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31 Oct 2009 19:47

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Offbeat: The “vampire cough”: What hip swine-flu infected kids are doing

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  • Ever try sucking your own blood? Especially if you’re sick? That’s what the Miami-Dade Health Department is suggesting to kids going trick-or-treating tonight. Basically, they want kids to cough/sneeze into their elbows to protect other kids from swine flu germs. We think this is terrible advice, because one of these kids is going to be a vampire and draw their own blood. And if they do have swine flu, that little piggy’s gonna run through their bloodstream even quicker. A better bet would to come up with a last-second swine flu costume. This little piggy went to get some candy. This little piggy didn’t stay home. source

15 Jul 2009 12:43

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U.S.: So the poor get healthcare, the rich get surtaxed?

  • 5.4% size of the proposed surtax recommended for wealthy Americans in the House’s health care bill
  • $54,000 amount of money, per million, those who make more than $1 million per year will be expected to pay source

02 Jul 2009 15:28

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Tech: An unabashed plug for an RSS reader: Meet Feedly, brahs.

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  • As you might know about us at ShortFormBlog, we’re not against the occasional plug for something we really dig. And in this case, Feedly, which mashes up Google Reader into a very easy-to-read format, totally deserves it. Like other Web products we’ve liked in the past, such as Apture (who likes us back, apparently), it has this way of carrying itself like it the Internet should have always been this way. We like giving nods to cool things like this. Makes life easier – especially when it comes to tweeting links. source

23 Jun 2009 11:08

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U.S.: Feds: We told the D.C. Metro to upgrade trains; they didn’t yet

  • The trains involved were getting old and outdated. In response to a 2004 crash that injured 20, the National Transportation Safety Board says that it told the city of Washington in 2006 that it needed to upgrade some of its trains or phase them out. It didn’t happen. “They have not been able to do that and our recommendation was not addressed,” NTSB spokeswoman Debbie Hersman said. For Metro riders: this is not good. source

29 Apr 2009 23:49

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Music: Random music recommendation: The Humms

  • We were disappointed tonight that we couldn’t get to see King Khan & The Shrines at the 9:30 Club (long story), but these Georgia dudes, on songs like “Are You Dead?”, mine the same fuzzy psychedelic territory in an engaging way.

    Not bad guys. Come to D.C. You can sleep on our couch as long as you take turns sleeping on the couch, because we only have one. source