Poor Mojo's News Show Podcast No. 59 for Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Poor Mojo's News Show Podcast No. 59 (64 kbps .mp3 9:21 4.7 Mb)

A daily roundup of things that seemed important.

Fun Fact: Elvis, JFK, Hoffa and Hitler are really dead.



IT’S POOR MOJO’S NEWS SHOW! FOR TUESDAY, FEBRUARY TWENTY-SEVENTH, TWO THOUSAND AND SEVEN



A DAILY ROUNDUP OF THINGS THAT SEEMED IMPORTANT .



http://www.mlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-0/117250460836450.xml?aanews?NEO&coll=2

Poor Mojo Editor Dave-o published the following in his hometown newspaper:

Monday, February 26, 2007

To: President George Bush

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Yesterday our trees were full of robins eating juniper berries. I've lived in Michigan all of my life, and have never heard of a robin eating anything other than grubs or worms (and, perhaps, the occasional ripe cherry), and never seen a robin in early February.

Our winter almost didn't come this year: between October and mid-January, our temperatures rarely dipped below 40 degrees, hovering mostly between 50s and 60s - that's May weather here, shirt-sleeves weather. We had gnats and mosquitos in December. Then, in mid-January, the freeze snapped shut like a leg-hold trap, and we've since had weeks of single-digit cold, mornings so frigid that school is canceled because the buses won't start (also unprecedented in Michigan). Until February it never got cold enough for the ground to freeze, and so the robins never migrated. Now it's too late for them to leave, and they are starving and freezing.

Roughly 1,800 years ago, midway through the first millennium, there was a worldwide temperature drop of a bit more than two degrees. This caused the failure of Egyptian wheat crops. At the time Egypt was controlled by Rome, who relied on the ample harvest. Rome was a city of more than a million people, requiring 300,000 tons of grain per year to keep the citizens fed. Assuring an ample bread supply was a major hot-button political issue. Since the failed harvests meant no vast wheat surplus from within their empire, the Roman government needed to buy foreign grain. This caused a budget shortfall, and Rome was no longer able to afford their enormous army. Without consistent military protection, the fringes of the empire began to fray; barbarians succeeded more and more often in their looting raids, destabilizing the Roman hinterlands. Ultimately, Rome collapsed and the Dark Ages began, all because of a two-degree temperature drop.

Since I was born the mean worldwide temperature has risen about one degree, and is projected to rise another seven or eight during my infant son's lifetime - a precipitous, unprecedented climate shift. What does this mean? What will it mean?

My son is 9 months old, and our little family works to keep our carbon footprint small: we drive a hybrid, bike and walk whenever possible, buy our meat and produce locally whenever we can. All of our bulbs are fluorescent. We've blown in as much insulation as will fit in our attic, removed our old basement windows in favor of insulating glass blocks, and replaced our major appliances with Energy Star and high-efficiency models. We use cloth diapers, washing them ourselves in our high-efficiency washer. Most of what we own is recycled, reused or hand-me-down.

Still, by the time my son is my age - and certainly by the time he's yours - Michigan will have no winter.

This absolutely terrifies me. It terrifies me more than war, more than our growing domestic poverty, more than terrorism. I'm a registered voter, a participant in our democracy, and I want to know what you are doing about this now, today. Please contact me at your earliest convenience.

All best,

David Erik Nelson



THIS IS POOR MOJO'S NEWS SHOW!



http://www.breakingnews.ie/World/?jp=CWSNSNGBGBSN&rss=rss2

IF THIS IS FEBRUARY, IT MUST BE KITESTRING DECAPTIATION TIME IN PAKISTAN. POOR MOJO'S NEWSWIRE EDITOR MOJO EXPLAINS:

This happens every single year. I imagine that Pakistan has an odd relationship with kites. With all of the death and throat-slashing and injury, they probably don't have the same connotation of childhood innocence like they do here.

I imagine that Pakistan feels the same way about kites that Charlie Brown does about footballs. And they return to them for the very same reason.

FROM THE ARTICLE AT BREAKING NEWS DOT I-E --

At least 11 people died and more than 100 people were injured at an annual spring festival in eastern Pakistan celebrated with the flying of thousands of colourful kites, officials said today.

