Greetings, Dear Reader. News Nits is back from our stint on the DL and is currently in our basement ditching a tornado warning. Reminds me of the folks in Joplin, MO, who were lucky if they were able to ditch the storm, as many of them were not so lucky.
Check out the following videos of a group of bystanders in a gas station who got through the storm in a walk in fridge. An incredible testament to just how scary it must have been. Then check out the second video to see just how dangerous it really was and how they all might have died had they remained in the store. Thus, we are in the basement, which is not too bad since the wireless router is still working.
In other news, when a storm does come to town, it is always good advice to find shelter. However, you may want to stand while in that shelter. Turns out, sitting is bad for the body, regardless of exercise rates and other factors. Even NPR agrees, and this is bad news for those of us who have desk jobs and work in front of a computer or on a phone all day.
Did you hear about the rumor about the emails Sarah Palin didn't send? Well, in a rather brilliant move, Alaska released all of the emails that Sarah Palin sent as Governor of the state (after legal teams screened them all). The brilliance of the move comes in the form that they released all the email by paper -- 6 boxes totalling nearly 25,000 pages. And reporters lined up to get their share. Poses an interesting problem, though, how would one actually go about reading through all these emails and finding any juicy tidbits left by Palin's warpath to stardom? An information processing problem indeed. Who knows, maybe this will allow Mrs. Palin to claim she has created more jobs than her GOP opponents if she runs for President.
To round out the nits as our power just went out... there is a rising anti-intellecutalism in the Geek community. Sounds sort of contradictory, right? But think how many successful Geeks bypassed the academic path... and Geeks are always right, right?
Like a bobsled through your brain, news nits comes back with a bumper crop of new years nits. Lots of little happenings in the news these days, from business to politics to technology to women owning giant rodents as pets (doesn't this charming couple, more than a little, look like each other too?). So let's push off, jump in and see if we can count the curves.
In an alarming move, Google has announced they're leaving China. This strikes me as more than just a little odd. Google does anything they want to, and they tend to do it well. What does this say about them? More, what does this say about conditions in China? We know Chinese companies are competing well here (everything we buy is Made In China), but are we competing there?
Well, maybe we can keep inventing stuff for the Chinese to build for us. A professor at North Carolina State University has invented a kind of metal foam that can compress up to 80% of its original size and retain its structural integrity and bounce back.
The Middle East is still a big bag of doorknobs. How would you like to be Israel? Hamas is now floating bombs up to Israeli shores. Of course, this unusual tactic and attack is in response to Mossad "allegedly" killing one of Hamas's top dogs while he was on a trip to Dubai. Dubai police have identified 26 suspects in the poisoning, there's a lot of footage of this on TV, Mossad agents walking around the hotel, dressed in tennis gear and other normal looking clothes. Anyone else find it odd, that Israel is so effective at fighting wars on terror? They send 26 after a guy, we send 100,000? Another thing to ponder is that Israel is surrounded on all sides by people who hate them, and they have never had an airplane hijacked. Before we start doing naked scans in airports of each other, maybe we should ask if there are other ways?
News Nits loves new forms of transportation, when it's economically and technologically feasible. There's a proposal on the table for a 220 mph train between San Francisco and Los Angeles. California seems like an ideal place to build a high speed train, the ultimate trip should run 2 hours and 40 minutes. If they could figure out a way to provide continuous wi fi access, that would change the nature of much of west coast travel. Oddly, a similar measure has been proposed between Madison and Milwaukee, WI. Somehow, that doesn't seem like the right fit, but who knows. It would be cooler and maybe more fitting for WI to build a giant log flume or water slide between the two cities that are only an hour away by car anyway.
I keep waiting for Microsoft to use their considerable fortune and market share to buy the time it will take to redesign their OS from the BIOS up. But they don't. They seem to continually just try to remarket and reposition without any willingness to rebuild. The results of kludging your products ahead can end up with unpredictable results. Window 7 is apparently not only draining batteries but permanently altering their ability to function. I do not even have a theoretical explanation for this (and I am usually willing to hazard a guess about anything!).
