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Top 10 Cars to Drive If You Don't Have a Date on Valentine's Day By editors at Edmunds.com Date Posted 02-08-2005 Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and you realize that you don't have a special someone to take out for cocktails and dinner. Wallowing in self-pity, you wonder how you'll ever get through the evening alone. Fortunately, you might not have to. That is, if you like to drive. We asked our staff of driving enthusiasts which cars they'd most want to drive if they were facing a dateless Valentine's Day. We're talking about cars that are so...

Workplace romance 'under threat' Passion in the workplace can take its toll on colleagues Romantic liaisons between employees at work could soon be brought under tight control, according to the TUC. The trades union group has said firms in the UK are planning to introduce "love contracts" to tackle problems when workplace relationships turn sour. Firms want to copy their counterparts in the US, where staff pledge to behave professionally if they become emotionally entangled, it said. But such contracts could be in breach of the Human Rights Act, the TUC said. Heavy handed The contracts are designed to protect...

If you fancy a bit of romance this Valentine's Day, get yourself a pottery wheel and a bit of moist clay. Alternatively you could just settle down with a bottle of vino and watch Ghost after the scene when Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze get filthy (hands) in the pottery scene is voted the most romantic film moment of all time. In a survey by Blockbusters, the second most heart-warming (or vomit-worthy - depending on your cynicism level) movie moment is the scene from Titanic when Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio are perched precariously on the ship's prow in that...

This is strictly vanity. All in good fun. Nicholas Sparks is a guy who ventured into a field traditionally dominated by women. He writes about love and romance with incredible feeling. All of his novels and movies so far have a Southern small town charm/Flyover Country setting to them. To you, do they celebrate romantic love or focus on teary schmaltz. It seems the theme is about doomed lovers finding a lasting love. Maybe that's why people cry on finishing the book or leaving the theater after having seen a movie.

German men want partners to be more adventurous in the bedroom Tue Sep 28, 2:39 PM ET BERLIN (AFP) - Seventy percent of German men want their partner to be more adventurous sexually, according to a survey entitled "What do men expect from an ideal partner?" carried out for a local magazine. According to the survey published in "Journal Fur Die Frau," (Journal For The Woman) more than half of the 1,000 men questioned would also like their partner to be able to distinguish between important and unimportant purchases. The survey also revealed that 51 percent of men would like...

Electronic mail, voicemail and text messages have broken boundaries in the office and made it easier for people to flirt, a survey has found.Researchers questioned 221 workers and found that 31 per cent had experienced "physical and emotional" intimacy with someone in the office. A further eight per cent said they had conducted a purely physical relationship with a colleague, while 21 per cent said they had enjoyed only an emotional one. Many said their relationship started via e-mail, a device that enabled them to conduct their affair in private. The findings, based on interviews with workers aged between 21...

My Dragon Fly and Me If I could be a Dragon Fly and wing my way through the sky I would never be shy just me and my Dragon Fly! By moonlight we ride the wind chase the comets tail for fun by day we would hide from the sun our fragile wings would come undone On darkest nights we would use fireflies as our guide we would dip and we would glide through the heavens open wide and scatter diamonds in the night sky my Dragon Fly and me... And we would wing past our lovers silent in...

This is funny stuff worth a 30 sec laugh.

Sixty years ago next week — on May 15, 1944 — the front page of the New York Times carried a brief dispatch from the front in Europe. It told the story of an American B-17, on a bombing run over Laon, France, that was struck by a bomb accidentally released by another American plane flying in formation above it. The bomb wedged in the tail of the Flying Fortress, killing the tail-gunner, but didn't explode. "Although the plane was almost unmanageable," the dispatch read, "the crew stayed with the ship." Terrified the bomb would detonate during what promised to...

      Hormones converge for couples in love   19:00 05 May 04   Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.   Men are from Mars and women from Venus - except when they are in love. During this intense period, men and women become more like each other than at any other time.We already know that falling in love is a bit like going crazy. Donatella Marazziti of the University of Pisa in Italy showed in 1999 that levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which has a calming effect, dip below normal in those who say they...

Futurism was an international art movement founded in Italy in 1909. It was (and is) a refreshing contrast to the weepy sentimentalism of Romanticism. The Futurists loved speed, noise, machines, pollution, and cities; they embraced the exciting new world that was then upon them rather than hypocritically enjoying the modern world?s comforts while loudly denouncing the forces that made them possible. Fearing and attacking technology has become almost second nature to many people today; the Futurist manifestos show us an alternative philosophy. Too bad they were all Fascists. TO THE YOUNG ARTISTS OF ITALY! The cry of rebellion which...

