Illegal loggers have chopped their way deep into unique forest reserves in a mountain range in central Mexico where millions of monarch butterflies from eastern North America roost for the winter, according to researchers who posted satellite photographs of the area on a NASA Web site on March 5.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/science/earth/07butterfly.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin

Quote
There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers.
Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582)

To your health Easy Devilled Eggs
Slice cold hard-boiled eggs in half and place yolk portions in bowl. Mash and add small amount of liquid from a jar of olives—I use J’Olives, a brand made in Toledo. Place yolk mixture into white halves and dust with paprika.

March 9 is the birthday of crime novelist Mickey Spillane, (books by this author) the pen name of Frank Morrison, born in Brooklyn, New York (1918). As a high school student, he wrote for a local newspaper, and he covered bootlegging scams and other criminal activity. He would make carbon copies of the newspaper stories and turn one copy in as a writing assignment for school and get paid for the other. In 1940, he got a job as a scripter of comic books for Funnies, Inc. Other writers required a week to produce a Captain Marvel story while Spillane could write one in a day.
The Writer’s Almanac

Salaries of Members of Congress: A List of Payable Rates and Effective Dates, 1789-2008 (PDF; 67 KB)Source: Congressional Research Service (via senate.gov)
Congress is required by Article I, Section 6, of the Constitution to determine its own pay. Prior to 1969, Congress did so by enacting stand-alone legislation. From 1789 through 1968, Congress raised its pay 22 times using this procedure. Congressional salaries initially were $1,500. By 1968, they had risen to $30,000. Stand-alone legislation may still be used to raise Member pay, as it was most recently in 1982, 1983, 1989, and 1991, but two other methods — including an automatic annual adjustment procedure and a commission process — are now also available.
Under the annual adjustment procedure, Members were scheduled to receive a 2.7% increase in January 2008. The increase was revised to 2.5%, resulting in a salary in 2008 of $169,300, to match the percent increase in the base pay of General Schedule (GS) employees. By law, Members may not receive an increase greater than the increase in the base pay of GS employees. Congress voted to deny the scheduled January 2007 adjustment. Members last received a pay increase (1.9%) in January 2006, increasing their salary to the rate of $165,200.
Permalink

10 great places to find a nook and read a book
NPR book commentator Nancy Pearl, author of Book Lust,shares her list of favorite public libraries with Tim Smight for USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/10great/2008-03-06-10great-libraries_N.htm

Literary swindles continue
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iRuUON6KTeJi_gewHBVLUplrPcFQ