… Finally Friday … February 16 th 2007

Tsunami Aid After the 2004 tsunami devastated Asia along the Indian Ocean, and estimated 28 million Americans donated. $2.78 billion in aid. Regular people, it seems, were more generous than many leaders. According to UN recorded obtained by the BBC, nearly $1 billion pledged by various governments has not yet been delivered. The to offender: China promised $301 million to Sri Lanka alone but has sent only $1 million; France pledged $79 million but delivered just over $1 million; Spain offered $60 million but has sent less than $1 million; and oil rich Kuwait promised $10 million to the Maldives Islands but has delivered zero. USAID reports that the U.S. has sent $102.6 million of the $405.7 million we promised Indonesia.

Trash-Filled Car Crashes In West Yarmouth (WBZ) BOSTON A car crash in West Yarmouth led police to the discovery of a filthy car filled to the brim with trash and rubbish. According to police, there was so much trash inside 53-year-old Ann Biglan's Ford Focus, it completely filled the inside from the floor to the ceiling front and back. The copious amounts of trash apparently caused the crash. Biglan told police several old coffee cups and pieces of trash fell onto the gas and brake pedal, which caused her to lose control while backing out of a parking space near the West Yarmouth Post Office. Police said the trash that fell on the pedal caused the Focus to pick up speed, drive over a curb, across Route 28, hit a Ford Explorer and back over a sidewalk. Biglan's car finally came to a rest after crashing into a flowerpot in the parking lot of the West Yarmouth Mobil gas station. No one was injured during the crash. Bigan is charged with impeded operation of a motor vehicle, negligent operation of a motor vehicle, failure to use care in backing, operating with a rejected safety inspection sticker.

Pot Prisoners Cost Americans $1 Billion a Year Posted February 10, 2007 . The latest numbers are out: nearly 800,000 Americans were arrested on marijuana charges in 2005. When will the insanity stop? American taxpayers are now spending more than a billion dollars per year to incarcerate its citizens for pot. That's according to statistics recently released by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics. According to the new BJS report, "Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004," 12.7 percent of state inmates and 12.4 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for drug violations are serving time for marijuana offenses. Combining these percentages with separate U.S. Department of Justice statistics on the total number of state and federal drug prisoners suggests that there are now about 33,655 state inmates and 10,785 federal inmates behind bars for marijuana offenses. The report failed to include estimates on the percentage of inmates incarcerated in county and/or local jails for pot-related offenses. Multiplying these totals by U.S. DOJ prison expenditure data reveals that taxpayers are spending more than $1 billion annually to imprison pot offenders.

Ancient coin shows Cleopatra was no beauty LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Shakespeare wrote that "age cannot wither her", but a 2,000-year-old Roman coin has shown that the Egyptian queen Cleopatra was by no means the fabled beauty of legend. Her image on a small silver denarius found by Newcastle University shows her with a pointed chin, thin lips and a sharp nose, according to British newspaper reports on Wednesday. And nor does her lover, the Roman general Mark Antony, appear any more attractive. His portrait in the reverse of the coin, dating from 32 BC, shows him with bulging eyes, a hook nose and thin lips. Clare Pickersgill, the university's assistant director of archaeological museums, said: "The popular image of Cleopatra is that of a beautiful queen who was adored by Roman politicians and generals. "The relationship between Mark Antony and Cleopatra has long been romanticised by writers, artists and film-makers," she was quoted as saying by The Times. The coin, which lay in a British vault for many years, was rediscovered during a search for items to go on a display in a new museum in northern England.

MYSTERY WEAPONS SURFACE IN IRAQ Mon Feb 12 2007 16:30:32 ET *** From Michael Yon's website (www.michaelyon-online.com) The recent loss of five helicopters in Iraq has caught the attention of the media. Also in the media is all the new talk of Iranian influence on weapons in Iraq, although my readers learned all about that issue more than a month ago in Walking the Line (Part Two of Three). In the face of all this "new" controversy about "foreign" weapons in the battle space, I recalled some of the many photos I’ve taken of caches of weapons captured by Iraqi and American forces in Iraq. The photo above is from one of these. None of the military persons who’ve seen the photo were able to identify the weapon depicted in it. Do you know what it is? Do you know where it came from?

IF….all life on the planet earth ended….how long would it take for traces of man’s existence to disappear .

Sexual encounter turns bloody Tempe police arrested a woman Tuesday night on suspicion that she tied up a man during sex, then stabbed him repeatedly with a knife and told him she likes to drink blood. Tiffany Sutton, 23, was arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault at 11:55 p.m. in the 1000 block of South Lola Lane, where she and the victim were living, police said. The man told police he had consented to being tied up but became scared when the woman attacked him with a knife. He eventually freed himself and ran away, but Sutton chased him with a pickax, police said. The man was taken in an ambulance to a local hospital, where he was treated for injuries. Police were unsure if the pair were friends, but Sgt. Mike Horn said the man and woman were not in a relationship. Both admitted to authorities that they had consumed alcohol and drugs prior to the attack, Horn said. The man called his friend, who found him passed out and then called police. Sutton initially acted like she was the victim, Horn said. Sutton later told police the entire encounter was consensual.

U-Boat Can Be Your Sub It's the ultimate toy for the boy - or girl - who has everything... a personal submarine. It can be launched from a yacht or from a harbour-side ramp and can descend to a depth of 164ft. The C-Quester costs between £40,000 and £62,000 and is available in one or two-seater versions. Dutch builders U-Boat Worx reckon it's the first mass-produced submarine available commercially. The pilot climbs through a strengthened plastic viewing dome into the cabin, where the air pressure remains the same as on the surface so pilots don't have to worry about the bends. When the pilot wants to go down, he opens flaps which allow water to enter the hollow hold. He can move around and ascend with the use of three rechargeable electric motors. These power the sub back to the surface, with the water being expelled from the polyester hull as it rises. The makers say passengers can experience the wonder of diving and the beauty of the seas without having to obtain a scuba diving qualification. Those who've tried it say it's like flying through the water.

KTM BOW 2007