patti labelle blog: October 2006

Unofficial Google Stores

Google textile store in Istanbul, Turkey.

Google internet cafe in Cairo, Egypt.

Google Fashion in Shaoxin, Zhejiang Province, China

Google Fashion in somewhere in Turkey.

Pictures were found on Gseeker (3) & Googlified (1, 2, 4)

Previously, Random Citations posted a Google Fashion house also in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.

Jesus Loves You

Jesus Loves You was found at 43°38'43.00"N 115°59'33.50"W on Google Earth or Google Maps somewhere about 17.5km (10.9 miles) east of Boise, Idaho. via Gseeker

This is probably one of the largest "Jesus loves you" signs in the world. Each letter is about 9.5 meters (31 feet) long.

Video: Chelsea 's Goalkeeper Petr Cech Injuried

Obviously, this violates the Joga Bonito spirit!

The Moon Trees

From NASA (via)

Apollo 14 launched in the late afternoon of January 31, 1971 on what was to be our third trip to the lunar surface. Five days later Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell walked on the Moon while Stuart Roosa, a former U.S. Forest Service smoke jumper, orbited above in the command module. Packed in small containers in Roosa's personal kit were hundreds of tree seeds, part of a joint NASA/USFS project. Upon return to Earth, the seeds were germinated by the Forest Service. Known as the "Moon Trees", the resulting seedlings were planted throughout the United States (often as part of the nation's bicentennial in 1976) and the world. They stand as a tribute to astronaut Roosa and the Apollo program.

Video: The Saints Are Coming

Enjoy this nice song performed by U2 & Green Day!

Kate Moss' Nose Done Plastical Surgery

Indeed in Miss Moss's first fashion shoots back in the early 1990s, she had quite a wide flat nose.

Photographed in 1998, the model still had a rather wide nose.

However five years later in 2003, its shape appeared to be a little narrower.

A year ago, pictured in New York, the central column of the nose still looked to be well-proportioned.

Most recently, Miss Moss, 32, went to a masquerade ball in London this week, and hid her face beneath a mask altogether.

However, when she was photographed at Heathrow yesterday, her nose looked to have much more marked indents on either side.

One leading plastic surgeon named Alex Karidis of the St John and St Elizabeth Hospital in North London argued surgery or drug abuse could have been to blame.

"The nose certainly seems to be retracted. Past drug abuse is certainly a possibility - but then so is surgery in the form of a tweak or adjustment."

Cricket Lovers

Monkeys watch from a stadium gallery as the England cricket team practises in Ahmadabad, India.

Giant Watermelon Weighs At 57-Kilograms

It's more like a winter melon!

A farmer displays a 51-kilogram (112 pound) Chinese watermelon in Xiangfan, Central China's Hubei Province October 24, 2006. The giant Chinese watermelon is 115-cm (3.7 feet) tall with a 112-cm (3.6 feet) perimeter.

Four-Legggd Chick Killed By Extra Anus

The four-legged clucker named Forzie was found dead by its owner who plans to donate it to the Auckland Museum after undergoing some necessary process.

The Te Uku-bred Barnevelder chick - hatched at Marlene Dickey's property at the start of last month - has died.

But it wasn't the extra legs that led to its death, more likely an extra anus, Mrs Dickey believes.

"He developed two bottoms and I think he got glugged up," she said.

While she was surprised by Forzie's death - he weighed a "good pound of butter" and was gaining feathers slowly - it was not totally unexpected, she said.

Lady Who Had Toad's Toxic Fluid Addiction

A fascinating story about a family dog called Lady!

Lady "was really perky, and happy, and generally excited to see you when you came in the door every day," recalls Andrew Mirsch.

But that was before the Mirsch family moved into a new house.

"We noticed Lady spending an awful lot of time down by the pond in our backyard," Laura Mirsch recalls.

Lady would wander the area, disoriented and withdrawn, soporific and glassy-eyed.

"Then, late one night after I'd put the dogs out, Lady wouldn't come in," Laura Mirsch says. "She finally staggered over to me from the cattails. She looked up at me, leaned her head over and opened her mouth like she was going to throw up, and out plopped this disgusting toad."

It turned out the toads were toxic -- and, if licked, the fluids on their skin provided a hallucinogenic effect.

What followed was the Mirsch family's quest to stop their cocker spaniel from indulging herself. But it wasn't easy. Lady was persistent, and resourceful.

The situation seemed to resolve itself when the toads went into hibernation for the winter.

But when they returned, so did Lady -- and with a vengeance.

"We couldn't keep our dog's addiction a secret any longer," Laura Mirsch says. "The neighbors all knew that Lady was a drug addict, and soon the other dogs weren't allowed to play with her."

In the end, Lady seems to have found a way to manage her problem.

