Honey We're Killing the Kids!

Finally a reality TV show that is worth watching. TLC is doing a show based on childhood obesity titled Honey We're Killing the Kids!. As we are making breakthrough in many different areas of medicine, childhood obesity remains a big problem in the US. It is about time someone shine a spotlight on it. One family featured on the show was on a morning TV show this week. Both parents are overweight and are suffering medical conditions due to that themselves. I wonder why it takes a reality TV show for them to do something about their children being obese when they themselves have firsthand knowledge of the negative effects of being overweight. Sadly I know parents who are overweight and are raising obese kids myself. I hope that this would be a wait up call for all of them.

First Gentleman/First Husband/First Spouse

Hillary Clinton has raised an unprecedented $26 million in the first quarter this year for her presidential campaign. I probably don't have to tell you how important money is nowadays in presidential election. So her chances of winning her party's nomination and the presidency looked pretty good. I have always wonder how we would address the spouse of a female president. First Gentleman? First Husband? In this age of political correctness, I am very surprise that the spouse of the president isn't being addressed as First Spouse. I did some digging around and it turns out the the United States Mints has already done so.

But it looks like we may have more time to decide since it was made known yesterday that Barack Obama is almost neck-to-neck with Hillary and had raised $25 million in the first quarter. So Hillary doesn't look like the inevitable nominee that she was looking like the day before yesterday.

freedom of expression - what's the limit

20070331chochrist
Originally uploaded by gundammsz010.

By now you have probably heard about the art exhit My Sweet Lord. It is a chocolate sculpture of a naked and anatomically correct Jesus. If that's not bad enough, I have also heard that the sculptor has invited art lovers to lick it and eat it before it was to be taken down on Easter Sunday. I have always considered myself a social liberal but this is over the line even for me. I wonder if anyone would actually lick and eat it. There are all sorts of people in the world so someone would probably do it.

BrakeLok - What's the point

I am pretty sure you have come across great design that are not practical at all. I just came across one that may qualify if it was a great design. It surely fit the not practical part. The BrakeLok is a device similar to The Club except that you put it on the hand brake. I wonder if the designer has actually tried to see if this product actually works or not. I don't know of any car that will actually be immobilized by not releasing the hand brake. Do you?

SuperSuper Tuesday

It looks like New York will be joining a growing number of other states which are moving the primary election in 2008 to February 5. So it is very likely that the winners of the primary election will be determined on that day. I have always wonder why there isn't a national primary election. There is a national general election so why not for the primary election. Wouldn't any argument against the national primary election be true for the general election too? What do you think?

Gotta What

I have seen many Japanese gadgets and inventions that are way out there. But I think this one beats them all. It is called the Gotta Go Briefcase. I know I have said this before but this one you really have to see to believe. It is meant for business professionals who wants to better maximize time efficiency and encourage higher job performance. The manufacturer claims that it will offer an extra edge over corporate competitors. I wonder what kind of edge one will get after being seen using one of these by competitors and colleague.

The Other White Meat

I have always wonder if the US government is still being as wasteful as before since nowadays you don't hear story like the $600 toilet seat that often anymore. Or maybe it is just not news anymore so people stopped talking about it. Well, according to the Pig Book, money is still being wasted, if at least not as much as before. I guess one can always look at the bright side. Every dollar wasted by the US government is a dollar earned by someone else. So the US government is just doing its part to keep the economy going.

(RED)

You may or may not have heard of the RED Campaign. I have because one of my favorite companies, Apple, is a participant. Well, according to the Numbers column of the latest issue of Time, it has raised $18 million worldwide so far. You may say that is no small change. But it actually is when compared to the $100 million spent on marketing the RED Campaign by Gap, Motorola, and (yes) Apple (too). I wonder if they realize that their marketing overhead is that much more than what they are raising. I have a feeling that they do. But I guess it really shouldn't be considered marketing overhead since they are marketing both the RED Campaign as well as their own products at the same time. And they are spending their own money and not the money raised. But I wonder if any one of them had considered giving some of that marketing money to the campaign directly.

Japanese Gadgets

I always wonder what gadgets the Japanese will invent next. I think they are way ahead of everyone when it comes to gadgets. That is terms usefulness, strangeness and plain weirdness. Well someone has make a list of top 12 weird Japanese inventions. You have to check it out. My favorite is the gardening tool. You have to see it to believe it.

Rats Backlash

There now seems to be a rats backlash in New York City after video and photo of a rats infested Taco Bell/KFC restaurant hit big time on the web. Restaurant owners are complaining that they are unfairly targeted by the Health Department. None of them are actually denying that their restaurants have rats. They are saying they are now being tickets for conditions that existed before that they were ticketed for. I wonder what makes them think that it is OK to have rats in their restaurants.

