Gov. Paterson abandons plan to tax everything enjoyable.

*sigh of relief* From the NY Post:

With his approval ratings at an all-time low, Gov. Paterson announced today that he will drop the so-called "iTunes" tax and other surcharges as potential revenue generators - and plans to use money from President Obama's stimulus package to help close the state's growing deficit.

In a bid to wipe out a $14 billion budget gap, Paterson had called for 88 new fees last December - including taxing the sale of downloaded music and other "digitally delivered entertainment services."

Movie tickets, taxi rides, soda, beer, wine, cigars, massages, health club memberships and Internet porn would have also been taxed under Paterson's controversial proposal.

Salt may be nature's anti-depressant.

I thought bacon was nature's anti-depressant? From ScienceDaily:

Most people consume far too much salt, and a University of Iowa researcher has discovered one potential reason we crave it: it might put us in a better mood.

UI psychologist Kim Johnson and colleagues found in their research that when rats are deficient in sodium chloride, common table salt, they shy away from activities they normally enjoy, like drinking a sugary substance or pressing a bar that stimulates a pleasant sensation in their brains.

"Things that normally would be pleasurable for rats didn't elicit the same degree of relish, which leads us to believe that a salt deficit and the craving associated with it can induce one of the key symptoms associated with depression," Johnson said.

Coozer-Bits II.

Duh: What sells in a recession: canned goods and condoms.

Funny: Protesters disrupt beauty pageant with stink bombs.

Follow-Up: Soldier charged with death of 16-year-old girl at army barracks.

Russian Crime Watch: Drunk cop hacks off subordinate's hand.

Science: Japanese astronaut to record the smelliness of his underwear. (Don't Japanese salarymen do this anyway?)

Local: American Airlines plane falls apart over Queens, makes safe emergency landing.

Science: Intelligence mapped in the brain.

Science: Researchers create "map of science."

Funny: Coulter, Maher spar in debates.

Lame: Phish narc'd on all their fans, even bankrolling 200 cops to make drug arrests. Oh, and their music sucks.

Sad: Man-made trash devastating world's oceans.

Lame: NASA won't commit to Colbert module. (I suspect the opposition is made up of Firefly fans who are pushing for "Serenity")

D'oh: Drunken man asks cop for hug, gets arrested.

WTF: Utah, Hawaii, and Wyoming top happiness poll.

Travel: With tourism down, Berlin launches a friendliness campaign.

WWIII Watch: Chinese president calls for "mighty" military support.

Canada's carbon sink has sprung a leak.

Great, now we have to worry about beetles... From CSM:

Billions of tiny mountain pine beetles are treating Canada’s boreal forest like a 3,000-mile-long salad bar, transforming a key absorber of carbon dioxide greenhouse gas into a CO2 emitter instead.

In just a decade, exploding beetle populations and a rise in wildfires have flipped Canada’s boreal forest from its longstanding role as a natural carbon vacuum – sucking up 55 million or more tons of CO2 annually – to that of a giant tailpipe emitting up to 245 million tons of CO2 each year, according to the Canadian Forest Service.

That sharp about-face is raising questions about the future of northern forests worldwide that are being hit hard by global warming – including Russia’s massive boreal expanse, where wildfires have risen dramatically.

Christianity on the brink of collapse.

A strangely hysterical sky-is-falling op-ed from the usually sane Christian Science Monitor:

We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.

Is the Pentagon undermining Obama on Guantanamo?

From Raw Story:

The US Defense Department on Wednesday denied accusations from rights activists it was undermining President Barack Obama's order to halt trials against detainees held in Guantanamo.

"I think there is no attempt by this department or anybody who works for us to, in any way, circumvent the president's executive order," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters.

The comments came a day after a military judge presiding over the case of five men accused of plotting the September 11 attacks released a document in which the detainees expressed pride in killing Americans.

Lawyers for two of the detainees had sought to delay the release of the document and the American Civil Liberties Union accused the judge, Stephen Hadley, of flouting the president's order to halt proceedings at the special military commissions.

Assassination ring reported directly to Cheney.

From Raw Story:

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh dropped a bombshell on Tuesday when he told an audience at the University of Minnesota that the military was running an "executive assassination ring" throughout the Bush years which reported directly to former Vice President Dick Cheney.

The remark came out seemingly inadvertently when Hersh was asked by the moderator of a public discussion of "America's Constitutional Crisis" whether abuses of executive power, like those which occurred under Richard Nixon, continue to this day.

Hersh replied, "After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet."

Hersh then went on to describe a second area of extra-legal operations. the Joint Special Operations Command. "It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently," he explained. "They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. ... Congress has no oversight of it."

"It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on," Hersh stated. "Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us."

Students design nonstop calorie counter.

This is pretty neat. I'd get one!

A group of Georgia Tech students has crafted a device that allows individuals to constantly compute the amount of calories they burn – even as they sleep.

“It’s a completely converged device,” said Garrett Langley, 21, a senior in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) who spearheaded the project. “It’s a single unit that provides complete fitness monitoring and management.”

Dubbed HappyHR, the instrument is a personal monitor that allows users to measure and compare day-to-day physical and caloric activity. The name is a reference to the euphoric feeling that follows an intense round of exercise – the “happy hour.”

The small, rectangular-shaped instrument straps to the wrist or ankle, gathering data related to heart rate and exercise. The information is then transferred via Bluetooth to a PC, where the statistics can be analyzed through Web-based software.

More here.

Workers set up fight club at school for mentally handicapped adults.

This is awful. I hate people who exploit the vulnerable. Of course, this is Texas, where the mentally handicapped are routinely executed. Notice that these workers haven't been arrested yet.

A Texas agency is installing videocameras and hiring security officers at a state school for mentally handicapped adults after allegations emerged that workers there staged "fight club" battles among residents.

The Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services also announced Tuesday that it is suspending admissions to the Corpus Christi State School in Corpus Christi.

A cell phone containing videos of the alleged abuse at the school was turned over to police last week, and authorities are expecting to file arrest warrants this week, Corpus Christi Police Capt. Tim Wilson said Tuesday.

The incidents are believed to have taken place in a school dormitory, Wilson said, adding, "this has been going on for some time."

The school's workers "are charged with the care and custody of these clients, and they are exploiting [them]," he said.

[...] Seven school employees have been placed on paid leave by the agency, according to department spokeswoman Cecilia Fedorov. Those employees are barred from coming onto the campus but must sign in at the gate every day they are on leave, she said.

State officials are awaiting the outcome of the investigation to determine whether they should take further action, she said.

Marky Ramone besieged by fans in Mexico.

From a press release. Marky rules and made my cat an honorary Ramone. Visit him at myspace.com/markyramone.

Things got way out of control after last Saturday night’s show in Mexico. The van shuttling the band back to the hotel was besieged by fans. While attempting to protect the band, a member of the touring party was injured. The security at the venue did their best, but was overwhelmed by the numbers of people and intensity of the situation. They never had to deal with anything like this before.

When attempting to leave the venue, fans rushed toward Marky Ramone and band. Surrounded by overzealous fans pounding on the windows of the band's vehicle, the fans eventually cracked the windshield. One fan was thrown into on-coming traffic trying to cling to the side of the moving van. He was not injured. A few moments later he and a friend were spotted in a taxi that caught up to the van, shouting and waving at their hero.

