiyama, E, Tatsumoto, M, Iwanami, H. "Postpartum migraines: a long-term prospective study". Intern Med. vol. 51. 2012. pp. 3119-23. (The most comprehensive cohort study to assess headaches up to 12 months after delivery.)
Olesen, C, Steffensen, FH, Sorensen, HT, Nielsen, GL, Olsen, J. "Pregnancy outcome following prescription for sumatriptan". Headache. vol. 40. 2000. pp. 20-4. (Imitrex was associated with preterm delivery and low birth weight. This could reflect drug exposure but disease severity or confounding factors are also possible.)
Sances, G, Granella, F, Nappi, RE. "Course of migraine during pregnancy and postpartum". A prospective study. Cephalalgia. vol. 23. 2003. pp. 197-205. (Cohort study through each trimester of pregnancy.)
Stein, G, Morton, J, Marsh, A. "Headaches after childbirth". Acta Neurol Scand. vol. 69. 1984. pp. 74-9. (Postpartum cohort study that characterizes headaches and migraine in a vigorous manner.)
Wainscott, G, Sullivan, FM, Volans, GN, Wilkinson, M. "The outcome of pregnancy in women suffering from migraine". Postgrad Med J. vol. 54. 1978. pp. 98-102. (Large survey study in a migraine clinic showing no risk of adverse effects of a migraine in pregnancy.)
Lucas, S. "Medication use in the treatment of migraine during pregnancy and lactation". Curr Pain Headache Rep. vol. 13. 2009. pp. 392-398. (Excellent review of known medication risks in pregnancy.)
Edlow, JA, Caplan, LR, O'Brien, K, Tibbles, CD. "Diagnosis of acute neurological emergencies in pregnant and post-partum women". Lancet Neurol. vol. 12. 2013. pp. 175-185. (Up-to-date review of neurologic emergencies in pregnancy with discussions of emergencies presenting with a headache.)
Cunnington, M, Ephross, S, Churchill, P. "The safety of sumatriptan and naratriptan in pregnancy: what have we learned?". Headache. vol. 49. 2009. pp. 1414-22. (Reassuring update in the sumatriptan pregnancy registry.)
Copyright © 2017, 2013 Decision Support in Medicine, LLC. All rights reserved.
No sponsor or advertiser has participated in, approved or paid for the content provided by Decision Support in Medicine LLC. The Licensed Content is the property of and copyrighted by DSM.
- Migraine headache
- 1. What every clinician should know
- 2. Diagnosis and differential diagnosis
- 3. Management
- 4. Complications
- 5. Prognosis and outcome
- 6. What is the evidence for specific management and treatment recommendations


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More than 6.5 million people bought copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in North America and the United Kingdom in the first 24 hours of its release pulling in more than $400 million, Activision said today.
That makes it one of the largest entertainment launch in history, with sales of more than $400 million. That's an impressively big number, one that approaches the biggest opening weekend for a movie of all time. That record is held by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Its reported $483 million take includes the entire world and two days, not just one, so there's a very good chance that Modern Warfare 3's worldwide end up breaking that record too.
Modern Warfare 3's impressive sales topples last year's record-breaking release of Call of Duty: Black Ops, which managed to sell 5.6 million copies the day it went on sale. That means Black Ops sold $360 million worth of copies in its first 24 hours of release in North America and the U.K. That compared to the $310 million that Modern Warfare 2 pulled in two years ago by selling 4.7 million copies.
"We believe the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the biggest entertainment launch of all time in any medium, and we achieved this record with sales from only two territories," said Bobby Kotick, CEO, Activision Blizzard, Inc. "Other than Call of Duty, there has never been another entertainment franchise that has set opening day records three years in a row. Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise exceed worldwide theatrical box office for "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings," two of the most successful entertainment franchises of all time."
Eric Hirshberg, CEO, Activision Publishing added, "Call of Duty is more than a game. It's become a major part of the pop cultural landscape. It is a game that core enthusiasts love, but that also consistently draws new people into the medium. It is the most intense, adrenaline pumping entertainment experience anywhere. I would like to thank our incredible teams at Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games for making a brilliant game. But most of all, I would like to thank our millions of passionate fans worldwide. We made this game for you."
Activision also announced today that they donated $3 million to their Call of Duty Endowment, a non-profit, public benefit corporation that seeks to provide job placement and training for veterans. This latest donation will be added to the $2 million that Activision has already donated to the Endowment, which has provided more than $1.5 million in grants and scholarships to veterans' organizations across the country since it was conceived by Bobby Kotick in November of 2009.
Should You Buy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3? Yes.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the Madden of this generation, a video game that manages to soak up so much money, attention and time that it transcends the medium.
But just because everyone else is buying Infinity Ward's latest military shooter doesn't mean you should, right? More »
Why It's Stupid To Hate Call of Duty So Damn Much
Among many of those who like to label themselves as a "gamer", there is no franchise more reviled than Call of Duty. The merest mention of its name sends people flying to post anonymous comments blasting the game as the very model of everything that's wrong with video games today.
Take a look at... More »
You can contact Brian Crecente, the author of this post, at email@example.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.

subset: commoncrawl


text: The liquid matte that started it all. Conceptualized and developed by Lime Crime CEO Doe Deere, Velvetines draw inspiration from her favorite flower - a red, red rose. Doe used to cut out rose petals and paste them onto her lips as a child. Richly pigmented, French vanilla-infused formula glides on as a liquid and dries down to a luxurious, velvety matte finish that lasts for hours and hours. Touch-proof, kiss-proof and utterly addictive!


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Value Creation: The Ultimate Goal of Innovation
Why innovate?
Some would argue that companies innovate to achieve a heightened competitive advantage, streamline the organization, or create intellectual property – including patents, trademarks and other protected property – that create value in the portfolio.
Many reasons and rationales can be argued for the pursuit of innovation. Yet no purpose for or result from innovation can be more compelling than Value Creation. This metric is the ultimate measure of return on investment when measuring innovation's role in creating value.
Simply put: Innovation done well drives value creation – for the organization, its customers, its internal stakeholders and its external shareholders.
Successful innovation turns ideas into money. All the processes, creativity, time, sweat, research, dreaming, refining, modeling and retesting transform effort into tangible, valuable results.
This includes innovation that touches all sectors in the company or organization – not just in the creation of a new product or service. Enhancing the business model or networking, enabling a new core process, creating a new channel, brand or customer experience delivery model, or offering a new product system, boosting product performance, or providing a new service each creates value.
Nowhere is this more relevant and apparent than in the acquisition process. If one were to look at acquisitions with and without a patent portfolio, I would argue that a well-created and -managed patent or IP portfolio can double company value. My former company, Airspray, created of the novel packaging and dispensing process that turned liquid soap into foam. It was a company with a typical value of 7-8x EBIT. Yet, the addition of this patent to its portfolio resulted in 15x EBIT paid when the company was acquired in 2006.
This is especially important in today's market. Current economics continue to hold down already devalued corporate stock prices. Companies are challenged to find ways to boost their value to stakeholders – as well as to keep customers and prospects engaged and purchasing goods. Value creation borne from innovation can be critical indeed. As evident in the Airspray example, one item in our patent portfolio almost doubled the EBIT paid at acquisition. This example is not unique, but was the result of painstaking and thoughtful focus on value created by innovation.
Moreover, value creation and innovation done well can immeasurable enhance the corporate brand. Between adding new products, reviving the corporate dress, even launching new marketing creative or advertising campaigns, customer value can be created through the value-added components and enhanced public face of these endeavors.
Of course, it's essential to find that delicate balance between cost, price, and return. Balance is found, in part, by seeking stakeholder input and customer feedback during development of any innovation process.
The arguments for innovation are, frankly, inarguable. Value, brand enhancement, share price and perception among various stakeholders can be elevated by innovation done well. Add to the equation the inclusion of intellectual property derived during the process, and the overall ROI can be well worth the investment.
Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!
Robert F. Brands is President and founder of Brands & Company, LLC. Innovation Coach Robert Brands has launched a new site – www.RobertsRulesOfInnovation.com – to complement his upcoming book.
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Apple gave the app, Drivers License, the boot this week after concerned politicians claimed it encouraged identity theft. Drivers License joins a short list of apps that Apple gave boot in 2011 because Apple either didn't get the joke, offered too much functionality, or that Apple felt was downright dangerous.
Here is a brief 2011 rewind of apps that got the boot in 2011 starting with Drivers License.
Fake Driver's Licenses
On Monday, Apple removed a two-year old app, called Drivers License that allowed you to create a fake drivers license using a photo, biographical info and a state template of your choice. The app was pulled after the Coalition for a Secure Driver's License tapped Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey to send a letter to Apple asking that the free app come down. The Senator was concerned about the ability to send the fake license to an email account, which could then be printed and laminated.
Avoiding DUI Checkpoints
Senators also stepped in in the case of apps like "Buzzed" which provide information about nearby DUI checkpoints to help tipsy drivers avoid law enforcement. A few months after first being pressed by lawmakers to remove the apps, Apple quietly took them down and updated its App Store guidelines to ban "Apps which contain DUI checkpoints that are not published by law enforcement agencies, or encourage and enable drunk driving."
Phone Story
Turns out that creating a game with the explicit purpose of criticizing Apple will get you banned from the App Store. Who would have guessed? The app called Phone Story was designed as a game that allowed players to force African miners to extract the minerals used in the manufacture of iPhones at gun point, among other things. The App only lasted a few hours in the App Store before disappearing.
Just like its Android equivalent, PDAnet, iTether allows iOS users to turn an iPhone into a portable modem and tether their 3G connection to a laptop or other device to be able to get online when there's no WiFi around. Obviously, this app and its one-time only fee are significantly more affordable than the monthly fee wireless carriers charge to turn your phone into a hotspot. Tethering also violates the carriers' terms of use. Not surprisingly, it wasn't long before iTether was pulled from the App Store.
For those who worry about smartphone radiation, Tawkon is an app devised to determine how much of it you're soaking up while using your phone. It also provides tips on things like phone position that could help lower your dosage. According to Tawkon, Apple execs rejected the app, and an appeal directly to Steve Jobs elicited a terse response – "No interest," he reportedly replied. Talk about being bounced.


