Ram Tough

That's one tough truck... And one major DUI arrest.


In Vernon, British Columbia, Canada, a hard core drinker hit a left turn signal and sheared off the light post at the base. He then kept driving on about 2 more miles where police snapped this picture in the parking lot of Squires Four Pub, where the driver stopped for more beer!

The truck was towed about 2.5 miles to the Vernon towing yard, with the light still pinched between the two tow hooks and the bumper bent around it. It took several good hard pulls with a backhoe to get the pole free.

Cheese Factory contributor: Dan McGrath

Til The Rivers All Run Dry

Seventy-five percent of the world's fresh water is stored in glaciers, but scientists predict climate change will cause some of the world's largest glaciers to completely melt by 2030. What effect will this have on our daily lives? With global warming falling low on a national list of American concerns, it's time to take a deeper look at what could be a global calamity in the making.

Political instability and escalating violence make Pakistan a US foreign policy priority. But there's another looming crisis in the country. Pakistan is fast running out of water and much of what IS available is making people sick.

The World's Laura Lynch has the story in two parts.

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On Thin Ice is a special one-hour edition of NOW on PBS.

David Brancaccio and environmentalist Conrad Anker trek to India's Gangotri Glacier in the Himalayan Mountains, source of the Ganges River, and Montana's Glacier National Park to see the striking effects of global warming closer to home and learn how melting glaciers across the globe can have a direct impact on global food prices.

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In Bolivia, the Uru Chipaya have lived on high salt plains for 4,000 years. They use river water to flush salt out of the soil so they can farm. But now the river is drying up.

The BBC's Andres Schipani visited Bolivia's water people, thought to be the oldest surviving culture in South America.

Miniatur Wunderland

The world's largest train set.

The "Miniatur Wunderland" model railroad in Hamburg Germany covers 16,146 square feet of space with more than 10,000 train cars running around its 6.8 miles of HO scale track. Construction started in 2000, and is still underway, with a tiny airport due for completion by the end of 2009. And there are plans to double to layout by 2014.



More videos of "Miniatur Wunderland."

Thanks to Cheese Factory Contributor Ken Morgan.

Only Emotion Away

My family was hit hard last year. Within a period of just a few months we lost my mother, my brother's wife's mother and my late sister's husband's mother.

Only one blood relation for me... But my family hasn't grown by bloodlines alone. It's not as much a tree as a family thicket, entangled in vines of events, experiences and emotional ties beyond its formal branches.

This is the first Mother's Day we mark without Ruth, Beth and Johnnie, who remain alive in or hearts, only emotion away.

Artist: Paul Simon Title: Mother and Child Reunion Album: Paul Simon Year: 1972

One Scary Mother

I once had an exclusive interview with Edward Teller, the Hungarian born theoretical physicist often referred to as "father of the hydrogen bomb."

He denied paternity. In fact he wouldn't talk to me at all if I was going to call him the father of anything.

I kept my promise. Playing interview excerpts on the air, I introduced him as the hydrogen bomb's mother. And one scary mother, too.

You see, it was really Enrico Fermi who suggested a weapon based on nuclear fission could be used to set off an even larger nuclear fusion reaction. He's the Dad. Teller is Mom, because Fermi's seed took root in him, and he nurtured it to life after the Soviets' fission bomb test.

And Teller, known both for his scientific ability and his difficult personality, is considered one of the inspirations for the character Dr. Strangelove in the 1964 movie of the same name.

Like I said, Edward Teller was one scary mother.

Mothers of Invention

AllMusic.com Song Review by François Couture:

"My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama" may be the best summation of what the original Mothers of Invention were all about... Frank Zappa packed an infectious rock song (with) devious vocals and a frenetic instrumental bridge with tons of overdubs... (First released as) the B-side to the 1970 single "WPLJ," (it also) appeared on the LP Weasels Ripped My Flesh later the same year.

Artist: Frak Zappa Title: My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama Album: Weasels Ripped My Flesh Year: 1970

Mother Of Us All

Mitochondrial DNA, which we get exclusively from our mothers and mutates at a constant rate, allows science to trace the entirety of humanity back to a single female in the Great Rift Valley of Africa about 150,000 years ago.

"Mitochondrial "Eve."

I went looking for the Biblical "Eve" on Wikipedia and found on the eve of Mother's Day, not only had a prankster edited the article... Eve had undergone a sex change:

Genesis tells the story of Adam and Steve in chapters 1, 2 and 3, with some additional elements in chapters 4 and 5:

In Genesis 1 God creates humans "male and fish" in His image, and gives them dominion over the living things He has created, and commands them to "be fruitful and multiply." In so doing, he caused the first gay couple to procreate with each other, creating such beasts as John Howard and the Spice Girls.

Although, over time, a wiki will arrive at collective wisdom, any given viewing may show the work of a single wise ass.