Yes, the cheese sandwich version of the Virgin Mary has been sold for $28,000 U.S. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but what I do know is that somewhere, there's a hungry person who saw the Virgin Mary on a sandwich.

Annan says world no safer, says the headline. Wow. I'm real glad he cleared that up.

It's an interesting thing to read, though, because you begin to understand what role the UN is actually playing, if you could say it's playing a role. There's a nice little hint that an invasion of Iran would be illegal under the U.N. Charter... but hey, Iraq happened without U.N. consent, so what's the point? Out of all the debate in the upcoming presidential election in the United States, nobody has really talked about how the marginalization of the U.N. has adversely affected the world.

If you're considered a minor wherever you reside, this is really boring stuff and you should read all the other stuff here. If you're older, you might find this interesting in a very intellectual way. Or not.

Some people take this very seriously. In forests, they will chain themselves to trees, lie down in front of bulldozers (pretending to be Arthur Dent, of course), and all sorts of things - using their bodies to shield the trees.

Human shields.

Like all things, this has evolved over time. A new group has formed, and they seem to think that there had to be a better way. Why risk your life to save a tree when you can go through the motions to make life. It certainly seems like it would be more pleasurable. If you're stuck out in the forest lieing down in front of bulldozers, why be alone? And if you're not alone, why not have fun?

Some people did a study and found out that you can not only make morphine at home... you can do it at a cellular level. No Kidding. This is really wild stuff if you think about it, because it will be very difficult for someone to claim a patent on things your body naturally creates.

Of course, there's not patent on Morphine - but what else does your body naturally produce?

Yup, the world is slowly letting more and more bats out of the belfry. Playboy seeks McDonald's women.

What next? What icon of American culture will be PlayBoyed next?

Playboy's Special of Women in Politics?
Playboy's Special of Elementary School Teachers?
Playboy's Special of Wendys?

Hmm. I've always thought that the chicks at Pizza Hut were kinda hot. Well, sweaty. You know what I mean... Right?!

So you sit around, you have some spare time, and you decide... 'where did this word/phrase come from?'. So you start reading around, start shaking the tree of knowledge, and you find some answers. Maybe a Latin root. Maybe a Greek phrase. Maybe some Sanskrit. Who knows, but if you dig far enough, you find them.

Well, Jesús M. González-Barahona got bored, and the phrase selected was - libre software. Anglophones call it 'Free Software'. Not quite the same as the media's 'Open Source' fascination - in fact, 'Free Software' is the bastard red-headed stepchild by the people who warped 'hacker' into 'cracker'.

While many take it on faith by many that about two thousand years ago a man walked on water, a robot requires less faith.

Of course, it's a bit smaller than a human. But I wonder if it will inspire debate around the world about how walking on water is something only entities of theological significance are allowed to do...

Yes. This is a true story. Apparently Lucy Snyder had a dead badger lying around, and a VüDü Linux distro hanging around when lo! She had too much time on her hands.

Thankfully, she documented what she did - though the image does seem to look a but like something one would find on an O'Reilly book.

You can read it all here - but the boot incantation is a real crowd pleaser:

Suse vivo vixi victum reduco is ea id creatura absit decessus a facultas Linux! Dev root, dev root!

Every once in a while I wake up with weird urgent dreams very vivid in my mind. Sometimes I write them down, and sometimes I just remember one thing. Anyway, a few weeks ago I woke up with the idea that "Spirit Dogs from the Underworld Have Arrived"; here I come to find out that maybe it's true!

Maybe not, but this article does have some interesting details about what The Dead were trying to do: