dude of the day.

R. Buckminster Fuller c.1917
Born July 12, 1895(1895-07-12)
Milton, Massachusetts
Died July 1, 1983 (aged 87)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.

Occupation Visionary, designer, architect, poet, author, inventor
Spouse Anne Fuller
Children 2
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller (July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American visionary, designer, architect, poet, author, and inventor. He was the second President of Mensa.

Throughout his life, Fuller was concerned with the question "Does humanity have a chance to survive lastingly and successfully on planet Earth, and if so, how?" Considering himself an average individual without special monetary means or academic degree, he chose to devote his life to this question, trying to find out what an individual like him could do to improve humanity's condition that large organizations, governments, or private enterprises inherently could not do.

Pursuing this lifelong experiment, Fuller wrote more than thirty books, coining and popularizing terms such as "spaceship earth", ephemeralization, and synergetics. He also worked in the development of numerous inventions, chiefly in the fields of design and architecture, the best known of which is the geodesic dome. Carbon molecules known as fullerenes or buckyballs were named for their resemblance to a geodesic sphere.

Late in his life, after working on his concepts for several decades, Fuller had achieved considerable public visibility. He traveled the world giving lectures, and received numerous honorary doctorates. Most of his inventions, however, never made it into production, and he was strongly criticized in most fields he tried to influence such as architecture, or simply dismissed as a hopeless utopian. Fuller's proponents, on the other hand, claim that his work has not yet received the attention that it deserves. According to philosopher N.J.Slabbert, Fuller had an obscure writing style which has impeded the circulation of his ideas.

from the NY TIMES, a beautiful tale.

The Rural Life
Belated Frost
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By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Published: October 31, 2007
In the absence of a general, killing frost, people have become expert in the subtleties of what the season has so far not delivered. The other day I heard a farmer refer to the “high” frost that had hit his farm in upstate New York. It coated the windows on his pickup but didn’t touch the fields. Down in the valleys, people know that the frost on their lawns doesn’t entirely count, because the hillsides above them haven’t been hit. A killing frost to a pot of basil is merely a pleasant evening to a stand of Brussels sprouts, but until the past few days, even the basil has not been bothered.

I think the first frost has finally come. It wasn’t a deep black frost, the kind that makes the unprepared gardener weep. Two mornings in a row the pasture has turned white, and the thick stands of goldenrod have turned silver. Even the most utilitarian stretches of countryside — the fields of corn stubble — have been glazed with what feels like a kind of anticipation, a readiness for snow if it ever comes again. A thin line of wood smoke hangs just above the trees, and where the hillsides rise above the highway, the wood smoke lies in tendrils, the way water vapor does on a wet summer day.

Everyone up here has noticed how late this frost is, and how deep into October some of the trees have kept their leaves. Pastures that were going brown in the drought of summer have greened up again. There has barely been skim ice on the stock tanks. But if things seem awry and you want to talk about it here in the country, you talk about what it costs when the fuel oil truck comes, and you feel uneasily grateful that it has come so few times yet this fall. Winter usually arrives on a very tight schedule, and it’s hard to regret a little slack, even if it feels worrisome.

The first frost isn’t everything, though. I’m still waiting for the hard one, the one makes the steel gates bitter to the touch and drives the bees deep into the core of their hive. That kind of frost puts away any thoughts of last-minute regeneration. It makes it clear that some time is going to have to pass — and it’s going to have to get a lot colder — before there is any hint of rebirth. When that frost will come is anyone’s guess. Right now, the frost we’re having still seems ornamental, a last-minute embellishment for Halloween.

VERLYN KLINKENBORG

Amen to these bad MFers!

Like E.F. Hutton, when Big Papi talks, people listen!

The new issue of Sports Illustrated, with the World Champion Boston Red Sox [team stats] on the cover, reveals that, when the Sox went down 2 games to 1 to the Cleveland Indians, David Ortiz [stats] cleared the clubhouse of everyone but the players and gave his boys a big, fat talking to.

“Listen,” the designated hitter began, according to SI, “we’re not just a good team. We’re a great team. And don’t you (bleeping) forget that. And let’s go play one at a time and go prove that. Because let me tell you something . . .”



“Ortiz pulled on the sides of his gray road jersey,” the story goes on. “ ‘There’s a reason why you wear this Red Sox uniform . . .’ ”

“Ortiz paused for a beat, letting the suspenseful silence fill the rapt room. ‘Because you’re a bad mother(bleeper).’ ”

The Red Sox lost that night, but never lost again on their way to a second World Championship in four seasons.

Amen to these bad MFers!

Like E.F. Hutton, when Big Papi talks, people listen!

The new issue of Sports Illustrated, with the World Champion Boston Red Sox [team stats] on the cover, reveals that, when the Sox went down 2 games to 1 to the Cleveland Indians, David Ortiz [stats] cleared the clubhouse of everyone but the players and gave his boys a big, fat talking to.

“Listen,” the designated hitter began, according to SI, “we’re not just a good team. We’re a great team. And don’t you (bleeping) forget that. And let’s go play one at a time and go prove that. Because let me tell you something . . .”



“Ortiz pulled on the sides of his gray road jersey,” the story goes on. “ ‘There’s a reason why you wear this Red Sox uniform . . .’ ”

“Ortiz paused for a beat, letting the suspenseful silence fill the rapt room. ‘Because you’re a bad mother(bleeper).’ ”

The Red Sox lost that night, but never lost again on their way to a second World Championship in four seasons.

do this. do it for me.

do it for the team.
do it for AMERICA!

http://ihasabucket.com/

Good lord Paris was serious!

she is using her money to make the world a better place, through acting!

yes yes yes yes yes!

The base-taco connection

Taco Bell [YUM] has another reason for baseball fans to root for the Red Sox [team stats] on the base paths: The fast-food chain is giving away free crunchy beef tacos if someone steals a base in the World Series.

If any player from either team steals a base in Games 1 or 2 Wednesday or Thursday, the tacos will be available on Tuesday from 2 to 5 p.m. at all participating Taco Bells. If a base is stolen in Games 3 through 7, tacos will be available on Nov. 6.

Go to www.StealaBaseStealaTaco.com for more information.

Calif. college uses cockroaches as lure

uuhhh...gross. i mean, seriously, disgusting. Disgustingly AWESOME!

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Thinking about the University of California, Riverside for college? Then come pet our cockroaches!

UC Riverside is using a cockroach petting zoo to attract students and parents to an upcoming recruitment fair. The zoo will include several species, including cockroaches that emit a foul, ammonia-like scent and the famous, palm-sized Madagascar hissing cockroach.

Also in plentiful supply: rubber gloves for the squeamish.

The Nov. 3 event targets local high school students interested in careers as science teachers or engineers, said Steve Gomez, co-director of Copernicus Project, one of two campus programs sponsoring the event.

It’s the second time this year that UC Riverside, which has a well-respected entomology department, has used the cockroach zoo to entice potential recruits.

"Everybody gets grossed out at first," Gomez said. "But then they find out what uses they have in agriculture, like pest elimination."

Gomez said he held the giant Madagascar hissing roach in May and it nearly covered his palm. The bugs seem to enjoy being held, he said.

"I’m not a big cockroach fan," he said. "I held it for about five seconds and I gladly gave it back."

After fight, airport embraces SUX code

SIOUX CITY, Iowa - City leaders have scrapped plans to do away with the Sioux Gateway Airport’s unflattering three-letter identifier - SUX - and instead have made it the centerpiece of the airport’s new marketing campaign.

The code, used by pilots and airports worldwide and printed on tickets and luggage tags, will be used on T-shirts and caps sporting the airport’s new slogan, "FLY SUX." It also forms the address of the airport’s redesigned Web site - http://www.flysux.com .

