“Porsche’s Spyder will allow drivers to use several fueling modes including E-Drive, Hybrid, Sport Hybrid and Race Hybrid. E-Drive mode switches on the vehicle’s electric engine which can run for about 16 miles. Amazingly, the car’s top speed is 198 miles per hour. Of course all this eco-friendliness will come at a very wallet-unfriendly price–a whopping $630,000 a pop.”  > Source: http://dvice.com/

An interesting article about a man who collected/purchased signs from the homeless and has written about some of their stories.

“Amazon has acquired popular deal-a-day website Woot. The announcement was made on the Woot Blog. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.  Woot will remain an independent, autonomous entity, much like Zappos when it was acquired last year by the online shopping giant.” – Source: http://mashable.com/

Christina was telling me about this yesterday and living in America something like this didn’t sound true but evidently it is.  He chose this method to die, possibly for the headlines but not sure I agree with the death penalty.  Thoughts?

“Convicted killer Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed by firing squad early Friday, the Utah Department of Corrections said.  Gardner, 49, is only the third person to die by firing squad in the United States in 33 years.” – CNN

The story of a man, a women who left him (maybe it was the mohawk), a $180,000 car, and lots of open road.  >> http://jalopnik.com/5559767/

Leo Laporte says he does not want to have anything to do with Jason Calacanis since he has been aggressively cranking out “This week in” shows.

“Dominic Deville stalks young victims for a week, sending chilling texts, making prank phone calls and setting traps in letterboxes.  He posts notes warning children they are being watched, telling them they will be attacked.  But Deville is not an escaped lunatic or some demonic monster.  He is a birthday treat, hired by mum and dad, and the ‘attack’ involves being splatted in the face with a cake.  ‘The child feels more and more that it is being pursued,’ said Deville.  ‘The clown’s one and only aim is to smash a cake into the face of his victim, when they least expect it, during the course of seven days.’  If the boy or girl manages to avoid the ‘hit’, they are given the cake as a birthday present. Well, that’s alright then.

The frightening fun can be stopped at any time, which is handy for parents who have second thoughts and don’t fancy the cost of child therapy.  Deville said: ‘The clown will never break into a residence or show up at work. ‘It’s all in fun and if, at any point, the kids get scared or their parents are concerned, we stop right there.  ‘But most kids absolutely love being scared senseless.’  Deville set up his Evil Clown service in Lucerne, Switzerland, after being inspired by some of his favourite horror films – possibly including Stephen King’s It and Killer Klowns From Outer Space.  The idea is unlikely to be popular with sufferers of coulrophobia – the irrational (irrational?) fear of clowns.  But Stephen Vaughan of Clowns International, said scary clowns could be as funny as their red-nosed counterparts. ‘I think what Dominic is doing is a great idea,’ he added.  ‘Bringing a little bit of life and laughter into kids’ lives is what we are all about.”

Source: http://www.metro.co.uk/

My dad and some other Safeway coworkers helped do maintenance on the home of Ms. Johnnie Mae Poitier and Mr. Kinnie Lee, this past weekend.  “The couple, who live in North Portland, want to live safely and independently in their own home. The team worked all day Saturday on the building.  An easy-to-navigate, energy efficient environment will be better for Mr Lee, a 67-year old veteran who is dealing with disabilities. More than 40 Safeway staff will volunteer for the construction effort, which is funded by the Safeway foundation.”  Source:  http://www.theskanner.com/

In 1999, San Francisco Mexican restaurant Casa Sanchez launched an outlandish promotion: get a tattoo of its logo and receive free lunches for life.  >> Read the full article

I know luggage fees are ridiculous these days but this is a little extreme isn’t it?

(Reuters) – “Two women were arrested at a British airport on suspicion of trying to smuggle a dead relative onto a flight bound for Germany, police said on Tuesday.  The 91-year-old deceased man was pushed in a wheelchair through Liverpool’s John Lennon airport wearing sunglasses before check-in staff became suspicious and he was prevented from boarding the plane.  He was believed to have been driven about 35 miles to the airport by taxi from Oldham, Greater Manchester, police added.

The women were arrested on suspicion of failing to give notification of a death and were released on bail.  “At 11 a.m. on Saturday 3 April 2010, police at Liverpool John Lennon airport were alerted to the death of a 91-year-old man in the terminal building,” police said in a statement.  “Two women aged 41 and 66 were arrested on suspicion of failing to give notification of death.”  The cause of death is not known.”

