This weekend will see a nationwide public health menace.
Swine flu? Avian flu? No.
Zombie Behavior Spectrum Disorder, ZBSD. Zombie flu.
Don’t panic. The University of Florida has an emergency response plan.
Archive for October, 2009
Seasonal Health Threat: Zombies
October 30, 2009On Books.
October 29, 2009
Quotation by critic and poet Meena Kandasamy, at The Digital Public Sphere: Books in the Age of New Media, Oct. 15, 2009, Iowa City Public Library as part of the 2009 Obermann Humanities Symposium, “Platforms for Public Scholars.”
(Hat tip: Scott McLemee, InsideHigherEd.com)
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments on books and reading are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length. Please post tech product reviews elsewhere.
Distracted Flying
October 27, 2009
The pilots of Northwest flight 188 told the National Transportation Safety Board that they were so engrossed in their personal laptop computers they lost track of time and overshot Minneapolis airport. A flight attendant on the Airbus A320 finally got their attention an hour later.
Work can be so boring sometimes you’ve just gotta surf the Web.
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
da Vinci and Air Travel
October 25, 2009
Reexamination of the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1452 –- 1519) shows that the Renaissance artist and engineer anticipated many aspects of modern aviation, including excess baggage fees, inflight movies, and air-sickness bags.
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Terrorists Strike U.S. Infrastructure
October 24, 2009
Despite billions spent on homeland security, the Obama Administration is Bush-league when it comes to defending America’s vital power grid from home-grown terrorists. Known to experts as Sciurus carolinensis, these sly, suicidal saboteurs infiltrate transformer stations at will, denying thousands of loyal Americans their God-given right to power up their Chinese-made flat-screen TVs.
October 24, 2009, Fulton, MO: “”Squirrel causes power failure in Fulton on Saturday,” Fulton Sun.
October 19, 2009, Ogdensburg, NY: “Squirrel causes 8-hour outage,” Watertown Daily Times.
October 10, 2009, Chico CA: “Squirrel causes power outage,” Chico Enterprise-Record.
October 7, 2009, Anderson IN: “Squirrel blamed for power outage to southwest Anderson,” The Herald Bulletin.
October 7, 2009, Fredericksburg VA: “Squirrel Sparks Power Outage,” University of Mary Washington Bullet.
October 2, 2009, Glendale, CA: “Squirrel causes power outage,” Glendale News Press
September 30, 2009, Pekin, IL: “Squirrel causes power outage,” Pekin Daily Times.
Water on the Moon
October 21, 2009
Man’s thirst for knowledge led the scientists of the National Aeronautical and Space Administration to ask the question: If we smash a big, heavy object into the Moon, will we find water? The answer: Oh boy! Let’s try!
On October 9th, a bus-sized Centaur booster rocket smacked into a lunar crater at 6.000 miles per hour, sending up a mile-high plume of dust, vapor, and moon-dirt. Yeah! Then the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) analyzed the dirt and vapor, looking for ice cubes before it smacked down. Wow! Man! Worth every penny of the $79 million cost.
So where’s the water? NASA has the data, recorded by nine instruments; they’re working on it. There’s water on the Moon somewhere. India’s Chandrayaan lunar probe just confirmed that. There’s just no dramatic underground lake or anything.
Too bad. Our spy at NASA told us the agency hopes to recoup the mission cost by developing lunar water products (in mission-safe plastic bottles) for prestige retailers. Scientists even have a marketing campaign. Everything is ready.
Everything but the water.
Image by Mike Licht (who actually appreciates NASA’s unmanned programs). Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Blogs with Bite
October 19, 2009
Blogs with Bite is an occasional omnivorous sampling of food blogs and sites we find particularly tasty. Follow the trail of bread crumbs back to earlier editions, starting here.
Here is a fresh serving of Blogs with Bite:
Pumpkin Education – Pumpkin history, facts, recipes, horticulture and more from the University of Illinois Extension program.
Talk About Coffee – “All you need to know about coffee.”
Gluttonize — Well-written blog on a variety of food-related subjects.
Coca Cola® Virtual Vendor — Names of 3,000 Coke® products from more than 200 countries.
Eating Out Loud — The blog of Vancouver-based food writer and photographer Allen Williams. So thoughtful it includes a converter for metric recipe measurements.
Give Recipe – Zerrin Günaydın’s outstanding Turkish food blog.
Gode Cookery – Medieval and Renaissance recipes translated for the modern cook by James L. Matterer. Articles on period cookery, artwork, more.
Rasa Malaysia — Comprehensive collection of Asian recipes by Bee Yinn Low. Go to her Nyonya Food site for a closer look at Straits Chinese (Peranakan) cuisine.
Hot Dog City — Website of the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council. Statistics, frankfurter facts and tube-steak trivia, glossary, cooking tips, recipes, more. Includes excellent Pop Culture page.
Burnt Food Museum — carbonized cuisine curated by Deborah Henson-Conant.
The Greenest Little Whorehouse in Germany
October 18, 2009
In an effort to reduce its stiletto-heeled carbon footprint, a Berlin brothel is offering a reduced rate to patrons arriving by bicycle or public transit. The “Maison d’envie” (House of Desire) bordello is located in the city’s Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood, a stronghold of Germany’s ecology-minded Green Party (Die Grünen). Men who flash their bus ticket stubs, bike lock keys, or bike helmets will receive a 5 euro ($7.40) discount on each 15-minute session (regularly 30 euros or $45). Can you can keep your helmet on?
Not in Tangipahoa Parish!
October 17, 2009
In Louisiana this week, Keith Bardwell, a Tangipahoa Parish Justice of the Peace, refused to give a marriage license to a local couple because the man is black and the woman is white. You know, just like the president’s parents.
Tangipahoa Parish (motto: “More Than a Great Place to Live”) had a previous claim to fame. It was a location for the TV series based on the film In the Heat of the Night, where a detective was falsely accused of murder because he was black.
“I’m not a racist,” the JP told the Hammond Daily Star. “I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children.” He didn’t refuse to issue the license, he merely “recused” himself on the basis of this “concern.”
Such “concerns” were explored by the U.S. Supreme Court in Loving v Virginia and found in violation of the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the 14th Amendment. The Court’s decision was unanimous. Chief Justice Earl Warren: “Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”
Justice Bardwell receives a modest annual salary (about $6,000) to perform the public’s work on a part-time basis. We assume he is sworn to uphold the Constitution, and that is one part of his part-time job he can’t “recuse”" himself from.
Louisiana judges, even JPs, are elected. Mr. Bardwell is Republican, but his act received bipartisan condemnation:
Lies of Omission
October 15, 2009
Last weekend the lobby for U.S. health insurance corporations, AHIP, released a report it commissioned from the consulting arm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers. It indicated that insurance costs would skyrocket if the “Baucus Bill” before the Senate Finance committee, a bill that would regulate insurance companies (and insurance executive salaries) became law.
Surprise!
But not so fast. Page E-1 of the PwC paper explains:
