EW's Iron Man 2 Cover & Scarlett Johannson as Black Widow

by Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly's second annual Comic-Con preview issue features Iron Man 2 on the cover, and inside it’s packed with exclusive first looks at highly anticipated TV shows, comic books, and movies.

The first Iron Man blasted Robert Downey Jr. back to stardom, and the superhero franchise is readying to return to the big screen on May 7, 2010. Iron Man will battle new villain Mickey Rourke, size up Scarlett Johansson (exclusive photo of ScarJo as Black Widow, after the jump!), and, hopefully, prove that the success of the first movie wasn’t a fluke. Downey knows the movie isn't an underdog this time around. "There are a lot more invisible eyes on us now," he says.

When Marvel Studios first announced the sequel, no one was sure what the movie would be about. Downey, director Jon Favreau, screenwriter Justin Theroux, and the rest of the creative team struck upon the idea of introducing two very different foes for Stark. On one side is Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), a fast-talking weapons manufacturer who fancies himself the next Tony Stark; on the other, Vanko, who, while incarcerated in a Russian prison, creates his own battle-suit, which shoots devastating, whip-like beams. Hammer and Whiplash join forces to take down Downey’s character, Tony Stark. Rourke, for his part, wanted to instill some lightness into the role of the heavy. "I told Favreau, 'I don't want to just play him as a one-dimensional p----,'" he says. "He let me have a cockatoo, who I talk to and get drunk with while I’m making my suit."

Just as the deals were being hammered out, Terrence Howard -- who had played Stark’s best friend -- fell out of the sequel in a public salary dispute. The role was re-cast, with Don Cheadle stepping in. "We had to make some tough deals," says Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige. "When they got public, you go, 'That sucks. Okay, you want a peek behind the curtain? Here you are!'" Says Cheadle, "Terrence and I couldn’t be more different. We address it head-on in the movie in one exchange. We're not trying to fool people." (Cheadle admits he didn’t know much about Marvel’s superhero before the first movie came out: "I always thought Iron Man was a robot.")

Adding more flesh and blood to the new movie, Scarlett Johansson joined the cast as Stark’s mysterious new assistant, Natasha, who has an alter ego of her own, Black Widow. That introduction inevitably sparks romantic tension between Stark and former assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), who’s been promoted to CEO of Stark Industries. "The men want it to be, like, 'Ooh, the girls are fighting over Tony,' but it's not as standard as that," says Paltrow. "There's a weird male catfight fantasy. Downey agrees. He believes what differentiates the franchise from other superhero series can be summarized as follows: "We're horny. Not, like, can't-bring-your-kids horny, but just…horny."

The question remains whether Iron Man 2 will soar like the first film or show signs of rust when it hits theaters. "People are going to be more critical," says Downey. "That’s their prerogative….In a way, there's no way to win, except to win. Big."

For more on Iron Man, as well as a first look at the hottest movies and TV shows heading to Comic-Con, pick up the new issue of Entertainment Weekly on stands Friday July 17.

Click for more EW.com Comic-Con '09 Sneak Peeks

Photo Credit: Francois Duhamel

“Why Nobody Robs A 7-Eleven In Israel”

by Wick Allison

(Copyright 2004, Rachael Papo)

Hybrid2 public bike concept promises to help power city buses

by Donald Melanson,

Hybrid bikes are one thing, but designer Chiyi Chen looks to have something far grander in mind for his Hybrid2 bike concept, which he says could one day help power fleets of city buses. To do that, the hybrid part of the bike (a regenerative braking system) wouldn't be used to help power the bike itself at all, but would instead store the energy in an ultracapacitor that'd then feed the energy back into the grid when its parked at a special bike stand, which would in turn be used to help charge the hybrid electric buses. Not one to overlook an ingenious little detail, Chen has also devised a special card RFID card that would not only be used to unlock the bike, but keep track of the energy that each rider generates -- build up enough credits and you can ride the bus for free. Intrigued? Head on past the break for a video overview from the man himself.

[Via Inhabitat]

The greatest movie trailer in the history of movie trailers

from: http://topidol.wordpress.com/

by TopIdol

This is a real movie. It’s called Tiptoes. People don’t believe me when I tell them it exists because it sounds so ludicrous.

“So Matthew McConaghay is the only average-sized person in an all-midget family. And he has a twin brother who is an LP, played by Gary Oldman. So McConaghay’s girlfriend is Kate Beckinsale, who gets pregnant and…”

Yeah, that’s how it kind of goes. I swear. And it’s real. It’s also complete shit and was obviously never released in any theater. Anyway, it came up yesterday at work and obviously, no one believed me. So I looked up the trailer and showed everyone, leading to them being subsequently mesmerized

I’ve watched it about 10 times since. Not because I have issues (well, I do, but that’s besides the point) but because its so damn funny. I have decided it may be the best movie trailer EVER.

---

Boys On Wheels -New Wheels On The Block

Punks On Wheels

Boys on Wheels - My Balls Are OK

Emmy Nominations: Mad Men, 30 Rock Dominate, Family Guy Shocks

Written by S.T. VanAirsdale

30 Rock and Mad Men led the field of Emmy nominees announced this morning in Los Angeles, pulling down 22 and 16 nominations respectively, including nods for Best Comedy and Dramatic Series. But the ensuing free for-for-all in the expanded categories offered the real news of the day — not the least of which was Family Guy’s selection as the first animated Best Comedy Series nominee since The Flintstones.

That’s a nearly 50-year streak broken by Seth MacFarlane, whose gamble to submit Family Guy in the comedy rather than animation category paid off big. Perhaps even more surprising was Flight of the Conchords’ recognition among comedy series (not to mention Jemaine Clement’s Best Actor nomination), with Entourage, How I Met Your Mother, The Office and Weeds filling the remaining slots. Slightly lesser history was made in the drama category, where Breaking Bad, Big Love, Dexter, House, Damages and Lost rounded out the dramas (maybe next year, True Blood!). ER and The Shield’s final seasons were both stiffed by Emmy voters.

