I just happened to notice that the 76th Annual Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee is on ESPN 2 right at the moment. yeah — they are even doing rolling color commentary — and it’s LIVE. for every Mike Tyson in the world, I’m glad to see there are people spelling archaic words on a major cable sports channel.
update: i just saw the opening of this program on a replay — and the US Secretary of Education just asked for “God to Bless each and every one of you…” or some such. The funny ha-ha? The kid who won was of Indian decent — and his parents were too. They might worship God, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
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There has been a story about cell-phone related deaths floating around. This estimation that 2,600 people died last year in cell-phone related car accidents comes from a mathematical model from the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. Their summary of the report can be found here.
It seems to me that we, as a people are more terrible than the most terrible terrorist. Our culture is own terrorism. We live sedentary lives, we eat until we die, we smoke too much, we war against drugs while we advise that everyone “have a designated driver” (btw, alcohol caused 12,000+ deaths last year in car accidents). Our government speaks of peace in the same breath that they threaten war. Jail journalists that leak information, but would you mind printing this threat to Sadaam? Thanks.
Sheesh. I can’t help but think that the same moral ambiguity that started the anti-slavery abolotionist movement in the 1800′s is being manifested now. A nation, birthed in the ideas of freedom allowed for the continuance of slaver. How do we, a nation that prides itself on freedom, cope with being so contradictory — not only to other countries, but to ourselves?
update: this just in! eat up, fatties! Meanwhile, when will White Castle make soy-burgers?
Kelly and I have quite a few driveway moments. NPR is great.
Finally, I’d like to give a shout out to Jessica for chipping in some of her no-doubt precious time to the Distributed Proofreading project. She did five pages yesterday! “It’s fun!” she said, I think.
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According to this article from the BBC, Ridley Scott says that “He’s a replicant”. Probably just a flippant answer, but good for the story nontheless.
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