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I always see parents commenting about how they were more into playing, drawing and reading when they were kids. Many people seem to think that children today do nothing but sit on the computer playing games or watch TV. My children have a happy balance or being outdoors, playing indoors and being online. I think balance is key and parental supervision. There is no doubt they could pass an entire day by if I did not tell them enough. My youngest really does not need much encouraging when it comes to being creative. She loves to draw and colour and be creative whenever possible. Even looking now at her Christmas list there are a lot of fun, creative activities on there.
There was no surprise that she was super happy and excited when Crayola sent a fun pack for her to checkout. The pack included all kinds of activities that would allow her creative mind to go crazy. One of her favourite things in the pack was the Magic Scene Creator.
Animation Made Easy! Turn still pictures into animated scenes with this cool creative activity toy. Just select one of the included action cards on the Scene Creator screen and watch it go! Watch a cheetah run! Watch an octopus wriggle its tentacles! See a bird fly! You can also draw your own pictures on the screen using the Action Cards to add wings, wheels or googly eyes—whatever you can imagine! Crayola Magic Scene Creator comes with 70 action cards for nearly unlimited play. Place cards on the screen in any combination to make wild and wacky animated scenes. The cards come in five themes, including Animals, Fantasy, Mix & Match, Special FX, and Mystery. Let your imagination run wild! When not in use the Magic Scene Creator is equipped with built-in storage to keep all of your Action Cards organized and ready for use. And to keep your creations on display, use the built-in stand to show your stuff! Magic Scene Creator comes with 6 Crayola Washable Gel FX Markers for original on-screen drawings or to enhance the action cards. Drawings easily wipe clean with a damp cloth.
• Magic Scene Creator unit
• 70 action cards
• 6 gel FX markers
Once the batteries were installed (3 AA) my daughter was able to quickly figure out how to create her own animations. She loves that the gel markers have their own compartment on the back for storage. Way too often we have fun toys with specific item just for them to be lost. Not with this! Store yours in the back, safely.
She creates a few different scenes and loved that she could make her pictures come to life.
Seeing the scenes she created was a lot of fun. Sometimes she would draw something then add in the action cards and other times she would start with the action cards, then create around them. Below is a video showing the animation coming to life in one of her pictures.
Mixing up the action cards she could create all kinds of fun stuff. Her older siblings even enjoyed playing around with it to see what they could create. Lots of fun and a great gift for the holiday season. If you know someone who would love the Magic Scene Creator you can order it online or find it at a retailer near you across Canada.
Do you have a creative child on your list that would like this?
One lucky Canadian reader is going to win a great Crayola prize pack. The prize pack is valued at $70 and contains 1 Magic Scene Creator, 1 Silly Scents Marker Maker and 1 Sticker Design Studio. Fill out the form below for your chance to win. Good Luck!
disclosure I received the above mentioned product free of charge. All opinions are my own


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Beth Bigelow will give a presentation on the GovDelivery Service. This is described on www.GovDelivery.com as "The world's leading provider of government-to-citizen communication solutions. GovDelivery's Email and Digital Subscription Management solution is a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that provides organizations a fully-automated, on-demand public communication system."
The Consent Calendar has an item to renew T-Mobile wireless antennae on several lampposts around San Ramon. So we should all expect a visit from Catherine Zeta-Jones any time now.
New business includes reimbursing Shapell for improvements to Bollinger Canyon Road, and approving the Statement of Investment Policy for Fiscal Year 2009-10. The first priority of the policy is safety, the second is liquidity, and the third is yield. The Investment Policy was approved by the Finance Committee, which added FDIC insured bonds to the list of permitted investments.


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Is Reseeding Native Pastures An Option?Is Reseeding Native Pastures An Option?
The Great Drought of the 21st Century will end eventually. What then for pasture management?
July 11, 2013
If there's one thing certain about drought, it is this: it will end. Someday. When that time comes is debatable, but it will come, sooner or later.
For some, in fact, it may have already arrived. Others are still waiting. But when the rains finally do come back in sufficient quantity and at the right time, many cattlemen may want to consider reseeding drought-stressed native pastures.
That's a viable option, says Ted McCollum, Texas AgriLife Extension beef cattle specialist in Amarillo. But you need to carefully consider all the angles, he adds.
That's especially true if you plan to plow the ground and prepare a seed bed. "On rangeland, as a rule, you put quite a bit of seed down," he says, in a clean-till reseeding approach. And a successful reseeding effort is considered to be two plants germinated/square yard. "You put a lot of seed down and get two plants/square yard. How long is it going to take that to cover up?"
He suggests, before you think about tearing up a lot of ground, take a look first. "What if you have three plants/square yard already growing? You're fixing to go out there and rip up all those plants that are already growing. If a successful reseeding effort is to have two plants established and you already have three there naturally, is reseeding going to help that much?"
That's not saying clean-tillreseeding isn't an option. "But I would think real hard before I do it," he says.
A less invasive option is a single shank deep ripper. "Go in with that ripper, put it down deep in the soil where you break it open and create a conduit for whatever rainfall occurs to move deep into the soil," he says. McCollum suggests making your rips 10-15 ft. apart. "And I'm not talking about a knife on an ammonia rig. I'm talking about a deep ripper."
Research a number of years ago in Far West Texas, an area that only gets around 8 in. of rain normally, found deep ripping works, he says. After making a rip, researchers came back and reseeded the disturbed soil on either side of the rip.
After about five years, grass was growing on either side of the rip. "And it began to fill in the gaps" between the rips, he says. "That was a minimal approach to reseeding, rather than a clean till approach."
Forage response can be fairly rapid if moisture can be captured and utilized properly, he says. Rangeland communities can recover, given enough moisture at the right times, in 2-3 years – if given a chance.
"If we restock too early or too heavy, and too heavy is probably a function of being too early, we can prolong recovery," he says. "By not letting the vegetative cover come back, we can't capture what rainfall is there. So we've actually created a man-made drought by jumping in too early with a restocking program."
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On April 21st, former "That Metal Show" host and comedian Don Jamieson will release his new comedy album, Communication Breakdown, via Metal Blade Records. Recorded at The Funny Stop in Cuyahoga Falls, OH, Communication Breakdown's title and cover come from Don's Rutgers University senior yearbook photo. Don explains: "My young nieces and nephews found the photo at my mom's house and starting texting me how funny it was, and when I saw it again after so many years, I agreed! I majored in communication, so it was just a matter of adding the 'Breakdown' to it, which is obviously something you never want to happen in comedy." For a preview of Communication Breakdown, the track "Kiefer" can be heard at metalblade.com/donjamieson – where the album can also be pre-ordered.
01. Dave Mustaine Riffs, Intervention, Baby in the Drain
02. Sober, Finger-Banging, Drunk Logic
03. Weed, Cigs, Election 2016
04. Kiefer
05. Myrtle Beach
06. Free Clinic, Raccoons
07. Rockers Aren't P.C.
08. Where Have All the Rock Stars Gone?
09. Rocking Women, Viking Metal, Big Four
10. Vagina No-No's, Van Fucker, Doggie Style
11. Dating at 50, Threesome (Almost)
12. Brad & Angelina, Great Head, Mr. Brownstone
13. Johnny Depp
Named one of the top 10 metalhead comedians by Revolver Magazine, Don has captured some of his most irreverent work to-date on his third album, Communication Breakdown. Don explains: "This album has tons of jokes but really revolves around 4 or 5 longer stories, which is something I've never really done before. I usually just like shot gunning jokes like beers at a frat party, but this time around I tried something a little different. It took a while to develop them for the stage but am really happy with the way they turned out, particularly the track 'Kiefer', which is a true story about a crazy night with the '24' actor. Other than that, there's a little bit of something for everyone on this disc, and I hope people who buy or steal it enjoy it as much as I do."