Elsewhere, Toni Collette (The United States of Tara) and Sarah Silverman (The Sarah Silverman Program) commandeered dark-horse nominations for Best Actress - Comedy. Jim Parsons scored his own first nod for The Big Bang Theory. Bryan Cranston will defend last year’s upset victory as Best Actor - Drama for Breaking Bad. And maybe not so surprisingly after his 2008 Emmy-host takedown, Jeremy Piven was bumped off the Best Supporting Actor - Comedy list in favor of his Entourage co-star Kevin Dillon. Congrats to all; a comprehensive nominee list can be found over at The Live Feed. Look for more Emmy commentary here later in the day and in the weeks leading up the Sept. 20 awardscast.

· Emmy nominations complete list [The Live Feed]

Left-lane slowpokes drive you crazy?

The words 'move over' -- even if readable in the rearview mirror -- may not mean much to them, but a ticket might. Some states are cracking down.

By Christopher Solomon

In these days of longer commutes and simmering tempers, nothing seems to set off already-testy motorists like the left-lane camper -- the guy or gal who drives in the passing lane and bars faster drivers from easily passing. Web sites have cropped up to educate other drivers, or to vent. There's a (somewhat painful) YouTube song called "Keep Right."

Even bigwigs get frustrated. Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell, weary of having his limo slowed down by such left-lane pokies, ordered an aide to have the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission install signs a few years ago reading "Keep Right, Pass Left. It's the Law."

And now some states are cracking down on left-lane campers, both to keep traffic moving and to tamp down the road rage that goes from zero-to-60 faster than ever before.

That's not just a pretext. Last year, a driver was arrested on Interstate 79 outside Pittsburgh after allegedly brandishing a semiautomatic pistol at a driver who was on his tail.

You could get a ticket

Some states didn't allow left-lane lingering but didn't enforce the law. Now they are.

At the start of the summer, the Washington State Patrol began pulling people over for violating the state's left-lane law, which prohibits "impeding the flow of other traffic."

"This a real big hot-button topic for the public at large right now," says Trooper Cliff Pratt. "We've had a lot of complaints" from drivers who've had to deal with left-lane campers.

So far authorities have been gentle with the $124 ticket; the drivers stopped were given verbal warnings.

Last year, news outlets reported that Oklahoma was bolstering enforcement of its left-lane law as well.

"We deal with it weekly," Lt. George Brown, supervisor of public affairs for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, said of left-lane drivers going too slowly. He's issued more warnings than tickets.

Insurers haven't gotten aggressive yet, either, but this kind of ticket has the potential to raise rates.

"Any moving violation that applies points to a driver's record could affect that driver's car insurance rates," says Susan Gallik Rouser, a spokeswoman for Progressive. "And because left-lane driving would be considered as such an infraction, we would take that into account when renewing a driver's policy."

What's the law in your state?

The laws vary widely, according to John Carr, who works for a software company in the Boston area and who compiled a list of the rules in each state after taking an interest in the issue:

• A few states -- for instance, Kentucky, Maine Massachusetts and New Jersey -- permit use of the left lane only for passing or turning left.

• Georgia, Colorado and Louisiana follow the Uniform Vehicle Code, requiring drivers to keep right if they're going slower than the speed of traffic.

• Wyoming prohibits blocking the far left lane of a highway "for a prolonged period," though it adds that the traffic should be "at a lawful rate of speed."

• In Arkansas and South Dakota, vehicles don't have to stay right.

• In Alaska, Maryland, North Carolina and Ohio, vehicles can drive in the left lane so long as they're moving at the speed limit.

• Florida is trying to join in: Lawmakers reintroduced a Road Rage Reduction Act this year, requiring motorists to stay out of the left lane on interstate highways except when passing. It passed the Legislature in 2005 but was vetoed by then-Gov. Jeb Bush, who questioned whether it was based on sound research.

It's no wonder drivers can be confused, and often frustrated.

'One of my biggest pet peeves'

One of those exasperated drivers in your rearview mirror might be Eli Dozier.

"That's one of my biggest pet peeves in the world, is when people stay in the left lane. They're not passing, they've got people behind them, trying to go around, and they just cruise," says Dozier, 31 and a stay-at-home dad.

"It's probably the most uncourteous thing you can do," he says, adding that it's "obviously" unsafe.

"I'm a fast driver," Dozier allows. "But if I'm not passing, I don't use that left lane at all."

So what's a frustrated motorist to do?

Dozier heard in a chat room about some windshield decals that said "Slower Traffic," with an arrow pointing to the right-hand lane, printed backward in large letters for reading in a rearview mirror. "And so I immediately ordered one. I jumped on it."

He loves the thing. "Most people, it's just inattentiveness" that keeps them in the passing lane, Dozier says. "Most people, when you pass them, they'll give you a wave. They're thankful" for the reminder.

Continued: 'REVO EVOM'

At least, he says, women tend to be. Men sometimes take Dozier's sticker as an affront and will retaliate by slowing down, he says. There have been some middle fingers, some choice words. And then, Dozier says, "I have been known to show them how good the back of my car looks." At very close range. Which only exacerbates the situation.

Overall, though, both he and his wife are delighted with the results, he says. They recently bought her a Dodge Ram 1500 with a quad cab, and they've ordered a decal like his for it.

Pennsylvania authorities also find that reminders do work. "Anecdotally," says Carl DeFebo of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Authority, "you do see a lot less people . . . enjoying the weather" in the passing lane since 25 signs went up on the turnpike in 2003 and 2004. It probably helps that "sometimes our police will actually enforce this," DeFebo adds, handing out warnings or tickets that add up to $108.

Courtesy counts

The creator of those stickers, J.A. Tosti, is also director and founder of Left Lane Drivers of America. "What we're seeking to do is raise awareness," he explains.

