Somewhere along the line we got the idea that we're entitled to express ourselves. Now who thought up that deal? As if there was something desirable and valuable in the concept of individual definition—as if it could never be taken away. There's something to be said for uniforms, you know. Get everyone dressed in identical gray jumpsuits with orange trim, and distribute shoulder patches to indicate job function. Now that would be an orderly society. Right now, what we've got on our hands is kinda messy, what with people setting their airplane seats on fire, and we wouldn't blame you one bit if trying to grasp it all gives you a headache. We're going for the aspirin right now—want one?

Follow Me, Please

Those are words you never want to hear in an airport. Because you know full well that the end of that road is the infamous "Green Room," where they force you to strip naked and some apparatchik is snapping on a pair of latex gloves. Here's a quick briefing on some countries where the rules are non-intuitive, and taking a photo of the wrong building or having the wrong magazine in your luggage buys you time in some God-forsaken hell-hole that'll leave you with PTSD for the rest of your life. Take this poor schmedrick, Ronald Farrell, 48, a buyer and seller of meteorites in Bethany, Conn., who tried to ferry a purchase out of Brazil:

Mr. Farrell said he was locked in an 18-by-20-foot foot cell with 16 other prisoners, including convicted murderers, given inedible meals and threatened by guards with beatings. In his second month of captivity, he said, he managed to bribe officials into giving him better food and letting him make cellphone calls to his wife back home. After his lawyers bought his freedom for $25,000, he said, he was forced to remain in Brazil for two months.

Whatta Shame

Did you read about Microsoft getting hit with SQL Slammer? Turns out they hadn't upgraded their own servers with the newest patches. If you work in IT and are responsible for keeping up with the MS patch-ware regime, you're probably smiling. In this report, you get an overview of which types of companies were hit hardest by the virus. From the looks of this, nobody had much time to respond.

Complicating the investigation was how quickly the attack spread across the globe, making it nearly impossible for researchers to find the electronic equivalent of "patient zero," the earliest-infected computers.

"Basically within one minute, the game was over," said Johannes Ullrich of Boston, who runs the D-Shield network of computer monitors.

Punks Never Sleep

That's my take on this item from MSNBC's Weblog Central. The article explores the relationship between bloggers and the content of their comment sections.

Do the comments posted by readers of a blog reflect on the blogger? Are bloggers responsible for what is said in their comments section? Are bloggers "guilty by association" when their blog friends and posters behave poorly elsewhere? Are bloggers "guilty by association" for linking to objectionable content in their blogroll?

Let the comments stand.

10:51:42 PM       

Behind every myth lies a kernal of truth, more often than not, which is how this morning's scan shaped up. Even if the bad guys really aren't such scoundrels, they've probably got a few skeletons laying around. While that sounds cryptic at the moment, by the end of our wrap-up all will be clear. First, however, we've got to get off Kalypso's island with this raft of tales.

The Cyclops

A one-eyed giant is the last thing you need when you're on a Mediterranean island. Why, Odysseus watched one of 'em go through his crew like a bag of potato chips.

Now, researchers on the island of Crete have unearthed the fossilized bones of a Deinotherium Gigantisimum, "a fearsome elephant-like creature that might have given rise to ancient legends of one-eyed cyclops monsters."

A large hole in the middle of the elephant's skull—the nasal cavity for its trunk—could have given rise to the tales of the cyclops, the ferocious mythological giant with one eye that appears in Homer's "Odyssey" and other stories.

The Sirens

Joe Millionaire is getting around these days. You've probably seen his mug plastered all over the tabloids at the supermarket checkout line. Now we discover that one of the hopeful bachelorettes vying for his favor, Sarah Kozer, didn't mention one small detail in her resume.

Seems that Sarah has had quite the career starring in "dozens of bondage and fetish films" under the name of "Cindy Schubert." Your ever-inquistive narrator felt that journalistic integrity required further research. Here's Sarah in her role of "Girl Two" in Novices in Knots, a soft-core kink video in which her lines apparently were "No—please—mmph...mmph." From the size of the coverage this story is getting, we think somebody at Fox is due for a raise.

When asked "what is the wildest thing you've ever done?", [Kozer] said there was a long list but picked backpacking in Morocco.

"Most of my 'wild' things involve adventure and romance," she said.

The Laistrygonians

When Odysseus ran into these people, he had to make a fast break back to his ship. They were larger-than-life cannibals who delighted in breaking men in half and sucking the marrow out of their bones. They're still around today, but now we call 'em "biology professors." Like Michael Dini at Texas Tech University. To be fair, Dini's doing a pretty good job. He just got himself in the news because of his policy of refusing to write letters of recommendation to grad-school hopefuls "if they don't believe in evolution." Makes sense, really, but there's always the nut-job factor to contend with:

The legal complaint was filed against Texas Tech University and professor Michael Dini by a student and the Liberty Legal Institute, a religious freedom group that calls Dini's policy "open religious bigotry."

The Test of the Bow

Before he could kill all of the suitors, Odysseus had to win an archery contest by shooting an arrow through a narrow series of targets. Scientists at Clemson University and the Medical University of South Carolina have found a way to build three-dimensional living tissue. What's interesting here isn't the substance they've developed, or how they apply it to celophane or glass slides, but that they're using a good-old inkjet printer as the application mechanism.

"This could have the same kind of impact that Gutenberg's press did," said tissue engineer Vladimir Mironov, of the Medical University of South Carolina.

So much for our modern classics. More Raven later today.

11:18:53 AM