FukDatShhh.CoM

While it seems to be all but a sure thing that all three Xbox 360 SKUs will be getting a price cut on September 7th, if you need a bit more reassurance, you can now take comfort in this apparently authentic Best Buy ad provided by a helpful tipster, which should be making an appearance in paper form just in time for the big day. Just like Radio Shack’s, this one lists the Arcade, Pro and Elite for $199, $299, and $399, respectively, and, unsurprisingly, there’s no mention of a motion controller with any of ‘em.

LOS ANGELES (UPI) – British tycoon Richard Branson was in California’s Mohave Desert Monday to unveil his new space plane, which would offer the first commercial spaceflight.

Branson is backing the project that would carry an eight-person rocket ship on a flight from Earth up to a launch point 48,000 feet up, the Los Angeles Times reported. More than 250 astronaut wannabes have plunked down $200,000 for a chance to float weightless in space.

Once it reaches the transfer station, the rocket would detach and fly into space, where it would provide passengers and crew four minutes of weightlessness. The rocket’s mothership would fall to Earth and land at an airport like a plane.

“This is quite something, isn’t it?” Branson said. “It’s one of the most beautiful, extraordinary aviation vehicles ever developed.”

Branson revealed that the first passengers would be his family, including his mother and father. The mothership was named Eve for his mother, and features her image on the fuselage.

The rollout came a year after an accident killed three engineers and set back the project back a year.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International

LOMA LINDA , Calif. (UPI) — Analysis of a survey of U.S. schoolchildren has identified those more likely to carry weapons, which may help improve school safety, researchers said.

Being male and being a member of certain self-selected racial groups indicated a student was more likely to carry a weapon, researchers from Loma Linda University in California said Monday in a news release from BioMed Central, which published the findings in Annals of General Psychiatry.

Pupils who identified themselves as white were more likely to carry weapons than those who identified themselves as black, researchers said. Other factors researchers found associated with weapon carrying were substance use, depression, victimized by theft or property damage at school, being raped, being threatened with a weapon or being in an altercation.

Researchers analyzed a 2005 survey of 13,707 U.S. children, nearly evenly split between males and females. Overall, 10.2 percent of males and 2.6 percent of females reported carrying a weapon on school property.

“We do not believe that there are any inherent genetic differences that determine race and that affect the way that adolescents behave,” the authors said in their paper.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International

A few years ago the battery in my beat-up VW Beetle had died because I left the lights on overnight. I was in a hurry to get to work on time so I ran into the house to get my wife to give me a hand to start the car. I told her to get into our second car, a prehistoric oversized gas guzzler, and use it to push my car fast enough to start it.

I pointed out to her that because the VW had an automatic transmission, it needed to be pushed at least 20 mph for it to start.

She said fine, hopped into her car and drove off. I sat there fuming wondering what she could be doing.

A minute passed by and when I saw her in the rear-view mirror coming at me at about 30 mph, I realized that I should have been a bit clearer with my directions.