(Source: Reuters) – “Bingeing on high-calorie foods may be as addictive as cocaine or nicotine, and could cause compulsive eating and obesity, according to a study published on Sunday.  The findings in a study of animals cannot be directly applied to human obesity, but may help in understanding the condition and in developing therapies to treat it, researchers wrote in the journal “Nature Neuroscience.”  The study, involving rats, found that overconsumption of high-calorie food can trigger addiction-like responses in the brain and that high-calorie food can turn rats into compulsive eaters in a laboratory setting, the article said.  The scientists also found decreased levels of a specific dopamine receptor — a brain chemical that allows a feeling of reward — in overweight rats, as has been reported in humans addicted to drugs, the article said.

“Obesity may be a form of compulsive eating. Other treatments in development for other forms of compulsion, for example drug addiction, may be very useful for the treatment of obesity,” researcher Paul Kenny of The Scripps Research Institute in Florida said in a telephone interview. Obesity-related diseases cost the United States an estimated $150 billion each year, according to U.S. federal agencies. An estimated two-thirds of American adults and one-third of children are obese or overweight.  For the study, Kenny and colleagues headed to the grocery store.  “We basically bought all of the stuff that people really like — Ding-Dongs, cheesecake, bacon, sausage, the stuff that you enjoy, but you really shouldn’t eat too often,” he said.  They also bought healthy foods and devised a diet plan for three groups of rats.

One group ate a balanced healthy diet. Another group received healthy food, but had access to high-calorie food for one hour a day. Rats in the third group were fed healthy meals and given unlimited access to high-calorie foods.  The rats in the third group developed a preference for the high-calorie food, munched on it all day and quickly became obese, Kenny said.  The rats in the experiment had also been trained to expect a minor shock when exposed to a light. But when the rats that had unlimited access to high-calorie food were shown the light, they did not respond to the potential danger, Kenny said. Instead, they continued to eat their snacks.  “What we’re seeing in our animals is very similar to what you’d see in humans who overindulge,” he said. “It seemed that it was okay, from what we could tell, to enjoy snack foods, but if you repeatedly overindulge, that’s where the problem comes in.”

Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do? wrote the below rights we should have for the Internet (source):

“I. We have the right to connect.
This is a preamble and precondition to the American First Amendment: before we can speak, we must be able to connect. Hillary Clinton defines the freedom to connect as “the idea that governments should not prevent people from connecting to the internet, to websites, or to each other.” It is this principle that also informs discussion of net neutrality.

II. We have the right to speak.
No one may abridge our freedom of speech. We acknowledge the limitations on freedom of speech but they must defined as narrowly as possible, lest we find ourselves operating under a lowest common denominator of offense. Freedom is our default.

III. We have the right to speak in our languages.
The English language’s domination of the internet has faded as more languages and alphabets have joined the net, which is to be celebrated. But Ethan Zuckerman also cautions that in our polyglot internet, we will want to build bridges across languages. We will want to speak in our own languages but also speak with others’.

IV. We have the right to assemble.
In the American Bill of Rights, the right to assemble is listed separately from the right to speak. The internet enables us to organize without organizations and collaborate and that now threatens repressive regimes as much as speech.

V. We have the right to act.
These first articles are a thread: We connect to speak and speak to assemble and assemble to act and that is how we can and will change the world, not just putting forth grievances but creating the means to fix them. That is what threatens the institutions that would stop us.

VI. We have the right to control our data.
You should have access to data about you. And what’s yours is yours. We want the internet to operate on a principle of portability, so your information and creations cannot be held prisoner by a service or government and so you retain control. But keep in mind that when control is given to one, it is taken from another; in those details lurk devils. This principle thus speaks to copyright and its laws, which set the definitions and limits of control or creation. This principle also raises questions about whether the wisdom of the crowd belongs to the crowd.

VII. We have the right to our own identity.
This is not as simple as a name. Our identity online is made up of our names, addresses, speech, creations, actions, connections. Note also that in repressive regimes, maintaining anonymity — hiding one’s identity — is a necessity; thus anonymity, with all its faults and baggage and trolls, must also be protected online to protect the dissenter and the whistleblower. Note finally that these two articles — controlling our data and our identities — make up the right to privacy, which is really a matter of control.

