Imagine being able to recall just about anything, your mind functioning as a nearly endless encyclopedic scrapbook of names, pictures, dates and events.

Wisconsin resident Brad Williams’ total recall makes him a personified version of Google. His extensive memory allows him to recall almost any news event and anything he has experienced, including specific dates and even the weather. Williams’ type of detailed, exhaustive memory is called hyperthymesia and few known cases exist. Brad’s brain scans are now being studied by neuroscientists at the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California, Irvine. Initially, the drive-time radio broadcaster didn’t think his ability to recall so much was anything special. Gradually over the years other people noticed how much he was able to remember in detail about the same events, Williams said.

Eric Williams’ is intrigued about the inner workings of his brother’s mind. Eric Williams is in the process of making a documentary about Brad, appropriately titled “Unforgettable.” In the film, which hasn’t been completed yet, Williams takes on a person who is Googling answers to 20 questions. He answered 18 of them correctly and was 11 minutes faster than the searcher.

While this “gift” may come in handy, there are things in my life I would prefer to forget. An ex-wife comes immediately to mind.

Director Oliver Stone, who has made movies about Presidents John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, is developing a project about the current occupant of the White House, but promises it will not be a hatchet job.

He is shopping the script to financiers and hopes to start production by April, with a release date in time for the election in November, or the inauguration of Bush’s successor in January.

Stone told Daily Variety that he planned to make “a fair, true portrait” of Bush, focusing on such areas as his relationship with his father, President George H.W. Bush, his wild youth, and his conversion to Christianity.

“It will contain surprises for Bush supporters and his detractors,” said Stone.

Telling the truth will be embarrassing enough!

Liberal Senator Mobina Jaffer is under investigation by the Law Society of British Columbia for allegedly overbilling one of her legal clients, including charging for 30 hours of work in a single day… Brad Daisley, a spokesman for the law society, said it opened the ethics investigation because “lawyers have a duty of honesty and integrity.”

The Oblates of Mary Immaculate, whose B.C. headquarters are based in New Westminster, fired Jaffer and her son, Azool Jaffer-Jeraj, three years ago after receiving bills of $6.7 million dollars. They had hired the Jaffers to defend them against dozens of claims of abuse in residential schools…

CBC News has obtained forensic accounting reports filed during the lawsuit showing that Jaffer, on one occasion, billed 30 hours on a single day. Twenty-seven of those hours were for “finalizing accounts” — which means preparing bills.

I’ve been fortunate enough to know a couple of lawyers who had “honesty and integrity”.

The rest are in politics.

Thanks, Cinaedh mac Ailpin

This Tower will combine photovoltaics and wind generators

Gulf Arab oil exporter Abu Dhabi plans to spend $15 billion in the first phase of an initiative to develop green energy and build the world’s largest hydrogen power plant.

The investment would be part of the Masdar initiative, set up to develop sustainable and clean energy, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahayan told the World Future Energy Summit…

The money will go into infrastructure, renewable energy projects such as solar power, and manufacturing, to position Abu Dhabi as a leader in the global clean energy market, said Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of Masdar…

Abu Dhabi, capital of the seven-member United Arab Emirates federation, would also build the world’s largest hydrogen power plant with 500 megawatts of capacity, said Jaber.

Masdar will hold a 60 percent stake in the “multi-billion-dollar joint venture,” a Masdar official said, adding that the rest would be equally held by British Petroleum and Rio Tinto.

I am pleased to see they’re spending my money wisely.

Obvious threat to society

A young blonde Icelandic woman’s recent experience visiting the US — Signs of the Times News — Read this whole thing. It is fascinating in light of the fact that the country is crawling with illegals from Mexico who are never deported. Not only that but some convicted felons who served jail time and were illegal aliens are not deported. Why this girl? And EXACTLY how does this benefit the USA and the tourist trade? Seriously.

