angelm's Blog

INGREDIENTS
2 cups white sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup water
salt to taste
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 quarts popped popcorn

DIRECTIONS
In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the sugar, corn syrup, butter and water. Stir and heat to hard-crack stage or 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Remove from heat, add vanilla ; mix well.
Pour slowly over popped popcorn while stirring. Wait 5 minutes and shape into 3 inch round balls.

"Samhain was the Celtic God of the Dead, worshipped by the Druids with dreadful bloody sacrifices at Halloween."
As for Samhain being the "lord of the dead," this is a gross fallacy that seems to have been perpetuated in the late 18th and 19th centuries. There is no historic or archeological evidence of any Celtic deity of the dead named "Samhain." The names of about 350 Celtic deities are known and Samhain is not found among them. The Dictionary of the Gaelic Language says that "samhuinn" (the Scots Gaelic spelling> means "summers end."

"Halloween is a rite with pagan, demonic roots."
Halloween did not originate as a Satanic festival, but was religious in nature (the Celtic faith of the ancient Druids). The Celts did not actually have demons or the devil in their belief system. Halloween's association with Satanic worship is a modern phenomenon. There is a big difference between Paganism and Satanism. Pagans are people who believe in more than one god. Some modern day pagans call themselves "Wiccans." Pagans do not worship Satan or the devil. Pagans believe in powers (spirits and gods) which they "ask" to do things.

Satanists are worshippers of Satan. They believe in Satan and demons which they "demand" to do things. The Celts were pagans, not Satanists. There is no original evidence to indicate that Samhain was any more Satanic than pagan harvest festivals of other religions, like the Romans or the Greeks. The Celts did believe in gods, giants, monsters, spirits, fairies, and elves, but these were not considered evil ... so much as they were dangerous. The fairies, for example, were often considered hostile and menacing to humans because they were seen as being resentful of men taking over their lands. On the night of Samhain, the fairies would sometimes trick humans into becoming lost in the numerous fairy mounds, or "sidhe," where they would be trapped forever.

"Evil Druids would go from castle to castle, seeking virgin princesses to rape and sacrifice to the "lord of death," leaving carved pumpkins illuminated by candles (made from human fat) for those who cooperated, and arranging demonic assassinations for those who refused to give them what they wanted."
There is absolutely "no" evidence anywhere (from tradition, Celtic texts, or archaeology) that these events ever occurred.

There is a general agreement among historians that the Celts did in fact practice some form of human sacrifice, but then, most cultures at that stage of development did. The Celts sacrifices seem to have been limited to criminals, prisoners-of-war, or volunteers. Today, we still sacrifice humans, mostly "criminals," but we now call it the "death penalty."

The finds in the peat bogs of apparent human sacrifices (or judicial killings) are mostly in Germanic territories, not Celtic.

The pumpkin is a New World plant that never grew in Europe until modern times, so it could not have possibly ever been used to make "carvings illuminated by candles."

What is a pumpkin? A pumpkin is a kind of squash, and a member of the gourd family. Technically, the pumpkin itself is a fruit, although we use it as a vegetable in our cooking.

Pumpkin seeds are planted in groups called hills. The pumpkins are green or yellow when they are immature. They are not harvested until the skin is orange and tough, about 120 days after seeding, and they must be picked before a heavy frost occurs.

Pumpkins grow on vines which crawl along the ground. Melons, cucumbers, zucchini and gourds also grow on vines.

Pumpkins have been around a long time. Pumpkin seeds dating back to 7,000 B.C. have been found in caves in Mexico. Pumpkins were eaten in Africa, China and India in the 6th century.

Among the first to raise pumpkins were the American Indians. They cut pumpkins into rings and dried them to keep during the winter.

Pumpkin has been made into soups, stews, bread, pickles, pies, puddings, ice cream, and even beer or ale!

According to the Guiness Book of World Records, Jerry Ayers carved a ton of pumpkins in a record-setting 7 hours, 11 minutes on Oct. 16, 1999, at Kickman Farms in Ohio. Each pumpkin featured eyes, ears, a nose, mouth and eyebrows.

Pumpkin Nut Bars
1 cup cooked pumpkin puree, fresh or canned

1/2 cup butter or margarine (melted)

2 egg whites, slightly beaten

2 cups oats

1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup shredded coconut, toasted
1/2 cup wheat germ
1 cup chopped salted peanuts, pecans, or almonds
Preheat oven to 350�F. In a large bowl, beat egg whites slightly; add pumpkin and melted butter or margarine beat until smooth.

In another bowl combine oats, brown sugar, coconut, wheat germ, and nuts.

