The township of Prestonpans, Scotland, is taking this Halloween to publicly pardon the 81 people (and their cats) who were executed for witchcraft during the 16th and 17th centuries... "It's too late to apologize, but it's a sort of symbolic recognition that these people were put to death for hysterical ignorance and paranoia," said historian Roy Pugh, who presented evidence to the Scottish court that issued the pardons... Adele Conn, spokeswoman for the court, said "There will be no witches' hats, dress-ups or that sort of thing — it will be a fairly solemn occasion..." Conn said 15 local descendants of executed witches had been invited to attend the pardoning ceremony...

Mayor Stanley Usovicz, of Salem, Massachusetts (U.S.), is intrigued by the idea... During the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, 19 people were hanged and one was pressed with heavy stones for allegedly practicing witchcraft, and over 200 people were jailed for the same charge... And while many of the accused Salem witches were exonerated by the Massachusetts Legislature in 1957, "I am not sure there has ever been an official declaration by the city government of Salem," the Mayor said... "I would have to take a look at that..." A good date for such a pardon might be in 2007, Usovicz said, the 315th anniversary of the Salem Witch Trials, "but I would suggest that anytime is a good time to forgive..."

The eighth annual Punkin Chuckin' Contest near Morton, Illinois was a record setting success! Two world records were set in the trebuchet and catapult categories this year:

• Acme Catapult from Tremont, Illinois launched a pumpkin 1,860 feet to win the catapult category
• The Veg-O-Matic from Brillion, Wisconsin, tossed a pumpkin 1,325 feet to win the trebuchet category

And records or not, those distances pale next to the air cannon class, where Aludium Q-36 Pumpkin Modulator - a 36,000-pound air compressor - shot a pumpkin 4,444 feet throught the air! Unfortunately, the winds kept it from breaking the world record (for all machines) it already holds for launching a pumpkin 4,859 feet!

And if you missed it this year, start planning for 2005! The Punkin Chuckin' Contest is associated with the Morton Pumpkin Festival... Now in it's 38th year, the festival celebrates the beginning of canning season each year - the Nestle/Libby's pumpkin packing plant in town processes 80% of the world's canned pumpkin! There are pumpkin fields, corn mazes, carnivals, concerts, and many other events... And the celebration starts next year on September 14th...

New York psychiatrist Charles Goodstein, professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine, warned Boston Red Sox fans last night that winning the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals may have its down sides... "If part of a long-time identity of being a Red Sox fan is a sense of suffering, a sense of not winning, a kind of camaraderie with other losers, you lost some of that," said Goodstein... "You have to face up to a different kind of identity, of being at least an ephemeral winner..." Having "wallowed in their misery" for generations, "they may have to unconsciously subvert themselves in other aspects of life apart from their fandom," he posited... "Who knows?" he said... "They may screw up on the job, they may get into unbearable arguments with their wives and kids, they may have to suffer in some other fashion..."

(Be that as it may, after 86 years, congratulations to the Red Sox and their fans! Way to go!)

If you are anything like me, a cup of coffee or two in the morning is more than a luxury, it's a requirement... Two medical studies suggest that this is not only a good thing, it may not be enough! Previous studies have linked coffee consumption to a number of health benefits, including a reduced risk of diabetes, Parkinson's disease, gallstones, colon cancer and potentially heart disease... The latest link it to a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes - and the more you drink, the more the benefits!

The first, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that after 12 years, women drinking 3 to 4 cups of coffee a day had 29% less risk of diabetes, with 79% less risk for those who drank 10 or more! For men, it was 27% and 55%...

The second, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found that after 18 years, 6 or more cups a day reduce the risk of diabetes in men by 54% and in women by 30%... "The ingredients in coffee can actually improve sensitivity to insulin and glucose metabolism," says Dr. Frank Hu, author of the study and an associate professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health...

Of course, the catch is that many coffee drinks, because of sweeteners, flavorings, and other ingredients, have more than enough calories to offset the benefits... One example: a 24-ounce Strawberries and Creme Frappuccino with whipped cream at Starbucks has 780 calories and 19 grams of fat!

(So stick with the more normal coffees and drink to your health!)

Police and Prosecutors in San Mateo County, California, have it in for herbal tea drinkers... Specifically, they are cracking down on people who drive after drinking tea containing kava... Kava, while not considered a drug by the government, is classified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a nutritional supplement that can be used to relieve anxiety... Unfortunately, "kava basically has the opposite effect of alcohol," Deputy District Attorney Chris Feasel said... "Kava affects your motor skills before it affects your mental abilities..." Motorists under the influence of Kava had a "thousand-yard stare", Feasel said. "They’re drooling on themselves sometimes, their motor function is so bad," he added...

