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Governor Pawlenty isn't mincing any words when it comes to letting PETA know exactly what he thinks about its request to declare walleye pike off limits to anglers. Pawlenty dined on walleye chunks, walleye filets and walleye cakes on Wednesday night at Tavern on Grand in St. Paul. Last week, PETA requested that Pawlenty protect the state fish, citing recent studies that claim fish can feel pain. Pawlenty says PETA has quote "gone of the deep end." He said visitors to the state often dined out at restaurants known for their walleye. Case in point he said, there were people...

Swallows are getting sexier. Male barn swallows attract females with long tail feathers, and European researchers have observed that over the last 20 years those feathers have become much longer. "We've demonstrated quite a dramatic change in a short period of time," said Dr. Anders Pape Moller, an evolutionary biologist at Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, who conducted the research with Dr. Tibor Szep of the College of Nyiregyhaza in Hungary. The findings are to be published in The Journal of Evolutionary Biology. Advertisement Experiments suggest that the males' tails act as advertising for good genes because males...

A Texas man has been sentenced to four years in prison for posing as a gynecologist (search) — with an office in a self-storage complex. Authorities in Dallas launched an undercover investigation after seeing an ad in a weekly newspaper offering free medical care. A prosecutor set up the undercover sting with an investigator posing as a patient and using a hidden camera. They say Thomas Remo wore a scrub shirt and had some medical equipment in the small kitchen of the storage facility office where he worked.

An online bookmaker is taking bets on the outcome of 10 big scientific endeavours, including the search for life on other planets and the quest to harness nuclear fusion as a substitute for oil. AFP/File Photo British bookie Ladbrokes has set starting odds of 10,000/1 that the US-European spacecraft Cassini/Huygens will discover "intelligent life" on the Saturnian moon of Titan by 2010, the British weekly New Scientist says. It calculates odds of a 100/1 that a fusion power station, using the same energy source that powers the Sun, will be built by 2010. Odds of a mere six to one...

On the eve of what would have been his third trial date in Bucks County court, Douglas Aster pleaded guilty Tuesday to sexually assaulting a woman during "thong night" at a Bensalem tavern. As part of a plea bargain, prosecutors did not drop any of the charges against Aster, 32, but agreed to seek a sentence of 111/2 to 23 months, with possible work release privileges. Aster had been facing at least three years behind bars. Assistant District Attorney Anastasia Filopoulos said the deal was offered, in part, to spare the victim the trauma of taking the stand again. During...

One of the world's leading blind golfers is under investigation for claims he can see. Britain's double world champion David Morris has been accused of being able to see more than his rivals. The 61-year-old became the first man to win his sport's top title twice last month when he trounced the field with a 24-shot margin of victory. His triumph in Melbourne, Australia, was in a field where competitors had to have no sight at all - other than light perception. The English Blind Golf Association has launched an investigation after receiving a complaint. Spokesman Barrie Ritchie said: "We...

WEST PALM BEACH -- Palm Beach County soon could bid adieu to some of the finer indulgences of South Florida lifestyle: walking the dog on the beach, tossing back a brew at 4 a.m. and letting it all hang out. All in the same half-hour, county commissioners suddenly went on the offensive against dogs on the beach, late-night bar hoppers and people who seem to want to show off their underwear. There oughta be a law, they said. And they ordered staff to study how that could best be done. It was a day for pet peeves, and the commissioners...

<p>DEMI Moore (above) and Ashton Kutcher are not sleeping easily these days. Ever since a computer belonging to Jason Goldberg, Ashton's business partner and co-creator of "Punk'd," was stolen back in March, the two have been worried about some "compromising" photos they took of each other with their digital camera and downloaded on the computer. "Ashton is very worried," a friend of his family told Star magazine. Kutcher is also concerned Demi's daughters might see the pictures.</p>

A betrayed husband is taking very public revenge on his wife - auctioning her underwear on the internet. After she allegedly cheated on him with a man he calls Richard, the husband decided to humiliate her by auctioning her possessions on eBay. The web page - featuring a photograph of the wife - attracted more than 25,000 hits in less than 12 hours. He started by selling a pair of her knickers, which attracted a bid of £245. eBay withdrew the item when it became aware of what was going on. The sale of used underwear is prohibited. According to...

Anna Kournikova was there at Mumbai and Bangalore when the desi footloosers tap danced to Enrique Iglesias's Latino pop. She was there on all lips more than the Enrique numbers and all were wondering whether Anna will make Enrique dance to her tunes. Anna Kournikova is no more the teenage tennis sensation she was. She is now the fashion icon who sneaked into a million hearts with those stunning looks and those eye-grabbing outfits. It's amusing just to think how a hard core Navratilova fan would watch today's women's tennis. From the pinnacle of grace and power during the Billie...

