Brendan I. Koerner's Blog, page 144

When It’s Miller Time Around the World

Perhaps the most intriguing part of this chart is realizing that the United States remains a Puritanical outlier. The only other non-Muslim nations that adhere to the 21-across-the-board rule are Fiji, Palau, and Micronesia. Yet if any American politician dare utter a peep about lowering the drinking age, they’re shouted down as if they’d come out in favor kneecapping orphans.

Grieving Pachyderms

Humans and elephants have been intermingling since time immemorial, so it’s a little surprising to discover that we’re still not entirely sure how our pachyderm friends deal with their dead. Oh, we’re pretty sure the mourn, and they appear to cover their pals with leaves and sticks, too. But those elephant burial grounds mentioned in Arabian Nights? Our mammoth mammal friends aren’t quite that picky.

In the course of pursuing our recent Sri Lanka obsession, Microkhan has been reading James Emerso

Lehman and Yellowcake

An epic-fail investment bank owns the rights to “enough uranium cake to make a nuclear bomb.”. Should you be worried? Microkhan breaks down the yellowcake game here. Interesting to note that raw uranium prices have nearly quadrupled over the past six years. We really should read this to find out why. It’s going on the to-check-out list, right behind In the Forbidden Land.

Bare-Knuckle Politics in Terre Haute

The whole senatorial brouhaha in Minnesota has nothing on the ongoing mayoral battle in Terre Haute, Indiana. The loser in the city’s 2007 election is still contesting his defeat, on some seriously esoteric grounds:

Burke v. Bennett pits former Mayor Kevin Burke against current Mayor Duke Bennett, who won the 2007 election by 110 votes out of about 12,000 cast. However, Burke argued — after the election — that Bennett had been ineligible to run due to the Hatch Act, a law that limits the politica

The Mutineers’ Revenge

Yesterday’s post about Political Power Units (PPUs) and the Polynesian island of Niue attracted a few dissenting e-mails. These correspondents argued that Microkhan got it wrong by a country mile, and that Niueans are political weaklings when compared to their South Pacific neighbors:

Niue, powerful? Don’t make me laugh, O Mighty Microkhan. By contrast, I give you Pitcairn Island: 48 descendants of the HMS Bounty’s beleaguered Captain Fletcher Christian. 10 of them serve on the Island Council; 5

What a Shame

The Jones Girls were by no means a great group. They too often veered into easy-listening terrain, and committed a cardinal music-biz sin by partnering with Lou Rawls (so famously slammed by The Pharcyde many moons ago). But the Girls also produced a song responsible for one of the greatest hip-hop samples of all time: “When I’m Gone” (via YouTube above) was copped by Royal Flush, who made it the backbone of his classic “What a Shame”. And so the lite-soul pride of Detroit earns its place in mus

Lion Meat Prices

The latest furor over sales of lion meat spurred Microkhan to look up the delicacy’s pricing history. According to this 2003 article, a pound of lion meat then went for roughly $35, or $2.19 per ounce. Five years later, a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times had a 14-ounce lion chop at a steakhouse, a feast which cost her $48 ($3.43).

It’s a bit unclear what’s happened since, but the latest lion-meat vendor to hit The Tubes is selling the stuff for a fortune: $199.99 per pound, or $12.50 per oun

The World’s Most Powerful Citizens

Microkhan’s been reading everything under the Sun regarding the forthcoming Indian election, a true marvel of democracy. Yesterday’s fodder was this New York Times bit on the growing political enthusiasm of India’s urban elite. Buried amidst the reporting was a rather gobsmacking fact: only 543 members of the nation’s parliament are directly elected by the people. (This presumably refers solely to the Lok Sabha, or lower house of parliament; the upper house is indirectly elected, a bit like the

Ride the Sheep

Ladies and gentleman, please meet the second-best female mutton buster in all of Montgomery County, Texas. Don’t let the pink helmet fool you—young KaLee is as tough as they come. If that clown hadn’t snatched her away at the end, I reckon she’d still be riding.

A much less successful ride from the San Antonio rodeo is here. And because Microkhan is all about presenting both sides of the story, the case against this pee-wee rodeo event can be gleaned here.

Microkhan Jr. likely won’t participate.

The Enigma of Kagnew

Now a somewhat secretive Eritrean military base, Kagnew Station was one of America’s key listening posts for much of the Cold War. Radios located here are able to pick up clear signals from thousands of miles away; local AM stations in Asmara have reported hearing Finnish broadcasters on occasion.

Altitude plays a big role in Kagnew’s magic, as does the relative quiet of the plains below. But those factors alone can’t quite explain why a short-wave radio at Kagnew can pick up Bulgarian chatter wi