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Guest DJ Party Flyer Vol – 2
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This manufacturer-approved sump check valve (part number WP8268375) is for dishwashers.Sump check valve WP8268375 prevents drain water from flowing back into the pump sump.Unplug the dishwasher and shut off the water supply before installing this part. Wear work gloves to protect your hands.
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text: What to add from my perspective? I would like to stress out work what SAP is doing for community of SAP people. Nowadays SDN has evolved in great site to serve entire SAP world with splendid tools where everybody can not even find something useful but to contribute to this world in variety of possibilities. Some news about SDN can be found here.


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Skip to content
Use the search criteria below to search for a doctor or medical professional. You may enter in a last name, or choose a specialty and/or location. Click the search button to generate results. To see a list of all doctors simply click search. If you are searching for a primary care physician, you may choose family medicine, internal medicine or pediatric specialties.
Titles: Physicians: Medical Doctor - MD, Doctor of Osteopathy - DO. Learn what is a DO?Other medical professionals: Optometrist - OD, Nurse Practitioner - NP, Physician Assistant - PA, Doctor of Physical Therapy - DPT, Master of Physical Therapy - MPT, Occupational Therapist Registered - OTR.


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Today's Pakistani Talk show/program " Muqabil Public Kay Sath | Rauf Klasra and Amir Mateen | Thursday 24 Sep 2020 " live streamed telecast today from YouTube/daily motion channel which name is " Public News " this was live channel but now you'll be able to watch this Talk show/program full hd episode from this website via online.
Topic/agenda : " Kia Opposition Band Gali Mein Pahunch Gai? " this is different form Day of Judgement topic.
After watch this program Please share your comment here about the latest fresh episode of Pakistani talk shows watching on YouTube, dailymotion video. Now what's your comments/opinion about today's Latest Topic/agenda of this program.
Please share your views in below section thanks for your watching this program and also share your friends/family.
Story of the stolen cars | Cause of fight between CCPO and Mohsin Ranjha | Tells Amir Mateen
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmmYeSZCuA0&w=640&h=360]


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It seems Facebook wasn't satisfied with merely building a virtual machine for PHP, HHVM, which compiles that language to C++ for faster execution. Facebook has now gone ahead and made a full-blown spin-off of PHP, called Hack, which purports to fix many of the lingering issues with PHP and adds some new features that Facebook feels the language has long needed.
Unveiled earlier this week, Hack runs on the HHVM and uses the PHP language as a starting point for its syntax. "In fact, most PHP files are already valid Hack files," the company has noted in a post to its engineering blog. Certain functions have been deprecated, but many others added. The biggest set of additions involves the ability to statically type objects, but also mix code where statically and dynamically typed objects are used.
Many of Facebook's goals for the language revolve around making software development fast and much more robust. PHP has traditionally been known for its ease in developing software, but also for being difficult to debug without third-party support (such as by using Zend for code tracing). Another touted goal was to run as much unmodified PHP-5 code as possible, so existing codebases and libraries can be dropped in and run as-is.
Another long-term design goal -- more implied by the language's construction than explicitly stated by Facebook -- is making Hack safer with fewer inherent vulnerabilities than PHP. In addition to the type-checking constraints now available in the language, there's also the way Hack was written; rather than being coded in C, as PHP was, Hack was designed using the OCaml language -- the same platform used by the Xen Project folks to develop its secure-by-design Mirage OS. PHP has had its share of low-level vulnerabilities over the years, not all of them obvious (or specific to that platform), so it makes sense to adopt a new design methodology that makes casual exploits more difficult to pull off.
Facebook is pushing hard on third parties to pick up Hack and run with it. The company has stressed how its own engineering team voluntarily converted the Facebook codebase to Hack and has released the source code under the same license as PHP itself. Getting Hack up and running may require a little more work than PHP at this stage, since only Debian and Ubuntu Linux have pre-built packages; versions for other editions of Linux need to be compiled from scratch using OCaml 3.12 -- another item that needs to be obtained and set up -- and there's currently no official builds or binaries for other platorms (such as Windows). PHP's main advantages its ubiquity and the minimal effort needed to get a PHP application running on most any commodity operating system.
Davey Shafik of PaaS vendor Engine Yard looked at Hack and had generally positive impressions, but did note several possible short-term stumbling blocks: lack of IDE support and lack of support for some standard PHP extensions (Facebook is adding them as it goes).
There's also the larger question of whether Hack and HHVM will end up contributing toward a long-term fragmentation of PHP, with PHP going one way, Hack going another, and programmers feeling torn between the two.
The way Shafik saw it, Hack and HHVM "are a great place to trial new potential features for PHP in general, and we can hope to see a lot of the great features back ported to PHP.net in the future." If Hack turns out to be the Fedora Project to PHP's Red Hat Enterprise Linux -- a staging ground for cutting-edge ideas that may eventually be ported into the mainstream product -- it might come as big a surprise to Facebook as it does to the rest of the PHP community.
This story, "Facebook's Hack language builds on PHP," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.


