Etc...

Yankee go home

You probably won't find Virach Pongchababnapa marching in any of the antiwar protests sweeping South Asia; he's too busy to spare the time. But the owner-operator of the posh Pavilion Resort on Thailand's Koh Sumai island has come up with another way to register his views: He refuses to accept Americans as guests. "I am opposed to the policies of their government," he said, after turning away at least two. "My resort is against warmongers."

The alarm sounded. A search began ... and intensified when a hole was found in the prison fence. Sounds like a jail break, right? Well, not exactly. The flurry of activity became necessary earlier this month at the sprawling state Corrections Center in Shelton, Wash., when a head count indicated that a newly arrived prisoner was missing. Since he had a history of escaping custody, there was growing concern that he'd done it again. But he hadn't. Somehow, he ended up in the wrong cell, where he was found seven hours later. Not surprisingly, a review of tracking procedures is under way.

Western cities regularly top lists of the "most wired" urban areas in the US - those with greatest access to the Internet. But they also dominate a new survey of the nation's "most unwired" cities. How so? Well, the survey, commissioned by semiconductor giant Intel Corp., measures availability of the next level of computer technology: Internet access for laptops and other mobile devices via wireless fidelity (or WiFi) networks. The top 10 "unwired" cities:

1. Portland, Ore.
2. San Francisco
3. Austin
4. Seattle
5. Orange County, Calif.
6. Washington
7. San Diego
8. Denver
9. Ventura, Calif.
10. Boston - Business Wire