Oops!

Couple renovates, lives in the wrong condo

Banks Offering Big Perks to Lure New Savers

Skittish consumers are finally saving more money -- and now the banks are trying all sorts of gimmicks to get their hands on it, including offering some pretty nice upfront perks.

Americans socked away 5% of their disposable income in January, pushing the personal savings rate to a 14-year high, according to the Commerce Department.

Read more here.

Lincoln photo uncovered in Grant album

A collector believes a photograph from a private album of Civil War Gen. Ulysses S. Grant shows President Abraham Lincoln in front of the White House and could be the last image taken of him before he was assassinated in 1865.

If it is indeed Lincoln, it would be the only known photo of the 16th president in front of the executive mansion and a rare find, as only about 130 photos of him are known to exist.

Grant's 38-year-old great-great-grandson, Ulysses S. Grant VI, had seen the picture before, but didn't examine it closely until late January. A tall figure in the distance caught his eye, although the man's facial features are obscured.

He called Keya Morgan, a New York-based photography collector and Lincoln aficionado, who helped identify it as Lincoln.

"I was like, 'I don't know who this is, Keya,'" said Grant, a Springfield, Mo., construction business owner.

Although authenticating the 2 1/2-by-3 1/2-inch photo beyond a shadow of a doubt could be difficult, several historians who looked at it said the evidence supporting Morgan's claim is compelling and believable.

Read more and see the photo here.

CNBC Buffoons Whine

The other evening Jon Stewart gave CNBC the business over their sloppy to say the least, financial reporting. Guess what the folks over at CNBC whined about it and the biggest whiner was that buffoon Cramer (hard to believe it wasn't the perennial whiner Scarborough, I know).

Well ...

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

In Cramer We Trust

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Economic Crisis

... That was their biggest mistake.

Save on groceries: inexpensive and healthful foods

March is National Nutrition Month.

It is a great time to think about planning menus with ingredients that won't drain your budget and can help you stick to healthful resolutions.

The following heart-smart ingredients are all less than $1 per serving:

1. Monounsaturated oils.

Canola oil is trans-fat free and has the most omega-3 fatty acids of all common cooking oils.

2. Pulse for health.

Lentils and dry beans have nutrients found in both vegetable and meat food groups, including significant protein, fiber, folate, iron and other minerals.

3. Poultry products.

Both the chicken and the egg come first regarding nutrition. A skinless chicken breast has roughly 24 grams of complete protein and less than 1 gram of saturated fat. One egg has 13 essential nutrients, including protein, folate, choline, iron and zinc, for only about 75 calories.

4. Lean proteins.

Ninety-five percent lean ground beef has only 2.4 grams of saturated fat and is high in protein, zinc, B vitamins, iron, selenium and phosphorus. Low-fat cottage cheese is a great source of protein and calcium.

5. Go fish.

Not only high in protein and B vitamins, canned or pouch tuna and salmon are excellent sources of heart-smart omega-3 fatty acids. Tuna and salmon also offer a range of minerals, such as selenium and phosphorus.

6. Think green.

Green vegetables such as spinach, broccoli and green beans are good sources of fiber and antioxidants such as vitamin C. Broccoli is also high in folate and a good source of potassium. Spinach is high in vitamin A, iron and folate and a good source of magnesium.

7. ABC fruits.

Apples are particularly high in fiber. Bananas are a good source of vitamin C, potassium and fiber. Citrus is high in vitamin C, with oranges also a good source of fiber and red grapefruit high in vitamin A.

8. Great grains.

Whole grains are among the best sources of dietary fiber, which may help reduce the risk of heart disease. They also have some valuable antioxidants not found in fruits and vegetables as well as B vitamins, vitamin E, iron and magnesium.

9. Grape expectations.

Raisins are a good source of antioxidants, potassium, iron and fiber. They are fat- and cholesterol-free and naturally low in sodium.

10. Explore our roots.

Carrots are an excellent source of vitamin A and good source of vitamin C with few calories. Potatoes are high in vitamin C and a good source of potassium.

