Another ridiculous web game.

Remember the farm animals that sang? Well this one is almost as fun. Just do it. Besides, I'm pretty sure it does the soul good.

The best part of waking up!

Kopi Luwak (pronounced [ˈkopi ˈluwak]) or Civet coffee is coffee made from coffee berries which have been eaten by and passed through the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus). The civets eat the berries, but the beans inside pass through their system undigested. This process takes place on the islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi in the Indonesian Archipelago, in the Philippines (where the product is called Kape Alamid) and in East Timor (locally called kafé-laku). Vietnam has a similar type of coffee, called weasel coffee, which is made from coffee berries which have been regurgitated by local weasels. In actuality the "weasel" is just the local version of the Asian Palm Civet.

Origin and production
Kopi is the Indonesian word for coffee, and luwak is a local name of the Asian Palm Civet. The raw, red coffee berries are part of its normal diet, along with insects, small mammals, small reptiles, eggs and nestlings of birds, and other fruit. The inner bean of the berry is not digested, but it has been proposed that enzymes in the stomach of the civet add to the coffee's flavor by breaking down the proteins that give coffee its bitter taste. The beans are defecated still covered in some inner layers of the berry. The beans are washed, and given only a light roast so as to not destroy the complex flavors that develop through the process. Some sources claim that the beans may be regurgitated instead of defecated.

In early days, the beans would be collected in the wild from a 'latrine', or a specific place where the civet would defecate as a means to mark its territory, and these latrines would be a predictable place for local gatherers to find the beans. More commonly today, captured civets are fed raw berries, the feces produced are then processed and the coffee beans offered for sale.[citation needed]

Economics
Kopi Luwak is the most expensive coffee in the world, selling for between $120 and $600 USD per pound, and is sold mainly in Japan and the United States. It is increasingly becoming available elsewhere, though supplies are limited: only 1,000 pounds (450 kg) at most make it into the world market each year (Pg 23, The Gospel According to Starbucks; Sweet). One small cafe, the Heritage Tea Rooms, in the hills outside Townsville in Queensland, Australia has Kopi Luwak coffee on the menu at A$50.00 (=US$48.00) per cup, selling approximately four cups a week, which has gained nationwide Australian press.[1]. In April 2008, the brasserie of Peter Jones department store in London's Sloane Square starting selling a blend of Kopi Luwak and Blue Mountain called Caffe Raro for £50 (=US$99.00) a cup.[1]

A 2004 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) scare led to thousands of these civets in China being exterminated, [2][3] but the demand for the coffee was not affected.

A hypothesis to justify this coffee's reputation proposes that the beans are of superior quality before they are even ingested.[citation needed] At any given point during a harvest, some coffee berries are not quite- or over-ripe, while others are just right. The palm civet evolved as an omnivore that naturally eats fruit and passes undigested material as a natural link to disperse seeds in a forest ecosystem. Where coffee plants have been introduced into their habitat, civets only forage on the most ripe berries, digest the fleshy outer layer, and later excrete the seeds eventually used for human consumption. Thus, when the fruit is at its peak, the seeds (or beans) within are equally so, with the expectation that this will come through in the taste of a freshly-brewed cup. As this may be true for the beans derived from wild-collected civet feces, farm raised civets are likely fed beans of varying quality and ripeness, so one would expect the taste of farm-raised beans to be less.

Kopi Muncak (also Kopi Muntjak) is a similar type of coffee produced from the feces of several species of barking deer, or Muntjac, that are found throughout Southeast Asia. Unlike civet or "weasel" coffee, this type is usually not produced from captive deer and most commonly collected in the wild, especially in Malaysia and in the Indonesian Archipelago.

They make a good point.

Conspicuous much?

The Revolutionary Vertical Bed

How many of you have ever wanted just one more minute of sleep on a Monday morning after a weekend of partying? I know I have and if you’re like me, you’re in for a treat. Some smart people have come up with a way to help us grab some precious extra minutes of sleep in some unusual circumstances. With their revolutionary vertical bed anyone can take a short nap while waiting for the traffic light to change, in the elevator or in public transportation vehicles.

