A Texas man accused of fatally beating his 2-year-old stepdaughter when she wouldn’t stop crying as he watched a World Cup game has been charged with capital murder.

McAllen Police Sgt. Joel Morales says 27-year-old Hector Castro was charged Monday after his Saturday arrest. Castro is being held on $1 million bond at the Hidalgo County jail, where a booking clerk says he does not yet have an attorney.

Police Chief Victor Rodriguez says Castro told investigators the toddler wouldn’t stop crying while he was trying to watch the U.S.-Ghana matchup Saturday.

Rodriguez says the child was severely beaten and suffered several broken ribs. Police say a screw or bolt was forced down her throat in an apparent attempt to make it look like she choked to death.

Guys remember no games are more important than the precious of a life. Please use Tivo to record the game and watch again if you miss during the run.

Forkhead iPhone Stand

That headline is probably a bit of an overstatement, since this is probably the only iPhone stand made out of cutlery. ForkedUpArt of North Salt Lake, Utah, is actually selling two different stands. ForkHead, who you see standing at attention at your right, and SpoonHead, ForkHead’s smarter brother.
Sold through our favorite iPhone accessory store.  The ForkedUpArt iPhone stands can be customized if you want, and according to the artist, “I’m making these guys as fast as I can.”
How much will one of these unique items put you back? About US$20, plus shipping. That’s less expensive than some of the fancy-schmancy stands you can buy through more traditional sources, and let’s face it — these stands are really cool.

Warren Buffett

The world’s most famous investor lays out his basic principles in this year’s annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders.

Every few years, critics say Warren Buffett has lost his touch. He’s too old and too old-fashioned, they claim. He doesn’t get it anymore. This time he’s wrong.

It happened during the dot-com bubble, when Buffett was mocked for refusing to join the party. And it happened again last year. As the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) tumbled below 7,000, Buffett came under fire for having jumped into the crisis too early and too boldly, making big bets on Goldman Sachs (GS, news, msgs) and General Electric (GE, news, msgs) during the fall of 2008, and urging the public to plunge into shares.

Now it’s time for those critics to sit down for their traditional three-course meal: humble pie, their own words and crow.

On Saturday, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, news, msgs) reported that net earnings rocketed 61% last year to $5,193 per share, while book value jumped 20% to a record high. Berkshire’s Class A shares, which slumped to nearly $70,000 last year, have rebounded to $120,000.

Those bets on GE and Goldman? They’ve made billions so far. And anyone who took Buffett’s advice and invested in the stock market in October 2008, even through a simple index fund, is up about 25%.

This is nothing new, of course. Anyone who held a $10,000 stake in Berkshire Hathaway at the start of 1965 has about $80 million today.

How does he do it? Buffett explained his beliefs to new investors in his letter to stockholders Saturday:

Stay liquid. “We will never become dependent on the kindness of strangers,” he wrote. “We will always arrange our affairs so that any requirements for cash we may conceivably have will be dwarfed by our own liquidity. Moreover, that liquidity will be constantly refreshed by a gusher of earnings from our many and diverse businesses.”

Buy when everyone else is selling. “We’ve put a lot of money to work during the chaos of the last two years. It’s been an ideal period for investors: A climate of fear is their best friend. . . . Big opportunities come infrequently. When it’s raining gold, reach for a bucket, not a thimble.”

Don’t buy when everyone else is buying. “Those who invest only when commentators are upbeat end up paying a heavy price for meaningless reassurance,” Buffett wrote. The obvious corollary is to be patient. You can only buy when everyone else is selling if you have held your fire when everyone was buying.

Value, value, value. “In the end, what counts in investing is what you pay for a business — through the purchase of a small piece of it in the stock market — and what that business earns in the succeeding decade or two.”

Don’t get suckered by big growth stories. Buffett reminded investors that he and Berkshire Vice Chairman Charlie Munger “avoid businesses whose futures we can’t evaluate, no matter how exciting their products may be.”

Most investors who bet on the auto industry in 1910, planes in 1930 or TV makers in 1950 ended up losing their shirts, even though the products really did change the world. “Dramatic growth” doesn’t always lead to high profit margins and returns on capital. China, anyone?

Understand what you own. “Investors who buy and sell based upon media or analyst commentary are not for us,” Buffett wrote.

“We want partners who join us at Berkshire because they wish to make a long-term investment in a business they themselves understand and because it’s one that follows policies with which they concur.”

Defense beats offense. “Though we have lagged the S&P in some years that were positive for the market, we have consistently done better than the S&P in the 11 years during which it delivered negative results. In other words, our defense has been better than our offense, and that’s likely to continue.”

The man was so hurt and speechless; he went back to his car and kicked it a lot of times. Devastated by his own actions……sitting in front of that car he looked at the scratches; the child had written “LOVE YOU DAD”.

The next day that man committed suicide. . . Anger and Love have no limits; choose the latter to have a beautiful, lovely life….. Things are to be used and people are to be loved, But the problem in today’s world is that, People are used and things are loved…

During this year, let’s be careful to keep this thought in mind: Things are to be used, but People are to be loved … Be yourself….This is the only day we have .

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions.

Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits they become character;

Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

Avatar

Still yet, there’s one thing everyone agrees on: the special effects are awesome.  The Na’vi – the 10 foot tall blue creatures that Sully encounters – are unlike anything ever seen before.  The colors, the special effects, everything in this film (which cost hundreds of millions of dollars to produce) are what makes the show so awesome.

Want to see something really great? Go see Avatar in 3D.  It is said that the 3D version of the film is phenomenal. I might probably go to see it in 3D if any of my friends like to go with me.

Aviator Space Ship

At the beginning of Avatar, one of the ship’s technicians tells the crew that they’ve been in cryogenic stasis for over five years — the time it takes to get from Earth to Pandora. Makes you wonder how they got there, doesn’t it? Today’s chemical thrusters wouldn’t fit the bill: Apollo 10, our fastest manned spacecraft ever, would take 120,000 years on a trip to Alpha Centauri, the closest known star system to our own.

New Scientist has a breakdown of the various technologies we could see ferrying us around space in the near future, such as ion propulsion, and stuff — ramjets, for instance — that’s still in the works. I’m glad to see some of my personal outlandish favorites are on there, such as solar sails and nuclear engines. There are also a few that will probably never ever see the glow of space, such as Miguel Alcubierre’s Alcubierre drive and wormholes, the latter of which New Scientist classifies as “almost certainly impossible” for travel.