IMF chief warns world entering 'Great Recession'

The global economy will shrink this year as the world enters "a Great Recession," the head of the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday.

Speaking in a taped interview with French television channel France 24, Dominique Strauss-Kahn said economic data has worsened since January, when the IMF forecast global growth in gross domestic product of 0.5 percent this year.

"Since then the news hasn't been good," Strauss-Kahn said. "I think that we can now say that we've entered a Great Recession."

Read the rest here.

Market Surprise

This gives a new meaning to the phrase 'a trip to the market'.

Grocery store customers find cocaine hidden inside peppers

Ancient golden jewelry found in Egyptian tomb

This photo was released Tuesday March 10, 2009, by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities

Egyptian officials says archaeologists have found ancient golden jewelry in a pharaonic-era tomb that belonged to a senior official under Egypt's most powerful queen.

The Supreme Council of Antiquities says five golden earrings and two rings were found in the tomb of Gahouti, the head of the treasury under Queen Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt 3,500 years ago.

Tuesday's statement says the tomb was located on the west bank of the Nile River in Luxor, a southern Egyptian city famous for its valley of the Kings and other ruins from pharaonic times.

The tomb had been looted, and its gates were engraved with text from the "Book of the Dead," which Egyptians believed would be needed in the afterlife.

IRA dissident killings unites Northern Ireland

The Protestant and Catholic leaders of Northern Ireland mounted an exceptional display of unity against rising violence from Irish Republican Army dissidents — and vowed Tuesday to defeat hard-liners with the power of popular will.

Former IRA commander Martin McGuinness, who long hoped that slaying police officers would help him achieve his dream of a united Ireland, stood shoulder to shoulder with his Protestant partner atop the government, Peter Robinson, and Northern Ireland police commander Hugh Orde.

The scene itself was an unprecedented surprise. More stunning were the clear-cut words from McGuinness, whose Sinn Fein party has faced years of outside pressure to embrace British law and order. He pledged his personal support to the English police chief, and demanded that his own police-loathing supporters abandon their traditional code of silence and expose the IRA dissidents in their Irish Catholic communities.

"I have to keep my nerve, and to appeal to my community to assist the police services north and south to defeat these people," McGuinness said of the dissidents who killed two British soldiers and a policeman over the past three days — the first such killings in more than a decade.

"There is a duty on me, a responsibility on me to lead from the front, and I expect that people will follow," McGuinness said. He called the IRA splinter groups "traitors to the island of Ireland. They have betrayed the political desires, hopes and aspirations of all of the people who live on this island, and they don't deserve to be supported by anyone."

Read more here.

Swan Lake

Tchaikovsky played on a glass harp.

Maine skiers warned about late-night owl attacks

Cross-country skiers who set out on a crisp, moonlit night for a peaceful outing in Bangor's city forest are being targeted by a least one ornery and territorial owl. Over the past three weeks, at least eight skiers and a few romping dogs apparently have fallen victim to a great horned owl that swoops down from a tree with talons outstretched and smacks them on the head.

Jim Allen of Bangor said he was skiing in the dark on East Trail in the Rolland F. Perry City Forest when he got hit.

"I've got my headlamp on, and all of a sudden, I felt a whack in the back of my head and this stinging, and I understood what everybody was talking about," said Allen, said he who screamed and waved his poles. His thick winter hat protected him from scratches.

Others haven't been so lucky. Dr. Dan Cassidy, a local physician and avid night skier, said three skiers suffered small lacerations, but none needed stitches to close their wounds.

Cassidy has been documenting owl attacks after one of the noctural birds swooped down on him in nearby Orono in January. He was able to identify it as a great horned owl, and he and others suspect that one or more of those owls are the culprits in the Bangor attacks.

"It's the boldest noctural raptor and the one that has the best reputation for the occasionally bizarre," said Charlie Todd, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

City Forester Brian Dugas posted warning signs Friday at three entry points to the forest, alerting skiers and hikers about the threat of owl attacks.

