Although the kernels of the tree have a bitter taste, this can be disguised if they are crushed and mixed with spicy food. They contain a potent heart toxin called cerberin, similar in structure to digoxin, found in the foxglove.

Digoxin kills by blocking calcium ion channels in heart muscles, which disrupts the heartbeat. But while foxglove poisoning is well known to western toxicologists, (researcher Yvan) Gaillard says pathologists would not be able to identify Cerbera poisoning unless there is evidence the victim had eaten the plant. “It is the perfect murder,” he says.

"Our sense of wonder is tweaked when we see, for example, a two-and-a-half-foot-high early-20th-century automaton with a little boy reaching for a jar of marmalade for his biscuit. As he reaches up, a door opens and the jar revolves, revealing the animated face of his scolding grandmother. A fly buzzes in the cabinet while a tiny mouse emerges from an apple.

In addition to the craft of it, this object, like virtually everything in the collection, is a piece of theater, an authentic historical performance: a time machine, if you will, visiting from the past."

They may be tiny, but the hobbits -- the extinct one-metre-high human species whose discovery rocked the palaeontology world last month - are provoking a giant barney among Australian and Indonesian scientists.

One of Indonesia's leading palaeontologists, Professor Teuku Jacob of Gadjah Mada University in Jakarta, has grabbed the hobbit remains and locked them away in his safe, refusing to let other scientists study them.

In addition, he rejected the widespread view that the hobbits are a separate human species, claiming they are a pygmy form of modern humans who suffered microcephaly, a disorder that produces a small brain.

The Australian scientists who dug up the bones of the hobbits, officially dubbed Homo floresiensis, have pleaded with Professor Jacob to return the bones as they may contain vital DNA clues as to their exact ancestry. The seven skeletons were found last year in a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores by an Australian and Indonesian team.

BoingBoing reader Suresh Venkat says, "Many Indians of a certain age (myself included) grew up devouring Amar Chitra Katha (I had huge piles of them in my house, and in all probability still do at my parent's place in India). I didn't realize that they count as "graphic novels." I guess I was on the cutting edge even then. :) "

After seeing your posts (Links: 1, 2, 3) on JPFO and the Christian Guide To Small Arms (Link), I can't believe you left out the Pink Pistols, a web site which caters to the gay gun-owners' community.

The site features sections on gun safety, organizing chapters, and lobbying to other liberals about gun rights. I'm not a member of this organization, but I support them fully in their endeavor.

Also, I am a gun-toting, Texas dwelling libertarian, and I love boingboing.net--Even if I do disagree with a lot of the opinions here.

Driving home for Thanksgivings, I listed to an interview on Minnesota Public Radio with a Milwaukee, WI doctor who saved the life of a girl who had contracted rabies from a bat. The disease is known as having a 100% fatality rate if you do not receive a vaccine before symptoms show, but the girl's doctor didn't accept that and developed an entirely new way to treat the disease. Apparently, rabies causes the brain to attack the body, and that is what causes death. By putting the girl into a coma he managed to stop the brain from being able to do any damage while the girl's immune system defeated the virus. This is a reminder that sometimes the impossible is possible if you don't listen to those who tell you otherwise. The Associated Press is also covering the story, which can be read in any number of places.

Reader Kim Brennan says,

Rabies is not 100% fatal (to humans) if you have shown symptoms, but all previous survival cases DID receive the vaccine after symptoms had shown. This was the first case of survival without the vaccine.

Update D'oh! We've been had! By hula-hippies! Super Mike Lewis says, "When I saw the picture of the Hula-Hoop-ing street sign I thought you were linking to the band The String Cheese Incident. SCI is a bluegrass/rock/jazz jam band out of Colorado. There is real good chance it was a fan of their who stuck the sticker on that street sign." Link. BoingBoing reader Ariel says the band tosses 'em out to fans during shows. Link

One type [of cell phone decoration] gives off a smell when the phone rings - choose from lemon, peach or even ramen noodles and curry. Mmmm, mine's a vindaloo. Yours for merely $10. Others consist of little figurines, bursting to go to the loo. And if you pull it (where??) it doesn't wait any more!

"This Advanced Composition Explorer [ACE] model was designed with the intermediate to advanced builder in mind.

