USS Midway, San DiegoPhoto: Lynn C Dot
4.24.2010
Next trip, pack a parachute
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A man on a flight from West Africa to New York City was removed from the plane and detained Thursday after authorities apparently added him to a no-fly list during the trip....
...passengers told The Associated Press that the captain announced over the intercom that the man had been added to a roster of people banned from travel to the U.S. while the plane was in flight.
link: Passenger Put On No-Fly List DURING Flight
(Emphasis mine.)
4.23.2010
Why is it...
...that "green" and "bean" sound alike? It ought to be "green been" or "grean bean," one or the other. Let's make up our minds.
Hey, sounds impartial to me
Phone retailer iPhones4u (albeit not the most impartial or well-known of research bodies) surveyed 1,500 women and found that 54 percent of them said they would be more likely to date a man if he has an iPhone.
link: Women More Likely To Date Men With iPhones (SURVEY)
Shoot first, ask questions later
WASHINGTON — In coming years, President Obama will decide whether to deploy a new class of weapons capable of reaching any corner of the earth from the United States in under an hour and with such accuracy and force that they would greatly diminish America’s reliance on its nuclear arsenal.
link: U.S. Faces Choice on New Weapons for Fast Strikes - NYTimes.com
Well, no it isn't
WASHINGTON – New orders for big-ticket manufactured goods dropped sharply last month due to a plunge in demand for commercial aircraft. But excluding the volatile transportation category, orders rose by the most since the recession began.
The report is the latest sign that the once-battered manufacturing sector is now a driving force behind the economic recovery....
link: New orders for durable goods drop sharply - Yahoo! News
This is like saying a football field is 60 yards long if you don't count the part between the 30 yard lines. What's the point in measuring something if you count the part you want and ignore the rest?
The AP has been running stuff like this for quite some time now, magically spinning whoopee from the gloom (the economy is improving because it's getting worse more slowly, and all that). We can understand it when politicians say stuff like that because we aren't expecting them to say anything believable to begin with, but the AP is supposed to be doing journalism here, or something.
Wacko, Texas
Texas has banned gay marriage and its conservative attorney general is trying to make sure that same-sex couples who tied the knot in other jurisdictions cannot get divorced in the Lone Star state.
link: Texas tries to block same-sex divorce in appeals court challenge | Raw Story
4.22.2010
4.21.2010
But will it still work in the Coke machine?
Associated Press - Aiming to stay a step ahead of counterfeiters, the government is planning to show its new design for the $100 bill later this morning.
link: New $100 bill to be unveiled today - Chicago Breaking Business
Training does not work on Brits' brains
April 21 (Bloomberg) -- Playing memory, reasoning or other brain games won’t make you smarter or mentally stronger, researchers said.
A study involving 11,430 people from across the U.K. found the “training” failed to improve overall brain function better than answering general questions on the Internet.
link: Brain Games Don’t Make You Smarter, Reduce Dementia Risk - BusinessWeek
4.20.2010
McCain: Illegals intentionally causing accidents on freeways
In an appearance on "The O'Reilly Factor" on Tuesday Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) offered a strange defense of a stringent new Arizona immigration bill that could lead to racial profiling.
When asked by host Bill O'Reilly if he was comfortable with the possibility of racial profiling, McCain said he wold be "very sorry" if it happened, but suggested it's justified because of "the people whose homes and property are being violated. It's the drive-by that -- the drivers of cars with illegals in it that are intentionally causing accidents on the freeway."
link: John McCain: Illegal Immigrants 'Intentionally Causing Accidents On The Freeway'
And the weird thing is, McCain is not the spookiest R.
Donuts attack
WASHINGTON - School lunches have been called many things, but a group of retired military officers is giving them a new label: national security threat....
The retired officers are saying that school lunches have helped make the nation's young people so fat that fewer of them can meet the military's physical fitness standards, and recruitment is in jeopardy.
link: Are school lunches a national security threat? - Politics- msnbc.com
The apocalypse incentive
Former Bush and Clinton FEMA officials plan to press the Department of Homeland Security to stress the need for a public education campaign about the Mayan calendar's prediction of the apocalypse in 2012. No, not that they believe the world will end during President Obama's re-election year bid, but they see it as the perfect hook for a campaign about disaster preparedness....
link: Former FEMA Officials Want to Stress the 2012 Apocalypse - Washington Whispers (usnews.com)
4.19.2010
Longing for the good old days
By almost every conceivable measure Americans are less positive and more critical of government these days. A new Pew Research Center survey finds a perfect storm of conditions associated with distrust of government – a dismal economy, an unhappy public, bitter partisan-based backlash, and epic discontent with Congress and elected officials....
The public’s hostility toward government seems likely to be an important election issue favoring the Republicans this fall....
So, according to Pew, the public is thinking the government sucks so let's bring back the Republicans? They ought to throw out their trust graph and start a bonkers chart.
Meanwhile we note Hugh Ambrose, in his pretty excellent recent book, "The Pacific," finds it necessary to add a footnote to explain to 21st Century readers who Charlie McCarthy was ("Charlie McCarthy was a wooden puppet. The ventriloquist who operated him had a world-famous comedy routine at this time.").
I get it. Nobody remembers the 40's any more.
4.18.2010
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