What Caught My Eye Today - North Korea, Death Star, Potpourri

We start off with a daily double from the "powerful and prosperous nation" of North Korea.  Really? That's their motto?  Maybe something got lost in translation.

North Korea (Part I) - News out of North Korean in notorious unreliable, but food shortages in the country have gotten so bad and people so desperate that there are now reports of men murdering their own children for food. Dude, that just ain't right. Reports are being filed by independent reporters commissioned by Asia Press, a independent press agency focusing on Asia. Among the stories: "While his wife was away on business a man killed his eldest daughter and, because his son saw what he had done, he killed his son as well. When the wife came home, he offered her food, saying: 'We have meat'. One hopes that there is a bit of journalistic hyperbole going on here, but even so, if these stories are remotely close to being true... Seriously, what hope do future generations have when this sort of thing is allowed to happen?

North Korea (Part II) - And now for something just a bit lighter. You may notice a larger than normal  amount of references to official agencies and historical locations.  I did this intentionally to prove that this is an actual news story.  That just makes this all the more amusing.  Archaeologists of the History Institute of the DPRK Academy of Social Sciences have recently reconfirmed a lair of the unicorn rode by King Tongmyong, founder of the Koguryo Kingdom. Say what?  A lair of unicorns? The lair is located near the Yongmyong Temple in Moran Hill in Pyongyang City. A rectangular rock carved with words "Unicorn Lair" stands in front of the lair. The carved words are believed to date back to the period of Koryo Kingdom (918-1392). The discovery of the unicorn lair, associated with legend about King Tongmyong, proves that Pyongyang was a capital city of Ancient Korea as well as Koguryo Kingdom." It's kind of impressive, if you think about it, that the North Koreans can find the time to make these important archaeological discoveries despite the fact that most of the scientific community is dedicated to building a nuclear arsenal to launch against the evil empire across the Pacific Ocean.

Speaking of "evil empire," what a great segue to our next item.

Death Star - A White House petition requesting the United States government “secure funding and resources, and begin construction on a Death Star by 2016” garnered well over the 25,000 required supporters needed for the White House to provide a response. You know, after the official English-language North Korean news agency's website, The "We the People" site is quickly becoming my go to source for comic relief. The official response is as follows:

The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn't on the horizon. Here are a few reasons: 

• The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.

• The Administration does not support blowing up planets.

• Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

I'm not sure there's anything I can add here.

Potpourri - Let's go ahead and call this the "So this is what a civilized world looks like" edition.

• Health - Americans under the age of 50 are more likely to have poor health and die prematurely than people in 16 other developed countries. Car accidents, gun violence, obesity, diabetes and drug overdoses are the leading contributors to the U.S.'s comparatively low life expectancy. Clearly, the folks that conducted this study forgot the unofficial motto of the people -- "Fat, dumb and happy."
• India - In India, about 100,000 women are burned to death each year by husbands or families.  Another 125,000 die from injuries in domestic violence that is never reported to police. It seems the world's largest democracy has some work to do with regard to gender equality and rights.
• Email - The average office worker spends 650 hours a year (28% of working hours) reading and writing emails. The total number of words in those emails, about 41,400, is equivalent to a novel 166 pages long. If think that's a lot, you should see the statistics for texts and tweets.
• Gun Control About 80,000 people were caught lying about prior criminal records when attempting to buy a gun in 2010. Only 44 of them were charged with a crime. I wonder what the Second Amendment says about the right to possess arms under false pretense?

What Caught My Eye Today - Honduras, New Zealand, Texas, Doomsday

Honduras - I'm not saying that the U.S. on the brink of financial collapse, but perhaps the wonks in Washington DC should heed this item as a cautionary shot across the bow. Honduras has been on the brink of bankruptcy for months, as lawmakers put off passing a government budget necessary to pay for basic government services. The country is also grappling with $5 billion in foreign debt, a figure equivalent to last year's entire government budget. By comparison, the U.S. has about $5.6 trillion in foreign debt. The financial crisis adds to a general sense that Honduras is a country in meltdown, as homicides soar and drug trafficking overruns its cities and coasts. Experts say a mix of government corruption, election-year politics and a struggling economy has fueled the crisis. The international watchdog group Transparency International issued a study alleging some lawmakers had spent money on plane tickets to a tennis tournament in Spain, Mother's Day gifts and other personal expenses. Gee, that never happens. You'd think that as public servants, these folks would put country before personal gain. Still there must be something these guys are doing that merits hope. Lawmakers are discussing proposals already declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and don't deal with the immediate financial problems. In addition, Congress approved the sale of an additional $750 million in bonds last November without resolving any of the core budget issues. Okay then, let's summarize shall we? The federal government is spending money it doesn't have, passing laws that have nothing to do with resolving the budget crisis, and the laws it is passing are being declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Is it just me or do these things have a familiar ring to them?

