Weird News Thread ....

[Jolie Rouge]

Motorcyclist dies in crash with congressman's car
Sunday, August 17, 2003 Posted: 6:34 PM EDT

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Central/0...tal/index.html

(CNN) -- U.S. Rep. Bill Janklow was driving a car that struck and killed a man on a motorcycle Saturday, a South Dakota Highway Patrol official said Sunday. Randolph E. Scott, 53, of Hardwick, Minnesota, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Janklow, a Republican, was elected to the state's only House seat last year after serving four terms as governor. Attempts to contact his offices in Washington and South Dakota were unsuccessful Sunday.

The incident occurred about 4:30 p.m. Saturday at an intersection of two rural county roads about 10 miles south of Janklow's hometown of Flandreau, Highway Patrol Lt. Kevin Joffer said. Janklow was slightly injured in the crash but did not require medical treatment, Joffer said. He and a staff member accompanying him were questioned at the site.

Highway Patrol Col. Dan Mosteller said the 63-year-old congressman was tested for drugs and alcohol, but "there is no indication either were a factor."

Blood tests are routine in such cases, and results are typically returned within a week, Moody County State's Attorney Bill Ellingson said.

Scott was not wearing a helmet. South Dakota state law requires motorcycle helmets only for riders under 18, Joffer said.

[Jolie Rouge]

Prediction: The Universe Will End In...


...20 billion years.

www.Space.com reports that Robert Caldwell from Dartmouth University and Marc Kamionkowski and Nevin Weinberg from the California Institute of Technology have developed a fascinating Doomsday theory: The universe will die as galaxies, stars, and planets are violently ripped apart. In the 1990s, scientists realized that the universe is expanding, much like it's being sucked outward. So Caldwell asked himself this question: What would happen if the rate of acceleration increased instead of proceeding at a steady pace? The answer is what he calls the Big Rip. The universe will be shredded. Space.com senior science writer Robert Roy Britt says, "Scientifically it is just about the most repulsive notion ever conceived."


The good news, besides the fact that it won't happen for 20 billion years, is that even Caldwell admits it's a "pretty fantastic possibility." Still, the universe IS expanding, and Caldwell's calculations are on the money if this phenomenal pace of expansion keeps up. The acceleration would overwhelm gravity as we know it. As Space.com puts it: "Even the nuclear forces that bind things in the subatomic world will cease to be effective."



Pretend the universe is a car.

Most theories hold that the universe is expanding at a constant rate. It's a car traveling at 20 miles per hour. Never slower, never faster. But the Big Rip theory holds that the car starts traveling faster and faster and faster--and eventually so fast that it just shreds into thousands of pieces. "The expansion becomes so fast that it literally rips apart all bound objects," Caldwell explained to Space.com. "It rips apart clusters of galaxies. It rips apart stars. It rips apart planets and solar systems. And it eventually rips apart all matter. If he's right, the stuff of science fiction--wormholes and space travel--would become real science. What happens after that is a mystery. Maybe time ends. Maybe not. But it's still 20 billion years away!

[Jolie Rouge]

If the end were really near--say a killer asteroid was headed straight to Earth--would you want to know?

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/0...ert/index.html



[size=1]By Richard Stenger CNN
Friday, February 28, 2003 Posted: 9:44 AM EST [/size=1]



(CNN) -- If scientists detect a killer asteroid shortly before it slams into Earth, should the public be informed?

One researcher, Geoffrey Sommer of the Rand Corp., a Santa Monica, California-based think tank, believes the best answer in some cases is no.

Should an alert come too late to make a difference in the outcome of a global catastrophe, Sommer suggests governments should remain silent. "If you can't do anything about a warning, then there is no point in issuing a warning at all," Sommer said earlier this month at an American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Denver. "If an extinction-type impact is inevitable, then ignorance for the populace is bliss," he said.

Other space researchers were highly critical of Sommer's views.