If anyone saw the DVD "RAW" when the band was besieged by fans in Argentina? Picture that, but much worse. It was a life threatening situation.

Sunday's show was to be in a larger venue, with the same amount of security. In the interests of everyone's safety and well being, it has been decided that Sunday's show in Mexico City will not go forward.

Marky apologies to all his fans in Mexico City and says he's really enjoyed everything about the shows and wants to make sure no one gets hurt moving forward. He promises to come back with The Blitzkrieg soon under safer circumstances.

Police hot-wiring sleepy drivers with raw chilis.

I would suggest coffee, but okay... From Reuters:

Police in southwest China are spicing up drivers with raw chili in a bid to stop them falling asleep at the wheel, a newspaper said Wednesday.

Police in the Chongqing region have started serving drivers chili peppers at highway service stations, holding to the traditional Chinese belief that people often feel more sleepy in the Spring, the Chongqing Evening News said.

[...] "It's really good to have some hot peppers when you are tired from driving," van driver Chen Jun was quoted by the newspaper as saying. "They make you alert."

Woman howls like wolf.

From Ananova:

A Chinese woman says she has been howling like a wolf for 26 years - but can't help it.

Hong, 42, of Ganzhashan Qian village, Fuzhou, told Straits News: "My howls are like sneezes or yawns, they can't be controlled.

"Sometimes I can't help howling on the streets. Passers-by jump far away staring at me, thinking I am a psycho."

She says it all began when she began to suffer from back pains when she was 16: "Then I accidentally found when I howl the pain goes away."

Hong says that when she howls, she feels a "release of gas" inside her, and "can't stop it".

Zombie Watch: Pet shop receives coffin instead of fish.

Dead bodies do the darnedest things! From Ananova:

Staff at a Philadelphia pet shop expecting a shipment of tropical fish were shocked to receive a dead body instead.

Mark Arabia, owner of Pets Pus, found the coffin when he went out to the delivery man's vehicle to collect the $1,000 fish delivery.

"At first when I looked at it, I said, 'Fish never come this way'," he said.

He eventually learned the body inside was that of a 65-year-old man from San Diego, California.

It was supposed to go to a laboratory in Allentown, Pennsylvania, but there was an "unfortunate mix-up" at Philadelphia airport, said US Airways.

The airline, which had brought the body from California, said the problem was caused by a "verbal miscommunication between a delivery driver and the cargo representative", adding that it was "deeply sorry".

Coozer-Bits.

Duh: Jack Cafferty is a boozehound.

Sad: DNA proves Bolsheviks killed all of the Romanovs, hurting my claim that I'm Anastasia.

WTF: Toddler, 20 months, crashes car.

Tech: Evil geniuses at Apple create talking iPod.

ZombieWatch: Man stages own funeral to ensure it goes to plan.

D'oh: "Look kids, Big Ben!" Woman saved from roundabout after going around it 50 times.

Creepy: Dracula fish, with sharp bone teeth, discovered.

Eats: Tasty Indian crackers celebrate their 50th year.

Neat: Museum finds secret message in Lincoln's watch. Soon to be an awful movie starring Nic Cage.

Hero: Yale student sues US Airways for $1m after they steal XBox 360 from his luggage.

Misc: In other airline bad behavior news, man sues American Airlines for revoking his lifetime fly pass.

Lame: Woman fired for reporting spanking.

Hot Cha Cha: Sermons are getting sexy in rural Alabama.

Awesome: Colonel Sanders rescued from river after 24 years. (Thanks JV!)

D'oh: Student stabbed with scissors at conflict resolution session.

Yipes: Chicago's nuclear waste now has nowhere to go. (Might I suggest a deep-dish pizzeria?)

NYC teacher admits emailing sex videos to 12-year-olds.

Teachers are creepy. From Newsday:

A former New York City middle school teacher has admitted sending sexual videos and e-mails to three of his 12-year-old students.

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown said Tuesday that Umesh Ramjattan has pleaded guilty to disseminating indecent material to minors.

He is expected to get five years probation when he is sentenced on April 20. He also must surrender his teaching license and complete a sex offenders program.

Police were called after one of the girls' parents notified the school in South Ozone Park.

Update: Iron Maiden rejects riots.

In other news, Powerslave and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son are the greatest albums of all time. From Colombia Reports:

Heavy metal group Iron Maiden openly criticized took part in riots during their concert in Bogotá last Saturday, but added that no one's safety was at risk at any point.

Tour manager Rod Smallwood commented on the matters, telling the BBC "we abhor the inane behaviour of a small minority of people outside".

The manager added that those responsible for the riots do "Iron Maiden, Metal and the real Colombian fans a disservice and sadly just provide a reason for the military to feel they need to be there".

But the actual size of the riots was "wildly exaggerated", according to Smallwood: "Everyone is just fine. The 'riots' were basically a lot of kids trying to break into the Simon Bolivar Park to see the show and the park has a big perimeter to protect.

Iron Maiden made two previous appearances in Bogotá in the last 13 months, and "neither performance was at all affected by the incidents of people outside trying to break in", according to Smallwood.

"None of the enjoyment of the show or safety of the band or our audiences was at all compromised."

Simon Bolivar Park is often the stage for major international artists and bands, but Bogotá authorities plan to discuss whether heavy metal concerts are to take place in the city again any time soon.

Iron Maiden have moved on to Quito, Ecuador meanwhile, and are also expected to visit countries like Argentina and Brazil during the remainder of their Latin American tour.

Anthony Bourdain on other cooking shows.

I really got a kick out of Bourdain bashing Spain: On the Road Again (which really is truly awful). MSN must've thought the same thing because they've ingeniously asked him to take on all the other shows. Check it out.

Bourdain on "Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee":

She makes her audience feel good about themselves. You watch her on that show and you think, "I can do that. That's not intimidating." All you have to do is waddle into the kitchen, open a can of crap and spread it on some other crap that you bought at the supermarket. And then you've done something really special. The most terrifying thing I've seen is her making a Kwanzaa cake. Watch that clip and tell me your eyeballs don't burst into flames. It's a war crime on television. You'll scream.

Bourdain on "The Next Food Network Star":

It's an interesting window into the cynical and terrifying real criteria of how they grow their own talent on Food Network. I mean, they're pretty straight-forward about what you've got to do and who you've got to please and what the real priorities are to get a show there. You see the shear naked ambition of these often minimally talented cooks with the maximum ambitions of being television. The way they're judged is unattractive but fascinating just the same. You really see the process though: Media training trumps cooking every time. I used to be on the Food Network [A Cook's Tour -Cooz], but I think I slipped under the wire. The network at that point used to be run by a cabal of people getting bored with their own programming. For whatever reason, they gave me two years of traveling wherever I wanted, doing pretty much what I've been doing on "No Reservations." After two years, they wanted me riding around on a pony in a parking lot doing chili cook-offs instead of going to foreign countries. My feeling was, "Let someone else do that."

Pentagon knowingly exposed troops to cancer agents.

