It was cool enough this morning that I put on a sweatshirt when I went downstairs! And the cat stayed on my bed all night, instead of wandering the house in search of a mythical cool spot.

From Salon:

Illinois Man Says Rabbit Saved His Wife

August 16,2005 | PORT BYRON, Ill. -- An Illinois man claims a $10 pet rabbit saved the life of his pregnant wife. Ed Murphy said the rabbit was unusually noisy one night, banging and jumping up and down in her cage.

Murphy tried to ignore the racket by putting noise buffers on top the cage, but the pet would not let him go back to sleep.

Murphy then noticed his wife seemed to be sleeping heavily with her eyes wide open, so he called 911.

Darcy Murphy was quickly taken to a hospital, where she remained five days for treatment of gestational diabetes, a carbohydrate intolerance during pregnancy.

Murphy's obstetrician, Dr. Anita Pinc, credits the rabbit with telling Ed Murphy "Wake up, wake up. Something is wrong with your wife."

Murphy delivered baby Brenna on June 13.

Huh.

Oh shit

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - A West Caribbean Airways jet travelling from Panama crashed in Venezuela on Tuesday, killing all 153 passengers and crew on board, officials said.

The aircraft was en route to the French Caribbean island territory of Martinique when it went down in a mountainous area near Venezuela's border with Colombia after suffering from engine failure, Venezuelan officials said.

An Illinois man claims a $10 pet rabbit saved the life of his pregnant wife.

We've come a long way from killing rabbits to do pregnancy tests.

We've come a long way from killing rabbits to do pregnancy tests.

Heh.

Did you hear about the rabbit that saved a woman from being run over by a cosmetics truck?

For the longest time I thought it was an Arabic name or something. IMAQT.

All I'm coming up with is "I'm a Q.T." Help??

Is it just me and all the flying I've been doing lately, or have there been a lot more stories about plane crashes recently?

"I'm a cutie." I think.

ABC is releasing a 2 disc dvd set of 6 Peter Jennings specials -- [link] on October 18.

Including How to Get Fat Without Even Trying, No Place to Hide, and Guantanamo.

Evidentally there are other specials already available on dvd.

t geek

I'm rather excited about the chance to see these, I missed most of them.

t /geek

Just read the Legal Urban Legends article. I had heard that the large punitive award from the jury was because, when the victim's injuries were described as "severe burns on the inside of both upper thighs and on the groin region," the McDonald's attorney said something to the effect of "What's the big deal? It's not like anyone's going to ever see them."

I have no idea if this part is true. However, I do know that McDonald's had been serving really hot coffee for a while, had received several complaints about people being burned, and had decided not to lower the temperature of their coffee because "their customers liked it that way" (even though if drunk at the temp served it would have caused 3d degree burns). I think the jury award was the cost of the woman's medical bills plus profits McDonald's gets from one day of coffee sales.

In one of my law school classes, we did this entire experiment with boiling water, measuring how long it takes to cool and what sort of burns you get as it cools. I've been a defender of Stella Liebeck ever since.

I'm hoping to take a few days off next week.

Oh, I hope you have a good time. And I'm glad somebody is getting the good weather, because here it's really hot and really humid.

Did you know they've started releasing complete seasons of The Muppet Show on DVD?

No, I had no idea. Hmm, and my brother has a birthday coming up. Thanks for letting me know!