WTF is wrong with kids these days? (they all want their fifteen minutes of fame is Moishe's guess)

From The Smoking Gun:

APRIL 23--A Florida man is facing elder abuse charges after he allegedly filmed his senile 85-year-old grandmother wearing a ski mask and holding a gun for a "Gangstas and Thugs" street DVD series. Michael Alfinez, 18, was arrested yesterday by Palm Beach sheriff's deputies, who began their probe after a troubling video was seized earlier this year during a traffic stop. According to a sheriff's report, a copy of which you'll find below, Alfinez admitted filming his grandmother, Marie Huertas, and placing a ski mask on the senior citizen. He also acknowledged telling Huertas what to say on the video. Alfinez is pictured in the mug shot at right; Huertas, in a ski mask, can be seen in the adjacent video screen grab. The report notes that Huertas, who is holding a .22-caliber gun and appears "disoriented" in the video, makes a series of profane threats and statements like, "Fuck you if you don't like this," "I'll shoot you," and "Palm Beach County, bitch." When investigators showed Huertas the video, "she appeared to be shocked" at her recorded comments, and remarked, "they are making a criminal out of me." In addition to the abuse charge, Alfinez is facing weapons charges since the video also shows him (and two pals) firing a gun from a moving vehicle. Alfinez said that he got the idea to film his grandmother from an earlier "Gangstas and Thugs" production (which apparently featured another pensioner). Alfinez told investigators that he "knew my grandma could be like that too or better."

wait? is this real or SNL skit?

this sentiment can be applicable to most any foreign and domestic policy

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger predicted Friday that an international deadlock over how to deal with global warming will end once President Bush leaves office, while a leading expert warned of dire consequences if urgent action is not taken.

Schwarzenegger spoke at a conference at Yale University in which 18 states pledged to take action on climate change. He noted a dispute over whether the U.S. should commit to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions before China and India do the same.

"But I think the deadlock is about to be broken," said Schwarzenegger, a Republican like Bush.

Schwarzenegger said all three president candidates would be great for the environment and predicted progress after one is inaugurated.

If trees could talk

The world's oldest living tree on record is a nearly 10,000 year-old spruce that has been discovered in central Sweden, Umeaa University said on Thursday.

Researchers had discovered a spruce with genetic material dating back 9,550 years in the Fulu mountain in Dalarna, according to Leif Kullmann, a professor of Physical Geography at the university in northwestern Sweden.

That would mean it had taken root in roughly the year 7,542 BC.

"It was a big surprise because we thought until (now) that this kind of spruce grew much later in those regions," he said.

Scientists had previously believed the world's oldest trees were 4,000 to 5,000 year-old pine trees found in North America.

The new record-breaking tree was discovered in Dalarna in 2004 when Swedish researchers were carrying out a census of tree species in the region, Kullman said.

The tree's genetic material age had been calculated using carbon dating at a laboratory in Miami, Florida.

Spruces, which according to Kullmann offer rich insight into climate change, had long been regarded as relatively newcomers in the Swedish mountain region.

The discovery of the ancient tree had therefore led to "a big change in our way of thinking," he said.

what's next? no more kick ball

Washington Post

A playground pastime is getting a timeout this spring at a McLean elementary school.

Robyn Hooker, principal of Kent Gardens Elementary School, has told students they may no longer play tag during recess after determining that the game of chasing, dodging and yelling "You're it!" had gotten out of hand. Hooker explained to parents in a letter this month that tag had become a game "of intense aggression."

The principal said that her goal is to keep students safe and that she hopes to restore tag (as well as touch football, also now on hold) after teachers and administrators review recess policies.

The decision has touched off a debate among parents. Some call the restriction an example of overzealous rulemaking that fails to address root problems and undermines children's development; others say it's best to err on the side of caution.

"We are regulating the fun out of normal childhood activity," said Jan van Tol, father of a Kent Gardens sixth-grader. "In our effort to be so overprotective, we are not letting children be children."

Gerri Swarm, secretary of the school's Parent-Teacher Association, said she was glad the principal was taking seriously student concerns about being pushed or shoved. "In this day and age, you can't dismiss this as something not to worry about," she said.

