Don't Stand Too Close To Me, You Might Catch My Fat
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"Morning Meeting" is a recap of our daily editorial meeting. If we had a show today, these are some of the stories you would probably hear.
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A NASA employee lost his laptop somewhere in this vicinity. Please let him know if you come across it.
I'm back from Croatia but Matt's gone to DC, Luke remains in Chicago, and Win missed the meeting for a doctor's appointment. Let it never be said that the BPP suffers from inertia. In fact it may be accurate to say that we've not yet spent an entire week all together in New York. Fortunately, our newsgathering powers can be transmitted through a speakerphone. Here are your morning meeting notes...
NEWSCAST: Tour de France enveloped in another doping scandal, Taliban executes S. Korean hostage, Vick to enter plea today, Sudan ordered to pay families of USS Cole bombing victims, West Nile cases up, Tsunami warnings down, and Fidel calls in sick on Revolution Day.
MILITARY NEWS: There's a bunch of interesting and important military news today. The panel that President Bush appointed to study military and veteran care in the wake of the Walter Reed Scandal released its report, the House approved a bill to bar permanent bases in Iraq, a US base backtracked on a plan to hold all its military funerals for the month on a single day, and a general's rank may be reduced in the wake of the Pat Tillman probe. We'd love to have someone on to touch on some or all of these topics, perhaps Jamie McIntyre from CNN or someone from Jane's Defence. (That's not a type-o, they're British.)
FAT IS CONTAGIOUS: A fascinating new study reports that when one person gains weight, that person's friends and family tend to gain weight too. This stands to reason if your friend is always the one ordering desert, with an extra spoon for you, but the study says the pattern exists even for people who are hundreds of miles apart. (I guess I'll have to ask my friends in Chicago to stop eating bratwurst on the phone.) The study's authors suggest that people tend to change their perception of what constitutes an acceptable weight as those around them get larger, a phenomenon that might help to explain the general expansion of America's waistline.
ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS IN HOT WATER: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales continues to have his sworn statements contradicted by emerging evidence, but the AG isn't backing down from what he's said. Now some Democrats are urging a perjury probe. Meanwhile, a House panel voted to pursue criminal prosecution of two Bush aides.
BOISE STATE PLAYER FACES THREATS OVER INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE: Even the most casual sports fans will remember Boise State's historic upset of Oklahoma in January's Fiesta Bowl, a game that ended on a classic trick play called a "Statue of Liberty." (It was the third time since I met my wife that football made her cry. Here are the highlights in case you forgot about it.) Well after Boise State running back Ian Johnson scored the winning two-point conversion, he ran to the sidelines and proposed to his girlfriend, cheerleader Chrissy Popadics. She accepted, and this weekend they're getting married. The problem is that the couple has received threats because Johnson is African American and Popadics is white. Johnson says he's hired security for the wedding, and it will proceed as planned. The BPP wishes them all the best.
THE RAMBLE: A researcher in North Carolina says he's developed an allergy-free peanut. Matt was especially interested in the massive increase in peanut and food allergies in the last 20 years in the US. There are a lot of theories to explain the increase, but the medical community hasn't settled on one explanation. I remember when I was a waiter and we learned how to handle food allergies. A Dominican waiter I worked with turned to me and said, "In the Dominican Republic, nobody has food allergies. When you're hungry, you're not allergic to any food."...Ford is turning a profit, which seems to have come as a surprise to pretty much everyone...NASA has lost $94 million in office equipment in the last ten years, according to a GAO study. And yes, one employee actually said he lost his computer in space.
9:06 AM ET | 07-26-2007 | permalink
