BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 22 Mar 08 - 01:17 PM

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Two sisters from Virginia sold their Illinois-shaped cornflake on eBay Friday night for $1,350.


Two sisters from Virginia sold this cornflake for $1,350 on eBay.

"We were biting our nails all the way up to the finish, seeing what would happen," said Melissa McIntire, 23. "There's a lot of relief involved."

The winner of the auction, which lasted more than a week, is the owner of a trivia Web site who wants to add the cornflake to a traveling museum.

"We're starting a collection of pop culture and Americana items," said Monty Kerr of Austin, Texas. "We thought this was a fantastic one." See another oddly shaped food item È

Kerr owns TriviaMania.com and said he will likely send someone to Virginia to pick up the flake by hand, so it won't be damaged.

This isn't the first cornflake that Kerr has tried to buy. He said he purchased a flake billed as the world's largest, but that by the time it was delivered it had crumbled into three pieces.

McIntire and her sister Emily, 15, listed the cornflake on eBay last week, but eBay canceled the auction, saying it violated the Web site's policy against selling food.

The sisters restarted their eBay auction, advertising a coupon redeemable for their cornflake instead of the cereal itself.



The McIntires said they'll likely use the money for a family vacation.

Copycat items have popped up on eBay, including cornflakes shaped like Hawaii and Virginia. There's also been a potato chip shaped like Florida, and Illinois cornflake paraphernalia, including T-shirts and buttons.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 21 Mar 08 - 02:56 PM

From The Onion:

Rock-Bottom Loser Entertaining Offers From Several Religions

FINDLAY, OH—Local resident Owen Pritchard's recent downward spiral into drug addiction, unemployment, and complete and utter hopelessness has sparked the intense interest of several top world religions, each of which is vying for his services as a devotee, the 39-year-old uncommitted prospective convert reported Monday.

"I've finally reached a point in my life where all the big religions want me," said Pritchard, whose two failed marriages and mounting gambling debts have left him penniless and in a state of blind despair. "Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism—you name it, they've come to me. I have no job, no family, no direction whatsoever. So right now, I'm totally in the driver's seat."

Some top faiths have noticed Pritchard's ability to plummet to the very depths of depravity.

After declaring his intention to drink himself into oblivion two months ago, Pritchard received pamphlets, letters, and VHS tapes from various religions, all urging him to join their faith. Most deals reportedly guarantee a lifetime of salvation, with additional incentives such as entrance into paradise, the promise of a new and better life, and the ineffable reward of union with a supreme deity. Christianity emerged as an early favorite to land Pritchard Tuesday, after confirming that it had offered him an eternity-length contract with a signing bonus of everlasting bliss.

Pritchard, however, said he was in no rush to accept just any offer, as he expects to remain at the end of his rope for a long time.

"Obviously, I bring a lot to the table," Pritchard said. "I'm a broken shell of a man with nowhere else to turn and I will believe just about anything at this point, so if a religion really wants me, they're going to have to sweeten the pot. For instance, Hinduism is promising me rebirth as a king and the unlocking of all the secrets of the universe. But at this stage, that's not enough. How about throwing in some final redemption, or a car, or complete and total spiritual transcendence?"

"You're going to have to do better than eternal life," Pritchard added. "Everyone's offering that."...

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 21 Mar 08 - 12:29 PM

A recently declassified US Army report on the biological effects of non-lethal weapons reveals outlandish plans for "ray gun" devices, which would cause artificial fevers or beam voices into people's heads.

The report titled "Bioeffects Of Selected Nonlethal Weapons" was released under the US Freedom of Information Act and is available on this website (pdf). The DoD has confirmed to New Scientist that it released the documents, which detail five different "maturing non-lethal technologies" using microwaves, lasers and sound.
Released by US Army Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Meade, Maryland, US, the 1998 report gives an overview of what was then the state of the art in directed energy weapons for crowd control and other applications.

A word in your earSome of the technologies are conceptual, such as an electromagnetic pulse that causes a seizure like those experienced by people with epilepsy. Other ideas, like a microwave gun to "beam" words directly into people's ears, have been tested. It is claimed that the so-called "Frey Effect" – using close-range microwaves to produce audible sounds in a person's ears – has been used to project the spoken numbers 1 to 10 across a lab to volunteers'.

In 2004 the US Navy funded research into using the Frey effect to project sound that caused "discomfort" into the ears of crowds.
The report also discusses a microwave weapon able to produce a disabling "artificial fever" by heating a person's body. While tests of the idea are not mentioned, the report notes that the necessary equipment "is available today". It adds that while it would take at least fifteen minutes to achieve the desired "fever" effect, it could be used to incapacitate people for almost "any desired period consistent with safety."

Less exotic technologies discussed include laser dazzlers and a sound source loud enough to disturb the sense of balance. Both have been realised in the years since the report was written. The US army uses laser dazzlers in Iraq, while the Long Range Acoustic Device has military and civilian users, and has been used on one occasion to repel pirates off Somalia.

However, the report does not mention any trials of weapons for producing artificial fever or seizures, or beaming voices into people's heads.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Mar 08 - 11:36 AM

Will it gradually get brighter for us, do you think? Interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 21 Mar 08 - 09:49 AM

Early Wednesday morning, a spot of light just barely visible to the human eye (about fifth magnitude in astronomical parlance) appeared in the constellation Bootës. Astronomers say it was the toasted remains of one of the most titanic examples yet of the explosions known as gamma-ray bursts. News about the burst, in a galaxy seven billion light years away, began circulating by e-mail in the astronomical community when it was detected by NASA's Swift satellite on March 19.

Gamma ray bursts are some of the most violent and enigmatic events in nature. Astronomers surmise that they might mark the implosion of a massive star into a black hole, or the collision of a pair of dense neutron stars.