A frustrating experience was a "Eureka!" moment for Tosti. "One day I was driving one of the local freeways in the area here -- we're not far from Portland (Ore.) -- and I got behind a guy who was going slow in the left lane," says Tosti. "And I got to thinking, boy, it sure would be nice if I could reach out and tap this guy on the shoulder and ask him to move over. And that's when the light bulb went off."

Tosti went home and designed a see-through decal for windshields that says "REVO EVOM." Seen in a rearview mirror, it reads "MOVE OVER."

"It's been a labor of love," says Tosti, who didn't disclose how many $29 stickers he's sold. He would like to sell more to law-enforcement agencies.

Tosti said aggression only aggravates other drivers. For him, response to the decal on his car has always been positive and pleasant -- in large part because he is a patient, nontailgating driver.

"It's amazing how effective it is," he says. "On one trip from Portland to Seattle, I felt at times like I was sweeping the left lane with a broom."

A faster, more courteous -- and well-swept -- highway? Sounds like something most folks could live with.

Defending the driving

But not everyone agrees with those who tell them to get out of the way.

"The left lane is for passing . . . not a license to speed till you kill someone," wrote a contributor to Motor Trend's blog. "Grow up. If I'm in the left lane doing 65 while the speed limit's 80, I'll move over. But if I'm doing the speed limit, and someone decides he's Mario Andretti . . . he/she can go around me and break the law further up the highway."

Washington state law says, "It is a traffic infraction to drive continuously in the left lane of a multilane roadway when it impedes the flow of other traffic."

"I think there is some misunderstanding," Pratt says. "A lot of people think that if they're going at or near the speed limit that they don't have to get out of the lane."

And the left-lane driving debate goes on.

Madonna’s Stage Collapses; One Person Dies

The Marseille fire department says a stage built for Madonna’s concert at the Stage Velodrome stadium collapsed on several workers on Thursday, killing one person and injuring at least six others. The popstar was set to perform in the French town on July 19 but the mayor confirmed the concert has been cancelled.

See more images from the scene of the incident.

"I am devastated to have just received this tragic news," Madonna said in a statement. "My prayers go out to those who were injured and their families along with my deepest sympathy to all those affected by this heartbreaking news." She was in Udine, Italy, when the accident occured and was told as she finished her soundcheck on a different stage at the Stadio Friuli. The concerts are part of the European leg of her "Sticky & Sweet" tour.

The six survivors were taken to a nearby hospital and two of the them are seriously wounded. The cause of the collapse remains unclear and the area where the accident occurred is currently barricaded. Initial reports point to a crane failure which caused its contents to spill on to the stage. The roof was also said to have collapsed.

Brush up on your French and click on the video to watch officials clear up the aftermath.

Paul McCartney Performs Live Atop Ed Sullivan Theater NYC

The music legend performs a special mini-concert on top of the Ed Sullivan Theater Marquee. Songs include: "Coming Up," "Band on the Run," "Let Me Roll It," "Helter Skelter," and "Back in the USSR."

Tennis Star Didn’t Do Cocaine; There Was This Girl... His story: She did the coke, he kissed her, he tested positive

By KURT HELIN

Getty Images

Not pictured: The alleged coke-using lady.

Sometimes the ballsiet defenses are the best.

Richard Gasquet was up for a two-and-a-half year suspension after testing positive for cocaine in his system during the ATP stop in Miami.

He and his attorneys went with the Jimmy Buffett defense — some people say that there’s a woman to blame. Gasquet said he would never roll up a $100 bill and snort Peruvian powder, but there was this girl in a nightclub in Miami and they were making out and she had done cocaine so some of what she had done must have transferred to his system. The old cocaine contact high theory.

And it worked. An international tribunal of lawyers who decides such things noted that the amount of cocaine found in Gasquet’s bloodstream was so small it could not have come from recreational use (that or he’s just really, really bad at it) so this story seemed plausible. And they apparently just plain liked the guy. The tribunal reduced his suspension to essentially time served (a couple of months).

Now he can return to the court where he is regarded as a talented underachiever who can’t seem to focus and concentrate — oddly, kind of things you’d expect of a guy with this kind of lifestyle.

This ruling could lead to a rash of athlete blaming women in clubs for their problems. Manny Ramirez got female fertility drugs in his system because he was at this club in Los Angeles and there was this woman. Plaxico Burress didn’t shoot himself in the leg, there was this girl in a Manhattan nightclub. You get the idea.

But be warned, what a French tennis star and his team of lawyers can get away with and what you can get away with when trying to explain something away to your boss are two different things. Don’t try this excuse with your girlfriend.

Copyright NBC Local Media

Is This One of The 7 Wonders of Nature? - ABC News

Is This One of The 7 Wonders of Nature? - ABC News

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Tourist Traps That Are Worth It

Tourist traps are to travel as death and taxes are to life: irritating and inescapable. Unless you're making fresh tracks in Siberia, wherever you travel you're bound to find restaurants with cheesy themes or costumed wait staff, historical sites turned into theme parks, even entire cities whose charm and beauty are all but obliterated by camera-wielding tour groups. But not all tourist traps are created equal. Some "must-sees" on the well-trodden tourist circuit—such as our Ten Things Not to Do in New York City—should be written off altogether, while the 12 sites we've listed here turn out to be authentic, worthwhile experiences…once you scratch beneath the kitsch and push through the crowds. So, go on, you know you want to. Do the tourist thing. Just once.

Pictured: Tiki Village Theatre, French Polynesia
Published July 2009

Next: China: Between a rock wall and a hard place ›

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Van Damme Friday - heeeeey!!

Lego Donkey Kong

Europe's new space truck takes shape

By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News

The propulsion unit of Johannes Kepler is taking shape

"It's clear from space history that often it was not the prototype that experienced the problems; it was the mission that came later. That's why specific attention has to be paid to what we do now."

Nico Dettmann is in charge of producing the European Space Agency's (Esa) next space freighter.