Here comes the economics geek in me. In case you are crazy enough to try to follow the economic tax swindles perpetrated by our elected leaders, then this video might be for you. Looks like the "TARP pay backs" we've been hearing about aren't quite the whole truth:
If you've been getting into some of the raw economics behind the thinking of most modern economists (like Paul Krugman), then you've probably heard of John Maynard Keynes and probably never heard of FA Hayek. This video is a fairly clever and funny recap of an historical debate that came to pass between these two rival economists, with two very different ideas about proper ways to think of large economies. Keynes justifies government management of the economy through fiscal and monetary policies on the justification "in the end, we're all dead," meaning, let's get paid today, screw tomorrow. Hayek bases his theories on personal behavior and safe guarding free markets and risk vs. reward. Odder still is that if you choose to major in Economics in college, you still probably won't hear anything about Hayek and the Austrian School of economics. Why? Because Keynes won the day. He was a charming, flamboyant bisexual who out-witted Hayek, the nerdy one, at every turn. And the path of economic history has been set ever since (we're seeing some of the results). Well, here's the vid:
Wall Street is having buyer's remorse. After buying off Obama and teh Democrats, they want their Republicans back! This should be a true sign that the GOP has learned nothing from their recent demise. Is the Boy Scouts on the decline? We sure hope not. I just don't think that Xtreme Skateboarding has really been an adequate substitute for what the Boy Scouts teach.
Is anyone else getting dizzy following the Global Warming-->Global Climate Change-->Global Cooling "debate" going on? What a circus. Where's Bob Richards when you need him? [Editor's Note: News Nits searched high and low for a picture of Bob Richards and came up blank. Any help out there?] Speaking of weather, Sun's demise has finally come in the form of Oracle buying them out. Not many people ever worked on Sun Stations before, but I have and thought they were great machines. The never really evolved, but at least they weren't shoddy. Nevertheless, they have paid out gobs of money to their execs for failing. Still can't figure out how that makes sense.
For those with iPhones, check out these top-10 apps. Some are pretty funny, pretty novel, etc. Speaking of iPhones, rumors are saying the new iPhone 4G is coming out in June, maybe May. That might be my time to upgrade from 5 year old flip phone to the future! But man are these things expensive (along with the plans you need to make them useful). Netflix is considering streaming their service directly to the iPhone (and iPad), which is starting to make me reconsider the expense of cable, which I don't really watch anyway. Bad movies are better than bad TV. As for screen quality, apparently Apple has it right with their LCD beating out the new OLED screens appearing on many Android phones.
The U.S. Military just help to validate a process of Green Power, Inc, that turns trash into fuel. I guess there was some concern this was nothing more than a fancy facade over a simple incinerator, but it seems to be a legitimate technology. Cool.
Roundup: The FBI is getting involved in a case where school administrators spied on students using the little cameras built into the school-issued laptops. Thing is, the kids were at home. Nasty. Here's a concept car/thing/trike that Honda has built, and it just makes me wonder... why? And finally, air travellers at JFK airport in NYC learned a whole new meaning to the bring your kid to work day concept.
Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. -- Alan Turing
President Obama is lighting the place up for better or worse. The "unintended consequences" of representing our president in the fashion (depicted on the right) by Chinese artist Liu Bolin perhaps outweigh his actual sentiment, which is completely lost on Occidental cultures. However, the phrase "unintended consequences" probably will end up best representing President Obama's legacy, as the gigantic federal programs he has continued from the Bush era and greatly expanded in his own way will leave a huge footprint on the backs of the American middle class. News Nits credits our president with his first good move of reversing the missile shield slated for the Czech Republic and Poland. Although some experts have critiziced him for his lack of tact in an area that demands diplomacy and delicacy, it is at least the right move strategically. Otherwise, it is business as usual in the nation's capital.[N.B. News Nits knows that the missile shield reversal was old news, but we are constantly trying to find positive things about the current administration and are willing to be redundant when faced with a vacuum.]
The internet is freaking out. First off, speaking of freaking out, Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, revealed her complete lack of composure and tact (despite her obvious intelligence) by insulting the people we are both bombing and fighting for. This now seems to be a pattern with Mrs. Clinton, who earler freaked out immaturely as she was horrified that someone might ask a question about her husband, the former president.