"She seems to have outgrown the wild toad-obsessed years of her youth," Mirsch says, "and now only sucks on weekends."

Video: Friday The 13th Video Game Review

Very Nice!

Cute VW Bug Car

A vw that looks like a pig, its got the nose, ears and even a tail!

Even though the buns are said to be tasty, I am still scared the color additives added! The buns were made and sold at 1RM each [money channeled to the charities] by volunteers in Sam Wong Kong Temple, Batu Gajah of Malaysia's Kedah State during this Nine Emperor Gods Festival.

Video: Love At First Sight

The creativity of the lady in the video is admirable. Entertaining indeen!

Pestulent Poser

Mr. Mark spied this young couple just at the right moment as dad was loading his camera whening visiting Heian Shrine, Kyoto, Japan. A great shot!

Chase Plane Photo of Space Shuttle Launch

A gorgeous picture of a space shuttle launch taken by a NASA's WB-57 chase plane instead of from the International Space Station.

Oh, Jayden James, It's Official!

Finally, TMZ solves Britney's baby mystery after obtaining a copy of the birth certificate (the screenshot above from TMZ's pdf file ) from L.A. County Registrar-Recorder's office in California. The latest addition to the Spears-Federline family is a boy, now officially named Jayden James!

Twins Alicia And Jasmin Singer, Australia's Beautifully-Different Black and White Twins

The Australia couple Natasha Knight of mixed-race Jamaican-English heritage and Michael Singerl of origin in Germany are well blessed by one-in-a-million chance.

Establishing a little individuality is a challenge faced by most twins.

But nature has already given Alicia and a helping hand.

Gorgeously chubby and sunny-natured, the five-month-old girls already turn heads when their parents take them out.

But many do a double take when they realise Alicia is black while Jasmin is white.

Alicia's eyes were brown and her hair was dark. Jasmin's eyes were blue and her hair was white.

The Australian sisters, who were conceived naturally, were born in May and live with their parents in Burpengary, north of Brisbane.

Dog Lover Setenced One Year In Jail For Stealing Pup

Picture credit: Germanshepherds.com

Xia [a migrant worker in Hangzhou, China] once worked in the kennels, where he fell in love with the dogs. Upon his return home to Anhui Province, his passion got the better of him and he snuck back to spirit away a 5-month-old German Shepherd in June.

Caught while escaping with the pup, which was valued at about 8,000 yuan (US$1,011), Xia was sentenced with one year in jail and fined 3,000 yuan (US$379).

Previously, a boshintang [a traditional food called dog meat stew in South Korea] lover was also caught by the police after the owner of a Pedigree dog spotted her pet's telltale collar in front of the man's house.

Britney Spear's Second Baby Is A Girl!?

The Federline-Spears couple seems to present the world with a super joke.

A mystery is growing around Britney Spears’ second baby.

It was widely reported that on Sept. 12, Spears gave birth to a baby boy that she named Sutton Pierce. Spears has not confirmed those reports, and pics of little Sutton have yet to surface. Sources tell the Scoop that may be because there is no Sutton Pierce Spears Federline.

“That’s not the baby’s name,” one source insists. “It’s Jayden James. J.J. for short.”

Another source insists that the baby isn't a boy at all — but a girl.

The picture above is an issue cover of magazine Bazaar for which Britney Spears posed earlier this year, not long after she announced her second pregnancy.

Why Is The Sky Blue?

A clear cloudless day-time sky is blue because molecules in the air scatter blue light from the sun more than they scatter red light. When we look towards the sun at sunset, we see red and orange colours because the blue light has been scattered out and away from the line of sight.

The white light from the sun is a mixture of all colours of the rainbow. This was demonstrated by Isaac Newton, who used a prism to separate the different colours and so form a spectrum. The colours of light are distinguished by their different wavelengths. The visible part of the spectrum ranges from red light with a wavelength of about 720 nm, to violet with a wavelength of about 380 nm, with orange, yellow, green, blue and indigo between. The three different types of colour receptors in the retina of the human eye respond most strongly to red, green and blue wavelengths, giving us our colour vision.

Video: Steve Ballmer Selling Microsoft Windows 1.0

If not this vintage video (yes! I called it a vintage because it was aired as early as in 1985 the time a PC to the most of families is a luxury), I don't even know there is a Windows 1.0. The earliest version of Windows OS I encountered in the late of 1990's during my college era is 3.2.

YouTube Asked To Submit User Data

It's no secret that millions of Internet users every day watch copyright-infringing video clips on YouTube, the upstart Web site that Google Inc. has agreed to acquire for $1.65 billion.

What's less known is that YouTube has been watching the watchers.

YouTube's actions in response to a subpoena it received in May show that it has been keeping tabs on users who post copyrighted material to its site -- and in one case shared the name of a user with lawyers from a Hollywood film studio.

