Hand Coding

ABC News is reporting that a US District judge has ordered the Treasury Department to look into means to allow people who are blind to differentiate between various bills:

U.S. District Judge James Robertson ordered the Treasury Department to come up with ways for the blind to tell bills apart. He said he wouldn’t tell officials how to fix the problem, but he ordered them to begin working on it.

The American Council of the Blind has proposed several options, including printing bills of differing sizes, adding embossed dots or foil to the paper or using raised ink.

“Of the more than 180 countries that issue paper currency, only the United States prints bills that are identical in size and color in all their denominations,” Robertson wrote. “More than 100 of the other issuers vary their bills in size according to denomination, and every other issuer includes at least some features that help the visually impaired.” […]

The “maybe” part is that the government has 10 days to decide whether to appeal. And, considering the magnitude of the case, I’m not ruling out that possibility. Still, I think this would be a good change and I hope it goes forward.

Kottke is reporting on a promotion by Swiss Knight cheese where they're offering 500 American Airlines frequent flier miles with the purchase of each cheese wheel.

Now the big thing is cheese. This weekend I was handed an opened wheel of processed cheeses by a friend. He said that his brother-in-law had caught wind of a frequent flyer promotion whereby you get 500 miles for each purchase of this cheese wheel and had purchased 75,000 miles for ~$300, which also means he’s got more opened cheese wheels than he knows what to do with. […]

I may just have to stop by the supermarket on the way home from work this evening ;). (And, it certainly doesn’t hurt that DFW Airport is one of American Airlines’ hubs.) [Via: BoingBoing]

Update 2006-11-29: I checked the Albertson's just off Arapaho & Hillcrest on my way home from work last night, but I couldn’t find any Swiss Knight products :-/. I wouldn’t necessarily say that Albertson’s as a chain doesn’t carry them, but I didn’t see any at that store.

Last night’s Colbert Report featured an analysis of Gail Parker, an independent who ran for Senate in Virginia. As Colbert pointed out, she garnered over 26,000 votes, far more than the ~ 9,000 separating votes Jim Webb (D) and George Allen (R). Naturaly, the go-to point-to-be-made was that if more people voted for Webb or Allen instead of Parker, the race might not have been so close.

Anyhow, Parker’s primary campaign platform was that she wanted to extend light rail service thoughout Virginia. As she put it, Virginians “need more trains: reliable, clean, efficient, quiet, safe Rail service.”. That’s all well and good, but the best part of her, erm, platform is her barbershop quartet-esque campaign jingle:

Let’s vote for Gail —
she’s for light rail.
Vote Gail Parker US Senate!
She’s independent,
the US Senate
needs Gail “for Rail” this time!

Let’s vote for Gail —
she’s for light rail.
Vote Gail Parker US Senate!
She’s independent…

[Post-jingle epilogue:]

“I’m Gail Parker, candidate for
the United States Senate and I paid
for, and approved, this ad.”

It’s so damn catchy that, if I were living in Virginia, I’d almost have to vote for her just for the jingle. Oh, and not that it counts for anything, but she’s also apparently acronym compliant: FEW / ROA / NARFE / ISC2 / AARP / NAACP — did she think anyone would know what half of those mean? (And before you start mashing your thumbs into the comment box, yes, I’m aware of both the AARP and the NAACP ;).)

With the Democrats’ newly regained control of the House and (likely) the Senate, some have been speculating as to their new agenda. And, it looks like rightwasright.us has the scoop on the Democrats’ new goals. Here’re a couple excerpts:

• Tofurkey to be named official Thanksgiving dish
• Freeways to be removed, replaced with light rail systems
• Comatose people to be ground up and fed to poor
• Ban Christmas: replace with Celebrate our Monkey Ancestors Day
• […]

Indeed, it is a parody, but I’m guessing that both sides of the aisle could get a chuckle out of this one. (Via: BoingBoing)