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Finally golfers get a break this year and can have some fun with this Halloween costume idea compliments of Tiger Woods. A “Cheetah Woods” visor with a crazy little golf club and you’re all set for the 19th. hole Halloween party. Your better half may like to accompany you in a Lindsay Lohan prison outfit.

That’s pretty cool for a start but it gets better. The Avitar movie made pony tails popular again so if you don’t want to go way cool and pop the cash for the tall green suit then just get a fake hipster length pony tail and throw on any old rag around the house … and you’re all set to party.

Use your imagination a bit and you can probably come up with a great gag costume to skew the Jet Blue attendant Steven Slater who just pleaded guilt in court and has to get some mental health help.

If you really want to make the scene, grab a hard hat and dirty jump suit and pretend you’re a BP oil worker. Some oily goggles and a BP logo would add a nice touch.

Star Wars is celebrating its 20th. anniversary this year so Darth Vader and Princess Leia will be pretty popular around town. Be on super high alert though if you see the princess carrying a little bag with her.

For a political statement you may want to grab a top hat and pretend you’re going to a Tea Party … or how about a Sarah Palin look alike in a swim suit if you have the figure for it. Failing that, just put on a set of glasses and hold up a picture of a grizzly bear and play guess who.

A Brent Favre Halloween costume would probably be pretty interesting. Hmmm. Be careful though if you plan to carry an iphone with a naughty picture for authenticity. Make sure that only that special someone gets to see it.

So we have traveled now all the way from kooky to funky. A Lady Gaga meat dress. Now that’s funky. Check things out with your butcher when designing your costume to ensure you have the funkiest meat going and oh yes …  take some other clothes with you just in case there’s a dog or two at the party.

In spite of all these great Halloween costume ideas my personal favorite is a simple diaper and a baby bottle. It gets lots of attention, everyone wants to play with the baby, and there’s always a drink nearby. Play it safe and make sure the baby’s bottle doesn’t have any of that BPA stuff in it.

Have fun at your Halloween bash wearing any Halloween costume you can imagine.

new planet could have life

In a Galaxy called Libra about 20 light years away from earth, astronomers have found a planet that’s similar enough to earth that they think it could support life. They think this because the conditions there are suitable for liquid water to exist … and usually there’s life where there is water.

The new planet has lots of other earth like characteristics. The temperature ranges from -4C to 71C. It has a 37 day circular orbit of its sun. It’s mass is about three times greater than the earth and it has gravity on its surface allowing a person to walk there.

The planet was discovered by two teams. One at the University of California, and the other at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. For about the last 10 years they’ve monitored it at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

The planet’s orbit and distance from its sun places it in what the researchers call the “habitable zone” and that’s why they think the planet is likely to have water.

Gliese 581g as it is called is described as  a “Goldilocks planet” by one of its co-discoverers. It’s tidally locked. That means only one side of the planet gets any sun. The other side is always in the dark. Any life there would most likely be found near the intersection of the two regions.

It appears people are so addicted to their cell phones that they’ll defy the law and keep right on using them while driving. Catch me if you can seems to be the attitude.

A recent study done by insurance companies showed that in the age group of 18 to 24 years there was only a drop of 3% in phone use for those states which have banned texting while driving compared to those that still allowed it. Over 45% still text and drive no matter what.

There are now some 30 states that have enacted bans of some sort on using portable phones while driving. The study tried to compare accident stats for those states that had bans with adjacent states that did not.

The Insurance Institute For Highway Safety that did the study admits that using a cell phone while driving is just one of many distractions that a driver has to cope with. It might be a bit of a leap then to think that by trying to ban just one distraction that a significant reduction in accidents would result.

For various statistical reasons only 4 states of the 30 where texting and driving are prohibited could be compared with non banned adjacent states.

It’s really too small a study for the results to be not without error but the numbers suggest if anything that there was actually a slight increase in accidents in those states that did the banning. How could that be you ask?

