Fascinating. A new variation on online financial scams. A self-proclaimed investment company is looking for couriers. One of the qualifications for prospective couriers is a personal bank account through which to settle transactions.

Read that again. Couriers are expected to personally handle settlement of funds for what the company claims are significant investment transactions.

Yeah. Right. Let me count the ways in which that stinks.

(I don't normally link to sites I don't recommend, but this one has to be seen to be believed. Surfer beware.)

A year after Hurricane Katrina, MSNBC has lots of good coverage, including several collections of photos showing the progress that the rebuilding effort has, and hasn't, made.

Last week, the International Astronomical Union suggested that several of Pluto's runty siblings should join the roster of planets, increasing the total from nine to twelve.

This week, they realized that the proposed definition would mean adding more planets every time a new telescope or sky survey found a mid-sized chunk of rock out there beyond Neptune. So they backtracked, deciding that Xena isn't a planet after all. But if Xena isn't, neither is Pluto. And then there were eight.