OCALA - An Ocala man faces five years of probation for having sex with his pregnant fiancee's dog. Randol Corey Mitchell, 27, pleaded no contest Wednesday to one count of felony animal cruelty. Circuit Judge Victor J. Musleh withheld adjudication and sentenced Mitchell to five years of probation and a mandatory psychological evaluation. He also prohibited Mitchell from owning pets of any kind while on probation and from having unsupervised contact with other people's pets. "This is very disgusting, to tell you the truth," Musleh told Mitchell. "But I'm going to leave out my personal opinions and withhold adjudication unless...

The esteemed Mr. Eastlund will, no doubt, attempt to spin his argument into one weighing the merits of Star Trek: The Next Generation against those of “classic” Star Trek. This is not an argument about the firepower of NCC-1701 versus that of NCC-1701-D or whether a Shakespearean actor who gave a great portrayal of Charles Xavier is a better actor than the toupee-wearing star of Kingdom of the Spiders. No, the issue at hand is simply whether the character of Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the 24th Century was a better Starfleet captain than the character of Captain James Tiberius Kirk...

Australia - Eighteen months after colon surgery, a 69-year-old woman in Sydney discovered that surgeons left a pair of scissors in her abdomen. Pat Skinner told reporters Tuesday that she suffered months of pain after doctors at Sydney's St. George Hospital removed part of her colon in May 2001. Only after insisting on an X-ray 18 months after the operation did she find a 6.7-inch pair of surgical scissors inside her abdomen. "I was just devastated, I could not believe what I was seeing. It was like a nightmare seeing those scissors up on the screen," Skinner told Sky News...

Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears may be seeing red over some comments by Pink, reports MSNBC.com. The outspoken rocker was asked by Advocate magazine for her thoughts on the controversy surrounding gay marriage. "If you wanna marry Joe Millionaire, go ahead. If you're a celebrity and you wanna marry your high school sweetheart for 55 hours, go right ahead. If you're J.Lo and you wanna marry 18 people, for six days each, hey! Go right on ahead! "But if you happen to be reasonably minded and have fallen in love and wanna marry your soul mate and make a life...

Mel Gibson's controversial new movie "The Passion of the Christ" was igniting plenty of passion yesterday - even though opening night was still a week away. First Lady Laura Bush said she was looking forward to watching the R-rated film about the Crucifixion of Christ. "I think it sounds very interesting, and I'd like to see it," the First Lady told reporters while visiting a high school in Bentonville, Ark. But lots of others weren't so sure. Gibson's story of the torture of Christ isn't just brutal, it's an exercise in cinematic sadism that opens on Ash Wednesday (Feb. 25)...

<p>DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - When Bobby Labonte takes the green flag in Sunday's Daytona 500, he'll be racing for victory - and the Lord.</p> <p>The hood of Labonte's car is both a shameless movie plug - "The Passion of the Christ,'' coming soon to a theater near you - and some new-style proselytizing for the Gospel.</p>

Hollywood director Peter Farrelly is hoping Russell Crowe will play Moe Howard in his next blockbuster - The Three Stooges. Farrelly, who with brother Bobby, has directed such films as There's Something About Mary, Dumb and Dumber, Shallow Hal and Just Married. He is in Sydney this week to promote the pair's latest film Stuck On You, a comedy about conjoined twins played by Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear. "It is ultimately a love affair between two brothers that look after each other," Farrelly said of the film which also stars Cher and Meryl Streep. Farrelly said he and Bobby...

PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. - If you're tired of winter, Punxsutawney Phil had a message for you Monday — get used to it. After a rap on an oak stump roused him from his home on Gobbler's Knob, the world's most famous furry forecaster "saw" his shadow this chilly Groundhog Day (news - web sites) morning, which according to tradition means six more weeks of winter. Phil even included a topical reference in his proclamation — to the capture of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites). "I'm glad I live in this luxurious burrow on the knob, and not in a dirty,...

Police in Berlin were called in to deal with a man who has neglected to take a bath or shave for the past 18 years, according to press reports today. The self-styled urban hermit, identified only as Mario, also professed to not having changed his clothes since New Year's Day 2001. Investigating officers, who said they had no reason to doubt Mario's claims about his personal hygiene, were summoned after a chimneysweep reported discovering a "caveman" living in an abandoned apartment. The chimneysweep was trying to determine the source of smoke blockage in a flue when he came across the...

<p>MEL Gibson shouldn't count on controversy to drive the box-office for "The Passion," his new flick about the death of Jesus Christ, warns Willem Dafoe. Back in 1988, the craggy character actor starred as Jesus in Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ," which inspired a firestorm of condemnation from church leaders before its release because it showed Christ having sex with Mary Magdalene, a scene missing from the Bible. But the picture promptly died. Gibson's movie, which stars Jim Caviezel and is due out on Feb. 25, strictly follows the New Testament, but it has been criticized by some who fear it might encourage anti-Semitism. "There were all sorts of huge expectations for 'Temptation,' but it did very poor business," Dafoe told Post Chief Film Critic Lou Lumenick at the Fox Searchlight party for "The Clearing," in which the "Spider-Man" star plays opposite Robert Redford. "People aren't going to go see Gibson's movie just because it's controversial. They go to see movies because they want to have a good time."</p>