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Link Salad With Commentary
Feb. 19th, 2013 09:58 am1) From ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jeff_duntemann, was the Great Chicago Fire caused by a meteor strike? I've heard this theory before - there were several other big fires that night at other areas in the midwest. My questions are "why did nobody see a meteor in the sky?" and "how come nobody heard a boom?"
2) A semi-humorous idea: The United States divided into 50 states of equal population. It's an interesting concept with zero chance of happening. It does, however, rather graphically point out the wide variations in population density in the US. Fifty equal states means a state population of 6 million, and results in things like the corridor Milwaukee - Chicago - Gary being one state, and half-a-dozen Western states merging into one super-state.
3) You may have heard that "radical Islamists" took over Timbuktu and other parts of northern Mali. Al Qaeda sent a guy to try and coordinate this effort. Judging from this memo, he might as well tried to herd cats. Simply put, there was and is no unified group in Mali, just a collection of discontents who usually hang out in the ungoverned northern deserts.
4) President Obama was asked during a Google hangout why we still mint pennies. He didn't have a good answer. On the Maddow blog, they discuss that, and point out that getting rid of pennies hurts poor people. Passed on merely as a data point.
jeff_duntemann, was the Great Chicago Fire caused by a meteor strike? I've heard this theory before - there were several other big fires that night at other areas in the midwest. My questions are "why did nobody see a meteor in the sky?" and "how come nobody heard a boom?"2) A semi-humorous idea: The United States divided into 50 states of equal population. It's an interesting concept with zero chance of happening. It does, however, rather graphically point out the wide variations in population density in the US. Fifty equal states means a state population of 6 million, and results in things like the corridor Milwaukee - Chicago - Gary being one state, and half-a-dozen Western states merging into one super-state.
3) You may have heard that "radical Islamists" took over Timbuktu and other parts of northern Mali. Al Qaeda sent a guy to try and coordinate this effort. Judging from this memo, he might as well tried to herd cats. Simply put, there was and is no unified group in Mali, just a collection of discontents who usually hang out in the ungoverned northern deserts.
4) President Obama was asked during a Google hangout why we still mint pennies. He didn't have a good answer. On the Maddow blog, they discuss that, and point out that getting rid of pennies hurts poor people. Passed on merely as a data point.
