who do you have to blow to get a white house press pass?

Secret Service records raise new questions about discredited conservative reporter

I don't know what's up here, but it's defnitely fishy. Why can't the democrats turn this into something significant? The republicans took on Clinton for a blowjob... this seems much more scandalous to me.

Gannon’s ready access to President Bush and his work for a news agency that frequently plagiarized content from other reporters and tailored it to serve a conservative message may raise new questions about the White House’s attempts to seed favorable news coverage. Democrats have sought to paint Guckert in the context of other efforts by the Administration to “plant” positive spin by paying for video news releases and columnists to espouse their views.

Guckert made more than 200 appearances at the White House during his two-year tenure with the fledging conservative websites GOPUSA and Talon News, attending 155 of 196 White House press briefings. He had little to no previous journalism experience, previously worked as a male escort, and was refused a congressional press pass.

Perhaps more notable than the frequency of his attendance, however, is several distinct anomalies about his visits.

Guckert made more than two dozen excursions to the White House when there were no scheduled briefings. On many of these days, the Press Office held press gaggles aboard Air Force One—which raises questions about what Guckert was doing at the White House. On other days, the president held photo opportunities.

On at least fourteen occasions, Secret Service records show either the entry or exit time missing. Generally, the existing entry or exit times correlate with press conferences; on most of these days, the records show that Guckert checked in but was never processed out.

In March, 2003, Guckert left the White House twice on days he had never checked in with the Secret Service. Over the next 22 months, Guckert failed to check out with the Service on fourteen days. On several of these visits, Guckert either entered or exited by a different entry/exit point than his usual one. On one of these days, no briefing was held; on another, he checked in twice but failed to check out.

(kind of like a roach motel...)

Pac-Man Fever

Oh yes, this is on my wishlist!

it doesn't matter how many channels your cable company has...

...because they show the same thing on every damn one of them.

Here's an example. The first episode of the NBC mini-series "Revelations" is airing 13 times on 5 different networks -- in 1 week!


(the last entry is for the second episode)

All of those networks are, of course, owned by NBC-Universal which helps to illustrate the point. If there are 200 channels but only 6 or 7 conglomerates that own them... you really only have 6 or 7 channels.

And wtf is an apocalyptic mini-series doing on CNBC???

Bionic suit offers wearers super-strength

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition

A ROBOT suit has been developed that could help older people or those with disabilities to walk or lift heavy objects.

Dubbed HAL, or hybrid assistive limb, the latest versions of the suit will be unveiled this June at the 2005 World Expo in Aichi, Japan, which opened last month. A commercial product is slated for release by the end of the year.
...
The HAL 4 and HAL 5 prototypes, which will also be demonstrated at Expo 2005, don't just help a person to walk. They have an upper part to assist the arms, and will help a person lift up to 40 kilograms more than they can manage unaided. The new HALs will also eliminate the need for a backpack. Instead, the computer and wireless connection have been shrunk to fit in a pouch attached to the suit's belt. HAL 5 also has smaller motor housings, making the suit much less bulky around the hips and knees.

Health Workers Race to Block Deadly Virus in Angolan Town

This is the virus they used in the second season finale of Millennium:

The race to contain the outbreak of Marburg, a deadly relative of the better-known Ebola virus, is centered here in the town of Uíge (pronounced weezh), where health officials fear the makings of a public health disaster that could spread elsewhere in Angola and beyond.

The number of victims is already the largest ever recorded from a Marburg outbreak, and there is no effective treatment. Nine out of 10 people who get the virus die, usually within a week.

The first cases of the virus were identified in the pediatric ward where Mrs. Pinto had worked. Despite incessant warnings on local radio that families of the sick should neither treat them at home nor touch them if they die, Mrs. Pinto's family cared for her in their house and prepared her for burial. The virus is spread by bodily fluids, and even stray drops of spittle or beads of sweat can lead to death.
...
The workers' effort is organized, determined, swift. But not as swift as the epidemic, which as of Sunday had claimed at least 193 lives, almost all in the past month.

Mobs move into 'Sims Online' power vacuum

old story about virtual crime:

By Dawn C. Chmielewski
Mercury News

Tony Soprano can keep Jersey (who wants it, anyways?) A new family is movin' in on unclaimed turf -- online.

An underground group known as the Sims Shadow Government has taken over the fantasy world that is ``The Sims Online,'' meting out mob justice.

