Garden Gnomes Pop Up In Front Of Frederick Businesses - News Story - WRC | Washington:


FREDERICK, Md. -- Those tacky gnome statues often seen in residential gardens have been showing up in front of businesses in downtown Frederick.
Eric Krasner, owner of CineGraphic Studios, said he found one in front of his business, moments after seeing two women posing for pictures with two gnomes on a bridge over Carroll Creek as he was driving to work. The women left the gnomes behind.
Police said they have not received any reports of stolen gnomes, and the Frederick Arts Council is unaware of any art projects involving gnomes.

The Frederick News-Post reports stealing gnomes from gardens and photographing them in other locations has been a popular prank for years.

Posted by mikki at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Extended Forecast: Bloodshed - New York Times:


Here’s a forecast for a particularly bizarre consequence of climate change: more executions of witches.

As we pump out greenhouse gases, most of the discussion focuses on direct consequences like rising seas or aggravated hurricanes. But the indirect social and political impact in poor countries may be even more far-reaching, including upheavals and civil wars — and even more witches hacked to death with machetes.

In rural Tanzania, murders of elderly women accused of witchcraft are a very common form of homicide. And when Tanzania suffers unusual rainfall — either drought or flooding — witch-killings double, according to research by Edward Miguel, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

“In bad years, the killings explode,” Professor Miguel said. He believes that if climate change causes more drought years in Tanzania, the result will be more elderly women executed there and in other poor countries that still commonly attack supposed witches.

There is evidence that European witch-burnings in past centuries may also have resulted from climate variations and the resulting crop failures, economic distress and search for scapegoats. Emily Oster, a University of Chicago economist, tracked witchcraft trials and weather in Western Europe between 1520 and 1770 and found a close correlation: colder weather led to more crackdowns on witches.

In particular, Europe’s “little ice age” led to a sharp cooling in the late 1500s, and that corresponds to a renewal in witchcraft trials after a long lull. And there’s also micro-evidence: in one area, a brutally cold May in 1626 led outraged peasants to call for punishment of witches thought responsible. Some scholars have also argued that the Salem witch trials occurred after a particularly cold winter and economically difficult period.

The point is that climate change will have consequences that will be difficult to foresee but will go far beyond weather or economics. There is abundant evidence that economic stress and crop failures — as climate scientists anticipate in poor countries — can lead to violence and upheavals.

In the United States, for example, some historians have found correlations between recessions or declines in farm values and increased lynchings of blacks.

Paul Collier, an Oxford University expert on global poverty, found that economic stagnation in poor countries leads to a rising risk of civil war. Professor Collier warns that climate change is likely to reduce rainfall in southern Africa enough that corn will no longer be a viable crop there. Since corn is a major form of sustenance in that region, the result may be catastrophic food shortages — and civil conflict.

The area that may be hardest hit of all — aside from islands that disappear beneath the waves — is the fragile Sahel region south of the Sahara Desert in West Africa. The Sahel is already impoverished and torn by religious and ethnic tensions, and reduced rainfall could push the region into warfare.

“The poorest people on Earth are in the Sahel, barely eking out an existence, and climate change pushes them over the edge,” Professor Miguel said. “It’s totally unfair.”

His research suggests that a drought one year increases by 50 percent the risk that an African country will slip into civil war the next year.

Ethnic conflict in Darfur was exacerbated by drought and competition for water, and some experts see it as the first war caused by climate change. That’s too simplistic, for the crucial factor was simply the ruthlessness of the Sudanese government, but climate change may well have been a contributing factor.

In a forthcoming book, “Economic Gangsters,” Mr. Miguel calls for a new system of emergency aid for countries suffering unusual drought or similar economic shocks. Such temporary aid would aim to reduce the risk of warfare that, once it has begun, is enormously costly to stop and often damages neighboring countries as well.

The greenhouse gases that imperil Africa’s future are spewing from the United States, China and Europe. The people in Bangladesh and Africa emit almost no carbon, yet they are the ones who will bear the greatest risks of climate change. Some experts believe that the damage that the West does to poor countries from carbon emissions exceeds the benefit from aid programs.

All this makes the United States’ reluctance to confront climate change in a serious way — like a carbon tax to replace the payroll tax, coupled with global leadership on the issue — as unjust as it is unfortunate.

So let’s remember that the stakes with climate change are broader than hotter summers or damaged beach houses. The most dire consequences of our denial and delay may include civil war — and even witch-killings — among the poorest peoples on earth.

I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground, and join me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kristof.

Posted by mikki at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

But I like it anyway

Sorry, Absinthe Trippers: Scientists Say You're Just Really Drunk | Wired Science from Wired.com:


The long-cherished idea that absinthe, an anise-flavored alcoholic beverage with a history of use by artists like Van Gogh and Picasso, is or ever was hallucinogenic might have met its death by data today.
German scientists put old bottles of the substance to the test and found that the liquid is 70 percent alcohol (140 proof) and 0 percent hallucination.
"All things considered, nothing besides ethanol was found in the absinthes that was able to explain the syndrome 'absinthism'," the researchers wrote in an open-access paper in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 
Absinthe, widely known as the 'Green Fairy' was banned across Europe in the early 20th century after it became the purported cause of absinthism, the symptoms of which included hallucinations, tremors and convulsions. It turns out that absinthism was probably just alcoholism.
Absinthe so scared the responsible adults of the world that only in the last few years was the substance allowed back onto the market. But when people failed to report excellent trips, arguments sprung up about whether or not the new absinthe was chemically equivalent to the old stuff.
The researchers took a systematic look at 13 samples of pre-ban absinthe and measured their levels of thujone, the active chemical component in the drink's famed wormwood. They found them to be no higher than today's licorice-tasting brew.
“Today it seems a substantial minority of consumers want these myths to be true, even if there is no empirical evidence that they are,” said the study's lead author Dirk Lachenmeier in a release. “It is hoped that this paper will go some way to refute at least the first of these myths, conclusively demonstrating that the thujone content of a representative selection of pre-ban absinthe... fell within the modern EU limit.”
UPDATE: In the comments, Herbal Ed brings up a good point, saying "It sounds like they're not considering that thujone from the wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) has probably broken down in to other components." I should have included this tidbit from the latter half of the paper in which the authors say they "have not found any evidentiary or investigative support for ... the proposition that thujone content changes in bottle, as a result of aging or other environmental factors."
Image: Courtesy of Dirk Lachenmeier, showing the implements of their absinthe sampling process, including a vintage bottle of Pernod Fils, a popular pre-ban absinthe brand.
See Also: A fantastic Wired article -- "The Mystery of the Green Menace" -- on Ted Breaux, one of Lachenmeier's collaborators for the most recent study.

