In the Herald: a perfect mix of the that paper's government, crime and high fashion reporting, all in one throwaway story. The photo is fantastic on so many levels. - via hatless

Inmates earn old stripes

For prisoners with violent records, the Broward County Jail is issuing retro black-and-white uniforms.

BSO OFFICERS: Elizabeth Calzadilla, left, and Veda Coleman-Wright model the new look. JOSHUA PREZANT/FOR THE HERALD

The reliable fashion axiom holds true, even in jail: What's old is new again.

Last week, Broward County inmates rolled out their newest look, black and white horizontal striped jailbird suits, the iconic outfits of Monopoly cards and jailbreak movie nostalgia.

''It's going to be a status symbol before evening,'' said assistant public defender George Reres, only half-jokingly.

Not everyone gets one. Only 85 of Broward County's 5,000 prisoners -- people with violent records or a history of jailhouse scuffling -- are wearing the new, old look, stamped in red block letters with the words "Maximum custody prisoner.''

Don't let that wording fool you. The baddest of the bad wear bold red. Broward prison officials added the black and white suits because they wanted a way to identify second-tier risky inmates, who still pose a strong risk of violence, but aren't quite in the red level.

Most run-of-the-mill inmates in Broward wear solid khaki. In Miami-Dade County, it's charcoal gray. Other colors in the jail uniform pallet can signify a range of situations. For example, juveniles in Miami-Dade adult jail wear UPS brown. Inmates who work in the kitchen in Miami-Dade wear white. Broward prisoners who cut grass or clean parks under supervision wear bright yellow. The list goes on: forest green, navy blue, postal blue. Miami-Dade has no plans to add stripes, though spokeswoman Janelle Hall did sound impressed.

Stripes have made a comeback nationally in the past 10 years, mostly because the vivid lines make inmates easier to spot from guard towers. They're also used for crews that work along the road in some counties because they identify the prisoners for the public. On average, the polyester-cotton blended striped jumpsuits cost about $.50 to $.80 more than their monochrome counterparts, about $14 for standard sizes.

Jail officials do not have the time or the money to let nostalgia come into it, said Pam Hurt, a sales representative for Robinson Textiles in Gardena, Cal., which sells millions of uniforms to jails and prisons around the county, including those in Broward.

Hurt says inmates in Louisiana wear five different striped patterns incorporating black, orange, red, green and blue with a white background. That allows guards instant, easy-to-spot classification information. Nationally, solid orange remains the most popular style, according to Hurt.

Don't try buying one of these outfits to amuse your friends at next month's Halloween party. Manufacturers, concerned a regular Joe in a jail suit could somehow help with an escape, don't usually sell these outfits to the general public.

In addition to practical concerns, bringing back the stripes may be part of a reemergent trend toward humiliating prisoners, said Thomas Blomberg, dean of Florida State University's School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. The symbol creates a psychological effect.

''It separates them,'' Blomberg said. "It's a way of shaming and we've been shaming criminals since colonial society.''

I was telling a while back that I'd like to have some sea dragons. Here's some video of them.

Bodiless Dancer in Flash (has sound)

Prop2 is having some out of office issues...I overheard her very upset on the phone, and I offered to help but she kept schtum about whatever was causing her grief.

I haven't heard from the bro since last Thursday... I hope he gets a letter off to me by tomorrow.

I downloaded regmon, to look into my freezes. It is amazing to see how active the registry is on a seemingly idle computer. I suspect it's a hardware issue, probably the power supply that's been dying slowly the last few months.

Remember that scrambled letter entry? This site will truly rearrange all the letters between the first and last in words in my journal. Some of them result in a more difficult translation. Want to try it on some page of your choosing? (use chewy caramel center option) (This is closer to my regular journal, I think.)

The 1911 encyclopedia Britannica.

Global warming may now be killing giant squid, rather than aiding their biomass domination. (Rather prematurely, Reuters then goes on to describe giant squid as "mythical".)

MADRID, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Scientists are trying to find out what caused two enormous squids, one of them 12 meters (40 ft) long, to wash up dead on Spain's northern coast this week.

"It's not a natural death and it's not the Prestige," Luis Laria, president of marine protection agency CEPESMA said, referring to a massive oil spill from the Prestige tanker late last year. He declined to speculate on the cause.

