... Finally Friday ... 7-4-2008

Slide 2: Exclusive: No ice at the North Pole Polar scientists reveal dramatic new evidence of climate change Friday, 27 June 2008 It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year. The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer. "From the viewpoint of science, the North Pole is just another point on the globe, but symbolically it is hugely important. There is supposed to be ice at the North Pole, not open water," said Mark Serreze of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado. If it happens, it raises the prospect of the Arctic nations being able to exploit the valuable oil and mineral deposits below these a bed which have until now been impossible to extract because of the thick sea ice above. Seasoned polar scientists believe the chances of a totally ice-free North Pole this summer are greater than 50:50 because the normally thick ice formed over many years at the Pole has been blown away and replaced by huge swathes of thinner ice formed over a single year.

Slide 3: Architect Behind Dubai's Rotating Skyscraper A Fraud? Jun 26, 2008 8:40 PM Italian "architect" Dr. David Fisher is planning to build an 80-story building in Dubai with rotating floors that would give it an ever-changing shape. He also wants to build similar towers in Russia and New York. The building does look cool (if structurally dubious), but Fisher's credentials and experience leave something to be desired:WCBStv.com: Fisher acknowledges that he is not well known, has never built a skyscraper before and hasn't practiced architecture regularly in decades. But he insisted his lack of experience wouldn't stop him from completing the project, which has attracted top design talent, including Leslie E. Robertson, the structural engineer for the World Trade Center and the Shanghai World Financial Center. "I did not design skyscrapers, but I feel ready to do so," Fisher said. That's a relief. And next comes the possibility that Fisher may be a fraud: In a biography he had been distributing for months, he said...he received an honorary doctorate from "The Prodeo Institute at Columbia University in New York." No such institution exists, however, and Columbia said it had never awarded Fisher an honorary degree. Asked to explain the discrepancy, Fisher said, through his New York publicists, that he had been awarded the degree by the Catholic University of Rome during a ceremony in 1994 held at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, which is near Columbia's campus. Asked again to clarify the name of the school that conferred the degree, Fisher's publicists said in an e-mail that "Dr. Fisher did receive an honorary doctorate in Economics from Pre Deo University, but it has been removed from his bio because he wants to be entirely accurate and cannot be with this information." Come again?

Slide 4: A Pretty Stunning Graph of World Cement Production (and China is Certainly Using It)

Slide 5: Man arrested for exposure at drive -thru July 1, 2008 A man allegedly exposed himself and masturbated in front of two drive-thru window employees at the McDonald’s located at 7600 Little River Turnpike. The suspect entered the drive-thru line on Thursday, June 26 shortly before 5 a.m. He placed his order, drove forward and stopped to pay and pick up his food. The 23 and 31-year-old Annandale women, working in the restaurant saw what the suspect was doing and immediately notified their manager who went to the window to chase off the suspect. The subsequent investigation led officers to the home of Thomas Matthew Brady, 20, of 8303 The Midway, in Annandale. Positive identification was made and warrants were obtained. On Saturday, June 28, Brady was transported to the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center and charged with two counts of indecent exposure and one count of indecent gestures. Alexandria Times

Slide 6: Domesticated chimp is missing in California forest LOS ANGELES — A 42-year-old chimpanzee who is toilet-trained and can eat with a knife and fork is believed to be at large in a Southern California forest after escaping his cage. The chimp called Moe disappeared Friday from Jungle Exotics, which trains animals for the entertainment industry. The chimp wandered into a house next door, surprising construction workers who saw him head for a nearby mountain. St. James Davis (pictured above) brought Moe home from Tanzania in 1967 after the baby primate lost his mother to poachers. He and his wife treated Moe as their surrogate son, toilet-training him, teaching him to eat with a knife and fork and letting him sleep in their bed and watch TV. But local authorities didn't view Moe in the same light. For years, the Davises waged a legal battle to keep Moe in their home. They finally lost in 1999 when Moe bit part of a woman's finger off when she inserted her hand in his cage. The Davises said he mistook her red-painted fingernail for his favorite licorice. The incident also came after Moe mauled a police officer's hand. Over the Davises' protests, Moe was taken to an animal sanctuary. But in 2005, when they took a cake to celebrate Moe's birthday with him, the couple was viciously attacked by two other chimpanzees who had escaped their cages. The chimps nearly killed St. James Davis, chewing off his nose, testicles and foot and biting off chunks of his buttocks and legs, before the sanctuary owner shot the animals to death. Moe was transferred to Jungle Exotics, where the Davises built him a state-of-the-art cage, McCasland said. "He's a very personable, sweet, nice chimp," McCasland said. "He's not going to be aggressive unless he's provoked." The couple, who have no children, broke down in tears at a press conference in Los Angeles. "He meant the world to us," said St. James Davis. "He was the best man at my wedding."