What ACE does in layman's terms:

The Earth sits in a stream of accelerated particles coming in from the Sun, interstellar material, and galactic sources. The study of these energetic particles will broaden our understanding of the formation and evolution of the solar system, as well as the astrophysical processes involved. The Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft, carrying six high-resolution sensors and three monitoring instruments, will sample low-energy particles of solar origin and high-energy galactic particles, with a collecting power 10 to 1000 times greater than past or planned experiments."

"No system is designed around the assumption that there will be others in the neighborhood...The wireless world has largely been built around specific technologies that have industry consortiums and standards bodies behind them. So largely, every developer or provider takes the point of view that the world may have a choice, but in the end their system will be the one that's adopted. So we ask, what are the architectures, capabilities and services that can emerge if you set out to exploit the fact that you will have multiple systems surround you?"

Responding to the suggestion that Brasco the heavily-armed, pants-free, bespectacled Jewish Liberty Bear (tm) might be packin' his Hebrew hardware just for sport, BoingBoing reader Morgan Foust says:

"It's a pretty common misconception that most rabid gun owners own guns for hunting. They often don't (and I would know, I come from a family of gun-totin' survivalists). They own guns for self-defense at the very least, although more of them then you suspect honestly believe that the Democrats and the UN are plotting to take over the US with a 1984-style conspiracy and freedom's only hope are going to be gun-lovin' Americans fighting back, just like 1776 all over again. There's actually a Jewish explanation for this. Some Jews who own guns like to point to the Biblical/Tanakh Book of Esther, in which the Jewish population in Persia circa 450 or so BC arm themselves and repel an army led by a genocidal vizier. There are several verses describing the Jews kicking ass: 'And the Jews smote all their enemies with slaughter and destruction,' or 'the Jews slew five hundred men'."

And reader Cameron spotted another ammolicious goodie in the JFPO store: "They sell a one-of-a-kind pistol with the Bill of Rights on it... for the Jewish Dirty Harry types, I guess. What takes the cake: the $4,000 semiautomatic being sold to support the JPFO documentary film." Link.

And there's nothing like a hot breakfast to get your day off to the right start. Link to low-res version, other higher rezes are here. If this floats your boat, may I also recommend Fleshbot's disturbingly huge archive of "Atkins Porn"and other culinary kink. Link.

"Mr. Nishigaki has a jumbled AOL Members site for his book. Link.

Also, his old usenet postings are here: Link."

I like to capture Japanese commercials, and these include a ton of tech and gadget commercials. My most recent crop includes ads for the PSP + DS, Olympus M:Robe media player, Canon printers and cameras, NTT cameraphones, computers and even a moving company that will offer a quote based on pictures you take with and email from your phone.

Why does Blog Torrent matter?
Making it easy to blog large video files means that people can share their home movies the same way they share their photos or writings. It lets people create vast networks of truly peer-to-peer video content-- video that was made by individuals and shared with individuals, no bandwidth budget or distribution deal needed. Does this mean that we can do for television what blogs have done for news? Let's find out...

Why use Blog Torrent on your blog or website?
1. It lets you post video or other large files as easily as you post text.
2. Installing Blog Torrent is as easy as uploading a photo to your website or blog.
3. Blog Torrent is the one bittorrent tracker that won't confuse your users.
4. It publishes an RSS feed of all your torrents.

Link (via Waxy)

Something about its dead-pan delivery (no pun intended) made me think 'The Turkey Has a Posse.'

So here's an image (to put on your own server) I made for the holidays if you want it.Happy Thanksgiving."

Link

Reader Paul Mitchum says,

"Sure, the JPFO have Brasco, but will they sell you a mascot costume so that Brasco himself can appear at educational events? No? :-)

Well, check out the NRA's Eddie Eagle. Of course, with great power comes great responsibility, so there are rules about how Eddie can be portrayed by whoever's inside the costume. Note that the NRA is saying that Eddie Eagle should not carry a gun (even a toy or prop), under penalty of civil lawsuit.

Brasco, meanwhile, is clearly ready to take out some punks, once he puts on his glasses."

According to Jewish law, hunting (for fun or sport) is actually not considered appropriate, so the jews for guns site seems odd. Here is a rabbinical explaination of Jewish views on gun use and hunting.

Image: "Porn Actress Nikki Hunter stretches in the dressing room before going out to do a re-enactment of a rape scene on a pool table. Hunter has been doing pornography for about two years and was a stripper previously for eight years. 'It's good money,' she says, 'Much better than just stripping... I'll make about a thousand just tonight.'"

