Last-minute gift seekers with a computer and printer on the ready can honor dads this Father’s Day with free printable cards, gift tags, certificates and more thanks to the FreePrintable.net family of sites.
At Free Printable Greeting Cards.org, there are humorous cards, including dads in mild peril.
For the younger set, there are Father’s Day coloring pages along with hundreds of other themed coloring sheets that are perfect to slip in a card or frame for Dad.
All of the printables can be downloaded and printed for free as PDFs, while the certificates and cards also have premium Microsoft Word download options so, for a fee of $4, users can customize them however they would like.
“Our free printables save you a trip to the store while still showing Dad that you care,” said Kevin Savetz, creator of the FreePrintable.net sites. Other Printable.net sites fill a variety of home and business needs, from free printable business cards to fax cover sheets to printable paper.
FreePrintable.net was created by Savetz Publishing, Inc., a company that creates high-quality, content-driven web sites. The FreePrintable.net family of sites also offers free printable business cards, stationery, award certificates, recipe cards and other useful printable items. Savetz Publishing also owns FaxZero, which lets users send faxes from their PC; and Free After Rebate, a guide to free-after-rebate deals.

expertclick.com

About 30,000 people converged on Comerica Park for the 17th annual Komen Detroit Race for the Cure. The race raises more than $2 million for breast cancer treatment and research. Much of it will go to the Karmanos Cancer Institute, the presenting sponsor, to pay for local efforts.
Comerica Park’s lots were overflowing with pink: pink tents, the pink shirts of the more than 1,500 survivors in attendance, pink hats, pink flamingoes, pink spray paint in walkers’ hair, and pink scarves and pink foam ears handed out by sponsors Ford Motor Co. and Energizer, respectively.
Along the 5K run/walk route, 10,000 individually decorated pink ribbons were tied to railings and parking meters.
Steve Menoucik, 39, of Lansing won overall with a time of 15 minutes, 53 seconds; Promise Vos of Dearborn, 13, was the first female, at 19 minutes, 3 seconds. The first survivor to cross the line was Michele Hendrick, 38, of Bloomfield Hills, at 21 minutes, 15 seconds.
“It gives you a new perspective on everything,” said Amy Krzyzanowski, 39, of Plymouth. She ran the race as a survivor this year, just seven months after finishing chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
Krzyzanowski discovered her tumor doing a self-exam and saw her doctor about it exactly one year ago Saturday. The fifth-grade teacher at Holcomb Elementary in Detroit said doing the Race for the Cure last fall in Grand Rapids and then again in Detroit helped her work through her anger.
“I was really mad,” she said. “It keeps you from doing the things you want to do.”
She was joined by 30 to 40 friends and family members making up her team, “Amy’s Army.” Their tops proclaimed, “We fight for boobs!” a symbol of one thing that has changed in the fight against breast cancer over the years.
When the Komen Race for the Cure series started in Dallas some 25 years ago, it wasn’t allowed to say in mass media that it was to benefit breast cancer research. It was listed as benefitting a women’s disease, said Kimberly Simpson, chief operating officer of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

freep.com

It all got so very confusing on Sunday during an endless final day of the 2008 draft.
The details are fuzzy, but it seems the Bears landed the next Hines Ward, a new John Lynch, a guy on probation, a guy just off probation, a guy with two knees, another with a shoulder, someone from Alaska, someone who has eaten baked Alaskan and a tight end with as many sacks as the defensive lineman taken two rounds earlier.
And that was before the seventh round, which the Bears dominated with five picks. That included the first selection of the round, used on Michigan State defensive end Ervin Baldwin, an international man of mystery who wasn’t invited to the NFL Scouting Combine and didn’t make the cut in the draft guides. Baldwin later was hilariously asked in a conference call how he earned the moniker ”The Big Cheese,” which actually is the preferred nickname of Chester Adams, an offensive lineman selected 14 picks after Baldwin.
Confused? It was just that kind of day. The Bears landed 10 players to go with two chosen Saturday, and it will take years to figure out exactly how they fared.
That didn’t stop general manager Jerry Angelo — who said last week he was hoping to select four starters — from declaring he actually drafted five potential starters, counting safety Craig Steltz of LSU, who was taken in the fourth round over USC quarterback John David Booty.
If Angelo can pull off that feat, he’ll be in rare company. An examination of the last five drafts reveals that only two teams exceeded Angelo’s goal. The Buffalo Bills came up with six starters in their 2006 draft and the Philadelphia Eagles five in 2005. No other team selected more than four, and generally speaking, if a GM can find three, it’s a great draft.