On May 24, lawyers for Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures convinced a federal judge in San Francisco to issue a subpoena requiring YouTube to turn over details about a user who uploaded dialog from the movie studio's "Twin Towers," according to a copy of the document.

YouTube promptly handed over the data to Paramount, which on June 16 sued the creator of the 12-minute clip, New York City-based filmmaker Chris Moukarbel, for copyright infringement, in federal court in Washington.

China Plotting Blog Real Name System

[...] A real name system will be an unavoidable choice if China wants to standardize and develop its blog industry, Huang Chengqing, ISC secretary general, told Xinhua on Sunday.

An official with the ISC confirmed on Thursday that the society is working on a real name system for Chinese bloggers, which attested to netizens' longtime guess about it and triggered a hot controversy.[...]

Huang said the foundation of the blog real name system is an equilibrium between freedom and responsibility. "There exists no freedom without any abstention, and to limit also benefits the further development of this industry."

He said the system they have recommended is a background real name system, which requires bloggers provide their real names and other real information when applying for a blog but allows them to use pseudonyms in their blog articles.

American Man Accused Of Having Sex With Dog

PIERCE COUNTY, Washington -- A man accused of having sex with the family dog has been charged under the state's new animal cruelty law, which makes bestiality a felony, a prosecutor said.

Michael Patrick McPhail, 26, of nearby Spanaway, pleaded not guilty Thursday to one count of first-degree animal cruelty in Pierce County Superior Court.

Assistant Pierce County Prosecutor Karen Watson said McPhail was the first person in Pierce County to be charged with the new bestiality offense.

McPhail's wife told investigators that she found her husband on their back porch Wednesday night having intercourse with their 4-year-old female pit bull terrier, the Pierce County sheriff's office report said. The dog was squealing and crying, according to charging papers.

The woman took photos with her cell phone and called the sheriff's office. via Boing Boing

British Teens Most Sexually Active in Europe

British teenagers are the most sexually active in Europe and children should be taught about contraception to stem the problem of teenage pregnancies, a report published on Monday said.

A study by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found that 38 percent of British 15-year-olds had had sex in the period from 2001-2.

That compared to just 15 percent in Poland, 16 percent in Spain and was also far greater than the countries with the second highest proportion - Sweden, Finland and Germany.

In addition Britain had the highest rate of teenage births, an average of 26 live births per 1 000 women aged 15 to 19.

Sexually related diseases such as Chlamydia and herpes had also risen amongst young people, with one in three 15-year-olds admitting they didn't use condoms.

Video: Learn How To Juggle 3 Balls At A Time

You have possibly watched and been stunned by one of the most popular videos on Google Video called Amazing Juggling Finale. Now you can learn how to juggle from Jason Garfield [wiki] who is a professional American juggler and the founder and president of the World Juggling Federation.

Gossip: Brad Pitt Paid For Bad Sex

Poor Angelina Jollie!

A whore, using only the name Olivia, has released a tell-all book, claiming she was paid $660 to have with Brad Pitt. The incident took place many years ago but Olivia retells the story like it was yesterday.

"We got right to it," says the sex worker in her raunchy book, Hooking Up: You'll Never Make Love In This Town Again.

"Nothing romantic, nothing kinky. The guy just wanted to get off," she says of the normally clean-cut Hollywood hunk.

"He put on a condom and the whole thing was over pretty quick."

Doorway Page

A SEO that Google will spare no efforts to axe!

Doorway pages are web pages that are created for spamdexing, this is, for spamming the index of a search engine by inserting results for particular phrases with the purpose of sending you to a different page. They are also known as landing pages, bridge pages, portal pages, zebra pages , jump pages, gateway pages, entry pages and by other names. Doorway pages that redirect visitors without their knowledge use some form of cloaking.

If you click through to a typical doorway page from a search engine result page, in most cases you will be redirected with a fast Meta refresh command to another page. Other forms of redirection include use of Javascript and server side redirection, either through the .htaccess file or from the server configuration file. Some doorway pages may be dynamic pages generated by scripting languages such as Perl and PHP.

Doorway pages are often easy to identify in that they have been designed primarily for search engines, not for human beings. Sometimes a doorway page is copied from another high ranking page, but this is likely to cause the search engine to detect the page as a duplicate and exclude it from the search engine listings.

Video: Dancing Bear

Cool! What a freak bear in zoo!

Future of Singapore

A blog by Derek Wee currently has only one post (snips posted as follows) with a great popularity that caused the Wee Shu Min saga (netizens have already dug up her bikini photos) in the tiny city state, Singapore.

When I read the Straits Times article (dated 24 Sep) on PM Lee calling the young to be committed and make a difference to Singapore, I have so much thought about the issue.

