Oh those funny Googlers. First it was searching for “weapons of mass destruction” giving this not found website when you hit “I’m feeling lucky”.
The new one is doing a Lucky search for miserable failure (no quotes). Or do a regular search and check out the first item of the search results.
Hint: this is his first presidentiary.
The turkey looked perfect, but don’t try to eat it. In the Iraq Thanksgiving picture seen so frequently, Bush is holding the centerpiece.
It’s like he’s a Truth Compass. Just look at Bush and truth is the other way.
The military is looking to something old as a new weapon in the war on terrorism: blimps. They can travel up to 60 mph and fly at an altitude of about 2,000-3,000 feet. Wow.
This just in: A Goodyear blimp crashed Wednesday night…
Next up: catapults making a comeback. Secret military plans have been leaked.
A what? It contains no electronics. Light travels through the fibers to illuminate the segments of the display to form a readable number in the tens-of-minutes portion of the display.
Hines Labs sells blueprints and grants rights to build one. But to make it easier, Digital Sundials International sells them.
They say, “Time flies!”, but how can you when they go so fast?
Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of this blog. I’m guessing there are about 250 posts. To commemorate, here are some pointless destinations:
Okay, I don’t really know why you would want to do that last one unless you’re French.
Probably only of interest to guitarists is the history of the Electro-Harmonix Company (which made the Big Muff Pi) and its relation to Sovtek, which makes vacuum tubes in Russia for those few of us that still need them.
Three somewhat related subtopics here: Food, Wal-Mart, and Food
Why Turkey?
I’ve got a beef with having two holidays that seem to mandate the eating of what is typically a dry, somewhat tasteless fowl as the main event. How did this happen?
In 2001, about 272 million turkeys were raised. The National Turkey Federation estimates that 46 million of those turkeys were eaten at Thanksgiving, 22 million at Christmas and 19 million at Easter.
There is no real evidence that turkey was served at the Pilgrim’s first thanksgiving, but through ages it became an indispensable part of the Thanksgiving tradition. The tradition of turkey is rooted in the ‘History Of Plymouth Plantation’, written by William Bradford some 22 years after the actual celebration.
Turkey is often regarded as the usual Christmas meal but appeared on the menu only around 1650 after European colonization of North America. It was introduced to Europe by Sebastian Cabot on his return from the New World. The bird got its name after merchants from Turkey made it a popular dish. Prior to this Swan, Goose, Peacock or Boar were associated with the Christmas feast.
A wild bird, native to America, was taken back to Europe and became “a popular dish at banquets held by the French nobility”. The wild turkey is then rediscovered by the Pilgrims, who had also brought domesticated turkeys from Europe, essentially creating the double-shot of turkey.
I still don’t know how it happened. But I bet the holiday meal would be different if all the above had all been about cattle. Or even the venison served at the first Thanksgiving.
Big Spender
The AlterNet story Mad In The USA includes this:
Giant retail chains like Wal-Mart, Target, and Home Depot, have been muscling large manufacturers to move their factories overseas, primarily to China. With more than nine percent of U.S. retail sales and a third of the market for numerous products from dog food to diapers, what Wal-Mart says, goes. The company does so much business in China that it ranks as the country’s 8th largest trading partner, ahead of Britain and Russia.
And a 11/23 LA Times article on Wal-Mart includes the following:
Ahead of Russia and Britain? 8% of sales? Wow. That’s a lot of political / economic muscle.
Oh yeah, this ties in from all the food that was bought and the ongoing supermarket strike.
Speaking of Meat
Every year, Americans consume on average 60 hot dogs. When I eat them, it’s usually two dogs; just keeping up means having them slightly more frequently than every other week. My intake may be falling below average, which is a surprise because I’m mostly a carnivore.
A historical note from a page about hamburgers:
THE ALL AMERICAN (BUT ACTUALLY GERMAN) HOT DOG:
Sausages produced in Frankfurt, Germany, were introduced to American tastes in St. Louis, Missouri, during the 1880s. Harry Stevens popularized frankfurter sales at the Polo Grounds baseball park in New York City. The term “hot dog” was coined by cartoonist T. A. Dorgan in 1906.
A Daily Show With Jon Stewart reran with this opening:
“We begin tonight with national security � an issue President Bush has emphasized here at home and is utterly disrupting across the Atlantic. Tomorrow the president flies to England for a three-day state visit with coalition partner Tony Blair. In preparation, British officials are stepping up security measures and putting more police on the streets than at any time since the end of World War II in anticipation of possible violence. Remember, this is England… our ally [very long pause] � I guess all the cops and troops are there to make sure things don’t get too friendly. … British Intelligence services have even taken the step of raising England’s terror alert level to ‘severe general’, which is � I hate the metric system � I think it is orange.” �Jon Stewart
Here are a couple of other good comments on the subject, all from Working For Change – Quote of the Day:
“President Bush and Queen Elizabeth have a lot in common — they both came into power without being elected.” �David Letterman
“President Bush says his visit to England is going so well, if time permits, he wants to visit the United Kingdom and Great Britain as well.” �Jay Leno
A surgeon who has patented a device that triggers an orgasm has begun a clinical trial and is looking for female volunteers.
