On my way to work Thursday morning, I was greeted with a light dust of snow on my car. That’s Thursday morning like Thursday, October 12. I realize that I live in Minnesota now, but come on.

A few fast-melting flakes in Minneapolis were a little out of place for October, but nothing compared to the record-busting blizzard in Buffalo, NY on Thursday and Friday — over 22 and a half inches. The NYT headline: Snowstorm Blankets Buffalo, Killing at Least 3. Now that’s some serious snow.

Trying to read all about it, my . . .

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A couple weeks ago, Duodecad posted a link to a study by researchers at Princeton that demonstrated how easy it is to rig an electronic voting machine, and get away with it.

Here’s an update with some old news, via BoingBoing.net this week: former Yang Enterprises computer programmer Clint Curtis says that, in 2000, Rep. Tom Feeney (R) asked him to do just that — fix voting machines to spit out 51-49 splits in your favor.

Watch video of Curtis’ . . .

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A couple of days ago, I completed a year at my job. Unremarkable, perhaps, but for two facts taken in tandem – I am now 29 years old, and this is my first real job. Oh sure, I have been paid a stipend for teaching in grad school, I washed dishes in a cafeteria for minimum wage, taught kids at summer camp, even made a few bucks my freshman year fixing people’s computers. And I got myself through my last summer in the United States by playing poker (nothing on the level of some on this site, though). But this is my . . .

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For the first time in human history, around the world, overweight people outnumber the undernourished. In BBC News online last week, it was reported somewhat ominously:

[University of North Carolina Professor Barry Popkin] said the “burden of obesity”, with its related illnesses, was also shifting from the rich to the poor, not only in urban but in rural areas around the world.

“The burden of obesity”? Like most white, middle-class Americans, I’ve never not had enough to eat. The most hunger I’ve experienced is between a skipped breakfast and a late lunch. No other class of folk . . .

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My first thought as I watched Good Night, and Good Luck was:  Did George Clooney just quit smoking?  I know people loved their cigarettes in the 1950s, and I had read many comments on the amount of smoking in the movie, but those little cancer sticks kept stealing the stage.  There’s a loving shot of a lighter.  There’s an ad for Kent.  Even the black-and-white hues suggest exhaled blue clouds.

Eventually it hit me:  Clooney uses cigarettes to make a point.  You see, back in the 1950s, people didn’t know that cigarettes caused cancer.  Or, more accurately, smokers . . .

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