World War II romance stories sought Sunday, May 25, 2003 Daily News staff An Oklahoma production company is developing a television program series highlighting the romantic relationships between World War II military personnel and their loved ones back at home. Although many films and documentaries have shown heroes, battles and the brutality of war — few, if any, have focused on the relationships that suffered, endured, even thrived after wartime years of aloneness, hardship and hoping against the unknown. Hero Productions is collecting stories of the everyday heroes during World War II — the many men and women who kept...

Women have been turning up at a Brazilian prison wanting to see an inmate who used a mobile phone to place a lonely hearts ad in a newspaper. The prisoner in Novo Hamburgo jail, who still has three years to serve for drug dealing, said he wanted a serious relationship. Police in Porto Alegre say several women tried to contact the man, reports Folha de Sao Paulo online. Some of them turned up at the prison gates, but none were allowed in to see the man - whose name has not been released. Police chief Jose Antonio Antunes said: "I...

On a bridge into Basra, Olga Craig bumped into the SAS as it was gathering intelligence from Iraqis fleeing the mortar shells of Saddam's militia As a greeting, it was neither conventional nor civilised - but then neither were the circumstances. I was in retreat, he was advancing. It was 4pm one afternoon last week on the bridge into Basra, and Saddam Hussein's elite militia were sending a rain of mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades from the city. In the smoke and the confusion and the deafening noise, I ran straight into him, my left arm colliding with his assault...

Dark streaks on crater and valley walls may indicate that brackish water currently flows across the surface of Mars. New images and analysis suggest the slopes around the Red Planet's largest extinct volcano, Olympus Mons, contain dark stains caused by brine flowing down hill. The discovery indicates that the substantial underground ice deposits on Mars can sometimes melt and flow across the surface. It is bound to increase speculation that life may exist near to the surface of the planet. Dark streaks According to researcher Tahirih Motazedian, of the University of Oregon, US, it is the first time that changes...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters Health) - Avoiding nagging and yelling in a romantic relationship may be more important for building intimacy than all those thoughtful things you do for your sweetie, new research suggests. "You want to try to avoid those negative behaviors and not do things you can't take back," said Betty Witcher, an assistant professor of psychology at Peace College in Raleigh, North Carolina. "If you're yelling, that's going to have more of an effect than doing something nice," she told Reuters Health. The study, released here at a recent meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology,...

Jane Fonda and Ted Turner are reportedly rekindling the flame of romance that seemed to be have been snuffed out for good last year. The Oscar winning Klute actress and the powerful media mogul, who stayed friends following their split, have began dating again according to friends of the pair - who were married for ten years before their divorce last May. The billionaire founder of TV news channel CNN has now reportedly put aside his dislike of Fonda's stringent Christianity - despite once claiming the religion was "for losers" - and began dating the 64-year-old again during the summer....

SAUDI ARABIA MARRIAGE TO SAUDIS DISCLAIMER: THE INFORMATION IN THIS CIRCULAR RELATING TO THE LEGAL REQUIREMENTS OF SPECIFIC FOREIGN COUNTRIES IS PROVIDED FOR GENERAL INFORMATION ONLY. QUESTIONS INVOLVING INTERPRETATION OF SPECIFIC FOREIGN LAWS SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO FOREIGN COUNSEL. The following information has been prepared by our Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to assist American citizen women in understanding more fully the cultural and legal differences they may face if they are considering marrying a Saudi man. Our Foreign Service posts in Saudi Arabia estimate that approximately 500 American women reside in the Kingdom with their Saudi husbands. Our...

Here are words of comfort for those who have spent more time than they should in online chat rooms — a British psychologist has found that courtships begun in cyberspace can very well lead to true love. Many "virtual" relationships thrive once potential partners meet face-to-face because they already know each other so well through their online encounters, said Jeffrey Gavin, a lecturer in psychology at the University of Bath. "Chat rooms don't lead to shallow and impersonal relationships," Gavin said in an interview on Friday. "They lead to really close relationships because people express themselves more freely and are...

LONDON (Reuters Health) - Despite the public perception that cyberspace is a shallow and sometimes hostile environment, lovers who meet through Internet chat rooms may actually end up forming strong relationships, a researcher reported Friday at the British Psychological Society meeting in Blackpool. Once potential partners meet face-to-face, the relationship may thrive because they feel they already know each other well through their online encounters, said Dr Jeffrey Gavin, a lecturer in psychology at the University of Bath. Contrary to expectations, most chat room users don't totally mislead online partners about their looks and shape. Instead, they just tell a...