Sioux City officials petitioned the Federal Aviation Administration to change the code in 1988 and 2002. At one point, the FAA offered the city five alternatives - GWU, GYO, GYT, SGV and GAY - but airport trustees turned them down.

Airport board member Dave Bernstein proposed embracing the identifier.

"Let’s make the best of it," Bernstein said. "I think we have the opportunity to turn it into a positive."

He noted that many airports, including some of the busiest, have forgettable three-letter codes.

"I’ve got buddies that I went to college with in different cities that can’t even remember their own birthdays, but they all know the Sioux City designator - SUX," he said.

Mayor Craig Berenstein, who in 2002 described SUX as an "embarrassment" to the city, said he views the new slogan as a "cute little way" to make light of the situation.

New Zealand brewer offers lifetime supply of beer for return of stolen laptop

now this is my sorta reward!

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A New Zealand brewer is offering a lifetime supply of free beer in exchange for the return of a laptop stolen in a break-in.

Croucher Brewing Co. co-owner Paul Croucher said Friday the computer contains "all our financials" as well as label designs for new beers and business contacts.

"So we decided that if anyone does come into possession of it we’ll be happy to offer them a reward — a dozen (bottles) of beer a month for the rest of their life," he said.

Croucher estimated the total value would likely be about $19,500 for a lifetime of beer. Since making the offer, "plenty of people" had called to say they were looking for the computer, he said.

"Opportunistic kids and a flimsy padlock" resulted in the theft, he said.

Coucher said he was optimistic the free beer offer would lead to the return of the stolen computer. "We’d love it back. We’re at such a critical stage in our little business that every hit like that is quite big," he said.

The microbrewery in the central North Island tourist town of Rotorua currently ships 160 gallons of its three beers — an English-style pale ale, Czech-style pilsner and a cloudy German wheat beer — each week.

New Zealand winemaker Montana called to warn the brewery owners to make sure the terms of their free beer reward were precise. The winery had a difficult legal wrangle with the winner of an offer of five years’ free wine who tried to extend the supply.

uuhhh...this is fucked.

Perv locked up after asking for lap dance from little girl

FORT PIERCE, Fla. - A man who cops said treated a school bus stop like a strip club was arrested last week after police said he approached an 11-year-old girl and offered to pay her money for a lap dance.

The girl didn’t know what a lap dance was, police said.

She did, however, know that Horacio Benitez, 20, of Fort Pierce, Fla., was up to no good and told her mother.

The Palm Beach Post reports that cops arrested Benitez and threw him in jail.

Watching Benitez get hauled away, another parent told police that Benitez had tried to lure his daughter into his pickup.

Police said Benitez told them he has had thoughts about having sex with young children, but that he had never acted on those thoughts.

He was being held in the Port St. Lucie jail on $225,000 bail.

Mom gets OUI rap after 8-year-old son calls 911

VANCOUVER, Wash. - An 8-year-old boy riding with his mom called 911 repeatedly to
report that she wasn’t “acting normal.”

When the cops caught up to the car, they agreed. They arrested mom on suspicion of drunken driving, reckless endangerment and assault of a child.

The drama continued for some time on Saturday, as cops zeroed in on the phone’s GPS transmitter.

“He said ‘I don’t know where we are, and Mom’s not acting normal,’ ” sheriff’s Sgt. Randon M. Walker said. At one point, Paulette Lynn Spears took the phone from the boy, told the dispatcher not to worry and hung up, Walker said. The boy called back, and again his mother cut short the call.

“The mother kept interrupting the 8-year-old,” he said. “It happened at least twice.”

At one point, Walker said, Spears apparently bit the boy’s hand to get the phone away from him. Spears, 33, was arrested after she drove to a fire station and said she had a medical problem. Cops arrived at the station less than a minute later.

Back-seat toilet to end mishaps in traffic jams

...ummm what?

TOKYO (Reuters Life!) - If you're stuck in traffic when Mother Nature calls, Japan's Kaneko Sangyo Co. has developed the loo for you.
ADVERTISEMENT

The manufacturer of plastic car accessories drew back the curtain on Tuesday on its new portable toilet for cars.

The toilet comes with a curtain large enough to conceal users and a plastic bag to collect waste.

"The commode will come in handy during major disasters such as earthquakes or when you are caught in a traffic jam," a company official told reporters, according to Kyodo News.

Japan is situated on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" and accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.

Drivers stranded by tectonic movements or stuck in tailbacks simply assemble the cardboard toilet bowl, fit a water-absorbent sheet inside and draw round the curtain.

The product is small enough to fit inside a suitcase, the company said.

But prospective customers will have to hang on until November 15, when the firm begins selling the new product online.

things I never want to see: a line of cars with their "shades" drawn. The stink man, the stink!

ultimate beauty.

√Gnaw-ty squirrel dies in getaway car fire


Lindsey Millar, 23, and her brother, Tony, 22, were home Wednesday at about 12:45 p.m. when Lindsey’s car suddenly started burning outside their home.

Tony Millar said firefighters told them it was the work of a squirrel gnawing on overhead power lines connected to a transformer directly above Lindsey’s 2006 Camry.

“The squirrel chewed through the wire, was set on fire, fell down directly to where the car was,” Tony said. “The squirrel, on fire, slid into the engine compartment and blew up the car.”

“They’re always coming around here, chewing through the garbage,” he added.

Lindsey’s car was fully insured.

“It’s something to laugh about once she has a new car,” he said. “It’s not funny yet.”

Police said there were no injuries except for the squirrel, which is dead.

The Millars’ home is decorated for Halloween with a tiny plastic tombstone on their front lawn. Tony said the family will consider dedicating the tombstone to the squirrel, who was not named.

Garrett Oliver, I love you.

Don’t Fear Big Beer
JUST 10 years ago, the proposed merger of SABMiller and Molson Coors into MillerCoors would have worried craft brewers. Back then, “American beer” was thought of as a cheap product with very little beer flavor. But today the United States has by far the most exciting beer culture in the world, and America’s 1,500 craft brewers are undaunted by the prospect of a juggernaut that would have 30 percent of the domestic market. The age of American industrial brewing is over.

Craft brewers used to be called “microbreweries,” but many of us are not so micro anymore. And the people who once thought the craft brewing movement was a fad can now see it for what it really is — a welcome return to normality.

In the 19th century, there were more than 4,000 breweries in the United States, brewing almost every sort of beer made in Europe and a few indigenous American varieties besides. By 1870, Brooklyn was one of the great brewing capitals of the world, with 48 breweries. People bought meat from the butcher, bread from the baker, coffee from the roaster and beer from the local brewer.

But by 1970, almost everyone shopped at the supermarket, frozen food and “TV dinners” were godsends, and we had about 40 breweries left in the entire country, all making the same bland beer.

Now Americans are moving away from spongy industrial bread, watery coffee, plasticized “cheese” and other wonders of modern food science. The top maker of white supermarket bread went bankrupt a few years ago.

Industrial beer is still the vast majority of the American market, and it’s not going away tomorrow, but there is no future in it. While industrial beers suffer flat or declining sales, craft brewers are experiencing double-digit growth. The big brewers now try to copy craft beers. European brewers, who once laughed at watery American beer, now look to the United States for inspiration.

MillerCoors is not a threat to craft brewers but a warning: we should not walk the road of overexpansion or be tempted by the lowest common denominator of the mass market. Miller, Coors and Anheuser-Busch were once small breweries making fine local beer, too.

If we truly want to restore the vibrant beer culture that flourished in this country before Prohibition, craft brewers need to retain the values and goals — creating beers that are flavorful, interesting to drink and made from proper beer ingredients — that put us on the map in the first place. Let’s not undo American beer again.

Garrett Oliver, the brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery, is the author of “The Brewmaster’s Table.”

man oh man oh man

Birth Control Allowed at Maine Middle School

PORTLAND, Me., Oct. 17 — The Portland school board on Wednesday approved a measure allowing middle-school students to gain access to prescription birth control medications without notifying parents. And good on them.....what 14 year old is gonna say "hey mommy, im fucking my boyfriend."