suntimes.com

Well, the feeding frenzy for players that weren’t selected with any of the draft’s 253 picks has started, and somebody had better call Mr. French and/or Mary J. Blige, because the Vikings have made this a family affair.
According to Judd Zulgad of the Star-Tribune, here are the Undrafted Free Agents that the Vikings have agreed with:
Husain Abdullah S Washington State
Martail Burnett DE Utah
Leger Douzable DT Central Florida
Marcus Griffin S Texas
Steven Hauschka K NC State
Erin Henderson LB Maryland
Nate Jones WR Texas
Travis Key CB Michigan State
Jeremy “J” Leman LB Illinois
Tim Mattran C Stanford
Drew Radovich T USC
Darius Reynaud WR West Virginia
Brandon Sumrall CB S Mississippi
Marcus Walker CB Oklahoma
Kyle Wright QB Miami (Fla.)
Albert Young RB Iowa
Erin Henderson is the younger brother of Vikings linebacker E.J. Henderson, while Marcus Griffin is the younger brother of Vikings cornerback Cedric Griffin. Both players attended the same college as their older brothers did. Gee. . .you suppose the Vikings had the inside track on those two signings?
Looking at where The Sporting News had each of them ranked, Reynaud was listed as their 15th best WR and the highest WR not drafted. Henderson was their 8th ranked outside linebacker. Leman was the #13 inside linebacker, and Griffin was the #14 safety in their listings.
Not sure how many of these guys are actually going to have a shot at making the roster, but it’s good to see that the Beloved Purple didn’t just sit on their hands after the final name was called out.
Thanks for the great weekend, everybody. Despite not seeing a lot of action, the Vikings made the draft weekend a pretty successful one in my book, as well as a pretty successful one for the Daily Norseman. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday night, and we’ll see you all back here tomorrow!

dailynorseman.com

Via Newsweek, I’ve just been alerted to a dust-up in the world of upper middle class parenting: Lenore Skenazy, a columnist for the New York Sun, penned a column in early April describing why she allowed her 9-year old son to travel by himself from Bloomingdale’s department store on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to their home in Midtown West. (It’s not a very long trip.) She wrote, “[F]or weeks my boy had been begging for me to please leave him somewhere, anywhere, and let him try to figure out how to get home on his own. So on that sunny Sunday I gave him a subway map, a MetroCard, a $20 bill, and several quarters, just in case he had to make a call. … Long story short: My son got home, ecstatic with independence.”
Predictably, this anecdote garnered joyous cries of support, as well as rabid calls for Skenazy’s head. The writer appeared on television and radio to defend herself against cries of “bad mother!” and even coined a catchphrase for the kind of parenting she supports: “Free Range Kids” — complete with a new blog, of course. At first, I figured the backlash was in part suburban and exurban parents’ horror at the idea of allowing a child to roam New York City alone. People don’t realize that New York’s crime rate is similar to that of Boise, Idaho and that New York ranks number 136 in crime among the nation’s 182 cities with populations over 100,000.
But in a follow-up column and podcast, Skenazy recounted her correspondence with parents nationwide, which proved that hovercraft parenting knows no geographical boundaries. A dad in Park Slope, Brooklyn won’t let his 9-year old cross the street to go to the playground. An Atlanta mother doesn’t allow her daughter to walk alone from the front door to the mailbox. A suburban lawyer makes his 11-year old call home immediately after walking one block from her own home to a friend’s house. All this despite the fact that we now know “stranger danger” pales in comparison to the violence and sexual and emotional abuse too many children suffer at the hands of adult family members or acquaintances. And that the number of child abductions has been falling steadily for years.

prospect.org

(Journal-World (Lawrence, KS) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Apr. 13–The IRS has some tips to consider as Tuesday’s income tax-filing deadline approaches:
–E-file. Filing electronically is the easiest, fastest and most accurate way to prepare and file a tax return, said Michael Devine, an IRS spokesman. Because the filing programs check for errors and required information, they are 99 percent accurate. Taxpayers filing electronically and choosing direct deposit can expect their refunds within 10 days. "There is no need to be in line at the Post Office on April 15," Devine said. "Our advice is to join the more than 599,000 Kansas taxpayers who have already e-filed their 2007 taxes."
–Do taxes yourself, for free. More than 860,000 Kansas taxpayers earning $54,000 or less are eligible for free tax preparation and free e-filing through the IRS-sponsored Free File program at www.irs.gov. Choose the Free File icon and then the software product that works best for you.
–Don’t miss out on the Economic Stimulus Payment. To receive a payment, taxpayers must have a valid Social Security number, $3,000 of qualifying income and file a 2007 federal tax return. The IRS will take care of the rest. Go to www.irs.gov and click on Rebate Questions? for details.
–Need more time? Taxpayers can get an automatic six-month extension of time to file their tax returns by filing Form 4868, Automatic Extension of Time to File. E-filing a request for an extension is convenient, safe and secure. The extension gives taxpayers until Oct. 15 to file the tax return, but it does not give the taxpayer an extension of time to pay any taxes due. You still owe interest on any amount not paid by the April deadline, plus a late payment penalty if you have not paid at least 90 percent of your total tax by that date.

