[Quote:]

The results of our Google Earth black helicopter competition last year proved just how eagled-eyed you lot were when it came to virtual planespotting, but here’s one you missed, and a real blast from the past it is too:

Zooming in, we have…

…yup, an Avro Lancaster flying over Stukeley Meadows, Huntingdon, England, as originally spotted it appears by a chap on Google Earth Community who lives just about right under the aircraft’s position when Google Earth’s satellite captured this snap.

The Lancaster in question is the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’s “City of Lincoln.” The image is at 52 20 10.87N 0 11 43.34W, or right here (Google Earth KMZ link)

(From The Register)

[Quote:]

Annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime.

It’s no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.

In other words, it’s OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name. Thank Congress for small favors, I guess.

This ridiculous prohibition, which would likely imperil much of Usenet, is buried in the so-called Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act. Criminal penalties include stiff fines and two years in prison.

“The use of the word ‘annoy’ is particularly problematic,” says Marv Johnson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. “What’s annoying to one person may not be annoying to someone else.”

I find this new law annyoing…

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Vice President Dick Cheney was taken to a Washington hospital early on Monday, suffering from shortness of breath, according to a statement from the vice president’s office.

The vice president, who has had four heart attacks, was taken to George Washington University Hospital around 3 a.m. (0800 GMT) and was expected to return home later today, the statement said.

Probably just a severe case of foot-in-mouth disease…

[Quote:]

So there seems to be some fallout from Verizon’s music download service — users who choose to “upgrade” their handsets to support the Verizon Wireless music store are doing so at a tradeoff: you’ll no longer be able to play MP3s on your phone. The new phone software prevents you from playing MP3s on the phone as a result of an agreement Verizon Wireless made with Microsoft, the latter of whom stipulated that if the Verizon Wireless music store was gonna fly at all, MS wanted to make sure that phones using it could only play back Microsoft’s audio format. Supposedly there is an internal memo floating around at VZW Wireless saying that if anyone complains about the new “featureset,” they’ll be given a refurbished phone with older firmware to “correct” the “problem” — but that users aren’t being warned ahead of time that they’ll lose MP3 playing functionality by upgrading their phones. Very tricksy, guys, very tricksy! You know, if the customer didn’t always come first with these big corps we’d really be in trouble, folks.

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Vietnam was a chemical war for oil, permanently contaminating large regions and countries downriver with Agent Orange, and environmentally the most devastating war in world history. But since 1991, the U.S. has staged four nuclear wars using depleted uranium weaponry, which, like Agent Orange, meets the U.S. government definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Vast regions in the Middle East and Central Asia have been permanently contaminated with radiation.

And what about our soldiers? Terry Jemison of the Department of Veterans Affairs reported this week to the American Free Press that “Gulf-era veterans�? now on medical disability since 1991 number 518,739, with only 7,035 reported wounded in Iraq in that same 14-year period.

This week the American Free Press dropped a “dirty bomb�? on the Pentagon by reporting that eight out of 20 men who served in one unit in the 2003 U.S. military offensive in Iraq now have malignancies. That means that 40 percent of the soldiers in that unit have developed malignancies in just 16 months.

Since these soldiers were exposed to vaccines and depleted uranium (DU) only, this is strong evidence for researchers and scientists working on this issue, that DU is the definitive cause of Gulf War Syndrome. Vaccines are not known to cause cancer. One of the first published researchers on Gulf War Syndrome, who also served in 1991 in Iraq, Dr. Andras Korényi-Both, is in agreement with Barbara Goodno from the Department of Defense’s Deployment Health Support Directorate, that in this war soldiers were not exposed to chemicals, pesticides, bioagents or other suspect causes this time to confuse the issue.

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American troops in Baghdad yesterday blasted their way into the home of an Iraqi journalist working for the Guardian and Channel 4, firing bullets into the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife and children.

Ali Fadhil, who two months ago won the Foreign Press Association young journalist of the year award, was hooded and taken for questioning. He was released hours later.

The following paragraph makes you wonder…

Dr Fadhil is working with Guardian Films on an investigation for Channel 4′s Dispatches programme into claims that tens of millions of dollars worth of Iraqi funds held by the Americans and British have been misused or misappropriated.

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Since the Bush administration took office in 2001, it has been more lenient toward mining companies facing serious safety violations, issuing fewer and smaller major fines and collecting less than half of the money that violators owed, a Knight Ridder Newspapers investigation has found.

