] Roy Horn, half of the Las Vegas duo Siegfried & Roy, was
] able to move his hands, feet, and give a "thumbs-up"
] signal Monday, hospital officials said, three days after
] being mauled by one of his tigers during a show.
]
] University Medical Center officials said 59-year-old Horn
] was still in critical condition.
]
] He suffered massive blood loss in the incident, the
] officials said, and also had a stroke after the mauling.
]
] The accident happened Friday night about halfway through
] Siegfried & Roy's show at the MGM Mirage Hotel and Casino
] on the Las Vegas strip.
]
] Denise Previti, who was watching the show as part of her
] honeymoon trip, said Horn introduced a 7-year-old white
] tiger named Montecore to the audience, and then let go of
] the animal's leash.
]
] The tiger started to head offstage, Previti told CNN's
] Anderson Cooper, and Horn tried to direct it back to
] center stage.
]
] "You could tell it didn't want to go, so he had the
] leash, he was trying to get it to sit and face the
] audience, and he had his arm out in front of him," she
] said.
]
] "The tiger bit his arm, [and] he's hitting the nose of
] [the] tiger with the microphone, trying to get it off,"
] she said. "After that it's kind of a blur, but it seemed
] like he almost sat down or leaned back gradually, and
] then the tiger bit his neck

it IS true - you can NEVER trust a "domesticated" wild cat. These guys have LIVED with these big cats for 30 years like they are house pets. If Siegfried and Roy cant tame them, they cannot be tamed!

CNN.com - Tiger tamer gives thumbs-up - Oct. 6, 2003

] This is a significant test for the entire community
] because if the community can't find a way to introduce
] new services while reaching a resolution on technical
] matters that might arise, then the Internet
] infrastructure will never improve. It's tantamount to
] saying that the Internet world is flat and therefore
] there is no need for further exploration.

Look asshole, if you were interested in reaching resolution on the technical matters that might arise, you would have proposed your change to the community rather then making a unilateral decision. You would have pre-announced a date for the cutover so that people would be prepared to make any changes that they needed to make beforehand. The only people who are buying into your bullshit are people who own stock in your company and have a vested interest in beleiving in you. The rest of us are simply more and more sure that we are never going to do business with you for any reason. The rest of us aren't your shareholders. We're your customers. And you can rest assured that we are quite capable of continuing to deploy innovative services on the Internet without you.

Tell me why I should do business with a company that was not just forced to settle in a fraudulent marketing scheme, but also made significant, unannounced changes in a critical infrastructure service in violation of your contract without prior notification? Your business is about TRUST, and I'd be CRAZY to TRUST you after pulling a stunt like this!

Innovation and the Internet | Verisign Speaks to the technical community

] ATLANTA - Atlanta Thrashers forward Dan Snyder died
] Sunday night, six days after he was involved in a
] horrific car crash with teammate Dany Heatley.
]
] Snyder of Elmira, Ont., died at Grady Hospital from
] massive brain injuries without ever regaining
] consciousness, the team said.
]
] Police said Heatley was driving his Ferrari at about 130
] kmh on a narrow two-lane road last Monday night when he
] lost control, spun off the road and smashed into a brick
] and wrought iron fence.
]
] The car split in half. The players were thrown into the
] road.
]
] Heatley already was facing several charges, including a
] felony.

TheStar.com - Dan Snyder dies in hospital

Museum security guards stood by nervously Thursday as curators -- joking they hoped the gem's storied curse wouldn't rub off -- allowed a reporter and photographer to hold the diamond briefly after it was removed from its case for scientific study.

What does it feel like to hold such a priceless gem, one of the most famed in the world?

The first thought that comes to mind is "Wow!"

It's like holding a bit of ancient India, the French Revolution, Georgian England and Gilded Age America in one magnificent moment.
You cradle the 45.5-carat stone -- heavier than its translucence makes it appear -- turning it from side to side as the light flashes from its facets, knowing it's the hardest natural material yet fearful of dropping it.

