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A Proctor man driving a motorized La-Z-Boy lounge chair hit a parked vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. Dennis LeRoy Anderson, 62, pleaded guilty Monday in St. Louis County District Court to DWI in connection with the Aug. 31, 2008, incident in Proctor. There were no injuries. According to the criminal complaint, Anderson drove his motorized chair into a vehicle parked near a Proctor bar. Anderson told police he was traveling from the Keyboard Lounge after consuming approximately eight or nine beers. His blood-alcohol content was measured at 0.29 percent, more than three times the legal limit to drive.

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - For people who love chocolate and love travel, what could be better than a chocolate museum. The members and editors of VirtualTourist.com (http:\\www.virtualtourist.com) have compiled a list of the World's Top 10 Best Chocolate Museums. Reuters has not endorsed this list. 1. The Cologne Chocolate Museum; Cologne, Germany Located on the Rhine River, this futuristic building gives visitors three floors of chocolate history to ponder, but the real centre of attention here is the famous chocolate fountain. Museum staff dip waffles in the hot liquid for salivating guests. 2. Musee les Secrets du Chocolat; Geispolsheim, France...

A National Geographic archaeologist will present a program in Traverse City Oct. 28. Fredrik Hiebert is curator of a national touring exhibition, "Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum: Kabul." The 7 p.m. lecture is free with museum admission of $6 adults, $4 children and $20 for families. Hiebert has traced ancient trade routes overland and across the seas for more than 20 years. He has led excavations at ancient Silk Road sites from Egypt to Mongolia. His discoveries in Turkmenistan at a 4,000-year-old city along the Silk Road made headlines in 2001. His talk is in conjunction with the...

A massive dig along 22 kilometres of a new high-speed train route in Saxony-Anhalt has revealed a spectacular discovery of 55,000 artefacts -- among them skeletons that date back to the Bronze Age. The eastern German state's office of archaeology announced this week that Deutsche Bahn’s construction of a new Intercity-Express (ICE) train route between Erfurt and Leipzig has proven to be a bonanza for a team of 150 experts, who have been working since September 2008 to examine some 75 hectares across the Querfurt plate near Oechlitz. The fertile region between two valleys is known to have been settled...

Reader Zacarious has a brother-in-law incapable of finding just one car he likes so he suggested picking a car from his birth year. Now he's eying a 1969 Mustang Mach 1. What car from your birth year do you want? Being born in 1983, choices are limited but very interesting considering the daily driver is already from 1986. But if the clock is rewound three years then we end up with a Callaway Alfa Romeo GTV6. The Callaway-tuned twin turbo V6 pushed out 230 HP for a 0-to-60 MPH time of just 5.9 seconds, making it one of the quickest...

A FISHERMAN spent a nervous night perched in a mangrove tree as two crocodiles menaced him from below after his boat sank on a remote Kimberley river in Western Australia. Stan Martell told Wyndham police his boat dragged its anchor on Friday night and became wedged under a tree branch as he slept during a fishing trip ... The 7.2m craft was then swamped by the incoming tide ... two crocodiles surfaced near the sinking boat as he scrambled up the tree were he spent the night "sitting there like a Koala bear".

Retired doctor Bill Compton recently completed his seventh round-trip flight to the Hawaiian islands when he returned to Merrill Field in Anchorage on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2009. Compton was injured in a motorcycle accident eight years ago and he thought that was the end of his flying career. He now uses hand controls to operate the rudder and brakes of his 1966 Beechcraft Bonanza V35TC.

SYDNEY — One of Australia’s most popular tourist trains, The Ghan, derailed after hitting a cow in the Outback, train company officials said Monday. No passengers were hurt in the incident, which happened Sunday night near the small town of Kulgera in the Northern Territory, said Sophie Dent, spokeswoman for Great Southern Rail, which operates The Ghan. The train was on its 1,850-mile (2,979-kilometer) run between the Northern Territory capital of Darwin and the South Australia state capital of Adelaide when it slammed into the cow. The locomotive ran off the tracks, but there was no damage to the train,...