Posted by mikki at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Associated Press: Penalty for Pharmacist's Refusal Upheld:


WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) — A state appeals court upheld sanctions Tuesday against a pharmacist who refused to dispense birth control pills to a woman and wouldn't transfer her prescription elsewhere.
The 3rd District Court of Appeals ruled that the punishment the state Pharmacy Examining Board handed down against pharmacist Neil Noesen did not violate his state constitutional rights, specifically his "right of conscience" to religiously oppose birth control.
"Noesen abandoned even the steps necessary to perform in a minimally competent manner under any standard of care," the three-judge panel said. The decision upheld a ruling by Barron County Circuit Judge James Babler.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin praised the ruling as important for women's access to reproductive health care. Several states have been wrestling with the issue of pharmacists who refuse on religious grounds to dispense birth control or "morning-after" pills.
Noessen's attorney Paul Linton said that he was disappointed but that no decision had been made on whether to appeal.
The ruling "can curtail the religious rights of pharmacists and perhaps other health care professionals," Linton said.
According to court records, Noesen was working as a substitute pharmacist at a Menomonie Kmart in 2002 when a University of Wisconsin-Stout student sought to refill her birth control prescription.
Noesen testified he advised the woman of his objection to the use of contraception and refused to fill the prescription or tell her how or where she could get it refilled.
The woman was able to get the prescription filled two days later but missed the first dose of the medication, court records said. She filed a complaint with the state Department of Regulation and Licensing.
Noesen, 34, of St. Paul, Minn., told regulators that he is a devout Roman Catholic and refused to refill the prescription or release it to another pharmacy because he didn't want to commit a sin by "impairing the fertility of a human being."
The Pharmacy Examining Board ruled in 2005 that Noesen failed to carry out his professional responsibility to get the woman's prescription to someone else if he wouldn't fill it himself.
The board reprimanded Noesen and ordered him to attend ethics classes. He was allowed to keep his license as long as he informs all future employers in writing that he won't dispense birth control pills and outlines steps he will take to make sure a patient has access to medication.
The board also found Noesen liable for the cost of the proceedings against him — about $20,000 — but the appeals court ordered the board to reconsider that decision.
Larry Dupuis, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, which like Planned Parenthood participated in the appeal, said the ruling struck the proper balance between patients' and pharmacists' rights.
A pharmacy should accommodate its pharmacists' religious beliefs but it can't leave "a patient high and dry," Dupuis said.
Noesen said the discipline "critically devastated" his business as a traveling pharmacist because some pharmacies refused to hire him and he lost his liability insurance, court records said.
There was no telephone listing for Noesen in St. Paul. Linton said he had not talked to Noesen in several months and didn't know whether he still lived in St. Paul.

Posted by mikki at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Diplomat Ordered Held Without Bond - News Story - WRC | Washington:
ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- A U.S. Foreign Service officer stationed in Brazil and Congo who is accused of using his office to pressure female visa applicants for sex has been ordered held without bond pending trial.
Gons G. Nachman, of Washington, is charged in U.S. District Court with misuse of a passport, making false statements and possession of child pornography.

At a detention hearing Tuesday, a magistrate ruled that the 42-year-old is a flight risk because he is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Costa Rica and could easily flee to his native country.

Federal public defender Geremy Kamens noted that the charges involve sex tapes Nachman allegedly made abroad with 16- and 17-year-old girls. He said it is unusual for the government to bring child pornography charges in cases involving post-pubescent teens.

Posted by mikki at 04:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Judge to Navy: Limit sonar training - CNN.com:


LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The Navy must follow environmental laws placing strict limits on sonar training that opponents argue harms whales, despite President Bush's decision to exempt it, a federal judge ruled Monday.


A federal judge ruled that the Navy must limit sonar training that some say hurts whales.

The Navy is not "exempted from compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act" and a court injunction creating a 12 nautical-mile no-sonar zone off Southern California, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper wrote in a 36-page decision.

"We disagree with the (exemption) judge's decision," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said. "We believe the (exemption) orders are legal and appropriate."

Navy spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Cindy Moore said the military was studying the decision.

The president signed a waiver January 15 exempting the Navy and its anti-submarine warfare exercises from a preliminary injunction creating a 12 nautical-mile no-sonar zone off Southern California. The Navy's attorneys argued in court last week that he was within his legal rights.

Environmentalists have fought the use of sonar in court, saying it harms whales and other marine mammals.

"It's an excellent decision," said Joel Reynolds, attorney for the National Resources Defense Council, which is spearheading the legal fight. "It reinstates the proper balance between national security and environmental protection."

The Navy last week wrapped up a training exercise by the carrier strike group of the USS Abraham Lincoln in which sonar was used. There are currently no task force training exercises off the coast of California using sonar.

When he signed the exemption, Bush said complying with the law would "undermine the Navy's ability to conduct realistic training exercises that are necessary to ensure the combat effectiveness of carrier and expeditionary strike groups."

Said Reynolds: "I've always felt that the president's actions were illegal in this case, and the judge has affirmed that point of view with the decision today

Posted by mikki at 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gingerbread K-9 (from Doctor Who):

A tasty replica of K-9 from Doctor Who, by livejournaller therru: Link. This same nerd baker also crafted a tasty Tardis last year, and here are instructions. (thanks, AV)

Posted by mikki at 03:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Shocking story. After all, what kind of monster would attack a woman on crutches anyway? Perhaps if more people WOULD get involved like this (and the mug shot of the guy that you can see if you click on the link shows that they weren't gentle in dealing with the animal) there might be fewer crimes.

Police: Good Samaritans Stop Rape In Progress - News Story - KPTV Portland:


SALEM, Ore. -- Five Good Samaritans stopped a rape in progress in a south Salem neighborhood, according to police.
Officers said a 22-year-old woman on crutches was walking near the intersection of Liberty and Boone streets southeast just before 1 a.m. Saturday when she was attacked and assaulted by 37-year-old Paul Landingham.
According to authorities, a car with five people was driving by, saw what was happening and came to the woman's rescue.
Three men pulled Landingham off the woman and held him until police arrived at the scene.

Posted by mikki at 03:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nice to see a positive story about the dogs once in awhile.

SJ Prosecutors Credit Dog For Cracking Sexual Assault Case - News Story - KNTV | San Francisco:




Saturday, October 27, 2007, 11:52 amSAN JOSE, Calif. -- San Jose police said a protective pit bull played a part in the arrest of a man accused in the attempted sexual assault and burglary of a San Jose woman.

According to police reports, the 31-year-old single mom had just returned to her home after a birthday celebration in June when she was attacked by a stranger who was already in her home.

The man began strangling her as she tried to stab him with her keys, police said.Then, the woman’s pit bull, Maya, came running in from the other room.


The woman told NBC11 she encouraged her dog to attack the intruder. Maya began to tear and rip at the intruder’s arms, police said. The man tried to fight the dog off with one hand while the other hand was around the woman’s throat. "That's when I grabbed him," said the victim, "where the sun doesn't shine." The attacker let her go and fled, police said.


When police arrived at the scene to help, they discovered that Maya had a smudge of blood above her right eye. Officer Iain Fry believed that the blood could be from the intruder. He wasn’t sure if the blood might provide a DNA sample. "We never thought they would even run them," Fry said of the swabs. "I mean, there's no way -- you are talking about one drop of blood on a dog's head. A million to one."