Many schools nationwide have whittled down playground activities in response to concerns about injuries, bullying or litigation. Dodge ball is a thing of the past in many places, and contact sports are often limited at recess.

The Fairfax County schools' office of risk management maintains a list of activities that are prohibited at any school-sponsored events. In addition to bungee-jumping and scuba diving, students are not permitted to break dance or play dodge ball or tug-of-war.

Restrictions on tag are less common. Officials at several suburban Washington school systems said they were not aware of any schools that had banned the game outright.

In most places, principals have considerable leeway to decide what is appropriate or safe recess behavior as they sometimes manage large numbers of students in small spaces. Kent Gardens, with more than 900 students, is over capacity. Hooker said the playground can get crowded when there are four or five classes there at one time.

Over the past couple of months, she had noticed that tag was taking up too much space and sending too many students to the nurse's office.

"This is not the old-fashioned tag, where you could use two fingers and you would be it and move on to someone else," Hooker said. The game, she said, has become much more aggressive. "I call it the nouveau tag."

This tag involves grabbing people who do not necessarily know they are playing and possibly bumping them to the ground. "Then the kids do 'pyramiding' or 'towering.' They pile on each other. [Sometimes] they call it 'jailhouse' or 'jailbreak,' " because the child has to break out, she said.

Since the prohibition began early this month, physical education teachers have begun a "chasing, fleeing and dodging" unit in first through fifth grades. Students essentially play variations of tag, and the teachers remind them about safety rules and point out the athletic skills they can transfer to other sports, said Sue Straits, a PE teacher.

Stephanie Sullenger, president of the Kent Gardens PTA, said she supports the principal. Sullenger said she suspects that children are acting out because of "spring fever," and that as their behavior improves, tag will be restored.

In the meantime, she said, "children are very resilient and creative, and I'm sure have moved on to find wonderful things to do on the playground."

Other parents said that slips and falls are part of growing up and that restricting games is not the right solution.

Chris Delta, a Kent Gardens mother, said she knows "life's not going to breeze" for her children. She wants them to learn how to cope with difficulty.

Her own daughter has been injured on the playground, she said. Once she was pushed off a jungle gym and had the wind knocked out of her, and another time she got a goose egg when a student threw a rock in the air and it landed on her head.

"I didn't expect because of these two instances that the equipment would be banned or all the rocks or pebbles or stones would be taken away," Delta said.

Michael Haaren, a father, said that if some children are being too aggressive, they should be disciplined. Limiting the activity is a "draconian" measure, he said.

He is concerned that schools are on a bad trajectory. "Where are we headed here? The elimination of recess altogether? It has happened in other schools. Will we eliminate 'duck duck goose' because kids are being touched?" he asked.

Dozens of parents turned out for a PTA meeting to hear the principal explain the decision. Many opposed the plan.

Hooker said the resistance surprised her. "I did not know that tag was so sacred," she said.

But many talk about the game in a tone tinged with nostalgia.

"When you think about elementary school, you do think about recess and tag. Boys chase girls and girls chase boys," Heidi Schwarztrauber said. "There is a lot of growing up in that."

She opposes restricting the game. "I think it robs the children of something very special . . . a universal experience," she said.

this is some crazy sh*t - human cloning

Independent.co.uk

A new form of cloning has been developed that is easier to carry out than the technique used to create Dolly the sheep, raising fears that it may one day be used on human embryos to produce "designer" babies.

Scientists who used the procedure to create baby mice from the skin cells of adult animals have found it to be far more efficient than the Dolly technique, with fewer side effects, which makes it more acceptable for human use.

The mice were made by inserting skin cells of an adult animal into early embryos produced by in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). Some of the resulting offspring were partial clones but some were full clones – just like Dolly.

Unlike the Dolly technique, however, the procedure is so simple and efficient that it has raised fears that it will be seized on by IVF doctors to help infertile couples who are eager to have their own biological children.