The visible glow from this burst, said Neil Gehrels of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, was 10 million times as bright as a supernova at that same distance. The universe is some 14 billion years old, which means that the news of this cataclysm has been on its way to us for half the age of the universe. Whatever stars went to their grave then have been dead since before the Sun and Earth were born.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 02:08 PM

I didn't find that story, Don, but I did find this one:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/03/19/mirror.therapy/index.html

For amputees, an unlikely painkiller: Mirrors

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Army Sgt. Nick Paupore was in the lead Humvee in a convoy rolling through Kirkuk City, Iraq, when the vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb.

Paupore says it wasn't a very big explosion, more like a loud firecracker. He could feel the rush going through the vehicle, the change of pressure, smoke filling the cab. He felt a burning sensation in the back of his legs, but he wasn't in pain, and he could actually move his legs. He felt lucky. He was alive. He got out of the vehicle, intending to help the others, and passed out.

When he regained consciousness, medics were working on him. The blast had ripped out a chunk of his leg, including 6 to 8 inches of an artery, and he was bleeding out. By the time they had stanched the flow, he had less than two pints of blood left. The average person has 10 pints of blood.

Paupore was flown to Germany, where doctors fought to save his life. He survived, but they couldn't save his leg.

And he was in excruciating pain -- in the leg he no longer had.

Dr. Jack Tsao, a Navy neurologist with the Uniform Services University, was looking for ways to help soldiers like Paupore. He remembered reading in graduate school a paper by Dr. V.S. Ramachandran that talked about an unusual treatment for amputees suffering "phantom limb pain," using a simple $20 mirror.

The mirror tricks the brain into "seeing" the amputated leg, overriding mismatched nerve signals.

Here's how it works: The patient sits on a flat surface with his or her remaining leg straight out and then puts a 6-foot mirror lengthwise facing the limb. The patient moves the leg, flexing it, and watches the movement in the mirror. The reflection creates the illusion of two legs moving together.

Paupore was one of the first to give it a try. At first, he was skeptical. When approached about joining a clinical trial at Walter Reed Army Medical Center to test Tsao's theory, he declined. But sometimes his phantom pains were coming five to six times an hour and lasting up to a minute.

"I was laying in bed and it just, all of a sudden, it felt like I was getting shocked," he said. "I called the nurse, 'cause I was like, 'What's going on?' " The nurse told him, "This is probably your phantom pain."

Tsao explains it this way: "It's the sensation that the limb is still present, and phantom pain in particular is the sensation that the limb is experiencing pain of some form."

That pain is intense, and often medication brings very little relief. For Paupore, it was relentless.

"All of a sudden, it was like someone kept turning on and off the Taser, and my whole leg started twitching. ... I sat up, and I was holding on to my stump, and it just wouldn't stop. At that time, I was hooked up to the Dilaudid [a powerful narcotic], and I was pushing it. But you can push all the medicine in the world, and it won't stop it."

Paupore and 17 other amputees who joined Tsao's mirror therapy trial were randomly assigned to one of three groups. The first group used the mirror to look at their reflected image as they tried to move both legs. The second group used a covered mirror and did the same. And members of the third group were asked to visualize moving their amputated limbs.

After a month of treatment, all of the patients in the mirror group had significantly less phantom pain. In the covered mirror group, only one patient experienced a decrease in pain, and for half of those patients, the pain worsened. Sixty-seven percent of the patients visualizing their limbs got worse instead of better. The pain decreased in almost 90 percent of the patients who then switched to mirror therapy.

It worked wonders for Paupore, 32. Within five months, he was off painkillers completely. Tsao says the difference is like night and day.

"To see him walking, he's able to drive his car; he works downtown; I mean, that is incredibly gratifying!"

Phantom limb pain plagues as many as 95 percent of amputees, Tsao said.

He says even though phantom pain dates to Civil War days, no one knows what causes it. The current thinking is that it has to do with how the brain interprets signals from the pain pathways that are left after amputation.

The neurons that control leg movement are still there, but in the absence of a limb, they are not sure what they're supposed to do and begin firing randomly. Proprioception, the body's ability to sense the position of a limb, tells the body that the limb is still there, sending mismatched signals to the brain.

"The visual neurons are still intact, and they're firing off, telling the brain one thing," Tsao said. "The propriaceptive neurons are firing off, telling the brain something else. ...My thinking is that there is some sort of center in the brain that coordinates these signals. ... Somehow, this mismatched feedback is what's generating the sensation that the limb is frozen or in pain."

Since the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq began, more than 750 amputees have returned home from that area. Walter Reed has treated more than 550 of them. On any given day, between 100 and 125 amputees are there, working to rebuild their lives.

At Reed, mirror therapy is now offered routinely. Tsao says this treatment has the potential to benefit amputees worldwide, and the best part is, no special training is required to do it. He gives interested parties instructions over the phone or by e-mail.

And he's already taken this therapy halfway around the world to Cambodia, a country Tsao says has a large and growing amputee population because of mines left over from its civil war.

Saundra Young is a senior producer with CNN Medical News.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 10:45 AM

Watching from what seems to be a dashboard camera we watch a car racing to hit a pedestrian in broad daylight, the car careens into an apartment house playground and wham hits the black man running on foot. In another dash cam video we see a country road at night and a black man fleeing on foot as the car swerves back and forth acceserating and finally hitting the man who flys way into the air. Am I playing a Grand Theft Auto video game, no I am watching the South Carolina State Trooper dash cam footage of their current policy to run down suspects. as seen on CNN

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 08:36 AM

Fark fanantics fuel favorite fumers.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 08:24 AM

Satellite turns 50 years old ... in orbit!

Oldest artificial object still in space

By James Oberg
NBC News space analyst
updated 2:07 p.m. CT, Mon., March. 17, 2008

HOUSTON - The oldest surviving artificial Earth satellite, Vanguard 1, turned 50 years old on Monday — and continued to turn in its orbit, just as it has done since its launch at the dawn of the Space Age. The craft is in a high orbit that promises to be stable for centuries. Circling there, it has outlived almost all of the human beings who created it.

