The day may finally be coming when you will be allowed to make calls on your own cellphone from an airliner. Trouble is, so will the passengers sitting on either side of you, and in front and in back of you, as well.
Federal regulators plan next week to begin considering rules that would end the official ban on cellphone use on commercial flights. Technical challenges and safety questions remain. But if the ban is lifted, one of the last cocoons of relative social silence would disappear, forcing strangers to work out the rough etiquette of involuntary eavesdropping in a confined space.
From The New York Times
I’d rather see Shaq vs. Kobe
Elizabeth Bumiller’s lede in this morning’s New York Times —
Tickets to all official inaugural events, including an “elegant” candlelight dinner with a special appearance by President Bush: $100,000.
Tickets to all official inaugural events, two additional tickets to an “exclusive” lunch with Mr. Bush and Vice President Cheney, plus an all-access pass to any inaugural ball: $250,000.
Telling your friends, “As I explained to the president just the other day… .”: priceless.
Bears care
As requested, this is a cropped close up from the photo posted yesterday.
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
From BBC NEWS:
Men who use laptop computers could be unwittingly damaging their fertility, experts believe.
Balancing it on the lap increases the temperature of the scrotum which is known to have a negative effect on sperm production, researchers found.
…Just sitting with the thighs together, a posture needed to balance a laptop, caused scrotal temperatures to rise by 2.1C.
When the men used a laptop in this position the average temperatures increased by 2.6C on the left of the scrotum and 2.8C on the right.
Article continues with more information than I needed.
Miracle foods
First it was the loaves — a grilled cheese with Mary’s face — and then it was the fishes — a fish stick with Jesus’ face — so here from The Edge in The Oregonian are the Top 10 Lesser Known Food Miracles:
10. Fats Domino’s Pizza.
9. Meatloaf Meatloaf.
8. Bag of tiny colorful chocolate-coated candies with Mary Magdalene’s initials inscribed on each one.
7. The Edvard Munch “I Scream” Sandwich.
6. The Abe Vigoda/Erik Estrada plate of fish & chips.
5. Indiana Pacers’ knuckle sandwich and a glass of Ron Artest’s sucker punch.
4. The falafel sandwich bearing the image of Bill O’Reilly.
3. The visage of Elvis on black Velveeta.
2. The image of Dennis Franz’s buttocks in a Moon Pie.
And the number one lesser known food miracle: The 23rd Psalami on Rye.
All I Want for Christmas Is …
From Wired News: Furthermore:
Santa Claus can add this kid to his “naughty” list: An Arkansas boy who got wind of the Christmas gift his mother bought him allegedly assaulted her and threatened her with decapitation. The 13-year-old demanded that the present be returned and the cash handed over to him, then backed up his demands by picking up a butcher knife with an 8-inch blade and threatening to use it to cut off his mom’s head, police said. “He said that all would have been well if she had just bought him the correct present,” said the officer who arrested the troubled teenager. Somebody’s getting a stocking full of coal.
Also from ‘America’s Finest News Source’
Peterson Given Lifetime Channel Sentence
REDWOOD CITY, CA—Scott Peterson, convicted in November of murdering his wife Laci and their unborn child, was issued a Lifetime Channel sentence during the penalty phase of his trial Monday. “Mr. Peterson’s story shall be re-enacted in Lifetime movies and miniseries for a period of no less than 10 years,” Judge Alfred Delucci told a packed courtroom Monday. “His story shall be remanded to Lifetime’s custody until the network determines that public interest has waned sufficiently to allow airings on Oxygen.” Delucci ordered that Peterson’s team of lawyers be present for the casting.
I heard the Christmas season had started slowly at Wal-Mart, but …
Wal-Mart, the world’s largest discount retailer, announced its biggest-ever rollback Monday, with employee pay cuts of up to 35 percent.
From The Onion
The failure of Microsoft to cope adequately with the security crisis
Walt Mossberg sums up the sad state of Windows-based PCs.
But for the vast part of the public whose computers aren’t bought and deployed by corporate computer departments, things have gotten much worse lately. For these consumers and small businesses, the burden of using personal computers has grown dramatically heavier in the past couple of years because of the plague of viruses, spyware and other security problems that now afflict the dominant Windows platform.
To cope with this assault from an international criminal class of virus and spyware writers, hackers and sleazy businesses, average users have had to buy and monitor an arsenal of add-on programs. They have been forced to learn far too much about the workings of their PCs. And too many users have had to take drastic steps, like wiping out their hard disks and starting all over.
So instead of being able to view their computers as tools for productivity, research, communication and entertainment, consumers have been forced to devote rising amounts of time and money just to keeping the machines safe. The PC has, in many cases, gone from being a solution to being, at least in part, a problem.
Speaking of grieving animals
Thomas D. Mangelsen photo
Gorillas hold wake for group’s leader
From CNN.com:
After Babs the gorilla died at age 30, keepers at Brookfield Zoo decided to allow surviving gorillas to mourn the most influential female in their social family.
