09 Nov 2005
Glued to toilet, man sues Home Depot

Ouch!

Home Depot was sued by a shopper from a Colorado store who claims he got stuck to a restroom toilet seat because a prankster had smeared it with glue.

(link) [CNN]

Update: Is there more to this tail than meets the butt? See the writebacks for details (and thanks, Asahel).

00:00 /Humor | 3 comments | permanent link

Mountains of Corn and a Sea of Farm Subsidies

Good summary of the contradictions and paradoxes of agricultural subsidies. However, it neglected to mention two factors that will be huge when these payments to farmers go the way of the dodo: the political fallout will be immense, as most of the farm states are the reddest of the red Republican strongholds. And the impact on foreign "aid in kind" (food) shipments will be enormous as well: feeding sub-Saharan famines with cheap, subsidized grain will simply no longer be possible, and the taxpayers will end up footing a far more visible foreign aid bill.

This season's bumper crop of corn is too much of a good thing, underscoring the paradox at the heart of the government farm subsidy program.

(link) [NYT > Home Page]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

Evolutionists Are Wrong!

I'm unsure how the science education standards manuals actually work, but my guess is that they were written specifically to be incorporated into various state edicts describing science teaching, similar to building codes.

In that case, this strikes me as substantially similar to the case building codes. You can't copyright a law, or the law becomes meaningless - available only to those who can pay for it, while applying to all. And even though I, like the author of the Wired article and the most of the members of the scientific community, agree with the goals in this case, for consistency's sake I must disagree with using copyright as a club to achieve them.

Two scientific organizations use copyright law to punish Kansas schools for teaching 'intelligent design.' If anyone else pulled this, copyright activists would be going ape. Commentary by Jennifer Granick.

(link) [Wired News]

00:00 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link