Linux by Google

Hooray! Google is preparing its own distribution of Linux for the desktop, in a possible bid to take on Microsoft in its core business - desktop software.

Google has confirmed it is working on a desktop linux project called Goobuntu, but declined to supply further details.

It’s possible Google plans to distribute it to the general public, as a free alternative to Windows.

Google to Microsoft: suck it.

Dorks don't go to parties.

One hundred Iowa students rally at state capitol in Des Moines to demand tighter restrictions on keg laws, ensuring they'll never be invited to any parties.

Under a proposal being considered by lawmakers, kegs containing two gallons or more of beer would be labeled with identification numbers. Adults would have to register to purchase the kegs.

Supporters of the bill say that would allow police to trace a keg to an adult who bought it. Law enforcement officials are pushing for the "tag a keg" measure. They say they're frustrated by being unable to trace who is providing alcohol to youngsters.

Billy Gates tax return

MICROSOFT founder Bill Gates, the world's richest man, said today the tax office in the US has to store his financial data on a special computer because his fortune is so vast.

He says the IRS has to store his financial data on a special computer because normal computers can't deal with the numbers.

Thank goodness for iMacs, huh?

Only in Florida

Having solved all of the state's other problems, Florida governor Jeb Bush text messages a New Jersey teenager encouraging to sign with Florida State.

I'm excited you're looking at Florida State. [FSU President] T.K. Wetherell and I are friends. When you come to Tallahassee again, let's hook up with each other.
— Jeb Bush

That was the text message that Myron Rolle, considered the #1 ranked recruitment in the country, received from the state's governor. Rolle said it hit his cellphone the same weekend he hit Florida State for a recruiting visit.

Exxon's Record Profit

Exxon explains its record profit. Most comes from cost savings in stationary supplies.

Exxon Mobil reported Monday that it earned more money in 2005 than any company, any year, ever has before.

But the oil company isn't bragging. Exxon took out advertisements in newspapers Monday to say its profit margin is relatively moderate -- an unusual step for any company focused on keeping investors happy.

A company not bragging about record profits? I wonder why that is. Maybe its because the company is responding to continued frustration among consumers and politicians that the oil industry is making big profits at a time when consumers are getting crunched by higher energy prices.

Right to Assemble

A new provision tucked into the Patriot Act bill now before Congress would allow authorities to haul demonstrators at any "special event of national significance" away to jail on felony charges.

And guess who is sponsoring this addition? Yup, you guessed it. Senator Arlen Specter (R - Pennsylvania).

The Bill of Rights keeps crumbling.

What else is new?

News of the obvious: Exxon Mobil Corp. posted record profits for any U.S. company on Monday — $10.71 billion for the fourth quarter and $36.13 billion for the year — as the world's biggest publicly traded oil company benefited from high oil and natural-gas prices and solid demand for refined products.

Exxon's profit for the year was also the largest annual reported net income in U.S. history.

For the full year, net income surged to $5.71 per share from $3.89 per share in 2004. Annual revenue grew to $371 billion from $298.04 billion. To put that into perspective, Exxon's revenue for the year exceeded Saudi Arabia's estimated 2005 gross domestic product of $340.5 billion, according to statistics maintained by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Resisting Arrest

Police put the beatdown on suspect until they realize a helicopter is filming everything.

Watch closely as one of them looks up and realizes they are being filmed. Each of the officers look up and then start treating the suspect differently all of a sudden.

Click here for video.

The Maplewood Police Department says the suspect may have been resisting arrest.

And by resisting arrest they mean "trying to block our punches and kicks with his hands" and also by "curling up into the fetal position." Yep, thats what resisting arrest is in my neck of the woods.

Washing machine that uses no water

A washing machine that needs no water or powder yet cleans clothes in a jiffy?

Scientists in Singapore have invented the revolutionary appliance called the Airwash and it has already caught the eye of one major manufacturer.

The machine works by blasting dirty clothes with jets of air primed with negative ions, which have the effect of clumping dust together, deactivating bacteria and neutralising odours.

The result, the inventors claim, is clean, fresh-smelling clothes that come out of the machine completely dry -- meaning an end to clothes lines and perhaps even signalling the death knell for the tumble dryer. And since no water is involved, fabrics unsuitable for conventional machines -- such as leather and suede -- can be washed at home instead of having to be dry cleaned.

Despite this advance in garment cleaning, men will still not be able to wash their own clothes.

