"If you don't know what to do, call the media and at least give the appearance of doing something." - David Peterson

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Laman Web Rasmi Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia - "Garis Panduan Pelaksanaan Ibadah Di International Space Station,ISS (Stesyen Angkasa Antarabangsa)"
HWMNBN insists I get these Muslim guidelines for space travel translated but petulantly refuses to do it for me, so I shan't bother either.

Crocs, kids and escalators a bad combination? - "At rail stations and shopping malls around the world, reports are popping up of people, particularly young children, getting their toes caught in escalators. The one common theme seems to be the clunky soft-soled clogs known by the name of the most popular brand, Crocs."

Sound off: Students sent to office for wearing jacket and tie - "The Golden Gate High School senior wore a jacket and tie to school Wednesday and the act sent him to in-school suspension. His violation? He wasn’t following the dress code."

German politician proposes seven-year limit on marriages - ""I propose that marriages lapse after seven years," Gabriele Pauli told reporters in Munich, the capital of the largely Catholic southern state of Bavaria. "This would mean that one will only commit for a fixed period and will actively have to renew your vows if you still want to continue.""
Finally, a good idea about marriage!

Conspicuous Consumption and Race - "Using nationally representative data on consumption, we show that Blacks and Hispanics devote larger shares of their expenditure bundles to visible goods (clothing, jewelry, and cars) than do comparable Whites. We demonstrate that these differences exist among virtually all sub-populations, that they are relatively constant over time, and that they are economically large. While racial differences in utility preference parameters might account for a portion of these consumption differences, we emphasize instead a model of status seeking in which conspicuous consumption is used to reflect a household's economic position relative to a reference group. Using merged data on race and state level income, we demonstrate that a key prediction of our model -- that visible consumption should be declining in mean reference group income -- is strongly borne out in the data separately for each racial group. Moreover, we show that accounting for differences in reference group income characteristics explains most of the racial difference in visible consumption. We conclude with an assessment of the role of conspicuous consumption in explaining lower spending by racial minorities on items likes health and education, as well as their lower rates of wealth accumulation."
RACIST!!!!!

Alpha males - "Alpha males aren’t concerned with being liked. This is true in part because they already get enough love from themselves. But they aren’t the only ones who love them; while conducting research for this article, I came across numerous blogs that featured women tangled in a heated discussion concerning the alpha male. Allow me to paraphrase the overarching female opinion on such men: “Alpha Males are jerks. I can’t stand how attracted I am to them.”"

Cheap trainers still protect feet = "Expensive trainers do not protect runners' feet better than cheaper ones, according to a study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine."

Question of the Week: Landfills - CNN.com - "The government of Singapore is currently endorsing a campaign to boost its recycling levels to 60 percent by 2012 (up from its 2005 levels of 49 percent). Their final target however is an ambitious "zero landfill" status, which they hope to achieve by ultimately recycling all the waste produced in the city-state."
I didn't know we were so environmentally friendly.

Woman Becomes Quadruple Amputee After Giving Birth - "A Sanford mother says she will never be able to hold her newborn because an Orlando hospital performed a life-altering surgery and, she claims, the hospital refuses to explain why they left her as a multiple amputee... Claudia Mejia gave birth eight and a half months ago at Orlando Regional South Seminole. She was transported to Orlando Regional Medical Center in Orlando where her arms and legs were amputated. She was told she had streptococcus, a flesh eating bacteria, and toxic shock syndrome, but no further explanation was given."