Now back to something much more interesting, the internet, er, freaking out. A district judge has ruled that email is not protected by the fourth amendment, which restricts the government from conducting unlawful search and seizures of property. Although we at News Nits are constantly hawking over any government infringements of civil liberties for you, dear reader, it is tough to disagree with this ruling. Email resides on a third-party server and is their property, not yours. We shudder to think of the implications, though, that companies like Google and Facebook literally own so many parts of us. It does beg the question that there might be a business opportunity here though... email that functions more like letters or phone calls than like, well, email.
Time for the News Nits wrap up. Wired remembers the death of Leon Theremin with a nifty little piece about him and an almost touching video of him playing his bizarre instrument. Here are six really cool(?) things you can do with electricity. As the energy/oil/military/foreign policy/gas prices/climate change debate heats up[sic], it's perhaps more interesting to focus on some of the simpler aspects of reality, like that currently, about 10% of the energy in the U.S. comes from recycled nuclear warheads, many of which come from the old USSR. And in an ongoing thread here at News Nits that examines the effects of sports technology designed to increase the safety of athletes while possibly actually causing harm (re: expensive running shoes...), the WSJ writes about a link between football helmets and concussions. Talk about unintended consequences.
If anyone can figure out what the Frank is going on with Iran, News Nits wants to know. When Russians aren't busy selling us their fissional material, they're selling chopped up humans to kebab houses. And the Post Office announced it lost $3.8 billion last year. If you work for the USPS don't worry about layoffs, a bunch of jobs are about to open up in the government healthcare sector. Finally, we think this picture is funny and would be appreciated very much by contributor Roller.
You know how Congress is. They'll vote for anything if the thing they vote for will turn around and vote for them. Politics ain't nothing but reciprocity. -- Will Rogers
It's been awhile for news nits. And we apologize to our reader. Fact is, it looks like 95% of blogs have been abandoned by their owners. Is there a blog pound? Will blogs get put to sleep? Will large companies or Jesuit schools declare eminant domain over, uh, your old domains? We will blog about ongoing developments, irony noted.
Cool picture above is of a new cloud type that has been turning up around the world more frequently since 2005. These new clouds are being called "asperatus" which is going to totally make the weather channel more fun to watch.
A lot of people have died as well. In a short amount of time, Ed McMahon, Farrah Faucett, Michael Jackson, and Billy Mays all died. Only Ed McMahon was old. Farrah meant more to a previous generation, when she was super hot. Out of all these people, I felt the most sorry for Billy Mays, dead at 50. Billy Mays was the fringe product schill who turned OxiClean into a household name with a legitimate national market share. Quite a story, and through the loud pitch and funny gimmicks, you got a sense that he was a real guy just trying to make it -- refreshing honestly somehow poking through a thin but entertaining shtick. MJ was very controversial and had long ago become more myth than man, if he was ever much of a man to begin with. Anyway, behind the media images and hype of these real people, may they each rest in peace.
Fast forward nits: A 14 year old boy in Germany was walking to school and got hit by a meteorite (the size of a pea) on his hand and lived to talk about it. Unfortunately, he only spoke in German, so I couldn't understand a word. Our brave soldiers fighting our politician's wars in Afghanistan may be in this longer than they or we would have thought. According to Marine Lieutenant-Colonel Christian Cabaniss, "we're going to seize the population from the Taliban and never let them go". Hang in there guys, we'll get some real leaders in office as soon as possible. (More on that at the bottom.)
Monkeys who ate 30% fewer calories but maintained the same high levels of nutrition lived longer and way better lives. This wasn't about obesity, this was about low calorie, high nutrition diets. It's been showing up in the literature for awhile now in mice and such (and in my own experiments on my fish, Bill) but the findings in monkeys are getting us closer to our own selves.
Ben Bernanke, our nation's favorite superfreak, says he wants the Federal Reserve (a private bank run by unelected officials) to expand its role and become "supercop". Mr. Benanke sites the recent awesome jobs his little cartel has done controlling the money supply and the effects that has had on the current economy. He also sited his boy Geitner's job in doling out trillions in taxpayer money to all their old buds from Goldman Sachs. In this picture, he shows you how he will squish your little brains as you relax in the pulsing, gooey matrix and lounge on cheap patio furniture while eating bags of funions.
