Voice of Keebler Elf, Dies

Walker Edmiston, 81, Voice of Keebler Elf, Dies


By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: February 28, 2007

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 27 (AP) — Walker Edmiston, an actor who was the voice of many cartoon and puppet characters, including Ernie the Keebler elf in television commercials, died on Feb. 15 at his home in Woodland Hills. He was 81.

The cause was complications of cancer, said his daughter, Erin Edmiston.

Mr. Edmiston was born on Feb. 6, 1926, in St. Louis and moved to Los Angeles in 1947.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Mr. Edmiston had a children’s show on local television, “The Walker Edmiston Show,” featuring his own puppets.

In the 1960s and 1970s, he was the voice of many characters on shows created by Sid and Marty Krofft, including Dr. Blinkey and Orson the Vulture on “H. R. Pufnstuf” and Sparky the Firefly on “Bugaloos.”

Mr. Edmiston also had acting roles in episodes of television series like “Gunsmoke,” “Mission: Impossible” and “The Dukes of Hazzard,” and performed for nearly 20 years on “Adventures in Odyssey,” a radio series produced by the nonprofit group Focus on the Family.

He is survived by his daughter.

Capricorn Horoscope for week of March 1, 2007

Capricorn Horoscope for week of March 1, 2007

Verticle Oracle card Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
Accountants at an Australian car insurance company have found that Capricorns are the safest drivers. Correlating birth data with crash rates, they found that your sign is the least accident prone. This probably has to do with your renowned patience and carefulness. While I applaud you for that accomplishment and urge you to continue expressing your attention to detail while operating heavy machinery, I also recommend that in the coming week you make room for happier kinds of accidents. You need certain educational blessings that only serendipity can provide.

Guess having a drivers license ruled me out

You Are 84% NYC

Congratulations, you are truly a New Yorker. You've seen it all, and you're more than a little cynical.

How NYC Are You?

Capricorn Horoscope for week of February 22, 2007

Capricorn Horoscope for week of February 22, 2007

Verticle Oracle card Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
There are two basic approaches to manipulating people. In one, you manipulate people solely for your own good. In the other, you do it equally for your good and their good. In the second type, moreover, you deeply empathize with and even become more like the people you want to influence. You allow them to work their magic on you at least as much as you work your magic on them. Guess which kind I'm urging you to express right now, Capricorn.

apricorn Horoscope for week of February 15, 2007

Verticle Oracle card Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
I was watching Oprah's TV show at 2 a.m. "Take off your shirt and look down," she told me. I don't automatically do everything the World's Wealthiest Woman tells me, but I trust her a lot. So I did what she suggested. What she said next, however, revealed that she wasn't actually talking to me. "Eight out of ten women are wearing the wrong bra!" she exclaimed. "Are you?" She then gave tips on how to select an undergarment that's just right for a woman's shape, size, and posture. I watched in perplexed awe. How could so many people be ignorant about such a fundamental thing? Later, while meditating on your astrological omens, I realized there's a comparable phenomenon going on in your world. You're missing something important about one of the basic facts of your life. Please find out what it is.

Capricorn Horoscope for week of February 8, 2007

Capricorn Horoscope for week of February 8, 2007

Verticle Oracle card Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
Happy Valentine Daze, Capricorn. I dare you to say the following to a special someone with whom you want to be closer: "Your face is true and your hair is perfect and I love you. You make boats in my dreams and you speak without words and I love you. Your fears unnerve me and your questions amuse me and I love you. I love you not only for who you are, but for the interesting person I become when I'm with you. I say I love you and love you and love you until the words become the constant song of your voice in my head and the original ache of memory in my soul. I love you more than life and death, more than everything that's in between the light and the dark. Do you believe me? Try harder. Do you believe me now? I'm always with you, which is why I know you will never abandon yourself."

Astro-nut stalked me, vic sez

NASA suspect charged with attempted murder in attack

BY ROSE DAVIS in Orlando
and CORKY SIEMASZKO in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Lisa Marie Nowak trades a spacesuit for a jumpsuit as she stands stooped during courtroom appearance yesterday at Orange County Jail in Florida facing kidnap and attempted slay raps against fellow astronaut Colleen Shipman.
Lisa Marie Nowak
Colleen Shipman
The NASA astronaut accused of trying to kidnap and kill her rival in a star-crossed love triangle allegedly had been stalking the woman for months.

Lisa Marie Nowak, 43, was able to track Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman, 30, because she secretly downloaded her travel plans from the computer of Navy Cmdr. William Oefelein - the strapping spaceman both women wanted.

And when Nowak allegedly attacked Shipman early Monday, she was packing a knife, pepper spray, a mallet - and a loaded BB gun with the safety off.

Nowak's alleged plan backfired when Shipman got away and yesterday the fly girl was slapped with an attempted murder charge - and grounded by NASA.

"She is officially on 30-day leave and has been removed from flight status and all missionrelated activities," said Michael Coates, director of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The woman once held up as a national role model slunk out of court with a tracking device strapped to her leg and a coat over her head.

It was a stunning fall for one of NASA's brightest stars, who had been the mission specialist on last July's Discovery flight to the International Space Station.

"Considering both her personal and professional life, these alleged events are completely out of character and have come as a tremendous shock to our family," Nowak's family said in a statement. They said Nowak, a mother of three, had recently separated from her husband of 19 years.

Shackled and dressed in a black jumpsuit, Nowak gave her name and date of birth but said nothing else both times she appeared in Orlando court yesterday.

Fellow astronaut Chris Ferguson admitted he was "perplexed" by Nowak's alleged actions.

"Our primary concern is her health and well-being and that she get through this," added chief astronaut Steve Lindsey, who flew on the shuttle with Nowak.

Nowak, of Houston, was ordered released on $25,000 bond and ordered to wear a GPS ankle bracelet that's programmed to alert authorities - and Shipman - when Nowak's in Florida.

"The bond was from her family, not NASA like everybody thinks," said John Von Achen of Baron Bail Bonds in Orlando.

Shipman's mother, Debra, said her daughter was "more shocked, surprised that this could have happened, than anything else."

Nowak was nabbed after she allegedly donned a disguise and jumped Shipman at an Orlando International Airport parking lot. Shipman was zapped in the face with pepper spray but managed to escape.

Nowak was so determined to confront her rival she wore diapers so she wouldn't have to stop during the 12-hour drive to Orlando - something astronauts do during launch and reentry.

Nowak had been stalking Shipman for at least two months, according to the restraining order Shipman took out, but it gave no details on the stalking.

Nowak's bizarre alleged plan to rub out her nemesis appears to have been hatched some time around Jan. 23, when she broke into Oefelein's computer and downloaded detailed maps to Orlando, court documents revealed. The information sent Nowak racing to intercept Shipman, an engineer who works at Patrick Air Force Base and lives in Cape Canaveral.

Nowak insisted she just wanted to talk to Shipman about "their relationship with Mr. Oefelein." But police didn't buy Nowak's claim that she was trying "to entice Ms. Shipman to talk with her." They also charged her with attempted kidnapping, attempted vehicle burglary and battery.

Oefelein, who is 41 and divorced, piloted the space shuttle Discovery in December. He and Nowak trained together in Alaska but never flew a mission together.

Nowak told police that her relationship with Oefelein was "more than a working relationship but less than a romantic relationship."

With Angela Mosconi in Cape Canaveral

Her loony bag of accessories

The wrong stuff astronaut was armed and ready for action. The police report says when she was arrested, Lisa Marie Nowak had:

# a steel mallet

# a fully loaded BB gun with the safety off

# pepper spray

# latex gloves

# trash bags

# a wig

# adult diapers, so she could make the drive from Houston to Orlando without stopping

kitty needs a diet

shtinky breath

the shtinky breath of pets

a present from my friend Heidi

barbarb boxer office

MONSTROUS MOMMY A BIG FAT LIAR

MONSTROUS MOMMY A BIG FAT LIAR
BNIXZMARY BROWN Tragic 7-yr.-old.
NIXZMARY BROWN
Tragic 7-yr.-old.


February 1, 2007 -- PRISON food clearly agrees with Nixzaliz Santiago.

This alleged excuse for a human being lumbered into the Brooklyn courtroom yesterday, slovenly, looking as if she would burst her gray sweat pants at any moment.

Food is clearly a big issue with this slob, a mom who would have cheerfully starved her own daughter to death - had she not fed her to a man who saved her time and trouble by beating the child into an early grave instead.

