Joe's house raffle. Want a house outside of Detroit? Buy a ticket, try your luck! Hunnerd bucks! Access to the lake, and an adjoining buildable lot. Good luck!

Curious Squinty George We seem to be a short-sighted lot at MoFi, don't we? I need some advice about a minor problem - when I'm biking long distances, or mountain biking, my eyes start to sting and tear up after about half an hour - maybe more if it's cold or windy. Is this normal? I wear glasses all the time but I don't think I have particularly sensitive eyes. Suggestions? This last happened yesterday, on a cloudy day in a forest, not much dust, so I think it's the wind and/or cool air that's the problem.

Rwanda ditches French .

Studying psychopaths . Most researchers agree that anyone who scores thirty or higher on the PCL-R is considered to be a psychopath. Kiehl says, “Someone who scores a thirty-five, a thirty-six, they are just different. You say to yourself, ‘Aha, here you are. You are why I do this.’ ”

Animals Speak Color. "A new exhibition reveals how they acquire the language and use it." [Via]

A suggestion box for the Obama administration has just been put up at the new change.gov. The rest of the site is pretty much just PR outlining what they have so far, but I like to think that this could become a way for us american monkeys to interact directly with leadership on an issue-by-issue basis, a theoretical message board for the executive branch. more inside

Raiders make off with bull semen more inside

In 1980, Michael Palin traveled by train from London to the Kyle of Lochalsh. His trip was recorded for the BBC television series Great Railway Journeys of the World. more inside

Spoofing Shepard Fairey's Obama "Hope" Posters

TED: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Great thinkers from around the world gather once a year and present their ideas to a small audience. Their presentations are on video at this website. I've been enjoying this amusing speech by Sir Ken Robinson, but there are dozens more to explore.

Fake Mad Scientists Arrested Under Anti-Terrorism Law.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm, SPAM!! A tribute to Spam, the Meat Get the Straight Dope, the real facts--Does it really taste like chicken? Let's jump into the SpamMobile and go visit the Spam Museum! It's nutritious, delicious, historic, and more popular than ever! more inside

Ben-Hur Live! A stage production of the epic Charlton Heston film Ben-Hur is to open next year in London's O2 Arena. Ooooookaaaaay. more inside

111oneone!! 11111MEMBERS111ONEONE!! The front page says 11111 members today. This is one of those threads where the lurkers are supposed to come out of the woodwork and say hi. Hi Lurkers! Who is user# 11111? I think they should be required to always post in all-caps.

Curious George and his Christmas Lights. Silly survey question: yesterday, I took advantage of the balmy weather and an early end to the workday to hang my Christmas lights on the eavestroughs with care, since I was up on the ladder anyway cleaning out the leaves and guck. So the lights are up. When should I turn them on? Now, since Hallowe'en's over? Nov. 25th? December 1st?

Illuminated music manuscripts beautiful as they are, are a source of frustration. I came across this site that has a whole bunch of illuminated music and I don't know what it sounds like. I like the way it looks very much but I'd like to hear it. Can any of you help me out and play and upload it so that I can hear it (just a snippet or a link to an existing mp3 would do), or a pointer to a commercial download would be appreciated too.

The Jake Thackray website. With a biography, reviews, discography, lyrics, and guitar tabs for many of his songs. more inside

Evidence for the decay of dark matter? The Tevatron particle accelerator at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, has produced particles that the team was unable to explain by the known laws of physics: far more muons were created than were predicted from the collision of protons and anti-protons. More crucially, some of these muons seem to have been created OUTSIDE of the horizon of the metal beam pipe: leaving no trace inside. As a possible explanation, Weiner and Nima Arkani-Hamed of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and colleagues have developed a theory of dark matter that posits dark matter particles that interact among themselves by exchanging "force-carrying" particles with a mass of about 1 gigaelectronvolts. Moreover, the new CDF muons appear to have come from the decay of a particle with a mass of about 1 GeV. So was this a particle of dark matter? more inside

OBAMA WON YAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!

BOX FULL OF PUPPIES BOX FULL OF PUPPIES LIVE WEBCAM OF A BOX FULL OF PUPPIES OH EM GEEEEEEEEEEE