At least some people are getting the joke. Russ Carnahan (D - MO) runs chin first into a crowd of good old, "show me" Missourians, who just will... not.... buy this farce of a centralized, socialist style takeover of healthcare being championed by Comrade Obama (especially precious are the looks on the women's faces who sit aside their wise leader as they are shocked that anyone would question his authority, benevolence, and supreme knowledge):
"In America, we have a two-party system. There is the stupid party. And there is the evil party. I am proud to be a member of the stupid party. Periodically, the two parties get together and do something that is both stupid and evil. This is called bipartisanship.” -- Sam Francis
There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers. - Richard Feynman
News Nits tries to update all the news that isn't bled to death in the mainstream media. However, sometimes the news is too interesting to deny its coverage. How 'bout them pirates? The activity off the coast of Somalia has been on the uptick, with modern pirates having been paid off to the tune of $150 million this year alone. They have apparently not killed anyone, but as we've come to see, they mean business and the stakes are high. News Nits wonders if they go bankrupt, are they too big to fail? Oh, Jack Sparrow, why can't all pirates be like you?
Lots has been going on in the news. In no particular order...Former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was apparently clean of illegal wrongdoing (no word on if what Senators do is "ethical"). The judge is now launching an investigation into the ethics of the prosecuter's office. Pretty nasty when politics enters the courtroom. Sounds like a case of Law & Order, but no body.
American business dude, Charles Simonyi, went to space for the second time, hung out in the space station, probably ate a few burrittos, called it science and got back safely. Either way, cool for him. He's now $35 million lighter, so to speak, and I guess the Russians are the only ones honest enough to just open their program up to high bidders.
Although our Presidential Face has signaled for light at the end of the tunnel, wholesale inventories dropped by their largest amount in 17 years. That's a sign that businesses are still ramping down. Expect more layoffs. Expect lower earnings. Boooooo. News Nits wishes it could blame the Commies for this economy, but it's the Capitalists' fault this time.
For all the "conservatives" out there, be careful what you wish for. All the power expanded and usurped by the Bush administration under the Patriot Act has now switched hands. In a weird move, the Obama administration is lumping veterans, anti-abortion activists, and third party candidates all into the same, vast right-wing wastebasket to target for criminalization. In my own dear Missouri, the Missouri Information Analysis Center has issued official warnings to the state patrol identifying the new generation of terrorists in our country:
The report warned law enforcement agencies to watch for suspicious individuals who may have bumper stickers for third-party political candidates such as Ron Paul, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin.
It further warned law enforcement to watch out for individuals with "radical" ideologies based on Christian views, such as opposing illegal immigration, abortion and federal taxes.
Does this woman look like someone whose judgement you trust? In related news, a 25-year old man, Steve Bierfeldt, was detained for half an hour in a windowless room and interrogated at Lambert Airport for daring to get onto a plane with $4700 in cash. News Nits know our currency continues to be worth less and less, but apparently it is now also contraband. It won't be long until the next Janet Reno is knocking on, or down, your door.
Back to the cool parts of the world. An Australian cattle dog named Sophie Tucker was knocked off of the sailboat her masters were on off the coast of Australia. She swam 5 nautical miles to a deserted island, where she lived on baby goats for 4 months. She became somewhat wild and was difficult to subdue when rangers discovered her. However, her owners say it took no time for her to readjust to the comfy life. That's just Sophie being Sophie.
Even the sun is in a slump. The sun's cycle of sunspots has hit new lows, 100 year lows, and could provide interesting data going forward. One of the main theories to explain global warming is the increase in sunspots over the past 100 years has warmed the oceans, which have then burped more CO2 into the atmosphere. Yeah, planetary warmth leads CO2, not the other way around: stay tuned, nerds.
In more fun science, there's a tiny plant that feeds on poop and could help solve some very big problems in our world, if the corn lobby doesn't get in its way. It's a classic "poop-win-win" scenario.
News Nits has gone under deep cover to find out that the CIA has fired its contractors running the infamous "secret prisons". This could only mean one thing, though, a new black market for secret SECRET prisons.
Back to science, the edge of space has been found, and it's surprisingly not in North Dakota. But if you are ever fishing in North Dakota, or anywhere else, and you get a fish hook stuck in you, here is how to remove it. This is only useful if you are dumb enough to fish without dynamite. No cure has been found for getting dynamite stuck in you. We think the secret SECRET prisons are working on it though.
