Here's some of the things we talked about Friday
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Paul's Hemmer-sphere
	Senator John Edwards has endorsed formal presidential rival Barack Obama. Along with the endorsement came four of Edwards’ delegates. Plus a coupon for 50% off his next haircut. Edwards apologized for waiting so late to endorse. He spent the last two months lost in the North wing of his house. A Japanese lingerie maker has unveiled a solar-powered bra that can generate enough electricity to charge a mobile phone or iPod. If you have implants, the solar cells are just a second layer of silicone. Eliot Spitzer is offering refunds to those who contributed to his 2010 campaign. So contact his office for the refund. The dollar bills you’ll get back are torn and crumpled from being in a g-string. The US has officially listed the polar bear as a threatened species, due in part to global waming's effect on its habitat. The only thing as white and endangered is Hillary Clinton. A Girl Scout from Dearborn, Michigan, has sold an astonishing number of cookies this year, over 17,000. Well, she didn’t sell them personally. She outsourced the work to a Girl Scout in New Dehli. In a Dallas suburb police arrested a substitute teacher who showed up at the middle school drunk. Who in their right mind would spend all day with middle school students cold sober? In Canada the Calgary Zoo is investigating the mysterious sudden deaths of dozens of stingrays. They’re calling it the curse of the Crocodile Hunter. ROBOTIC SOLDIER SUIT UNDATED (AP) - Iron Man watch out -- here comes Rex Jameson. Of course, "Iron Man" is Hollywood fantasy. But Jameson is helping to develop what's called an "exoskeleton" suit that multiplies human strength and endurance up to 20 times. He can easily lift a 200-pound weight -- 500 times in a row. Jameson works for Sarcos, a robotics firm in Salt Lake City. The Army believes the robotic suit may someday help soldiers in combat. But now the focus is on activities like loading cargo or repairing heavy equipment. There are still significant issues to overcome, such as cost and power. Current battery life is just 30 minutes -- hardly enough to make the suit practical. BEACH VS BEACH VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) - Myrtle Beach is kicking virtual sand into the face of Virginia Beach. There's an unwritten rule in the travel industry that tourist destinations don't badmouth each other. Virginia Beach officials charge their rivals bought ads on Google saying Myrtle Beach is cheaper and more relaxing than Virginia Beach. The Myrtle Beach ads would show up when someone searched Google for info about Virginia Beach. One Myrtle Beach official defends the ad campaign, telling The Sun-News it's pure guerrilla marketing. FRYING PAN ASSAULT CROSSVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Call it a family feud -- frying pan style. Authorities in Tennessee have busted a couple for whacking each other with a frying pan. Cumberland County deputies have charged both Heather and Samuel Newcome with domestic assault. Deputies say other family members got involved in the cookware smackdown, but decided not to press charges. The couple is to appear in court Monday. WILLOUGHBY NUDITY WESTMORE, Vt. (AP) - Some folks in Vermont feel it's time to take the gloves off -- when people take their clothes off. Officials in the town of Westmore have been hearing complaints about Lake Willoughby, which has one of Vermont's most famous nude beaches. Susan Cheney, who camps in Westmore in the summer, calls the people who use the beach exhibitionists. She wants the state to ban nudity. But resident Cathy Holmes says she doesn't have a problem with fans of the all over tan. The select board didn't take any action on the nudity issue. GAS GIVEAWAY LAS VEGAS (AP) - Free gas is a publicity stunt that's working a little too well. Hundreds of cars clogged streets near the Las Vegas strip yesterday after Cricket Communications offered 10,000 bucks worth of free gas. Cars were lined up for miles to tank-up on the phone company. But the gas came a little too late for one person. That car ran out of gas while waiting. SUBWAY AT SEA OCEAN CITY, Md. (AP) - New York City straphangers sometimes feel as though they're packed in like sardines. But some real fish will soon take up residence in 40 former New York City subway cars. The subway cars are due to be sunk off the coast of Ocean City, Maryland, this morning, in order to form a manmade reef. A total of 1,600 old subway cars are to be deep-sixed off of Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey. SNEAKY RESTAURANT TRICKS DURING A RECESSION (AOL.com) Cutting Back on Portions: Restaurants normally spend between 25% and 40% of their budgets on food. So if they can make a smaller hamburger and still sell it for the same price, their profits go up. There are reports of some restaurants buying smaller plates so customers won't notice they have reduced portions and chefs won't be tempted to heap on food to make dishes look appealing. Tweaking the Recipe: Maybe the recipe calls for five sticks of butter. In good times, the baker adds six because she thinks it tastes better. But in tough times, she'll stick to five (or worse, substitute a stick or two of margarine in the recipe). Cooks may also be told to use 10% less chicken or chop off less of the head of strawberries when they make shortcake. Swapping Key Ingredients: Managers may shift to dishes that call for less expensive ingredients, too -- for example, from beef to chicken or from chicken to pasta. Consumers may want these lower priced alternatives. And restaurants like them because they can often make a higher profit margin on them. If you see a menu item for some kind of marinated steak, it may be a flank steak, a cheap, tough, cut that has been marinated and pounded to submission, said one chef at a private club who asked not to be identified. Cutting Back on Freshness: Food distributors are charging restaurants fuel surcharges these days because of high gas prices. So, restaurants are trying to cut back on the number of deliveries they get. Instead of getting fresh produce every day, they get bigger quantities less frequently. Other kitchens may switch to frozen for items that they rarely use but want to keep on hand, such as avocados. Using Up Everything: The chef may prefer to discard tomatoes that aren't the ripest red. But, these days, to make use of every last tomato ordered, you might see a few green slices make their way onto your hamburger. That new special soup? Could be just an excuse to use some meat and vegetables they got for another dish but didn't sell. Pouring Weaker Drinks: Bartenders have a way of pouring generous drinks and maybe even offering one on the house. But now his boss may be breathing down his neck to ensure he is not so glad-handed. In the United Kingdom pubs must sell liquor in 25 ml or 35 ml servings and have bar gadgets that pour exactly that amount. Maybe they'll start becoming a common sight in the U.S., too. Using Cheaper Ingredients: Restaurant owners have become compulsive shoppers. That's quite a change. Owners normally stick with the same supplier year after year, almost like baseball players stick with lucky socks. Now they're trying many suppliers and many brands. For restaurant owners who are less fastidious on quality, a switch to a cheaper supplier can mean lower quality. Using Cheaper Disposables: From take-out containers to garbage bags to toilet paper, there are big bucks in paper and disposables. And owners can sometimes get the same items for less if they just spend more time shopping. Or, they may decide that food quality is sacrosanct but napkin quality is not. Redesigning Menus: The third item in a list is generally the most selected item. Owners are using this knowledge and professional menu design to steer eaters to the highest margin items. Profitable items may also get stars or boxes around them. You may see prices de-emphasized. Slowly Raising Prices: Restaurants normally raises price only once or twice a year. Now you'll see many more increases along the way. That's because prices are moving as much in a month as they used to in a year. One restaurant owner now prints only 500 menus at a time instead of 5,000. He used to check his ingredient prices every couple months; now he makes sure to look every week.