THE ATV - THE FIRSTS

The ATV is the first completely automated rendezvous and docking ship to go to the ISS

The ATV is the largest and most powerful space tug going to the ISS over its mission life

It provides the largest refuelling and waste elimination capability for the space station

It is the only vehicle on the current timeline able to de-orbit the ISS when it is retired

He knows the near-flawless maiden voyage of the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) last year does not mean the second flight is guaranteed to turn out the same way. Attention to detail is everything.

The follow-up ship - dubbed Johannes Kepler - is in the process of being assembled.

Its propulsion and avionics units are being prepared in Bremen, Germany. Its pressurised module which will hold the cargo - air, water, scientific equipment, food, and clothing - to be taken to the space station is being built in Turin, Italy.

The various segments should come together in September, into a single line of assembly that will lead to a launch in November 2010.

Thereafter, ATVs will fly every year for three years. The vehicle is no longer an experimental spacecraft; it is a production spacecraft. And to emphasise the point, if you walk through the cleanroom at EADS Astrium in Bremen, you can already see ATV-3 components.

"The whole integration process, from the first day until launch, is 28 months. So if you want to launch every 12 months, obviously you have to produce in parallel," explained Esa's Mr Dettmann.

The brains of ATV - its parallel computers - are inside the avionics bay

The space freighter has huge significance for Europe.

On one level, it is the "subscription" Europe must pay to be part of the International Space Station "club". If Europe can deliver about six tonnes of supplies a year to the platform, it is guaranteed six-month residencies at the ISS for its astronauts.

But ATV has also been a test of European competency. It is the biggest, most sophisticated vehicle the bloc has ever flown in space. Its automatic rendezvous and docking technology allows it to find its own way to the station and attach itself without any human intervention.

The European Space Agency believes the vehicle's capabilities will feed into many other exploration activities, at the Moon, Mars and other Solar System destinations. Esa is even looking into the possibility of upgrading the robotic truck so that it can carry people - an independent European crew transportation system.

Astrium Bremen is in sole charge of manufacturing Johannes Kepler. The company's Les Mureaux plant in France had a bigger role on the previous vehicle (known as Jules Verne) but with the switch to routine production, it was felt the lines of responsibility should be simplified.

"In the past, we had one organisation dedicated to development and one to production. At the end of Jules Verne, it was decided to have just one organisation in order to have maximum consistency going forward," said Astrium's ATV project manager, Olivier de la Bourdonnaye.

"All of what we did on the Jules Verne adventure belonged to the development of ATV; and it finished a couple of months ago with the post flight analysis."

Germany carries about 50% of the production effort; and all the sub-contractors - including Europe's other major space concern, Thales Alenia Space - are reporting direct to the German centre.

Very little is having to be changed on ATV-2, such was the success of Jules Verne.

There were only two significant hardware issues.

One, early in the flight, saw the vehicle's propulsion system switch to a back-up chain when anomalous pressures were detected in the complex network of pipes and valves that feed the engines. The other saw a segment of thermal blanket on the exterior of the craft lift away from its Velcro fittings.

Neither event affected the mission and should be easily remedied on Johannes Kepler.

The pressurised cargo module is being prepared by Thales in Turin

Perhaps more significant was the slight mismatch that occurred in the advanced GPS systems used on ATV and the Russian Zvezda module on the ISS to align the vehicles prior to docking. Had the discrepancy been more serious, Jules Verne could have been triggered into aborting its approach to the platform.

It wasn't - and a software correction on the Russian side should fix this issue before Johannes Kepler arrives in 2010.

The ship will be heavier this time - by some 600kg. This will take it over 20 tonnes, making its launch the heaviest payload in the history of Esa missions.

The supplies ATV-2 carries will be gratefully received: with six permanent residents now living on the platform, Europe's logistics effort is paramount (the US shuttle should be close to retirement by November 2010).

Its role in boosting the ISS will be significant, also. With no shuttle visiting the station, the ATV's power will be needed to lift the platform higher into the sky to avoid the drag from residual air molecules at the top of the atmosphere.

"We're supposed to lift the station significantly because after the shuttle retirement the ISS will raise its average altitude from 330-350km to almost 400km to produce less drag," said Mr Dettmann.

"Today the ISS altitude is linked - let's say - to low shuttle performance. After shuttle is gone, ISS can fly higher but ATV will have to deliver a major part of that altitude increase."

Total cargo capacity: 7.6 tonnes, but first mission flew lighter

Mass at launch: About 20 tonnes depending on cargo manifest

Dimensions: 10.3m long and 4.5m wide - the size of a large bus

Solar panels: Once unfolded, the solar wings span 22.3m

Engine power: 4x 490-Newton thrusters; and 28x 220N thrusters

Development cost: 1.3bn euros; Subsequent missions: 400m euros

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8141256.stm

Michael Jackson's Rare Footage Pepsi Commercial Accident In 1984

Durango bike star crashes with marijuana bust in N.Y.

By Jason Blevins
The Denver Post

The marijuana haul from the Missy Giove bust all 400 pounds of it. Giove was used to making big money in bike racing. At the height of her career, she had a $450,000 sponsorship contract. (Courtesy of freemissy.com)

Missy Giove lived her life astounding those around her.

The iconic mountain biker, who resided in Durango for more than a decade, won 14 national titles and was the world champion downhill racer in 1994. She screamed down slopes on the edge of control, landing in either an ambulance or on the podium.

Her persona — she dangled a dried piranha around her neck and tucked her dead dog's ashes in her bra when she raced — and talent made her mountain biking's highest-paid athlete, earning her well over $2 million.

Then last month, six years after she formally retired from racing, federal agents busted the 37-year-old and an accomplice with 400 pounds of marijuana and $1 million in cash.

"Everyone in the circle of

Missy Giove was mountain biking's "first rock star." She faces drug-trafficking charges. (The Denver Post)

mountain biking is shocked by the news — not because she was arrested, because that was not surprising. She had numerous car wrecks and slight problems with authority," said Giove's longtime friend and former bike racer Craig Glaspell. "The fact she might be involved in some pretty heavy drug trafficking is the crazy thing. I mean, real crazy."

According to authorities, on June 16, a team of federal drug cops watched Giove meet a confidential informant at a hotel in Albany, N.Y., and drive away in a rented truck pulling her own trailer. Cops had already found 350 pounds of marijuana in the trailer. Giove drove the rig to the Wilton, N.Y., home of Eric Canori, 30, where police found another 50 pounds of the weed and $1 million packed into a duffel bag in a hallway closet.

Mountain biking "rock star"

Giove bailed out of jail on June 22 on a $250,000 bond, facing a possible $2 million fine and up to 40 years in prison if convicted. She could not be reached for comment.

Days after her arrest, her public defender, Tim Austin, alleged the drugs were planted in Giove's possession, possibly by police. Her next hearing is scheduled Tuesday.

While it was shocking to hear of Giove's arrest, her friends say it is not that surprising that "Missy the Missile" would be found at the top level of anything she was doing.

"When she was riding, she was willing to throw it all out there. She was either going to win or crash hard," said Scott Montgomery, who, as vice president of marketing for Cannondale in the mid-1990s, enlisted Giove to ride for his team. "She was mountain biking's first rock star. She transcended the sport. She was larger than life."

She was sponsored by Reebok. She appeared on MTV, Conan O'Brien's show and David Letterman's "Late Show." She drew thousands of fans to formerly obscure mountain-biking events.

She was unquestionably gifted on her bike and carefully fostered her Dennis Rodman-esque image.

"That got her a huge amount of publicity, attention and money," said Alison Dunlap, a professional mountain biker who raced cross country during Giove's downhill blitzkrieg. "She knew what she was doing."

But she didn't roll like a rock star. Yes, she trained part time in the south of France. But in Durango, she drove a modest car and lived in a yurt behind a friend's house. It was her father, who died three years ago, who secured big dollars for his daughter.

Montgomery remembers a "shrewd and tough" Ben Giove, working with executives at Cannondale and Volvo on her sponsorship contract. She earned $250,000 a year after her world title in '94. In 1997, Cannondale-Volvo upped Giove's year-long contract to $450,000.

"The next year, (Ben) came back even more aggressively, and we had to cut her," Montgomery said.

Toward the late '90s, mountain biking's luster began to wane — and with it racers' income.

Invested in dad's restaurant

"She was still making some good money, and I think she took a lot of her money and invested it in her father's restaurant," said Brent Foes, who still has posters of Giove hanging in his Pasadena, Calif., bike-making headquarters. "If she had invested properly, she probably wouldn't be in the situation she is now."

By 2002, Giove's litany of injuries was catching up to her. By her own tally — reported in various bike magazines during her heyday — Giove suffered 33 fractures, including cracked ribs; broken wrists, collarbones, legs, vertebrae, heels, knee caps; and a cracked sternum. She endured concussions regularly. During the 2001 World Cup races in Vail, she went airborne, twisted and landed on her head. The blow knocked her unconscious and caused her brain to bleed.

It was "the very worst I have ever seen her crash," said Glaspell, who raced with Giove on the professional circuit for almost a decade. "I don't think she was the same since then."

Giove retired from racing in 2003 and left Durango. But she didn't stop racing. While she lived in the East, most recently in Chesapeake, Va., she would show up at local races, handily beating all comers. She briefly worked peddling indoor bike-training equipment at cycling shows.

"She really didn't know what she wanted to do after racing. She once said she wanted to be a rapper and this and that," said Foes, who would occasionally help her out with a bike to keep her racing.

Staunch drug foe

The most shocking aspect of Giove's arrest, say people who knew her, was her longtime anti-drug stance. Back in the early 1990s, drugs were part of the counter-cultural scene that went with mountain biking.

"Missy was always the one who was giving people crap about it, saying, 'Don't drink, don't smoke, stay clean and stay focused,' " said Montgomery, who now manages Scott USA's bike division.

As a fledgling racer in her early 20s, Giove coached other young racers on how to eat healthy and stay strong, Glaspell said. She pushed natural diets and meditation and a strict training regimen.

"I never ever, ever saw Missy smoke pot, never saw her do any drugs. She was always into super heavy hippy homeopathic (stuff)," Glaspell said.

That leads many to wonder whether, if the charges are true, the adventurous thrill of drug-running appealed to Giove.

"You are one step away from going to federal prison. The challenge of getting away with it, making money at it, I am sure that is incredibly invigorating and thrilling," said fellow bike-racer Dunlap. "Maybe for Missy, when she was used to that kind of feeling when she was racing, not having it anymore was a like a withdrawal from a drug."

Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com

Buried City in Oasis Lends View of Ancient Egypt

By Rob Goodier, LiveScience Staff

Clues found in a schoolroom adjacent to this upper-class house have shifted historians' concept of education in ancient Egypt. The site is Amheida, in the Dakhleh Oasis of Egypt's western desert. Credit: Amheida Project, NYU

A trench that was cut through collapsed mud bricks and the compacted debris of buildings leveled centuries ago is revealing a dusty scene of roof-topped streets in ancient Amheida, a city marooned on an oasis deep in Egypt’s western desert.

The latest in a chain of archaeological discoveries in a site that dates back at least 5,000 years, the covered streets are a glimpse into rural life under the Egyptian sun.

At Amheida, archaeologists led by Roger Bagnall at New York University have sifted through the remains of a settlement far removed from the thoroughfares of the Nile Valley. The site is in the Dakhleh Oasis, 500 miles (800 kilometers) from Cairo and 185 miles (300 kilometers) from Luxor, a religious and political hub of ancient Egypt.

The archaeological work has yielded a treasure trove of art and writing. Through this rural lens, archaeologists are shifting their notions of education in ancient Egypt during the Greek and Roman empires. And they have noticed deep connections between powerful central governments and the outposts in the oases.

Bagnall described the latest discoveries at a conference in Manhattan last month.