EDWARDS AFB - More than 100,000 people streamed into Edwards Air Force Base Saturday to join in a celebration of aviation and flight test history during Flight Test Nation 2009, the base's open house and air show. "WHAT A SIGHT - The Warbirds demonstration included pyrotechnics Saturday at Edwards Air Force Base Flight Test Nation 2009 Air Show and Open House. Participating planes included the B-52, B-17, P-51 and P-38." MOLLY HAUXWELL/Valley Press

Schoolgirl Jessica Watson, 16, Sets Sail Around The World In Search Of Solo Record By MAIL FOREIGN SERVICE 18th October 2009 [Pic in URL] A 16-year-old Australian steered her bright pink yacht out of Sydney Harbor on Sunday to start her bid to become the youngest person to sail solo and unassisted around the world. Jessica Watson's plan to make a 23,600-mile journey through some of the world's most treacherous waters sparked a debate in Australia about whether someone so young should be allowed to try such a potentially dangerous feat. Watson and her family insist she is an experienced...

McALLEN — With the forecast calling for another freezing cold night, Richard and Vickie Burton packed the car and fled south for the blistering heat of the Rio Grande Valley. After a chilly summer in Missouri and with fall quickly covering the Midwest in cold, the Burton family drove more than 16 hours last Saturday, joining hundreds of other Winter Texans who returned early to their winter homes. "(The snow) was coming down and they took flight just like we did," he said. "It’s probably ahead of time. They don’t get this kind of weather until sometime in November and...

I am amazed that our candidates for governor, our representatives and the public's general discussion of transportation in Hampton Roads don't include building a "Junnel" under the James River for high-speed rail and commuting. Such would tie Southside to the Peninsula, Richmond, Washington, New York and points south and west together. As regards to the environment, it makes loads of sense and is something from which all concerns would benefit.

In December, travelers will be able to board a $1.4 billion ship five years in the making. After five years of planning and construction, Royal Caribbean is unveiling the Oasis of the Seas, a $1.4 billion ship that will be the largest and tallest cruise liner in the world when it takes its maiden voyage this December. At 1,184 feet from stem to stern, it's nearly as long as the Empire State building is tall--while rivaling the amenities of any world-class Las Vegas resort. A crew of roughly 2,160 will man 18 decks and tend to 5,400 passengers (assuming two...

Amazing Video of Baby in Stroller Falling Onto Tracks of Oncoming Train http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNEAgHLgecU

The homemade balloon contraption that soared through the air in eastern Colorado for several hours is vastly different from the giant hot air balloons that are seen at festivals and that are used for recreational purposes, experts say. Nearly all the giant balloons that drift and bob through the air are hot air balloons that are filled with air and fueled by propane, explains Howard Freeman, executive producer of the Quick Chek New jersey Festival of Ballooning in Reddington, New Jersey. As the air inside the balloon heats up to a temperature higher than the outside air, the balloon rises,...

The man who invented the foldaway Brompton bicycle has been honoured by the Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace for his lifelong obsession. Andrew Ritchie invented the diminutive bike in 1979 and has been tweaking the design ever since. After collecting the Prince Philip Designers Prize, Mr Ritchie said he was not finished yet and was still thinking about how to make the bike lighter. The portable bike folds down to barely bigger than its 16 inch (35cm) wheels. In a brief speech Mr Ritchie thanked some of his early financial backers, who had each invested £100 in the scheme....

The other day, deep in Rego Park, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens, Stanley Moscowitz and Walter Israel sat down at a Formica table for lunch at Ben's Best Kosher Deli on Queens Boulevard. Moscowitz, who's 53 and grew up in nearby Forest Hills, ordered first: matzo ball, tip of the tongue, roast beef, rye, Russian, onions and Dr. Brown's diet cherry drink. Israel ordered pastrami on rye bread. His son Jason ordered pastrami on white. In his defense, Jason did not ask for mayonnaise, but the combination of pastrami and white bread enjoys a certain...

Testosterone is what drives men's desire to own fast cars, according to a study published in the journal Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes. Researchers at Concordia University's John Molson School of Business in Montreal took 39 willing young men and let them take a cruise in a $150,000 Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet. The men were then asked to drive a 16-year-old Toyota Camry. They drove each vehicle once on a busy street where they would be seen by women, and then again on a quiet road. After one hour, the men's saliva was tested for testosterone. The researchers found...

Barack Obama’s dad was such an important but absent figure in his life that he devoted his first book, “Dreams From My Father,” to the search for details about his father’s life and how the quest helped forge a son’s identity. Now, a long-forgotten essay written 43 years ago by Obama’s father has surfaced, and its contents reveal much — not only about the senior Obama’s grasp of economic theory but also about the iconoclastic politics that, his son would later write, sent him into the spiral of career disappointment that concluded with his death in 1982 in his native...

