The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue. -Anonymous

Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful. -Ann Landers

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. -Will Rogers

There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face. -Ben Williams

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself. -Josh Billings

The average dog is a nicer person than the average person. -Andy Rooney

We give dogs time we can spare, space we can spare, and love we can spare. In return, dogs give us their all. It's the best deal man has ever made. -M. Acklam

Dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people, who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate. -Sigmund Freud

I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult. -Rita Rudner

A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down. -Robert Benchley

Anybody who doesn't know what soap tastes like never washed a dog. -Franklin P. Jones

If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons. -James Thurber

If your dog is fat, you aren't getting enough exercise. -Unknown

My dog is worried about the economy because Alpo is up to $3.00 a can. That's almost $21.00 in dog money. -Joe Weinstein

Ever consider what our dogs must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul -- chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth! -Anne Tyler

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea. -Robert A. Heinlein

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man. -Mark Twain

You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, 'Wow, you're right! I never would've thought of that!' -Dave Barry

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole. -Roger Caras

If you think dogs can't count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then give him only two of them. -Phil Pastoret

My goal in life is to be as good of a person as my dog already thinks I am.

Stars Fight Rumor Mill, Seattle Times (United States) - August 2004

So much for taking the high road. When it comes to tabloid rumors, stars are starting to talk back to set the record straight. Stars' personal lives fill magazine and supermarket tabloid pages every day. Usually celebrities ignore gossipy stories --- often from anonymous sources --- or have their publicist make denials.

But in recent weeks, some stars have responded personally to dispute gossip.

- Kate Hudson spoke briefly with an US Weekly reporter and landed on the cover of last week's issue depelling a report in Star that her marriage to Chris Robinson was in trouble.

- Keanu Reeves contacted WB entertainment show "Extra" to deny engagement rumors to actress Autumn Macintosh whom Reeves isn't even dating, according to his reps. "I can confirm that Keanu is still happily single," said one of his publicists after the official denial from Keanu Reeves himself on "Extra".

- Last month, Cameron Diaz phoned Us to declare her undying love for Justin Timberlake days after the magazine published a cover story about rumors the couple had split. She proclaimed as bogus British tabloid reports that he was cheating on her with a model.

- Jennifer Aniston took a moment June 21 to inform a pack of paparazzi, "By the way, I am not pregnant!" By then, rumors of impending motherhood had become international headlines.

There's no better way for a star to end a rumor than to address it directly, says Janice Min, editor in chief at Us. "For a long time celebrities took the stand that they would not dignify a rumor." by talking about it. They would wait for an interview with a major monthly magazine to address gossip.

Now with the rumor cycle so fast, thanks to the internet. 24- hour news cycle and weekly celeb magazines like Us and In Touch, they have to put an end to rumors swiftly. "These stories die quickly when celebrities come out to set it straight," says Min.

And thanks to the rabid appetite for celebrity news, rumors about stars' personal lives take on a global life almost immediately, says longtime Hollywood publicist Brad Cafarelli, who represents both Diaz and Hudson.

"You have to decide when and where it's productive to address rumors," he says. "Otherwise, I would spend my entire day fielding just those kinds of calls."

Publicist Ken Sunshine, who endured endless media speculation during the hey-day of Bennifer, says fighting rumors can be a slippery slope. "Once you jump in (and allow A-List stars to talk directly to celebrity weeklies and shows), you can't win."

He advises clients to fight rumors the old-fashioned way: with a lawsuit.

That's the thinking behind client Timberlake's libel suit last month against Britain's News Of The World. The Fleet Street paper's interview with a model who claimed to be Timberlake's lover reverberated worldwide.

"You can't spend your whole life suing," says Sunshine, who says Timberlake has never met the model. "But a couple of well-placed lawsuits can go a long way and benefit a terrific charity."


Fri Aug 6,11:52 AM ET - Reuters

By Kevin Smith

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Atlantis, the legendary island nation over whose existence controversy has raged for thousands of years, was actually Ireland, according to a new theory by a Swedish scientist.

Atlantis, the Greek philosopher Plato wrote in 360 BC, was an island in the Atlantic Ocean where an advanced civilization developed some 11,500 years ago until it was hit by a cataclysmic natural disaster and sank beneath the waves.

Geographer Ulf Erlingsson, whose book explaining his theory will be published next month, says the measurements, geography, and landscape of Atlantis as described by Plato match Ireland almost exactly.

"I am amazed no one has come up with this before, it's incredible," he told Reuters.

"Just like Atlantis, Ireland is 300 miles long, 200 miles wide, and widest across the middle. They both have a central plain surrounded by mountains.

"I've looked at geographical data from the rest of the world and of the 50 largest islands there is only one that has a plain in the middle -- Ireland."

Erlingsson believes the idea that Atlantis sank came from the fate of Dogger Bank, an isolated shoal in the North Sea, about 60 miles off the northeastern coast of England, which sank after being hit by a huge floodwave around 6,100 BC.

"I suspect that myth came from Ireland and it derives from Dogger Bank. I think the memory of Dogger Bank was probably preserved in Ireland for around 3,000 years and became mixed up with the story of Atlantis," he said.

Erlingsson links the boundaries of the Atlantic Empire, as outlined by Plato, with the geographic distribution of megalithic monuments in Europe and Northern Africa, matching Atlantis' temples with well-known burial sites at Newgrange and Knowth, north of Dublin, which pre-date the pyramids.

His book, "Atlantis from a Geographer's Perspective: Mapping the Fairy Land," calculates the probability Plato would have had access to geographical data about Ireland as 99.98 percent.

Previous theories about Atlantis have suggested it may have been around the Azores islands 900 miles west of the Portuguese coast, or in the Aegean sea. Others locate it solely in the long-decayed brain of Plato.