And before you laugh, they've already convicted one person for Driving Under the Influence (DUI) due to kava, have filed three other cases, and are looking for more! "We’re cracking down on DUI drivers," Feasel said. "Whether it’s driving under the influence of kava, or a good merlot or Advil, you’re going to be prosecuted."

The incredible, edible egg (as the commercial goes) - now in a bottle! Tesco, Britain’s biggest supermarket chain, this week started selling eggs in a bottle... And not just any eggs! “For the first time ever, egg lovers will be able to enjoy omelettes, scrambled eggs and pancakes galore without worrying about piling on the pounds,” said Mike Seymour, a spokesman for Tesco... Health Living Liquid Eggs contain the equivalent of five medium-sized eggs in a bottle, but have had almost all the yolk removed, leaving less than 1% of the original fat and cholesterol...

(And you don't even have to crack any shells)

School officials had to close the Parini school, in Milan, Italy, last week due to a flood... This week they learned the cause of the flood: four teenagers who did not want to take a test in ancient Greek class! Apparently the three girls and one boy (ages 16 & 17) snuck into the school last weekend, blocked drains in a bathroom, and turned on all the washbasin taps... The flood caused over 500,000 Euros (over $630,000 U.S.) in damage to the oldest state school in Italy... Now the teens are being investigated for aggravated vandalism, breaking and entering, and causing a disruption to public services... No word on if they still had to take the Greek test...

(Apparently a fake [cough] cold was too easy...)

Most people admit to spending time in the bathroom thinking, reading, or otherwise finding time for things they cannot do elsewhere... Few, however, will ever cause their toilets to be the subject of great excitement in the future...

Martin Luther's toilet, on the other hand, is causing a lot of excitement! Luther left behind many notes concerning his battle with constipation and is quoted as saying he was "in cloaca", or "in the sewer", when he decided to confront the Catholic Church on salvation by deeds alone, papal abuses, the sale of indulgences, etc... The posting of these 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg's Castle Church on October 31, 1517, marked the beginning of a movement that would become the Protestant Reformation!

Now archaeologists in Wittenberg, Germany, say they may have found the bathroom Martin Luther was using! "What we have found here is something very rare," said Martin Treu, a theologian and Martin Luther expert, describing how most buildings preserved from that far back tend to have served a grander function... The toilet is in a niche set inside a 30 foot (9 meter) square room discovered during the excavation of a garden in the grounds of Luther's house in Wittenberg... The bathroom was built around 1516-17 and Dr Treu said there can be little doubt the toilet was used by Luther, although there is no guarantee this is the toilet Luther was referring to...

(And before you ask, "We still don't know what was used for wiping in those days," says Dr Treu... The paper of the time would have been too expensive and "too stiff" for the purpose, he says...)

Everyone knows you can die in a traffic accident... Now we know you can die just being around traffic, regardless of whether an accident occurs or not! That's the conclusion of a study by researchers at the GSF-National Research Center for Environment and Health in Neuherberg, Germany... Apparently being in traffic - either in a car, a bus, a train, or just standing around - increases the risk of heart attack in people already at risk... On average, traffic nearly triples the risk of heart attack in the hours afterward, and the more time you spend in traffic, the higher the risk... And for those not already at risk, traffic increases the risk of heart disease in general!

(So much for relaxing while cruising around town, eh?)

Like to shop? Looking for somewhere with nifty things that normally seen in other stores? Well check out the Boeing Surplus Sales retail store in Kent, Washington! With over 42,000 square feet of retail store with an acre of
additional items for sale in an outside lot, there's bound to be something that catches your eye... The store sells office and factory assets from Boeing facilities in the U.S. NorthWest, including furniture and supplies, computers, printers and other peripherals, test equipment, milling cutters and other machine tools, and forklifts...

But the Seattle Post-Intelligencer didn't call it "the 747 of garage sales" for nothing! The store also sells specialty items like scrap metal lots, vehicles, mainframe computers and wind tunnels! In fact, about the only thing it doesn't sell are airplane parts, since that would be a violation of Federal Aviation Administration rules....

(So... Just how much is a wind tunnel, anyways?)

Residents of Penglai, a village in south-western Sichuan province in China, may think Chicken Little was right... The top floor of a four-story apartment building was demolished Friday by a Chinese satellite returning from orbit! "A giant parachute with a conical-shaped black 'top' was seen falling from the sky and landed through the roof," according to the Youth Daily... The 'top' turned out to be a six-foot-long capsule from a satellite launched 18 days ago to carry out scientific experiments in space... Aside from the damage to the building, no one was hurt (the last resident had left the floor 5 minutes before) and the capsule was not damaged (it was removed shortly thereafter)...