The proposal, from the Portland Division of Public Health, calls for the independently operated health care center at King Middle School to provide a variety of services to students, including immunizations and physical checkups in addition to birth-control medications and counseling for sexually transmitted diseases, said Lisa Belanger, an administrator for Portland’s student health centers.

All but two members of the 12-person committee voted to approve the plan.

The school principal, Mike McCarthy, said about 5 of the school’s 500 students had identified themselves as being sexually active.

Health care professionals at the clinic advised the committee that the proposal was necessary in order for the clinic to serve students who were engaging in risky behavior.

The conference room at the Wednesday night meeting was packed with parents, students and television cameras as school board committee members discussed the issue and heard testimony from experts and residents.

“It has been shown, over and over again, that this does not increase sexual activity,” said Pat Patterson, the medical director of School-Based Health Centers.

Reaction was mixed.

“This is really a violation of parents’ rights,” Peter Doyle, a Portland resident, told the committee. “If there were a constitutional challenge, you guys would be at risk of a lawsuit.”

Others argued for approval.

“Not every child is getting the guidance needed to keep them safe,” said Richard Veilleux, who said his child attends King Middle School. “This is about giving kids who are sexually active the tools that they need.”

According to the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care, about 30 percent of the 1,700 school-based health centers in the United States provide birth control to students, Dr. Patterson said.

great insight into the sad truths of boston....For youngest thugs, crime is child’s play

Peter Gelzinis
In the mug shot, he looks all of 9 years old and sweet as apple pie. Think of the Gerber baby gone bad. The Boston police report lists his height at 5 feet, 3 inches, his weight at 96 pounds and his years on this Earth at 14.

Just below his portrait, we come to “Charges.” From the top: Intent to rob while armed, assault and battery and assault by means of a dangerous weapon. And that weapon would either be a gun (or possibly a knife) glimpsed by a victim who was asked to surrender his phone, watch and wallet as he was leaving a McDonald’s near Egleston Square by this adorable little bandit and his two alleged partners in crime.

The intended victim broke free of his three attackers, called 911 and positively identified our 96-pound hoodlum as one of the trio who grabbed him by the neck and tried their best to rob him. The incident occurred on Oct. 1, just after 5 in the afternoon.

The next morning, after being booked, fingerprinted and photographed on a felony charge, our diminutive assailant was back at the Washington Irving Middle School. His teachers were unaware of his exploits until a week or so later, when a school brawl placed this 14-year-old on the brink of suspension and brought his mother to the Irving.

Last Thursday morning, during a meeting with school officials and the boy’s mother, witnesses described an incident where the boy ran out of the Irving middle school after having a confrontation with his mother that was loosely described as an assault.

Sources said that after the mother told her son she did not want him staying at home while he was suspended, the 14-year-old grabbed her hands, pushed them away from his face and then threatened her with, “I will (expletive) you up!” before running off in the direction of Roslindale Square. The mother’s reaction was to tell school officials to “call the police.”

This story was conveyed last week by someone who wanted to enlighten the public about the kind of behavior that lies behind the madness in Cleveland. Of course, that was before a 15-year-old gunman in Roxbury opened fire on Myron Stovell Saturday afternoon in the middle of Malcom X. Park. After accidentally striking the alleged shooter’s pit bull pup with his car, Stovell, a beloved Pop Warner football coach, was lucky to survive a volley of gunfire with only a leg wound.

Sadly, none of this raised an eyebrow of a law enforcement source who has watched the malignancy of street violence across Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan trickle down over the past two decades from seasoned criminals in their mid-20’s to high-schoolers and middle schoolers and now kids in elementary school.

“If every kid who was charged with a felony was automatically removed from school and placed in some alternative setting” - such as the Middle School Academy in Roxbury - the source said, “the alternative settings would be overrun. So in many cases it’s up to the discretion of the school headmasters whether they keep a kid in school or ship them out.”

Few principals and even fewer dedicated teachers are inclined to give up on a child. But that begs a tough question: At what point does having faith in a kid threaten the safety of other people?

“A 15-year-old hard guy is pissed off because his pit bull was bumped by a car,” said the law enforcement source.

“So what does he do? He gets a gun and starts shooting in broad daylight and doesn’t give it a thought. After all, who’s going to stop him? Not the mother who has lost all control and is too afraid herself to ever think of challenging her son, who may only be 96 pounds soaking wet, but knows how to shoot a gun.”

more dino nerd-tac-u-larity.

...The find pointed to a new lineage of titanosaurs, with particularly bulky necks, he said.
"Its neck was very big in diameter, strong and huge."

The fossil was 70 percent preserved, which compares to about 10 percent for other giant dinosaur finds in the world.
"It's among the biggest dinosaur finds and the most complete for a giant dinosaur. We have all vertebrae between the first of the neck to the first of the tail, which may allow us to reevaluate other dinosaurs," said Alexander Kellner, a researcher with the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro.

'LOST WORLD'
The dinosaur is part of a series of finds in the area, where the first fossils were discovered in 2000.

"The accumulation of fish and leaf fossils, as well as other dinosaurs around the find, is just something fantastic. Leaves and dinosaurs together is a great rarity," he told Reuters. "It's like a whole lost world for us."

He was referring to "The Lost World" by Arthur Conan Doyle, a classic tale set in a remote part of South America where a scientific expedition finds dinosaurs still roaming an isolated plateau.

Some of the leaves made part of the diet of the titanosaur and other specimens found there. The researchers said the fossilized ecosystem pointed to a warm and humid climate in Patagonia, which had forests during the Late Cretaceous period. The area is steppe-like now and almost bare of vegetation.

Researchers believe the carcass of the giant dinosaur, which died of unknown causes, its flesh devoured by predators, was washed into a nearby slow-flowing river, where it created a barrier, accumulating bones and leaves in its structure for many years until all became fossilized.

A fossil of a carnivorous theropod Megaraptor found at the site contained a complete and articulated arm with very large sickle-shaped claws. Previously, similar fragmented bones were interpreted as a foot, researchers said.

The joint Argentine-Brazilian project also works in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, where Kellner said an important find has been made but would be revealed at a later date.

Desert-like areas in Argentina are good for preserving fossils, while they are more difficult to find in the wetter soil in Brazil.

New Dinosaur. NEW DINOSAUR! OW OW!

Giant new dinosaur species found in Argentina


Brazilian and Argentinian palaeontologists have discovered the largely complete fossil of a new species of giant dinosaur that roamed what is now northern Patagonia about 80-million years ago.

The herbivorous Futalognkosaurus dukei measured between 32m and 34m from head to tail.

"It's a new species; it's a new group," Argentinian palaeontologist Juan Porfiri told a news conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The fossil was 70% preserved, which compares with about 10% for other giant dinosaur finds in the world.

Its name is derived from the indigenous Mapuche language, meaning "giant chief of the lizards", and the name of United States power company Duke Energy Corp, which financed a large part of the excavation in Argentina.

The first fossils were found in 2000. -- Reuters

Umm....WHAT?!?!?!

Pentagon Confirms It Sought To Build A 'Gay Bomb'

A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed to CBS 5 that military leaders had considered, and then subsquently rejected, building the so-called "Gay Bomb."

Edward Hammond, of Berkeley's Sunshine Project, had used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a copy of the proposal from the Air Force's Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio.

As part of a military effort to develop non-lethal weapons, the proposal suggested, "One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior."

song of the day. of the week? of my life?

ALL OF THE ABOVE.

oh, you poor dumb poor people.

Detectives investigating: man fatally shot and left at hospice

The body of a 25-year-old man left at a Southwest Portland hospice about midnight died of a gunshot wound, an autopsy confirmed today.

