The Road Runner and Sonic Booms

We've received some complaints about road runner. This is because he has been accelerating his delivery business by traveling long distances at high speeds - actually faster than sound. For example, by traveling at about 1300 feet per second (a bit more than the speed of sound at 20C), he can make a delivery from Washington DC to Chicago in a bit less than 90 minutes. However, this causes a sonic boom along the way. Road Runner has agreed to limit his speed to just less than the speed of sound except in rural areas in the summer daytime (when sound waves are more strongly refracted up). The graph is from the wikipedia article on the speed of sound.

UGA gets Negative News

The GAO is highly critical of the Dept of Homeland Security's border program.

They (GAO) released a report that said that the old "virtual" fence wasn't performing at expected levels and there was no reason to think the nenw 'multi-function' plan would work either.

Of course, DHS has two things they could do better. One is to rename it the Dept of Domestic Security (because the acronym, DDS, inspires fear) and secondly to have more detainees interrogated by UGA (which will also inspire fear).

A report on the GAO findings is here.

Croc Insurance for President Obama

President Obama has been given a $50k policy that covers crocodile attacks. This was for his visit to the north part of Australia.There is no apparent cost to the taxpayers of the US and unless the President is attacked by a crocodile, no cost to the tax payers in Australia.

The insurance policy is to be framed with the image to the left.

This comes from a Financial Times article here.

Weaponized Pumpkin

Now pumpkins may get more respect (see post below for 'low respect for pumpkins).

Near Pittsburgh, PA, a man was walking with his wife on a public side walk when he was struck by a pumpkin. The pumpkin was thrown from a passing automobile.

Shortly before the attack a neighbor noticed a pumpkin was stolen from her property.

As of a day after the attack, the assailant (or assailants) had not been apprehended but then on Nov 17, four teens came forward and admitted they had stolen pumpkins and weaponized them.

The initial story is available here.
The follow up story is available here.

Mr. Pumpkin Doesn't Get Respect from Starbucks

Yesterday Starbucks Corporation announced a big quarter. Revenues were up about 7% and earnings were up about 30% (compared with the same quarter last year). Same store sales in the US up by about 6%.

Several spokespersons for the company were on the various financial channels but not a single one (that I saw) credited the pumpkin spice latte (a seasonal addition to the menu) for this great result.

WashingtonPost story on the quarter's financial performance of Starbucks here.