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Main
*I know you're probably not supposed to say "Mostest Odd" but I wanted to anyway, sorry.
I have a web visitors/statistics service installed that gives me basic information about people visiting Blog Hero. I frankly don't understand it. I haven't really spent a lot of time analyzing the data I get from different sources, so when something comes over the ol' RSS reader like this I'm pretty much at a loss:
That may be the weirdest visit I've ever had. You'll note that not only is this person apparently visiting from Tehran, Iran (can you even DO that in Tehran, Iran?) but they're checking out the Aliens/Bigfoot/Elvis topic page. (Mind you, that's a great bunch of articles.) The most recent article there is about Galactic Freedom Day, so perhaps this is some pro-freedom minded Iranian searching for information via Google on freedom. That would be very said, as I could see him getting into my blog, which has almost no useful information about anything, let alone freedom, and then he'd be discovered by some Internet Police Group and hauled away. Let's hope that doesn't happen.
If you would have told me in college that I would one day "write regularly" and that people all over the world would read it, I would have said two things to you:
1. You're completely insane (And you probably were)
and
2. Will that pay well (It doesn't)
Still, it's interesting... mostestly.
This is one of those stories that you have to read carefully because it may cause all of your arteries to simultaneously explode. Henry K. Boateng was sentenced to life in prison for killing his 5-week-old son (let that sink in) and attacking the baby's mother. While in prison Boateng became a Buddhist and then sued the state prison system for violating his civil rights because he was denied a vegan diet.
And he won.
U.S. Chief District Judge Mark L. Wolf found that the state did indeed violate Boateng's (now going by the name Daniel Yeboah-Sefah) civil rights and ordered that a vegan diet be provided.
Boateng's lawyer, Beverly B. Chorbajian, was quoted as saying that Boateng was pleased by the decision. "The statute is designed to protect these people who are stuck in institutionalized settings," she said. (This is the part where I popped several arteries. Stuck in institutionalized settings? How does that sort of thing happen? Oh, that's right.)
The last sentence of this article is just amazing though:
During the federal civil trial, Chorbajian presented three specialists on Buddhism, who "explained why it was wrong to consume food derived from animals and explained the concept of karma and suffering," she said.
Wow.
The HMS Ontario has returned from the grave, having been discovered 228 years later resting in remarkable condition at the bottom of Lake Ontario. The color waters of Lake Ontario are thought to have help preserved the wreck. It was found sitting upright, learning over to one side, with both masts still in place.
Shipwreckworld.com* has a great story here, including pictures that explorers Jim Kennard and Dan Scoville were able to take of the wreck with a remote-controlled robot built by Scoville.
Cannon on the port side of the HMS Ontario
By Dan Scoville & Jim Kennard
*There's actually a shipwreckworld.com - how cool is that?
From PR Week:
Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, tried to clarify the meaning behind the search engine's trademark slogan “Don't be evil” recently. As Google has grown, the brand has come under increased scrutiny from a legion of critics who debate if "Don't be evil" can apply to a money-making entity on the rise.
During an on-stage interview, Schmidt explained that “Don't be evil” is actually not meant to be company's public position – it's supposed to spark internal ethical debates.
Why on earth would anyone clarify a company statement like "Don't be evil" and end up saying that it's just to spark debate? Some things are probably better left unsaid.
And I thought the price of gasoline was intolerable... The Christian Science Monitor weighs in on inflation, Zimbabwe, and a 160 million dollar bag of potatoes*.
*Zimbabwe dollars, which hopefully are printed in large denominations or are very, very small.
Lost Remote is reporting that NewsBlues is reporting that NBCU has "unofficially won" the Weather Channel bidding war (their primary competition was said to be Time Warner) for a cool (no weather pun intended) $3.5 billion (with a B) dollars.
Landmark, the parent company, had originally sought $5 billion (again, with a B) and so the bid - if final - is a bit lower than what they were looking for.
On a related note, Blog Hero is also for sale for $5 billion (with a B) dollars although Blog Hero's financial team (Sven) will entertain offers for less than $5 billion, or less than $3.5 billion, or even maybe less than $1 billion (with a B.)
