A new study found that male monkeys will give up their juice rewards in order to ogle pictures of female monkey's bottoms. The way the experiment was set up, the act is akin to paying for the images, the researchers say.

The rhesus macaque monkeys also splurged on photos of top-dog counterparts, the high-ranking primates. Maybe that's like you or me buying People magazine.

The research, which will be detailed in the March issue of Current Biology, gets more interesting.

The scientists actually had to pay these guys, in the form of extra juice, to get them to look at images of lower-ranking monkeys.

Curiously, the monkeys in the test hadn't had any direct physical contact with the monkeys in the photos, so they didn't have personal experience with who was hot and who was not.

The nation's first ever mass wedding of its kind....

On September 29, 2005, 10 unmarried couples w/children will be married during a landmark event called Marry Your Baby Daddy Day. The FREE mass wedding will be officiated by the acclaimed Dr. Rev. Herbert Daughtry in Brooklyn, NY. Celebrity wedding dress designers, vendors and wedding planners have signed up to make this a very memorable and important moment in the lives of 10 loving, fantastic couples! Several celebrity VIP figures will be among the distinguished guests.

Visions of Science is a photographic awards scheme organised by Novartis Pharmaceuticals to encourage ongoing discussion about science.

So, what is a Vision of Science? To the judges of the Awards, a Vision of Science is an attention-grabbing image that gives new insight into the world of science and the workings of nature. It may show something never seen before, it may explain a scientific phenomenon, it may illustrate scientific data or it may simply be an image that shows the beauty of science.

COLONIE -- There's a new drinking policy at Siena College.

No drinking.

Of anything.

Even water. Or iced tea. Or coffee, Red Bull or lemonade. Or vodka or beer, for that matter, in case anybody gets any bright ideas.

According to a policy dated Sept. 17, students are "no longer allowed to consume alcohol or any other beverage in any type of container outside of their townhouse or in any public area on campus."

College officials maintain the rule is meant to increase security after a spate of off-campus party crashers showed up early this semester, and police responded to noisy gatherings outside student apartments. Some outsiders were arrested for burglarizing apartments during those parties, using the hurly-burly for cover.

Because students weren't abiding by campus rules to register all outside guests, officials decided they had to crack down to reduce the gatherings. "Safety first, that's what it's all about," Siena spokeswoman Janet Gianopoulos said.

But does the new policy also mean a person who buys a Pepsi in a vending machine on the Loudonville campus and opens it on one of the lush quads is breaking the rules?

Yes, Gianopoulos said. But they can crack open that drink once they reach their residence, she added.

In the great pantheon of contractual obligation records, there is the noisy (Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music), the brassy (Neil Young's This Note's For You) and the phony (Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Record).

And then there is Van Morrison's Bang Records Sessions.

In order to fulfill his obligation to his early solo label Bang Records,Van Morrison sat down in 1967 or so and cranked out 31 songs on the spot, on topics ranging from ringworm to wanting a danish, to hating his record label and a guy named George. Make sure you get past the first few tunes - it takes him a few to get cooking.

A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.

Containing the most effective sunblock ingredient, Sunblock for Nails helps prevent your nail color from yellowing and fading caused by damaging UV rays. Sunblock for Nails will keep your polished nails looking fresh for up to 10 days.

Like everyone else at first, I thought the NASA/Google announcement yesterday would just be a real estate transaction: NASA has lots of empty land at Moffett Field, and Google wants to build a showcase office complex relatively near their current headquarters. No big deal.

Boy, was I wrong.

In what will likely go down in history as the moment when the Google executive staff proved once and for all that they had completely lost touch with reality, Google announced they are going to collaborate with NASA on "sensors, new materials, bio-info-nanotechnology, and recruiting entrepreneurs into the space program."

No. I am not making this up. A company which to this date has made 99.99% of all its revenue by selling advertising is now planning to branch out into nanotechnology and spaceflight. Because as we all know, running a business selling tiny classified ads on people's blogs translates perfectly into orbital mechanics and life sciences. WHAT. THE. FUCK.? Methinks some people did a few too many drugs at Burning Man this year..

Jeff, who graciously took a portion of his time (the tortoise wasn't racing away anywhere), told me that 'Franklin' is a 3-year-old African Spur Tortoise (or Geochelone sulcata as it's known in scientific terminology) and that he's cared for Franklin since he was smaller than the palm of his hand. Though, he wasn't a cheap purchase, Jeff and his family consider 'Franklin' to be an excellent value for a pet, who will probably live longer than most of us. Apparently, Tortoises can live an average of 60-80 years, with some living over the ripe age of 100! Astoundingly, he already weighs in at around 25 pounds but can grow up to 200!

Gather as many dandelion buds as possible; ~do not~ include any open or half-opened flowers. It takes a lot of them, believe me. Wash them thoroughly in several water baths, being very careful not to pull apart the tight cluster of the bud. Discard any that begin to open. Be sure all stem segments have been nipped off to the base of the buds, then soak them for~ half an hour in cold water. (This will leach out any of the white sap that may be present.) Rinse thoroughly. Pat dry on paper towels, pressing gently to remove water without crushing the buds. Using your favorite batter for deep-frying (I prefer a beer-batter of the type used for onion rings), completely coat each bud. Deep fry at 375-400F, shaking to prevent buds from sticking together, until medium brown. Drain on paper towels. Pour nuggets into a bowl, salt to taste, pop in a movie in the VCR, and enjoy. Sounds weird...tastes great.

The first step in this rather involved process is to preserve the cherries by soaking them in a brine mixture that consists of water, sulfer dioxide (as a preservative), and calcium chloride (to enhance firmness). This process will also result in drawing out most of the color and sugar from the cherries. The cherries will remain in this mixture for about five weeks.

In the next step, the yellowish-white cherries are soaked for about five days in a heated liquid sugar mixture to re-introduce just the right amount of sweetness. After that is achieved, artificial coloring is added, as well as artificial flavor.

The adherent counts presented in the list above are current estimates of the number of people who have at least a minimal level of self-identification as adherents of the religion. Levels of participation vary within all groups. These numbers tend toward the high end of reasonable worldwide estimates.

A few bedbug species make use of a mating plug, which a male inserts post-copulation. Effectively the male seals her vaginal opening upon withdrawal. This has a distinct evolutionary advantage as it prevents other males from mating with her. Some bedbug species thus employ stabbing rape, where the male impales the female via her abdomen and thus circumvents the mating plug.

October 28, 1972

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Washington, D.C.

Gentlemen:

I am a well-known author of science fiction novels, one of which dealt with Nazi Germany (called MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, it described an "alternate world" in which the Germans and Japanese won World War Two and jointly occupied the United States). This novel, published in 1962 by Putnam & Co., won the Hugo Award for Best Novel of the Year and hence was widely read both here and abroad; for example, a Japanese edition printed in Tokio (sic) ran into several editions. I bring this to your attention because several months ago I was approached by an individual who I have reason to believe belonged to a covert organization involving politics, illegal weapons, etc., who put great pressure on me to place coded information in future novels "to be read by the right people here and there," as he phrased it. I refused to do this.

The reason why I am contacting you about this now is that it now appears that other science fiction writers may have been so approached by other members of this obviously anti-American organization and may have yielded to the threats and deceitful statements such as were used on me. Therefore I would like to give you any and all information and help I can regarding this, and I ask that your nearest office contact me as soon as possible. I stress the urgency of this because within the last three days I have come across a well-distributed science fiction novel which contains in essence the vital material which this individual confronted me with as the basis for encoding. That novel is CAMP CONCENTRATION by Thomas Disch, which was published by Doubleday & Co.

Cordially,

Philip K. Dick

3028 Quartz Lane Apt. #2

Fullerton,

Calif 92361.

P.S. I would like to add: what alarms me most is that this covert organization which approached me may be Neo-Nazi, although it did not identify itself as being such. My novels are extremely anti-Nazi. I heard only one code identification by this individual: Solarcon-6.

Grab a telescope, binoculars or just a lawn chair and head out to the backyard for a night of cosmic sightseeing. Our monthly stargazing guide keeps you informed about constellations, deep sky objects, planets, and events.

