HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTINE!!!

Well, today isn't just X-Mas eve, it's the very special day for one of our DTR's members... (Drum Roll Please)

H A P P Y

B I R T H D A Y

C H R I S T I N E ! ! !

JUST A LITTLE SONG FOR YOU BELOW :)

Tarmac Delays Limited: Government Imposes 3-Hour Limit

The Obama administration took aim Monday at tarmac horror stories, ordering airlines to let passengers stuck in stranded airplanes get off the plane after three hours. With its new regulations, the Transportation Department sent an unequivocal message on the eve of the busy holiday travel season: Don't hold travelers hostage to delayed flights.

The Air Transport Association, a trade group that represents U.S. airlines, said in a statement that carriers would comply with the new rule even though the group contends it will lead to canceled flights and greater passenger inconvenience.

Under the new regulations, airlines operating domestic flights will be able only to keep passengers on board for three hours before they must be allowed to disembark a delayed flight. The regulation provides exceptions only for safety or security or if air traffic control advises the pilot in command that returning to the terminal would disrupt airport operations.

U.S. carriers operating international flights departing from or arriving in the United States must specify, in advance, their own time limits for deplaning passengers. Foreign carriers are not covered by the rules.

Airlines will be required to provide food and water for passengers within two hours of a plane being delayed on a tarmac, and to maintain operable lavatories. They must also provide passengers with medical attention when necessary.

From January to June this year, 613 planes were delayed on tarmacs for more than three hours, their passengers kept on board.

Airlines will also be prohibited from scheduling chronically delayed flights. Carriers who fail to comply could face government enforcement action for using unfair or deceptive trade practices.

The new regulations, which were published Monday in the Federal Register, go into effect in 120 days.

Chocked up Jacksons

NASA reveals first-ever photo of liquid on another world

NASA scientists revealed Friday a first-of-its-kind image from space showing reflecting sunlight from a lake on Saturn's largest moon, Titan.

It's the first visual "smoking gun" evidence of liquid on the northern hemisphere of the moon, scientists said, and the first-ever photo from another world showing a "specular reflection" -- which is reflection of light from an extremely smooth surface and in this case, a liquid one.

"This is the first time outside Earth we've seen specular reflection from another liquid from another body," said Ralf Jaumann, a scientist analyzing data from the Cassini unmanned space probe.

Jaumann said he was surprised when he first saw the photos transmitting from Cassini, orbiting Saturn about a billion miles from Earth.

"It was great because if you look at photos of planets, you mostly see nothing is happening. But in two hours we saw a glint of light getting brighter."

Titan's similarities to Earth have attracted NASA's attention for decades. It's the only body besides our own in the solar system that is believed to have liquid on its surface. Like Earth, Titan has an atmosphere which is mostly nitrogen.
Experts believe the presence of liquid on a planet or moon improves the chances that some kind of life could develop there.

The photo comes from the spacecraft Cassini, which has been searching for this kind of reflection since it began circling Saturn in 2004.

Scientists with the University of Arizona were able to use previous data from Cassini to learn details about the reflection's location on Titan.

The glint appears to be coming from the southern edge of a lake called Kraken Mare -- a massive body of methane that covers about 150,000 square miles (400,000 square kilometers). That's larger than the Caspian Sea, which is the largest lake on Earth.

The hunt for the specular reflection took five years, NASA said, because the moon's northern half had been shrouded in winter darkness.

"Next, we want to find out more about Titan's liquid," said Jaumann. "Do we have some kind of weather there? Do we have changes with seasons? Does it rain? How does the liquid methane run across the surface?"

But Jaumann sounded a note of caution regarding the prospect of life in this case.

"The temperature on Titan's surface is something like minus-180 degrees Celsius," he said. "That means it's very cold. But you never know."

The project is based out of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

This is not the first evidence of liquid on Titan. In 2008, project members used infrared technology to discover a large lake in the moon's southern hemisphere.

But this recent discovery is a sure sign that liquid exists on the moon's northern half. That region is believed to include larger basins that could hold more liquid.

Former NFL star Dave Pear is sorry he ever played football

Dave Pear won a Super Bowl with the Raiders in 1981, but today he can barely walk and is in constant pain.


Dave Pear has a message for you.

"Don't let your kids play football," he says. "Never."

It is an odd thing, hearing these sort of words from a man like David Louis Pear, University of Washington standout, Pro Bowl defensive lineman for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Super Bowl champion with the Oakland Raiders. His five-year NFL career was one thousands of high school and college athletes would envy -- charging out of a darkened stadium tunnel, 70,000 fans screaming for you, loving you, praising you, idolizing you.