During the last twenty-four hours I have probably experienced the greatest humiliation to which I have ever been subjected. During these last twenty-four hours I have been handcuffed and chained, denied the chance to sleep, been without food and drink and been confined to a place without anyone knowing my whereabouts, imprisoned. Now I am beginning to try to understand all this, rest and review the events which began as innocently as possible.

Last Sunday I and a few other girls began our trip to New York. We were going to shop and enjoy the Christmas spirit. We made ourselves comfortable on first class, drank white wine and looked forward to go shopping, eat good food and enjoy life. When we landed at JFK airport the traditional clearance process began.

We were screened and went on to passport control. As I waited for them to finish examining my passport I heard an official say that there was something which needed to be looked at more closely and I was directed to the work station of Homeland Security. There I was told that according to their records I had overstayed my visa by 3 weeks in 1995. For this reason I would not be admitted to the country and would be sent home on the next flight. I looked at the official in disbelief and told him that I had in fact visited New York after the trip in 1995 without encountering any difficulties. A detailed interrogation session ensued.

I was photographed and fingerprinted. I was asked questions which I felt had nothing to do with the issue at hand. I was forbidden to contact anyone to advise of my predicament and although I was invited at the outset to contact the Icelandic consul or embassy, that invitation was later withdrawn. I don’t know why.

I was then made to wait while they sought further information, and sat on a chair before the authority for 5 hours. I saw the officials in this section handle other cases and it was clear that these were men anxious to demonstrate their power. Small kings with megalomania. I was careful to remain completely cooperative, for I did not yet believe that they planned to deport me because of my “crime”.

Then there is this news report in the Rocky Mountain News:

A federal study last year found that illegal immigrants in prison had been arrested an average of eight times. Another federal study released in May found that it would cost $1.1 billion for enough detention beds to ensure the deportation of all criminals.

Here is the federal study. This is an excellent collector’s item for people who are following these fiascos. Amazing amount of information. (caution PDF)

found by Eddie S.

Police: Grandmother Arrested At McDonald’s Drive-Thru For Not Pulling Car Forward – Orlando News Story – WKMG Orlando — The Clearwater coppers must be proud of this bust. Hey boys, you do know there is real crime in Florida too, right?

A 75-year-old woman was arrested at a Clearwater McDonald’s drive-thru, because police say she wouldn’t pull her car forward.

Authorities said Jean Merola, a grandmother of eight, was arrested for disorderly conduct after she refused an officer’s orders to move her car while she waited for the coffee and fries she ordered at the drive-through window.

Merola said the McDonald’s employees told her to wait there for her food.

Merola was handcuffed behind her back and put in the cruiser.

Skimpy skirts and revealing tops are making way for designer gowns and luxury handbags in Amsterdam’s red-light district as the area tries to ditch its seedy image. Fifteen young Dutch designers opened stores in former brothels this weekend, displaying their creations in the tall windows where prostitutes recently sat touting for business. “It is time for a change here,” said Lodewijk Asscher, the deputy mayor of Amsterdam, at the launch of the city-backed fashion push. ” Amsterdammers ought to able to feel proud of this area.” The city council is getting tough on the 800-year-old red-light district, pledging to stamp out crime and human trafficking by revoking the licences of suspect sex clubs and brothels – including some of the industry’s best-known names. Many in the tourist industry acknowledge that the red-light district – a warren of narrow alleys and canals lined with sex shops, peep shows and brothels – is as big an attraction as art museums and coffee shops where marijuana is smoked. “They’d lose so much money if they shut it down,” said Max, 25, an English tourist, who admitted the drugs and women had attracted him to Amsterdam.

*Sniff*, is nothing sacred?

“Everyone knows — even the smallest kid knows about Martin Luther King — can say his most famous moment was that ‘I have a dream’ speech,” said Henry Louis Taylor Jr., professor of urban and regional planning. “No one can go further than one sentence. All we know is that this guy had a dream. We don’t know what that dream was…”

King was working on anti-poverty and anti-war issues at the time of his death. He had spoken out against the Vietnam War and was in Memphis when he was killed in April 1968 in support of striking sanitation workers.