The Santa Clara County crime lab extracted human DNA from the swab. It was then matched through the state's database of samples taken from anyone convicted of a felony and those arrested or charged with a homicide or sex offense. Ultimately, all information led to 37-year-old Anthony Easley, police and prosecutors said. Officers apprehended the suspect. Easley was previously convicted of two sexual felonies in Solano County, according to court documents. He also was convicted of robbery in Contra Costa County. Now, as a third striker, he faces life in prison if convicted, said Santa Clara County prosecutor Michael Fletcher.

Posted by mikki at 03:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Paying For Your Own Funeral - August 24, 2007:


AUGUST 24--Mike Nifong, the disgraced Duke rape case prosecutor was sent the below bill today by the North Carolina State Bar for the costs associated with the hearing that resulted in him losing his law license. The fees, which total $8897.71, range from $3000.00 for court reporter services to $43.17 for postage and $4.16 in sale tax. But in what might sting even more than when his dog ate his law license, Nifong will have to come up with the $2523.05 it cost for the disciplinary hearing commission to take his own deposition. The money is due at the bar's Raleigh office within 90 days.

Posted by mikki at 06:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

George Wallace's Shooter to Be Released:


BALTIMORE (AP) - The man who shot Alabama Gov. George Wallace during a 1972 presidential campaign stop, leaving him paralyzed and out of the race, will be released from prison this year, an official said Thursday.

Arthur Bremer is scheduled for release Dec. 16 but likely will be out earlier as he continues to accumulate credits for good behavior and for working as a prison clerk, said Rae Sheeley, a case management specialist at the Maryland Correctional Institute-Hagerstown, where Bremer is being held.

Bremer was sentenced to 53 years in prison for shooting Wallace and three bystanders at a campaign stop in Laurel, Md., on May 15, 1972.

He has served 35 years of that sentence and turns 57 years old this week.

A bullet lodged in Wallace's spine, leaving his legs paralyzed, and he was forced to abandon his presidential bid. Wallace was elected to two more terms as Alabama's governor before his death in 1998.

Posted by mikki at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Parking Spot Fight: Man Stabs Driver With Screwdriver:


SILVER SPRING, Md. - One man is repeatedly stabbed with a screwdriver. The other faces assault charges. The two were arguing over a parking spot.
Here's what police say happened in the 900 block of Bonifant Street in Silver Spring.

Edward Banya, 42, of Hyattsville, saw the 28-year-old Silver Spring man parked in a spot, it appeared the man was ready to pull out. Police say Banya thought the driver was slow to leave the spot.

The driver, whose identity the police have not released, was waiting for someone.

The two men started arguing. Banya grabbed a screwdriver and stabbed the man over and over again in the hand and torso, police say. The wounds, according to Montgomery County Police spokesman Officer Rodney Barnes, were superficial. The man was released from the hospital Tuesday night.

Police charged Banya with first-degree assault and reckless endangerment. He also faces copyright offenses after police found thousands of pirated DVD movies in his car.

Posted by mikki at 08:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Spamford Wallace Gets Sued Yet Again:


If there were a lifetime achievement award for losing lawsuits for being annoying, Sanford Wallace would be a shoo-in. Fifteen years ago, his junk faxing was a major impetus for the TCPA, the law outlawing junk faxes. Later in the 1990s, his Cyber Promotions set important legal precedents about spam in cases where he lost to Compuserve and AOL. Two years ago, he lost a suit to FTC who sued his Smartbot.net for stuffing spyware onto people's computers. And now, lest anyone think that he's run out of bad ideas, he's back, on the receiving end of a lawsuit from MySpace... More...

Posted by mikki at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"A Quest To Get More Court Rulings, Online and Free":

NY Times: "A Quest to Get More Court Rulings Online, and Free"

"The domination of two legal research services over the publication of federal and state court decisions is being challenged by an Internet gadfly who has embarked on an ambitious project to make more than 10 million pages of case law available free online.

The project is the latest effort of Carl Malamud, an activist who founded public.resource.org in March, with the broad intent of building “public works” accessible via the network, and with the specific plan to force the federal government to make information more publicly accessible."

The history of HylerLaw, here.

Posted by mikki at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Paris Hilton loses inheritance | NEWS.com.au:


PARTY princess Paris Hilton is $60 million out of pocket after her billionaire grandfather - appalled by her jail term for drink-driving offences - axed her inheritance.

Family patriarch Barron Hilton was already embarrassed by his granddaughter's wild behaviour - notably when her home sex video was leaked on the internet.

But the 79-year-old considered her 23-day sentence last month the last straw.

"He was, and is, extremely embarrassed by how the Hilton name has been sullied by Paris," says Jerry Oppenheimer, who wrote a biography of the clan called House Of Hilton.

"He now doesn't want to leave unearned wealth to his family."

Hilton senior, the only member of the family left with a sizeable stake in the huge hotel chain, has let it be known that he intends to donate to charity the $2.4bn he will gain from this month's sale of the company to private equity firm Blackstone.

The money will go to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the charity set up in the name of the founder of the family business.

Posted by mikki at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Woman Finds Black Widow Spider in Grapes:


ANDOVER, Minn. (AP) - Judy Reardon found something unexpected in the four-pound box of grapes she brought home from Costco in Coon Rapids last week. Something dangerous. As she washed off the grapes and put them in plastic bags last week, she saw something move _ a spider. With the help of her husband, she captured it alive in a jar.

"I wanted to destroy her but my husband has been keeping her _ cause I don't know why," Reardon said.

The Reardons thought the spider was a black widow but they weren't sure. They let WCCO-TV take it to the University of Minnesota's insect museum.

"There's red markings on the underside of the abdomen," professor Phil Clausen said as he confirmed it was indeed a black widow.

Reardon said she contacted the supplier of the grapes in California, and was told this happens about once a year with its grapes. But Clausen said there's a chance the spider got into the carton in Minnesota because the climate is getting warmer and black widows are turning up here more often.

"This is a very, very abnormal situation," Craig Wilson, assistant vice president for food safety for Issaquah, Wash.-based Costco Wholesale Corp., told the station. "You could use more dangerous pesticides but that causes bigger problems."

Reardon returned the grapes. She said she has no interest in suing Costco _ she just wants everyone to be careful when they bring grapes home, wash them well and check them over.

The spider's new home will be at the university's insect museum.

The black widow got its name because the females eat the males right after they mate. A black widow bite can cause people severe pain, cramping and illness, but deaths are relatively rare.

