Blind kid plays PS2

I think everybody feels sorry for this kid since his eyes don't work, so they let him win. Or he's actually loosing every game, or possibly not even playing, like maybe his controller isn't even plugged in but everyone is all like, "you won again brice, you have much to be proud of, your a good person, yes your are". Soul caliber? Anyone can be good at soul caliber, just push buttons real fast, something will happen. ha ha.. I kid!

Teen video-game whiz is... Blind
July 29, 2005

HE freaks people out by playing - and winning - video-games facing away from the screen. There's a reason why it doesn't matter which way he faces - he's blind. Brice Mellen, 17, is a whiz at video games such as Mortal Kombat. As he easily dispatched foes who took him on recently at a Lincoln, US, gaming centre, the affable and smiling Mellen remained humble.

'I can't say that I'm a superpro,' he said, working the controls like they were extensions of his body. 'I can be beaten.' Those bold enough to challenge him weren't so lucky. One by one, while playing Soul Caliber 2, their video characters were decapitated and gutted without mercy by Mellen's on-screen alter ego.

'I'm getting bored,' Mellen said in jest as he won game after game.

Blind since birth when his optic nerve didn't connect because of Leber's disease, Mellen honed his video game skills over the years through patient and not-so-patient playing. He did it by memorising key joystick operations and moves in certain games, asking lots of questions and paying particular attention to audio cues. Mellen, who started playing at home when he was about 7, worked his way up from games such as Space Invaders to the modern combat games. Said his father, Mr Larry Mellen: 'He enjoyed trying to play, but he wasn't very good at first. But he just kept on trying.'

While playing Soul Caliber 2, Mellen worked his way through the introductory screens with ease, knowing exactly what to click to start the game he wanted. He rarely asked for help. But his exasperated opponent did. When Ryan O'Banion's character is frozen in place during a battle, he asked: 'How do I move?' Mellen answered before finishing him off: 'You can't. That's what happens.' After his character vanishes from the screen, O'Banion said: 'It's why I don't play him.' Mellen hangs out any chance he gets at the DogTags Gaming Center in Lincoln, which opened last month. Every now and then, someone will come in and think he can easily beat the blind kid. 'I'll challenge them,' Mellen said, displaying an infectious confidence. 'I freak people out by playing facing backwards.'

He will be a senior in high school next year. When he does go to college, Mellen wants to study - what else? - video-game design. - AP.

OJ: not only a killer!

Maybe if Johnny Cochran wasn't dead, 'The Juice' would have been able to beat the rap this time. I can see it now.... "If the cable box wont transmit you must acquit". What? Was F. Lee Bailey on vacation or something? It may not bring back Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown, but it may make DirecTV shareholders sleep easier at night.

O.J. Simpson ordered to pay DirecTV in signal-theft case
sun-sentinel.com staff & wires
Posted July 27 2005, 9:50 AM EDT

DirecTV said "the evidence was overwhelming" against O.J. Simpson. But the ex-football star's lawyer said he did nothing wrong. The satellite TV giant on Tuesday was referring to its civil court victory in which a Florida judge ordered Simpson to pay $25,000 for allegedly stealing its signals. The case stems from the recovery in 2001 of two "bootloaders" in Simpson's home that allowed viewers to tap into DirecTV signals without paying for them.

"This ruling serves as a reminder that there are consequences to signal theft, whether you're O.J. Simpson or John Q. Public," said Dan Fawcett, the company's executive vice president of legal and business affairs. Simpson's lawyer, Yale Galanter, said his client would appeal the judge's ruling. "There is no evidence that he knew or should have known" that the devices in his home were illegal, he said. "He was not living in the house at the time," Galanter said.

Simpson is the most famous name among the thousands of alleged manufacturers, distributors and users of counterfeit equipment that El Segundo-based DirecTV has sued in an effort to crack down on signal piracy, which has cost the company billions of dollars. Simpson moved to Florida from California after a civil court jury ordered him to pay $33.5 million stemming from the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in Brentwood. Simpson was acquitted of murder charges in 1995.

According to news reports in 2001, federal agents were at Simpson's home on a six-hour raid related to an investigation of an Ecstasy drug ring, money laundering and the counterfeiting of satellite equipment. Simpson was not arrested.

Grand Theft Arch Diocese

He says that he's sorry, that's cute really. Someone should make a video game where the main character is a philandering priest who steals from his parishioners, has rowdy sex with prostitutes on Sunday mornings before mass and absolves the horrific crimes of mobsters and corporate white collar criminals. that would be hot.

Priest confesses to stealing $1.6M

By Jeff Coen
Tribune staff reporter
Published July 27, 2005, 3:19 PM CDT

A former pastor of a Southwest Side Catholic church pleaded guilty today to stealing $1.6 million from the parish. He also finished paying back the money and was sentenced to four years in prison. "I'm very, very deeply sorry for all that's happened," Rev. Brian Lisowski told Cook County Criminal Judge Kenneth Wadas. The theft, Lisowski said, "has hurt so many people who put their trust in me and the church." Lisowski resigned from St. Bede the Venerable Catholic Church, 8200 S. Kostner Ave., in July 2004 after police found him with an alleged prostitute. He subsequently admitted having stolen money from the parish the previous five years.

The defendant initially was charged with felony money laundering and theft from a school or place of worship. He could have been sentenced to up to 30 years in prison if convicted of both counts. In a plea agreement filed in court today, prosecutors dropped the theft charge, and Lisowski pleaded guilty to money laundering. The defendant today also finished making full restitution by delivering a final, $427,177 payment for the church.

Wadas sentenced Lisowski to four years, the minimum for a money laundering conviction. He could have been sentenced to up to 15 years. Prosecutors previously have said the theft scheme began after Lisowski came to St. Bede in 1999. They said the priest secretly installed a safe in a bedroom wall of the church's rectory, separate from the main church safe, and skimmed $2,500 to $3,000 a week from weekend mass collections, raffles and wedding and funeral donations.

He tried to cover his tracks by making false entries in the church's accounting books and by exchanging coins and small-denomination currency for hundred-dollar bills and later converting the cash into money orders. Over five years, Lisowski made trips to the bank at least once a week, depositing nearly $450,000 into several checking and money-market accounts. Prosecutors said one person, a "close female friend," received $262,000 from Lisowski.

After Lisowski resigned in July 2004, church officials became suspicious when they noticed a surge in the church's coffers compared with the period he was there. The Chicago Archdiocese's Financial Services Department investigated and confronted Lisowski with the skimming allegations. After he reportedly admitted to the theft, Lisowski led church officials to a safe-deposit box in an Evergreen Park bank containing nearly $400,000 in hundred-dollar bills, prosecutors said. Church officials reported they also discovered Lisowski's bedroom safe, which held $50,000 in paper currency and $600 in coins.

Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune

eewwwwwww!!!

His explantion is kinda funny, but what a vile act!

Plumber takes a leak, doesn't fix it

Jul 27, 8:24 AM (ET)

LONDON (Reuters) - A British plumber was fined and given a community service order Tuesday after being captured on hidden cameras urinating into a vase in a customer's attic and pouring the contents into the central heating system. Roy Williams, 47, was caught in the act by trading standards officers who had rented the house in Leatherhead in southern England and rigged it with cameras as part of a sting operation to check on tradesmen.

The plumber had been called out to fix a simple fault but instead missed this and charged 203 pounds for unnecessary work, Steve Playle of Surrey trading standards told Reuters. Williams then urinated into a vase, poured the urine into the hot water tank and rinsed the vase in the cold water tank.

The plumber denied the charges, claiming he had a medical condition which meant he needed the toilet regularly and had been overcome by the sound of running water. He was sentenced to 150 hours community service by Guildford Crown Court on charges of deception and making false trades descriptions, and was ordered to pay 3,778 pounds in fines and costs incurred cleaning the water tanks.

Come get your serve on!!!

July 27, 2005
CASTING FOR TOUCHSTONE PICTURES "MUSIC HIGH"

Carlyn Davis Casting is currently casting for the Touchstone Pictures Feature "Music High", a movie about young incredible dancers. The film is being directed by Anne Fletcher, one of the nation's strongest choreographers.

They are looking for VERY STRONG dancers that have AT LEAST 5 years of ballet AND can dance hip hop. Seeking all races, male and female. All talent needs to be at least 18 years of age, but can play 15-18 years old. These are all union covered roles and will have strong exposure.

They are also casting the lead role of "Nora." This is one of the stars of the entire film. Casting has already occurred in LA and NY, but the director has not found a person that is a strong enough dancer AND actress.

Nora is a dark haired (no blondes) extremely talented dancer. She is beautiful and is at the top of her class. Her hope is to dance in NY after she graduates. They will be auditioning for this role over the next 2 weeks.

Auditions for all of the other dancers and other roles will be sometime in August. They will make another announcement on casting once they have finished the dancers.

For all of the dancing roles, if cast, you will go through approximately 4 weeks of rehearsal (starting in August) with the nation's top dancers and choreographers. Principal photography begins on September 12th in Baltimore, and all cast would need to be available until Mid November.

Send a hard copy of a resume and photo to:

Carlyn Davis Casting, Inc.
207 Park Ave. Suite B6
Falls Church, VA 22046
Attn: Music High

OR

Email your resume and photos to:

twilla@carlyndaviscasting.com or
suzanne@carlyndaviscasting.com

for consideration. Please, no phone calls.

Considering moving to New Zealand?

Maybe New Zealand would be a good place to go live. For some reason this has been coming up lately, like I keep hearing really good things about New Zealand, so this is just another in a series of positive reasons to check out NZ. Perhaps there's something to this?

