Month: August 2005

Morning Whip, August 14, 2005

#10: Mama, pass the cloneloaf!
#9: NFL Pre-season week 1
#8: World bagpipe championships
#7: Ferret Olympics must change its name
#6: Fox & Friends – where’s PETA when you need them?
#5: Microsoft vs. Apple over the iPod interface
#4: TSA talks of loosening rules
#3: The War on Sudafed
#2: Steyn on Able Danger
#1: Iran: threat, counter-threat

Mama, pass the cloneloaf!

BBC reports that scientists think it possible to grow meat[*1] .

Developments in tissue engineering mean that cells taken from animals could be grown directly into meat in a laboratory, the researchers say.

Scientists believe the technology already exists to directly grow processed meat like a chicken nugget.

Mmmmmm…..cloneburger. Clone dogs! Corned Clone! Clonewurst! Splone! (OK, that last one was a stretch on “Spam.”)

Just remember: Soylent Green is made from PEOPLE!!!![*2]

Ferret Olympics must change its name

The humorless U.S. Olympic Committee threatens a lawsuit[*1] against an Oregon woman’s ferret agility trials.

An estimated 75 ferrets will vie for medals at the Ferret Agility Trials on Sunday in events including the tube run and the paper bag escape. Only “they are not Olympians anymore,” organizer Melanee Ellis said with a laugh.

Aw, c’mon, USOC, it’s about ferrets, fer cryin out loud!

World bagpipe championships

Glasgow, Scotland hosts the World Bagpipe Championships[*1]

The event began with pomp and circumstance yesterday, when massed pipe bands marched through the city centre to George Square, where they brought traffic to a standstill for half an hour as they played to an audience of 5,000 people.

Thank goodness they’re not calling it the Bagpipe Olympics.

Microsoft vs. Apple over the iPod interface

There have been reports[*1] that Microsoft won a patent victory over Apple on the iPod user interface. Those reports are wrong[*2] :

Closer inspection says the Microsoft patent was rejected. It was modified in December of 2003 but Techweb INCORRECTLY says the patent was approved. It is still an application. [uspto.gov]

In reality it will not be approved because of this little thing called Prior Art. As you might have guessed, you can’t patent something someone else is already shipping. Further in the US we use a “First to Invent” method rather than a “First to File.” Clearly since the Apple product was ~you know~ shipping, they invented it before Microsoft and clearly the MS application was not novel.

TSA talks of loosening rules

Transportation Safety Administration realizes that full body cavity searches in airports maybe, just maybe slow security lines[*1] a tad:

An initial set of staff recommendations drafted Aug. 5 also proposes that passengers no longer have to routinely remove their shoes during security checks. Instead, only passengers who set off metal detectors, are flagged by a computer screening system or look “reasonably suspicious” would be asked to do so, a TSA official said Saturday.Any of the changes proposed by the staff, which also would allow scissors, ice picks and bows and arrows on flights, would require Hawley’s approval, this official said, requesting anonymity because there has been no final decision.

The shoe thing was always utterly nonsensical. But, this is the government, they’ve got the guns, it doesn’t have to make sense.

The War on Sudafed

Oregon moves to make pseudoephedrine available by prescription only[*1] .

Moreover, it’s not clear that less onerous approaches aren’t just as effective. In April of last year, Oklahoma became the first of more than a dozen states to require that medicines containing pseudoephedrine be kept behind pharmacy counters. The result has been a 90% drop in seizures of meth-production labs. Congress is considering legislation that would apply the Oklahoma law nationwide. State narcotics officials report similar results in Iowa, which earlier this year passed a law that allows only licensed pharmacists to sell pseudoephedrine products and limits customers to one package per day.

Oregon relocated its cold medicines behind the counter last October, and Governor Kulongoski credits the move with drastically reducing the number of meth labs in the state. Ten months later, he’s ready to further burden Oregonians without any evidence that prescription requirements will help close more meth labs.

Making pseudoephedrine prescription-only is just nuts. Jaw-droppingly nuts. It’s Sudafed, for heaven’s sake. Yeah, meth is a problem, but really, this War on Sudafed is getting out of hand.