I is Stewpid

stu·pid [stoo-pid, styoo-] –adjective
1. lacking ordinary quickness and keenness of mind; dull.
2. characterized by or proceeding from mental dullness; foolish; senseless: a stupid question.

Stupidity is of course right up our alley; and, as they say, "It takes one to know one." Hence:

1. Anna, here's a tip: go back and finish the 6th grade.

(Photo by py0tr3).

2. Why?

(Photo by aperrypic).

3. Next to Bewar of Dog.

(Photo by espelina).

4. Monorail? Memorial? Memorail? Regardless, someone's train left the station a long time ago.

(Photo by Stephan Segraves).

5. Seek help.

(Photo by archigeek).

6. We can't spell either but, come on, that sign's been around for more than just a few days.

(Photo by Donna B. Cooper).

7. Spelling phonetically I get but bi-hide? Sounds like something Anne Heche might call her favorite leather jacket.

(Photo by heathercore).

8. Bad customer! Bad customer!

(Photo by juliebee).

9. Out of a garbage can is where I prefer to shop for shellfish.

(Photo by Adam Melancon).

10. So clowes but yet so far.

(Photo by mickaul).

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Men Create More Housework for Women

Men are pitching in more with housework than they did in the 1970s. Credit: University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research.

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Men are pitching in more with housework than they did in the 1970s. Credit: University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research.

For men, marriage can save them an hour of housework. Credit: University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research.

Having a husband creates an extra seven hours of housework each week for women, according to a new study. For men, tying the knot saves an hour of weekly chores.

"It's a well-known pattern," said lead researcher Frank Stafford, an economist at University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. "Men tend to work more outside the home, while women take on more of the household labor."

He points out individual differences among households exist. But in general, marriage means more housework for women and less for men. "And the situation gets worse for women when they have children," Stafford said.

Overall, times are a' changing in the American home. In 1976, women busied themselves with 26 weekly hours of sweeping-and-dusting work, compared with 17 hours in 2005. Men are pitching in more, more than doubling their housework hours from six in 1976 to 13 in 2005.

Stafford analyzed time-diaries and questionnaires from a nationally representative sample of men and women over a 10-year period between 1996 and 2005. The federally-funded study showed that, compared with the single life, marriage meant more housework for both men and women.

"Marriage is no longer a man's path to less housework," Stafford said.

Single women in their 20s and 30s did the least housework, about 12 weekly hours, while married women in their 60s and 70s did the most — about 21 hours a week.

Men showed a somewhat different pattern, with older men picking up the broom more often than younger men. Single guys worked the hardest around the house, trumping all age groups of married men.

Having kids boosts house chores even further. With more than three kids, for instance, wives took on more of the extra work, clocking about 28 hours a week compared with husbands' 10 hours.

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High School Boys Offered Scholarships to Line Up Girls for Sex With NJ Dad

"I have no doubt that this is not the first time that this felon has committed, perpetrated these crimes."

Male monkeys prefer boys' toys

t's thought of as a sexual stereotype: boys tend to play with toy cars and diggers, while girls like dolls. But male monkeys, suggests research, are no different (see a related video report).

This could mean that males, whether human or monkey, have a biological predisposition to certain toys, says Kim Wallen, a psychologist at Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

Wallen's team looked at 11 male and 23 female rhesus monkeys. In general the males preferred to play with wheeled toys, such as dumper trucks, over plush dolls, while female monkeys played with both kinds of toys.

This conclusion may upset those psychologists who insist that sex differences – for example the tendency of boys to favour toy soldiers and girls to prefer dolls – depend on social factors, not innate differences.

Guys and dolls

"A five-year-old boy whose compatriots discover has a collection of Barbies is likely to take a lot of flak," Wallen says.

Social factors undoubtedly influence children's preferences, he says, but in general boys tend to be pickier with toys than girls.