"I find Geoffrey's whole idea both irrational and unrealistic," said Benny Peiser, a U.K. scientist at Liverpool John Moores University who monitors asteroid threats. "The advocated secrecy, far from being cost-effective as Geoffrey claims, would most certainly preclude any attempt at impact mitigation," he told CNN.com.

Regardless, Peiser said, any attempt to keep a killer asteroid quiet would be futile. "Professional and amateur astronomers from around the world can easily access and confirm observational data and calculations of any discovered NEOs [Near Earth Objects]," he said.

Scientists estimate more than 1,000 asteroids 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) in diameter or larger -- big enough to cause global devastation -- lurk near the Earth's orbital path.


NASA expects to finish a census of the so-called NEOs in 2008 and has already identified more than half of the predicted population. One particularly sizable space boulder is thought to have unleashed global climate changes that hastened the end of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

Yet collisions with such monster rocks are rare. They take place about only once every 1 million years or so. Smaller asteroids the size of whales collide every few centuries. Most plunk in oceans, but they could spark regional disasters if they were to hit near a populated area, according to astronomers.

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Welcome back Jolie....

[Jolie Rouge]

Hi Widget !

One last one, and I am going to bed ....

REALLY !



Animal Cams

Ever wonder how animals and plants see the world? Videographer Sam Easterson has made it his business to find out. The artist’s "Animal, Vegetable, Video" project offers a bizarre take on the reality TV craze: the world as seen by a buffalo, tarantula, armadillo or even a lowly tumbleweed. In Easterson’s experiment, cameras as tiny as half an ounce are mounted on animals or plants. The result is a unique perspective applauded by armchair naturalists in which the stars of the film are also the videographers.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science...cam/index.html

Animal cams offer strange world views
Revelations about armadillo ears, flock behavior
By Marsha Walton CNN
Wednesday, July 16, 2003 Posted: 9:50 AM EDT

"Animal, Vegetable, Video" will be on display from Thursday through September 28 at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, California.

(CNN) -- Artist Sam Easterson's "Animal, Vegetable, Video" project offers a bizarre take on the reality TV craze: the world as seen by a buffalo, tarantula, armadillo or even a lowly tumbleweed.

Cameras as tiny as half an ounce are mounted on animals or plants. There's no specific length for the feature; it lasts until the camera falls off. The result is a unique perspective applauded by armchair naturalists in which the stars of the film are also the videographers.

"If people can see things from the animal and plant perspective, they are far less likely to harm them or their habitat, so that's how I present it," Easterson said.

Earlier in his career as a video artist, Easterson put small cameras in strange places -- also with the goal of getting a different perspective. He put them in popcorn poppers and washers and dryers to show what those domestic appliances looked like from the inside out.


Seeing through sheep's eyes

But equipping a small flock of sheep with cameras in 1998 changed everything for Easterson, he said. The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, commissioned him to tape some sheep as they "mowed the lawn" in a park. Easterson said he learned a lot about his new craft and the nature of animals.

"The first thing I realized was how intelligent and aware they are," he said. "The project changed everything in terms of respect.

"I was shocked to realize all the other animals in the flock could tell that this one sheep with the camera had been 'altered' in some way. She kept trying to enter, and they kept treating her as an outcast. I also learned sheep can run very fast and fences are not as sturdy as you think."

That project was called "A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing."


Keeping the cameras light

Easterson takes small cameras designed for law enforcement and surveillance and modifies them for the animals or plants he's aiming to study. He changes them mostly by taking most of the weight off. For most smaller animals, the video usually is beamed wirelessly for recording.

Most of his work now comes from museums, nature centers and art centers eager to give the public an animal's-eye view. The artist said he's turned down requests from some broadcasters anxious to get gritty or confrontational pictures for "reality"-type shows.

While not a scientist, Easterson works with researchers by offering details that they may have never seen. "There really is data to see in these pictures," he said. "Take the armadillo. You can listen to its breathing patterns. You can watch closely the rotation of its ears as it encounters new things."