Russians going Lunar

RUSSIA is planning to mine a rare fuel on the moon by 2020 with a permanent base and a heavy-cargo transport link, a Russian space official says. "We are planning to build a permanent base on the moon by 2015 and by 2020 we can begin the industrial-scale delivery of the rare isotope Helium-3," Nikolai Sevastyanov, head of the Energia space corporation, was quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency as saying at an academic conference.

The International Space Station (ISS) would play a key role in the project and a regular transport relay to the moon would be established with the help of the planned Clipper spaceship and the Parom, a space capsule intended to tug heavy cargo containers around space, Mr Sevastyanov said.
Helium-3 is a non-radioactive isotope of helium that can be used in nuclear fusion. Rare on earth but plentiful on the moon, it is seen by some experts as an ideal fuel because it is powerful, non-polluting and generates almost no radioactive by-product.

Birth Control Myth

Women taking birth control pills should not blame their method of contraception when they put on a few pounds.

A newly published review suggests that there is no truth to the widespread belief that oral contraceptives and other forms of hormonal birth control cause weight gain.

Women everywhere scramble for new excuse.

Full article here.

Jeez, it's just a little beeping noise. Don't go having a heart attack.

In June, Guidant recalls 50,000 heart defibrillators -- about 38,600 of them already implanted in people's chests -- that might, in rare cases, short-circuit when they're supposed to deliver vital electrical jolts. The recall comes after the devices were reported to have failed at least 45 times, including two instances in which the patients died. Guidant fixed the flaw in devices made after mid-2002 but neglected to inform doctors and continued to sell units produced before the fix. The recall advises patients that, should the device malfunction, it will emit a beeping noise, at which point they should contact their doctors or head to an emergency room.

Our government overspending? No.... really?

A retired Army Reserve officer called the Pentagon's fraud hotline last year to complain that the Defense Department had overpaid for kitchen appliances: $1,000 for popcorn makers and toasters, $5,500 for a deep-fat fryer that cost other government agencies $1,919.

Although the officer provided a four-page spreadsheet showing 135 cases of higher prices, the Defense Department dismissed the tip without checking with him.

"We've got an agency that is not doing its job of being a watchdog for the taxpayers," said Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.).

Documents acquired by Knight Ridder under the Freedom of Information Act reveal Paul Fellencer Sr. tried to blow the whistle on what he estimated was as much as $200 million of wasteful spending.

At issue is a multibillion-dollar Pentagon purchasing system called the prime vendor program, which uses middlemen who set their own prices, instead of direct purchases from manufacturers or competitive bidding.

A Knight Ridder investigation of the program found that, for 102 of 122 pieces of food equipment, the Pentagon had paid higher prices to prime vendors than the government did to contractors outside the system. For example, the Pentagon paid $20 apiece for ice cube trays that retail for less than a dollar.

Ironic: MPAA accused of motion picture piracy

The Motion Picture Association of America stands accused of breaking its own piracy guidelines after it admitted making unauthorised copies of a film submitted to it for classification.

The accuser is film director Kirby Dick who sent a copy of his documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" to the MPAA back in November.

The film is to debut at the Sundance Film Festival this Wednesday and happens to take a critical look at the workings of the MPAA.

According to the MPAA’s own website, "Manufacturing, selling, distributing or making copies of motion pictures without the consent of the copyright owner is illegal."

Irony: defined.

I'm Too Sexy for these Underpants

Furry underwear outlawed in Uzbekistan because authorities deemed it "too sexy."

Right Said Fred unavailable for comment.

Sales of the furry undergarments have rocketed in temperatures that have hit the region of below minus 20 Celcius. But the government has now banned the lingerie saying they want to protect citizens from "unbridled fantasies" caused by wearing the soft fabric.

No More Hiccups

Man attempts to cure nephew's hiccups by scaring him with a loaded gun. What could possibly go wrong?

A Colombian man accidentally shot his nephew to death while trying to cure his hiccups by pointing a revolver at him to scare him, police in the Caribbean port city of Barranquilla said on Tuesday.

After shooting 21-year-old university student David Galvan in the neck, his uncle, Rafael Vargas, 35, was so distraught he turned the gun on himself and committed suicide, police said.

Guys looking into your eyes instead of at your chest? It'll never work.

In NYC, some singles are trying the newest "fad" in dating called "eye gazing."

