SEVERAL past U.S. presidents had vegetable gardens on the White House lawn. Eleanor Roosevelt started a victory garden on the White House lawn in 1943, which encouraged millions to do the same in their own front yards. When WWII ended, home gardeners were producing 40 percent of the United States' produce. Roger Doiron, founder of Kitchen Gardens International (an organization that promotes kitchen gardening and home-cooking) hopes to convince the next US president to make a small vegetable garden on the 19 acres of grass surrounding the White House. His video about making a garden in the front yard of his own "white house" is entertaining and inspiring. Source: Boing Boing.net

WHAT happens when a blood vessel in the left lobe of your brain – the source of ego, analysis, judgment and context – pops?
You experience nirvana?
Well, according to an article in The New York Times recently, neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor experienced just that after suffering a stroke.
Dr. Taylor, then 37, was working at Harvard’s brain research centre when she woke to a piercing pain behind her eye on Dec. 10 1996.
But oddly enough, the scientist said it felt great.
The incessant chatter that normally filled her mind disappeared. Her everyday worries — about a brother with schizophrenia and her high-powered job — untethered themselves from her and slid away.
Her perceptions changed, too. She could see that the atoms and molecules making up her body blended with the space around her; the whole world and the creatures in it were all part of the same magnificent field of shimmering energy.
After experiencing intense pain, she said, her body disconnected from her mind. “I felt like a genie liberated from its bottle,” she wrote in her book. “The energy of my spirit seemed to flow like a great whale gliding through a sea of silent euphoria.”
Now post-surgery and after eight years of recovery, Dr. Taylor has written a memoir, “My Stroke of Insight,” with a desire to teach others about nirvana.
Today, she says, she is a new person, one who “can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere” on command and be “one with all that is.”
But skeptics debate whether she is truly enlightened or just physically damaged and confused. Whether it’s true or not, it’s an interesting insight into the human spiritual existence from the mouth of an accredited neuroscientist which aren’t normally ones to comment on anything that isn’t proven by experiments or fact.

MS Kerr made her catwalk debut for David Jones last night and she was every bit the shining fashion star we've come to know and love.
According to The Gold Coast Bulletin, the Victoria Secret stunner was more nervous going into the DJ set than strutting her stuff in the lingerie parade.
"Because I'm home it's more pressure I suppose -- I want to do a really good job for everybody, for all the designers, for David Jones," said Miranda before the show last night.
But the girl from Gunnedah stepped it up for the home crowd last night looking every inch the professional, all before an entourage of family including mum and dad, John and Therese, grandparents and cousins making for her personal support team in the absence of actor boyfriend Orlando Bloom.
Like an industry veteran, the leggy brunette took to the enormous lit perspex catwalk, flirting with the cameras in a sizzling ruffled Jets swimsuit complete with a metre-high feathered head-piece that summoned a few open-mouthed onlookers.

SO Project Runway Australia might not feature designers half as talented as the US version, and Kirsty is seriously painful to watch in comparison to the effervescent Heidi, but never-the-less, the series is seriously entertaining.
This fash hound can admit her addiction and no, before you ask, I didn't sign up to cable just to watch the series on Arena, instead I saddle up each week in front of my computer to watch each episode on You Tube with my equally addicted husband.
Last week was reaching a pinnacle in the shows entertainment value, with each of the contestants given the task of designing a garment using just the parts of a car - thanks to sponsor Fiat.
Well it was most definitely the most hilarious one yet, with catfights galore, the claws were really out to get the frocker - who really is a shocker for those uninitiated.
And with guest judge Peter Morrissey in fine cut-throat form, it was one not to be missed.
If you haven't witnessed the antics, then I truly recommend you log on now and download the last three episodes.
I am going to take a punt and say the last two designers to take on the final will be the talented and feminine, Julie of Brisbane and the outrageously camp Bryanboy look-a-like childrens wear designer, Mark.

IT must be nice to have friends in high places, or a best friend in Julia Restoin-Roitfeld, daughter of French Vogue editor-in-chief.
But besides the hip affiliation with Julia, jewellery designer / artist extraordinaire, Pamela Love could just have easily carved her own path with her magnificient craft.
Her eponymous jewellery line was recently featured in a sweet article - published in the latest Purple magazine - with photos taken of course by the lovely Julia.
Besides her ultra cool jewellery, the 25-year-old Brooklyn native paints, sculpts, directs films, styles fashion shoots, plays drums in a band, and `refuses to be locked in a box' - the kinda girl we all could envy and wish to befriend.
And as for the jewellery line? Well, she cites her inspiration as wilderness, and having grown up around family members from the medical profession she was `drawn to astronomy, biology and anatomy'. Hence her pieces feature brass, gold and silver eagles claws hanging from chains, authentic bird parts, deer teeth including crows and rams skulls too.
Although it sounds kinda macabre, these pieces are seriously drool-worthy and I lust after the eagles claw dangling between my fair bossom.
So far as I know, the pieces can be bought in her NY town at various boutiques, but here's one web address for the talon cuff - Be warned however, as this ghoulishly delightful guilty pleasure will set you back about $700.

SEXY is a woman wearing nothing more than her Laboutin heels. I am not among the minority when it comes to coveting the almighty stilletto. Whether it be designer or otherwise, new shoes are a staple and necessity of every females wardrobe. We dream (and I do mean that quite literally, dozing off at work even) of having enough credit to crunch in order to cram our closet with each pair in every colour, style, shape and height.
While many of us can be fairly sensible with our fetish, for some it is verging on the obsessive. The Shoe Goddess is a self confessed addict, designing a blog dedicated solely to the foot accessory. Each day she updates the site with the very latest offering from all the fashion houses, Givenchy, Prada, Laboutin, Chanel and even Nine West.
Warning: The addiction is addictive.

SO I know this is blatant self-promotion, but by the same token, it's also for your own good.My fashion designer denim dynamo custom King artist afficianado husband and I have started up a new blog site for our burgeoning clothing label, Debris Blanc.
Digest the latest in quirky news, artist DIY, fashion trends, celebutard histrionics and updated DB info. Get on it.