One scientist said this weekend that a maverick attempt to perform the technique on humans is now too real to ignore. "It's unethical and unsafe, but someone may be doing it today," said Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of American biotechnology company Advanced Cell Technology.

"Cloning isn't here now, but with this new technique we have the technology that can actually produce a child. If this was applied to humans it would be enormously important and troublesome," said Dr Lanza, whose company has pioneered developments in stem cells and cell reprogramming.

"It raises the same issues as reproductive cloning and although the technology for reproductive cloning in humans doesn't exist, with this breakthrough we now have a working technology whereby anyone, young or old, fertile or infertile, straight or gay can pass on their genes to a child by using just a few skin cells," he said.

The technique involves the genetic reprogramming of skin cells so they revert to an embryonic-like state. Last year, when the breakthrough was used on human skin cells for the first time, it was lauded by the Catholic Church and President George Bush as a morally acceptable way of producing embryonic stem cells without having to create or destroy human embryos.

However, the same technique has already been used in another way to reproduce offspring of laboratory mice that are either full clones or genetic "chimeras" of the adult mouse whose skin cells were reprogrammed.

The experiments on mice demonstrated that it is now possible in principle to take a human skin cell, reprogramme it back to its embryonic state and then insert it into an early human embryo. The resulting child would share some of the genes of the person who supplied the skin tissue, as well as the genes of the embryo's two parents.

These offspring are chimeras – a genetic mix of two or more individuals – because some of their cells derive from the embryo and some from the skin cell. Technically, such a child would have three biological parents. Human chimeras occur naturally when two embryos fuse in the womb and such people are often normal and healthy. Dr Lanza says there is no reason to believe that a human chimera created by the new technique would be unhealthy.

Furthermore, studies on mice have shown that it is possible to produce fully cloned offspring that are 100 per cent genetically identical to the adult. This was achieved by using a type of defective mouse embryo with four sets of chromosomes instead of the normal two.

This "tetraploid" embryo only developed into the placenta of the foetus and when it was injected with a reprogrammed skin cell, the rest of the foetus developed from this single cell to become a full clone of the adult animal whose skin was used.

None of the scientists working on cell reprogramming to produce induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells – as the embryonic cells are known – plan to use it for human reproductive medicine. Their main aim is to produce stem cells for the therapeutic treatment of conditions such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and stroke.

However, Dr Lanza said that the mouse experiments his company had done demonstrated how easily the technology could be used to produce cloned or chimeric babies by inserting iPS cells into early human embryos. This is not banned in many countries, where legislation has not kept pace with scientific developments.

In Britain, the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill going through Parliament does not mention the iPS technique, although experts believe that the new law should make it illegal because it involves genetic modification of cells that become part of the embryo.

"In addition to the great therapeutic promise demonstrated by this technology, the same technology opens a whole new can of worms," Dr Lanza said.

"At this point there are no laws or regulations for this kind of thing and the bizarre thing is that the Catholic Church and other traditional stem-cell opponents think this technology is great when in reality it could in the end become one of their biggest nightmares," he said. "It is quite possible that the real legacy of this whole new programming technology is that it will be introducing the era of designer babies.

"So for instance if we had a few skin cells from Albert Einstein, or any

US getting taste of its own medicine

April 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Canadian government rejected the C$1.33 billion ($1.31 billion) sale of MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.'s satellite business to Alliant Techsystems Inc., marking the first time Canada has blocked a foreign takeover since at least 1985.

Industry Minister Jim Prentice wrote to Edina, Minnesota- based Alliant on April 8 to say the proposed takeover doesn't provide a ``net benefit'' to Canada, according to an e-mailed statement today from his office in Ottawa.

``It's a shot across the bow and the government knows that this will be taken very seriously, not only by the prospective buyer, but also the U.S. government,'' said Richard Clark, a lawyer with Stikeman Elliott LLP in Toronto who specializes in mergers.

this could be bad

MSNBC

The Pentagon will issue hand-held lie detectors this month to U.S. Army soldiers in Afghanistan, pushing to the battlefront a century-old debate over the accuracy of the polygraph.