At the Star Wars Blooper Guide, our goal is to be the most comprehensive guide to bloopers, mistakes and interesting bits of trivia that made it on screen in the Star Wars series of films. In total, we now have over TWO HUNDRED BLOOPERS from all four movies combined.

Paint white cells on the board as fast as possible, by way of the well-known chess knight movement rule.

Stanislav Evgrafovich Petrov (Russian: Станислав Евграфович Петров) (born c. 1939) is a retired Russian Army colonel who, on September 26, 1983, averted a potential nuclear war by refusing to accept that the United States had launched missiles against the USSR, despite the indications given by his computerized early warning systems. The Soviet computer reports were later shown to have been in error, and Petrov is credited with preventing World War III and the devastation of much of the Earth by nuclear weapons. Because of military secrecy and international policy, Petrov's actions were kept secret until 1998.

This exhibit contains the ninety-nine photographs that comprise a unit of the Spanish Civil War Collection held at Mandeville Special Collections Library at the University of California, San Diego. Acquired in 2002, the images are of the people and events of the war from 1936 to 1940. It is one of the most extensive on-line exhibits of Spanish Civil War photographs to date.

Nine plays in 1:58 with a costly pass-interference call on Patriots (and former Steelers) cornerback Chad Scott. Big Ben hits Hines Ward for a four-yard TD, and here is where Belichick would have coached this game differently than Bill Cowher: he wouldn't have left so much time on the clock. The Steelers had plenty of time, 3:19, to score the tying touchdown. But they left 1:21 on the clock. Hadn't they seen Super Bowl XXXVI, when Brady went half the length of the field in 51 seconds to give Vinatieri a shot at the game-winning field goal? He doesn't need much time. Eighty-one seconds, starting at the Patriots' 38. Brady can take a Caribbean vacation in 81 seconds for crying out loud. Surely he can get a three-time world champion into field goal range in that amount of time.

A little dump pass, a safe pass, to Faulk, who catches-and-runs for 17. Ten for 10. Faulk's hurt on the play. In comes Pass, the special-teamer/spot back. Brady, in trouble ... steps up in the pocket, dunks it to Pass for 14. Eleven for 11. Dillon burrows for nothing. Fifty seconds now. Brady to Givens, again, this time for six. Twelve for 12.

Vinatieri comes in the game. Third and 4 from the Steelers' 25. Shudder through the Steelers crowd. They know what this means. Vinatieri's Mariano Rivera. Money.

Perfect snap from Lonie Paxton. Perfect hold from Josh Miller. Boink! Vinatieri boots it end over end, headed straight down the middle of the fairway. A Tiger drive. Maybe seven feet inside the left upright. Pats win, 23-20. The Steelers just left 'em too much time.

Runs like this have happened so seldom in NFL history. The Pats were 34-4 in 2003 and 2004, including the playoffs. At 2-1 now, that puts them at 36-5 since the start of the 2003 season. Start the great Miami team's clock on opening day 1972 and advance 41 games, and the Dolphins were one game better -- 37-4

I just know we're witnessing something very, very special. Corny as it sounds, even if you bleed black and gold, you've got to appreciate the greatness in progress.

It's not right to say: Root for the Patriots. You, of course, should root for your team. But I think it is right to say: Appreciate the Patriots. Their kind won't come along again for a long, long time.

Abandoned tunnels are often the object of urban legend, but Cincinnati is in fact the site of the country's largest abandoned subway tunnel. But "abandoned" is not quite the word, as construction slowed to a stop in 1925 before even half of the 16 mile line was completed. Seven miles between Cincinnati's central business district and the industrial suburb of Norwood were tunneled, bridged, or graded, but no track was laid and no subway cars were ordered. No passengers ever rode between the six stations that were built.

Journalist Rose Aguilar leaves the liberal bubble of San Francisco to bring you personal stories from people living in states that overwhelmingly voted for George W. Bush for President.

An extraordinary appeal to Americans from the Bush administration for money to help pay for the reconstruction of Iraq has raised only $600 (£337), The Observer has learnt. Yet since the appeal was launched earlier this month, donations to rebuild New Orleans have attracted hundreds of millions of dollars.

The public's reluctance to contribute much more than the cost of two iPods to the administration's attempt to offer citizens 'a further stake in building a free and prosperous Iraq' has been seized on by critics as evidence of growing ambivalence over that country.

The company didn't change a single thing in the code on my site. It instead took advantage of a piece of code Nedstat was already using. My good buddy, computer engineer Tom tracked down how things worked. Basically, Nedstat used a few lines of Javascript that did one thing, and Webstats4u turned them around to do another. The lines previous were used to increase the counter. Every time the page was hit, the script would ping Nedstat's server and tell it to bump the various counts by one.

Under the new regime, the script did a little more. Like sticking "Meet New Girls" on top of my page in large text. When the script got back to Webstats4u, it pinged a different script, not just increasng the counter but also running a program, Tom reported. This program handled a 48-hour cookie (mmmm, 48-hour cookie). If you hadn't hit a Webstats4u-using site in the previous 48 hours, the program hit another couple Javascript files, more programs, at a site called falkag.net. "A prime purveyor of Web advertising, including popups."

With the installation of Webstats4U on the site it is accepted that WMS has the right to place advertisements on the site in any format or through any channel, including but not limited to e-mail, layer ads, pops, banners and other usual formats without any forewarning and it is furthermore accepted that WMS takes no responsibility for the advertising content and that WMS shall not be liable for any losses incurred regarding this advertising.

Like I said on Friday, Nedstat/webstats4U wants to shove spam down your throat when you visit a site containing its counter/stats image. I can't have that happen to you, so I removed the counter.

Hortense Davis is waiting at the Houston Greyhound station for a bus that may not be coming.

The 73-year-old woman called the Red Cross today to find out what she should do about the storm. She said she was told to go to the bus station and tell them she had no money and needs to get out of the city.

"But when I got here, they said they couldn't help me," she said. "So now I'm just sitting here."

Davis is trying to evacuate to Lufkin because she is scared hurricane Rita is going to causing major flooding in Houston.

"I'm stuck here," she said. "I don't have anywhere else to go."

Liquid Sculpture is the process of creating shapes by dropping and splashing water, or other liquids. These sculptures are then photographed, since they last only a few thousandths of a second. Creating and capturing these engaging forms requires careful manipulation of the materials and precise control of the lighting and timing.

The choosing of the design was not, however, an easy process. Unlike getting a mundane tattoo now, a moko took months of approval and planning on the part of the elders and other family members. First the elders decided whether one was worthy of receiving a moko. One of the questions they need answered with an unwavering yes was: "are they committed to wearing their tribal identity on their body for the rest of their life?" Then the design process would begin by taking into account the tribal history, which was the most important component of the moko. Next elements representative of the individual and their position in the tribe were added. Only when the design carried proper significance in relation to the individual and their tribe was it approved. Although many peoples’ mokos looked similar, no two were ever exactly the same. Getting a moko was not taken lightly; it was a sacred cultural rite, and a spiritual experience.

In case of alien abduction these dog tags may save your life. The crucial data an alien will need to get you back to Earth is die stamped into these dog tags.

The design is based on NASA research for the Pioneer 10 Space Mission that used a gold plaque attached to the craft to inform any Extraterrestrials of it's Earthly origin.

Professor Hawking has given many lectures to the general public. Many of these past lectures have been released in his 1993 book, 'Black Holes and Baby Universes, and other essays'. Below are some of the more recent public lectures. Included with these lectures is a Glossary of some of the terms used.

While satellite TV sets aboard JetBlue Flight 292 were tuned to news broadcasts, some passengers cried. Others tried to telephone relatives and one woman sent a text message to her mother in Florida attempting to comfort her in the event she died.

"It was very weird. It would've been so much calmer without" the televisions, Pia Varma of Los Angeles said after the plane skidded to a safe landing Wednesday evening in a stream of sparks and burning tires. No one was hurt.

Okay, "quintessential" might be going a little far, but it's enough to frighten me. The idea of this project was to create a fully-automated sentry gun, capable of picking out a human target and accurately tracking and shooting him or her in the heart. Really, the idea was to find a cool robotics project for the summer while I was working at an advertising agency, and I'd only ever seen sentry guns in movies (like Congo) and video games (Half-Life 1, Half-Life 2, Team Fortress Classic). I couldn't find any record of anyone building one, even the military, although it seems likely I just didn't look hard enough. It's a pretty simple technology.