Posted by mikki at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reuters AlertNet - Brazilian blue parrot makes a comeback - report:


WASHINGTON, July 18 (Reuters) - A spectacular Brazilian blue parrot, the Lear's Macaw, has come back from the brink of extinction with more than 750 birds in the wild counted in a recent survey, wildlife conservationists said on Wednesday.
That is more than 10 times the number reported in the wild in the late 1980s, according to the American Bird Conservancy, which attributed the creature's comeback to protection of its natural habitat in the state of Bahia in northeastern Brazil.
The macaw has brilliant blue feathers with yellow patches around its beak and eyes. It nests on sandstone cliffs and feeds primarily on licuri palm nuts, the conservancy said in a statement.
Conservationists counted the number of macaws in June as the birds flew from the canyons where they roost to the feeding grounds. They found 751 Lear's Macaws. The global population of this species was just 70 birds in 1987; in 2003 it was 455, and until the June count, the estimated population was 600.
The species is currently threatened by hunting and the illegal pet trade, the conservation group said.

Posted by mikki at 03:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Missing Macaw Found 80 Miles From Home:


CLIFFSIDE PARK, N.J. (AP) - A pet macaw that flew away from its owners and went missing last weekend turned up alive and well in a most unlikely place _ 80 miles away at the Jersey shore.

Robert Daly, 25, said he was driving near his home Thursday night when he spotted the large blue and gold bird sitting quietly by the side of the road.

He called police, who captured the bird and put it into a box. Officers who had seen news reports about the bird's disappearance notified the owner, Rosalie O'Hara, and the two were reunited Friday.

"I knew it was Sophie," O'Hara told The Record of Bergen County. "She did some little shakes and gestures, and I knew it was her."

Sophia had vanished last Saturday after O'Hara's husband lost his grip on the bird while the couple were out for a walk.

The couple had been looking frantically since then and posted a $5,000 reward.

O'Hara said she is mystified how the bird, which she had raised indoors from a chick, was able to survive so long in the wild and travel 80 miles south from its home in Cliffside Park to the Jersey shore town of Seaside Park.

"I never thought I'd get her, I swear," O'Hara said.

O'Hara said she had contacted Daly to let him know he was entitled to the reward.

Posted by mikki at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Don't ever go there. Leave it safe for ME!

Ocracoke Island Named Nation's Top Beach :: WRAL.com:


RALEIGH, N.C. — Move over, Florida and Hawaii. Your beaches are no longer the best. The nation's best place to get a tan and enjoy the ocean's waves in 2007 is North Carolina's Ocracoke Island, a place so remote that even people in the offices of "Dr. Beach" - Florida International University professor Stephen Leatherman - didn't know where to find it on the map.
"It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from here," Leatherman said from Ocracoke, the first beach not in Florida or Hawaii to earn the top spot in his annual ranking of the nation's top 10 spots on the shore.
Technically, it's Ocracoke Lifeguarded Beach that is the nation's best. But Leatherman said there's little that separates those 300 yards of postcard-perfect sand from the rest of the island, almost all of which is protected from development as part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
"Here, you have 14 miles of unspoiled, undisturbed barrier beach," said Leatherman, director of Florida International's laboratory for coastal research. "Where do you find that in the world?"
Ocracoke is at the southern end of the Outer Banks, the fragile chain of barrier islands along North Carolina's coast known as the "graveyard of the Atlantic." Accessible only by boat or private plane, there are only about 800 full-time residents of the island where the pirate Blackbeard met his untimely death at the hands of the Royal Navy in 1718.
"People shouldn't come here to play golf, and don't come here for the Hilton spa or something like that," Leatherman said. "They're not going to find those things here. What you will find here - it's like going back in time with very quaint, small inns. It's my favorite getaway island beach. And it's definitely that."
Ocracoke has been a favorite of "Dr. Beach" for years - he ranked it No. 3 in 2006 and No. 2 in 2005. By winning this year, it will be retired from consideration, along with other past champions.
"Obviously, it's a great honor to be put up at the top of the heap," said Julia Howard, the administrator for the Ocracoke Island Museum and Preservation Society, who has lived on the island for 35 years.
Leatherman ranks beaches on 50 criteria, using a 1 to 5 scale. No beach has ever gotten all 250 points, and Ocracoke ranked somewhere in the 230s, he said. The sand, for example, isn't lily white, so it lost points there.
He considers only swimming beaches, which leaves out those along the Maine and Oregon coastlines, where the water is just too cold. Beaches with lifeguards get high points, as do those that balance the natural environment and the built environment.
"I'm just a stickler for detail," he said. "There's no perfect beach by the rating criteria, but there are so many great ones."
Earning the No. 1 ranking on the "Dr. Beach" list is usually a tourism booster. When the north beach at Florida's Fort De Soto was named the best in 2005, Leatherman said, the number of hits on a related Web site jumped in one day from 1,000 to 10,000.
But the remote nature of Ocracoke and its place as part of a national seashore should spare the island's 25-foot sand dunes, topped by sea oats, from an onslaught of beachcombers.
"When things are inundated with people, it isn't quite the same place any more," Howard said. "We hope people who do come here would honor our beauty and keep it looking the way it does for a long time."

Posted by mikki at 01:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - An elephant in eastern India has sparked complaints
from motorists who accuse it of blocking traffic and refusing to allow
vehicles to pass unless drivers give it food, a newspaper reported on
Monday.

The Hindustan Times said the elephant was scouting for food on a highway in
the eastern state of Orissa, forcing motorists to roll down their windows
and get out of the car.

"The tusker then inserts its trunk inside the vehicle and sniffs for food,"
local resident Prabodh Mohanty, who has come across the elephant twice, was
quoted as saying.

"If you are carrying vegetables and banana inside your vehicle, then it will
gulp them and allow you to go."

If a commuter does not wind down his window or resists opening the vehicle
door, the elephant stands in front of the car until the driver allows him to
carry out his routine inspection.

Forestry officials told the newspaper that the elephant is old and is
therefore looking for easy food.

"So far, it has not harmed anybody," said Sirish Mohanty, a forest ranger
working in the state.

"We are telling commuters regularly not to tease the elephant. But if people
don't heed to our advice and harass the tusker, then it can retaliate."

Elephants are a protected and endangered species in India, which has nearly
half of the world's 60,000 Asian elephants.

But conservationists say its population has fallen rapidly in recent years
because of loss of habitat as a result of human encroachment into forest areas.

Posted by mikki at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Parents from Fairfax County Public Schools received the following email a few minutes ago:
----
Yesterday’s tragic incident at Virginia Tech involved several FCPS graduates who were
killed or wounded. You may see an increased presence of Fairfax County Police and Virginia
State Police at some of our schools today and possibly throughout the week. This police
presence is in response to the Virginia Tech incident. Please be assured that the police
are onsite to carry out their investigation and to ensure the safety of our students while
they are in school.
-----

So what do you think? Will that make our kids even more nervous? Will stepping up police presence in a county 2 hours away from the shootings do any good? Will their presence make kids feel more secure?

I don't know what to think. The nerves are still a bit too raw.

Posted by mikki at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

'Star Trek' actor's ashes heading to space this month - CNN.com:


LAS CRUCES, New Mexico (AP) -- The ashes of James Doohan, who played chief engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott on the original "Star Trek" TV series, have been loaded into a rocket that is set to launch in New Mexico later this month.