One by one Tuesday, the gorillas filed into the Tropic World building where Babs’ body lay, arms outstretched. Curator Melinda Pruett Jones called it a “gorilla wake.”
Babs’ 9-year-old daughter, Bana, was the first to approach the body, followed by Babs’ mother, Alpha, 43. Bana sat down, held Babs’ hand and stroked her mother’s stomach. Then she sat down and laid her head on Babs’ arm.
Cheap seats
So what Christmas gift do you give someone who has everything? How about two courtside seats to the Lakers’ Christmas Day game against the Miami Heat?
They’re available through StubHub.com. And the asking price? Only $17,648 each. But the asking price for a courtside seat has been as high as $29,413.
That’s the Shaq-Kobe meeting, but …
Talking the talk
From Sideline Chatter:
Broadcaster Dick Enberg, in his new autobiography, recalling his first television assignment in L.A. in 1963 — a USC-UCLA water-polo match: “I didn’t know one thing about the sport. I used to wonder how they got the horses in the pool.” [Oh, my!]
NBC’s Jay Leno, on the Lakers’ loss to the Chicago Bulls: “That’s like losing to Jessica Simpson in ‘Jeopardy!'”
Headline at borowitzreport.com: “Fearing attacks by athletes, fans take steroids.”
Montezuma Castle National Monument …
was designated on this date in 1906. The National Park Service says:
Nestled into a limestone recess high above the flood plain of Beaver Creek in the Verde Valley stands one of the best preserved cliff dwellings in North America. The five-story, 20-room cliff dwelling served as a “high-rise apartment building” for prehistoric Sinagua Indians over 600 years ago. Early settlers to the area assumed that the imposing structure was associated with the Aztec emperor Montezuma, but the castle was abandoned almost a century before Montezuma was born.
NewMexiKen photo, 2003.
El Morro National Monument …
was designated on this date in 1906. The National Park Service has this to say about El Morro:
Rising 200 feet above the valley floor, this massive sandstone bluff was a welcome landmark for weary travelers. A reliable waterhole hidden at its base made El Morro (or Inscription Rock) a popular campsite. Beginning in the late 1500s Spanish, and later, Americans passed by El Morro. While they rested in its shade and drank from the pool, many carved their signatures, dates, and messages. Before the Spanish, petroglyphs were inscribed by Ancestral Puebloans living on top of the bluff over 700 years ago. Today, El Morro National Monument protects over 2,000 inscriptions and petroglyphs, as well as Ancestral Puebloan ruins.
The first step might be a little proofreading
From a story in The New York Times:
R. Craig Hogan, a former university professor who heads an online school for business writing here, received an anguished e-mail message recently from a prospective student.
“i need help,” said the message, which was devoid of punctuation. “i am writing a essay on writing i work for this company and my boss want me to help improve the workers writing skills can yall help me with some information thank you”.
Hundreds of inquiries from managers and executives seeking to improve their own or their workers’ writing pop into Dr. Hogan’s computer in-basket each month, he says, describing a number that has surged as e-mail has replaced the phone for much workplace communication. Millions of employees must write more frequently on the job than previously. And many are making a hash of it.
“E-mail is a party to which English teachers have not been invited,” Dr. Hogan said. “It has companies tearing their hair out.”
…“People think that throwing multiple exclamation points into a business letter will make their point forcefully,” Ms. Andrews said. “I tell them they’re allowed two exclamation points in their whole life.”
Cheaters never prosper
From report in The New York Times:
Cal (10-1) is ranked fourth in the Associated Press news media poll and in the coaches poll, but according to USA Today, Cal was ranked seventh by four coaches and eighth by two others after its 26-16 victory at Southern Mississippi last Saturday. The previous week, none of the 61 coaches who vote ranked Cal lower than sixth.
And one coach voted Texas number 2. USA Today has the complete breakout.
Let’s see. The Rose Bowl pay out is $4.5 million (Big 12). The Holiday Bowl take is $2 million (Pac 10).
Rats!
From Wired News: Furthermore —
What are giant African rats good for, anyway? In Mozambique, the critters are doing a bang-up job detecting deadly land mines, which have killed and injured an unknown number of people since the country’s civil war ended more than a decade ago. Unlike mine-detecting canines, which are prone to boredom on the job, rats seem to enjoy sniffing out land mines. Plus, they happily accept cheap rewards, like bananas and peanuts, and can perform monotonous tasks for long periods. They also work single-mindedly and can be deployed in large numbers due to their small size and light weight. “It is a stereotype, but rats have proved to work better (than men) and pose little danger,” commented a delegate to a conference on the 1997 Ottawa Convention, which banned land mines.
Which reminds me. Did you hear the National Institutes of Health have decided not to use lab rats any longer? They’re going to use lawyers instead. For three reasons. One, there are more lawyers than rats. Two, the lab technicians sometimes grew attached to the rats. And, three, there are some things rats won’t do.
