Todd Oldham, that Target stylemeister, designed the cutest reconfigurable sofa for the folks over at La-Z-Boy! I MUST have it for my ladies’ lounge.

MedlinePlus has well-organized and reliable information on illnesses and medications, but you need to buy something like this to really annoy your doctor. Does anyone have good tips on social engineering in the doctor’s office? I need tips on how to gently guide a doctor so they don’t think you’re a loony.

Here’s the UN’s rundown on estimated current rates of infant mortality per 1000 births. The US’s similar rundown by state is a little hard to read, so I turned to the book State Rankings 2003: A Statistical View of the 50 United States. There are lists ranking the states by various statistical measures, one being infant mortality. The premise here is that one could compare the mortality rate of each state to other countries, since the rate in the US varies quite a bit state to state. Well, it looks like the range in the US is like the range in Europe. Some states are Germany, while others are Hungary.
Infant Mortality Rate in 2000, top & bottom 5
Mississippi 10.7
Alabama 9.4
Delaware 9.2
Tennessee 9.1
Louisiana 9.0

California 5.4
Utah 5.2
Washington 5.2
Maine 4.9
Massachusetts 4.6

Turn that annoying talking fish into almost any talking fishlike thing you want with the power of Linux. I’d be happy to find one or more for anyone who’d like to take on this project.

The BBC headline that caught my eye was "Me and My Parasite." One of the anecdotes involves a waiter fleeing in horror from a customer: "Broughton chased him down the street urging him to tell him what was wrong. But the boy would only point, wordlessly, at his nose." Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Apparently the piece is a teaser for a programme called "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Here’s hoping it hops the pond to BBCA so I can be revulsed in my own home.

In our continuing series of mocking the afflicted, we bring you this: stroke victim goes cockney (apparently "a mixture of English cockney and West Country").

Woooooo, more nerdly government document fun: BOPCRIS: Official British Government publications from 1688-1995!
From 1909:

Apart from a small number of persons who use moveable dwellings as a pastime, van-dwellers are of two classes, showmen and the gypsy class. For showmen no legislation was required. Mr Horne, the chaplain of their guild, stated that there were 4,000 vans and 12,000 souls. The trade was perfectly honest and respectable and its members were well-to-do and in some cases even thriving. There was no complaint against them, but the showmen sometimes complained that localities used existing restrictions to prevent shows.

The gypsy class should be distinguished from tramps- the large nomad population coming from the cities to do hop-picking, pea-picking, etc., who sleep under hedges, in barns and casual wards, and not in vans, and who are a ‘ terror to the neighbourhood’. Gypsies were cleaner than the East End hop-pickers, but had primitive views as to the rights of property, especially in respect of what grows and moves on the earth in a more or less wild state, and were given to petty pilfering. Where they congregated in numbers, e.g. the commons in Surrey, problems of sanitation might arise. The case for further legislation had been made out.

Book review sources often review two or more books on the same subject in a single review. When those reviews are attatched to the records of the books they are reviewing by our vendor, the title is trimmed off, so sometimes you’ll see the review of the book you’re looking at, plus one or more mystery books. Here’s one that sounded fascinating:

“Schilling lets the reader in on his unusual life as an international artist and a dentist. His work for the Holland America Cruise Line takes him to places like Venice and Stockholm while, as a dental missionary, he has found himself sketching in rural Kenya and in Nunligran, Russia. Schilling’s tales of journaling on the road are entertaining, and his tips on dealing with rain and insect attacks are useful. ”

Insect attacks!

You’ll need to print this out, so you’ll be able to use it in the event that the unthinkable (a loss of net connectivity) happens. Of course, it’s foolish to think that surviving such a cataclysm is possible, but such guidelines should serve to calm the ignorant masses.

One of the librarians’ choices was the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Take a look at the Notifiable Diseases/Deaths section. There sure is more Hansen’s Disease about than I would have thought. A coworker told me today that American FactFinder is new and improved. Woo Hoo!