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UNDATED -- The Paul McCartney-Stevie Wonder hit "Ebony and Ivory" tops a new list of the worst duets. BBC Radio Six conducted the poll, seeking listeners' views on the collaborations they like the most -- and least. The 1982 tune is one of two tracks the former Beatle has in the top 10 worst list. "The Girl Is Mine," his duet with Michael Jackson, has the No. 6 spot. Elton John and David Bowie also have two collaborations on the worst list. Elton's "Live 8" performance of "Children of the Revolution" with British rocker Pete Doherty is coming in at...

No Wonder... Published On 08-31-2007 , 2:27 PM Gov. Schwarzenegger’s drive to reduce carbon dioxide emissions got a major boost this week when the makers of Wonder Bread announced the total withdrawal of their bread products from Southern California. Interstate Bakeries, the makers of Wonder Bread, Roman Meal, Home Pride and Baker’s Inn breads announced the closure of four bakeries, 17 distribution centers and 19 outlet stores, leaving 1,300 Californians out of work. The iconic breads – that had been staples of Southern California grocery stores since the 1940s – will completely disappear from shelves starting October 20th. The parent...

Faces And Names I had an interesting day today — maybe the most interesting day of my life. World's Greatest Wife (WGW) and I went to Dr. DNA today on orders from the OB/GYN (henceforth known as "Dr. Uterus"). Mission: genetic counseling, that transparent exercise in medical ass-covery that allows physicians to shrug, hold up their hands in a gesture of innocence, and say "don't blame me" in a court of equity if the kid turns out to have crab claws or something. Seriously, though, the cute "genetic counselor" lady told us about amnio (no thanks), asked us about our...

<p>He was killed in a freak accident in Cairns, police sources said. It is understood he was killed by a sting-ray barb that went through his chest.</p> <p>He was swimming off the Low Isles at Port Douglas filming an underwater documentary and that's when it occured.</p>

R.I.P: Steve Irwin's body isn't yet cold and already the Pecksniffs are out, tut-tutting the late crocodile hunter's risky encounters with wild beasts. They miss the point: Irwin's life was about enriching humans. Irwin, who died over the weekend after a freak attack by a stingray, did not live a riskless life. In fact, for those who've watched his Animal Planet shows, some wonder why a fatal encounter hadn't happened earlier. But it's indisputable that he mastered nature with a rare talent — a talent that took him to the edge of possibility. For the sake of the rest of...

Hamid Khan stood out among the Hispanics he marched alongside at a recent immigration protest. When one demonstrator asked Khan where he was from and the reply was Pakistan, the man asked, "'Then what are you doing here?'" Khan was surprised. "I said, 'Look, there are non-Latino groups who are also suffering under these laws,'" said Khan, 49, a commercial pilot and director of an advocacy group called the South Asian Network. Hispanics, the nation's largest immigrant group, are leading the movement to demand a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and defeat legislation that would criminalize them. Khan's experience...

The article follows... Hi everybody. Have been following the Commercial art=Bad art thread for a couple of days and wanted to throw in my two cents. On the topic of 'commercial illustration=bad art' and Rockwell, Parrish, and N. C. Wyeth, et al. be damned: I can't say I agree. If one has to say that the damning detail of the art was the fact that Rockwell had to accept guidelines as to what he was to paint (i.e. paint Santa having milk and cookies for our December issue of The Saturday Evening Post) so then his art isn't art, but...

Some of Arnold Schwarzenegger's political foes are wondering if Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca is going a bit too far in his support of the governor. On Feb. 6, a plane towing a banner that read "It's No Party for Nurses, Patients and Students — Arnoldwatch.net" flew over Schwarzenegger's Brentwood mansion while the governor hosted a Super Bowl party. Groups representing nurses and consumers have criticized Schwarzenegger's opposition to proposals for expanding healthcare coverage, and they have been angered over what they say is the rollback of safety rules to assure minimum safe staffing in California hospitals. Jerry Flanagan...

A civilisation parallel to Harappa? Experts wonder Abhishek Kapoor Vadodara, December 11: Was Gujarat the cradle of an independent civilisation, contemporary of the classical Harappan civilisation around the Indus Valley? This view is gaining academic credence in the community of archaeologists specialising on the subject across the country. The Sorath (present Saurashtra) region civilisation, dating back to 3700 BC at some places, was distinct from the classical Harappan as it developed in the Indus Valley, say researchers in the field. ‘‘It maintained its separate identity in many ways even as a cultural, economic and technological exchange took place between the...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Some U.S. election experts wonder if vote will produce early clear winner 09:27 PM EDT Oct 24 BETH GORHAM WASHINGTON (CP) - With just a week to go in a deadlocked U.S. election race already plagued by major voting problems, accusations of trickery and a deluge of lawsuits, there are two big questions. It's no longer just a matter of who's going to win the Nov. 2 vote but when there will be a clear winner. Some election experts are warning that Americans could be facing another messy repeat of 2000, when the country endured a bitter five-week Florida recount...

