current-events

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A Disturbingly Long List of Celebrity Motorbike Crash-ups

While I've never had any real interest in riding a motorcycle (I feel a heck of a lot safer in my van!), all the recent press over George Clooney's accident made me wonder how many celebs haveÂ experienced motorbike crashes. The results were kind of astounding. Be sure to grab your helmets before you read... READ ON

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HELP!!! (That third exclamation point means we're desperate)

mental_floss is running a feature on election topics that we (as a staff) pretend to know about, but really don't. We've already got a terrific piece on immigration in the can, but for our second piece we're tackling the Health Care industry. Some of the things we'll be asking and looking intoÂ are: - They say that doctors hate HMOs. But why? (Especially when hate's such a strong word.) How do these programs affect physicians/hospitals and how they're compensated? Does a physician get... READ ON

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Help Find Steve Fossett

A little over a week ago, adventurer Steve Fossett was reported missing in Nevada, after he failed to return from a solo flight. Search efforts have not located him so far. In a move similar to the (failed) February search for Microsoft researcher Jim Gray, you can now help search for Fossett using your personal... READ ON

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Oh very young: what will you leave us this time?

An 18 year-old girl from Long Beach is now the youngest person to have climbed Mt. Everest. She made the climb with her father, and you can read about her experience on her blog. Props to you, Ms. Larson! Now she can feel free to move on to a different kind of acclimatization: freshman orientation. And here's a list of some other young notables: Arfa Karim Randhawa, 10, youngest person to be certified as a Microsoft engineer; she met Bill Gates and asked him "why children were not allowed to work for... READ ON

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Those crazy candidates!

Still a year and a half til the US presidential election, and the internet is already littered with campaign sites. Besides the declared major party candidates, there are unofficial websites for candidates who aren't running but may conceivably change their minds, like Al Gore, and Condoleezza Rice. There are also campaigns to draft candidates who don't want the job, fringe candidates who haven't got a chance, and fictional characters who are running for president. There are even two... READ ON

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3 Billion Hours Late

In other exciting Peruvian news, Peruvian president Alan GarciaÂ has declared March the month when punctuality will sweep the nation: "(We must) stop this horrible, pitiful, disastrous custom of failing to be punctual," he intoned in a speech, inveighing against the $5 billion in annual economic damage caused, he said, by being late. Tallying tardiness, he said Peruvians as a whole were annually late by 3 billion hours. That works out to over 107 hours of tardiness for every man, woman and child.... READ ON

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How To: Get Detained By Airport Security

Dangerous Item: Comedians Don't Bring "˜Em To: Myanmar The citizens of this country just want to avoid trouble—the kind that starts with a capital "T" and that rhymes with "C" and that stands for "comedy." Once known as Burma, Myanmar has a long tradition of stand-up comedy, usually in conjunction with traditional dance and theatre. But, since the rise of the military government nearly 20 years ago, comedy and comedians are increasingly unwelcome... READ ON

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Parade Time in New Orleans

New Orleans has dozens of parades during Carnival season, culminating in the biggest day of celebration today for Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday. Most of these parades are staged by traditional social organizations, also known as "Krewes." Here are just a few of the many Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans, in chronological order. Krewe du... READ ON

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Night of The Mass Mailers

Any decent spammer is familiar with the sting of a blighted recipient list--there's the mourningÂ that goes with bouncebacks, the chagrin over wrong pronouns, andÂ over the "ie" vs. the "y" strains of spunky names. In a recent UNC college admissions incident, 2,703 students were incorrectly extended admission due to a "clerical error" that occurred at some point during the mailing. I don't know what mailer they were using, or even if they used one at all, but if you should ever find yourselfÂ on... READ ON

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Welcome to the Gun Show

Let me start off by saying that I'm terrified of guns. On my list of fears, number 1 is snakes (obviously) and number 2, guns. That said, I saw this posted on the Presurfer and found it thoroughly gripping. The volume, Armed America by Kyle Cassidy, is an attempt to figure out who exactly is buying these weapons. From his artist statement: Whether it's 39% or 50% of Americans, it's still an awful lot of people. I started wondering just who they were, what they looked like, and how they lived. Such... READ ON