How do you spell "fun" in German: OKTOBERFEST !!!

A waitress serves beer after the opening ceremony of the Oktoberfest in Munich September 20, 2008. Millions of beer drinkers from around the world will come to the Bavarian capital Munich for the world's biggest and most famous beer festival, the Oktoberfest. The 175th Oktoberfest lasts from September 20 until October 5.
REUTERS/Pawel Kopczynski (GERMANY)

Shelley . . . we remember you well . . . thanks for the laughs !!!

Actor and comedian Shelley Berman, nominee for his role in "Curb Your Enthusiasm", poses at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Primetime Emmy Awards Nominees for Outstanding Performance reception in Los Angeles, California September 19, 2008. The 60th Primetime Emmy Awards will be presented in Los Angeles September 21.
REUTERS/Fred Prouser (UNITED STATES)

Banderas wins Lifetime Achievement Award

Spanish actor Antonio Banderas holds up the Donosti Award for lifetime achievement on the second night of the 56th San Sebastian Film Festival September 19, 2008.
REUTERS/Stringer (SPAIN)

This creation may have been inspired by the gown Carol Burnett wore in her "Gone With the Wind" skit

A model wears a creation by designer Sara Lage during her spring/summer 2009 show at the Cibeles Madrid Fashion Week September 19, 2008.
REUTERS/Juan Medina (SPAIN)

A Tribute to the Queen of Country Music: Kitty Wells

NASHVILLE -- Before Kitty Wells, men didn't just rule the roost in country music, they owned it.

It wasn't until her 1952 hit, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels," that a solo female country singer had a No. 1 record.

The song, written by a man, was a rebuttal to Hank Thompson's "The Wild Side of Life." It made Wells a star and dashed the notion that women couldn't be headliners.

Until then, most "girl singers," as they were called in country music, were either paired with men, such as Rachael Veach with Roy Acuff, or were members of a family group, such as sisters Sara and Maybelle Carter with the Carter Family.

Wells' success also encouraged Nashville songwriters to begin writing from a woman's perspective. Before then, women had a hard time finding material and often had to change the gender in the lyrics.

Wells, now 89 and the subject of a new exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, said she never considered the song political or daring and didn't think of herself as a feminist. To this day, she still doesn't know what the fuss was all about.

"I never really thought about being a pioneer. I loved doing what I was doing," she said recently.

Wells' song eclipsed Thompson's in popularity, reaching No. 1 in the summer of 1952 and staying there for six weeks.

"That really opened doors for other women," said exhibit curator Mick Buck. "Kitty set a new precedent."

Darwin gets no apology from the Vatican

The Vatican said on Tuesday that the theory of evolution was compatible with the Bible but planned no posthumous apology to Charles Darwin for the cold reception it gave him 150 years ago.

Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, the Vatican's culture minister, was speaking at the announcement of a Rome conference of scientists, theologians and philosophers to be held in March marking the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's "The Origin of Species."

Christian churches were long hostile to Darwin because his theory conflicted with the literal biblical account of creation."Maybe we should abandon the idea of issuing apologies as if history was a court eternally in session," he said, adding that Darwin's theories were "never condemned by the Catholic Church nor was his book ever banned."

Navy shows off unmanned submarine-detecting craft

SAN DIEGO -- To the world it might be called a robot boat, but its proper name is the Unmanned Surface Vehicle, and the U.S. Navy expects it to be a major tool in countering what officials believe is a growing threat posed by quiet diesel-powered submarines owned by rogue nations.

In advance of the official roll-out today, reporters were allowed to see the boat on Thursday at Naval Base Point Loma before it took a trial run on San Diego Bay.

Curtain about to rise at Santa Monica College's new performing arts center

The Broad Stage -- named for donors Eli and Edythe Broad -- was designed with acoustics and intimacy in mind, giving each of the 499 seats a clear view of the stage. The smaller Edye Second Space is intended to serve as a laboratory for “mad talent and creative experiment.”