Did the First Americans Come From, Er, Australia? Mon Sep 6, 9:24 AM ET EXETER, England (Reuters) - Anthropologists stepped into a hornets' nest on Monday, revealing research that suggests the original inhabitants of America may in fact have come from what is now known as Australia.   The claim will be extremely unwelcome to today's native Americans who came overland from Siberia and say they were there first. But Silvia Gonzalez from John Moores University in Liverpool said skeletal evidence pointed strongly to this unpalatable truth and hinted that recovered DNA would corroborate it. "This is very contentious," Gonzalez,...

The oldest known evidence of people keeping cats as pets may have been discovered by archaeologists. The discovery of a cat buried with what could be its owner in a Neolithic grave on Cyprus suggests domestication of cats had begun 9,500 years ago. It was thought the Egyptians were first to domesticate cats, with the earliest evidence dating to 2,000-1,900 BC. French researchers writing in Science magazine show that the process actually began much earlier than that. The evidence comes from the Neolithic, or late stone age, village of Shillourokambos on Cyprus, which was inhabited from the 9th to the...

A disturbing story in the March 1 issue of Pravda suggests that the U. S. Government is working on the discovery of a mysterious point over the South Pole that may be a passageway backward in time. According to the article, some American and British scientists working in Antarctica on January 27, 1995, noticed a spinning gray fog in the sky over the pole. U. S. physicist Mariann McLein said at first they believed it to be some kind of sandstorm. But after a while they noticed that the fog did not change its form and did not move so...

I thought I would create a harmless post and ask if any of you watch Justice League on the Cartoon Channel? I usually watch it with my grandsons. Last nights episode dealt with the villians using mind control to manipulate the heros feelings towards one another, causing the JL to break up. As usual, as the end, the heroes unite and kick arse. I like a couple things about the episode. At the end, one of the villians goes to punch Batman when Superman appears and stops him. After Batman ties up the villian he begins to say that he...

Years Were Longer 1.3bln Years ago: Chinese ScientistsPeople who complain that there aren't enough hours in the day might have preferred to live 1.3 billion years ago. At that time, according to the latest research by a group of Chinese scientists, there were 15 hours in one day, 42 days in a month, and 13 to 14 months, or more than 540 days, in a year. The finding was obtained through a five-year systematic study of stromatolite samples, known as "stone with memory", by several researchers with the Tianjin geology and minerals research institute under the China Geological Survey...

Moon model: a superplume from inside the Moon when it was just 500 million years old might explain a lot - and not just about the Moon (Pic: University of California).  A mighty 'burp' early in the Moon's life may explain something that has puzzled scientists ever since Apollo astronauts brought back rock samples; why are there so many ancient magnetised rocks lying on the surface? Research published in the journal Nature this week from the University of California at Berkeley, in the United States, suggests that an expunged column of hot rock - like a blob rising to...

Source: University Of Arizona Date: 2003-02-14 Undergrads Discover New Class Of Star; "They Pulsate Like Jell-O"University of Arizona astronomy undergraduates have serendipitously discovered a new class of star that thrills astronomers who specialize in a relatively new field called "astroseismology." Astronomers worldwide will collaborate in continuous observations of one of these newly found stars for several weeks in May 2003. "Astronomers are always looking for new and better ways to study stars," said Elizabeth Green, assistant staff astronomer at Steward Observatory, who with her students discovered the new class of stars. They have found sub-dwarf B stars that pulsate...

Players assume the role of President Bush (news - web sites) in the online game, receiving regular briefings from caricatures of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites). It starts with Baghdad's quick fall but then proceeds to an Iraqi anthrax attack on Israel, a retaliatory nuclear strike, revolt in Saudi Arabia, and a Kurdish coup in northern Iraq. Once Saddam Hussein's body is found, players are asked to select one of three look-alike successors, who soon requires military backing to fend off...

Reprinted from NewsMax.com Lott and the DachshundsRalph R. ReilandSunday, Dec. 29, 2002 What's dumb about Trent Lott is that he should have known how tricky it is to talk about race in America. Excuse the pun, but the top dog in the Senate should have known that we're at the point where you can't even say that dachshunds aren't so good with kids without being called a racist. Remember when the fur hit the fan a few years back when the American Kennel Club said in its best-selling "The Complete Dog Book" that some breeds were better with young children...