While networks such as Animal Planet may focus on exotic international shoots, Easterson tries to include an animal native to the area where he's presenting an exhibit. In Florida, he equipped an alligator with the cameras, and in the Southwest, he chose a desert tarantula.


A tumble weed's perspective

While it's easy to see the intrigue of animal behavior from an animal's perspective, it could be a stretch for some to consider a plant's view. "It's maybe a funny idea to think that plants have perception, but I think they do," Easterson said.

He said his most challenging plant shoot was driving along the desert in a rental car trying to keep up with a tumbling tumbleweed.

Easterson said no animals have been hurt working as videographers. And he's worked with bioethics groups and telemetry experts who are experienced in tracking animals with radio collars. "I really would like to be on the radar screen, to improve my techniques," he said.

In the long term, Easterson said he hopes to create a library of hundreds of animals, from the unique "first animal" perspective.

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SOUTHBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - A Massachusetts mother is inviting men to her house Sunday to audition as bridegrooms.

It's not for a TV show. Donna Woods is trying to find a real-life husband for her 22-year-old daughter, Devlin. Woods got the idea from watching the reality show "Who Wants to Marry My Dad?"

Devlin said that at first she thought her mother crazy, but after she gave it some thought, she agreed to do it.

They began setting up chairs on the front lawn of their Southbridge home Saturday. But they were expecting far more than the 35 chairs they have - more than 100 men have responded to lawn signs and advertisements.

The family was hoping to have the field narrowed to 10 applicants by Sunday afternoon.

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TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Florida elections might once have been the stuff of late-night comedy monologues, but for sheer entertainment value the Sunshine State can't hold a dimpled chad to what's going in California these days.

Floridians, like the rest of America, are watching with bemusement - and perhaps even a tinge of empathy - as the California governor's race seems to get more, um, unconventional with each passing newscast.

Action star Arnold Schwarzenegger, former child star Gary Coleman and porno mogul Larry Flynt are among the 135 candidates who have qualified to run in an Oct. 7 recall election to replace Gov. Gray Davis, who has fallen out of favor.

The nation's focus on an election somewhere else is just fine with most Floridians, whose ability to count and follow simple instructions was questioned daily by commentators and comedians during a five-week recount that secured the White House for George W. Bush in 2000.

"It'll get them off our backs for a change," said Julian Pleasants, a University of Florida history professor who served on a state committee to figure out what to do with the historic ballot cards and equipment used in the 2000 election.

"I'm just glad it's away from here," said Dick Tolson, a 73-year-old retired Navy officer from Pensacola. "I feel sorry for them because they have a trying time ahead of them and they'll hear California mentioned like Florida was."

Better them than us, said Carlos Martinez, 32, of Miami Lakes.

"I am glad that it's taking the spotlight away," he said. "It'd be horrible if it happened here. I mean, don't they have a pit bull running for governor?"

The pit bull actually didn't qualify, but Coleman, the diminutive former "Diff'rent Strokes" star did, a fact duly noted by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush when he was asked about the election recently.

"I'm glad that Gary Coleman lives in California," said Bush, tongue firmly in cheek. "A guy like me that believes in limited government probably would have a tough time against a fellow like that because he probably symbolizes smaller government."

Gov. Bush, incidentally, will never have to worry about a recall election; Florida law doesn't allow it.

In 2000, the state's punch card ballots were at the heart of the cliffhanger election and the ensuing legal fight between George W. Bush - the Florida governor's older brother - and then-Vice President Al Gore. Bush eventually won Florida, and thus the White House, by 537 votes.

By the time the Supreme Court got involved and made its crucial 5-4 decision, virtually everyone in the nation had heard of chads, undervotes, overvotes, voting irregularities and Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who was later elected to Congress.

The Florida debacle led to a major overhaul of the state's voting system and shone a spotlight on similar problems with voting systems across the nation.