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For Immediate Release, February 27, 2008
Contact: Kassie Siegel, (760) 366-2232 x 302 or (951) 961-7972 (cell)
Conservation Group Sues Bush Administration
Over Delay in Penguin Protection:
10 Species Including Emperor Penguin Threatened by Global Warming
Washington, D.C.— The Center for Biological Diversity filed suit against the Bush administration today for failing to take action to protect 10 penguin species threatened by global warming under the Endangered Species Act. The lawsuit, brought against Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne and Dale Hall, head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The legal deadline at issue in today's suit was triggered by a scientific petition the Center filed in November 2006 seeking Endangered Species Act protection for many of the world's most threatened penguin species, including the emperor penguin in Antarctica. In July 2007, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took the first of the three steps in the listing process when it found that 10 penguin species may deserve protection and began status reviews for those species. The Fish and Wildlife Service's finding for the 10 penguin species triggered the duty to decide by November 29, 2007, whether the penguins qualify for listing under the Endangered Species Act, and if so, to propose them for listing. That decision is now more than two months overdue.
"This lawsuit will end the Bush administration's illegal delay of protection for the emperor penguin and other penguin species threatened by global warming," said Kassie Siegel, climate, air, and energy program director for the Center. "We won't allow the administration to continue to violate the law while these penguin species march toward extinction."
The 10 species at issue are the emperor penguin, southern rockhopper penguin, northern rockhopper penguin, Fiordland crested penguin, erect-crested penguin, macaroni penguin, white-flippered penguin, yellow-eyed penguin, African penguin, and Humboldt penguin. The Galápagos penguin is the only penguin species currently listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Abnormally warm ocean temperatures, along with diminished sea ice, have wreaked havoc on penguin food availability in recent decades. Krill, the keystone of the Antarctic marine ecosystem and an essential food source not just for penguins but also for whales and seals, has declined by as much as 80 percent since the 1970s over large areas of the Southern Ocean. Scientists have linked the ocean conditions causing these declines to global warming and loss of sea ice. The emperor penguin colony at Pointe Geologie, featured in the film March of the Penguins, has declined by more than 50 percent due to global warming. Emperor penguins are dependent on sea-ice extent and stability and therefore are extremely vulnerable to the effects of global warming.
Each of the petitioned penguins also faces threats in addition to global warming, ranging from depletion of prey by industrial fisheries to entanglement in deadly fishing gear, introduced predators, disease, habitat destruction, disturbance at breeding colonies, marine pollution, and oil spills.
"Global warming is an overarching threat for the world's penguins," said Dr. Shaye Wolf, a seabird biologist with the Center. "Absent prompt action to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, the survival of these penguin species will be in doubt along with that of many other wildlife species."
Today's lawsuit comes as pressure increases on the administration to issue a final Endangered Species Act listing decision for the polar bear, also overdue.
Listing under the Endangered Species Act will provide broad protection to penguins, including a requirement that federal agencies ensure that any action carried out, authorized, or funded by the U.S. government will not "jeopardize the continued existence" of any species. Federal actions likely to be affected by listing of the penguins would include the issuance of permits for industrial fisheries near Antarctica and approvals of projects resulting in significant greenhouse gas emissions.
Additional information, including the petition, photos, and range maps for each species, is available at http://www.biologicaldiversity.org .
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 40,000 members dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Go back


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Robertson's advice for the GOP
"Duck Dynasty" star Phil Robertson has a cure for the GOP.
"You want to turn the Republican party around, get godly," Robertson told the Republican Leadership Conference on Thursday, according to coveragefrom The Times-Picayune.
The reality star, appearing at the party gathering in New Orleans, admitted that he was surprised to be chosen to speak at the event.
"I'm not a political person," he said. "I guess the GOP may be more desperate than I thought to call somebody like me."
( OPEN MIKE: Mike Allen interviews American Crossroads president)
Robertson's speech focused on religion in politics, citing quotes from the Bible, referencing prayers written by John Adams and George Washington and reading religious legislation, such as a 1983 Senate and House resolution designating the year as the national year of the Bible.
Robertson, who caused controversy after making anti-gay remarks, related his religion to his beliefs on education, saying that "education is useless without the Bible," and his morals on monogamy, preaching "it's biblical, one man one woman for life."
On the state of the nation, Robertson called the White House "evil and wicked" and "downright embarrassing."
As for the next round of political leaders, Robertson offered his biggest qualification to turn the nation onto the right track.
"You can't be right for America if you're wrong with God," he said.


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About WND
WND, formerly WorldNetDaily, can best be explained by its mission statement: "WND is an independent news company dedicated to uncompromising journalism, seeking truth and justice and revitalizing the role of the free press as a guardian of liberty. We remain faithful to the traditional and central role of a free press in a free society – as a light exposing wrongdoing, corruption and abuse of power.
"We also seek to stimulate a free-and-open debate about the great moral and political ideas facing the world and to promote freedom and self-government by encouraging personal virtue and good character."
Indeed, WND is a fiercely independent news site committed to hard-hitting investigative reporting of government waste, fraud and abuse.
Founded by Joseph and Elizabeth Farah in May 1997, it is now a leading Internet news site in both traffic and influence.
WND has broken some of the biggest, most significant and most notable investigative and enterprising stories in recent years. See "WND Scoops" for a comprehensive list of major WND exclusive reports that first saw the light of day in these pages.
WND's unique and aggressive reporting style has captured a large and growing audience on the Internet:
WND was voted the most popular website on the Internet every week for nearly two years running between 1999 and 2001 on the independent, European-based Global100.com.
WND consistently ranks as the "stickiest" news site on the Internet, meaning readers spent more time on it than on any other - including giants CNN, MSNBC and ESPN.
WND often ranks at the top of the news pack in number of pageviews per user and minutes per page - two other important categories measured by Internet ratings agencies.
It is a Top 500 website, according to Alexa.com, the search and ratings agency affiliate of Amazon.com, and the No. 1 independent news site. WND currently attracts nearly 5 million unique visitors a month and more than 40 million pageviews, according to its own internal monitoring software.
WND's editorial policy reflects the old-fashioned notion that the principal role of the free press in a free society is to serve as a watchdog on government - to expose corruption, fraud, waste and abuse wherever and whenever it is found.
Why is it the fastest-growing news service on the Internet? Founder Joseph Farah believes it is directly due to WND's editorial formula - "credible, fearless, independent."
Joseph Farah brings more than 25 years of newspaper experience, including stints as editor in chief of major market dailies, to WND. Elizabeth Farah brings years of marketing, strategic planning, design and technology experience to the project. Now, teamed with a lean but growing full-time staff of 25, WND is poised to spark a media revolution.
Why? "Because," as Joseph Farah says, "the world has a right to know."


