A 34-year-old man was charged Monday with breaking into several homes in northwest Denver and stealing women's undergarments and other personal items.

The Denver district attorney's office said Carlos Vigil, 34, was charged with seven counts of second-degree burglary in three separate cases.

Police said Vigil, whom they called the "Panty Burglar," entered houses through open windows and doggie doors. They said he took clothing and photographs.

Vigil was released from jail on $75,000 bond. He is scheduled to appear in Denver County Court June 28 to be formally advised of the charges against him.

A man in Colorado Springs recently pleaded guilty to breaking into houses and stealing women's undergarments. A man in Fort Collins faces charges in the theft of more than 1,300 women's undergarments from apartment laundry rooms near the Colorado State University campus.

China's "professional noses" sniff out polluters

An environmental monitoring station in southern China is recruiting people with keen noses to sniff out foul gases in the atmosphere and provide more accurate readings of air quality.

A team of 11 "professional noses" at a monitoring station in Panyu, an industrial town in the Pearl River delta in Gaungdong province, had been trained by air pollution experts, Wednesday's China Daily quoted a senior official at the station as saying.

"Now we can differentiate between hundreds of smells that may make people ill, before making an assessment on their density," vice-director Liu Jingcai said.

"The work is quite unpleasant. We have to stay in a lab smelling those awful gases repeatedly," he added.

Liu said the team would complement the station's scientific equipment with the aim of helping bring pollution violators -- including chemical producers and rubbish processing sites -- to account.

But long-term career prospects were hazy.

The professional noses' accreditation would need to be renewed every three years, "as one's sense of smell diminishes with age", the paper said.



GOT NOSE ? he he

Rats! Look who's getting tipsy on illegal booze 1 hour, 19 minutes ago



Rats are gnawing at beer cans and making holes in caps of whisky bottles stored in police storehouses in eastern India and apparently getting drunk, authorities said on Wednesday.

The rodents' love for liquor has the police department in Bihar state stumped as it tries to store hundreds of bottles seized from illegal sellers from across the state in Patna, the state capital, said Kundan Krishnan, a senior officer.

"We are fed up with these drunk rats and cannot explain why they have suddenly turned to consumption of alcohol," he said.

The problem costs revenue as the seized liquor is usually sold through auctions, he said.

Rats were also attacking people near the police buildings, nibbling at their toes, although it was not clear if they were under the influence, officials and witnesses said.

a common panty thief could post a bond for $75000 ? actually $75000 bond for a common panty thief?

absurdity knows no bounds.

Please, Mr. President, not another Cold War
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, June 19, 2007

President John F. Kennedy overstated his case in his inaugural address in 1961, when he said: "We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

President George W. Bush made the same mistake last week when he said: "The evil and hatred that inspired the death of tens of millions of people in the 20th century is still at work in the world. We saw its face on September the 11th, 2001."

Bush, dedicating the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, said 100 million people died because of that ideology. Nevertheless, some of those deaths were caused by American overreaction to its conflict with the Soviet Union, the focus of Kennedy's Cold War rhetoric in his 1961 address.

By the time Kennedy became president, the United States had created a nuclear arsenal, overthrown governments in Guatemala and Iran, refused to accept a settlement of the Vietnam conflict, and embarked on a domestic witch hunt against supposed Communist sympathizers. Under Kennedy the United States entangled itself further in Vietnam.

All this was done to thwart a Soviet threat that in hindsight was neutralized by maintaining a strong NATO alliance in Europe.

After Sept. 11, Bush replicated the excesses of the Cold War when he established a prison outside the law at Guantánamo Bay, circumscribed domestic civil liberties, encouraged the use of torture abroad, and alienated long-time allies by insisting on invading Iraq without their support.

"Like the Communists, the followers of violent Islamic radicalism are doomed to fail," Bush said. He is right, but why strengthen their cause by abusing human rights and embarking on a divisive military intervention, much like those in the Cold War?

Among the victims of Communism Bush mentioned last week were the millions slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. They might not have come to power had the Vietnam War not destabilized Indochina. Bush cites history, but hasn't learned from it.

Kennedy talked tough at first, but his handling of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 was a masterful blend of threats, military actions, and concessions. In 1963, he negotiated the first treaty to limit nuclear weapons testing.

The day before he left for Dallas, where he would be assassinated, he told an aide: "I want you to organize an in-depth study of every possible option we've got in Vietnam, including how to get out of there."

Bush seems too inflexible to abandon Cold War mimicry. His successor will need to learn from the seasoned Kennedy, who in 1963 addressed America's adversaries as fellow human beings with whom he could reason. "Confident and unafraid," he said at American University, "we labor on ... toward a strategy of peace."