Florida lawmakers in 2001 outlawed punch-card ballots, created new standards for recounts and provided a definition for what a vote is. Most Floridians are now voting on touchscreen systems; the rest use optical scan ballots.

A survey by CalTech and MIT found 6 percent of votes cast nationwide in the 2000 presidential election may not have been counted because of problems with antiquated systems. Punch-card machines - which will be used by 44 percent of California voters on Oct. 7 - are the subject of a federal challenge to the election by the American Civil Liberties Union, which says they have twice the error rate of other systems.

Elections officials nationwide will watch the California vote, expected to be one of the most scrutinized since Congress set aside $3.9 billion for states to modernize voting systems with paperless terminals. As many as 75 percent of voters nationwide will cast ballots electronically by 2010.

Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, who was the elections supervisor in Hillsborough County at the time, bristles at the suggestion of similarities between the California election and what happened in Florida.

"In California, there doesn't seem to be too much concern about who the governor is," Iorio scoffed. "There's almost a comical nature to it all, and I didn't find the 2000 presidential experience in Florida to be comical. It was serious business."

With some California counties still using a punch card system, plus the large number of candidates on the ballot, Iorio said irregularities are inevitable.

"Might as well get the attorneys lined up right now," she said.

Barbara Gregory, 56, of Cantonment, suggested that we give California a break.

"I feel people don't need to be laughed at," she said. "We didn't like it, and I don't think people in California would like to be laughed at because of this."

By most accounts, Floridians have put the 2000 election debacle behind them and moved on. Barry Richard, a Tallahassee lawyer who represented George W. Bush through most of the high-profile arguments in the recount case, likened it to surviving a hurricane or other major disaster.

"Those kinds of events create camaraderie, because we all went through it together and survived it together," Richard said, noting that the problems in Florida brought similar problems to light in many other states.

"We just chalked it up as one of those things we went through together and moved on. It remains to be seen whether California will come out of it that way."

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Aug. 14 -- Getting braces isn't just for teenagers any more. Count the family pooch in, too.

Experts say that better dentistry can add years to the life of pets, and can spare them the pain that comes from poor dental hygiene. Some dogs undergo root canals, get crowns and even braces — and none of it is for cosmetic purposes.

"Their teeth are their front hands," said Dr. Marty Becker, a veterinarian who is also co-author of Chicken Soup for the Horse Lover's Soul. "Try living without your front arms. And there's also the pain issue. A German shepherd puppy I knew was in so much pain, he had to sleep with a toy in his mouth. So doggie dentistry is not a frivolous thing."

One out of two dogs has periodontal disease, so owners should pay much more attentive to dental care, Becker said. Periodontal disease affects the gums, bones, and connective tissue around the teeth, and can cause tooth loss.

First, plaque, a soft, clear or cream-colored deposit, forms on the teeth. If it isn't removed, minerals in the animal's saliva can turn the plaque into tartar. If tartar is allowed to build up below the gums and bacteria grow, it can cause inflammation.

It is illegal for an owner or a dentist to perform any procedure on a dog for strictly cosmetic reasons. Veterinary dentist Dr. Jan Bellows of Hometown Animal Hospital in Weston, Fla., mostly deals with periodontal disease surgery to save the dog's teeth. The doggie root canals and crowns cost about the same as they would for humans, Bellows said.

Braces, however, cost about half of what is charged for humans, and instead of moving multiple teeth, veterinary dentists move individual teeth in dogs. Dogs' teeth tend to stay in place, or are kept in place by the teeth surrounding them, and so they don't need retainers.

More than any other breeds, rottweilers and poodles are predisposed to tooth problems that can be fixed by wearing braces.

Mikey, a 10-month-old Cairn terrier, got braces to correct a canine tooth that was growing up into the roof of his mouth and causing him pain. The tooth was removed, and the braces were put in.

"Mikey comes in every week to get the elastic tightened and adjusted," Bellows said.

