Three-Year-Old Feels No Pain
Little Gabby Gingras has been known to tumble down the stairs and just dust herself off without shedding tear.  That might be unusual for a toddler but for Gabby it’s par for the course. For you see Gabby Gingras feels no pain.  She was born with a genetic defect called “Heredity Sensory and Automatic Neuropathy Type-5.”    The anomaly is so rare only a dozen people on the planet are known to have it.  Her difference came to the attention of her parents when she began teething.  She gnawed and gnawed at her hands and feet until they became bloody messes.  She also scratched at her left eye so much she might have to have it removed.  If she can manage to keep herself together until adulthood she might have a great future as a boxer.

Governor Schwarzenegger to Edit Skin Magazine
Proving that he’s more likely to turn out to be another Jesse Ventura than another Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger has agrees to serve as executive editor for Muscle and Fitness magazine.  Only about 10% of muscle magazine readers are actually bodybuilding professionals or fans.  The other 90% are repressed homosexuals and teen-age boys who want to see the girls in thong bikinis.  Society has always found a way to get soft-core porn on the newsstands.  It used to be the swimsuit magazines; in the 50s it was art magazines.  The art magazines were supposedly for professional artists to use for reference when rendering the figure.  From distribution numbers you would be amazed at how many artists there were back then.  Someone should revamp the idea.  Call it something like Art Students and Teachers Guide. 

South Korean President Impeached
South Korea's National Assembly has voted to impeach president Roh Moohyun.  He is accused of having campaigning for of one particular party for the parliamentary elections.  Tens of thousands of people came out on the streets to protest the impeachment and show support for Moohyun.  He will be removed from office while the Constitutional Court hears his case.  This just the opposite of America where the president can be as partisan as he wants but be impeached for a little marital indiscretion.

Amish are Healthiest and Happiest
An experiment involving 100 adults from an Amish community in southern Ontario showed they are six times as physically active as their non-Amish counterparts.  Only 4% of Amish men are obese as opposed to 31% in the overall population.  The exercise keeps them healthy despite their high-calorie diet.  There seems to be a lot of advantages to the 19^th century lifestyle.  An earlier report found the Amish to be the happiest people in North America.

Servicewomen Raped in Iraq
Dozens of Women have reported being raped or otherwise sexually assaulted turning their tour in Iraq.  According to testimony of thirty-eight women before the Miles Foundation none of the victims were given adequate medical treatment or counseling.  Some of the women were even charged with adultery of fraternization after they reported their assaults. 

Cash Use in Drastic Decline
In 2000 only 43.5 percent of payments were made in cash.  By 2005 it could drop as low as 35 percent.  By that time credit cards will finally have usurped paper and coins.  Who wants to use that new funny looking money anyway?  And now they’re going to start messing with the color.  The only thing that seems to be sacred is the one-dollar bill.  If the feds tamper with the classic one, with George Washington and the Masonic symbol on the back, we might as well give up altogether.  We might as well switch over to the euro.  It’s better money.  The dollar has declined 44 percent in value compared to the euro since Bush took office.

Naomi Wolf Accuses Harold Bloom of Sexual Harassment
41-year old feminist icon and author of The Beauty Myth has accused literary scholar Harold Bloom of “inappropriate touching” back in 1983.  Wolf wrote in New York magazine that the whole thing was pretty “banal.”  After a diner at a mutual friends house Bloom allegedly made his move. “The next thing I knew, his heavy, boneless hand was hot on my thigh.”   Wolf then vomited in the kitchen sink as Bloom grabbed his unfinished bottle of sherry and left the scene calling her “a deeply troubled girl.”  Admittedly Bloom is no Prince Charming, but to make a girl vomit hurts a bit worse than fake phone number. 

Bloom supporter and former student Camille Paglia says, “It really grates on me that Naomi Wolf, for her entire life has been batting her eyes and bobbing her boobs in the face of men” and now slanders a man “who’s in his 70s and has health problems.”  Bloom is threatening a defamation suit against Wolf.

