Philip Morris Apologizes for Czech Report Reuters

Woman in Coma 8 Months Gives Birth to

Healthy Baby. A 24-year old Kentucky woman had a severe head injury in a November motor vehicle accident and remains in a vegetative state. Doctors realized after she was admitted to the hospital that she was two weeks pregnant. Labor was induced a week before the fullterm due date to manage the unique high-risk factors. ABC

Leaving children in cars OK to many / 20% of young parents surveyed approve: “At least 120 children — most of them 3 and

younger — have died of heatstroke in parked

cars during the past five years, according to

research sponsored by the National SAFE KIDS

Campaign and General Motors. By 2004, GM

plans to start selling vans and sport utility vehicles

equipped with sensors that will detect a child

breathing in a car on a hot day and honk the horn

to alert passers-by. Eventually, all GM cars will

use the technology.” SF Chronicle

My name is George, and I’m an alcoholic: “Nearing the 15th anniversary of the president’s sobriety, a fellow ex-drinker tells what he sees when he looks at George

W. Bush.”

A drunk hides nothing from another drunk. So when I look at Bush, I don’t see a conservative Republican, a flirter with the Christian right, a Texas oilman,

a son of political royalty. I see a guy like me who never wants to quit, who has an infinite thirst and an infinite appetite for whatever you’ve got and who, if

he could, would drink up the whole room and then tear it apart looking for more. I see a guy barely containing a murderous contempt for anyone who

doesn’t drink like he does; I see a guy who has to pause when answering questions not because there’s nothing in his head but because there’s too much in

his head and most of it is vile and the rest is obscene; no doubt the first thing that pops into his head when asked a question at a press conference is “You

have the face of a barnyard animal” or “I’d like to fuck you silly.” That apparent blankness, as though his brain is having a rolling blackout, is actually a

sign that he’s sorting, looking for an answer that’s both true and bland, something that won’t set off any alarms, something that will satisfy his need to tell the

truth yet not give in to the grandiose and contemptuous impulses so familiar to alcoholics far and wide.

Salon [thanks, David!]

Tourists leap on dead whale, pat sharks — “Australian tourism authorities may change

laws ‘to protect people too stupid to protect themselves’ after sightseers

clambered on a floating dead whale and patted great white sharks eating

the carcass.” CNN [via NextDraft]