February 2012
107 posts
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Good day, bad day: February 29
GOOD DAY FOR:
Frazzled travelers: Virgin Atlantic hires a “whisper coach” to teach flight crews how to keep their voices low enough to provide ”the most comfortable experience possible for our passengers.” [TIME]
Diplomacy: The U.S. State Department announces that poverty-stricken rogue state North Korea has agreed to stop its nuclear activities in exchange for food aid....
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“You’re going to have to figure out how to live your own miserable life. …...”
– Newt Gingrich on what the United States should tell Afghanistan. (via officialssay)
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“Not as closely as some of the most ardent fans. But I have some great friends...”
– Mitt Romney, when an AP reporter asked him if he follows NASCAR. Mitt Romney’s 9 worst clueless-rich-man gaffes
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One in five kids in America lives in poverty →
How can we fix this? Today, The Week’s newest columnist, Bill Frist, gives three suggestions. But we want to know what you think. Tweet your thoughts @TheWeek using the hashtag #ChildPoverty, or participate in the conversation on Facebook.
Tomorrow we’ll pull all the best responses together in one post. We can’t wait to read what you have to say.
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Limb-lengthening: The new plastic surgery craze →
Though the painful surgery was once reserved for people with dwarfism and children with one leg longer than the other, an increasing number of (mostly) men of just-below-average height are seeking it out for purely cosmetic reasons. Only a few American doctors perform this procedure, which costs about $85,000 in the U.S.
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Why Astronauts Crave Tobasco Sauce →
discoverynews:
Part of the reason may be that after arriving in space, astronauts lose their sense of smell, which largely governs the pleasurable taste of food. An example of this is coffee. “If you hold your nose and sip your coffee, you’re getting just a bitter liquid,” says Jean Hunter, a food engineer at Cornell University.
keep reading
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10 things you need to know today →
1. GINGRICH ATTACKS OBAMA FOR AFGHANISTAN APOLOGY GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich criticized President Obama for apologizing to the Afghan government over the burning of Muslim holy books at a U.S. military base outside Kabul. Gingrich said the president “surrendered” in a situation that has been “blown into a huge incident by various fanatics in Afghanistan.”...
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Faster-than-light neutrino results were due to a... →
And not just any mistake. A LOOSE CABLE.
“There was a good reason the measurements and reality weren’t lining up: a loose fiber optic cable was causing one of the atomic clocks used to time the neutrinos’ flight to produce spurious results.”
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'Pepper Spray Cop' Suit Filed - NPR →
brooklynmutt:
Some of those Occupy protesters who famously got face fulls of pepper spray last November on the campus of University of California Davis have now filed suit in federal court.
They allege “the university used excessive force to break up the demonstration,” The Sacramento Bee writes. “The Occupy UC Davis students were sprayed as they sat on the ground.”
The American Civil...
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“The only game changers in tonight’s debate will come on perceived gaffes...”
– Ed Morrissey, Wednesday’s season finale of American Political Gladiators
An updated list of journalists killed covering the... →
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“The unholy alliance of the bishops and the GOP threatens the party’s...”
– Robert Shrum, in his latest column