Let's hope the Obama government doesn't continue the tradition of disrespecting and ignoring young people who risk their lives protecting our country. From Huffington Post:

The Pentagon allegedly endangered U.S. soldiers by implementing and covering-up dangerously toxic waste-incineration practices at Balad Airbase in Iraq during years past, as revealed in a leaked Air Force memo.

[...] Though military officials say there are no known long-term effects from exposure to burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 100 service members have come forward to Military Times and Disabled American Veterans with strikingly similar symptoms: chronic bronchitis, asthma, sleep apnea, chronic coughs and allergy-like symptoms. Several also have cited heart problems, lymphoma and leukemia.

Fans riot at Iron Maiden concert in Colombia.

Run to the hills! (Thanks JenK!)

The concert of British heavy metal group Iron Maiden in Bogotá, Saturday, became the scene of heavy unrest and riots.

Trouble started when a group of fans climbed the fence that separated the VIP space from the general public, and reportedly managed to get as close as 30 meters from the stage.

Later on, those that hadn't secured a ticket began causing troubles in the area around the Parque Simón Bolivar, where the concert was held.

A large group of heavy metal fans clashed with police forces and broke into private areas. Some were arrested and taken away. However, a City TV camera crew documented several of the arrested troublemakers managing to escape and run away.

The troubles are likely to spark a local debate as to whether Bogotá should host another heavy metal concert in the years to come.

From Colombia Reports.

Koozer's Kitchen: Zucchini Omelet

Okay, this isn't the greatest thing I've ever made, and not quite worth the effort, but it does have an interesting, vegetable-matter-composty taste. In a good way. Slightly adapted from the Gourmet recipe.

Zucchini Omelet

3 zucchinis
2 eggs
2 tsp fresh marjoram
1 tsp fresh thyme (optional)
2 TB Olive oil
1 TB Butter
Salt
Pepper

1. Trim the ends off the zucchinis and peel. Grate the zucchinis using the larger holes on the grater. Once grated, add some salt and let sit in a collander over your sink for 30 minutes. This will draw out excess water. But if you don't want to wait 30 minutes, just pat the zucchini dry, lightly salt, and move on.

2. Heat up the oil in a large pan and fry up the zucchini until golden. (If you didn't "sweat" the water out of them first, it'll be a little mushier and not fry as well.)

3. Remove from heat and put zucchini into a large bowl. Add the marjoram and thyme and let cool, about 10 minutes. While it cools, clean your pan and then melt the butter over low heat.

4. In the bowl with the zucchini, beat in the eggs and some fresh pepper. When the butter is sizzly, pour into the pan and cook as you would an omelet. (I recommend keeping the heat low and giving the omelet time to set before flipping it over.)

5. Even though it's only two eggs, this makes a massive, hearty omelet. The marjoram adds a Spring-like flowery taste that classes up the dish, making it something you could have for dinner or even to serve as smaller pancake-like rounds when entertaining (think Spanish tapas). This might also be good baked, frittata-style, if you're making a larger quantity.

6. The Gourmet recipe calls for it to be served at room temperature, but that's nasty.

Indian spice turmeric is a miracle holy powder.

I like turmeric, but I wish my favorite spice - powdered sugar - had the same benefits. From EurekAlert:

Revered in India as "holy powder," the marigold-colored spice known as turmeric has been used for centuries to treat wounds, infections and other health problems. In recent years, research into the healing powers of turmeric's main ingredient, curcumin, has burgeoned, as its astonishing array of antioxidant, anti-cancer, antibiotic, antiviral and other properties has been revealed.

Yet little has been known about exactly how curcumin works inside the body.

Now, University of Michigan researchers led by Ayyalusamy Ramamoorthy have discovered that curcumin acts as a disciplinarian, inserting itself into cell membranes and making them more orderly, a move that improves cells' resistance to infection and malignancy.

"The membrane goes from being crazy and floppy to being more disciplined and ordered, so that information flow through it can be controlled," said Ramamoorthy, a professor of chemistry and biophysics. The findings were published online March 3 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[...] In a related line of research, Ramamoorthy's team is using the same methods to investigate the effects of curcumin on the formation of amyloids---clumps of fibrous protein believed to be involved in type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and many other maladies. In addition, the researchers are looking to see whether other natural products, such as polyphenols (compounds found in many plant foods that are known to have antioxidant properties) and capsaicin (a pain reliever derived from hot peppers), interact with membranes in the same way as curcumin.

Teenage boys who eat fish achieve higher intelligence scores.

Smart 15-year-old boys? This may end the heavy metal and wrestling industries as we know it.

Fifteen-year-old males who ate fish at least once a week displayed higher cognitive skills at the age of 18 than those who it ate it less frequently, according to a study of nearly 4,000 teenagers published in the March issue of Acta Paediatrica.

Eating fish once a week was enough to increase combined, verbal and visuospatial intelligence scores by an average of six per cent, while eating fish more than once a week increased them by just under 11 per cent.

Swedish researchers compared the responses of 3,972 males who took part in the survey with the cognitive scores recorded in their Swedish Military Conscription records three years later.

"We found a clear link between frequent fish consumption and higher scores when the teenagers ate fish at least once a week" says Professor Kjell Torén from the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, one of the senior scientists involved in the study. "When they ate fish more than once a week the improvement almost doubled.

"These findings are significant because the study was carried out between the ages of 15 and 18 when educational achievements can help to shape the rest of a young man's life."

More brainy stuff here.

Ambushed pizza man kills attacker.

Your thoughts?

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Three men charged in the attempted pizza robbery Saturday had their bond set this morning at $250,000 each by Magistrate Brian Jeffcoat.

Justin Towan Roundtree 18; Jason Todd Beckham, 18; and Carlos Renard Dates, 20, all were told to be back in court April 23 for a preliminary hearing. Each is charged with criminal conspiracy and strong armed robbery of Pizza Hut delivery man Christopher Steven Miller, 43.

Miller shot and killed one of the assailants who attacked him when he attempted to deliver a pizza to a house on Avery Place Lane near Irmo High School.

Paul Andrew Sturgill Jr., 17, was killed in the shooting.

[...] Miller had a concealed weapons permit and was trying to retreat from his attackers while being beaten by one of them, Metts said. Such a permit allows a person to carry a hidden gun.

Miller carried a .45-caliber Taurus handgun in a fanny pack and took it out and fired while being beaten backward, Metts said. Such large-caliber pistols are known for their "stopping power" -- the ability to bring down an attacker instantly.

No weapons were recovered from Sturgill, Metts said.

More at the Charlotte Observer.

Why dreams are hard to remember.

I remember my dreams pretty well. Last night, in fact, I dreamt of San Pedro. It all seems like yesterday, not far away... tropical the island breeze, all of nature wild and free....

By listening in on the chatter between neurons in various parts of the brain, researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have taken steps toward fully understanding just how memories are formed, transferred, and ultimately stored in the brain--and how that process varies throughout the various stages of sleep.

Their findings may someday even help scientists understand why dreams are so difficult to remember.