"You wanna know the truth?" says Pear.

The question lingers -- the 56-year-old ex-athlete preparing to unload one more skull-splitting hit.

"I wish I never played football. I wish that more than anything. Every single day, I want to take back those years of my life ..."
The words are not subtle. They spit from Pear's mouth, with a blistering contempt normally reserved for drunk drivers. We are speaking via phone. I am in New York, sipping a hot chocolate, leaning back in a chair. My two young children are asleep. A Pretenders song, "2000 Miles," plays in the background. No worries, no complexities. Pear is sitting at his home in Seattle. His neck hurts. His hips hurt. His knees hurt. His feet hurt. When he wakes up in the morning, pain shoots through his body. When he goes to sleep at night, pain shoots through his body. What does Pear do to stay active?

"My life is simple," he says. "It's hard to get out of bed, but eventually I do. I try and do a little walking on the treadmill. I take naps. I go to physical therapy once per week. I read my Bible."

He is, in basic terms, a train wreck -- a football-inflicted train wreck. Pear walks with a cane and, often, simply doesn't walk at all. He suffers from vertigo and memory loss. Over the past 18 years, he has undergone eight surgeries, beginning with a Posterior Cervical Laminectomy on his neck in 1981, and including disc removal and rod fusion in his back (1987), arthroplasty in his left hip (2008) and, earlier this year, four screws removed from his lower back. Though he chalks up his physical ailments to snap after snap of punishment, he pinpoints the biggest problems back to 1979 and '80, his final two NFL seasons. While playing for Oakland, Pear suffered a herniated disc in his neck that never improved. Despite the unbearable agony, he says the Raiders urged him to keep playing.

Be a man! Be tough! "Those last two years in Oakland were very, very difficult times," he says. "I was in pain 24 hours per day, and my employers failed to acknowledge my injury. Sure, I won a Super Bowl ring. But was it worth giving up my health for a piece of jewelry? No way. Those diamonds have lost their luster."

Throughout North America, many of Pear's retired football brethren hear his words and scream, Amen! Conrad Dobler, the legendary Cardinals offensive lineman, is about to go through his 32nd knee surgery. Wally Chambers, the Chicago Bears' three-time Pro Bowl defensive end, spends much of his time in a wheelchair. Earl Campbell, the powder blue bowling ball, struggles to walk and underwent surgery to remove three large bone spurs. The list is both heartbreaking and never-ending -- one NFL player after another after another, debilitated either mentally, physically, or both. I'm currently working on a book that has led me to interview more than 150 former players. I'd say 60 percent experience blistering pain from a sport they last played two decades ago.

"And the NFL," Pear says, "doesn't care."

Hence, he is fighting back. Two years ago, Pear started a blog, davepear.com, with the intent of supporting hobbled NFL veterans and calling out the league's laughable disability policy. Pear says he first applied for disability benefits in 1983, and was denied. He applied again in 1995, under a new provision that stated players would be compensated should they properly prove their injuries were permanently debilitating. A league-appointed physician examined Pear and filed a report stating that a man who once bench pressed 500 pounds could no longer sit, stand or bend for prolonged time periods.

To Pear's shock and dismay, benefits were again denied.

Finally, in 2009, Pear's request was accepted, and he now receives a whopping $40,000 annually. "Am I financially stable?" he asks with a laugh. "Let's put it this way. By the time I was 27 I had two children and medical bills that would reach $500,000. I can't work, my wife, Heidi, has had to hold two and sometimes three different jobs at the same time. And why? Because the NFL hasn't allowed me and my family to receiver proper benefits."

Pear pauses. He worries that he sounds like a typical whiner -- some ex-jock who didn't appreciate making it big. "This isn't even about me," he says. "It really isn't. There are guys so much worse off than me, it's criminal. We dreamed our whole lives to play professional football, and our dreams came true. And then they turn into nightmares."

Pear is blunt, like a rusty dental knife. He considered Gene Upshaw, the former NFL Players Association executive director, to be a criminal. "He was Ken Lay," he says of the deceased Enron CEO. "Same thing -- took all the veterans he supposedly represented for a ride." He holds out hope that Upshaw's replacement, DeMaurice Smith, might make things right. "I'm keeping an open mind," he says. "I hope Mr. Smith looks at the retired players and sees the wreckage.

"We need help," he says.

A long, painful sigh.

"We need help."

Jeff Pearlman can be reached at anngold22@gmail.com.