Simmons and Burke's 'You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth'

"You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth" -- or so say the titles of Case Simmons and Andrew Burke's extravagant sound and image collages at Kim Light/LightBox. But would you want to, if this is what it looked like and sounded like, if this is how it made you feel?

The four huge light-jet prints at the heart of the show are the kind of horrifying, magnificent spectacle on which your eyes cannot help but be hungrily, stubbornly fixed. They aren't images of car crashes or natural disasters. They are expressions of the digital present, hellish and heavenly, decadent and sophisticated, frightening and wondrous. This is what we wished for ???

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC'S BEST NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS BRING US . . .

SPECTACULAR BEAUTY

AND STUNNING EXCITEMENT

"Let Me Be Your Sidetrack: The Influence of Jimmie Rodgers"

Bear Family Records' remarkable new release, "Let Me Be Your Sidetrack: The Influence of Jimmie Rodgers," makes a persuasive argument that Rodgers is one of the most important figures in the history of country music.

According to the liner notes for the six-disc boxed set released last week, 102 of the 109 songs Rodgers did in the late 1920s and early 1930s were later recorded by other artists -- a 94% "cover ratio" unmatched by any other country singer-songwriter, including Hank Williams.

As the set's more than 150 tracks demonstrate, Rodgers' mix of traditional "hillbilly" music and the blues was a major influence not only on his contemporaries in country music but also on such other genres as folk, rock, jazz and even pop orchestras. Among the dozens of performers whose versions of Rodgers' material are featured in the Bear Family compilation: Bob Dylan, Merle Haggard, Harry Belafonte, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, King Oliver and Pete Seeger.

HIGH RISING STAR FROM CHINA

MAD Studio in China makes a statement with a design for a mobile, self-contained city.


VENICE, ITALY -- WHILE THE Venice Architecture Biennale remains the most anticipated and ambitious design show in the world -- not to mention the only one featuring cocktail parties in canal-side palazzi -- every edition is marked by a curious split personality. There is a core exhibition, organized by a single curator and displaying work by the leading names of the profession, and along with it a scattered collection of national pavilions filled with designs by mostly anonymous younger architects. Because the pavilions vary so much in quality -- and theme -- they always knock the central exhibition at least a bit off message.

Rarely, though, has the gap in tone between the two sections been as wide as it is this year. The main show, organized by American-born Aaron Betsky, manages to be unsure of itself, divided against itself and pleased with itself at the same time. Its biggest gestures -- at the start of the exhibition, inside the cavernous old shipbuilding complex called the Arsenale -- come from a parade of celebrity architects, including Zaha Hadid, Elizabeth Diller + Ricardo Scofidio and Frank Gehry, nearly all of them playing down to the moment with overscaled, underwhelming work. A separate section on experimental architecture, which Betsky prepared with a young Italian curator, Emiliano Gandolfi, has the opposite problem. It is dense and unwieldy, a thicket of projects containing a handful of stirring moments but no clear theme.

El Capitan Theatre for sale

The historic El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, where "Citizen Kane" had its world premiere and a generation of children have watched actors dressed as Disney characters cavort onstage, is for sale.

The $31-million price tag includes the six-story, 1920s office building into which the theater is built. In its gilded splendor across Hollywood Boulevard from Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the Hollywood & Highland entertainment complex, the El Capitan is the picture of prosperity now, but it's had more comebacks than many an actor. Since its debut in 1926 as a live theater, many of Hollywood's best-known performers have appeared there.

Volt creating sparks

DETROIT -- Tuesday's unveiling of the Chevrolet Volt electric hybrid car was supposed to be a celebration of new technology, the birth of a new class of automobile. Instead, the crowd at General Motors Corp.'s Renaissance Center was buzzing over who was going to pay for it: GM or American taxpayers?