Link, images are not porn but they're not worksafe either. (thanks, S, via jmcolberg)

"I was reading your post about a Christian Guide to Small Arms [Ed. note: not that kind of small arms] and it reminded me of a site that my friends and I would visit for a hearty guffaw now and then. Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.

What made it particularly hilarious were the regular columnists such as "Ask the Rabbi" where readers could submit various questions on firearms and religious law answered in one convenient place. Unfortunately, the site has recently become much more propagandistic and has less of the community feeling it did before Bush took office (I guess they are feeling defensive). But if you search through the articles you can still find some of the oldies-but-goodies including reviews of weapons they've taken out to test at the range and PDFs of targets that they make available as free downloads. Like this one (Ed. Note: Godwin's law alert).

Also, they have a coloring book for children that is absolutely hilarous -- Link (PDF). It features Brasco(TM) The Liberty Bear... 'great for introducing children to guns, freedom, and responsibility."

Update: BoingBoing reader Shane adds, "We recently interviewed Yumiko on our site Crown Dozen, and she's super-sweet." Link to interview.

[Eli] Sudbrack vaulted to art stardom with his contribution to last spring's Whitney Biennial -- a surreal full-room installation with a Brazilian-disco vibe that included images of drag queens, soft-core porn, and serial substance abuse. Traditionally, such installations are unique pieces. Those created by artists firmly inscribed in the artistic canon -- such as Joseph Kosuth, Richard Long, or Mona Hatoum -- might sell for $150,000 to $300,000. But Peres Projects broke the Whitney piece down into multiple units (somewhat like the suit, shirt, and shoes of an autumn ensemble in a Barneys window) and sold each individually. To reproduce the whole installation, a collector would have to buy one of each element, at a total cost of $150,000. The defining elements -- the installation's floor, walls, and ceilings -- were in an edition of three. But the five sculptures, priced at $5,000-$15,000, were in an edition of five while the $2,500 decals and $5,000 video were in an edition of 10. Thus, the total list price of products available from the Whitney show was $600,000, minimum. Such sums only matter, of course, if someone will pay them. But by the time Frieze opened barely seven months later, Peres Projects had sold every last item from the Whitney show.

Is this madness? That's debatable. But the sales model definitely reflects a fundamental change in how art can be produced and sold. Purely digital art -- sold as software or access to online environments -- has been creeping into the art market over the last decade, but it still remains very much marginalized.

Hiroyuki Nishigaki:
How to Good-Bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way?

Reader Chris Slatt adds, "The best part about that anus constriction book isn't that it is sold at Target.com -- it's the customer reviews at Amazon. The 2nd page in particular is quite amusing." Here's a pinch:

A wonderful treatise on depression and a valuable resource for anyone, I can personaly attest to Mr. Nishigaki's methods. By following his instructions implicitly, I have banished the dark clouds under which I suffered for years, and have integrated his practices completely into my life. Even as I sit and type this review I am busy constricting my anus and counting, 80,81,82,83....... ooops!

Siege adds, "The legendary Goatse himself reviewed it." Link

BB reader Magnus confesses,

I actually purchased a copy of How to Goodbye Depression from Amazon a couple of years ago. The first part of the book is a collection of Usenet postings in which the author baffles a procession of posters with his anus-constricting theories. The second part constains more, erm, practical information.

The book manages to hover delicately on the knife-edge between wind-up and misguided sincerity; with everything given added semiotic slip by the Engrish in which it's written. The reader genuinely has no idea whether they're being laughed at, whether they're in on the joke, or whether there's even a joke at all.

I think it should be retitled Finnegan's Arse.

Update: BB reader Matt Dowling says, "On an episode of the TV show Braniac in the UK, a kid wanted to know if he was faster or slower with the turbospoke attached to his bike. So they set up a little circuit for him to pedal around with the thing on/off. Realisticly it should slow him down, but the result was that he went faster with the thing on, and what they figured is that it was psychological in speeding him up (with the "vrooom" and all)."

Buried inside the massive $388 billion spending bill Congress approved during the weekend is a program that creates a federal copyright enforcement czar. Under the program, the president can appoint a copyright law enforcement officer whose job is to coordinate law enforcement efforts aimed at stopping international copyright infringement and to oversee a federal umbrella agency responsible for administering intellectual property law.

Intellectual property law enforcement is divided among a range of agencies including the Library of Congress, the Justice and State departments and the U.S. Trade Representative. It is hoped that designating a single overseer to coordinate copyright law enforcement will put some cohesion into the federal effort, said one Senate Appropriations Committee aide.