She came to ask a judge to toss out the heartless confession she made last January - in which she told how she stood by and did nothing while husband Cesar Rodriguez pummeled Nixzmary to death.

But the hearing backfired. Over three hours, Nixzaliz proved she cannot feel for her child.

She complained about the "damage" done to her by cops.

She was plenty pissed off about once having a meal interrupted in custody - so she could be questioned about the murder.

Yet she could not remember her own daughter's age. "She's either 7 or 8," she testified. She grew testy and petulant at simple questions. And she spit. Yes, she spit.

It came when prosecutor Ama Dwimoh asked - Had Nixzaliz ever had contact with the city's Administration for Children's Services?

Nixzaliz contorted her face into a sickening grimace. And she spit. The judge made her answer and the answer was yes.

A year after the murder of little Nixzmary Brown, at age 7 - she was 7, Nixzaliz! - the monster mom wants to have her confession tossed.

She claims she was "yelled at" and threatened with being barred from seeing her five other children, by three different men, if she did not tell authorities what they wanted to know - the truth.

She was asked what Nixzmary looked like on Jan. 11, 2006, the day she died. "She had on red clothing," was all her mom said.

"Your daughter looked fine when she lay on the floor in your apartment, dead?" demanded Dwimoh.

Nixzmary was starved, beaten, tied to a chair and left alone with a cat litter box. And all her mom cares about is herself.

When the judge rules, I only pray that confession gets tattooed on Nixzaliz's sorry behind.

andrea.peyser@nypost.com

Molly Ivins last column

Ivins: Stand up against the surge
POSTED: 4:59 p.m. EST, January 11, 2007
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(CREATORS) -- The purpose of this old-fashioned newspaper crusade to stop the war is not to make George W. Bush look like the dumbest president ever. People have done dumber things. What were they thinking when they bought into the Bay of Pigs fiasco? How dumb was the Egypt-Suez war? How massively stupid was the entire war in Vietnam? Even at that, the challenge with this misbegotten adventure is that WE simply cannot let it continue.

It is not a matter of whether we will lose or we are losing. We have lost. Gen. John P. Abizaid, until recently the senior commander in the Middle East, insists that the answer to our problems there is not military. "You have to internationalize the problem. You have to attack it diplomatically, geo-strategically," he said.

His assessment is supported by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who only recommend releasing forces with a clear definition of the goals for the additional troops.

Bush's call for a "surge" or "escalation" also goes against the Iraq Study Group. Talk is that the White House has planned to do anything but what the group suggested after months of investigation and proposals based on much broader strategic implications.

About the only politician out there besides Bush actively calling for a surge is Sen. John McCain. In a recent opinion piece, he wrote: "The presence of additional coalition forces would allow the Iraqi government to do what it cannot accomplish today on its own -- impose its rule throughout the country. ... By surging troops and bringing security to Baghdad and other areas, we will give the Iraqis the best possible chance to succeed." But with all due respect to the senator from Arizona, that ship has long since sailed.

A surge is not acceptable to the people in this country -- we have voted overwhelmingly against this war in polls (about 80 percent of the public is against escalation, and a recent Military Times poll shows only 38 percent of active military want more troops sent) and at the polls. We know this is wrong. The people understand, the people have the right to make this decision, and the people have the obligation to make sure our will is implemented.

Congress must work for the people in the resolution of this fiasco. Ted Kennedy's proposal to control the money and tighten oversight is a welcome first step. And if Republicans want to continue to rubber-stamp this administration's idiotic "plans" and go against the will of the people, they should be thrown out as soon as possible, to join their recent colleagues.

Anyone who wants to talk knowledgably about our Iraq misadventure should pick up Rajiv Chandrasekaran's "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone." It's like reading a horror novel. You just want to put your face down and moan: How could we have let this happen? How could we have been so stupid?

As The Washington Post's review notes, Chandrasekaran's book "methodically documents the baffling ineptitude that dominated U.S. attempts to influence Iraq's fiendish politics, rebuild the electrical grid, privatize the economy, run the oil industry, recruit expert staff or instill a modicum of normalcy to the lives of Iraqis."

We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush's proposed surge. If you can, go to the peace march in Washington on January 27. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, "Stop it, now!"

Click here for more from Creators Syndicate.