NASA-funded scientists are experimenting with miniature magnetospheres as an innovative means of space transportation. If the group succeeds, next-generation spacecraft may come equipped with fuel-efficient magnetic bubbles that speed their occupants from planet to planet and ward off the worst solar flares. From NASA science news.

"If a million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."
--- Anatole France

My daughter, "Chaos," is the lastest to join the small army of folks who forward weird e-things to me -- jokes, good luck potions, the story about the guy who woke up in a bathtub of ice with his liver missing, etc. She then sent a letter saying that something she sent prior contained a worm virus, and that I should be careful about downloading things people send to me. This she followed with an e-mail with the subject "Danger: Fart Joke," which I immediately deleted.

Nietzsche's Styles
In an essay commemorating the 100th anniversary of Friedrich Nietzsche's death, cultural critic Mark Kingwell considers the German philosopher's legacy - an exploration of why he still speaks to us today. From Britannica.com

E-friend Jag of Cd'A sent me this awesome picture with a note saying it was taken in the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana by fire behavior analyst John McColgan.

"If we make peaceful revolution impossible, we make violent revolution inevitable."
--- John F. Kennedy

Thousands sign up to sell their vote
The Austrian owner of Voteauction.com boasts of more than 6,000 Americans who have signed up to auction off their presidential votes to the highest bidder -- illegal activity under the laws of every state in the union -- Voteauction.com is now detailing its plans to begin an outreach campaign. From Wired.

Milosevic is lucky he didn't get Ceausescued.

The sacred elements of a walk.
What's a flâneur? Webster defines it simply as 'an idle man-about-town,' one of those fin de siècle dandies who ambled through the crowds of European cities in search of bustle, gossip, and beauty. Flâneur seeks to scrutinize the city, to evoke the essence of the street. And to encourage flaneurial behavior, whether detached observation or decadent gadding about. It's not just a matter of loafing about, so much as it is a way of observing the world around us.

How blurred can an image be and still be recognizable? From NewScientist.

"All truth passes through three stages: first, it is ridiculed; next it is violently attacked; finally, it is held to be self-evident."
--- Schopenhauer

Viagra in Thailand
Known well in the sex tourism circuit, Thailand's sex workers are upping the ante by offering the wonder drug Viagra to keep business flowing on the streets of Pattaya, now "a sexual Disneyland": the frantic nights of male tourists dancing, popping arousing pills and finding a "lady," and the lows of mornings after, not only of depression, but often leading to dangerous recourses. From Troika Magazine.

Police in China's eastern province of Jiangsu found a novel way to fill their pockets with cash: They opened a brothel, then arrested the customers and "fined" them.

It's Poker Night with Larry Flynt!
Dinner with wheelchair-bound king pornographer Larry Flynt and his cohorts at Flynt's three-month-old, $35 million Hustler casino in Gardena, California, is bound to be lively. Here's all of the gory details from The New York Observer.

"The real evil...was their acceptance of the principle that the end justifies the means. This is how most human beings...are introduced to evil. They are not pushed into evil by a strong desire to do wicked things, but by people who persuade them that evil is necessary to achieve some greater good, and that the good justifies the evil."
---Alan Keyes

"Cocaine Has Never Been an Added Ingredient in Coca-Cola....Have a nice day."

The Egyptians first invented toothpaste, some 5,000 years ago. It was a crude mixture of wine and pumice. From the early Roman Empire until 18th-century Europe and America, urine was a main ingredient in toothpaste, because the ammonia in it is an excellent cleaner.

The Liquor from Luzhou and the Secret of the Earth Cellar
Ever considered brewing your own alcohol? Take an historical journey through centuries of brewing strong alcohol in China. From Art Bin.

"The illusion of freedom (in America) will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater."
--- Frank Zappa

KHQ's Penny Daniels tells us to turn down the sound on our television if we don't want to hear the Olympic results. She reads the results. Then she says that now we can turn the sound up.

Well now: The Dr. Seuss book "Yertle the Turtle" was based on Adolf Hitler, while "Marvin K. Mooney, Will You Please Go Away Now?" featured a character that is constantly asked to go away. The character was based on ex-president Richard M. Nixon.

On August 16, 1960, a US Air Force balloonist named Joseph Kittinger ascended in an open-gondola balloon to a record-setting altitude of 102,800 feet. Wearing a pressure suit and a parachute, he stepped out of the balloon into very thin air. Kittinger free-fell for four minutes and 37 seconds. With almost no air resistance at that altitude, his vertical speed reached almost 600 mph. He landed safely, having set records for highest open-gondola balloon flight, longest free-fall, fastest free-fall, and longest parachute descent.

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge."
--- Daniel J Boorstin

The CIA's Refusal to Declassify the Covert Record on Chile
Despite repeated requests from both Congress and the Clinton administration, the CIA continues to block the release of documents detailing its supporting role in the right-wing dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

The Independent Presidential Candidates
In addition to presidential candidates from 11 different third parties, 83 independent hopefuls' names will appear on ballots for president across the country in November. Politics1.com has a complete list, including humorist Dave Barry and David Broida (Maryland), whose campaign website declares: "I am not a crook, yet."

Is Joe Lieberman's emphasis on religion bad for America?
Vice Presidential nominee Joe Lieberman's recent statements calling for a religious renewal of America touched off a fiery debate over the separation of church and state. The Anti-Defamation League, which monitors anti-semitism, has even called on the candidate to quit his sermonizing and focus on real issues. The American Prospect has pulled together a roundtable of leading thinkers to examine the role of religion in society.

"When I was born, I was so surprised, I couldn't talk for a year and a half!"
--- Gracie Allen

During a visit to Orange, Calif., George W. Bush was asked about an article in Vanity Fair magazine that proposes a cause for his frequent lapses of grammar: dyslexia. Bush laughed off that theory and did so by pointing out how little contact he had with the writer of the Vanity Fair article. 'The woman who knew that I had dyslexia -- I never interviewed her," Bush said. He did not appear to be making what would have been a clever joke."

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
--- Thomas Edison