Scientists have long known that memories are formed in the brain's hippocampus, but are stored elsewhere--most likely in the neocortex, the outer layer of the brain. Transferring memories from one part of the brain to the other requires changing the strength of the connections between neurons and is thought to depend on the precise timing of the firing of brain cells.

"We know that if neuron A in the hippocampus fires consistently right before neuron B in the neocortex, and if there is a connection from A to B, then that connection will be strengthened," explains Casimir Wierzynski, a Caltech graduate student in computation and neural systems, and first author on the Neuron paper. "And so we wanted to understand the timing relationships between neurons in the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex, which is the front portion of the neocortex."

More here.

Grocery shoppers find cocaine stashed in peppers.

From the NY Post:

Three people bought peppers at a Queens store last night and found them even hotter than they expected - all of them had bags of cocaine inside, police sources said.

The peppers were sold at a store on Liberty Avenue in Ozone Park to three separate purchasers, none of whom apparently had any idea of what they were buying.

Store owners told authorities that the peppers had been imported from South America. Police notified the health department and cops were searching the store with K-9 units.

Vatican: The washing machine liberated women more than anything else.

Women must have so much extra time now that laundry machines liberated them! Today's women can now bake more cookies, hem more dresses, and spend extra time watching that delightful Steve Allen on the newfangled Television box (but - ladies - don't forget about the roast in the oven!). From The Independent:

As International Women’s Day is celebrated, the Vatican had a novel message for the women of the world: give thanks for the washing machine. This humble domestic appliance had done more for the women’s liberation movement than the contraceptive pill or working outside the home, said the the official Vatican newspaper, Osservatore Romano.

“In the 20th century, what contributed most to the emancipation of Western women?” questioned the article. “The debate is still open. Some say it was the pill, others the liberalisation of abortion, or being able to work outside the home. Others go even further: the washing machine.”

The article is entitled, “The washing machine and the emancipation of women: put in the powder, close the lid and relax”, taking its name from the Washy Talky, the Electrolux bilingual-talking washing-machine launched in India seven years ago, which would remind the absent-minded housewife how to use the appliance.

Beware psychedelic South American teas.

From an interesting entry on travel site Gadling. (Thanks JenK!)

Fast-forward two years: I'm sitting in a large dug-out canoe in the Ecuadorian jungle with three German guys and our guide, Marcelo. We're in the middle of a week-long trip to the Cuyabeno Nature Reserve, an Amazonian rainforest located in the northeastern part of Ecuador.

We're on our way to visit a shaman (medicine man) and his family, when I turn to Marcelo and, remembering my paper from college, ask whether the religious groups around here ever use a tea called ayahuasca in their services. Marcelo pauses, looks at me with a half-smile, and says, "You want to try ayahuasca?"

[...] "That was the worst night of my life. I will, as always, blame someone else. Our guide Marcelo apparently thought we'd be okay without fasting before the ayahuasca. Turns out, all the food in my stomach absorbed the nasty tea, and instead of puking twenty minutes in-- like we were supposed to-- and returning to Earth three hours later, I writhed in agony for nine hours.... "It shouldn't go unmentioned, however, that I did manage to enjoy some of the positive effects of the ayahuasca: colorful open-eyed hallucinations, extreme visual mind-f***s, and an all-together giddy demeanor. But then, somehow, things began to turn south, or perhaps a better way to put it is that things turned into hell on Earth. It's difficult to describe with any precision, but I'll give it a go anyway. I began losing track of who I was; I couldn't form abstract thoughts; I turned into an animal looking only for survival...

"I couldn't wake up from the nightmare, couldn't return to anything resembling a functional human being. I had roughly a hundred false awakenings. They lasted forever... Never in my life have I felt so utterly alone, so helpless, so out of control, so insane. I remember asking a biologist from West Texas, as I was finally coming out of the daze, to tell me his life story so that I could latch on to someone else's coherent thoughts. So I could remember where I was, what I was doing.

"The most frightening part was not knowing if I'd ever return to normal. I imagined myself-- or rather, I would have imagined myself if I remembered how to imagine-- like Jack Nicholson at the end of Cuckoo's Nest when they wheel him in: the lights are on but nobody's home. It entered my mind that maybe I was dead, and that if I wasn't, maybe I wanted to be."

Coozer-Bits.

Misc: Coffee taster insures tongue for $14 million.

Yipes: Kangaroo ninja attacks family.

D'oh: 16 arrested in fight at nonviolence concert.

Awesome: Obama moving to ease restrictions on travel and trade with Cuba.

Awesome: Medical marijuana close to being legal in NJ.

D'oh: Spain's prime minister slips in "F" word, infers copulation with tourists.

Booze: NYC woman becomes youngest ever master sommelier.

Lame: Pregnant women to be laid off first in Israeli recession.

Creepy: Pluto has "upside-down" atmosphere.

Americans getting smarter?

Atheism on the rise! Finally, a positive trend in America... From ABC News:

A wide-ranging study on American religious life found that the Roman Catholic population has been shifting out o of the Northeast to the Southwest, the percentage of Christians in the nation has declined and more people say they have no religion at all.

Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey.

Northern New England surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region, with Vermont reporting the highest share of those claiming no religion, at 34 percent. Still, the study found that the numbers of Americans with no religion rose in every state.

"No other religious bloc has kept such a pace in every state," the study's authors said.

Man drives truck while karaoking and dancing.

From Ananova:

A Romanian truck driver is in trouble after filming himself dancing behind the wheel while driving along a motorway.

In the clip, Iulian Breazu is seen singing and dancing wildly while standing on his seat - and steering with his feet.

Mr Breazu, 23, from Sibiu, may lose his job and could face police charges if officers can work out where it was filmed.

The film, posted on the internet by his brother as a joke, was screened by local TV stations who branded Breazu the "driving Tarzan" for his karaoke style acrobatics.

He said: "I know what I did was crazy and I wouldn't do it again. I apologise for that but that doesn't change much. I guess I was just too happy or too bored that day."

Booze good for your bones.

Damn, my bones must be like adamantium. From LiveScience:

A glass of wine or a bottle or two of beer a day may strengthen the bones of older men and women, but drinking more than that could actually weaken bones, according to new research from the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston.

The research, on men and post-menopausal women over 60 years of age, found that regular moderate alcohol intake was associated with greater bone mineral density (BMD).

While earlier research had suggested the link between moderate drinking and improved bone density, the Tufts' study looked specifically at the "possible effects of three alcohol classes, beer, wine and liquor, on BMD," said Katherine Tucker, the director of the epidemiology research program at Tufts. "We saw stronger associations between higher BMD and beer drinkers, who were mostly men, and wine drinkers, who were mostly women, compared with liquor drinkers," she said.

Tucker and her colleagues speculated that silicon found in beer is contributing to the higher bone density in men. It is less clear why liquor and wine might protect bone density.

Man has stepdaughter sign sex abuse contract.

All sex abuse is bad, but this is just weird. From News.com.au:

A man lured his teenage stepdaughter into having sex with him by signing a "contract" which agreed she could keep child bonus payments when she got pregnant.

The years of abuse was condoned by the man's wife because she was afraid to have another baby in case it had a congenital disease.

