Tonya and PQBON's WebLog
Katie is 6 and a half months old and trying to do so many things....and we are so behind with baby proofing. Yesterday, I watched her pull her bib off the coffee table and then make a serious attempt at crawling. I took her to her 6 month dr's. appointment today. She is 20 lbs and 6 ounces and 27.5 inches long. Last time she was in the 97 and 95 percentiles. Now she's off the chart for weight and height. Her dr. was impressed with her development, especially that she started saying "dada." Thats not expected till about 8-9 months. So she's big, smart, and cute..... :-)
WeirdTechNewsHub: Top 10 Dumbest Online Business Ideas That Made It Big Time.
1. Million Dollar Homepage
1000000 pixels, charge a dollar per pixel - that's perhaps the dumbest idea for online business anyone could have possible come up with. Still, Alex Tew, a 21-year-old who came up with the idea, is now a millionaire.
2. SantaMail
Ok, how's that for a brilliant idea. Get a postal address at North Pole, Alaska, pretend you are Santa Claus and charge parents 10 bucks for every letter you send to their kids? Well, Byron Reese sent over 200000 letters since the start of the business in 2001, which makes him a couple million dollars richer.
Gone to the dogs: the girl who ran with the pack - World - theage.com.au
This is 23-year-old Oxana Malaya reverting to behaviour she learnt as a young child when she was brought up by a pack of dogs on a rundown farm near the village of Novaya Blagoveschenka in Ukraine. When she showed her boyfriend what she once was and what she could still do - the barking, the whining, the four-footed running - he took fright. It was a party trick that went too far and the relationship ended.
Miss Malaya is a feral child, one of only about 100 known in the world. The story goes that, when she was three, her indifferent, alcoholic parents left her outside one night and she crawled into a hovel where they kept dogs. No one came to look for her or even seemed to notice she was gone, so she stayed where there was warmth and food — raw meat and scraps — forgetting what it was to be human, losing what toddler's language she had and learning to survive as a member of the pack.
War is heck - Yahoo! News
The U.S. government's crackdown on media indecency could prevent World War Two veterans from sharing their stories in an upcoming TV documentary series by
Ken Burns, the head of the Public Broadcasting Service said Wednesday.
Noted filmmaker Burns' highly anticipated seven-part series "The War" features salty language used by servicemen and others. If the expletives make it to air, they could lead to crippling fines for the offending stations as a result of a new law signed last month by
President George W. Bush.
YesButNoButYes: Ten Creepiest Icons in Advertising History
Oh Cookie Puss, when you pranced around the tv in Carvel World, you scared the shit out of children all across the tri-state area. For those unfamiliar with the creamy goodness, Cookie Puss was a delicious ice cream treat made in the 70's by Tom Carvel, the visionary who also gave us Fudgy the Whale (I think you can still buy them today). But the best part of the Carvel spots was hearing Cookie Puss speak. He had a voice like those ringtones that adults can't hear. Then Tom Carvel would come on, with his three-pack-a-day growl, for the hard-sell. See, it's the ying and yang of it all that made it so special. Mr Carvel, bless his soul, is no longer with us. But to this day, at birthday tables all across the five boroughs, you can still hear ten year olds turn to their mothers and say...Mom, what the hell is that?
This list seems pretty much focused on the Tristate area (NY, NJ, Conn) with Crazy Eddie and Cookie Puss... It brought back some childhood memories...
local6.com - First News - Police: Teen Hides Dead Newborn In Entertainment Center
She said she wrapped the baby in a towel and hid her, saying she planned to tell hospital workers where the baby was so they could help her.
An autopsy determined the baby died of asphyxiation.
Gitmo guards often attacked by detainees - Yahoo! News
The prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay during the war on terror have attacked their military guards hundreds of times, turning broken toilet parts, utensils, radios and even a bloody lizard tail into makeshift weapons.
This is clearly meant as a suprising revalation and to indicate that the prisoners in GITMO really are bad guys. However, forget the fact that these people have been locked up for 5 years now and told by their lawers that the executive branch is refusing to give them a trial or to release them. As far as they are concerned they will never get to leave, except in a body bag. When put in that position I don't think I would be overly pacifistic. What do you gain by being a model prisoner when there is no chance at parol and either way you get to be the subject of water boarding?
The 'Peculiar' Disappearance of Iraq Coverage
"CNN will surely remind us today that it is Day 19 of the Israel-Hezbollah war - now branded as Crisis in the Middle East - but you won't catch anyone saying it's Day 1,229 of the war in Iraq. On the Big Three networks' evening newscasts, the time devoted to Iraq has fallen 60 percent between 2003 and this spring, as clocked by the television monitor, the Tyndall Report. On Thursday, Brian Williams of NBC read aloud a 'shame on you' e-mail complaint from the parents of two military sons anguished that his broadcast had so little news about the war.
"This is happening even as the casualties in Iraq, averaging more than 100 a day, easily surpass those in Israel and Lebanon combined.
Spin Matters | English as the National Language
English as the National Language
You MUST read this article from start to finish...
civilrights.org -- White House Proposal Would Expand Authority of Military Courts
A draft Bush administration plan for special military courts seeks to expand the reach and authority of such "commissions" to include trials, for the first time, of people who are not members of al-Qaeda or the Taliban and are not directly involved in acts of international terrorism, according to officials familiar with the proposal.
