How Not To Fly (about)

Father Of The Web Becomes "Sir Tim"

Time magazine once named him one of the top 20 thinkers of the 20th century. Now Queen Elizabeth II, his monarch, has made him a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Thief Returns Icon Of Baby Jesus

[St Paul, MN] "Sorry I took your baby Jesus. It was a childish prank," the perpetrator said in a handwritten note. "As far as his new color, I thought I would point out that Jesus was not an Aryan but actually a man of color. Although you probably knew this but would rather not be reminded...."

Dr. Henry Bowden, executive secretary of the American Society of Church History, said the dark-skinned Jesus is probably more historically accurate than the light-skinned image commonly seen in the United States.

"He was of Jewish heritage, from the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. Most Jews were swarthy, with olive skin, brown eyes, and brown or black hair..."

Libya Nuclear Program Dismantled

[Tripoli, Libya] "The program is very much at an early stage of development, where it is right now... quite dismantled in fact. It's all in boxes," [International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed] ElBaradei said. "They were far away from having an industrial-scale enrichment capability...."

ElBaradei indicated that his "gut feeling" was Libya was about three to seven years away from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.

Man Beaten In Checkout Line Dispute

[Forest Park, IL] There were so many people it was confusing exactly where the ends of the lines were, [the victim] said.

...a girl began yelling at them they had cut in front of her. Baures and his friend argued with her, but let the girl go in front of them.

...the girl began staring at his friend "like she was going to kill her," Baures recalled, and they asked the girl's mother to ask the girl to stop. That led to an even bigger argument.

...he realized they were being followed [into the parking lot], and the group now included boys and men, including one who was carrying a baseball bat.... Several men began hitting, punching and kicking him in his face, ribs and back.

His friend then jumped on top of him and said, "Please stop hitting." Then the men pummeled her.... Baures said Wal-Mart security did little to either calm the situation in the store or break up the fight in the parking lot.

'Til Politics Do Us Part / Gender Gap Widens

The political divide between college-educated men and women has been growing for a decade. And the trend has become more important as the number of women getting undergraduate and postgraduate degrees has surged.

...women are more likely to agree with Democrats about the need for a safety net of government social programs. Even upscale women are more likely to imagine that they might one day need it.

• ...when it comes to politics, Lynne, an attorney, and Scott [her husband], a venture capitalist with an MBA, often disagree... She's a Democrat concerned about policies that affect women and children, and she's shopping for the candidate with the best chance of beating Bush.
• In the last presidential election, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake asked married voters if their spouses had voted the same way they did. Three-quarters of the men said "yes," compared with just half of the women.... It's possible some wives didn't bother to correct [a false] impression. "We call it the 'Sure, honey' factor," Lake says.
• "When I went to law school, I read all these cases where women were still discriminated against, even in this day and age," [June Coldren] says. But her husband... is a reliable Republican.... She never misses an Election Day. "I have to vote to make sure I cancel him out..."

Girl's Mother Wants Boy's Mother Charged

[Milwaukee, WI] Prosecutors are mulling misdemeanor charges of what is called "false swearing" against the 34-year-old woman, also from Milwaukee and mother of the girl's boyfriend.

According to court records, she has admitted to posing as the girl's aunt in signing a consent form required in Wisconsin before a juvenile can get an abortion, and to paying the $450 for the procedure.

The girl's mother said her daughter used earnings from a summer job cleaning city buses and as a groundskeeper at Summerfest to pay back the money.... The teens are still a couple, she said.

And because there just isn't enough pressure on 16-year-old girls:

Sen. Thurmond Had Illegitimate Daughter

[Columbia, SC] "As J. Strom Thurmond has passed away and cannot speak for himself, the Thurmond family acknowledges Ms. Essie Mae Washington-Williams' claim to her heritage. We hope this acknowledgment will bring closure for Ms. Williams," the family's lawyer, J. Mark Taylor, said in a brief statement....

In seven decades of politics, Thurmond gained fame and infamy as an arch-segregationist... Williams claims Thurmond fathered her when he was a 22-year-old living in his parents' home in Edgefield. Her mother, Carrie Butler, 16, had been working as a maid in the Thurmonds' home.

Baghdad Celebrates Saddam's Capture

"The former dictator of Iraq will face the justice he denied to millions," President Bush said in a short televised address from the White House....

"This afternoon I have a message for the Iraqi people: This is further assurance that the torture chambers and the secret police are gone forever. You will not have to fear the rule of Saddam Hussein ever again."

Microsoft To Cut Swastikas From Software

"It was discovered by one of our customers a couple weeks ago," Marks said, adding that there was "no indication of malicious intent." The Redmond, Washington-based software maker said that it had contacted various Jewish organizations about the [Bookshelf Symbol 7] font and said a utility would be immediately available on its Web site that would remove the characters from the system....

A form of the swastika has been used in the Buddhist religion to symbolize the feet or footprints of the Buddha.... German dictator Adolf Hitler adopted the swastika as the symbol of the Nazi Party because of its nationalist identification...

Kids Who Watch Too Much TV Eat Less Veggies

Researchers said that at the beginning of the study, the kids ate four servings of fruit and veggies on average. They found kids who increased television viewing by an hour per day dropped their veggie servings to two.

US Drawn Into Taiwan-China Dance

President Bush, sitting next to China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in the White House, rebuked the leader of Taiwan....

Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian has said he will hold a referendum in March. It will ask the Taiwanese people to voice their opposition to China's military posture -- specifically the missiles the People's Liberation Army has deployed in Fujian province, pointed at Taiwan.

What Mr Bush actually said was this: "We oppose any unilateral decision, by either China or Taiwan, to change the status quo. And the comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan indicate that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally that change the status quo. And we oppose that."

Estimates On Medicare Hit $2 Trillion

Rep. Charlie Norwood, Georgia Republican, said "creating a completely open-ended entitlement... then handing the bill to our kids and grandkids, is just the wrong answer.... The fiscal path this bill sets us on scares the heck out of me."

And some policy analysts said it's not enough to look at cost estimates for the new law in the next 20 years, because the new drug program is here to stay -- forever.

"The problem is it's extremely hard to take back entitlement once its granted, so you have to look at the forever cost of this bill," said John C. Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis. "And the forever cost of this bill is on the order of $12 trillion."

Animal-Rights Billboard 'Disturbs' R.I. Catholics

[East Providence] [The PETA billboard] features the image of the Madonna cradling a dead chicken in her arms, alongside the message "Go Vegetarian -- It's an Immaculate Conception." A cross is placed inside the "o" in "Go...."

PETA's campaign notes that [factory farms and slaughterhouses] burn chickens alive or drown them, brand cows, force farm animals to live in filthy cages and deny them sunlight, castrate cattle and pigs without painkillers and allow mass-produced animals to starve to death because their legs can no longer support the weight of their genetically engineered and drug-altered bodies....

The Most Rev. Robert E. Mulvee, Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Providence, issued a statement yesterday saying that he understands PETA's "desire to draw attention to its cause," but finds it "highly inappropriate and disturbing" for the group to use the Blessed Mother on its billboard....

By midday yesterday, the billboard had been vandalized: The word "shame" had been spray-painted in the bottom left corner.