GM revealed the much-hyped vehicle at an event celebrating the automaker's centennial. Immediately afterward, company executives faced a barrage of questions about whether some of the $25 billion in low-interest loans the industry is urging Congress to fund would be used to subsidize the Volt's development and production.

At the same time, GM executives called for federal and local incentives to boost the Volt program.

Tesla to light up San Jose

Tesla Motors Inc., aiming to be the first high-volume maker of electric cars, plans to build a $250-million plant to produce sedans in San Jose and move its headquarters to the same facility.

The factory initially will employ about 1,000 people and be able to produce 15,000 cars a year when it opens in late 2010, Chief Executive Ze'ev Drori said Wednesday.

Construction costs will be more than $100 million. As part of an incentive package from the state, California will buy and lease to Tesla assembly machinery valued at about the same amount, he said.

"This is about bringing 1,000 clean tech jobs to San Jose to replace the loss of more traditional manufacturing jobs in our area," said Chuck Reed, the city's mayor. "We want to be a center of green-collar manufacturing jobs."

Tesla, which said that construction of the plant would start next year, is expanding to boost its lineup beyond the $100,000 Roadster, a rechargeable sports car powered by 900 pounds of lithium-ion batteries.


Since Elon Musk, Tesla's chairman and main investor, said in 2006 that the closely held company would be the first successful modern producer of electric cars, General Motors Corp., Toyota Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. have announced plans for competing plug-ins.

"This is going to be a fully integrated facility that will include marketing, sales, planning and assembly," Drori said. "We're designing it with capacity to expand to 30,000 vehicles a year without increasing the structure."

The so-called Model S sedan that Tesla will build in San Jose is a five-passenger car intended to travel 240 miles on a charge, with a base price of $60,000, Drori said. Tesla's current headquarters is in the Bay Area city of San Carlos.

San Jose will lease 89 acres for the new facility, letting Tesla use it rent-free for 10 years, Reed said. To facilitate local use of Tesla models and other electric cars, the city will also build public charging stations into streetlights.

It won't rain on her parade

The bloom is back on the Tournament of Roses Parade for veteran television host Stephanie Edwards.

The red-haired personality said she is thrilled to be back in the KTLA-TV broadcast booth for this year's New Year's Day parade, especially after being demoted in 2005, then later dropped from the coverage team altogether, after more than 25 years. Edwards will be reunited with co-host Bob Eubanks at the annual Pasadena event, KTLA executives announced Tuesday.

"Hell has frozen over," said Edwards in a phone interview Wednesday. "It feels great, of course."

Her comeback brings a happy twist to the parade saga, which prompted an uproar from longtime fans when Edwards, then 61, was exiled from the booth in 2005 in favor of the much younger KTLA morning news co-anchor Michaela Pereira.

The furor was fueled by Edwards' assignment on a rainy day -- working the sidelines in the viewer grandstands where she became drenched. Soon after the soaking, she was fired. The station was later flooded with complaints from viewers who felt she had treated shabbily.

Although looking forward to her new beginning, Edwards admitted to some apprehension.

"I'm a little concerned about how true the saying 'You can't go home again' is. I'm not complacent about this at all," she said.

Brad Pitt puts up $$$ to fight Prop. 8

Brad Pitt announced Wednesday that he was donating $100,000 to fight California's Proposition 8, a November ballot initiative that would eliminate same-sex couples' right to marry.

"Because no one has the right to deny another their life even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn't harm another, and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8," the actor said in a statement.

Political strategist Chad Griffin, who is helping coordinate efforts in the entertainment industry to defeat the controversial initiative, said he was hopeful that the move would prompt others to get involved. He added that Democratic billionaire Ron Burkle had agreed to host a large fundraiser at his home in October to rally the entertainment industry against Proposition 8, which opponents say will take away important benefits such as health insurance and complicate decision-making related to medical emergencies and other situations in domestic partnerships.

Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin

Master showman that he is, "Saturday Night Live" czar Lorne Michaels did take a calculated risk by getting Tina Fey to play Sarah Palin in the season opener of "Saturday Night Live" this weekend. If she became Palin, which she most assuredly did, then anyone else in this role would be a massive letdown -- a pale imitation of the imitator. Of all the candidates, Palin - with her guns, and self-described soccer mommish ways, and piled bun, and flat Midwestern accent -offers the richest comic possibilities. On Saturday, Fey just began to explore them, and explore them hilariously. Now we want more, more, more.

Amy Poehler played Hillary Rodham Clinton.

L.A. Opera's 'The Fly' is a monster mash

Two years ago, a bass-baritone covered in gook stalked the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. That was the medieval monster in Elliot Goldenthal's "Grendel," commissioned by Los Angeles Opera. Sunday afternoon, a baritone covered in gook again stalked the Chandler stage. This time it was Brundle, the scientist hero transmogrified into a Musca domestica in Howard Shore's "The Fly," inspired by the 1986 David Cronenberg horror film -- the latest opera commissioned by the company

Beijing Opera to appear at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood

California Institute for Chinese Performing Arts presents the star-studded Mei Lanfang Company from the Beijing Opera House named after Peking Opera maestro Mei Lanfang. Featuring Master Mei Baojiu, the son of Mei Lanfang, and an array of world class performers, the company will come to Los Angeles for three performances.

October 10 at 7:30 PM - Heroines of Yang Family
October 11 at 2 PM - Legend of the White Snake
October 11 at 7:30 PM - Classics of Mei Langfang

"The Aura of Grand Cinema"

To Chinese, he is a legend, an ethereal grand master of Peking Opera whose movements embody the art form he spent his life perfecting and promoting. And as with all legends, his stories eventually find their way onto the silver screen.
Renowned Chinese director Chen Kaige's upcoming film Mei Lanfang began shooting in mid-July, shored up by investments from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Boasting a budget of $15 million, the movie is set to be released in 2008 as part of the cultural offerings during the Beijing Olympics build-up. A biographical tale of the late Peking Opera star, it already has an aura of grand cinema about it. Chen said he wants to present the inner world and the powerful personality of the master performer, and not only his artistic achievements.

Chen's filmmaking skills are best known to Western audiences for his direction of Farewell My Concubine and The Promise.

"and the same to you"

Egypt's Hossam Eldin Mohamed Sewilam waits to start in the men's 200m T37 heats at the National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest, during the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games September 15, 2008.
REUTERS/Jason Lee (CHINA)

Two-Mile High Ultima Tower May Be The Future Of Vertical Habitats

At a cost of nearly $150 billion, you’re not going to see an Ultima Tower grace the skies anytime soon. The two-mile high structure is the brainchild of some forward-thinking architects looking for some creative ways to solve the world’s future population crisis. With people living in denser concentrations — such a structure (which has a square-mile footprint and can hold one million people) might be needed many years from now. From the article,

“The shape of the building draws inspiration from the nests of termites, a 1-mile wide funnel shape with gently curved sides. A criss-crossing network of double-helix cables distributes tension across the outer covering in such a way as to allow the entire building to absorb stresses instead of single areas. The design is extremely aerodynamically efficient, and resistant to earthquake shock waves. The structure is cooled in a similar way to a termite nest - the lower levels are cooled by water flow (in this case, a series of ground-floor waterfalls) and the cool air rises through the building, taking heat energy with it, and exits at the upper floors into the atmosphere.

The entire 150 million square foot surface of the building is covered with photovoltaic cells and wind turbine energy generators - and the extreme height of the structure allows a new form of energy generation to occur, using the differential in air pressure between the ground floor and the 10,500-foot high tip to generate further electricity for the project.”

Pretty incredible — and each of the 120 levels would feature their own fully landscaped habitats with a “sky” 30 to 50 meters high and inbuilt lakes, streams, rivers, hills and ravines. Sunlight would be filtered from above by an intricate system of mirrors — very similar to how the Egyptians lit the inside of their massive structures.