Slide 7: Do boob jobs really end marriages? If a woman with breasts heading south acquires a bit of upward lift and proud perkiness, does it seriously betoken a lover in the offing? And where does this line of reasoning leave Peter Andre, who allegedly encouraged his wife Katie Price (aka Jordan) to have surgery recently to reduce the size of her boobs? Husbands apparently feel that a new ten-years-younger version of their wife can't possibly think that the unaugmented, unreconstructed man in jim-jams she finds nightly in the marital bed is attractive. Jealousy and suspicions creep in: surely there must be someone else. It's not true gents, it really isn't. It's a social trend. You only have to look to the US. Despite that country's financial state being rather worse than ours, US headlines last week claimed that the number of cosmetic surgeons in the country is about to increase fivefold. This suggests that American women believe cosmetic procedures are no longer luxuries that fall off the list during times of hardship but essentials that enable them to continue to live life to the full. What happens there comes here very soon. Cosmetic surgery is no longer the well-kept secret of a few. The most recent figures in Britain show that breast enlargement remains the most common procedure for women, with 6,497 operations performed last year, according to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS). This was up 12.2 per cent on 2006. But, in fact, the number of Britons going under the knife may be higher, as these numbers don't represent all cosmetic surgery practices in the UK, and increasing numbers of us are opting for cheap surgery abroad. When the whole herd gets involved, infidelity on such a grand scale seems unlikely. So the evidence suggests that husbands are worrying unnecessarily.

Slide 8: Man dressed as penis disrupts graduation Thursday, June 26, 2008 SARATOGA SPRINGS -- A 19-year-old man dressed as a penis was arrested for disturbing a high school graduation today at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Calvin Morett of 337 Pyramid Pine Estates allegedly interrupted the Saratoga Springs High School graduation by marching across SPAC's stage in an inflatable 6-foot penis costume while diplomas were being given out, Saratoga Springs Police Sgt. Sean Briscoe said. Morett purchased the full-body costume and sprayed parts of the 5,000 people in the crowd with Silly String, Briscoe said. His motive? ``He thought it would be funny,'' Briscoe said. Morett was ticketed for disorderly conduct, a violation, and will face the charges in City Court on Tuesday, Briscoe said. Morett graduated from Saratoga Springs High School last year. He tried to streak away from law enforcement, but could not. ``Once I stopped laughing, he was pretty easy to catch because he was tripping on the lower portion of the costume,'' said Briscoe, who made the arrest.

Slide 9: Home For Sale Includes Wife POSTED: 1:25 pm EDT June 25, 2008 PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. -- A struggling single parent and real estateagent is trying to sell her house and find a husband. She's auctioning off both her home and herself in a package deal on eBay and Craigslist.org, NewsChannel5's sister station WPTV reported. Single parent Deven Traboscia has been divorced for eight years. She had hoped to be remarried by now, so she is turning to the Internet for help. In the ad, Traboscia writes, "If you want to live the never ending dream and experience the real love, life and the romance you have always felt was a fairytale, then this is the vibrant outstanding woman of your dreams! To sweep this European Loving Lady off her feet, send in your application right now." She goes on to say that her four-bedroom, 2,000-square-foot home, that will be included in the deal, has "neutral colors, Berber carpet, and upgraded tile." Traboscia said she has already been contacted by one man in Italy, who is arranging a trip to South Florida to visit her. Her eBay auction ends July 2 and asks for a starting bid of 99 cents with a shipping cost of $500,000. The auction has not yet received any bids.

Slide 10: FOR THE LADIES A model wears a creation by Rosa Cha during the Sao Paulo Fashion Week in Sao Paulo, Saturday, June 21, 2008.