Alert Blog Reader BJ points out that Subway has launched a new page concerning their writing contest and home schooling: Subway Cares.
Although I had a little fun with the title of this post*, kudos to Subway for responding to the concerns of the home schooling community (and others, I'm sure) by providing an explanation for the initial "gaffe" and offering a solution. The solution appears to be the creation of an additional contest "in which home schooled students will be encouraged to participate."
There's a great marketing lesson here if you dig past all of the angst and political trauma: Subway's contest probably received much more attention that it would have otherwise garnered if they had included home schoolers. Now that their oversight has been widely examined, the challenge for Subway is how to turn this into a win. By responding fairly quickly, offering an explanation and promising an opportunity for a level playing field (if you'll pardon the pun) I think they end up coming out on top.
Alert Sandwich Eater Tammy has stepped down to DEFCON 4 and is once again considering what sort of sub to get. (Full disclaimer: Subway may or may not be the closest sandwich shop to the Schaad Casa. I'm just saying.)
*The title of the post was too clever to pass up, but I want to point out that I'm not actually suggesting that the title of the Subway page actually says "Subway Caves." (See below.) I'm something of a typography geek, and something of a marketing geek, but even on my best day am probably not a threat to anyone in either category. But Subway should exercise extreme caution with their messaging moving forward, since so many people will be looking at this carefully.
CARES, not CAVES. Stop that.
An article in the Wall Street Journal tonight (Oil Prices Prompt Four-Day Week) talks about a group of smaller towns and community colleges switching to four ten-hour work days, and how larger local governments are showing interest as well:
"Michigan's Oakland County and New York's Suffolk County are both considering putting public employees on four-day workweeks. In Oklahoma, a resolution has been introduced in the state house of representatives recommending all state and local public employers move to a shortened week to provide relief from the cost of commuting."
I was thinking about this very topic only yesterday, when Alert Reader and BBQ Genius Jim mentioned a four-day work week. The price of oil and gas are the main drivers (no pun intended) (no, really) of this, and the savings could be considerable:
'"The things I've been reading say this is not a temporary hike in gas as we've seen in the months of the past," said L. Brooks Patterson, county executive for Oakland County, a wealthy area north of Detroit. "I don't think it stops at $4.20. I think it can easily be $5 or $6 a gallon."
Mr. Patterson is seeking approval from the county's Board of Commissioners to install a four-day, 40-hour workweek that would remain in place for "the foreseeable" future. As many as 1,500 of the county's 4,000 employees could end up working four 10-hour days a week instead of five eight-hour days.
Assuming gas stays at $4 a gallon and workers use two gallons for each round trip to work, Mr. Patterson estimated the savings from having 800 workers commuting only four days a week could save them a total of about $300,000 over the course of a year." And work commutes are not the only thing on the American chopping block: this CNN article cites Department of Transportation figures that show Americans drove 11 billion fewer miles in March 2008 than March 2007. 11 Billion. With a B. I checked online and it's only 746 million miles to Saturn. So Americans drove less than more than the distance to Saturn in one month. (Sorry, it's getting late.) That seems pretty amazing.
I suspect four-day work weeks, telecommuting and video conferencing are all going to be looked at as possible solutions to mitigate the cost of gasoline, which is soon going to be somewhere between $4 and $18 a gallon, depending on the news story you're reading.
What do you think? Would you jump at a four-day work week? Or telecommute one day a week?
More at the WSJ (behind a subscription wall)
I bookmarked this article a while ago hoping to get back to it in a more timely fashion, but I was jumped by a ruthless gang of rodeo clowns and have spent the last few weeks driving a small rainbow-colored rodeo clown car while rodeo clowns jump in and out, spraying seltzer and pelting me with pies. Where was I? Oh, the aliens.
'Aliens Are My Brother' is the name of an article in the Vatican newspaper by the Pope's chief astronomer wherein he says intelligent beings created by God may exist elsewhere. I'm not sure what's more unbelievable here: that the Pope has a chief astronomer, or that the Vatican has a newspaper.