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It is, need it be said, beyond bizarre, the sort of scrapes people get themselves into. Odd accidents, freakish, improbable. Lightning striking twice... Still, it does happen, doesn't it? Though sometimes, in the wounded wake of an incident especially strange, a question darkens the mind: Was it really an accident?
Take, for example, this, on a warm sunny day in October, 2006, in a sweet little town by the sea. Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Robert Katz: She came in the store and was kind of chuckling about it.
Robert Katz owns a jewelry store in Virginia Beach. He and Charlene, his wife, are transplanted New Yorkers, and close friends of the injured party.
Robert Katz: 'She says, "He tried to shoot me with a crossbow." I said, "You're kidding." And she goes, "nah." And I said, "Really? What are you talking about?"
Shot with a crossbow and she was smiling?
The customer whose lighthearted remark so confused Jeweler Katz was a woman: Anna Creamer. The shooter, her husband, Kenny. The location of this unfortunate mishap: the two-car garage at the front of the Creamers' comfortable suburban home.
Robert Katz: And she said, "No, it was an accident. And he was trying to load it or something, and the thing went off." And it grazed her evidently. And she said, "It's nothing. I put a Band-aid on it. Don't worry about it. It's fine."
The whole business was little more than embarrassing, really. Anna said she didn't want to go to the hospital. It was Kenny who apparently panicked, called 911... There was a rush to the hospital to treat a small wound, just a nick, really, on side of her breast; two or three stitches.
But of course, on that 911 call, authorities heard the word 'crossbow,' and so down here at the hospital, Kenny found himself in the company of Virginia Beach's finest.
Robert Katz: And then he got arrested. So. (laughter) And then she wouldn't press charges. It was ridiculous. He didn't try to shoot me, come on, it was an accident. And... End of conversation. I mean, and he was released.
They'd bought the crossbow together, for recreation, Anna told them. And they'd both tried it out, but after that close call, they were getting rid of it.
Robert Katz: He was giving it to his wife to give to another one of the other teachers she worked with. And, you know, get rid of it.
But of course, the Katz's couldn't have any idea back then what would soon happen to that crossbow... and their good friends, the Creamers. Especially, said their friends, when they thought about what lovely people the Creamers were, what a loving couple.
The Katzes: I mean they just seemed good together. He worshipped the ground this girl walked on. I mean they just, they, they kind of loved each other. (laughs) And it, it would show.
The Creamers were quite a bit younger than the Katz's, but, as transplanted New Yorkers, had a lot to share.
Charlene Katz: They were like as close as family could be without being family.
Robert Katz: They were there, you know, Christmastime, you know, for dinner. They were there, Thanksgiving, they were at our house.
They brought the boy, of course. He was 11 then. And the light of their lives. He was shy. He had a few learning issues perhaps. A little trouble socializing. But, oh, how the Creamers doted on that boy.
Charlene Katz: Oh, he was the sweetest thing.
Robert Katz: Adorable.
Charlene Katz: He was brilliant.
Kenny and his son were virtually inseparable. Kenny even turned up most days at his son's school to have lunch with the boy. Just because the child seemed to need it.
Kim Choate: I thought it was absolutely wonderful, to be quite honest.
Kim Choate was a friend of the Creamers, too. And her own son was also shy, so she understood and appreciated Kenny's constant presence at school.
Kim Choate: And he'd bring stuff in, and made him laugh and smile all the time. And he welcomed my son. A relationship that actually just - it kept growing.
Kenny was an insurance agent till he went on disability after a car accident, so he was the stay at home dad. Anna taught school - had to work - so Kim saw her at... Well, she can explain where.
Kim Choate: I had started a Bunko group about eight years ago.
Keith Morrison, Dateline Correspondent: What's a Bunko group?
Kim Choate: (laughs) Bunko is like a dice game. It's where a bunch of women get together and you talk stuff about the husbands and stuff, you know? (laughs)
That's how Kim heard the story - from Anna herself - that the first incident was purely an accident, involving not her husband, but her son. That it was the boy who handed the crossbow to her.
Kim Choate: She told me that they had gotten the bow and everything, and Avery was handing the bow to her. And she didn't grab it quick enough. And the bow hit and the bow went off.
Keith Morrison: So she blamed herself and it wasn't her son's fault.
Kim Choate: No, no, no, absolutely not. You know, I can't even imagine, you know, a child even thinking that they almost hurt their mom- and they did.
Most of Anna's stories were happy back then, said Kim. Like the one about their wedding. Kenny had a way of doing things with flair. When he and Anna got married, he put on a giant, fairy tale wedding.
He actually rented Jackie Onassis's yacht for the reception.
Kim Choate: She never had anything negative to say about kenny. I've always thought that they had a perfect marriage.
But... you know and I know that nobody's perfect. No marriage is ideal. Sometimes, with a little distance, you see things.
Randall Howes: We weren't friends. We were neighbors. That's how I like to put it.
Right next door to the Creamers, no more than a couple of tract house walls and a strip of grass apart, lived a man who saw the Creamers through a less rosy lens.
This is Randall Howes. Retired naval officer. And, well, it was something about the chemistry with Anna. Wasn't good. Especially after an altercation over Howes' dogs.
Randall Howes: And she said, 'Your dogs, they bark, bark, bark, bark.' And then she got really mad. And so I said, 'Ok, Anna, we're not going to have this conversation right now. And I turned and walked away. And that made her really mad. And after that, I never spoke to her.
So there was tension across that strip of grass. And then Howes got the idea that maybe Ken had some trouble with Anna's temper, too. Since Ken gave Howes the cold shoulder when Anna was around, but was friendly to him when she wasn't.
Randall Howes: He asked me what the problem was with his wife. I said, 'So what I do is I just ignore her.' So he said, 'It's probably the best thing,' cause he said 'she has a hair trigger.'
But the Creamers did seem to get along, said Howes. Except for that one time, when he overheard all that yelling.
Randall Howes: Got her in car, started it up, started to back out. And saying 'Mommy don't go, don't go, you don't have to go.'
Still, everybody has fights sometimes. So, it hardly seemed likely that this neighbor - and what he saw - were about to move centerstage in our strange drama. Because of what happened on another fine morning, a Sunday it was, about three months after that bizarre crossbow accident.
Almost beyond belief, really. And, if you haven't guessed already, the reason we're telling you all this. What did we say? Lightning striking twice?
Mr. Creamer: I need an ambulance right now. 3089 Pope Drive. 3089 Pope Drive. Please hurry!
Tape voice: What has happened? Sir? Don't hang up with me. What's happened? Sir? Sir?
There is a surreal quality to events so carved in memory when lives unalterably change. Odd, then, how completely those memories can and do diverge. It was - no disagreement about this - a Sunday morning when it happened.
Randall Howes: I was on my way to church.
Here's what the next door neighbor, the retired navy commander Randell Howes, remembers.
Randall Howes: I was walking out through the garage. And I heard the dogs barking. And something was at the front door. So I went around the corner of the garage.
And there was that 11-year-old neighbor boy.
Randall Howes: And he was in his pajamas. And he said, 'Mr. Randy, we need your help.'
Howes asked the boy, what are you saying? And that's when he heard the unforgettable phrase:
Randall Howes: He said, 'Mr. Randy, the crossbow.' and Ken, Ken had come to the door. And Ken was melt - I say melting down. He was very upset, and just say, 'I need help, I need help.'
The mood was frantic, out of control. Howe's military training kicked in.
Randall Howes: I kept Ken, Ken was inboard of me, I call it, because I wanted to keep an eye on him. I had not a clue what had happened.
Ken Creamer led his neighbor through the house and into the two-car garage.
Randall Howes: And ... And there's Anna laying at the end of the treadmill, with her hands up under her head and with an arrow stuck straight into her back.
Dead. Had to be. But only just, said Howe. The body was still pink. But now. What happened next would be central. The military man: his eyes, his memory. This is what he says he saw:
Randall Howes: The first thing I did was scan the garage for the crossbow. I looked real quick, and it was sitting on the box on top of this blue wrapping paper on the far side of the refrigerator.
Funny, the things that become so terribly important later on. On top of a box. On blue wrapping paper. The far side of the refrigerator.
That's what Howe remembered. The rest of us might have missed it.
Here's what else he saw:
Randall Howes: He was beside himself. He was very, very, very upset, agitated. And I'll say this, I'm - my impression was if you were standing on the edge of hell.
Creamer had wrapped a white towel, now reddened with blood, around the fatal wound in his wife's back.
Randall Howes: He would say. 'Where is the ambulance? I need help.'
This was supposed to be a gift for a friend. It wasn't supposed to be here. And then he'd start to cry.
Local news: Good evening. Our top story at 6, a bizarre death investigation in Virginia Beach. Authorities say a woman died after she was shot in the back with an arrow.
Before long, the street outside was a parking lot: after the ambulance, the police cars... came the local media.
....And pretty soon just about everybody knew that this was not the first crossbow shooting in Ken Creamer's house.
(Local TV coverage)
"Officers got a first look at the family's crossbow back in October. That time police say it accidently struck Anna Creamer."
Lightening striking twice a person could understand actually, but this?
Officer Ricardo: Resuscitative efforts were attempted, however she was pronounced deceased at the house.
A detective put Creamer into a police car. Ken said goodbye to his son, said he'd be back.
The detective drove down to the station.
Question: I appreciate your coming down to talk to us.
Ken: Am I in trouble?
Question: No. You're not. You're not in trouble. Okay. We're just talking.
Ken Creamer told the officer that he - under the direction of his wife Anna - had been cleaning up the garage... picking out things to save, items to throw away, or give away. Re-arranging.
And then he picked up this one bag, didn't know what was in it, he said, and he - kind of - threw it off to the side.
Ken: I knew it hit… I heard it hit the side of the refrigerator.
Question: So you threw the bag and you heard the sound of the crossbow going off immediately?
Ken: Yeah. I heard a sound. I mean, I didn't really know what was happening.
An accident, said Ken Creamer. Horrible, unbelievable, but true.
Creamer told the cop he didn't even know that crossbow was still in the house, didn't know it was in the bag he tossed across the garage, didn't know it was loaded - with a hunting arrow no less. Maybe she loaded it, he said.
Question: Can you explain to me why you think she loaded the bow before she put it in the bag?
Ken: I don't know, I don't know. Sometimes she does, she does, more like, does whatever she wants to do. You can tell her not to do something and she'll do it.
Really? Even after she'd already been injured in that earlier crossbow incident, asked the interrogator?
Ken: Well, I didn't touch it.
Question: I didn't say you ... but Kenny, I didn't say you did.