First glimmer of Egyptian culture

The Dakhleh Oasis stretches several hundred square miles below a barren escarpment, hedged by the dunes of the eastern Sahara that roll to its edges. The sand contrasts with the farms and the cattle-grazed meadows within. Wine, olives and dates remain important to the economy for the 75,000 residents of the oasis today.

People settled in Dakhleh at least 5,000 years ago during the Neolithic period, the twilight of the Stone Age as agriculture began to catch on. At that time, the climate was wetter and residents were surrounded not by a desert, but a savanna. Bagnall suspects that Egypt's first farmers may have worked in the oasis before agriculture arrived in the Nile Valley.

“They may well have contributed something to the development of Egypt before the time of the pharaohs,” Bagnall said.

The early settlers of the oasis cultivated figs, dates and, later, olive groves and littered the site with pits. They were expert vintners, as well, likely producing finer wines than those available in the Nile Valley, in part because they could control the irrigation. Until the 19th century, those who lived in the oases may also have been the sole producers of cotton in the Roman period, a luxury at the time.

“They were always, in some sense, peripheral or marginal,” Bagnall said. “But they were important sources of things people couldn't produce in the [Nile] Valley.”

By the time the Greeks and then the Romans conquered the region, excavated statues and paintings suggest that Amheida followed the dominant culture in lockstep. In spite of their geographic isolation, they were fully integrated in the Roman world, Bagnall said, displaying the same art and mythology found throughout the Roman Empire.

The surprising quality of education

Scholars have thought that schools in Roman Egypt were chintzy affairs, often with just one teacher who held forth to a handful of students and charged their parents for his effort.

“I always laugh because they were exactly like the teachers now. They were kind of looked down upon.” said Raffaella Cribiore, a classics professor at Columbia University in New York. Today, like then, teachers are paid little, she explained. But the denigration of the profession cut even deeper centuries ago. “If someone said your father is a teacher, it was a common slur, it was really an offense,” she said.

The school room that archaeologists uncovered at Amheida lent a different perspective. Divided into three rooms lined with benches for more than 50 students, it more closely resembled today's formal institutions. Students were segregated by subject and age, and the teacher’s lessons were scrawled on the walls, which were treated like blackboards at the time. What remains of that writing has caught Cribiorre’s attention.

"There you have a poem written on the wall in the column in red ink. The poem speaks of rhetoric. It says, 'come on, get up, get to work,'" she explained. "It's encouragement from a teacher of rhetoric to his students. But it's all poetry. In Greek."

Scholars had thought that rhetoric, not poetry, was taught in Roman Egyptian schools. The schools churned out politicians and bureaucrats, aristocratic young men destined for leadership. Prior to the find, Cribiore had suspected that they might also have learned poetry, and this confirmed it. The teacher had written his lessons in verse, showing that schools from the period were more formal than once believed.

Brasso and sagging stairs

The archaeologists at Amheida apply dental tools,Brasso metal polish and gentler chemicals to hundreds of Roman coins and sift through millions of potsherds, sorting and drawing some of them for records.

"You can learn a lot from pottery," said Jen Thum, an undergraduate student from Barnard College who accompanied Bagnall early this year. They can help date a site, for example, or a concentration of them in one spot is a telltale sign of an ancient kitchen.

Like many of the oasis' residents, Thum lived in a mud-brick house, ate variants of falafel called tameya and watch televised soccer games. The walls of her borrowed home cracked and the earthen staircase sagged during an especially intense rain storm this year. It's a quirk of excavation in the rural oases. Bagnall and his team continue to piece together this oblique perspective on ancient Egypt. Still on the docket are the hunt for a church, and the exploration of large, buried cemeteries.

Greatest Bow Hunter of All-Time

Heath Getty of St. John has been target shooting since he was just out of diapers. Now he's trying to perfect a feat that any gun or bow hunter would be amazed by. Getty can shoot moving clay targets out of the sky with a compound bow.

The Birth of Boomboxes: 1976-1981

Despite common opinion, boomboxes can be traced back to a humble start in the mid-70s, when the idea of a "personal" stereo experience was a bit of a novelty. Panasonic, Sony, Marantz and GE were quick to debut this hybrid stereo--not quite a home stereo console, but more than a portable combination radio-cassette. The models were small, heavy an.....

click here for the gallery...http://www.pocketcalculatorshow.com/boombox/birth1.html

Pot law leaves cops high & dry: Many blow off $100 fines

By Edward Mason and Jessica Van Sack

Photo by Herald file

Thumbing their noses at the state’s lax new pot law, Bay State stoners are brazenly lighting up in front of cops and then refusing to pay fines - leading some frustrated police chiefs to all but give up the fight.

Local police report widespread defiance of the six-month-old law, and a Herald review shows a vast majority of potheads cited by cops blowing off their $100 fines.

Some egregious examples of tokers flaunting the law include:

• In Arlington, a public works employee was cited by the local police chief for smoking a pot pipe as he stood next to his town-issued tractor.

• At bustling Park Street Station, a pair of nonchalant lovers out on the town openly lit up a joint and continued toking even after confronted by off-duty Milton Chief Richard Wells.

• In East Boston, four teens spotted in a “smoke-filled vehicle” unabashedly told a cop they were “just smoking marijuana.”

• A man caught near a Dorchester playground laughed when police said he faced a $100 fine - and then taunted the cops with an expletive-laced tirade.

All told, a staggering 83 percent of 415 tokers cited in Boston since the law took effect in January have refused to pony up the $100, a Herald review shows.

In Braintree, 15 of 28 citations went unpaid, while in Brookline 26 of 33 blew off the fines.

Somerville Deputy Chief Paul Upton said his officers are now writing few if any citations, in part because enforcing the law costs more money than it’s worth.

“If we send an officer to court, it’s going to cost us $250,” Upton said. “We’re not getting a lot of (citations) written.”