The vertical bed comes complete with ear-muffs, mirrored eye-glasses and even an umrella in case it rains. All you have to do is stick your hands in your pockets to protect your wallet and phone and you’re all set for a nice relaxing nap. One day in the vertical bed and you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

A blog by any other name . . .

Here's the story:

The lovely lady who hosts the Sunday potlucks is friends with a few of the guys in Grupo Fantasma. Grupo Fantasma use to play weekly gigs at Prince's club in Vegas. Before being officially booked for these gigs the band met with Prince. Prince had all ten members, with each of their respective instruments, get set up on stage. He then proceeded to pick up each instrument and play it to perfection. When he finished he told them that was how he wanted those instruments to be played.

We're talking 10 plus instruments here! The man may be eccentric but you've gotta respect that.

Anyways, seeing how there's only one degree of separation between the potluck and Prince I figure it's reasonable to expect Prince to stop by. Hence the blog name.


ECCENTRIC:


RESPECT:

Your daily dose of theremin and Daft Punk.

The White Man

A quick note -- This piece is a little too black and white (pardon the pun) for my taste BUT it still frames things in a way that hadn't yet occured to me.

White Privilege, White Entitlement and the 2008 Election
by Tim Wise


For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin’ redneck," like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re "untested."

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn’t added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a "second look."

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a "light" burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

They're comin around!

THE Church of England will make an official apology to naturalist Charles Darwin for criticising his famous theory of evolution

Coming 126 years after his death, the church's apology will focus on how wrong it was for senior bishops in the past to misunderstand and attack Darwin's theory about man being descended from apes.

Senior church officials will post the apology in the form of an article written by the Reverend Dr Malcolm Brown on the church's website tomorrow.

"Charles Darwin, 200 years from your birth (in 1809), the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still,'' the article says, according to extracts printed by The Mail on Sunday newspaper.

"But the struggle for your reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious opponents but those who falsely claim you in support of their own interests.''

But the apology by Dr Brown, who is the director of mission and public affairs of the Archbishops' Council, has been dismissed as "pointless'' by Darwin's great great grandson Andrew Darwin.

"Why bother? he said.

"When an apology is made after 200 years, it's not so much to right a wrong, but to make the person or organisation making the apology feel better.''

But Dr Brown says everyone makes mistakes, the church included.

"When a big new idea emerges that changes the way people look at the world, it's easy to feel that every old idea, every certainty, is under attack and then to do battle against the new insights,'' he writes.

"The church made that mistake with Galileo's astronomy and has since realised its error.

"Some Church people did it again in the 1860s with Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection.

"So it is important to think again about Darwin's impact on religious thinking, then and now.''

Dr Brown said there was nothing incompatible between Darwin's scientific theories and Christian teaching.



Oh Church of England, you are such a push over. And here's PROOF:

Sounds like somebody has a case of the Mondays

Do you have a problem with your co-workers snagging your lunch from the officer refrigerator?

Now there's a new lunch bag that some say will keep the hungriest thief away from your grub.

It's a lunch bag with mold. Actually, it's a ziplock bag with a pattern that looks like mold.

Parents, this could also be a hit at the lunch table at your kids school.

The designer is New York-based Sherwood Forlee who is actually a trained mechanical and aerospace engineer.

That EU is always one step ahead of us.

Are towns really safer without traffic lights?
One German community removes lights and signs in a daring experiment and sees accident rates decline.
By Isabelle de Pommereau | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the September 12, 2008 edition

Bohmte, Germany - When Ulrike Rubcic heard that her town would take down all of its traffic lights, she rolled her eyes in disbelief.

Tucked between cornfields and cow meadows, the main street in this bucolic northern German community was also a thoroughfare with thousands of cars and trucks zooming to or from nearby Osnabruck. "Are we waiting for the first accident?" she thought then.

But this summer the town reworked its downtown thoroughfare, not only scrapping the traffic lights but also tearing down the curbs and erasing marked crosswalks. The busiest part of the main street turned into a "naked" square shared equally by bikes, pedestrians, cars, and trucks. Now, there is only one rule: Always give way to the person on the right.

Two months into the experiment, "Instead of thinking, 'It's going to be red, I need to give gas, people have to slow down, to look to the right and the left, to be considerate" says Ms. Rubcic.

