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Rocking to the science beat

2009 St Louis County Election

I have to love America. In my county to the north, I work in St. Louis County, the county election is happening this coming Tuesday and we have two issues on the ballot. Although I cannot vote in either election (I live immediately across the border in Jefferson County, to the south of St. Louis County), both will have implications to me as a citizen who works in St. Louis County and visits on a regular basis.

One is Proposition N which is our first attempt to put a public smoking ban in place. There are exemptions for Private Residences, Casinos, designate Smoking rooms and the like. However, you would think that the smoking police are going to bash down their door and seize their cigarettes. I do not go to bowling alleys because the smoke is intolerable. Likewise I do not go to many public places because the smoking is unhealthful. If this passes, the City of St. Louis (which is administered separately from the County) will likewise pass a smoking ban. Thus at least a part of the state of Misery will be smoke free, albeit with qualifications. I hope this passes but since there is strong opposition to it I seriously doubt it will pass since only 40% of the voters are expected to vote in this election. Thus is the election in America where 40% decide that I can't go to restaurants and so forth because the cigarette smoke is so intolerable I refuse to go out in many public places.

The other issue is Proposition E 911 which will provide funds to install an Enhanced 911 system to allow emergency services to locate cell phones which call emergency services. Why anyone would oppose a miniscule (one tenth of a Cent) sales tax to fund our EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS is beyond me. When I toured our Emergency Operations center in the course of my Ham Radio class, the center functions on hand-me-down computers which were formerly at the police academy, receives everything on a hand-me-down basis with the exception of a mobile command center which was purchased second hand from a California municipality. The opposition to this is also prevelant as apparently paying a one tenth cent tax would bring down the capitalist system in this country.

I find these attitudes appalling. When we need such services they will not be there or if they are there are functioning at a degraded capability and will not be state of the art. I would hope that we do get items of gear that are top of the line and state of the art. However, some in my county would like to live in the dark ages and when calling for emergency services would hope that they know where they are based on vague directions whenever they call in their cell phones.

Thus is the electorate in America.

McDonalds is a victim of the recession

McDonald's pulls out of Iceland

McDonald's is seen as a part of most developed economies

McDonald's is to close its business in Iceland because the country's financial crisis has made it too expensive to operate its franchise.

The fast food giant said its three outlets in the country would shut - and that it had no plans to return.

Besides the economy, McDonald's blamed the "unique operational complexity" of doing business in an isolated nation with a population of just 300,000.

Iceland's first McDonald's restaurant opened in 1993.

'No sense'

For a kilo of onion, imported from Germany, I'm paying the equivalent of a bottle of good whisky Jon Gardar Ogmundsson McDonald's Icelandic franchisee

The franchises are run by a firm called Lyst, with owner Jon Gardar Ogmundsson saying the decision was "not taken lightly".

He said that the restaurants imported the goods from Germany, but that costs had almost doubled, with the falling krona making imports prohibitively expensive.

Mr Ogmundsson said the restaurants had "never been this busy before... but at the same time profits have never been lower".

"It just makes no sense. For a kilo of onion, imported from Germany, I'm paying the equivalent of a bottle of good whisky," he added.

He now plans to run the restaurants under another name so that he is able to buy cheaper Icelandic products.

Iceland's banks collapsed at the height of the global credit crisis - wrecking the country's economy and forcing it to rely on an $10bn (�6.1bn) international aid package.

Today is United Nations Day

Every October 24th is a day that is supposed to be set aside to honor an organization we created to stop War at the end of one of the most destructive conflicts in Human history. The war just fought saw the first us of many horrible weapons such as the atomic bomb. However, in the polarized world that followed, the organization was largely left behind. Still it managed to pull off a few miracles. With shoestring budgets and hobbled mandates, the UN has done what it can to fulfill its mission of the maintenance of International Peace and Security. One day, maybe we will have the ability to fulfill this mandate. Until we learn that lesson, we will obviously have a long hard road ahead of us.

"Until, man is ready for a new and different life, all this will someday come to pass - in God's good time." James Mason as Jules Verne, Walt Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954).

Health Insurance Providers - American Terrorists

Why I don't eat curry

Why I don't eat curry :-)