The remains of Doohan, Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper and some 200 others were loaded into the rocket Friday by Charles Chafer, chief executive of Celestis, a Texas company that contracts with rocket firms to send cremated remains into space.

"And we're ready to go," Chafer said after inserting the silver canister.

Jerry Larson, president of Connecticut-based UP Aerospace Inc., said the rocket will be launched April 28.

Families paid $495 to have a few grams of their loved one's ashes placed on the rocket.

Chafer said he's aware of the dedication of "Star Trek" fans.

"There's no doubt that we'll find a way to accommodate fans who travel here and want to be part of that experience," he said.

Doohan died in July 2005 at age 85.

The remains of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry were blasted into space in 1997.

Posted by mikki at 06:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

MyFox New York | Man Commits Suicide Live On Webcam:


Teleford, England  -- 
A man who apparently committed suicide while using an Internet chat room with other people died of hanging, police said Friday.

The body of Kevin Whitrick, a father of two children, was found Wednesday night after a chat room user contacted police to report that the 42-year-old had "self-harmed" while online via a Webcam.

Whitrick, of Telford, a town in central England, was found hanged at his house after police were alerted to the tragedy.

In a statement released by police Whitrick's ex-wife, who declined to be named, said: "Kevin was a loving father and family man. He was always the life and soul of the party, an extremely considerate and kind person and loved by many. He will be so sadly missed by us all."

Whitrick, who had 12-year-old twins, suffered a very serious car accident in July 2006 and never returned to full health, his wife said.

Police said attempts to resuscitate Whitrick failed and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

A police investigation was being conducted, but no one was being sought by police, they said.

Police Detective Chief Inspector Jon Groves said: "Whitrick was using an Internet chat room with a number of other people at the time of his death." Police have obtained Internet files for their investigation, he said.

Posted by mikki at 12:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now if they'd only get around to banning the REST of Microsoft's products in favor of open source.... oh wait. I think I'm dreaming again.

Federal Agency Bans Microsoft Vista:


The Transportation Department is refusing to upgrade its computers with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista, citing concern over costs and compatibility issues. The agency's chief information officer imposed an "indefinite moratorium" on upgrading to Office 2007 and Internet Explorer 7.

Posted by mikki at 08:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Maybe I'll actually be able to go OUT again. I'd really like that.

Md. Senate Committee OKs Smoking Ban:


ANNAPOLIS, Md. - A panel of Maryland senators voted Monday to ban smoking in bars and restaurants, a vote seen as a critical first step for passage of a statewide smoking ban this year.

The 6-5 vote by the Senate Finance Committee means the full Senate will vote in coming days on whether to approve the ban, long advocated by health activists but opposed by some restaurant owners. A House committee is considering a similar smoking ban, with a vote expected in that committee by midweek.

If approved, Maryland's ban would take effect in January and ban smoking in all indoor public areas, including bars. Delaware and Washington D.C. already require smoke-free bars and restaurants.

Posted by mikki at 08:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Boston lead singer found dead in his home - CNN.com:


WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Brad Delp, the lead singer of the 1970s and '80s rock band Boston was found dead at his home in southern New Hampshire on Friday, local police said.

Delp, 55, apparently was home alone and there was no indication of foul play, Atkinson, New Hampshire, police said.

With Delp's big, high-register voice, Boston scored hits with "More Than a Feeling," "Long Time," and "Peace of Mind."

The band's popularity peaked in the late 1970s, but it remained active off and on, producing its last album "Corporate America" in 2002.

Delp was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and bought his first guitar at age 13 after seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, according to his Web site. Since 1994, he spent his spare time working in a tribute band called Beatle Juice, the band's Web site said.

The band's Web site carried a statement, "We've just lost the nicest guy in rock and roll."

Posted by mikki at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Americans believed poisoned in Moscow - CNN.com:


MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Two American women have been released from a Moscow clinic after they were hospitalized with possible thallium poisoning, a hospital official said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Marina Kovalevsky, 42, and her daughter Yana, 26, were well enough to walk out of Sklifosovsky Clinic Wednesday and were expected to leave the country shortly.

The U.S. Embassy confirmed earlier on Wednesday that the women had possibly been poisoned from thallium, a radioactive element.

Moscow's top public health doctor, Nikolai Filatov, said thallium poisoning had been confirmed, according to the RIA-Novosti news agency. (Watch how the investigation is progressing)

U.S. Consular officials had visited them in the clinic and were in contact with family members in Russia. The embassy declined to give more details.

The Russian media said both women were Soviet-born and emigrated to the United States in 1989, and that they had often visited Russia since then. Reports said they arrived in Moscow in mid-February for a wedding, according to The Associated Press.

Russian authorities are investigating how they may have been poisoned, the embassy told CNN. Typical symptoms of thallium poisoning include dehydration, heart complications and hair loss.

Thallium is a colorless, tasteless substance that can be fatal in doses of as little as one gram and has the reputation as a poison of choice for assassins.

It was used by Saddam Hussein to kill several of his Iraqi opponents, AP said. The CIA also reportedly considered using thallium against Fidel Castro, the agency added.

In November, former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital in a suspected radioactive poisoning.

Posted by mikki at 01:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Swiss accidentally invade Liechtenstein - Boston.com:


Swiss accidentally invade Liechtenstein
March 2, 2007
ZURICH, Switzerland --What began as a routine training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein.
According to Swiss daily Blick, the 170 infantry soldiers wandered just over a mile across an unmarked border into the tiny principality early Thursday before realizing their mistake and turning back.
A spokesman for the Swiss army confirmed the story but said that there were unlikely to be any serious repercussions for the mistaken invasion.
"We've spoken to the authorities in Liechtenstein and it's not a problem," Daniel Reist told The Associated Press.
Officials in Liechtenstein also played down the incident.
Interior ministry spokesman Markus Amman said nobody in Liechtenstein had even noticed the soldiers, who were carrying assault rifles but no ammunition. "It's not like they stormed over here with attack helicopters or something," he said.
Liechtenstein, which has about 34,000 inhabitants and is slightly smaller than Washington DC, doesn't have an army.

Posted by mikki at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Stupid Man may lose license for driving ...:


Man may lose license for driving around with his cockatoo on his shoulder. When asked to comment, the driver said, "Arrrr"

Posted by mikki at 09:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In yet another case of "who the hell authorized THAT?" this poor little enclave, too small to even be called a "town" asks for a truck, gets a truckload of money, and is prohibited from using it to buy a truck. Wait a minute, what's all this about? Do they actually have to use this money to protect their cheese monument? This is just too weird to be true...

