What Caught My Eye This Week - Magazine Edition

Newsweek

Gun Control - In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre, Newsweek ran a story on guns in the U.S. Here is a sampling of some of the statistics that were included in that story:

Top ten states with the highest percentage of guns in the home: Montana (76%), Wisconsin (62%), Kentucky (61%), Arkansas (58%), Missouri (54%), Mississippi (54%), Washington (53%), South Dakota (53%), Tennessee (49%) and Wyoming (49%)

Top ten countries by total firearms and firearms per 100 persons: U.S. (270,000,000 / 90), Yemen (11,500,000 / 61), Finland (2,900,000 / 56), Switzerland (3,400,000 / 46), Iraq (9,750,000 / 39), Serbia (3,050,000 / 38), France (19,000,000 / 32), Sweden (2,800,000 / 31), Austria (2,500,000 /31) and Germany (25,000,000 / 30).

Firearm Death Rates for select countries (firearm deaths / deaths per 100,000):
U.S. - 29,645 / 10.08
Switzerland - 459 / 6.40 (in case you were curious, like I was, most of these were suicides)
France - 2,964 / 4.93 (ditto)
Finland - 235 / 4/51 (ditto)
Belgium - 379 / 3.67
Spain - 309 / 0.75
Poland - 171 / 0.44
England - 159 / 0.31
South Korea - 49 / 0.10
Japan - 96 / 0.08

You can make your own conclusions. All I know is that the U.S. appears to be at the top of all the wrong lists

The Week

Ethanol - A new study says that ethanol might be a worse pollutant than gasoline. According to a computer model that simulates air quality, burning ethanol in car engines causes more smog and ozone than gasoline. The resulting air quality would cause about 200 more ozone-related deaths each year. I'm not saying this is a good thing, but how many gasoline-related deaths are there each day over in the Middle East? Oops, sorry. We're fighting for democracy over there, aren't we?

Abstinence - Abstinence-only sex education programs, which cost the federal government $176 million per year, don't seem to have any effect at all on kids' decisions about their sex lives according to a a study ordered by Congress. Lemme see here...duh.

Campaign Financing - Due to widespread disgust with campaign spending and advertising, support for the public campaign-financing system is waning. Only 7.3% of taxpayers who filed a tax return in 2006 designated a $3 contribution to help finance presidential campaigns compared with 27.5% in 1976. Two observations here. First, it doesn't exactly appear that here was ever much support for this programs. Second, how many front runners in the upcoming presidential race are relying on public financing? Yeah, that's right, zippo.

Extreme Engineering - Russian and American developers are planning to build the world's longest railway tunnel under the Bering Strait to link Siberia with Alaska. At 64 miles, the tunnel would be about twice as long as the Eurotunnel, which runs the under the English channel. While the technical challenges are considerable, the economic hurdles are even higher, with projected price tag for the project starting at around $65 billion. That may be true, but think about the traffic bottlenecks that will be alleviated. I here rush hour on a Friday night on the Bering Strait is murder.

Maxim

High Priced Hooch - Here are the 3 most expensive bottles of whiskey...if you can find one.
1. The Macallan Fine and Rare Collection (1926) - $38,000 (a shot will only set you back $3,300)
2. The Macallan Fine and Rare Collection (1939) - $10,125
3. Chival Regal royal Salute (50 year old) - $10,000

By the way, the hangover from any one of these fine spirits is still free.

Office Lingo - For hapless schmos (like me) who work in an office, here's a glossary of terms that you are likely to come across during your daily trials and tribulations along with some additional translation by yours truly):

Bandwidth: One's capacity to take on work (that is according to what your boss thinks as opposed to what is humanly possible)
Circle Back Around: To contine a meeting or discussion at a later date (basically a polite way of saying, 'we'll discuss your stupid idea after hell freezes over')
Granularity: The details (or the actual work it will take to pull this pipe dream off)
Hydraulics Of the Situation: The facts needed to understand an issue (truth be told, I haven't heard this one before)
Incentivize: To encourage (though the manner in which you are encouraged is not exactly clear, it usually involved a thinly disguised threat of being fired)
Low-hanging Fruit: Objectives that are easiest to accomplish (or the ones you never get to because of all the other craps you've been assigned)
Net It Out: To consider all the factors and summarize (a rather pointless activity, since management has already decided what it's going to do regardless of the facts)
Reconsense: To revise an opinion as necessary (usually to align it with whatever your boss's opinion is)
Socialize: To float an idea around the company in order to gauge reaction and win its acceptance (or the boss has already decided you're doing this, so get used to it now)
Throw It Over The Wall: Shift responsibility (which means, if you are low man on the totem pole, cancel your weekend plans)
Timebox: To do the best you can under time constraints (or business as usual)
Value Proposition: A particular advantage that a business offers a client (or 'here's how we're going to screw you and why you'll be smiling while we're doing it)
Wordsmith: To can a document and provide comments (also known as running the spell checker)