Coozer-Bits.

Creepy: New Google service lets people keep track of where you are at all times.

Dorky: Man robs 7-11 with Klingon blade.

WTF: Former presidential candidate turns into vampire, dates 16-year-old girl who happens to be a vampire hunter. (This is all true.)

Retro: Dust off your Rubik's Cube -- FBI reopens Tylenol tampering case.

Creepy: Prehistoric monster snake discovered.

Sports: Brits furious as soccer goal interrupted by Tic-Tac ad.

Yipes: Bill Gates purposely releases more bugs.

Sad: Crash victim refused by 14 hospitals, dies.

Russian Crime Watch: Woman sought doppelgangers to kill and take over their apartments.

Science: How your brain creates God.

Duh: Mystery smell in NYC is solved -- it IS New Jersey!

South Korean woman fails written driving test 771 times.

And this is the WRITTEN test! From BBC:

A South Korean grandmother has failed her written driving test 771 times.

Police in the city of Jeonju said the 68-year-old woman has taken, and failed, the written test repeatedly since April 2005.

She failed the exam once again on Monday but has said that she will continue trying.

The woman, identified only by her family name Cha, has repeatedly scored between 30 and 50 marks, below the pass mark of 60 out of 100.

Czech Republic criticized for surgically castrating rapists.

Kudos to the Czech Republic! You'll hear no criticisms from me on this. From BBC News:

The Czech Republic has been strongly criticised by Europe's leading human rights body for continuing to surgically castrate male sex offenders.

The Council of Europe said castrations had sometimes been performed without warnings of side effects and on men not capable of making an informed decision.

Those requesting castration feared life in jail if they did not do so, it said.

The Czech government says 94 procedures have been performed in the past 10 years, all in accordance with its laws.

A further 300 Czech men have undergone chemical castration - involving the injection of drugs that suppress the production of male hormones - since 2000, according to government figures.

GTA forces children into life of crime.

Just like how playing Pac-Man made me want to gobble pellets. Damn you, impressionable video games! From ABC News:

Six Long Island, N.Y., teens were arrested on charges of robbery early Thursday morning after emulating the notorious characters of the video game "Grand Theft Auto," police said.

Nassau County officers received a 911 call late Wednesday night from a woman claiming she'd been robbed by teens, Sgt. James Bartkowski told ABC News. She told responding officers that a group of about 12 to 15 young men armed with crowbars, sticks and metal bars surrounded her car and stole her money before she managed to drive away, Bartkowski said.

As police arrived on the scene early Thursday morning, the teens were allegedly in the midst of another attempted robbery, police said. The teens had tried to stop a passing van by similarly surrounding the vehicle, hitting it with their sticks and weapons, Bartkowski said. The driver got out and grabbed one would-be robber while Sgt. William Grimes, the first officer on the scene, detained another. The rest of the group ran away, but ultimately six teens were arrested at 1:45 a.m. Thursday.

Zombie Watch: More heroes sound the alarm.

From Yahoo! News:

Pranksters in at least three states are messing with electronic road signs meant to warn motorists of possible traffic problems by putting drivers on notice about Nazi zombies and raptors. And highway safety officials aren't amused.

The latest breach came Tuesday during the morning rush hour near Collinsville, Ill., where hackers changed a sign along southbound Interstate 255 to read, "DAILY LANE CLOSURES DUE TO ZOMBIES."

A day earlier in Indiana's Hamilton County, the electronic message on a board in Carmel's construction zone warned drivers of "RAPTORS AHEAD — CAUTION."

And signs in Austin, Texas, recently flashed: "NAZI ZOMBIES! RUN!!!" and "ZOMBIES IN AREA! RUN."

Officials in Illinois are concerned the rewritten signs distract motorists from heeding legitimate hazards down the road. The hacked sign on Tuesday originally warned drivers of crews replacing guardrails.

Oslo's buses to run on poop!

Thanks JenK! From Inhabitat:

Rather than let all their sewage go to waste, the city of Oslo recently announced that it plans to cut carbon emissions by converting 80 public buses to run on biomethane generated from raw sewage. These poo-powered buses are part of the city’s plan to become carbon neutral by 2050, and stand to cut around 44 tonnes of CO2 per bus, per year.

We love seeing innovative energy solutions that make use of waste, and we’re glad to hear of Oslo’s plans to trap and transform the gas emitted from the breakdown of treated sewage into biomethane. Two sewage treatment plants will soon be outfitted with the technology, and the biomethane generated will be used to power 80 buses. The buses will be slightly modified so that their engines can run on methane, and these modifications will also have the effect of reducing noise levels as they move around in the city.

If this test is successful, the city plans to convert the rest of the buses to run on biogas, and the first buses will start running in September 2009.

MySpace kicks out 90,000 sex offenders.

Whoa, wait a minute! MySpace is still around? From CNN:

MySpace.com has identified and removed 90,000 convicted sex offenders from its popular online social-networking site, according to one of the dozens of state attorneys general who pressured the site to beef up its safety standards.

Richard Blumenthal, the attorney general of Connecticut who spearheaded the campaign to subpoena MySpace, told CNN Radio he found the number "appalling."

"These convicted, registered sex offenders clearly create profiles seeking to prey on children," he said, adding, "This revelation is totally appalling and unacceptable, and this shocking revelation, resulting from our subpoena, also provides compelling proof that social networking sites remain ripe with sexual predators."

Nevermind: Obama ok's CIA torture and rendition.

Epic fail. What happened to not sacrificing our country's ideals for safety? And shame on our media - I only saw this in British press.

Barack Obama has granted the CIA permission to continue carrying out the controversial Bush-era practice of extraordinary rendition, it has emerged.

And he did so just two days after becoming president and vowing to dismantle his predecessor's war on terror.

As the new U.S. President issued orders shutting down the American military prison at Guantanamo Bay and fought to show the Muslim world that 'America is not your enemy', it was revealed that the renditions programme may even be expanded.

Under executive orders signed by Mr Obama on January 22, two days after his inauguration, the CIA still has the authority to carry out renditions - secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials told the Los Angeles Times that the programme may even play an expanded role going forward as it is the main remaining mechanism - apart from Predator missile strikes - for taking suspected terrorists off the streets.

The U.S. has been stepping up its usage of Predator missile strikes in states such as Pakistan - but the horrifying rate of civilian casualties that go along with such strikes make the practice almost as controversial as rendition.

[...] But despite the controversy surrounding the secretive practice, Mr Obama appears to have decided it was the one component of Mr Bush's war on terror that it must keep.

'Obviously you need to preserve some tools - you still have to go after the bad guys,' an Obama administration official told the LA Times.

'The legal advisors working on this looked at rendition. It is controversial in some circles and kicked up a big storm in Europe. But if done within certain parameters, it is an acceptable practice.'

Coat check clerk beaten to death for asking diner to remove jacket.

Russia is scary. From Moscow Times:

On the night of Jan. 18, the coat attendant was on duty at the bar when he asked a patron to remove his jacket. The response from the customer was swift: He punched the employee in the face. A scuffle ensued, and the customer eventually calmed down and left the establishment — not for long, as it turned out.

The man returned two hours later, knocked the attendant off his feet with a "crushing" blow to his skull. He then began stomping on the man's skull as employees and patrons looked on. There was no word on whether any of them tried to intervene.