Allen has been back in the forest twice since Tuesday's owl attack, an incident he says he won't soon forget.

"They say ... there's no sound at all when an owl flies. So you don't hear them coming," he said. "I believe it. Because I never knew anything was coming. I was just skiing merrily along."

Man says he moved pot plants to keep burglars away

Authorities in Jacksonville, Florida said a man stopped with 17 marijuana plants in the bed of his pickup told police he was moving them to protect them from burglars who robbed his house the night before. Police said they arrested a 26-year-old man after receiving a tip that two men were loading pot plants onto a truck around noon Saturday. Police reported finding the plants beneath a cover in the truck bed.

Authorities said the man was charged with cultivating marijuana and the truck's driver was charged with felony marijuana possession. The driver told police he was only driving the truck because the man's license was suspended.

Both men were later released on bond.

Police seize 1,200 pounds of pot in spinach cans

Police with the New Mexico Motor Transportation Division found 1,200 pounds of pot packed in cans labeled as spinach during a stop at the Gallup port of entry. An inspector noticed that only a few of the cans were labeled and that the weight printed on the side of the can didn't match the actual weight. A closer look during last Friday's bust revealed the canned drugs, which were worth an estimated $1.5 million.

The four pallets of cans were being transported along with fresh produce.

The 50-year-old truck driver said he was on his way from California to the East Coast. The driver and the pot were turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Pet store expects fish shipment, but gets corpse

Employees of a Pennsylvania pet store expecting a shipment of tropical fish and salt water got a man's dead body instead. Mark Arabia owns the Pets Plus store in northeast Philadelphia, where the mix-up was discovered Tuesday. He says he learned the body was that of a 65-year-old San Diego area man who died of early onset Alzheimer's disease.

The body was supposed to go to a research laboratory in Allentown, a 70-mile drive away.

US Airways Inc. released a statement saying the air cargo problem was caused by a "verbal miss-communication between a delivery driver and the cargo representative." The Tempe, Arizona based airline said it's deeply sorry.

The fish were shipped in three boxes. The corpse was shipped in a wooden coffin wrapped in cardboard.

Arabia said the fish were left at the airport and probably died.

NC senators propose tougher tobacco restrictions

North Carolina's two senators are proposing tougher restrictions on cigarette advertising and labeling in an attempt to sway Congress not to pass a bill that could be even harder on the state's tobacco industry.

Democratic Senator Kay Hagan and repugican senator Richard Burr are introducing a compromise bill that would ban advertising in magazines and newspapers and prohibit the words "light," "mild," "ultra-light," "medium" and "low" from being used as descriptors of tobacco products.

Legislation that would require the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco was passed by a House committee last week. Under that bill, opposed by many in the tobacco industry, the agency could reduce or eliminate cancer-causing chemicals in cigarette smoke.

*****

Note to Hagan and Burr: Do not be weenies - go for the tougher regulations the House passed and don't try and mollycoddle the Tobacco companies - we do not need them, never did

Yet Another Coal Ash Spill, This Time in Luke, Maryland (Upriver of Washington DC!)

From TreeHugger:

Image: Google

After 3 Times It's Officially a Trend, Right?

Good thing that the EPA is getting more serious about keeping an eye on coal ash, because it sure doesn't seem like the current system is working. Just in the past few months we reported two big spills: 2.6 Million Cubic Yards of Toxic Coal Ash Slurry Released in Tennessee Dike Burst and What the Heck? Second Coal Ash Spill, this Time in Alabama. Now there's a third in Luke, MD, upriver of Washington DC (maybe politicians will take notice now?).

Article continues: Yet Another Coal Ash Spill, This Time in Luke, Maryland (Upriver of Washington DC!)

What does a Trillion dollars look like?

Click here and find out.

Treating Cancer

Nano-treatment to torpedo cancer

Nanotechnology raises hopes of destroying hard-to-treat cancers with highly targeted tumour-busting genes.

