Pregnant smoking mother worried about...

Yet another TSA horror story

The Transportation Security Administration must be staffed by the largest group of incompetents in the federal government (and that's saying a lot); one could maintain an entire blog just devoted to TSA mixups. Here's a story out of Orlando that caught my eye this past week -

James Hoyne, 14, has a feeding tube in his stomach and carries a back-up in a sealed clear plastic bag. Hoyne said two weeks ago a TSA officer insisted on opening the sterile equipment, contaminating his back-up feeding up tube which he later needed."I said 'Please don't open it' and she said 'I have to open it whether you like it or not. If I can't open it, I can't let you on the plane,'" Hoyne said of his conversation with the TSA screener.

17-month old baby reads

As noted in Neatorama, Elizabeth Barrett of Lubbock, Texas has the reading skills of a school-age child, but is only 17 months old. She apparently is neither autistic nor an Asperger's syndrome, and probably not even a prodigy - her parents are both speech pathologists and have been teaching her to read (and to sign). Elizabeth's pediatrician says at 14 months he saw her sight read the word avocado. "I was floored." The story at the original website has a video which I won't embed here.

I offer this story both for its intrinsic value, and as a counterpoint to the blog item directly below this one....

nu wrld txt msgng champion

A 13-year old girl is the new text-messaging champion of the United States. Morgan Pozgar from Pennsylvania beat 250 competitors and won the finals of the competition by being the fastest to text "supercalifragilisticexpialidoucious! Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious. If you say it loud enough you'll always sound precocious."

She "trained" for this by sending on average 8,000 text messages a month to her friends - about one every five minutes or 260 a day. Her prize was $25,000, which she will use... (wait for it)... to go shopping in Manhattan.

The world's longest horse's tail...

...belongs to an American Paint stabled in Kansas. It is twelve feet six inches in length, and listed in the Guiness Book of World Records. The Kansas.com webpage has more details re the care of this impressive appendage.

Distinguishing i.e. from e.g.

I found a link today to a grammar blog written by a copyeditor, which has a useful entry clarifying in detail the differences between i.e. and e.g. The terms are often used interchangeably, though they mean different things. I.e. ("id est" - or memory trick "in essence") means "in other words," while e.g. ("exemplia gratia") means "for example" (memory trick e.g.= "egg sample" = example).

If that's not clear enough, there are a couple of illustrative examples in the grammar blog. The discussion there notes that the terms should not be italicized because although they were originally Latin, they are now considered conventional English (curiously the blog entry does have the terms italicized - go figure).

You're paying for "Dear Taxpayer" letters

As noted by MSNBC, the IRS is going to spend $42 million tax dollars to send out letters to taxpayers to notify them that rebate checks will be issued as part of an economic stimulus plan. As the country slides deeper into recession, one would think that those 42 million dollars could be better deployed elsewhere, and an explanatory letter could simply have accompanied the checks when they are issued two months from now.

Setting hair mousse on fire

http://view.break.com/462895 - Watch more free videos

Humor only for people who own cats...

...or, more precisely, people who are owned by cats. When I started this blog I vowed it would not devolve into a series of pictures of cute cats, funny cats, LOLcats and such, but these two videos are so clever they deserve to be shared. Both by English animator Simon Tofield.

The interstate highway system simplified

An interesting graphic which schematically portrays the interstate highway system. The image will be too small here in the blog; the original is easier to view and can be enlarged. It's not perfect, especially re Wisconsin, which appears to have been eliminated from the map; I43 and I39 are missing and I94 ends in Chicago without continuing to Madison and Mpls.

The graphic did remind me of something I had forgotten (or never learned). Everyone knows that even-numbered highways run east-west and odd-numbered ones run north-south. But I was surprised to note that the numbering system is also patterned with numbers increasing as one moves from south to north (10,20,40,70,80,90) and from west to east (5, 15, 25, 35... 95).

The schematic doesn't show the NAFTA superhighway, but that's another story... Those interested in conspiracy theory and corporate malfeasance might be interested in this link to a story about how the "highway lobby" systematically killed off passenger rail and urban commuter systems.

Two great videos

The top one above is the 1984 television commercial introducing the Apple Macintosh to the world. I think it was 1985 when I got my first of many subsequent Macs. The commercial, for obvious reasons, used the "1984" theme to show Apple breaking the monopoly of the dominant behemoth of the era (IBM).

The video below that is a mashup using the Apple video with new content appropriate to tonight's electoral primaries. This video was first posted 1 year ago today on YouTube, and has been viewed almost 5 million times. Enjoy.

The muddy canals of Venice

Last week ABC news reported that sea level in the canals of Venice has plunged to the lowest level in fourteen years. While the scientist in me wonders if this will allay the fears of those who worried that melting icecaps would flood the world's coastal cities, the treasure-hunter in me is more fascinated by the prospect of running a metal detector over the mud and scooping up coins that have been dropped in the canals over the last 500 years.

Barack Obama's advice to parents

In anticipation of the primary results tonight, I offer the following from an article in the Timesonline (U.K.) about Obama's campaign stop in Beaumont, Texas. His words remind me of Bill Cosby's blunt comments to parents (which I may blog another time), or Mary Schmich's world-famous graduation speech about sunscreen (I'm saving that for June). For now, just this...

He drew the noisiest whoops and cheers of the day when he admonished parents for their failings. “Turn off the TV set, put the video game away. Buy a little desk or put that child at the kitchen table. Watch them do their homework. If they don’t know how to do it, give them help. If you don’t know how to do it, call the teacher. Make them go to bed at a reasonable time. Keep them off the streets. Give them some breakfast. Come on! And since I’m on a roll, if you’re child misbehaves in school, don’t cuss out the teacher! Do something with your child!”

He then went on to attack childhood obesity. “We can’t keep feeding our children junk all day long, giving them no exercise. They’re overweight by the time they are four or five years old and then we’re surprised when they get sick ... I know some of you that get cold Popeyes [chicken] out for breakfast! I know! That’s why you are all laughing! I caught you out!”

It is impossible to imagine either Clinton or McCain addressing a crowd in this manner without sounding bossy and patronising. Obama pulled it off with humour.

Are you smarter than a first grader?

This is a schematic drawing of a school bus. Which way is the bus going?

A) Toward the left
B) Toward the right
C) It could be going either direction.

First graders usually get this right. Make your choice, then check the "comments" section for the answer.

One year doesn't define a climate... BUT...

...you still have to be impressed by the data from the past year. The graph above comes from the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction; it shows 20 years of data left to right and one degree of variation top to bottom. Similar graphs from NASA and other places are compiled and discussed here. As the author says, "...this is an anomaly with a large magnitude, and it coincides with other anecdotal weather evidence. It is curious, it is unusual, it is large, it is unexpected..."

These data do not per se prove or disprove anything; it has been suggested that the decline in global temps during this past year as shown on the graph is a reflection of reduced solar activity. I'm not taking a position in this blog re "global warming" or "climate shift," and I post this today only because it's interesting data to consider.