Tips for Dog Owners

Here are some dog dental health-care tips from veterinary dentist Dr. Jan Bellows, of Hometown Animal Hospital in Weston, Fla.

Good: It's good for dogs to have chew toys and tartar-scrubbing foods, similar to "edible" toothbrushes, as part of their dental care.

Better: An even better idea is to rinse the dog's mouth with pet oral rinse that can be squirted into their mouths. Some of the rinses are malt or fish-flavored. Another clever idea is dental wipes, for use once a day. The active ingredient is something that was used in World War II to stop plaque buildup on ships. Now it stops plaque buildup on pets' teeth. These products can be a great addition to the dog's chews.

Best: Brush your dog's teeth. Your dog will get used to it and so will you. Bacteria forms where the teeth meets the gum. When you get rid of that, you'll make the dog healthier. One of the newest techniques in dog teeth care is a special antibiotic given to the dog five days of each month to control periodontal disease. Used together with daily brushing, they eliminate doggie breath and help your dog hold onto his teeth until he is a senior citizen.

[Jolie Rouge]

Brewers Urged To Serve Up A Fem-ale

Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - Beer-makers should brew a real ale directed at women, says the chairwoman of the British organisation Campaign for Real Ale (Camra).

Paula Waters said the brewing industry has become too set in its ways and the number of women trying real ale had declined.

"Someone in the industry needs to lead the way by launching an all-new beer aimed at women - the world's first Fem-ale. This will help dispel the myth that beer is strictly for the boys," Waters is reported to have remarked at this year's British Beer Festival.

Camra said its research showed more women would be willing to try beer if it was presented in more stylish glasses than ordinary pint pots.

"Just look at the beer drinking culture in Belgium. There is a wide range of fruity Belgian beers that are served in stylish branded glasses and you see a large number of women drinking these traditional styles of beer in cafes and bars," Waters said.

Some 45,000 visitors made their way to the annual Great British Beer Festival in London at the beginning of August.

[Jolie Rouge]

Average Adult Will Drive 36 Miles For...

...a good meal.[/b]

The average American is perfectly willing to drive 36 miles out of the way just to get some grub, according to a new survey conducted by Bush's Beans.



If you're hungry for more facts:

--12 percent would drive more than 50 miles for good food.

--83 percent of Americans insist on eating regional food when they travel.

--65 percent of us attempt to replicate restaurant recipes at home.



Do you do this?

--23 percent of Americans buy their favorite regional foods online and 10 percent are willing to pay twice the normal price.

--21 percent of Americans beg their friends to bring back food from their vacations.

[Jolie Rouge]

Astonishing Find Beneath the Sea

There's gold under the sea.

Millions and millions of dollars of gold.

It's taken 12 years and a search that covered 1,500 square miles of the ocean, but Odyssey Marine Explorations Inc. has found the remains of the S.S. Republic, a Civil War-era side-wheel steamer that was carrying 20,000 $20 gold coins on a trip from New York to New Orleans when it sank in a hurricane off Savannah, Georgia on October 25, 1865, reports The Associated Press.


Those coins, worth as much as $180 million today, will likely be the richest haul ever recovered from a shipwreck. The coins, which could each sell for between $6,000 and $9,000, were to have been used to help pay the costs of reconstruction of the South after the Civil War. Retrieving the treasure will be difficult as the ship is 1,700 feet below the surface. Located about 100 miles southeast of Savannah, the excavation will be done using highly sophisticated remotely-operated robotic equipment.


No permit is required because the shipwreck is so far out at sea in international waters; however, the company has been granted federal "admiralty arrest" of the site to make it illegal for others to lay claim on it, notes AP. The record for the richest treasure from a shipwreck is now held by the S.S. Central America, a ship that sank in a hurricane off the North Carolina coast in 1857. It carried gold from the California Gold Rush that reaped about $100 million in 1987.


See up-close photos of the S.S. Republic's loot.
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news...tos&floc=wn-nn