The mysteries of the Mind

The mysteries of the Mind are indeed mysterious.

East meets west: How the brain unites us all

'Mad cow' protein may keep brain cells chatting

The Weight

The Band
(live)

More Science News

More Science News:

Race is on to reach Antarctica's hidden lakes

Earth may be entering climate change danger zone

Sea level rise could bust IPCC estimate

Life could have survived Earth's early pounding

Science News

Today's Science News Finds:

Spark of Love Found in Fish
Smart Diet: Fish Boost IQ
Phoenix Mars Lander Found Liquid Water, Some Scientists Think
Why People Don't Heed Tornado Warnings

Giant Stingray Could Be World's Largest Freshwater Fish

The beast of a stingray caught by Zeb Hogan's "Megafishes Project" team, which is conducting an expedition to tag freshwater fishes in southeast Asia with National Geographic. Credit: University of Nevada, Reno

As part of a National Geographic expedition, scientists caught what could be the world’s biggest stingray.

The fish was tagged and released in central Thailand on Jan. 28, during the expedition, which seeks to find and protect specimens of the world's largest freshwater fish.

A photo marking the catch was widely circulated along with a rumor that it weighed a whopping 771 pounds. But while the stingray was indeed a heavyweight, its exact weight is unknown.

"While the photo is genuine and there’s no denying that this is a huge stingray, the stingray in the photo was never weighed," said conservation biologist Zeb Hogan of the University of Nevada, Reno. Hogan was the lead researcher on the expedition.

Freshwater giant stingrays are among the largest of the approximately 200 species of rays. They can be found in a handful of rivers in Southeast Asia and northern Australia.

The fish, caught by volunteer angler Ian Welch from a small boat using a rod and reel, will be featured in an upcoming documentary airing on the National Geographic Channel.

Find out more at LiveScience.

Calls for a free Tibet

Namaste!

Hundreds of Tibetan-Americans from around northern California converged this morning on San Francisco to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1959 uprising that sent the Dalai Lama into exile and has symbolized Tibetan resistance to Chinese occupation ever since.

"Even though 50 years have gone by, it has not added an ounce of legitimacy to the Chinese invasion and control of Tibet," said Tenzin Tethong, 60, a Sunnyvale resident who for 17 years was the Dalai Lama's representative to the united states. "The people inside Tibet have suffered for too long."

Read more here

"Our suffering has been hell on earth." - the Dalai Lama

Sad Numbers

1 in 50 American children experiences homelessness

This is a sad commentary on our nation.

One of every 50 American children experiences homelessness, according to a new report that says most states have inadequate plans to address the worsening and often-overlooked problem.

The report being released Tuesday by the National Center on Family Homelessness gives Connecticut the best ranking. Texas is at the bottom.

“These kids are the innocent victims, yet it seems somehow or other they get left out,” said the center’s president, Dr. Ellen Bassuk. “Why are they America’s outcasts?”

The report analyzes data from 2005-2006. It estimates that 1.5 million children experienced homelessness at least once that year, and says the problem is surely worse now because of the foreclosures and job losses of the deepening recession.

“If we could freeze-frame it now, it would be bad enough,” said Democratic Sen. Robert Casey of Pennsylvania, who wrote a foreward to the report. “By end of this year, it will be that much worse.”

The report’s overall state rankings reflect performance in four areas: child homelessness per capita, child well-being, risk for child homelessness, and state policy and planning.

The top five states were Connecticut, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island and North Dakota. At the bottom were Texas, Georgia, Arkansas, New Mexico and Louisiana

Full Story

The Band Concert

Mickey Mouse and Friends
(From 1935)

Mysterious booms in New York

The aliens are leaving the planet ...

Last week, a mysterious sonic boom rattled residents on California's Central Cost. Today, there are reports of two more booms, in two nights, heard in New York's Rockland and Westchester Counties.

From the Journal News:

Officials at Westchester County Airport and Stewart International Airport said they had no knowledge of aircraft from their facilities causing the disturbance.

