Polygamy is alive and well in the home of 58 year old Shahadeh Abu Arrar.  He's been married 8 times, and thinks he's found that special number 9.  Even with an Israeli ban on polygamy all Abu Arrar has to do is divorce a wife when he feels like it and the wife is still "culturally" married to him.  His oldest child is 37 and my guess is his youngest is probably breathing amniotic fluid as we speak.  All this seems insane until you hear the story about a one-legged 60-year-old man with 78 children from 12 wives in Dubai.  At 58, Abu Arrar's got some fucking to do if he wants do beat the one-legged man in this race.

It's unclear how Abu Arrar supports his massive family. Camels, goats and a cow were grazing on his property. Yediot said he also receives about $1,700 (euro1,200) in government handouts each month.

According to the Israeli Interior Ministry, Abu Arrar has 53 children registered as Israeli citizens. He has 14 other children born to Palestinian wives in the West Bank and who are not eligible for Israeli citizenship, his other wives said.

"My first wife is my age, and today I hardly spend any time with her. Her children are big, and I leave her alone. I have younger wives to spend time with. Every night I decide which wife to be with," Abu Arrar told the newspaper. He refused to talk to an AP reporter.

Little six year old Ryan O'Conner of Skokie, Illinois spends most of his days hooked up to a series of tubes and machines. He has spent the past seventeen months living in room 221 at Children's Memorial Hospital, staring out the window, suffering silently in indescribable pain.

Ryan O'Connor is suffering from a rare form of brain cancer.

His only respite comes, ironically, during his most painfully grueling respiratory rehab sessions on Sundays in the fall. That's when Ryan gets to listen to his beloved Chicago Bears on the radio. And this past Sunday, Ryan got the gift of a lifetime.

Before the game, The Make-it-Happen Foundation arranged for a phone call from Ryan's favorite Chicago Bear, QB Rex Grossman. He was so excited, he finally spoke for the first time in over a year.

"Throw an interception for me, Rex, and I promise I'll get better."

Grossman went out and lived up to his end of that promise on Sunday. He not only threw an interception but he also lost a fumble. Grossman seems to be picking up right where he left off in the Super Bowl, where he threw two interceptions and had two fumbles.

But all was not well with Little Ryan. It seemed he couldn't live up to his end of the promise: living.

"During halftime, I received word that little Ryan passed away", said a choked up Rex Grossman after the game. "Up in heaven, I guess he still got to see me play. The fumble and interception? That was for you little man."

Grossman went on to say that he will establish an "Intercept the Cure" fund which will see him donate $10,000 for every interception thrown or fumble lost during the season to the National Children's Cancer Fund. "Anything I can do within my power to help save another Ryan, Melissa, Miguel or Taneesha, I will do. I vow to make 2007 my best season ever for throwing careless interceptions and losing remedial snap exchanges."

Grossman threw 23 interceptions and lost 7 fumbles last year. After fumbling often a basic center snap exchange in the preseason and the results of the first game of the season, it looks like the National Children's Cancer Fund will benefit handsomely from this unselfish athlete.

Disgruntled and disabled in Jacksonville, Fla:

I would like to rant about overweight people using electric carts in stores. As a handicapped person, I get infuriated when there are no electric carts left at the front entrance because most of the people using them are massively obese. Granted, some of these people have medical issues that require them to use one of these. But it is the obese individuals who take advantage of these who don't care enough to engage in a healthy lifestyle to lose weight.

From FOX News:

The Saturday blast sent a fireball into the sky over the Atlas Castings and Technology foundry. It could take days to find out why the delivery truck, loaded with 8,000 gallons of propane, exploded, authorities said.

The truck driver, identified as Charles McDonald, 64, was in critical condition at a Seattle hospital Sunday. Three others injured in the blast were released from a Tacoma hospital, authorities said.

An Atlas executive said the company had accounted for all 32 employees who were at the plant Saturday.

No this person is not constipated, it's a pilot in training in a centrifuge where the acceleration exceeds 9G. A normal person faints between 4 and 6G. The figure in the bottom left corner represents the number of G.

From Wiki:

Human tolerances depend on the magnitude of g-force, the length of time it is applied, the direction it acts, the location of application, and the posture of the body.

The human body is flexible and deformable, particularly the softer tissues. A hard slap on the face may impose hundreds of g-s locally but not produce any real damage: a constant 15 g-s for a minute, however, may be deadly. When vibration is experienced, relatively low peak g levels can be severely damaging if they are at the resonant frequency of organs and connective tissues.

To some degree, g-tolerance can be trainable; and there is also considerable variation in innate ability between individuals. Further some illnesses reduce g-tolerance, particularly cardiovascular problems.