Firefighters' windfall comes with a catch - The Boston Globe:


When the fire department in the tiny Berkshire hamlet of Cheshire needed a new fire truck, it asked Uncle Sam for a little help.
The response last month was stunning: a $665,962 homeland security grant.
The award was nearly 26 times the annual budget of the volunteer fire department in the town of 3,500. And the rub: The department is not allowed to spend it on a fire truck.
Instead, the town won a grant to fortify the ranks of its volunteer brigade. Its selectmen plan to huddle later this month to hash out a spending plan.
Asked how the money will be spent, Cheshire Fire Chief George Sweet cryptically replied yesterday: "Rome wasn't built in a day."
Sweet said he couldn't say much more about the windfall. Indeed, Cheshire's officialdom is a nervous wreck over it and is reviewing federal grant guidelines.
"We've never had this much money dropped in our laps," said Cheshire town administrator Mark Webber. "People get fined and go to jail because they don't handle money like this properly."
Just as Boston, New York, and Washington complained last year when their homeland security grants were reduced while other less likely terrorist targets received more, the Cheshire money seemed to underscore the puzzling nature of some of the agency's spending habits.
The town does have the Cheshire Cheese Monument, a sizable concrete sculpture of a cheese press commemorating a 1,450-pound cheese hunk given by town elders to Thomas Jefferson in 1801. But its value as a terrorist target is not readily apparent.

Posted by mikki at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Homeless Men Save Boat Owner Who Slips Into Channel:


WASHINGTON - Three homeless men are being hailed as heroes, except no one knows who they are.

When a Washington Marina boat owner slipped on an ice-covered dock and fell into the Washington Channel Monday night, one of the three homeless men heard his cries.

>That man jumped a fence and ran down the dock. The man couldn't pull the boat owner from the water but he did hold on. As he held on, two other homeless men flagged down D.C. Harbor Patrol Officer Hilliard Dean who had already been called to the area to look for somebody in the water.

The two homeless men boosted Dean over a 7-foot fence so he could get to the scene. Dean and the first homeless man pulled the boat owner from the frigid waters right near the Fish Market.

"He couldn't pull himself out. He was too cold," Dean said.

The victim later told Dean, "All he knew was the homeless person who was holding on to his one arm had told him to stay with him. 'I got you. You're not going to go anywhere. You're not going to die tonight. I have you. I have.'"

The victim, who suffered hypothermia, said he had been wearing dress shoes on the icy dock when he slipped. Once he was in the water, he says he slipped under the water and the homeless man pulled his head back up.

Posted by mikki at 01:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

'Poe toaster' visits writer's grave for 58th year - CNN.com:


BALTIMORE, Maryland (AP) -- For the 58th straight year, a mysterious visitor left birthday cognac and roses at Edgar Allan Poe's grave Friday, and he was watched by more onlookers than ever, a faithful viewer said.

Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum, said 55 people braved a chilly morning to glimpse the annual ritual of the mysterious visitor known as the Poe toaster.

"If I were the Poe toaster, and I saw and heard that crowd, I wouldn't show up," Jerome said before the ceremony.

As in years past, the visitor placed a half-empty bottle of cognac and three red roses at the grave on Poe's birthday, Jerome said.

Once it realized who he was, the crowd rushed to one of the cemetery's entrances to get a glimpse, and the toaster slipped out another way, Jerome said.

He said this year's crowd was large but well behaved, unlike last year when watchers tried to interfere with the tribute.

Jerome said he would no longer describe the visitor or what he was wearing because of last year's unruly spectators.

One onlooker Friday dressed up to look like the Poe toaster had in a previous year, said Jerome, who has seen the mystery visitor every January 19 since 1976.

Starting in 1949, a frail figure made the visit to Poe's grave. In 1993, the original visitor left a cryptic note saying, "The torch will be passed." A later note said the man, who apparently died in 1998, had handed the tradition on to his sons.

Poe, who wrote poems and horror stories such as "The Raven" and "The Telltale Heart," was born in Boston and raised in Richmond, Virginia. He died October 7, 1849, in Baltimore at the age of 40 after collapsing in a tavern.

Posted by mikki at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This will be an interesting case to watch, albeit sad that something bad like this happened.

MySpace Sued by Victims' Parents:


News Corp. is sued by the families of four underage girls sexually abused by men they met on the social networking site. By the Associated Press.

Posted by mikki at 02:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My favorite author and philosopher of all time, Robert Anton Wilson, author of the Illuminatus!, Cosmic Trigger, and other wonderful books, left his body on the lovely binary date of 1/11/07 after a long battle with polio. His books, writings, and classes touched me deeply, helping me expand my thinking into places I hadn't previously been capable of going.

I will miss him so very very much.

Posted by mikki at 07:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ancient ice shelf snaps, breaks free from Canadian Arctic - CNN.com:


TORONTO, Ontario (AP) -- A giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has snapped free from Canada's Arctic, scientists said.

The mass of ice broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 800 kilometers (497 miles) south of the North Pole, but no one was present to see it in Canada's remote north.

Scientists using satellite images later noticed that it became a newly formed ice island in just an hour and left a trail of icy boulders floating in its wake. (Watch the satellite images that clued in ice watchers)

Warwick Vincent of Laval University, who studies Arctic conditions, traveled to the newly formed ice island and could not believe what he saw.

"This is a dramatic and disturbing event. It shows that we are losing remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years. We are crossing climate thresholds, and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead," Vincent said Thursday.

In 10 years of working in the region he has never seen such a dramatic loss of sea ice, he said.

The collapse was so powerful that earthquake monitors 250 kilometers (155 miles) away picked up tremors from it.

Posted by mikki at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is really weird. Where does freedom of the press end? Was this even "news?" Do we give sensationalistic shows like this the same privileges as we give Walter Cronkite? How many questions are TOO many questions? :-)

Law.com - Family of Mother of Missing Boy Sues CNN's Nancy Grace, Says Grilling Led to Suicide:


Relatives of a mother who committed suicide after CNN's Nancy Grace aggressively questioned her about the disappearance of her son sued the network and the talk-show host Tuesday, accusing Grace of pushing the woman over the edge.

Melinda Duckett shot herself to death on Sept. 8, one day after taping a segment on Grace's CNN Headline News show in which Grace interrogated Duckett about her whereabouts on the August day that 2-year-old Trenton Duckett was reported missing. The network aired the segment after Melinda Duckett's death.

Investigators have since named Melinda Duckett as the prime suspect in his disappearance.

Jay Paul Deratany, the attorney for Duckett's estate, said that Grace encouraged Duckett to appear on her show by saying the goal was to draw public attention to help find the boy.

"It's not just about the questioning. It's about the misrepresentation with the knowledge that she was emotionally distraught," Deratany said. The attorney said Grace improperly took on the role of a law enforcement officer.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

CNN Headline News said in a statement: "We stand by Nancy Grace and fully support her, as we have from the beginning of this matter."

Posted by mikki at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ACSBlog: The Blog of the American Constitution Society: How Not To Speak To a Judge:


Florida attorney Jack Thompson recently lost a case seeking to enjoin the sale of "Bully", a video game which puts the player in the shoes of a high school ruffian. In response to his loss, Thompson delivered a letter to the judge in the case:

Dear Judge Friedman:
Now that you have consigned innumerable children to skull fractures, eye injuries from slingshots, and beatings with baseball bats, without a hearing as to the danger, let me tell you a few things, with all respect for your office and with no respect for the arbitrary way in which you handled this matter. I can handle an adverse ruling by a judge. I’ve had plenty of those in my lifetime, and that’s fine. But the way you conducted yourself today helps explain why a great Dade County Judge, the late Rhea Pincus Grossman, could not abide you. She was not the only one . . . .