I am 35 years old, graduated from University and gainfully employed in a multinational company. But I cannot help but feel insecure over the future of Singapore. Lets face it, it’s not uncommon to hear, “when you are above 40, you are over the hill”. The government has been stressing on re-training, skills upgrading and re-adapt. The fact is, no matter how well qualified or adaptable one is, once you hit the magical 40, employers will say, “you are simply too old”. [...]

On PM Lee calling the young to be committed and make a difference. Look around us. How dedicated can we be to Singapore when we can visualise what’s in store for us after we turned 40? Then again, how committed are employers to us? But we can’t blame them. They have bottom lines & shareholders’ gain to answer to. Onus is really on the government to revamp the society. A society that is not a pressure cooker. A society that does not mirror so perfectly, what survival of the fittest is. But a society, where it’s people can be committed, do their best and not having to fear whether they will still wake up employed tomorrow. Sadly, Singapore does not offer such luxuries and security anymore. [...]

Many of my peers, bright and well educated have packed up and left. It’s what MM Goh called “quitters”. It’s sad but true, Singapore no longer is a place where one can hope to work hard their lives and retire graciously. It’s really the push factor. A future is something we sweat it out, build and call our own. Unfortunately, people like me, mid 30’s going on 40’s, staying put by choice or otherwise, we can’t help but feel what lies ahead is really a gamble.

To PM Lee and the Ministers, we are on a different platform. Until you truly understand our insecurity, the future of Singapore to me remains a question mark.

Video: Dog Burglar

Oops! Nowadays dog possibly likes money check more than meat bone! Apparently, you need to use a bag with extra safety measureskeep your wallet safe!

Women Vs Men

Funny stuff received from a cycled email for your laugh:

Smart man + smart woman = romance
Smart man + dumb woman = affair
Dumb man + smart woman = marriage
Dumb man + dumb woman = pregnancy
A man will pay $20 for a $10 item he needs.
A woman will pay $10 for a $20 item that she doesn't need.
A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
A successful woman is one who can find such a man.
To be happy with a man, you must understand him a lot and love him a little.
To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.
Married men live longer than single men do, but married men are a lot more willing to die.
A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, and she does.
A woman has the last word in any argument.
Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

Weird Chinese Woman Drinks Almost A Ton Of Gasoline

I am shocked!

This 46 year-old wacky Chinese lady has a hobby of drinking gasoline and eating pesticide. In the last 10 years she drank almost a ton of gasoline. When she was little, she loved the smell of gasoline and pesticide. Her first sip of gas was in 1995 and ever since then she’s been addicted to it and had to drink it everyday. She could even tell the premium or regular just by tasting it.

Against Nature? The First Ever Gay Animal Exhibition

Interesting!

The Oslo Natural History Museum opened the show last week and says it has been well attended, not least by families.

The exhibition [...] includes photographs of one male giraffe mounting another, of apes stimulating others of the same sex, and two aroused male right whales rubbing against each other.

It says homosexuality has been observed among 1,500 species, and that in 500 of those it is well documented.

"Homosexuality is a common and widespread phenomenon in the animal world," says an exhibition statement.

"Not only short-lived sexual relationships, but even long-lasting partnerships; partnerships that may last a lifetime."

It says sex between animals - as between humans - is often a matter of enjoyment, rather than procreation, and that this applies to animals of the same sex as well as opposite sexes.

Go to the homepage made by University of Oslo to read more about Homosexuality in the Animal Kingdom.

Top US General Says Rumsfeld Is Inspired By God

Ridiculous! " God likes US to invade Iraq?"

The top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God.

"He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Rumsfeld is "a man whose patriotism focus, energy, drive, is exceeded by no one else I know ... quite simply, he works harder than anybody else in our building," Pace said at a ceremony at the Southern Command (Southcom) in Miami. via Cynical-C

Video: Bomb Bunker Buster Explosion Demo

A high quality video of an unusual weapon/bomb called Bunker Buster, which has the ability to penetrate and destory hardened targets or targets buried deep underground.

Video: The Beginning Of The End Of America

News commentator Keith Olbermann ironically commented the endorsement by President Bush for the "Military Commissions Act" and also the death of Habeas Corpus.

"And if you somehow think Habeas Corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an "unlawful enemy combatant" — exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this Attorney General is going to help you?

This President now has his blank check. He lied to get it. He lied as he received it.

A Beautiful Showgirl

If not told there was an auto expo, I believe she was possibly modelling for some a underwear company at the first glance at the photo.