The bonus? Town people recognize they have become a bit closer to one another. "The whole village has become more human. We look at each other, we greet each other," she says.

In recent years, initiatives that aim at rescuing streets from the hegemony of cars, giving more space for pedestrians and cyclists and combating increased speed, traffic, and trouble have popped up in cities across Europe.

In a new experiment, "Paris respire," the banks of the Seine are closed to traffic on sunny days. Switzerland has set up "zones of encounter" where playgrounds or landscaped areas force cars to slow down and pedestrians have priority. Hundreds of Dutch neighborhoods have successfully done away with traffic signs.

But Bohmte broke new ground. In Germany, a country fond of rules, Bohmte did what politicians had hitherto not dared to do.

"What's revolutionary about Bohmte is that it took off its signs on a state highway with a lot of traffic," says Heiner Monheim, a traffic management expert at the University of Trier, speaking at a recent European conference on sign-free towns convened here. Beyond that, Monheim says, the model's real legacy is to have brought people closer to "rediscovering and appreciating cities not only as traffic places but also as human, social places."

Just like so many other German communities, Bohmte's location as a busy artery was both its blessing and its curse. Close to 13,000 cars and trucks would speed along its main street every day. "Drivers didn't care about kids," says Klaus Mueller, strolling about with his grandchild and noting that the flow of cars is more slow and steady now.

Because Bohmte's main street is a state highway, the town cannot forbid truck traffic. Mayor Klaus Goedejohann knew that the heavy traffic spoilt the town's atmosphere, but that it also provided the town's livelihood. "How do we manage to meet the interest of all the traffic participants without excluding anybody?" he recalls thinking.

Then Mr. Goedejohann heard of a radical traffic-management philosophy called "shared space." Pioneered by a Dutch engineer who thought towns were safer with fewer rules, it envisioned open surfaces on which motorists and pedestrians could "negotiate" with one another by eye contact, other signals, and a greater consideration for one another.

Segregating cars and pedestrians was wrong, argued Hans Monderman, whose death this winter rekindled people's interest in his ideas. Portrayed as a dangerous maverick decades ago, Mr. Monderman put in place more than 100 shared-space schemes in the Netherlands. When the European Union launched a research project on shared space, Bohmte decided to try it, along with six other towns, including Ostend in Belgium and Ipswich in England.

Not everybody feels good about the town having spent close to $3.3 million on redesigning its downtown. On the day of a shared-space conference in Bohmte, Franz Josef Breiner walked hesitantly on the main street's flat surface with his cane, assessing the ground. He is sight-impaired and cannot make eye contact with drivers: shared space robs him of the safety nets that were curbs and sidewalks. "In theory shared space is more human, but we're left out," Mr. Breiner says.

Although shared space "offers a chance to win back space for nonmotorized participants," skepticism also runs high because many people worry that the children and elderly will not be able to communicate with drivers.

Still, a 2008 study in Holland reported that shared space has reduced the number of accidents in sign-free areas.

Goedejohann, Bohmte's mayor, is confident. His town averaged 50 accidents last year. Since the shared space concept was enacted, there haven't been any, he says.

And other city governments are reacting. In Hamburg a new coalition of green and conservative politicians have pledged to design shared space streets in every neighborhood.

"My theory," Monderman said last fall at a new urbanism summit in London, "was if you want to make people behave in a village, maybe you have to make it feel like a village."

You've been forewarned.

You know that sparkle in her eye? Yea, well ...



Designer Anthony Mallier from India has created ‘Sparkle’ contact lenses to make your eyes “Sparkle like they’ve never sparkled before.” The ‘Sparkle’ Contact lenses are fused with tiny Swarovski crystals in a circle around the edges of the lenses.

Mallier relates, “Swarovski has been synonymous with adding that extra ‘sparkle’ to everyday life. Swarovski crystals have the power to transform the ordinary into something extraordinary through their sheer brilliance. `Sparkle’ is one such attempt to enhance the expression of one of our most expressive features: our eyes.”

Not that you need any assistance in this area BUT ...