Once part of the French crown jewels, the fabled gem is now the star of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. It normally resides in a special protective display case in a secure room.

For the testing it was taken to a museum laboratory, reachable down winding corridors and through three locked doors. It was only the second time in 20 years the Hope has been removed from its necklace setting, where it is surrounded by bright clear diamonds that intensify its blue color.

National Gem Collection Curator Jeffrey Post ordered the lights turned off and focused an ultraviolet beam on the Hope Diamond. Then he switched off the beam and, in pitch dark, the diamond glowed bright orange-amber.

It's that strong color, which lasts for several seconds after the diamond is exposed to ultraviolet light, that intrigues scientists. What causes the gem to fluoresce remains a mystery. Post speculates it's related to chemical impurities that give it that blue color.

But the Hope Diamond has inspired legends over the years and some may prefer those to sheer science.

Some say, for instance, that the glowing color reflects the blood of royalty spilled in the French Revolution and the trail of bad luck said to have followed the stone over many years -- including the bankruptcy of the Hope family for whom it is named and the death of the young son of later owner Evalyn McLean.

Hope Diamond glows with mystery

Way to celebrate WWII guys. Let's wave the swastika on Rosh Hashana. Am I the only one not surprised that this is the state that elected the shrub as governor?

Yahoo! News - School Apologizes for Nazi Display by Band

(U: BTW, the section of this article that deals with prisons is worth the price of admission, but I'll focus on something else...)

] 4. Incandescent Light Bulbs
]
] In reality, these sad devices are heat bulbs.
] Supposedly a lighting technology, they produce nine times
] more raw heat than they do illumination. The light they
] do give, admittedly, is still prettier than the eerie
] glow of compact fluorescents and light-emitting diodes.
] But it's still a far cry from the glories of natural
] daylight.
]
] Plus there's the cost of light bulbs, their
] fragility, the replacement overhead, the vast waste of
] energy, glass, and tungsten, the goofy hassle of running
] air conditioners to do battle with the blazing heat of
] all these round little glass stoves let's face
] it, these gizmos deserve to vanish.
]
] They will be replaced by a superior technology, something
] cheap, cool, and precisely engineered, that emits visible
] wavelengths genuinely suited to a consumer's human
] eyeball. Our descendants will stare at those
] vacuum-shrouded wires as if they were whale-oil lanterns.

So, they are slowly replacing traffic lights with LED lights in atlanta. If LEDs are bright enough for this purpose, one must imagine that you could create a suitable light bulb replacement that:

A. Screws into a socket.
B. Essentially consists of a stick covered in white leds.
C. Has a translucent plastic filter covering it which only emits "lightbulb" wavelengths.

Why is this hard?

(U: Maybe the power transformer you'll need to convert your whopping 120 volts of AC power into 5VDC will create just as much waste heat as your lights did. As almost every device in your house now has an AC to DC power converter, maybe it makes sense to start talking about putting a centralized AC to DC converter in your house and running two circuits, an AC cicuit for major appliances, and a DC circuit for basically everything else. It would reduce a lot of costs, and improve the safety of most home wiring. Of course, cutting over to something like this would be a huge effort that would require widespread coordination from several industries. (For those of you who aren't electronics savvy, basically what I'm saying is that your house ought to have the "power supply" rather then your computer.)

Ten Technologies That Deserve to Die

] Commentator Rush Limbaugh resigned Wednesday night from
] ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown amid a firestorm that erupted
] over the controversial statements he made this past
] weekend about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan
] McNabb.
]
] Later Wednesday, the National Enquirer and New York Daily
] News reported that Limbaugh was under investigation in
] Florida for illegally buying and abusing prescription
] painkillers.

LMAO!!!