NZ in grip of 'man drought'
27 July 2005
By SUE ALLEN

If you're a 32-year-old woman finding it hard to meet a mate, it seems there is a good reason. It's not your dress sense, the sparkle of your after-dinner talk or size of your rump but the New Zealand "man drought", according to this year's KPMG population report. Since 1991, the shortfall of New Zealand men in their 30s compared to women has ballooned from 7600 to 23,000 last year.

That means a 32-year old Kiwi woman now has as much chance of finding a male partner of the same age as an 82-year-old woman, said KPMG partner Bernard Salt. And hopping across the Tasman may not help, apparently the man drought has spread there too. In 1976, Australian men outnumbered women by 54,000 providing a "smorgasbord" of choice for female baby-boomers. But by 2004, the tide had turned and women outnumbered men by 20,000. With "mother nature" keeping birth rates equal, Mr Salt believed the main man drain was the Kiwi OE which sucked young men overseas where they fell in love and stayed. "New Zealand girls might go backpacking and have a fling, but they haven't done anything as silly as getting married, and they come back."

The fun would start, he said, when society got used to the imbalance and women starting taking time-shares on men. Tourism New Zealand could cash in by advertising New Zealand as the home of the single woman. The report also found that by 2007, Christchurch may outgrow Wellington as New Zealand's second biggest city. The fastest growing city was Queenstown, where the population rose 7.2 per cent in 2004, and Manukau was the fastest growing area. Meanwhile, Ruapehu lost 3.5 per cent of its population last year, making it the biggest loser by area.

And Mr Salt has one message for the women of Sex in the City who constantly complained that they couldn't find single men in New York. Apparently, there were 106,000 never-married men in Manhattan Island in 2004 compared to 104,000 women - "Stop whingeing".

Viva los bio-dome!!

This sounds a lot like the plot of the 1996 classic Bio-Dome featuring Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin. The article mentions something called excreta, why not just call it shit? We all know that's what they mean, who do they think they are fooling?

Japan researchers to be sealed in 'Mini-Earth' to plan for space life

TOKYO (AFP) Jul 26, 2005

Japanese researchers said Tuesday they would seal themselves in a "mini-Earth" in an experiment in self-sufficiency to plan for future life in space. Two researchers will spend one week in the controlled ecosystem at Rokkasho in the northern prefecture of Aomori, growing plants such as rice, breeding goats and recycling their water, oxygen and excreta.

Apart from the goats, the researchers will be completely on their own, save for outside energy and the Internet. The facility to be set up by the Institute for Environmental Sciences will be 500 square meters (5,380 square feet) with separate spaces for the humans, animals and plants. "The research results may be applied in looking at a future habitation in space," said Toshihiko Ebina, a spokesman for the government-backed institute.

The institute will launch the first one-week experiment this September and will hold two more week-long experiments within the year. It plans a four-months-long experiment in the mini-Earth in the next four years.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

Accountants have all the fun

The postal employee may have been sloppy, but this guy is plain idiot. Writing a company check to pay for a new boat? LOLZ... Then came tax time, "We really need those tax forms Rod, think you can bring them by the office?" long pause... "can't talk now, I gotta get to the big meeting at the umm.. marina."

Denham Springs man booked on 31 counts of forgery, theft

DENHAM SPRINGS, La. A Denham Springs man has been arrested and accused of stealing nearly 100-thousand dollars while he was the chief financial officer of a Baton Rouge clinic by writing "bonus" checks to himself, using a company credit card, and even issuing a company check to buy himself a boat.

Forty-four-year-old Rodney J- Rodrigue was booked into East Baton Rouge Parish Prison yesterday on 31 counts of forgery, theft of business records, unauthorized use of access card and felony theft. Rodrigue is worked for Scoliosis Treatment Recovery System.

Doctor Arthur Copes, who owns the clinic, says Rodrigue was hired in September 2003 to maintain financial records and handle the day-to-day operating expenses of the company.

Copes says the first signs that there were financial problems came last spring when Rodrigue refused to send the company's 2004 financial records to an accountant so taxes could be filed.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Postal employee proves incompetent thief

This is a good lesson in things not to do when embezzling from your employer. Don't get greedy or sloppy, and don't hang around once it's been carried out. Remember Office Space? Those guys had the right idea, they just screwed up the details. Had this guy been just a little more careful he might have very well gotten away with $400K. damn, some things to keep in mind.....

Theft brings prison term for postal employee
By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

July 26, 2005

A former U.S. Postal Service manager who spent half his 33-year career "accounting for every penny" in his words was sentenced to 2½ years in prison yesterday for stealing more than $430,000 from work. Robert F. Lenz, 55, of Alpine, said he became greedy and took the money after concluding that nobody would miss it because accountants he supervised at the Carmel Mountain processing station had been laid off.

"I'm just screwed up," Lenz said. "I let something like downsizing get to me. . . . I hurt the hand that fed me over 33 years."

Postal officials say layoffs haven't relaxed accounting procedures. After pleading guilty, Lenz paid back the $430,311.71 he stole. Prosecutor John Rice asked a San Diego federal court judge to also impose a $60,000 fine. "Just paying it back doesn't mean it didn't happen," he said, noting that Lenz was allowed to retire with full benefits. Judge Marilyn Huff rejected the request, calling the prison time adequate. She also pinned some blame on supervisors.

"How can the Postal Service not miss $400,000?" she said.

Continue reading

Space Shuttle ready to liftoff?

"We have addressed everything we know on the shuttle that can go wrong that we have the technology to fix," Griffin said. "Some things simply are inherent to the design of the bird and cannot be made better without going and getting a new generation of spacecraft."

That's NASA Administrator Michael Griffin and I sure hope he knows what he's talking about. This will hopefully be the last shuttle flight ever attempted. If NASA dosen't firmly and publicily commit itself to building the next generation of spacecraft to replace the shuttle fleet, regardless of how this flight goes, manned space exploration in the US will have suffered a horendoues setback. The senior management culture at NASA has become staffed with people who lack vision and ingenuiety in some terribly deficient fashion. It's time to abandon the shuttle and move into the next great era of manned space flight, it's not 1985 anymore people!

The launch happens at 10:39 EST today, pray there's no violent explosion. Click here to watch NASA TV! Hmm.. I wonder if any bookies are giving a line on a potential shuttle disaster?

WP story

vampires scam the elderly

Old people in Italy will fall for anything!

"WE ARE VAMPIRES": HORROR FRAUD IN PALERMO, TWO ARRESTED

(AGI) - Palermo, Italy, July 23 - Horror fraud in Palermo, where a couple convinced an old woman they were "vampires" and forced her to give them money, for a total of 50,000 euro. The two 'vampires' have been arrestyed by the Carabinieri, charged with fraund. Apparently, they began tormenting the woman in 2001, telling, and convincing her that if she wouldn't take some pills and magic potions the antichrist was going to possess her. The necessary remedies were obviously provided by the vampires, and had to be paid: 50,000 euro in 4 years. Each pill to abort the antichrist's son costed 3,000 euro.

The two people arrested are Ugo Ammannato, aged 48, club singer, who appeared on some local TVs, and his partner, Caterina Traina, aged 38. The investigations started following the report of the woman's sisters, worried by her sudden impoverishing. The Carabinieri wire taped the telephone, and the magistrate for preliminary investigations, Pasqua Seminara, issued the custody warrants, as requested by prosecutor Rita Fulantelli. Ammannato is now jailed at the Ucciardone prison, Ms. Traina at the Pagliarelli one. They will be heard on Monday.
(AGI) - 231742 LUG 05 COPYRIGHTS 2002-2005 AGI S.p.A.

Tattooed clown the prime suspect in croc theft

Ha ha ha.... LOLZ

Monday, July 25, 2005. 12:16pm (AEST)
ABC NEWS Online Australia

The owner of two saltwater crocodiles stolen from the Royal Darwin Show over the weekend says the theft has taken a bizarre twist. Graeme Webb from Crocodylus Park says the crocs, each less than a metre long, were taken from the nursery section on Friday night.

"It didn't seem to be one of these things where they claw their way out or anything and it looked like there were big secure things on the top, so somebody had helped themselves," Mr Webb said. He says he has received a baffling lead.

"Someone rang up and said they'd seen a clown ... that was talking about they'd just got a crocodile from the show, so the last thing they were looking for was a clown with a spider on his leg - tattooed on his leg - that might have the crocodile," he said. Mr Webb is urging the public to come forward with information.

finally... a cure for drunk dialing

Oh god, this article is spot on. However this service would never do me any good cause I would have to block like every freaking number in my phone for it to be effective. In other news i think i may have given up drinking.

Drunk dialing must be avoided at all costs
By Jim Foreman
Published: Monday, July 25, 2005

Despite the efforts of the most brilliant scientists, life's most elusive mystery remains unsolved: How do the most technologically incompetent people manage to operate a cell phone when they are inebriated?

In response to the recent increase in "drunk-calling," the Australian branch of Virgin Mobile added to its services the ability to blacklist certain numbers before a night of alcohol consumption in order to avoid making socially devastating drunken phone calls. To activate, customers must merely dial 333 and then the phone number they want blocked. Although it costs 25 cents per number, it spares you the trouble of finding a designated phone dialer to supervise you while operating a cellular phone.

keep reading, it's worth it.

GTA hot coffee brouhaha

If you have been following this whole ridiculous mess, here's a good link to a webpage summary of the latest noise being generated by this situation. May someone someplace have mercy on our pathetic existence.

link here.

Cell phone usage in africa

This article about the rapid spread of cell networks through several African countries is very interesting. Most of the countries currently experiencing this explosive growth in cellular adoption have never had any sort of substantial copper infrastructure in place. This strikes me as amazing in countries where only 1 in 10 homes has electricity.

link

rave dying a slow death, even in the UK

Should we be surprised that this Mr. Pitts, a promoter of legal events, would be all for a police crackdown on illegal parties, of course not that's more patrons for his scantioned events.