Prisoners, Families and Friends ...
Were you in the Visiting Room? ... On Vacation?
With Composite Magic Photos you Could NEVER Tell The Difference!

Are you tired of seeing you and your family in dozens of photos taken in the Visiting Room over the years ... all with the same old boring Visiting Room backdrops?

Every family has its secrets. There are things parents never tell children. There are lies that become family legend. There are stories that were never meant to be told.

Judith Hartmann's secret, when she married Bill Myers in 1959, was that she was pregnant by a black man.

When the baby born to two white parents came out black, the secret became a lie.

Throughout his childhood, David Myers was told that his skin color was a disease called melanism. He was lucky, his mother said, because the skin discoloration was all over his body, instead of just splotches of brown like most people had.

So despite his dark skin, Myers grew up in white, middle-class neighborhoods in Ohio and New York believing he was white.

Oak Island Money Pit Cipher Stone (solved, though alleged treasure still unrecovered) - In 1795, a teenager discovered a deep pit on Oak Island in Nova Scotia, along with hints that there was a great treasure at the bottom. Over the next two hundred years, multiple well-financed attempts have been made to learn what is hidden, but have been repeatedly foiled due to the unstable nature of the surrounding land, and the tendency for deep tunnels to suddenly flood with water. Something is obviously there, because various tantalizing artifacts from 300 years ago have been obtained, such as a pair of scissors, an encrypted stone tablet, barriers of oak logs, and other man-made objects deep below the ground. In 1976, a camera lowered into a subterranean chamber allegedly recorded images of wooden chests, tools, and a body, before the unstable land again collapsed the exploration tunnel. And in 2002, a report was supposedly produced by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute with more recent information. In any case, along with large amounts of money which have been sunk into this quest, multiple lives have also been lost attempting to solve the mystery.

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MapStats is a merger of traditional statistic/counter programs and the powerful Google Maps. You can instantly see both dynamically and easily. Because of its uniqueness, there are a few quirks that can confuse people.

EL ALTO, Bolivia - In her red multilayered skirt, white pumps and gold-laced shawl, the traditional dress of the Aymara people, Ana Polonia Choque might well be preparing for a night of folk dancing or, perhaps, a religious festival.

But as Carmen Rosa, master of the ring and winner of 100 bone-crunching bouts in Bolivia's colorful wrestling circuit, she is actually dressing for a night of mayhem.

With loyal fans screaming out her name, she climbs the corner ropes high above the ring, bounces once for momentum and flies high, arms outstretched for maximum effect. To the crowd's delight, the dive flattens her adversary, María Remedios Condori, better known as Julia la Paceña (Julia from La Paz).

The Christian Tattoo Association is a non-profit, tax-exempt ministry to tattoo artists and enthusiasts. The main goal of the CTA is to share the Gospel with tattoo artists and enthusiasts. This is achieved by attending local and national tattoo conventions, developing relationships which provide avenues for personal witnessing, sharing our faith through the internet, printed page and conducting bible studies and worship services. The CTA is not a Christian society trying to separate Christian tattooers and tattoo enthusiasts from the influences of the world. We are a ministry designed to assist born-again Christians in taking the Gospel of Jesus to those who have not yet heard the good news.

We have selected photographs to illustrate the variations in shape and size of volcanoes. Many of the pictures were taken by astronauts who were orbiting the Earth on the Space Shuttle. Most of the astronaut pictures were taken using normal color film and show what you would see if you were riding in the Shuttle.

The World of Mr. Denny is a place of tall, cool drinks, bird calls and enchanting women (or at least one woman in particular). Put on your best loud shirt and come along with us...

"Captain Cook was advanced a few paces before the Marines when they fired, the Stones flew as thick as hail which knocked the Lieut. down & as he was rising a fellow stuck him in the back with a Spear, however he recovered himself shot the Indian dead and escaped into the Water. Captain Cook was now the only Man on the Rock, he was seen walking down towards the Pinnace, holding his left hand against the Back of his head to guard it from the Stones & carrying his Musket under the other Arm. An Indian came running behind him, stopping once or twice as he advanced, as if he was afraid that he should turn round, then taking him unaware he sprung to him, knocked him on the back of his head with a large Club taken out of a fence, & instantly fled with the greatest precipitation; the blow made Captain Cook stagger two or three paces, he then fell on his hand & one knee & dropped his Musket, as he was rising another Indian came running to him & before he could recover himself from the Fall drew out an iron Dagger he concealed under his feathered Cloak & stuck it with all his force into the back of his Neck, which made Capt. Cook tumble into the Water in a kind of a bite by the side of the rock where the water is about knee deep; here he was followed by a croud of people who endeavoured to keep him under water, but struggling very strong with them he got his head up & looking towards the Pinnace which was not above a boat hook's Length from him waved his hands to them for Assistance, which it seems it was not in their Power to give".

I guess there's really not much to say...I first discovered Hawaiian shirts back when I was in high school. They're loud, bright and somehow expressive of a mood or a state of mind that contradicts modern civilities and conformity. I've known many people who describe them as "ugly" or "hideous." What these people, and so many others like them don't seem to understand is that that's the point. It's amazingly freeing to adorn one's self in a garment that's sole purpose is to scream individuality, happiness, leisure...ALOHA.

A complete series of interactive lunar maps, with more than 2,500 geographic formations (including craters, mountains, lakes, seas and valleys) identified simply by moving your mouse cursor over the feature.

The millenium seemed to spur a lot of people to compile "Top 100" or "Best 100" lists of many things, including movies (by the American Film Institute) and books (by the Modern Library). Mathematicians were not immune, and at a mathematics conference in July, 1999, Paul and Jack Abad presented their list of "The Hundred Greatest Theorems." Their ranking is based on the following criteria: "the place the theorem holds in the literature, the quality of the proof, and the unexpectedness of the result."

Mission: our goal is to collect 1000 items made of bamboo.

Thai rural communities like many in Asia and South America know that eating insects provide a valuable source of protein, minerals and vitamins as well as a tasty snack. Crickets and grasshoppers or locusts are a seasonal delicacy while the giant water beetles know as mangdana are used in salads.

Using the latest canning and pasteurization techniques Insect Inter, has made it possible to ship them worldwide. The insects are fried to make crunchy snacks, that go so well with a cold beer. Try some, either just for the experience or to be remembered for your next party.

"Only approved Orange Hooters Girl Shorts are to be worn, sized to fit, and should NOT BE SO TIGHT THAT THE BUTTOCKS SHOW." That's just one of the important "image and grooming standards" addressed in the beer and boob emporium's entertaining employee handbook, key excerpts of which you'll find below. The "essence" of the chain, the handbook notes, is "entertainment through female sex appeal, of which the LOOK is a key part." While there are too many amusing parts in the handbook to point out, here's hoping that none of the buxom waitresses run afoul of the chain's Pantyhose Police. The 52-page handbook, a copy of which we found attached as an exhibit to a recent federal lawsuit, also requires Hooters Girls to sign a statement recognizing that they might be on the receiving end of some randy patron comments: "I hereby acknowledge...the work environment is one in which joking and innuendo based on female sex appeal is commonplace."

The Rosenhan experiment was an investigation into the validity of psychiatric diagnosis conducted by David Rosenhan in 1972. It was published in the journal Science under the title On being sane in insane places.

Rosenhan's study consisted of two parts. The first involved the use of healthy associates or 'pseudopatients', who briefly simulated auditory hallucinations in an attempt to gain admission to 12 different psychiatric hospitals in 5 different states in various locations in the United States. The second involved asking staff at a psychiatric hospital to detect non-existent 'fake' patients. In the first case hospital staff failed to detect a single pseudopatient, in the second the staff falsely detected large numbers genuine patients as impostors. The study is considered an important and influential criticism of psychiatric diagnosis.

I collect predominantly $1 house chips from casinos all over North America. I don't have much of an interest in old, obsolete chips, tokens, commemoratives or higher denominations, but I'll occasionally pick up something out of the ordinary that tickles my fancy. Some day I'd like to visit all of these casinos, but for the time being, I've tried to write a few words about each of the ones that I've actually visited.

