what the ?

"New York (CNNMoney)-Consumers can expect retail gas prices to rise to $4 a gallon soon but whether they will stay there depends on the long-term damage to oil facilities from Hurricane Katrina, oil and gas analysts said Wednesday."

"The Greek tourism minister is to hold emergency talks on the holiday island of Zakynthos on Monday amid outrage at the behaviour of British tourists.

Photographs in the Greek and UK press have shown young drunken Britons having sex in
bars and other public places.

The island's MP, Dimitrios Varvarigos, has called for tourists committing acts of gross indecency to be put on trial and jailed for up to three years.

Those who have gone home should be sent back to Greece for trial, he says.

Bad reputation

The photos splashed across papers last week were taken in the resort of Laganas on
the island's south coast, which used to be better known as a nocturnal breeding ground for loggerhead turtles.

But, over the past two years, it has become a favoured destination for British teenagers in search of sun, sand and cheap alcohol.

The town has seen behaviour including drunken orgies, vomiting in the streets and frequent fights. Police have closed down several of the most notorious nightclubs.

...
The town's deputy mayor, Stavros Papadatos, blamed holiday reps and the Greek proprietors of hundreds of bars and clubs in Laganas for encouraging drunkenness.

'Every night each one of them must make around 1,000 euros (700 pounds) organising pub crawls. It's on those crawls that young British girls and boys appear to lose their minds,' he said according to a report in the Guardian."

"Akron, Ohio Aug 25, 2005- A postal worker has been charged with putting urine in the coffee of co-workers who set up a video camera in their break room after they became suspicious, authorities said.

Thomas Shaheen, 49, of surburban Sprinfield Township, who works as a vehicle mechanic for the U.S. Postal Service was charged Aug.5 with two misdemeanor counts of adulteration of food or placing harmful objects in food.

He was ordered to appear in Akron Municipal Court on Monday.

Prosecutors said workers believed Shaheen poured urine into a coffee pot in a break room on July 5 and again July 6. Suspecting a problem, workers started their own investigation.

'Employees did put a video camera in, and that's how they were able to put a stop to what he was doing,' Akron Prosecutor Douglas Powley said.

Powley said Shaheen was unhappy at work but the prosecutor declined to get into any further details.

None of Shaheen's co-workers was physically harmed.

Shaheen could not be reached for comment. Repeated calls to his home went unanswered Thurdsay. A message was left for his attorney, Paul F. Adamson.

Shaheen has been a postal employee for 11 years, said David Van Allen, a postal service spokesman."

"CNN-Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson has called for the United States to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, calling him 'a terrific danger' bent on exporting Communism and Islamic extremism across the Americas."

Mr. Robertson forgets that passage in Scripture which says "Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you."

Communism will fall of its own weight. It already did in Russia. Extremism in Islam will also fall of its own hatred.

"Aug. 18 2005-The exhibition at Tampa's Museum of Science and Industry is designed to offer a graphic, incredibly detailed look at the inner workings of our bodies. But attempts are under way to shut it down, because it features actual human corpses.

'Bodies the Exhibition' is one of several educational touring displays that aim to teach the public about health and the body by showing actual human body parts preserved through a recently developed process known as plastinization.

The exhibit opened today, despite a move from the Florida State Anatomical Board which voted 4-2 to stop the show out of concerns that the people never gave permission for their remains to be displayed. According to the Anatomical Board, such authorization is required by Florida law. The Tampa exhibit uses unclaimed and unidentified cadavers from China.

'I just personally don't think that's an appropriate use of dead human bodies,' said one board member, Phillip Waggoner.

'Their decision is an opinion. There is no law that we understand that governs what it is that we're doing,' said Dr. Roy Glover spokesman for Premiere Exhibitions, which organized the show."

Dr. Glover, how about we put your remains on exhibit after you die?

It shows incredibly bad taste and disrespect for the dead.
But then again, that's only one person's opinion.

"Los Angeles-Park visitors have gone from feeding ducks and fish to nourishing a scaly green creature more likely found in Amazonian swamps than in a Los Angeles lake-a giant crocodile-like caiman.

Since a gardener spotted it last Friday, people have tried to glimpse the 200 pound reptile wading and sunbathing at Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park.

Like many Angelenos, the animal is an immigrant who is quickly adopting (sic) to its new home. It has already acquired, for example, a nickname matching its Latin American roots and its penchant for tortillas tossed by visitors: Carlito.

'They'll swallow anything, and if they can't swallow it, they'll tear pieces until they can eat it,' said Jarron Lucas of the Southwestern Herpetologist Society.

Lucas' group, at the request of park rangers, is attempting to capture the animal with nets and a raw chicken, then give it a home at the Los Angeles Zoo. That could take a month, officials say.