Police vow to root out rogue ravers

ED NASH
21 July 2005 06:06

Police have promised to root out rave organisers in a bid to stop the disruptive events before they start.

And they received unlikely support from one of the region's most prominent organisers of legal dance parties, who condemned rogue ravers who partied without regard for residents.

Stephen Sayer, also known as Mr Pitts, who promotes dance parties across Norfolk, said he approved of the steps police were taking against parties organised on people's land without permission.

“If somebody is trespassing, then they should take action,” he said. “And if somebody is playing music outdoors without consideration for people who live nearby, then the police should stop them.”

He added that all his parties were held inside marquees erected with the permission of landowners. “Trespassing is wrong,” he said.

His words came after a weekend of illegal parties, which saw officers called to remote spots near Thetford and Reepham in the early hours of Sunday, where hundreds of revellers were trying to hold raves.

At Frog Hill, Wretham, a military training camp on the outskirts of Thetford, around 500 people were dispersed by police using powers from the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act.

And at Thurning, near Reepham, an irate farmer forced ravers off his land with a JCB and muckspreader.

Norfolk police are increasing their work monitoring illegal parties as part of the force's ongoing crackdown on anti-social behaviour.

Operations support Supt Bob Scully, whose portfolio includes the force's policy on unlicensed parties and raves, said officers were gathering intelligence on the people who organised the parties and the situations they were held in so they could get a picture of how they were organised.

“We are dealing with people who are infringing other people's right to a quiet life,” he said.

He added officers disrupting raves would work to gather evidence for a possible prosecution against the people who set the parties up as well as making sure revellers dispersed.

Raves not only disturbed residents, but in Norfolk could often cause damage to agricultural land or wildlife reserves, he said.

He also warned that because they were unlicensed, such raves didn't offer party-goers the protection that an organised event did.

Along with the rest of Norfolk's policing, the policy regarding raves is moving towards a more intelligence-based approach and Supt Scully said that, when appropriate, the police would use their powers under the Criminal Justice and Public Order act to stop people setting up the events.

He also compared anti-social behaviour and raves to drink driving: something that was once taken for granted, but is now unacceptable.

“The prime thing that is going to make a change is when people realise that certain types of behaviour are just not acceptable. When people wake up in the morning and think, 'I'm not going to organise a rave tonight', that will be success.”

Police recorded more than 50 illegal parties in Norfolk last year and Supt Scully said so far this year there had been fewer raves.

OLED Keyboard

The optimus keyboard by Art Lebedev Studios in Moscow is a concept product that hopefully will see the light of day on a retail shelf somepleace, right now it's just a pipe dream. Using OLEDs (Organic Light Emiting Diodes) attached to each key when switching keyboard layouts, the key will change to reflect the new assignment. It would be particularly useful when gaming, each key assigned a function could be lit up leaving the rest of the keyboard dark, so as to minimize confusion when playing GTASA in a dimly lit room. I'd like to see this become a reality, I'd buy one. I allready have a glowing keyboard, it would be nice to get some functionalily as well. The design firm responsible for this initial model claims that a production prototype will be built soon but that's a big IF.

link to design w/ pics

article about said keyboard.

more of the same.

Animal/human sex legal in washington state!

Man fucked by horse suffers perforated colon, and there's a videotape!

Saturday, July 16, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
Videotapes show bestiality, Enumclaw police say

By Jennifer Sullivan

A TV cameraman was among those scrutinizing an Enumclaw-area farm yesterday. Authorities were investigating reports of bestiality after the death of a Seattle man.

ENUMCLAW — Authorities are reviewing hundreds of hours of videotapes seized from a rural Enumclaw-area farm that police say is frequented by men who engage in sex acts with animals.

The videotapes police have viewed thus far depict men having sex with horses, including one that shows a Seattle man shortly before he died July 2, said Enumclaw police Cmdr. Eric Sortland. Police are reviewing the tapes to make sure no laws have been broken.

"Activities like these are often collateral sexual crimes beyond the animal aspect," said Sortland, adding that investigators want to make sure crimes such as child abuse or forcible rape were not occurring on the property.

Washington is one of 17 states that does not outlaw bestiality. Police are also investigating the farm and the two men who live on the property to determine whether animal cruelty — which is a crime — was committed by forcing sex on smaller, weaker animals. Investigators said that in addition to horses, they have found chickens, goats and sheep on the 40-acre property northwest of Enumclaw.

keep reading... if you dare.

picking up girls made easy

BAHAAHAHA!!!!!!!
awh, this is REALLY funny!! Listen to the mp3.

link here

the ugly side of reality television

wow, just wow. Reality home improvement gone horibbly wrong. This is sort of like an idea that several of my friends and I baked up one night in college; a home improvement show where all the workers performing the improvements would have no prior experience or background in construction, in addition to being legally drunk. I think it would be hillarious, but ignores all the issues these poor people seem to be having to deal with after fox destroyed their house. Maybe fox could do a reality show where they fix up houses wrecked during reality home improvement shows. Add dramatic music and a voice over explaining how awful it is and then explain how it's all going to be made better. ha! haven't these people suffered enough?

Reading the details of this story, those people really did get screwed bad!

Family suing reality TV show over repairs

By Rob Olmstead
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Thursday, July 21, 2005

When a reality-show television producer says “Trust me,” run.

That’s the lesson Gary and Sharon Rosier of Lemont Township say they learned when Fox Broadcasting’s “Renovate My Family” promised them a new and improved home designed to accommodate their recently paralyzed son, Steven. Instead of a handicapped-friendly home that made their life easier, they got a shoddy wreck of a house that latest estimates say will cost $350,000 to fix, the Rosiers’ attorney, Mark Belongia, said. “Essentially what they did is build a movie set,” Belongia said.

Wiring remains exposed; door knobs are round, impossible for Steven to grasp; a dryer is vented into the home rather than out of it; smoke detectors don’t work; plywood covers basement windows; siding and plumbing was improperly installed; the furnace has no foundation and is stuffed in a crawl space and sod was installed directly over limestone paving, Belongia said. “They didn’t care (that it was impossible for the grass to live). All they needed was for it to be green for the episode they shot of the people coming home,” said Belongia, who filed suit on behalf of the family Wednesday in Cook County Chancery Court.

Fox Broadcasting in Los Angeles referred all calls to the production company, Rocket Science Laboratories, which did not return phone calls.

While the Rosiers, who live near I-55 and Lemont Road, did sign a contract giving Rocket Science considerable latitude, their suit claims they were told at the time of signing that it was not a final contract, just something they needed to sign to be considered for the show. The company refused their requests to let them consult a lawyer before signing, telling them time was of the essence, the suit claims. For those reasons, it should be void, Belongia said. The family, which was approached by a producer at the 2004 Boat and RV show at McCormick Place, thought the show would make their home more handicapped-friendly, Belongia said.

Their son Steven was 15 when he was paralyzed in a March 2003 snowboarding accident. As a carpenter and an office worker, respectively, Gary and Sharon Rosier didn’t have a lot of money to plow into rehab, Belongia said. One of the things the Rosiers asked was that the oak floor Steven and Gary installed together before Steven’s accident be left alone. Instead, it was replaced with laminate, the suit said. Among the other problems is an “endless” pool installed in Steven’s room intended for therapy.

“It was so powerful it forced him under and almost drowned him,” Belongia said. His mother had to rescue him, he said. In addition, the suit claims, a deck, barn and patio that Gary Rosier had built were demolished. “Fox tore it all out and threw it in the garbage,” Belongia said. To add insult to injury, about $13,000 in power tools Gary Rosier had at the home were missing when the family returned, the suit claims.

The family has also learned that, despite assurances, they are liable for the taxes on the home “improvement,” the suit claims. The work on the home, which consisted of tearing the structure down to the foundation and rebuilding it in nine days, was done in July 2004. The show aired in September.

The Rosiers also are suing DuPage County, claiming it never performed a final home inspection on the work. Officials with the county could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

New ninja turtles movie in the works.

OMG, sooo excited, If they make this version true to the comics, it'll hopefully be roxstar, cause the comics were much darker, with consistent adult themes a more true to life portrayal, if you will, than the animated series and the three movies that pretty much sucked. It's kind of amazing that the turtles franchise is still around, there's even a 'new' turtles cartoon series on fox(?) right now that I watched once. So that makes it like at least a decade of cartoons, comics and action figures. Cowabunga dudes!!

July 18, 2005
Weinsteins go Ninja

In the brothers' first studio partnership since they worked with Disney, the WeinsteinCo. will work along with Warner Bros. to distribute the all-CGI animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The movie is set for release in early 2007 and will be the first time the reptilian superheroes have appeared on the big screen since 1993. The three films from New Line in the early 1990s grossed over $256 million in North America. The new property will be grittier than the first films, pulling its atmosphere straight from the comic series. Kevin Munroe will write and direct the film. He's working on the screenplay in consultation with Peter Laird, who co-created the franchise.
Source: Variety

some people will do anything for love

Ha ha ha.... oh this might be my best find this week.

No liebe dich for goof
20/07/2005

A drunk German man was arrested for repeatedly dialling the emergency services because he had fallen in love with voice of one of the operators. The line of phone boxes used by Guenther Bergmann was traced by officers, who arrested him for wasting police time. The 45-year-old Duesseldorfer had accidentally dialled the emergency services the first time around, but claims he became besotted by the operator's voice.

Mr Bergmann said: "The first time I called it was an accident, I just pressed the wrong buttons. "But the operator had such a sexy voice that I lost control and had to keep ringing back." The goof pleaded with police not to arrest him and even confessed: "I think I'm in love with her."

© 1998-2005 DeHavilland Information Services plc. All rights reserved.

