Heading to Australia tomorrow!

Yay! I'm taking off tomorrow! So like any good traveler, I'm checking up on the planes that I'll be traveling on!

Well... really just one. I've never been on a 747 and that is what I'll be taking from LAX to New Zealand (I think). The layout and other pictures seem nice enough, and my sister Courtney said the flight over there was nice enough, so I am hopeful! Below is an excpert from the wikipedia pages on 747-400s

Notable accidents and incidents

• On 23 July 1999, a man hijacked All Nippon Airways Flight 61, a 747-400D airliner bound for New Chitose Airport near Sapporo, Hokkaidō from Tokyo International Airport (Haneda). The man killed the pilot. Other crew members restrained him, and the airliner landed safely.^[18]
• On 31 October 2000, Singapore Airlines Flight 006, a 747-400 flying on a Singapore to Los Angeles via Taipei route rammed into construction equipment while attempting to take off from a closed runway at Chiang Kai Shek International Airport, caught fire and was destroyed, killing 79 passengers and three crew members. The accident prompted the airline to change the flight number of this route from 006 to 030 and to remove the "Tropical Megatop" livery on the accident aircraft's sister ship.^[19]
• On 31 January 2001, Japan Airlines Flight 907, a 747-400D bound for Naha International Airport from Tokyo International Airport, nearly collided with another Japan Airlines aircraft. The 747 pilot suddenly dived and narrowly avoided the oncoming DC-10. See 2001 Japan Airlines mid-air incident.^[20]
• On 12 March 2003, Singapore Airlines Flight SQ286, a 747-400 departing Auckland, New Zealand for Singapore suffered a serious tailstrike on take-off causing major damage to the tail section of the aircraft. The airplane returned safely with no fatalities reported.^[21]
• On 25 July 2008, Qantas Flight 30, a 747-400 bound for Melbourne Airport from Hong Kong International Airport, made an emergency landing at Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, Philippines with a gaping hole in its lower fuselage forward of the starboard wing; the aircraft lost a fairing. No one was hurt.^[22][23] After ruling out terrorism, authorities focused on the possibility of an exploding oxygen bottle from the emergency oxygen supply system.^[24] This theory was confirmed as the cause in an interim report issued by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.^[25]

Far from finding all of this frightening, I think it it rather encouraging that all of the accidents were from something other than a major intrinsic design flaw. Yay!

I am officially better than Prez Obama

... at picking NCAA men's Basketball Brackets.

Mine: http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/entry?entryID=969855

His: http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/entry?entryID=2813746

Sweet!

Really?

"Really?" was all I could say when I read this story from Yahoo. It is quite possibly the most upsetting thing I've read all year. No joke. And here is why:

They joked about the Russian misspelling of "reset" on the button before sitting down at an oval table with aides. "We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?" Clinton asked. "You got it wrong," said Lavrov, telling her "Peregruzka" meant "overcharge."

How do you screw that up? Does the State Department really have NO ONE fluent in Russian? On the flip side, it appears my services may be in high demand for the future...

ACHOO!

So the one good thing about being under the weather is that I get a chance to sit down, relax with a box of Kleenexes and read the newspaper.

This article in particular I found to be interesting.

And now I would like to juxtapose (a word I have never used before) that article with an excerpt from an article on the American Heart Association's website (source):

In February 2007, two new bills were introduced in Congress designed to give the FDA authority to regulate tobacco products: HR-1108, sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Tom Davis (R-VA), and S 625, sponsored by Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and John Cornyn (R-TX). The American Heart Association and several other health organizations support this new legislation.

Yes, putting more responsibility on the back of the FDA sounds like an excellent idea now, doesn't it? There are many, many, MANY things terribly wrong with this bill, but when we have peanut butter and syringes killing people, things that are 1) under the watchful eye of the FDA and 2) specifically NOT supposed to kill you, do we really need to have the FDA "protect" us from something that EVERYONE knows is bad for you?

I would like to think my father for the tip off about the article.