The victim, 38, was taken to the hospital with craniocerebral injuries and died two hours later. Tragically, he had a wife and children, who were "left without a breadwinner," investigators said.

Police have arrested the suspect, 27, who had served time for violent crimes but was paroled last year. He is being charged with aggravated manslaughter. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.

Coozer-Bits.

Yipes: Four women chase down man, stab him to death.

Hero: 4-year-old sings address to 911, saves mom.

Awesome: Treasure hunters find legendary British ship.

Lame: Tom Daschle forgets to pay $120K in taxes.

Interesting: Random article on a nuclear waste furnace. Never knew those things existed!

Yipes: Tokyo covered in ash from erupting volcano.

Video: NYPD's finest caught smashing gambling machines, pocketing the money.

Hot Cha Cha: Dude lives the dream: sole male on campus of 1300 female students.

Creepy: Scientists discovery why locusts turn into insane swarms.

Teleportation a quantum leap closer.

I need to invent time travel just so I don't have to wait for teleportation to be perfected. I can't wait! From Time:

Depending on your favorite sci-fi yarns, teleportation is either a very, very bad idea (see: The Fly) or a very, very cool one (see: Star Trek). For scientists, it's just very, very complex, so much so that at this point, teleportation is not a matter of moving matter but one of transporting information. Already, physicists have been able to exchange information between light particles — or photons — or between atoms, so long as they were right next to each other. The current experiment marks the first in which information has traveled a significant distance — 1 m, or a little more than 3 ft. — between two isolated atoms. It's also the first time the powers of a photon, which is good at traveling over long distances, and an atom, which is prized for its ability to retain information, have been jointly exploited.

Using a pair of ions, or charged particles, group leader Christopher Monroe and his team place each in a vacuum and keep them in position with electric fields. An ultra-fast laser pulse triggers the atoms to emit photons simultaneously. If the photons interact in just the right way, their parent atoms enter a quantum state known as entanglement, in which atom B adopts the properties of atom A even though they're in separate chambers a meter apart. When A is measured, the information that had been previously encoded on it disappears in accordance with the quirky rules of the quantum world. But all is not lost: because B is entangled with A, B now contains the information that was once carried on A. That information, in a very real sense, has been teleported.

Zombie Watch: 400-year-old mummies well preserved.

From the Daily Mail:

With her crumpled yellow hairbow and grubby face, pretty little Rosalina looks as though she's just flaked out for a nap after a morning spent playing in the garden.

In fact, she has been lying in her tiny, wooden, glass-topped coffin in the catacombs beneath the Capuchin monastery in Palermo, Sicily, for more than 90 years - skilfully and shockingly preserved to look just as she did when she died of a bronchial infection in December 1920, aged two.

And she is not alone. In the vast, musty-smelling catacombs are nearly 2,000 mummified corpses, many of them more than four centuries old - Rosalina was one of the last to enter this strange underground resting place, before the authorities banned the process...

26 million jobless in China.

From The Guardian:

Around 20 million migrant workers have returned to the Chinese countryside after failing to find work in the cities because of the economic downturn, a senior official said today.

The figure - greater than the population of Australia - is double a previous official estimate and will heighten the concerns of the Chinese authorities about maintaining stability. It came a day after the government warned that 2009 would be "possibly the toughest year" for economic development in China since the turn of the century.

Chen Xiwen, director at the Office of the Central Leading Group on Rural Work, told a news conference that a government survey showed that 15.3% of an estimated 130 million rural migrants to the cities had returned home jobless. Adding in new entrants to the rural labour market gave a total of around 26 million unemployed and potentially restive people in the countryside. Some economists believe this is an underestimate and say the real figure could ultimately reach 40 million.

Sewage yields more gold than top mines.

Gross.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Resource-poor Japan just discovered a new source of mineral wealth -- sewage.

A sewage treatment facility in central Japan has recorded a higher gold yield from sludge than can be found at some of the world's best mines. An official in Nagano prefecture, northwest of Tokyo, said the high percentage of gold found at the Suwa facility was probably due to the large number of precision equipment manufacturers in the vicinity that use the yellow metal. The facility recently recorded finding 1,890 grammes of gold per tonne of ash from incinerated sludge.

That is a far higher gold content than Japan's Hishikari Mine, one of the world's top gold mines, owned by Sumitomo Metal Mining Co Ltd, which contains 20-40 grammes of the precious metal per tonne of ore.

Caption This

"Soylent Green is groundhog! GROUNDHOG!!!"

(Add your caption to comments)

I want my TWO DOLLARS!

CHICAGO (STNG) ― A man was charged with murder for allegedly fatally stabbing his older brother with a butcher knife in a dispute over $2 early Tuesday in the South Side's Englewood neighborhood, police said.

Phillip Binder was charged with murder and is scheduled to appear later Thursday for a bond hearing in Violence Court (Br. 66) at the Cook County Criminal Court at 2600 S. California Ave., police said.

[...] About 2 a.m. Tuesday, Phillip and Charles Binder were inside Charles' home at 2027 W. 70th Pl. with other family members when Phillip allegedly stabbed Charles in the chest -- reportedly with a butcher knife in a fight over $2, police said.

The money was reportedly going be used to purchase drugs, police said.

(Submitted by Hairy Neck C. Thanks!)

Credit card companies using similar tastes of others to judge you.

I hate credit card companies. I think I'll go watch the end of Fight Club again... From ABC News:

A new policy being used by at least one major credit card company judges a shopper not necessarily by his credit purchases and payments alone, but also by the fiscal behavior of the fellow shoppers in the stores he visits.

And in some cases, the bad repayment history of the guy behind you in line at your local megastore could result in a reduction of your credit line, which, in turn, could lead to a reduction in your credit score -- all because of where you shopped.

Spirit Airlines launches sexist ad campaign.

I like that the airline's spokesperson's name is Misty. I wonder if she giggled coyly as she defended the ad campaign. From HuffPo:

MIAMI — Flight attendants and pilots for Spirit Airlines Inc. want the company to pull a series of sexually suggestive advertisements, along with a new requirement they wear a Bud Light patch on service aprons.

[...] "I feel as though I have entered a time warp and am reliving the battles for respect and justice for women that we fought for 40 years ago," Friend said.

Some of Spirit's ads invite customers to enjoy its DD's (deep discounts) and "MILF" (many islands, low fare) specials - double entendres that also refer to large breasts and a crude acronym popularized in the 1999 movie "American Pie" that describes an attractive mother.

[...] Spirit spokeswoman Misty Pinson said the union was consulted last year when the carrier began the discussion on selling apron ad space, and it raised no concerns. Pinson said some of the ads in question have been used for more than a year.

"Actually we've had great response from passengers that love the fares we offer through those promotions," Pinson said. She disputed the flight attendants' characterization that the aprons made them "walking billboards," and called them small and tasteful.

[...] Other recent campaigns include the "Threesome Sale" and December's "Cheap and Easy and Nothing to Hide" sale.

Coozer-Bits.

Science: Burying crops in ocean can save climate.

Science: Mammals that hibernate or burrow less likely to go extinct.

PSA: Peanut butter recall grows to 400 products.

Sad: US Army reports record number of suicides.

PSA: Millions of workers strike in France to protest the economy, disrupting air and rail services.

Awesome: Obama signs equal pay law.

D'oh: Japanese businessmen loses $4m after burying it in his garden.

Film: Craptastic director of Smokin' Aces to make unnecessary A-Team movie.

