Hot off the Press: Profits of death edition

Chicago is in the midst of a local/micobrewery renaissance: http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/travel/28journeys.html?8dpc. Another reason to move to Chicago.

Who's bad? The Michael Jackson butter statue to appear at the Iowa State Fair this summer: http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2009/06/30/michael-jackson-butter-sculpture-joins-butter-cow-at-2009-state-fair/.

One of the Mars rovers is stuck in the fine, fluffy Martian sand, and JPL scientists have recreated the dilemma in a lab to figure out a solution: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-rover3-2009jul03,0,6530804.story. Reminds me of that part in "Apollo 13."

Radio stations (probably their corporate conglomerates) are fighting the Performance Rights Act, which would make them pay royalties to musicians they play: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-radio3-2009jul03,0,6937549.story. Of course, musicians support the bill.

Luxury hotels are being hard hit by the recession: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-resort3-2009jul03,0,3057119.story. Seriously, though, I don't give a shit. Rich people can do what my family did: visit relatives and sleep on their couch.

July 5th marks the 75th anniversary of Bloody Thursday, the longshoremen's strike in San Francisco. Here's a good retrospective piece from the San Francisco Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/07/04/MNNL18HJ1S.DTL.

Cool piece on the bachelors behind American independence: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/04/opinion/04mccurdy.html?_r=1&hp.

A small town in Iowa gets another ice cream shop years after the only one converted to a restaurant: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090704/LIFE/907040304.

The perfect storm of moisture and intense heat caused concrete to buckle on highways and roads in Iowa: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090704/NEWS/907040319.

This article sums up the Fourth of July in beach cities on the west coast: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_12752931. It's as if the entire state comes to the beach. Ugh.

College students and recent graduates who couldn't afford or land summer internships or career jobs are doing what I did for the summer (work and live in mom and dad's basement): http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/fashion/05summer.html?_r=1&ref=fashion. Boo hoo hoo.

I'm really unsure why The Gazette ran this piece. I'm unsure if it's a column or a real news story. A guy in Cedar Rapids has questions about the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. Don't we all? He's collected evidence and sort of teamed up with a mechanical engineering professor to challenge the official explanations. Okay... So how does he differ from everyone else who's done the same thing? Apparently he believes, as the articles says, that "somehow, someone harnessed energy and directed it to virtually vaporize the World Trade Center for reasons ranging from terrorism to financial gain." Whoever this person was, they turned away Hurricane Erin and made the towers fall faster than gravity would allow. Read it for yourself: http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090706/NEWS/707069946/1002/NEWS. The article itself is really not that informative.

One of Iowa's largest air polluters switches to burning low-sulfur coal when the wind blows toward a state pollution monitor: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090706/NEWS/907060318. The shocking thing about this article is this:

The facility is located less than one-half mile from Garfield Elementary School, which ranked as having worse air than about 93 percent of U.S. schools in a study conducted last year by USA Today. The study found that children nationwide were breathing toxic and potentially cancer-causing chemicals because of industrial pollution near schools.

Breckenridge's new wildfire prevention ordinance, requiring residents to thin trees around their homes and create a "defensible space" like in California, has angered some citizens and sparked debate: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-wildfire7-2009jul07,0,2189347.story.