Portland Police detectives are withholding more specific information about the shooting while it is investigated, but it appears Michael Christopher Mason was shot in the parking lot of Wild Oats in the 6400 block of Southwest Capitol Highway.

Detectives are seeking a white male identified as "Jason" and have no suspect information.

Mason was dropped off at the Legacy Hopewell House Hospice. Police speculated someone with the victim thought the hospice was a medical facility and left the body there.


Now dont get me wrong, but when did thugs stupid enough to drop their dying drug honkey at a hospice start eating organic?
Yeah, man, lets off him. Yeah, meet at work. You want anything? Some free range fried chicken?
chill.

p.s. I know this makes me racist as they are white but its just funnier this way.
yo.

Principals Feud With Safety Agents

The arrest of a high school principal is triggering a dispute between principals and police-appointed security officers on the issue of who has authority over school discipline.

The principal, Mark Federman, was arrested Tuesday after protesting the treatment of one of his students. School safety agents arrested the student after she resisted an attempt to prevent her from entering her school before the official start time, allegedly punching an agent.

Mr. Federman interfered, in an attempt to prevent the student from being made a spectacle of, the president of the city principals' union, Ernest Logan, said yesterday. The school safety agents were about to escort her through the front door in front of a crowd of students. After a scuffle, Mr. Federman and the two safety agents were treated for minor injuries at a hospital.

The executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, Donna Lieberman, defended Mr. Federman, saying he was "trying to protect a student," and Mr. Logan said the incident echoed concerns of principals across the city who are clashing with safety agents.

"These are schools; these are not prisons," Mr. Logan said. "We need to move away from the criminalization of young people in this city."

The union that represents school safety officers, Teamsters Local 237, quickly fired back. "Safety agents have been wrongfully accused of criminalizing the schools, but they are the ones being treated like criminals," the union's president, Greg Floyd, said, holding up a picture of a tuft of hair he said the student had ripped from one safety officer's head.

A resolution could come later this month. Mr. Logan said he has scheduled a meeting with safety agents, resurrecting conversations that he said have been dormant for the last several years.


This is nothing short of hot. Can you just see it? Bitch walks up to school, stack of books and flute in hand, wedgie in butt, and PUNCHES A COP because he WONT let her spend EXTRA time in school.

what?
The best part is gonna be this girls college app explanations of her fucking criminal record.

Detroit DJ Raises Furor Over 'Light-Skinned Black Women' Party

A Detroit DJ and promoter is backing down from plans to sponsor a party at a local club that would allow “light skinned” black women into the bash for free, according to a report in The Detroit News.

Promoter Ulysses “DJ Lish” Barnes cancelled the event at Detroit’s Club APT after word of the party spread on the Internet, triggering a flood of angry emails and phone calls from around the country and highlighting tensions that sometimes flare between darker-skinned and lighter-skinned African-Americans.

“I made a mistake,” Barnes, who describes himself as a “dark-skinned” African-American, told the Detroit News. “I didn’t think there would be a backlash.”

"I didn't mean to offend anyone," he said. "I had planned a party for other shades (of black women). We were going to take a shade of color each week. Next week was going to be a party for 'Sexy Chocolate' and the week after that ‘Sexy Caramel.'”

Barnes told the Detroit News that he plans to host an event to raise money for a charity to make up for any problems or pain he caused over the party flier.

Oooohhh and then we can have a gang bang and call it a payday.
or a babe ruth.
or three musketeers.
dependent on whether the dude or the chick is black.
or medium black.
or more like coffee with too much cream in it.
oh wait....

FORGET the pub with no beer: it's the town with no knickers in New Zealand's Inglewood.

....ummm.....

A year ago, the only clothing shop in town which sold women's knickers stopped stocking these essential items.

The local priest, Gary Husband (soon dubbed the knicker vicar), organised volunteers to do a weekly run to New Plymouth and now his prayers for a bus service have been answered.

A weekly bus run will start on November 1, run by Taranaki Regional Council operations and Land Transport New Zealand.

Council's operations director Rob Phillips says the Tranzit Coachlines trips will be subsidised for a year "to ensure people were really serious about buying those new knickers - and anything else that might take their fancy".

Mr Husband heard about the knicker crisis from his parishioners, decided to practise what he preached and so organised the volunteer knicker-runs.

Mr Phillips said the council had been aware of the need for a public bus service and the crisis, which made international headlines, emphasised that need.

hey bitches, Im high on crack!

Burglar Steals Food, Leaves Valuables

APPLETON, Wis. (AP) - This thief apparently had quite the appetite. Appleton police received a call Wednesday of a burglary - not of valuables but of food.

The burglar apparently entered the unlocked apartment and walked away with a pizza, six eggs, a can of beef ravioli, a can of peaches and one chicken-and-broccoli Hot Pocket, authorities said.v (thats a classy dinner right there.)

The crime apparently occurred between 8:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., the police report said. (....and all for BREAKFAST)

Police had no immediate suspects.

I vote yea.

Candidate forced to defend crude slogan


Published: 13, 2007 at 6:16 PM
Print story Email to a friend Font size:HIALEAH, Fla., Oct. 13 (UPI) -- A city council candidate in Hialeah, Fla., is on the defensive after being criticized for referring to oral sex in one of his campaign slogans.

Hialeah City Council incumbent Jose ''Pepe'' Caragol, 76, used the slogan "If you like oral sex, vote Caragol for council" as part of his campaign for re-election, The Miami Herald said Saturday.

The slogan, which Caragol has uttered in Spanish during several TV and radio appearances, was quickly criticized by his campaign opponent.

"We should expect more out of our elected officials," Mercy Dominguez. "Is this supposed to be the person who is representing the best of Hialeah on the council?''

Caragol said the slogan represents his unusual style and that he never intended on offending anyone.

"People want to give it a negative interpretation, but anyone who knows me and my way of being knows that I didn't mean for the comment to degrade or offend anyone," he told the Herald.

Meet a pit bull that's trained to assist

Jeff Hayman’s pit bull Bob Marley is being certified as a hearing dog, a move not endorsed by some canine organizations.

By DAVE FORSTER, The Virginian-Pilot
© October 8, 2007

VIRGINIA BEACH
Before Jeff Hayman sleeps, he must remove both of his hearing aides so they can be cleaned.

This renders the 22-year-old completely deaf. Hayman's phone, doorbell or worse - a smoke alarm - could sound, and he wouldn't hear it.

But he would feel it, thanks to Bob Marley, one of the most unusual hearing dogs in the country and, to some, a controversial one.

Marley is a pit bull. Like any good hearing dog, he knows to wake his owner by nudging or jumping on him when he hears certain sounds. On Thursday, Hayman completed the last session in a 13-week course at Tidewater K-9 Academy to turn his muscular, 54-pound companion into a certified hearing dog.

This worries some people, but not those who know Marley.

"He's a sweetheart," said Noel Lahr, the receptionist at Midway Veterinary Clinic who petted a tail-wagging Marley during a visit last week.

"We wouldn't mind him coming here for day care, just so we could play with him," Lahr said.

Marley's appearance in the vet's office drew mixed reviews from the other pets. A beagle cowered under a bench, while a small, furry black Shih Tzu happily went nose to nose with the pit bull.

As he waited, Hayman told Lahr how an animal control officer had recently asked him whether he used his dog for fighting.
"I'm like, 'What,' " Hayman said.

He said that in the past few months, about 25 or 30 people have asked him whether Marley used to belong to Michael Vick, the NFL quarterback from Newport News charged with running a dogfighting operation in Surry County.

It doesn't help that the white fur on Marley's chest marks an uncanny resemblance to the number seven - Vick's jersey number.

Hayman, a Vick fan for years, said he deplores dogfighting. But he loves pit bulls, and he wants to show people that they can make great pets or hearing dogs. He bought Marley as a puppy last August.