Slide 11: Life for sale falls short of target AAP | Monday, 30 June 2008 A Perth man's life and belongings have sold on eBay for $A399,000 ($NZ508,345) – far less than he had hoped they were worth. Ian Usher, 44, has sold his home, vehicles, furniture, the prospect of a job and access to his friends after a seven- day worldwide auction. He had hoped for $A500,000 to start a new life. Mr Usher said he had not yet found out who the buyer was because he had TV crews lined up waiting to interview him at his home. "I'm trying to find some time to get on the computer and check it out . . . I haven't looked (up) anything about them yet," he said. Bidding opened last Sunday with numerous bogus buyers raising the price to more than $A2 million, but the British immigrant says he is still happy with the final figure. He decided to use the internet to sell everything he owns after breaking up with his partner two-and-a-half years ago. "Despite my life being busy and fulfilled, I still miss my wife," his website states. "I intend to walk out of my front door with my wallet in one pocket and my passport in the other, nothing else at all, and get on the train, with no idea where I am going or what the future holds for me." In the 100 days leading up to the auction, Mr Usher wrote web dairies and posted videos on the internet of his hobbies, interests and the lifestyle in Perth, to try to attract buyers.

Slide 12: Dutch marijuana coffee shops brace for smoking ban Associated Press Writer AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) -- This city's famed marijuana bars have weathered many challenges over the years and are still smoking. But now they face an unwelcome blast of fresh air: On July 1, the Netherlands will be one of the last European countries to ban smoking in bars and restaurants in compliance with EU law. The Health Ministry says the ban will apply to cafes that sell marijuana, known as coffee shops. But this being Holland, which for centuries has experimented with social liberalism, there's a loophole: The ban covers tobacco but not marijuana, which is technically illegal anyway. But that still leaves coffee shops and their customers in a bind. Dutch and other European marijuana users traditionally smoke pot in fat, cone-shaped joints mixed with tobacco. Shops are scrambling to adapt. One alternative is "vaporizer" machines, which incinerate weed smokelessly. Another is to replace tobacco with herbs like coltsfoot, a common plant that looks like a dandelion and that smokers describe as tasting a bit like oregano. But most shops are just planning to increase their sales of hash brownies and pure weed - and are hoping the law isn't enforced. Marijuana possession is illegal in the Netherlands, but smokers are not prosecuted for holding up to 5 grams. Around 750 cafes - half of them in Amsterdam - are licensed to have up to 500 grams in stock at any one time. The Dutch "tolerance" policy recognizes that some people will smoke pot regardless of laws, so it might as well happen in an orderly way. Critics complain this encourages substance abuse. But cannabis abuse in Holland ranks somewhere in the middle compared to other nations and is lower than in the U.S., France and England, according to statistics compiled by the United Nations' Office on Drugs and Crime. At the same time, the levels of THC - the main active chemical in marijuana - have soared in the past decade and are now at 16 percent in Dutch weed. The U.S. government sounded the alarm earlier this month because THC in American marijuana has doubled to 9.6 percent since 1983, and it warned of recent scientific findings linking the drug to mental problems. The Dutch government, currently led by a conservative coalition with a religious bent, is slowly squeezing back the number of coffee shops by not renewing licenses when shops close. Without coffee shops, he said, "a little bit of Amsterdam will die." JSOnline

Slide 13: 'Magic' mushrooms are grown at Procare in Hazerswoude-Dorp. A new study has found that the feelings of well-being and life satisfaction brought on by the hallucinogen psilocybin -- found in "magic" mushrooms -- can last for months.

Slide 14: California to Legalize Weed for Everyone There is an initiative in the works that could end up on the November ballot that allows for marijuana to be sold to anyone, and anywhere that already sells alcohol. Its being called The Inalienable Rights Enforcement Initiative. From the full text of the measure: This initiative will amend the Constitution of California to defend and safeguard the inalienable rights of the People against infringement by governments and corporations, providing for the lawful growth, sale, and possession of marijuana. Marijuana will be taxed through a system of stamps and licenses--a $5 stamp will be required for the sale of an eighth ounce of marijuana and a $50 annual license will be required for the growth of one marijuana plant. To protect participants and encourage participation in the system, such licenses and stamps will be available anonymously in stores where marijuana is sold. So instead of getting some quack doctor to give you a prescription for $100 because of your supposed "anxiety" or alleged "insomnia", you will just pay an extra tax each time you buy yourself another 8th. Aside from allowing all willing adults to be able to buy weed easily, this initiative will start to generate revenue for California, and stimulate our struggling economy. More weed stores means more jobs for Californians, more taxes to be collected, and more people enjoying better weed. And finally marijuana will be put into the same file as Alcohol and Cigarettes where it belongs, instead of it being equated with crack-cocaine and heroine.

Slide 21: Mahmud Ahmedinejad & his lovely wife.

Slide 22: Jesse Coombs, runs the 70-foot-tall Lower Mesa Falls, Henry's Fork River, Idaho

Slide 23: CG Chicks

Slide 41: Have a Happy & Safe 4th of July Everybody!!!!!