20 Ways to Raise Your IQ


“We are all infant prodigies.” — Thomas Mann

1. Take Deep Breaths. By breathing deeply through the nose you can improve the functioning of your brain immediately. Deep breaths put more oxygen in the blood and, therefore, in the brain. Low oxygen levels in the blood have been shown to decrease brain function. You can try the breathing exercises suggested by Andrew Weil, who has devoted the past thirty years to developing, practicing, and teaching others about the principles of integrative medicine, by going here.

2. Keep a Journal. Catharine M. Cox, author of “Early Mental Traits of Three Hundred Geniuses”, studied the habits of 300 geniuses — such as Isaac Newton, Einstein, and Thomas Jefferson - and discovered that all of them were “compulsive” journal or diary keepers. Also, keep in mind that Thomas Edison wrote 3 million pages of notes, letters and personal thoughts in hundreds of personal journals throughout his life.

3. Learn As Much As You Can. As we learn new things, we create new neural pathways. A “smart” person is someone who has more interconnected neural pathways than others. In addition, the human brain will create new neural pathways in response to external stimuli — such as through learning new things; the more diverse, the better.

4. Learn to Speed Read. PhotoReading is an easy-to-learn technique that will help you go through large amounts of written information faster and with a higher retention rate than using the traditional reading method taught in school.

Although most speed reading techniques simply teach you how to move your eyes faster across the page, PhotoReading is a whole-mind reading system that teaches you to use both the conscious and the subconscious mind when reading. Basically, it involves several quick perusals of the material following a different technique each time. The first perusal involves using your subconscious mind to rapidly absorb material visually. Subsequent perusals involve the conscious mind and use other methods to help memory retention and understanding of the material.

5. Take Frequent Short Breaks. Study for twenty minutes and then take a short break. This is effective because things at the start and end of a study session last in your memory for a longer period of time. You can download the Motivator Software for free so that a message pops up every twenty minutes on your computer reminding you to take a break.

6. Use Acronyms to Remember Information. An acronym is simply an abbreviation formed using the initial letters of a word. These types of memory aids can help you to learn large quantities of information in a short period of time. For example, “Every Good Boy Does Fine” is a common acronym used to help musicians and students to remember the notes on a treble clef stave.

7. Eat breakfast. Eating breakfast has been proven to improve concentration, problem solving ability, mental performance, memory, and mood. Breakfast is the first chance the body has to refuel its glucose levels after eight to 12 hours without a meal. Glucose is the brain’s main energy source.

8. Use Your Body to Help You Learn. Movement is a key part of the process of development and learning. Brain Gym is a program of simple exercises, developed over a 25 year period by a remedial educational specialist, Dr. Paul Dennison. Brain Gym exercises can help with things such as:

- Comprehension
- Concentration
- Abstract Thinking
- Memory
- Mental Fatigue
- Completing tasks
- Physical balance and coordination

9. Meditate. Neuropsychologists now say that meditation can alter brain structure. MRI scans of long-term meditators have shown greater activity in brain circuits involved in paying attention. When disturbing noises were played to a group of meditators undergoing an MRI scan, they had relatively little effect on the brain areas involved in emotion and decision-making as compared to non-meditators or less experienced meditators. For more information on this, go here.

10. Stay Away From Sugar. Any simple carbohydrates–such as pasta, sugars, white bread and potato chips–can make you tired and lethargic. Sometimes called the “sugar blues”, this sluggish feeling makes it hard to think clearly. It results from the insulin rushing into the bloodstream to counteract the sugar rush.

11. Cultivate Your Emotional Intelligence. For many years a lot of emphasis was placed on certain aspects of intelligence, such as logical reasoning, math skills, spatial skills, understanding analogies, verbal skills, and so on. However, in recent years, and particularly with the publication of Daniel Goleman’s book “Emotional Intelligence”, it has become clear that a lot of people waste their potential by thinking, behaving and communicating in ways that hinder their chances to succeed. That is, emotional intelligence is being recognized as a meta-ability which will allow you to take full advantage of your other skills and talents. Take a free emotional intelligence test here.

12. Use Downtime. Use down time, time spent commuting or waiting in line, productively. Complete crossword puzzles or sudokus while waiting in line and listen to audio programs while commuting.

13. Go for A Jog. The book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain explains that you can lift your mood, fight memory loss, sharpen your intellect, and function better than ever simply by elevating your heart rate and breaking a sweat. Scientific evidence demonstrates that aerobic exercise physically remodels our brains for peak performance.