It's a violent twist for ``The Sims,'' the dollhouse-inspired computer game that has long been portrayed as the antithesis to guns-'n-gore bestsellers like ``Grand Theft Auto.'' The emergence of a seedy underbelly in the online game may reveal more about the dark fantasies of middle-aged suburbanites than anyone suspected.

Turns out, everyone wants to be Tony Soprano or Don Vito Corleone.

To hear the ersatz mob boss, Piers Mathieson, tell it, it all began innocently enough, with the desire to impose order on the chaos that is ``The Sims Online.''

The game's designer, Will Wright, deliberately created a blank stage on which players could act out their fantasies.

To Mathieson, the lack of a government to lay down laws in virtual online communities like Alphaville -- let alone cops to enforce the rules -- resulted in anarchy. ``Grievers'' arose -- players who delight in creating misery for other players -- stealing money, trashing houses or even appropriating another's online identity.

Mathieson, 34, who lives in Las Vegas and promotes bands, said players turned into racketeers.

``They show up at your house and they request protection money. `You have to pay me 100,000 simolians if you don't want your house torn down.' It's technically harassment.''

The most popular person in the Sims universe -- Mia Wallace, a composite character played by Mathieson and his wife, Jennifer -- stepped into the power vacuum and organized the Sims Shadow Government.

``We weren't playing the games as hoodlums, we were playing the game as protectors of the city,'' said Mathieson.

At least at first. Somewhere along the line, though, the Sims Shadow Government turned from benevolent overseer to a virtual version of La Cosa Nostra.

Maybe it was the emergence of a rival family, the Playtime gang. Or maybe it was the Mia impostor, who tarnished the real Mia's reputation by inviting other players to work for her as a prostitute. Perhaps the final straw was when someone hijacked Mathieson's America Online account -- and stole all of his in-game cash and property.

Whatever the pretext, Mia morphed from prom queen to mob boss. A handful of the SSG's 160 members would meet outside the game -- in Yahoo discussion groups or by phone -- to talk about offenses against the ``family'' and plot revenge.

The in-game hits are not as gory as a bloody horse head in the bed of a movie producer who offended Don Corleone -- the fictional Godfather created by Mario Puzo.

Nor does it match the savagery of a HBO's prime-time mobster Tony Soprano, who beats fellow ``made man'' Ralphie Cifaretto to death for killing their jointly-owned racehorse, Pie-o-My, for the insurance money, then stuffs Ralphie's head in a bowling ball bag for safekeeping.

But for online game players who invest months developing a character, it can be nonetheless devastating. Like the time 28 gang members stormed a rival's property and delivered a ``red link'' -- the game's way of designating another player as an ``enemy.''

Particularly egregious affronts to the Shadow Government could -- at least until game maker Maxis disabled this feature -- be dealt with by ripping out an opponent's heart. Of course, nobody dies in the ``Sims Online.'' It's just to prove a point.

This drama via modem is consuming for its participants, who've formed real-life friendships with their in-game allies.

Kacie Velie, a 21-year-old assistant manager of a residential facility for the mentally retarded in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., is by night one of the SSG's capos. She said the drama became so intense she sometimes receives calls at work about developments.

``I am amazed personally as to how this whole game has become so real . . . I spend more time with my computer than I do with my friends,'' said Velie, who like about 60 percent of the players, is a woman.

Wright -- the grand puppet master who birthed the bestselling Sims franchise -- is both fascinated and frustrated by the emergence of the mob.

In an interview at a recent trade show, Wright said he logs on nightly to monitor the mob's exploits. But he said Maxis is powerless to stop it -- since all the group's communications happen outside of the game.

Game experts say organized gangs are the hallmark of successful online multiplayer games, like ``Lineage'' or ``Ultima Online.'' Sometimes, it's a sign that the game lacks enough interesting elements to engage the players -- so they create their own drama. More often, it means players are so attached that they invest the time to exploit its rules.

Consider the Mathiesons hooked. They decided to delete the Mia character, saying the demands of reigning as overlord of Alphaville became too taxing. But they're not about to quit the game.

``She just retired, for the simple fact she needs to go in for a face-lift,'' said Mathieson. ``She came back as Hermia, with a bouffant hairdo. A much different Sim.''

Maybe Mia's gone. But she's not forgotten.

``Our friends know who the overlord is.''

