A new business directory service that debuted this week will try to give people like my friend more power over what the Web has to say about them. ZoomInfo," developed by the Cambridge, Mass.-based Zoom Information Inc., searches the Web for public information about people and corporations, then allows them to edit their profiles. "With us, you have the ability to ... present yourself how you want to be presented," Russell Glass, ZoomInfo's director of consumer products, told the Associated Press.

For some of us, speed answers deeper needs. I think one reason why it used to be situated mainly in blue-collar circles was because speed is a workingman's drug. Gotta pull another eight-hour shift at the factory? Speed can help with that. Gotta drive another thousand miles in your big rig? Speed is great for that.

With the X's complete code in hand, Ross and his colleagues were able to make detailed comparisons with the corresponding chromosomes of other animals, including chickens, fish and rats. The similarities and differences confirmed previous hints about how the X and Y -- and with them, sex as we know it -- arose.

It happened about 300 million years ago, long before the first mammals. A conventional chromosome in a forebear of humans -- probably a reptile of some sort -- apparently underwent a mutation that allowed it to direct the development of sperm-producing testes.

The report said $1.6 trillion should be spent over the next five years to alleviate potential problems with the nation's infrastructure. Transportation alone requires $94 billion in annual spending, the report said.

Jeff Gannon, the reporter for the news service called Talon News, turns out to be “Jeff Gannon,” a “reporter” for a “news service” called “Talon News.” His real name is James Guckert. He is not a reporter but a propagandist and (even though his “news reports” have often featured appeals to anti-gay bigotry) apparently a part-time male escort, whose registered Internet domains include hotmilitarystud.com. Talon News is not a news service but a front for gopusa.com, a Texas Republican Web site. Because of this, the Congressional press galleries, which issue the standard Washington press passes, refused to accredit him. Even so, he was for two years a regular at the daily White House briefings, where Scott McClellan, the press secretary, frequently called upon him when the going got tough. (“Go ahead, Jeff” was McClellan’s standard cry for help, as the invaluable Web site MediaMatters has documented.) The premises of “Jeff’s” question to the President were false, gleaned from the alternative universe of right-wing talk radio.