Raleigh Sewer Monster

RALEIGH It looks like blob of wriggling pudding staring out through a single, puckered eye. You can see it caught on camera, clinging to the concrete pipes below Raleigh's Cameron Village: the Sewer Monster. it's really a colony of prehistoric creatures known either as bryozoans or moss animalcules, thousands of wormlike animals, biologists report. Clustered together in a glistening mass, they feed through tentacles on whatever floats past. More common in ponds.

Living in a 6-inch sewer main, the clusters of worms are about the size of a golf ball, estimates Ed Buchan, an environmental coordinator with the city. But the video footage, captured with a tiny snakelike camera, makes the monster appear at man-eating size to viewers watching at home. That may explain why a two-minute video tour of the Sewer Monster's lair has spread across the Web like flesh-eating bacteria, prompting nationwide cries of horror and disgust.

“Mystery Life Form in NC Sewer!” read one headline, followed by this comment: “It looks like meat. HEART MEAT!” At Cameron Village on Wednesday evening, visitors were split into two groups: Those who had seen the sewer monster video and been horrified, and those who planned to Google it the minute they had the chance.Maria Schmitt, 21, Jeff Lepley, 21, and Annie Powell, 21, were in the latter camp, but they quickly rectified that using Schmitt's iPhone.

Game On Diet

"The Game On! Diet" turns fitness into a game. Developed by Az Ferguson to help ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" writer Krista Vernoff lose 40 pounds after her pregnancy, it's the perfect program for people who always say they're too busy to work out. The book explains how to organize opposing teams, set goals and compete to earn points for healthy meals, and to make exercise and lifestyle changes.

Read an excerpt of the book below and head to the "GMA" Library for more good reads. This is not really a diet book. I hate diets. Everyone I know hates diets. Diets are stupid and hard and not fun, and worse than that, they rarely work. I can only pull my theory on why they don't work from my own experience, which is that they suck and are stupid and not fun. But more than that, if you have any rebellious spirit in you whatsoever, you're gonna rebel against the deprivation of a diet.

And whether you rebel at the beginning, the middle, or the end of the diet, the results will be the same: you'll eat like crazy and refuse to move your butt an inch off the couch for weeks. You'll undo any good you may have done, and, if you're like me, you'll end up fatter, flabbier, unhappier, and with lower self-esteem than you had when you started. I should note here that I am not anything resembling a doctor (though I write some on TV) and neither is Az. Az is really into fitness and we are friends and we played a game together and it made us healthier and now we want to share it with you.

Helen Thomas

Thomas said she was especially concerned about the arrangement between the Obama Administration and a writer from the liberal Huffington Post Web site. The writer was invited by the White House to President Obama’s press conference last week on the understanding that he would ask Obama a question about Iran from among questions that had been sent to him by people in Iran. “What the hell do they think we are, puppets?” Thomas said. “They’re supposed to stay out of our business.

They are our public servants. We pay them.” Following a testy exchange during Wednesday’s briefing with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas told CNSNews.com that not even Richard Nixon tried to control the press the way President Obama is trying to control the press. “Nixon didn’t try to do that,” Thomas said. “They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try.

“When you call the reporter the night before you know damn well what they are going to ask to control you,” Thomas said. “I’m not saying there has never been managed news before, but this is carried to fare-thee-well--for the town halls, for the press conferences,” she said. “It’s blatant. They don’t give a damn if you know it or not. They ought to be hanging their heads in shame.” During today’s briefing, Thomas interrupted a back-and-forth between Gibbs and Chip Reid, the White House correspondent for CBS News, when Reid was questioning Gibbs about who was going to decide what questions would be asked of President Obama in a townhall meeting that was scheduled to take place in Annandale, Va., today.