Speculation is that those that were still texting and driving were well aware of the new ban and were distracted even more by trying to conceal their evil intent while all the time also keeping a sharp eye out for John Law. In other words, the ban actually added another distraction.

The 33 trapped Chilean miners are now supported by a staff of about 300 above ground that work in shifts to provide them with everything from food to entertainment.

The miners have divided into three 11 men teams that have schedules to follow. Food, water, clothing … and everything else gets raised and lowered to them through  containers that can pass through a small drill hole that connects them to the surface. Everything has to be tightly bundled to fit into the containers.

A 3 man team of miners is permanently stationed at the drill hole to unpack things as they arrive and to send back up whatever needs to be.

Their underground home for at least the next few weeks has now got a high degree of comfort compared to what it was after the collapse when they were cut off from the surface and lived mainly in the dark and dust for 17 days.

They now have a huge team supporting them above ground consisting of cooks, drilling engineers, communications experts, doctors, psychologists, launderers, and of course family members.

They have cots to sleep on in three shifts, breakfast, dinner, and supper is passed down to them. A container from the surface takes about 15 minutes to pass through the drill hole. Air and water is piped down to them through another drill hole.

Cables provide a telephone hook-up and even cable TV. They watch TV about 13 hours a day but officials are careful about what they watch so as not to affect the psychology of survival that’s so important to them. The teams are brought together at meal time to foster the sense of unity.

Plans are slowly being put in place about how to rescue the men when a large bore hole is expected to be completed sometime in November. A one man capsule will be used to pull each miner up to the surface.

Researchers working at Oxford University say they have detected differences in people’s brains as young as 20 that are similar to those Alzheimer’s patients have.

Alzheimer disease was first detected in 1906 by German neurologist Alois Alzheimer. It causes brain cells to die and its most common form is dementia which affects 460,000 people in the UK alone.

The disease eventually disables people’s ability to function on their own by progressive memory loss, then confusion and personality changes.

No known cause has yet to be identified for the disease but it predominantly hits the elderly. A combination of factors including age, genetics, and diet is thought by most scientists to be the problem.

The researchers at Oxford University’s Department of Psychiatry hopes their research can led them to some sort of a marker that’s an indication  that somewhere in the distant future that person may develop Alzheimer disease.

They are hoping that by changing the  lifestyle of  the person identified with the marker while they are young … something as simple as perhaps an extra vitamin, can prevent the disease from occurring in them.

Research has already shown that someone carrying the APOE4 gene is more likely to develop Alzheimer’s, but they don’t know why, and not everyone with the gene will get the disease, and not all dementia patients are carriers of the gene.

In a report appearing in the American Journal of Public Health, two researchers at the University of North Texas Health Science Center write “Our results suggested that recent and rapid increases in texting volumes have resulted in thousands of additional road fatalities in the United States”

The research involved matching up road death statistics from each state with cell phone ownership and text message volume data supplied from the Federal Communications Commission.

They estimate that between 2001 and 2007 about 16,000 people were killed while driving and distracted while using their cell phones talking and texting. They conclude that ever increasing texting volume is the biggest reason for the deaths.

From 2002 to 2008 monthly texts rose from 1 million to 110 million. The researchers point their collective finger at smartphones as being the single biggest reason for the texting volume increase.

They estimate there’s a 19% increase in fatalities for every million new cell phone users due to driver distraction.

The researchers see enforcement as being a key problem in stopping users from using their phones while driving in states that have banned the practice, or limited it to hands free phones. They said “I guess a perfect solution would be installing cell phone jammers in every car but that is not going to happen,”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon  said in an interview ahead of the summit “I know there is skepticism but this MDG is a promise, a blueprint, by the world leaders to lift billions of people out of poverty. This must be met and delivered” .

World leaders are to meet at a summit in New York on Saturday to figure what the chances are of meeting any of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) set for the target date of 2015.