The Defense Department says the portable device isn't perfect, but is accurate enough to save American lives by screening local police officers, interpreters and allied forces for access to U.S. military bases, and by helping narrow the list of suspects after a roadside bombing. The device has already been tried in Iraq and is expected to be deployed there as well. “We're not promising perfection — we've been very careful in that,” said Donald Krapohl, special assistant to the director at the Defense Academy for Credibility Assessment, the midwife for the new device. “What we are promising is that, if it's properly used, it will improve over what they are currently doing.”

But the lead author of a national study of the polygraph says that American military men and women will be put at risk by an untested technology. "I don't understand how anybody could think that this is ready for deployment," said statistics professor Stephen E. Fienberg, who headed a 2003 study by the National Academy of Sciences that found insufficient scientific evidence to support using polygraphs for national security. "Sending these instruments into the field in Iraq and Afghanistan without serious scientific assessment, and for use by untrained personnel, is a mockery of what we advocated in our report."

get your drink on

Is 21 a bust when it comes to drinking?

Lawmakers in seven states are actively considering legislation that would lower the legal drinking age.

Military Rights or Drinking Age Bill?

State pols in Kentucky, Wisconsin and South Carolina have introduced legislation that would lower the drinking age only for military personnel, while Missouri, South Dakota, Vermont and Minnesota are considering more expansive measures that would lower the drinking age for the general population.

"These people set themselves apart," said Rep. David Floyd of Kentucky, who supports the state lowering the drinking age to 18, and believes the responsibility that enlistees assume with military service demonstrates their ability to make mature decisions when it comes to alcohol.

Floyd looks at his efforts to lower Kentucky's drinking age as more of a military bill than a drinking bill, and would be opposed to expanding the bill to include nonmilitary personnel.

the downfall of humanity?

dont get me wrong, moishe likes himself luxury goods, but WTF - this is just stupid.

FROM WSJ

Maybe I’m missing something. But the flood of cross-branded luxury products seems to get sillier by the day.

I’ve already written about the Porsche-designed kitchen, the Ferrari watch and the Versace dinner plate. But now comes two new extremes: a helicopter and sports car by Hermes.

The Hermes chopper is basically a Eurocopter EC135 (twin-engine multimission, for chopper freaks) that’s been tarted up with Hermes fixtures. Like calf-leather seats, leather-trimmed controls, Hermes canvas in the interior and a special pair of binoculars so passengers can view the scenery.

What’s the point? Maybe the marketers at Hermes are thinking, “You’ve got the scarf — now buy the helicopter!” Maybe there’s a Russian oligarch out there who just has to have it for his Hermes-clad mistress. Hermes doesn’t disclose price (if you have to ask…) but on its Web site, Eurocopter describes the Heli-Hermes it as “technical, sensual, magnificent. Magical in its freedom of movement.”

Like I said, I don’t get it.

To top the chopper, Hermes has now come out with a customized Veyron. The Veyron is Bugatti’s limited-edition sports car that can hit 253 miles per hour and costs more than $1 million. The Hermes version (even more limited, because I think there’s only one) will set you back $2.3 million.

What do you get for the money, besides a limited limited edition and the ability to outshine those with mere Veryons? The so-called Bugatti Veyron Fbg (short for Faubourg Saint-Honore, the street of Hermes’ flagship store) has a black and tan paint job, door handles modeled after Hermes suitcases and an interior smothered in bull calf. It’s also got the Hermes H logo on the wheels and gas cap.

Like to spend time under the hood — or in the trunk? Hermes has you covered there too, fitting the underside of both the car hood and trunk in leather. Act now and they’ll throw in a set of Hermes luggage too.

These products are probably all about getting some media attention. (Guilty as charged!) But maybe Wealth Report readers can help offer some other reasons they exist.

(Photos courtesy of Eurocopter and Bugatti, respectively.)

"My buddy, my buddy" - random friends

NY TIMES

You wouldn’t think of Andy Roddick and Terrell Owens as kindred spirits: Owens is the 34-year-old Dallas Cowboys star in the rough-and-tumble world of pro football, Roddick is the 25-year-old star in the genteel sport of tennis.