Thompson, who said of himself that "I am a Christian. I am not charged with winning these battles; I am charged with fighting them. I have done the right thing," concludes his letter with a threat to the judge:

Next time you promise a “hearing,” I’ll bring a parent with me whose kid is in the ground because of a kid who trained to kill him or her on a violent video game. Try mocking that person, I dare you.
The full text of the letter is available here.

Posted by mikki at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Note from Robert Anton Wilson and his daughter:


Mark Frauenfelder:

Earlier this week I wrote about writer Robert Anton Wilson's unfortunate situation (the short story: he has no money, has a few months left to live, and was facing eviction from his apartment). Yesterday, I wrote an update.

Today, I received this email from Bob's daughter, which contains a note from Bob. It's very moving. People opened their hearts and their wallets, and Bob is going to be able to live out his remaining days in peace. Thank you all very much.

On behalf of my Dad, RAW (Bob), I want to throw my arms around you "like a

circle 'round the sun!" for your loving graciousness in posting Bob's need

on your site. As of about 5 minutes ago, over $68,000 has come in. We are

all overjoyed as it now means that we can continue to celebrate this phase

of his life in the comfort of his own home, with all the care he needs,

until his passing, honored by the loving support of so, so many wondrous

folks. Just last week I was sick with heartache as we were faced with

giving his notice and now, the world has simply and completely -

transformed. Last night, he dictated a note that he wanted me to forward to

you - below is the text. He is very weak, cannot sit up or eat on his own,

and as he struggled with a whispery voice to express his gratitude, he broke

into tears several times. How my heart swelled as I gazed at this man who

has been both one of the most frustrating - and incredible - beings I have

ever known. I would not be who I am today, had I not grown up with him.

Much love, Christina Pearson

BOB'S NOTE:

Dear Friends, my God, what can I say. I am dumbfounded, flabbergasted, and

totally stunned by the charity and compassion that has poured in here the

last three days.

To steal from Jack Benny, "I do not deserve this, but I also have severe leg

problems and I don't deserve them either."

Because he was a kind man as well as a funny one, Benny was beloved. I find

it hard to believe that I am equally beloved and especially that I deserve

such love.

Whoever you are, wherever you are, know that my love is with you.

You have all reminded me that despite George W. Bush and all his cohorts,

there is still a lot of beautiful kindness in the world.

Blessings.

Robert Anton Wilson

Posted by mikki at 04:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This man risks life in prison by turning over evidence in a crime he committed. But he did it anyway. Why? To protect a little girl. Bravo for him! Obviously, burglary is wrong and he should be punished, but he still did what he could to save another human being from unspeakable acts. And what he did put the monster in jail.

MercuryNews.com | 05/07/2006 | Risking a life term to protect a child:


Matthew Ryan Hahn glared in disbelief at the digital photographs of a man molesting a girl. She was only a year old, maybe 2.

The next thing to do would be obvious -- call police. But Hahn had been convicted of burglary more than once. And the memory card on which he discovered the photos came from a stolen safe.

Hahn knew being nabbed for another crime could make him a three-striker and send him to prison for life. But the images were burned into his mind. One photo showed some freshly overturned earth -- could the little girl already have been killed and buried?

Posted by mikki at 01:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

CNN.com - UK: No visits from little green men - May 8, 2006:


LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Hopes or fears -- that the Earth has been visited by alien life forms have been dismissed in an official report by British defense specialists.

The Ministry of Defense confirmed on Sunday a secret study completed in December 2000 had found no evidence that "flying saucers" or unidentified flying objects were anything other than natural phenomena.

The 400-page report, released under freedom of information laws to an academic from the northern city of Sheffield, concluded that meteors and unusual atmospheric conditions could explain UFO sightings such as bright lig

Posted by mikki at 04:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Eccleston will play Number Six:

The Village revisited slated for 2007

Tech Digest He may have vanished from your Dr Who screensaver, but Christopher Eccleston isn't done with being a geek hero just yet: Doctor Nine will regenerate as Number Six in Granada's £10m remake of the 60s classic The Prisoner, confirming the El Reg story yesterday linking the in-demand thesp with the role.…

Posted by mikki at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One Internet or Many?:

One theme in the book is that an evolving balkanization of the internet is often driven by consumer preference. A good example is the suprising decline in the use of the English language on the Web.

From Ch. 3

The Economist confidently stated in in 1996 that “English may now be impregnable established as the world standard language: an intrinsic part of the global communications revolution.” A New York Times article written the same year, titled “World Wide Web: Three English Words,” asserted that “if you want to take full advantage of the Internet there is only one real way to do it: learn English.”

That turned out not to be true. English was dominant at first. But it faded fast. By the end of 2002, less than half of the web pages were still in English, and the flights from English just continued — babelization, if not balkanization.

Today, David Sifry and Ethan Zuckerman write on “the surprising possibility that Japanese may have unseated English as the dominant language of the blogosphere.” According to Sifry’s fascinating survey, ”

Something that may come as a surprise (at least to the English-speaking world) is that English isn’t the biggest language of the blogosphere. In fact, English isn’t even the primary language of one third of all posts that Technorati tracks anymore.

If you look at the survey, you’ll notice other oddities too. French accounts for but 2% of technocrati blogging, for example, despite being one of the world’s most widespread languages.

So much for those ten years I spent in French lessons (yet fortunate that I’ve had 3 months of Japanese, kamon).

Posted by mikki at 08:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have no problem helping people who need help. Any of us could find ourselves in the position of needed a hand from our friends, religious groups, or our governments. However, isn't assistance meant as a TEMPORARY measure to get people back on their feet so they can fend for themselves? Looks like the US isn't the only country that has the issues of "gimme MORE because I DESERVE IT".

The Sun Online - News: Family's pleadin' cheek:


A FAMILY of ten is demanding their council give them a TEN-bedroom mansion.
Sue McFadden, 54, says she needs the space for her three children and six grandchildren.

The family lives in a three-bed semi in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire. Only one of the four adults works — so they rake in the equivalent of £32,000-a-year in benefits.

Sue says she’d like a luxury shower room, two bathrooms and a plush fitted kitchen — in the posh suburbs of Chester.

She said: “I feel like old Mother Hubbard cooped up in here with all these kids.”

“The council offered me a six-bedroom house but it’s on the same road as my ex-husband — so I turned that one down.

“One of my daughters was offered a one-bed flat but she didn’t want it because she relies on my help and she doesn’t want any of the kids to be separated.”

Eldest daughter Teresa, 33, claims she can’t work because she’s suicidal and relies on her mum to look after her five children Kyle, 16, CJ, 11, Courtney, seven, Tyler, eight and Lucas, four.