At one point last year, the Mine Safety and Health Administration fined a coal company a scant $440 for a “significant and substantial” violation that ended in the death of a Kentucky man. The firm, International Coal Group Inc., is the same company that owns the Sago mine in West Virginia, where 12 workers died earlier this week.

The $440 fine remains unpaid.

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The Society of Adolescent Medicine, in one of the most exhaustive reviews to date of government-funded abstinence-only programs, has rejected current administration policy that promotes abstinence as the only sexual health prevention strategy for young people in the United States and abroad.

“We believe that current federal abstinence-only-until- marriage policy is ethically problematic, as it excludes accurate information about contraception, misinforms by overemphasizing or misstating the risks of contraception, and fails to require the use of scientifically accurate information while promoting approaches of questionable value,” the report concludes.

“Based on our review of the evaluations of specific abstinence-only curricula and research on virginity pledges, user failure with abstinence appears to be very high. Thus, although theoretically completely effective in preventing pregnancy, in actual practice the efficacy of abstinence-only interventions may approach zero.”

“ethically problematic”? How’s that for a euphimism…

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BLITZER: Should Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, who has now pleaded guilty to bribery charges, among other charges, a Republican lobbyist in Washington, should the Democrat who took money from him give that money to charity or give it back?

DEAN: There are no Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, not one, not one single Democrat. Every person named in this scandal is a Republican. Every person under investigation is a Republican. Every person indicted is a Republican. This is a Republican finance scandal. There is no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any Democrat any money. And we’ve looked through all of those FEC reports to make sure that’s true.

BLITZER: But through various Abramoff-related organizations and outfits, a bunch of Democrats did take money that presumably originated with Jack Abramoff.

DEAN: That’s not true either. There’s no evidence for that either. There is no evidence…

BLITZER: What about Senator Byron Dorgan?

DEAN: Senator Byron Dorgan and some others took money from Indian tribes. They’re not agents of Jack Abramoff. There’s no evidence that I’ve seen that Jack Abramoff directed any contributions to Democrats. I know the Republican National Committee would like to get the Democrats involved in this. They’re scared. They should be scared. They haven’t told the truth. They have misled the American people. And now it appears they’re stealing from Indian tribes. The Democrats are not involved in this.

BLITZER: Unfortunately Mr. Chairman, we got to leave it right there.

Video-WMP Video-QT

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A disc jockey abandoned his radio show to try to save the life of a listener who had collapsed while taking part in a late-night phone-in.

Pete Price was holding a discussion on Britishness when one of his regular callers, Terry Watts, suddenly fell silent.

Suspecting something was wrong, Price asked his producer to contact police.

After the police said the matter was not a priority, Price persuaded another listener to break into Mr Watts’s home in Old Swan, Liverpool. The DJ then left the studio and hailed a cab.

Mr Watts, who was in his sixties, was dead when Price reached his home 15 minutes later. His telephone was lying beside him.

You can download a part of the radio broadcast here

In this stunning vista recorded with the Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, distant galaxies form a dramatic backdrop for disrupted spiral galaxy Arp 188, the Tadpole Galaxy. The cosmic tadpole is a mere 420 million light-years distant toward the northern constellation Draco. Its eye-catching tail is about 280 thousand light-years long and features massive, bright blue star clusters. One story goes that a more compact intruder galaxy crossed in front of Arp 188 – from left to right in this view – and was slung around behind the Tadpole by their gravitational attraction. During the close encounter, tidal forces drew out the spiral galaxy’s stars, gas, and dust forming the spectacular tail. The intruder galaxy itself, estimated to lie about 300 thousand light-years behind the Tadpole, can be seen through foreground spiral arms at the upper left. Following its terrestrial namesake, the Tadpole Galaxy will likely lose its tail as it grows older, the tail’s star clusters forming smaller satellites of the large spiral galaxy.

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The Bush administration has illegally stopped making public detailed tax enforcement data, which has been used to show which kinds of taxpayers get the most and toughest audits, a noted tax researcher says.

Syracuse University Professor Susan B. Long said in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle late last week that since Nov. 1, 2004, the Internal Revenue Service has violated a 1976 court order requiring the release of the data.

IRS spokesman Terry Lemons responded Friday, “We do not believe we are in violation of the court order.”