But here they were this week, playing cards before Roddick’s match at the Sony Ericsson Open, laughing it up like old friends.

“I wish a lot of the public saw what I saw,” Roddick said Wednesday after a morning practice. “He’s a pretty friendly guy, he’ll meet people — friends of mine — who he doesn’t really even know, and he’s nothing but nice and sweet to them. I wish the public saw a little bit more of that side of him.”

And Owens, the inimitable T. O., would like the public to more consistently see the Andy Roddick who on Tuesday plowed through the last two sets of his match against Julien Benneteau. After dropping the first set, 4-6, Roddick dominated Benneteau, 6-3, 6-2.

After that first set, Roddick went into immediate overdrive, seemingly trying to win the entire match on each point. “He was really pressing, trying to get some wins in there instead of letting things flow,” Owens said. “He’s on the cusp of really being that No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 guy. If he keeps pushing, letting the games come to him and try not to press so much during the matches, he’ll win. He just has to keep his focus.”

•

Owens said he met Roddick two years ago. “I guess we both kind of watched each other from afar,” he said, before adding: “We exchanged numbers. He has a guy out of Waco, Tex., does some biomechanics, who works on his body during his season to keep his body in shape. I use that same guy, John Patterson, during my football season.

“He keeps up with me, I try to keep up with him. Since that time we’ve kept in touch with each other and followed each other’s careers.”

What is intriguing about the Owens-Roddick relationship — aside from its apparent incongruence — is Owens’s connection to rising young stars searching for the secret of breaking through.

Two seasons ago at Seattle, Owens’s quarterback, Tony Romo, flubbed a snap for a field-goal attempt in a crucial playoff game. Dallas lost and Owens spent the off-season keeping Romo’s spirits up. Last January, Romo and his girlfriend, Jessica Simpson, took an ill-advised trip to Mexico before the Cowboys’ playoff game against the Giants. After the Cowboys’ stunning loss, Owens tearfully stood up for Romo.

In the time that Owens and Roddick have known each other, Roddick has been frustrated by his inability to regain the top spot in the rankings. Roddick said this hasn’t dominated his conversations with Owens.

“I don’t know if that’s come up too often,” he said. “I don’t like losing, and luckily I was able to win once when I was younger, but I think we’re both looking for that next step. Most people will say we’re pretty good players, but we both want to take that next step.”

This year at the Dubai Tennis Championships, Roddick announced that he was parting with his coach, Jimmy Connors, after two years.

Roddick is playing well, playing happy. He discouraged the notion that his happiness and good play are the a result of Connors’s departure. “It doesn’t have anything to do with Jimmy,” he said Wednesday. “Jimmy was great, I was happy with him also and I was thankful for his time. Personally, I’m at a good spot.”

On Monday, Roddick confirmed his engagement to Brooklyn Decker, a 20-year-old model.

•

Will this public pursuit of love be a help or a hindrance to Roddick’s pursuit of a consistent championship run?

Roddick had a breakthrough year in 2003; by season’s end, he became the first American since Andre Agassi in 1999 to finish the year at No. 1. The intervening years have been a maddening string of starts and stops. There were losses when victories were expected. He did not consistently meet even his own expectations. He seemed to try to power his way to the top and often ended up skewered like a bull running at a skilled matador.

More often than not, the matador in Roddick’s career has been his opponent on Thursday: the dreaded Roger Federer. Roddick has faced Federer 16 times in major tournaments and has won once. Federer has won the last 11.

“You have to knock those guys off and solidify yourself as a consistent No. 1 guy, night in and night out, refusing to lose, coming from behind and winning matches — that’s what Federer has done, that’s what Nadal has done,” Owens said. “Until Andy beats those guys two or three times, he’ll always be labeled as being on the cusp but never really getting to the top.”

Clearly, Federer is the mountain that Roddick must climb.

He gets another chance Thursday. T. O. will be watching.

I hope this doomsayer is wrong

March 31 (Bloomberg) -- Be it ever so devalued, $1 trillion is a lot of dough.