The Bill of Rights is over 200 years old. We really need to get rid of it. That will allow us to catch all the terrorists!
Heat makes Pat Robertson a global warming "convert" - Yahoo! News
Conservative Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson said on Thursday the wave of scorching temperatures across the United States has converted him into a believer in global warming.
I'm not sure how to feel about this. I'm glad he might actually convince the wing nut christian right that global warming is true but I'm bothered that he came to it using one data point, rather then the billions or so of other signs that scientists have been measuring for YEARS that point to global man made warming.
AP Wire | 08/09/2006 | Christian school's lawsuit against UC system to go to trial
A federal judge has issued a ruling allowing a Christian school's discrimination lawsuit against the University of California to proceed to trial.
U.S. District Judge S. James Otero's decision on Tuesday followed a tentative ruling he made in June, allowing several students from Calvary Chapel Christian School to pursue their claim that the public university system discriminated against them by setting admission rules that violate their freedom of speech and religion. The school is in Murietta, about 70 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
In a 25-page ruling, the judge rejected UC's attempt to dismiss several key claims in the suit and said the plaintiffs - which also include the school and the Association of Christian Schools International - showed enough evidence to support their allegations. Otero said the plaintiffs had shown that they had been required to choose between teaching courses that promoted their religious views and complying with UC's requirements.
I really really hope the UCs win. Religon is not an excuse for scientific illitericy.
CNN.com - Toyota's totally bizarre recall - Jul 12, 2006
This fall, Toyota will voluntarily recall nearly 160,000 Toyota Tundra pickups so that they can be made less safe for children riding in the front seat.
No, that's not a mistake - at least not on our part.
The recall, announced Monday, is meant to make Tundras comply with a set of safety regulations. The rules say that vehicles built after 2002 must have a child-seat anchor system known as LATCH in the front seat if they also have a front-seat airbag shut-off switch.
The Tundras in question were built with an airbag shut-off switch but not the LATCH system.
The solution? Spend lots of money and inconvenience customers...to remove the airbag shut-off switch.
The move not only doesn't enhance the safety of these vehicles, it actually makes the vehicles unsafe for small children riding in the front seat.
The NHTSA really really needs to give Toyota a waiver for this. While it isn't a good idea for children to ride in the front seat, nothing should be done to make it less safe for children that are already there.
The Verdict: Oink - Los Angeles Times
As we consider the worst fast-food offering ever, let us begin with the artifact itself: KFC's new Famous Bowls product consists of a plastic tub of mashed potatoes or rice, topped with yellow corn, fried chicken nuggets,
gravy and three varieties of grated cheese. All in one container, all to be consumed as a single homogenous mass, spork after spork of undifferentiated food matter.
And there it sits on my desk, a steaming, sweating pound of food goo that I purchased at a drive-in window (more anonymous that way) for $3.99. Let me tell you, it's one thing to muse upon the Famous Bowls in a detached, ne'er-shall-pass-my-lips sort of way. Quite another to address the product, spork in hand.
And now, in the interests of participatory journalism, I take a bite. Hmmm. Uh-huh. OK. It's like throwing up in reverse.
This was worth it just for the one line...
St. Paul Pioneer Press | 07/17/2006 | Lights, camera, confession
Eyes closed and head swaying, George Griller tells detectives he didn't kill the man police dug up in his back yard. I couldn't have, he claims, I'm blind. But when investigators leave the room, Griller opens his eyes, pulls a paper from his pocket and begins reading.
A video camera captures Griller's interrogation-room blunder. Jurors later convict him of second-degree murder.
In most states, prosecutors would never get their hands on such a tape. That's because it wouldn't have existed.
But police throughout Minnesota record in-custody interviews, a practice stemming from a 1994 state Supreme Court decision. At first, police and prosecutors lamented the ruling, predicting it would keep bad guys from confessing.
Now, more than a decade into mandated recording, those same critics are lauding the practice. Taped interrogations have not only proved valuable at trial, they have helped Minnesota authorities avoid accusations of forced confessions and investigative misconduct.
"It's the best tool shoved down our throats," said St. Paul police Cmdr. Neil Nelson. "We went kicking and screaming."
NBC10.com - HealthWatch - Kitten Born With 2 Faces
A kitten has been born with two faces and veterinarians don't understand why.
The kitten was born Wednesday morning in Ohio. It has two mouths that meow in unison, two noses and four eyes that have not opened yet.
The little boy who owns the cat said he hasn't decided on a name for the kitten yet, but said he wants to name it Tiger.
Two other kittens were in the same litter, but they are normal.
Veterinarians say this occurrence is very rare, but the kitten could be just fine. It has already begun nursing just like the other kittens in the litter.
Katie is getting very good at navigating her walker around the kitchen/dining area. Tonight she started going towards the cat who was sitting by the sliding glass door. When she got too close the cat moved to her food. Katie followed her and came up behind her and ran into her butt. She jumped, ran away a little bit and then turned around and gave Katie a "if looks could kill" glare and then ran away. Will, his mom, and I thought it was hilarious.