So what do you think? Would you like to live inside the Ultima Tower?

(For more interesting articles from this unusual website click on the link below:)

Making a spectacle of yourself

Tired of all talk and no action? You're in luck. Explosions will light up the screen and car chases willrun rampant on T V's Knight Rider. Coming soon.

Who could have guessed that Maxwell Smart was previewing the Cell Phone

DON ADAMS (MAXWELL SMART) AND BARBARA FELDON (AGENT 99) HOLDING THEIR SHOE-PHONES

A new Paul Anka in the works ???

Paul Anka (early photo shown above) is putting the finishing touches on his autobiography which is set for publication this year. He's also working on a Broadway show about his life and he favors David Archuleta (below)for the lead saying "he reminds me so much of myself as a young singer."

When the blind lead the blind . . . or at least try to

THE Yves Saint-Laurent fall show in Paris showcased Stefano Pilati's designs and a pout of death. Now black lip gloss -- most recently spotted on Rachel McAdams on the cover of the New York Times T Magazine -- has become all the rage and made kissing a rather messy affair. This model is wearing black lip gloss but judging from her hairstyle -- how would she know ???

Hearst's ode to architectural excess

From afar, the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, Calif., looks like a little hill town huddled around a twin-towered cathedral. Behind the scenes, it takes another small village of dusters, landscapers and conservators to keep William Randolph Hearst's ode to architectural excess up and running.
(Craig Aurness / Corbis)

Jack Nicklaus designed a beautiful treacherous challenge

The spectacular Pronghorn in Bend, Ore., features a golf course designed by Tom Fazio. When developers were building the course, an enormous "lave tube" cave was exposed during blasting to create its signature par three over a cavern.
(Alan Kennedy)

Stephen Berkman's "Chamber Pieces"

Stephen Berkman's new exhibition, "Chamber Pieces," is a study in what happens when a modern sense of whimsy meets the 19th century. The show at the Laband Art Gallery on the campus of Loyola Marymount University presents a series of photos and installations rooted in centuries-old techniques such as camera obscura and ambrotype. Shown above is "The Sharpshooter and the Songbird."

"I see my work as a coda to the 19th century," said Berkman, who styles his subjects to appear from the past and melds a bit of modernism within the image to create a collision of cultures. The photographs look to convey a magical, transcendental feeling to retell a story of bygone place and time.

Cristiano Ronaldo wins European Golden Boot award

Portugal's soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo holds his European Golden Boot award during a ceremony on Madeira island September 13, 2008.
REUTERS/Duarte Sa (PORTUGAL)

The Rainbow Quarry's 150-foot walls provide a dramatic backdrop for “Ocean"

WAITE PARK, MINN. -- THE RAINBOW QUARRY -- with its mammoth, magnificent 150-foot rock walls -- lies 70 miles northwest of Minneapolis. To get to it, you pass by Granite City Counseling, and some might say that Merce Cunningham needed just that for undertaking perhaps the most impractical and magnificent production of his career in his 90th year. Thursday night, his Merce Cunningham Dance Company made an "Ocean" in the quarry.

It had help, of course, and lots of it, to put on this breathtaking 90-minute 1994 work, which was danced in the round and accompanied by an orchestra of 150 musicians surrounding the audience on the top row of circular bleachers, in a breathtaking site where giant machines normally wrest away giant slabs of rock.

The Village People get their star and 250 colorfully dressed fans turn out to cheer

Hollywood was overflowing with costumed characters Friday as disco music fans turned out to watch the Indian, the cowboy, the policeman, the construction worker, the biker and the soldier receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Hundreds experienced a 1970s flashback as the Village People were recognized for their catchy, kitschy tunes, including their signature hit, "YMCA." Fittingly, their star at 6529 Hollywood Blvd. is a block north of Hollywood's YMCA.

Unholy language, Batman!