14. Engage All of Your Senses. Researchers have found that the human brain learns best through multi-sensory association. Children and adults learn best when they’re engaged in a learning activity that uses sight, sound, emotions, tactile feedback, spatial orientation, and even smell and taste.

Mike Adams explains in “The Top Ten Technologies: #10 Superlearning Systems” that a child who is given the definition of the word “weightless” in a verbal format gets that information in one channel: the audio channel. If you show the child a movie of an astronaut floating in space while you’re saying the word “weightless,” you now have a two-dimensional learning experience: the child both sees and hears the word. In addition, if you have the child bounce up and down on a trampoline and shout “weightlessness” when the child is up in the air, an understanding of the word becomes even more firmly implanted in his brain.

15. Induce Alpha Brain Waves. Research has found that the ideal state for learning is when the brain is in a relaxed, but focused and aware state. At this point the brainwaves run at about 8 to 12 cycles per second, which is called the alpha state. Three ways to reach the alpha level of mind are the following:

The Silva Life System
Baroque music-such as Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” and Pachbel’s “Canon”-has been shown to synchronize brain waves at the alpha frequency.
There are a number of light and sound machines available which will help you reach the alpha state while remaining fully conscious.

16. Load Up on Antioxidants. Antioxidants protect all your cells, including brain cells. Some of the foods highest in antioxidants include: prunes, raisins, blueberries, blackberries, garlic, kale, cranberries, strawberries, spinach, and raspberries.

17. Use Your Intuition. Learn to use your intuition as an information gathering process. By relying on your intuition you expand your awareness and you direct your subconscious to pick up on cues from the environment.

18 - 20. Use a Memory Peg System. A peg system is a technique for memorizing lists. It works by pre-memorizing a list of words that are easy to associate with the numbers they represent (1 to 10, 1-100, and so on). Those are your memory pegs. When you need to quickly memorize a list of arbitrary objects, each object is associated with the appropriate peg. Once you’ve memorized the pegs you can use these same pegs over and over again every time that you need to memorize something.

When you have to memorize a list you visualize each item on the list in relation to the memory peg. You can choose words that rhyme with the numbers, such as the following example from wikipedia:

• 1-gun
• 2-zoo
• 3-tree
• 4-door
• 5-hive
• 6-bricks
• 7-heaven
• 8-plate
• 9-wine
• 10-hen

For example, suppose you’re memorizing a list of 10 items you want to get at the pharmacy: cotton balls, toothpaste, gum, paper, glue, index cards, multivitamins, hand cream, shampoo, and nail polish. Do the following:

1. Visualize cotton balls being fired from a gun.
2. Visualize a gorilla at the zoo brushing his teeth.
3. Visualize a tree with packs of gum growing on its branches.
4. Visualize someone breaking through a paper door.
5. Visualize a jar of glue surrounded by bees as if it were a beehive.
6. Visualize a house made up of “bricks” of index cards.
7. Visualize angels taking multivitamins.
8. Visualize a plate full of hand cream.
9. Visualize a wine glass filled with shampoo.
10. Visualize a hen with bright red nails.

Two other memory systems you can use are:

The Journey Method
The Link Method

Poor little ginger kid.

Exclusive: schoolboy sent home for having ginger hair
By Jenna Sloan 6/09/2008

Schoolboy Felix Kramer's new term lasted less than an hour yesterday - when he was sent home for having a one-inch ginger fringe.

Felix Kramer, 15, had the end of his brown hair bleached by the sun over summer.

Teachers admitted he had not dyed it in breach of school rules but booted him out anyway until he gets it trimmed.

The GCSE pupil said: "I was five minutes late for assembly when a senior teacher took me aside and said I had to go home.

"I didn't even have time to see my friends.

"I was shocked as my hair goes like this every year, but they said it wasn't acceptable.

"My dad was quite angry about it and said I should get the school to pay for my haircut."

His father Ian furiously phoned up Isleworth and Syon School in West London, but teachers refused to budge.

The graphic designer, 58, fumed: "They accepted he hadn't dyed his hair but said he couldn't come back until it was sorted out.

