Midday open thread
by SusanG
Sat Jul 18, 2009 at 12:00:04 PM PST
- Linked purely for the delightful headline: San Diego menaced by jumbo squid.
- Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall may be good enough role models for the rest of America, but they're not good enough for the Texas State Board of Education, which wants to disappear them from social studies curriculum.
- Unsurprisingly, $9 billion wasted by California's physicians in filling out insurance paperwork, according to a CalPIRG study.
- I've got a good guess as to how Daily Kos readers will answer this one ... Columbia Journalism Review asks Do Reader Comments on Web Articles "Devalue" Journalism?.
- Satire or reality? You decide. Goldman Sachs in Talks to Acquire Treasury Department.
- This is either the answer to billions of prayers or a product that will taste like absolute shit:
According to the company's head developer, Hans Vriens, the chocolate has up to 90 percent fewer calories than regular chocolate.
What's more, high temperatures can't touch it—unless, by chance, they soar higher than 55 degrees Celsius (131 degrees Fahrenheit).
- Wired looks at why geeks make such good spouses.
- Physician/writer Abraham Verghese mulls over how different proposed changes in health care delivery may impact choice of career path for fourth-year medical students.
- Illinois unemployment fund goes broke, the 16th state so far forced to borrow funds from the fed to keep the benefits flowing, according to Pro Publica. Pro Publica also has a great interactive database to check on the status of unemployment funds in individual states.
- It's weird world, when a company spends billions building brand recognition, then goes undercover during expansion to appeal to the newest trend -- local Mom and Popism.
- Life imitating art: Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle.
- This week's sign of the apocalypse: PPP polls North Carolinians (PDF). Their favorite former U.S. Senator is....Jesse Helms. Then again, when your opposition is Lauch Faircloth, Liddy Dole (and John Edwards, who actually came in second despite his troubles)....
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