"I want to spread it to the people," he said.
Not everyone is convinced, however. Hayman's story has alarmed several people who deal with assistance dogs.

"Using a pit bull as a hearing dog is highly inadvisable in our opinion," Hudson said. "I can't say it vehemently enough - I'm just amazed."

Robin Dickson, president of Oregon-based Dogs for the Deaf, said that even though a pit bull might make an exceptional hearing dog, she worried about public perception.
"You get on a plane with one of those dogs, and everyone will be tempted to get off the plane," she said.

Dickson and Hudson, each members of Assistance Dogs International Inc., a coalition of organizations that train assistance dogs, are concerned about others following Hayman's lead and not properly training their dog. They said they had never heard of a pit bull being used as a hearing dog, although there was at least one used several years ago in Alaska.

Hayman said he has already changed some attitudes.

He recalled the first time he took Marley to Croatan in Virginia Beach. He's had a difficult time finding an apartment willing to rent to a pit bull owner, and he half-expected to be told to leave the beach.

But instead of keeping their distance, people approached him, he said. One was a 4-year-old boy. "Mommy, big doggy," the child said.

"Would you like to pet him?" Hayman asked.

Hayman saw the mother look uneasy, so he told Marley to sit. Before long, Hayman had the mother amazed.
Her son was pouring sand on a pit bull and petting its belly.

The world is getting better, though no one likes to hear it.

BY STEPHEN MOORE
Friday, October 5, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

I'm old enough to recall the days in the late 1960s when people wore those trendy buttons that read: "Stop the Planet I Want to Get Off." And I will never forget that era's "educational" films of what life would be like in the year 2000. Played on clanky 16-millimeter projectors, they showed images of people walking down the streets of Manhattan with masks on, so they could avoid breathing the poison gases our industrial society was spewing.

The future seemed mighty bleak back then, and you merely had to open the newspapers for the latest story confirming how the human species was speeding down a congested highway to extinction. A group of scientists calling themselves the Club of Rome issued a report called "Limits to Growth." It explained that lifeboat Earth had become so weighed down with humans that we were running out of food, minerals, forests, water, energy and just about everything else that we need for survival. Paul Ehrlich's best-selling book "The Population Bomb" (1968) gave England a 50-50 chance of surviving into the 21st century. In 1980, Jimmy Carter released the "Global 2000 Report," which declared that life on Earth was getting worse in every measurable way.

So imagine how shocked I was to learn, officially, that we're not doomed after all. A new United Nations report called "State of the Future" concludes: "People around the world are becoming healthier, wealthier, better educated, more peaceful, more connected, and they are living longer."

Yes, of course, there was the obligatory bad news: Global warming is said to be getting worse and income disparities are widening. But the joyous trends in health and wealth documented in the report indicate a gigantic leap forward for humanity. This is probably the first time you've heard any of this because--while the grim "Global 2000" and "Limits to Growth" reports were deemed worthy of headlines across the country--the media mostly ignored the good news and the upbeat predictions of "State of the Future."

But here they are: World-wide illiteracy rates have fallen by half since 1970 and now stand at an all-time low of 18%. More people live in free countries than ever before. The average human being today will live 50% longer in 2025 than one born in 1955.

To what do we owe this improvement? Capitalism, according to the U.N. Free trade is rightly recognized as the engine of global prosperity in recent years. In 1981, 40% of the world's population lived on less than $1 a day. Now that percentage is only 25%, adjusted for inflation. And at current rates of growth, "world poverty will be cut in half between 2000 and 2015"--which is arguably one of the greatest triumphs in human history. Trade and technology are closing the global "digital divide," and the report notes hopefully that soon laptop computers will cost $100 and almost every schoolchild will be a mouse click away from the Internet (and, regrettably, those interminable computer games).

It also turns out that the Malthusians (who worried that we would overpopulate the planet) got the story wrong. Human beings aren't reproducing like Norwegian field mice. Demographers now say that in the second half of this century, the human population will stabilize and then fall. If we use the same absurd extrapolation techniques demographers used in the 1970s, Japan, with its current low birth rate, will have only a few thousand citizens left in 300 years.

I take special pleasure in reciting all of this global betterment because my first professional job was working with the "doom-slaying" economist Julian Simon. Starting 30 years ago, Simon (who died in 1998) told anyone who would listen--which wasn't many people--that the faddish declinism of that era was bunk. He called the "Global 2000" report "globaloney." Armed with an arsenal of factual missiles, he showed that life on Earth was getting better, and that the combination of free markets and human ingenuity was the recipe for solving environmental and economic problems. Mr. Ehrlich, in response, said Simon proved that the one thing the world isn't running out of "is lunatics."

Mr. Ehrlich, whose every prediction turned out wrong, won a MacArthur Foundation "genius award"; Simon, who got the story right, never won so much as a McDonald's hamburger. But now who looks like the lunatic? This latest survey of the planet is certainly sweet vindication of Simon and others, like Herman Kahn, who in the 1970s dared challenge the "settled science." (Are you listening, global-warming alarmists?)

The media's collective yawn over "State of the Future" is typical of the reaction to just about any good news. When 2006 was declared the hottest year on record, there were thousands of news stories. But last month's revised data, indicating that 1934 was actually warmer, barely warranted a paragraph-long correction in most papers.

So I'm happy to report that the world's six billion people are living longer, healthier and more comfortably than ever before. If only it were easy to fit that on a button.

Ball-and-chain jokes apply in wife-carrying contest

For one Boston couple, the answer was easy.

Keith Cardoza picked up his petite girlfriend, tossed her over his shoulders and bolted down a dirt path in Maine to take home the top prize at the 2007 North American Wife Carrying Championship, held Saturday at the Sunday River ski resort.

“I had my eyes closed most of the time,” recounted Julia Stoner, 23, who was carried bouncing up and down for 1 minute and 2 seconds, covering the 278-yard course.

They won by three-tenths of a second in a dive-in-the-dirt dash for the finish line.

The couple walked away with five times Stoner’s weight in cash, which was about $675, and her weight in Bud Light, equivalent to nine 12-packs, or 108 beers.

Stoner’s biggest concern was being dropped into the mud pit that Cardoza navigated between two log hurdles on their way to victory.

“I didn’t expect him to be going that fast,” said Stoner, a 5-foot-tall physical therapy graduate student at Northeastern University. “I was bouncing around. I had to hold on tight.”

Cardoza, 22, a 6-foot-tall Northeastern student, carried Stoner in the “Estonian carry” style, where the woman holds onto her husband’s waist upside down and tightens her legs around his neck.

Stoner said Cardoza thought it would be fun.

“It was his idea,” she said.

The couple, who have been dating about six months, beat out 40 teams, including eight from the Bay State to qualify for the world championships in Finland in July.

jfargen@bostonherald.com

lord, I wish I had been there...High schoolers take a spin at setting Twister record

FARGO, N.D. - With lots of stretching and reaching toward blue, red, yellow and green circles, some 450 high school students played Twister on 180 mats in what they hope will set a world record for the largest Twister game board.

Sunday’s night attempt took place during a conference held over the weekend by North Dakota DECA, a high school business club.

The students won’t know for sure until officials at Guinness World Records review a video of the attempt.

The mats formed a Twister board measuring 4,699 square feet. The current Twister board record was set in April 2005 in the Netherlands, at 2,453 square feet.

One of the biggest tasks was taping the mats together, organizers said.

Chase, not sex on car, leads to UNH arrest

DURHAM, N.H. - University of New Hampshire police arrested a man who allegedly ran from authorities after being caught having sex with an intoxicated woman on top of a car last month.

Zachary Maurais of Litchfield, 18, turned himself into police last week and was released on $1,000 bail. He’s charged with resisting arrest and criminal trespassing, both misdemeanors. Police say the trespassing charge stems from the foot chase, during which Maurais ran across railroad tracks to evade them. Police said the woman was intoxicated at the time and denied there was a man there.

