Associated Press
BALTIMORE -- "Jamal Lewis became the fifth player in NFL history to run for 2,000 yards in a season, reaching the milestone Sunday night when the Baltimore Ravens beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 13-10 in overtime.

Lewis began the game needing 48 yards to add his name to an elite list that includes several of the finest runners ever to play the game. He reached exactly 2,000 on a 9-yard run in the first quarter, then followed with a 25-yard touchdown run to make it 2,025 -- third-best in NFL history.

After his 9-yard run, the game was stopped as officials removed the ball. Following the touchdown, the sellout crowd at M&T Bank Stadium gave Lewis a prolonged standing ovation.

He wound up with 114 yards on 27 carries, giving him 2,066, second most in NFL history. He finished 39 yards short of the NFL record of 2,105 yards, set by Eric Dickerson in 1984."

From RugbyRugby.com: "With no way of determining exactly which ball was slotted through the middle of the uprights by England fly-half Jonny Wilkinson to win the Rugby World Cup, English newspaper The Sun, did the next best thing - they bought all four!


The Sun launched a campaign earlier in December for the return of the match-winning ball, demanding that the Australians return to England what was rightfully theirs, but there was no way of telling what happened to the ball.

It was later discovered that all four match balls were auctioned off ahead of the game and won by four Australians, although which ball was destined to become a piece of history is anybody's guess."

The first Annual Report to the American Toy Industry:

To Mattel: I would like to register three key objections to your Barbie Jetski playset. First: Barbie gives little girls an unhealthy and unrealistic body image. Barbie’s head, for example, revolves 360 degrees. Normal female necks are not that supple. You are making millions of little American girls feel bad because they cannot twist their skulls completely around. Shame. Second, the instructions show that the top of the Jetski “snaps into place” on the motorized portion. It does not. Oh, the back part snaps, but the front does not. I could take it back; I could return to the Mall of America on the day after Christmas, find a parking spot, schlep the item to the store, get another one, drive home, and discover that it too has the same design flaw. I could also saw off my little toe with a butter knife, if I really wanted to. Three: It took 17 minutes to free Barbie from the wires, plastic garottes, tape and screws that binded her to the box. If you did not hire bondage enthusiasts to design the packages, parents might have an easier time on Christmas morn. Okay? Okay.

From the BBC: "Record-breaking aviators Brian Jones and Bertrand Piccard hope to harness the Sun's power to fly round the world.
The pair gained worldwide recognition in 1999 when they became the first to circumnavigate the globe in a balloon.

Now they plan to repeat the journey in a solar-powered aeroplane which will have to use batteries to fly at night.

A feasibility study has confirmed the viability of the Solar Impulse project and experts are now preparing to design the craft for launch some time in 2006."

From the BBC: ''Rock star Bruce Springsteen was the highest-earning touring performer in the US in 2003.
Springsteen and his E Street Band made $115.9m (£65.7m) on 47 shows, including 13 stadium shows in the New York area."

"CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. retailers wished for mountains of plastic gift cards on Friday as they kicked off their annual after-Christmas blitz, the last chance to salvage a disappointing holiday season.

For the second year in a row, Christmas demand failed to live up to expectations, particularly at discount and lower-priced department stores. But unlike last year, luxury chains appeared to be thriving, helped by a recovering U.S. economy and stock market.

Retailers blamed the disappointing sales on a myriad of factors including bad weather, a heightened security alert and the popularity of plastic gift cards.

The gift cards are not recorded as revenue until they are redeemed for merchandise, so retailers are hoping that people spend them fast enough to count toward December sales."

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | The best of British blogging: "The Guardian's second British blog awards found the country's webloggers in fine form, with last year's high standards maintained. Simon Waldman, chair of the judges, hands out the accolades "

from Blogger, who want you to know "How To Give The Last-Minute Gift of Blog."

yeah, whatever. "A postman from Wales has been sacked by the Royal Mail after he dumped the most cherished post of the year.

1,800 items were disposed of in woods in the the Llanedeyrn area of Cardiff.

The Royal Mail has apologised to its customers even though they managed to find the missing mail ten days ago and deliver it within 24 hours."

From Ananova: William Shatner has recorded a new album featuring a guest appearance by US punk legend Henry Rollins.

