Shorties and the Rainbow

Hot Time in the Big City, um, I Meant Glacier: China is worried about global warming, but maybe not as much as Canada, eh?

Don’t Fix what you can Replace for a Few Million Dollars More: follow up on low-income rental housing in New Orleans.

More Americans Expect Rain of Fire and Brimstone than Alien Invasion: Specifically, in 2007, 60% think there will be a terrorist attack in the United States, 70% think global warming will get worse, 29% think we will actually get our troops home, 35% expect reinstatement of the draft, 35% predict a cure for “cancer”, 19% think we will find extraterrestrial life, and 25% think Jesus will return. Yes, that’s right, one in four Americans expects the events described in Revelation to start happening in 2007. Look around you; one in four thinks the world ends before the ball drops in New York again. Somehow, I don’t consider that a strategy for dealing with global warming.

Now with 27% Less Agonizing, Eating Holes In Your Brain Death: Genetically engineered cows may resist Mad Cow Disease. No word on whether they can transmit it to unwitting humans. Now tell me something; is it really easier to genetically modify every cow on the planet than to just stop feeding them bits of ground up old sick cows? I mean, really?

We don’t need no steenking Federal help: A peculiar Katrina after-effect. “Frustrated by poor federal cooperation, U.S. states and cities are building their own network of intelligence centers led by police to help detect and disrupt terrorist plots.” ‘Nuff Said.

Numbers Only Lie When They Are Misused: Ezra Klein on Universal Healthcare.

Fly in Wall Street’s Ointment? Maybe: two items on probably slowing consumer spending and a potentially slowing economy.

And finally, Do the Right Thing: I have been harping for years about studies that show teenagers’ brains just aren’t functioning early in the morning, pointing out how dumb it is to make them attend classes at 7 or 8 AM and then letting them loose by 1 or 2 PM so they can roam town virtually unsupervised until Mom and/or Dad get home at 5 or 7 PM. It turns out a legislative commitee agrees with me! But not because it will improve academic performance. No, because they think it will reduce traffic accidents! The great irony is that the insurance industry will probably be the driving force behind getting high school hours set to reasonable times. It’s about time.