Scotty - James Doohan R.I.P

this is really sad, although he was suffering from advanced Alzheimer's disease, it's still sad to hear that he has left us. I'm going to go home and watch the undiscovered country, my favorite star trek movie.

link to story.

nobody gnomes where they went!!

Ok, lady what did your gnome look like? did it have any markings or distinguishing features? ha ha ha..

Gardeners reunited with precious gnomes:-
GREELEY, Colo. | July 21, 2005

Gardeners deluged Greeley, Colo., police with calls to reclaim their prized gnomes from a stash of 80 of the stolen yard-art statues.

Children found 80 6- to 12-inch statues in bags behind an apartment complex on Saturday, police said.

We've been inundated with phone calls, Sgt. Tom Walde told the Rocky Mountain News.

Police set up appointments with people to identify their particular gnome or gnomes.

They're just like little people, only they don't talk to you, said resident Elsie Schnorr, who had 30 statues stolen from her yard.

Schnorr recovered some of the statues stolen from her yard, but will have to wait until spring to replace others.

I don't go out and steal them, that's for sure, Schnorr said. I go out and buy them.
(UPI)

The rules of attraction

A rather interesting article about what attracts members of the opposite sex to one another. All evidence continues to indicate that at the heart of it animalistic impulses and influences dictate who we will be attracted to. Doesn't it piss you off that our lives are no more complex than this? Everyone is looking for the mate, hunter, gatherer, etc. who can best defend their herd from threats while adequately providing for the offspring. I feel cheated, I'm starting to realize that there is little more to life than these base impulses. So I guess to find happiness I need to find the love of my life before I'm thirty and create some kids? Gag me now, please, there has got to be a better way.

oh well, the article makes for an interesting read at least.

read up...

drunk pharmacist

I hope that he didn't fill any birth control prescriptions that day!

update: according to this there are no laws preventing a pharamacist from being drunk while dispensing medications. and it says in that report that he was realllyy drunk, like he couldn't stand up very well. This reminds me of the drunk pilot story from PA. outrageous.

Police say pharmacist was drunk on job

July 18, 2005

SANDWICH, Mass. (AP) -- A pharmacist at a Cape Cod drug store was taken into protective custody after appearing to be drunk on the job.

Police went to Sedell's Pharmacy in Sandwich after receiving an anonymous complaint from a customer. Police said the pharmacist -- identified as only a 51-year-old man from Lakeville -- failed a Breathalyzer test and was taken into protective custody at the Sandwich police station.

The man was not arrested or charged with any crime. But a person who answered the phone at Sedell's told The Cape Cod Times that the pharmacist no longer has a job there. The store is also double-checking all prescriptions filled by the pharmacist yesterday to make sure they were done correctly.

© Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Idiots light ass on fire, hilarity ensues.

Why were they trying to burn this guy's ass hair in the first place? One useful bit of information in this; the emergency number in north wales is 999.

Drunk prank ended with bum on fire

Jul 19 2005

By Derek Bellis, Daily Post

A DRUNKEN prank left a North Wales man with severe burns to his bum. Friends were attempting to singe hairs from Eiddon James' buttocks when his bottom burst into flames. They had earlier tried to shave his head, magistrates were told. The terrified friends put out the blaze almost instantly, but Mr James was left injured.

The 20-year-old was yesterday awarded £700 compensation by Llandudno magistrates, who heard he ended up in a specialist burns unit at Whiston Hospital, Merseyside. Thomas McLeod, 19, unemployed, of Inner Shield Road, Craigend, Glasgow, was ordered to pay the compensation and carry out 140 hours of community punishment.

He denied assault causing actual bodily harm but was found guilty. Court chairwoman Daphne Swale said: "The impact on the victim must have been terrifying." Magistrates at Llandudno heard Mr James received second degree burns after the prank, in a house at Dwygyfylchi last October. McLeod said Mr James passed out on the bathroom floor and laughing pals tried to shave his head. He said in evidence: "They went down and were trying to shave the hairs on his bottom. Nothing was happening. That's when I went in my pocket to get the lighter. I was going to singe the hairs and it went up in flames. "It lit really quick and everyone got a fright. It was supposed to be a prank. It went all wrong."

The teenager said Mr James' rear was alight for a couple of seconds, and the youths dialled 999 for help from paramedics. McLeod told prosecutor Gareth Parry that he was very drunk. Brian Cunningham, defending, suggested two friends applied a lotion on Mr James's rear without McLeod's knowledge which caused the flames. There was no evidence the injuries were caused intentionally, he added.

"There's no-one more sorry than Mr McLeod for what happened on the day. He's lost his best friend." The magistrates accepted the teenager knew nothing about any substance applied to the skin.

omg.. what a horrible thing to laugh at!

Maybe he's not dead, it's possible that he's just sleeping. Oh look, you have gone and stunned him now. Was the birds name? I bet it was petey, and the dead parrot was sold to a blind kid in a wheelchair. yeah that's it.

18 July 2005
PARROT KILLER JAILED

A JUDGE jailed a man for decapitating his pet parrot today and branded him "the Ozzy Osbourne of Wolverhampton".

Paul Pugh twisted the head off his Senegal parrot, named Baby, during a drunken argument with his wife.

The 29-year-old said he "deserved to die" for carrying out the sickening act.

Pugh, from Wolverhampton, was jailed for five-and-a-half months and banned from keeping animals for the rest of his life. He had pleaded guilty last month to killing his pet parrot.

District Judge Shamim Qureshi said: "The parrot had no chance of fleeing.

"You proceeded to kill the bird in front of your wife and child and it was a disgusting incident for anyone to have to witness.

"This has all the hallmarks of pop stars on stage. You are what might be described as the Ozzy Osbourne of Wolverhampton for the way you have treated this bird."

Possible AIDS vaccine?

Some interesting developments.

Italian experts claim first victory in AIDS vaccine testing
DPA

Rome, July 18 (DPA) Scientists in Italy are planning to launch large-scale human testing of an AIDS vaccine after initial results have shown that it is safe, well tolerated and capable of stimulating a patient's immune system.

Barbara Ensoli of the Istituto Superiore Di Sanita (ISS) said she was in talks with both public and private investors to find the necessary funds needed to test her vaccine on hundreds of volunteers in Italy and Africa.

"We are looking for around 50 million euros ($60 million)," Ensoli said.

The vaccine has so far been successfully tested on 47 volunteers - 27 of whom were HIV positive - in four different clinics in Italy.

"Our data allows us to state that the vaccine is safe and well tolerated," Ensoli said in a statement. "In all cases we have found a response from the immune system, both among the healthy and the HIV-positive subjects."

Unlike other vaccines currently being tested worldwide, the Italian one focuses on a protein called TAT and which plays an essential role in the virus' replication.

Because it seeks to stops AIDS from developing rather than preventing infection, the vaccine applies to any strain of the virus.

Phase two of the testing, which will focus on the effectiveness of the vaccine, is likely to conclude by 2010.

DPA

For clarifications/queries, please contact IANS NEWS DESK at
2616-5778/8546, 2617-3369 or mail us at
support@eians.com

Gitmo commander fired for coddling detainees.

Guantanamo’s Forgotten Soldier
William Fisher, Arab News
Monday, 18, July, 2005

Many people will remember Janice Karpinsky, the US Army reserve brigadier general who was reprimanded and demoted for failing to stop the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

But few will remember Brig. Gen. Rick Baccus, who was sacked as commander of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (Gitmo), for coddling detainees.

Under Gen. Baccus’ watch, detainees were granted such privileges as distributing copies of the Qur’an, providing prisoners with “rights cards,” special meals, adjusting meal times for Ramadan and other Muslim holidays, and disciplining prison guards for screaming at inmates. Inmates were told they need only give their name, rank and number.

Many of these are the same practices the Pentagon now proudly hails as examples of its humane treatment of detainees.

Shortly after he was sacked, after only seven months in command, Gen. Baccus told the Guardian newspaper: “I was mislabeled as someone who coddled detainees. In fact, what we were doing was our mission professionally.”

After his dismissal, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put all of Gitmo, including military police, under the control of military intelligence. Pentagon officials insist that, in contrast to the CIA, military intelligence officers continued to operate under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the Geneva Conventions.

Gen. Baccus, who wears the Army Ranger and Special Forces tabs and the master parachutist and pathfinder badges, said he faced constant tension from military interrogators trying to extract information from inmates.

continue reading...

Elephants go nuts!

ha ha, I figured this would be a good way i which to start off the week. Oh and BTW, FUCK MONDAYS, christ this day sucks donkey gonads.

Elephants go on rampage in Sal village, four injured

NT News Service

Bicholim, July 17: Four persons from Sal village in Bicholim taluka were injured, while property worth thousands of rupees was destroyed after a herd of elephants entered the village and went on a rampage on Saturday.

The three pachyderms, two of them adult and a calf, strayed into the village in the wee hours of Saturday. One of them damaged a parked motorcycle. The villagers tried to chase them away by bursting fire crackers, however, the elephants came out from bushes and attacked Mr Balkrishna Raut who sustained serious injuries and has been admitted to primary health centre, Bicholim.

Police constable, Mr Ashok Pandharekar escaped with minor injuries after he was attacked by them. Bicholim MLA, Mr Rajesh Patnekar escaped unhurt while two journalists, Mr Ramnath Dessai and Mr Kashinath Mayekar, sustained minor injuries.

The Deputy Chief Minister, Dr Wilfred D’Souza today morning visited the village and took stock of the situation. He also listened to the grievances of the villagers and assured them that the government will take necessary steps to prevent occurrence of such an incident. Wild elephants have been straying in Pirna, Revoda, Nanoda, Advalpal and Sal villages for the last two months.