The Good News: Opus, by Berkeley Breathed (Bloom County, Outland), is back in black. Black and white, like a penguin should be. It’s in the LA Times, so I’ll get to see it on Sundays.
The Bad News: There’s no digital edition; it’s going to be in the newspapers only.
The ‘no digital’ news comes from a Washington Post interview.
“Today was Veteran’s Day, a day to honor those brave Americans who have fought to defend our country � or in our president’s case, a day to freak them out. President Bush commemorated Veteran’s Day by attending a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, then signing the National Cemetery Expansion Act, which basically establishes new burial grounds for veterans. So happy Veteran’s Day � we wanted to give you health insurance but …” �Jon Stewart
To summarize:
Nov. 11 – Bush signs bill that creates new cemetery space for vets.
Nov. 15 – Monthly Iraq fatalities are climbing back to the pre-end-of-the-war rate.
Nov. 22 – The U.S. military will have 100,000 troops in Iraq until 2006.
Coincidence?
Powell described his killer schedule in an interview Thursday with Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, a reporter for a London-based Saudi newspaper. “So do you use sleeping tablets to organize yourself?” Al-Rashed asked.
“Yes. Well, I wouldn’t call them that,” Powell said. “They’re a wonderful medication — not medication. How would you call it? They’re called Ambien, which is very good. You don’t use Ambien? Everybody here uses Ambien.”
Just what does ‘Everyone Here’ mean? Everyone in the US? Or in the White House?
From the Washington Post. The U.S. Embassy transcript shows the same thing. What a Rush. (Couldn’t resist that one.)
Biotech entrepreneurs plan to market the nation’s first genetically engineered pet: a tropical zebra fish infused with the gene of a sea anemone that makes it glow fluorescent red.
They Rule, has interactive maps that show how companies are connected through their board members. Go to: Load map, ‘then eye of the rich’ for a nice overview of corporate ties. Another good one is ‘!7 most powerful!’ which is self-described as:
These are the seven most connected people in the Fortune 100. Together the 6 men and 1 woman are on the boards of 26 companies!
When you’re done with that, OpenSecrets.org – (“Your guide to the money in U.S. elections”) shows who gave and who got contributions. So far the largest contributor to Pres. Bush is Merrill Lynch at $364,000, although other financial institutions are close behind. Merrill has contributed $652,760 to this election cycle, 87% to Republicans
For the 2002 elections, over $964 million was raised for House and Senate races. I guess that’s one way to keep the economy going.
The Visual Thesaurus gives a visual representation of how words are related.
Very fun, but it requires Java, which no longer is supported in IE without a download. If it’s not already installed, get if from the Java download site.
It’s old news, but some may have missed it. First a few lines from the story, then links for those who want to read more.
As of Oct. 19, Halliburton had imported 61.3 million gallons of gasoline from Kuwait into Iraq, and the company was paid $162.5 million for an average price of $2.65 a gallon, Waxman (D-CA) and Dingell (D-MI) wrote.
“The $2.65 per gallon is grossly excessive,” they said. “Experts we consulted stated that the total price for buying and transporting gasoline into Iraq should be less than $1.00 per gallon.”
The U.S. government was then selling this gasoline inside Iraq for just four to 15 cents a gallon, subsidizing over 95 percent of the cost of gasoline consumed by Iraqis, they said.
I was introduced to this game over the weekend and it left me stumped. At the time, I blamed the beer and moved on to something else. Not having solved it was still nagging at me today, so off to the internet to find some online versions. No, it wasn’t the beer; I still couldn’t figure it out. But these were the best websites:
It’s simple to play: just roll the dice and guess the answer. The interactive versions will tell you if you are correct. Repeat until solved. I only wasted a couple of hours before I got it.
Look closely at these pictures and try to find the rabbit in each one.
It’s about the evils of corporate farming, but the concept is so funny I have to put it up anyway. Think I’ll go fry some bacon.
Enter the Meatrix
The Recording Industry Association of America announced today it would be expanding its crackdown on copyright infringement by suing family members, hitchhikers and carpoolers. Full story
While that story is a joke, it reminded me of a true one. Finland’s Supreme Court has ruled taxi drivers must pay royalty fees if they play music in their car while a customer is in the backseat. No kidding.
