Eight years ago, a Texas couple arranged for a private adoption of a baby girl, Lauren Calhoun, from a pregnant mom who didn’t want to keep her. A few months later, though, the birth mother demanded Lauren back, and won that right in court. Monday, Lauren was found locked in closet, a foot smaller than she should be, with the communication skills of a three year-old and weighing twenty-five pounds. I cannot possibly tell you how much I am disturbed by this. (The Dallas Morning News has more information on the story.)

Martina Hingis signed a tennis shoe endorsement deal with Sergio Tacchini, and pocketed $5.6 million dollars as part of the deal. Now, she’s suing the company, saying that the shoes hurt her feet and caused her to drop out of tournaments. This seems to be the very definition of having one’s cake and eating it too, no?

An Akron woman is facing criminal charges after repeatedly calling 911 when her dog began having trouble delivering its puppies. Trust me, you’d be stunned at some of the stories of people who come into the ER at my hospital via EMS after calling 911 — yesterday, a boy who slammed his finger in a drawer and sustained a 1/2-centimeter laceration, last week, a girl who had pain in her knee for three weeks. Last time I did my ER rotation, I saw possibly the most egregious use — a father called 911 after his daughter had her first period, and he didn’t know how to talk to her about it. Unfortunately, EMS isn’t allowed to do field triage; they have to bring everyone in.

The National Security Agency has released its whitepapers on securing Windows 2000. Cool — it’s pretty rare when the NSA releases these kinds of documents to the public, and they should all be good reads. (The site appears to be pretty swamped right now, though.)