Three of the little-known creatures washed up in the area about a year ago and marine biologists said global warming could be to blame for the mysterious deaths.

The giant squid, the mythical monster that attacked Captain Nemo's Nautilus in Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", is the world's largest invertebrate and lives at depths of up to 2,000 meters (6,562 ft).

Laria said Spain's Asturias coastal region has one of the world's most important giant squid populations.

The second squid to wash up in recent days was a 87-kg (191-lb) female and was found by a man swimming. He told a Reuters photographer he had attached one of the tentacles to a float and dragged the creature towards the shore.

The Worst Jobs in Science - Astronaut was one that surprised me. I did guess Livestock Masturbator, though. I will be using the term "fistula feeder" as an insult sometime soon.

Britain's National Maritime Museum presents Robert Hooke: The Man Who Knew Everything:

By the mid-17th century, much of what underpinned Western thought was being questioned and replaced by a new way of thinking based on experimentation and observation.

Robert Hooke emerged as one of the leaders of this new age. Born in 1635 in Freshwater, Isle of Wight, he was educated at home until the age of 13 and then at Westminster School. In 1653, he went on to Oxford University. His interests spanned a wide range of topics. Best known as an astronomer and instrument maker, he was also a skilled physician, surveyor, architect, anatomist and artist.

Among his incredible accomplishments is the illustrated book, Micrographia:

Robert Hooke was still in his twenties when he wrote Micrographia, yet in this prodigious volume revealed the immense potential of a single instrument, the microscope, and the many brilliant speculations of a multi-faceted mind. In it we are introduced to the living cell; to microscopic fungi and the life story of the mosquito; we find the two contrasting theories about the origin of the lunar craters posed for the very first time. We read the first sensible proposal for the origin of fossils, and an uncanny prediction of the artificial fiber industry in Hooke’s discussion of the spinning of silk by the spider. Elsewhere in his great book, gigantic insects populate the pages, and controversy and scientific argument pepper the text.

Heard from bro, he sounds like he's doing well. :)

Talked to , and she's going to pick up the big brain, and set it to working properly over the course of this week and fix me up with a doctor's opinion about what's wrong. Hopefully, having her replace the power supply and maybe putting a fresh install of windows on a new primary hard drive will take care of any issues that could be rattling around in there. At the same time, I'm going to slap that new sound card in there, and toss the Astley drive o' doom out once and for all. it'll be nice to have a system on solid legs again, but I'll be out my desktop for probably a week while she makes time to take care of things. (I'm grateful that she's able to make the time and do the job that I can't!)

Quiet night on call tonight. I hope I don't jinx myself!

I hear Kev's got a lot of his vacation time coming at last... good for him! about dang time! He also reminded me that Age of Mythology is now $25. time to pick it up, I think.

Giving some new Newton piccies. Aww.. Newt looks sad. He's not, though.. just had a bath.



Unusual Xrays -Galleries include: objects, paintings, emergency room visits, mummies, reptiles and more.

Here is an incredible gallery of WWI Photography:

It was supposed to be The War to End All Wars. For over four years World War One raged on, leaving in its wake a toll of death and destruction such as the world had never seen. These are the images of that time, an eternal testament to all those whose lives were lost or forever altered by The Great War.

I spent most of my time in the Aviation Gallery, but will definitely go back to explore all the categories.

Check out this amazing photo of a German balloonist "bailing out." And here's a picture of the Red Baron - via !

Hey, a new Flash TV show! Smallville is good for something after all!

You have drunk 8323 pints of blood.

You are sire to 65 other vampires, including: LdySaphyre (6983 pints), MissV (2568 pints), Liliana (2553 pints), gilbella (1274 pints), mixedresults (1246 pints), Morgoth (520 pints), night_flyer (265 pints), wchmum (264 pints), Nathanael (257 pints), King of Ice (203 pints) Want to Join us? I'd like to have 100 by Halloween!

Some headhunter company from Ohio left a message on my answering machine. I wonder if they want to do something with me in Florida, or if they're mining outwards?

Hmm... I'm getting hits from Kuwait! (kuwait.army.mil ) looking at my image directory. I need to put a region poll in my bio page, I think.