Dr D’Souza also inquired about the incident from the forest officer, Mr V R Korgaonkar who stated that wild elephants can be driven out from villages with the co-operation of villagers, as the government does not have any special machinery or arrangement for the same.

The deputy chief minister said that the demand for compensation for the loss of property incurred in the incident will be considered.

Tivim MLA, Mr Sadanand Tanawade and MGP president, Mr Pandurang Raut also visited the village to take stock of the damage.

Our Staff Reporter adds:

The department of forests has kept a team ready for bringing down Kunki elephants from Shimoga, Karnataka to Goa for leading the three wild elephants out of the state.

The state chief conservator of forests is presently awaiting a message from his counterpart in Karnataka and after receiving the green signal will dispatch the team to Shimoga. The state is constantly in contact with the Karnataka government in this respect.

Kunki elephants are trained domesticated animals which are used for patrolling forests, taking tourists around a place, loading and unloading goods, pushing wagons of the train and capturing as well as guiding wild animals including elephants.

The nearest place to supply Kunki elephants to Goa is Shimoga village in Karnataka, which has a camp of at least 30 domesticated elephants.

exploring the posibilities, ponder with me.

ok, there was a short note about this new technology in today's Post Express and it set me to thinking = You could make a film specifically designed to be displayed on one of these new TV's that features parallel alternate endings, simply modify plot important visual clues, characters expressions, veiled intentions, etc... So that if you were viewing from the right or left side you would come away with a different interpretation of the films outcome. There could even be actors playing evil and good through just their facial expressions and on screen actions, the audio stream wouldn't have to be different at all. of course if you were sitting dead center I guess you would be hopelessly lost. I think it could be a pretty neat experiment, using new technology to push the limits of cinema audience interaction. I'm sure it would take some experimentation to figure out how to make it work as I have envisioned, or maybe it's not possible, I'm trying to find a deeper technical explanation then the press release from Sharp that seems to be the core of these news stories.

Friday 15th July 2005
Sharp puts LCDs into perspective with simultaneous dual displays
1:30PM

No smoke but a few mirrors. Sharp has been showing off its new LCD technology and uses mirrors to demonstrate the clever things that can now be done with viewing angles.

As well as a monitor that can switch its viewing angle from wide to narrow - to ensure the private display of information - the Japanese electronics giant has also developed a screen that can display one thing when viewed from the right and another when viewed from the left.

The new LCD (pictured top), when used for television, could certainly solve living room disputes such as whether to watch an investigative documentary on third world gender politics on BBC2 or the latest Coronation Street Omnibus on ITV1. Both will be possible as long as the viewers sit well apart (the mirror shows the image the viewer on the left would see).

Sound is still a problem of course, but no doubt the boffins are working on that as we write... More seriously, possible uses of the LCD include the display of a TV broadcast on the right screen, while displaying an Internet browser, or other application, on the left screen. Another option mooted by Sharp is an 'in-vehicle display' where the driver may view a map but the passenger views a DVD movie. The possibilities are endless. Almost.

According to Sharp, the system works by 'superimposing a parallax barrier on a TFT LCD to cause the light from the backlight to separate into right and left directions'. This makes possible a display in which the view differs depending on the angle at which the screen is viewed.

Moving on, possible uses for the anti-snooping, switchable-angle LCD (pictured below) include notebooks that preserve the privacy of user info when travelling on trains and planes and such like. Another use may be in ATM-like machines, which will employ the narrow angle when a customer is entering their personal details, and will use the wide angle for general advertising when the terminal is not in use.

It works by overlaying a switching liquid crystal material on an ordinary TFT LCD, which prevents light from going out to the left or right, thus turning a wide viewing angle to a narrow viewing angle.

Both LCDs are about to go into mass production.

SED's to take on plasma, LCD's.

When I first saw this article I was actually looking for something else that I saw breifly mentioned in today's Post Express, which if I manage to find I will post later. Sounds like a promising new technology if it makes it to market.

TV Screens Face A Dazzling New Rival
SED displays rival plasma and LCDs, but mass production may be a problem

In the TV industry, no debate is better rehearsed than the squabble over the relative merits of plasma and liquid-crystal displays. Both are flat, but plasma proponents tell you their technology is better for larger TVs, while LCD lovers say their screens offer higher-resolution and lower power consumption.

The debaters may have to come up with a new set of arguments. By yearend, SED Inc., a joint venture between Canon Inc. (CAJ ) and Toshiba Corp. (TOSBF), will begin producing screens for a new kind of flat television. The companies say the technology -- called surface-conduction electron-emitter display, or SED for short -- offers better images than rival systems while consuming one-third the power used by plasma and about half that of LCDs. "We believe the partnership will be a big success," says Canon President Fujio Mitarai.

To prove it, Canon trots out a 36-inch prototype at its Hiratsuka plant near Tokyo. Dark colors appear richer than those on LCDs, while letters crossing the screen are far clearer than with plasma displays. The only place where SED appears less crisp than rivals is in brightly lit rooms -- the kind you might find at an electronics store. "In the living room, I don't think there will be a big difference," says Shunichi Uzawa, president of SED Inc.

Continue reading...

GTA: San Andreas released for the PC

HOLY SHIT. I don't know exactly how I managed to miss this one, but Grand Theft Auto San Andreas has been released for the pc. I remember reading it wouldn't be ready until October, but I guess they were able to ship it earlier, I'm going straight to bestbuy tonite after work to get the game. This means that sometime soon the multi player mod will drop and then let the good times roll, developers have allready started working on it. check it out!

http://www.mtasa.com - link to mod dev site.

John fined for bareback ride.

wtf. is prostitution legal in NZ?

Condom conviction
July 15, 2005

A New Zealand man has been fined for risking a prostitute's life by taking off his condom. It is the first case of its kind under a new unsafe-sex law, The Press in Christchurch reports.

Daniel James Morgan, 48, pleaded guilty and was fined $NZ530 ($480), including court costs. Outside court the prostitute applauded the first conviction under the Prostitution Reform Act, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported.

She said she had to wait another six weeks before knowing if she had been exposed to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. "It feels like a death sentence," she said.

Breast news story ever!!

Must be bad news for local beauty pageants...

Jul 13, 8:24 AM (ET)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Armed bandits in Brazil robbed a vehicle carrying more than 400 breast implants, officials said on Tuesday.

"It happened last week, but we only learned about it recently as our clients started complaining. It is the hottest period of the year in terms of implant sales," said Margaret Figueiredo, director of silicone implant manufacturer Silimed.

A spokesman for the state Postal Service confirmed that assailants, apparently men, robbed the postal van with implants on Thursday night in Rio de Janeiro. Each Silimed breast implant costs nearly $400.

The popularity of Brazil's plastic surgery pioneer and trendsetter Ivo Pitanguy, whose clients include celebrities like Sophia Loren, has made the tropical country one of the leading international nip and tuck venues.

Figueiredo explained demand is the highest in July, during the southern hemisphere winter, as women schedule surgery during the winter school holidays, which precede the beach season.

Figueiredo said the implants, each bearing an individual number, could now only be sold for clandestine surgeries. Horrific stories abound in Brazil about the illegal operations that can cause gangrene and death.

Shuttle not safe.

The shuttle is going to blow up once its finally launched, that creaky craft is what, 20+ years old?? Nasa better start cooking on that space plane, like it should have been entering production just as the last shuttle flight happens, but that's not the case, as there is no new craft in the pipeline to replace the shuttles. How did Nasa become so flawed. I blame Sean O'Keefe, man that guy was a fuckin' idiot. Newspapers and broadcast media outlets should start preparing their 'shuttle disaster' stories now, so that they are prepared once this flying coffin blows up.

Technical fault forces shuttle launch cancellation
13/07/2005 - 18:54:34

A faulty fuel-tank sensor forced Nasa to call off today’s launch of Discovery, which would have been the first shuttle flight since the Columbia disaster two-and-a-half years ago.

The space agency did not immediately set a new launch date.

The decision came with less than two-and-a-half hours left in the countdown.

Up until then, thunderstorms appeared to be the only obstacle to an on-time lift-off.

Launch control said it would take some time to figure out the problem.

The problem was with one of the four engine cut-off sensors, which are responsible for making sure the spacecraft’s engines shut down at the proper point during the ascent.

Nasa said it appeared that the sensor was showing a low fuel level, even though the tank was full.

The sensors “for some reason did not behave today and so we are going to have to scrub this launch attempt,” launch director Mike Leinbach told the launch team.

“I appreciate all we have been through together, but this one is not going to result in a launch attempt today.”

So i got hit by a car

Out skating on Sunday night I went to cross the street on my skateboard while riding down a decent hill. I checked the traffic coming from the road behind me and saw that it was clear, so I ollied off the curb and made for the sidewalk on the other side of the road. Unfortunately this particular intersection accepts incoming traffic from an adjoining cross-street, Arkansas Ave. I got enough of a glimpse of the oncoming car to brace for impact and kind of get my legs out of the way of the cars bumper, the force of the impact sent me hurtling onto the cars hood with incredible force, I estimate the cars speed at least was 15-20mph. I jumped back up, surprisingly I didn't loose my glasses during all of this, my board went sailing across the road. Immediately I knew something was wrong with my left shoulder, cause it wouldn't move and was generating intense pain. It was dislocated, out of it's socket, omg it hurt. I hadn't ever dislocated a shoulder before so this was a new experience for me. Luckily a bystander knew how to put it back into its place and as soon as it fit back together the pain went away, I was like, "hey that did it, ALL BETTER". I retrieved my skateboard and told the VERY FREAKED OUT driver of the Honda Accord that struck me that I was ok and didn't need an ambulance. He didn't get out of his car but he didn't leave the scene either, I think he was afraid of being sued or something, or that a cop would show up. Now it's Wednesday and my bruises are starting to change color and I'm almost out of Aleve. I'll be back on my board next week!