And only then it seemed to dawn on Ken Creamer that the man in the room did not believe him.
Ken: We were married 13 years. We never had a fight. Never. I buy my wife bags, jewelry, whatever she wants.
Question: I'm just, I'm just asking you from the investigation, Kenny, ok?
Ken: Like I love the whole son.
Question: Kenny, Kenny, just relax.
Ken: Oh, whatever. I mean, I love my wife so much.
Question: I know you do.
Ken: Well, then I'm gonna - I'd never ever do anything. And my son... I love my son dearly.
Of course, Ken Creamer was exactly right; this officer was very suspicious... of him.
Question: Why would Anna put a loaded crossbow.
Ken: I don't know why. I don't know. I don't know.
Question: Kenny, Kenny, Kenny. You got to calm down for me. OK?
Ken: I can't.
Ken Creamer was the picture of a grief-stricken man.
But his answers, decided police, just didn't add up. What happened to Ken's wife Anna simply could not have been an accident. Could it? They arrested him, charged him with murder, and went about the long slow business of collecting evidence for a trial.
Local news:
"But detectives say what happened yesterday was no accident. This time they say it was a homicide."
They put the boy into foster care briefly. Then he was taken away to live with Anna's relatives. Ken was denied bail and took up involuntary residence here in the Virginia Beach county jail..
It was more than a year later when police, still preparing their case, mind you, asked neighbor Randall Howes for another interview.
Randall Howes: They had some pictures, crime scene photographs, that I had not seen.
But now he saw something very disturbing.. And right then and there Randall Howes knew he was about to play another important role in Ken Creamer's life.
Randall Howes: So I went, 'oh oh. You know, this means probably that my testimony will be key.'
And Randall Howes was absolutely right.
Ken Creamer killed his wife Anna; of that there was no doubt. Shot her with a crossbow, right here in his garage. And the shock of it was he'd done it before, just didn't kill her that time. So the charge that put him in this place - first degree murder - was no surprise.
But still, justice crawled. The boy adjusted to a new life with Anna's family, a family that came to believe firmly in Creamer's guilt. And, for two and a half years, he sat in jail, waiting to answer the question.
Bailiff: How do you plead?
Ken Creamer: Not guilty.
This was June 2008.
Tabitha Anderson: The Commonwealth evidence will show this was no accident.
And this is the prosecutor, Tabitha Anderson.
Tabitha Anderson: Here's your timeline. September 2005 the defendant buys the crossbow. Less than 30 days later Anna Creamer takes an arrow to the chest. And she goes to the hospital. Less than 90 days after that, she takes an arrow in the back. And this time she goes to the morgue.
Had to be murder, said the prosecutor.
Look how the arrow went straight into her back and almost right through her, said the medical examiner, as if it was carefully aimed from close range.
Dr. Leah Bush: I was able to run my hand over the skin of her chest and I could feel the tip of the arrow under my fingertips.
Also, said the examiner, it was a razor sharp hunting arrow. Did a lot of damage.
Dr. Leah Bush: It perforated the heart, basically, impaled the heart. As the arrow came from back to front, it went through the aorta completely severing it, just cut it right in half.
No doubt about the conclusion, she said.
Dr. Leah Bush: I determined that the manner of death in this case was homicide.
The detective who interrogated Kenneth Creamer right after the shooting testified that when he asked Creamer why the crossbow was loaded and with a hunting arrow, the answer, that his wife must have loaded it, didn't seem believable.
"I didn't touch it. The last time I touched it was in October."
Remember, this was the second time Anna was shot so now the prosecutor looked back to that first incident... Was Creamer's story about that time consistent or believable? Here's what Creamer's brother-in-law, Anna's sister's husband, remembers him saying back then:
Mr. Ed Aires: He-- he told me that-- he called-- his wife into the garage-- Anna and that when she-- he had a surprise for her. And when she walked into the garage that the weapon somehow discharged
Now listen to what an acquaintance remembers Creamer telling her.
He said that the crossbow was sitting on a shelf and that it fell as she was reaching for the keys. And he said, "It came up through the right side of her breast and out the center. And just that it exited completely." And-- he said he was gonna be in the doghouse for a while.
A slightly different take.
Then there was a friend of Anna's named Sue Cotton, who said she cornered Ken in the house one day after the first incident when she noticed what she thought was the crossbow in the garage. Why hadn't he gotten rid of the thing?
Sue Cotton: And he said, "I can't throw it in the trash. If somebody comes and takes it out of my trashcan, then, I'll be liable for anything they would do with it." And I said, "Okay, well, why don't you disassemble it? Break it apart or something like that so that nobody could use it." He said, "You can't disassemble a crossbow." I said, "Well, why don't you take it to the police station? You could take it to the police and you could just drop it off there." And he said-- he started to laugh.
Could such a precise memory, two and a half years later, be trusted completely? That would become an issue. Still, two shootings, less than three months apart...
Perhaps insurance was a motive, said the prosecution. The creamers kept policies for heart attacks, for cancer even for their dog. About a million dollars in all. Enough for murder?
But motive wasn't at the heart of the prosecution's case. Rather, it was two witnesses who claimed they had evidence to show that it couldn't have been an accident.
Here was the first: a man named J.J. Mason. A firearms expert who said he tried to make that weapon fire by accident. Hit it with mallet a couple of dozen times. And:
J.J. Mason: During the course of my examination of this-- this crossbow, I found no reason why it would fire without a pull of the trigger.
In other words, the arrow that went through Anna Creamer must have been fired on purpose.
Mr. Randall Howes: I saw Anna laying there face down with an arrow square in her back.
But the true star of the case against Ken Creamer was the next door neighbor, that retired naval commander, Randall Howes.
Randall Howes: Ken is just kind of babbling, making noise or whatever, saying, "You know, we need help-- we need help now."
Remember, Howes told us he saw something in the garage that jumped out much later. A detail about to assume a huge importance. As Howes stood there near Anna's body, he testified, he was scanning the room, looking for that crossbow.
Randall Howes: On the far side of the refrigerator, there was a cardboard box. And sitting on top of the cardboard box was the crossbow. I could see the front of it.
Prosecuting male attorney: I'd like to show you a second picture. Mr. Howes, I'd like you to take a very careful look at that picture. You see a blue, paper bag in front of the refrigerator in that picture, sir?
Randall Howes: Yes, I do.
Prosecuting male attorney: Okay. Now, was that blue, paper bag in front of the refrigerator as it is in that picture when you went into the garage with Mr. Kramer?
Randall Howes: No, it wasn't.
And there it was: the 'gotcha' in the prosecution's case. Here was an extremely credible witness, a military officer, whose memory strongly suggested that when Howes stepped outside the garage that day to talk to the police, Ken Creamer moved that crossbow, staged the scene to make it look more like an accident.
Powerful evidence. Assuming the jury would decide to trust neighbor Howe's military trained memory, or that firearms expert's forensic evaluation of the crossbow. But would they?
Greg Turpin: Again, because it sounds bad doesn't mean it is bad. It's a classic situation of kind of lightning striking twice.
Ken Creamer's defense attorney had a problem. The story was just so improbable. A man shoots the love of his life with a crossbow - twice - and claims each time it was nothing more than a freak accident?
True, it's up to the state to prove guilt. But as everybody knows, lightning hardly ever strikes twice. Could any defense pass the laugh test?
Well, maybe. For one thing, said the defense, it would demonstrate in court that the firearms expert was wrong. That the Creamer's weapon could fire by accident.
Greg Turpin: And I think what you'll see is that Mr. Mason in fact cannot say that this couldn't have been an accidental discharge.
Besides, there was lots of evidence of innocence, said the defense. Would a guilty man sound this distraught on a 911 call?
Mr. Creamer: I need an ambulance right now. Three zero eight nine Pope Drive. Three zero eight nine Pope Drive. Please hurry!
Tape voice: What has happened? Sir? Don't hang up with me. What's happened? Sir? Sir?
Ken Creamer would never kill his wife, said the defense. He adored the woman. And a parade of friends came to the witness stand to confirm it.
Their son's school librarian, Martha Asire: I thought they were a very happy couple.
Andrea Pearman, music teacher: They seemed to get along well.
The boy's fifth grade teacher, Hoffman: Got along great. Great hostesses. Everything was- seemed very normal.
And, remember this man? Creamer friend and jeweler Robert Katz.
Robert Katz: Loving, caring family.
And his wife, Charlene.
Charlene Katz: They were very, very close.
Would a guilty man sound this distraught on a 911 call?
Mr. Creamer: I need an ambulance right now. Three zero eight nine Pope Drive. Three zero eight nine Pope Drive. Please hurry!
Tape voice: What has happened? Sir? Don't hang up with me. What's happened? Sir? Sir?
As for that first crossbow incident, the one that injured Anna, the woman herself said it was an accident, the teacher testified.
Kristen Hoffman: She laughed about it. Told me what happened and just that's about it. She was very lighthearted about the whole situation.
As for those insurance policies, yes they totalled over a million dollars. But he'd been an insurance agent. Those amounts were normal, said the defense. Anna bought some of the policies herself. And all of them were written to benefit not Ken, but their son.
Still, that prosecution evidence was strong. The firearms expert, for example.
Mr. J.J. Mason: In my examination of the crossbow, I found it to be in excellent, mechanical, operating condition showing very little wear for very little use.
The crossbow, he testified, simply couldn't have fired without someone pulling the trigger.
But the expert only hit the weapon, he did not test it by throwing it, which is what Ken Creamer said he had done. And by the way, said the defense, J.J. Mason was an expert in guns, the kind that fire bullets. What did he know for sure about a crossbow?
So how, asked the defense, could anyone rely on this experts opinion? Time for the defense to make its case with some courtroom drama.
Mr. Turpin: Judge, I wanna ask the court to one more-- one more physical demonstration.
Defense attorney Gregory Turpin would show right here in court how the weapon could have fired accidentally. The right decision? Well, maybe not.
Mr. Turpin: And-- and Judge--
Judge: I assume you've done this before. Don't make a fool of yourself.
Mr. Turpin: Once I've done this, I'm gonna ask permission to have Mr. Mason examine it. I-- actually, may I ask if I could have the witness step down while I do this, please, Mr. Mason?
Judge: Just don't mess it up. I assume you've done this before?
Mr. Turpin: Judge, yes, sir.
Turpin tries and fails to do something to the crossbow.
Mr. Turpin: And Mr. Mason, this is how the-- the-- draw would be drawn back to begin with?
Mr. Mason: That's correct.
Mr. Turpin: And if I can ask you tell me-- Judge, I'm gonna try it one more time. And I'm not gonna take up any more of this court's time. That's fine, Judge. All right, Mr. Mason. Thank you for your time.
The demonstration was an embarrassing bust.
Mr. Turpin: Judge, thank you for the court's indulgence. I'll-- I won't take up any more time.