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Sen. Mary Landrieu (news, bio, voting record) is leading a delegation to the Netherlands on Monday to study the flood control systems protecting a nation much farther below sea-level than New Orleans.

The Netherlands’ ambassador invited Landrieu after Hurricane Katrina broke floodgates and levees, flooding most of New Orleans and all of neighboring St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, she said.

The storm’s death toll so far is 1,326 in five states, including 1,077 in Louisiana.

“We’ve had this patchwork, catch-as-catch-can attitude from Washington,” said Landrieu, D-La. “What we need to see is a nation that has really made flood protection a priority.”

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and others have questioned whether areas 3 to 5 feet below sea level should be rebuilt or returned to marshland.

“The Netherlands is 21 feet below sea level,” Landrieu said.

The delegation includes political, business and education leaders. Landrieu said the trip will show that “with the right science and the right engineering and the right investment priorities, people can be safe in the United States whether they live below sea level on the coast or on a mountain 3,500 feet above sea level. It’s all about the technology, the will and the right priorities.”

Holland recently completed a 50-year program to build dams, sea walls, and surge barriers designed to protect the south of the country against almost any storm. It includes twin rotating gates that can seal the mouth of Rotterdam’s harbor against a storm surge, and a set of 62 big gates that can close off the Oosterschelde estuary in Zeeland.

A woman digs to create a pathway through heavy snow which has piled up to over three metres in the northern Japanese town of Tsunan January 6, 2006. REUTERS/Kyodo

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I was never an Elvis fan.

Sure, I enjoy some singles from the early 60s period, but I don’t own a single album or CD of Elvis’s music. The Beatles were always more interesting, and as I got older, the Beach Boys became more interesting too. Buddy Holly. The Everly Brothers. The Mermaids, for cheese sake. Elvis? Nah. He was always too out of touch for me.

Culturally, his image will never die. However, the one I see the most is the fat, bloated, Vegas-Elvis, and it seems America loves this side of Elvis too with all the impersonators and whatnot. Probably because this era of his life is so easily marketable.

Col. Tom thought so when he released “Having Fun With Elvis On Stage�? in 1974, sold at his concerts and then officially released by RCA in 1975. This, my friends, is the only Elvis album I own. But I thought you said…? Ahhh..there is no music on it – only talking. This is a 35 minute montage of Elvis’s on-stage banter, non-segues, bad jokes, requests for scarves, and whole lotta “Well…well…well�?’s.

This album proves that Col. Tom and RCA had no idea what to do with Elvis, even in 1974. And they still don’t, although RCA have yet to re-release this on CD.

Happy birthday Elvis, ya poor fat bastard.

Having Fun With Elvis On Stage (zip / 35 mbs)

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In October 2002, Republican leaders scoffed when White House economic advisor Larry Lindsey suggested the war would cost between $100-$200B, an estimate for which Lindsey was fired.. Budget Director Mitch Daniels was more conservative, at $50-60B total, and estimate which matched that of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. “There’s just no reason that this can’t be an affordable endeavor�?, said Daniels.

Still, the White House downplayed those figures. Then-undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz famously suggested that “we’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” Pressed for a figure by Congress, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was elusive. “I don’t know that there is much reconstruction to do.�?

Less than two months after “Mission Accomplished”, senior administration officials were congratulating themselves on a “short war”, speaking of Iraq in the past tense. “The business plan for the war was roughly as successful as the military plan,” Mitch Daniels said in July 2003. “The projections look pretty darn good.”. In this context, Rumsfeld estimated a cost of $6B per month.

Almost three years later, a congressional timeline of Iraq and Afghanistan funding entitled “Iraq on the Installment Plan” outlines the various budget and emergency supplementals requested by the White House, which in May of 2005 exceeded the $200B dollar mark. Through November 2006, Congress has appropriated approximately $357B for total costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These estimates and tallies only account for monies appropriated by the Congress to fund operations. They reflect the price tag, but not the costs — which include the monetary value of lost human lives, disability pay and medical care for returning veterans, interest payments on debt incurred, and costs to the American economy.

In a paper examining both the direct and macroeconomic costs of the war on Iraq, assessing both conservative and moderate scenarios, former CFO and Assistant Secretary for Management and Budget at the US Department of Commerce Linda Bilmes, and former chief economist of the World Bank and Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz have estimated the true cost of the Iraq War to be between $1 and $2 trillion dollars.

if you were to count out one dollar per second, it would take until the year 65382 AD to reach $2 trillion.