DC Comics is trying to pull back or destroy tens of thousands of copies of a new Batman comic book after a printing error put a barrage of especially obscene words on the pages.

The issue, "All-Star Batman & Robin" No. 10, was drawn by fan-favorite Jim Lee and written by none other than Frank Miller, the creator of "300" and "Sin City" who will be making his solo Hollywood directorial debut with a masked-man movie called "The Spirit" that opens on Christmas Day. Hero Complex reached Miller by phone as he was getting ready for a trip to Germany to promote the film, and he was shocked to hear about the four-letter crisis. "This is the first I've heard of it," Miller said. "I have no idea how this awful thing happened. It's just one of those terrible and glorious things that happen time to time in publishing."

Albert Pujols joins elite club

On Thursday, the St. Louis Cardinals' Albert Pujols (above) drove in his 100th run, becoming only the third player in history to reach that milestone in each of his first eight seasons. Ted Williams did it in his first eight seasons and the champion Al Simmons (below) did it in his first eleven seasons.

Al Simmons’s career .334 batting average made mincemeat of critics who believed that he would never be able to hit good pitching with his peculiar penchant for striding toward third base when he swung rather than toward the mound. The unorthodox batting style caused him to be tagged “Bucketfoot Al.”

Born Aloys Szymanski (1902-1956) in a Polish section of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Simmons never wanted to be anything but a baseball player. In 1922, he signed his first professional contract with the Milwaukee Brewers of the American Association. When Al hit .398 for Milwaukee in a 24-game trial at the end of the 1923 campaign, the Brewers found themselves with a hot property on their hands and were able to sell him to the Philadelphia Athletics for around $50,000.

In 1924, his rookie year with the A’s, Simmons batted .308 and knocked home 102 runs. The following year, he collected a league-leading 253 hits and hiked his average to .384. Moreover, he became the first player in American League history to drive in 100 or more runs in each of his first two seasons in the majors. He went on to accomplish this feat of driving in 100 or more runs in his first 11 seasons.

Not only an outstanding hitter, he was also an able outfielder with a strong throwing arm. The addition of Ty Cobb in 1927 helped Al to develop even further as a hitter. Like Harry Heilmann, another great right-handed hitter during the 1920s, Simmons found it remarkably easy to befriend the much shunned Cobb. In his single-minded dedication to becoming the best player he possibly could be, Simmons himself acquired the reputation for not being overly personable.

Jimbo was One of a Kind

On this day in 1976 Jimmy Connors beat Bjorn Borg in four sets to win the U.S. Open. James Scott "Jimmy" Connors (born September 2, 1952, in East St. Louis, Illinois, also known as "Jimbo" is a former World No. 1 American tennis player. He held the top ranking for 160 consecutive weeks from July 29, 1974 through August 29, 1977 and an additional eight times during his career (a total of 268 weeks). He won eight Grand Slam singles titles and two Grand Slam doubles titles with Ilie Năstase and was the mixed doubles runner-up with Chris Evert at the 1974 US Open. He is considered to be one of the top male tennis players of all time.

Although Connors never won the French Open, his victory at the 1976 US Open came during the brief period (1975 through 1977) when that tournament was held on clay courts. Connors is, therefore, one of only three men (Mats Wilander and Andre Agassi are the others) to have won a Grand Slam singles title on grass courts, hard courts, and clay courts.

Connors also won the U.S. Open singles championship itself on on grass courts, hard courts, and clay courts, the only man to accomplish that trio of wins.

AeroVironment Inc.'s unmanned spy craft become vital reconnaissance tools on the battlefield.

Standing amid a grove of pepper plants in Thousand Oaks last week, Christopher Thompson revved up his plane's tiny 6-inch propeller and then gently tossed it into the sky, much as weekend hobbyists fly their airborne toys.

But this mini-aircraft called the Raven, weighing little over 4 pounds and painted in Army gray, is no ordinary model.