....dumb bitch prob. forgot.

Man gored to death by his pet deer

A small price to pay for your own stupidity.

BALL GROUND, Ga. - A man who kept deer on his property was killed when one gored him with its antlers, authorities said.

The body of John Henry Frix, 66, was found Sunday night inside the deer’s pen on his property.

Frix had been gored several times in the upper body by a deer’s antlers, Cherokee County sheriff’s Sgt. Jay Baker said.

The deer was one of several Frix kept on his property. His relatives told sheriff’s deputies the deer had recently been acting very aggressive, probably due to rut - the period when deer mate.

A family member of the slain man later shot and killed the rogue deer.

Deer kill about 150 people each year in the Unites States. But most of those deaths happen when deer are involved in collisions with automobiles.

bet this hurts, just a bit: Missouri man faces hefty prison term in theft of 52-cent doughnut

FARMINGTON, Mo. - It’s a hefty price for a pastry: A man accused of stealing a 52-cent doughnut could face time in jail.
Authorities said Scott A. Masters, 41, slipped the doughnut into his sweat shirt without paying, then pushed away a clerk who tried to stop him as he fled the store.

The push is being treated as minor assault, which transforms a misdemeanor shoplifting charge to a strong-armed robbery with a potential prison term of five to 15 years. Because he has a criminal history, prosecutors say they could seek 30 years.

"Strong-arm robbery? Over a doughnut? That’s impossible," Masters told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from jail. He admitted that he took the pastry but denied touching the employee. "There’s no way I would’ve pushed a woman over a doughnut."

Farmington Police Chief Rick Baker said state law treats the shoplifting and assault as forcibly stealing property. The amount of force and value of the property doesn’t matter.
"It’s not the doughnut," Baker said. "It’s the assault."

Masters said he didn’t even get to enjoy his ill-gotten gains: He threw the doughnut away as he fled.

Golden retriever nurses stray kitten

STEPHENS CITY, Va. - A stray kitten has found a new mother in a golden retriever, who began producing milk for the little feline after hearing its cries. Honey hadn’t given birth in 18 months, but after her owner, Jimmy Martin, brought home the kitten, she suddenly found herself playing mom.

"She started licking her and loving her. Within a couple of days, Honey started naturally lactating," said Kathy Martin, Jimmy’s wife. "The kitten took right to her, and she started nursing her."

Jimmy Martin noticed the kitten, whom the family dubbed "Precious," about six weeks ago, when she ran in front of his concrete truck. After following her and realizing there was no mother cat in sight, he took her home.

The kitten refused to drink from a bottle, and Jimmy’s mother, Ruth Martin, feared Precious would die.

The family initially tried to keep Precious and Honey apart, fearing the dog would play too rough with the little gray-striped kitten. But Honey was elated at Precious’ presence, wagging her tail and prancing all over the house trying to sneak a peak at her. Eventually, the family let Honey approach Precious, and the dog immediately took to her.

The Martins said they told a veterinarian about Honey and Precious, and learned that interspecies nursing does happen on rare occasion.

Precious now sometimes plays with dog bones, and Honey lets Precious gnaw on her like a puppy would.

"She thinks she’s a dog," Kathy Martin said. "She’s really fit right in."

please go to this website

http://hostedfor.us/corley.boazk12.org/Beck/BattleHard%20The%20Bear.htm

its a link to the site of an elementary school class that sent a teddy bear to IRaq.....a soldier is taking care of him and sends pics of him and teddy. IT's f-ing adorbale.

meeeeeooooowwww: Priests bestow blessings upon cats and dogs

OLD TOWN, Maine — Tad and Kim Johnston brought their two cats to St. James Episcopal Church on Sunday afternoon to get something Ruby, 12, and Opal, 4, definitely needed — a blessing from their parish priest.
"They need it," Tad Johnston of Old Town said. "Opal’s been staying out late at night and Ruby has congenital heart problems."

The Rev. Susan Lederhouse blessed three cats and four dogs in an informal service that has become a permanent part of many churches’ yearly calendars.
Events focused on blessing household pets and sometimes farm animals most often are held in early October near the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi on Oct. 4. He is the patron saint of the environment for Roman Catholics and often is pictured surrounded by birds and small mammals.

Blessing the animals, Lederhouse said, was a way to honor the saint’s role with animals and to celebrate creation.

"All creatures have souls of one kind or another and God takes care of them," the rector said. "We bless animals for the same reason we bless people — to feel closeness to God."
Lederhouse’s pastoral view that animals have souls is not one espoused by the Judeo-Christian tradition. Eastern religions and American Indian spirituality, however, take a different view.

The Western tradition rejects the idea that animals have souls because they are not rational and cannot choose between right and wrong, the Rev. Will Tuttle of Healdsburg, Calif., told Newsday earlier this year. Tuttle was trained as a Zen Buddhist monk and has written about animals and the afterlife.

"The creation story in the Book of Genesis [says] that only humans were created in the image and likeness of God and thus only humans have a soul," the Rev. Bill Labbe, pastor of the Roman Catholic churches in Old Town and Orono, said last week.

The Rev. Lyman "Terry" Phillips, head of Grace Evangelical Seminary in Bangor agreed, but added that animals do have a "life force."

"Do animals have souls? Not in the sense that human beings do, souls with the additional characteristic of ‘spirit,’" Phillips wrote in an e-mail response. "The Scriptures do not seriously suggest a [spirit] animates animals, so the soul — aka life force — for an animal is something different from what animates the human being, created in the image of God.

"There is certainly life force in animals, though, and the ancient Israelites thought it was in the blood," he continued, "which is why Jewish dietary laws prohibit eating the flesh of animals with the blood still in it. The blood must be allowed to run out, according to kosher food preparation, so the life has a chance to become free from the body of the animal."

Islamic law forbids all forms of animal cruelty and mandates that thirsty animals be given water before humans, according to the Richard Foltz, author of "Animals in Islamic Tradition and Muslim Cultures." The traditional scholarship is that animals have souls, but there is a disagreement over whether they are eternal, as human souls are.

Practitioners of Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism and shamanism believe that animal and humans are "all in this together," according to Tuttle.

"The primary reality [in these faiths] is seen as consciousness," he said earlier this year. "Whether that consciousness manifests as human beings or animals, there’s a sense that when consciousness finishes the experience of one life, it goes on and is born again."

For those who believe their next life most likely will be in heaven, the question posed to the pastor often is, "Will my animal friends be there with me?"

Phillips, Labbe and Lederhouse agree that the pastoral answer to the question is most likely "yes."

"Because pets have become so important to people, I think the situation calls for pastoral sensitivity," Labbe said. "For the most part, since heaven is a return to paradise and in the biblical description of paradise there were animals then it would be fair to say that pets go to heaven."

Phillips agreed.
"A very wise person once answered this question for an adult friend of mine," he wrote. "If you will need to see your pet in heaven to be happy, God will provide for you to see your pet, because God is going to provide for our happiness in His kingdom."

Tad Johnston didn’t have his cat blessed to guarantee that he would see her in the Great Beyond. After receiving her blessing last year, he said, Ruby, despite her health problems, made it through another year. He just hopes the blessing is as effective on Opal.

Rachel <3s Wonkette

Great news, everybody: The long-lost Giant Earth Anus has been rediscovered! The Knights Templar had carefully guarded the butthole’s location in the Holy Land, but it was later located by either Indiana Jones or William S. Burroughs. And now the Israeli Army Men have found it again! Mystics and Nostradamus and Bob Novak have long predicted that the rediscovery of the Giant Anus would lead to a new era of rampant, constant ass-fucking from the House to the Senate to airport and train station men’s rooms all around the world.

OF COURSE this is taking place in Framingham.