Catherine Zeta Jones has been splashing out on bottles of air from the Welsh valleys.

Catherine heard about the bottles of air that are collected from Snowdonia and the Brecon Beacons.

Each bottle comes with a certificate guaranteeing the air has been gathered in the Welsh mountains.

It's amazing how much having a bad president is like having a bad boss. In an office I worked in with an incompetent manager, we could hardly do anything except talk over every detail of what he did, e.g., "Did you check out that idiotic note he was writing during the meeting? He's sitting there humming and writing it while Kofi was talking!"

So much energy spent loathing the man and what his numbskullery was doing to us.

I can't wait until a dull, competent president of either party takes over.

For forty years between 1932 and 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) conducted an experiment on 399 black men in the late stages of syphilis. These men, for the most part illiterate sharecroppers from one of the poorest counties in Alabama, were never told what disease they were suffering from or of its seriousness. Informed that they were being treated for “bad blood,”1 their doctors had no intention of curing them of syphilis at all. The data for the experiment was to be collected from autopsies of the men, and they were thus deliberately left to degenerate under the ravages of tertiary syphilis—which can include tumors, heart disease, paralysis, blindness, insanity, and death. “As I see it,” one of the doctors involved explained, “we have no further interest in these patients until they die.”

I recently went to a local estate sale and found a pile of old photo albums. Most of them had dull pictures but among them I found an album from a trip to Hawaii in 1961. The album didn't contain any pictures of the people who went on the trip but instead was a scrapbook with tickets, menus, napkins, maps, brochures, and postcards (inluding postcards of the Kona Inn, Coco Palms, and Don the Beachcomber's in Waikiki), and even some greeting cards (bon voyage and birthday cards, as it was the passenger's birthday during the cruise).

Have you ever fiddled around with an old metro ticket between two stops ? I did it for six months (in 2004, magical year) while wondering how I could give it a cool shape.

I'm very proud of how it turned out and I feel like I am the author of a little masterpiece. I got to the point where I asked myself whether the Parisian metro tickets hadn't actually been designed to enable me to one day use it as a canvas for this "work." Their proportions and even the patterns and drawings on them take part in the whole of the work. I'm not kidding, I find that there is a great underlying mystery here...

Review of Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut Jr., an indescribable writer whose seven previous books are like nothing else on earth, was accorded the dubious pleasure of witnessing a 20th-century apocalypse. During World War II, at the age of 23, he was captured by the Germans and imprisoned beneath the city of Dresden, "the Florence of the Elbe." He was there on Feb. 13, 1945, when the Allies firebombed Dresden in a massive air attack that killed 130,000 people and destroyed a landmark of no military significance.

Next to being born, getting married and having children, it is probably the most important thing that ever happened to him. And, as he writes in the introduction to "Slaughterhouse-Five," he's been trying to write a book about Dresden ever since. Now, at last, he's finished the "famous Dresden book."

In the same introduction, which should be read aloud to children, cadets and basic trainees, Mr. Vonnegut pronounces his book a failure "because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre." He's wrong and he knows it.

Kurt Vonnegut knows all the tricks of the writing game. So he has not even tried to describe the bombing. Instead he has written around it in a highly imaginative, often funny, nearly psychedelic story. The story is sandwiched between an autobiographical introduction and epilogue.

New Rule:

America must recall the president. That's what this country needs. A good, old-fashioned, California-style recall election! Complete with Gary Coleman, porno actresses and action film stars.

Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you anymore. There's no more money to spend. You used up all of that. You can't start another war because you also used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people.

Yeah, listen to your mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit card's maxed out, and no one is speaking to you: mission accomplished! Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service. And the oil company. And the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or spaceman?!

Now, I know what you're saying. You're saying that there's so many other things that you, as president, could involve yourself in...Please don't. I know, I know, there's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela, and eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church and Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote. But, sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man.

There is a spiritual civil war being waged for the heart and soul of our families and our nation. How do we win this war? One key, perhaps the key, is for godly men to rise up and fulfill their biblical calling to leadership, service, and sacrifice as husbands and fathers.

Steve Braun brings Civil War history to life to illustrate these principles in action. Dressed in Union infantry battle gear, Steve encourages men to rise above the daily distractions of life and give “the last full measure of devotion” to God and their families. His presentation artfully blends biographical sketches, letters and diaries, period and reenactment photographs, music from the movie Gettysburg, and demonstrations of Civil War military equipment with a strong Christian message and passionate preaching. It’s a challenging, yet entertaining, mix of faith, family, and history.

Italy, Sep 10 - The first cocktail ever was made in Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago, using wine, beer, apple juice and honey. Patrick McGovern defined the mix as "grog", an archaic drink in the United States is sold as the "Midas Touch".

Oil companies came under new fire yesterday when it emerged that ExxonMobil's profits are likely to soar above $10 billion this quarter on the back of the fuel crisis.

That's $110 million a day, and more net income than any company has ever made in a quarter. It's also a stunning 69 percent increase over the same period a year ago and a 34 percent jump from the $7.6 billion Exxon made just last quarter.

``Do you realize President Bush has just given a tax break to ExxonMobil?'' thundered Rep. Ed Markey (D-Malden). ``Of all the companies in the history of the world that needed a tax break, this month, ExxonMobil should be at the bottom of the list.''

The recent news that South Korea is to take the US to task over Google Earth images which expose its military installations to close Commie scrutiny has provoked a mini stampede of other peace-loving nations eager to protect their assets from prying eyes.

Enter stage right Thailand, which says it may ask Google to "block images of important state buildings vulnerable to attack". Armed forces spokeschap Major General Weerasak Manee-in told Reuters: "We are looking for possible restrictions on these detailed pictures, especially state buildings. I think pictures of tourist attractions should do, not crucial places which could threaten national security."

Well, we went and had a quick shufti at some Thai military installations, and took the opportunity to scour the Earth's surfaces for other Google satellite data which might threaten Our Way of Life. We restricted ourselves to stuff which lends itself to perusal, mostly air force bases, because (trust us on this one) you can easily waste a whole day looking for Russian ICBM installations.

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Blog Search is Google search technology focused on blogs. Google is a strong believer in the self-publishing phenomenon represented by blogging, and we hope Blog Search will help our users to explore the blogging universe more effectively, and perhaps inspire many to join the revolution themselves. Whether you're looking for Harry Potter reviews, political commentary, summer salad recipes or anything else, Blog Search enables you to find out what people are saying on any subject of your choice.

Your results include all blogs, not just those published through Blogger; our blog index is continually updated, so you'll always get the most accurate and up-to-date results; and you can search not just for blogs written in English, but in French, Italian, German, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese and other languages as well.

Summertime is rapidly approaching which means soon, in your neck of the woods, the fair is coming to town. If you're like me, you've spent tons of cash trying to win some giant bootleg Disney stuffed animal trying to throw balls into a bucket. Well waste your money no longer! Here's a handy guide on beating the carnival games so you can have the upper hand!

Our free project plans cover farm machines, the woodshop, machine shop, boats, and more. These vintage plans come from a half-century ago when do-it-yourself enthusiasts turned wood, metal and old motors into useful workhorses, functional tools, and toys.

These plans are to make a trophy fish mount ashtray.

While the thrill of catching a big fish lasts only a few minutes, the pleasure of reminisces, or telling your friends about it, can last for years if you mount the head to serve as a cigarette holder or ash tray.

The snake in this picture had eaten a full grown Impala ewe and, sadly, caught itself in an electric fence. Over four metres in length, this was a large specimen.

When the python was skinned we found a full grown Impala ewe had just been swallowed. The python kills its prey by coiling itself around the animal and constricting it. When the animal is dead the python swallows it normally head first. Having swallowed its prey, the snake will find an abandoned burrow or hollow tree in which to hide and digest it's meal.

In classical music the curse of the ninth is a fear of a ninth symphony among composers. The evidence of the curse is the surprising number of major composers who died after completing nine symphonies, or even in the course of writing their ninth. Beethoven, Dvořák and Vaughan Williams fall in the former category; Bruckner in the latter. Schubert completed his ninth symphony, but left his eighth unfinished. Schnittke did not finish his ninth symphony, though it was first performed, in unfinished form, less than two months before his death.

