NO WORD ON MOVING SIDEWALKS
Alas, our childhood fantasies of flying cars is still barely more real than a scientist’s wet dream. Researchers at NASA, Boeing, and other smaller companies who are trying to develop an airplane/car hybrid say that an affordable working flying car is still a few decades away. “When you try to combine them you get the worst of both worlds: a very heavy, slow, expensive vehicle that’s hard to use,” said NASA scientist Mark Moore. For now, NASA has much smaller goals: within five years, they hope to create a small airplane which costs less than $100,000 and is as easy to operate as a car; within 10 years, they hope to have perfected a small plane which can also drive short distances on side roads after landing at an airport; in 15 years, their goal is a vehicle which can carry four passengers and make vertical takeoffs. After these initial prototypes, they project that it will still take many years before these vehicles are actually on the market. Predictions are that the first skycars will cost around $1 million and require a pilot’s license to fly, but the eventual dream is that flying cars will cost about as much as a luxury vehicle and will be quiet, easy to fly, and easy to maintain. “It will take about 25 years to get to anything remotely ‘Jetsons’-like,” said Moore. (AP)

THE TOURIST TRAP BEGINS BEFORE YOU EVEN LEAVE HOME
Where P.T. Barnum might say “there’s a sucker born every minute,” I say “if you can find someone stupid enough to give you money for your hair-brained scheme you deserve it.” Seems a guy out in Minneapolis is calling himself the world’s first “astral travel agent” and charging folks $60 an hour for advice on the ideal vacation spot for them. Jack Dunamis says that he helps select the best holiday destination for his clients by reading their energy fields and then mentally projecting himself to the location where they want to go in order to stake it out for them before they go. Dunamis says his astral travels can determine which vacation spots will be most conducive for fun, adventure, and romance. He also says that his consultation will be able to reveal if the person has had any negative past life experiences at the proposed destination, and will help them avoid “negative reincarnation experiences” while on holiday. (Wireless Flash)

COME OUT OF THAT CLOSET, JIMMY
Jimmy Swaggart was forced to apologize last week for telling his congregation that he would kill any gay man who looked at him the wrong way. During a broadcast of his Jimmy Swaggart Ministries telecast, the fundamentalist preacher was telling his congregation that he had never seen a man who he was romantically attracted to, and drove home the point by saying “If one ever looks at me like that, I’m going to kill him and tell God he died.” Not wanting to admit that he’s simply using macho posturing to hide his homo-erotic urges, Jimmy rationalized his verbal attack by saying “it’s a humorous statement that doesn’t mean anything.” But we know better... (AP)

SCREW DIETING
If you’re looking for the most enjoyable way to lose weight, look no further than to the advice of an Italian dietician who has been calculating how many calories you can burn while engaged in various sexual acts. According to his “research,” it will take about 26 minutes of passionate love-making to burn off the calories in a slice of pizza, 53 minutes of French kissing to burn off a burger and fries, and 15 minutes of oral sex to eliminate the calories in a glass of wine. He also calculates that taking off a woman’s bra will burn 8 calories if done with both hands, and 18 calories if done with just one hand. For real go-getters, taking off your partner’s bra with your mouth will burn a whopping 87 calories. (Sun Times UK)