The satellite already has completed more than 197,000 Earth orbits, racking up more than 6 billion miles (10 billion kilometers) of travel. Only the Pioneer and Voyager probes, currently speeding away on the edge of the solar system, have gone farther.

Vanguard 1's current orbit ranges from 400 to 2,400 miles (653 to 3,839 kilometers) in altitude, and the high point has dropped only about 60 miles (100 kilometers) in the past half-century. It reliably records one additional orbit every 133 minutes. But the craft's orbital stability is guaranteed only as long as there's no outside interference. And now there's a chance that America's longest-lived spacefarer could have another round of "space pioneering" ahead of it.

/quote

The article is fairly lengthy, but well worth clicking over to read for any who remember - or think they do - the "good old days" of early space flight.

Recovery of the satellite to exhibit in a museum is speculatively proposed. Maybe there should be a vote(?).

John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 04:51 AM

Suspected Arsonist Arrested

The Associated Press
updated 2:48 a.m. CT, Tues., March. 18, 2008

LAMBERTVILLE, Mich.

Officers were placed around homes currently under construction after police had gotten two arson complaints within the past week.

Several officers, including Detective Thomas Redmond, watched the 17-year-old walk away from his Lambertville home early Sunday carrying a bucket before he approached ... a ... vehicle.

Police say the teen unscrewed the gas cap and started siphoning the fuel before Redmond got out of the car^* and chased him.

Authorities say the teen later admitted to the two arsons as well as three other arsons in 2006.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press

^* Yep, that's right. He was siphoning the gas out of the car driven and occupied by the cop who was looking for the arsonist.

John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 11:01 PM

GLOUCESTER, Mass. Ñ A meat thief is no match for an angry restaurant owner swinging a ham.

Joe Scola said he heard a noise in his Scola's Place restaurant in Gloucester and saw a man trying to get away with his arms full of meat taken from the restaurant freezer.

Scola said that when he caught up with the man and started taking back his stock, the man raised a 5-pound log of frozen Italian meat over his head as if to use it as a weapon.

The restaurant owner had a frozen ham in his hand and slammed it into the man's face, making a gash. The stunned thief dropped his loot and ran.

Police said they haven't found the man responsible for the Wednesday confrontation.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 12:34 PM

Lies My Government Told Me about the economy.

A keen, if sad, analysis. What do you say when the Bush administration tells you energy costs have gone down in February?


A

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 12:12 PM

Interesting. Still doesn't explain your one-track mind, from all of those stories, but I can see where you found them.

;->

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 01:32 AM

Too smart, Stilly -- someone sent me a link to Fark, where they collect this sort of thing.


A

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 01:21 AM

Amos, where do you have your browser pointed today? I detect a trend.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 12:50 AM

And from WIsconsin:

FRIDAY, March 14, 2008, 11:38 a.m.
By Linda Spice
Naked run on $30 bet costs plenty more
A man ran naked across frozen Silver Lake on a $30 bet yesterday, but the cold streak cost him much more when he was busted by a Kenosha County sheriff's deputy watching from a nearby boat launch.

In this report released today, Sgt. Gil Benn, public information officer for the Kenosha County Sheriff's Department, wrote:

"The long winter has finally taken its toll.

"On 3-13-08 at approx. 1620 hrs., Dep. Zarletti was parked by the Silver Lake DNR boat launch when he was alerted by a citizen that a male was running across the frozen lake in the nude. Dep. Zarletti located the subject and identified him as John F. Greely (18) a local resident. Greely was wearing nothing but socks, and he was sober. He reported that he streaked on a 30 dollar bet. Dep. Zarletti issued him a county ordinance citation ($753.00 bond) for lewd and lascivious behavior. It's unknown whether he recovered on his bet.

"Spring is juuuuust around the corner."

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 12:42 AM

ST. LUCIE COUNTY Ñ Authorities said a man charged with exposure of sexual organs was showing a lot more than that on a stretch of U.S. 1 Thursday morning.

Callers told 911 dispatchers that David John Campbell, 41, of Fort Pierce was walking completely naked on northbound U.S. 1 near Kitterman Road. A deputy caught up with Campbell at 6 a.m. in the 6400 block of U.S. 1 as school buses were on the road, according to Campbell's arrest affidavit.

Campbell said he was under instructions from Jesus to take the nude stroll, the report said.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 12:38 AM

Man arrested for 'having sex with lamp-post'
By Bonnie Malkin
Last Updated: 1:38am GMT 07/03/2008 (U.K. Telegraph)

A 32-year-old man has been arrested in Wiltshire for allegedly simulating a sex act with a lamp-post.


The incident is the latest in a spate of bizarre sex crimes involving inanimate objects.

        

The incident was witnessed by children
A police spokesman said officers were called to a road in the town of Westbury on February 16 after they received a report of a man acting indecently outside a block of flats "occupied by several young women".

When they arrived they arrested him on suspicion of outraging public decency.

The man was released on bail, but following an investigation into the incident and several interviews with witnesses - including children - he was recalled for questioning. He has since been re-released pending further inquiries.

The Wiltshire police spokesman said: "We are awaiting a decision as to whether there should be a prosecution".

The incident echoes a similar case last week when a Polish contractor was caught on his knees with a vacuum cleaner in a hospital staff canteen.

A security guard walked in on the man in the middle of a compromising act with the Henry Hoover appliance. He later claimed he was cleaning his underpants. He has now been fired.

Last year, Robert Stewart was placed on probation for three years after being caught trying to have sex with a bicycle.

The 51-year-old was naked from the waist down when two cleaners walked in on him at the Aberley House Hostel in south west Scotland.

