The people that used to live across the street

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ocean and might get eaten by a shark someday or live an area that sees a lot of hurricanes/tornados/blizzards. I think the whole state of Florida should pay more because they have more sun exposure than the north and run a higher risk of skin cancer.

And definitely charge more for the sex-crazed teenagers that might contract an STD and how about all the tots in daycare bringing home who knows what. Shall we go on?

The whole gang used to hang out at this one street corner and wait until the guys came by in the cars so we could go for rides. My DH came with 2 friends one night in a 53 Studebaker his friend owned. He offered to take me and my best friend out to see his 53 Ford Crown Vic that he was rebuilding himself. We went to his place and he started working on it while we were there. I jumped right in since he couldn't reach some parts of the engine, crawled up on the engine (in my white jeans no less), and helped tighten some bolts and whatever else had to be done.

I would suggest going to safe social dances, picnics, sport activities (if you're into that), etc. Don't hang out with a bunch (no more than 3) women. That might scare a guy off.

OAKLAND, Calif., May 31 � For Mary Kalin-Casey, it was never about her cat.

Monty the cat was visible in a photo showing a street in Oakland.

Ms. Kalin-Casey, who manages an apartment building here with her husband, John Casey, was a bit shaken when she tried a new feature in Google�s map service called Street View. She typed in her address and the screen showed a street-level view of her building. As she zoomed in, she could see Monty, her cat, sitting on a perch in the living room window of her second-floor apartment.

�The issue that I have ultimately is about where you draw the line between taking public photos and zooming in on people�s lives,� Ms. Kalin-Casey said in an interview Thursday on the front steps of the building. �The next step might be seeing books on my shelf. If the government was doing this, people would be outraged.�

Her husband quickly added, �It�s like peeping.�

Ms. Kalin-Casey first shared her concerns about the service in an e-mail message to the blog Boing Boing on Wednesday. Since then, the Web has been buzzing about the privacy implications of Street View � with varying degrees of seriousness. Several sites have been asking users to submit interesting images captured by the Google service, which offers panoramic views of miles of streets around San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, Miami and Denver.

On a Wired magazine blog, for instance, readers can vote on the �Best Urban Images� that others find in Street View. On Thursday afternoon, a picture of two young women sunbathing in their bikinis on the Stanford campus in Palo Alto, Calif., ranked near the top. Another showed a man scaling the front gate of an apartment building in San Francisco. The caption read, �Is he breaking in or has he just locked himself out?�

Google said in a statement that it takes privacy seriously and considered the privacy implications of its service before it was introduced on Tuesday. �Street View only features imagery taken on public property,� the company said. �This imagery is no different from what any person can readily capture or see walking down the street.�

Google said that it had consulted with public service organizations and considered their feedback in developing the service, which allows users to request that a photo be removed for privacy reasons. A Google spokeswoman said the company had received few such requests.

For instance, Google worked with the Safety Net Project at the National Network to End Domestic Violence, which represents shelters for victims of domestic violence nationwide, to remove pictures of those shelters. �They reached out in advance to us so we could reach out to our network,� said Cindy Southworth, founder and director of the organization.

Not everyone believes the service raises serious privacy concerns.

�You don�t have a right to �privacy� over what can be seen while driving the speed limit past your house,� wrote a Boing Boing reader, identified as Rich Gibson, in response to Ms. Kalin-Casey�s complaint. Others dismissed her as a crazy cat lady.

Edward A. Jurkevics, a principal at Chesapeake Analytics, a consulting firm specializing in mapping and imagery, said that courts have consistently ruled that people in public spaces can be photographed. �In terms of privacy, I doubt if there is much of a problem,� Mr. Jurkevics said.

Still, the issues raised by the service, thorny or merely funny, were perfect blog fodder. The hunt was on for quirky or potentially embarrassing images that could be found by wandering the virtual streets of the service.

There was the picture of a clearly identifiable man standing in front of an establishment offering lap dances and other entertainment in San Francisco. The site LaudonTech.com showed an image of a man entering a pornographic bookstore in Oakland, but his face was not visible.

Others pointed to pictures of cars whose license plates were clearly readable. One pointed to images captured inside the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, a controversial location for photography in this high-security era. On Lombard Street in San Francisco, various tourists who had come to photograph the famously curvy street were photographed themselves.

Google said that the images had been captured by vehicles equipped with special cameras. The company took some of the photographs itself and purchased others from Immersive Media, a data provider.

�I think that this product illustrates a tension between our First Amendment right to document public spaces around us, and the privacy interests people have as they go about their day,� said Kevin Bankston, a staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group. Mr. Bankston said Google could have avoided privacy concerns by blurring people�s faces.