] "My comments this past Sunday were directed at the media
] and were not racially motivated. I offered an opinion,"
] Limbaugh said in a statement released by ESPN. "This
] opinion has caused discomfort to the crew, which I
] regret.
]
] "I love NFL Sunday Countdown and do not want to be a
] distraction ... Therefore, I have decided to resign," he
] said.
]
] "We accept his resignation and regret the circumstances
] surrounding this," said George Bodenheimer, president of
] ESPN and ABC Sports.
]
] Limbaugh said Sunday that McNabb received undeserved
] credit for his team's success that came from media
] outlets with "social concern" and "very desirous that a
] black quarterback do well."

Who the hell at ESPN woke up one day and decided "Ya know, America isn't subjected to enough of this blow-hard on the airwaves as it is. Lets expand his soap box and make him a sports commentator."

Weird.

LB

Limbaugh quits NFL show amid race flap

] California (Reuters) -- A company calling itself Lover
] Spy has begun offering a way for jealous lovers -- and
] anyone else -- to spy on the computer activity of their
] mates by sending an electronic greeting, the equivalent
] of a thinking-of-you card, that doubles as a bugging
] device.
]
] Computer security experts said the Lover Spy service and
] software appeared to violate U.S. law, but also said the
] surveillance program pointed to an increasingly common
] way for hackers to seize control of computers.
]
] Marketed as a way to "catch a cheating lover," the Lover
] Spy company offers to send an e-mail greeting card to
] lure the victim to a Web site that will download onto the
] victim's computer a trojan program to be used for spying.

Illegal e-cards to spy on your lover

] Attorney General John Ashcroft on Monday ordered federal
] prosecutors to come down harder on criminal defendants,
] instructing them to seek maximum penalties and to limit
] the use of plea bargains.

I can't beleive I didn't hear about this for a week!

Dude, it totally makes sense... all criminals are terrorists. They're trying to undermine the fabric of good, clean, wholesome American society.

I move for one punishment for all crimes -- decapitation. That's right. Hack a computer that's not yours? Decapitation. Have an ounce of weed and a couple of baggies? Decapitation. Question authority, er, i mean, inflame opponents of the U.S. and corrupt the youth? Decaptitaion.

Also, seriously, we need to send a message to all the terrorist kids theiving intellectual property after school that we will not tolerate their actions and that they are responsible personally for the deaths of 9/11/2001.

Honestly, criminals are broken anyway, and you can't fix them, so cap 'em and make life better for all the good, law abiding sheep of the country.

My favorite part of this is the following :

[ "You want uniformity," Mercer said. "You don't want ]
[ someone's viewpoint or philosophy determining the ]
[ outcome. What we are after is eliminating disparity ]
[ from place to place and defendant to defendant when ]
[ the crime is the same." ]

Yeah, we should totally take the human element out of it. Breaking the law is breaking the law, and there's no difference between situations. Sentencing should be handled by a computer. Talk about uniformity. And while we're at it, we don't really need juries or lawyers either. I mean, you wouldn't be in court if you hadn't done anything wrong, right?

Federal prosecutors to seek maximum penalties

] In a hotly contested lawsuit before a federal appeals
] court, two peer-to-peer companies are about to gain a
] vast army of allies: America's librarians.
]
] The five major U.S. library associations are planning to
] file a legal brief Friday siding with Streamcast Networks
] and Grokster in the California suit, brought by the major
] record labels and Hollywood studios. The development
] could complicate the Recording Industry Association of
] America's efforts to portray file-swapping services as
] rife with spam and illegal pornography.
]
] According to an attorney who has seen the document, the
] brief argues that Streamcast--distributor of the Morpheus
] software--and Grokster should not be shut down. It asks
] the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the April
] decision by a Los Angeles judge that dismissed much of
] the entertainment industry's suit against the two
] peer-to-peer companies.
]
] Among the groups signing the brief are the American
] Library Association (ALA), the Association of Research
] Libraries, the American Association of Law Libraries, the
] Medical Library Association and the Special Libraries
] Association. The American Civil Liberties Union, in one
] of the group's first forays into copyright law, has
] drafted the brief opposing the Motion Picture Association
] of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association
] of America (RIAA).

Librarians to the rescue!

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