He paused only to ask, "What is it, hen?", before continuing to "move his hips back and forth as if to simulate sex".

In 1993, Karl Watkins, an electrician, was jailed for having sex with pavements in Redditch, Worcs.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Mar 08 - 05:54 AM

Sham audits may have hid theft from GOP

NRCC treasurer accused of siphoning off thousands meant for House races

By Neil A. Lewis
The New York Times
updated 12:18 a.m. CT, Fri., March. 14, 2008

WASHINGTON - The former treasurer of a Republican Congressional fund-raising committee may have stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars by submitting elaborately forged audit reports for five years using the letterhead of a legitimate auditing firm, a lawyer for the committee said Thursday.

Robert K. Kelner, a lawyer with Covington & Burling, who was brought in by the National Republican Congressional Committee to investigate accounting irregularities, said a new audit showed that the committee had $740,000 less on hand than it believed. Mr. Kelner said it was unclear whether that amount represented money siphoned off by the former treasurer, Christopher J. Ward.

Mr. Ward, who is under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had the authority to make transfers of committee money on his own, Mr. Kelner said.

He said an investigation with the help of PricewaterhouseCoopers had "found a pattern in which Mr. Ward would transfer funds by wire out of the N.R.C.C. to outside committees." From those outside committees, Mr. Kelner said, money was then transferred to "personal and business accounts of Mr. Ward."

Mr. Kelner said that all of this was discovered on Jan. 28 after the current chairman of the committee's auditing panel, Representative Michael K. Conaway of Texas, a certified public accountant, made repeated requests to speak to the committee's outside auditors.

Mr. Conaway has said that after he was repeatedly put off by Mr. Ward, a meeting supposedly with the auditors was scheduled for that day.

But 30 minutes before it was to take place, Mr. Ward sent an e-mail message to colleagues saying that there had, in fact, been no outside audit. Party officials notified the F.B.I. and the Federal Election Commission.

Mr. Kelner said subsequent investigation showed that the five previous audits submitted to the committee by Mr. Ward for the years 2002 through 2006 were bogus. "The last genuine audit was in 2001," he said.

The audit reports, Mr. Kelner said, "looked very genuine" and carried the logotype of a recognized auditing firm that he declined to name. He said they might have appeared real to most people who were not sophisticated readers of such reports.

Ronald Machen, Mr. Ward's lawyer, declined to comment.

The committee is the chief fund-raising arm for Republicans running for the House.

Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, its chairman, briefed the Republican Congressional leadership on Thursday. In a statement, Mr. Cole said he had told them that "the information we have today indicates we have been deceived and betrayed for a number of years by a highly respected and trusted individual."

Mr. Ward was named treasurer of the national Republican committee in 2003 after serving for several years as an assistant treasurer. He had also been a partner in a political consulting firm, Political Compliance Services, that worked in 2004 on behalf of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group behind advertisements attacking the military record of Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic presidential nominee.

Mr. Kelner lamented the fact that the finances of the Republican committee had been set up to allow Mr. Ward to authorize wire transfers of money unilaterally.

"In hindsight, it would have been better to have had tighter controls," he said.

Copyright © 2008 The New York Times

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 11:38 PM

Another marriage up in smoke.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 08:49 PM

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese bride burned her new husband to death after he got into bed after a drunken argument without washing his feet, state media reported on Wednesday.

"Wang and his wife, Luo, were married on February 2. The couple, however, frequently fought over trivial things while still on their honeymoon," the official Xinhua news agency quoted a local newspaper as saying.

The couple, from the central province of Hubei, had another fight on the night of March 4, "and in frustration they together drank a bottle of liquor to ease their anger."

"At about 10 p.m., Luo watched her husband get into bed without cleaning or washing his feet. In a fit of anger and intoxication, she set fire to the sheet he was sleeping in," the report said.

"When he awoke, the two began fighting before a very drunk Wang collapsed. As fire engulfed the bedroom. Luo escaped to the living room, leaving her other half to burn," it added.

The woman has been arrested, Xinhua said.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 05:23 PM

Glass Baby Bottles Make a Comeback
From Associated Press
March 13, 2008

NEW YORK - Meg Robustelli had heard reports that a chemical in most plastic baby bottles could be dangerous, but she had not done anything about it. That's when her mother stepped in and bought her glass bottles. "She's an alarmist, but I'm grateful," said Robustelli, whose daughter, Mia, is 14 months old. "I switched because of all the concerns about the plastic."

She made the change about six months ago, becoming one of a relatively small but growing number of parents turning to glass bottles amid concerns over a chemical used to make plastic bottles, bisphenol A. "I wish I was using glass from the beginning, so I could have avoided any exposure," said Robustelli, of Stamford, Conn.

Bisphenol A, or BPA, is a manmade chemical used in polycarbonate plastic, the material used to make most baby bottles and other shatterproof plastic food containers. Americans are widely exposed to BPA, but opinions on its safety are mixed.

The Food and Drug Administration says current uses with food are safe. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says animal testing has shown that BPA has hormone-like effects on the reproductive system. The CDC says more study is needed to see if it could be harming people.

Some pediatricians advise families to use alternatives to polycarbonate bottles to be on the safe side.

"I can't assure parents that it's safe, and I would not use that for my own babies," said Dr. Alan Greene, a pediatrician and author of "Raising Baby Green." "There are a number of BPA-free bottles, and I also love glass bottles."

As parents turn to glass, manufacturers are responding with new versions of the old-fashioned favorite.

Babies "R" Us had a dramatic increase in glass bottle sales in the spring of 2007 and current sales are more than five times what they were a year ago, the company said, without releasing figures.

Dr. Brown's, which has been making a polycarbonate bottle for about a decade, introduced a glass version in early January because of customer demand, said Carolyn Hentschell, president of Handi-Craft Co./Dr. Brown's Natural Flow.