The case has been called one of the most bizarre child-sex cases to come before an Australian court as the stepfather not only got the girl to sign the contract but also made her keep a false diary in which she recorded having sex with a fictional boyfriend named "Luke".

The plan was to blame "Luke" when she became pregnant.

UK couple die at assisted suicide clinic.

From CNN:

An elderly British couple who died together at an assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland died "peacefully" after receiving "wonderful and humbling care" from their doctors, the couple's family said.

Peter and Penelope Duff from Bath, England, died in Zurich on February 27, according to a statement released Thursday by their family and reported by Britain's Press Association. Both had terminal cancer, the statement said.

"Penny had fought a rare cancer, GIST, since 1992 and Peter's colon cancer had spread to his liver," the statement said.

"Their decision in no way reflected on the wonderful and humbling care they have received from their consultant, doctors and nurses, for which the family, and they, were so appreciative."

[...] Dignity in Dying, a British charity that advocates the choice of assisted death for terminally ill patients, said it was "extremely sad" that the Duffs had to travel abroad to die.

"Had they had the option of an assisted death in this country they may still be alive, as their physical ability to travel would not have been a factor," said Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying.

Wootton called on Parliament to modernize laws on suicide to allow for assisted dying.

Even the Japanese PM can't read Japanese.

Seriously - kanji is hard, so desu ne.

Reading Japanese isn't easy — even for Japanese.

Take Prime Minister Taro Aso. He's made so many public blunders that an opposition lawmaker tried to give him a reading test during a televised session of the Diet.

The leader bungled the word for "frequent," calling Japan-China exchanges "cumbersome" instead. Another time, he misread the word "toshu" (follow), saying "fushu" — or stench — and sounded as if he were saying government policy "stinks."

While the media and Aso's political rivals have been quick to heap ridicule, many Japanese have seen a bit more of themselves in Aso's goofs than they would like to admit. Since his missteps, books designed to improve reading ability have become all the rage.

Mo ichido gozaimasu...

Dead goat left outside NY politician's home.

Maybe it was just a gift of delicious, free goat? From Raw Story:

A state assemblyman said he found a dead goat outside his suburban New York home and believes it represents a death threat against him.

Republican Greg Ball said Friday he has been battling corruption in Putnam County and believes the threat comes from "entrenched interests" he would not name.

State Police Sgt. Ted Daley says the incident is under investigation. He would not comment on any threat.

Vampire discovered in mass grave.

Great, I'm so glad we've awakened 500-year-old evil. From New Scientist:

A SKELETON exhumed from a grave in Venice is being claimed as the first known example of the "vampires" widely referred to in contemporary documents.

Matteo Borrini of the University of Florence in Italy found the skeleton of a woman with a small brick in her mouth while excavating mass graves of plague victims from the Middle Ages on Lazzaretto Nuovo Island in Venice.

At the time the woman died, many people believed that the plague was spread by "vampires" which, rather than drinking people's blood, spread disease by chewing on their shrouds after dying. Grave-diggers put bricks in the mouths of suspected vampires to stop them doing this, Borrini says.

The belief in vampires probably arose because blood is sometimes expelled from the mouths of the dead, causing the shroud to sink inwards and tear. Borrini, who presented his findings at a meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in Denver, Colorado, last week, claims this might be the first such vampire to have been forensically examined. The skeleton was removed from a mass grave of victims of the Venetian plague of 1576.

Canadian asks US border inspector for manners, gets pepper sprayed.

Getting maced in the face is how Americans say hello! From Breitbart:

A Canadian says he got a face full of pepper spray after repeatedly asking a U.S. border inspector in Blaine, Wash., to say please. Desiderio Fortunato says he thought the inspector who told him to turn off his engine Monday was rude and asked him to say please.

The 54-year-old British Columbia resident told The Bellingham Herald that the inspector repeatedly ordered him to turn the car off and then said he would spray him if he didn't.

Fortunato says he was stunned and blinded by the pepper spray and was pulled out of the car and handcuffed. He was detained about 3 hours.

Customs and Border Protection spokesman Mike Milne (MILL'-en) in Seattle says it was a lawful order that travelers must obey. He says the use of force is under review.

Octopus gets inside locked lunchbox.

From Breitbart:

What is 7 feet long, weighs 30 pounds, has eight arms and fits in a box slightly larger than a milk crate? Truman the octopus. Truman squeezed into a clear, acrylic box while trying to snag his lunch at the New England Aquarium in Boston.

Aquarium workers often place food inside locked boxes for the intelligent animals to crack open. It's what the aquarium calls an "enrichment activity," but it didn't go as planned Thursday.

In this case, crabs were locked in a smaller box inside the bigger box, which is 14 inches per side. The impatient Truman bypassed the locks and squeezed his body through a 2-inch hole in the exterior box.

He spent about 30 minutes inside before slithering out, delighting staff and guests who witnessed the spectacle.

He never did get the smaller box open.

Australian politican saves would-be suicide.

From News.com.au:

FORMER Victorian premier Steve Bracks and his wife Terry saved a man seconds before he was about to jump from the West Gate Bridge in Melbourne.

"Terry and I did what any other Victorian would have done and helped another person in trouble," Mr Bracks said yesterday.

The Bracks were returning home on Thursday night when they saw a large man "standing on the railings obviously looking as though he was about to throw himself off".

Mr Bracks and two other men - one of them an off-duty police officer - pulled him to safety.

Obama gives DVDs to British PM as official gift.

Kind of a Bush move, no? From the Daily Mail:

As he headed back home from Washington, Gordon Brown must have rummaged through his party bag with disappointment.

Because all he got was a set of DVDs. Barack Obama, the leader of the world's richest country, gave the Prime Minister a box set of 25 classic American films - a gift about as exciting as a pair of socks.

Mr Brown is not thought to be a film buff, and his reaction to the box set is unknown. But it didn't really compare to the thoughtful presents he had brought along with him.

The Prime Minister gave Mr Obama an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet.

The unique present delighted Mr Obama because oak from the Gannet's sister ship, HMS Resolute, was carved to make a desk that has sat in the Oval Office in the White House since 1880.

Mr Brown also handed over a framed commission for HMS Resolute and a first edition of the seven-volume biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert.

In addition, Mr Brown and his wife showered gifts on the Obama children giving Sasha and Malia an outfit each from Topshop and six children's books by British authors which are shortly to be published in America.

In return, the Obamas gave the Browns two models of the presidential helicopter, Marine One, to take home to sons Fraser and John.

Woman bites off partner's tongue.

He can't even lick his wounds! From BBC:

A Tyneside woman deliberately bit off her boyfriend's tongue during a drunken birthday kiss, a court has heard.

Tracy Davies, 40, bit a third of Mark Coghill's tongue off, Newcastle Crown Court was told.

They were celebrating Mr Coghill's 45th birthday at his Newcastle bedsit in October 2008, when she grew upset because she was not pregnant.

[...] Mr Coghill, a former customer service advisor, told the court he could no longer work, struggled to speak, and had lost many of his taste buds.

"I will never enjoy a curry again," he said. "I can't distinguish between certain foods, like the difference between cheese and toast, and just toast.

Russia threatens gas war with Europe.