Bill Would Make Bogus 911 Calls A Crime

(WBZ) BOSTON WBZ has learned that legislation will be filed Monday that would make it a crime to make bogus calls to 911 operators.
Non-emergency calls to the emergency line are a huge problem.

More than 300,000 calls a year taken at the wireless 911 center in Framingham are not for real emergencies.
Many are downright abusive.

"Well the issue is the system gets congested with all these inappropriate calls from people calling for directions or complaining about road construction," said Tom Ashe, the manager of wireless 911.

State Police estimate that 1,000 wireless 911 calls each day are for non-emergencies. A thousand tying up dispatcher after dispatcher for precious minutes.

Here's an example:

911 Operator: "What is your emergency?"

Caller: "Well I just want to tell you guys (expletive) thanks a lot for telling us about the construction on 495. You didn't put up one (expletive) sign and I am (expletive) sitting here in traffic (expletive) (at) 11 o'clock at night. I have kids in the (expletive) car. Thanks a lot."

State Senator Jim Timility, (D) of Attleboro, has heard enough.

As chairman of the Public Safety Committee, he will file legislation Monday to make it a crime for people to tie up emergency 911 lines.

"Somebody who needs the help won't get the help because someone is taking out their frustrations on a 911 dispatcher," he said.

"I don't want to see that happen. That's why we made it a year jail or a $1,000 fine."

Only the most abusive callers would be subject to arrest.

But right now that could easily be more 100 callers each week.

States like Tennessee and Georgia have already passed laws making bogus 911 calls a crime. Tennessee has collected more than $400,000 in fines.

how can this be happening?!?!?! Why are they doing this? I am NOT understanding!

Brasilia Governor Bans Verb Form, Citing Inefficiency


Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil's Federal District Governor Jose Roberto Arruda ``fired'' the present participle from his administration, citing inefficiency.

``The present participle is hereby fired from all federal district entities,'' the governor wrote in a decree posted on the government's Web site last night. ``As of today, it is forbidden as an excuse for INEFFICIENCY.''

Banning the verb form, which ends in ``ndo'' in Portuguese (``ing'' in English), was done to prevent government officials from using continuous tenses to obscure progress -- or the lack of it.

``I find it somewhat ludicrous,'' Dario Borim, chairman of the Department of Portuguese at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. ``It's a matter for linguists to discuss not for politicians.''

Decree No. 28.314 was issued to end vague promises by government officials, such as: ``We'll be taking steps,'' Globo news agency reported, citing aides to Arruda it didn't identify by name.

Almost all of Brazil's 190 million citizens speak Portuguese, the world's seventh-most spoken language. More people speak Portuguese in South America than Spanish, the official language of the region's other major economies, including Argentina, Chile and Colombia.

Seven years ago, former lower house president Aldo Rebelo sought to pass a bill prohibiting media and government agencies from using foreign words such as ``show'' and ``kitchenette'' to protect the language.

Arruda, an engineer by training, is a former lower house representative and was leader of the Senate for former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso's Brazilian Social Democracy Party.

The Federal Distric encompasses Brasilia, the country's modernist capital built in the 1950s, and surrounding cities such as Taguatinga.

iPod Nano in airport trouser conflagration horror: 'Flames reached his chest' sobs pants-on-fire mum

An Atlanta airport worker claims his iPod Nano burst into flames while stashed in his personal region. The trouser-based blaze was apparently so severe the hapless victim was immolated up to chest level, though reportedly he sustained only superficial injuries.

Danny Williams is quoted in local news reports as saying that glossy paper in his pockets may have saved him from eye-watering burns. He also appeared to suggest that the music-player pant conflagration had threatened his life indirectly. With smoke belching from his garments in an airport, Williams was clearly at risk of being shot repeatedly in the head as a suspected suicide bomber.

"If TSA had come by and seen me smoking, they could have honestly thought I was a terrorist," the luckless airport employee is quoted as saying.

Reporters also spoke to his mother Elaine, who said the Apple-triggered slacks inferno had raged for 15 seconds before being brought under control. There was no word on whether Williams had been forced to evacuate the burning pants, or if there was any involvement by airport fire crews.

According to the IDG News Service, a distraught Mrs Williams confirmed that Apple had sent a returns envelope so the charred Nano - generation unknown - could be returned for inspection, presumably after being separated from the smoking ruins of her son's underwear.

Thus far, Apple representatives have offered no comment on the case. However, it is well known that the iPod Nano contains a Li-ion battery, a type of power technology which has been proven to attract lawsuits in the past.

hot.

Britney Spears has been reunited with her estranged mother.

The troubled singer - who lost custody of her two young sons to ex-husband Kevin Federline last week - met with Lynne and younger sister Jamie Lynne on Saturday morning (06.10.07), hours after discovering her Beverly Hills mansion had been burgled.

The 25-year-old star was left in tears when she returned home from a night out at the five-star Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel at around 2am to find thieves had raided her $6 million property.

The burglars are believed to have made off with Britney's collection of raunchy homemade sex tapes as well as a selection of the singer's steamiest photographs.

Some of the uniforms Britney allegedly wears for kinky sex games and personal pictures of her sons, two-year-old Sean Preston, and one-year-old Jayden James, were also taken.

wow. so interesting!

Iran's Unlikely TV Hit

Every Monday night at 10 o'clock, Iranians by the millions tune into Channel One to watch the most expensive show ever aired on the Islamic republic's state-owned television. Its elaborate 1940s costumes and European locations are a far cry from the typical Iranian TV fare of scarf-clad women and gray-suited men.

But the most surprising thing about the wildly popular show is that it is a heart-wrenching tale of European Jews during World War II.

The hour-long drama, "Zero Degree Turn," centers on a love story between an Iranian-Palestinian Muslim man and a French Jewish woman. Over the course of the 22 episodes, the hero saves his love from Nazi detention camps, and Iranian diplomats in France forge passports for the woman and her family to sneak on to airplanes carrying Iranian Jews to their homeland.

On the surface, the message of the lavish, state-funded production appears sharply at odds with that sent out by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called the Holocaust a myth.

In fact, the government's spending on the show underscores the subtle and often sophisticated way in which the Iranian state uses its TV empire to send out political messages. The aim of the show, according to many inside and outside the country, is to draw a clear distinction between the government's views about Judaism -- which is accepted across Iranian society -- and its stance on Israel -- which the leadership denounces every chance it gets.

"Iranians have always differentiated between ordinary Jews and a minority of Zionists," says Hassan Fatthi, the show's writer and director. "The murder of innocent Jews during World War II is just as despicable, sad and shocking as the killing of innocent Palestinian women and children by racist Zionist soldiers," he says.

Mr. Fatthi, 48 years old, is a well-known director of historical fiction for television. In the past, his work has focused on Iranian history. But he also dabbles in comedy, winning international critical acclaim two years ago for a hit feature, "Marriage, Iranian Style."

He says he came up with the idea for "Zero Degree Turn" four years ago as he was reading books about World War II and stumbled across literature about charge d'affaires at the Iranian embassy in Paris. Abdol Hussein Sardari saved over a thousand European Jews by forging Iranian passports and claiming they belonged to an Iranian tribe.

Mr. Fatthi says he chose the title because the world at the time was in dire circumstances, offering few options for avoiding the terrors to come. Shot on location in Paris and Budapest, the show stars Iranian heartthrob Shahab Husseini and is so popular that its theme song -- an ode to getting lost in love -- is a hit, too.

"It's captivating. No matter where I am or what I'm doing, on Monday nights I find a television set and watch the show. So does every Jewish person I know here," says Morris Motamed, the lone Jew in parliament.

Mr. Fatthi enlisted the help of Iran's Jewish Association, an independent body that safeguards the community's culture and heritage. The association has criticized Mr. Ahmadinejad's comments about the Holocaust but has praised Mr. Fatthi's show.