That's roughly on a par with the Russian economy. More than double the market value of Exxon Mobil Corp. About nine times the combined wealth of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

Yet $1 trillion is the amount of defaults and writedowns Americans will likely witness before they emerge at the far side of the bursting credit bubble, estimates Charles R. Morris in his shrewd primer, ``The Trillion Dollar Meltdown.'' That calculation assumes an orderly unwinding, which he doesn't expect.

``The sad truth,'' he writes, ``is that subprime is just the first big boulder in an avalanche of asset writedowns that will rattle on through much of 2008.''

that's it, moishe is no longer buying gasoline

On a clear day, the view from the top will take in the Middle East, North Africa and the Indian Ocean - providing you've a head for heights.

Plans for a mile-high tower in the Saudi Arabian desert have been unveiled by the billionaire owner of London's Savoy Hotel.

At 5,250ft, the £5billion project, masterminded by two British engineering consultancies, will be twice as high as its nearest rivals, skyscrapers under construction in Dubai and Kuwait, and almost seven times as high as the Canary Wharf tower in London's Docklands.

this is normal

MOSCOW (AP) - Seven women who had holed up in a cave for months other members of a Russian cult awaiting the end of the world emerged Friday night and were being treated by emergency workers, regional officials said. More than two dozen others remained behind but were expected to come out as early as Saturday, the governor's office said. About 35 members of the Christian cult entered the cave near the village of Nikolskoye, 400 miles southeast of Moscow, in early November to await the end of the world, which they expected in May. They threatened to detonate gas canisters if police tried to remove them by force. The vice governor of the Penza region, Oleg Melnichenko, said in televised comments that the seven women came out voluntarily, carrying satchels with their belongings. He said the cult leader, the self- declared prophet Pyotr Kuznetsov, was brought from a local psychiatric hospital to help persuade the women to leave. He said the women walked on their own nearly a mile to a prayer house, where emergency workers were talking with them, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported. "There is no reason to urgently hospitalize any of them," Melnichenko was quoted as saying. Another official in the governor's office, who gave only his first name, Alexander, said the other cult members still in the cave were expected to give up their vigil, perhaps by Saturday. He said four children, reportedly under age 2, were among those in the cave. Melnichenko said officials feared that melting snow could eventually lead to the collapse of the cave, but there was no immediate threat to those who remained behind. Officials had repeatedly enlisted the help of priests from the Orthodox Church in an effort to persuade the group to leave, communicating mainly through a small chimney pipe that poked up through the snowy hillside. Earlier this week, Melnichenko told reporters that some of the cult members had indicated they might leave the cave on Orthodox Easter, which is April 27. Kuznetsov has been charged with setting up a religious organization associated with violence. Earlier this week, officials said they had seized literature that included what appeared to be extremist rhetoric. He has been confined to a psychiatric hospital since November. An engineer from a devout family, Kuznetsov, who goes by the title of Father Pyotr, declared himself a prophet several years ago. He left his family and established the True Russian Orthodox Church and recruited followers in Russia and Belarus. He reportedly told followers that, in the afterlife, they would judge whether others deserved heaven or hell. Followers were not allowed to watch television, listen to the radio or handle money, Russian media reported.

Probably a bad idea

CARTHAGE, Mo. (AP) - Ultimate fighting was once the sole domain of burly men who beat each other bloody in anything-goes brawls on pay-per-view TV.

But the sport often derided as "human cockfighting" is branching out.

The bare-knuckle fights are now attracting competitors as young as 6 whose parents treat the sport as casually as wrestling, Little League or soccer.

The changes were evident on a recent evening in southwest Missouri, where a team of several young boys and one girl grappled on gym mats in a converted garage.

Two members of the group called the "Garage Boys Fight Crew" touched their thin martial-arts gloves in a flash of sportsmanship before beginning a relentless exchange of sucker punches, body blows and swift kicks.

No blood was shed. And both competitors wore protective gear. But the bout reflected the decidedly younger face of ultimate fighting. The trend alarms medical experts and sports officials who worry that young bodies can't withstand the pounding.