(With apologies to lawyers, including especially those I love.)
It’s not bankrupt
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on Sunday’s Meet the Press:
Tim, all experts say that Social Security beneficiaries will receive every penny of their benefits that they’re entitled to—100 percent of them—until the year 2055. After that, if we still do nothing, they’ll draw 80 percent of their benefits. I want those beneficiaries after year 2055 to draw 100 percent of their benefits. But this does not require dismantling the program. For heaven’s sakes, they’re crying wolf a little too regularly here. There is not an emergency on Social Security.
Worth repeating: Social Security has enough money to pay everyone 100% for the next 50 years. After that, it could still pay 80%. AND THAT’S WITH NO CHANGES. Revenue increases equal to one-fourth of Bush’s taxes cuts would enable Social Security to pay everyone the promised benefits for the next century.
Meet the Press excerpt via The Daily Howler.
Who donates, and where
If each American who voted for John Kerry spends $100 in 2005 on a Blue company instead of a Red company, we can move $5 Billion away from Republican companies and add $5 Billion to the income of companies who donate to Democrats.
The website Choose The Blue provides a complete rundown of money American corporations donated to the political parties during the 2003-2004 election cycle. The data was compiled from information in the public domain, including Federal Election Commission records (FEC.gov) and the Center for Responsible Politics.
Some that might be of interest:
Wal-Mart was 81% Red; Target 78% Red. Costco was 98% Blue.
Shell Oil was the only Blue gasoline company; Toyota the only Blue auto maker.
Microsoft, Cisco, eBay, Yahoo! Oracle, Sun, IBM and Adobe were Blue; Intuit was Red.
Sony was Blue; GE and Kodak were Red.
The Pittsburgh Steelers were Blue, but the Suns, Jets, Saints, Dodgers, Tigers, Red Wings, Rockies, Browns and Arizona Cardinals were Red, as was NASCAR.
Amazon was 61% Red. Barnes & Noble and Powells were 100% Blue.
Why couldn’t Chapman have shot Hinckley?
John Lennon was shot to death outside his apartment on this date in 1980.
As George Carlin says in his new book, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, “the wrong two Beatles died.”
Imaginary friends
From Boing Boing:
Sixty-five percent of children say that by age seven, they’ve played with an imaginary companion. Children interviewed for a study by psychologists at the University of Washington and University of Oregon were considered to have an imaginary companion if they were able to discuss its psychological traits, “such as ‘She is nice to me.'”
The study also showed that:
- While preschool girls were more likely to have an imaginary companion, by age 7 boys were just as likely as girls to have one.
- 27 percent of the children described an imaginary friend that their parents did not know about.
- 57 percent of the imaginary companions of school-age youngsters were humans and 41 percent were animals. One companion was a human capable of transforming herself into any animal the child wanted.
- Not all imaginary companions are friendly. A number were quite uncontrollable and some were a nuisance.
Best line of the day, so far
“I was awoken at about seven o’clock by my two-year-old son calling to me from his room: ‘Daddy, Daddy, come Daddy!’ It’s nicer than an alarm clock, but there is no snooze button.”
Who marshals the marshals?
In the aftermath of 9/11 one step toward increased security seemed a no-brainer: more money and manpower for the Federal Air Marshal Service. And sure enough, the United States has dramatically expanded its force of marshals and increased the air-marshal budget more than a hundredfold, from $4.4 million in 2001 to $545 million in 2003. How much safer this makes you feel probably depends on whether you’ve leafed through a recent report from the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security, which evaluated recent air-marshal hiring practices and conduct records. The report examined a review of 504 job applicants, all of whom had been approved and were scheduled to receive an offer of employment, and found that 161 had incidents in their records that should have raised a red flag (including misuse of government resources, and allegations of domestic abuse, drunk driving, or sexual harassment). With this in mind, it’s hardly surprising to learn that from February of 2002 to October of 2003 there were 753 documented reports of misconduct by air marshals on duty. Among the improprieties: falling asleep, testing positive for drugs or alcohol, and having a weapon lost or stolen.
“Evaluation of the Federal Air Marshal Service,” Office of Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security
As reported by The Atlantic’s Primary Sources for December 2004
Interior funding
The Washington Post has a quick look at the federal appropriations recently passed. Of particular interest to NewMexiKen:
Congress gave the Interior Department a nominal increase, upping its budget to $9.88 billion. The National Park Service was one of the agency’s big winners. Lawmakers increased its funding by $90 million — slightly less than what Bush had proposed — to $2.35 billion. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was another winner, receiving about $2.33 billion, a $29 million increase and $76 million more than what Bush had requested. The Bureau of Land Management received the brunt of the agency’s cuts — its funding was cut by $137 million — coming in with $1.77 billion.
The bill also includes legislative language allowing the government to continue charging various fees at some national parks, to permit the slaughter of some wild horses roaming the West and to continue to allow snowmobiles at Yellowstone National Park.