Now the defense had but one blockbuster witness left.
Defense attorney: Judge, I might ask permission to call my client, Kenneth Kramer, please?
Judge: All right.
Ken Creamer would tell the story himself. Here he showed the jury what happened that Sunday morning in his garage.
Mr. Turpin: Okay. And then just-- not askin' you to be an actor or anything. But just how did you-- how did you manipulate the bag? Not just-- okay. Okay. Just like that?
Kenneth Creamer: Just like that.
Attorney: You can have a seat, Sir. Once you did that, then what happened?
Kenneth Creamer: I heard-- a poof sound.
Attorney: Poof?
Kenneth Creamer: Like-- yeah, like-- you know, poof sound.
Attorney: Okay.
Kenneth Creamer: I was-- the bow and then I turned around quickly. And my wife was already on the floor.
Attorney: Did you hear her say anything?
Kenneth Creamer: No.
Attorney: Just--
Kenneth Creamer: Like a growling s-- groaning sound.
As for that friend, Sue Cotton, who testified earlier that she'd lectured Ken about getting rid of the crossbow…
Attorney: Did you tell her, "I don't wanna just throw it away"? Or somethin' like that?
Kenneth Creamer: That con-- there was never a conversation with her. She just flat out lied to everybody here.
In fact, said creamer, he thought his wife had already given the crossbow away. But surely the neighbor, a man with an impeccable reputation, was telling the truth when he said he saw evidence that creamer staged the crime scene to make it look like an accident.
No, said Creamer, that was not the truth. The neighbor must have been seeing things.
Attorney: Okay. Did you move the crossbow at all, in any way, after Anna was struck?
Kenneth Creamer: I never touched it.
Judge: The case is now in your hands.
So now the question would be handed to the jury. The memories were conflicting, but the facts were like lightning striking twice. Had Ken Creamer persuaded the jury that such a thing was possible?
What is it about the crossbow? So mystically deadly, as if the fear of it has come down through centuries in our genes... And attached itself to a defendant named Ken Creamer.
January 8, 2006, early morning, Sunday.
A case that seemed to call for a passionate closing from prosecutor Patrick Connolly.
Patrick Connolly: The defendant took this crossbow, and he took this arrow, this crossbow bullet. He loaded it and with it in there and his wife on the treadmill stood behind her and fired it directly into her back with malice, with premeditation, with deliberation, and he did it willfully. (And you, each and every one of you, know it's the truth.
To which defense attorney Afshin Farashahi replied:
Farashahi: How many times after an accident that you've said to yourself or someone had said, "Oh my God, I can't believe I did that"? That's the essence of an accident. And just because it's an accident that-- it's unlikely, that is a freak accident, does not mean that it's murder.
For the jury, the choice seemed relatively straightforward.
Feller: I don't think anybody in the jury really wanted to say that this man, you know, did it.
Of course, for the jury - and these members of the jury who gathered to talk about it - there were a number of questions to consider. And as they talked in that jury room, they struggled to figure out how an accident might have played out.
Michael Scott: His-- statement that he threw this Christmas bag, unbeknownst was the weapon in it, and that it discharged. You know? And where did it hit the refrigerator, for example? And how did it land? We did have the weapon in our-- in our jury room. And-- and some of the men tried to get a feel for how it loaded up and-- (LAUGHTER) it takes a lot of strength to load that.
But as they looked at the evidence...
Michael Scott: And how the arrow that-- that killed the woman, it went in straight.
And they re-read Ken Creamer's testimony - his memory of the careless toss, the bag hitting the fridge, the loaded crossbow going off.
Michael Scott: It physically was not possible. The physics of it disallowed it.
And then there was the neighbor, Randall Howes, whose memory suggested Creamer staged the scene to make it look like an accident...
Keith Morrison, Dateline correspondent: What persuaded you that he was a credible witness?
Michael Scott: His character on the-- on the witness stand. Good man.
Question: Could he have been mistaken do you think?//
Michael Scott: No, there was no doubt he told the truth.
Still, Creamer said the crossbow went off inside a bag. Maybe that made it an accident after all.
Michael Scott: We had the bag. We had the weapon. And we were trying to figure out desperately how could this weapon be in the bag and-- and have done-- done what it did. And none of the positions this bag was in made any sense whatsoever with the weapon inside of it. It just didn't make sense.
Cheryl R. Feller: Yeah. We couldn't find a good exit hole. There was no hole for the arrow. It didn't make sense.
So if it couldn't have been an accident the second time, then what about the first?
Cheryl R. Feller: Just sounds like to me, already he's planning something.
So now, jury members realized they had formed some strong opinions about Mr. Creamer.
Cheryl R. Feller: I just don't put any stock in anything he says. You know? I just don't-- don't trust the guy.
And once they decided that about Ken Creamer, some of them began to imagine things about his marriage to Anna. Remember, the evidence at trial suggested that the marriage was strong, that Ken and Anna were close. But in the jury room some members said evidence or not, they saw it a different way.
Michael Scott: I think she was a woman that was living under terror with great threat upon her.
Keith Morrison: So he planned it? He thought about it?
Michael Scott: Absolutely. Yes.
Keith Morrison: He wanted to kill her?
Female voice: Yes.
Michael Scott: I think so. I think he wanted to kill her in October.
And so the jury returned to the crowded courtroom and told the judge they were ready.
Juror #1: In the case of Commonwealth of Virginia versus Kenneth Frank Creamer, we the jury find the defendant guilty of murder in the first-degree.
Guilty! Creamer twitched a little, looked down. They didn't believe him. And among his few remaining friends, perhaps only these - the Katz's – grieved for Ken Creamer.
Charlene Katz: They had him guilty before anything was done. I mean the papers. The news. I mean they just--
Robert Katz: Everybody portrayed him--
Charlene Katz: --they tore him--
Robert Katz: --to be a criminal.
Charlene Katz: --to shreds.
And then, as the clock ticked down toward his sentencing, from his jail cell, Ken Creamer jumped at one last chance to explain.
The sheriff of Virginia beach, Virginia, is a cautious man; in his jurisdiction, a prisoner who wishes to talk to media may do so only through a thick slab of bullet-proof glass – which is the window through which we sized up the man who shot his wife with a crossbow.
Keith Morrison: Why did you decide to tell your story?
Kenneth Creamer: 'Cause I wanted my side to get out.
He was grizzled a little - the beard, the prison jumpsuit, not at all in keeping with the image Ken Creamer presented at his trial. But perhaps more suitable for a question that had been on the minds of many people here in Virginia Beach.
Keith Morrison: What made you think you could actually kill your wife and get away with it?
Kenneth Creamer: What you said is totally false. Never. I-- never. What you're saying now is, like, basically insulting me. No, it never happened your way-- the way you were saying it. No.
Keith Morrison: Trouble is that's what the jury believes, that you planned it, conspired about it, set it up, did the whole thing yourself, thinking you were gonna get away with it and walk away with a million bucks in cash at the same time.
Kenneth Creamer: Not-- not true. Not true. It's not true.
What is true, said Ken Creamer, is that he and his wife had a wonderful relationship. Loved each other. Never fought in the way the neighbor - the one Anna didn't like - Randall howes, described.
Keith Morrison: Fighting in the house, Anna running out of the house.
Kenneth Creamer: Never, ever happened. No. Never happened.
Keith Morrison: Never, ever?
Kenneth Creamer: No, no, never happened.
Keith Morrison: Every family fights.
Kenneth Creamer: Ne-- my wife never stormed out of the house. Never. No
As for the crossbow, he insisted he didn't know it was loaded.
Kenneth Creamer: I never loaded it. So--
Keith Morrison: You're saying she did?
Kenneth Creamer: Most probably, yes.
Keith Morrison: Well, why would she do that?
Kenneth Creamer: I don't know.
Keith Morrison: I'm just-- I'm just trying to get through in my head why would somebody load a crossbow with a hunting arrow with a razor tip on it and put it in a bag in the garage? It doesn't make any sense.
Kenneth Creamer: I-- I-- it goes-- that goes through my mind, too. I try-- I don't know.
In fact, he still claims, he was convinced Anna had given the crossbow away to a friend at work. What friend? Well, that was a little unclear.
Keith Morrison: You have the name of the friend?
Kenneth Creamer: Well, there was two. One was a Julia who wanted it. And one was a-- a-- a Pierce, Ms. Pierce wanted it. So I thought she was giving it to Pierce.
Keith Morrison: Did those people ever testify at your trial?
Kenneth Creamer: No.
Keith Morrison: Why not?
Kenneth Creamer: Why not?
Keith Morrison: Why wouldn't they say, "Yeah, she was gonna give me the crossbow. I asked her--"
Kenneth Creamer: Well-
Keith Morrison: "--to give it to me. I was waiting to receive it"?
Kenneth Creamer: I know the investigator went to the school and they said it was-- she wasn't around, she wasn't working there no more, Pierce. --
Keith Morrison: So there's nobody to support your story.
Kenneth Creamer: No. But if you talk-- yeah, no--
As for his neighbor's testimony - that he saw evidence Creamer had staged the crime scene...
Kenneth Creamer: Find his statement to the police and read it and let's see what it says. I bet you it's different than what he testified.
Keith Morrison: But the problem and the inconvenient part of it is he went-- he-- he saw what he saw in the garage. And then he saw the photographs later of the way it was when, you know, evidence photos were taken. And he said the crossbow had been moved. And the only person who could have moved it is you.
Kenneth Creamer: Well, that's what he testified. But if you get his statement-- 'cause wouldn't it be a statement if he's the first one on the scene to the detectives? He should have a statement, right?
Keith Morrison: It might support his story.
Kenneth Creamer: I doubt it very much. I doubt it very much.
Keith Morrison: Worth going to have a look?
Kenneth Creamer: Please, I'm-- bring a copy to my lawyer. (LAUGHTER)
We did ask, for the record, to see that statement. The prosecutor declined our request, Howes insisted his memory was accurate, and the jury - after all - believed him.
Bailiff: all rise!
And then, late last month, Ken Creamer appeared for one last chance to claim it was an accident to appeal for the court's mercy. And then it was the judge's turn.
The judge: I can't read his mind. But obviously-- at some point along the way, Mr. Creamer has convinced himself//that in fact, it was an accident. Obviously, the jury did not believe that-- this particular-- killing was an accident. And having sat through the entire trial, quite frankly, neither does the Court.
The sentence: life. No parole. Decision made. Everyone can be certain. Can't they?
We were preparing to leave the man behind the glass when he broke into a moment of unguarded emotion. He was remembering the minutes after the shot that took his wife and changed his life. Talking to the detective, saying goodbye to his son.
Kenneth Creamer: I miss him a lot. I mean, I worry about him. And just, you know, in general, what-- what he thinks and just miss him 'cause last time I seen him was I said, "I'll be right back." And it's like I abandoned him. And, you know, I worry about him. He's my son.
Keith Morrison: Maybe you are the unluckiest guy in the world.
Kenneth Creamer: Well, I'm here. Like, it looks like that way.


