Summer thoughts, July 2014

40% of households have given up their landline phones. Will you? Your call.

There’s now a wristband that lets parents track kids, & listen to what they’re saying. It used the same technology used to monitor criminals released on bond or parole. Hmmm….

Louis Zamperini has died. He was an outstanding athlete and Olympic runner.  During World War II his plane crashed in the Pacific and he survived 47 days on a raft in the ocean, only to be picked up by a Japanese ship.  He then spent 2 years in a Japanese POW camp.  Local author Laura Hillenbrand wrote about him in her outstanding book, “Unbroken”.  Soon to be a movie.

VA prosecutors have coerced a non-sex crime defendant into a vasectomy in exchange for a lighter sentence. Forced sterilization. Thought their eugenics crusade was over, eh?

Now that Hobby Lobby doesn’t have to provide birth control to its employees, will they provide a sensational paid parental leave policy?

Montgomery County MD beauty salons can now apply for a beer and wine license. Talk about buzz cuts!

In the Hobby Lobby case the Supreme Court has ruled that if your boss doesn’t believe in birth control, your health plan doesn’t have to cover it. What about the other things he doesn’t he believe in?

It’s been found that a Nova Scotia fungus helps antibiotics kill bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. Yay for the fungus among us.

The Big Apple is once again the home of the Big Soda. NYC’s health board’s ban on soda size has been overturned by a NY appeals court.

Chester Nez, the last of the WWII Navajo code talkers, has died.  Based on the Navajo language, Nez helped develop the only modern war code that was never broken.  It was crucial to winning the war.  Even other Navajos couldn’t break it.

Saying that teacher tenure keeps bad teachers in the classroom, & that it’s usually the poor kids who get the bad teachers, an LA judge has struck down California’s teacher tenure laws.

With a computer chip in his brain, a paralyzed man has moved his hand with his mind. Like The Music Man’s “think system” only much better.

65 yrs ago Alan Turing said the defining moment in artificial intelligence would be when a machine can convince humans that IT is human. A computer has now done it.

To scare kids away from al-Queda, the CIA made Osama Bin Laden action figures that morphed into demons. I’ll trade ya a Darth Vader for a…

Wanna test drive a chicken? You can rent chickens and a coop from RentaCoop. Yes, you too can have Princess Lay-ah come visit.

“Warp speed” is faster than the speed of light, a supposed impossibility.Yet NASA is now working on creating warp speed. Holy Star Trek!

TC Williams h.s. guys have been charged with taking pictures up teachers’ dresses. Confronted, they skirted the issue. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/tc-williams-students-suspected-of-taking-upskirt-photos-of-teachers/2014/06/17/f9f14960-f58f-11e3-a606-946fd632f9f1_story.html?wpisrc=nl_buzz

Interviewing for a sales job, Danielle Tate was asked if she was tough enough. As an intern, she replied, she shaved inmates’ groins. She got the job.

Starbucks will begin offering tuition reimbursement to its employees, allowing them to complete their bachelor’s degree. Venti cum latte?

Eric Cantor became the first House majority leader to lose a primary since the post was created in the 19th century.  Virginia’s influence in Congress took another big hit when Eric Cantor lost his primary. He, and the retiring Northern Virginia Congressmen Frank Wolf and Jim Moran, all had seniority and clout.

A Japanese man says that his wife is divorcing him because he doesn’t like the Disney movie “Frozen”. That’s cold.

There are now plans to use the moon as off-planet storage for Earth treasures. First up? The Torah, Veda and the I Ching. Later, human DNA.  Can’t wait to clean out my garage and move the stuff to the moon.

The analysis of King Richard III’s skeleton shows that he was NOT a hunchback, but had scoliosis. See how history can become twisted.