NEW YORK - A cheerleader who continued to cheer for her team from a gurney despite tumbling 15 feet onto her head said Wednesday she was worried the accident would distract from the basketball game.

"My biggest concern was that I didn't want my squad to be distracted - so that they could continue cheering on the team - and I didn't want my team to be distracted from winning the game," Kristi Yamaoka, 18, told NBC's "Today" show.

Yamaoka, a Southern Illinois University sophomore from Springfield, Ill., suffered a concussion, a spinal fracture and a bruised lung when she lost her balance atop a human pyramid during a time-out in Sunday's game against Bradley.

She drew national attention as she was wheeled off the court. When the pep band fired up the school's fight song "Go Southern Go," Yamaoka gave a two-handed thumbs up from the gurney, then moved her arms - the only things not strapped down - in time to the music and cheered.

"I'm still a cheerleader - on a stretcher or not," Yamaoka told the "Today" show while wearing a neck brace and her cheerleading uniform. "So as soon as I heard that fight song, I knew my job and just started to do my thing."

Following Yamaoka's accident, the Missouri Valley Conference barred certain cheerleading stunts during this week's women's basketball tournament. Cheerleaders may not be launched or tossed and may not take part in formations higher than two levels during the tournament.

posted by Blicero : 3/11/2006 05:44:00 AM

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posted by Blicero : 3/11/2006 05:37:00 AM

Here's this House bill that will remove warning labels from food. Warnings about stuff like arsenic in bottled water. Individual states had required the warnings, but now they'll be barred from doing so.

"'This bill is going to overturn 200 state laws that protect our food supply,' said Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif. 'Why are we doing that? What's wrong with our system of federalism?'"

It is understandable, and almost reassuring in a strange way, to see members of Congress screwing the consumer in order to save businesses five cents in package design.

But wait, here's Rep. Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan, explaining WHY he voted for the bill.

"'We ought to do it in all 50 states,' said Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich. 'Chicken grown in Louisiana is going to end up on a plate in Michigan.'

"Rogers mentioned a warning [required in] his own state about allergy-causing sulfites: 'If they're bad for Michigan citizens, I think they're bad in all of the other 49 states,' he said."

Right, of course: sulfites are so dangerous that we've got to warn everyone about them, right away, in all 50 states. And so, naturally, the only way to do that is to pass a law forbidding ANYONE in ANY STATE from mandating such a warning label. Thanks for clearing that up, Mike Rogers!

It must take a lot of work to be that retarded.

posted by Blicero : 3/09/2006 11:24:00 AM