In some bummer news, the Shriners have announced they need to close a bunch of their hospitals due to a downturn in contributions and a drop in endowment. The Shriners, in addition to entertaining untold thousands with goofy hats and tiny vehicles, have done a lot of good for a lot of people, so it is sad to see this happen. They are apparently not big enough or corrupt enough to be bailed out.
And finally, comrade Roller dished out a serious examination of alternative media sources in a previous post. Steven Levy of Wired apparently read the column and wrote up some of his own experiences as well. There's just no replacing big screens and high quality I guess. But don't throw away your internet connection just yet. The LoopAndTheLou continues to serve our loyal readers!
If only we could turn a buck or two on this site, we might even be able to help out those Shriners.
One time, this guy handed me a picture of him, he said,"Here's a picture of me when I was younger." Every picture of you is when you were younger. "Here's a picture of me when I'm older." "You son-of-a-bitch! How'd you pull that off? Lemme see that camera!" - Mitch Hedberg
[Disclaimer: News Nits apologizes in advance for posting such a large picture of Janet Napolitano.]
It's been awhile for News Nits. If you have been following the news at all, then it's clear there are too many nits to pick since our last installment. So, let's keep this just to the main news items that might be slightly downplayed in our press.
It's been an exciting month with our long time friend, China. China is much bigger than us in people and much smarter than us in their patience. Why strike an enemy when they are strong? Well, things are starting to cook between us, and the U.S. has never been weaker than she is now.
For years, China has been buying up U.S. reserves and treasury bills. They are not alone, but they are doing it on an incredibly grand scale. Our currency and our T-bills are the foundation of our entire economy. As long as China plays by the rules of the international bankers, there should be no problems. But what if China says "screw the white devils" and starts to sell off all their U.S. reserves? This has been referred to as China's "nuclear option". Playing into this trap by borrowing more and more while exporting less and less while also importing more and more from China has been how the past several U.S. presidents have bought their way out of recessions. It's been a hot potato time bomb, and our current president is accelerating the process.
As our economy really started tanking and the new face in the White House did not magically improve the economy, some funny things started happening in close succession. This is important. First, some Chinese Navy ships started bumping butts with an unarmed U.S. Naval vessel in international waters. Keep in mind, China has 20-30 million surplus males in their 20s-30s who have no hope of getting married or becoming family men. These "bare branches" are mostly being absorbed into the military.
Then, a few days later, China's Premier, Wen Jiabao announced that he is concerned with the health of the U.S. economy and our ability to honor our nearly $2 trillion committment to the health of the Chinese economy. (That's right, every time we borrow more money to "stimulate" the U.S. economy, we are really stimulating the Chinese economy!)
Finally, just today, China has announced that it is time to remove the U.S. currency as the standard currency (or "vehicle currency") of the world. This is sort of like if a huge part of the U.S. suddenly rejected Mastercard, but we're Mastercard. This is not good. Putin has been beating the drums in the background as well and is no doubt joining China in this effort.
"I just want to remind you that, just a year ago, American delegates speaking from this rostrum emphasised the US economy's fundamental stability and its cloudless prospects... Today, investment banks, the pride of Wall Street, have virtually ceased to exist. In just twelve months, they have posted losses exceeding the profits they made in the last 25 years. This example alone reflects the real situation better than any criticism." -- Vladmir Putin, at the Davos meeting in Switzerland, 2009
If you don't think our system is broken, then you are not following the news. News Nits will not cover the AIG bonus scandal because it is so ridiculous, it is not worth reprinting. The bailout is ridiculous; the bonuses are ridiculous; the posturing of outrage by politicians is ridiculous; the half-assed attempt to tax the bonuses back is ridiculous; the coercion of getting bonuses back from 9 of the top 10 bonus "earners" is ridiculous. How these crooks get paid so much money and then get subsidized by our government (supposedly, sworn to represent the people, not some people) to run a company and a large part of the country into the ground when they should at least be going broke like the rest of us if not going to jail is beyond News Nits.
In other news, can you trust your doctor? In an interesting commentary, a recent article in Newsweek explains "Why Doctors Hate Science." Ms. Begley explains that local cultures dictate practice moreso than scientific standards. Along these lines is a rapid increase in exposure to radiation that Americans have experienced from an increase in scans since 1980. It remains unclear how much local medical practice is affected by profits, patient ignornance, or inertia from old standards.