"If you're a mom and you have concerns (about BPA), here's an obvious choice*," she said. "We don't want them to feel like they have to go to another baby bottle." *Funny, I used the "other" other choice, the breast, and never had any of these problems.

Evenflo, which has made glass bottles for the last 70 years, said sales shot up by more than 100 percent between 2006 and 2007, and continue to climb this year. Evenflo and Dr. Brown's, who say glass bottles still make up less than 10 percent of bottle sales, give parents a choice of bottles. A few other companies are staying away from BPA altogether.

BornFree, a Florida company that started a few years ago with BPA-free bottles and cups, added glass bottles about a year ago. "From day one, we were free of polycarbonate products," said company President Ron Vigdor. "We saw a need for that." Glass generally costs more. A three-pack of 8 oz. Dr. Brown's polycarbonate bottles has a suggested price of $12.99, the same price recommended for a two-pack of the company's glass bottles.

Glass, of course, can break, and parents need to be careful. Once babies can hold their own bottles or walk, they should not be given a glass bottle to drink on their own, experts say.

Greene said the bottles are a great choice for parents with the youngest babies, still being safely held while they are fed. "By the time the child is big enough to be walking around, I prefer it'd be a sippy cup," he said. (Several BPA-free plastic cups are being made.)

Robustelli, the Connecticut mom, said Mia broke one bottle, which shattered when it hit the ceramic tile floor at a restaurant. "She throws them* here on the regular linoleum tile in our kitchen and on the wood floor and carpet and they are always fine," Robustelli said. "They don't break at home." *Never had a problem with breasts being thrown on the kitchen OR restaurant floor, and they never broke!

As far as cleaning, the bottles can be boiled, go in the dishwasher or a sterilizer, just like plastic. I never ever boiled my nipples. What a lot of nonsense!!! ;-D

"A lot of people think it's going to be a hassle, but they really are treated the same," said Evenflo's Frost. As for maintaining the bottles, they should be checked regularly for nicks or cracks, and replaced if any are found, manufacturers say.

Some bottle makers are also making new versions.

In November, two California companies introduced a glass bottle sheathed in a protective silicone sleeve.

"The sleeve helps protect the bottle from breakage and bumping into articles in your purse or diaper bag," said Pam Marcus, co-founder of Babylife, which makes the WeeGo bottle. "The silicone is a good insulator and provides a great tactile surface for babies' hands."

The other is the Siliskin bottle, made by Silikids.

While the research into BPA continues, the move toward glass bottles has taken hold, at least among some parents. "If I have more children, from the get-go I'll start with the glass," Robustelli said. "It seems like a no-brainer to me now."

Geez, Louise, what a lot of trouble they're going to.

---

On the Net:

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences BPA Fact Sheet: http://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/media/questions/sya-bpa.cfm

Dr. Alan Greene: http://www.drgreene.com/

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/exposurereport/environmental_phenols1.htm

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 09:46 AM

On a more uplifting note:

School clears kids in contraband candy caper

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (AP) -- School officials have decided to go light on an eighth-grader caught with contraband candy in New Haven, Connecticut.

Michael Sheridan, an eighth-grade honors student who was suspended for a day, barred from attending an honors dinner and stripped of his title as class vice president after he was caught with a bag of Skittles candy in school will get his student council post back, school officials said.

Superintendent Reginald Mayo said in a statement late Wednesday that he and principal Eleanor Turner met with student Michael's parents and that Turner decided to clear the boy's record and restore him to his student council post.

Michael was disciplined after he was caught buying a bag of Skittles from a classmate. The classmate's suspension also will be expunged, school officials said.
The New Haven school system banned candy sales in 2003 as part of a districtwide school wellness policy, school spokeswoman Catherine Sullivan-DeCarlo said.

"I am sorry this has happened," Turner said in a statement. "My hope is that we can get back to the normal school routine, especially since we are in the middle of taking the Connecticut mastery test."

Turner said she should have reinforced in writing the verbal warnings against candy transactions.

Michael had said that he didn't realize his candy purchase was against the rules, but he did notice that the student selling the Skittles on February 26 was being secretive.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 09:35 AM

Those people are to be pitied, not ridiculed.

Couldn't agree more. Just too strange.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 10:16 PM

That bathroom story is a head-scratcher, but I don't have the heart to make it into a thread of its own. Those people are to be pitied, not ridiculed.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 04:57 PM

Student suspended for buying Skittles at school

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (AP) -- Contraband candy has led to big trouble for an eighth-grade honors student in Connecticut.

Michael Sheridan was stripped of his title as class vice president, barred from attending an honors student dinner and suspended for a day after buying a bag of Skittles from a classmate.

School spokeswoman Catherine Sullivan-DeCarlo says the New Haven school system banned candy sales in 2003 as part of a districtwide school wellness policy.

Michael's suspension has been reduced from three days to one, but he has not been reinstated as class vice president.

He says he didn't realize his candy purchase was against the rules -- although he did notice the student selling the Skittles on February 26 was being secretive.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 04:24 PM

That has got to be one of the strangest ever and I don't make that statement lightly. Two years on the pot. My wife thinks I take too long and I don't even read a whole magazine article.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 03:58 PM

So...lemme see if I have this right...she refused to get off the throne for TWO YEARS before he finally figured it had gone on long enough??? Jaysus... some folks have a really, really, long lag as far as responding to events.

I guess in another two years, he'll probably notice she's gone.

A

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 03:50 PM

Weird. Just plain weird. I'd have them both taken in for examination. This is a low-functioning couple, no doubt about it.


Sheriff: US woman sat on boyfriend's toilet for 2 years; didn't want to leave bathroom
March 12, 2008

WICHITA, Kansas - Deputies say a woman in western Kansas became stuck on her boyfriend's toilet after sitting on it for two years. Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said it appeared the 35-year-old woman's skin had grown around the seat. She initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital.