Debbie, 32, has a five-year-old daughter Jodie and says she is too busy babysitting to work while Tammy, 23, is a clothes shop assistant.

But the council says the family has the biggest house available.

A spokesman added: “We only have three five-bedroom and four six- bedroom houses in Ellesmere Port and Neston, which people are currently living in.

“As they wish to stay together unfortunately there isn’t anything we can do at the moment.”

Posted by mikki at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Harvard Gazette: Missing link crawls out of muck:


Paleontologists have discovered fossils of a species that provides the missing evolutionary link between fish and the first animals that walked out of water onto land about 375 million years ago. The newly found species, Tiktaalik roseae, has a skull, a neck, ribs, and parts of the limbs that are similar to four-legged animals known as tetrapods, as well as fishlike features such as a primitive jaw, fins, and scales.

These fossils, found on Ellesmere Island in Arctic Canada, are the most compelling examples yet of an animal that was at the cusp of the fish-tetrapod transition. The new find is described by scientists at Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia in two related research articles highlighted on the cover of the April 6 issue of Nature.

"This previously unknown, extinct animal represents the beginning of the emergence of fish onto land, and the evolutionary transformation of fins into limbs," says Farish A. Jenkins Jr., Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard and curator of mammalogy and vertebrate paleontology at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. "The skeletal material is three-dimensional and exquisitely preserved; most material this old tends to be flattened or otherwise distorted. The geometry of the limb joints clearly indicates that segments of the fin could move independently. The 'shoulder' and 'elbow' could flex, and the 'wrist' could extend, converting the fin into postures appropriate to support the body from below and propel the animal on land."

Posted by mikki at 08:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Giant turkey-like dinosaur discovered:


David Pescovitz:

Scientists discovered the remains of a new giant turkey-like carnivorous dinosaur in southern Utah. Based on the fossilized hand and foot bones found in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and other related skeletons found in Asia, the scientists from the University of Utah and the Utah Museum of Natural History say that the animal was probably seven feet tall.

From a University of Utah News Release (illustration by Michael Skrepnick):

The new dinosaur, formally dubbed Hagryphus giganteus, which means "giant four-footed, bird-like god of the western desert” in reference to the animal's outward resemblance to a large land bird, its giant stature, and its discovery in the Utah desert. Hagryphus is a member of the oviraptorosaurs, a group of bird-like feathered dinosaurs with toothless beaks, powerful arms and formidable claws...

One bony claw of Hagryphus preserves the impression of the keratinous fingernail-like that would have covered the claw in life.

Posted by mikki at 06:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

CNN.com - 'South Park's' Chef back -- but not Hayes - Mar 21, 2006:


The tenth season of "South Park" will launch Wednesday with a new episode titled "The Return of Chef!", marking the "triumphant homecoming" of lusty school cafeteria cook James "Chef" McElroy to the show, the network said in a statement.

Hayes, 63, himself a follower of Scientology, surprised producers a week ago by announcing he was leaving the series because he objected to its "inappropriate ridicule" of religion, though he made no reference to the show's spoof of Scientology last fall.

Two days later, Comedy Central abruptly pulled a scheduled repeat of that episode, titled "Trapped in the Closet." Sources close to the show said the rerun was canceled after Cruise threatened to boycott promotion of his upcoming film, "Mission: Impossible III," for sister studio Paramount Pictures. \

Posted by mikki at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

CNN.com - Cyclone hits Australia 'like atomic bomb' - Mar 20, 2006:


CAIRNS, Australia (AP) -- Metal roofs littered streets, wooden houses were reduced to splinters, banana plantations were stripped bare -- all victims of the most powerful cyclone to lash Australia's east coast in decades.

Amazingly, there were no fatalities and only 30 people suffered minor injuries as cyclone Larry pounded northeastern Queensland state early Monday with winds gusting to 290 kilometers per hour (180 mph). Damage was expected to run into hundreds of millions of dollars.

Hardest hit was Innisfail, a farming city of 8,500 people 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the tourist city of Cairns.

"It looks like an atomic bomb hit the place," Innisfail mayor Neil Clarke told Australian television. "It is severe damage. This is more than a local disaster, this is a national disaster." (Watch how Larry tore into the Australian coast -- 2:10)

Posted by mikki at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And the great conspiracy begins!

Chef didn't quit according to friends:

United States: Various news sources recently reported that Isaac Hayes had quit South Park in protest at the Scientology episode. Well, his friends are suspicious, and voiced their fears to Roger Friedman, a journalist who also knows the singer.

Isaac Hayes did not quit South Park. My sources say that someone quit it for him.




I can tell you that Hayes is in no position to have quit anything. Contrary to news reports, the great writer, singer and musician suffered a stroke on Jan. 17. At the time it was said that he was hospitalized and suffering from exhaustion...




...Friends in Memphis tell me that Hayes did not issue any statements on his own about South Park. They are mystified.




Isaac’s been concentrating on his recuperation for the last two and a half, three months, a close friend told me.




Hayes did not suffer paralysis, but the mild stroke may have affected his speech and his memory. He’s been having home therapy since it happened.




That certainly begs the question of who issued the statement that Hayes was quitting South Park now because it mocked Scientology four months ago. If it wasn’t Hayes, then who would have done such a thing?

Chef's Quitting Controversy—Fox News, 20th March 2006.

Additional tags: South Park, Isaac Hayes, Scientology.

Posted by mikki at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ABC News: Bus Driver Accused of Stranding 6-Year-Old:


DAVENPORT, Iowa Mar 9, 2006 (AP)— A school bus driver has been arrested and fired after allegedly dropping off a 6-year-old boy six miles from home. Kathryn Gilbraith, 53, is accused of telling the boy to get off the bus and walk home after he missed his stop on Monday.

A woman found the boy crying in a central Davenport neighborhood and called police, who charged Gilbraith with child endangerment.

"All he could say is, 'I need 911,'" said Jo Robbins, who discovered the Eisenhower Elementary School student near her home. "Poor little guy. He was just so scared. I sat him on my step and helped him out a bit. It's not a very good neighborhood where I live. I am just glad nothing happened to him."

Gilbraith, who lives in Milan, Ill., was fired after the incident, said Steve Watt, manager of First Student, which runs the district's bus service.

Watt said the child was picked up at his usual spot Monday morning but did not get off when the bus arrived at Eisenhower. He realized he had missed his stop when the bus started picking up students from another school, and he asked the driver to take him to Eisenhower, Watt said. That's when Gilbraith allegedly told the boy to walk home.

Posted by mikki at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bar Exam Failures Are On the Rise:


Many illustrious names are on the list of people who failed the bar exam, including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and John F. Kennedy Jr. The number of test takers failing increases each year. In California, over 50 percent fail the exam. Nationwide, 36 percent failed in 2004. By comparison, 30 percent failed in 1995. As a result of the pressure to pass, students' anxiety levels are sky-high. "I am having a nervous breakdown to the point that