A German frozen food company hopes to raise sales with a new product: Obama fingers. The tender, fried chicken bits come with a tasty curry sauce. The company says it was unaware of the possible racist overtones of the product.

Read all about it here

I have a few friends and acquaintances who will become first time fathers in 2009… I wanted to give them a little piece of advice–actually two pieces of advice:

1. No matter how much they cry or scream or whine, DO NOT LET YOUR KID SLEEP IN YOUR BED. Because if they have hotdogs for dinner and get extremely sick, they WILL throw up on you or your wife and ruin your light-colored bedding.

2. Once your kid is old enough to ride a bike, ALWAYS CHECK BEHIND YOUR VEHICLE BEFORE BACKING OUT OF THE GARAGE. Because if you don’t, you will undoubtedly run it over–and maybe even drag it into the street before realizing that you just destroyed your child’s preferred mode of summertime transportation. And even though it wasn’t your fault, IT IS YOUR FAULT. It’s always your fault.

For Scott O. and Paul F.

So I’m watching the kids on Monday morning and one of the neighborhood kids comes to the door to see if my daughter (4-years old) can play. I invited her in and before too long I noticed that she was coughing a lot–and it was odd that a six year old girl was not in school with the other first graders. So I asked her “Don’t you have school today?”

She replied with the following, which I will never forget: “Yes, but my mommy says I have to stay home today because I’m sick. She said she doesn’t want me to get the other kids at school sick.”

But she let you come over to MY house?! What the crap?! Needless to say, I sent the little girl on her way shortly thereafter.

Burping worms?! You’ve got to be kidding. If you just ate, you may want to wait 30 minutes or so before reading on…

Aquatic animals that feed on lake and stream bottom sediments burp out small amounts of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, a new study finds.

While the biological emissions from these critters pales in comparison to the nitrous oxide emitted by fossil fuel burning, their contribution could increase as more and more nitrogen-rich fertilizer runs off into lakes, streams and seas, the authors of the study said.

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is more commonly known to anyone who has sat in the dentist’s chair as laughing gas.

In the atmosphere it is a powerful greenhouse gas, packing about 310 times the punch as the same weight of carbon dioxide (though carbon dioxide is still the bigger driver because there is much more of it).

Studies of soil-dwelling earthworms had showed that the creepy crawlies emitted nitrous oxide because of the nitrogen-converting microbes they gobbled up into their guts with every mouthful of soil.

THE REST OF THE STORY

Leave it to the Floridians. Another one has called 911 for a food emergency (see SUBWAY LEAVES SAUCE OFF SANDWICH). Don’t get me wrong; I love my McNuggets as much as anyone else, but this is ridiculous. 

MARCH 3–Angered that her local McDonald’s was out of Chicken McNuggets, a Florida woman called 911 three times to report the fast food “emergency.” Latreasa Goodman, 27, last Saturday called police to complain that a cashier–citing a McDonald’s all sales are final policy–would not give her a refund. When cops responded to the restaurant, Goodman told them, “This is an emergency. If I would have known they didn’t have McNuggets, I wouldn’t have given my money, and now she wants to give me a McDouble, but I don’t want one.” Goodman noted, “I called 911 because I couldn’t get a refund, and I wanted my McNuggets,” according to the below Fort Pierce Police Department report. 

FULL STORY

Throwing money at a problem regarding money… a waste of money?

Yahoo! revealed in an SEC filing that it paid financial advisers millions of dollars during Microsoft’s unsolicited buyout offer. The company spent $79 million on outside advisers hired to advise it on the Microsoft takeover, the pursuit of “other strategic alternatives, including the Google agreement,” the proxy fight and litigation costs.

Microsoft made several offers to Yahoo! last year, including one that valued the search company at $33 per share. Yahoo! rejected all of the offers including one for just the search division. According to RedOrbit, five separate stockholder lawsuits were filed against the company last year connected to the Microsoft bid.

The money spent on the Google agreement was also a bust. While the two companies claimed to have drawn up a deal designed to meet the satisfaction of antitrust regulators, both U.S. and EU antitrust bodies had issues with the agreement and the two companies walked away from the deal just hours after the Department of Justice decided to challenge the deal.

RedOrbit reports that Yahoo!’s main financial advisers were Goldman Sachs and Lehman Bros., whose investment banking business is now part of Barclays Capital Plc.

Yahoo!’s new CEO Carol Bartz shook things up at the company when she unveiled a new management structure late last week.

——————

By Jane McEntegart, published on March 2, 2009 at 9:40 AM

Local Findings Show Nothing Warm About Antarctica

The centrepiece satellite of Nasa’s $280 million climate-change mission crashed into the sea near Antarctica today after a launch failure, delivering a blow to the agency’s attempts to understand global warming.

The carbon dioxide-monitoring satellite was fired on a rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, but after blasting through the Earth’s atmosphere it fell short of its orbiting height and plummeted back towards the sea.

The orbiting carbon observatory (OCO) satellite was designed to map carbon dioxide on Earth to provide an important step forward for scientists attempting to understand climate change.

State employee: I get $93,803 for no work

You might actually feel sorry for the guy after reading the entire article, but I certainly don’t. I’m guessing that he will have some work to do come Monday now that everyone knows how much he gets paid to do nothing all day. Should have kept his mouth shut, I guess.

READ

Autoworkers Union Keeps $6 Million Golf Course for Members at $33 Million Lakeside Retreat. But hey, who’s paying attention anyway? It’s only money.

Even as the industry struggles with massive losses, the UAW brass continue to own and operate a $33 million lakeside retreat in Michigan, complete with a $6.4 million designer golf course. And it’s costing them millions each year.

READ ON

Forget Blockbuster. Forget Netflix. Redbox is the coolest thing since sliced bread. If you are not familiar, Redbox is the name of a DVD vending machine company that has these cute little red “machines” in and around  most major cities. The coolest part: it only costs $1 per rental per day.

If you lose track of things easily, Redbox may not be the best thing for you but if you are good at returning things on time, you will love Redbox. If you rent a movie today, you have until tomorrow night at 9pm to return it–or they will charge you $1 per day until you’ve reached 25 days in which case you become the proud owner of that DVD.

If you are a casual renter, Netflix is a waste of money. And Blockbuster may not have late fees, but it certainly isn’t cheap. And another thing–using Redbox is easy. Just go, swipe your credit card, pick your movies and go!

So they may not have the latest films from Sundance Film Festival, but who cares? If you want those kinds of movies you probably already frequent your local Rainbow Video Store.