I guess he died happy.
Thai Man Dies While Laughing in Sleep
“BANGKOK, Thailand – An ice-cream truck driver in Thailand died while laughing in his sleep, a newspaper reported Thursday. Damnoen Saen-um, 52, laughed for about two minutes on Wednesday and then stopped breathing, The Nation said, quoting officials. The newspaper said Damnoen’s wife tried to wake him up but he kept laughing. An autopsy suggested that he might have had a heart attack, The Nation quoted a doctor as saying. ‘I have never seen a case like this. But it is possible that a person could have heart seizure while laughing or crying too hard in their sleep,’ said Dr. Somchai Chakrabhand, deputy director-general of the Mental Health Department, according to The Nation. The incident occurred in Phrae province, 300 miles north of Bangkok.”
I’m a little behind on reporting this. Apparently, not everyone in Washington is braindead.
Pentagon Abandons Plan for Futures Market on Terror
By CARL HULSE
“WASHINGTON, July 29 — The Pentagon office that proposed spying electronically on Americans to monitor potential terrorists has quickly abandoned an idea in which anonymous speculators would have bet on forecasting terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups in an online futures market.”
Now here’s some speculation I could get behind.
Bush Impeached? Wanna Bet?
By Leander Kahney
“Though there was an outcry over the Pentagon’s terrorism futures market, a similar online exchange is in the works to predict what the U.S. government is up to. The American Action Market will offer various Washington ‘futures’ that can be bet upon and traded. Examples include: Which country will the White House threaten next? Who will be the next foreign leader to move off the CIA payroll and onto the White House’s ‘most wanted’ list? Which corporation with close ties to the White House will be the next cloaked in scandal?”
Ah…marketing BS.
Little robots in your pants
Making sense of revolutionary nanotechnology claim
By Jenny Everett
“(POPULAR SCIENCE) — Dockers recently came out with a new brand of pants, the Go Khakis, which promise to keep your legs stain-free using revolutionary nanotechnology. We couldn’t help thinking that Dockers might be using the word ‘nanotechnology’ more for marketing muscle than for true scientific purposes, so we called its customer service line to ask a few pointed questions. Here’s a slice of the conversation. “
Overused, Misused Nano Becoming Pervasive Prefix
By Bill Berkrot
“NEW YORK (Reuters) – Even though nanotechnology is still in its infancy, the nano prefix is quickly growing into one of the most over-used and misused phrases in the English language.”