Coffee and Provocation

Mug available here.

Fake Service Animals on Airplanes Is a Problem
From The Washington Post:  A little girl saw an emotional-support dog on a plane. It went for her face.

Taking Money From Stupid People
Would you buy 14 ounces of "grass fed beef" dog treats for $30? Apparently there's a market for stupid. For $10 more (40 for 14 ounces) you can also get pheasant or rabbit.

Body Snatching for Science
Watching a TV show called The Frankenstein Chronicles, starring the actor Sean Bean, I Googled a question and discovered the Burke and Hare murders in which two gentlemen committed 16 murders over ten months of 1828 in Edinburgh, Scotland in order to sell fresh corpses to a Doctor Robert Knox who used them for dissection at his anatomy lectures. Burke was hanged in 1829 in front of a crowd of 25,000 people, and his body was publicly dissected for a university anatomy lecture. Burke's skeleton was given to the Anatomical Museum of the Edinburgh Medical School where it remains. Burke's death mask, and a book said to be bound with his tanned skin, can be seen at Surgeons' Hall Museum.

The Cattlemen Have a Beef
The U.S. Cattlemen's Association has petitioned the US Dept. of Agriculture, requesting that it define the word "meat" so it cannot be used to label products that do not contain animal flesh.

How to Pay for It All
The wealthiest 2% of Americans got $1.15 trillion richer in 2017, nearly all of it in stock market gains -- more than enough to pay for state and federal Medicaid, and all mandatory and discretionary social welfare programs nationwide.

Bring Back a Little Bush Moa?
The genome has been sequenced.  Now to experiment with emu eggs as vessels for the DNA. Work is also being done on the Dodo, the Great Auk, the Passenger Pigeon, and the Tasmanian Tiger.

The Continuing Crisis
According to The Guardian, over two-thirds of the 900 KFC restaurants in the UK have been forced to close their doors because the shipper DHL screwed up the shipping of birds to cook.

Good Guy With a Gun?
CNN reports that while a shooter rampaged through Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, the school's armed cop (who was a Broward County Sheriff's Deputy) and three of his deputy colleagues were hiding behind a police car outside the school.

The Secret Service Has Some Suggestions
The U.S. Secret Service has some suggestions on how to prevent school shootings.

Time Flies
Led Zeppelin released Physical Graffiti 43 years ago this week.

Easter Island Creates Massive Marine Protected Area
The Rapa Nui Marine Protected Area encompasses 740,000 square kilometers (286,000 square miles) of Pacific Ocean surrounding Easter Island, or Rapa Nui. The Rapa Nui Marine Protected Area will be off-limits to commercial mining and fishing, while the local people will be free to continue the traditional fishing methods of their ancestors.

General Mills Hopes Blue Buffalo is Cash Cow
Cheerios cereal maker General Mills is buying Blue Buffalo dog food for nearly $8 billion, foraying into a fast-growing pet food market to counter declining sales of processed foods. Analysts were skeptical of the deal, saying that General Mills had overpaid for Blue Buffalo’s stock.  “We like the strategic merit, but the price is steep and General Mills will have to work hard to extract value from the deal,” Jefferies analyst Akshay Jagdale said.