Instead of talking, these couples are allowing their eyes to do all the talking. After a quick introduction into the art of Eye Gazing, you sit across from someone else and then gaze into the strangers eyes for three minutes. Theoretically, you can find out if the person is your "soul mate."

Michael Ellsberg dreamed up eyegazing because he was sick of bad dating conversations.

Idiots.

I prefer "assgrabbing." An art form I've perfected where I'm at the bar and I grab a girl's ass to see if she can be my soul mate... at least until the next morning.

Google stands up to the Gov't

Google to Justice Department: Suck it

Google is rebuffing the government's demand for a peek at what millions of people have been looking up on the Internet's leading search engine - a request that raises concerns Big Brother may be watching a little too closely.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week asked a federal judge in San Jose for an order to force a handover of the requested records.

Google objected to the government's subpoena, saying it would reveal trade secrets by providing the data and disclose personally identifiable information about its users.

Blind woman regains sight after heart attack

A 74-year-old woman who had been blind for 25 years awoke in a British hospital after suffering a heart attack and could see again.

The Daily Telegraph newspaper reports she told her husband: "You've got older."

Doctors were at a loss to explain how Joyce Urch, who had become blind since 1979, had recovered her sight after having a heart attack. Despite suffering from glaucoma, doctors did not think this was why she went blind, but could not pinpoint the reasons.

Ms Urch had been unable to see her five children properly since they were young adults and for the first time she was able to look at her 12 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

How safe is your grocery store?

Food Lion ranked safest grocery chain in the U.S.

SafeWay, ironically, least safe.

Full article and rankings here.

Would you hire this man?

After five years of banishment from the legal profession, President Clinton will be eligible this week to reclaim the law license he gave up as a consequence of the inaccurate responses he gave under oath to questions about his relationship with a White House intern.

Mr. Clinton's suspension from the Arkansas bar, which he formally agreed to a day before leaving office in 2001, expires on Thursday. It is unclear whether the former president will seek reinstatement to the bar.

What we are clear on is which girl will be next to be under the bar.... oh nevermind this joke is dead.

Rough Rider Tax

There is a call to repeal a cell phone tax most people probably don't even know they are paying.

Anybody who has ever tried to decipher a cell phone bill knows how tough it can be. One of the charges is a 3 percent fee on every cell phone bill in America. The origin of the tax predates the invention of the cellular phone by nearly a century.

Every time you use you cell phones, you are supporting the war effort -- the Spanish-American War (1898).

The fee began as a luxury tax on phones at the turn of the 19th Century. And we're all still paying for it today.

Phone bills don’t specify that the tax originates from the Spanish-American War. It is labeled as the federal excise tax, which amounts to 3 percent of every monthly bill.

At least three federal courts have ruled the tax illegal. Many cell phone companies support a repeal of that tax. But they say they are caught in the middle. "We're required to continue collecting that tax from our customers until the IRS tells us to stop doing that," said Merritt.

Some lawmakers are demanding cell phone companies stop collecting the tax and refund three years worth of fees.

But for now, every time you make a cell phone call, you'll continue to pay for a war fought more than 107 years ago.

According to the Web site http://www.mywireless.org/, you can ask the IRS for a refund of up to three years of past taxes. You can also contact members of Congress to ask them to repeal the tax altogether.

PS: For those who don't understand the humor in the title of this post, the Spanish-American War was led by Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders.

Man finds stolen skis on EBay

Man spots his own skis on eBay; thief nabbed. Feedback bound to be negative.

Two pairs of stolen skis were returned to their owners this weekend when police in Park City, Utah arrested a juvenile male and recovered thousands of dollars of stolen equipment.

The bust was facilitated by a man who found his stolen skis being offered for sale on eBay. The skis, which were stolen from the Park City Mountain Resort last week, were spotted for sale online within a few hours of being reported stolen to police, said Sgt. Annette Ellis.

Finally..... good medicine.

There is a cure for the common cold. It's hot sex.

In the course of his lengthy neuroimmunological experiments, the scientist arrived at the conclusion that sexual intercourse has a positive effect not only on the overall physical condition of both partners but also on their immune systems. Phagocytes are to be praised for the marvel. Phagocytes are cells that help the body rid itself of various ailments.

During sexual intercourse, number of phagocytes tends to increase significantly; oftentimes, number of these cells almost doubles after orgasm. This in turn enables these cells to detect and destroy antibodies more quickly.

"Honey, I'm sick. Come to bed."