The real fun began when people started talking:

• Chinese space experts were quoted as saying, "The landing technology of our country's satellites is very mature and the precision of the landing point is among the best in the world."
• One resident was quoted as saying "Maybe this means we'll have good luck this year."

(Uh, yeah... Good luck usually means that the "precision" landing technology has the large chunk of orbiting metal land somewhere else!)

The Saint Bernards are retiring.

Deemed unnecessary in an age of helicopters and heat sensors, the Congregation of Canons of the Great Saint Bernard in Switzerland is ready to sell its 18 adults and 16 pups, according to an October 11 Associated Press story.

An adult male Saint Bernard can weigh up to 220 pounds and can eat more than four pounds of meat a day, according to Brother Frederic, one of five religious members living at the hospice. The order has trained and maintained the dogs since 1660 or 1670. Though records don't indicate when the animals first started to rescue people, they are credited with saving about 2,000 travelers over the past 200 years on the Saint Bernard Pass on the border with Italy.

Though the last time a Saint Bernard was used in an Alpine rescue was 1975, the dogs are still popular with the tourists. Even when the dogs are sold, the new owners must agree to bring them back to the pass each summer to greet visitors.

"Nothing will really change when the dogs are sold," said Brother Fredric. "Just the ownership. It will take a load off of us and allow us to spend more time with those who need it. But the dogs will still be around."

The May 6, 2002, edition of The Washington Times included a collection of "the most memorable political quotes of all time, selected from among the hundreds of favorite political one-liners submitted by Inside the Beltway readers from over 30 states."

Several of the favorites were Bill Clinton quotes:

"The road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the truth."

"That depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

"I didn't inhale."

"In just eight years I've given you enough material for 20 years." — Bill Clinton's farewell address to the White House Correspondents' Association

Then there were some other favorites:

"Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power." — George Bernard Shaw

"If I were in the president's place, I would not have gotten a chance to resign. I would be laying in a pool of my own blood, listening to Mrs. Armey standing over me saying, 'How do I reload this thing?'" — House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas

The top ten signs that your presidential candidate is unqualified:

10. He promises to improve foreign relations with Hawaii.
9. He runs a series of attack ads against Martin Sheen's character on "The West Wing."
8. His #1 choice for a position on his cabinet is "That Bob Vila guy."
7. His outstanding record as Governor of Rhode Island is nullified by the fact that no one really cares.
6. He got his degree in Political Economics by bribing Sally Struthers with a chocolate donut.
5. When anybody mentions Washington, he asks, "The state or the DC thingie?"
4. At the debates, he answers every question with a snarled, "You wanna wrestle?"
3. He vows to put an end to the war in Pokemon and free the Pikachu refugees once and for all.
2. He says the Pledge of Allegiance as quickly as possible, then shouts, "I win!"
1. On the very first question of the debate, he attempts to use a Lifeline.

Enjoy watching the commercials for Volkswagen vehicles (Toureg, Beetle, Passat, Jetta and others)? Ever wonder about the music in the background? Well now you can find both on the VW web site at http://www.vw.com/commercials... You can rewatch they most current commercials and they'll tell you not only the title of the music in the background, but also the artist that produced it...

Have fun, and happy commercial watching!

Looking for a reason to celebrate October 14th? Well break out the candles and get ready to eat cake, because today is the birthday of:

• Winnie the Pooh - the children's book by A.A. Milne was first published today in 1926... He looks pretty good for a bear of 78!
• Grover - the blue, fuzzy character from Sesame Street... No one knows how old he is, which pretty well makes him timeless...

(Hey, any excuse is good for a cake, eh?)

If train A leaves the station at 9:00 and train B leaves the station at 10:00, what is the likelihood that you will miss both trains?

According to a panel of experts, your changes are - mathematically - pretty good... The panel was commissioned by British Gas to define Murphy's Law (also sometimes calls Sod's law) mathematically so that they could see analyze the formula and see if there is a way to beat the odds... After testing the experiences of over 1000 people and reviewing other studies (like ones that prove buttered toast really does fall butter side down), the panel came up with a statistical rule for predicting Murphy's Law:

((U+C+I) x (10-S)) / 20 x A x 1/(1-sin(F/10))
For any given situation, Urgency (U), Complexity (C), Importance (I), Skill (S) and Frequency (F) are given a score between one and nine... Aggravation (A) is treated as a constant (best approximated as 0.7)...