PSA: Digital TV transition now NOT delayed.

Hot Cha Cha: School invites pole dancers to demonstrate "fitness" for 14-year-olds.

Boozalicious: British pub offers pints of beer for a pence each. (Sadly, a British penny is now about $10 US)

Lame: Bloomberg's new target after smoking and trans fats.... salt.

Yipes: Statue erected in Iraq in honor of shoe-thrower. (Are we still "winning hearts and minds"?)

Science: Shape-shifting fish fools scientists.

Creepy: Man tries to knife out his ex's breast implants.

Local: Queens is the happiest borough in NYC. Yay Queens!

Sad: Think you've got it bad? Britain faces the worst recession of any developed nation.

Sad: Boy sleds into path of moving SUV.

Science: Honeybees can tell the difference between different numbers.

Dead: John Updike.

Coozer Prophesy: Is 12/21/12 the end of the world?

I'm getting really, really drunk on December 20, 2012. From CNN:

Fueled by a crop of books, Web sites with countdown clocks, and claims about ancient timekeepers, interest is growing in what some see as the dawn of a new era, and others as an expiration date for Earth: December 21, 2012.

The date marks the end of a 5,126-year cycle on the Long Count calendar developed by the Maya, the ancient civilization known for its advanced understanding of astronomy and for the great cities it left behind in Mexico and Central America.

(Some scholars believe the cycle ends a bit later -- on December 23, 2012.)

Speculation in some circles about whether the Maya chose this particular time because they thought something ominous would happen has sparked a number of doomsday theories.

Consumers win victory over annoying robo calls.

From the Consumerist:

Hasta la vista, robo callers! As of December, all pre-recorded sales calls need to have a way for consumers to opt-out of their mailing lists, either by pressing a button or saying something.No doubt this will happen at the end of the call. So the good news is that you have a way to get off their list. The bad news is...

...you'll probably have to listen to their whole spiel to do it. Also, it will only work of the telemarketer follows the rules, less scrupulous ones or outright scammers are unlikely to let you off their list, and could even find ways to profit off it. "Thank you for your selection. To process your opt-out request and verify your identity, please enter your bank account number..."

Interview with Flight of the Conchords.

Amusing interview here. I like this part:

CNN: How confident are you both in your abilities as musicians?

McKenzie: 24 to 27 percent.

Clement: I'm 24. He's 27.

McKenzie: Combined we're mediocre.

CNN: How are you enjoying the fame that's come from the success?

McKenzie: Oh it's lovely. You get free desserts.

CNN: Just free desserts?

McKenzie: Free drinks. Sometimes some free shoes.

Clement: Sometimes people invade your privacy.

McKenzie: Strangers talk to you.

Clement: But balanced against the free desserts, it evens out.

Follow-Up: Hungry caterpillars eat Liberia.

More news about the huge caterpillar invasion in Liberia:

Liberia's president has declared a state of emergency after hordes of ravenous caterpillars infested the country.

Tens of millions of the worm-like larvae have appeared in the northern part of the country, where they are destroying green crops like cabbage and collard greens and contaminating the water supply, Liberian Information Minister Laurance Bropleh told CNN Wednesday from the capital of Monrovia.

"I am not aware that they have been here before, ever, and certainly not in this great number," Bropleh told CNN. "That is why it was so overwhelming initially when we first discovered it."

The state of emergency covers the three northern Liberian counties of Bong, Lofa, and Gbarpolu, Liberian officials said.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf told legislators Monday that 350,000 people in 62 communities in those three counties may have been affected.

There are also indications the bugs have spread to neighboring Guinea, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast, Bropleh said.

Here's where it gets crazy:

Hammond said the caterpillars started showing up sometime during the week of January 12 but spread quickly. In just a week, he said, the caterpillars had spread to 50 villages.

The pests multiply rapidly and adult moths are able to fly long distances at night, the FAO said.

Worsening the situation, the area's water supply has been contaminated by the huge volume of feces dropped by the caterpillars, the FAO said.

Zombie Watch: Texas road sign warns of zombies ahead.

And what if it wasn't a prank? Boy, will our faces be red when we find out these heroes were ringing the alarm on the impending zombie apocalypse! Red with blood and brain matter. From FOX News:

Transportation officials in Texas are scrambling to prevent hackers from changing messages on digital road signs after one sign in Austin was altered to read, "Zombies Ahead."

Chris Lippincott, director of media relations for the Texas Department of Transportation, confirmed that a portable traffic sign at Lamar Boulevard and West 15th Street, near the University of Texas at Austin, was hacked into during the early hours of Jan. 19.

"It was clever, kind of cute, but not what it was intended for," said Lippincott, who saw the sign during his morning commute. "Those signs are deployed for a reason — to improve traffic conditions, let folks know there's a road closure."

"It's sort of amusing, but not at all helpful," he told FOXNews.com.

Cello scrotum is a hoax!

I'm so annoyed. To think I could've been playing cello all this time.... From BBC:

A top doctor has admitted her part in hoodwinking a leading medical journal after inventing a medical condition called "cello scrotum".

Elaine Murphy - now Baroness Murphy - dreamt up the painful complaint in the 1970s, sending a report to the British Medical Journal.

She came clean when the hoax resurfaced in the 2008 Christmas edition.

A BMJ spokesman said the inclusion and subsequent debunking of "cello scrotum" had "added to the gaiety of life".

Coozer-Bits: Mystery Edition.

TV: 14 enduring mysteries of Lost. (Good if incomplete list, but I'm pretty sure the polar bears make sense now.)

Science: 6 biggest mysteries of our solar system.

Science: Euro-Indian telecommunications satellite mysteriously fails in space.

Lame: The true victims of the recession? Spoiled girlfriends and wives of investment bankers.

Cthulhu Watch: Japanese diners hospitalized after eating blowfish testicles.

Awesome: Ancient wounds reveal triceratops battles.

Postman saves baby otter, gives her tour of Scotland.

Glad he saved her, but he should've taken her to an animal center right away. Yes, he otter do that next time. From BBC:

A postman who rescued a baby otter on a Scottish roadside took her on a 220-mile tour in his mailbag.

Kenny Wilson, 50, of Tweedbank, in the Borders, spotted the cub - named Orla - lying on the A7 near Stow on Sunday.

He stopped his car, popped her in his mailbag to keep her warm and then bought her kitten milk and fed her through the tube of a ballpoint pen.

He then took the otter with him on a Mini car enthusiasts' rally before taking it to an animal rescue centre.

The six-week-old otter was said to be doing well at the Arthurshiel centre near St Boswells in Roxburghshire.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies!

"The Classic Regency Romance—Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!"

From Chronicle Books:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen's beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Complete with 20 illustrations in the style of C. E. Brock (the original illustrator of Pride and Prejudice), this insanely funny expanded edition will introduce Jane Austen's classic novel to new legions of fans.

Comes out in May but you can pre-order it now.

*wipes a tear*

So.... awesome....

Video games linked to poor relationships with friends, family.

Who needs friends or family when you've got Mass Effect? Seriously, how amazing is that game? From Science Daily:

A new study connects young adults' use of video games to poorer relationships with friends and family – and the student co-author expresses disappointment at his own findings.

Brigham Young University undergrad Alex Jensen and his faculty mentor, Laura Walker, publish their results Jan. 23 in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

The research is based on information collected from 813 college students around the country. As the amount of time playing video games went up, the quality of relationships with peers and parents went down.