Internet Explorer 7 Finally Released

It (download) comes 20 months later since Bill Gates first announced Microsoft to deliver IE7. Snips from the post by Dean Hachamovitch, General Manager of IE Team tells of the IE 7's security improvement and user-experience innovations:

We listened carefully to feedback from many sources and worked hard to deliver a safer browser that makes everyday tasks easier. When I first posted publicly about IE7, I wrote that we would go further to defend users from phishing and malicious software. The Phishing Filter and the architectural work in IE7 around networking and ActiveX opt-in will help keep users more secure. IE7 also delivers a much easier browsing experience with features like tabbed browsing (especially with QuickTabs), shrink-to-fit printing, an easily customizable search box, and a new design that leaves more screen real estate for the web site you’re viewing. IE7’s CSS improvements are incredibly important for developers as many of you have made quite clear. I also think IE7’s RSS experience and platform are important, powerful, and innovative.

If interested, check this IE 7 promotion video with broadband or modem link to learn more.

Iraq War, Bush's Ailing Project?

It sounds like that. Snips from Barney and Baghdad by Thomas Friedman of NYT op-ed:

In the competition for the biggest “October surprise” of the 2006 election cycle, it might seem hard to top North Korea’s nuclear test. But I’d suggest that in time we’ll come to see the events unfolding — or rather, unraveling — in Iraq today as the real October surprise, because what we’re seeing there seems like the jihadist equivalent of the Tet offensive.

For those of you too young to remember, the Tet offensive was the series of attacks undertaken by the Vietcong and North Vietnamese armies between Jan. 30, 1968 — the start of the Lunar New Year — and June 1969. Although the Vietcong and Hanoi were badly mauled during Tet, they delivered, through the media, such a psychological blow to U.S. hopes of “winning” in Vietnam that Tet is widely credited with eroding support for President Johnson and driving him to withdraw as a candidate for re-election.

Total U.S. troop deaths in Iraq this month have reached at least 53, putting October on a path to be the third deadliest month of the entire war for the U.S. military. Iraqis are being killed at a rate of 100 per day now. The country has descended into such a Hobbesian state that even Saddam called on Iraqis from his prison cell to stop killing each other. He told insurgents, “Remember you are God’s soldiers and, therefore, you must show genuine forgiveness and put aside revenge over the spilled blood of your sons and brothers.” When Saddam is urging calm, you know things have hit a new low. [...]

It would be depressing to see the jihadists influence our politics with a Tet-like media/war frenzy. But there are only two reasons now for the U.S. to remain in Iraq: because it thinks that staying will make things better or that leaving will make things drastically worse. Alas, it is increasingly hard to see how our presence is making things better. Iraq, under our nose, is breaking apart into so many little pieces that no political solution seems to be in the offing, because no Iraqi leader can deliver his faction anymore — and there does not seem to be an Iraqi center capable of coming together. While leaving would no doubt exacerbate the civil war, staying in Iraq indefinitely to prevent even more Shiites and Sunnis from killing one another is not going to fly with the U.S. public much longer.

Bob Woodward quoted President Bush as saying that he will not leave Iraq, even if the only ones still supporting him are his wife, Laura, and his dog Barney. If the jihadist Tet offensive continues gaining momentum, Mr. Bush may be left with just Barney.

America's Dumbest Congressmen

Radar had a list of ten biggest fools on the Capitol Hill, and Jim Bunning, a Republican of Kentucky is the top one:

Bunning is a Hall of Fame pitcher who, during his eight years in office, has shown "little interest in legislation that doesn't concern baseball," writes Time magazine. And Kentucky doesn't even have a major-league baseball team. His campaign style is so completely unhinged that political observers openly speculated in 2004 that the then-73-year-old was suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's. "His is a tragic case of descent into senility," says one Hill staffer, "except without the 'descent' bit." To scotch the rumors, Bunning was forced to hold a press conference and offer up doctor's reports.

Among his antics that year: Telling a group of GOP fundraisers that his Italian-American opponent, Daniel Mongiardo, physically resembled Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay; referring on the stump to the tragic terror attacks of November 11, 2001; and adding a federal security detail to his campaign in the firm conviction that members of Al Qaeda—the masterminds of November 11—had targeted him for elimination. ("There may be strangers among us," he darkly informed a Paducah TV crew.)

The piece de resistance, though, was a debate with Mongiardo: Bunning notified event organizers at the eleventh hour that he was tied up with legislative business in Washington and would have to participate via satellite. During the event it was painfully obvious that the incumbent was delivering his debate points with the aid of a teleprompter, violating the event's ground rules. And whatever urgent business Bunning claimed to be in town for couldn't have had anything to do with his job—the Senate had gone into recess the previous Monday [2 Oct].

Maybe Idaho Republican Larry Craig who is anti-gay supporter could be also countered as the No. 11 dumbest since the gay activist Mike Rogers of BlogACTIVE found the Senator is a gay?

