Here it seems to clear up a little, maybe I can have dinner outside. :-)

A Florida man has traded the right to name his unborn son for £50 worth of petrol.

David Partin's son will be called Dixon and Willoughby Partin when he is born around Christmas.

His unusual first names are after the hosts of a local radio show which offered $100 of free gas to the listener who called in with the most interesting item to trade.

Needless to say, Mr Partin's offer to give up the naming rights for his unborn child was a winner, reports the Orlando Sentinel.

If we had suggested, ten years ago, that one day soon, the government would draw up a list of prescribed occupations: that they would build a database of millions of people who would need to register for those occupations; and that a committee of Public Safety would be set up with power of absolute veto over every individual on the database; it is just possible that you would have decided that even El Reg had taken leave of its oh-so-cynical senses.

But lo! All of the above is soon to come to pass - and there is a good chance that it will affect a far larger proportion of the population than you might imagine, far more people than the 11.3 million the Government claim it will affect. (14.3 million and rising is our prediction).

BBC NEWS | Wales | South East Wales | Rock concert to tackle suicides

A rock concert has been held to help tackle the issues surrounding the apparent suicides of young people in Bridgend county.

Funeral for a Friend staged the gig in their home town after being contacted by staff at a music shop.

Oct. 1980 Solidarity leaders declaring their intention to  fight back against the Party's attempt to backtrack on the August accords. From left: Lech Walesa, Bronislaw Geremek, Tadeusz Mazowiecki.

Fall 1980 Solidarity leaders at negotiations with the Party. Geremek is the guy with the beard leaning forward on the left. Across from him with the dark hair and funny face is Lech Kaczynski, the current Polish president.

Geremek at Jacek Kuron's Legion of Honor ceremony. From left Kuron (in the denim shirt), Geremek (suit), and Adam Michnik (denim jacket). Kuron, who died two years ago, was the Polish opposition leader I admired the most. One of the reasons for that was the fact that unlike most of his old colleagues from the left wing opposition, he never drank the neo-liberal cool-aid, nor did he buy in to automatic following of the US line (e.g. he vociferously opposed the Iraq war). Together with his friend Karol Modzelewski, Kuron also wrote what remains one of the best Marxist analyses of the mature communist system, the so called 'Open Letter' of 1964.

Funny trivia fact - two of Poland's foreign ministers in the post communist era have been professors of history (Geremek and the recently deceased Stefan Meller). Both specialized in French history, both were of Jewish origin, both got drawn into the opposition by their participation in the so-called 'Flying University', an organization that provided lectures on forbidden subjects in various private apartments and was modeled on a similar institution in the Partition period.

WaMu, FTW!

Where's your motherf*%&ing flag pin?

I also got to enjoy a portion of the parade, as the vehicles go by my street to leave from the Champs Elysées. Tanks driving through Paris are a pretty incredible sight - and not just a sight: you feel the vibrations they make a few hundred meters out, and they drwon out every sensation as they drive by. They also seem to enjoy driving insanely close to the parked cars, maybe a few mirros were lost in the process, I have to wonder...

Oh yes, it was a perfect, sunny, not too warm day in Paris (and I spent it reading legal documentation - for wind farms, so it's a good thing right?).

We have the fireworks tonight, I'll try to post a few pics if I can. The neighbors have kindly decided to throw a party for the occasion, and we'll watch the fireworks from there (it's the same neighbors that have loaned their car to my wife so that she could go to the beach with the kids after our own car was broken into yesterday. total socialism, even on a small scale, has its good sides).

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

I told Bush; don't play chess with the freakin' Russians.