The most probable scenario that the Christian American, called to fight for God, family, and country, will be presented with is that of the guerrilla resistance. He will be facing an enemy occupational force that will have great superiority in materiel and organization. Outside sources of supply and instruction will not be likely. The wisest course in this situation is to choose weapons and tactics that minimize supply, training, and maintenance problems.

Signs like It's the PSYCHIC Economy, stupid!!! = nothing less than brilliance. Some *actual* LaRouche demonstrators -- who clearly had no warning the event was taking place -- were present, and utterly befuddled.

To finance its current account deficit with the rest of the world, he said, America has to import $2.6 billion in cash. Every working day.

That is an amazing 80 percent of the entire world's net savings.

Sustainable? Hardly.

Meanwhile, he notes that household debt is at record levels.

Twenty years ago the total debt of U.S. households was equal to half the size of the economy.

Today the figure is 85 percent.

Nearly half of new mortgage borrowing is at flexible interest rates, leaving borrowers much more vulnerable to rate hikes.

Americans are already spending a record share of disposable income paying their interest bills. And interest rates haven't even risen much yet.

So yesterday I was out walking to class at the University of Washington when I came across a group of bizzaro Bizarros donning tinfoil hats and making outrageous statements. One was waving a sign that said "Build an escalator to mars"; another sign bore the sentence, "Dick Cheney is a salamander."

My first thought was that they were the often-seen-around-campus avid followers of Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche, Jr., perennial presidential candidate, perennial nutcase. "Holy living fuck," I thought, "These people are seriously getting out of control" -- and then I realized that they were MAKING FUN of the Larouche people. It was amazing. I was dumbstruck by the genius. The whole thing was practically a religious experience.

When class got out, I returned to the scene, and all that remained were a couple of leftover crazies standing at a Larouche table promising $100 to whomever could construct a cube twice the volume of another cube but with the same surface area. Honest to God, I'm still not sure if those were the false LaRouchites or the real mccoy.

And before you guffaw too loudly at those signs, remember -- some folks take the "escalator to Mars" thing very seriously. Link. And at least one lefty website purports to have evidence of a Cheney-reptile connection. Link

Dan Rather, embattled anchor of the "CBS Evening News," announced today that he will step down in March, on the 24th anniversary of taking over the job from Walter Cronkite. The veteran anchor has been under fire in recent months for his role in a "60 Minutes Wednesday" story that questioned President Bush's service in the National Guard, which turned out to based on allegedly forged documents.

Rather, 73, said he will continue to work for CBS, as a correspondent for both editions of "60 Minutes." He made no mention of the National Guard story in announcing the change, saying he had agreed with CBS executives last summer that after the Nov. 2 election would be the right time to leave.

• If you've got a Boing Boing suggestion, you can (and should!) use the form. (My lovely and talented co-editors will be blogging as normal!)
• If you've got a business-related Boing Boing question, you can direct it to our business manager, John Battelle.
• If you've got a professional inquiry about my writing, you can contact Russ Galen, my literary agent.
• If you've got a question related to my work for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, please direct it to my colleague Gwen Hinze.

"They started to herd us up, they pushed all four of us together by doing tight circles around us," (Rob) Howes told the New Zealand Press Association (NZPA).

Howes tried to drift away from the group, but two of the bigger dolphins herded him back just as he spotted a three-meter (nine feet) great white shark swimming towards the group.

About ten tons of counterfeit Lego blocks were destroyed at the Kymeenlaakso waste processing plant in Anjalankoski on Thursday. The plastic will be mixed with other waste and burned at a district heating plant in Lahti...

Johannes Qvist, regional manager of Lego in Finland said that in addition to commercial considerations, the destruction was also a safety issue, as the pirated Legos do not comply with toy safety standards.

April 19, 2003: An Oakland Athletics fan threw a cell phone at Texas Rangers outfielder Carl Everett....

Sept. 19, 2002: A father and son burst onto the field at Chicago's Comiskey Park and slammed Kansas City Royals first-base coach Tom Gamboa to the ground, punching and kicking him....

Nov. 24, 1999: Oakland Raiders were pelted with snowballs, some spiked with batteries, at Denver's Mile High Stadium. Charles Woodson allegedly threw a snowball that struck a female fan in the face, and Lincoln Kennedy went after a fan who hit him in the face with a snowball....