Shatner, who played Captain James T Kirk in the original TV series of Star Trek, has also enlisted Joe Jackson and US country star Brad Paisley to guest on the album.

The album will be produced by Ben Folds, leader of the Ben Folds Five, reports the New York Post.

Shatner is generally acknowledged as having recorded the worst ever version of a Beatles' song.

He released his spoken word cover of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds in 1968.

japander.com: dedicated to showing us those ads that Hollywood stars produce for the Japanese market. Excellent.

for christmas:

"Had a pleasant surprise when I popped open my iBook this evening to make some notes--someone nearby has an Apple wireless network. The etiquette of jumping in and using their bandwidth is of course questionable, but since I am stuck with an ISDN connection at the moment while waiting endlessly for fiber optics to be put into our building, I'm afraid I gave in to temptation. Result: I now have an updated version of Reason, and hopefully no-one noticed that they were losing a bit of speed..."

From Iain Murray:

Speaking of Santa, don't forget to track his movements tonight, here. This is the Norad Satellite system which offers a global Santa tracker, showing his progress on Christmas Eve from New Zealand all the way around the world to America's West Coast. America and her military may be a superpower but we're also big softies for Santa.

for the lack of new posts recently... esp since there seem to have been some visitors checking in here. If you know me, you know why I took a couple of weeks off. :-) I'll be back now, although maybe on & off for a while.

1986 Britain makes first diagnosis of bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

1988 Britain announces that all cows known to be infected with BSE will be destroyed as a precautionary measure. Eventually 3.7 million cattle were destroyed.

1989 Britain bans human consumption of certain offal, including brain, spinal cord, thymus, spleen and tonsils. The U.S. prohibits the import of live ruminants, including cattle, sheep, bison and goats, from countries where BSE is known to exist in native cattle.


1990 European Commission bans imports to the Continent from Britain of cattle over six months old.

1993 One beef cow in Canada diagnosed with BSE. Authorities say it had been imported from Britain in 1987. The animal carcass and the herd it came from are destroyed.

1994 EU approves proposal to ban exports of meat, containing bones, from herds that had not been free of BSE for six years instead of two.

1996 British government admits for the first time that BSE could be transmitted to humans in a variant form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). The classical form is a slow degenerative disease in humans seen in about one person in a million worldwide each year.
March - Japan bans imports of meat-and-bone meal from Britain.

March 23 - Fast food chain McDonald’s Corp. suspends the sale of British beef products in its restaurants in Britain.

March 27 - EU announces ban on British beef and beef products.

Aug. 1 - Britain’s agriculture ministry confirms that mad cow disease can be passed from cow to calf.

Aug. 19 - British coroner rules that Peter Hall, a 20-year-old vegetarian who died of the vCJD, contracted it from eating beef burgers as a child. The verdict is the first to legally link a human death to mad cow disease.


1997 Aug. 7 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration prohibits feeding of most mammalian proteins to ruminants.
Dec. 3 - Britain bans the sale of unboned beef as a precautionary move to stop the risk of mad cow disease.


1999 Aug. 1 - Export ban on British beef following the mad cow disease scandal is lifted after 3-1/2 years.
Oct. 29 - The European Commission’s top scientists give British beef a clean bill of health.


2000 June 29 - British Agriculture Minister Nick Brown announces that a cow, born after measures were introduced to eradicate mad cow disease, had been found to have BSE.
Dec. 7 - U.S. prohibits all imports of rendered animal protein products, regardless of species, from Europe.


2001 Sept. 10 - Japan’s Agriculture Ministry says a dairy cow tested positive for mad cow disease in the Chiba area near Tokyo, the first outbreak in Asia.

2002 April 19 - U.S. health officials report the first suspected case of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the human form of mad cow disease, in a 22-year-old British woman living in Florida. They said she most likely contracted the disease while living in Britain.
Aug. 8 - Health Canada says a Canadian man died in Saskatchewan from vCJD, apparently after contracting the disease in Britain.


2003 Jan. 30 - WHO warns that contaminated feed was exported to many countries in central and eastern Europe and Southeast Asia and says they are at risk of BSE.
May 20 - Canada says one cow in Alberta tested positive for BSE, Canada’s first case since 1993. Canada Agriculture Minister Lyle Vanclief said the animal “did not enter the food chain” and its origin was being investigated.

