SNIPPETS

NOVEMBER 1,  2009

From AFP:  It was not your usual night at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Saturday, with the White House lit up pumpkin-orange and thousands of little ghosts and goblins trick-or-treating the president of the United States.  Barack Obama's first Halloween as president saw him dishing out candy and pastries baked by his chef to many of the estimated 2,000 children -- many in elaborate costumes -- from 11 area schools on the north portico of the White House, as some of his top staff stepped into frightful or fuzzy character.

Some of his stop staff stepped into frightful or fuzzy character?  Why is this night different from any other night?

OCTOBER 31,  2009

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - No need to curse that bad driver weaving in and out of the lane in front of you -- he cannot help it, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.  They found that people with a particular gene variant performed more than 20 percent worse on a driving test than people with a different DNA sequence.  The study may explain why there are so many bad drivers out there -- about 30 percent of Americans have the variant, the team at the University of California Irvine found.

So if you're doing 80 in a 30 MPH zone, and driving on the wrong side of the street, it's your parents' fault, right?  Expect to hear that one in court.