A researcher in Japan says new cars are full of unhealthy chemicals.
The interior of a brand-new vehicle could contain more than 30 times the acceptable level of volatile organic chemicals, known to cause symptoms of illnesses linked with sick building syndrome, according to a recent study by a public health researcher.
…
For those concerned about the chemicals, Yoshida recommends thorough ventilation.
In other words, drive with the windows open at all times.
Not only did Apple introduce new PowerBooks today, they also showed off a snowboarding jacket designed specifically for the iPod, with built-in sleeve controls. Excellent. You have to hate Apple for making it so tempting to spend so much money.
I don’t quite understand why this is, but my site is coming up as the highest ranked result in a search on Google for “live query”, and hundreds of people a day are visiting my site because of it.
I wrote this short entry on Google’s Live Query back in November, and that’s where all the traffic is being directed.
Thom Hartmann has written an interesting article about Nike’s claim that it deserves free-speech rights. At issue is whether corporations can knowingly deceive the public.
In the next few weeks the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether or not to hear Nike’s appeal of the California Supreme Court’s decision that Nike was engaging in commercial speech which the state can regulate under truth in advertising and other laws. And lawyers for Nike are preparing to claim before the Supreme Court that, as a “person,” this multinational corporation has a constitutional free-speech right to deceive.
About the founding fathers, Hartmann writes:
Jefferson and Madison proposed an 11th Amendment to the Constitution that would “ban monopolies in commerce,” making it illegal for corporations to own other corporations, banning them from giving money to politicians or trying to influence elections in any way, restricting corporations to a single business purpose, limiting the lifetime of a corporation to something roughly similar to that of productive humans (20 to 40 years back then), and requiring that the first purpose for which all corporations were created be “to serve the public good.”
The amendment didn’t pass because many argued it was unnecessary: Virtually all states already had such laws on the books from the founding of this nation until the Age of the Robber Barons.
(found via Kottke)
I’ve made a small update to the neglected Life in Japan section of my site, adding a travel map showing most of the places I’ve visited during my stay in Japan.
As Amazon.com seems to get slower and slower all the time (likely weighed down by carrying every conceivable product known to mankind), Amazon Light is a great way to quickly navigate to the items you’re looking for.
Amazon.com is certainly, uh, branching out. Reading some of the product reviews for the above item (I think I’ll leave it unnamed to prevent unnecessary search engine visits) is entertaining. Among them:
UNHAPPY USER:
“Disappointing and a bit painful. The size of the item means it might work well on ‘large’ women.”
HAPPY USER:
“No more wandering the interstate truck stops all night. Just turn it on and let ir (sic) turn you on. Anyways my only complaint is the battery life cycle, but that can easily be remedied with a soldering iron, bridge rectifier, and AC power outlet.”
It’s been snowing pretty heavily here since late last night, so there’s a good amount of snow on the ground. I’ve been ensconced in the comfort of my warm apartment all day, relaxing, writing and reading. I was supposed to have returned some DVDs today, but the thought of riding my bicycle a considerable distance on snow-covered sidewalks hasn’t sounded appealing. I’ll deal with the late fees.
I watched Le Grande Blue last night for the first time. I was a bit disappointed — too much buildup, I suppose. Rosanna Arquette was terrible. I read somewhere that the best way to watch the movie is to turn off the dialogue and enjoy the music and images. Good suggestion.
In a recent letter from my mother, she enclosed a bit of my past that she’d wisely saved for a time when I’d need some stray bit of fluff to post on a personal website.
Apparently, what you see above is the first note I ever wrote. I forgot to ask my mother if she remembers when I wrote it, but I’d guess it was when I was around eight.
What I lacked in penmanship and spelling, I made up for in sass. And I doubt I grabbed $50 from the money jar — it was more likely 50 cents.
The movie I was referring to was actually Cat Ballou, that classic western romp starring Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin. This would have been the first of several times I saw this movie when I was a child, and I loved it.
When I wrote this note, my family was living in Denali National Park in Alaska. We had no television reception in our tiny Park Service community and it was before VCRs caught on. For audio-visual entertainment during the long winter months, the community association organized movie nights (once a week on Fridays, with a repeat of the same movie on Sunday). Each family got to choose one movie each winter. This method of choosing movies ensured an interesting selection, but a bad pick one winter could leave your family the butt of jokes until the following year when another round of picks offered redemption.
The first movie I saw after my family moved to Denali was the Peter Sellers’ movie, The Party. I was seven at the time, and for weeks afterwards a friend and I would re-enact, on a snow hill, the scene at the beginning where the soldier keeps getting shot when he tries to play his bugle.
This is one of those moments when you really hate being an American.
House Majority Leader Tom Delay is asked by Fox News’ John Gibson if America should be trying harder to work bi-laterally with other countries. This is his answer. Seriously.
DELAY: John, we’re no longer a superpower. We’re a super-duperpower. We are the leader in the world. We are the leader that defends freedom and democracy around the world. We are the leader in the war on terrorism. When we lead, others will follow. For us to fight this war by consensus is a prescription for defeat. It has been a prescription for defeat in the past, and it would be in the future.
Thank goodness we have such a strong leader in George W. Bush that understands that when confronted with evil, you have to root it out. And that’s what he is attempting to do. These apologists for idleness are doing nothing that is constructive in the war on terrorism. We have to go after it, we have to fight it differently than we fought wars in the past, and the president has the right doctrine to do so. It’s called the preemptive doctrine.
Groan.
(found via Joi Ito)