In Milton, Chief Wells said the new pot law is unenforceable because there’s nothing encouraging scofflaws to pay fines or even give their real names to police.

Berkshire District Attorney David Capeless, head of the state prosecutors group that fought against relaxing pot sanctions, said, “It’s exactly what we were afraid of, and what we predicted would happen. They’d issue citations, and they’d be ignored.”

Proponents argued pot convictions made youthful indiscretions into lifelong liabilities. But while unpaid parking tickets can cost drivers their licenses, unpaid pot fines carry no repercussions.

“There’s nothing that can happen,” Capeless said.

Thomas Kiley, the Beacon Hill powerbroker who crafted the measure, insisted the law has teeth.

Tucked in the law is language that places pot possession on par with other citations, and police can haul a scofflaw into court, Kiley said. “We did (anticipate) this,” Kiley said.

But Cheryl A. Sibley, chief administrator for the Boston Municipal Court Department, said police are powerless because that provision is neutralized by language clearly stating the only penalty the offender pays is the $100 fine.

Meanwhile, in Braintree on Monday night, police spotted a suspected perv smoking pot in a car filled with coils of rope, a pair of handcuffs and bottles of NyQuil. But they had to let the man go, even though he was awaiting trial on child sexual assault charges.

Said Deputy Chief Russell Jenkins, “Had the law not been changed, he absolutely would have been placed under arrest.”

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1185193

Build a DIY Portable Air Conditioner

By Rosa Golijan (Edit, to draft, un-top, Slurp)

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We've shown you how to make an air conditioner (even for as low as $30), but what if you wanted something you can put in your car and take with you?

Instructables user CameronSS has a guide to building a portable air conditioner out of materials that you may already have in your garage (if you don't, he lists the average cost for each part and where it can be purchased), including a portable cooler, 12V battery, fans, and a generous helping of ice. Plenty of pictures and sage advice from his father guide you through the building process, and CameronSS ends the instructions with a list of potential modifications to improve the already great gadget.

Oh, and if you have doubts about how well a DIY air conditioning unit could work, he reported back with these results after putting it to the test in a hot truck:

When the unit was started, the air in the cab was 95 degrees, parked in the shade after a morning of sun, and the outside heat index was 108 degrees. Within five minutes the cab had cooled to 75 degrees, and the air output was 65 degrees. With two quarts of water that had been refrigerated and 8 pounds of ice cubes, the ice had melted after 40 minutes, leaving 50 degree water, with an output of 65 degree air.

Not only does the unit work, but it works well and efficiently!

Check out the link below for detailed instructions on how to build your very own portable air conditioner and while you're down there, hit up the comments section and tell us about how you battle the summer heat.

Portable 12V Air Conditioner —Cheap and Easy! [instructables]

Producer Claims That He Created LOST 32 Years Ago

by Peter Sciretta

Anthony Spinner, a television producer whose credits include Baretta and Babes in Toyland, is suing ABC and Touchtone Television with the claim that he created the tv show Lost 32 years ago. Spinner says that he wrote a television pilot for the network in 1977 titled Lost, which contains many ideas and characters that Spinner claims were later used for the hit television series Lost.

Spinner was paid $30,000 to write a TV pilot, but the network passed on the show in 1977, 1991 and 1994. Spinner is suing for damages and a cut of royalties, profits among other things. You might be wondering why Spinner waited five years to sue. Well, apparently he tried to file a lawsuit a few years back but it was dismissed for procedural reasons.

A list comparing the two shows has been leaked to TMZ which accounts for a lot of similar storylines and characters. His show featured a airplane headed to Los Angeles which crashes into a tropical jungle-like island, and tells the story of the survivors through the use of flashback sequences to their regular lives, pre-crash. The castaways included:

• Doctor (Jack?) who was the humanitarian voice of the group,
• Trailblazer (Locke?) who challenges the group to accept that they are stuck on the island,
• Strategic military man (Sayid?),
• Stubborn and reluctant semi-her (Sawyer?) who challenges the leadership and has a dark father-son past,
• Drug addicted survivor (Charlie?),
• Physically fit young woman who can perform many of the same tasks as the men (Kate?),
• An ethnic minority character (Sayid?) that has to deal with the racial slurs from another survivor (Sawyer?),
• Lone survivor of a scientific expedition (Roussau?) is found with gunpowder, secure shelter, and a relationship with others who were on the island before them (The Others)
• Female lead with criminal past (Kate?)

The show also involved a love triangle like Jack/Kate/Sawyer, the discovery of a cold weather animal in the warm tropical jungle (a saber tooth tiger instead of a Polar Bear), and a raft built that is destroyed by the natives.

And of course, there is always the possibility that the two shows stumbled onto a lot of the same ideas. Most of the characters are regular archetypes. Concepts like love triangles and natives on the island aren’t exactly original, and could have easily come from taking the idea to their logical conclusions. That said, the concept, complete with character-based flashbacks, is awfully similar. Who knows if these claims are accurate, but the producer seems a little bit more credible than the usual crazy crackpot.

It should be noted that some people believe this is just viral marketing for the show, especially considering that the teleplay was written in 1977.

A Brief History Of Pablo Escobar's Cocaine Hippos

A hippo critical situation

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Inside The KKK Of Today

life.com — The Department of Homeland Security recently issued a chilling report: Americans, it said, can expect an upsurge in "rightwing extremism" from White nationalists, militias, and groups like the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan, of course, has had a hand in some of the nation's most infamous acts of racial terror and murder.

Rap Around The World - 30 Languages, One Awesome

by DeadCanDance

Very cool video of Rap/Hip-Hop being presented in 30 different countries around the globe. It comes in all shapes and sizes.

Here is a sampling of 30 different raps, from 30 different countries (in alphabetical order). While I’m not the biggest fan of the genre, this video really showcases how different Rap/Hip-Hop can sound depending on what part of the world you come from. Same concept but way different look and sound.

Considering it’s only been a few decades since Rap started dominating the U.S. Billboard charts, it amazes me how fast a style of music can spread with a little word of mouth and a lot of love from the internet.