Interesting article that delves into the shadowy, twisty world of Eastern European business, politics, and good ol' cutthroat corruption.

Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, today raised the spectre of a new gas war in Europe and warned that Russia could cut off supplies to European consumers unless Ukraine paid its gas bill by Saturday.

Putin said that if Kiev failed to pay there could be a repeat of January's gas war, which saw much of Europe shivering without Russian gas. There would be "a suspension of the supply of our fuel both to consumers in Ukraine and to consumers in Europe," Putin told his government.

Naftogaz, Ukraine's state-owned gas company, claimed this afternoon that it had paid its debt for February to Gazprom, Russia's state energy company. Gazprom earlier said it had received $310m (just under £220m) but was still owed $50m.Ukraine now has to settle its bill every month.

Putin's threat follows a raid yesterday by armed secret service agents on the Kiev headquarters of Naftogaz.

The raid is part of a bitter power struggle between Ukraine's president, Viktor Yushchenko, and the country's prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko.

Yushchenko, who controls Ukraine's SBU security service, ordered the raid in an apparent attempt to seize the contract signed by Tymoshenko and Putin, which ended January's gas war.

The deal with Gazprom led to the resumption of transit gas supplies to Europe after Ukraine agreed to pay a price for its own gas approaching market levels.

Yushchenko is now trying to sabotage the deal in an attempt to undermine Tymoshenko, his former ally turned bitter adversary, analysts suggest.

The Putin-Tymoshenko deal eliminated the shadowy intermediary company RosUkrEnergo – whose owners have allegedly agreed to back Yushchenko's attempts to win re-election in next year's presidential election, they add.

Tymoshenko has furiously accused Yushchenko of corruption. Yesterday she criticised the raid on Naftogaz and said that the security forces loyal to the president were "out of control".

"The SBU is blatantly breaking the law and the president is covering up for them," she said, adding that the raid violated the constitution.

This morning a group of unarmed men turned up at the offices of Ukrtransgaz, the company that runs Ukraine's pipelines.

According to Naftogaz, the group left the company's premises an hour later after a standoff with members of parliament who had rushed to the scene. An SBU spokeswoman, Maryna Ostapenko, said its officers were conducting a criminal investigation into "abuses in the gas sector".

Yushchenko accuses Tymoshenko of effectively stealing $5bn worth of gas, transferred from RosUkrEnergo and gifted to Naftogaz.

And so on and so forth...

Dalek found in pond.

As my friend Sean put it: "Wreckage from the Time War is everywhere. And everywhen." Be afraid.

Volunteer Marc Oakland was stunned when he pulled the head of a Dalek from the murky depths of a pond he was helping to clean.

The 42-year-old sales executive found part of Doctor Who’s arch nemesis as he pushed a rake along the surface while wading waist-high in water.

He said: ‘I’d just shifted a tree branch with my foot when I noticed something dark and round slowly coming up to the surface.

‘I got the shock of my life when a dalek head bobbed up right in front of me.’

His group, who were clearing rubbish near Beaulieu, Hampshire, had already fished out an old table football game, dozens of lager cans and even a muddy skateboard.

But the last thing they were expecting to find was a full size head from one of the Time Lord’s most feared adversaries complete with its distinctive eye stalk.

‘It must have been down there for some time because it was covered in mould and water weed, and had quite a bit of damage,’ said Mr Oakland.

More on the end of Mankind here.

Coozer-Bits: Science Edition.

tDuh: Study finds emotions hold sway over physical health worldwide.

Dorky: First virtual reality technology created that lets you see, hear, touch, taste and smell. (Taste?)

Awesome: Genetic study finds treasure trove of new lizards.

Hot Cha Cha: Prawnography shows captive bred shrimp lack lust.

Duh: Stress unravels brain structure.

Duh: Power gives people the illusion of control.

Tech: Nanostitching could strengthen airplane skins.

Quantum paradox directly observed.

Sooo... what happened? From EurekAlert:

In quantum mechanics, a vanguard of physics where science often merges into philosophy, much of our understanding is based on conjecture and probabilities, but a group of researchers in Japan has moved one of the fundamental paradoxes in quantum mechanics into the lab for experimentation and observed some of the 'spooky action of quantum mechanics' directly.

Hardy's Paradox, the axiom that we cannot make inferences about past events that haven't been directly observed while also acknowledging that the very act of observation affects the reality we seek to unearth, poses a conundrum that quantum physicists have sought to overcome for decades. How do you observe quantum mechanics, atomic and sub-atomic systems that are so small-scale they cannot be described in classical terms, when the act of looking at them changes them permanently?

In a journal paper published in the New Journal of Physics, 'Direct observation of Hardy's paradox by joint weak measurement with an entangled photon pair', today, Wednesday, 4 March, authored by Kazuhiro Yokota, Takashi Yamamoto, Masato Koashi and Nobuyuki Imoto from the Graduate School of Engineering Science at Osaka University and the CREST Photonic Quantum Information Project in Kawaguchi City, the research group explains how they used a measurement technique that has an almost imperceptible impact on the experiment which allows the researchers to compile objectively provable results at sub-atomic scales.

The experiment, based on Lucien Hardy's thought experiment, which follows the paths of two photons using interferometers, instruments that can be used to interfere photons together, is believed to throw up contradictory results that do not conform to our classical understanding of reality. Although Hardy's Paradox is rarely refuted, it was only a thought experiment until recently.

West Virginia considering banning Barbie dolls.

They should ban Ugly Dolls, too, for teaching kids it's okay to have three eyes and tentacles. (Submitted by Jennifer C.)

A lawmaker in West Virginia has introduced a new bill that if passed would ban the sale of Barbie dolls in the state. Democratic Delegate Jeff Eldridge says that toys like Barbie place too much importance on beauty and have an unhealthy influence on girls which could affect their "intellectual and emotional development."

As reported by MSNBC, Edlridge told a local news station last week that he "just hates the image that we give to our kids that if you're beautiful, you're beautiful and you don't have to be smart." He admits that he knows the bill has little chance of being passed.

More here.

Coozer-Bits.

WTF: 13-year-old kills brother to take over family drug ring.

D'oh: British National Party accidentally uses Polish plane in anti-Eastern European immigration ads.

Yipes: EasyJet comes within 15 seconds of crash after control system switches off.

Lame: Dad, 36, charged with orchestrating bawdy teen party that included booze and stripper pole.

Sad: Rare jaguar euthanized.

Creepy: Aquatic animals emit laughing gas.

Russian Crime Watch: Woman knifes husband in eye for refusing to peel potatoes.

Duh: Russia still certain that emo culture causes murder, cannibalism.

Interesting: Geographic map of the US recession.

Sad: Deforestation causing animal stampedes into Sumatran villages.

Yipes: Man jumps out of moving American Airlines plane.

Lame: Japan and US protecting rapists in the US Army, refusing justice to victims.

Hero: Cat saves elderly woman from fire.

Lame: Groom robbed banks to pay for lavish wedding.

Wal-Mart customer finds 10 teeth in wallet.

From Breitbart:

FALMOUTH, Mass. - A customer shopping at a Wal-Mart for a wallet claims he found something that definitely didn't fit the bill: human teeth.