BERKELEY – One of the thousands of asteroids orbiting the sun has been found to have a mini planetary system of its own.

University of California, Berkeley, assistant research astronomer Franck Marchis and his colleagues at the Observatoire de Paris have discovered the first triple asteroid system - two small asteroids orbiting a larger one known since 1866 as 87 Sylvia.

Often, UPS trucks will park there for extended periods of time, dropping off their packages. I noticed that without exception, all of them have partial or completely white tops. You don't notice it from the ground, since it's just the tops of the trucks. Some of them have a single strip down the middle, others are completely white. While the single strip looks like it's made of a different material than the rest of the roof, the trucks with completely white tops just look, well, painted.

So I began to think about this, and wonder why they might be white. Asking around, I got a few theories, but knew that I needed a definitive answer. Sent UPS email about it, and lo and behold got an answer! Mystery solved? You be the judge..

RENNES — A Frenchman who has invented a beer made from fermented milk is selling about 300 bottles of it a week.

His recipe is secret, but it combines 75% milk and 25% malt with the culture used to make kefir, a traditional fermented-milk drink in the mountains of the northern Caucasus.

1: POSTAL 2: APOCALYPSE WEEKEND
(PC)
The most violent game ever made. In this game you can brutally murder innocent people in a variety of ways. The graphics are outstanding, the people look and behave very realistically, thus only adding to the disturbing morality of this Serial Killer game. You can shoot people, causing lots of blood to squirt out, and the rag doll physics send them flying, breaking every bone in their body as they get twisted up and mangled in a bloody mess. You can kick someone to death over and over, against the wall and smashing against the floor, or throw them into cactus. You can chop their heads off with a shovel and play soccer with the head, swinging the shovel, sending the head and the body bouncing all over the place. The bodies don't fade away either, so you can stack corpses into a huge pile of up to 200. A sledge hammer will smash their head into a bloody explosion of fleshy chunks and brains...

Immediately after the quake, thousands of San Franciscans left town. Almost 200,000 of them took advantage of the free transportation furnished by the Southern Pacific Railroad. An additional 100,000 camped in the parks and graveyards in the less-damaged western portion of the city.

In a stroke, the city's population was reduced by half. And with no tax base to pay them, 20 percent of the city's police officers were forced to take leaves of absence.

By summer, the military was withdrawn, and the saloons reopened. With the infusion of ready money in the form of insurance payments, an attitude of "Eat, drink and make merry" seized the town. The ferries that had transported San Francisco families to Oakland a few months earlier returned with a less savory passenger list.

Rumors "of a thieves' paradise," says chronicler Walton Bean, "had increased the number of criminals, by attracting newcomers from all over the country." Human scavengers prowled the unlighted downtown ruins, looking for targets of opportunity. The St. Francis Hotel warned its guests not to venture more than a block from the building after dark, for fear they would be robbed.

"That this city has become a refuge for desperate criminals is evident," bristled a contemporary editorial. "The city is infested with people who do not work and are well supplied with money. Brutal robberies occur in broad daylight and in crowded streets."

"Hardware dealers sold an estimated 20,000 pistols in one month," says writer Lately Thomas, "and women walked the streets clutching long hatpins." Their fears were not unfounded.

On more than one occasion President Truman referred to the desk sign in public statements. For example, in an address at the National War College on December 19, 1952 Mr. Truman said, "You know, it's easy for the Monday morning quarterback to say what the coach should have done, after the game is over. But when the decision is up before you -- and on my desk I have a motto which says The Buck Stops Here' -- the decision has to be made." In his farewell address to the American people given in January 1953, President Truman referred to this concept very specifically in asserting that, "The President--whoever he is--has to decide. He can't pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That's his job.

I adjure you, ancient serpent, by the judge of the living and the dead, by your Creator, by the Creator of the whole universe, by Him who has the power to consign you to hell, to depart forthwith in fear, along with your savage minions, from this servant of God, N., who seeks refuge in the fold of the Church. I adjure you again, X (on the brow) not by my weakness but by the might of the Holy Spirit, to depart from this servant of God, N. , whom almighty God has made in His image.

It's a tragedy for me that he's president of my country. You know, my book is called A Man Without a Country,I still have a passport, but if I showed this now in Portugal or Spain or Italy or Germany of France or Denmark or Japan or even communist China, what it would say about me is that I'm not only from the richest country in the world but the dumbest country in the world. Is our President a tragic figure, perhaps, but he doesn't know diddley squat about economics or history or science even how to speak well.

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PROLOGUE: On Sunday August 28 I woke up at 5 in the morning to go to my morning job at the Chateu Sonesta Hotel. The night before, we had been warned that Hurricane Katrina was preying her eyes upon us. In the history of New Orleans, there has NEVER been a direct hit by a hurricane. In everyone's mind, this hurricane would follow the same path that hundreds of past storms had done before. However, because of the size of the storm and ferocity which it tore through South Florida, the citizens of the The Big Easy prepared themselves as best they could... this is my tale of the events...

Dr. Ben Marble, a young emergency room physician who plays in alternative rock bands and does art on the side, needs our help. Since he was the one who told Dick Cheney to "go fuck yourself" on Sept. 8, that's the least we can do.

Marble is a complex guy, to say the least. Some of the lyrics he writes can be considered harsh by some – personally what I've heard is very much on target - but he has a softer side as an organizer of breast cancer fund-raisers, not to mention an ER doctor.

When he, like thousands of others, lost his home due to Hurricane Katrina last week, it was the single most traumatic week of his life. That led to his Sept. 8 confrontation with the man who best represents the worst of the most callous, heartless, shittiest administration in U.S. history.

In the 1960s, many hotels in Hawaii produced postcards showing what the interiors of their rooms looked like. Besides being good advertising to the relatives of the tourists who mailed these back home, the postcards unwittingly captured a moment in Hawaiian history that doesn't exist anymore. The vintage rattan furniture, colorful bedspreads tiki lamps and tapa wall hangings are all relics of a bygone age. The only thing that remains unchanged is the view of Diamondhead out the windows.

I thought I'd share some amazing photos of an Easter Island Moai Raising that took place during Thor Heyerdahl's (first?) visit to Rapa Nui. These photos come straight out of my hardcover American edition of Aku-Aku by Thor Heyerdahl.

In the book, Thor convinces the Mayor of Rapa Nui to teach him his ancestor's secret of moving and raising the giant Moai statues into place. Over eighteen days, the mayor and his crew show Thor how it was done.

Before joining FEMA, his only previous stint in emergency management, according to his bio posted on FEMA's website, was "serving as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight." The White House press release from 2001 stated that Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 "overseeing the emergency services division." In fact, according to Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond, Brown was an "assistant to the city manager" from 1977 to 1980, not a manager himself, and had no authority over other employees. "The assistant is more like an intern," she told TIME. "Department heads did not report to him." Brown did do a good job at his humble position, however, according to his boss. "Yes. Mike Brown worked for me. He was my administrative assistant. He was a student at Central State University," recalls former city manager Bill Dashner. "Mike used to handle a lot of details. Every now and again I'd ask him to write me a speech. He was very loyal. He was always on time. He always had on a suit and a starched white shirt."

Guide to the 47 castles in Japan I've personally visited and 11 donated by readers.

We then started lugging in our food products. The foods I had purchased were mainly snacks, but my mother - God bless her soul - had gone all out with fresh vegetables, fruits, canned goods, breakfast cereals, rice, and pancake fixings. That's when we got the next message: They will not be able to use the kitchen.

Excuse me? I asked incredulously.

FEMA will not allow any of the kitchen facilities in any of the cabins to be used by the occupants due to fire hazards. FEMA will deliver meals to the cabins. The refugees will be given two meals per day by FEMA. They will not be able to cook. In fact, the "host" goes on to explain, some churches had already enquired about whether they could come in on weekends and fix meals for the people staying in their cabin. FEMA won't allow it because there could be a situation where one cabin gets steaks and another gets hot dogs - and...

it could cause a riot.

It gets worse.

He then precedes to tell us that some churches had already enquired into whether they could send a van or bus on Sundays to pick up any occupants of their cabins who might be interested in attending church. FEMA will not allow this. The occupants of the camp cannot leave the camp for any reason. If they leave the camp they may never return. They will be issued FEMA identification cards and "a sum of money" and they will remain within the camp for the next 5 months.

