Monday, November 17, 2008
Spam sales up as economy heads down
One factory in the United States has been busy for months as the rest of the economy slows down -- the Hormel Foods in Austin Minn. that makes Spam.The factory in Austin, Minn., has been operating two shifts a day seven days a week producing the canned lunch meat, Workers, with all the overtime they can handle, have been told the long hours are likely to continue indefinitely.
Dan Bartel, a business agent for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 9, said that Spam "seems to do well when hard times hit." The lunch meat is reasonably priced protein, if not gourmet food.
Other budget food items are doing well. A spokeswoman for Safeway said sales of rice and beans are up and surveys found that pancake mix and beer sold well in October.
"We'll probably see Spam lines instead of soup lines," Bartel said.
In the News
Prank NY Times: 'All the news we hope to print'Commuters nationwide found out during Wednesday's morning rush hour that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had ended. Global warming, health care spending and the economy's problems were on their way to solutions too.
Some 1.2 million copies of a spoof of The New York Times, dated July 4, 2009, were handed out by the liberal pranksters the "Yes Men."
The 14-page parody announces the abolition of corporate lobbying, a maximum wage for CEOs and a recall notice for all cars that run on gasoline.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Stone Age Temple May Be Birthplace of Civilization
It's more than twice as old as the Pyramids, or even the written word. When it was built, saber-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths still roamed, and the Ice Age had just ended.The elaborate temple at Gobelki Tepe in southeastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, is staggeringly ancient: 11,500 years old, from a time just before humans learned to farm grains and domesticate animals.
According to the German archaeologist in charge of excavations at the site, it might be the birthplace of agriculture, of organized religion — of civilization itself.
"This is the first human-built holy place," Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute says in the November issue of Smithsonian magazine.
Record litter boosts population of rare Komondor dogs by 25%
One of the world's rarest dogs has seen its UK population boosted by a quarter after a record litter of nine pups.Kyra gave birth to Britain's biggest-ever litter of Komondors, which are worth £1,000 each. The breed is known as the world's hairiest dog because their fur grows in long dreadlocks which resemble a 'mop' reaching the floor.
There were only 40 Komondors in Britain but the breed's population has gone up by a quarter thanks to the unprecedented litter. Each fluffy pup is identical and so they have been daubed with a different colour on their tails so that their owners can keep track of them. The method has also helped name them with the litter known as Red, Blue, Purple, Green, Silver, Brown, Pink, White and Tiny - named because he was slightly smaller than the others.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Longest beard in the world
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A Surrey, B.C., man is hoping he may soon be recognized as having the world's longest beard on a living male. Three judges measured Sarwan Singh's beard at 2.33 meters, or seven feet 7.75 inches, on Tuesday at a special ceremony at the Akal Academy where Singh is a music teacher.
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