If you think about this for a few minutes, you'll probably ask yourself some of the questions that I'm asking myself: Does the Vatican paper have an online edition? Is there a comics section? If so, does it reprint Marmaduke? And how likely is it that there are really aliens working on the Vatican newspaper (maybe at the sports desk?)
Update: On a fluke I searched on Google for Vatican Newspaper English Edition and, well, there you go.
Normally I don't wade into this sort of thing, because being all sardonic about anything even remotely political is annoying. Well, annoying to people who are reading it. But I thought this was worth a quick post.
As you've no doubt heard already, particularly if you home school, or live in the Untied States, Subway is holding a story writing contest. You can find the contest here. The contest, "Every Sandwich Tells a Story, Except Those Eaten by Home Schoolers," is a contest open to "only to legal US residents, over the age of 18 with children in either elementary, private or parochial schools that serve grades PreK-6. No home schools will be accepted." (Emphasis mine.)
The idea is for your non-home schooled child to write a story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The story should include "Random Acts of Fitness" so it's fortunate that home schoolers can't apply given they are sitting on the couch watching TV, unlike those athletic public school types who are busy wrestling alligators and participating in their local Ironman Triathlon*.
If you scroll down the page to the bottom, you'll also see this part: "Contest is open only to legal residents of the Untied (sic) States who are currently over the age of 18 and have children who attend elementary, private or parochial schools that serve grades PreK-6. No home schools will be accepted." That's an unfortunate typo, I suppose - we live in the United States, not the Untied States, but anytime you decide to exclude home schoolers from a contest it's wise to make sure everything is spelled correctly, particularly the name of your own country as home schoolers are fairly competent spellers (if not sardonic.)
So we know the beginning and middle of this story, but what will the end look like? If you are a preschool student of the public school system you could no doubt write the end, since that's what the contest requires of the three-year-olds who enter. My guess is that Subway will face a very vocal backlash from those who home school, and those who support home schooling, and those who live in the Untied States (incidentally that's in the Caribbean somewhere, I think) and they'll have to rework the contest. I for one will be boycotting Subway until they correct this issue because Alert Home Schooler Tammy will pound me into jelly otherwise, and because there are plenty of places to get a sandwich that don't "discriminate" against my children. Tuna is tuna, after all. (Except for that brand of tuna that's actually chicken from the sea, but that's another post.)
What do you think? Leave a comment either way, I would love to hear more about this, even if you do hail from states that are untied.
*This is one of those sardonic parts. Sorry about that.
Obligatory screen captures in the event something is changed and I look like a total idiot for saying one thing and pointing people to another:
And a great post on this here.
I wanted to lead by example and let everyone know that I made my online purchase for someone else just now. I sent a Ghirardelli chocolate gift basket, quite possibly the best chocolate in the world - a chocolate so good it was probably given to us by Aliens millennia ago. The person(s) I sent it to I have never met, but we've chatted via email over common web design interests. I'll let you know what, if any, reaction I get.
So, there you go. It's pretty easy,,,and I feel really good about it. I've seen Cassie cheer up maybe hundreds of Disney Cast Members merely by engaging them, asking for their autograph and giving them a few miinutes, at least, to feel like a star. It's a great thing to watch. And while I am unlikely to ask the local townsfolk for their autographs, I don't think I'm ready to give up that feeling of seeing someone hit with "Disney Magic" and so I'm going to explore similar options. A gift-giving-just-because holiday seems like a good start.
Any other suggestions would be warmly welcome! Maybe it would make a good book.
I'm starting a new national holiday which I'm (cleverly) naming National Online Shopping For Someone Else Day. If you're one step ahead of me you know that the acronym for that is NOSFSED which is absolutely horrible so the holiday will likely never be known by that.
I was going to pick out a day to observe NOSFSED National Online Shopping For Someone Else Day but then I realized that an online shopping day should be on a day (night) when not much else is going on. So I decided to pick the third Wednesday in May.
