Volume 12, Number 25, July 1, 2007 

     Greetings, and thanks for joining me for another week. Starting us off are a few news stories you may have missed. First, it’s good to see actor Gary Coleman back on TV even if it’s in an ad. However, one thing that caught my eye was the interest rates being charged. If you check the fine print or the website, Cashcall.com (through the First Bank of Delaware [shame on them!]) offers the following rates: a $1,075 loan will run the victim, uh borrower 89 percent interest (96.78 APR), and a $2,600 loan will run 96 percent rate (99.25 APR). I honestly (no pun intended) thought such rates would be illegal. Of course, if your credit is good, you could apply for a $5,075 loan for only 59 percent (of course, according to the site, “The lowest rates and higher loan products are reserved for customers with excellent credit.” Sounds like a excellent reason to keep your credit good!) By the way, I thought there were laws about usury!

     Next, what’s in a name? London’s Daily Mail carried the following Bit of some interest (to someone…somewhere…maybe…). A six-week-old baby has been given 25 middle names honoring the world's greatest ever boxers. The baby's full name is Autumn Sullivan Corbett Fitzsimmons Jeffries Hart Burns Johnson Willard Dempsey Tunney Schmeling Sharkey Carnera Baer Braddock Louis Charles Walcott Marciano Patterson Johansson Liston Clay Frazier Foreman Brown. I bet she’ll grow up to be quite a knockout! (I do have to wonder how a couple of those names got in there… and where’s Tyson?)

     Finally, last week, I mentioned one of Popular Science magazine’s worst science jobs. Another from the list is a Forensic Entomologist. Because of the success of such television shows as "CSI," the forensics field has undergone an exciting, romantic overhaul in the eyes of the public. But don't be fooled, forensic entomology is not for the faint of heart, the squeamish, nor the insectophobic. These scientists spend their days (and nights, I would imagine in some cases) in the florescent light of the city or county morgue analyzing bugs on decaying corpses. They check maggots, larvae, blowflies and anything that breeds off of decaying human flesh in order to determine the "postmortem interval," or the gap between the time of death and time of the body's discovery. Sounds like fun.

     From “This is True,” British Member of Parliament Mike Penning claims the reason military food is so bad is because it's worse than dog food. He says his research shows the military spends about $3.00) per day on food for troops, but at least $5.25 per day on food for military dogs. Prison food averages $3.75 a day, and a school lunch averages $3.10). A Ministry of Defense spokesman disputed the figures, noting the dog food doesn't cost that much. I would like to see such a study done here in the US.

     In Alaska, there are certain bears (gang members?) hassling people, so some new measures were taken. The state Department of Fish and Game recently gave several usual-suspect bears makeovers using ordinary hair dye in bright colors (yellow, green, orange, blue) to make it easier for people to identify the specific bears that are threatening them (does that mean we will get to see them on Maury?). Environmentalists were critical, objecting to turning pristine wilderness into a gaudy, "punk"-colored park. Animal-rights activists, too, suggested that colored bears might find socializing difficult (but a bear researcher discounted that fear, based on a previous, similar project). Hey, it hasn’t stopped humans…. (Anchorage Daily News)

     I guess anything can be used as a weapon. Jeffrey Turpin, 41, was arrested in Wytheville, Va., for malicious wounding of a woman after chasing her across two farms on a tractor. According to a witness, when the woman fell, Turpin dropped the tractor's bucket to the ground and rolled it over her, breaking her leg. Maybe it is time we start a movement to ban tractors! (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

      It’s been a slow news week, so here’s a little Bit (about a lot) from Ananova - A guest stunned hotel staff by shoveling in 15 fried breakfasts in one sitting. Businessman Barry Bradley, 47, paid about $15 for the 'all you can eat' grease mountain, which took more him than three hours to reach a stated state. He gobbled up at least 30 sausages, 20 rashers of bacon, 15 fried eggs and three tins of beans. He even topped it off with six bowls of cereal at the Premier Travel Inn in Tonbridge, Kent. A waitress said: "We couldn't believe it - he looked like he was never going to stop." Yeah, I am sure the inn lost money on him, but when people like the ever-effervescent Miss Jessica come in, they make a handsome profit.

     Another example of how to define chutzpah. While Wal-Mart is known for dropping its prices, one man took the ad campaign seriously when he dropped the price of a plasma television from $984 to $4.88. According to police reports, the alleged perp schlepped a 42-inch Sanyo Plasma TV to a self-checkout aisle after switching the original price tag of $984 with one for only $4.88. Wal-Mart Loss Prevention officers witnessed the alleged transaction and called police. When the store officers stopped the man on his way out the door, he pulled out a receipt for a television purchased at another Wal-Mart, authorities said. The man told officers that he bought a TV from the other store and planned to return that one and keep the one he purchased for only $4.88 from this store. He was then arrested and booked. Sigh.  (AP)

     Finally, in honor of America’s July 4^th, a few thoughtful quotes: (1) “What is the essence of America?  Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom ‘to’ and freedom ‘from.’” Marilyn vos Savant. (2) “I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives.  I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.” Abraham Lincoln.  (3) “Ours is the only country deliberately founded on a good idea.” John Gunther. (4) “It is the flag just as much of the man who was naturalized yesterday as of the men whose people have been here many generations.” Henry Cabot Lodge. (5) “A politician will do anything to keep his job -- even become a patriot.”  William Randolph Hearst.

     Later.