Police say the man found 10 human teeth last Saturday when he unzipped a compartment in the wallet. One tooth had a filling. The customer turned the wallet and the teeth over to employees at the Falmouth, Mass., store but left without giving his name.

Police investigating the incident told The Cape Cod Times that the teeth belong to an adult, but since there was no blood or gum tissue on the teeth, they would be unable to perform DNA tests.

A Walmart spokeswoman said the company believes it's an "isolated incident" but will investigate.

Future of Japan's anime industry in doubt.

Truly, a sad day for out-of-work tentacle monsters. From Japan Times:

The deepening recession and rapid shift in the overall landscape surrounding the industry have caused many to fear for the future of one of the nation's most prized cultural exports.

"The global fan base for Japanese 'anime' is increasing, but with the old business model crumbling it isn't translating into profits," said Yasuo Yamaguchi, executive director of the Association of Japanese Animations.

For the past decade, the industry has been hammering out average annual sales of ¥200 billion in what experts described as an "animation bubble."

Yamaguchi predicted, however, that the industry's proceeds for fiscal 2008 — which have yet to be calculated — would be lower than 2007, when total sales dropped almost ¥20 billion from 2006, a record high year, according to AJA statistics.

"The financial crisis is forcing sponsors to cut down on television advertisement fees, and this in turn is shrinking the budgets for animations, pressuring everyone involved in the production," Yamaguchi said.

"I think we'll see a major decrease in the number of anime programs broadcast. Agencies dependent on television as a primary financial source will need to search for alternatives."

UK beer tax closes down 2,000 pubs, costs 20,000 jobs.

From the Guardian:

A record 2,000 British pubs have closed with the loss of 20,000 jobs since the chancellor, Alistair Darling, increased beer tax in the 2008 budget, new figures published by the British Beer and Pub Association reveal today.

The figures came alongside a separate forecast by Oxford Economics that 75,000 more jobs in the drinks industry are at risk. The finding is based on the impact of last year's 18% increase in excise duty and the implications of the four-year drinks tax escalator.

The two beer tax increases placed an additional £520m cost burden on the sector, the data show.

Publication of the new figures comes on the day that five ministers are due to be questioned on the issue by MPs at a Commons emergency summit.

Tragic end to minor leaguer traded for a bag of bats.

Could be worse. He could've been traded to the Mets. From FOX News:

Ask the most hard-core baseball fan about John C. Odom and most likely you'll get a blank stare. Yet millions of people have heard of the slender right-hander.

He was the minor league player traded for 10 maple bats.

It became a big joke last May, when word of the unusual swap jumped off the sports pages, and Odom went from pitcher to punch line.

He seemed to handle it well, too. A former prospect in the San Francisco Giants' chain — future Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum bunked on his couch in Class A ball — Odom gladly agreed to interviews. He kidded about the kooky deal that made him famous, saying it would make a better story if he reached the majors someday.

"People are like, 'I'd kill myself' and stuff," Odom said at the time, dismissing any such notion.

Three weeks after the trade, he abruptly left the team. Six months after the trade, he was dead.

The medical examiner said Odom's death in Georgia on Nov. 5 at age 26 was an accidental overdose from heroin, methamphetamine, the stimulant benzylpiperazine and alcohol.

Asteroid barely misses direct hit with Earth.

As if we don't have enough to worry about. Thanks CNN.

You had a close encounter with a 40-yard-wide asteroid this week, but the astronomer who first spotted the large rock said it's nothing to worry about.

Asteroid 2009 DD45 on Monday passed within 38,000 miles of Earth, less than twice the height of the geostationary satellites we depend on for communications, according to Robert McNaught of the Australian National University.

McNaught, who watches for asteroids with his telescope 250 miles northwest of Sydney, Australia, discovered the approaching rock last week.

"It's not something to worry about, but something to be aware of," he said.

While a direct hit on Earth could be a devastating natural disaster, McNaught said keeping track of asteroids can make a hit "potentially preventable."

"If discovered in advance and with enough lead time, there is the possibility of pushing it off course, if you have decades of advance warning," McNaught said. "If you have only a few days, you can evacuate the area of impact, but there's not a great deal [else] you can do."

Handprint reveals dinos had bird hands.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Steven Spielberg got it wrong.

In his classic 1993 film "Jurassic Park," the director showed Tyrannosaurus rex, Velociraptor and other carnivorous dinosaurs walking with their forearms hanging down like a monkey's and their palms more or less parallel to the ground -- a posture derisively referred to by paleontologists as the "bunny position."

A growing body of evidence, however, has suggested that the creatures were physically unable to assume this position because their wrist bones would not turn in such a fashion.

Now, the first unequivocal handprint of a 198-million-year-old crouching carnivore confirms the speculation, providing clear evidence that the front limb struck the ground on its side, like a karate chop, and thus would have been of little use for walking.

The extremely rare handprint from the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site in Utah indicates that even early dinosaurs had forelimbs similar to those of birds, reinforcing the now widely held conclusion that birds are the only living descendant of the ancient monsters.

Bus driver beats up McGruff the Crime Dog.

Well, at least he didn't set Smokey the Bear on fire. From Breitbart:

A bus driver thought it would be funny to take the bite out of McGruff the crime dog by punching the Washington, D.C., mascot.

But police say children who witnessed the stunt were horrified.

Police say Metro bus driver Shawn Brim climbed off a bus, adjusted his side view mirrors and then punched officer Tyrone Hardy, who was handing flyers to children on a Washington street while dressed as the crime dog.

After the punch, the 38-year-old Brim got back on the bus and drove away, but was quickly pulled over Saturday.

Police say Hardy had a swollen right cheek, but seemed more concerned that the attack upset the kids.

International Criminal Court issues warrant for Sudan's president.

About time. Unless this is another meaningless gesture so that the world doesn't have to actually *do* anything. From BBC:

The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Sudan's president on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

But the court in the Hague stopped short of accusing Omar al-Bashir of genocide. He denies the charges and has dismissed any ICC ruling as worthless.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets of the capital, Khartoum, after the announcement, amid fears of unrest.

The UN estimates 300,000 people have died in Darfur's six-year conflict.

Millions more have been displaced.

Court spokeswoman Laurence Blairon announced the ruling by a panel of judges on the charges presented by ICC prosecutors.

She said Mr Bashir was suspected of being criminally responsible for "intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians and pillaging their property".

Rotten eggs are the new Viagra.

Wow, and I thought my furry fetish was odd! From Ananova:

Scientists say the smell of rotten eggs is arousing for men and could be used to create an alternative to Viagra.

Nerve cells release minute amounts of hydrogen sulphide - the gas which gives rotten eggs their distinctive smell - when a man becomes aroused, causing blood vessels to relax and so fill with blood.

Similar research on another gas, nitric oxide, led to the creation of Viagra, reports the Daily Mail.

Girl swallows engagement ring in a Wendy's Frosty milkshake.

Nothing says romance like shitting out a Wendy's value meal and putting the contents on your finger.

The idea was a variation on a common theme: Put the ring in a drink and let his beloved discover it. Harris did his part, hiding the ring in a Wendy’s Frosty milkshake. But, as he and his girlfriend, Kaitlin Whipple, told TODAY’s Matt Lauer Monday in New York, she ate the entire shake and never found the ring.