By taking on issues outside segregation, he had lost the support of many newspapers and magazines, and his relationship with the White House had suffered, said Harvard Sitkoff, a professor of history…

But he took on issues of poverty and militarism because he considered them vital “to make equality something real and not just racial brotherhood but equality in fact,” Sitkoff said.

“We’re living increasingly in a culture of top 10 lists, of celebrity biopics which simplify the past as entertainment or mythology,” said Richard Greenwald. “We lose a view on what real leadership is by compressing him down to one window.”

Folks still seem – most often – to want to deal with one issue at a time. So many – causes of the effects that people challenge – are interrelated.

Welcome to Lighthouse Point

A would-be burglar met his match when he tried to elude Margo Foster, a marathon runner with a black belt in karate who also knows kickboxing and kung fu, police said.

On Friday morning, the 53-year-old Lighthouse Point resident returned home from tennis practice to find an intruder rummaging through her bedroom.

Without thinking twice, she said in an interview, she bolted through the living and dining rooms and followed the startled man out to the backyard. Police said he had one of Foster’s backpacks strapped on his shoulders, filled with her property. She wanted it back…

As related by Foster – after a seven-block chase – the intruder began to climb a 6-foot-high wooden fence, when she “grabbed him by the neck, ripped him off the fence.. threw him to the ground, and put my knee to his chest.”

The two struggled for a few minutes, Foster in her white tennis skirt, before the burglar dropped the bag and started running again.

Foster followed – flagged down a motorist with a cell phone and called the cops – who arrived and arrested the thief.

“I outran the kid,” said Foster. “He had no cardiovascular system.”

And as we always get to say – he had no brains either.

You’ve got to be careful with the accelerator because hybrid school buses like to go.

Dan Taghon…said his district’s new hybrid bus has been running routes since Jan. 3. And Taghon, who drives the bus on one of the district’s six routes, said he likes the 65-passenger machine powered by an electric motor and a V-8 diesel engine…

And that’s why it takes some practice to get the most out of Iowa’s first two hybrid buses.

The hybrid buses feature electric drive trains that can move the buses at street speeds; their diesel engines take over at higher speeds. They also have technology that captures some of the energy of braking and uses that to help recharge their own batteries.

Taghon, the director of transportation for the Sigourney district, said last week he still hadn’t had to refuel his district’s hybrid bus. After eight runs, he said the bus still had half to three-quarters of a tank of diesel.

You shouldn’t be surprised to learn of heavy hybrids. FedEx has cut operating costs in half every place they’ve introduced diesel-hybrids in the U.S. – and they’re replacing straight diesel trucks in Europe, now, as well.

Freight haulers in the United States have been making the same conversions to both long and short-haul vehicles.

The failing economy isn’t helping, either.

New Generation Of Homeless Vets Emerges

For as long as the United States has sent its young men _ and later its young women _ off to war, it has watched as a segment of them come home and lose the battle with their own memories, their own scars, and wind up without homes.
[…]
[M]ost publicly and perhaps most painfully, there was Vietnam: Tens of thousands of war-weary veterans, infamously rejected or forgotten by many of their own fellow citizens.

Now it is happening again, in small but growing numbers.
[…]
Mental illness, financial troubles and difficulty in finding affordable housing are generally accepted as the three primary causes of homelessness among veterans, and in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, the first has raised particular concern.

Iraq veterans are less likely to have substance abuse problems but more likely to suffer mental illness, particularly post-traumatic stress, according to the Veterans Administration. And that stress by itself can trigger substance abuse.

Some advocates say there are also some factors particular to the Iraq war, like multiple deployments and the proliferation of improvised explosive devices, that could be pulling an early trigger on stress disorders that can lead to homelessness.