Free food from Chick-fil-A!

Free food from Chick-fil-A on July 15th, a free combo meal in fact. The only catch is that you have to come intto the store dressed in a cow costume to claim your food.

check it out...

I'm gambling and can't stop!!

You know casinos are going to jump all over this opportunity and put this into the water supply at Bailey's, Mandalay Bay, Harrah's, etc.. This is actually really irresponsible of this drug company to put that out there knowing that this drug may invoke compulsive behavior. good luck with the class action suit.

Study Links Parkinson's Drug to Gambling

Jul 12, 7:03 AM (ET)

By LINDSEY TANNER

CHICAGO (AP) - Joe Neglia was a retired government intelligence worker with Parkinson's disease when he suddenly developed what he calls a gambling habit from hell. After losing thousands of dollars playing slot machines near his California home several times a day for nearly two years, Neglia stumbled across an Internet report linking a popular Parkinson's drug he used with compulsive gambling.

"I thought, 'Oh my God, this must be it,'" he said. Three days after stopping the drug, Mirapex, "all desire to gamble just went away completely. I felt like I had my brain back."

A Mayo Clinic study published Monday in July's Archives of Neurology describes 11 other Parkinson's patients who developed the unusual problem while taking Mirapex or similar drugs between 2002 and 2004. Doctors have since identified 14 additional Mayo patients with the problem, said lead author Dr. M. Leann Dodd, a Mayo psychiatrist.

"It's certainly enough for us to be cautious as we are using it," Dodd said. "We wouldn't want them to have some kind of financial ruin or difficulties that could be prevented."

Dr. Leo Verhagen, a Parkinson's specialist at Chicago's Rush University Medical Center who was not involved in the study, says he and some colleagues all have a few patients who developed compulsive gambling while taking Mirapex, a drug that relieves tremors and stiffness. The behavior usually disappears when the drug dose is lowered, Verhagen said. He praised the Mayo article for raising awareness for doctors and patients.

Neglia, 54, now living in Millersville, Md., was not treated at Mayo or involved in the study. He said the problem is underreported "because of the embarrassment factor" and is one of several patients suing manufacturer Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., accusing the company of failing to adequately warn patients about the potential side effects.

California attorney Daniel Kodam, who filed the lawsuit last year, said he's spoken with more than 200 Mirapex patients who developed compulsive behaviors, including excessive gambling, sex and shopping. He is seeking to have the complaint certified as a nationwide class-action lawsuit. A similar suit has been filed in Canada, Kodam said.

Neglia said he has contacted the Food and Drug Administration but that the agency has failed to act on numerous adverse reaction reports about Mirapex. An FDA spokeswoman said the agency is examining the reports to determine if there's any connection to the drug but declined to say how many it has received.

Katherine King O'Connor, a spokeswoman for the Ridgefield, Conn.-based Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, said there's no scientific evidence that Mirapex causes the problem. Still, the company revised Mirapex's package insert earlier this year to include compulsive behavior among potential side effects after receiving "rare" reports - all after the drug was approved for U.S. use in 1997, O'Connor said.

Mirapex was among top-selling Parkinson's drugs last year, with more than $200 million in U.S. sales, according to IMS Health, a pharmaceutical information and consulting firm.

Mirapex, or pramipexole, reduces tremors and the slow, stiff movements that are a hallmark of Parkinson's disease. It belongs to a class of drugs that mimic the effects of dopamine, a brain chemical that controls movement and is deficient in Parkinson's disease.

Mirapex targets dopamine receptors in a brain region associated with emotions that include pleasure and reward-seeking behavior, Dodd said. It can also cause extreme sudden sleepiness.

It is sometimes used alone or with the mainstay Parkinson's drug, levodopa.

Though a few of the Mayo patients took related drugs, Dodd said most used Mirapex. They included a 68-year-old man who lost more than $200,000 at casinos over six months and a 41-year-old computer programmer who became "consumed" with Internet gambling, losing $5,000 within a few months.

Dodd said Mayo doctors now ask patients using the drugs if they have suddenly taken up gambling. Affected patients are usually switched to different drugs or doses, and the result is often dramatic, "like a light switch being turned off when they stopped the drug," she said.

---

On the Net:

Archives of Neurology: http://www.archneurol.com

crazzieeee cat lady

Someone on another board brought up a good point, there's no crazy dog people that make the news, are there? You don't hear about 300 dogs, half of them being dead, crammed into a 1,000 square foot house. that's odd.

Elderly woman in U.S. hoards more than 300 cats

Jul 12, 10:37 AM (ET)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - About 300 cats, nearly a third of them dead, were removed from an elderly woman's Virginia home after neighbors complained of a stench coming from the house, police said on Tuesday.

The house, less than a mile from late President George Washington's historic Mount Vernon estate, looked neat from the outside with manicured lawns and bright flowers, but inside it was overflowing with wild cats, feces and urine.

"Cats were coming out of the cabinets and drawers and were inside the walls. There were hundreds of them," Fairfax County Police officer Richard Henry told Reuters.

He said animal control officers removed 273 cats -- 86 of them dead -- over the weekend and slapped a condemnation order on the door of the house. The woman, her husband and daughter were told to leave.

Later on, Henry said, the woman returned and attempted to smuggle an additional 30 cats from the house. These animals were confiscated, bringing the total to more than 300.

Ruth Knueven, 82, was charged with failing to care for her animals and of improperly disposing of them. Dozens of dead cats were found in plastic bins around the house.

Most of the cats were inbred and sick and were unfit for adoption, said Henry. "These were feral cats who were given free range of the house and almost all of them will, unfortunately, have to be put down," he said.

Two weeks earlier, a 58-year-old woman in nearby Falls Church, Virginia, had her home condemned after neighbors complained of an overpowering stench coming from the property. She had hoarded 88 cats and 29 of them were dead.

.........and he did it!

now skateboarding is going to take off in china, ironic cause that's where all the crap boards are made, buy Canadian maple people.

Skateboarder jumps China's Great Wall

Jul 11, 9:11 AM (ET)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California skateboarder Danny Way jumped over a 61-foot (18.6-meter) gap in the Great Wall of China, becoming the first person to clear the ancient fortification without motorized aid, his sponsor said.

Way then went on to jump the wall three more times on Saturday, taking off from a specially built ramp at the nearly 3,000-year-old Ju Yong Guan Gate, and adding in 360-degree spins as spectators looked on.

"I was aware of the dangers and my heart was pumping in my chest the whole time, but I managed to pull it off with the help of my team, and I'm honored to have my visions embraced by the people of China," Way said in a statement.

Way, of Carlsbad, California, was sponsored by Quiksilver Inc., which makes skateboard apparel.

Others have tried to jump the Great Wall before. In 2002, Wang Jiaxiong, a mountain biker, fractured his skull and died after overshooting his planned landing area. Way was the first person to try the jump on a skateboard.

Way already holds the world records for distance jumped by skateboard and for height at 79 feet and 23.5 feet, respectively.

Update from Pamplona

Wow, just wow.

Four gored in brutal bull run

Jul 11, 9:14 AM (ET)

PAMPLONA, Spain (Reuters) - Four people, including an on-duty policeman, were gored by bulls on the fifth day of the bull-running festival in the northern Spanish city of Pamplona Monday, officials said.

Every morning from July 7 to 14 six half-tonbulls are released into Pamplona's historic center where thousands of thrill-seekers, many from the United States and Australia, pack the cobbled streets to run with them.

Monday's run was the most violent this year as a bull separated from the herd and charged at several members of the crowd.

One man was trapped between a wall and bull's horns for several seconds as fellow runners hit the huge beast and tried to pull him off by his tail.

The man finally escaped and the bull carried on its way through the adrenalin-pumped crowd to the bull ring where it tossed a Colombian runner, Anibal Agudero, 32, and ripped a 14 cm (5-1/2 inch) gash in his thigh.

State radio said a 41-year-old police sergeant was gored as he tried to warn the crowd that the last bull had turned back and was heading down the course the wrong way.

Spaniards Xavier Salillas and Jesus Angel Merino were also gored in the thigh, a note on the festival's Web site said.

Ernest Hemingway's 1920s novel "The Sun also Rises" made the fiesta famous and hundreds of Americans and Australians come each year.

Fifteen people have died running with the bulls in Pamplona since 1910, most from being gored.

No one has been gored to death this year but two people died at the weekend when they fell from the city walls.

The bodies of a 24-year-old American man from Louisiana, whose name was given as Joseph R.L., and a Spanish woman, were found in the river, a government spokesman said.

Seven more people were badly hurt in the stampede of bulls through the streets Monday, officials said.

One man was grazed by a bull's horn and 24-year-old Christopher Seaton from Florida, broke his wrist. The other injuries included skull trauma and fractures, the note said.

It took more than five minutes to herd all the bulls down the 825 meter (900 yard) route into the bullring -- where they face a matador's cape and sword in the evening -- instead of the usual two or three minutes.

Wifi hippies unite!!!!

Ok, this is cool and all, I especially appreciate the addition of the solar panels, but there has to be a better way. $599 plus the cost of the cell modem service, ouch. Why not plug the cell modem into a laptop then connect an Ethernet cable to a plain vanilla 802.11b access point and then use internet connection sharing to allow folks to connect to the net? Seems to me this would be a better solution than this seven hundred dollar ($699.00 without a service agreement) wonder box. I guess the addition of the laptop and AP would draw on the battery more than the dedicated device (wonder box) but you could use the cost savings to purchase a larger, more powerful battery or solar panel. Eh, go fish.