The first fossil of the raven-size species was an immediate sensation when it was excavated in 1860, in southern Germany. It had feathers and a wishbone, like birds, but teeth and a long, bony tail, like reptiles. Coming the year after publication of "The Origin of Species," the discovery swayed many scientists into accepting Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Thomas Henry Huxley, Darwin's staunch ally, recognized the fossil in a limestone slab as a transitional species between dinosaurs and birds. Over time, the 10 known specimens of Archaeopteryx became widely regarded as examples of the earliest bird, which...

Let's start with the title of your book — what is a Whitopia, exactly? It's more than just a place where a lot of white people happen to live. Absolutely. A Whitopia has three things. First, it has posted more 6% population growth since 2000. The second thing is that the majority of that growth — upwards of 90% — comes from white migrants. The third thing a Whitopia has is an ineffable social charm — a pleasant look and feel. You say many Whitopias offer a high quality of life, and tend to perform well on those "Best Places...

I'd like to know have a good discussion on the differences of Eastern mentalities and by contrast, Western mentalities. Stuff like family values, politics, cultural preferences, justice systems, etc.

PASSENGERS who have poor personal hygiene or kick seats have been voted the most disliked flyers in a new survey. A wide variety of annoying travel behaviour was detailed in US travel company Travelocity’s 2009 Rudeness Poll, which surveyed 1600 passengers on their pet peeves.The annoyances varied between the time of boarding the plane, during the flight and when departing. When boarding those surveyed were most annoyed by passengers who wrested with larger than allowed carry-on luggage. This was followed by people who crowded the boarding line, blocked the isle, stored their luggage carelessly or used overhead bins for small...

From the North Lake Beach parking area in the Catskill Forest Preserve, a narrow foot trail climbs a rocky incline. After following the trail for about 20 minutes, hikers reach Artists Rock, which gives a sweeping view of the Hudson Valley, the river a sliver of silver in the distance. The trail then leaves the ledge and in less than a half mile it meets a junction with a side trail toward Sunset Rock, the prized view from atop North Mountain that by the late 19th century had become an iconic view of the northern Catskills, celebrated in the work...

I Snapped this picture today in a very small town near my own in north central Oklahoma. The sales pitch is simply brilliant, and I just had to share. Please caption, comment, photoshop, or come up with your own funny "You know Your a Redneck when..." line.

Looking for romance? Head to Honolulu. But if you are single, like live music, boutique hotels and want a wild weekend, New Orleans is the city to visit. In its latest survey of America's favorite cities Travel and Leisure magazine asked readers to pick the best places for everything from the most attractive, intelligent, stylish and the friendliest people to where to find the best museums, restaurants, bars, museums and affordable hotels. "The big news this year is that New Orleans received the most number one rankings over New York," said Travel and Leisure Assistant Editor Stirling Kelso. ...The city...

...The original White House memo and not surprisingly the Task Force report contains multiple references to developing a national policy where Great Lakes and coastal regions are managed, “consistent with international law, including customary international law as reflected in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea” - a 300-page treaty the U.S. has never ratified...

A video popped up on YouTube Thursday morning that is sure to get attention. It shows a nasty verbal fight between two women on board a Muni bus. After exchanging profanity-laced verbal insults, the fight turned physical. While male passengers stood and watched, women stepped up to break up the fight. One young woman put her body between the two ordering them to stop. The fight moved down the aisle as the two women struggled to claw and kick each other. It was unclear when the fight happened, but the video was uploaded to YouTube on Thursday. The person who...

A New Mexico woman kicked off an airplane at the Burlington International Airport three years ago for breast feeding her baby is suing Delta Air Lines. The Burlington Free Press says negotiations failed to reach a settlement between the Atlanta-based airline and Emily Gillette. On Wednesday Gillette filed suit in U.S. District Court in Burlington. Gillette was ordered off a Delta Connections plane by a flight attendant after twice refusing an order to cover up while she breast fed her baby prior to takeoff. Gillette's lawsuit says she felt "shame and embarrassed" after being ordered off the plane. Delta refused...

Cheddar Gorge I heard about this place recently in a news article about a bicyclist that survived falling 80 feet off the Cheddar cliffs. I guess I had heard about it several years ago when they found "Cheddar Man" and genetically connected him to a local resident. I didn't realize it was an English scenic landmark. There are also some small caves, which is where "Cheddar Man" was found. For a satellite view, can't beat Google Maps. British teacher finds long-lost relative: 9,000-year-old man" click for larger click for larger click for larger Aerial More about Cheddar (the village, and...

