Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

• Okay, this is ... strange. A site called "Bathroom Mania" markets some rather odd bathroom fixtures. Uh, on the other hand, this one is more likely to push folks' 'whimsical' buttons instead of their 'WTF?' buttons...
• I linked to chapter one of this story back in March, but since I just tripped over chapter seven of The Story of the Toddler, I'll go ahead and put it in here again. I'm also mining it for my QotD file.
• A creative (and politically minded) baseball fan got his sign confiscated once Mariners' security figured out what the sign said. I'm not going to spoil it for you -- take thirty seconds and go check out the story. It's short.
• I don't actually find the main point of this particularly surprising, but some of the details are interesting: Barbie Deemed Threat to Saudi Morality "The Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, as the religious police are officially known, lists the dolls on a section of its Web site devoted to items deemed offensive to the conservative Saudi interpretation of Islam." What I did find rather odd was their description of Barbie as Jewish. I never associated a particular religion or ethnicity to Barbie beyond "of northern European descent". Even more interesting, if they're worrried about the doll's immodest shape and clothing, putting up posters "plastered with pictures of Barbie in short dresses and tight pants" in schools and on the street to complain about this sounds perhaps a bit counterproductive. "Although illegal, Barbies, the creation of California-based Mattel Inc., are found on the black market, where a contraband doll could cost $27 or more."
• In case anyone missed this on the eleventh, and so that I don't forget which machine I bookmarked it on when I want to remind folks about it later: that Mark Fiore animation about the two years since the 9/11 attacks, A Nation Remembers II. "Wait, you're not supposed to remember that!"
• Planets being swallowed: "In a letter soon to be published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Dr Alon Retter and Dr Ariel Marom from the Department of Physics suggest that this phenomenon is an expanding giant star swallowing nearby planets, an event which may one day befall our own planet. Their research provides data to support the theory that the multi-stage eruption of the 'red giant' known as V838 Monocerotis observed last year was fuelled as it engulfed three near orbiting planets." (Thanks to Fred for the link.)
• Another one from Fred: a spacecraft crash (on Earth): "As the NOAA-N Prime spacecraft was being repositioned from vertical to horizontal on the 'turn over cart' [...] it slipped off the fixture, causing severe damage. The 18' long spacecraft was about 3' off the ground when it fell." Link includes photographs. "The shock and vibration of the fall undoubtedly caused tremendous damage."
• Ever wonder how much a cloud weighs? "Let's start with a very simple white puffy cloud -- a cumulus cloud. How much does the water in a cumulus cloud weigh? Peggy LeMone, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, did the numbers." (Thanks to redaxe for the link)
• This one's more for the headline than for the story: World's Oldest Genitals Found in Scotland (Reuters, via Yahoo). Four times the age of the previous oldest-known genitals. (Kent Paul Dolan posted the link to talk.bizarre)
• A cartoon about the RIAA and the latest flap over file sharing. It points out some violations of copyright law (well, if you don't pay the royalty fee anyhow) that a lot of people don't seem to know about. (Have most folks forgotten about the ASCAP vs. summer camps thing, by the way?) Got the link from papergirl by way of filkerdave.

I've still got a huge backlog of these.