Be Your Own Hotspot
Turn a backpack into a portable, solar-powered Wi-Fi hotspot, and share a high-speed connection anywhere

By Mike Outmesguine

I love the fact that more and more devices are sporting built-in Wi-Fi—the Sony PSP, smartphones, even Kodak’s EasyShare-One digital camera. The lone hitch: Wi-Fi is useless without a hotspot. Sure, thousands of spots are available, but few are free, and coverage is far from ubiquitous. What if you could marry the short-range power of Wi-Fi with the huge coverage areas of high-speed cellular services such as EV-DO to create a portable hotspot? You could use any Wi-Fi-enabled gadget anywhere you’ve got a cell signal. Play multiplayer games with friends in the park, or blog an event in real-time. Since EV-DO works at freeway speeds, you could even give Internet access to an entire road-trip caravan.

Those are exactly the kinds of things you can do with the backpack below. Its secret ingredient: the Junxion Box. Plug a cellular-network card into the book-size open-source-based device, and voilà—instant Wi-Fi hotspot, with speeds averaging around 700 kilobits per second. To power the box, I wired it to a 1.2-amp-hour battery and dropped both into the Voltaic Systems backpack, which has a built-in solar charger. Now I can surf for as long as three hours without being tethered to anything but a cell signal. The project isn’t cheap, but prices for the components and service are sure to come down in the next year or so. In the meantime, you can find me in the hills around Southern California. I’ll be the one surrounded by PSP-packing hikers.

take a look for youself...
link to wonder box...

Fly High in P.A.!!

omg, it was legal to fly an airplane while drunk in Pennsylvania. Too funny.

Rendell signs bill that would outlaw flying while drunk

Associated Press

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Pilots who are too drunk to drive legally can be prosecuted for trying to fly while intoxicated under a bill signed by Gov. Ed Rendell.

Violators could be fined $1,000 to $5,000 and go to prison for up to three days under the measure, which Rendell signed Tuesday. If an accident happens while a member of the flight crew is deemed to have been under the influence, the penalty would rise to a fine of $5,000 to $10,000 and imprisonment of at least 30 days.

The proposal was originally part of a mass-transit stopgap funding bill that Rendell vetoed in December. Rep. Katharine Watson, R-Montgomery, sought to revive it this year.

Watson introduced the legislation last year after a pilot was arrested for flying loops around Philadelphia International Airport and a nuclear power plant in Limerick. Montgomery County prosecutors said the pilot had a blood-alcohol level of 0.15 percent.

But they discovered that Pennsylvania did not have a law making it a crime for a pilot to fly while intoxicated. A district justice upheld charges of risking a catastrophe and reckless endangerment, but threw out a count of driving under the influence.

Gas prices drive theft, drive-offs, etc..

This type of shit is going to get much worse as gas prices soar past $3 a gallon and beyond. This is merely the beginning of the crazy shit. Most of the gas stations around my neighborhood (ghetto ass hood) require an upfront payment before pumping gas can begin.

Theft of gas rises as price goes up

By William M. Welch, USA TODAY
Thefts of fuel from service stations are rising with the price of gasoline, and states are cracking down with stiffer penalties for pump-and-run pirates.

As the average price of a gallon of regular gas, $2.21, stands near record levels this holiday weekend, gas station owners say thefts are soaring. In response, at least 10 states have stiffened penalties this year or are considering it.

"Our drive-offs are up probably 100%" this year, says Jeff Miller of Norfolk, Va., president of a company that operates 88 gas stations and convenience stores selling gas. "We're on track to lose about a quarter of a million dollars" in 2005.

Gas retailers lost $234 million to theft in 2004, more than double the amount in 2003, the National Association of Convenience Stores reports. The annual loss averaged $2,141 per store.

Catching drive-away thieves is difficult, even in states that allow judges to suspend drivers' licenses on top of criminal penalties. "It's a huge problem," says Jeff Lenard, an association spokesman. "It's something you see when the prices increase."

Lenard notes another alarming trend: theft of fuel by the tank load. In Alabama, a man was arrested when his specially designed truck blew up while he was pumping gas into it from an underground storage tank. In Miami, 55 have been arrested in a theft ring that siphoned fuel from tanks.

At least 28 states have toughened penalties so judges can yank licenses for gas-and-dash drivers, starting with Georgia in 1998.

"When you've got 10 states ... looking at this issue, it's pretty clear it's in response to something. It's rising prices," says Christie Rewey of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Requiring a cash or credit card payment before pumping would prevent gas theft, but Lenard says some retailers oppose that because it discourages drivers from going inside to buy more profitable items.

Cities are looking at requiring prepayment to reduce the time law officers spend on the crime.

Oklahoma state Rep. Paul Roan sponsored a bill to do that but saw it changed to a stiffer penalty. Roan, 62, a former Oklahoma state trooper, says cops don't like gas-and-dash calls. "You've got more things to do than be a bill collector for a service station," he says.

the tradition continues

In case you didn't know, I didn't until I saw this, the bull run is going on right now. One of these years I want to go there and do this, I hear it's one hell of a party.

Hundreds dodge gorings in packed bull run

Jul 8, 11:25 AM (ET)

By Emma Ross-Thomas

PAMPLONA, Spain (Reuters) - Hundreds of thrill seekers from around the world raced through the streets ahead of six half-tonbulls Friday but all avoided gorings in the second day of Pamplona's running of the bulls.

A 37-year-old man from this northern Spanish city, Josetxo Espada, was taken to hospital with a head injury but was then discharged, a hospital spokesman said. Bulls trod on two others and another 22 were slightly injured, the Red Cross said.

Bull running, part of the week-long San Fermin fiesta, has killed 15 people since 1910, the last two years ago. Each morning six bulls are set loose on a 825-meter (2,700-foot) course through the cobbled streets of the northern Spanish city where thrill seekers run with the half-ton animals to the bull ring.

While most of the adrenalin-pumped runners avoid the huge beasts, the experts try to get in front of the bulls' horns.

Jose Manuel Garcia, a 35-year-old Spaniard, said he was more anxious about not getting close than about being pierced by a horn. "You endure the fear, get the people out of the way, and get the bull," he said.

Runners often tumble, sometimes into heaps, where they get trampled by each other and by the bulls.

"People are falling, you see people really scared, you see the sheer terror and you just run," Neil Warner, a 31-year-old from Watford, Britain, said.

The centuries-old fiesta became known internationally after Ernest Hemingway's 1920s novel of thwarted love and heavy drinking "The Sun Also Rises." The party is particularly popular with Americans, Australians and Britons.

Rick Musica, from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, attends every year to meet a group of Americans, who have been coming for 30 years.

"Every day I envision the perfect run and one of these days it's going to happen ... My goal is to be part of the herd," the 39-year old flight attendant said.

Fans of former American basketball star Dennis Rodman shouted with delight as the giant athlete appeared on the course Friday, for a second year.

Women were forbidden from running for decades but this year several ran and Thursday a young Canadian woman was trampled.

But fellow Canadian woman Paige Campbell was unruffled.

"I was nervous and excited but I wasn't terrified. I felt I'd thought it out well," the 32-year-old from Edmonton, said.

Camera phones define news coverage of London attacks

Much in the way the coverage of 9/11 was shaped by the emergence of the 24 hour news channel, now the news coverage following the terrorist attacks in London are being defined largely by camera phone usage. I wonder what might have been different had these technologies been as widely proliferated back in 01? I heard a new term for the first time in this article, moblogs, mobile phone blogs. that's hot.

Mobiles capture blast aftermath
By Jo Twist
BBC News website technology reporter

The bus blast

Amateur footage from mobile phones provided some of the more immediate and vivid images of the bomb attacks in London.

Mobile video footage shot by commuters from inside London Underground carriages appeared quickly on global news networks and across the net.

As video mobiles grow more popular in Europe, they are letting people capture the first scenes of chaos before TV.

The attacks on the London Underground and a double-decker bus killed more than 50 and left 700 injured.

Flood of photos

Hundreds of mobile photos and several mobile videos have surfaced documenting the moments after the four blasts.

Blogs, photo sharing websites, online news sites, and TV news used their images in the minutes and hours immediately following the attacks.

Net surge strains news sites
Many people commenting on online photo sharing community site Flickr said it was their first port of call to get news and images.

Within minutes and hours, news of explosions filtered through other blog sites and many moblogs - blogs which use mobile phone photos - collected the images.

The BBC News and Sky News websites, among others, immediately responded and called for readers to send in their images, footage and accounts of the events.

Around 1,000 photos and 20 pieces of amateur video were sent in to the BBC News website, with many being featured on the site.

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Interview w/ Danny Way

Preparing to jump the great wall of China on a wooden toy is no joke. A mountain biker died trying a similar stunt in 2002. I wish this was going to be televised.

Skateboarder Way to try great leap in China
USA TODAY's Sal Ruibal talks strategy with U.S. skateboarder Danny Way, who will attempt a jump Saturday across the Great Wall of China at the Juyongguan Gate near Beijing.

Q:What are the human aspects of making this jump, such as your body position at the start, in the air and on the landing?

A: Well, I think the human aspects of making this jump would be to make it over The Wall in one piece and stay alive. You have to maintain your balance in the air, and obviously your weight has to be correct when you land. Because if it's off, you'll fall forward or backward or left or right.

It's essential that when you're flying through the air you maintain your balance and stay square so that you can actually land the jump with everything positioned correctly.

Q:How much force is created on landing, and how do you absorb that force while also maintaining forward motion?

A: There's a zone on the landing ramp I call the sweet spot. It's probably a 10-foot-long zone. If you land in the right area, it breaks your fall completely and you feel almost weightless. If you overshoot the landing, you drop further down. It's a longer drop, so the impact is a lot harder. If you come up short and you land a little bit on the knuckle — there's a little bit of transition on the top — it jars you. It doesn't allow you to move forward.