Queen Elizabeth Kills Pheasant with Cane
The 77 year-old Queen was recently caught on tape beating a beating a bird to death.  The incident took place during a hunting outing.  When a retriever brought Her Majesty the live pheasant she began smacking and crushing it with her cane.  The film shows her killing the bird slowly, having to make several attempts.

Landmine Detecting Plants Created
Danish scientists have modified a thale cress plant to change color when its roots detect a landmine.  The groundcover changes from green to red when it picks up the slightest trace of nitrogen dioxide, an element used in explosives.  The developers claim that the plant should prove cheaper and safer than the mine-detecting methods used today.  There are estimated to be over 100 million unexploded land mines around the world.

Underwear Returns to Alaskan Town

Palmer Alaska hasn’t has had panties, briefs or even boxers since the early 1990s.  That was when the three stores that carry such goods shut down.  It was a twenty-mile round trip to the next town and sometimes that Alaskan weather made travel almost impossible.  The little supermarket that is opening in Palmer will have a sushi bar, a sit-down delicatessen and yes underwear.  Unfortunately if you want to wear boxers you still have to look elsewhere.  

Polar Bears Turn Green
Two polar bears in the Singapore zoo have turned green.  The normally bright white coats of Sheba and her 13-year-old son, Inuka, turned emerald colored from algae growing on their fur.  The animals have been bleached and most of the harmless algae has been removed.

Research Shows Most Back Treatment Worthless
It may turn out that the best back treatment might be to do nothing at all.  Over 70% of adults suffer from back pain at some time in their lives and medical treatment has rarely proven to be more effective than placebos or the passage of time.  One study of patients with disk abnormalities who underwent surgery, physical therapy and chiropractic procedures fared no better than patients who sought no medical help.

Exxon Fined $7,000,000,000
Exxon is still paying hardily for the 1989 Valdez accident off the coast of Alaska.  They’ve already paid for the cleanup, donated $25 to non-profits, shelled out $100 million in restitutions and promised another $900 million more.  Surprisingly the Valdez oil spill is only the 54^th largest.  The biggest spills where when Saddam Hussein deliberately released over 40.5 billion gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf.  That’s 3,750 times that of the Valdez spill.  Also experts are claiming that over-aggressive clean up in Prince William Sound has left the area worse off than Saddam’s gulf.  It turns out nature has done a better job of solving the problem than man.

American Morality Evaluated
Of ten moral behaviors evaluated the following statistics represent what percentage of Americans that consider them “morally acceptable:” Gambling (61%), co-habitation (60%), sexual fantasies (59%), abortion (45%), having sexual relations with someone other than your spouse (42%), pornography (38%), profanity (36%), drunkenness (35%), homosexuality (30%), and non-prescription drug usage (17%).  Of the seven faith groups studied Evangelicals were the most likely to find the behaviors unacceptable.  Women are also more likely than men to condemn the actions.

Milosevic Judge to Resign
Judge Richard May, a Briton presiding over Slobodan Milosevic’s trial at he Hague, has announced he will retire at the end of May.  When this happens Milosevic lawyers can move that the entire trial, which has already been delayed a number of time, begin all over again.  If the motion is denied Milosevic will have grounds for appeal.  The Serbian dictator is accused of crimes against humanity involving ordering civilians to be massacred. 

Video Games Show Astounding Profits
Forget Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, computer animation has turned video games into works of art.  Like movies video games take a team to produce and also like movies most are mediocre at best and a handful are masterpieces.  According to Joyce Slaton in SF Weekly,  “video games now surpass films and television in earning power.”

Grisly Murders in Honduras
A resent series of horrific murders have been intended as a warning to Honduran President Ricardo Maduro.  The latest victim was discovered with his eyes gorged out, his nose and ears cut off and his heart removed.  A note was pinned to the victim demanding the president ease up on his crackdown of the nations youth gangs.  A note left on another victim claimed that the next murders would be of journalists and policemen.

New York Manhole Covers Deadly
280 manhole covers, service-box lids and lamppost in New York City have been discovered to be surging with live electricity.  Utility officials have divulged that some are capable of giving a human a fatal shock.