"It may be that young adults remove themselves from important social settings to play video games, or that people who already struggle with relationships are trying to find other ways to spend their time," Walker said. "My guess is that it's some of both and becomes circular."

For the record, Walker did not stand in the way of her family's wish for a Nintendo Wii. Jensen had hoped to find some positive results as justification for playing Madden NFL.

PA town victim of 14 arsons in 25 days.

From the Philly Inquirer:

On the latest block ravaged by Coatesville's plague of unsolved arsons, former residents grimly trudged through 15 charred homes yesterday before boarding up the windows.

They salvaged what they could from rowhouses ruined Sunday by fire, smoke and water, packing their lives into relatives' cars through a frigid afternoon and mulling suddenly bleak futures.

Pausing, they assembled to look blankly up at the scorched brick buildings and discuss homespun theories about who might have set the latest in a string of 14 unexplained Coatesville fires since Jan. 1. Grasping to explain the cause of their misery, they guessed about gang members, immigrants, disaffected firefighters and various others.

"I'm too scared to go to sleep at night," said Dee White, 49, who lives several blocks away from the Fleetwood Street block that burned Saturday.

"I don't know what happened. I just know I'm homeless," said Tina Thomas, 38, on the porch of her Fleetwood Street home of 20 years.

Booze prevents impotency.

Best news I've heard all day. From New Scientist:

Men might want to remember a new rhyme: a drink a day keeps erectile dysfunction away.

Despite traditional views about the effects of booze on male performance, new research suggests that moderate drinking actually protects against impotence in the long term – perhaps for the same reason a glass or two of wine a day cuts the odds of suffering from heart disease.

There is good evidence that excessive drinking can hinder sexual performance after a night out – a phenomenon sometimes called "brewer's droop". The effect has been noted for many years: "[Drink] provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance," Shakespeare reminds us in Macbeth.

But over longer periods, moderate drinking doesn't seem to be linked to erectile dysfunction, says Kew-Kim Chew, an epidemiologist at the University of West Australia in Nedlands, whose team conducted an anonymous postal survey of 1770 West Australian men.

After accounting for differences due to age, smoking and heart disease – all risk factors for ED – Chew and colleagues found that drinkers experienced rates of impotence 25% to 30% below those of teetotallers.

NYS health chief forced staff to take her shopping.

Thanks JenK! From NY Times:

[...] But the New York State inspector general’s office says that she turned her staff at the Health Department into her personal chauffeurs, porters and shopping assistants during her seven-year tenure, and has referred a criminal case, including potential felony charges, to the Albany County district attorney.

A report from the office of Inspector General Joseph Fisch to be released Tuesday depicts Dr. Novello as preoccupied with shopping and routinely abusive of her authority over employees, ordering them to buy her groceries, pick up her dry cleaning and even water her houseplants.

[...] Dr. Novello also ordered a Medicaid fraud investigator in her department to drive her on trips to Macy’s and Saks Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. On numerous occasions she had state workers drive her or her mother from the Albany area to Newark Liberty International Airport, roughly 300 miles round trip, to fly to Puerto Rico for personal business. When traveling between state offices in New York City and Albany, she liked to stop at the Woodbury Common Premium Outlets in Central Valley, N.Y., and she is also accused of using state workers to take her on excursions to three malls in the Albany area. Security guards who acted as her drivers said in interviews with state investigators that she would embarrass and yell at them if they did not do things the way she wanted and expected them to be at her beck and call at all hours.

Coozer-Bits.

Misc: Interesting profile on Kim Jong Il's son, who appears to be a pretty shlubby dude.

Film: Excelsior! Stan Lee sued for $750 million.

Sad: Death march of the penguins.

Yipes: White House email system crashes.

Eats: In recession, people forced to eat crap.

Tech: Hackers steal 4.5 million users' information from Monster in Britain's biggest cyber theft case.

Eats: Shocking news: doner kebabs aren't good for you!

Tech: Wikipedia editors might now approve all changes.

WTF: Japan won't recognize baby's existence because it was born 300 days after a divorce.

Media: Demonstrators shut down BBC, protesting network's refusal to air charity appeal for Gaza.

Yipes: Russian cops kill two people to obtain their apartment. (2nd item. The 3rd item is pretty crazy too. Russia is a scary place.)

Tech: Ten sci-fi devices that could soon be in our hands.

Awesome: Creationism defeated in Texas.

Follow-Up: Cabbie returns wedding gifts to forgetful newlyweds.

Zombie Watch: Last of ghouls who sold body parts jailed for 8-24 years.

Lame: Thief steals Torah, forgets about that whole "Thou shalt not steal" thing.

Nonprofit: Mayor Bloomberg gave a whopping $235 million to charity last year.

Creepy: An entire pub of customers watch UFOs fly overhead.

PSA: Senate okays delay of digital TV transition.

Hot Cha Cha: Hide Bill Clinton - new White House aide is a total hottie. (pic might be NSFW)

Man flings his poo at lawyer, jury.

From 10 News:

A mistrial was declared Monday when a home-invasion robbery suspect smeared human feces on his attorney's face then threw more at the jury.

Weusi McGowan, 37, was upset because San Diego Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Fraser refused to remove Deputy Alternate Public Defender Jeffrey Martin from the case, prosecutor Christopher Lawson said.

At the mid-morning break, McGowan produced a plastic baggie filled with fecal matter and spread it on Martin's hair and face, then flung the excrement toward the jury box, hitting the briefcase of juror No. 9 but missing the juror himself.

"That juror didn't even see it coming," Lawson said.The prosecutor said the defendant was compliant after the outburst and was taken into custody without further incident.

Coozer Prophesy: Invading jellyfish are immortal!

I've posted many times in the past about how jellyfish will take over our oceans, ecosystems, and, finally, OUR MINDS. Being up against hordes of jellyfish was bad enough, but now scientists have found out that some jellyfish can LIVE FOREVER. Humanity is doomed. From the Daily Mirror:

A tiny sea creature capable of rejuvenating itself over and over again may hold the secret to eternal life.

The jellyfish-like Turritopsis Nutricula reverts back to a juvenile form once it mates after becoming sexually mature.

So for this creature it's sex, not piety that is the key to living for ever.

Turritopsis is technically known as a 'hydrozoan' and is the only animal that is capable of reverting completely to its younger self.

It does this through the cell development process of transdifferentiation.

Theoretically, this cycle can repeat indefinitely, rendering the animal potentially immortal.

While most members of the jellyfish family usually die after propagating, turritopsis has developed the unique ability to return to a polyp state.

Having stumbled upon the font of eternal youth, this 0.2ins creature is now the focus of many intricate studies by marine biologists and geneticists.

Whiskey saves man trapped by couch.

Moral: Always keep a bottle of whiskey within reach. From BBC:

A man who became trapped beneath his sofa for two days said he survived by sipping from a bottle of whisky.

Joe Galliott, 65, lost his bearings during a power cut at his home in Yeovil, Somerset, and fell against the three-seater which toppled onto him.

Because of back problems, he was unable to free his 19-stone frame and remained stuck for 60 hours until a neighbour spotted him through the curtains.

He said a bottle of whisky, which had rolled within reach, kept him going.

"The whole settee tipped over catching me like a rat in a trap," he said

"I took a sip of [the whisky] and thought, well this isn't too bad."

