BREMERTON, WASHINGTON

This news is really bizarre.  A couple apparently got into fight  deciding if the Man's dog should join them while they been taking shower together. And eventually it ended bloody.

The 25-year-old woman was arrested for investigation of second-degree assault for getting into an argument with her boyfriend over whether his dog should be in the bathroom while the couple were taking a shower together.

A police report said the man, 26, wanted his dog to join them in the bathroom, but the woman objected on Thursday night.

The woman told her boyfriend that if the dog doesn't stay out, she didn't want to be his girlfriend anymore. He replied that maybe his next girlfriend would appreciate the dog more, and called her a name.

The police report said the woman punched him in the face several times and the man dislocated his shoulder after the naked couple grappled. He told police his girlfriend threw a picture frame, which broke and cut him.

LAKE WORTH, FLORIDA

It was the couple's lucky day! George Brock and his wife, Leslie found a rare pearl while dining in a Florida restaurant.

George Brock was about halfway through a plate of steamed clams when he chomped down on something hard — a rare, iridescent purple pearl. George Brock and his wife, Leslie, had been spending a day at the beach Friday in South Florida and stopped at Dave's Last Resort & Raw Bar for a bite. Their find could be worth thousands.

"Few are round and few are a lovely color, so this is rare," said gemologist Antoinette Matlins. "I think they have found something precious and lovely and valuable."

The gems occur most frequently in large New England quahogs, clams known for violet coloring on the inside of their shells. The clams in the $10 plate came from Apalachicola in the Florida Panhandle, said restaurant manager Tom Gerry.

The Brocks, of Royal Palm Beach, plan to have the pearl appraised and said they may sell it if it is valuable.

Scientists discovered the technique of creating stem cells from ordinary cells. In upcoming days we are looking at creating human being with artificial womb. Until then you can rent an Indian Womb if you need.

Every night in this quiet western Indian city, 15 pregnant women prepare for sleep in the spacious house they share, ascending the stairs in a procession of ballooned bellies, to bedrooms that become a landscape of soft hills.

A team of maids, cooks and doctors looks after the women, whose pregnancies would be unusual anywhere else but are common here. The young mothers of Anand, a place famous for its milk, are pregnant with the children of infertile couples from around the world.

The small clinic at Kaival Hospital matches infertile couples with local women, cares for the women during pregnancy and delivery, and counsels them afterward. Anand's surrogate mothers, pioneers in the growing field of outsourced pregnancies, have given birth to roughly 40 babies.

More than 50 women in this city are now pregnant with the children of couples from the United States, Taiwan, Britain and beyond. The women earn more than many would make in 15 years. But the program raises a host of uncomfortable questions that touch on morals and modern science, exploitation and globalization, and that most natural of desires: to have a family.

Dr. Nayna Patel, the woman behind Anand's baby boom, defends her work as meaningful for everyone involved.

"There is this one woman who desperately needs a baby and cannot have her own child without the help of a surrogate. And at the other end there is this woman who badly wants to help her (own) family," Patel said. "If this female wants to help the other one ... why not allow that? ... It's not for any bad cause. They're helping one another to have a new life in this world."

Experts say commercial surrogacy — or what has been called "wombs for rent" — is growing in India. While no reliable numbers track such pregnancies nationwide, doctors work with surrogates in virtually every major city. The women are impregnated in-vitro with the egg and sperm of couples unable to conceive on their own.

Commercial surrogacy has been legal in India since 2002, as it is in many other countries, including the United States. But India is the leader in making it a viable industry rather than a rare fertility treatment. Experts say it could take off for the same reasons outsourcing in other industries has been successful: a wide labor pool working for relatively low rates.

Critics say the couples are exploiting poor women in India — a country with an alarmingly high maternal death rate — by hiring them at a cut-rate cost to undergo the hardship, pain and risks of labor.

"It raises the factor of baby farms in developing countries," said Dr. John Lantos of the Center for Practical Bioethics in Kansas City, Mo. "It comes down to questions of voluntariness and risk."

Patel's surrogates are aware of the risks because they've watched others go through them. Many of the mothers know one another, or are even related. Three sisters have all borne strangers' children, and their sister-in-law is pregnant with a second surrogate baby. Nearly half the babies have been born to foreign couples while the rest have gone to Indians.