Officials at NASA said yesterday that they had no knowledge of the boom nor any explanations for it. They referred calls to the U.S. Air Force Space Command.

Calls to Space Command headquarters in Colorado seeking comment were not returned.

And no U.S. Coast Guard operations in the area could have generated such a loud noise, Petty Officer Barbara Patton said...

There also have been no confirmed reports of seismic activity over the weekend.

Another mystery boom wakes people in region

****

... That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Want to own a Frank Lloyd Wright home

This gorgeous home just two hours southeast of San Francisco could be yours for just $2.7 million.

That's not bad considering it's in California, has 5 bedrooms and 4.5 baths, and is 3,700 square feet on 80 acres.

It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

From the San Francisco Chronicle (photo by Scott Mayoral):

Wright was known to tell clients selecting home sites to go as far away from cities as they could - and then go 10 miles farther. That advice stands at sharp odds with modern planning, which stresses the environmental benefits of dense urban design. But in the Fawcett house, one of the few still as remote as it was the day Wright glimpsed the setting, one can understand what he had in mind, at least from an aesthetic point of view.

The elongated structure and the lines of the low-pitched roof, banded with a copper fascia, echo the flatness of the fields around it. The wings stretch out like open arms to the Coast Range in the distance. Where the sections of typical homes feel squared off and self contained, the obtuse angles, walls of windows, loggia and terrace open up the space, blurring the boundaries between interior and exterior.

"He softened the whole effect of the place on that barren center of a valley by using the 120-degree angles," said William Storrer, author of "The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion." "It just seemed to be right for the space."

A rare chance to buy a Frank Lloyd Wright house

Boston's real-life 'Cheers' bartender is laid off

Eddie Doyle was the guy who really did know everybody's name.

But after tending bar for 35 years at the Boston tavern that inspired the television show "Cheers," Doyle has been laid off.

The bar's owner says the economy is to blame.

Doyle was a fixture at the pub known as the Bull & Finch long before his TV counterpart, Sam Malone, entered the mainstream.

After the NBC show hit the airwaves in 1982, he started serving 5,000 people a day.

Doyle used the bar's fame to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity.

Friend Tommy Leonard tells the Boston Herald Doyle is "the most giving person" he's met.

The 66-year-old Doyle tells The Boston Globe he's not bitter and may write a book about his experiences.

Vatican defends excommunicating abortion doctors but protecting child rapists

The corporate media gives the Vatican a free pass on their pedophile-ring as usual:

A senior Vatican cleric has defended the excommunication of the mother and doctors of a nine-year-old girl who had an abortion in Brazil after being raped.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Catholic church’s Congregation for Bishops, told the daily La Stampa on Saturday that the twins the girl had been carrying had a right to live.

“It is a sad case but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons, who had the right to live and could not be eliminated,” he said.

Re, who also heads the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, added: “Life must always be protected, the attack on the Brazilian church is unjustified.”

The row was triggered by the termination on Wednesday of twin foetuses carried by a nine-year-old allegedly raped by her stepfather in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco.

Full Story

Time travel with Dr. Who

Slime covered ancient Dalek head dredged from English pond

Volunteers in Hampshire, England, discovered a Dalek head while cleaning trash from the bottom of a local pond! They're keeping the pond's location a secret, because, "The last thing we want are sci-fi fans descending on the pond frantically searching for other Dalek parts."

Sales executive Marc Oakland was pushing a rake around the bed of the shallow pool when he found the object with its distinctive eye stalk.

The 42-year-old said: "I'd just shifted a tree branch with my foot when I noticed something dark and round slowly coming up to the surface.

"I got the shock of my life when a Dalek head bobbed up right in front of me.

"It must have been down there for some time because it was covered in mold and water weed, and had quite a bit of damage.

"One of the dome lights was smashed, but the eye-stalk was intact and the head and neck stayed in one piece as I carefully lifted it out."