Red Dwarf voyages back to Earth.

From BBC:

Cult comedy Red Dwarf is returning to TV, 21 years after its initial launch.

The show has been resurrected by digital channel Dave for a two-part Easter weekend special, which sees the cast finally return to Earth.

Written and directed by Red Dwarf co-creator Doug Naylor, the new show reunites the line-up, including Coronation Street's Craig Charles.

[...] Set three million years into the future, the show followed the exploits of Dave Lister, slovenly crew member of the mining ship Red Dwarf - and the last man in the universe.

He was joined in his weekly attempts to make it back to Earth by a cast of oddballs including human hologram Arnold Rimmer, mechanoid servant Kryten and Cat - a preening half-man, half-animal who evolved from the ship's cat.

[...] The new two-part series Red Dwarf: Back to Earth will be followed by a "no holds barred" episode without sets, special effects or autocue.

The weekend will climax with Red Dwarf: the Making of Back to Earth, a behind-the-scenes special from the new episodes.

Man finds US troop data on MP3 player.

From BBC:

A New Zealand man says he found confidential data about US military personnel on an MP3 player he bought from a thrift shop in Oklahoma.

Chris Ogle, 29, said: "The more I look at it, the more I see and the less I think I should be looking."

The files included names and telephone numbers of American soldiers, according to reports by TV New Zealand.

One expert says the files are unlikely to compromise security, as most of them are from 2005.

Some included a warning that the release of its contents is "prohibited by federal law".

As well as personal details of US soldiers, such as social security numbers, the files also listed pregnant female troops and apparent mission briefings in Afghanistan.

England packed with embarrassing town/street names.

Then again, NYC has Flushing, Flatbush, Bushwick, Dyker Heights, Staten Island.... (Addendum: Thanks Larissa!) From the NY Times:

CRAPSTONE, England — When ordering things by telephone, Stewart Pearce tends to take a proactive approach to the inevitable question “What is your address?”

He lays it out straight, so there is no room for unpleasant confusion. “I say, ‘It’s spelled “crap,” as in crap,’ ” said Mr. Pearce, 61, who has lived in Crapstone, a one-shop country village in Devon, for decades.

[...] In the scale of embarrassing place names, Crapstone ranks pretty high. But Britain is full of them. Some are mostly amusing, like Ugley, Essex; East Breast, in western Scotland; North Piddle, in Worcestershire; and Spanker Lane, in Derbyshire.

Others evoke images that may conflict with residents’ efforts to appear dignified when, for example, applying for jobs.

These include Crotch Crescent, Oxford; Titty Ho, Northamptonshire; Wetwang, East Yorkshire; Slutshole Lane, Norfolk; and Thong, Kent. And, in a country that delights in lavatory humor, particularly if the word “bottom” is involved, there is Pratts Bottom, in Kent, doubly cursed because “prat” is slang for buffoon.

As for Penistone, a thriving South Yorkshire town, just stop that sophomoric snickering.

Indonesia clerics issue fatwa on yoga.

Outlawing fitness and exercise? Sounds good to me! From The Guardian:

Indonesia as joined Malaysia in banning Muslims from practising yoga that includes Hindu rituals, fearing that it may corrupt their faith.

The country's senior body of Islamic clerics ruled that Muslims must refrain from yoga if it involves elements such as chanting mantras, which reflect its Hindu roots.

The edict came after the 700-strong Indonesian Council of Ulemas (MUI) sent study teams to gyms and yoga classes across the country to see what effect Hindu rituals might have on Muslims.

When Malaysia's fatwa council told Muslims they should avoid yoga last year, the ruling provoked such strong opposition that the prime minister, Abdullah Badawi, stepped in to overturn the outright ban.

Badawi said Malaysia's Muslims could still practise yoga provided they did not recite mantras.

Bees to help create better artificial intelligence.

From Science Daily:

New research from Monash University bee researcher Adrian Dyer could lead to improved artificial intelligence systems and computer programs for facial recognition.

Dr Dyer is one of Australia's leading bee experts and his latest research shows that honeybees can learn to recognise human faces even when seen from different viewpoints.

Dr Dyer said the research could be applied in the areas of new technology, particularly the development of imaging systems.

"What we have shown is that the bee brain, which contains less than 1 million neurons, is actually very good at learning to master complex tasks. Computer and imaging technology programmers who are working on solving complex visual recognition tasks using minimal hardware resources will find this research useful," Dr Dyer said.

"Most current artificial intelligence (AI) recognition systems perform poorly at reliably recognising faces from different viewpoints. However the bees have shown they can recognise novel views of rotated faces using a mechanism of interpolating or image averaging previously learnt views."

The findings show that despite the highly constrained neural resources of the insects (their brains are 0.01 per cent the size of the human brain) their ability has evolved so that they're able to process complex visual recognition tasks.

Children on cell phones more likely to get hit by cars.

From UAB:

Children who talk on cell phones while crossing streets are at a higher risk for injuries or death in a pedestrian accident, said psychologists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in a new study that will appear in the February issue of Pediatrics.

"Cell phones clearly offer convenience and safeguards to families, but they also may pose risk," they said, "particularly when children attempt to multitask while conversing on the cell phone and have reduced cognitive capacity to devote to potentially dangerous activities such as crossing streets."

For the study, researchers used a virtual reality software program and three screens to display an actual Birmingham-area crosswalk with simulated vehicles of different sizes traveling on the virtual street. The psychologists found that all of the children - even those who were experienced with talking on cell phones, crossing streets or rated as highly attentive - were more likely to exhibit risky behaviors when they crossed the virtual street while talking on a cell phone.

Madoff's Palm beach house toilet papered.

This is a prank I can get behind. From Newsday:

PALM BEACH, FLA. - Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff's Palm Beach home underwent some redecorating over the weekend -- in toilet paper.

Strips of white paper hung from trees in front of the estate.

Some teenage boys called The Palm Beach Post taking responsibility for the prank. They said they were retaliating after losing their trust funds to the accused swindler.

Madoff is under house arrest in his Manhattan penthouse while he awaits trial.

Coozer-Bits.

Yipes: Woman arrested for not returning library book. (Ironic book title: "The Freedom Writers Diary.")

WTF: Chicago cop tells students that there's nothing wrong with beating up suspects.

WTF: Thailand sends hundreds of refugees out to sea, to their deaths.

Awesome: Obama reverses Bush on auto emissions and fuel efficiency standards.

Aww: Husband's kiss wakes "sleeping beauty" wife out of coma.

PSA: Frequent sex & masturbation linked to prostate cancer risk.

WTF: British cabbie drugs and rapes 8 women, is released without charge, then goes on to rape 7 more.

Justice: Raccoon bites off pervert's manhood.

Sports: Russia to bid for 2018 World Cup. Because that's just what Russia needs - more skinhead hooligans.

D'oh: Teen stabbed to death at a church party for peace.

Science: Chimps also forge bromances.

Awesome: Spinning black holes shoot out plasma jets that extend millions of light years and shred galaxies!

Monster truck promoter died on SATURDAY SATURDAY SATURDAY!

Giant trucks crushing each other. What could go wrong? From CNN:

A monster truck show promoter, who days earlier touted his event's safety record, died after being crushed by one of the trucks during a show in Madison, Wisconsin, Saturday night.

George Eisenhart's death was the second fatality at a monster truck event in just over a week.