Iran is home to some 25,000 Jews, the largest population in the Middle East outside of Israel. Iran's Jews -- along with Christians and Zorastrians -- are guaranteed equal rights in the country's constitution. Iran's Jews are guaranteed one member of parliament and are free to study Hebrew in school, pray in synagogues and shop at kosher supermarkets. Despite Mr. Ahmadinejad's statements, it isn't government policy to question the Holocaust, and the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hasn't endorsed those views.

While Iran makes it no secret that it considers Israel an enemy, it has been extremely touchy about criticism of its treatment of Jewish citizens. The show is seen as an effort by the government to erase the image that it may be anti-Semitic -- both at home among Jews and non-Jews, and abroad.

"In this show, you notice that a new method of political dialogue is being promoted that is more in line with the modern world," says Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a reformist cleric and former Iranian vice president.

The message appears to be grabbing the public. Sara Khatibi, a 35-year-old mother and chemist in Tehran, says she and her husband never miss an episode. "All we ever hear about Jews is rants from the government about Israel," she says. "This is the first time we are seeing another side of the story and learning about their plight."

The show also pushes Iran's political line regarding the legitimacy of Israel: The Jewish state was conceived in modern times by Western powers rather than as part of a centuries-old desire of Jews for a return to their ancestral homeland. In one scene, a rabbi declares it a bad idea for Jews to resettle in Arab lands. In another, the French Jewish protagonist refuses a marriage offer by a cousin, who is advocating the creation of Israel.

Iran has long used TV to shape public opinion, where newspapers and the Internet are seen as media for the elite. The state's control over radio and television is enshrined in the constitution. Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader, is not only head of the armed forces and the judiciary, but also the national broadcast authority.

"The regime appreciates the fact that to appeal to the masses, both in Iran and the Muslim world, television is the most important outlet," says Karim Sadjadpour, an expert on Iran at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

On any given day, the country's seven state-run channels broadcast a mostly drab offering of news, sports, cooking shows, soap operas and religious sermons. Political propaganda is constantly fed into the mix. Dissidents such as students or reformers are routinely paraded before cameras to read confessions after stints of solitary imprisonment.

A slick documentary-style program recently aired long interviews with two Iranian-Americans who were detained on allegations of working to overthrow the regime. The interviews -- in which the pair blandly admitted to meeting with Iranian scholars and dissidents, but not to attempting to topple the government -- were intercut with provocative scenes of demonstrations in Ukraine, where the U.S. encouraged groups that eventually staged the successful Orange Revolution in late 2004.

In July, Iran launched a 24-hour English-language satellite news channel called Press TV, joining the ranks of the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera. Its Arabic news channel, Al Alam, has been broadcasting news with an Iranian slant in the Arab world for several years.

Episodes of "Zero Degree Turn," broadcast in Farsi, can be seen outside of Iran on the Internet, either streaming live or downloaded at tv1.irib.ir/barnameha/sharhefilm.asp?code=0011109036106. It is also broadcast with English subtitles on the state-controlled Jameh Jam satellite channel, which is available on Europe's Hot Bird satellite network. Mr. Fatthi also says Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting has been contacted about selling the show to networks in other countries, but he doesn't know which ones.

I guess I'm not the only one who gets these poorly worded fucking cocksucker emails.

At home, and all alone

By Steve Bailey | October 5, 2007

Jay Severin, WTKK radio's libertarian loudmouth, is hurt - wounded really - and Emily Rooney, WGBH-TV's thermally challenged queen bee, is off his show and his station. Says Rooney: "I didn't think the punishment fit the crime."

Rooney's crime? Inadvertently leaving Severin off the invitation list for WGBH's party last week marking the 10th anniversary of her show, "Greater Boston." Everyone was there, even me.

"Dear Emily," Severin e-mailed Rooney on Wednesday evening just minutes before the big event was to begin.

"As I imagine you well know, I do wish you congratulations on the most impressive achievement of ten years on the air choreographing your own presentation. Extraordinary.

"And please do not misconsture [sic] what I ask as mitigating in any way the earnestness of my best wishes.

"However: I am very personally disappointed (although from what you have frankly told me of WGBH's attitude toward myself, not necessarily greatly surprised) not to have been among those from 96.9 to have been invited to the WGBH celebratory event. After all, we are, I think, friends; and we do broadcast together here weekly, for an audience which is very considerably larger than even your television audience, correctr? [sic] It thus strkes [sic] me as fairly appropriate that I might have anticipated being included - especially considering others here at 96.9 were.

"Am I wrong and/or presumptuous to wonder why, under the circumstances, I am not included?"

Since January, Rooney has done a weekly (paid) segment with Severin, discussing the media. But on Friday, Rooney got a call from WTKK's program director, Grace Blazer, telling her not to bother coming to the station. The segment was being canceled; she cited "budgetary" issues, Rooney says. (Disclosure: I occasionally appear on Rooney's "Beat the Press" show; I hope she was getting paid more from WTKK than the $100 I get from WGBH.)

"I feel terrible about this. I honestly do. I literally lost sleep over it," she says. As for Severin's snide remark about ratings or the lack thereof, Rooney says: "I didn't understand how that was relevant to the issue."

Neither Severin nor Blazer returned my calls or e-mails.

In Severin's world, Hillary Clinton is "a lying [expletive]," Ted Kennedy is "a fat piece of lying garbage," and Al Gore is "Al Whore." All things considered, it's surprising the guy is asked out at all.

. . .

Neighborhood news: More turmoil at the state's obscure Outdoor Advertising Board.

William Bickley, whose opposition to a billboard at the Boston Herald was chronicled in this space last month, has been fired from his longtime job at the state Highway Department. Bickley, the board's executive director, was transferred to the department's Northampton office and then fired from his $76,000-a-year job three weeks after the column.

Bickley declined to comment, but in an e-mail to colleagues he said he had been fired for alleged "flagrant abuse of time and attendance policies." He denied the charges and said his firing "shows an elaborate attempt to get me out of the way and to slander my name."

In an interview, highway commissioner Luisa Paiewonsky said Bickley's firing had nothing to do with the Herald billboard, but would not discuss the specifics of his dismissal. She did say, "I need people with a strong work ethic, especially among managers."

Paiewonsky has now replaced the executive director, the board's lawyer, and her own board representative. In a statement at yesterday's regular meeting, Marlo Fogelman, board chairwoman, said "the board has lost serious talent" and, extraordinarily, apologized to the advertising industry "for the way these recent changes have disrupted your business."

what, no nemoy?

Asteroid renamed for 'Star Trek' actor

NEW YORK (AP) -- A piece of outer space named for George Takei is in kind of a rough neighborhood for somebody who steers a starship: an asteroid belt.
"I am now a heavenly body," George Takei said Tuesday.

An asteroid between Mars and Jupiter has been renamed 7307 Takei in honor of the actor, best known for his role as Hikaru Sulu in the original "Star Trek" series and movies.
"I am now a heavenly body," Takei, 70, said Tuesday, laughing. "I found out about it yesterday. ... I was blown away. It came out of the clear, blue sky -- just like an asteroid."

The celestial rock, discovered by two Japanese astronomers in 1994, was formerly known as 1994 GT9. It joins the 4659 Roddenberry (named for the show's creator, Gene Roddenberry) and the 68410 Nichols (for co-star Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura). Other main-belt asteroids have been named for science fiction luminaries Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov.

The renaming of 7307 Takei was approved by the International Astronomical Union's Committee on Small Body Nomenclature. About 14,000 asteroid names have been approved by the panel, while about 165,000 asteroids have been identified and numbered, union spokesman Lars Lindberg Christensen said.

Unlike the myriad Web sites that offer to sell naming rights to stars, the IAU committee-approved names are actually used by astronomers, said Tom Burbine, the Mount Holyoke College astronomy professor who proposed the name swap.

"This is the name that will be used for all eternity," he said.
AMAZING.