France fixated on 'orgy' scandal

Another old story filed:

By Caroline Wyatt
BBC, Paris

This has been the scandal to end all scandals in France - a potent brew of sex and politics served daily by the country's media.

It has slavery, sado-masochism, rape, drugs and murder.

Mr Baudis has asked to be put under official investigation Even a French Government spokesman has admitted that the country is transfixed by "l'affaire Alegre".

The French public has been treated to almost daily updates from Toulouse, where the allegations are that senior city officials not only covered up for a serial killer, Patrice Alegre, who says he organised sado-masochistic orgies for them, but that they even ordered some of his killings to protect themselves from blackmail.

Alegre's allegations are backed up by two prostitutes, known as Patricia and Fanny, who have named one of the investigating chief prosecutors on the case, Jean Volff, as being among those involved in the affair. He denies any wrong-doing, but has stood down from his job.

Unexplained disappearance

But the politician who has suffered the most damaging accusations is the veteran French politician Dominique Baudis, head of the independent broadcasting watchdog, the Conseil superieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA), and a former mayor of Toulouse.

He has led a vocal anti-pornography campaign over the past year, and says the accusations are a political vendetta intended to smear his name.

He is also a member of the ruling centre-right UMP.

Unusually, Mr Baudis has asked to be put under official investigation so that he can clear his name and allow his lawyer to gain access to any evidence in the case.

The whole affair began in 1997, when a special homicide squad began to investigate the unexplained disappearance of 115 women and girls in the Toulouse region dating back to 1992.

As a result of the investigation, Patrice Alegre was jailed for life in February 2002, on six charges of rape and five murders.

Official cover-up?

The convicted serial killer is now awaiting trial for five other killings and one alleged rape, and - while admitting to two of the murders, that of prostitute Line Galbardi and transvestite prostitute Claude Martinez - has begun making his own accusations against public figures.


Alegre worked in a police canteen

He now claims that Dominique Baudis was one of several people - including a judge and a senior policeman - involved in ordering the murder of the transvestite in 1992, because of a blackmail threat linked to sado-masochistic orgies allegedly attended by those same officials.

No-one in France is quite sure what to believe.

There has been so much publicity that some mud is bound to stick. Some French officials have even admitted there may have been an element of official cover-up when Alegre's crimes were first investigated.

Alegre, the son of a policeman, certainly had friends among the law enforcement authorities. He even worked for a while in the police canteen in Toulouse before becoming known as a pimp running much of the city's prostitution.

Male prostitute

He claims to have provided under-age girls for sadomasochistic orgies which allegedly took place at a courthouse and at a chateau owned by the Toulouse town council.

In a letter he sent secretly from his prison cell to a French TV presenter, Alegre said that Patricia and Fanny had told the truth when they testified to police that he had murdered two other prostitutes, but went on to name several figures he said had ordered the killings.

In the letter, he wrote that during a meeting in a mansion in Toulouse he had been ordered to "shut Martinez up" by officials who had taken part in group sex at the orgies. Martinez was a male prostitute who had filmed the guests with a hidden camera, and was planning to blackmail officials with the evidence.

Alegre said that during the orgies, "everyone had sniffed coke as hard as they could". But, he said, he "imagined this affair would be covered-up, because all the people implicated in it are people with power".

However, that may not be so. Other magistrates, politicians and businessmen are due to be questioned as part of the inquiry, and the fallout could be massive.

Even the government has admitted that the affair is an "important" one. In the meantime, members of the French public are waiting with bated breath for the next instalment of "l'affaire Alegre", to see if the serial killer manages to back up his allegations.

Cardinal Law, Ousted in U.S. Scandal, Is Given a Role in Rites

Seriously, WTF is wrong with these guys???

ROME, April 7 - Cardinal Bernard Law, who was forced to resign in disgrace as archbishop of Boston two years ago for protecting sexually abusive priests, was named by the Vatican today as one of nine prelates who will have the honor of presiding over funeral Masses for Pope John Paul II.

To many American Catholics, Cardinal Law is best known as the archbishop who presided over the Boston archdiocese as it became the focus for the sexual abuse scandal involving priests.