[...] Harris checked everyone’s cups and didn’t find the ring — gulp! This was not in the script. The video shows him hugging her and whispering in her ear that she had eaten her engagement ring.

Whipple’s gut reaction was disbelief, the story being harder to swallow than the ring.

“I thought he was joking,” she told Lauer. “I couldn’t believe that I swallowed the ring. I kept waiting for him to get down and propose.”

Harris couldn’t believe it either. “It’s not that small a ring,” he told Lauer, a bit defensively.

Stupid people here.

Coozer-Bits.

Creepy: Reusable toilet paper?

Yipes: Woman finds cell phone in bag of potato chips.

Lame: Staten Island Department of Education official caught sending racist jokes; asks "what's the big deal?"

WWIII Watch: China invades THE MOON!

Sad: 200 whales and dolphins beached and stranded in Australia.

Hot Cha Cha: Can people unlearn their naked shame?

WWIII Watch: Russia launches military satellite via proton rocket.

Hero: Man pulls car by his eyelids.

Yipes: Aussie teens go on machete rampage (no one injured).

Germany considers bailing out Holocaust company.

Maybe Germany should bail out Madoff, too. From the Daily Mail:

The German government is in the embarrassing position of having to decide whether or not to bail out a mammoth industrial company accused in wartime of using the hair shorn from Jews murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

The Schaeffler group is a pillar of German industry and employs 222,000 people worldwide.

It is is Europe’s largest car parts supplier but is lumbered with close to £14billion of debt after buying out the major rival and tyre maker Continental last year in a hostile takeover.

Bright pink dolphin spotted.

Back in November, I, along with Coozer-Phile Kelly, took a boat from a small fishing village in Hong Kong (Tai O, on Lantau Island) to find pink dolphins. Per the guidebooks, throughout the entire world, pink dolphins are only found there. Guess not!

These are the stunning pictures of a rare pink bottlenose dolphin spotted swimming in a Louisiana lake.

The mammal was pictured by local charter boat captain Erik Rue, who has been studying the dolphin since it first surfaced in Lake Calcasieu, an inland saltwater estuary, north of the Gulf of Mexico in Southwestern USA.

Capt Rue, 42, originally saw the dolphin, which also has reddish eyes, swimming with a pod of four other dolphins, with one appearing to be its mother which never left its side.

'I just happened to see a little pod of dolphins, and I noticed one that was a little lighter. It was absolutely stunningly pink', he said.

'I had never seen anything like it. It's the same colour throughout the whole body and it looks like it just came out of a paint booth. The dolphin appears to be healthy and normal other than its colouration, which is quite beautiful.

'The mammal is entirely pink from tip to tail and has reddish eyes indicating it's albinism. The skin appears smooth, glossy pink and without flaws. I have spotted it about 40 to 50 times in the time since the original sighting as it has apparently taken up residence with its family in the Calcasieu Ship Channel.

Another pic here.

CIA admits it destroyed 92 interrogation tapes.

From Raw Story:

While it has been known for some time that the CIA had destroyed tapes of interrogations with terrorism suspects, Monday's news that 92 videotapes had been destroyed by the agency was still shocking.

The CIA acknowledged the number of tape erasures in a letter filed by government lawyers in New York. The letter was filed in response to an ongoing lawsuit from the the American Civil Liberties Union that is seeking more details of terror interrogation programs.

The ACLU immediately called for the judge to issue a "prompt finding of contempt" against the CIA.

Amrit Singh, an attorney with the ACLU and counsel on the case said to Raw Story, “The large number of video tapes destroyed confirms that this was a systemic attempt to evade court orders.”

Singh added, "It’s about time, now that the court knows 92 tapes have been destroyed, that it hold the CIA accountable for the destruction of the tapes."

Coozer-Bits.

Interesting: Malaysia plans to oust foreign workers.

Duh: Doctors discover new video game disorder (sore thumbs).

Lame: Ryanair may make passengers pay extra to use on-flight toilet.

Science: Stem cell breakthrough ends ethical dilemma.

Yipes: Drug-resistant gonorrhea on the rise.

Tech: New flat screen technology inspired by coffee stains.

New website will rate all foods in supermarkets.

This is a great idea. The site is already looking pretty useful. Article from New Scientist:

Is it best to buy local produce grown in a greenhouse or an imported alternative? Shoppers will soon have a powerful tool to help answer such conundrums: www.goodguide.com.

Later this month, the San Francisco-based website will add food from supermarkets around the globe to its existing roster of consumer safety and carbon-footprint ratings for non-food goods. If a food product has a barcode, GoodGuide promises to rate it, revealing what it contains in terms of chemicals, colourings, additives and nutrition, as well as its environmental impact.

"You could take 12 hours on 50 different sites checking animal rights, worker rights, anti-GMO sites or anti-irradiation sites. We aggregate all these issues in one place," says GoodGuide's founder Dara O'Rourke.

Curious octopus floods California aquarium.

If there's one thing I've learned from Japanese culture, it's never trust a creature with tentacles.

Staff at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium in California say the trickster who flooded their offices with sea water was armed - eight-armed, to be exact.

They blame the soaking they discovered Tuesday morning on the aquarium's resident two-spotted octopus, a tiny female known for being curious and gregarious with visitors.

The octopus apparently tugged on a valve and that allowed hundreds of litres of water to overflow its tank.

Aquarium spokeswoman Randi Parent says no sea life was harmed by the flood.

NH bill to legalize opposite sex civil unions.

Yeah, why should gays have all the fun in having all these marriage rights without being married??

New Hampshire lawmakers are considering a new twist in the debate over gay marriage -- whether to allow heterosexual partners to enter into civil unions.

The House will hold hearings on two bills Tuesday to allow the unions. New Hampshire established civil unions last year for same-sex couples as an alternative to marriage. The unions carry all the responsibilities and duties of marriage but not the name. The House has yet to vote this year on legislation to allow gays to marry.

Thanks Boston Globe!

Woman leaves life savings on bus.

From News.com.au:

A woman lost her life savings when she forgot 500,000 kronor ($86,206) on a Swedish streetcar as she was headed to the bank to deposit the money, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

The 83-year-old retired seamstress, identified only as Birgitta, had for years kept her savings in a desk in her home in the southwestern city of Gothenburg, but had finally decided it would be safer to put the cash in a bank account, the Aftonbladet daily reported.

On February 19, she had filled a paper bag to the brim with 10,000-kronor piles of bank notes before taking a bus to the centre of town.

"I was going to the bank to deposit the money,'' she told the paper.

But when she got to her stop, she forgot the bag and got off leaving her life savings behind.

Birgitta was too embarrassed to tell her family what had happened at first, and when they finally contacted the bus company the money was long gone.

Red states consume the most porn.

I'm sure it's all just for "research." From ABC News:

A new nationwide study of anonymised credit-card receipts from a major online adult entertainment provider finds little variation in consumption between states.

"When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the same than different," says Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business School.

However, there are some trends to be seen in the data. Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study finds.

"Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by," Edelman says.