I have done extensive research into this case, including trips to the Pacific Northwest to meet with men who have say they have physical relations with the Senator. I have also met with a man here in Washington, D.C., who says the same -- and that these incidents occurred in the bathrooms of Union Station. None of these men know each other, or knew that I was talking to others. They all reported similar personal characteristics about the Senator, which lead me to believe, beyond any doubt, that their stories are valid.

via Tailrank & Polimon

HowTo Make White Chocolate Sugar Skulls

A Googler's mis-post previously posted on Blogger Buzz which should otherwise be on her own blog.

Supplies
1 tray of mini-sugar skull molds
Measuring cup
1 bag of Wilton White Chocolate Melting Chips, or other brand
1 microwave safe mixing bowl
1 mixing spoon or chopstick
1 roll of wax paper
Assorted tubes of Frosting Doodle or other mini-tubes of colored icing
Sugared flowers, edible glitter, candy sprinkles

Put one cup of chips into the mixing bowl. Microwave on high for 15 seconds. Remove and stir. The chocolate melts only when you stir the mixture. It's crucial to keep stirring, otherwise your pieces will scorch. Keep heating and stirring in 15- to 20-second intervals until the chips have melted to a creamy consistency. Spoon the mixture into the molds. Using both hands, lift the tray about six inches and drop it to help the mixture settle and remove any bubbles. Let cool until firm. Flip the skulls onto a sheet of wax paper. Knead the tube of frosting until the contents are of an even consistency. Decorate the skulls with the icing, sprinkles, etc. Wrap the finished skulls in small cellophane bags with ties and keep refrigerated.

via Googlified

Update: Ms. Kathy Cano Murillo left a kind message of saying the photo is from her book--Crafty Chica's Art de la Soul. Its credit belongs to John Samora, Harper Collins. She herself is the copyright owner of the project.

Washington's Hall Of Shame

Compiled by Forbes, Clinton-Lewinsky sex-scandal is the No. 1!

Moral outrage over former President Bill Clinton's dalliance with White House intern Monica Lewinsky and his denials of the affair got him impeached by the House in 1998.

Video: Sweet Tired Cat

[-.-]Zzz

Pregnant Terra-Cotta Warriors

From Spluch

Conceptual artist, Marian Heyerdahl, has so far created 20 out of 70 replicas of the terra-cotta warriors in female form each of which carries a special message -- war is suffering beyond what can be imagined. Heyerdahl hopes to get this message across to people through these statues.

Like the original soldiers made more than two millennia ago, Heyerdahl's soldiers each have a different facial expression but none are of stoic, brave men. "Some have their mouths open as if they're screaming, others have their eyes closed in fear, some are smiling and some are pregnant," said the artist.

Teen Faces Litter Charge For Bra Antenna

Emily Davis, 17, of Bowling Green, who put her bra on a car antenna before it flew off and led to a highway accident will be charged with littering, a prosecutor said. She told investigators she took her bra off while her friend was driving on Interstate 75.

James Campbell, who was driving behind the girls, said he swerved to avoid the bra and his car flipped several times. Campbell, 37, broke a vertebra in his neck during the Sept. 26 accident. His passenger, Jeff Long, 40, broke several ribs.

A State Highway Patrol crash report, obtained by The Blade, said that the girls told investigators that before the accident the men were motioning to them to lift up their shirts. Both men denied making the gestures.

Davis will be charged next week with misdemeanor littering, said Tim Atkins, a juvenile prosecutor in Wood County. Atkins said he'll meet with troopers before filing the charge.

Video: Earthquake Rumbles Hawaii

This news video named Earthquake rumbles Hawaii shows CNN used Google Maps to report the Sunday morning's Hawaiian Earthquake at a magnitude of 6.6. May via Gseeker

Lindsay Lohan & Rumer Willis: Cancer stick Pals

Cancer stick pals! Lindsay Lohan and Rumer Willis,were photographed over puffing away at their cigarettes by paparrazi when driving down Melrose together of West Hollywood in the former's hot new Mercedes Benz convertible.

Link via Gossipmomma

Madonna Flies Home Without Adopted Malawian Boy David Banda

The one-year-old David Banda whose mother died and father couldn't support him, has to wait for quite some time to reunite with his adoption mother even though the Malawian Goverment may exempt the adoption process for the pop diva who just paid a nine-day humanitarian visit to the country. Snips from Daily Mail:

Pop star Madonna left Malawi ... with a pledge from the impoverished southern African nation to try to reunite the two while the adoption process is under way.

The child, identified as David Banda, was not with Madonna as her white four-wheel drive vehicle swept onto the tarmac to a waiting private jet at the international airport in Lilongwe, Malawi's capital.

"The baby hasn't gone yet because immigration is still trying to process his passport," a senior immigration official told Reuters on Friday, hours after the pop star's plane left the country.

Malawian officials said Madonna had been granted an interim order to adopt Banda and could be given a waiver or exemption allowing her to skirt a law that prohibits non-residents from adopting Malawian children.

