My Sick Mind

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Cadmium has been discovered in the painted design on "Shrek"-themed drinking glasses being sold nationwide at McDonald's, forcing the burger giant to recall 12 million of the cheap U.S.-made collectibles while dramatically expanding contamination concerns about the toxic metal beyond imported children's jewelry. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission , which announced the voluntary recall early Friday, warned consumers to immediately stop using the glasses; McDonald's said it would post instructions on its website next week regarding refunds. Ironically, the cadmium-infested glasses are the third-most nutritious McDonald's menu item. Tobacco smoking is the most important single source of cadmium exposure in the general population. It has been estimated that about 10% of the cadmium content of a cigarette is inhaled through smoking. The absorption of cadmium from the lungs is much more effective than that from the gut, and as much as ...

Screws fall out all the time. The world's an imperfect place. - John Bender, "The Breakfast Club" Screws fall out, things break, people fail and umpires make bad calls. In case you dropped out of an airplane today and missed the big news, an umpire blew a call and a kid in Detroit lost a perfect game because of it. Now, people who otherwise wouldn't know who Armando Galarraga is are trying to get him something that he lost, after first base umpire Jim Joyce missed a call with two out that wound up costing the kid his perfect game. It's a shame it had to happen to him, but baseball, by its design is human-element prone. Players make errors, batters strike out and umpires make mistakes. None of them happen at the best of times. Sometimes, they happen when the situation is the most crucial. However, we can't make exceptions when the bad call or error costs the team some place in history. A win is a win, and a "perfect game" means more than just the ...

I like Twitter better than Facebook, because I'd rather have followers than friends. I'm not sure what the attraction is with either of these "social networking" sites, but I cling to them like lint to my fine fabrics, which isn't always a good thing. The thing about Twitter, I find, is that there is a social hierarchy to it. In other words, the higher up the social (or political or entertainment) ladder one is, the more followers one has, and the less one has to devote time to the followers. As a leader, you post your thoughts and the others read them and listen. There are probably @ replies , but the leader isn't necessarily obligated to reply because, after all, he is the leader and you are the follower. You are put in your place. That's the part of Twitter that bothers me, since I find social hierarchy disturbing. By default, what a celebrity (or leader) Tweets is more interesting than what I do, and that isn't always the case, especially the w...

It's the unofficial start of summer, a big day for barbecuing, a great day to find a cheap piece of furniture or grab a big sale somewhere and a day off from work for most of us. However, the disgusting abundance of retail businesses that are open today is a concept I don't quite grasp. While I realize that there is more money to be made by being open on a holiday than not, I would think that a sense of history and respect would prevent it. Maybe it is because so many businesses are owned by non-native Americans that keeps them open, I don't know. I could assume it is simple greed, and I would at least be partly correct. In the United States, today is Memorial Day, which we have been celebrating in one form or another since 1866. It used to be called Decoration Day, but was officially declared Memorial Day in 1967. Until 1968 it was celebrated on May 30, but the U.S. Government passed the Uniform Holidays Bill, and it was moved to the last Monday in May. And therein lies...

President Obama: "Hey, come here and smell my finger!" OK, so it isn't very funny, but then again, neither is thousands of barrels of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. You know you're in trouble when three people in business-casual clothing are walking the beach with police tape in the background. That's the shitty part about being president, or the CEO of British Petroleum for that matter. Somebody makes a big mistake and you're left walking the beach picking up clumps of washed-up oil trying to think of something to say to the American public that won't make it sound like the Gulf coast is about to become the world's biggest waterproof beach. Such is the peril of delegated authority.

That's the view from behind the Mars rover called Opportunity. Tracks laid across the Martian landscape will be there for centuries. Things like that make me think. You're not surprised. Centuries ago, Galileo peered at Mars through his telescope and declared that there were canals on the planet. He surmised that they were once waterways that had since dried up, and since, scientists have wondered if there was ever water on Mars. Reasonable men may differ. So now, we have sent a robot to the planet to roam around and explore, leaving tire trails in its wake. Centuries from now, will astronomers be peering at Mars through their telescopes and wonder if ancient civilizations existed on Mars? Suppose records of life on Earth are destroyed by an asteroid or comet, like in the movies, and there is no record of us sending a probe to explore the planet. Wouldn't that make Galileo look even smarter? Perhaps we're all just as intelligent as the time allows? Isn't that wh...

"To you I say, it is only with adversity that we even have a chance at greatness. Adversity is your opportunity." - Ann Curry One of the downsides of expansion - be it sports or media - is the dilution of talent. More teams or more networks translates into more opportunities to hire nitwits and incompetents. Now that there are a thousand news outlets and only so many eligible talking heads, one wonders what the talent level has become for big media. Ask no longer: After taking the stage to launch into the school's 175th commencement address, "Today" show co-host Ann Curry sought to drive home the inspirational content of her speech by ticking off the names of a few of the school's more illustrious alums. Among the entries on the Curry honor roll : " 60 Minutes " correspondent Lesley Stahl , evangelist Billy Graham, slasher-film director Wes Craven, and United Airlines Flight 93 passenger Todd Beamer . There was just one problem: Apart from St...