Tommy Bloomer, father of two of the "Garage Boys," doesn't understand the fuss.

"We're not training them for dog fighting," said Bloomer, a 34-year- old construction contractor. "As a parent, I'd much rather have my kids here learning how to defend themselves and getting positive reinforcement than out on the streets."

Bloomer said the sport has evolved since the no-holds-barred days by adding weight classes to better match opponents and banning moves such as strikes to the back of the neck and head, groin kicking and head butting.

Missouri appears to be the only state in the nation that explicitly allows the youth fights. In many states, it is a misdemeanor for children to participate. A few states have no regulations.

Supporters of the sport acknowledge that allowing fights between kids sounds brutal at first. But they insist the competitions have plenty of safety rules.

"It looks violent until you realize this teaches discipline. One of the first rules they learn is that this is not for aggressive behavior outside (the ring)," said Larry Swinehart, a Joplin police officer and father of two boys and the lone girl in the garage group.

The sport, which is also known as mixed martial arts or cage fighting, has already spread far beyond cable television. Last month, CBS became the first of the Big Four television networks to announce a deal to broadcast primetime fights. The fights have attracted such a wide audience, they are threatening to surpass boxing as the nation's most popular pugilistic sport.

Hand-to-hand combat is also popping up on the big screen. The film "Never Back Down," described as "The Karate Kid" for the YouTube generation, has taken in almost $17 million in two weeks at the box office. Another current mixed martial arts movie, "Flash Point," an import from Hong Kong, is in limited release.

Bloomer said the fights are no more dangerous or violent than youth wrestling. He watched as his sons, 11-year-old Skyler and 8-year-old Gage, locked arms and legs and wrestled to the ground with other kids in the garage in Carthage, about 135 miles south of Kansas City.

The 11 boys and one girl on the team range from 6 to 14 years old and are trained by Rudy Lindsey, a youth wrestling coach and a professional mixed martial arts heavyweight.

"The kids learn respect and how to defend themselves. It's no more dangerous than any other sport and probably less so than some," Lindsey said.

Lindsey said the children wear protective headgear, shin guards, groin protection and martial-arts gloves. They fight quick, two-minute bouts. Rules also prohibit any elbow blows and blows to the head when an opponent is on the ground.

"If they get in trouble or get bad grades, I'll hear about it and they can't come to training," he added.

In most states, mixed martial arts is overseen by boxing commissions. In Missouri, the Office of Athletics regulates the professional fights but not the amateur events, which include the youth bouts. For amateurs, the regulation is done by sanctioning bodies that have to register with the athletics office.

The rules are different in Oklahoma, where unauthorized fights are generally a misdemeanor offense. The penalty is a maximum 30 days in jail and a fine up to $1,000.

Joe Miller, administrator of the Oklahoma Professional Boxing Commission, said youth fights are banned in his state, and he wants it to stay that way.

"There's too much potential for damage to growing joints," he said.

Miller said mixed martial arts uses a lot of arm and leg twisting to force opponents into submission. Those moves, he said, pressure joints in a way not found in sanctioned sports like youth boxing or wrestling.

But Nathan Orand, a martial arts trainer from Tulsa, Okla., said kids are capable of avoiding injuries, especially with watchful referees in the rings. He thinks the sport is bound to grow.

"I can see their point because when you say 'cage fighting,' that right there just sounds like kids shouldn't be doing it," Orand said.

"But you still have all the respect that regular martial arts teach you. And it's really the only true way for youth to be able to defend themselves."

Back in the Carthage garage, Bloomer said parents shouldn't worry about kids becoming aggressive from learning mixed martial arts. He said his older son was picked on by bullies at school repeatedly last year but never fought them, instead reporting the problem to his teachers.

And fighters including his 8-year-old son get along once a bout is over, Bloomer said.

"When they get out of the cage, they go back and play video games together. It doesn't matter who won and who lost. They're still little buddies."

1 in 100 Americans in prison - pathetic

are we safer now? Moishe doubts it.