"We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Whipple said. "The hospital removed it."

Whipple said investigators planned to present their report Wednesday to the county attorney, who will determine whether any charges should be filed against the woman's 36-year-old boyfriend. "She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body," Whipple said. "It is hard to imagine. ... I still have a hard time imagining it myself."

He told investigators he brought his girlfriend food and water, and asked her every day to come out of the bathroom.

"And her reply would be, `Maybe tomorrow,'" Whipple said. "According to him, she did not want to leave the bathroom."

The house had another bathroom he could use.

The boyfriend called police on Feb. 27 to report that "there was something wrong with his girlfriend," Whipple said, adding that he never explained why it took him two years to call.

Police found the clothed woman sitting on the toilet, her sweat pants down to her mid-thigh. She was "somewhat disoriented," and her legs looked like they had atrophied, Whipple said.

"She said that she didn't need any help, that she was OK and did not want to leave," he said.

She was taken to a hospital in Wichita, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) southeast of their home in Ness City. She was listed in fair condition. Whipple said she has refused to cooperate with medical providers or law enforcement investigators.

Authorities said they did not know if she was mentally or physically disabled.

Police have declined to release the couple's names, but the house where authorities say the incident happened is listed in public records as the residence of Kory McFarren. No one answered his home phone number.

The case has been the buzz of Ness City, said James Ellis, a neighbor.

"I don't think anybody can make any sense out of it," he said.

Ellis said he had known the woman since she was a child but that he had not seen her for at least six years.

He said she had a tough childhood after her mother died at a young age and apparently was usually kept inside the house as she grew up. At one time the woman worked for a long-term care facility, he said, but he did not know what kind of work she did there.

"It really doesn't surprise me," Ellis said of the bathroom incident. "What surprises me is somebody wasn't called in a bit earlier."

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 01:15 PM

Jeb's charter could close

   When it opened in 1996, the Liberty City Charter School sparked a movement.

Headed by Jeb Bush , not yet governor, and T. Willard Fair , not yet State Board of Education chairman, the school in an impoverished section of Miami signaled the beginning of Florida's new initiative in which private groups would get public funds to run schools and be held to state accountability measures.

''Our opening had national implications,'' principal Katrina Wilson-Davis recalled to the Miami Herald. "I remember CNN and MSNBC coming down to our school site. Everybody wanted to see what accountability was all about. We were leading the charge.''

Hundreds of other charters followed, as did the rise in state politics for Bush and Fair.

Today, the charter movement continues. But the Miami-Dade School Board will consider shutting down Liberty City Charter, the Miami Herald reports. The school has faced a "financial emergency" for two years.

"I understand the position that the School Board is in, but I wish they would give us a little more time to get our finances in order,'' Wilson-Davis told the Herald. "We've done enough good work over the last 12 years to merit a second look.''

If not, the school's 200 or so students will be transferred to other schools in the district.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 10:52 AM

MaryAnn is 69? How can that be?

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 09:31 AM

Actress from 'Gilligan's Island' serving probation under plea

DRIGGS, Idaho (AP) -- Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann on "Gilligan's Island," is serving six months' unsupervised probation after allegedly being caught with marijuana in her car.

She was sentenced February 29 to five days in jail, fined $410.50 and placed on probation after pleading guilty to one count of reckless driving.

Under a plea agreement, three misdemeanor counts -- driving under the influence, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a controlled substance -- were dropped.

On October 18, Teton County sheriff's Deputy Joseph Gutierrez arrested Wells as she was driving home from a surprise birthday party that was held for her.

According to the sheriff's office report, Gutierrez pulled Wells over after noticing her swerve and repeatedly speed up and slow down. When Gutierrez asked about a marijuana smell, Wells said she'd just given a ride to three hitchhikers and had dropped them off when they began smoking something. Gutierrez found half-smoked joints and two small cases used to store marijuana.
The 69-year-old Wells, founder of the Idaho Film and Television Institute and organizer of the region's annual family movie festival called the Spud Fest, then failed a sobriety test.

Wells' lawyer, Ron Swafford, said that a friend of Wells testified he'd left a small amount of marijuana in the vehicle after using it that day, and that Wells was unaware of it. Swafford also said several witnesses were prepared to testify that Wells had very little to drink at the party and was not intoxicated when she left. He said she was swerving on the road because she was trying to find the heater controls in her new car.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 01:23 AM

Today, March 11, has been a historical day.

The people of Mississippi turned out in record numbers to vote for a balck President.

And the House decided to improve itself ethically:

WASHINGTON Ñ In the wake of a string of Congressional misconduct and corruption cases, the House on Tuesday created an independent panel to investigate suspected wrongdoing by lawmakers, despite deep reservations from rank-and-file lawmakers from both parties.

The new Office of Congressional Ethics was promoted by Democratic leaders as a way to restore credibility to an internal policing process that had been seen as largely ineffective in recent years, even as individual lawmakers were indicted, rebuked and jailed for various offenses. The vote to establish the office was 229 to 182.

By creating a panel of six people of Òexceptional public standing,Ó the House, for the first time, delegated the authority for regulating behavior in the House to nonlawmakers. Current members of the House, federal employees and anyone who has been a registered lobbyist in the past year would be ineligible.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 11:35 AM

BOULDER, Colo. -- A Boulder woman said she will fight a $1,000 fine she was given for coloring her miniature poodle pink.

Joy Douglas said she colored Cici pink to help raise awareness for breast cancer. The salon owner said she has used beet juice -- and occasionally Kool-Aid -- for four years now to "stain" her dog.

Officials at the Humane Society of Boulder Valley told the Daily Camera Douglas was warned several times before she was issued the ticket on March 1.

Douglas is accused of violating the city's code that says "No person shall dye or color live fowl, rabbits, or any other animals." It's a code meant to keep people from dyeing rabbits and chicks at Easter...

