Buffalo News – Burger King trainee charged in robbery
Quote: A Burger King cashier told deputies that she almost fainted when she turned around and saw, working next to her behind the counter, a man she recognized as the person who had robbed this same Grand Island restaurant last week.
ABC News: Scientists: Donner Family Not Cannibals
Quote: There’s no physical evidence that the family who gave the Donner Party its name had anything to do with the cannibalism the ill-fated pioneers have been associated with for a century and a half, two scientists said Thursday.
Which is not to say that the story is complete bollocks – the news here is that the Donner family were not staying at the site where the cannibalism did happen…
Still, good news for any poor souls with the Donner last name, who might just have to put up with a slightly smaller amount of heckling…
Qantas boss frisked as suspect – Top stories – Breaking News 24/7 – NEWS.com.au
Quote: The airport security guard who checked her was reluctant to believe that a woman could be the head of an airline.
What really irritates me is that the moron security guard wasn’t fired.
TaxProf Blog: Tax Foundation on The Rising Cost of Tax Compliance
Quote: The Tax Foundation has released a new study on The Rising Cost of Complying with the Federal Income Tax. The study estimates that complying with the federal income tax code during 2005 cost U.S. taxpayers $265.1 billion (up from $134.2 billion in 1995 (in inflation-adjusted dollars)), or 22 cents per dollar of tax revenues collected (up from 15 cents per dollar of tax revenues collected in 1995). By 2015, compliance costs are projected to grow to $482.7 billion.
Tell me – just TRY to tell me – that the tax code is not b0rken.
Dude. It’s hosed.
semissourian.com: Story: Police: woman with stun gun stripped during call about dog
Quote: A large dog that had been the cause of the animal complaint was also found at the apartment.
Uhm…
After you read this one, you’ll understand why I had to quote that bit… heh.
I really hope she gets some help—she needs it… Oy.
[NSFW: Lanugage]
Nerve.com – A History of Single Life by Ken Mondschein
Quote: Looking at it more than sixty years after the fact, the results of taking the healthy male youth of America, putting them together in the locker-room environment of the Army, giving them good food, ample pocket money, fresh air and exercise after years of the Great Depression, and then sending them out into the world to kill or be killed are as unsurprising as they were unavoidable.
Nice article on sexuality during WWII… 
Quote: A gang of drunken doctors and nurses are in hot water after summoning an ambulance to take them home from a boozy birthday party, British newspapers reported on Thursday.
......................ya think?
dallasobserver.com | News & Features | Schutze | Bad Ticket | 2006-01-12
Quote: We have, for example, the case of Michael Crane, who came to my office to tell me the story of his encounter with a DART cop who, he says, yelled and motioned at him from across the street: “Come over here!” So Crane crosses the street as he has been ordered, and the cop whips out his ticket book.
Crane told me when he asked what he was being ticketed for, the DART cop informed him he had just crossed the street illegally.
Sucker!
Houston, we have a prob—- er, I mean… uh… Dallas, we have a problem.
:-S
The Blog | Andrei Cherny: A New American Democracy | The Huffington Post
Quote: But now we all know that America is changing yet again. We’re moving from cities to suburbs and exurbs, from a national economy to a global economy, from the top-down hierarchies of the industrial age to the bottom-up workplaces of the information age, from assembly lines to iPods.
Not everyone is part of that shift, but with each passing day more and more are. And again, American democracy is at risk.
We once again have a corrupt bargain between powerful interests and pliant politicians. Energy policy is set not by citizens or their elected representatives, but behind closed doors by lobbyists and industry. Congress prohibits Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices. The number of registered lobbyists in Washington has doubled since 2000 and the amount these lobbyists charge their clients has increased 100 percent – and those clients are getting every cent of their money’s worth. You don’t have to look much further than this week’s headlines to see that the voice of everyday people in our government is getting drowned out by the desires of a few.
Social equality is disappearing once again, in ways unseen since the last time our economy changed, back in the Gilded Age. Thirty years ago the top 100 CEOs made 39 times the wage of the average worker. Now it is more than 1,000 times higher. And the top 1% holds a third of the country’s net worth. The days of “the President is Mister and I am Mister, too” are disappearing. And yet, Congress is clamoring to eliminate the estate tax with what might as well be called “the American Aristocrats Protection Act of 2006.” Right now the fight is whether or not to cut off the estate tax at seven million dollars or higher.
Opportunity – the idea that in a democracy each person should have an equal chance at success – is also at risk. A 1978 study showed that 23% of the adult men born in the bottom fifth made it to the top fifth. When they did the study over again a few years ago, that number had dropped to 10%.
Class lines are becoming hardened and the avenues of democracy are being closed off. At the country’s top 146 colleges, 75% of the students come from the top 1/4th and only 3% from the bottom 1/4th. You are 25 times as likely to sit next to a rich student as you are a poor one. The days of Bob Crachit and Ebenezer Scrooge sitting down together are vanishing before our eyes.