"The lesson from this is that, to cut the seemingly unbeatable Murphy's Law gremlins down to size, you need to change one of the elements in the equation, " Dr. David Lewis said... "So, if you haven't got the skill to do something important, leave it alone. If something is urgent or complex, find a simple way to do it. If something going wrong will particularly aggravate you, make certain you know how to do it."

But he added a note of caution: "There is, of course, a Sod's Law factor to the equation. If you judge your ratings wrongly, you might become too optimistic - and calamity will strike."

Depending on where you live in the world, you probably have one of three views of Ping Pong:

• It's a very competitive sport
• It's something people occassionally do in home game rooms, but that's about it
• You're probably wondering what ping pong is and why anyone thinks it's important

Well, whatever your view, you'll certainly get a kick out of this!

Apparently some Japanese guys who have obviously seen The Matrix one too many times decided to put some real excitement into the game... The result? Matrix Ping Pong!

(And there are no computer special effects in this video clip! It's worth watching just to see how they guys did it!)

By now you've probably heard about Old Media vs New Media - television and radio making up Old Media and the Internet (with Blogs, web sites, IM, and more) being New Media... Well now Germany is putting into place a means for the New Media to keep the Old Media in business...

It works like this... Germany has two public broadcasting corporations (ARD and ZDF) covering both television and radio... These two corporations are funded by public licence fees (Rundfunkgebühren)... If a German citizen (or married couple) has a television (or a television and a radio) they owe a fee of about 16 Euros and 15 cents (about $20 US) per month to the central fees office (GEZ)... People who only own radios still pay about 5 Euros (about $6.20 US)... And kids (or parents) living in the same house pay separately if their separate incomes are above a certain level...

Well starting next year (going into full effect by 2007) people who dump their radios and TVs in favor of computers and the Internet no longer escape paying these fees! And they are raising the fee besides! Which means if you live in Germany and don't own a TV or radio, you'll need to start paying a fee of about 17 or 18 Euros (about $21 to $22 US) for the priviledge of owning a PC capable of connecting to the Internet... That's 17 Euros to keep in business Old Media companies whose services are not being used!

And don't forget the fine print! The fee applies to computers capable of connecting to the Internet whether you actually connect to the Internet or not... And if multiple people (like your kids) meeting certain income levels live in the same house, they all pay separate fees... And busiesses get charged for the computers they own as well... And this is all in addition to whatever fees are paid to access the Internet in the first place...

(This is wrong on so many levels... Why don't ARD and ZDF just offer pay-per-view content like other media sites on the Internet? If this catches on in other countries - talk about a quick and easy way to price the Internet out of reach of most people around the world!)

Police in the Czech Republic recently caught a long-wanted criminal... They caught him due to his recurring need to steal more bread... Not bread $$ - the bread you eat! Specifically fresh rolls... Apparently the man had spent many months hiding out in a shack deep in the forests of the Czech Republic, but kept sneaking back into town in the wee hours of the morning right after the bakers' vans had dropped off their deliveries... Then he would steal a few rolls here, a few rolls there, just enough not to cause the shop owners to report them missing... And this went on for months until employees noticed the recurring visitor and called police... And even then he almost got away with it - the police officer who spent the night hiding was so cramped from the night's vigil he couldn't catch up with the thief when he dashed off... But the police were smarter than the thief - they got him the next time he came after more rolls!

Just when you thought you had heard it all...

• George Lumley, aged 104, married Mary Dunning, aged 10, in Nortallerton, England on August 25, 1783... She was the great-great granddaughter of the woman who'd broken her engagement to Lumley eighty years before...
• When Albert Einstein was at Princeton a twelve-year-old girl stopped by the Einstein home almost every afternoon... The girl's mother found out about it when the newspapers reported it... When asked why the girl came by, Einstein replied simply, "She brings me cookies and I do her arithmetic homework."
• When the Marx Brothers made movies for MGM studios, they often had to deal with movie mogul Irving Thalberg... Thalberg had the habit of making people wait outside his office for extended periods of time... One time he kept the Marx Brothers so long that when he finally got around to seeing them, he discovered they were stark naked outside his doorway, roasting potatoes in the lobby's fireplace... (It was the last time he kept them waiting)
• When Leo Tolstoy and his brother were children, they created a club with a peculiar, almost impossible initiation ceremony... In order to become a member, one had to stand in a corner for a half an hour and not think of anything white...
• Mrs. Caroline Squires of Cincinnati, Ohio, filed for a divorce from her husband in 1949 on grounds of desertion... She testified he'd stepped out "for a beer" on the Fourth of July, 1917, and had never come back...
• In 1976, Jannene Swift of Los Angeles officially married a 50-pound rock. The ceremony was witnessed by more than 20 people...
• Langley Collier met his untimely end in 1947 while bringing food to his brother Homer, who lived as a total hermit... Langley tripped on a wire to one of his own booby traps and was crushed beneath a suitcase filled with metal, a sewing machine, three breadboxes, and several bundles of newspapers... Homer starved to death...
• A burglar entered the home of Tom Schimmel in Tawas City, Michigan, collected a bag of loot, fixed himself a bowl of cereal, laid down in Schimmel's bed and fell asleep... Schimmel returned to his house and called police... Officers investigated, completed their reports, and departed... When Schimmel noticed the sleeping burglar several hours later, he summoned the police again... They awakened the man and identified him as the thief...
• A San Antonio wife, filing for divorce, described her husband as "a bore..." "Just what is a bore?" asked the judge... She thought about it, then quoted, "A person who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company..." The record shows the judge regarded that as sufficient grounds and granted her the divorce...