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 10:57 PM

I'm the target in a T intersection, and have been slowly building a berm in the front yard right there at that point. It isn't very big yet, might send a car airborn if it's going very fast. But I'm working on it. There is a tree in front of it, but the last one was a dud and has about died. I'll plant a new one this spring.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 10:52 PM

We have one house in Wichita that was repeatedly slammed by inattentive drivers. It's at a "T" intersection where a "one-way" street dead-ends and a turn is required. Lots of cars didn't make the turn.

After the fifth or sixth rebuild, and inadequate compensation from city and insurers, the owner erected a four foot tall by four foot thick brick (faced) wall reinforced with railroad track in place of normal Re-Bar. He was subsequently forced to install heavy plantings to "slow them down" before impact to avoid a "growth of ugliness" in the wall.

The city threatened to sue on grounds that the wall was a "hazard to motorists," but in recent years have cooperated by not repairing any potholes in the three or four blocks approacing the intersection, and with the resulting slow-down in traffic there have been no recent reports of further crashes.

John

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 10:48 PM

DOnuel:

Our house is paid for; we just didn't have the price in cash to hand when we bought it, so we used a mortgage and paid down principle on alternate 15 day intervals until it was paid off.


A

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 08:44 PM

I heard about the tank on the news this morning. We have lots of tanked drivers here too, it's nothing new, drivers hitting houses. There is one guy a few miles from here who has had to rebuild his garage TWICE because of drunk drivers.

My mother told a story about a relative's house that was situated on a corner out in a rural part of the county road apporaching the tiny town of Silvana, in Washington State. He had a big lilac hedge around that corner, and every so often a drunk driver would plow into it. He would fine them for damaging his hedge.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 04:25 PM

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian tank crashed through a villager's house after the crew stopped to buy more vodka at a nearby shop.

Footage from a mobile phone camera showed the tank hitting a corner of the house and a laughing, and apparently drunk, driver awkwardly trying to clamber aboard with two bottles of vodka.

"Get him out of the tank," screamed a woman in the village in the Urals.

The army promised Friday to pay compensation and said the tank must have been broken and fallen behind a column heading to a test site for exercises. Earlier it said the vehicle slid on melting ice.

"Of course, there were violations but the crew acted in good faith to catch up with its unit," said Colonel Konstantin Lazutkin, spokesman for Russia's Volga-Urals Military District.

"Thank God, they didn't shoot," the house owner said on the video.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 04:19 PM

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Thou shall not pollute the Earth. Thou shall beware genetic manipulation. Modern times bring with them modern sins. So the Vatican has told the faithful that they should be aware of "new" sins such as causing environmental blight.

The guidance came at the weekend when Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the Vatican's number two man in the sometimes murky area of sins and penance, spoke of modern evils.

Asked what he believed were today's "new sins," he told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that the greatest danger zone for the modern soul was the largely uncharted world of bioethics.

"(Within bioethics) there are areas where we absolutely must denounce some violations of the fundamental rights of human nature through experiments and genetic manipulation whose outcome is difficult to predict and control," he said.

The Vatican opposes stem cell research that involves destruction of embryos and has warned against the prospect of human cloning.

Girotti, in an interview headlined "New Forms of Social Sin," also listed "ecological" offences as modern evils.

In recent months, Pope Benedict has made several strong appeals for the protection of the environment, saying issues such as climate change had become gravely important for the entire human race.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 07:07 PM

"We always paid for everything except our house"
I'm one up on you Amos

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 07:02 PM

Note to all non-critical thinkers out there: When books suggest that a 4 to 8 year old child lived in Europe with wild wolves then trekked 1,900 miles across many nations to find her parents, don't believe it.

From the following article is this paragraph:

She didn't live with a pack of wolves to escape the Nazis. She didn't trek 1,900 miles across Europe in search of her deported parents, nor kill a German soldier in self-defense. She's not even Jewish.

I haven't read this book. If I did, I wouldn't read this as nonfiction. This falls in the category of "memoir," in which a fanciful re-telling of a life is conducted by the author. Some people confuse "memoir" with "autobiography." Apparently a lot of people do, if they translated it as often and sold as many as this article says.

I wonder also that "Sharon Sergeant, a genealogical researcher in Waltham" should go to such great lengths to track all of this stuff down? Why didn't she simply say "this is utter nonsense. Prove it or call it fiction or memoir."

No common sense in this entire episode. It looks like everyone got what they diserved. At the end of the story there is a line Lee, of Newton, muttered "Oh my God" when told Defonseca made up her childhood and was not Jewish. Really? You really believed that an 8-year-old child trekked 1,900 miles and lived with wolves? Really? I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like you to invest in. . .

---

Writer Admits Holocaust Book Is Not True
February 29, 2008

BOSTON - Almost nothing Misha Defonseca wrote about herself or her horrific childhood during the Holocaust was true.

She didn't live with a pack of wolves to escape the Nazis. She didn't trek 1,900 miles across Europe in search of her deported parents, nor kill a German soldier in self-defense. She's not even Jewish.

Defonseca, a Belgian writer now living in Massachusetts, admitted through her lawyers this week that her best-selling book, "Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years," was an elaborate fantasy she kept repeating, even as the book was translated into 18 languages and made into a feature film in France.

"This story is mine. It is not actually reality, but my reality, my way of surviving," Defonseca said in a statement given by her lawyers to The Associated Press.

"I ask forgiveness to all who felt betrayed. I beg you to put yourself in my place, of a 4-year-old girl who was very lost," the statement said.

Defonseca, 71, has an unlisted number in Dudley, about 50 miles southwest of Boston. Her husband, Maurice, told The Boston Globe on Thursday that she would not comment.

Defonseca wrote in her book that Nazis seized her parents when she was a child, forcing her to wander the forests and villages of Europe alone for four years. She claimed she found herself trapped in the Warsaw ghetto and was adopted by a pack of wolves that protected her.