Fold oat mixture into pumpkin mixture to form stiff dough.

Press dough into a lightly greased 15 1/2 x 10 1/2 inch jelly roll pan.
Bake 40 to 45 minutes or until golden brown. While still warm, cut into bars.

Orange and black are the colors of Halloween because orange is associated with the fall harvest and black is the color of darkness.
There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with Orange.
Turnips and Beets once served as the original Jack O' Lanterns.
Halloween is the second most commercially successful  Holiday with Christmas being the first.
According to superstition if you stand in front of a mirror at midnight, you'll see the reflection of your future spouse just over your left shoulder.
You can sprinkle salt and oatmeal on your child's head to keep him or her from being possessed.
In England, white cats instead of black ones are thought to be bad luck.
Harry Houdini died on Halloween, in 1926 from peritonitis caused by a ruptured appendix.
Burning a candle inside a Jack O' Lantern on Halloween is believed to keep demons and evil spirits at bay.
Put your clothes on inside out and walk backwards on Halloween night to meet a witch.
Gazing into the flame of a candle on Halloween night will allow you to see into the future.
If you hear footsteps behind you on Halloween night don't turn around, for it may be Death himself! And to look him in the eye is a sure way to hasten your own demise.
If a bat flies around a house three times, it is considered to be a death omen

Ingredients:
1 package 1 package yellow cake mix
1 can (16oz) solid pack pack pumpkin
1 can (12oz) evaporated milk
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup melted butter
whipped topping

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Preparation Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease bottom of 9x13 pan.
Combine pumpkin, evaporated milk, eggs, sugar, pumpkin pie spice, and salt in large bowl.
Pour into pan.
Sprinkle dry cake mix evenly over pumpkin mixture.
Top with pecans.
Drizzle with melted butter.
Bake for 50-55 minutes or until golden.
Cool
Serve with whipped topping.

Iran's president says Obama made a big mistake

TEHRAN, Iran � Iran's president hit back Saturday at President Barack Obama's accusation that his country had sought to hide its construction of a new nuclear site, arguing that Tehran reported the facility to the U.N. even earlier than required.

The Iranian president defended his government's actions as the head of the U.N.'s nuclear monitoring agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, arrived Saturday to arrange an inspection of the uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom.

The revelation that Iran has been building a new nuclear plant has heightened the concern of the U.S. and many of its allies, which suspect Tehran is using a civilian nuclear program as a cover for developing a weapons-making capability. Iran denies such an aim, saying it only wants to generate energy.

Obama and the leaders of France and Britain accused Iran of keeping the construction hidden from the world for years. The U.S. president said last month that Iran's actions "raised grave doubts" about its promise to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes only.

ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has also said Tehran was "on the wrong side of the law" over the new plant and should have revealed its plans as soon as it decided to build the facility.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad challenged that view in a speech Saturday, saying that Iran voluntarily revealed the facility to the IAEA in a letter on Sept. 21. He said that was one year earlier than necessary under the agency's rules.

"The U.S. president made a big and historic mistake," Iranian state TV quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. "Later it became clear that (his) information was wrong and that we had no secrecy."

Iran agreed to allow U.N. inspectors into the facility at a landmark meeting with six world powers near Geneva on Thursday that put nuclear talks back on track and included the highest-level bilateral contact with the U.S. in three decades.

Iranian officials argue that under IAEA safeguard rules, a member nation is required to inform the U.N. agency about the existence of a nuclear facility six months before introducing nuclear material into the machines. Iran says the new facility won't be operational for 18 months, and so it has not violated any IAEA requirements.

The IAEA has said that Iran is obliged under the Additional Protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to notify the organization when it begins to design a new nuclear facility.

Iran says it voluntarily implemented the Additional Protocol for 2 1/2 years as a confidence-building gesture, but its parliament passed legislation in 2007 forcing the government to end such cooperation after the country was referred to the U.N. Security Council for sanctions over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.

The IAEA has countered by saying that a government cannot unilaterally abandon such an agreement.

Suspicion that Iran's newly revealed nuclear site was meant for military purposes was heightened by its location, at least partly inside a mountain and next to a military base.

Iran has said it built the facility in such a way only to ensure continuity of its nuclear activities in case of an attack.

"Some are allowing themselves to threaten our legal facilities with military attack, and so we are going to come up with security measures for our nuclear facilities," Iran's senior nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, said Friday after returning from the talks in Switzerland. "One of them is that we need to have a facility for uranium enrichment with a higher level of security and that's why we decided to establish the new facility that is under construction."

