All of a sudden they're everywhere. Greens specks all over the trees; white, lavender, and yellow spots on the bushes; flowers. Grass. Colors. Just there. Cool.
4.30.2011
Colors attack
All of a sudden they're everywhere. Greens specks all over the trees; white, lavender, and yellow spots on the bushes; flowers. Grass. Colors. Just there. Cool.
4.29.2011
Lions and tigers and liquids and gels
Why airports' "liquid and gels" rules are absurd - Ask the Pilot - Salon.com
My carry-on goes through the scanner and comes out the other side. One of the guards squints at his monitor, then shoots me a hostile look. What's this, no plastic baggie? He pulls my luggage aside, opens it, and asks me to repack my liquids and gels "the right way."...
We, on the other hand, slept in
Nuptials trump sleep for U.S. royal watchers - CNN.com
Countless Americans from coast to coast woke unusually early to mark the day. Some attended royal wedding parties complete with tea, scones and, in a few cases, clipped British accents.
4.28.2011
Wait! Don't just leave us hanging like that
Pork that ‘glows,’ beans with cancer chems among China’s latest poison foods | The Raw Story
BEIJING (AFP) – A wave of tainted-food scares has renewed fears in China over continued product-safety problems despite a government promise to clean up the food industry following a deadly 2008 milk scandal.
Tainted pork, toxic milk, dyed buns...
Dyed buns?
Holy 20 years ago, Batman!
I don't know if you can see it in this photo but babe, that's drop shadow on the headline of this week's shopper. Yikes!
Supe! Say it isn't so!
After recently undertaking a journey to walk -- not fly -- across the United States in the "Grounded" storyline and reconnect with the country and everyday Americans, Superman appears to be taking another step that could have major implications for his national identity: in Action Comics #900...
...Superman announces that he is going to give up his U.S. citizenship.
The thunderstorm that was supposed to come at 4 came at 2...
...(not too accu there, AccuWeather), or maybe it was just some rain with thunder, not a real storm, but whatever, it happened while I was at the grocery store so walking home I got a little wet. But check this out: I don't care. Whoa. Because it's 70 degrees out there (and even warmer in here because I have all the windows closed to keep it as warm as possible, because that way it stays warm all night and my bones thaw out). (Or start to, at least.) This is good.
It's going to get cold again—well, 60-ish—for a while but who cares. it's finally starting to feel like maybe, possibly, I can start putting the big warm shirts away and take the sweaters to the cleaners, stuff like that. Yeah. And some of the trees have buds. Of course it's too foggy to see that, but take my word.
Pumped!
Exxon profits soaring amid gas price hikes | The Raw Story
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp's quarterly profit rose a better-than-expected 69 percent as the world's largest publicly traded oil company benefited from higher crude prices and better margins for its refineries.
Damn right! Why?
Department of Good News - NYTimes.com
Emily Ramshaw of The Texas Tribune quickly tracked down the state representative who’s sponsoring the Texas version of the birther bill and found him — surprise! — unconvinced. Among other things, she reported, Representative Leo Berman wants to know why the hospital where the president was allegedly born doesn’t have a “plaque on the door” commemorating the event.
(The link, above, is to a Gail Collins article in that paragon of paywalls, the NYTimes, alas. We are trying to avoid that kind of thing. On the other hand, if you haven't figured out how to finesse the NYTimes paywall by now you have simply not been avoiding enough work.)
4.27.2011
Too good to be true
Beaming with pride, Donald Trump took credit on Wednesday for President Obama releasing a copy of his long-form birth certificate....
But, Trump said, "we have to look at it. We have to see, is it real? Is it proper?"
Noted
UNDERNEWS: Undocumented immigrants paid more taxes than GE
While it’s impossible to estimate exactly how much in taxes undocumented immigrants paid, it is clear that undocumented immigrants are paying more taxes than General Electric, which paid absolutely nothing. This raises the question of who really is leaching off the American system: undocumented immigrants who pay their taxes and are typically too afraid of being deported to receive public assistance or corporations that pay nothing while receiving billions in credits.
Wow!
