Foreign Policy has an interesting guide on tourist destinations that Americans can’t visit. They mention Mount Kumgang, Baracoa, Mogadishu’s Beaches, Persepolis, and Mandalay. Respecively North Korea, Cuba, Somalia, Iran and Burma.
Restaurants, fast-food chains and supermarkets across Southern California removed fresh red Roma, plum and red round tomatoes from their shelves and took them off their menus this weekend as the U.S. government warned of a widening outbreak of salmonella.
The Food and Drug Administration said consumers should avoid raw red plum, red Roma or round red tomatoes, which have been tied to 145 infections reported since mid-April.
I drove 1600 miles this weekend on a trip marked by dining, of both the fine and fast categories. The lack of tomatoes across all spectrums of dining was noticeable. What’s curious is the scope of the tomato shortage, given the nature of the problem. For the sake of 145 illnesses, with 23 hospitalizations, many restaurants stopped serving tomatoes and many grocers halted sales of at least thee kinds of tomatoes. Given the enormous quantity of American consumption, and the food and feed shortage we’re facing on a global scale, it seems puzzling that we’d destroy food. Granted people are getting sick enough to require medical care, but other people are dying of starvation. Destroying a large supply of any food would seem an act of imprudence, likely driving up already high food costs and increasing the likelihood of starvation-related deaths worldwide.
The man who designed the Pringles potato chip packaging system was so proud of his accomplishment that a portion of his ashes has been buried in one of the iconic cans.
…
Baur’s children said they honored his request to bury him in one of the cans by placing part of his cremated remains in a Pringles container in his grave in suburban Springfield Township.
Addressing a conference of 6,000 Methodist youths in North Carolina last year, Bishop Thomas Bickerton held up his own $10 and told the crowd: “This represents your lunch today at McDonald’s or your pizza tonight from Domino’s. Or you could save a human life.”
The lights were so bright that he could see only what was happening at his feet. “They just showered the stage with $10 bills,” Bishop Bickerton said. “In 30 seconds, we had $16,000. I’m just lucky they didn’t throw coins.”
Part of what has helped the campaign catch on is its sheer simplicity and affordability — $10 buys one net to save a child. Nothing But Nets, the best-known campaign, has raised $20 million from 70,000 individuals, most of it in donations averaging $60.
Malaria infects half a billion people annually, killing millions. There is no vaccine, and once someone contracts the disease, they carry it for life. Malaria cripples developing economies and taxes on health care infrastructure chiefly in areas already overburdened by the AIDS epidemic.
One of the most effective preventative steps anyone can take is to stop Malaria at it’s source - mosquitos - by using a mosquito net. You can send a net to Africa for just a few dollars, possibly save a life and even potentially help a developing nation steady it’s footing, to boot.
My first thought on the running mate question is that to balance his ticket, Barack Obama should pick a really old white general. Therefore, he should pick Dwight Eisenhower. John McCain, on the other hand, needs to pick someone younger than himself. Therefore, he also should pick Dwight Eisenhower.
It’s hard to show music. There have been good attempts (thank you Information Society!), but there’s no one-to-one correlary between different senses, so most tries end up wanting.
Mario Basanov and Vidis video for I’ll be gone works because it leans so heavily on our pre-existing associations for visualizing rhythmic events. Would this help a deaf person ’see’ the song? Probably not. But for the hearing crowd, this video’s sonic visualization adds a rich additional dimension of surround sound - go watch the song and see for yourself.
We seem to have arrived at an equitable compromise: Sen. Clinton is staying in the nomination race while Sen. Obama drops out to move on to the general.
America is growing weary of the media coverage for a primary already mathematically concluded.
I just “borrowed” Destro’s Despoiler for the afternoon. 10:05 AM May 12, 2008 from web
Paid Firefly $4000 to cut the brake lines in Mindbender’s Volvo. Who’s laughing now, Mustache Mary? 01:38 PM May 07, 2008 from web
Impossible to strategize world domination with those incessantly annoying twins riding fourwheelers in the halls. Throneroom needs a door. 02:12 PM May 06, 2008 from web