Happy Birthday, Leap Day Babies

I always wonder how people born on Feburary 29th celebrate their birthday. Do they do it only in leap year? Or every year on Feburary 28th or March 1st. I actually don't know anyone born on leap day so I have no one to ask. I have always thought that it is due to the fact that being born on leap day is small. Well according to the Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies, the chance is 1 in 1461. Then I heard a report on the news radio that when a leap baby was born, the doctor asked the mother if she would like to put on the birth certificate either Feburary 28th or March 1st as the birthday. I wonder how many mother would do just that.

Jesus Tomb - Probably NOT

Unlike The Da Vinci Code, which is a work of pure fiction, there are now a non-fictional book and a Discovery Channel documentary claiming a tomb has been found containing bone boxes of Jesus and his family. The author of the book claimed on The NBC Today Show that:

Now the debate is going to begin because statisticians say it is significant. DNA experts say it is significant.

I wonder why it took so long for him to come forward, since the tomb and bone boxes were discovered 27 years ago. Was there an effort to cover this up? Probably not since there isn't much to cover up to begin with. The DNA evidence turns out to be tests done on DNA from the "Jesus" and "Mariamene" bone-boxes that indicated that they were not related on their mother's sides. Therefore if this turned out to be a family tomb, the two would most likely have been hushand and wife. Man, that's a most likely following a big if. And I couldn't believe he actually tried to use statistic to prove his point. Just because something is not likely does not means that it is not going to happen.

Must See TV

Police responding to burst water pipe in Long Island New York found a mummified dead body in front of a blaring television. Apparently, the man has been dead for more than one year. Many questions came to my mind when I read this news story. Why as the electricity still on when the bill has not been paid for over a year? How could a dead body mummified all by itself natually? But one keeps lingering in my mind. I wonder if anyone will notice if I am gone. I happen to believe that everyone do make a differnce, good or bad, in this world. I wonder if this person actually did not make any difference at all such that people did not notice that he was dead for over a year...

How Low Can You Go

I have seen a lot of wacky/weird/tasteless gadgets lately:

humping dog USB drive

busty mouse pad

breast mouse pad(this one is for raising public awareness of breast cancer, but still...)

Axe Mousepad - I won't even try to describe it here. You have got to see for yourself.

I wonder how low they will go. I guess someone will sell whatever someone else will buy.

Apology NOT accepted

Michael Waltrip has apologized for cheating at Daytona. I bet he is sorry alright. He must be very sorry that he got caught. First it was steroid use in the Major League Baseball, and now NASCAR. I wonder which professional sport will be next? What kind of examples are we setting for our kids?

iAlarm

I have seen many different variations on the alarm clock lately, including and not limited to:

hello kitty alarm clock

flying alarm clock

sonic boom alarm clock

danger bomb alarm clock

The latest I have come across is the runaway alarm clock, which you will have to chase down in order to shut it off. This one may actually work for me. Since Apple is not not just a computer company anymore. I wonder what kind of alarm clock it will sell if it decides to sell one. Maybe one will all the features listed above but in a incredibly small package and a unique user interface. Oh of course it runs OS X.

We have a deal (or do we)

It looks like there is finally a deal on the North Korea nuke.
But we would not need a deal if North Korea did not cheat on the Agreed Framework that they had signed. I wonder what's different this time. I wonder if there is anything in the deal to prevent North Korea from starting their nuclear program the next time they don't want to play nice.

I more I think about the whole thing, the more I feel that nuclear nonproliferation will never work. Why are some countries allowed to have nuclear weapons but not the rest of the world? The US may say that Iran and North Korea are rogue states. But how do you define rogue objectively? I think the only solution is to get rid of all nuclear weapons for everybody. And I do mean everyone. I wonder if we will ever get there. Sure, it will happen when mankind invents something even more destructive and makes nuclear weapons obselete.

Show Me The Money

Free Money. No this is not a spam. Nor did I include these two words to trick people into reading my blog. Well, in order the receive the free money ($15.00), you do have to spent $30.00 or more and pay for it using Paypal. But if you regularly spend that amount with Paypal, it amounts to free money. I wonder how much this little promotion is going to cost Paypal. Maybe they are feeling some heat from Google Checkout. I am a long time Paypal user. But I did signed up for Google Checkout and used it once for a $20.00 off bonus. I have no loyalty to either Paypal or Google. My loyalty is with my waller. I wonder if this is the start of a rebate war between Paypal and Google. One can always hope.

Thou shall not bear false witness

I really have not been following the Lewis Libby trail. But a thought came to my mind while I was reading an article in Time on the subject. Libby is on trail for lying under oath. He is certainly not the first government official being accused of doing so. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath. Even though Clinton was acquitted, I really don't see how anyone can say that his infamous words:

I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.

was not a lie. Did he do so under oath? Well he did it when he was deposed in the Paula Jones lawsuit. I wonder if justice will prevail in the Libby case. Do you think that justice prevailed in the Clinton impeachment?

iLaw

A New York state senator has proposed a law banning the use of electronic gadgets--including MP3 players and cell phones--by pedestrians using a crosswalk. I really don't think we can legislate common sense. There are other things that people do to endanger themselves. Can we outlaw them all? I wonder if someone would ever propose a law that bans walking and chewing gum at the same time?