After the screening I went to the table to collect my cell phone and handed them my ticket. The table had over 100 phones on it in the plastic bags. The geniuses they have working security couldn't find my phone after five minutes of searching so I looked myself and managed to find the ticket number in about 30 seconds. While I was waiting though I was able to enjoy this conversation between security and a well dressed agent type:

"Do you have your ticket sir?"

"You never gave me a ticket."

"Yes we did sir."

"I have another ID."

"I need your ticket sir."

"You never gave me a ticket"

"You'll have to wait till we are done here and then we'll try to find your phone."

In despair the agent person said "Why am I being punished for your mistakes?"

Are database rights necessary for a thriving database industry? The answer is a clear “no.” In the United States, the database industry has grown more than 25-fold since 1979 and - contrary to those who paint the Feist case as a revolution - for that entire period, in most of the United States, it was clear that unoriginal databases were not covered by copyright. The figures are even more interesting in the legal database market. The two major proponents of database protection in the United States are Reed Elsevier, the owner of Lexis, and Thomson Publishing, the owner of Westlaw. Fascinatingly, both companies made their key acquisitions in the US legal database market after the Feist decision, at which point no one could have thought unoriginal databases were copyrightable. This seems to be some evidence that they believe they could make money even without a database right. How? In the old-fashioned way: competing on features, accuracy, tied services, making users pay for entry to the database and so on.

If those companies believed there were profits to be made, they were right. Jason Gelman, one of our students, points out in a recent paper that Thomson’s Legal Regulatory division had a profit margin of over 26% for the first quarter of 2004. Reed Elsevier’s 2003 profit margin for LexisNexis was 22.8%. Both profit margins were significantly higher than the company average and both are earned primarily in the $6 billion US legal database market, a market which is thriving without strong intellectual property protection over databases. (First rule of thumb for regulators: when someone with a profit margin over 20% asks you for additional monopoly protection, pause before agreeing.)

UPDATE: Anonymous sez: "The answer to the question of how long color laser copiers have been encoding their serial numbers onto their prints is: at least since 1995 or so.

"The Canon CLC 700 was introduced then and didn't come with the any discernible anti-counterfeiting features. The previous generations of the Canon CLC lines detected that they were being used to copy currency and put a blackish green cast over the output. The problem with the old system was that the detection was too sensitive and would trip on non-currency items and not detect the planned new currency designs.

"After a bit of looking (and some pointed questioning on behalf of our security-conscious customers) we found about the yellow-dot encoding, and sure enough, it's been on every color machine since.

"The reason you probably haven't heard much about it is because it (AFAIK) is only used by the Secret Service to trace counterfeit documents back to their source machines, and the Secret Service doesn't like to talk too much about means and methods."

Q: How can you be a dragon and a Christian at the same time?

A: Many shifters worry that they are so strange that they can never be accepted into the Body of Christ. That's not true and its not being fair to Christians. We Christians accept people from all walks of life. I'm proof of that.

I have been told that my shifter feelings are a lie from satan and that God has a plan for me in this human body. Well I don't know what that plan is, and as far as I can see, that divine plan will never see fruition because I feel too much like a loser to implement it.

So I need to be a dragon, a beautiful and powerful dragon that's fears not what men can say or do and attracts many followers. If I was a dragon, I could do so much good for this world because my self-confidence would return to me. I pray constantly to God to change me, and He tells me to wait.

If I can handle being a Christian, you can too, because I'm more f***** up than you are.

I am told that this is the first time the paper has based an entire story around a blog entry. Link. See also this North County Times op-ed. Link. Kevin Sites' "Open Letter to the Devil Dogs of the 3.1" -- Link

Update: Ed Felten sez, "The lecture is now available under a Creative Commons (non-commercial, share-alike) license. There's a page with license info and links to the lecture. At the moment it has the streams only, but I hope to add other formats as soon as I can. If anybody translates it into a different format, I would like to know so I can add a link to my page and/or redistribute the translation myself. [Note: Email Ed with your new formats, NOT Cory]

'Listen, why don't I sing you a song?' said the Elephant Man, obviously desperate to try to change the subject. He even got up and did an ungainly jig as he sang,

I look like some ex-pe-ri-ment!
But please believe me I'm a proper gent!
I seem like a monster, but whatcha don't know is,
I got a scorching case of neurofibromatosis¹⁹

Jennifer and the pirate with a scarf gave up on getting a straight answer, and went off to search for any clues that might be evident at the other exhibits. But they had no more luck with the Man Who Could Eat A Bicycle, or the Lady Who Had Had Hiccups For Forty Years, or even with the Girl From Chesterfield Who Would Repeatedly Go Out With Idiots When She Could DO A Great Deal Better For Herself. The pea-soup fog was starting to make their eyes sting, so Jennifer and the pirate ducked inside a tent that was simply marked 'A Special Exhibit For The Ladies'. It didn't seem very special, it was just an empty and badly lit tent as far as the pirate with a scarf could make out.