It is actually a tiny U.S. military spy plane that can hover quietly 500 feet in the air and transmit video images to operators several miles away. These Simi Valley-made planes are providing vital information to ground combat soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who want to know what's happening over the ridge and around the bend.

"It served us well," said Thompson, a private first class with the Army National Guard, as he demonstrated how his unit used the Raven in Afghanistan. There the aircraft helped his platoon avoid enemy ambushes and pinpoint the location of insurgent mortar fires. "It's an essential part of what we do in the Army now," he said.

Massport Unveils Boston Logan Airport 9/11 Memorial Design

The Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) today unveiled the design for the future Boston Logan International Airport 9/11 Memorial. The Airport 9/11 Memorial will honor the passengers and crew of American Flight 11 and United Flight 175, recognize the compassion and professionalism of Logan employees during that difficult time, and serve as a place of reflection for all those who were touched by the events of 9/11. The idea to create the Memorial began with the airport's employees, who were seeking a way to honor those lost and a place to reflect on the events of 9/11.

"Logan Airport and the lives of the people who work here were forever changed by the tragic events of 9/11,"said Massport CEO Thomas J. Kinton, Jr. "They feel the loss of their friends, colleagues and customers every day. The Airport 9/11 Memorial will provide a place for the airport community to honor those who we have lost but never forgotten, and remember how the airport community came together in the days following 9/11."

A spectacular PHOTOGRAPHY website

Saugus Photos Online is a diversified resource, created by Jim Harrington. These pages and images are hosted by Saugus.net. You can click the small versions of most images to view larger versions.

Among other things, you'll find hundreds of stock photographs from Saugus, Massachusetts, New England photographs and images from around the United States. This page is updated often with new images and interesting material to keep visitors coming back. "Recent Stuff" announces the latest updates. You can check back often for new pictures and content. To visit this exciting website, click on the link below:


An f-15 with a f-86

Big L.A. history find: 1875 train station

Chinese laborers built it the 1870s. When Southern Pacific Railroad's River Station opened, it was the terminus of the transcontinental rail line that ended in Los Angeles. The Times Rong-Gong Lin II reports on a major discovery at the site, a true piece of forgotten L.A. history:

Archaeologists have unearthed artifacts at the first train station to connect Los Angeles to the rest of the nation at the site of a state park under development near Chinatown, officials said Saturday. Scientists have uncovered redwood beams used to build the foundation of the station's turntable, which rotated trains between tracks. They also excavated artifacts from the station's roundhouse, which housed and repaired locomotives, as well as the foundation for industrial shops. The archaeologists knew from sonar that these artifacts were buried underneath the park. But this is the first time a full excavation has been done at these three sites.

Where's Kim Jong ???

Soldiers march in a parade in Pyongyang that Kim Jong Il missed. The North Korean leader's absence from the closely watched event set off speculation that he may have suffered a stroke.

Particle smasher begins Big Bang experiment

GENEVA -- Physicists around the world, some in pajamas and others with champagne, celebrated the first tests Wednesday of a huge particle-smashing machine they hope will simulate the Big Bang, which scientists believe created the universe.

Experiments using the underground Large Hadron Collider, the biggest and most complex machine ever made, could revamp modern physics and unlock secrets about the universe and its origins.

Staff in the control room on the border of Switzerland and France clapped as two beams of particles were sent silently first one way and then the other around the collider's 17-mile-long chamber.

"Things can go wrong at any time," said project leader Lyn Evans, who wore jeans and running shoes for the collider's debut. "But this morning we had a great start."

It will be weeks or months before two particles ever crash together in the giant tube, and even longer before scientists can interpret results, said Jos Engelen, chief scientific officer of the European Organization for Nuclear Research.


"Anything between a year and four years, depending on how difficult this new physics is to find," Engelen said.

Pajama-clad scientists calling themselves "Nerds in Nightshirts" partied at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., as they waited late into the night for the first signals from the $9-billion machine.