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Sleeping walking teen goes on adventure

ha ha, crazy. that reminds me of the Popeye cartoon from back in the day, Olive Oil sleep walks through a construction site, Bluto and Popeye try and save her all the while trading punches, in the end Popeye eats spinach and kicks Bluto's ass and rescues Olive. good times.

LONDON (Reuters) - A teenage sleepwalker was rescued after being found fast asleep 130 feet up on the arm of a crane, police said Wednesday.

Emergency services were called to a building site in London after a passer-by spotted the 15-year-old girl curled up on top of a concrete counterweight high above the ground.

The teen-ager, who has not been named, had climbed up the crane and walked across a narrow metal beam while fast asleep during the incident, which happened on June 25.

It is believed the teen-ager had walked out unnoticed from her home near the site in Dulwich, southeast London.

She was brought down in a hydraulic lift after a two-hour rescue operation.

"Police and London Fire Brigade attended and the woman was brought down from the crane at around 4 a.m. and taken to hospital for precautionary checks," a police spokeswoman said.

The girl was unharmed and later went home.

Cell phones and terrorism

They are right to shutdown cell service once an attack is first detected to be in progress, it's fairly easy to rig a cell phone to detonate a bomb, or trigger any other electric device for that matter, an old roommate in college did this to trigger a set of Christmas lights to switch on, it's a simple matter of wiring the speaker into whatever your trying to trigger. This seems to be a commonly used tactic by the enterprising young terrorist as it's easy, cheap and effective. I remember reading this was how that Madrid explosions were triggered as well.

London Attacks Roil Networks

Terrorist strikes on London’s transportation system led to communication breakdowns.
July 7, 2005

The coordinated terror attacks in London on Thursday set off a shutdown in the mobile phone network as officials in the United Kingdom decided to turn off the phone networks out of fear that terrorists would try to set off more bombs remotely using a cell phone.

Cell phone users also overwhelmed the networks trying to check with friends and loved ones to ask after their welfare. Internet connections were also spotty as many people swamped landline phones as well with their calls.

Vodafone, the U.K.’s largest network, released a statement on its web site, saying, “Understandably we are experiencing significant network congestion but we are working closely with the emergency services. In these circumstances, we would ask all of our customers in Central London to avoid making unnecessary or lengthy phone calls.”

keep reading...

Al Qaeda; a western invention

omg, they must hate america.

Does al-Qaeda exist?
Not in the way that we think, say some terrorism experts.
by Brendan O'Neill

'Al-Qaeda bombing foiled' says the front page of today's UK Sun, reporting the arrest yesterday of 24-year-old student Sajid Badat in Gloucester, England, on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activity. Other reports have referred to Badat as 'having links with al-Qaeda' and being a potential 'suicide bomber' (1).

Also this week, media reports claim that al-Qaeda may have developed 'car-bomb capability' in the USA, and that al-Qaeda has compiled a 'kidnappers' manual' and is plotting to snatch American troops from Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. Every day since the 9/11 attacks of 2001 there have been media reports about al-Qaeda - its leaders, members, capabilities, bank accounts, reach and threat. What is this al-Qaeda? Does such a group even exist?

Some terrorism experts doubt it. Adam Dolnik and Kimberly McCloud reckon it's time we 'defused the widespread image of al-Qaeda as a ubiquitous, super-organised terror network and call it as it is: a loose collection of groups and individuals that doesn't even refer to itself as al-Qaeda'. Dolnik and McCloud - who first started studying terrorism at the prestigious Monterey Institute of International Studies in California - claim it was Western officials who imposed the name 'al-Qaeda' on to disparate radical Islamic groups and who blew Osama bin Laden's power and reach 'out of proportion'. Both are concerned about the threat of terror, but argue that we should 'debunk the myth of al-Qaeda' (2).

keep reading...

Child dies while parents play WOW

As shallow and jaded as I have become over the last 3 years, I just can't bring myself to laugh outloud at this. I guess there is hope for me yet. It also dosen't seem compltely fair to blame the game for the death of this kid, the parents involved could easily have neglected the child in favor of some other hobby or vice. I'm sure they feel awful about it.

Infant Daughter Dies as Parents Play Online Game

A thoughtless couple in their 20s who left their four-month old daughter at home while they played Internet computer games at a nearby PC café have been booked by police after the child died.

According to Incheon Police Station on Tuesday, a 29-year-old man husband identified by his family name of Yu and his wife put their four-month daughter in the bedroom of their home and went to a neighborhood PC café at around 4:00 p.m. on May 24 to play the online game "World of Warcraft.

Time flew by as the couple lost themselves in the game, and when they returned home at 9:00 p.m., their daughter was lying on her stomach, dead of suffication.

The couple told police, "We were thinking of playing for just an hour or two and returning home like usual, but the game took longer that day."

Police said an investigation turned up that the couple, who wed last year, used to play "World of Warcraft" whenever they had time.

Police said, "It's unfortunate, because the tragedy could have been averted if the couple had just left their daughter with Yu's mother-in-law, who lived upstairs from them... We booked the pair on criminal charges, judging that when you consider the situation, they were responsible for their daughter's death."

Major U.S. online game producer Blizzard, which grew famous with the game "Starcraft", produced the game to which Yu and his wife were addicted, "World of Warcraft." The game allows multiple players to form teams to fight battles and enjoy various adventures.

(Lee Yong-su, hejsue@chosun.com)

The Saudi Facade

The world is rapidly running out of oil during a period of unrestrained groth in demand. I'm going to get a copy of the book mentioned in this article, although it will proably serve only to confirm my worst fears.

Even with a major oil field showing strain, the promises are flowing
by James Ridgeway

July 5th, 2005 12:05 PM

WASHINGTON, D.C. Three months ago, when gas prices hit $2 and oil was at more than $50 a barrel, the administration said relief would come because Saudi Arabia had agreed to increase short-term production, and would spend $50 billion to increase output over the next decade. Last week gas prices were climbing higher and oil hit $60 a barrel. Some predict it can go over $100, maybe as high as $200.

As for Saudi production, Matthew R. Simmons—one of the world's experts on the oil business and chair of Simmons & Co., a Houston investment bank specializing in petroleum—is the author of a new book, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, which suggests in the politest of terms that the Saudis are a bunch of liars: They either don't know their own reserves or, more likely, have phonied the books to make it appear as if they have more oil than they do. His assessment adds weight to the alarms set off by oil experts who warn that the world is running out of oil.

The response of Congress to these warnings lies in an energy bill that rewards the oil and gas companies, already enjoying windfall profits, with additional revenues in the form of billions of dollars in subsidies—$8 billion in the Senate version, $16 billion in the House—and forces liquefied natural gas terminals down the throats of coastal cities, which fear conflagrations if an LNG ship blows up on its own or becomes a terrorist target. Congress and federal agencies, meanwhile, push ahead with alternative energy in the form of nuclear power. There is the usual pittance for such things as solar, wind, and conservation, as there has been since the mid 1970s.

The symbol of international oil and the base of the Saudi oil industry is the Ghawar oil field, which runs for 174 miles under Saudi Arabia. Ghawar is the biggest oil field in the world, providing between 6 and 8 percent of total global production. Since it was first tapped, Ghawar has yielded an astounding 55 billion barrels of oil, at the current rate of 5 million barrels per day. Its output represents about two-thirds of total Saudi production.

Up to now politicians and oil publicists have regarded Ghawar as some kind of eternal bubbling spring. In fact, as Simmons points out, details of its workings are pretty much a state secret. In February 2004, Saudi Aramco officials for the first time publicly discussed data on the field at a workshop on oil at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. It was at this workshop that Simmons aired his own suspicions about the field. But Saudi officials reassured the group that Ghawar could keep on producing 5 million barrels a day, and if need be, yield 10 or 12 or even 15 million barrels a day. This increased production is probably what the Bush administration is referring to when it talks about Saudi Arabia increasing production to ease the worldwide oil shortage and bring prices down.

But as technical reports show, Ghawar is in trouble. The field is rent with fractures and faults, letting in unexpected amounts of water, which complicates production. Masses of tar were discovered, and that makes extraction more difficult. The authorities claim that problems will straighten out as they drill wells north to south along the long reservoir. But Saudi experts admit that as production moves south, the permeability and porosity of the rocks decrease. Taken together, these technical reports portray the oil field in real trouble, with production inevitably decreasing, in the end making the 5 million barrel a day figure unrealistically high. It is unlikely that Saudi Arabia's other oil fields could take up the slack; their output has declined over the years.

Possible new production in areas such as the depths of the Red Sea and land along the Iraqi border is considered dubious. "Unless some great series of exploration miracles occurs soon," writes Simmons, "the only certainty about Saudi Arabia's oil future is that once its five or six great oil fields go into steep decline, there is nothing remotely resembling them to take their place."

Sudanese army training children

12 year olds shouldn't be in basic training, can we not agree on this?

Sudan: Southern Forces Still Training Children

July 1, 2005
Posted to the web July 1, 2005

Nyal

Twelve-year old Riek Torgom, wearing an oversized army uniform and carrying a gun that appeared too heavy for him to lift, was among 50 child soldiers undergoing training at Majak military centre, western Upper Nile State in southern Sudan.

"I was recruited recently," Riek said in May. "I like nothing about the army. I only want to go to school, even if I am retained as a soldier."

Training alongside Riek was 14-year old Matiach Par.

"When our headman chose our family to offer a child to go for recruitment, I knew it was going to be me because I do not have another brother at home," he said. "I thought school and the army were the same. But if I could be allowed to go to school, I would."

He added: "The bad thing about the army is that there is nothing with which I can help my parents."

"We estimate that there are about 4,000 child soldiers remaining in the SPLM/A [Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement/Army]," Una McCauley, child protection officer with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Operation Lifeline Sudan, said.

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