Back at her apartment, Ms. Kalin-Casey acknowledged that plenty of information about her � that she manages an apartment complex, that she was an Editor at the film site Reel.com � is already easily accessible through Google and other search engines.

�People�s jobs are pretty public,� she said. �But that doesn�t mean they want a shot of their sofa on Google.� She has asked Google to remove the image of her building, which was still online as of Thursday evening.

When a reporter first arrived to interview her, Monty the cat was visible in the window.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/01/technology/01private.html?em&ex=1180843200&en=83156047690c5c2c&ei=5087%0A

about a quarter-mile from my house. The owners just leave it in the yard while they go to work - no security fence, nothing. You have to pass a lot of houses until you get to the main street to leave the neighborhood and you also have to go up a big hill. Well, I went up the hill and he was lying in the road taking a nap and I ran him over! it was horrible! I didn't see him - just heard a loud thump. Total and complete accident!

No one was home at the time. He actually got up but I didn't want to go near him. It's a big black lab-looking mix. I know that dogs can get hit and seem okay, but then later die.

I'm not sure what to do! Would you go and tell them? Check on him? Leave him? I'm confused, upset, and still in shock.

I have a dilemma. I am an animal lover and have something I cannot come to a conclusion about. At a restaurant where I eat lunch every Friday with a friend of mine, I have noticed a young male kitty hanging around outside looking for food. This past week he ran up to my friend and rubbed her legs and quietly meowed. I purposely did not try to pet him because I knew I would get attached and ignored him. Well, ever since then I find myself thinking about him and wanting to rescue him. Meanwhile, I already have 4 inside cats (2 rescues, 2 Maine Coons) and hubby really does not want another cat in the house because a few years ago I promised we would never have more than 4 (had up to 5 at one point previously). I actually have a huge screened deck he could stay on indefinitely because I do not believe in letting cats run loose for their own safety. I could provide plenty of food, a warm place to sleep, and veterinary care. At some point I would even probably work him into our household, but I just cannot do it at the moment. Just not sure I would be doing right by that kitty because I am sure he would be upset and confused for a good while as to where he was and what was going on, but is that better than being hungry and cold? I know there are lots of animal lovers out there. What does everyone think??

after I found HUGE holes in the walkway between my house and barn. I thought they were just little mice stealing grain, but then I spotted one and it was a HONKIN RAT! My poor olderly cat was out there with me at the time and saw it, and he hissed at it and ran away!

I asked for advice on what to do at a local agricultural board, because I have other animals and didn't want to use poison and conventional traps weren't working. They advised putting a large pale of water out with some seeds floating in it, figuring the rats would go for the seeds and end up drowning. That was a no-go because the water just froze up solid. I wound up reluctantly going with Decon because I just can't have my house destroyed. I haven't had seen any more rats or evidence of them stealing grain, so I'm guessing they have died. The guy at the grain store promised me the rats would not die in the building and stink the joint up, rather they would crawl off and die outside. I don't know if I believe that, as it is still winter here and decomposition would be holding off until it warms up. We'll see, but at least the destruction has been halted.

Good luck and I too say have no mercy, because you just don't need them destroying hour house or causing a spark chewing wires and burnin' the place down. It is war!

This is what our country is founded on FREEDOM OF CHOICE! I'm laughing already; you are just as mortal as the rest of us, and don' even attempt to that you've never done anything in your lifetime that was unsafe or unhealthy. NOT gonna buy it.

I thought that the purpose of this board was to be able to post without being judged unfairly or have somebody tell you how wonderful their personal life is, and therefore you are causing their life to be less wonderful with your irresponsibility. Well, the saying "walk a mile in my shoes" is a good one in this case. Since you have no personal information about the person you are lambasting because they are looking for information on their debt, you can feel superior. Had you had personal information about them, you might act in a more human manner. Consider fighting cancer for 4 years, working and being debilitated while you do, suffering the effects of chemo, going into debt to maintain your home for your children and looking for a way out of debt SHOULD YOU EVEN LIVE THROUGH THIS!! Thank you for the kind comments. To the judgmental people I say please take a step back before you judge. You do not know who you are talking to and if you knew the personal information maybe your comments would be kinder.

I know plenty of 80+ y/o people where I live (and I'm 25 years behind them...kinda sorta)....who are MORE active than many I know much younger. I see them going to the airports to jaunt around Paris/Spain, or just several times a year flying cross country to spend holidays with families, etc, etc. So if you see 80+ as *old* or *very old* - think again. It's an individual basis kind of thing, in my mind - OH AND BY THE WAY, none of the people I speak of have had plastic surgery of any kind and look FABULOUS!.........GOD BLESS 'EM!!!! Good genes - genetics -