The deaths and injuries were caused by stray bullets, sharpened kite-strings, electrocution and people falling off rooftops yesterday at the conclusion of the two-day Basant festival, sAID OFFICIALS IN Lahore.



http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn11243&feedId=online-news_rss20

SEVERAL OF NEW SPECIES OF BATS AND BIRDS HAVE BEEN DIFERENTIAED FROM EXISTING SPECIES THANKS TO A NEW GENETIC TESTING SCHEME. NEW SCIENTIST DOT COM REPORTED ON THE SO-CALLED D-N-A BAR-CODING PROCESS. FROM THE ARTICLE: Only when the animals' DNA had been screened did it become clear that they belonged to distinct species.

Researchers scanned the DNA of 643 bird species in North America - some 93 per cent of all species breeding in the region - and 87 bat species in Guyana to test the barcoding approach. RESEARCHERS CLAIM THAT THE CREATION OF A REGISTRY OF EVERY SPECIES ON EARTH IS WITHIN REACH.



http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/26/cnn-libby-juror-exposed-to-outside-info/

GEE, I CAN'T THINK OF ANYONE WHO WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE PERJURY TRIAL OF I. LEWIS SCOOTER LIBBY FUCKED UP. NO ONE AT ALL. THINK PROGRESS SAYS LOTS OF PEOPLE THINK THAT THIS WHOLE THING WHERE ONE OF THE JURORS WAS TOSSED OUT BECAUSE SHE HEARD SOME OUTSIDE MEDIA INFORMATION ABOUT THE TRIAL COULD BE SABOTAGE. BUT WHO WOULD HAVE THE MOTIVE TO PERVERT THE COURSE OF JUSTICE ON SUCH A MASSIVE SCALE? WELL, ANYWAY, IT DIDN'T WORK. TRY HARDER, BOYS.



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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/education/25sorority.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

THE Delta Zeta SORORITY NATIONAL OFFICE CAME UP WITH TWO RULES TO HELP INCREASE MEMBERSHIP AT ITS HALF-EMPTY CHAPTER AT DEPAW UNIVERSITY IN GREENCASTLE, INDIANA. -- NUMBER ONE, WHITES ONLY. NUMBER TWO, NO FAT CHICKS. THE NEW YORK TIMES REPORTED AT GREAT LENGHTH ON THIS APPALLING STATE OF AFFAIRS, HOLDING DELTA ZETA UP TO SHAME. BY THE WAY, IF YOU'D LIKE TO SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ANTI-WOMAN, RACIST SORORITY CALLED DELTA ZETA, GOOGLE UP THEIR WEB SITE AND SEND THEM A MESSAGE. IT'S GOOD FOR THE SOUL, I CAN TELL YOU. FROM THE ARTICLE: Delta Zeta’s national officers interviewed 35 DePauw members in November, quizzing them about their dedication to recruitment. They judged 23 of the women insufficiently committed and later told them to vacate the sorority house.

The 23 members included every woman who was overweight. They also included the only black, Korean and Vietnamese members. The dozen students allowed to stay were slender and popular with fraternity men — conventionally pretty women the sorority hoped could attract new recruits. Six of the 12 were so infuriated they quit.

REMEMBER, FRIENDS, WHEN YOU'RE LOOKING UP THEIR WEB SITE, IT'S SPELLED D-E-L-T-A-SPACE-Z-E-T-A. LET THEM KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU THINK OF RACISTS AND SHALLOW PEOPLE.





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OTHER STORIES WE COVERED TODAY AT POOR MOJO'S NEWSWIRE:



GameCube is dead or not - Gamersledge Daily Podcast

Postage costs may go up

James Cameron claims to have found the tomb of Jesus

Melting antarctic ice reveals weird new animals

Iran has a space program

Pregnancy is fashionable now among 14-year-olds in england

What if video game bosses were *your* boss?

Cosplay at the New York Comic Con

BBC Omnibus attempts to keep up with Ralph Steadman and Hunter S. Thompson IN 1978

Fox news issued gas masks in Iraq

The Last Angry Man makes an excellent point about the weeping judge

Civil War #7 Re-dialogued and made awesome

and

Buick towed, squished





OUR THEME SONG IS AN UNTITLED PIECE FROM THE DISC "HIMNO NASIONAL" BY THE FIGURES, AVAILABLE AT FINGERPRINT DASH RECORDS DOT COM.



FIND US ONLINE AT P-O-O-R-M-O-J-O DOT O-R-G, AND FOLLOW THE LINK TO THE NEWSWIRE



THIS HAS BEEN POOR MOJO'S NEWS SHOW, I'M ALAN BENARD.