Her two Brussels-based lawyers said the author acknowledged her story was not autobiographical. In the statement, Defonseca said she never fled her home in Brussels during the war to find her parents.

Defonseca says her real name is Monique De Wael and that her parents were arrested and killed by Nazis as Belgian resistance fighters.

The statement said her parents were arrested when she was 4 and she was taken care of by her grandfather and uncle. She said she was poorly treated by her adopted family, called a "daughter of a traitor" because of her parents' role in the resistance, which she said led her to "feel Jewish."

She said there were moments when she "found it difficult to differentiate between what was real and what was part of my imagination."

Pressure on the author to defend the accuracy of her book had grown in recent weeks, after the release of evidence found by Sharon Sergeant, a genealogical researcher in Waltham. Sergeant said she found clues in the unpublished U.S. version of the book, including Defonseca's maiden name "De Wael" - which was changed in the French version - and photos.

After a few months of research, she found Defonseca's Belgian baptismal certificate and school record, as well as information that showed her parents were members of the Belgian resistance.

"Each piece was plausible, but the difficulty was when you put it all together," Sergeant said.

Others also had doubts.

"I'm not an expert on relations between humans and wolves, but I am a specialist of the persecution of Jews, and they (Defonseca's family) can't be found in the archives," Belgian historian Maxime Steinberg told RTL television. "The De Wael family is not Jewish nor were they registered as Jewish."

Defonseca's attorneys, siblings Nathalie and Marc Uyttendaele, contacted the author last weekend to show her evidence published in the Belgian daily Le Soir, which also questioned her story.

"We gave her this information and it was very difficult. She was confronted with a reality that is different from what she has been living for 70 years," Nathalie Uyttendaele said.

Defonseca's admission is just the latest controversy surrounding her 1997 book, which also spawned a multimillion dollar legal battle between the woman, her co-author and the book's U.S. publisher.

Defonseca had been asked to write the book by publisher Jane Daniel in the 1990s, after Daniel heard the writer tell the story in a Massachusetts synagogue.

Daniel and Defonseca fell out over profits received from the best-selling book, which led to a lawsuit. In 2005, a Boston court ordered Daniel to pay Defonseca and her ghost writer Vera Lee $22.5 million. Defonseca's lawyers said Daniel has not yet paid the court-ordered sum.

Daniel said Friday she felt vindicated by Defonseca's admission and would try to get the judgment overturned. She said she could not fully research Defonseca's story before it was published because the woman claimed she did not know her parents' names, her birthday or where she was born.

"There was nothing to go on to research," she said.

Lee, of Newton, muttered "Oh my God" when told Defonseca made up her childhood and was not Jewish. She said she always believed the stories the woman told her as they prepared to write the book, and no research she did gave her a reason not to.

"She always maintained that this was truth as she recalled it, and I trusted that that was the case," Lee said. "I was just totally bowled over by the news."

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 12:58 PM

Except for our house, we have paid cash for everything we have -- well, we did a few home improvement jobs on time, but with zero per cent interest for 12 months, and we made damn sure to pay them off completely before any interest became due. We buy week-to-week on credit card and pay the full amount off each billing period, and refuse to pay interest if we can possibly avoid it.

Still, it was a rhetorical question in ligth of the fact that Mexico, notorious for corruption and authoritarian priveleged leadership, is now making laws constraining warrantless search while our administration is demanding the right for warrantless search.

A

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 11:40 AM

By the by, they could pay cash because they are tight as a drum.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 11:37 AM

In the context of a home loan then cleary it is true for most people (my in-laws paid cash). I like to think that is what was meant but they didn't say so explicitly. The phrase really caught my ear though, whatever they actually meant.

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 11:11 AM

Scary thought, isn't it? But I suppose in that context of buying a home, where most people don't have the price of a house up front, you do have to "borrow to spend."

Let me go check those numbers on last night's lotto ticket. . .

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 10:53 AM

As I was watching the news (CBS I believe) while getting ready for work this morning they did a story on the US economy. The housing crisis, fears of inflation and the credit crunch were all mentioned. One of the comments about the credit crunch just floored me. They were saying that banks have tightened up their lending practices which makes it more difficult for poeple to get loans. Then they said that "if people can't borrow, they can't spend."

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 06:00 PM

Does anyone know the tune to "The World Turned Upside Down"?

I'm assuming that is a rhetorical question?

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 05:26 PM

NO OVERFLIGHTS!

Santa Fe, NM, remains a state capital without air service.
Tribal leaders at Santo Domingo Pueblo have objected to commercial flights from Los Angeles to Santa Fe because they would fly over Santo Domingo lands. As a result, a Federal environment assessment is required.
Not only would overflights be objectionable for noise and privacy reasons, but passengers might take photographs of their Pueblo and lands.
Airlines applying for permission to service Santa Fe are Delta and American Eagle. Article Feb 27, 2008.
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/Pueblos-concerns-snag-S-F-flights

Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
From: Amos
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 11:47 AM

Warrantless Searches Removed From Legislation in Mexico

   
By MARC LACEY
Published: February 27, 2008
MEXICO CITY — Mexican lawmakers on Tuesday stripped a controversial provision from their plan to overhaul the country's judiciary that would have given police officers, who are widely mistrusted here, the ability to enter homes without obtaining warrants beforehand.

Warrantless searches would have been allowed only in emergencies and in cases of hot pursuit of criminal suspects. But human rights groups had strongly opposed the measure, fearing that a police force notorious for corruption would abuse the authority.

---

Does anyone know the tune to "The World Turned Upside Down"?



A
One newspaper labeled the plan the "Gestapo law."

The last-minute change, approved overwhelmingly by the House of Deputies, delays passage of a revamping of the country's judicial system that is meant to speed up trials that now stretch on for years and to better equip the country in its battle against narcotics traffickers.