To try and tease out the effects of nature over those of nurture, Wallen and his colleagues studied a group of captive rhesus monkeys. His team reasoned that the choices of the monkeys wouldn't be determined by social pressures. Most of the study animals were juvenile (age one to four years), but some sub-adult and adult monkeys were included.

"They are not subject to advertising. They are not subject to parental encouragement, they are not subject to peer chastisement," Wallen says.

Monkey fun

Wallen's team offered the monkeys two categories of toys: "wheeled" and "plush". The wheeled toys, intended to be masculine, included wagons and vehicles. The more feminine plush toys included Winnie the Pooh and Raggedy-Ann dolls.

Two toys, one wheeled and one plush, were placed 10 metres apart. At first the monkeys formed a circle around a toy, but eventually one would snatch the toy and run off. Other monkeys soon joined in the fun, Wallen says.

The researchers captured play sessions on video and measured how long each monkey spent with plush versus wheeled toys. The team found that the males spent more time playing with wheeled toys, while the females played with both plush and wheeled toys equally.

'Compelling results'

Wallen cautions against over-interpreting the results. The plush and wheeled categories served as proxies for feminine and masculine, but other toy characteristics, such as size or colour, might explain the male's behaviour, he says. Or the male monkeys might seek out more physically active toys, he says.

But the study ties in with a previous experiment with green vervet monkeys showing that males favour masculine toys.

"Together the results are compelling," says Gerianne Alexander, a psychologist at Texas A&M University in College Station, who led the vervet monkey study.

She thinks that biological differences between sexes start the ball rolling toward learned preferences for play toys.

"There is likely to be a biological tendency that is amplified by society," she says.

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Man Dies Trying to Extract Gold From Computer Parts

Following the old adage, "There's gold in them thar computer parts," a man was poisoned a couple of weeks ago while trying to use mercury to extract gold from ... his computer parts. On Saturday, the man -- Tulsa resident Tony Winnett -- died. In the end, he lleft his home so contaminated that it cannot be lived in.

What was he thinking? Well, mercury chemically reacts with gold and causes it to separate, according to Durant/Bryan County Emergency Management Director James Dalton. Authorities believe that Winnett, along with his partner Melissa Lake, heated the mercury in an attempt to separate the gold and accidentally inhaled it.

Which should serve as a lesson to all you budding engineers: Learn your chemistry before taking apart your computer.

Atomically speaking, that is.

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The answer was there all along

In his TEDTalk released today, physicist Stephen Hawking asks Big Questions about life, the universe and everything. His talk was recorded at Cambridge, in a borrowed classroom -- whose well-used blackboard happens to contain the Answer to life, the universe and everything. It's visible in the upper-right-hand corner of the shot above, and in this inset:



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Monkey Vs Dog....you know who wins!!!!!

Mich. man wins $136M jackpo

Enlarge	By Al Goldis, Ap
Winner of the $136 million Mega Millions jackpot David Sneath of Livonia, Mich. smiles April 3 at Michigan Lottery headquarters in Lansing, Mich. Sneath won the lottery on his 60th birthday.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — David Sneath has worked at a Ford Motor Co. parts warehouse for 34 years, but it didn't take him any time at all to walk out once he discovered he had won a $136 million Mega Millions jackpot.

"I yelled to the boss, 'I'm out of here,"' Sneath said Thursday after going to state lottery headquarters in downtown Lansing to pick up his first $1 million check.

Sneath, of Livonia in suburban Detroit, said the reality of his win has yet to sink in.

"I still haven't touched base with Earth yet," he said. When he saw in a newspaper that he had a winning ticket, "my whole body went numb."

Sneath plans to buy a cottage on Mullett Lake in northern Michigan and maybe a new fishing boat or two to help him land the walleye he loves to catch. He's tired of misplacing his glasses and may get laser surgery to correct his vision. And he'll probably move out of his three-bedroom, two-bath ranch home, although he plans to stay in Michigan.

