NEWS THAT'S PAID ITS' DUES

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WEIRD, WONDROUS, WOBBLY STORIES, REPORTS, DISPATCHES

MAKES YOU WONDER WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON

YOUTUBE
"Hot Chick Stripper Pole Mishap. Funny."



Well, Quite Frankly, It's None Of Your Bloody Business. Move Along!

NY TIMES
"Radio Host Has Drug Company Ties"
Whores on NPR!

' An influential psychiatrist who was the host of the popular public radio program “The Infinite Mind” earned at least $1.3 million from 2000 to 2007 giving marketing lectures for drugmakers, income not mentioned on the program. The psychiatrist and radio host, Dr. Frederick K. Goodwin, is the latest in a series of doctors and researchers whose ties to drugmakers have been uncovered by Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. Dr. Goodwin, a former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, is the first news media figure to be investigated. Dr. Goodwin’s weekly radio programs have often touched on subjects important to the commercial interests of the companies for which he consults. In a program broadcast on Sept. 20, 2005, he warned that children with bipolar disorder who were left untreated could suffer brain damage, a controversial view. '

NPR
"Blue Mailboxes Disappearing"
Red hatboxes interstellar transport! Is that the correct response?

' When's the last time you sent an email or paid a bill online? Now how about the last time you sent a letter? This year, the U.S. Postal Service will deliver eight billion fewer letters than it did seven years ago. This sharp decline is why blue mailboxes are disappearing from America's postal landscape. National Postal Museum Historian Nancy Pope says when blue mailboxes disappear, Americans lose part of their heritage. "You're taking something away that is part of their memory, part of their history, part of their community" she says. "And whether they use it on a regular basis or don't, when something is gone that used to be there, there is a pang there, a nostalgia that just hits in automatically." Nostalgic or not, the postal service says in a time of economic distress and rapidly decreasing revenue, warm fuzzies can't trump the bottom line. '

YAHOO NEWS
"Astronauts tinker with urine-to-water machine"
Obvious typo.

' Inside the space station, astronauts spent a fourth day Sunday trying to get a urine processor working. The processor is part of the newly delivered $154 million system that converts urine, sweat and condensation into drinking water. Fincke and shuttle astronaut Donald Pettit tried to fix the problem by changing how a centrifuge in the urine processor is mounted, but the machine stopped running after 3 1/2 hours during a test run. During previous tests, the urine processor has worked for just two hours at a time before shutting down. A normal run is about four hours. "It looks like we made things better, but we're maybe not there yet," Fincke told Mission Control. Parts of the system that recycle sweat and condensation are working without problems. Endeavour undocks from the space station on Thanksgiving Day and returns to Earth on Saturday. '

YAHOO NEWS
"Solar panels on graves give power to Spanish town"
They eat the bodies and vomit in the graves. Recycling.

' Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a gritty, working-class town outside Barcelona, has placed a sea of solar panels atop mausoleums at its cemetery, transforming a place of perpetual rest into one buzzing with renewable energy. "The best tribute we can pay to our ancestors, whatever your religion may be, is to generate clean energy for new generations. That is our leitmotif," said Esteve Serret, director Conste-Live Energy, a Spanish company that runs the cemetery in Santa Coloma and also works in renewable energy. '

REUTERS
"Israel jails eight Jewish neo-Nazis"
Attacking Arabs? Hm, wonder where they got that idea?

' An Israeli court jailed eight Jewish teenagers on Sunday for carrying out neo-Nazi attacks in a case that sparked revulsion in a state that was a haven for Jews after the Holocaust. Tel Aviv District Court Judge Zvi Gurfinkel sentenced the teenagers, aged 16 to 19, to between one and seven years in prison for a "shocking and horrifying" year-long spree of attacks that targeted foreign workers, ultra-Orthodox Jews and homeless men. The court said the group also planned to attack Arabs. The youths videotaped and posted on the Internet some of their attacks. The charges against them included painting swastikas in a synagogue and planning a birthday party for Hitler, court documents showed. '

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
"Palestinian security gets a feminine touch"
In dealing with terror, etiquette is important.

' "Palestinian police surround the house of suspected militants and knock, demanding to be let in. Normally, they'd kick in the door if it didn't open immediately, but today they have the thing that every home is said to need: a woman's touch. As part of a new Palestinian Authority (PA) security initiative, this unit, like every Hebron unit that searches houses, has two female officers to bring a gentler side to long-stigmatized house raids. We talk to them gently," says Ms. Farraj, a lean, muscular woman who wears an Islamic head scarf that matches her camouflage suit of green and brown. "We address them with the same terminology you would use for your mother, your sister, or your aunt." Or, in the words of Capt. Mohammed Il-Jabari, who runs such raids several times a week: "As soon as we walk in, the women are in charge." By using female police officers on housing searches, "we have preserved our customs and morals," says General Safy. "Every time we arrest, we take some policewomen with us." '

AFP
"US officials flunk test of American history, economics, civics
I got a perfect score. When do I get my $700 billion prize?

' US elected officials scored abysmally on a test measuring their civic knowledge, with an average grade of just 44 percent, the group that organized the exam said Thursday. Ordinary citizens did not fare much better, scoring just 49 percent correct on the 33 exam questions compiled by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI). "It is disturbing enough that the general public failed ISI's civic literacy test, but when you consider the even more dismal scores of elected officials, you have to be concerned," said Josiah Bunting, chairman of the National Civic Literacy Board at ISI. "How can political leaders make informed decisions if they don't understand the American experience?" he added. '

REUTERS
"Parliament picks bomb hoaxer as speaker"
I'd be careful opening packages, if I were the President of Lithuania. And I'd dress warmly.

' Lithuania's newly elected parliament has chosen as its new speaker a popular television talent show host once convicted of placing a prank call about a bomb in a hotel. The speaker is first in line to lead the ex-Soviet state, which joined the European Union and NATO in 2004, if the president dies in office or is dismissed. '

REUTERS
"Maverick Thai general does the hand-grenade waltz"
I'm seeing a pattern here. Anyone else seeing a pattern?

' A maverick Thai general who has threatened to bomb anti-government protesters and drop snakes on them from helicopters has been reassigned as an aerobics teacher, the Bangkok Post said on Friday. Major-general Khattiya Sawasdipol, a Rambo-esque anti-communist fighter more commonly known as Seh Daeng, reacted with disappointment to his new role as a military instructor promoting public fitness at marketplaces. "It is ridiculous to send me, a warrior, to dance at markets," he said, before launching an attack on his boss, army chief Anupong Paochinda. "The army chief wants me to be a presenter leading aerobics dancers. I have prepared one dance. It's called the 'throwing-a-hand-grenade' dance," he said. His predictions of grenade attacks against People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protesters occupying Government House made headlines last month, especially when they turned out to be correct. One protester was killed and 23 wounded by a grenade blast on Thursday. Seh Daeng has denied any involvement. '

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