Dr Who Dalek found in pond

The "N" word

Alistair Mac Duff knows it and loves it ...

Mac Duff for those that do not know is my wife's Jack Russell terrier who is as smart as a whip. He understands every word spoken around him in several human languages (I am apt to use several languages depending on which I am thinking in at the time I am speaking, much to the Mrs., frustration at times - she only know English) and 'dog' speech.

'Dog' speech is the language my wife and Mac Duff have developed so they can communicate which consists of vocals from the wife and gestures from Mac Duff. Mainly repeat sounds such as "E-E" for eat and 'Wah-Wah' for water. For his part he will turn his bowls over or push them to your feet when he is hungry or thirsty.

Just don't say 'Go' or 'Outside' any time Mac Duff is around unless you want a Jack Russell bouncing off every wall (including the ceiling, it seems) and every piece of furniture and leaping for the doorknob.

Back to the "N" word. And that word would be snuggle dropping the 's' to say it 'nuggle'. Last night Mac Duff was up in his mother's arms eyes rolled back in his head getting his belly rubbed, in short in dog heaven ... well, I being the mischievous one I am, I whispered the "N" word.

Before the word faded in the ear Mac Duff was out of his mother's arms down the hallway and quivering in anticipation in the middle of the king-sized Rice bed of getting to curl up in either his daddy's or mommy's arms on the 'big bed'. Greased lightning has nothing on Mac Duff, in fact if it were a race between the two, lightning would come in a very, very poor second.

Now, my Black Labradors, Seamus 'Thunder' Mac Lesh and Angus 'Doogie' Mac Dougall are just as smart, they just have a 'whatever' outlook on life and thusly move slower except when there is any n'er-do-wells afoot - then my 'great lovers' turn into the 'hounds from hell'. But that is another story.

Bizkit

The Sleep Walking Dog

And I Quote

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.

~ Hubert H. Humphrey

I have posted this quotation before, but I post it again for the benefit of all the repugicans who seem to think we take them seriously because they keep spewing.

Shakespeare in the 'flesh'

A detail of the newly discovered portrait of William Shakespeare

The Bard, or not the Bard? That is the question posed by Monday's unveiling of a centuries-old portrait of a dark-eyed, handsome man in Elizabethan finery.

Experts say it is the only portrait of William Shakespeare painted during his lifetime — in effect, the sole source of our knowledge of what the great man looked like.

Read more here.

Jupiter's Great Red Spot Is Shrinking

On Earth, hurricanes form and dissipate in a matter of days.

On Jupiter, storms can rage for years or even centuries.

The Great Red Spot, a colossal storm twice the diameter of our planet, has lasted at least 300 years.

But now that mother of all storms is shrinking just as other spots emerge to challenge its status.

Read the rest here.

War Between The States Shipwreck

Experts know of about a dozen War Between The States-era shipwrecks off the Texas coast. They might have just identified another.

Contractors searching for debris from Hurricane Ike near Galveston Island took a sonar scan of what the Texas Historical Commission believes is a previously undiscovered ship carrying cotton that sank in 1864.

The Carolina, also known as the Caroline, was a privately owned merchant ship that tried to break though a federal blockade of Galveston. After being pursued for several hours by Union gunships, the crew of the Carolina ran the ship aground in shallow water between Galveston and San Luis Pass, then set it on fire rather than let it be captured.

Read the rest here.

Our Readers

Some of our readers today have been in:

Birmingham, England, United Kingdom
Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Zgrab, Grad Zagreb, Croatia
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Chandigrah, Chandigrah, India
Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Calcutta, West Bengal, India
London, Ontario, Canada
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Stockholm, Stockholms Lan, Sweden
Plymouth, England, United Kingdom
Mississauga,, Ontario, Canada
Lund, Skane Lan, Sweden
Rhisnes, Namur, Belgium

as well as the countries of Turkey and Israel

Daily Horoscope

Today's horoscope says:

You have been going it alone for some time and doing a heck of a great job .

So true.