New Zealand - I'm a dog person through and through. As a child I was allergic to cats, an allergy which I outgrew, but certainly did nothing to endear me to them.  Still this is a rather harsh deal...even for a cat. An environmental advocate in New Zealand started an initiative asking his fellow countrymen to make their current cat their last in order to save the nation's unique bird species. He doesn't recommended people euthanize their current cats but rather neuter them and not replace them when they die. That's awfully big of him. No need to kill off the species right away, just let them go extinct slowly. The campaign is not sitting well in a country that boasts one of the highest cat ownership rates in the world. For thousands of years, New Zealand's native birds had no predators and flourished. Some species, like the kiwi, became flightless. But the arrival of mankind and its introduction of predators like cats, dogs and rodents have wiped out some native bird species altogether and endangered many others. 48% of households in New Zealand owned at least one cat, a significantly higher rate than in other developed nations. The survey put the total cat population at 1.4 million. In the U.S., 33% of households own at least one cat for a total of 86 million domestic cats. It never ceases to amaze me how the human race thinks it can circumvent Mother Nature. Animals have been roaming the Earth for a lot longer than humans and done a much better job of not screwing things up. We're pretty good at wiping out species even without conscientiously trying to do so. One final note, let's say boyfriend succeeds in his attempt at mass felicide (It's  a word. I checked). Do you really think he's thought through the impact on ecosystem? 

Texas - The White House has responded to a petition asking that Texas be allowed to break away from the country, saying the Founding Fathers who created the nation "did not provide a right to walk away from it." I don't suppose they gave us the option of kicking a state out of the Union. More than 125,000 people signed the petition, which was created a few days after President Barack Obama won re-election. The White House has promised to respond to any petition that gets more than 25,000 signatures within 30 days. In a related story, the White House recently increased the threshold to 100,000 signatures. Apparently, there are a lot of folks who have way too much time on their hands. A White House spokesperson, issued a response quoting Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address and a Supreme Court opinion after the Civil War. It said America was created as a "perpetual union," but one that allows people with different beliefs to debate the issues. In asking that Texas be allowed to leave the country, the petition cited the "economic difficulties stemming from the federal government's neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending." It argued that given the size of Texas' economy and because the state has a balanced budget, it would be "practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union." The petition also said the federal government didn't share the same values held by the Founding Fathers. Pray tell, how exactly would this petitioner know what the Founding Father valued? They have been dead for 200 years. The White House responded that the writers of the U.S. Constitution addressed the need for policy change through elections, not secession. Don't you just hate when the government rains on your parade by providing unassailable proof that you are an idiot?

Doomsday - Just when you though it was safe to plan for the future now that we survived then predicted end of the world, there is another harbinger of the end of days. At least this one has an appropriate name. The hands of the infamous "Doomsday Clock" (click here) will remain firmly in their place at five minutes to midnight,  symbolizing humans' destruction, for the year 2013. In making their deliberations about how to update the clock's time this year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists considered the current state of nuclear arsenals around the globe, the slow and costly recovery from events like Fukushima nuclear meltdown, and extreme weather events that fit in with a pattern of global warming. The clock is a symbol of the threat of humanity's imminent destruction from nuclear or biological weapons, climate change and other human-caused disasters. These guys strike me as "glass half empty" sort of people. The Doomsday Clock came into being in 1947 as a way for atomic scientists to warn the world of the dangers of nuclear weapons. That year, the Bulletin set the time at seven minutes to midnight, with midnight symbolizing humanity's destruction. By 1949, it was at three minutes to midnight as the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union deteriorated. In 1953, after the first test of the hydrogen bomb, the doomsday clock ticked to two minutes until midnight. The Bulletin was at its most optimistic in 1991, when the Cold War thawed and the United States and Russia began cutting their arsenals. That year, the clock was set at 17 minutes to midnight. You know, that totally makes sense to me. I had one hell of good time in 1991. Silly me, I thought it was because I was in college and had my whole life in front of me. It never dawned on me that the real reason I was in such a good mood was because human destruction was such a remote possibility that year.

Did You Know? #16

What is the top financial center in the world?

According to the Xinhua-Dow Jones International Financial Centers Development Index, the top ten financial centers in the world, as of 2012, are:

1. New York City
2. London
3. Tokyo
4. Hong Kong
5. Singapore
6. Shanghai
7. Frankfurt
8. Paris
9. Zurich
10. Chicago

What Caught My Eye Today - Milky Way, Admiration, Congress

Happy 2013, everyone! Let's start this year's musings with some light-hearted fare. I'm sure things will turn south soon enough.  You'll need to get your geek on for this first item.