What happens when there are no more nukes to knock out of the sky with lasers? Easy, turn the lasers on mosquitos. What? Yup. Throw away that old bug zapper, using the same basic technology that was used for the missile shield, this laser kills mosquitos one by one from a hundred feet away.
Deborah Solomon conducted an interesting, albeit brief, interview with Zambia native Dambisa Moyo, who explains why massive foreign aid from the U.S. government causes far more problems than it solves. If you don't read his interview, be clear, he is not knocking active charities who are proactively helping real people solve problems, and connecting your bankbooks with them. He is knocking the phoniness of celebrities who care and the incredible harm that large governments do when dishing out "charity" through "proper channels."
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it. -- Mitch Hedberg
Tired of having boring parties? Why not try the newest rage: flavor-tripping. This drug-free trip revolves around a fruit called "miracle fruit" which you eat upon arrival. Your tongue is then coated with a substance that causes foods to taste completely differently. Sour lemons taste like sweet lemonade. Cheese tastes like frosting, and vinegar tastes like apple juice. Sounds like a cheap thrill to me and in these budget-tight times, cheap thrills are at a premium. If you would like something a little less healthy and a little more comfort food oriented, try the new bacon explosion. From first hand experience, I can say the bacon explosion is worth the effort. [Editor's Note: Based on reader feedback, I've been asked to share my experiences with the bacon explosion. Here is a "taste": One, two, three. It tasted even better than I had hoped.]
In other news, some wackier than others, a woman in Los Angeles has been revealed to have a "super-memory". She can remember in vivid detail almost every single day of her life. Blessing or curse? In two signs the Muslim world is making progress, the coaches and managers of a co-ed soccer game in Iran were severely punished for a brutal mixing of the sexes. That is perhaps the lighter side of some news happening in our own U.S. of A. A man in Buffallo, NY has been charged with second-degree murder for beheading his ex-wife. Ironically, this former husband/wife team started a TV station with the mission of softening the image of Muslims in the media. Oops. And just down the road in Stamford, Conn, an otherwise friendly chimpanzee went on a rampage, severely injuring a woman before local cops were able to kill him.
Also from around the world, two nuclear subs accidentally "bumped" each other in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. Brings scary new meaning to, "It's a small world afterall." In our small world, the United States of Africa have just elected Muammar Gaddafi as head King. Remember this guy? He issued a letter saying he is coming as "the king of the traditional kings of Africa." Maybe he will find better hope for the African AIDS crisis than garlic? This dude makes Rick James look collected.
A few more nits, the peace-loving Israelis seem to have a secret weapon that they are using against the Palistinians, who have grenades and numbers. And in a cool piece of science that might indicate solar panels and windmills are out-dated before they are even widespread, our home energy problems might just be a bucket of water away.
News nits doesn't like to leave our readers high and dry (or wet). So in an effort to round out the sometimes overwhelming news, we present video evidence of an innocent kid on drugs. Who said the dentist office was no fun?
I believe that professional wrestling is clean and everything else in the world is fixed. - Frank Deford
Barack Hussein Obama, the icon, became Mr. President this passed week, officially, at noon on Tuesday, January 20th. That little technicality became worth noting after the oath of office turned into a dropped fly ball between two highly paid outfielders. Although strictly speaking unnecessary, the oath was administered again later that night "out of an abundance of caution." [Editor's note: In celebration of our nation getting a new President, my girlfriend and I enjoyed an "Obama Roll" tonight at our favorite sushi restaurant in Minneapolis: Wasabi. We passed on the "Inauguration Roll", feeling it might come out slightly messy.]
In a final act as President, George W. Bush commuted the sentence of two border patrol guards -- Ignacio Ramos and Jorge Compean -- who were convicted of shooting a Mexican drug dealer in the trasero, as he fled a van load of weed across the Rio Grande, and then covering up the shooting. Mr. Bush did not pardon the gentlemen, as he reasoned they were convicted in a fair court but did commute their sentence (they already served 2 years time) agreeing it was too harsh.
[Editor's note: Our nation is facing trillion dollar deficits for years to come, and yet we are still so concerned about van loads of weed. Why not decriminalize it like alcohol, regulate it like alcohol, tax it like alcohol, wipe the "War on Drugs" off our books and turn it into a financial positive?]