The basic idea of National Online Shopping For Someone Else Day is to do something totally random and unexpected and cool for someone else. This could be for someone you know well, like a parent or sibling or co-worker, or it could be for someone you don't know as well, like your boss or local convenience store clerk or cheese merchant, or it could be for someone you don't know at all such as, well, I can't say because it would be someone you don't know at all.
That's basically it. Some of you will want even more details, so I've put together a small FAQ below:
1. Do I HAVE to shop online?
Well, no, I suppose not I won't be checking or anything. But you should shop online for a few years at least to help out the cause. We're just getting started here.
2. Okay, well who do you suggest I send something to?
That's a great question even if it ended in a preposition. I think you already know the answer. In fact, I bet as soon as you read the first few sentences here someone's name popped into your head.
3. No, really, no one popped in there.
That's not actually a question, but if you're still looking for ideas think of someone who might need a pick-me-up. You can even do this anonymously if you'd like, although since it's online shopping you would probably have to send the gift to yourself and then give it to the person in a secret, anonymous, ninja-like way.
4. How much do I have to spend?
I wasn't even going to address this until you brought it up. The point here is to spread a little unexpected joy. It's entirely up to you to decide how much you want to spend. You don't have to send something large to someone to brighten their day and make them feel special.
5. Okay, I think I know someone who I'd like to get something for. Where should I shop?
Where you choose to shop is entirely your choice. I personally love Amazon, iTunes, 1-800-Flowers, and Harry & David. Oh, and of course Disney and Ghirardelli.
I think that about wraps it up. If you have any other questions email me at nosfsed@carlschaad.com. Media inquiries can be made at mediainquiries@carlschaad.com. If you participate let me know how it goes. And have fun out there!
Note: Blog Hero, Blog Hero Enterprises, Blog Hero LLC, Inc., and Blog Hero's legal team (Sven) receive no kickbacks from Amazon, iTunes or any of the other merchants mentioned in today's post. But if they would like to send kickbacks that would be more than acceptable. Also note that while participating in the National Online Shopping For Someone Else Day is encouraged, the Blog Hero respectively requests that you not purchase gifts for the Blog Hero, or Sven, or anyone on the enormous Blog Hero staff. Sven says he has enough chocolate to last at least until Thanksgiving and he just got back from Disney.
That's a line from a Monty Python movie, of course. I mean, I'm not saying that cheese makers are NOT blessed; I'm sure some of them are very nice people and devout and deserving of a good blessing.
I thought of that line when I read this article which I'm terribly disappointed that no one sent me before I saw it. "Snack or holy symbol?" Well I guess it's only been online for an hour, but I know there are a few Alert Readers in Houston that may have heard about this before it broke on the web.
Basically, if you want the short version instead of reading the article, youth paster Steve Cragg of Memorial Drive United Methodist found a Cheeto that looks like Jesus praying. Well he says that. I'm not convinced it looks like that. You can watch the video here.
That's it. I mean, that's the short version. I could go on to explain that they are calling the Cheeto Jesus "Cheesus," which is humorous but hopefully not sacrilegious. The youth paster is quoted as saying that God doesn't make Cheetos in the shape of Jesus - but I'm not so sure. I'd like to think that somehow - for whatever miraculous reason - God is messing around with our packaged snack food. But who can say?
 This is the conclusion of the story of my greatest Christmas present ever, which should be depicted at right if my finely-honed HTML skills haven't failed me. Much to my surprise, Christmas morning I received a very cool print-out of what my Christmas present would look like - a personalized license plate - as the plate was on order and we weren't sure if the department of motor and super-hero vehicles would be able to deliver. They came through just recently, and I think it's fantastic. I've never had a personalized plate before, although I always read with envy things like "BOVINE2" and "IMAGDMN", whatever those mean.
Now, I know there's a vowel missing in the plate above. This is because Pennsylvania only allows 7 characters. This doesn't bother me much, as it actually makes people think a little bit, and Jesse has cleverly suggested I get a custom license plate frame made from Cafe Press. I think I'll do that. Then, no doubt, everyone in town will be coming to the website. (Pause for laughter.)