VIII. What is public is a public good.
The internet is public; indeed, it is a public place (rather than a medium). In the rush to protect privacy, we must beware the dangers of restricting the definition of public. What’s public is owned by the public. Making the public private or secret serves the corrupt and tyrannical.

IX. The internet shall be built and operated openly.
The internet must continue to be built and operated to open standards. It must not be taken over or controlled by any company or government. It must not be taxed. It is the internet’s openness that gives it its freedom. It is this freedom that defines the internet.”

OK I’m last to hear the news evidently and just learned last night about Jesse James’s scandal.  Where are my celebrity gossip friends these days?  I have Twitter, Email, Facebook, a phone, a website, and you don’t tell me these things?  Ah, OK I’ll get over it. I don’t know what it is about women liking bad boys but it is so true.  So like anything else when I don’t know the answer to something I resort to Google.  Google’s first result for the search term of “women like bad boys” is this blog which lists the 7 reasons why women like “bad boys”:

1. Rebels are confident
2. Rebels are indifferent
3. Rebels are exciting and adventurous
4. Rebels are challenging and mysterious
5. Rebels are very masculine
6. Rebels give women a feeling of power
7. Rebels know how to talk to women

I’ve watched a few episodes of Dr. Phil, oh common you have too admit it.  Any way, a “Dr. Philism” I have learned to ask people when they keep repeating something that isn’t benefiting them is “how is that working out for you”?  Einstein’s definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  Thank goodness I had a son and not a daughter because I know I’d be overly protective of a daughter.

“How big is a zillion? It’s “an extremely large, indeterminate number,” according to Dictionary.com.   And how rare is an all-black penguin, rather than the black-and-white tuxedo-like colorings on most of the adorable, big, wabbly birds? It’s a one-in-a-zillion mutation, scientists say.”  >> Read full story

If you’ve been following the news recently, Conan O’Brien has a twitter account and has amassed over half a million followers in just a few weeks.  To date Conan hasn’t been following anyone until yesterday when he decided to follow a random person who “likes peanut butter and gummy dinosaurs”.  Sarah Killen’s life has now forever changed (she now has over 10,000 followers and counting)…hilarious.

Yitzhak Ganon survived Auschwitz SS doctor Josef Mengele's medical experiments

Sixty-five years ago, infamous Auschwitz doctor Josef Mengele removed Yitzhak Ganon’s kidney without anesthesia. The Greek-born Jew swore never to see a doctor again — until a heart attack last month brought his horrific tale into the open.  >> Read the full article

Liked a blog post by Mike Row on Captain Phil Harris (crab boat TV reality fisherman) who recently passed away.

Two women have turned stylish handbags into a necessity in the struggle to feed the world’s hungry children. Buying 1 FEED bag will feed 1 child for 1 year and the price is a reasonable $30. The FEED bags have also brought about awareness and progress on the issue of world hunger.

I was talking with Scott at lunch yesterday about our normal random things and somehow we got on the subject of America’s infrastructure.  I was telling him I recently read a great article from Popular Science about renovating America’s infrastructure and wanted to share with everyone as well.  The following is an excerpt: “Chicago road crews are scrambling to fill 67,000 potholes a month. Communities in Pennsylvania rely on 100-year-old water pipes made of wood. Squirrels still cause widespread blackouts. The country’s 600,000 bridges, four million miles of roads, and 30,000 wastewater plants desperately need attention. The solution isn’t patches, it’s an overhaul. Soon roads and power lines will fix themselves, and we’ll mine energy from sewage. America’s 21st-century tune-up won’t happen overnight, but we could start reaping the benefits (faster broadband! cleaner water!) within the next few years.”  >> Read the full article

Source: http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca

“On Saturday night, 11-year-old Austin Forman was gathering firewood outside his home when a cougar charged across the yard at him. His 18-month-old dog, Angel, jumped in and engaged the cougar.  Gravelle arrived at the home a short time later and found the cougar gnawing on Angel underneath the family’s porch.  Gravelle fired his gun, killing the cougar. Angel suffered numerous puncture wounds but survived.”

“A 35-year old Sicilian first showed up at a police station on Thursday asking to be arrested because he preferred spending the night in prison rather than with his family, but was rebuffed because he had not committed a crime, the Agi news agency said.  The man immediately went to a tobacco shop next door, where he threatened the owner with a box cutter as he grabbed a few sweets and a packet of gum. He then waited until police arrived to arrest him for robbery, the news agency said. ” Source: Reuters.com