189 countries signed on to the principles in 2005 and  some interim targets that were set are mostly still a long way from being met. The global recession and the lack of resolve of many countries in the face of domestic problems have diverted their attention from the cause.

Claire Godfrey who is a policy adviser for Oxfam said: “We’re disappointed; it all seems a bit half-hearted now. There’s been a lot of talk about this summit not being about money and more about attitudes, but the fact is that promises made in 2000 and 2005 on the financial side haven’t been met.”

Yasmin Ahmad, data collection manager at the OECD, said: “It is disappointing to see promises not fulfilled. Some donors are not going to meet their promises. The EU made a promise of donating 0.51 per cent of GNI for 2010. Greece, Germany, Austria, France, Portugal and Italy will not meet that. Japan made a promise to give an extra $10bn by 2010, and they will have fallen short by $3.6bn.”

The goals of the MDG that were set in 2005 included poverty, education, women’s rights, child mortality, maternal health, the spread of HIV,  and the environment.

IMF First Deputy Managing Director John Lipsky said “To resume progress toward the MDGs, what is needed is a speedy return to the pre-crisis path of rapid growth, especially pro-poor growth and inclusive growth”.

The 200 year old Munich Beer fest kicks off for its 17 day run today … and for the first time there will be no smoking while quaffing down the giant jugs of beer.

The Bavarian government has banned smoking in pubs, cafes, and beer tents, and even though the beer fest has been given an official exemption to the no smoking rule, a voluntary exemption is in place and it’s expected most beer tents will adhere to it.

The cost of a beer this year has also raised a few eye brows and probably will stop some people from getting too pie eyed. A one liter mass (measure) of the foamy brew will cost about $11.

Munich’s mayor, Christian Ude is to open this year’s Oktoberfest at midday  by tapping into the first beer barrel. A tradition dating back to 1810.

To mark this year’s 200 anniversary there are special events and the beer fest continues for an extra 2 days until October 4th.

Munich hopes to break the all time Oktoberfest attendance record this year of 7.1 million.

The Census people claim that the number of people living in poverty increased by 3 million in 2009 and that it’s at the highest level since 1959.

The government poverty line is  presently set at an median income of $21,756 for a family of four. In 2009 the median family income fell from $50,112  to $49,777.

There’s now about 44 million people classified as poor and over 15 million of them are kids  under 18.

The late and great comedian George Carlin once quibbed “What’s with the hand basket, and where’s everybody going?” Good question.

In 2009 the poverty rate climbed from 13.2% to 14.3%. Hispanic households took the biggest hit with a rise of 2.1% since 2008.  The rate for the black and white population climbed about 1.1%.

The Brookings Institute in Washington predicts that the poverty rate will continue to trend upwards to 16% in the next 10 years due to the recession.

It’s estimated that by Congress continuing to give extensions to normal unemployment benefits expiry rules that about 3 million people avoided being added to the poverty group.

With unemployment at 9.6% and mid term elections around the corner U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Monday “If we want to keep America moving forward and if we want to get more men and women back to work we must keep investing in our small businesses,”

He is referring to a bill he hopes will get through the Senate this week that would make $30 Billion available to boost small business loans and extend tax write offs. He said “Once this bill becomes law, it will provide substantial financial benefits for small businesses and entrepreneurs”.

With the Democrats under pressure for their poor job creation record so far they need the bill so they can be seen as doing something about jobs.

Geithner also wants lawmakers to “move quickly” to extend middle class tax cuts. The Obama administration has relented recently to its strong opposition of extending tax cuts due to expire at the end of this year.

Economists now fear that increasing taxes in the new year with so much uncertainty in the economy and marketplace would be a big move in the wrong direction.

In response the administration has proposed to extend the 2001 & 2003 tax cuts initiated by the Bush White House for all but the top two percent of income earners. The Republicans have indicated they will support this move if nothing better comes along.