My son looks at me and mumbles "Welcome to Krakow."

My mother then asked if the churches would be allowed to come to their cabin and conduct services if the occupants wanted to attend. The response was "No ma'am. You don't understand. Your church no longer owns this building. This building is now owned by FEMA and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. They have it for the next 5 months." This scares my mother who asks "Do you mean they have leased it?" The man replies, "Yes, ma'am...lock, stock and barrel. They have taken over everything that pertains to this facility for the next 5 months."

We then lug all food products requiring cooking back to the car. We start unloading our snacks. Mom appeared to have cornered the market in five counties on pop-tarts and apparently that was an acceptable snack so the guy started shoving them under the counter. He said these would be good to tied people over in between their two meals a day. But he tells my mother she must take all the breakfast cereal back. My mother protests that cereal requires no cooking. "There will be no milk, ma'am." My mother points to the huge industrial double-wide refrigerator the church had just purchased in the past year. "Ma'am, you don't understand...

It could cause a riot."

He then points to the vegetables and fruit. "You'll have to take that back as well. It looks like you've got about 10 apples there. I'm about to bring in 40 men. What would we do then?"

My mother, in her sweet, soft voice says, "Quarter them?"

"No ma'am. FEMA said no...

It could cause a riot. You don't understand the type of people that are about to come here...."

Just some background before I start:

1. I recently earned FEMA certification for their CERT emergency response team. We have been receiving communications recently about possibly volunteering at Falls Creek.

2. I live in the Tulsa area, about 3 hours drive from Falls Creek.

Okay, now to start. Nobody is currently housed at Falls Creek. Nobody has been bussed in, so the part about buses bringing refugees in is not totally factual.

Second, Falls Creek is currently in standby mode in the event that it is needed. This facility will be in standby mode until the 13th.

Third, the presence of military in that area in so short a time is not out of the ordinary. It's Oklahoma, you can't go 50 miles without hitting a military post of some type.

I found these photos tucked inside a book that was for sale at a public library. Someone donated this book for the library to raise funds. I'm sure they didn't realize the photos were hidden within.

The idea is simple: to try and make $1m (US) by selling 1,000,000 pixels for $1 each. Hence, 'The Million Dollar Homepage". The main motivation for doing this is to pay for my degree studies, because I don't like the idea of graduating with a huge student debt. I know people who are paying off student loans 15-20 years after they graduated. Not a nice thought!

So, everyone is welcome to buy my pixels, which are available in 100-pixel 'blocks' (each measuring 10x10 pixels). You will see the homepage is divided into 10,000 of these 100-pixel blocks (hence there are 1,000,000 pixels in total). The reason for selling them in 100-pixel blocks is because anything smaller would be too small to display anything meaningful.

BAGHDAD—The 4,000 Louisiana National Guardsmen stationed in Iraq, representing over a third of the state's troops, called home this week to find out what, if any, help they could offer Katrina survivors from overseas. "The soldiers wanted to know if they could call 911 for anyone, or perhaps send some water via FedEx," said Louisiana National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Pete Schneider. The Guardsmen also "would love to send generators, rations, and Black Hawk helicopters for rescue missions," but, said Schneider, "we desperately need these in Iraq to stay alive." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld praised the phone support, but noted that it would take months to transfer any equipment from Iraq to New Orleans, saying, "You fight a national disaster with the equipment you have."

But let's move on from America's perennial, always-just-below-the-surface racism and hits-on-the-poor. The point here is that George W. Bush has a reverse Midas touch. Whatever he involves himself in as a leader winds up in FUBAR land. (If you don't know what those letters stand for, ask someone in the military: ---- Up Beyond All Recognition.)

It happened with his botched oil-company ventures at Arbusto and Harken Energy in Texas; it happened, and is happening in Iraq; and now it's happening with regard to the Katrina disaster in Louisiana.

Except this time there's no wealthy family friend, or Saudi prince, or British prime minister, to bail Bush out of his difficulties. He's out there all by his lonesome, exposed for all the world to see as the emperor with no clothes, a figurehead leader with no emotional or intellectual wherewithal to deal efficiently and correctly with anything beyond the most simple scenarios. Introduce complexity into the equation, and he's a deer in the highlights of reality.

So...what to do? While Rove&Co.; ratchet up the ol' spin machine -- and try to find others to blame for their own gross delays and mistakes -- Bush's normal allies are abandoning him, right and left and right. Business Week, Washington Times, newspapers around the country, conservative pundits David Brooks and Newt Gingrich, retired military officers, and so on -- they all can't believe the idiocy and deadly cluelessness of their GOP hero.

The annual Human Development Report normally concerns itself with the Third World, but the 2005 edition scrutinises inequalities in health provision inside the US as part of a survey of how inequality worldwide is retarding the eradication of poverty.

It reveals that the infant mortality rate has been rising in the US for the past five years - and is now the same as Malaysia. America's black children are twice as likely as whites to die before their first birthday.

The report is bound to incense the Bush administration as it provides ammunition for critics who have claimed that the fiasco following Hurricane Katrina shows that Washington does not care about poor black Americans. But the 370-page document is critical of American policies towards poverty abroad as well as at home. And, in unusually outspoken language, it accuses the US of having "an overdeveloped military strategy and an under-developed strategy for human security".

ATLANTA - Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we doing here?"

As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.

Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.

Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.

"I had kicked around the idea for Good Eats when I was directing commercials," Brown admits. "I kept thinking, 'Somebody has to make a food show that is actually educational and entertaining at the same time ... a show that got down to the 'why things happen.' Plus, I hated my job -- I didn't think it was very worthwhile. The world's got enough Pampers and retread tires without me."

Some five years later -- plus two years of cooking school, one internship that regularly reduced him to tears, another he likens to joining the military, and a marriage that sustained him through the whole ordeal -- Brown is plotting his 100th episode, promoting his first book ... and building odd little appliances in his backyard. This includes a smoker he fashioned from a couple of terra cotta flowerpots, an oven rack and a trash can.

There are other classic mispronounced domain names. One is the site WhoRepresents.com, with the unfortunate alternate enunciation of WhorePresents.com. But, since it’s in the performing artist arena, maybe it’s not just a misnomer. Another is TherapistFinder.com, for those looking for California marriage and family therapists. Unfortunately, the wrong clientele might stumble upon the site as TheRapistFinder.com. And then there is PenIsland.net, where you can buy custom pens. However, someone could mistake their site name for something else if they pronounce it PenisLand.net.

A parasitic worm that makes the grasshopper it invades jump into water and commit suicide does so by chemically influencing its brain, a study of the insects’ proteins reveal.

The parasitic Nematomorph hairworm (Spinochordodes tellinii) develops inside land-dwelling grasshoppers and crickets until the time comes for the worm to transform into an aquatic adult. Somehow mature hairworms brainwash their hosts into behaving in way they never usually would – causing them to seek out and plunge into water.

WASHINGTON -- A deafening silence haunts the American conservative echo chamber.

It has now been four days since the levees in New Orleans broke, and yet, not a word of comment on the disaster from either George Will or Robert Novak, the doyens of conservative opinion making here in the United States. Will's two op-eds since the day after Katrina have been, "The role of judges cuts both ways" and "Questions for Sen. Schumer" (Sep. 4), while Robert Novak wrote an obituary column about his friend Jude Wanniski ("Father of supply-side," Sept.1) and a column on the estate tax ("Estate tax politics," Sept. 3).

Something is terribly amiss.

The new vortex-shaped, outdoor installation by architects Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues warps the flow of space with a featherweight rendition of a celestial black hole; “the deadliest force in the Universe.” Hovering over M&A;'s courtyard “Maximilian's Schell” is a spectacle the size of an apartment building that has been stopping traffic along Silver Lake Boulevard since its unveiling in June. Constructed with tinted Mylar resembling stained glass, the vortex functions as a shade structure, swirling above the outdoor gallery.

She was part of a group in Houston today at the Astrodome that included her husband and former President Bill Clinton, who were chosen by her son, the current president, to head fundraising efforts for the recovery. Sen. Hilary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama were also present.