Ritu Sodhi, a furniture importer from Los Angeles who was born in India, spent $200,000 trying to get pregnant through in-vitro fertilization, and was considering spending another $80,000 to hire a surrogate mother in the United States.

"We were so desperate," she said. "It was emotionally and financially exhausting."

Then, on the Internet, Sodhi found Patel's clinic.

After spending about $20,000 — more than many couples because it took the surrogate mother several cycles to conceive — Sodhi and her husband are now back home with their 4-month-old baby, Neel. They plan to return to Anand for a second child.

"Even if it cost $1 million, the joy that they had delivered to me is so much more than any money that I have given them," said Sodhi. "They're godsends to deliver something so special."

Patel's center is believed to be unique in offering one-stop service. Other clinics may request that the couple bring in their own surrogate, often a family member or friend, and some place classified ads. But in Anand the couple just provides the egg and sperm and the clinic does the rest, drawing from a waiting list of tested and ready surrogates.

Young women are flocking to the clinic to sign up for the list.

Suman Dodia, a pregnant, baby-faced 26-year-old, said she will buy a house with the $4,500 she receives from the British couple whose child she's carrying. It would have taken her 15 years to earn that on her maid's monthly salary of $25.

Dodia's own three children were delivered at home and she said she never visited a doctor during those pregnancies.

"It's very different with medicine," Dodia said, resting her hands on her hugely pregnant belly. "I'm being more careful now than I was with my own pregnancy."

Patel said she carefully chooses which couples to help and which women to hire as surrogates. She only accepts couples with serious fertility issues, like survivors of uterine cancer. The surrogate mothers have to be between 18 and 45, have at least one child of their own, and be in good medical shape.

Like some fertility reality show, a rotating cast of surrogate mothers live together in a home rented by the clinic and overseen by a former surrogate mother. They receive their children and husbands as visitors during the day, when they're not busy with English or computer classes.

"They feel like my family," said Rubina Mandul, 32, the surrogate house's den mother. "The first 10 days are hard, but then they don't want to go home."

Mandul, who has two sons of her own, gave birth to a child for an American couple in February. She said she misses the baby, but she stays in touch with the parents over the Internet. A photo of the American couple with the child hangs over the sofa.

"They need a baby more than me," she said.

The surrogate mothers and the parents sign a contract that promises the couple will cover all medical expenses in addition to the woman's payment, and the surrogate mother will hand over the baby after birth. The couples fly to Anand for the in-vitro fertilization and again for the birth. Most couples end up paying the clinic less than $10,000 for the entire procedure, including fertilization, the fee to the mother and medical expenses.

Counseling is a major part of the process and Patel tells the women to think of the pregnancy as "someone's child comes to stay at your place for nine months."

Kailas Gheewala, 25, said she doesn't think of the pregnancy as her own.

"The fetus is theirs, so I'm not sad to give it back," said Gheewala, who plans to save the $6,250 she's earning for her two daughters' education. "The child will go to the U.S. and lead a better life and I'll be happy."

Patel said none of the surrogate mothers has had especially difficult births or serious medical problems, but risks are inescapable.

"We have to be very careful," she said. "We overdo all the health investigations. We do not take any chances."

Health experts expect to see more Indian commercial surrogacy programs in coming years. Dr. Indira Hinduja, a prominent fertility specialist who was behind India's first test-tube baby two decades ago, receives several surrogacy inquiries a month from couples overseas.

"People are accepting it," said Hinduja. "Earlier they used to be ashamed but now they are becoming more broadminded."

But if commercial surrogacy keeps growing, some fear it could change from a medical necessity for infertile women to a convenience for the rich.

"You can picture the wealthy couples of the West deciding that pregnancy is just not worth the trouble anymore and the whole industry will be farmed out," said Lantos.

Or, Lantos said, competition among clinics could lead to compromised safety measures and "the clinic across the street offers it for 20 percent less and one in Bangladesh undercuts that and pretty soon conditions get bad."

The industry is not regulated by the government. Health officials have issued nonbinding ethical guidelines and called for legislation to protect the surrogates and the children.

For now, the surrogate mothers in Anand seem as pleased with the arrangement as the new parents.

"I know this isn't mine," said Jagrudi Sharma, 34, pointing to her belly. "But I'm giving happiness to another couple. And it's great for me."