But to Vatican officials, Cardinal Law is a powerful kingmaker who traveled internationally for the church and whose favorite priests were regularly appointed bishops by John Paul. After he stepped down in Boston in 2003, he was given a spacious apartment and a prestigious although honorary post in Rome as archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major.
...
By permitting Cardinal Law to take the limelight in Rome just when the church is mourning the death of John Paul, the cardinals have reminded American Catholics that their most painful recent chapter barely registered in the Vatican.

"It's yet another example of the gap between how the Vatican sees things and how the U.S. church sees things," said the Rev. Keith F. Pecklers, an American Jesuit who is a professor at the Gregorian, a pontifical university in Rome. "This kind of thing can open the wounds for people just when the healing was beginning."

Cardinal Law resigned after a judge decided to unseal court records that included a letter from the cardinal commending priests even though he knew they had been accused at one time of abusing children. After saying for a year that he would not resign, he finally stepped down and cloistered himself for a while in a monastery until his appointment in Rome.
...
"He never lost power, even though he stepped down from Boston," Mr. McDaid said. "In any other corporation if you lost your rank and left, you'd lose your power and you'd be stripped of your title." But, "here he is in Rome, still as powerful as he was before."

Exploring the Right to Share, Mix and Burn

From the New York Times:

It is a curious sight when a rock star appears before his flock and suggests they take his work without paying for it, and even encourages them to. Mr. Tweedy, who has never been much for rock convention, became a convert to Internet peer-to-peer sharing of music files in 2001, after his band was dropped from its label on the cusp of a tour. Initially, the news left Wilco at the sum end of the standard rock equation: no record/no tour, no tour/no money, no money/no band. But Mr. Tweedy released 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' for streaming on the band's Web site, and fans responded in droves. Wilco then took on the expenses of its tour as a band.

The resulting concerts were a huge success: Mr. Tweedy remembered watching in wonder as fans sang along with music that did not exist in CD form. Then something really funny happened. Nonesuch Records decided to release the actual plastic artifact in 2002. And where the band's previous album, 'Summerteeth,' sold 20,000 in its first week according to SoundScan, 'Yankee' sold 57,000 copies in its first week and went on to sell more than 500,000. Downloading, at least for Wilco, created rather than diminished the appetite for the corporeal version of the work.

GOOD!

Sentence in Spam Case

LEESBURG, Va., April 8 (AP) - A North Carolina man convicted in the nation's first felony prosecution for spamming was sentenced on Friday to nine years in prison, but the judge postponed the sentence while the case is appealed.

A jury recommended the nine-year prison term after convicting Jeremy Jaynes of sending at least 10 million e-mail messages a day with the help of 16 high-speed lines.

Mr. Jaynes, 30, of Raleigh, N.C., will be free on $1 million bond until the appeals process concludes.

Mr. Jaynes was convicted in November for using false Internet addresses to send mass e-mail ads through a server in Virginia. Under Virginia law, sending unsolicited bulk e-mail itself is not a crime unless senders mask their identities.

George W. Bush's Resumé

This is old, but so damn frustrating. Some of the "highlights" of W's career:

• Bought an oil company and generated an astounding $3.1 Million debt, sold the company to another Texas oil baron, and then sold it again to dad's Saudi friends and made over $1.5 Million from the sweetheart deal. I sold all my stock just in the nick of time, using insider information, to a wealthy Saudi friend.
  
  
• Made Texas the most polluted state in the Union, in 1999.
  
  
• Slashed taxes, reduced state revenue to the point of bankruptcy and put the Texas government in debt for billions in borrowed money, the interest for which is now paid for by the Texas taxpayer.
  
  
• Set a record for the most executions by any Governor in American history and became famous for publicly mocking Faye Tucker, a Christian female death row inmate, for her passionate clemency plea before she was executed.
  
  
• Spent the largest surplus in the history of the country and nearly bankrupted the treasury.
  
  
• First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history and continued that practice throughout my term in office.
  
  
• Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in US history.
  
  
• Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.
  
  
• Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans while posing on aircraft carriers in a flgiht suit and despite praising the troops at every opportunity.
  
  
• Most secretive and unaccountable presidency of any in US history, surpassing the secrecy of the Nixon administration at its darkest moments.
  
  
• All-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
  
  
• Failed to fulfill pledge to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive'.
  
  
• Passed a Medicare bill that will gut Medicare, sends billions of dollars to campaign contributors (big pharma) and will increase the cost of medical care and prescriptions to the elderly.
  
  
• All records of tenure as governor of Texas have been sequestered in fathers library, sealed and unavailable for public view.
  
