Jonathan's blog

More than three days since the ice storm, an article in the Midland Daily News reports that 700 Midlanders are still without electricity as of this morning.

It's just as silly when they do it as it is when we do. From an AP article on Yahoo! News:

Iranians love Danish pastries, but when they look for the flaky dessert at the bakery they now have to ask for "Roses of the Prophet Muhammad." Bakeries across the capital were covering up their ads for Danish pastries Thursday after the confectioners' union ordered the name change in retaliation for caricatures of the Muslim prophet published in a Danish newspaper. "Given the insults by Danish newspapers against the prophet, as of now the name of Danish pastries will give way to 'Rose of Muhammad' pastries," the union said in its order. "This is a punishment for those who started misusing freedom of expression to insult the sanctities of Islam," said Ahmad Mahmoudi, a cake shop owner in northern Tehran.

From a Newsweek/MSNBC article:

Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago, like a growing number of the 2,778 U.S. hospitals with delivery rooms, is turning down patients' requests to videotape births. The official reason: privacy and safety concerns. But some say the real reason is that hospitals are afraid the tapes will be used against them in malpractice suits. Doctors say the no-movie-camera policies benefit patients. Tripods can fall into the "sterile field," says Laura Riley, director of labor and delivery at Harvard's Massachusetts General Hospital, adding that many doctors find filmmaking distracting and feel uncomfortable being taped. Privacy laws favor doctors' rights to be camera shy. Health-care lawyer Miles Zaremski, who calls taping "an improper intrusion," says there's no legal right to tape births. Besides, many doctors believe that movie cameras defeat the purpose of having Dad in the delivery room in the first place. "The support person is there to support the mother through the birth," Riley says, "not to be behind the camera."

From an article titled "Girl's Science Project May Make You Rethink That Drink Order" by Michele Sager on MSNBC.com:

Benito Middle School student Jasmine Roberts examined the amount of bacteria in ice served at fast food restaurants. The 12-year-old compared the ice used in the drinks with the water from toilet bowls in the same restaurants. Jasmine said she found the results startling. "I thought there might be a little bacteria in the ice, but I never expected it to be this much," she said. "And I never thought the toilet water would be cleaner." Her discovery: Seventy percent of the time, the ice had more bacteria than the toilet water. Of the bacteria found in the ice, three out of the five restaurants tested positive for fecal coliform or E. coli, organisms that come from the feces of warm-blooded animals.

From an AP story by Sonja Barisic in The Washington Post:

Fellow conservative religious leaders have expressed concern and even open criticism over Pat Robertson's habit of shooting from the hip on his daily religious news-and-talk television program, "The 700 Club." The Christian Coalition founder and former GOP presidential candidate has said American agents should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for pulling Israel out of the Gaza Strip. Some observers say Robertson, who'll turn 76 next month, courts controversy as a strategy to stay recognizable and keep his followers mobilized. Others say he remains important to the evangelical movement that he helped create when he established the Virginia Beach-based Christian Broadcasting Network in 1960 _ but he needs to stop damaging it with his words.