Researchers from Imperial College London believe that when species become asexual they could be on their way to extinction... P. marneffei is a fungus which causes disease in people with damaged immune systems, such as HIV/AIDS patients, and it is only found in parts of south-east Asia... Dr Bill Hanage, one of the paper's authors, from Imperial College London, adds: "By being asexual, P. marneffei is not only limiting its ability to adapt, it may be at risk of becoming extinct. If it is unable to adapt to new environments, it will be unable to adapt to changes in its...

Tiny organisms that covered the planet more than 250 million years ago appear to be a species of ancient fungus that thrived in dead wood, according to new research published October 1 in the journal Geology. The researchers behind the study, from Imperial College London and other universities in the UK, USA and The Netherlands, believe that the organisms were able to thrive during this period because the world's forests had been wiped out. This would explain how the organisms, which are known as Reduviasporonites, were able to proliferate across the planet... By analysing the carbon and nitrogen content of...

...they describe a new technology called Hi-C and apply it to answer the thorny question of how each of our cells stows some three billion base pairs of DNA while maintaining access to functionally crucial segments... says co-first author Erez Lieberman-Aiden... "But if the double helix didn't fold further, the genome in each cell would be two meters long. Scientists have not really understood how the double helix folds to fit into the nucleus of a human cell, which is only about a hundredth of a millimeter in diameter. This new approach enabled us to probe exactly that question."...

Video of Engine Test Using traditional chemical rockets, a trip to Mars – at quickest — lasts 6 months. But a new rocket tested successfully last week could potentially cut down travel time to the Red Planet to just 39 days. The Ad Astra Rocket Company tested a plasma rocket called the VASIMR VX-200 engine, which ran at 201 kilowatts in a vacuum chamber, passing the 200-kilowatt mark for the first time. "It's the most powerful plasma rocket in the world right now," says Franklin Chang-Diaz, former NASA astronaut and CEO of Ad Astra. The company has also signed...

An Army aircraft made a gear-up landing on an Elmendorf airstrip Tuesday, though no injuries were reported. The Cessna Citation-560 aircraft was scheduled to land on the main strip and radioed ahead it was having mechanical problems with its gear, Air Force spokesman Master Sgt. Mikal Canfield said.

A passenger falls out of a hot air balloon at the annual Balloon Fiesta

ABERDEEN, Wash. - A man walking from Texas to his hometown in Washington state has had a cross to bear for months. James Strickland says he's been dragging a 12-foot cross from Longview, Texas, to his Aberdeen home since May. The 39-year-old says he was praying about his troubled past when he received a message to start walking on a journey of renewal. He took along the cross, which rolls on wheels with his belongings tied near the bottom.....

A tractor-trailer loaded with canned beans was struck by a southbound Norfolk Southern freight train at the Coile Street railroad crossing off Snapps Ferry Road about 6:45 a.m. this morning. No injuries were reported as a result of the collision. GPD Officer Jeff Craft said at the scene this morning that Bobby Coffey, the driver of the Swift Transportation tractor-trailer, told police he had been attempting to enter the lot of the So-Pak-Co plant when he encountered a closed gate and came to a stop. The rear of the trailer was on the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks, police said. As...

BMW's oddball C1 disappeared from the company's motorcycle portfolio seven years ago, but as part of a renewed push for eco-friendly vehicles, an electric-powered version of the “city-scooter” may be offered to consumers. BMW Motorrad is presently showing off its new C1 E concept, which is, more or less, an electric version of the original C1. Although the styling differs from the original production model, the C1 E still retains the famed safety cage, which provides the rider with rollover protection (some European countries allowed C1 riders to forgo helmets) and a four-point seatbelt. While the original C1 used 125cc...

Did somebody say lunch?             By RICHARD MORIARTY Published: Today     THIS hungry polar bear didn't need a second invitation to pop in for lunch after smelling it being prepared on a tourist ship in the Arctic. The beast stuck its head through the porthole after smelling cauliflower soup being heated up as the boat stopped at an ice flow close to the island of Svalbard, midway between Norway and the North Pole.   Close encounter ... tourists get a rare close-up with a polar bear  Luckily wildlife photographer Andy Rouse was one of 12...