In less political news, real estate is not the only industry with depressed prices. The printed news press is getting destroyed. In a move that smacks of desperation rather than strategy, the New York Times just handed over a large amount of its stock for a reported $250 million cash infusion from the second richest man in the world, Carlos Slim. Mr. Slim, not a Mexican hip-hop artist, made his fortune in telecom and was briefly the richest man in the world. It is nice to see the free market at work, although it makes me question the legitimacy of the American press when it might soon be controlled by a super rich Mexican.
From around the world, more news is coming in concerning the Congressional computer hacking invasion of 2006. Apparently the ladies and gentlemen who run our Congress do not hire high quality computer guys. Instead, they argue over the importance of invading Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan, by the way, has the world's largest standing army. But maybe they should spend a little more time protecting our nation's secrets from the only legitimate threat to the U.S. in the world right now: China.
From around the solar system, our pals at NASA found a huge chunk of subsurface pure water on Mars. This huge chunk is roughly 100 times the size of the great lakes. Tickets anyone? We'll be water skiing on Mars in no time. Which is good, because 650 global climate change scientists declared in December that the 12,000 year warming period we've been in is over and we are heading into a 100,000 year ice age, as would be consistent with the 450,000 year ice core samples known to science. Maybe we should start working on a Kyoto version for the U.N. to enforce on Mars.
"Very little is known of the Canadian country since it is rarely visited by anyone but the Queen and illiterate sport fishermen." -- P.J. O'Rourke
Lots has been going on in the news this week. A plane crashed into the Hudson river, but all 150 people on board were rescued. A rare nit of bad news turned good. I wonder if anyone used their flotation devices? I thought those things were just a joke. Talk about a bailout, the captain of the plane is already being hailed as a hero. Quite an incredible story.
Where are you right now? I can tell you where I am. I am inside. Just after lunch, here in the Twin Cities, it's finally gotten up to -3. It was -18 when I got into school this morning. These are not wind chill readings, these are temperatures. It has been like this all week, and it's insane. Even the DJ's at MPR's the Current are getting more sarcastic and snarky than normal. My administrative assistant who grew up in Fargo assured me that it's no big deal, -20 is when you start to worry about frostbite in under 10 minutes. Hmmm. Tell Canada they can have their air back. I need to go get some more coffee, be right back, or as the kids these days IM, "brb"...
Speaking of coffee, it appears that moderate amounts of coffee are good for your brizzain. This is excellent news, as I was planning on continuing drinking coffee even if that Canadian swimsuit chick begged me not to. Perhaps if she is really nice, I will not drink more than 3 cups a day. If a hallucination convinces you to stop doing the stuff that's causing you to hallucinate, is that like a paradox? Sounds like Marty McFly and Doc need to explain this to me. But until they do, here are some other good articles about foods you should be eating and ways you can protect your heart (physically, not emotionally). Also, this device will not only improve your posture, but it will make you look more Swedish.
No matter how many pretty speeches O'Bama gives or how big the stimulus packages talk gets, the economy is still a real thing, and it has bitten off a huge chunk of poisonous food that it is now trying to digest and purge from its system anyway possible. Except no one wants to take the hit in that process. Circuit City is liquidating itself, sorry if that sounds disgusting. The financial sector is also taking additional hits as Bank of America and Citigroup stick their chubby little hands out for more money after posting bigger losses. I'm trying not to inject my personal comment here other than for entertainment's sake, but why do these guys deserve a bailout, but not Circuit City or Detroit? Or you and me?
If things get too bad in the economy, we can always sell whatever we've got left, put on our favorite jumpsuit and move here. Just zoom out one click at a time to get a good sense for where it is. I'm sure they've got DSL there, so your subscription and dependence on The Loop and the Lou would not be interrupted.
But News Nits wouldn't leave you high and dry like that before the weekend. So here's a rare reco from TLATL, if you haven't seen Slumdog Millionaire, go on and treat the lady to a really entertaining movie and story. (Don't worry, it's in English.)
"I don't have an English accent because this is what English sounds like when spoken properly." -- James Carr
[Update: Heard about this new Windows Worm -- known as Conficker, Downaddup, or Kido -- over the weekend and it's now popping up in my RSS feeds. Practice safe computing, America!]
Posts