May 20 - U.S. temporarily bans
imports of Canadian cattle, beef and other ruminants and ruminant products.

May 21 - Australia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Mexico and other nations ban imports of Canadian beef.

May 22 - Canada broadens hunt for origin of Alberta mad cow case to Saskatchewan and expands quarantine to seven herds in the two provinces. Russia, Singapore, Chile and Indonesia ban imports of Canadian beef.

May 23 - Canada expands quarantine to a total of 13 cattle herds in Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia in mad cow probe. U.S. National Farmers Union demands more cattle tests at the U.S.-Canada border before U.S. ban on imports lifted.

May 25 - Canada says that 192 cattle in same herd as BSE-infected cow from Alberta test negative for the disease. Canadian beef industry says losing $8 million U.S. a day from banned beef and cattle exports and other sales.

May 27 - Canada says Alberta’s BSE-infected cow likely came from Saskatchewan and a second test of the infected cow’s herd mates was negative for BSE. Canada opposition politicians assailed the Ottawa government for slow testing of cattle.

May 28 - China and Brazil ban Canadian beef imports. Canada says will test 600 more cattle in mad cow probe in attempt to track down source of the infected Alberta cow’s disease.

July 18 - Canada introduces new safeguards against mad cow disease to force its crippled beef sector to remove risky organs from carcasses, a move its top trading partner, the United States, said was key to lifting its import ban.

Nov. 4 - Japan says it has confirmed another case of mad cow disease, the ninth since the brain-wasting illness was discovered in the country in September 2001 and the second in less than a month.

Dec. 23 - At least one confirmed case of the deadly mad cow disease found in an animal in Washington state, a U.S. Agriculture Department official said.

Source: MSNBC / Reuters •

From Instapundit: "JONATHAN RAUCH writes that Howard Dean is no George McGovern. "Republicans chortling that Dean would be the next McGovern had better watch out: He may be the next Clinton."

I think that Dean is a lot tougher, and Bush less tough, than a lot of Republicans would like to believe. It's still Bush's election to lose -- but he can lose it."

Mr Picasso Head: This is a great chance to exercise your creative side. Some of these websites are fantastic. :-)

from the BBC: "The 122nd Varsity Match between Oxford and Cambridge at Twickenham on Tuesday comes as England's World Cup win continues to lift the nation.
The Webb Ellis Trophy was paraded in London on Monday and will be on show again when the two universities meet.

And the feel-good factor is likely to result in increased interest in the game which kicks off at 1400GMT."

from the BBC: "Hundreds of thousands of England supporters paid tribute to their Rugby World Cup heroes on Monday at a victory parade in central London.

The city's West End ground to a halt as the England team held aloft the William Webb Ellis trophy in front of a delirious crowd.

Following the Sweet Chariot victory parade, the England players went on to to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

Prince Philip, Prince William, Prince Edward and Princess Anne also took the opportunity to speak to the World Cup winners, who posed for a team photo with the Queen and her corgis.

The day ended with a champagne reception with Prime Minister Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street.

Police estimated that 750,000 supporters made the trip to central London, making the day the largest sporting celebration of its kind in the United Kingdom.

The scenes even eclipsed the celebrations of 37 years ago when England's football team paraded the Jules Rimet trophy.
The streets were a sea of white and red as the England team, travelling in two specially painted open top buses, began their parade at Marble Arch.

The sound of English rugby's adopted anthem 'Swing Low Sweet Chariot' followed the vehicles around the city as tickertape rained down.

The greatest cheer was reserved for the team's arrival in Trafalgar Square where captain Martin Johnson paid tribute to his side's huge support during the World Cup.

"It's been incredible," an emotional Johnson said. "This is awesome, absolutely mindblowing.

"We had thousands of fans in Australia, but this is something else."

A beaming England coach Clive Woodward admitted he was shocked with the size of the crowd.

"This is extraordinary," he said. "I never thought I'd see this for an England rugby team. The support has been brilliant."

Drop-kick hero Jonny Wilkinson added: "We're overwhelmed. It matters so much to get this support and being on this bus now is one of the greatest moments of my life.


"It's great to be able to pay back the fans who travelled half way around the world as well as those who stayed at home.
"We owe everyone a massive amount."

England's squad and management left Marble Arch at 1200 GMT and travelled eastbound along Oxford St, Regent St and Pall Mall."

check for leaks.