An IAEA spokesman said that in addition to the new nuclear facility, ElBaradei will also discuss a plan to allow Russia to take some of Iran's processed uranium and enrich it to higher levels to fuel a research reactor in Tehran.

Western officials said Iran agreed to the plan at Thursday's meeting, a potentially significant move that would show greater flexibility by both sides.

Obama noted the deal in comments on the meeting. But Mehdi Saffare, Iran's ambassador to Britain and a member of the Iranian delegation at the talks, said Iran had not yet agreed to such a plan.

The Obama administration, together with the U.S. Congress, is drawing up plans for tough new sanctions if the talks with Iran show signs of faltering. Obama said the new penalties could target Iran's energy, financial and telecommunications sectors.

A congressional committee will hold a hearing Tuesday on the possibility of expanding sanctions to cover a wider range of financial transactions, including a new ban on exporting refined petroleum to Iran

Rio de Janeiro wins right to host 2016 Olympics

AP - Oct 2, 6:21 am EDT 1 of 99 Olympics Gallery Chicago was knocked out in the first round�in one of the most shocking defeats ever handed down by the International Olympic Committee�and Tokyo was eliminated in the second round.

Rio had played heavily on the fact that South America has never previously hosted the games, while Europe, Asia and North America have done so repeatedly. Now, only Africa and Antarctica remain as continents that have not been awarded an Olympics.

Woman continues treasure hunt after finding note

QUINCY, Ill. � A western Illinois postal worker's hunt for supposedly buried treasure continues in Springfield. Patty Henken launched the search recently when she was refinishing an antique chair and found a key in an envelope with a note promising $250 in U.S. gold coins buried in a chest in Springfield.

On the envelope were the typewritten words "Finders Keepers." The typewritten note detailed a Springfield location where the gold coins were supposedly buried.

Henken was given permission to dig on the lot after agreeing with the property owner that anything found would be split between them.

Searches over the weekend with a backhoe didn't turn up anything, but Henken isn't giving up the chase.

Chocolate-Banana Heaven Cake

1. Ingredients
1 (18.25 ounce) package chocolate cake mix (not pudding in the mix variety)
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 cup prepared  Instant Coffee, cooled
4 medium ripe bananas, mashed
3 eggs
1/3 cup water
1 teaspoon  Instant Coffee
2 tablespoons milk, warmed
1 (8 ounce) package  Cream Cheese, softened
3 (1 ounce) squares  Semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate, melted
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup  Chopped Pecans

2. Cooking Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans. Cover bottoms of pans with wax paper; set aside.
Combine cake mix and cocoa powder in large bowl. Add the prepared coffee, bananas, eggs and water; beat with electric mixer on low speed 30 sec., stopping frequently to scrape bottom and side of bowl. Beat on medium speed 2 min.; pour evenly into prepared pans.
Bake 30 to 35 min. or until toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool 10 min.; remove from pans to wire racks. Immediately remove wax paper. Cool cake layers completely.
Dissolve 1 tsp. instant coffee in the warm milk. Beat cream cheese with electric mixer on medium speed until creamy. Add milk mixture; beat 2 min. Blend in melted chocolate. Add powdered sugar; beat until light and fluffy. Use to fill and frost cooled cake layers. Immediately press pecans into frosting on side of cake.

Birth control could help combat climate change
      LONDON � Giving contraceptives to people in developing countries could help fight climate change by slowing population growth, experts said Friday.

More than 200 million women worldwide want contraceptives, but don't have access to them, according to an editorial published in the British medical journal, Lancet. That results in 76 million unintended pregnancies every year.

If those women had access to free condoms or other birth control methods, that could slow rates of population growth, possibly easing the pressure on the environment, the editors say.

"There is now an emerging debate and interest about the links between population dynamics, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and climate change," the commentary says.

In countries with access to condoms and other contraceptives, average family sizes tend to fall significantly within a generation. Until recently, many U.S.-funded health programs did not pay for or encourage condom use in poor countries, even to fight diseases such as AIDS.

The world's population is projected to jump to 9 billion by 2050, with more than 90 percent of that growth coming from developing countries.

It's not the first time lifestyle issues have been tied to the battle against global warming. Climate change experts have previously recommended that people cut their meat intake to slow global warming by reducing the numbers of animals using the world's resources.

The Lancet editorial cited a British report which says family planning is five times cheaper than usual technologies used to fight climate change. According to the report, each $7 spent on basic family planning would slash global carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1 ton.

Experts believe that while normal population growth is unlikely to significantly increase global warming that overpopulation in developing countries could lead to increased demand for food and shelter, which could jeopardize the environment as it struggles with global warming.