How much garbage do you create in a year? If you don't know, you get a roung idea from the Californian Ari Derfel.

California man Ari Derfel leads a trashy life. He just wants to remind everyone else that they do, too.

The 35-year-old Berkeley caterer said he has saved every piece of trash he has generated over the past year to see how much garbage one person creates. In his case, it was about 96 cubic feet.

The experiment began as a way to examine his own consumption habits, Derfel said, but grew into a statement about consumerism and the environment.

"When we throw something away, what does 'away' mean?" Derfel said. "There's no such thing as 'away.'"

The refuse — including every tissue, receipt, food wrapper and plastic bottle — lies in bins in the kitchen and living room of Derfel's apartment. He composts his food scraps.

Derfel said he eventually hopes to donate his accumulated waste to a sculptor.

Apple is continually presenting us new technology. Now Apple is preparing to announce next month the long-rumored launch of a movie rental service through its online iTunes Store, as well as a groundbreaking licensing deal of its anti-piracy technology -- moves that could dramatically boost the appeal of digital movie distribution.

News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox is one of the first studios that has agreed to make its films available for rent digitally through iTunes, according to a Financial Times report Thursday that cited unnamed sources.

Apple also has agreed to license for the first time its copy-protection platform called FairPlay so the technology would be built into Fox DVD releases, allowing users to easily transfer the movies from the disc to a computer or an iPod for playback.

Apple has been in talks with major film studios over the past year, and analysts have speculated that it was only a matter of time before licensing deals on online movie rentals would be worked out.

Fox and other major studios are already experimenting with digital movies to rent or buy through other online services such as Netflix Inc. or Vudu Inc. But the popularity of Apple's online store and iPod media players makes iTunes an attractive distribution outlet, especially as more consumers are expected to latch onto getting their entertainment anywhere -- from their PCs and TVs to their handheld gadgets.

"The iPod is the most important media player right now, and if you're one of the studios, you're going to want to play with Apple here," said Michael Gartenberg, a Jupiter Research vice president.

Full-length films are available on iTunes -- but only for sale so far, and consumer interest in movie downloads has lagged behind music purchases.

One more day, and 2007 will be over. Its time again to look back to think of what we did last year, and what to wish for in the new year.

Last year been pretty busy for me, lot of things happened. In the new year I am looking forward to work hard, make things happen. Hopefully I will get little touch from luck as well!

Are you ready to make the wish for the new year?

Happy new year to all Web Cosmo and Cosmo Central members and visitors.

Beginning of December 2007, I ran a PayPerPost blog advertising campaign for my free advertising site webcosmo.com. Target was to create a buzz getting neutral reviews from bloggers. I always like to do Acid Test before taking anything seriously when it comes to marketing/advertising. So I bought small amount of blog reviews.

What does blog advertising will do for you?

- Backlinks Most blog advertising entries are permanent. You can improve your search engine ranking some selected keywords getting more backlinks. And most of those links are DOFOLLOW so you get PR Juice as well.

- Direct Traffic You will receive direct traffic from the readers of the blogs.

- Buzz Blog marketing can play significant role creating a buzz for your services. More people know about your great service better is your business.

I am impressed with the advertising options

Payperpost is offering quite a few options for advertising. They offer blog reviews, different kind of banner advertising, video advertising, press release etc. Which are popular marketing strategies at the moment. 

Prices

Payperpost charges about 35% of the advertising cost. If a campaign cost $100 they will charge you $135, $35 goes to PayPerPost. One thing I found annoying is they charge an additional $5 for each new campaign created. So for a $100 campaign you pay $140 in total.

Targeting the blogs

Payperpost offers quite a few options for having your ad shown on targeted blogs. You can specify blog categories, geographic locations, Google page rank etc. You can also request blogger write in neutral, negative, positive anyways. Although I dont know why you would want to write negative stuffs about your own site, I have to test that.

Tracking

Very useful feature. Will tell you how many views/clicks your advertisement got.

Summary

I had about 3500 views from the campaign spending $45. Which is not that great, could do better. But all boils down to how many of them converted to returning visitors later on. My traffic improved somewhat during the campaign, although its back to same now after Christmas. What I figures from this campaign is you have to be careful about picking the blogs. If you pick authority blogs in right category blog marketing can give your site the BOOST you need.