Milky Way - A new study suggests that the Milky Way galaxy is home to at least 100 billion alien planets. Have you noticed that more often than not, we refer to planets as "alien planets"? I wonder if all those alien planets refer to Earth as that one "human planet"? The findings are based on the study of a five-planet system called Kepler-32, which lies about 915 light-years from Earth. The five worlds were detected by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, which flags the tiny brightness dips caused when exoplanets cross their star's face from the instrument's perspective. The Kepler-32 planets orbit an M dwarf, a type of star that is smaller and cooler than our sun. Are you with me so far? We're not done just yet.  The five Kepler-32 worlds are similar in size to Earth and orbit quite close to their parent star, making them typical of the planets Kepler has spotted around other M dwarfs. So the Kepler-32 system should be representative of many of the galaxy's planets. Kepler-32 worlds have diameters ranging from 0.8 to 2.7 times that of Earth, and all of them orbit within 10 million miles of their star. By comparison, Earth circles the sun at an average distance of 93 million miles. For our astrologically challenged readers, what this basically means is that the planets these guys studied are pretty similar to the Earth, which makes the comparison a bit more newsworthy.   M dwarfs are the most common star in the Milky Way, accounting for about 75 percent of the galaxy's 100 billion or so stars.  Researchers calculated the odds that an M-dwarf system in the Milky Way would have this orientation, then combined that with the number of such systems Kepler is able to detect to come up with their estimate of 100 billion planets. The galaxy may actually harbor many more planets than the conservative estimate implies, perhaps 200 billion, or about two per star. These researchers probably kill more brain cells over their morning coffee, than I have in my entire brain, so why is it that the best they can do is a guess that could be off by as much as 100% or more?  If it was me, I'd stick with 100 billion and wait for someone to prove me wrong. Seriously, how many naysayers will have access to the Kepler Space Telescope?

Admiration - Gallup has run its most-admired man and woman survey since World War II, and in the 2012 edition. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and U.S. President Barack Obama kept their top positions among those asked a simple question: “What man that you have heard or read about, living today in any part of the world, do you admire most?" Don't get me wrong, I admire the heck out of Clinton and Obama. I just find it hard to believe that a nation as politically divided as the United States can't find anyone else to admire than the woman and man that makes most conservatives cringe at the very mention of their names. Clinton was named as most-admired woman for the 17th time since she became a national figure in 1992. In the current rankings, Clinton had 21%, followed by First Lady Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and Condoleeza Rice. Eleanor Roosevelt held the previous record when she was named 13 times as the most-admired woman. The only two women to finish ahead of Clinton in that 20-year period were Mother Teresa (twice) and Laura Bush (once). Obama was named most-admired man for the fifth time. Obama had 30% of the polling for men, followed by Nelson Mandela, Mitt Romney, the Reverend Billy Graham, George W. Bush, and Pope Benedict XVI. President Dwight Eisenhower was named 12 times in the survey as most admired. No offense to Hilary and Barack, but as admired as they might be right now, they have a long way to go in order to contend with the big guns. The Reverend Billy Graham has appeared in the top 10 list 56 times. Queen Elizabeth II has been in the top 10 list 46 times.

Congress - In a recent survey, Public Policy Polling found that Congress; approval rating is mired at 9%.  If you ask me, that actually seems a bit high. 85% of respondents said they disapproved. I don't buy it. There is no way these guys found people who actually think Congress is doing a good job?  The survey pitted Congress against a series of unpleasant things or unpopular people, and the results were not flattering for lawmakers. First, the good news. Congress is more popular than telemarketers (45 to 35%), the deadly ebola virus (53% to 25%), gonorrhea (53% to 28%), the Kardashians (49% to 36%), Lindsay Lohan (45% to 41%), communism (57% to 23%), disgraced Democratic former Senator John Edwards (45% to 29%) and North Korea (61% to 26%). Good news is a relative term. I think that comparing Congress to the ebola virus speaks volumes in and of itself. And now, the bad news. Here are some things Americans have a higher opinion of than Congress: head lice (67% to 19%), colonoscopies (58% to 31%), cockroaches (45% to 43%), Nickelback (39% to 32%), NFL replacement refs (56% to 29%), and root canals (56% to 32%).  Speaking from personal experience, colonoscopies are getting a bum wrap here getting compared to Congress. That crap they make you drink the day before clears you out far more effectively then any of the health spa de-tox programs and costs a lot less too. The procedure itself isn't too bad either. It's the part after you wake that kind of sucks, the feeling that you have been violated in some unspeakable way. And how about a shout out to Nickelback? It has be to somewhat comforting to the band that there is a group out there more hated than they are.  That should take away some of the sting of being the most hated band that has sold more than 50 million albums.