In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: "Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston."

Then she added: "What I’m hearing is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

Unlike the Kansas School Board, which earlier this summer approved allowing educators to teach theories in addition to evolution that explain life on Earth, the Utah Board of Education on Friday unanimously approved a position statement supporting the continued exclusive teaching of evolution in state classrooms.

Only two people out of the dozens who attended Friday's meeting sided with Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, and his proposal to allow teaching "intelligent design" as a theory to explain the origins of life.

The following techniques to telling if someone is lying are often used by police, and security experts. This knowledge is also useful for managers, employers, and for anyone to use in everyday situations where telling the truth from a lie can help prevent you from being a victim of fraud/scams and other deceptions.

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RentMyDaughter provides safe and trustworthy child-rental services in multiple metropolitan areas. Our service area is growing every year and we are on target to provide services in 50 cities by the end of 2006.

On his next two spins, he landed on top-dollar squares for a total of $1250. In round two, he earned seven free spins. In no time at all, every single plunge was landing him on prized squares good for cash and additional free spins. Larsen increased his winnings from $2000 to $5000, then $14,000, $18,000 and $28,000. He was successfully avoiding Whammies like no other player before him. It was amazing. Each time he hit the plunger, he'd land on one of the only two squares affording both money and another chance to spin. It was like the Whammies didn't exist.

Inside the director's booth, a wave of fear was slowly crashing over the producers. The broadcast pace of Press Your Luck required evenly-spaced commercial breaks, timed to coincide with a player eventually hitting a Whammy. The player would go bankrupt, the action would stop, and host Peter Tomarken could take a well-needed pause for a drink of water, a squirt of hair spray, and a dabble of make-up.

But there was something Michael Larsen hadn't told anyone.

Back in his home state of Ohio, he didn't have just one television, he had several. Each television was hooked up to a private networking farm of VCRs in his living room. In November of 1983, he recorded every episode of Press Your Luck over the course of several weeks. He studied these videotapes, slowed them down, and froze the images to examine randomized tile sequences frame by frame. If you haven't already guessed, Michael Larsen discovered that the Big Board on Press Your Luck was not a randomized display, but an iterative, sequential pattern which gave itself away once you knew what to look for.

Sell the Ranch. That's right, sell your ranch in Texas, and donate the money to the victims of this horrible tragedy. I realize you love your ranch; you've spent a good portion of your presidency there, doing important things like clearing brush, eating pretzels, and taking naps. But that's exactly why you need to sell it. So many people have lost their homes; the least you can do is give up ownership of one of your many residences for their benefit to show that you have some trace of compassion. Think of it as a symbolic gesture that you're finally ready to stop running away from the responsibilities of the Oval office, and you're ready to meet head-on the full duties of the highest office in the land.

You've said that you communicate with God, that you talk to Jesus. So what would Jesus do? Would not Jesus Christ sell one of his luxury homes to help the indigent, huddled masses yearning to breathe free? At auction, your Ranch would fetch at least a couple million dollars. Would Jesus not donate that money to the poor and starving?

EFFORTS by Hollywood actor Sean Penn to aid New Orleans victims stranded by Hurricane Katrina foundered badly overnight, when the boat he was piloting to launch a rescue attempt sprang a leak.

With the boat loaded with members of Penn's entourage, including a personal photographer, one bystander taunted the actor: "How are you going to get any people in that thing?"

After spending some time last month trying to develop alternate graphic presentations for kinematic ratios in winged flight, I decided to try to answer one of the timeless questions of science: just what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, "What is not working, we’re going to make it right."

Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.

Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It’s accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.

How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.

Despite the city’s multiple points of entry, our nation’s bureaucrats spent days after last week’s hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city’s stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.

Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.

Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning.

Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.

We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’ll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That’s to the government’s shame.

Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome. We still don’t know what the death toll is, but one thing is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city’s death toll would have been higher. The toll may even have been exponentially higher.

It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren’t they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn’t suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?

State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn’t have but two urgent needs: "Buses! And gas!" Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.

In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn’t known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day."

Lies don’t get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.

Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You’re doing a heck of a job."

That’s unbelievable.

There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.

We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We’re no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.

No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn’t be reached.

Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again.

When you do, we will be the first to applaud.

POTHARAM, Thailand (AP) -- Inside a dark room, realistic-looking "human body parts" are stacked on shelves and hanging on meat hooks. The place looks like a mortuary or the lair of a serial killer, but in fact, it's a bakery. What appears to be putrefying body parts are the bread sculptures of 28-year-old art student Kittiwat Unarrom.

Verse 1: All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies

Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera were livid about the situation in NOLA as they appeared on H&C.; When Hannity tried his usual spin job and said "let's get this in perspective," Smith chopped him off at the knees and started yelling at him saying, "This is perspective!" It was shocking.

Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.

Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.

Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.

Being poor is seeing how few options you have.

Being poor is running in place.

Being poor is people wondering why you didn't leave.

What if Ivan Had Hit New Orleans?

New Orleans was spared, this time, but had it not been, Hurricane Ivan would have:

* Pushed a 17-foot storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain;

* Caused the levees between the lake and the city to overtop and fill the city “bowl” with water from lake levee to river levee, in some places as deep as 20 feet;

* Flooded the north shore suburbs of Lake Pontchartrain with waters pushing as much as seven miles inland; and

* Inundated inhabited areas south of the Mississippi River.

Up to 80 percent of the structures in these flooded areas would have been severely damaged from wind and water. The potential for such extensive flooding and the resulting damage is the result of a levee system that is unable to keep up with the increasing flood threats from a rapidly eroding coastline and thus unable to protect the ever-subsiding landscape.

Evacuation Challenges

Researchers have estimated that prior to a “big one,” approximately 700,000 residents of the greater New Orleans area (out of 1.2 million) would evacuate. In the case of Hurricane Ivan, officials estimate that up to 600,000 evacuated from metropolitan New Orleans between daybreak on Monday, September 13 and noon on Wednesday, September 15, when the storm turned and major roads finally started to clear.

JACKSON BARRACKS -- When members of the Louisiana National Guard left for Iraq in October, they took a lot equipment with them. Dozens of high water vehicles, humvees, refuelers and generators are now abroad, and in the event of a major natural disaster that, could be a problem.

"The National Guard needs that equipment back home to support the homeland security mission," said Lt. Colonel Pete Schneider with the LA National Guard.

Col. Schneider says the state has enough equipment to get by, and if Louisiana were to get hit by a major hurricane, the neighboring states of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida have all agreed to help.

Katrina already is measured as one of the worst storms in American history. And yet, President Bush decided that his plans to commemorate the 60th anniversary of VJ Day with a speech were more pressing than responding to the carnage.

A better leader would have flown straight to the disaster zone and announced the immediate mobilization of every available resource to rescue the stranded, find and bury the dead, and keep the survivors fed, clothed, sheltered and free of disease.

The cool, confident, intuitive leadership Bush exhibited in his first term, particularly in the months immediately following Sept. 11, 2001, has vanished. In its place is a diffident detachment unsuitable for the leader of a nation facing war, natural disaster and economic uncertainty.

Wherever the old George W. Bush went, we sure wish we had him back.

Why are these helicopters being used as a backdrop for President Bush, instead of assisting the victims of Hurricane Katrina?

Why are members of the Coast Guard being used as a backdrop for Bush’s press conference? Don’t they have more important things to do?

The soldiers inside opened the doors and pushed out cases of water and boxes of MREs - meals ready to eat. People pushed. People yelled. The old folks and kids grabbed what they could. The young men made out best, though some were willing to share their bounty. Others just kept what they had claimed and shouldered their way through the crowd.

Claudia Sims, 54, watched from the side, her six grandkids all around her. They hadn't eaten in 24 hours.

"I can't compete with these people," she said.

One of her little granddaughters waded into the throng and came back with a smile on her face.

"Grandma, I got food!"

In her tiny hand was her bounty - a single MRE.

Three minutes after landing, the copter lifted off and rose into the air.

I have seen such scenes before, but always on television and always from faraway places. In Third World nations, but not here.

As I watched the copter go, I thought to myself:

Can this really be happening in America?

At the front of the line, the weary refugees waded through ankle-deep water, grabbed a bottle of water from state troopers and happily hopped on buses that would deliver them from the horrendous conditions of the Superdome.