Advertisement - article continues below »


"They were apologetic but told me rules are rules. I couldn't believe it when they told me.

"Felix's fringe goes blond and ginger in the sunshine and the same happens to me.

"Perhaps it would be different if he had dyed it blue or green, but it's all natural.

"He's not the kind of lad who would kick up a fuss but he's worried he will be disadvantaged as this is an important exam year for him."

However, school head Euan Ferguson defended the tough stance. Mr Ferguson insisted: "We are very proud of the high standards we set.

"My staff and I continue to monitor these standards on a daily basis to ensure that our high expectations are met."

Felix will return next week after getting the fringe trimmed.

13% of Scots are natural redheads



AND ON THAT NOTE:

This is why Chihuahuas are in fact awesome.

Meet Conan, the praying dog

At a Zen Buddhist temple in southern Japan, even the dog prays. Mimicking his master, priest Joei Yoshikuni, a 1 1/2-year-old black-and-white Chihuahua named Conan joins in the daily prayers at Naha's Shuri Kannondo temple, sitting up on his hind legs and putting his front paws together before the altar.

"I think he saw me doing it all the time and got the idea to do it, too," Yoshikuni said.

The priest is now trying to teach him how to meditate. Well, sort of.

"Basically, I am just trying to get him to sit still while I meditate," he explained. "It's not like we can make him cross his legs."

Check this out . . .

. . . it comes with this really romantic fist attachment.

Go get 'em Steben!

No mates, mate! ‘Man drought’ afflicts Australia
If you're a woman in your 30s looking for love there, odds are against you

There's a "man drought" on the Australian coast, and a "man dam" in the country’s remote bush. Though the nation was flush with men some 30 years ago, due to immigration policies that favored males, today's Australian women have it harder than their baby boomer sisters did 30 years ago.

Demographer Bernard Salt's book "Man Drought," which was released this week, reveals that love is really where you look for it in Australia, and that it pays to go the distance.

“There is simply less product for 30-something women, in particular, to choose from,” he said.

"In the old days, we believed Mr. or Mrs. Right would show up someday, but as we remain single for much longer, and are far more mobile, the chances are more remote," Salt told Reuters.

"You need to get out and broaden your circles," he advises.

According to the latest statistics bureau data, there were 96,900 more females than males in Australia as of June 2005.

Salt said the main reason for the man shortage, especially in Australia's coastal cities, was the abundance of women who move from the interior seeking better jobs and lifestyles.

“Single men are concentrated in rural and remote communities, whereas single women prefer the city and lifestyle towns,” Salt explained. “A generation ago, women were more likely to remain in rural communities.” This widespread movement of women away from rural areas into major cities has caused a major shift and a “gender imbalance.”

A Queensland outback mayor made international headlines this month when he called for female “ugly ducklings” to move to the remote mine town of Mt. Isa if they were desperate to meet a man.

Giving Cupid a hand
According to the statistics bureau, the proportion of singles among Australia's 21 million population is rising from 20 percent to 25 percent in only a decade.

Singles households are expected to rise from 1.8 million in 2001 to more than 3 million in 2026, when the population will hit 24 million.

Salt advises those serious about finding a partner to consider shifting homes.

“For some odd reason, there are more single men than single women, and you find a lot of them in rural communities,” he said.

“If you find yourself in the wrong town then why not relocate to the right town where you are in the market.”

Salt pinpoints northern Queensland state's mining communities as the best places for women to find love, while men in the vast outback need time in the big cities for Cupid to play his part.

But age also plays a role. Salt says men suffer a “Sheila shortage” in their 20s, whereas women endure a “man drought” from 34 onwards. “Sheila” is colloquial for woman.

At the age of 25, women have the best odds of finding a partner as there are 23 percent more single men than women. But the odds shorten after 30, and by 34 there are more single women than unattached men.

By age 40, single women outnumber single men by 9 percent and that divide lifts to 17 percent by age 50. At 80, it's a dramatic 66 percent, Salt said.

Salt's solution: move to a place like Nar Nar Goon town in Victoria state, where its population of 600 has 12 single men in their 30s and one single woman.

“It's a man dam there. A reservoir of men,” he said. “You find this right across Australia, little reservoirs of untapped men.”