They said they expected Banda to visit and spend time with Madonna, who has homes in the United States and Britain, while waiting for a hearing on the application, which could take up to two years.

Gerry Studds, First Openly Gay Congressman Dies

It can't say that the death of this ex-Democratic politician is not a big loss for the homosexual community!

Former U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds, the first openly gay person elected to Congress, died early Saturday at Boston Medical Center, several days after he collapsed while walking his dog, his husband said.

Studds fell unconscious October 3 because of what doctors later determined was a blood clot in his lung, Dean Hara said.

Hara, who married Studds shortly after gay marriage was legalized in Massachusetts in 2004, said Studds was a pioneer who gave courage to gay people everywhere by winning re-election after publicly acknowledging his homosexuality.

"He gave people of his generation, or my generation, of future generations, the courage to do whatever they wanted to do," he said.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg Once Air Crash Too

What the experience he obtained from the incident makes him immediately present at the tragic scenes of Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle's plane crash, instead just allowing firefighters and police to respond to the crisis.

In 1976, he was flying a rented helicopter above the Connecticut coast when the power failed and smoke filled the cockpit.

"I wasn't sure what was going on in the engine compartment behind me, but I certainly knew I was falling and couldn't breathe," he wrote in his book. "I was going down. The only question was whether I'd walk away once I got there."

Bloomberg disconnected the engine to let the rotor spin freely and, just before touching down, eased the landing by changing the pitch of the spinning rotor blades to create a bit of lift. This is called autorotation and is practiced by helicopter pilots for emergency landings in the case of engine failure.

The chopper barely made it onto an island off Norwalk. The island was so small the helicopter's tail hung over the water. There was no room for a Coast Guard helicopter to land, so the crew let down a rescue basket to pick up Bloomberg, then a 33-year-old partner at a Wall Street securities trading firm.

Hidden Camera Took Sex Simulation (Mouse Orgy) Video

Some employees in Paris Disneyland apparantly did something stupid enough [a link to the grainy video uploaded on Dailymotion]. Snips from the Reuters report (via):

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Walt Disney Co. on Thursday said it took "appropriate action" against employees at its Paris theme park who were caught simulating sex while dressed as Disney characters in a digital video that has received wide attention on the Internet.

The video shows Minnie Mouse struggling to free herself as she is grabbed from behind by Goofy and then a giant snowman.

Later, Mickey Mouse simulates sex with the snowman and Goofy does the same with either Chip or Dale, the chipmunks, as laughter is heard on the tape.

Cheung Yan, The Richest Person In China

From Guardian Unlimited

A Chinese entrepreneur has surged past JK Rowling and Oprah Winfrey to become the richest self-made woman in the world, and China's wealthiest person.

Cheung Yan [or Zhang Yin In Chinadaily], 49, the head of Nine Dragons Paper recycling and packing firm, is said to be worth US$3.4bn (£1.8bn) after a ninefold rise in her fortune in a year. In comparison, JK Rowling is worth nearly $1bn. Ms Cheung's wealth rose after the firm listed in Hong Kong.

Ms Cheung heads a Chinese rich list dominated by male property speculators, industrial giants and dot.com tycoons, overtaking last year's leader, 36-year-old Huang Guangyu, the male owner of Gome Electrical Appliances, worth $2.5bn.

One of eight children born to a military family in Liaoning province, north-eastern China, she entered business in 1985 after periods in the US and Hong Kong.

The Google YouTube Tango Not A Good Thing For The Internet

From CBS:

Under the radar of all but the most savvy Internet users, powerful commercial forces are rapidly creating a digital media system for the United States that threatens to undermine our ability to create a civil and just society. The takeover of YouTube by Google announced October 9 and the 2005 buyout by Rupert Murdoch of MySpace are not just about mega-deals for new media. They are the leading edge of a powerful interactive system that is being designed to serve the interests of some of the wealthiest corporations on the planet.

Aware that social networking sites like MySpace and YouTube are attracting the key youth audience, and aiming to maintain their influence over future generations of consumers, marketers are aggressively seizing the initiative. Leveraging existing relationships with Yahoo!, Microsoft, the phone and cable companies, Google and the other large players, the advertising industry are developing an array of immersive online experiences — like MTV's Virtual Laguna Beach and Studio.com's Go Deep — that seamlessly blend relationships with products and brands.

Advertisers are harnessing technology that targets and follows Internet users on their journeys through cyberspace, collecting data and tracking behavior. Virtual software marketing tools will be deployed across the digital landscape so that wherever we go, whatever we do — e-mail, instant messaging, mobile communications or searches — we will be immersed in enticing content for the lifelong sell: Witness the work of Oddcast, a New York-based immersive media company, whose "conversational character products" represent a new medium for marketing to get inside consumers' heads.

