Stacey Adams

Revitalization efforts spread to East Central

It seems like anything's negotiable these days. Say, for example, you're so far behind on your water utilities that, in lieu of paying off the debt, you cut a deal with the city to demolish the property instead.

Punked. Immediately following last week's presidential debate, Ken Mehlman, George W. Bush's campaign manager, convened a teleconference with GOP "team leaders" around the country to discuss strategy. An unknown fact to Mehlman, however, was that an Internet blogger named Atrios had circulated the event's phone number and password on his website. And who reads blogs more than other bloggers, right? After Mehlman talked about Kerry's "credibility gap," he offered to take three questions. According to Jack Pine Savage, one of the bloggers who listened in, the first question came from a "young Republican in Washington." The woman announced she thought Kerry won the debate and was now going to vote for him. The second caller, another woman, said Kerry would make a worthy Commander in Chief and the third call criticized Bush for playing-down al Qaeda. "Mehlman apologized to the Bush supporters listening and acknowledged that the call had obviously attracted some Democrats," wrote Savage on his blog.

Early odds for the 2005 mayoral elections

In less than a month, the nation will elect (or re-elect) a president. Everybody and their monkey is speculating on the outcome of that horse race, so why not look little further down the political road?

The debates make all the difference

The week before last Thursday night's first of the 2004 presidential debates we heard a lot about the limitations of this tightly packaged quadrennial ritual: how it isn't truly a debate, simply an opportunity for multiple sound bites; how it is highly unlikely to ever produce a clear-cut winner or loser, and so on.

Dateline: Japan—According to the Shukan Gendai newspaper, an inventor has come up with a cell phone ring tone that will increase a woman's breast size. Hideto Tomabechi, who first made a name for himself in Japan by deprogramming brainwashed members of the AUM Shinrikyo doomsday cult, says, “Most would think it's a lie, but the techniques involved in the process have been known for some time and are the result of research I carried out in the '80s and '90s. I use sounds that make the brain and body movie unconsciously. It's a technique involving subliminal effects.” Amazingly, more than 10,000 people have scrambled to download the ring tone in its first week. “I listened to the tune for a week expecting all the time that I was being duped,” Chieri Nakayama, a 19-year-old pinup model, told Shukan Gendai. “But, incredibly, my 87-centimeter bust grew to 89 centimeters! It was awesome!” Tomabechi says he's already got plans for ring tones that improve memory, reduce baldness, help people quit cigarettes and increase attractiveness with the opposite sex.

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