¹⁹ Or possibly Proteus Syndrome. There is still some debate in medical circles. Contrary to popular belief, Michael Jackson never did purchase the Elephant Man's skeleton from the Royal Hospital. This is a good example of how you shouldn't believe everything that people tell you.

Update: Ben sez, "The book's Pirate Captain hero has his own blog on Livejournal. According to the user info, the blog is 'a presentation of a ship's log discovered at a car boot sale in Botley, Oxfordshire in 1997' and is 'intended primarily for maritime historians and business leaders with an interest in inspirational management techniques'".

“The coating doesn’t actually clean itself, but it does resist dirt much better than other fabric treatments,” explains research team member Phil Brown, Ph.D., a textile chemist with Clemson University in Clemson, S.C. “The concept is based on the lotus plant, whose leaves are well-known for their ability to ‘self-clean’ by repelling water and dirt. Likewise, when water is exposed to the treated fabric, the dirt will be carried away more easily. You will still need some water to rinse away dirt and stains, but cleaning will be quicker and less frequent.”

"We get to light menorah candles. Which means we get to play with fire. Sure, throwing tinsel on a tree is fun, but it's just not FIRE."

"Students who thought of Superman volunteered much less of their time than those who thought about other superheroes. Furthermore, Superman-primed subjects were significantly less likely to show up at a meeting for volunteers held three months after they were initially asked to participate."

"We've created the game with the belief that Oswald was the only person that fired the shots on that day, although this recreation proves how immensely difficult his task was,'' (Traffic's Kirk) Ewing said.

So far, the dollar's slide to nine-year lows doesn't reflect panic. But some analysts say a run on the dollar is possible. And even an orderly drop could affect everything from mortgages to prices at Wal-Mart.

The good news for Americans: It's getting easier for manufacturers to sell products overseas, and more likely that tourists from Germany will flock to US National Parks.

But the downside could be significant. America, the world's leading importer of goods, is now buying them at higher prices. And if the dollar's dive makes foreign investors wary, US interest rates may have to rise to attract buyers of federal debt.

Positron! Records is pleased to announce that our artists now have the option of releasing their works under Creative Commons licenses.

Unlike those who suffer from what we like to call "major label retardation," we here at Positron! have never believed it was bad thing for our supporters to share our music with their friends. The Creative Commons licenses we use legally allow you to share songs from these records on peer-to-peer networks. In addition, you can sample portions of these songs for use in your own compositions, whether they are mash-ups for your friends, or a commercial release. The only caveat is that the resulting work must be released under the same license. It is our way of both thumbing our nose at the ridiculous state of copyright law in this country, and letting you, our customer and supporter, know that you are not a criminal, but a trusted ally in the war against corporate stupidity.

Mike from WhyBark lives in Seattle, and decided that this would be a cute piece for the local newspaper. He'd read on MeFi that Hopkin was actually a McDonald's toy, and he tracked down a new one for $5 on eBay. He called the number on the flier and repeatedly tried to make contact with Hopkin's owner's father. After many attempts, he got through, and got to the bottom of the Hokin Green Frog mystery.

Hopkin's bereaved owner is a 16-year-old autistic boy, who was very upset about the loss of his toy. According to his father, he's gotten over the loss of Hopkin and giving him a replacement Hokpin would be a bad idea, as it would re-open old wounds.

The person who drew the flier is a sixteen-year-old boy who suffers from autism. His father was unaware that his son may have made more than one batch of fliers (it appears that new fliers were hung in May of 2004). He did know about the loss of the frog and I believe that he knew about the first batch of fliers.

He also did not want me to give the frog to his son. He’s forgotten it, he told me. Bringing it up again will probably only bring up a bunch of bad memories.

He was quite unaware of the interest in the frog and the flier on the internet. He reiterated that he did not think it would be a good idea to show the sites to his son.