SNIPPET: "That's right. The ubiquitous blue stickers with the round, red-white-and blue symbol are coming off the bumpers. Even in northern Virginia, which has large pockets of yellow dog Democrats, the stickers are disappearing." SNIPPET: "As Obama sinks in the polls, the absence of triumphal stickers is becoming glaringly obvious." SNIPPET: "America is taking Mr. Obama's measure and reassessing rapidly. From initiating a gusher of spending, appointing a gaggle of radicals, glad-handing America's enemies and targeting our own security personnel, the president has alienated one constituency after another. Pretty soon all he will have left will be the pansexual, Star...

Every now and then, you stumble upon a town that's gotten everything right—great coffee, food with character, shop owners with purpose. These 10 spots have it all, in perfectly small doses.

[snip] Leonard Knight has spent 14 years sculpting and painting Salvation Mountain in the California desert near Niland, in Imperial County, east of the Salton Sea, 200 miles from Los Angeles. The mountain is about as tall as a three-story building and as wide as a football field. It is covered with adobe and layer after layer of paint. County supervisors once labeled Salvation Mountain a “toxic nightmare” and tried to bulldoze it down. But supporters of the site rallied by sending letters and petitions. Knight himself had a set of soil tests made proving that no dangerous levels of...

A forum user in from the Something Awful forums posted his personal experiences with Canadian health care in a thread that has reached over fifty-one pages of various discussion of the pros and cons of a nationalized health care system, with personal health care stories from around the world. An interesting read to be sure, especially to those wondering what kind of health care other countries have access to. Also, a little aside here, but SA does charge $10 for forum posting privileges, however, you can read the forum without paying anything.

I had just 24 hours to prepare for my trip to Africa. We had been reporting on the killing of Tanzanians with albinism, a genetic condition characterized by a lack of pigment in people's eyes, skin and hair, as part of an ABC News hour special. In Tanzania, there has been a grotesque rash of albino killings: 54 people have been murdered since 2007, though observers say more incidences go unreported. Renegade witch doctors have convinced locals that there are magical properties in the blood, bones and skin of people with albinism, which has created a sickening black market where...

A 5,000-year-old Venus figure and a seal have been found in an excavation. A 5,000-year-old Venus figure has been found as part of an excavation being carried out in Çanakkale's Ezine district. The excavation began in the field three weeks ago in cooperation with Germany's University of Tübingen. Assistant Professor Rüstem Aslan, who is vice head of the excavation, told the Anatolia news agency that the aim of the dig is to find settlements outside Troy from the Bronze Age. Some interesting findings have been unearthed during the excavation, Aslan said. "We found a 5,000-year-old Venus figure, which used to...

Funny thing about this one; I was trying to use the newly flawed Panoramio to find a interesting picture of the geology of Kazakhstan (for fun). Well, it turns out the Kazakhstan looks a lot like Kansas. But when I used Kazakhstan as a keyword in Panoramio, I found this. It's in Pakistan, end of the Karakoram Range. Ultar Realize that Panoramio is a branch of Google; this does not say much for the accuracy of their search function. But it's a very impressive peak. A killer of climbers too, from the background information I read. Click the first and...

It's 2 a.m. and the hours of sustained drinking are taking their toll. Smashed glass and plastic cups litter the streets, trash cans overflow with empty beer cans, and girls in high heels and short skirts totter unsteadily out of rowdy pubs. But this is not London or New York. It's Rome. Italians have long been regarded as a model of Mediterranean restraint when it comes to alcohol consumption. But all that is changing, for a complex mix of reasons. Italian parents, struggling in the country's worst recession since World War II, are working longer hours and have less time...

With NASA Administrator Charles Bolden taking tentative steps toward more free market possibilities for America’s space program—and even mentioning the once-unspeakable topic of “space tourism”—a clown from Canada is already orbiting the Earth. An Associated Press story entitled “Canadian circus billionaire heads to space station” notes that "a Canadian circus tycoon, an American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut blasted off in a spacecraft from the Kazakh steppe Wednesday on a journey to the International Space Station." The AP account continues: A Canadian circus tycoon, an American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut blasted off in a spacecraft from the Kazakh steppe...

A U.S. tourist got more then he bargained for when he was attacked by a crocodile while attempting to answer the call of nature in the Mexican resort of Cancun this week. According to Mexican police 20-year-old Andrew Dales, from Dallas in Texas, confessed that he had been on a mission to relieve himself at the edge of the local Nicupté lagoon , in the popular tourist resort of Cancun, when the crocodile suddenly snapped at him. He suffered ‘multiple bite wounds’ to his leg and neck and was also left with a head injury after the reptile knocked him...