The History Channel is branching out. No longer is it enough to show Hitler documentaries and profiles on our American presidents (usually during President's Day weekend or July 4). They have expanded to shows about pawn shops and junk collectors. One such program is called American Pickers , which I suppose is to highlight the American part and appeal to historians because these guys go around picking trash for a profit. There are two aspects to the program that are interesting. One is the idea that people collect things in their homes and garages, and it sits there for some reason or another. The Pickers guys come along and offer money for it in the hopes of restoring it and re-selling it at a profit. That's where the American part comes in. The other aspect is the extent to which we (you) retain the junk of our (your) past. In the show I saw tonight, a guy had a house full of old cigar cutters, big-wheel bicycles and advertising signs doing nothing but collecting dust in...

It looks like another loop-job is running for office. Rand Paul is a Republican from Kentucky, and while I normally don't care what happens in Kentucky, in this case I'll make an exception. Here's what he had to say about President Obama on "Good Morning, America." "What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP,'" Paul said. "I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. I've heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it's part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it's always got to be someone's fault instead of the fact that sometimes accidents happen." Un-American? Hey Rand, what does the big "B" in BP stand for? British. You're right that accidents sometimes happen. Sometimes nitwits are elected to office. Let's hope the gang in Kentucky can figure you o...

"If Johnny jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you jump off too?" Hell no, it's too far to the water. That's the view from the Yankee Clipper, a ferry that shuttles baseball fans from north Jersey to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, making a hundred stops in between. However, with a bar on board, the 90-minute trip seems to flash by! Part of the seminar I attended in Newark on Monday included a trip to Yankee Stadium to see the Yanks/Red Sox. Unexpectedly, the walkway from the ferry stop to the ballpark included the rubble of old Yankee Stadium, and fearing that I'd lose contact with my group I neglected to take a photo. Nevertheless, the memory is etched in my brain and even though I'm not a Yankee fan, I do appreciate the history and it saddens me to realize that an historical landmark is now a pile of concrete next to the new palace. It's unofficially "baseball week" around here. Monday's Yankee game was soon followed by the Tuesday nigh...

This is the beauty of Newark, NJ as seen from my hotel window, with the lovely view of the roof and air conditioner vent. I'm in the garden spot of the Garden State attending a conference. Fortunately, I have Internet access courtesy of my company at the bargain rate of $9.99 per day. So, I'm under a little pressure to make the content worth the price. Fat chance. The first thing I saw when I flipped on the TV was the Miss USA pageant, proudly proclaimed as being broadcast "LIVE" from Las Vegas, Nevada - seemingly the last place where a beauty pageant could be tolerated. I really thought we had progressed as a society beyond such mundane rituals, but sadly, we have not. Donald Trump is the sponsor, which should tell you everything you need to know about the content. However, it was made to look like a MENSA convention by contrast when I changed channels and saw "Survivor" contestants stacking dishes on a stick. What has happened to TV? I had it on long eno...

In 1978, Saturday Night Live did a sketch called "The Thing That Wouldn't Leave," where John Belushi played a house guest that overstayed his welcome to the point of aggravating his hosts. That's what I feel like every time Sarah Palin speaks: WASHINGTON — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said Friday that "mama grizzlies" will help Republicans win this November, sweeping away the agenda of President Barack Obama and the Democrats. Addressing an anti-abortion group, the potential 2012 presidential candidate also said she understood how some women might consider abortion, citing her own experiences as the mother of a child with Down syndrome and the parent of an unwed teen mother. Last year, Palin said that "for a fleeting moment" she considered having an abortion when she learned of her son Trig's prognosis. Hmm ... yeah, and then she considered her political future and decided to use her millions of dollars to raise the kid. Nice choice, bitch...

I was interviewed via e-mail (my favorite kind of interview because I don't have to speak) by a web site called Blog Interviewer.com . A fitting name for a blog interview web site. They claim to be devoted to discovering the most interesting bloggers on the Internet and their reasons for sharing their thoughts with the world. I admit to being interesting, but I'm bad at self-promotion. I have no idea how or why they picked me, but after some soul-searching and scraping about for reasons that they could possibly be scamming me, I submitted an interview. There's a link on my sidebar to my interview and a place where you can vote for my blog. According to their e-mail: At the end of May we'll be giving away over $1,000 in prizes to the top 15 rated bloggers for the month. To vote you and your readers must come to the blog interview and click on the "Vote Now" button. The top rated blogs are also showcased on the sidebar of the site for everyone to see. I'm...

Roger Waters is on tour. If you're under the age of 30 you probably have to Google him. He's one of the founding members of Pink Floyd, and apparently carrying the mantle for the band as he tours "The Wall," in a 33 city, 38 show tour. The show is coming to the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia on November 8 & 9. To the right are the ticket prices. The original "The Wall" tour in 1979 lost $600,000 of the band's money, and it seems that Waters is trying to recoup that loss with the current ticket price. From memory, I'd say that a ticket for the original 1979 tour went for about ten dollars. Calculate the inflation on that and complain about gasoline prices. For the median price of $158, you don't get the four other members of the band or any of the original theatrical elements. What you do get is a 66-year old Roger Waters and some guys who may not have been born when the original LP was released. I'm not sure who the audience is for ...

