From sportsillustrated.cnn.com: Mogul’s Nets bid criticized in Russia

Russian tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov’s bid to buy the New Jersey Nets was called “unpatriotic” by a member of his country’s upper parliament chamber’s sports committee.
…
Prokhorov, Russia’s richest man worth an estimated $9.5 billion by Forbes, reached a tentative deal Wednesday to invest $200 million to acquire 80 percent of the Nets’ shares and fund nearly half the cost of building a new arena. Prokhorov, who owns a share in the prominent Russian team CSKA, says he wants the deal partly as a way to get access to the NBA’s training methods and educate coaches on how to improve Russian basketball.

If you want to improve Russian basketball, the first thing to do is to stay away from the New Jersey Nets.

Here’s a short video of the Eiffel Tower flashing on the hour.  I was taking the photo below when the Eiffel Tower started flashing.  It actually surprised me even though I had been in the tower while it was flashing in the previous hour.  I was inside on the second level getting a snack and studying a map trying to figure out where we’d go next when I noticed some flashing lights.  It never dawned on me that the entire Eiffel Tower was flashing until I saw it again from below.

Here’s a picture of the Eiffel Tower lit but not flashing.
Here’s the tower flashing.
Video and photos all capture with the iPhone 3GS.

The Paris city government spends a lot of time and effort to keep the streets clean.  I’m not sure if it’s due to the fact that quite a few Parisians don’t pick up dog poop, but the street cleaning really makes a difference compared to U.S. cities.  Sidewalks and plazas are hosed down by trucks, but many streets have water sources built in to flush debris into the sewer system.

I wondered how environmentally friendly this is, but I read that it’s a closed system for recycling non drinkable water.  Paris has two water lines, one for drinkable water and one not.

Reuters.com: Body Worlds plans cadaver show dedicated to sex

German anatomists plan a new show dedicated solely to dead bodies having sex as part of the Body Worlds exhibitions.

I think people should realize now, that these cadaver shows aren’t about education, but are modern day freak shows designed to shock and entertain.

I wrote about this extensively last year when a different show, Bodies the Exhibition was here in Cincinnati.

From Yahoo News: Ex-CEO backs limit on leaving passengers on tarmac

 A former CEO of American Airlines on Tuesday backed imposition of a three-hour time limit on how long airlines can strand passengers on airport tarmacs, but he also warned of unintended consequences.

Even three hours waiting on a tarmac seems too long.  But, at least this would prevent those horror stories of people being kept on planes with no food and overflowing toilets.