Entertainment News
	Shania Twain and husband-producer Robert "Mutt" Lange are splitting up after 14 years of marriage. The 42-year-old Canadian country superstar and 59-year-old Lange married in 1993 and have a 6-year-old son named Eja. Columbia Pictures has acquired the rights from Scholastic Media to adapt R.L. Stine's best-selling "Goosebumps" book series for the big screen. John Phillip Law, the strikingly handsome 1960s movie actor who portrayed an angel in the futuristic "Barbarella" and a lovesick Russian seaman in "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming," has died. He was 70. Sunday's season finale of "Desperate Housewives" will take place five years in the future. Marcia Cross says that the future will find Bree as a big success in the business she and Katherine started, though she wouldn't say if Katherine was still part of the venture. She also says Bree looks different because "the flip has died." As for Gabby, Cross says she's finally given Carlos what he's always wanted, some kids. And she says that creepy Kayla will be "hightailed out of town" after causing so much trouble for Lynette and her children. Harrison Ford isn't really an archaeologist. He just plays one in the movies, as Indiana Jones, of course. But, now Ford's been elected to the board of directors of the Archaeological Institute of America. The group promotes archaeological excavation, research, education and preservation around the world. The president of the archeology board says Ford's Indiana Jones character has played a major part in stimulating interest in archaeological exploration. Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi are getting married.  In the wake of Thursday's (May 15) decision by the California Supreme Court making gay marriage legal, DeGeneres and de Rossi made the announcement at a taping of Ellen's syndicated talk show scheduled to air Friday (May 16). Britney Spears is vacationing in Costa Rica with Mel Gibson. Gibson, a former Malibu neighbor of Spears, is hosting the singer and her father at his island house, where they will relax with him and his wife. "Mel and his wife Robin clearly saw a woman in crisis and wanted to extend themselves in any way possible," a source told People magazine. The foursome took off in a private jet on Thursday (May 15th) and plan to return to Los Angeles next week. Just days after their engagement was falsely reported, Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson have broken up. Although the British media claimed a diamond wedding ring used a prop on Hudson's movie Bride Wars signaled impending nuptials, the on-off couple have gone their separate ways.
	MAY 16, 1860 The Republican National Convention nominated Abraham Lincoln of Illinois for President of the United States. MAY 16, 1866 Root Beer was invented by Charles Elmer Hires. (Blowing it through your nose to impress chicks came a few days later.) MAY 16, 1868 The U.S. Senate failed by one vote to convict President Andrew Johnson as it took its first ballot on one of 11 articles of impeachment against him. MAY 16, 1891 Spam was introduced by Geo. A. Hormel & Co. MAY 16, 1929 The first Oscars (Academy Awards) were presented, in Los Angeles. Best picture, "Wings." Best actor, Emil Jennings; best actress, Janet Gaynor. MAY 16, 1969 Pete Townsend of The Who, mistaking a plainclothes policeman for an aggressive fan, kicked him offstage at a concert in New York. He was arrested and fined $75.00. (Did this inspire their song Won't Get Fooled Again?) MAY 16, 1969 The $50 million nuclear submarine Guitarro sank at dockside in San Francisco while undergoing its final fitting. A House report later charged the Navy with "inexcusable carelessness." (Wait a minute! Aren't submarines SUPPOSED to sink?!!) MAY 16, 1988 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled police can search discarded garbage without a warrant. MAY 16, 1988 Surgeon general C. Everett Koop released a report declaring nicotine addictive in ways similar to heroin and cocaine. (I guess all the tobacco company presidents were home sick with the flu that day.) THOUGHT FOR THE DAY . . . . .     A clean desk is a sign of a cluttered desk drawer.   BIRTHDAYS FOR MAY 16 . . . . . . Victoria "Tori" Spelling : 35 (Donna Martin on "Beverly Hills, 90210") Tucker Carlson : 39 (News Anchor, Commentator; Host of "Tucker" on MSNBC) Janet Jackson : 42 Debra Winger : 53 (Emma Greenway Horton in Terms of Endearment) Pierce Brosnan : 55 (James Bond in Die Another Day) Louis "Studs" Terkel : 96 (Author, broadcaster)