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – An under-16 Australian Rules football team has come under fire for entering a sponsorship deal with a local Hooters franchise, with critics saying the move could give adolescent boys the wrong message. Seriously, when are we going to get over this adolescent opposition to a restaurant chain? If it was called Hoots and featured women in t-shirts and shorts, would the opposition be as rampant? Methinks not. But because it's called Hooters, and supposedly features large-breasted women (news flash: Not all the women who work there have large breasts) it's considered dirty and appealing to the prurient interest. Poppycock. And what is the "wrong message" exactly, that these adolescent boys are getting? Girls are bad? Adults cannot make their own employment choices? Food should be served by men? Women wearing shorts and tank tops is bad? I'm guessing that they spend a good chunk of their day web-searching naked women, but let's not mix foot...

Jamie Moyer became the oldest pitcher in baseball history to throw a shutout, when at 47 years, 170 days old, he threw a two-hit shutout tonight in a 7-0 victory over the Atlanta Braves. There are two times in your life when you get a lot of credit for doing something ordinary: When you're very young or very old. At this point, pretty much everything Jamie does qualifies him as "the oldest pitcher to do [whatever]" and it's a big story because he's 47 years old. If he was 27 and threw that identical ballgame it would have been great, but it wouldn't have been a story on ESPN Sports Center or a big splash on the sports page. And I certainly wouldn't be writing about it here. Children get a lot of encouragement - some of it overdone - when they get involved in sports or some other activity. Their minor accomplishments are lauded and they get trophies for everything. I suppose it is a way to keep them motivated and reward them for trying. That's nice,...

I don't know about your part of the world, but around here, after the events of Monday , Tasered is now an adjective that is part of our everyday speech. Sadly, it isn't yet part of Blogger's spell check dictionary. Yesterday, the stock market was Tasered a little before 3:00pm when it fell a whopping 600 points only to recover to a loss of around 350. Earlier, sources told Reuters that the plunge in the Dow Jones Industrial average may have been caused by an erroneous trade entered by a person at a big Wall Street bank. Market sources said the erroneous trade may have involved E-Mini contracts -- stock market index futures contracts that trade on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's Globex trading platform. The composition of the E-Mini is similar to the stocks in the S&P 500 . So there you go. Your financial future hinges on something that sounds like a convenience store chain - the E-Mini. I'd like to have something a little more stable to put my savings i...

It's lawn mowing season, which means that the air is full of dust and pollen and the noise from mowers, string trimmers, edgers and leaf blowers wakes those of us who like to sleep late on weekends. Sadly, it seems that rakes have been outlawed and the only way we can move grass clippings is by blowing them around until they disappear into some vague space that exists in a Ray Bradbury novel. I wonder why some big grass seed company like Scott's hasn't come up with a hybrid strain of grass that grows two inches and stops. I think it's like the electric car. The big mower companies and the powerful lawn care lobby in Washington (there is one, you know) have killed it in an effort to boost the sales of equipment. It's a good thing (for my neighbors) that I live in a condominium, because my front lawn would look like my house was abandoned. I couldn't be bothered mowing a lawn, edging or doing any of those other things that occupy their time. I suppose I could ...

One of the topics of conversation around here has been the Tasering of an unruly fan at Monday night's Phillies game at Citizen's Bank Ballpark. Oddly, the topic wasn't the unruly fan as much as it was the Tasering. It seemed to be a bit extreme to some folks to use a weapon on a kid running around the field. Tackling him and rubbing his face in the grass is apparently the accepted form of apprehension. As for me, I'm all for the Tasering. It's a nice electric shock that causes neuromuscular incapacitation, which to me, seems to be the point. They probably could have tackled him, but this did the job in half the time and didn't endanger any law enforcement personnel. The ballpark has become something of a social gathering point as much as it is a ballpark. The Phillies have had 51-straight regular season sell-outs. Even the blessed Yankees don't routinely sell out their palace in the Bronx. Some of the fans however, don't come strictly for baseball r...

"You turn on the television and see this enormous disaster, you say to yourself, 'Why would we want to take on that kind of risk?'" California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at a news conference near Sacramento. No, the "enormous disaster" he was talking about wasn't his administration, it's the big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But it wasn't a risk in 2008 when the governor signed a $100 million deal between some environmental groups and Plains Exploration & Production Co., known as PXP, that was estimated to bring the state some $100 million a year. Interesting. A hundred million made it a good idea - then. Imagine how he'd feel if he had never turned on the TV. But like a lot of things, risky endeavors were good ideas when the state needed money. Now that there has been an accident - and it's been on the TV - drilling for oil under the water is suddenly a bad idea, which it probably was all along. Now that we have seen (on TV)...