If you wanted to weigh in on your favorite gifts over the years, be they Christmas or some other event, visit here.
Vice President Dick Cheney is alive! (No really - I saw him!)*
*I couldn't resist. I never see, hear or read anything about him, and was shocked to see him sitting behind the President. Oh I know, you're thinking - "That's obviously a Disney Animatronic!" I suppose you could you be right, although if so Disney has that clapping thing down cold.
Caption: A researcher holds a new contact lens with circuits. Credit: University of Washington A first step towards super vision - and hopefully heat vision - has been created by engineers at the University of Washington. They've taken a flexible, biologically safe contact lens and imprinted electronic circuit and lights on it which when worn could superimpose a digital display over what the wearer would normally see.
The applications of such a device are huge. Finally, human beings would be able to watch Desperate Housewives no matter where they were. Men could see football every waking (eye-opened) moment. It's really Brave New World type stuff. "I'm sorry, what did you say honey? My contacts got stuck on ESPN again..."
Here's a link to a more in-depth announcement via EurekAlert, which talks about how the technology has been tested. (Hint, it hasn't been tested on humans or mice.) If you had to pick one animal to accidentally give heat vision to, which would it be?
That's a quote from this Reuters article that discusses the results of an extensive clown study.
Researchers from the University of Sheffield, who were studying how to improve the decor of hospital children's wards, discovered that all 250 patients (between four and 16) actually said they disliked the use of clowns. The older kids found them scary.
Can this be? Or was the study secretly founded by the Association Against Clowns and Clowning Around? Do YOU like clowns?
(Today's post in no way should be construed as anti-clown, and if you're a clown I'm sure you're very nice and amusing and not the least bit scary.)
It's come to my attention that I may have reported something inaccurately in a previous entry. Being the stalwart bastion* of truth and accurate reporting that I am** I feel compelled to set the record straight.
Previously, I mentioned that Cassie took a blow to the head which disqualified her TKD opponent, netting her the First Place Trophy. This may have given an incomplete view of her bone-crushing, death-dealing TKD powers as it sounds like she walked in off the street, got whacked in the head and won. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. She is, in fact, a human dynamo not unlike a combination of Batman and the Incredible Hulk. Except she isn't green. And, doesn't have a really cool car like the Batmobile.
What actually happened is that Cassie and this Unnamed Boy who we'll call U.B. were locked in a fierce battle, exchanging blows and points as the clock wound down. As the whistle was blown (or maybe it was a gun being fired) the points were tallied and Cassie and U.B. were tied. So there had to be a sudden death match. These things are always called sudden death as it's a Tae Kwan Do rule.
It was during this sudden death match that Cassie cleverly placed her head in harm's way in order to win the match. It was a brave gesture - heads are very valuable and hard to re-grow. U.B., when he realized what he had done, rent his garments and wailed most loudly.
I'm glad that's cleared up.
*Okay, I've always wanted to be a stalwart bastion of something.
**Stop that snickering.
George Clooney, the famous actor who - unfortunately - often resorts to filming commercials for overseas multinational corporations in order to "make a living" has an interesting dilemma.
Apparently actress Michelle Pfeiffer has a bet with George that he will never get married, and there's $100,000 riding on it.
Now, I'm going to go a little "outside of the box" here but if George is in need of some cash it would only stand to reason that he find a nice wife and settle down, and collect on his $100,000 wedding gift. While sipping his Nespresso.
 Source: CelebrityHomePhotos.com (Who knew?) Some news sources, maybe even credible ones, are reporting that actor Tom Cruise is spending TEN MILLION DOLLARS on... do you want to guess? What? No, not a home, but that's a good guess. A private island? Nope. AccuWeather? Way off. No, Tom Cruise is reportedly spending TEN MILLION DOLLARS to build a bunker under his home to protect himself and his family from alien invasion.
