Archive for February 28, 2010
Remember How the GOP Cheered When Chicago Lost Its Olympic Bid?
Speaking of USA Hockey, remember last year, when Chicago lost its bid to host the 2016 Olympics and the GOP cheered? That said, I hope they keep their hypocritical pie holes shut about what a great job our kids did in Vancouver this year. They care about the Olympics — or not — only if and when it helps them politically.
Condolences to USA Hockey
Great, great game. I know it hurts but you have nothing to be ashamed of!
Break Time — Almost Microscopic Origami
Look at these amazing, tiny origami figures folded by Mui-Ling Teh. “Teh says that she creates these small creatures to calm down and relax, but most people would believe that the opposite will happen.” Ah, yeah.
Here’s a sample. More photos via the link above.
Love looking at it but folding it would drive me insane.
Ug99 – A Fungus That Could Change the World
P. graminis, or “Ug99,” is a fungus that destroys wheat plants It:
causes stem rust, a calamitous disease of wheat. Its spores alight on a wheat leaf, then work their way into the flesh of the plant and hijack its metabolism, siphoning off nutrients that would otherwise fatten the grains. The pathogen makes its presence known to humans through crimson pustules on the plant’s stems and leaves. When those pustules burst, millions of spores flare out in search of fresh hosts. The ravaged plant then withers and dies, its grains shriveled into useless pebbles.
Indeed, 90 percent of the world’s wheat has little or no protection against the Ug99 race of P. graminis. If nothing is done to slow the pathogen, famines could soon become the norm — from the Red Sea to the Mongolian steppe — as Ug99 annihilates a crop that provides a third of our calories.
The pathogen has already been detected in Iran and may now be headed for South Asia’s most important breadbasket, the Punjab, which nourishes hundreds of millions of Indians and Pakistanis. What’s more, Ug99 could easily make the transoceanic leap to the United States. All it would take is for a single spore, barely bigger than a red blood cell, to latch onto the shirt of an oblivious traveler.
“If this stuff gets into the Western Hemisphere,” Steffenson says, “God help us.”
So, after the billions of dollars and countless lives we’ve lost fighting each other over the centuries, a little ol’ fungus might do us in? There’s a lesson in there.
You Don’t Have to Know What You’re Talking About to Puntitize on Fox
Uber neo-con Bill Kristol was on Fox “News” Sunday this morning to talk about the “Health Care Summit.” Host Chris Wallace let him take part in the discussion even though Kristol admitted he didn’t watch it.
That’s how it is when it’s all about propaganda and spin.
(And WTF? Kristol has literally spent his entire life talking about which direction the country should go in so why the hell didn’t he watch it?)