Enjoy!

F.Y.I. The Chinese version takes the cake for me!

List by appearance:

American: Missy Elliott
British: Lady Sovereign
Cantonese: LMF
Chinese: Wang Lee-hom
Croatian: Tram 11
Danish: Tue Track
Filipino: Parokya Ni Edgar
Finnish: Pikku G
France: Booba
Germany: Samy Deluxe
Greek: Stereo Mike
Hebrew: Shi 360
Hungarian: Ganxsta Zolee
Icelandic: Forgotten Lores
Italy: Frankie Hi-NRG MC
Japanese: Japanese Rap Sta
Korean: Yoon Mi Rae (Tasha/T)
Norwegian: Don Martin (Gatas Parlament)
Polish: Abradab
Romania: Daddy Caddy (Bug Mafia)
Russia: Михей (Mihey)
Slovenian: Murat & Jose
Spanish: Violadores del Verso
Swedish: Fronda
Swiss: EKR
Turkish: Ceza
Vietnamese: VNR
Wolof: Bad’s Diom

Inhabitat July 14, 2009 Hybrid Double Decker Volvo Buses Hit London Streets

by Jorge Chapa

London’s iconic double-decker buses recently received an eco update as six highly efficient hybrid Volvo vehicles hit the streets for the first time. The new B5L two-story buses retain their classic red color, but under the hood a hybrid drivetrain saves 25% on fuel consumption while significantly reducing emissions and noise. The buses have entered service in the city as part of a trial run, and if all goes according to plan they will be joined by additional vehicles in the future.

Volvo’s new B5L buses feature a parallel hybrid I-SAM (Integrated Starter, Alternator, Motor) system, which uses an electric motor and a hybrid engine to power the vehicle. The buses can go up to 12mph in electric mode, after which, the diesel engines steps in. The speed of 12mph might not sound like much, but it is quite perfect for most bus routes.

The vehicles are operated by the bus operator Arriva London and last week they joined several other hybrid bus lines in the city. Managing Director of Arriva London Mark Yexley stated, “With the support of Transport for London, this is a pioneering project for Arriva to be involved with. These six vehicles will provide an excellent opportunity to assess the benefits and the whole life cost proposition of hybrid technology in a real life day to day operating environment.”

Calif. tax officials: Legal pot would bring $1.4B

Play Video ABC News – Californians Wrestle With Legalizing Marijuana

• Play Video Video:San Diego Now Issuing Medical Marijuana ID Cards News 8 San Diego

By MARCUS WOHLSEN, Associated Press Writer Marcus Wohlsen,

SAN FRANCISCO – A bill to tax and regulate marijuana in California like alcohol would generate nearly $1.4 billion in revenue for the cash-strapped state, according to an official analysis released Wednesday by tax officials.

The State Board of Equalization report estimates marijuana retail sales would bring $990 million from a $50-per-ounce fee and $392 million in sales taxes.

The bill introduced by San Francisco Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano in February would allow adults 21 and older to legally possess, grow and sell marijuana.

Ammiano has promoted the bill as a way to help bridge the state's $26.3 billion budget shortfall.

"It defies reason to propose closing parks and eliminating vital services for the poor while this potential revenue is available," Ammiano said in a statement.

The way the bill is written, the state could not begin collecting taxes until the federal government legalizes marijuana. A spokesman says Ammiano plans to amend the bill to remove that provision.

The legislation requires all revenue generated by the $50-per-ounce fee to be used for drug education and rehabilitation programs. The state's 9 percent sales tax would be applied to retail sales, while the fee would likely be charged at the wholesale level and built into the retail price.

The Equalization Board used law enforcement and academic studies to calculate that about 16 million ounces — or 500 tons — of marijuana are consumed in California each year.

Marijuana use would likely increase by about 30 percent once the law took effect because legalization would lead to falling prices, the board said.

Estimates of marijuana use, cultivation and sales are notoriously difficult to come by because of the drug's status as a black-market substance. Calculations by marijuana advocates and law enforcement officials often differ widely.

"That's one reason why we look at multiple reports from multiple sources — so that no one agenda is considered to be the deciding or determining data," said board spokeswoman Anita Gore.

Advocates and opponents do agree that California is by far the country's top pot-producing state. Last year law enforcement agencies in California seized nearly 5.3 million plants.

If passed, Ammiano's bill could increase the tension between the state and the U.S. government over marijuana, which is banned outright under federal law. The two sides have clashed often since state voters passed a ballot measure in 1996 legalizing marijuana for medical use.

At the same time, some medical marijuana dispensary operators in the state have said they are less fearful of federal raids since U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department would defer to state marijuana regulations.

Advocates pounced on the analysis as ammunition for their claim that the ban on marijuana is obsolete.

"We can't borrow or slash our way out of this deficit," said Stephen Gutwillig, California state director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "The legislature must consider innovative sources of new revenue, and marijuana should be at the top of that list."

Ammiano's bill is still in committee. Hearings on the legislation are expected this fall.

Also Wednesday, three Los Angeles City Council members proposed taxing medical marijuana to help close the city's budget gap.

Council members Janice Hahn, Dennis Zine and Bill Rosendahl backed a motion asking city finance officials to explore taxing the drug.

Hahn said that with more than 400 dispensaries operating in the city, the tax could generate significant revenue. The motion pointed out that a proposed tax increase on medical marijuana in Oakland, which has only four dispensaries, was projected to bring in more than $300,000 in 2010.

Meanwhile, marijuana supporters have taken the first official step toward putting the legalization question directly to California voters.

A trio of Northern California criminal defense attorneys on Wednesday submitted a pot legalization measure to the state attorney general's office, which must provide an official summary before supporters can begin gathering signatures.

About 443,000 signatures are necessary to place The Tax, Regulate and Control Cannabis Act on the November 2010 ballot. The measure would repeal all state and local laws that criminalize marijuana.