Did you know there are different types of twilight? Well thanks to the U.S. Naval Observatory's Astronomical Applications Department, now you do! Apparently Twilight can be defined one of three ways:

• Civil twilight begins in the morning and ends in the evening when the center of the Sun is geometrically 6 degrees below the horizon... Basically, you can still clearly see objects around you (under good weather conditions) during this period... After this twilight ends, lights are normally required when doing things outdoors even though complete darkness ends before civil twilight begins in the morning and begins after it ends at night...
• Nautical twilight begins and ends when the center of the sun is geometrically 12 degrees below the horizon...
• Astronomical twilight begins and ends when the center of the Sun is geometrically 18 degrees below the horizon... Before and after astronomical twilight, the Sun does not add to the light in the sky...

So how does this impact your day to day activities? It doesn't really... But think of how smart you'll look when you say, "It's time to break out the lights because Civil Twilight is ending and we are now in Nautical Twilight..."

(Want to know more? Check out these and other definitions at the Astronomical Applications Definitions page)

Ever leave your computer on overnight or while you went out on the town? Ever wonder what happens when you do? Well now you can see exactly what happens when you aren't watching!

(Best bet? Get hooked up with SETI@Home, Pioneer (for cancer research) or one of the other distributed computing screen savers so your computer (and your Desktop icons) don't get bored and start causing trouble!)

Apparently Superman could never have been Swedish... Just ask Sara Leisten of Gothenburg, Sweden! She recently had a baby boy... Since he was born with one arm pointing upwards (the classic Superman pose when flying), she wanted to name him Staalman (Swedish for Superman)... Local authorities refused, saying the name could lead to the boy being ridiculed later in life...

But Batman is OK... So is Tarzan! In fact, several Swedish MP's are now calling for the laws covering babies' names to be changed because of how inconsistent they are...

Sara Leisten is upbeat, saying she'll try again to see if they can name her son Staalmannen (Swedish for The Superman)...

(If the only concern was being ridiculed later in life, I could think of lots worse names than Superman)

The Ansari X Prize was won today by SpaceShipOne! In only it's third flight, and it's second in a week, Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne reached the 100km (62 mile) boundry of space... The flight only took about 90 minutes from takeoff to touchdown, but it succeeded in winning a $10 million (U.S.) prize first established in 1996 to promote the development of a private sector, reusable space craft...

What's next? British tycoon and adventurer Richard Branson has announced the formation of Virgin Galactic to license the technology used in SpaceShipOne and begin taking tourists to space for a fee of $200,000 (U.S.) as soon as 2007.... And the X Prize Foundation, today announced the X Prize Cup will begin in 2006 to provide an annual competition of private spacecraft, with awards given in different categories...

Congratuations to everyone involved with SpaceShipOne!

There are thousands upon thousands of scientific studies and papers every year... Some have the power to change the course of history... The Ig Nobels are not awarded to those... The Ig Nobels are awarded to people to do something that first makes people laugh, then makes them think... And the 2004 award winners are in... Amoung them:

• An article that assesses the link between country music and metropolitan suicide rates... (If you live in a city with lots of country music stations, I'd be careful)
• A study on the Coordination Modes in the Multisegmental Dynamics of Hula Hooping that detailed the bodily movements necessary to keep a Hula Hoop in motion... (The author did the study, wrote the paper, but says he still can't master it)
• A scientific investigation of the Five-Second Rule to see if it is safe to eat something just dropped on the floor... (According to this it is... And women do it more than men)

And the list goes on - 10 awards are given every year... And the prize? This year it was a fake box of cereal called Ig Nobel-O's...