Take this to the science fair, kids!
The McDLT was a joke compared to this.

"With only a black and white sketch available, authorities had difficulty determining *which* Power Ranger was the culprit."

I spent some time not too long ago in South Korea and whilst there, ate most meals (we worked a lot of hours) at the large cafeteria of the company we were visiting. It was interesting to me that none of the Koreans that I could see (big cafeteria... hundreds of people) drank ANYTHING (not even water!) with their meals. Instead, after finishing, on the way out of the building, they would stop at a green tea dispenser (room temperature), swig a small mug while still standing and then pour themselves a shot or 2 of plum juice from another spigot to top off the meal. Everybody did the same thing every day, every meal.

Fortunately, our gracious hosts recognized that our eating habits were a little different, so they always purchased bottled water in advance for us so we could have it with our meals. Quite a neato experience, all in all.

Jaimee is right, although it's possible that the researchers factored that in. But, you'll also see studies that suggest the opposite result -- it all depends on who is doing the research and to what end. Scientists and statisticians strangely can find data to support whatever cause is dear to their sponsors.

Regardless, this is an intrinsic risk with all socialized medicine schemes. Because the public in aggregate shoulders the cost of caring for people, the State uses this as an excuse to get into peoples' lives and control what they eat, how much they drink, what hobbies they have, &c. When folks are responsible for their own helth care costs (or purchasing insurance), they can make decisions that maximize their individual utility, whether that means eating lots of Twinkies, riding motorcycles, being a boozer, whatever. When you adopt a nanny state, liberty is the first thing that gets checked at the door.

Straight talk from Sid.

No biggee, like von Skippy said. Besides whose to say they didn't have the thermostat all the way up?

Are you sure it says "Day"? I think the "D" may be a "G" and then it all somehow makes sense. Looks like a cake to celebrate a coming out.

We spent a couple weeks self-touring around Ireland (mostly pretty rural areas) a few years ago and enjoyed it immensely. Yeah, we came across a lot of sheep :-) If anyone considers such a trip and wants to be off the beaten path, I would strongly urge getting the smallest car you can -- the rural roads can be very narrow -- you can barely get 1 car down some nevermind 1 in each direction (seriously... 1 car has to pull over into hedges for oncoming drivers to pass). We had an Opel Corsa which was perfect. A VW Polo would be another good choice. If you have a family in tow, get a small wagon -- resist the urge for a minvan.

Beautiful country & wonderful people. Oh yeah, we spent a short time in Dublin as well. It was OK, but the rural areas are much nicer.

On the recycling thing -- yeah that is REALLY stupid. They are just encouraging people to hide recyclables in with their "regular" trash. Similarly, our local county has special hazardous collection days for people to get rid of insecticide, paint, &c. but they do it so infrequently and the drop off place is so hard to find that I'm sure a lot of people just dump stuff in the backyard or down the drain. I don't of course, but it makes me cringe hearing about other people do this.

Von Skippy is da man. Thank you!

The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are technically *Crown Dependencies*, and are NOT part of the United Kingdom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_dependency

They are "British Islands" though, like the UK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Islands

"British Islands" (not Isles) is a legal POLITICAL designation. "British Isles" in contrast, is a purely geographic one refering to land masses -- the difference is that British Isles includes the Republic of Ireland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles

Needless to say, affixing the word "British" onto anything regarding Éire is very controversial. But that is the historical meaning of the pharase and the difference between "British Islands" and "British Isles". The diagram needs to show that.... I agree amending it to include The Isle of man, and the British Channel Isles would be appropriate as well -- those places have distinct passports after all.

Yeah, if they don't keep the numbers up, there will be no tigers to grind up for Traditional Chinese Medicine.

I noticed Portugeuse was absent -- that's a huge one to forget considering how many people speak it (especially Brazil). I'm guessing it was a (major) oversight.

As for the influence of French... Yes, modern languages take influence from each other. English has many words that got in via the Norman invasion (& change of court) 1000 years ago. And, there is a ton of Latin as well that came in mostly during the Elizabethan era. While there are many many words that come from Latin, no one considers English a Romance language....

I think trees like this are trying to show long term slow evolution of a language's roots without sudden changes from large scale immigration. Hence, English is more related to German than French. It often helps if you compare very simple common words, rather than the complex ones which get imported directly.

Discerning what evolved from what is a tough and probably nebulous call to make in a lot of cases, but that's what linguistics gurus do to earn their huge cash and worldwide fame.

The interesting thing is that (apparently) these color-based stereotype are really fairly modern. I've read that if you go back prior to a hundred years or so ago (I'll need to do some digging for the references...), you'll find that little girls' clothes & rooms tended to be blue and little boys' were more likely pink. It had something to do with pink being a red variant and red = heat = fire in the kid's demeanor, &c. Conversely, blue was cool and sedate and calm, just like little princess.

Anybody have a reference to back this up? It's been some time since I last stumbled across it...

Meat. yum yum.
Looks like the ears are garlic cloves?

@c-dub:
2 people met their ends via Christo's "The Umbrellas". One woman got killed by one of the giant umbrellas that blew loose in the wind and whacked her and a worker was also electrocuted when the display was being dismantled and a giant umbrella he was handling touched a too-near power line.

I would say 2 disconnected deaths from a single artist justifies my use of "a mounting death toll" :-P.

OK Eugenio, I've read a lot of Churchill's work (History of the English Speaking People, The Second World War, &c.) as well as a number of books about him, and I don't recall that quote. Can you supply the source and also the context?