U.S. Spent More Than $49 Billion On Corrections In 2007

NEW YORK (CBS/AP) ― Don't ask the U.S. prison system if this is indeed "the land of the free."

For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report tracking the surge in inmate population.

The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.

Using updated state-by-state data, the report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 -- one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world.

By contrast, in mid 2002 the ratio was 1 in 142, with the prison population surpassing 2 million for the first time.

The steadily growing inmate population "is saddling cash-strapped states with soaring costs they can ill afford and failing to have a clear impact either on recidivism or overall crime," said the report.

Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States, said budget woes are prompting officials in many states to consider new, cost-saving corrections policies that might have been shunned in the recent past for fear of appearing soft in crime.

"We're seeing more and more states being creative because of tight budgets," she said in an interview. "They want to be tough on crime, they want to be a law-and-order state -- but they also want to save money, and they want to be effective."

The report cited Kansas and Texas as states which have acted decisively to slow the growth of their inmate population. Their actions include greater use of community supervision for low-risk offenders and employing sanctions other than reimprisonment for ex-offenders who commit technical violations of parole and probation rules.

"The new approach, born of bipartisan leadership, is allowing the two states to ensure they have enough prison beds for violent offenders while helping less dangerous lawbreakers become productive, taxpaying citizens," the report said.

While many state governments have shown bipartisan interest in curbing prison growth, there also are persistent calls to proceed cautiously.

"We need to be smarter," said David Muhlhausen, a criminal justice expert with the conservative Heritage Foundation. "We're not incarcerating all the people who commit serious crimes -- but we're also probably incarcerating people who don't need to be."

According to the report, the inmate population increased last year in 36 states and the federal prison system.

The largest percentage increase -- 12 percent -- was in Kentucky, where Gov. Steve Beshear highlighted the cost of corrections in his budget speech last month. He noted that the state's crime rate had increased only about 3 percent in the past 30 years, while the state's inmate population has increased by 600 percent.

The Pew report was compiled by the Center on the State's Public Safety Performance Project, which is working directly with 13 states on developing programs to divert offenders from prison without jeopardizing public safety.

"For all the money spent on corrections today, there hasn't been a clear and convincing return for public safety," said the project's director, Adam Gelb. "More and more states are beginning to rethink their reliance on prisons for lower-level offenders and finding strategies that are tough on crime without being so tough on taxpayers."

The report said prison growth and higher incarceration rates do not reflect a parallel increase in crime or in the nation's overall population. Instead, it said, more people are behind bars mainly because of tough sentencing measures, such as "three-strikes" laws, that result in longer prison stays.

"For some groups, the incarceration numbers are especially startling," the report said. "While one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, for black males in that age group the figure is one in nine."

The nationwide figures, as of Jan. 1, include 1,596,127 people in state and federal prisons and 723,131 in local jails -- a total 2,319,258 out of almost 230 million American adults.

The report said the United States is the world's incarceration leader, far ahead of more populous China with 1.5 million people behind bars. It said the U.S. also is the leader in inmates per capita (750 per 100,000 people), ahead of Russia (628 per 100,000) and other former Soviet bloc nations which make up the rest of the Top 10.

Birdboy, yes you heard correctly

From The Sun

A BOY can reportedly only communicate by 'chirping' - after living his life in a virtual aviary.

According to reports from Russia, the 7-year-old 'bird boy' has spent his life in a flat filled with bird cages with a mum who treated him like one of her pets.

Pravda said the boy's 31-year-old mum did not talk him and treated him like a bird, forcing him to learn avian language.

Social worker Galina Volskaya said shocked authorities discovered the boy in a two-bedroom apartment with bird mess littering the floor.

Volskaya said: “When you start talking to him, he chirps."

And she added that the boy becomes frustrated at not being able to communicate and flaps his arms.

Pravda reported that authorities believe the boy is suffering from Mowgli syndrome, after the Jungle Book character who is raised by wild animals.

The boy has reportedly been released by authorities and put in a medical facility.

Drunk Moron

Porsche interior goes perfect with Moishe's enjoyment of exotic skins

Treeman - WHOA!!! this is some s*&t - watch