In the particular circumstance I was reporting, it bothered me that the Marine didn't seem to consider the other insurgents a threat -- the one very obviously moving under the blanket, or even the two next to me that were still breathing. I can't know what was in the mind of that Marine. He is the only one who does.

But observing all of this as an experienced war reporter who always bore in mind the dark perils of this conflict, even knowing the possibilities of mitigating circumstances -- it appeared to me very plainly that something was not right. According to Lt. Col Bob Miller, the rules of engagement in Falluja required soldiers or Marines to determine hostile intent before using deadly force. I was not watching from a hundred feet away. I was in the same room. Aside from breathing, I did not observe any movement at all.

Making sure you know the basis for my choices after the incident is as important to me as knowing how the incident went down. I did not in any way feel like I had captured some kind of "prize" video. In fact, I was heartsick. Immediately after the mosque incident, I told the unit's commanding officer what had happened. I shared the video with him, and its impact rippled all the way up the chain of command. Marine commanders immediately pledged their cooperation.

We all knew it was a complicated story, and if not handled responsibly, could have the potential to further inflame the volatile region. I offered to hold the tape until they had time to look into incident and begin an investigation -- providing me with information that would fill in some of the blanks.

For those who don't practice journalism as a profession, it may be difficult to understand why we must report stories like this at all -- especially if they seem to be aberrations, and not representative of the behavior or character of an organization as a whole. The answer is not an easy one.

In war, as in life, there are plenty of opportunities to see the full spectrum of good and evil that people are capable of. As journalists, it is our job is to report both -- though neither may be fully representative of those people on whom we're reporting. For example, acts of selfless heroism are likely to be as unique to a group as the darker deeds. But our coverage of these unique events, combined with the larger perspective - will allow the truth of that situation, in all of its complexities, to begin to emerge. That doesn't make the decision to report events like this one any easier. It has, for me, led to an agonizing struggle -- the proverbial long, dark night of the soul.

The whole system is powered by 14000 horsepower turbines which can pump 200 tons of water a second into the large outlying edogawa river. I'm in the middle of playing Halflife2 right now and something like this looks like its straight out of the game or some sci-fi movie. This unbelievable gallery of photos however, is not CG, it is the real deal.

The site is all in Japanese, but if you click around the menus a bit, there are animations and diagrams of how the system works, and other interesting photos of the high-tech control center and turbine facilities. Supposedly the G-Cans project is also meant to be a tourist attraction, and can be visited for free. very cool. Link

Xeni sez: "Check out these photos Eric Pasquier took of the pirates. Link (Sample shown here)

"Also, see this related story which uses some of Pasquier's amazing pirate photos." Link

Chris O'Connor sez: "This is a lovely listing of all sorts of modern piratatical activity reporting for shipping companies and includes semi-detailed descriptions of pirate attacks." Link

Anonymous sez: "Fun story on piracy, but not entirely accurate. According to Dr. Peter Chalk, a piracy expert at the RAND Corporation, piracy in the Straits of the Moluccas does not usually end up in killing of the crew *unless* the crew resists. (Of course the situation may be different off Brazil or Africa.) Usually they're just put off the ship on a lifeboat and the ship and cargo are stolen. The ships sometimes get reused, and sometimes are simply set adrift after their cargoes are offloaded and resold. This piracy is far more common than we the public hear about. Dr. Chalk estimates that about 10% (or less) of ship hijackings are reported. Link

The Pennsylvania Senate has just passed a bill that would limit the ability of municipalities to build alternative broadband networks and challenge the incumbent's (Verizon's) dominance of broadband in the state.

The bill is on the governor's desk and he is balking at signing it because of the restriction. People can contact him and urge him to veto it.

"This company (Link) makes concept models, and in their spare time (I'm guessing) they makes large models like this one (Link) and (Link).

"If you look carefully in one of those links, you can see a power cord coming in to the model, and a monitor line coming out. Yes, it's a casemod. The monitor is external (on the left). Here's the making-of documentation (Link). Pretty imrpressive, however, they are not alone (Link)."

"They took it into the cafeteria at lunch time and began passing it out to students, just whoever would take a piece," said Jay Dillon, spokesman for the Cobb County School District in suburban Atlanta.

Some of the students started vomiting after eating the cake Tuesday, officials said. Eleven students, mostly seventh graders, were treated at a hospital and released, Dillon said.