tmcnet.com

Borrowers with credit scores that are a few points from qualifying for a loan may be tempted to resort to credit-repair agencies for quick help in raising their scores. In some cases, the move can pay significant dividends. But industry executives and regulators say that it can often be a waste of money.
“Credit repair is sort of a pejorative term,” said Norman Magnuson, a spokesman for the Consumer Data Industry Association, a trade group for companies that track consumer credit. This is because many credit-repair agencies promise more than they deliver, Magnuson and others said.
There is no industry association for credit-repair services that could reply to these allegations.
A borrower’s credit score - also known as the FICO score, which was created by Fair Isaac Corp. in the mid-1990s - is the chief determinant of eligibility for loans. Lately, many borrowers are finding it difficult to qualify for loans unless their scores are at least 680. (The scores range from 300 to 850; the average score is 692.)
Creditors send information about consumer accounts to the three major credit bureaus - Equifax, Experian and TransUnion - which rely on complex and closely held formulas for devising their scores, using the Fair Isaac scoring method but tweaking it as they see fit. The two biggest components are consumers’ payment histories and the extent to which they are using their available credit card debt, credit counselors say.
A credit report is a list of your creditors and payment history; a credit score is a numerical reflection of that history. You can get free copies of your credit reports from all three agencies at AnnualCreditReport.com.
Loan officers and brokers say it is typical to find errors or inconsistencies in a credit report, and consumers can challenge such things by sending a letter to the credit bureau. Magnuson says the bureaus will forward the letter to the creditor in question. If the creditor does not answer the letter within 20 or 25 days, he said, the bureaus will pull that item.

sfgate.com

This is a quick heads up to all the Halo 3 fans who haven't already downloaded the add-on Heroic Map Pack. The three maps were released back in December for $10, but starting today, they'll be free for anyone to grab. It will certainly be nice to see them in much wider circulation. For those people who forget what three maps were included, here's a quick run down:
Standoff. Standoff is a big-ish symmetrical map—great for Team Slayer, excellentfor Objective games and big enough for a couple of vehicles. It haslocked-down Bunkers for bases and lots of cover for players trying tomake their way from one base to the next. Although some say it has asimilar feel to Blood Gulch, the geometry and terrain are very different.
Rat’s Nest. Rat's Nest is a massive level set in the corridors and tunnels of aHuman Base near Kilimanjaro. You may recognize parts of it from Halo3's Campaign mode. Effectively, it's a giant Oval, kind of like anunderground NASCAR track, with lots of vehicles and plenty of tunnelscriss-crossing the center area. It's designed for big team games,Objective and Slayer, but also works brilliantly for game types likeInfection and Territories.
Foundry. Foundry is a unique map designed from the outset to be the mostcustomizable Halo 3 Forge map ever created. It's a large Warehouse,which can be emptied quickly and then rebuilt any way you like, with abrand new palette of objects such as walls, ramps, Mancannons, and more.Stuff you never had access to before and objects that can be used tocreate fully functioning level designs, rather than simply altering ourexisting map.
The next bundle of content, the Legendary Map Pack, will be made available on April 18, again for $10. According to Bungie's update, there is currently no plan to release that pack for free, although hopefully in a few months it'll repeat the plan they had with the Heroic maps and open them up for everyone.

arstechnica.com

BEIJING (AP) — Protests led by Buddhist monks against Chinese rule in Tibet turned violent Friday, with shops and vehicles torched and gunshots echoing through the streets of the ancient capital, Lhasa. A radio report said two people had been killed.
The European Union called on China to show restraint and Washington said Beijing needed to respect Tibetan culture. Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, appealed to China not to use force against protesters.
The Dalai Lama called on the Chinese leadership to “address the long-simmering resentment of the Tibetan people through dialogue with the Tibetan people. I also urge my fellow Tibetans not to resort to violence.”
The largest demonstrations in nearly two decades against Beijing’s 57-year-rule over Tibet began Monday, coming at a critically sensitive time for China as it attempts to portray a unified and prosperous nation ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games in August.
The demonstrations turned violent Friday when witnesses reported hearing gunfire and seeing vehicles in flames in the city’s main shopping district in the center of Lhasa. Crowds hurled rocks at security forces and at restaurant and hotel windows.
Radio Free Asia, which is funded by the U.S. government, quoted witnesses as saying two bodies were seen lying on the ground in the Barkor area, a shopping district in the old city where the protests have been centered.

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Celtics forward Kevin Garnett was viewed by many as the leading candidate to be NBA MVP prior to the abdominal injury that caused him to miss nine games. But if the 2004 NBA MVP had a vote, it would go to Garnett’s teammate, Paul Pierce.
“I got Paul for MVP this year,” said Garnett, who won the award four years ago with Minnesota. “He does a lot of things, just little small things that people don’t see. There are only three people I like to watch on offense, and he’s one of them, man. He makes scoring look easy. He has an uncanny confidence about him that I love, cockiness and self-assurance.
“I told you, there is a reason why I came here. He’s one of the reasons.”
Pierce is also one of the main reasons the Celtics have the NBA’s best record at 50-12.
On a team with three All-Stars and lots of scoring, Pierce is averaging a team-best 20.3 points in 37.2 minutes. He is shooting 45 percent from the field, a career-best 84.4 percent from the line, and his 3-point percentage of 39.5 is his best since the 2001-02 season. He averages 5.3 rebounds, 4.6 assists, and 1.3 steals, and is also the only Celtic who has played in all 62 games (after playing in only 47 last season because of injuries).

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