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The original plan this year was to create a photoessay — a journalistic piece combining images and text. My impulse was to try, in some small way, to make sense of this extraordinary thing called Burning Man. Part art festival, part social experiment, part love-fest, the weeklong event has become not just a countercultural phenomenon but a deeply personal and often life-altering experience for the 35,000-plus souls who gather each summer in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert.

I knew I was in for a challenge. How does one capture the essence of an event like Burning Man? How can one possibly convey the sheer magnitude and spectacle of it with a few paltry words and images? I also had to contend with the question that confounds any real journalist: Was I willing to forego the experience of Burning Man by trying to stand apart from it and be a mere observer? Well, I thought, probably not. Though I drafted a couple of query letters and contacted some editors, I finally decided to simply go and have fun. I brought my cameras and a notebook, yes, but I wasn’t “on assignment.”

It was a good thing. After eight days on the playa, I returned with some 1,500 photos and a whole notebook full of remarkable quotes and stories. Mostly, I returned with a sense of bewilderment. What to do with all this material? How to faithfully represent the staggering creativity, the extraordinary energy and exuberance, the breathtaking weirdness, the strange and at times almost transcendent beauty, the shockingly bad taste, the spontaneous generosity, the caring, the abandon, the sweetness…

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The best pranks have always blurred the lines between legality and illegality, good and bad taste, right and wrong conduct. Festivals like Saturnalia appeared to undermine the social order, but paradoxically helped to reaffirm it, by allowing people to act out their frustrations in a harmless way. The nearest thing to this today is April Fool’s Day—“the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year,�? as Mark Twain gently put it—though the best April 1st jokes tend to be media hoaxes, rather than traditional pranks. A classic of the genre is a 1957 BBC “documentary�? on Swiss spaghetti farmers. Many British viewers asked where they could buy pasta trees.

[..]

But the scene of what many consider the best-ever engineering prank was that other academic Cambridge, in England, where, one morning in 1958, the town awoke to see an Austin Seven van on top of the Senate House building. After weeks of preparation, a group of mechanical-sciences undergraduates had pushed the van, wheelbarrow-like, minus its doors and back wheels, into place, then hoisted it using a derrick of five 24-foot scaffolding poles, 250 feet of steel wire, 200 feet of hemp rope, pulley blocks and hooks, planks, and even sacking to protect the building. Once the vehicle had been dragged to the top of the sloping roof, the doors and wheels were re-fitted.

The world’s media rightly applauded the prank. It was breathtakingly ambitious, requiring both brains and brawn in prodigious quantities; the planning was meticulous (the dozen or so students involved were split into sub-teams, including one comprising two pretty females to distract curious passers-by); and it created a spectacularly surreal sight that could be seen across town. The perpetrators were particularly pleased that what took them under three hours to do took the Civil Defence Force four days to undo. The dean of the college from which the prank was launched sent the ringleader a case of champagne.

[..]

Perhaps it was ever thus: many having a go, few producing anything genuinely funny and admirable. After all, nobody likes to think they have no jocular streak. Even Adolf Hitler claimed to have been a prankster in his youth. If so, he lost it spectacularly.

With that warning in mind, we invite readers to nominate their contender for the finest prank in history, explaining in 750 words why it deserves the title, to reach us by January 20th. The three best entries will be announced in February and published on Economist.com. Entries, please, to pranks@economist.com.

Safe prediction: Steve Jobs will mention the huge success of the iPod and the iTunes Music Store during his keynote tomorrow.

[Quote:]

In the seven-day stretch between Christmas and the new year, millions of consumers armed with new MP3 players (primarily iPods) and stacks of gift cards gobbled up almost 20 million tracks from iTunes and other download retailers, Nielsen SoundScan reports.

In the process, consumers shattered the tracking firm’s one-week record for download sales.

and this:

[Quote:]

Some analysts expect Apple to have shipped 37 million iPods worldwide by the year-end, with about 10 million sold in the key Christmas quarter.

(10 million iPods sold in the christmas quarter, 20 million songs. On average, that’s two songs for each iPod. Who said these 60 Gb drives didn’t come in handy? It looks like people are ripping their existing cd collection before buying digital songs.)