  

Gecko tape will stick you to ceiling

Another old story filed...

"Spiderman is science fiction and will remain in comics," Geim told New Scientist. "But hopefully 'gecko-man' will become less science fiction and more a reality in the near future."

Geckos can climb even the most slippery surface with ease and hang from glass using a single toe. The secret behind this extraordinary climbing skill lies with millions of tiny keratin hairs - called setae - on the surface of each foot. An intermolecular phenomenon known as van der Waals force is exerted by each of these hairs. Although the force is individually miniscule, the millions of hairs collectively produce a powerful adhesive effect.

Sony patent takes first step towards real-life Matrix

From NewScientist.com

IMAGINE movies and computer games in which you get to smell, taste and perhaps even feel things. That's the tantalising prospect raised by a patent on a device for transmitting sensory data directly into the human brain - granted to none other than the entertainment giant Sony.

The technique suggested in the patent is entirely non-invasive. It describes a device that fires pulses of ultrasound at the head to modify firing patterns in targeted parts of the brain, creating "sensory experiences" ranging from moving images to tastes and sounds. This could give blind or deaf people the chance to see or hear, the patent claims.

While brain implants are becoming increasingly sophisticated, the only non-invasive ways of manipulating the brain remain crude. A technique known as transcranial magnetic stimulation can activate nerves by using rapidly changing magnetic fields to induce currents in brain tissue. However, magnetic fields cannot be finely focused on small groups of brain cells, whereas ultrasound could be.

If the method described by Sony really does work, it could have all sorts of uses in research and medicine, even if it is not capable of evoking sensory experiences detailed enough for the entertainment purposes envisaged in the patent.
...
Elizabeth Boukis, spokeswoman for Sony Electronics, says the work is speculative. "There were not any experiments done," she says. "This particular patent was a prophetic invention. It was based on an inspiration that this may someday be the direction that technology will take us."

remote controlled war

U.S. Drones Crowd Iraq's Skies to Fight Insurgents

At a command hub spread among a half dozen dimly lit trailers at this air base just off the Las Vegas Strip, the future is now. Small teams of remote-control warriors nudge joysticks to fly armed Predator aircraft 7,500 miles away. Once the Predators take off in Iraq or Afghanistan for missions, the air crews here take over.

The Predator, which can carry Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, is the best-known of the remotely piloted fleet. It is an ungainly, propeller-driven craft that flies as slowly as 80 miles per hour, and can loiter continuously for 24 hours or more at 10,000 to 15,000 feet above the battlefield.

In each trailer, a pilot and co-pilot , who operate the Predator's zoom lens, radar and infrared sensors, sit side-by-side before an array of consoles and computer screens that let them see what the Predator sees while they talk to troops on the ground by radio or e-mail. Soldiers and ground spotters can receive live video images from the Predator on specially equipped laptop computers.

Bionic eye will let the blind see

Levar Burton lookalikes coming to a retirement home near you!

Blind people would be able to recognise faces with the device US scientists have designed a bionic eye to allow blind people to see again.

It comprises a computer chip that sits in the back of the individual's eye, linked up to a mini video camera built into glasses that they wear.

Images captured by the camera are beamed to the chip, which translates them into impulses that the brain can interpret.

Pontiff's Choice Was to Die Simply

What a hypocrite:

His openness to the end of life calls attention to profound issues faced by the severely ill.

By Sebastian Rotella and Jeffrey
Fleishman, Times Staff Writers

VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II died the way he wanted.

He spent his final hours in his Vatican apartment, surrounded by nine members of his mainly Polish inner circle. Three doctors were present, but no elaborate hospital technology to help prolong his life.

Just before the end, the pope's longtime secretary celebrated Mass and began to anoint the pope's hands with oil, according to one account. John Paul gripped his secretary's hand, an apparent farewell gesture to a faithful aide who helped the pontiff fulfill his wish to die unencumbered by tubes and machines. It was 9:37 p.m. Saturday.
...
His very public choice also highlighted profound moral questions within Catholicism about the balance of preserving life and accepting death.
...
When the pontiff left the hospital March 13 after doctors performed an operation to ease his breathing, he made it clear to his aides that he did not intend to return.

Like many gravely ill people, the pope preferred to face death at home, not in the
fluorescent glare of a hospital. His choice, according to a source close to papal aides, also reflected his keen awareness of church history and ritual: Popes die in the Vatican.

