SNIPPETS

JANUARY 22,  2010

LONDON (Reuters) - International hotel chain Holiday Inn is offering a trial human bed-warming service at three hotels in Britain this month.  If requested, a willing staff-member at two of the chain's London hotels and one in the northern English city of Manchester will dress in an all-in-one fleece sleeper suit before slipping between the sheets.  "The new Holiday Inn bed warmers service is a bit like having a giant hot water bottle in your bed," Holiday Inn spokeswoman Jane Bednall said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

Question:  Does the bed warmer remain once the guest gets in?

JANUARY 21,  2010

SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich., Dec. 31 (UPI) -- A Michigan university has released its 34th annual list of words and phrases ripe for banishment from the English language, including "green" and "maverick."  "Green" -- including variations "going green," "building green," "greening," "green technology" and others -- received the most nominations this year, the school said.  Two additional environmentally themed entries, "carbon footprint" and "carbon offsetting," also made the list.

Somehow, that list makes me optimistic.

JANUARY 20,  2010

BALTIMORE, Jan. 19 (UPI) -- An unknown person who has been leaving cognac at Edgar Allen Poe's original Baltimore grave site for decades failed to show up this year, a curator said.  Jeff Jerome, curator of the Edgar Allan Poe House, said the unknown "Poe Toaster" has been leaving roses and a bottle of cognac at the poet and author's original grave site on his Jan. 19 birthday every year since 1949, but a crowd of about 30 spectators was disappointed when the mystery man did not show up at his usual time, between midnight and 5:30 a.m., The Baltimore Sun reported Tuesday.

Maybe he was so angry that he went to vote in Massachusetts.

JANUARY 19,  2010

From AFP:  A musical version of Barack Obama's rise to the White House has opened in Frankfurt, with the 'president' thrilling audiences with a rousing chorus of "Yes We Can" in a country still charmed by his message of hope...Obama underscored his trademark theme with a chorus of "Yes We Can" and sang a lover's duet with his wife Michelle in a show producers hope to take one day to the United States.

Then there's the sequel:  "Obama - the Forced Retirement"

JANUARY 18,  2010

SAN DIEGO, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- A California middle school was put on lock-down while authorities responded to a call about the safety of a student's science project, officials said.  Students at Millennial Tech Magnet Middle School in San Diego were evacuated after the 11-year-old student brought his project to school Friday, and parents were contacted and told they could pick up their children to take them home, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.  The project, which the student made in his family's garage, was a motion-detector device, made of a Gatorade bottle, wires, and electrical components. There was no substance in the bottle, San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokesman Maurice Luque said.

Maybe we should focus on guys who get on airliners with strange things taped to their undies.

JANUARY 17,  2010

NAPERVILLE, Ill., Jan. 16 (UPI) -- A Chicago man who tried to use a fake credit card with his name misspelled by one letter has been sentenced to 27 months in prison, officials said. Gregory Butler pleaded guilty this week in DuPage County Circuit Court to possessing a counterfeit credit card, the Chicago Tribune reported Saturday.

A sentence of 27 months for one letter wrong?  I could understand that for two letters, but where is the understanding, the recognition of what a poor education can do, the credit for a man who almost spelled his name right?  What is this about?  Standards?

JANUARY 16,  2010

From The Times of London:  A floor collapsed beneath a group of about 20 members of Weight Watchers as they gathered to compare how many pounds they had shed over Christmas.  Members of the weight-loss club were lining up to compare readings on the scales when they heard a bang as the floor came away from the walls of their meeting room in Växjö in southern Sweden.

It's Sweden.  They'll blame Bush.

JANUARY 15,  2010

BOSTON -- Duty calls for an East Boston resident.  Someone is getting called for jury duty...but it's no human.  A family is trying to figure out how their pet cat was summonsed for jury duty.

It was probably done by the same people who run elections up there in Massachusetts.  We'd better watch carefully on Tuesday.

JANUARY 14,  2010

From The New York Times:  Americans, at least as a group, may have reached their peak of obesity, according to data the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Wednesday.  The numbers indicate that obesity rates have remained constant for at least five years among men and for closer to 10 years among women and children — long enough for experts to say the percentage of very overweight people has leveled off.

There's still a lot of effort to be made, but contrast this story with the constant global-warming-style panic announcements we've had on the subject in the last year or two.