What Caught My Eye Today

Britain - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Saturday that authorities were doing "everything in our power" to track the source of a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak and wipe out the animal illness before it wreaked economic devastation. British authorities imposed a nationwide ban on moving all hoofed animals to try and contain the outbreak of the highly infectious disease, which affects cows, horses, sheep and pigs. The outbreak is the first known case of the disease in Britain since 2001, when a foot-and-mouth epidemic started with a pig herd in northern England, spread to cows and sheep and eventually led to the slaughter of 7 million livestock, infected more than 2,000 farms and shut Britain out of the world's livestock export markets. Both the European Union and Japan have banned livestock imports from Britain. Lemme see here. We have multiple E coli outbreaks in the U.S., tainted wheat coming out of China, and now another outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Britain. Not exactly the most comforting thought when it comes to the stability of the food chain.

Saudi Arabia - A group of extremists Saudi muftis issued fatwas calling for the destruction of the most important Shiite shrines and mosques in Iraq. The Saudi muftis who gave the fatwas beling to the Wahhabi branch of Sunni Islam. Ayathollahs in Iran, a large Shiite country, were outraged, and the Iranian government made a formal complaint to the Saudis. Iranian newspaper commentators said the muftis were playing into the hands of "the arrogant powers"--the U.S. and European Union--by sowing discord among Muslims. Well now that's just ridiculous if you ask me. For us to pull something like this off would mean that we may have actually taken the time to investigate the long standing bitterness between these two Muslim factions. I just don't see that happening.

AIDS - According to top AIDS experts at an international AIDS conference in Sydney, Australia, HIV is spreading too fast for treatment programs to keep up. The U.S. National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases reports that, "for one person that you put in therapy, six new people get infected." Worldwide, about 40 million people have HIV; that figure is expected to reach 60 million by 2015. You sometimes forget, due to advancements in drug treatment, how far we have to go to eradicate this horrible virus.

2008 Presidential Race - In the first 6 months of 2007, Democratic candidates for the Presidency, the House and the Senate raised $388 million--$101 million more than Republicans. It's the first time in 30 years that Democrats are raising more campaign cash than Republicans. I suppose that is all well and good, but would it come as any surprise if the Democrats managed to find a way to screw up the 2008 election?

Transfer of Power - Back on July 28th, for 2 hours and 5 minutes, President Bush transferred the powers of his office to Vice President Dick Cheney under the 25th Amendment of the Constitution, while he underwent a routine colonoscopy. Cheney took no action during that time. First of all, I think I speak for most guys when I say there is no such thing as a routine colonoscopy. I appreciate the need for preventative medicine, but talk about invasion of privacy...my goodness. Secondly, and forgive my skepticism, but wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Cheney took no action that we are aware of? Boyfriend is not exactly known for his openness and transparency.

Brand Awareness - One of the more fascinating measures of corporations is the value of their brand name. BusinessWeek periodically publishs the rankings of the top 100 global brands based on a formula derived by Interbrand. Here are the top 15 corporations (2007 ranking/2006 ranking):

(1 / 1) Coca - Cola
(2 / 2) Microsoft
(3 / 3) IBM
(4 / 4) General Electric
(5 / 6) Nokia
(6 / 7) Toyota
(7 / 5) Intel
(8 / 9) McDonald's
(9 / 8) Disney
(10 / 10) Mercedes-Benz
(11 / 11) Citi
(12 / 13) Hewlett-Packard
(13 / 15) BMW
(14 / 12) Marlboro
(15 / 14) American Express

I know, I know. It's hard to believe that Paris Hilton didn't make the list.

Harry Potter - The numbers continue to pile up for the Harry Potter franchise. Here's some of the latest tallies:

8.3 million - Copies of Deathly Hallows sold in its first 24 hours in the U.S.
325 million - Copies of the first 6 books sold globally
65 - Languages into which the series has been translated, including Hindi, Welsh and Vietnamese
200+ - Countries where the Potter series is distributed
$4.1 billion - Worldwide box office gross (so far) for the 5 Harry Potter movies
$1 billion - Estimated new worth of J.K. Rowling.

In my humble opinion, Rowling deserves every dollar she's getting. As I like to sometimes say, great work if you can get it.