That determination and the ensuing medical choices were consistent with church teaching about not prolonging life at all costs, according to theologians.

"He just didn't want to go to the hospital for a third time," said Gerald O'Collins, a professor of theology at Gregorian University in Rome. "What would have happened if he had gone back? Aggressive treatment that might have kept him alive a few more weeks, but there's no moral obligation to accept this."

A Surprising Statement

Nonetheless, the pope himself appeared to complicate the issue last year when he declared that the feeding and hydration of critically ill patients was in fact a moral obligation. He said that such treatment constituted a "natural act" for patients such as Schiavo who were in vegetative states or comas.
...
Near the end, the pope slipped in and out of consciousness. He was gaunt, unable to speak, his breathing labored, his kidneys and heart shutting down. But he had fulfilled his wish that the final chapter of his life present public suffering as an affirmation of human dignity.

Boy 'Pregnant" With His Own Twin Brother

Another older freaky story filed.

DOCTORS have removed a 4lb baby boy from the stomach of his seven-year-old twin brother.

Alamjan Nematilaev was born with the freak foetus growing inside him.

For seven years it lived like a parasite until a school doctor became alarmed about Alamjan's bulging tummy and took him to hospital.

Surgeons who gave him a scan operated immediately, unaware that the baby was attached to the boy's blood vessels and still alive.

They saved Alamjan from certain death, but knew the 8in foetus was doomed.

Maksud ai-Magaibetov, who removed the baby, said: "Thank God the school doctor insisted on taking him to hospital. If this had gone on, we would not have been able to rescue him."

And in a blast at Alamjan's parents, he added: "To my mind it was impossible not to notice the size of his belly.

"I mean, the boy really looked like a woman in her sixth month of pregnancy."

The bizarre story of Alamjan reads like the plot from a horror novel.

His tummy grew and grew, but his plight went undiscovered for years because his parents thought he had rickets, a common childhood disease in his native Kazakhstan.

Then, after a gym lessson, his school doctor took him for a medical examination.

Consultants were baffled by the mystery lump - until they took a scan.

His mother Gulnara, 30, said she almost fainted when doctors broke the news.

She added: "I was stunned. It's just not what you expect to hear. We knew he was a bit overweight, but pregnant?

"However, I could tell from the solemn expressions of the doctors that they weren't joking."

GULNARA admitted that she told Alamjan off for making up stories when he complained of something moving inside him.

"I hadn't listened properly and told him to be quiet," she sobbed.

Alamjan's medical condition is not new, but doctors claim his case is unique because the others have been detected far earlier.

Dr ai-Magaibetov said: "We couldn't believe our eyes when we scanned him.

"We could see the clear shape of a baby inside him. And it wasn't a small baby. We have never heard of a case like it."

Dr Valentina Vostrikova, who led the medical team, said: "It was remarkable - for almost seven years it lived like a parasite inside the boy's body.

"The embryo was recognisably male and lay in such a way that he sustained himself from his brother.

"Technically, the baby was alive, yet was not sustainable when separated from his brother."

Alamjan's gran Mantsura said: "The doctors showed us the poor little twin. He was a big boy, with a head, a body, hair, nails and a penis. We just can't believe he was growing inside our boy."

Gulnara plans to keep the tragedy a secret from Alamjan.

She explained: "I don't want to frighten him, because he won't understand it.

"He doesn't know how babies come into the world, and I don't think we'll ever tell him about this case because we don't want to shock him."

Alamjan has been told not to show the scar on his stomach to anybody.

He knows only that he had a lump inside him which has now been removed.

"I had a football inside me," he said, cupping his hands to show the size of it. "But my mum has told me to stop talking about it."

AUTHORITIES have tried to hush up the case, fearing it will disgrace their crumbling health system rather than create scientific interest.

But a full postmortem will be carried out to study the phenomenon.

Dr ai-Magaibetov said: "It will give us the answer as to what exactly happened and why.

"One cause of the abnormality could be radioactive pollution in Kazakhstan dating from Soviet times, causing the unnatural development."

Drug Turns Crime Victims Into Zombies

An older story I'm filing here. Very freaky.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - The last thing Andrea Fernandez recalls before being drugged is holding her newborn baby on a Bogota city bus.

