Lifestraw (AKA Do something worthwhile with your life)

Danish water purification company Vestergaard Frandsen has developed the Lifestraw Personal, a small filter that requires no power and can be worn on a string around the neck. There are no moving parts and no maintenance is required. Sip water directly through the LifeStraw® and it removes 99% of waterborne bacteria and viruses. There are several layers inside to filter out increasingly smaller pathogens, then iodine to kill the smallest, and finally charcoal to remove the iodine taste. After use, you blow air back through the straw to clear the filters. A personal filter lasts for about a year’s use. It is not effective against the parasite Giardia lamblia, which is smaller than 5 microns, but the company is working on it.

The Lifestraw costs $3.

Which is less than what most people spend on their morning coffee.

More than one billion people in the world do not have access to safe drinking water - i.e. around 1/6th of the world's population.
(Source: Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council)

The average distance that women in Africa and Asia walk to collect water is 6 km.
(Source: Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council)

Via their link you can read more and donate a Lifestraw personal or a Lifestraw Family, which can be used to filter a household water supply.

I read about this on mental floss.

D-O-G Is My Co-Pilot

NAHA, Japan (AP) -- At a Zen Buddhist temple in southern Japan, even the dog prays. Mimicking his master, priest Joei Yoshikuni, a 1 1/2-year-old black-and-white Chihuahua named Conan joins in the daily prayers at Naha's Shuri Kannondo temple, sitting up on his hind legs and putting his front paws together before the altar.

Oh Danny Boy

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

NY Gov. Spitzer Scandal (AKA "Ho, Ho, Ho")

I don't need to write anything about this latest, tiresome sex scandal. I just love this picture of Gov. Spitzer and Mrs. Spitzer.

Does that look like a couple that can make it through the tough times or what?

SPECTACULAR ART HEIST!! (AKA Gimme 'Da Loot)

From CNN:

"....Three masked men stole four Impressionist paintings worth about $163 million in a heist Swiss police characterized as "spectacular."

The three men entered the E.G. Buehrle Collection in Zurich, Switzerland, at around 4:30 p.m.

One of the men threatened personnel at the museum's front door with a pistol and forced them to the ground, while the other two men went into an exhibition room and stole four oil paintings by Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh.

Afterward, the three men loaded the paintings into a white car parked in front of the museum and then drove off."

This is a "spectacular" heist? This was a corner store stick-up. 3 guys, a gun and a van. Wow. Spectacular. They walked in the front door with guns. Their van was parked right out front. A WHITE van. That must have been really hard to spot.

The Swiss need to start watching The Wire. If Omar gets a whiff of this he'll be picking off their re-ups in no time.

Michael Vick's Dogs

NYT article reporting on the long road of rehabilitation for these dogs and the unfathomable cruelty they endured for the sake of gambling.

That photo kills me. Straight through the heart.

The State Of The Union: Foreclosures, Bush, Wal-Mart and Hard Math

Foreclosures are up 75% in 2007.

President Bush's approval ratings are in the low 30's.

Wal-Mart is dropping its prices 10-30%.

"Yet Mr. Bush devoted relatively little of his 53 minute speech to the economy, the issue that is the top concern of voters during this election year. He spent far more time talking about the issue that has been his own primary concern, Iraq."

Mr. Bush made the case that his troop buildup had “achieved results few of us could have imagined just one year ago” (NYT)

When the man is right, he's right. Few of us could have imagined losing our homes, or resigning ourselves to the reality that there will be permanent bases and troops in Iraq for the next 20 years or so, or that people in Kenya would be getting hacked to death and not a peep about it is heard out of the White House since they don't even have enough money to order pizza, let alone send some military manpower to help out, or....

Nothing seems to add up anymore.

On the bright side, President Bush did say he will give $300 million dollars for scholarship money to low-income children in struggling schools.

A whole $300 million. Wow. The current running tab of the war is at $489,852, 420, 319. Yes, that's in billions. Bush's dedication to education in America is the equivalent of you going out and buying a kick-ass $20,000 stereo system while being responsible enough to set aside a whole nickel for your child to eat.

Let's hope the mathematics of the next election make a little more sense.

The Bird, the Bunny and Shadow Art

Shadow art made from garbage. Weird, but kinda cool.

I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC (aka I'm Ba-rack, and I'm Hill-ar-y)

'Nuff said.

Kate Hawn Goldie Hudson Matthew Russell Kurt McConaughey (or Fool's Gold Overboard)

Aren't these essentially the same movie?

And here's another interesting thing:

Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson: not my favorite actresses, but I like them. They're cute, spunky, and fun. Nothing to dislike about either of them.

Kurt Russell and Matthew McConaughey: two actors I used to like. Now - not so much.

Obama

Barack Obama's speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia on the day before MLK Day is not only rousing and inspiring, but I believe it may one day be looked back upon as the speech that shook the fence of the undecided and made him President.

It's 30 minutes long and worth every minute.

I also recommend reading Andrew Sullivan's article on "Why Obama Matters" from The Atlantic.

There Will Be Blood (P.S. I Love You)

The human mind and soul are always searching something new. Something to improve life on earth. An idea that fuels us toward progress; "Life, he thought, was motion. Life was forward motion." - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.

Finally, another genius of our species has spent long days, maybe weeks or years, devoted to conceptualizing and realizing a tool that was decidedly lacking from our lives.

The Blood Pen.

I can barely count how many times I wished for an easier way to sign my name in my own blood than the tried and true method of scotch taping peanuts to my forearm and playing dead in the park until the squirrels nibble their way into a vein or two.

I haven't been this excited since they came out with the upside-down ketchup bottle.

Clay Python, Monty Aiken

Ripped from the headlines:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Clay Aiken, who joins the cast of "Monty Python's Spamalot" this week, says its humor was initially lost on him.

"The first time I saw it I thought it was the stupidest thing I'd ever seen in my entire life," the "American Idol" runner-up told Newsweek. "My tour drummer is the 'Spamalot' drummer, and (he) said you've got to see it again."

Aiken plays one of the leads, Sir Robin...

Clay went on to say:

"I thought Monty Python was a person until three months ago."

Dude, are you kidding me?

There is absolutely no way he understands how utterly embarrassing that is.

Something to cleanse your aural palette here.

Biological Clock

This is what my biological clock probably looks like.




Buy it here.

The Psychology of Color (coloUr for the Canadians)

Blue is said to have a calming effect on people.
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Feel better?

Blue - Joni Mitchell