Useless College Majors, From Journalism to Psychology to Theater - The Daily Beast
Ranking the 20 Most Useless College Majors
According to The Daily Beast, at least there are now 18 college majors even more useless than English (although there is one somewhat more useless major called Literature, whatever that may be). In fact, if English were only just a little more useful than Animal Science it wouldn't be on the list at all. And how awesome would that be?
OK, this is just plain weird
Political parties increasingly divided over global warming | MSU News | Michigan State University
Among liberals and Democrats, having a college degree increases the likelihood of reporting beliefs consistent with the scientific consensus. Yet, among conservatives and Republicans, having a college degree often decreases the likelihood of reporting such beliefs.
4.26.2011
Why don't they just buy a TV set and watch Fox News?
SETI forced to shut down search for alien life | The Raw Story
The SETI Institute has been forced to temporarily shut down operations at its telescope array due to federal and state funding cutbacks....
The telescope array is operated by both SETI and the University of California at Berkeley, who have been using the radio dishes to search for signs of extraterrestrial life since 2007.
Bananas!
"Birthers" are not enough? Now we have "schoolers" too?
Trump takes another shot at Obama - Political Hotsheet - CBS News
"I heard [Obama] was a terrible student, terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?" Trump told AP. "I'm thinking about it, I'm certainly looking into it. Let him show his records."
Holy crap!
Hey,why not?
It doesn't have to make sense, does it?
Allen West: Women Are Destroying Men, Stopping Them From Fixing Budget
Why is it that this huge country runs a budget deficit? Women.
Oh oh
This can not be the start of a good day...
What To Expect at the 2011 Taste of UMass | UMass Dining
It has been a busy time for Dining Services....This week we host Taste of UMass, the nation’s largest campus food service event.
Grim.
4.25.2011
Second Amendment solutions
In 911 call, man says his toddler son fatally shot mother - Yahoo! News
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla (Reuters) – A south Florida man said he was trying to take a gun away from his toddler son when it fired, killing the boy's mother, according to a 911 call released by police on Monday
Yeah, it'd surprise me all right
Fatigue in US air travel system: It's not just air traffic controllers - CSMonitor.com
More recently, a surprising maintenance worry emerged when a hole opened in the roof of a Boeing 737 departing from Phoenix...
Vroooom
BBC News - Lasers could replace spark plugs in car engines
Car engines could soon be fired by lasers instead of spark plugs, researchers say....
The approach would increase efficiency of engines, and reduce their pollution, by igniting more of the mixture.
Obama had a chance to close this thing down (like he said he would)
Close Read: WikiLeaks: The Uses of Guantánamo : The New Yorker
One sees how Guantánamo became a whisper factory: after years of interrogation, the subject many prisoners had left to talk about was other prisoners. Some were doing so after being tortured.
Too friggin' beautiful for words
High-ranking RI lawmaker faces Conn. drug charge - Yahoo! News
EAST HAVEN, Conn. – A high-ranking Rhode Island lawmaker who criticized the Legislature by invoking the image of pot-smoking immigrants is facing drug charges in Connecticut.
When did this tune change?
Air strike flattens building in Gaddafi compound - Yahoo! News
TRIPOLI (Reuters) – NATO forces flattened a building inside Muammar Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziyah compound early on Monday, in what a press official from Gaddafi's government said was an attempt on the Libyan leader's life....
The United States, Britain and France say they will not stop their air campaign over Libya until Gaddafi leaves power.
4.24.2011
Why are we not surprised?
Hungry Birds Have Their Own Twitter Account [VIDEO]
Carefully arrange pieces of pork fat on a keyboard, place it where birds congregate, hook them up with a Twitter account, and suddenly you have a flock of birds spreading their wisdom far and wide on Twitter....
After all, you’d think birds would know a thing or two about tweeting.
Why you should wait for the DVD
It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. - R. Serling
We are shocked
Scientists fret over BP funds for Gulf research - Yahoo! News
NEW ORLEANS – Scientists say it is taking far too long to dole out millions of dollars in BP funds for badly needed Gulf oil spill research, and it could be too late, to assess the crude's impact on pelicans, shrimp and other species by the time studies begin.
Really
(You may notice, of course, the picture of a Stone Age computer on the cover but then, back then, seniors weren't seniors yet, they were just old guys.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)