"Saturday's incident, which is an uncommon occurrence, ... was a freak accident," Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney said Sunday.

"Review of the incident shows that George [Eisenhart] accidentally stepped in front of a moving vehicle in a fashion that did not provide the vehicle's driver adequate time to react," said a statement from the Monster Truck Racing Association. "All of us at the MTRA send our deepest condolences to the Eisenhart family and all the parties involved. We are deeply saddened by the loss of our friend."

Icelandic government collapses.

It's anarchy! Polar bears and penguins living together! Mass hysteria! From CNN:

Iceland's ruling coalition resigned Monday, three months after the collapse of the country's currency, stock market and several major banks, and following months of public protests, Kristjan Kristjansson, a spokesman for the prime minister told CNN.

The government also fell after the resignation of the government's commerce minister in response to the country's financial mess. The minister, Bjorgvin Sigurdsson, resigned Sunday, saying the government had failed to restore confidence in the three months after the collapse of the financial system.

Senior government officials from the two parties that make up Iceland's coalition government -- the prime minister's Independence Party and the Social Democrats party -- had met Sunday to discuss the government's future but nothing was resolved, a spokesman for the prime minister said.

Sigurdsson's resignation followed Saturday's demonstration in which about 6,000 to 7,000 people in front of the parliament building called for the government of Prime Minister Geir Haarde to step down.

Protests have been staged regularly since the collapse, but Saturday's was one of the biggest to date, a spokesman for the prime minister said.

Obama shuts down secret CIA prisons and rendition.

What is this weird feeling....? Is it... respect and pride for my president and country? From The Guardian:

Barack Obama embarked on the wholesale deconstruction of George Bush's war on terror, shutting down the CIA's secret prison network, banning torture and rendition, and calling for a new set of rules for detainees. The repudiation of Bush's thinking on national security yesterday also saw the appointment of a high-powered envoy to the Middle East.

Obama's decision to permanently shut down the CIA's clandestine interrogation centres went far beyond the widely anticipated move to wind down the Guantánamo Bay detention centre within a year.

He cast his scrapping of the legal apparatus set up by Bush as a way for America to reclaim the moral high ground in the fight against al-Qaida.

"We are not, as I said during the inauguration, going to continue with the false choice between our safety and our ideals," Obama said at the signing ceremony. "We intend to win this fight. We are going to win it on our own terms."

Milli Vanilli, Ashlee Simpson, Yo-Yo Ma?

I can't believe the insipid music I didn't bother listening to wasn't real! From Huffington Post:

The classical music played for millions of people watching President Barack Obama's inauguration was not the live performance it appeared to be.

Unless you were one of the fortunate few sitting within earshot of the celebrated performers, what you heard was a recording made two days earlier.

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman, pianist Gabriella Montero and clarinetist Anthony McGill made the decision a day before Tuesday's inauguration to use a previously recorded audio tape for the broadcast of the ceremonies.

Carole Florman, a spokeswoman for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, said the weather was too cold for the instruments to stay in tune.

"They were very insistent on playing live until it became clear that it would be too cold," said Florman in a telephone interview Thursday night.

People sitting nearby could hear the musicians play "Air and Simple Gifts", written for the inauguration by John Williams, but their instruments were not amplified.

Corrupt IL governor compares his arrest to attack on Pearl Harbor.

Just... wow. From FOX:

Illinois' embattled but defiant governor, so fond of reciting poetry as he defends himself against federal corruption allegations, has turned instead to the history books to describe the emotional strain his arrest put on him and his family.

In an interview Thursday with The Associated Press, Gov. Rod Blagojevich compared his early morning December arrest by FBI agents to Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

He says it was a "complete surprise" but he'll prevail, just like America in World War II.

Blagojevich says there's no chance he will resign before the start of the state Senate's impeachment trial next week. He says he will fight the allegations against him "to the very end."

How to read a wine label.

Submitted by reader Abby. Some good tips here for the non-snob (there are non-wine snobs reading the Wall Street Journal?). Article here, and some tips here:

Vintage. This is actually the first thing we look for ourselves. You don't need to have a vintage chart in your pocket or care whether 2001 or 2002 was a better year in the Sierra Foothills. The vast majority of wines at the store are meant to be drunk right away, so you want to make sure the wine isn't too old, particularly if you're buying it expecting lively, fresh fruitiness. We routinely see five-year-old Pinot Grigio and two-year-old Beaujolais Nouveau at stores, for example, so as soon as we see that kind of age on wines like those, we know we can skip them and move on (and possibly not shop there again).

Critter labels. In the past few years, there has been a profusion of inexpensive wines with cute animals on the labels. We have tasted these wines and they are generally less attractive than the labels. Of course, some good wines happen to have animals on the labels -- consider Stag's Leap or Iron Horse from California, for instance -- but, especially when it comes to less-expensive wines, we'd avoid wines where the cute animal seems to be the main point of the wine. A humdinger of a tale about the animal is often a clue that this is a wine to avoid.

Reserve. On American wines, this doesn't mean anything, so ignore it. There are various rules around the world concerning words like Reserva, but there's no guarantee it means anything in other parts of the world. Unless you know something about the rules concerning, say, Rioja, where it has genuine significance, don't worry about it.

Boys from Brazil: Nazi doctor caused twin surge in Brazil town.

Twins are creepy to begin with. But a Nazi-created Aryan army of twin children? Yipes.

A notorious Nazi doctor known as the 'Angel of Death' is behind an alarming number of twins born in a small Brazilian town, a historian has claimed.

Josef Mengele was an SS physician in Auschwitz concentration camp where in a bid to create a master race for Adolf Hitler he carried out genetic experiments to find the key to producing twins.

The aim was to artificially increase the Aryan birthrate.

In 1945 he fled the advancing Red Army and made his way to South America.

It is there that the medic, who is believed to have been responsible for up to 400,000 deaths in medical experiments at Auschwitz, may have succeeded in his mission.

Baffled scientists had been struggling to come up with a reason for the high proportion twins in the tiny Brazilian town of Candido Godoi - most of them blond-haired and blue-eyed.

A staggering one in five pregnancies there have resulted in the birth of twins - the usual rate is one in 80.

Coozer-Bits.

Lame: Man reprimanded for having girlie calendar at work causes millions in damage.

Local: Fire at Mount Sinai. 600 patients moved.

Yipes: Enraged woman bites bus driver.

Health: Vitamin D deficiency linked to Alzheimer's.

Hero: Girl, 10, saved hotel of guests from killer tsunami.

Band of the Day: Unicorn Dream Attack. 8bit awesomeness from Minnesota.

Duh: Britons were too polite to survive the Titanic.

Movies: Boring Oscar nominations. (But go Slumdog!)

Yipes: Earth's seasons now arrive two days earlier.

Penguin has unusual water phobia.

Aw.

While his feathered friends dive happily through the icy depths, poor Kentucky the penguin perches hopelessly on his favourite rock.

Why? Because he’s afraid of WATER. The petrified penguin, described as a ’runt’ by his keepers, is terrified by the cold H20.

He refuses to take the plunge with his other 23 penguin pals at Blackbrook Zoological Park, in Leek, Staffs. Staff at the zoo have seen 11-year-old Kentucky become a surprise hit with visitors at the park due to his unusual phobia.