YouTube capitalizes on the growing proclivity of Internet users to be creators of information as well as consumers. And as the network television and cable audiences age, advertisers are increasingly aware that "user-created content" — be it a cute kitty video or clips from The Daily Show — are key to attracting young audiences. But as the Goo-Tube model develops, behind each video will be a powerful connection to an ad, targeted to the user's online behavior, as well as the stealth collection of personal data. As Ross Levinsohn, president of Fox Interactive, noted about his company's acquisition of MySpace, "the digital gold inside of MySpace wasn't the number of users, but the information they're providing." [Google, it should be noted, now also represents the interests of Rupert Murdoch's US empire. In August Google became Fox's principal online advertising agent for MySpace, Fox TV and Fox Interactive.]

Given this emerging marketing model, the U.S. broadband infrastructure may well become one giant "brandwashing" machine. The most powerful communications system ever developed by humans is increasingly being put in the service of selling, commercialization and commodification. And it will lead to an inherently conservative and narcissistic political culture, in which the interests of the self and the consumption of products are the primary, most visible, media messages. And unless we begin to challenge it now, the emerging digital culture will seriously challenge our ability to effectively communicate, inform and organize.

The True Story Of Wal-Marting Across America

From BusinessWeek:

Here is the story behind Wal-Marting Across America: Jim, 58, and Laura, 42, aren't married, but they have been living together for eight years in Washington, D.C. Between them, they have three children. Jim wouldn't reveal his last name or his identity. He says he wants to protect his employer. He would only say that he's a professional photographer. Laura is Laura St. Claire, a freelance writer who works with the Treasury Dept. She spoke at length with BusinessWeek.com from the RV on the way to Memphis.

Laura says that while hiking in the Grand Canyon in February they hit on the idea of driving around in an RV and happened on a Wal-Mart store with a parking lot full of the vehicles. "We thought there was a convention going on there, but soon found out that Wal-Mart lets RVers park for free," says Laura. The couple thought it was a great idea to rent an RV and visit their children, one attending college in Pennsylvania, another in North Carolina, and save money by parking for free at Wal-Mart stores. Laura figured that she could also write about her experiences for a publication that caters to RVers. But the couple decided to get permission from Working Families for Wal-Mart, an organization that Laura, a Wal-Mart shopper, signed up for to show her support.

It was a perfect opportunity for Wal-Mart. Working Families for Wal-Mart is an organization that was formed in December by Wal-Mart's public relations firm, Edelman. It was formed to counter criticism from union-funded groups such as Wal-Mart Watch and Wake Up Wal-Mart. Working Families decided to sponsor the couple's entire trip, although that meant a change in the itinerary from the short Pennsylvania/North Carolina trip to something more grand. The group paid to fly the couple to Las Vegas, where a mint-green RV would be waiting for them, emblazoned with the Working Families for Wal-Mart logo. From there they would drive across country to Georgia and call the trip Wal-Marting Across America.

Air America Radio Filed For Bankrupcty Protection

The [halloween] picture of this big pumpkin can't depict the difficulties Air America Radio station in encountering any better! Read more from AP report

On October 13, 2006, Air America filed for protection from creditors, i.e. bankruptcy, under chapter 11, at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Air America expects to continue broadcasting while the finances are worked out with the creditors. The company has $4,331,265.30 in assets and $20,266,056.23 in liabilities. Al Franken alone is owed $360,749.98 and Rob Glaser, founder of Real Networks, is owed the most at $9.8 million. The filing has over 25 pages of debtors and shows the company lost $9.1 million in 2004, $19.6 million in 2005 and $13.1 million so far in 2006. [Wiki]

Six-Years-Old Girl's Message In A Bottle Unexpectely Arrives New Zealand

Keely Reid of age at 6 years old, tossed a plastic water bottle into the Moray Firth in the northeast coast of Scottland when on a holidy with her grandparents, hoping that the tide could carry it to the coast of Norway. But something turned out to be surprised when James Wilson of Whangamata in New Zealand where is 20,000 miles faraway, also a six-year-old, picked up the discarded bottle on the beach and discovered the message inside.

It is estimated that to find its way to New Zealand in such a short time the bottle must have travelled an average of 425 miles per day at almost 18 miles per hour.

Yet, experts in marine science at the Fisheries Research Station laboratories in Aberdeen are beliveing there must have been human intervention.

"As a scientist I would usually hedge my bets and leave room for some possibility but there is absolutely no way the bottle could have made it to New Zealand on its own, it must have been picked up by somebody," said Dr Bill Turrell.

"There is no way it could have been picked up by some freak weather system - things just don't cross the equator. I don't like to shatter the poor girl's imaginings but there is no way it could happen."

Then who brought the bottle to the Oceania?