At the back end of the line, people jammed against police barricades in the rain. Refugees passed out and had to be lifted hand-over-hand overhead to medics. Pets were not allowed on the bus, and when a police officer confiscated a little boy's dog, the child cried until he vomited. "Snowball, snowball," he cried.

The scene played out Thursday as the plodding procession out of the Superdome entered its second day _ an evacuation that became more complicated as thousands more storm victims showed up at the arena.

Capt. John Pollard of the Texas Air Force National Guard said 20,000 people were in the dome when the evacuation efforts began. By Thursday afternoon, the number had swelled to about 30,000. Pollard said people poured into the Superdome because they believe it's the best place to get a ride out of town.

The refugees began arriving Thursday at the Astrodome in Houston, where they got a shower, a hot meal and a cool place to sleep.

"I would rather have been in jail," Janice Jones said in obvious relief at being out of the dome. "I've been in there seven days and I haven't had a bath. They treated us like animals. Everybody is scared."

LONDON - Aaron Balick expected to find a tiny mouse rustling behind the TV in his apartment. Instead, he found a venomous giant centipede that somehow hitched a ride from South America to Britain.

"Thinking it was a mouse, I went to investigate the sound. The sound was coming from under some papers which I lifted, expecting to see the mouse scamper away," the 32-year-old psychotherapist said Wednesday. "Instead, when I lifted the papers, I saw this prehistoric looking animal skitter away behind a stack of books."

Now I was interested in finding out if Drano really could dissolve a body. Pork is plentiful and pigs are pretty close to humans in physiology. Pork is therefore a reasonable substitute for a human body I think (also, I get to eat the leftovers). Instead of purchasing a bottle of Drano (which costs money), I made up my own solution from stuff I knew we had in the lab (which is free). 5.25% hypochlorite is readily available as household bleach and every biology lab has NaOH pellets so you can make up solutions of NaOH as strong as you like. I decided to test my approximation of Drano, it's constituent parts and the equivalent of "Institutional Strength" Drano.

Las Vegas is growing quickly as Steve Wynn has once again triggered the next building boom. Many new developments on and around the Las Vegas Strip are in various stages of planning and quite a few have already broken ground. Downtown is undergoing an unprecedented transformation with many new urbanization projects and public facilities.

This site is an up-to-date collection of news and renderings of imminent and proposed hotel, condo and other projects. You'll find photos of projects under construction and renderings of dream projects which may never come to be. On the Cool Stuff page you'll find a heap of nifty things as well as ranks, ratings and statistics of the major hotels and convention centers.

With buildings reduced to soggy ruin just a few blocks away, Zipa's data center -- built by Enron in its expansionist heyday -- still operates, powered by a 750-kilowatt diesel generator and connected to the rest of the world by a fiber optic connection buried deep underneath New Orleans' flooded streets.

That makes the employees of Zipa and sister company DirectNIC, which is just upstairs, some of the only flood victims in New Orleans with the ability to communicate with the outside world.

It's an advantage they are quick to put to use. DirectNIC's "crisis manager," Michael "Interdictor" Barnett, updates his Live Journal continually with on-the-street reports.

It may be the only blog currently both written and hosted inside New Orleans, and it's receiving nearly 3,000 visitors an hour.

Air drops, Special Forces teams, SEALs with their water craft, the expensive panoply of men we train to a razor's edge, who can save lives as well as take them. If this was Darfur, they would be on the ground, setting up resources, establishing security, preparing for the arrival of infantry units to protect the refugees. Instead, FEMA says help is coming, while people exist without water and food in broiling heat. The imagination which led to the dropping of humanitarian food packages over Afghanistan in yellow packages is missing here.

They bring in the pararescuemen, but a small team, not pulling every available PJ, CCT member and Special Forces team they can grab to begin the process of security. The National Guard wants to handle it. They can't. If they could, people would be getting help. The hospitals would be getting help. Instead, they wait and lie vunberable to the gangs which have always lived in the city.

Bush is hardly alone. The mayor is doing his best, but still failing.

There is a lack of urgency we noted on the blogs days ago. Someone posted questioning my statement that the military is frighteningly uninvolved and tonight, Ted Koppel asked why the 82nd ABN wasn't securing the city. Michael Brown, who's name will go down in history with Ambrose Burnside as a touchstone of American incompetence, muttered some answer about the Guard.

Cops want to question a Manhattan restaurant owner after getting numerous tips that he's the subway flasher caught in the act by camera phone, police sources said last night.

Nearly two dozen people have phoned the Daily News and the NYPD to say they believe Dan Hoyt, co-owner of raw-food eateries called Quintessence, is the man whose photo appeared on the cover of Saturday's paper.

Investigators contacted Hoyt by phone and asked him to come in for an interview, NYPD sources said. No arrests have been made.

Hoyt did not return The News' calls, and his business partner and ex-wife, Tolentin Chan, said, "It's not proven yet."

She said whoever the flasher is, he needs counseling.

"There should be a support center to support these men to find what is the cause of their action instead of ...putting them in jail," she said.

Hoyt and Chan co-own two restaurants, one on E. 10th St. in the East Village and the other on Amsterdam Ave., and are well known in the raw food movement, which calls for serving uncooked food.

The photo appeared in The News after Thao Nguyen, 22, used her cell phone to take a picture of a blond-haired man who exposed and fondled himself on an R train on Aug. 19.

In less perilous times it was simply a blog for me to talk smack and chat with friends. Now this journal exists to share firsthand experience of the disaster and its aftermath with anyone interested.

Most people don't know that the camel spider can also be found in the southwest U.S. and Mexico. While the recent buzz is all about the Middle Eastern camel spider, its North American cousin has no shortage of tall tales. In Mexico, they're known as matevenados, which means "deer killers." The buzz seems to ebb and flow, but before it is over the camel spider will have had is full fifteen minutes and maybe just a little place in history.

Fury rose among many of those evacuated. Outside the Convention Center, the sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement. Thousands of storm refugees had been assembling outside for days, waiting for buses that did not come.

At least seven bodies were scattered outside, and hungry, desperate people who were tired of waiting broke through the steel doors to a food service entrance and began pushing out pallets of water and juice and whatever else they could find.

An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.

``I don't treat my dog like that,'' 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair. ``I buried my dog.'' He added: ``You can do everything for other countries but you can't do nothing for your own people. You can go overseas with the military but you can't get them down here.''

There are four levels of hell inside the refugee city of the Superdome, home to about 15,000 people since Sunday. On the artificial-turf field and in the lower-level seats where Montrel sat sweltering with her family, a form of civilization had taken hold -- smelly, messy, dark and dank, but with a structure. Families with cots used their beds as boundaries for personal space and kept their areas orderly, a cooler on one corner, the toys on another, almost as if they had come for fireworks and stayed too long.

The bathrooms, clogged and overflowing since Monday, announced the second level of hell, the walkway ringing the entrance level. In the men's, the urinal troughs were overflowing. In the women's, the bowls were to the brim. A slime of excrement and urine made the walkway slick. "You don't even go there anymore," said Dee Ford, 37, who was pushed in a wading pool from her flooded house to the shelter. "You just go somewhere in a corner where you can. In the dark, you are going to step in poo anyway."

Water and electricity both failed Monday, and three pumps to pressurize plumbing have been no match "when the lake just keeps pushing it back at us," said Maj. Ed Bush, the chief public affairs officer for the Louisiana National Guard.

"With no hand-washing, and all the excrement," said Sgt. Debra Williams, who was staffing the infirmary in the adjacent sports arena, "you have about four days until dysentery sets in. And it's been four days today."

Bottled water was too precious to use for washing; adults get two bottles a day. Food, mostly Meals Ready-to-Eat, is dispensed in a different line. Many refugees told of waiting in line for hours only to be told no food was left.

Within the skyboxes, on the third level of hell, life was dark 24 hours a day, a place for abandonment and coupling. Also up there was "a sort of speakeasy," said Michael Childs, who had some beer in an empty Dannon water bottle. "You got to know where to go," he said, and grinned. "And you just put your bottle under the spigot. It is disgusting in here, and I lost everything I had, and I'm glad to have found a little beer."