Cousins to the crocodile, caimans are mostly found in Central and South America. Experts believe this one, estimated to be as long as 8 feet, was released by its owner.

'They pick up this little reptile that looks really cute when its little. But when it gets big and starts looking and acting scary, they don't want it any more,' Lucas said"

"LONDON (Reuters)-UK police said Monday they were searching for a man wearing just a diaper, who approaches women late at night and asks: 'Are there any baby changing facilities around here?'

Cleveland police in northeast England said the latest incident occurred around 11p.m. Sunday when he surprised a women (sic) walking her dog in a play area in Eaglescliffe, near Middlesbrough.

Police said no one had been assaulted by the man but described his behavior as bizarre and a cause for concern.

'There have been several reports of him having been seen in Eaglescliffe dressed only in a nappy and we are keen to trace him and speak to him,' police said."

"PANAMA CITY, Florida- A man who got angry with his wife because she wanted to cuddle after sex when what he really wanted to do was watch sports on television was sentenced to death for killing her with a claw hammer.

Christopher Offord, 30, was sentenced Wednesday by Circuit Judge Dedee Costello, who said the brutality of the crime outweighed any mental problems Offord may have had.

'The defendant struck his wife approximately 70 individual blows after spending a happy interlude with her,' the judge said. 'Her desire to cuddle after sex does not justify the extremely violent, brutal response of the defendant.'

Offord pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the 2004 slaying of Dana Noser, 40, at his apartment.

He confessed to a bartender at a sports bar before his arrest. He told investigators that his wife had been nagging him to come back to bed.

Offord did not speak in court but said in a jailhouse interview in June: 'I figured I killed her so I deserve to die.' "

"WASHINGTON (REUTERS)- A civil liberties board ordered by the US Congress last year has never met to discuss its job of protecting rights in the fight against terrorism, and critics say it is a toothless, underfunded shell with inadequate support from President Bush.

Lawmakers including some Republicans, civil rights advocates, a member of the Sept. 11 Commission and a member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board have expressed concerns.

Lanny Davis, the only prominent liberal among the five people Bush nominated after a six month delay, said he had not received a call from anyone related to the board since it was formally announced in June. Davis said he could not comment on specifics because the members had not yet met.

All four other panel members declined to comment.

The inactivity comes at a time when Congress is nearing reauthorization of several provisions of the Patriot Act, a controversial law that gave the government new powers to go after suspected terrorists.

Asked why it was taking so long to set the board up, Connecticut Republican Rep. Christopher Shays charged, 'It's not a priority for the administration.'

The intelligence reform law of December 2004 called for the oversight board in response to a recommendation from the Sept. 11 Commission which feared increased governmental powers needed to fight terrorism could erode civil liberties.

Top White House officials have said the board would address those concerns, and get the resources needed to do the job.

But almost eight months after its inception, the critics say the panel still only exists on paper, and lacks the money, power and presidential backing to ensure the entire government respects Americans' rights..."

From Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post Staff Writer-

"GOP leaders this week sent House Republicans home for the summer with some political tips, helpfully laid out in 12 'Ideas for August Recess Events'. Drop by a military reserve center to highlight increased benefits, the talking points suggest. Visit a bridge or highway that will receive additional funding, or talk up the new prescription drug benefit for seniors.

Having skirted budget restraints and approved nearly $300 billion in new spending and tax breaks before leaving town, Republican lawmakers are now determined to claim full credit for the congressional spending. Far from shying away from their accomplishments, lawmakers are embracing the pork, including graffiti eradication in the Bronx, $277 million in road projects for Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill) and a $200,000 deer avoidance system in New York.

When the year started, President Bush made spending restraint a mantra, laying out an austere budget that would freeze non-security discretionary spending for five years and setting firm cost limits on transportation and energy bills. But now, as Congress fills in the details of the budget plan, there is little interest in making deep cuts and enormous pressure to spend.

Lawmakers have seen little to fear from a political backlash, some acknowledge, and Bush has yet to wield his veto pen. In fact, the White House has proved itself largely unable to overcome the institutional forces that have long driven lawmakers to ply their parochial interests with cash.

When lawmakers return in the fall, they are almost certain to vote for more tax cuts. They also will vote on a huge new defense spending bill. But proposals for cutting entitlement programs including Medicaid have yet to pick up much support.

'If you look at fiscal conservatism these days, it's in a sorry state,' said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz), one of only eight House members to vote against the $286.5 billion transportation bill that was passed the day before the recess. 'Republicans don't even pretend anymore.'..."

Well, it doesn't even sound like feeding at the public trough. It sounds a lot like looting and plundering...