He's even considering a return to Eastern Michigan University to finish his bachelor's degree. He's eight credits shy of a major in warehousing and a minor in international marketing.

Sneath turned 60 on Tuesday, the day he won the jackpot. Friends and relatives at first thought it was an April Fool's joke.

"I called my sister; she didn't believe me. I called my daughter; she thought I was nuts," said Sneath, who said he made his first call to his ex-wife, Deborah.

Deborah, whom he called "my significant ex," attended the Thursday news conference where Sneath was presented with a large replica of a $136 million check. His daughter was there with her daughter, as was his son, who had bought the winning ticket on his father's behalf during trip to a gas station to get cigarettes.

Sneath plans to take a lump payment worth $84.3 million, or $59.6 million after taxes. On Thursday, he got the first $1 million; he'll get the remainder in a second payment. At the warehouse, he made $60,000 to $70,000 a year.

A self-described "character," Sneath generally kicked in $6 a week with four co-workers at his job in Brownstown to buy lottery tickets, spending half the money on tickets for Tuesday's draw and half for Friday's.

This time, his son bought him $15 worth of tickets, picking numbers Sneath suggested. The winning combination — 4, 17, 26, 46 and 56, plus 25 for the Mega Ball — were numbers Sneath once got as a random pick and continues to play.

But his four co-workers didn't entirely lose out. He plans to give them $1 million each out of his winnings.

Despite his longtime association with Ford, he said he won't be using any of the money to buy one of his former employer's vehicles.

"I worked for Ford Motor Co.," he said. "I won't be buying a Ford product."

Sneath's $136 million jackpot may seem like a lot, but it doesn't even come close to the record. The largest Mega Millions jackpot was $390 million in March last year, given to two winners in Georgia and New Jersey.

Mega Millions is a multistate lottery game offered in Michigan, California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Washington state. Jackpots start at a guaranteed $12 million and grow when no one wins the jackpot.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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(Video) Five Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do

By: Sasha Pave (View Profile)

Gever Tulley, founder of the Tinkering School, talks about our new wave of overprotected kids—and spells out five (and really, he’s got six) dangerous things you should let your kids do. Allowing kids the freedom to explore, he says, will make them stronger and smarter and actually safer.

This talk comes from TED University 2007, a pre-conference program where TEDsters share ideas.

To sum up, let children:

1. Play with fire
2. Own a pocket knife
3. Throw a spear
4. Deconstruct appliances
5. Break the DMCA / Drive a car

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School bans boy, 3, over haircut

Tavis chose the hairstyle himself

A three-year-old boy has been banned from his Tyneside nursery school class for his trendy "tramlines" haircut.

The mother of Tavis Cook was told the youngster's distinctive hairdo broke the rules of Riverside primary School in North Shields.

Donna Cook has been told to keep her son away until his hair grows back.

North Tyneside Council said it was aware of the matter and was advising Ms Cook on her options. No-one at the school was available for comment.

Miss Cook took the youngster to the barber's where he chose the trendy hairstyle.

He is the most placid, lovely lad, he's never in trouble Donna Cook

But less than an hour after dropping the youngster off for nursery class the next morning, she was telephoned and asked to return to collect him.

Miss Cook, 21, a mother of two, of Cardonnel Street, North Shields, said: "The wall of the barber's shop was covered with hundreds of pictures of different haircuts.

"Tavis marched straight up and picked out the one where the man had tramlines.

"I'd checked with the school and been told there was no uniform policy for either the nursery year or reception year, and I thought the haircut looked good.

"When I arrived he was in floods of tears. I can't believe they'd do this to a little boy like Tavis.

"He is the most placid, lovely lad, he's never in trouble."

A spokesman for North Tyneside Council said: "We are aware of this issue and are currently advising the parent on the matter."

A spokesman from Riverside Primary School said head teacher Dame Mary MacDonald was not available for comment.

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