The hapless Humbolt penguin was born smaller than his Arctic brothers and sisters and has had malting problems since birth which make the water ’a bit too cold for him’, staff say.

25 arrested for protesting Zombie Lenin.

From Moscow Times:

Moscow police detained 25 people on Wednesday who had been planning to stage a protest to demand the removal of a mausoleum containing the embalmed body of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin from Red Square.

Police closed Red Square ahead of the planned protest on the 85th anniversary of the death of Lenin.

"They were trying to hold a rally that the authorities had not allowed," a police spokesman said.

The group had intended to dress up as mummies and demonstrate outside the mausoleum with a cardboard coffin. Media reports described the group as Orthodox monarchists who want Lenin buried as an ordinary person.

Cool interview with Anthony Bourdain.

Great interview, submitted by reader JenK. Interview here. I like Mr. Bourdain's reaction to Mario Batali's horrid Spain - On The Road show:

Okay, I'll just say it. I think the Spain show is f***ing awful. Mark Bittman comes off unsympathetic to say the least. Bringing someone who cannot or will not eat jamon [Gwyneth Paltrow] to Spain is a misjudgment. My crew grinds their teeth with rage looking at the crummy production values. Bad camera work, bad sound, bad direction. The whole thing sucks. It's unfortunate. It's mesmerizingly awful.

President Obama: Day 1 (Con't).

Obama orders freeze on White House pay.

Creates toughest lobbying rules of any administration.

Drafting executive order to close Guantanamo.

Israel admits using white phosphorus shells in Gaza.

Oh, but it's Israel. They're allowed to commit crimes against humanity. From The Guardian:

Israel has admitted – after mounting pressure – that its troops may have used white phosphorus shells in contravention of international law, during its three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip.

One of the places most seriously affected by the use of white phosphorus was the main UN compound in Gaza City, which was hit by three shells on 15 January. The same munition was used in a strike on the al-Quds hospital in Gaza City the same day.

[...] According to army sources the brigade fired up to 20 phosphorus shells in a heavily built-up area around the Gaza township of Beit Lahiya, one of the worst hit areas of Gaza.

The internal inquiry – which the army says does not have the status of the full investigation demanded by human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – follows weeks of fighting in which Israel either denied outright that it was using phosphorus-based weapons, or insisted that what weapons it was using "were in line with international law".

[...] Phosphorus is a toxic chemical agent that burns on contact with air and creates thick white smokes in order to hide troop movements. However phosphorus shells are largely indiscriminate scattering large numbers of fragments over a large area, which can cause severe damage to both human tissue and property.

Coozer-Bits.

D'oh: Baby accidentally calls 911. Police respond and find 500 marijuana plants.

Prophesy: Britain pledges 3.4m pounds to investigate disappearing bees.

Follow-Up: England Attorney General to review lenient sentences for gang rapists/torturers.

Sad: Political activist brutally beaten to death in Moscow.

Creepy: Earth's oxygen the result from nickel-hungry bacteria?

Eats: Frogs are being eaten to extinction.

Man's shaggy eyebrows trimmed for charity.

George Whipple should do this! PS - Polio is still around? From Breitbart:

A 72-year-old Indiana man with eyebrows so long he brushed them each morning raised $1,600 for charity from people who paid to take turns trimming his out-of-control brows.

Some of the wiry hairs shorn from Si Burgher's shaggy eyebrows measured more than seven centimetres long because the former jeweller's brows had never been trimmed. Burgher's eyebrows were so long he used to brush them before leaving the house.

But he agreed to have the overgrown brows tamed last week by members of the Bloomfield Rotary Club to raise money for a polio eradication campaign.

President Obama: Day 1.

Awesome: Obama's first order is step closer to closing Guantanamo Bay.

Awesome: Malia and Sasha enjoy White House scavenger hunts, cool secret rooms.

Awesome: Calls Middle East leaders, including Palestinian president.

Obama's speech censored in China.

From BBC:

China has censored parts of the new US president's inauguration speech that have appeared on a number of websites.

Live footage of the event on state television also cut away from Barack Obama when communism was mentioned.

China's leaders appear to have been upset by references to facing down communism and silencing dissent.

English-language versions of the speech have been allowed on the internet, but many of the Chinese translations have omitted sensitive sections.

Swarms of worms invading Liberia.

Ugh, gross. From BBC:

Swarms of moth caterpillars that have devoured crops and plagued some 20 villages in central Liberia are now attacking neighbouring areas of Guinea.

Liberia's agriculture minister said it was the worst swarm of the insect, known as army worm, in three decades.

The bug, which can grow up to 5cm (2in) in length, is one of the world's most destructive agricultural pests.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has sounded the alarm over the infestation.

"There is a need for immediate action otherwise it may create problems for food production," said Tim Vaessen, of the FAO.

Sugar permanently alters DNA.

Wow, this is nutty. Thanks Jen!

Human genes remember a sugar hit for two weeks, with prolonged poor eating habits capable of permanently altering DNA, Australian research has found.

A team studying the impact of diet on human heart tissue and mice found that cells showed the effects of a one-off sugar hit for a fortnight, by switching off genetic controls designed to protect the body against diabetes and heart disease.

"We now know that chocolate bar you had this morning can have very acute effects, and those effects can continue for up to two weeks," said lead researcher Sam El-Osta, from the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute.

"These changes continue beyond the meal itself and have the ability to alter natural metabolic responses to diet," he told Australian Associated Press Friday.

Regular poor eating would amplify the effect, said El-Osta, with genetic damage lasting months or years, and potentially passing through bloodlines.

Rush's Retrospective III information and track list.

The last two decades haven't been Rush's strongest, but I could've come up with a much better track list. Blargh. From a press release:

Atlantic Records is pleased to announce details of the upcoming third installment in Rush’s continuing compilation series. “RETROSPECTIVE III (1989-2008)” arrives in stores on March 2nd in the UK (and March 3rd in North America) and features music from the rock trio’s last two decades with the label, including tracks taken from the albums - PRESTO (1989), ROLL THE BONES (1991), COUNTERPARTS (1993), TEST FOR ECHO (1996), VAPOR TRAILS (2002), and SNAKES & ARROWS (2007).

RETROSPECITVE III will be released as both a single CD and a 2-Disc CD/DVD set. The CD includes a previously unreleased live version of the song "GHOST OF A CHANCE" recorded in Atlanta during Rush’s 2008 "Snakes & Arrows Tour", plus remixes of the tracks "ONE LITTLE VICTORY" and "EARTHSHIINE".

The “RETROSPECTIVE III” bonus DVD gathers the band’s 10 stunning music videos during the Atlantic years, including clips for fan favourites such as “The Pass,” “Roll The Bones,” “Stick It Out,” “Driven,” and the Grammy Award-nominated “Malignant Narcissism.” The DVD boasts a trio of live videos filmed in Frankfurt, Germany during Rush’s 2004 “R30: 30th Anniversary World Tour,” highlighted by a masterful performance of The Who’s classic “The Seeker” (originally recorded by Rush for 2004’s “FEEDBACK”). As an added bonus, the band has included a rare TV performance of the classic “Tom Sawyer” and an interview.