And where the richest in our country can choose their children’s schools and their family doctor and how to save for their retirement, most middle class and poor Americans have little to no say on most aspects of their lives, little ability to make decisions for themselves.
Those of us who believe in American democracy now have a choice to make – and it is just like the choice a hundred years ago. We can try to hold back change: say no to globalization or no to technology replacing manufacturing jobs and bank tellers being replaced by ATMs.
A good read. It doesn’t address detailed solutions, but please check it out.
I think things in this country are coming to a head. Something is going to have to change.
Politicians are out of touch, and extremists from all sides are polarizing the country—which is stupid. The vast majority of Americans can work out our differences. I’m sure we could come up with some compromises on all these issues that are being blown out of proportion…
We need to reboot democracy in this country—excellent way to put it. That’s now my new motto. It expresses exactly what I feel.
So-called democracy here is dead—but it doesn’t have to stay that way.
KC Bearifone teddy bear speakerphone – Engadget
Quote: [...] what is more pointless than a speakerphone shaped like a teddy bear? How about a bear-shaped phone that moves its mouth and eyes in response to a caller’s voice?
Uhhhh…..
Yeah.
Uhm.
Okay, so it’s a stuffed teddy bear, but it’s also a speakerphone.
Riiiight.
Sightwave’s Digiviewer digital binoculars – Engadget
Quote: With a 22x optical and 10x digital zoom, the Digiviewer produced a pretty good picture up until the optical-to-digital handover, thanks to the built-in autofocus. Only a few prototypes exist now, but that’s what CES is all about—impressing buyers and getting some distribution love for your product.
Digital binoculars?
That’s an idea I hadn’t thought of, even though I suppose it’s an obvious step…
Sounds like a good idea—but then I think: Why not seperate the display from the camera? And furthermore, this would make a good platform for taking pictures—put the camera on a tripod, and have a controlling device on a wire (or…. wireless?)...
Hmm…
Interesting.
Maybe in a couple of decades we’ll see some REALLY cool products… 
Elvis Song Puts Lover in Heartbreak Hotel—Newsday.com
Quote: PERTH, Australia—A woman stabbed her boyfriend with a pair of scissors because he repeatedly played the Elvis Presley hit “Burning Love” on the King’s birthday, police said Tuesday.
Yes, yes, crime is always bad, and honestly, I certainly do disagree with the actions taken… but I think I can sympathize with the desire....
Do Burned CDs Have a Short Life Span? – Yahoo! News
Quote: “Unlike pressed original CDs, burned CDs have a relatively short life span of between two to five years, depending on the quality of the CD,” Gerecke says.
I learned about the short lifespan a couple of years ago, and I’ve been trying to spread the word. So this article, which is rather boring, serves as a good reminder—CDRs do not last.
What’s the best way to keep your documents and other data longterm?
My recommendations:
1. Get a second hard drive: They’re getting cheaper now, and usually there’s plenty of room to store copies of software you download, as well as digital music—and the documents you want to keep. Having a second copy (one on each hard drive) means you have an easily accessible backup in case one hard drive crashes. (Of course, if the computer is stolen, burns, or otherwise becomes wholly inaccessible, both copies are lost)
2. Annual checkups: Go ahead and burn those CDRs, but check them annually, and burn new copies of the most important things. At least check every two years… But burn multiple copies of important documents, in particular. As technologies progress, DVDs hold several CDRs – so what once took several CDRs might take only one or two DVDs. Of course, you’ll accumulate more and larger data over time, but the storage media will grow as well….
3. Online storage: Google gives a large amount of space—emailing important documents to your Gmail address is a good option. However, as a free service that might disappear at any time, it shouldn’t be your sole option—but none of these are intended as total solutions. In addition to free services like Google, I’m developing a (paid) internet storage solution. (The project I’m working on will allow you to map an ‘internetwork drive’ – a drive you can access via Windows like any other drive on your computer, but that will be pysically located on my server, thus giving you storage outside your home that you can easily access from your home—or anywhere).
I don’t recommend a single one of these options—the more important the data is, the more options you should use. Something very important, like digital (or scanned) photos of a life-changing event (e.g. wedding, etc) that simply cannot be replaced should get the most attention. I would consider having one set on your primary hard drive, one set on your secondary hard drive, a couple of burned (CDR) copies, as well as a copy stored offsite somewhere.
But for things that are important, but less important—you might choose only one or two backup methods… I’ve taken a number of digital pictures that are important to me, but that wouldn’t completely depress me for months if I lost them. So I might store them on both hard drives and on my server, and decide that’s enough…
Point is – match the effort to the importance; and take the time to make whatever backups you think are needed. Your hard drive will crash some day; your CDRs will become unreadable—times are changing, and you need to consider how to make the data you want to keep available for the future.
The good news is that it’s not really hard.
(Feel free to contact me if you’re interested in the internetwork drive I mentioned – setup is easy, and I’m still in beta testing mode; if the service does go fullblown live, my beta testers will get cheap or free services in thanks for testing…)