text:
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The lady palm is a small palm species that grows in dense clumps of slender upright green stems. On the stems are fan-shaped, glossy green fronds that each have between five and eight narrow, lance-shaped segments. Because this palm is extremely tolerant of low-light conditions, it's popular to grow indoors as a houseplant.
- Sunlight: Bright, Indirect
- Water Needs: Moderate
Plants are constantly growing, ever-changing, and therefore unique. Pots shown in pictures are sold separately. The plant you receive may vary from the photo, but rest assured, holds the same glorious potential!
We deliver plants within a zone around the Chicagoland. As plants are perishable, we take care to deliver them by hand using our own vehicles.
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text:
IRS Director Defrauds Govt. Out Of $1.3 Million
A longtime district director at the Internal Revenue Service has admitted that he defrauded the U.S. government out of $1.3 million with a scam that used fake deductions to reduce the taxes of unsuspecting Americans.
The 30-year IRS veteran, Jesse Cota, pleaded guilty this week to conspiring to defraud the United States and faces five to 10 years in prison as well as a $250,000 fine. He admitted at a court hearing that he pocketed about $300,000 from the scam.
Cota basically prepared, or had others prepare, false federal income tax returns that included illegal deductions that reduced the amount of taxes owed to the government. He did it while operating a large and popular income tax service company out of Topeka Kansas.
Over the years the company, called Renaissance, recruited people to peddle tax packages claiming to lawfully reduce income taxes by deducting personal expenses as business expenses. Federal prosecutors say Cota used his credentials as an IRS director to lend the fraud scheme legitimacy and unsuspecting clients believed the scam was legitimate.
This former high-ranking IRS employee is the seventh person to plead guilty in the tax scandal of this Topeka company, which authorities claim has defrauded U.S. taxpayers out of a total of $75 million over the years.


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I'm going to be cooking a dinner featuring locally-produced honey at canelé restaurant in LA next Tuesday, February 19. The restaurant has a program called "Friends Cook", where they invite neighborhood pals to cook a special menu at the restaurant. Here's how they describe it:
Every so often on a Tuesday night we share our kitchen with some special folks for our popular "friends cook at canelé." These pals, ranging from experienced chefs to absolute newbies, conceive, prep, and cook to order a 3 course prix-fixe menu with the advice and assistance of our chef, cooks, and servers.
Here's the menu:
with dates, toasted walnuts & Stilton, and a honey vinaigrette
slow roasted and served with white beans & cavolo nero
Feral Honey gelato from Pazzo Gelato in Silver Lake
* Vegetarian option: pasta with white beans & cavolo nero
I'll be curing the salmon next Sunday morning, then cold-smoking it with alder wood that night. We'll slow roast it to order at Canelé on Tuesday. It's a long process, but with a super-delicious result.
It'll be really fun and a great opportunity to watch me burn myself. I'd love to see you there if you happen to be in LA!