CD:

1. One Little Victory (Remix)
2. Dreamline
3. Workin' Them Angels
4. Presto
5. Bravado
6. Driven
7. The Pass
8. Animate
9. Roll the Bones
10. Ghost of a Chance (Live)
11. Nobody's Hero
12. Leave That Thing Alone
13. Earthshine (Remix)
14. Far Cry

DVD:

1. Stick it Out
2. Nobody's Hero
3. Half the World
4. Driven
5. Roll the Bones
6. Show Don't Tell
7. The Pass
8. Superconductor
9. Far Cry
10. Malignant Narcissism
11. The Seeker (Live)
12. Secret Touch (Live)
13. Resist (Live)
14. Interview Tom Sawyer (Live)*

*bonus material

Coozer-Bits.

These are from yesterday - I got inaugural fever and forgot to post them.

Trends: Japanese girls prefer video games as gifts over anything else. (Thanks Larissa)

Creepy: Synthetic sex smell lures vampire fish to its doom.

D'oh: Super leaves window open, causes $100,000's in damage.

PSA: Company recalls its "cuddly uterus" toy because the ovaries are a choking hazard.

Health: Epidurals are even safer than previously thought.

D'oh: Newlyweds leave wedding gifts in trunk of taxi.

Local: Federal judge lets Bloomberg overturn public referendums that would prevent him from being dictator for life.

Lame: Waiter plays Arabic chanting to frighten guests at Jewish wedding.

Awful: Proving again that England doesn't take rape seriously, gang rapists who tortured mentally challenged girl (and filmed her!) essentially get a slap on the wrist. Warning: this is as bad as it gets.

Hometown News: Kid stabbed at gory 3-D horror movie.

From the NY Post:

The credits rolled but the blood kept flowing.

A Long Island security guard allegedly stabbed a moviegoer after a showing of the gruesome splatter flick "My Bloody Valentine 3-D" in Valley Stream Sunday night.

A 16-year-old boy began fighting with 24-year-old security guard Ricardo Singh, of Uniondale, who had insisted that he leave the theater immediately after the film ended, said Nassau County police .

After some pushing and shoving, Singh allegedly pulled out a small pocket knife and jabbed the teen in the stomach.

The victim was taken to Winthrop University Hospital, where he received six stitches to close the wound and was released.

Singh was arrested and charged with second-degree assault. He is set for an arraignment hearing today.

The movie, a remake of the 1981 slasher classic, tells the tale of a pickax-swinging psychopath and promises it's audience a "3D ride to hell."

Israel destroys UN buildings in Gaza.

From BBC:

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says he is appalled by Israeli attacks on a UN compound in Gaza after seeing the destruction for himself.

Mr Ban said that those responsible should be held accountable and demanded a "full investigation" through proper judiciary systems.

He was speaking in front of the smouldering remains of the UN food warehouse destroyed by Israeli shells.

He said he would do all he could to help the population of Gaza.

Appearing stern and at times angry, Mr Ban called the attacks "outrageous" and demanded guarantees that it would never happen again.

"I have protested many times. I am today protesting again in the strongest terms. I have asked (for a) full investigation and (to) make those responsible people accountable," he said.

"I am just appalled. I am not able to describe how I am feeling, having seen this site of the bombing of the United Nations compound. This was an outrageous and totally unacceptable attack against the United Nations."

Israeli shells hit the UN headquarters as well as two UN schools during the recent three-week offensive.

The headquarters were badly damaged and nearly 40 people were killed near one of the schools.

Coozer-Bits.

Eats: Haagen-Dazs decreases the sizes of their containers.

Neat: 10 spectacular pools around the world.

Aww: New conversation heart slogans revealed. ("IM A SLAVE 4U" not one of them.)

Games: Play Street Fighter II using YouTube.

Architecture: Top 12 yonic monuments. ("Yonic" is the female version of "phallic.")

Awesome: Christopher Walken interviews Mickey Rourke.

Games: Top 10 most awesomely insane arcade games of the 1980s.

Politics: Keith Olbermann: 8 years of Bush in 8 minutes.

WTF: Australian man who insulted Thai royal family in book jailed for 3 years.

Film: Amazing Polish movie posters of American movies. Even the Short Circuit 2 poster is a modern art masterpiece.

Politics: If Bush established a think tank, would it be empty?

USDA defines "naturally raised" (and makes it worse).

It's good that the USDA creates standards that food producers need to abide by if they're making claims to consumers. But this "voluntary standard" essentially allows just about anything to be stamped "natural" - even when it defies common sense. From US Food Policy:

The USDA Agriculture Marketing Services has issued a voluntary standard for 'naturally raised' livestock and meat marketing claims.

Naturally raised, often used as a marketing tool to attract consumers concerned about animal welfare, has up until now not had a official definition.

The new standard states that livestock used for the production of meat and meat products have:

1. been raised entirely without growth promotants, antibiotics (except for ionophores used as coccidiostats for parasite control)

2. have never been fed animal by-products

The voluntary standard will establish the minimum requirements for those producers who choose to operate a USDA-verified program involving a naturally raised claim. USDA analyzed over 44,000 comments from producers, processors, consumers, and other interested parties in the development of this standard.

Many are concerned that:

a) the standards aren't stringent enough on what it means to 'naturally raise' an animal. Under this ruling, animals raised in CAFO's (Confined Animal Feeding Operations) can still be tagged natural.

b) the new label will undercut the USDA Organic certification and/or farmers pushing to establish sustainable raised meat.

The Consumers Union and Food and Water Watch say the new standards sanction un-natural practices.

"This regulation will allow an animal that has come from a cloned or genetically engineered stock, was physically altered, raised in confinement without ever seeing the light of day or green of pasture, in poor hygiene conditions with a diet laced in pesticides to be labeled as ‘naturally raised.’ This falls significantly short of consumer expectations and only adds to the roster of misleading label claims approved by USDA for so-called natural meat," said Dr. Urvashi Rangan, Senior Scientist and Policy Analyst at Consumers Union.

"These last minute rules for the 'naturally-raised' label on meat practically invite agribusiness to greenwash their products and rip off consumers" stated Patty Lovera, assistant director for consumer group Food & Water Watch. "Until these standards are revised, consumers will have to navigate another set of misleading labels at the grocery store."

It's official: Bush is least popular president ever.

Alternative headline: 22% of Americans brain dead or living under rock. From MichaelMoore.com:

President Bush will leave office as one of the most unpopular departing presidents in history, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll showing Mr. Bush's final approval rating at 22 percent.

Seventy-three percent say they disapprove of the way Mr. Bush has handled his job as president over the last eight years.

Mr. Bush's final approval rating is the lowest final rating for an outgoing president since Gallup began asking about presidential approval more than 70 years ago.

The rating is far below the final ratings of recent two-term presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, who both ended their terms with a 68 percent approval rating, according to CBS News polling.

Recent one term presidents also had higher ratings than Mr. Bush. His father George H.W. Bush had an end-of-term rating of 54 percent, while Jimmy Carter's rating was 44 percent.

Coozer-Bits.

Duh: Kids have stopped collecting junk as hobbies.

Lame: LA getting into the drug trade by suing drug gangs.

Hot Cha Cha: Politician posts shower pic of herself on facebook.

Band of the Day: Doble Fuerza - the Argentine Ramones!

Inflation: Zimbabwe now printing $100 trillion note ($30 US).

Sad: 167 South African miners trapped underground.

Local: New York State wastes $54 million on failed statewide wireless project; kills rest of multibillion-dollar contract.

Science: Humans are the reason for animals' varied colors and coats.

Funny: Most awkward inaugural dance moves.