Patrick Swayze, Hollywood's Dirty Dancer, Dead at 57

Patrick Swayze, the movie star whose iconic roles in Dirty Dancing and Ghost transcended and the man whose perseverance in the face of advanced cancer inspired, died today in Los Angeles. He was 57.

"One thing I'm not gonna do is chase staying alive," Swayze told Barbara Walters in January. "You spend so much time chasing staying alive, you won't live."

At the time, Swayze guessed he had two more years to live.

Swayze was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in early 2008. Despite the gloom and doom of initial tabloid reports, Swayze went on to star in the A&E cop drama The Beast.

"I'm a miracle, dude. I don't know why," Swayze was quoted as saying shortly before he began work on the series.

Still, not one to sugarcoat the toll the disease took on him, Swayze told Walters the show's summer 2008 shoot was hell.

"By the third episode in, at one point I didn't know if I was gonna finish this thing and I thought I'd made a big mistake," Swayze said. "It just made me angry at myself, though."

Days before the Walters interview premiered, Swayze was hospitalized with pneumonia. He was released within a week and announced plans to write a memoir with his wife of 34 years, Lisa Niemi. The book was due this fall.

"I will write from my heart about these experiences and, aside from the sheer pleasure of doing it, if people happen to garner inspiration from it, or incentive, or find a new way to love, it would be wonderful," Swayze said in May. The statement was issued shortly after a radio-fueled Internet death rumor prompted the never-say-die actor to declare himself "alive and well."

Born Aug. 18, 1952, in Houston, Swayze was in his 30s and already something of a familiar face when he swiveled his hips to leading-man stardom in 1987's Dirty Dancing.

As Johnny Castle, the dangerous dance instructor from the Catskills who romances rich-girl pupil Baby Houseman, Swayze was able to showcase the moves that had been drilled into him since he was a boy, growing up as the son of Patsy Swayze, the choreographer of John Travolta's Urban Cowboy and other films.

Dirty Dancing became a sleeper hit and made brand names of Swayze, Jennifer Grey and choreographer Kenny Ortega. Swayze even scored a hit single, "She's Like the Wind," off the movie's blockbuster soundtrack.

Swayze had a bit in the franchise's belated 2004 sequel, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, but for the most part expanded his repertoire beyond the dance floor. He knocked heads as Dalton the bouncer in 1989's Road House, a beloved, if critically dismissed, popcorn picture, protected Demi Moore from beyond the grave as the slain Sam Wheat in 1990's Ghost, his biggest box-office hit, and surfed with Keanu Reeves in the 1991 caper film Point Break.

In 1992, Swayze went for Oscar gold as an American doctor working in the slums of India in City of Joy. But the film was a commercial and critical disappointment, and Swayze's film career never really recovered. Still, he continued to work, through good times and bad.

In 2002, Swayze, a longtime pilot, walked away from a crash of his Cessna 414 in Arizona. Witnesses said the actor seemed impaired and asked them to help dispose of an opened bottle of wine. The National Transportation Safety Board found that Swayze had possibly been made loopy by carbon monoxide gasses.

Other credits include: The Outsiders, Red Dawn and To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, the drag-queen comedy-drama that brought Swayze a Golden Globe nomination. The Beast, during which Swayze made his last stand on screen, was canceled in June after one season.

To the end, Swayze kept his eye on new beginnings.

"I keep dreaming of a future," he said in January, "a future with a long and healthy life, not lived in the shadow of cancer but in the light."

Did you hear about the $3,000,000 Kentucky State Lottery?

The winner gets $3 a year for a million years.

OAKLAND --

A 64-year-old woman shot and killed her disabled daughter at an Oakland nursing home before turning the gun on herself, police said today.

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Diana Harden of Livermore shot and killed Yvette Harden, 43, at the Oakland Springs Health Center at 1833 10th Ave. shortly after 10:15 p.m. Sunday, said Officer Jeff Thomason, Oakland police spokesman.

The elder Harden then killed herself with the same gun, Thomason said.

Banana Berry Brownie Pizza

1 (Approximately 22-ounce) package fudge brownie mix
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 large egg
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sliced strawberries
1 banana, sliced
1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted
Prepare and bake fudge brownie mix according to the package directions. Remove from oven, leave oven on. ***Meanwhile, beat softened cream cheese, egg, sugar and vanilla in a small mixer bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed. Pour over brownie crust.
Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven; allow to cool down, about 15 to 20 minutes, prior to adding fresh sliced fruit on top. Drizzle with melted chocolate chips.