I don't even know where to begin. I guess I'll start with Tom Cruise's spokesperson, who said "Tom can neither confirm nor deny that the evil alien overlord Xenu is heading to Earth right now and planning to use his above-ground-home-destroying space ray on Colorado." Okay I made that up. Actually he denied the whole thing, all the while glancing furtively at the sky.
Now, I don't know a lot about the evil alien overload Xenu and his plans to destroy all of our houses (built above ground) with an above-ground-home-destroying space ray, but I really have to wonder. If you're coming from space to earth, are you really going to go to Tom Cruise's house? And if you do, are you going to be content with searching around the place, looking in a few closets, and then throwing up your hands. "He's not home!" And then leave and go destroy George Clooney's house?
I'm sure if any bulldozers show up at the Cruise Compound (pictured at right) we'll all know about it. And, if an evil alien ruler shows up and starts destroying houses built above ground with an above-ground-home-destroying space ray, well, Anderson Cooper will no doubt be there.
Article from This Is London Until Xenu Shows Up and Blasts It
What happens in a person's life that would make them do something like this?
The AP is reporting that God has apparently responded to the lawsuit filed by State Sen. Ernie Chambers. I had blogged about this here, and you can find the AP article on God's response here, complete with that bizarre AP photo of Sen. Chambers in front of the holy fan.
Two things of note (I mean, BESIDES the fact that God is now personally responding to lawsuits):
1. The AP article now discusses Sen. Chambers faith, that being "a self-proclaimed agnostic." That's interesting, because there's a very significant difference between "agnostic" and "atheist" (or "nontheist").
2. The person who discovered God's response is named "John Friend." I mean, really. John Friend.
I heard this on the radio while (ironically) driving home and my first thought was, "Only 72 hours?" That seems odd. If you divide 72 hours by 365 days you get something like .2 hours a day, which is 12 minutes. Assuming you're driving to and from some place, that's an average of an extra 6 minutes a trip. That doesn't seem like much.
Leave a comment with my math error :)
Alert Reader Wendy points me to this article that may document the opening salvo of an alien attack: Mystery illness strikes after meteorite hits Peruvian village.
Apparently a meteorite crashed in all its fiery glory in souther Peru, and then villagers developed a mysterious illness. Residents have complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor." Of course, a synonym for strange is "alien," so what we have here is an illness caused by an "alien odor." Seven policemen were among those who were sickened.
No word on what was found in the meteorite crater, although "boiling water started coming out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby." No word of an alien space ship or little smelly aliens or anything like that.
Amateur astronomers are pretty sure the meteorite came from the constellation Big Boötes, which as we all know is the site of the alien UFO Universe Freeway Entrance.
(Alert: It's apparently "Annoying News Day" today.)
An Australian couple is suing their doctor for $400,000 because their IVF procedure produced twins instead of one child. $400,000 is the approximate cost of raising the bonus unwanted child, including the cost of private school. Of course, stopping at just private school is ridiculous. I hope college tuition and some job training is thrown in there as well, and maybe some sort of internship to Disney World.
Lest you think this completely insane, and haven't yet read the article, keep in mind that the pregnant woman "suffered nausea during her pregnancy." So, there you go.
I should also point out that this is a lesbian couple, although I'm sure that has nothing to do with anything. (For those of you who don't end up reading the article but are going to share the news at the dinner table tonight.)
"He's seeking a permanent injunction against the Almighty."
Nebraska state senator sues God
Sen. Ernie Chambers | Wikipedia
Break into small groups and discuss: Can an atheist sue God? Does that make much sense?
UPDATE: What is with this AP Photo? Is that a fan behind him? It's obviously supposed to look like a halo or something. Is this the AP being clever, or just annoying?
Copyright clever AP, all annoyance reserved.
In an amazing show of forgiveness and compassion, the Amish community that lost five girls last year in a shooting has donated an unspecified amount to the widow of the killer.
Milk truck driver Charles Carl Roberts seized an Amish school building in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, tied up the children and started shooting. He killed five children and wounded five before turning the gun on himself.