Police found her three days later, muttering to herself and wandering topless along the median strip of a busy highway. Her face was badly beaten and her son was gone.

Fernandez is just one of hundreds of victims every month who, according to Colombian hospitals, are temporarily turned into zombies by a home-grown drug called scopolamine which has been embraced by thieves and rapists.

"When I woke up in the hospital, I asked for my baby and nobody said anything. They just looked at me," Fernandez said, weeping. Police believe her son Diego was taken by a gang which traffics in infants.

Colorless, odorless and tasteless, scopolamine is slipped into drinks and sprinkled onto food. Victims become so docile that they have been known to help thieves rob their homes and empty their bank accounts. Women have been drugged repeatedly over days and gang-raped or rented out as prostitutes.

In the case of Fernandez, the mother of three was rendered submissive enough to surrender her youngest child.

Most troubling for police is the way the drug acts on the brain. Since scopolamine completely blocks the formation of memories, unlike most date-rape drugs used in the United States and elsewhere, it is usually impossible for victims to ever identify their aggressors.

"When a patient (of U.S. date-rape drugs) is under hypnosis, he or she usually recalls what happened. But with scopolamine, this isn't possible because the memory was never recorded," said Dr. Camilo Uribe, the world's leading expert on the drug.

Scopolamine has a long, dark history in Colombia dating back to before the Spanish conquest.

Legend has it that Colombian Indian tribes used the drug to bury alive the wives and slaves of fallen chiefs, so that they would quietly accompany their masters into the afterworld.

Nazi "angel of death" Joseph Mengele experimented on scopolamine as an interrogation drug. And scopolamine's sedative and amnesia-producing qualities were used by mothers in the early 20th century to help them through childbirth.

Finding the drug in Colombia these days is not hard.

The tree which naturally produces scopolamine grows wild around the capital and is so famous in the countryside that mothers warn their children not to fall asleep below its yellow and white flowers. The tree is popularly known as the "borrachero," or "get-you-drunk," and the pollen alone is said to conjure up strange dreams.

"We probably should put some sort of fence up," jokes biologist Gustavo Morales at Bogota's botanical gardens, eyeing children playing with borrachero seeds everywhere.

"If you ate a few of those, it would kill you."

Although scopolamine can be easily extracted from the seeds, experienced criminals hardly ever bother with them, police say.

Pure, cheap scopolamine is brought across the border from neighboring Ecuador, where the borrachero tree is harvested for medical purposes, Uribe said. The alkaloid is used legally in medicines across the world to treat everything from motion sickness to the tremors of Parkinson's disease (news - web sites).

The use of scopolamine by criminals appears to be confined to Colombia, at least for now, and it's not clear why the drug is such a rampant problem in Colombia. Some analysts blame it on a culture of crime in the Andean nation, home to the world's largest kidnapping and cocaine industries, not to mention Latin America's longest-running guerrilla war.

There are so many scopolamine cases that they usually don't make the news unless particularly bizarre. One such incident involved three young Bogota women who preyed on men by smearing the drug on their breasts and luring their victims to take a lick.

Losing all willpower, the men readily gave up their bank access codes. The breast-temptress thieves then held them hostage for days while draining their accounts.

The U.S. Embassy in Bogota takes scopolamine very seriously and offers staff tips on how avoid being drugged. One piece of advice may seem obvious: Don't let your drinks out of your sight when at a Bogota bar or nightclub.

Still, at least three visiting U.S. government employees here have been drugged and robbed over the past two years. Other American victims from time to time appear at the embassy seeking help, still shaking off a scopolamine hangover.

"I remember one case, an American reported being drugged," an embassy official said. "He says to his doorman 'Why did you let them walk out with my stuff.' The doorman says, 'Because you told me to.'"

the Lex bag

Fashion Underground

NEW YORK CITY - The apex of subway-themed haute couture is on display at the New York Transit Museum's Gallery Annex through February 27 in a special exhibition titled 'Fashion Underground: Transit-inspired Accessories.'

Reflecting the beauty, elegance and artistry of the NYC Subway system, the nine unique accessories donated by their designers pay tribute to the form and function of one of the country's most iconic symbols, the New York City Subway. "
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Lex Bag by designer Michael Simon. The idea for the bag came to Simon one day while riding the N train to Bloomingdale's. The beaded, embroidered and sequined leather handbag reflects the details of the mosaic tile work that caught his eye.