Google, in an attempt to further enhance the accessibility and useability of all information, has introduced the movie: keyword. My first test gave mixed results. The results page told me that "What a dump" was said by Bette Davis, but not that she said it in Beyond the Forest, despite the search beyond.the.forest what.a.dump demonstrating that Google has the original source of the quote available.
I hope it gets better enough to be useful to me and the people I know.

The WHO is using soothing phrases such as "gravest possible danger" to describe the bird flu situation. Oh, good.

I was a little surprised to see FD&C Yellow 5 was not on the BBC’s list of colorings banned elsewhere, but FD&C Blue 1 is there. Bottom line appears to be that Norway is the place to live if you’re exceptionally concerned about food-additive safety.
Update: turns out Yellow 5 is Tartrazine; the BBC just didn’t translate it, though they did translate some of the others.
Alternative bottom line: coal may not be good for you.

Kickin’ it old school in preparation for National Poison Prevention Week (March 20-26), take a listen to the Mr Yuk song and read a little history of Mr Yuk. And after that flash from the ’70s, don’t forget that poison control info is now available everywhere by calling 1-800-222-1222.

Through the excellent CoolGov, comes the Flu surveillance map. If this was a different sort of weblog, I would make a joke about red state/blue state and horrible infections.

I’m a little (well, a lot) appalled that challenging the assumption that "language … allows you to do other high order intellectual functions" is considered so shocking. I frequently feel like language gets in the way of my high order thoughts, in an analogous way to how sounding the words in my head slows down my reading. It’s like making the thoughts into words is this bad habit that I can’t figure out how to break.
I’m inclined to believe there’s a spectrum of verbal thought: I can at least imagine thought without words, which I think puts me somewhere in the middle. At one end, there’s Temple Grandin, who helped design the cow-calming slaughter trail and does not think verbally at all (cf. autism); and at the other, someone I know expressed unwillingness to believe that non-verbal thought exists. The punch line? The latter person is a graphic designer.

Another perennial fave here at FP: communist propaganda! This time, from North Korea. I am enjoying my page-a-day Chinese propaganda calendar from Taschen, a gift from Ursula. This week, there was a rather crude poster from a particular technical college class, urging fellow students to be all revolutionary and stuff. So instead of doughnuts in the student lounge to urge them on, they get some guy’s crappy brushwork.

Why the joy in propaganda? Well, aside from the really bold colors and clear-as-mud-unless-you-aren’t-Chinese/Russian/Other symbolism, I am in general a fan of functional art. Need to whip up the masses? Indicate which door is for ladies? Indicate that this canned product is, in fact, delicious? Then I will enjoy your art.

later: their bandwidth was slammed, so the above link is out of comission for a while. In the meantime, enjoy some East German bulletin board propaganda.

Apparently we won’t have to worry about smoke visibility in the near term, as the Pope’s laryngo-tracheitis has been fixed. That was quick. Mine seems to be getting hardly any better at all. Of course, it sounds like his doc(s) gave him treatment instead of a blank stare.

A really cool and yet horrifying dynamic look at the popularity of certain names for babies over time.

Plumbers beware! In Virginia, it may soon be illegal to have one’s pants droop. Though I haven’t read the text of the bill, the focus seems to be on underwear, so maybe skipping the thong entirely will allow the miscreant to escape prosecution. Or maybe a crack show is covered under other legislation.