The Nickel Mines Accountability Committee (set up to handle the more than $4 million dollars of donations that have poured in from around the world) issued a statement on behalf of the community, which read in part:
"Many from Nickel Mines have pointed out that forgiveness is a journey, that you need help from your community of faith and from God ... to make and hold on to a decision not to become a hostage to hostility.
Forgiveness of this magnitude is difficult to imagine. We live in a world which is very much me-centered, where the slightest affront, delay, botched fast food order, is nurtured until it blossoms into hate or anger. If this community can not only forgive but reach out in love after what they've been through then it gives me hope that I practice a little more grace in my day-to-day life.
MSNBC.com: Amish donate cash to school gunman's widow
Hurricane Katrina, courtesy NOAA
This AFP article via Google reports that the European Conference on Severe Storms has introduced findings that spraying microscopic (i.e very small) dust into hurricanes could reduce their impact. In fact, the study looked specifically at Katrina and concluded that this method could have spared New Orleans "from the devastating power" of Katrina, had it been used.
The AFP article discusses the science behind the method. It's very technical, and in case that sort of thing bores you here's a quick paraphrase: The extremely tiny dust particles (ETDP) are dropped into the storm where they seek out water droplets (WD). Once they've found these water droplets, they eat them, in a process known as Dusteatstwaterdroplettism. It's a very new science - you can't even find anything on Wikipedia about that yet. Once the dust eats the water it gets fat and heavy and falls to the bottom of the ocean.
My questions is - now that we know how to stop hurricanes, how long after the next storm hits before the lawsuits start to fly? And really, how long has the government known about this and tried to keep it quiet? Let's say a category 5 storm hits Miami (sorry Miami, nothing personal) and all sorts of Hardee's and Taco Bells and Burger Kings are flattened. Do they have a legal case? Break into small groups and discuss. Bonus question: Who will be the first to file a suit?
Today's the sixth anniversary, of course, and even after six years I still get that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when I think about it. I have images of the second tower hit, the fires, the buildings falling, people jumping out - all indelibly etched in my mind. I generally have a poor memory for those sorts of things but that day was just unbelievable.
The one thing that time has done is to make the event more distant. I think of it less often, in general - only when there's something in the news or it's brought up in conversation of there's an anniversary like today. The memories don't feel less powerful; I just visit them less often.
Which is why I'm grateful for anniversaries. They give you occasion to remember and reflect, things you would otherwise not do because of the tyranny of the urgent, and the passage of time. I'm also grateful for posts like this one from Jim Hill: What was it like to be at Disneyland and/or Walt Disney World six years ago today?. Hill has a number of first-hand accounts of how the park dealt with the attack and what people experienced that day. It's really fascinating to me, as a Disney fan but also as American who collectively experienced the events 9/11. Disney thought that they might be hit next, and so getting everyone out of the parks without causing a panic was critical. It sounds like they did an amazing job.
Did you know NOAA had a Corps Song? I bet you didn't know that. But, now that you DO know that, you're just itching to sing it, share it, and download it to put in all of your video mashups.
"We survey the oceans
And we track storms in the air"
Read (and memorize!) the lyrics here, and download the mp3 files. There's an instrumental version for all of your karaoke monsters out there (oh, you know who you are...)
Filed under: NOAA has a theme song? No, really?
Update: They have a flag too! How cool is that?
I wonder if they have any t-shirts, or maybe an official bird. You can purchase a flag if you really want one, although they don't say how much they are. If you actually call the number let me know how much they are, and ask if they have t-shirts too.
If a school bus is stolen it's not really news...but when 17 are stolen? That sounds like news to me. I'm curious if you've already heard about this story - feel free to leave a comment either way, and if you do add whether you live near Houston or not.
HKOU has the story here: School bus thefts raise security concerns
There are blogs out there talking about school buses, homeland security and 9/11, and you hate to see those sorts of things talked about in the same post. But there doesn't seem to be much mainstream coverage of this. The above article suggests that the buses have been driven to Mexico and that's that. Hopefully, that's all there is to it.
Update: Interesting, but completely unrelated? Bin Laden Wants 'Caravan' of Martyrs
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