March 20: Bock Beer Day

March 19 is National Chocolate Caramel Day

Want a ‘Kwikie’? New name for lottery ticket sparks concern in Maine

Convenience-store owners in Maine are concerned that the state lottery wants to rebrand its scratch-off lottery tickets as "Kwikies."

“That’s going to be real uncomfortable for my girls behind the register to have guys come in and say, ‘Hey, give me a Kwikie,’” David Welch, owner of Village Market in Fairfield, Me., told the Bangor Daily News after receiving a letter from the Maine State Lottery informing him of the plan.

“It’s highly inappropriate,” Kaylee Constable, one of Welch's employees, added. “[Customers] come in and joke around with me and say, ‘Can I get a Kwikie?’ I’m only 19 years old, and I have 40- and 50-year-old men saying sexual remarks to me.”

The newspaper provided some helpful context: "In slang terms, a quickie is a short sexual encounter."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/kwikie-quickie-lottery-scratch-off-maine-155155788.html

March 18: Oatmeal Cookie Day

Turner Brigade brings Civil War days back to life

PILOT KNOB – You couldn’t blame someone for thinking they were imagining things as the sound of cannon fire reverberated across the Arcadia Valley on March 2 — but what people heard was very real.

For the third year in a row, members of a well-respected Civil War reenacting group, the Turner Brigade, returned to the Fort Davidson Historic Site in Pilot Knob. Made up of infantry, artillery, cavalry and civilian units, the brigade is the largest Union reenacting group in eastern Missouri. It’s grown to more than 150 adult members in recent years. While most Turner Brigade reenactors are from Missouri, the brigade has members from as far away as the state of California.

At Saturday’s all-day event the brigade took part in muster and spring drill, offering spectators an accurate portrayal of life in military and refugee camps during the early to mid-1860s. Spring was traditionally the time during the war when units would reorganize after a long winter, readying themselves for the summer and fall battle campaign season.

As the units drilled, the public received a small sampling of what they can expect to see at the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Pilot Knob reenactment to be held Sept. 27-28, 2014, at Fort Davidson.

http://dailyjournalonline.com/news/local/turner-brigade-brings-civil-war-days-back-to-life/article_a588ac6c-8dd8-11e2-a5e6-001a4bcf887a.html

Hundreds of Dinosaur Egg Fossils Found

Researchers in northeastern Spain say they've uncovered hundreds of dinosaur egg fossils, including four kinds that had never been found before in the region. The eggs likely were left behind by sauropods millions of years ago.

Eggs, eggshell fragments and dozens of clutches were nestled in the stratigraphic layers of the Tremp geological formation at the site of Coll de Nargó in the Spanish province of Lleida, which was a marshy region during the Late Cretaceous Period, the researchers said.

"Eggshells, eggs and nests were found in abundance and they all belong to dinosaurs, sauropods in particular," the study's leader, Albert García Sellés from the Miquel Crusafont Catalan Palaeontology Institute, told Spanish news agency SINC this week.

"Up until now, only one type of dinosaur egg had been documented in the region: Megaloolithus siruguei," Sellés added. His team found evidence of at least four other species: Cairanoolithus roussetensis, Megaloolithus aureliensis, Megaloolithus siruguei and Megaloolithus baghensis. Megaloolithus eggs are thought to be associated with sauropods, long-necked dinosaurs that were among some of the largest to roam the planet.

http://news.yahoo.com/hundreds-dinosaur-egg-fossils-found-121945899.html

Mobile Money: A Technology Game Changer for Tackling Global Poverty?

Mobile money—the ability to store and transfer money using cell phones—is one of the most talked-about technologies in global development. Proponents believe it could redefine what it means to be poor by giving poor people access to basic financial services.

In Kenya, where two-thirds of the population live on less than $2 a day, mobile money is now ubiquitous and has enjoyed outstanding adoption rates among low-income customers. Early evidence indicates it is already changing lives. For Safaricom, the leading provider of the service in Kenya, mobile money—or M-Pesa, as its product is called—has contributed directly to the company’s bottom line, while strengthening its market share.

Mobile phone operators are now tripping over each other to roll out similar services in other developing countries, from Afghanistan to Zambia. Intuitively, we would expect these to match, if not better, M-Pesa’s record of success by learning from M-Pesa’s experiences. So far that hasn’t happened. While a number of offerings in different countries are now taking root, none have so far matched the speed and scale of M-Pesa in Kenya. Others have failed miserably.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2013/03/12-mobile-money-chandy

Patriot Coal Sues Peabody, Asks Bankruptcy Court To Relieve Pension Obligations

St. Louis-based Patriot Coal Corp. has asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to modify collective bargaining agreements with the United Mine Workers of America, allowing the coal company to cut health care coverage for retired miners.

Patriot was created by St. Louis-Based Peabody Energy Corp., as a stand-alone company in 2007. In creating Patriot, Peabody also transferred a hefty chunk of Peabody’s outstanding pension obligations onto Patriot’s books.

Patriot said in the filing on Thursday that the action is necessary to save more than 4,000 jobs. Patriot also seeks to change wages, benefits and work rules for existing workers in an effort to make the company more competitive.

“Our labor and retiree benefit costs have risen to levels that simply cannot be sustained given the challenges facing the Company and our industry,” Patriot’s Chief Executive Officer Bennett K. Hatfield said in a statement. "The requested cuts will save more than 4,000 jobs and health care for 23,000 employees, retirees and dependents," Hatfield said.


http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/patriot-coal-sues-peabody-asks-bankruptcy-court-relieve-pension-obligations

St. Louis Company May Have Answer To Ending Meth Labs

Not many of us are chemists.

Yet by removing one oxygen atom average people here in Missouri regularly are turning common decongestants like Sudafed and Claritin-D into the illicit drug methamphetamine.

Nationwide those explosive mom and pop meth labs were estimated by a Rand study to cost taxpayers more than $23 billion a year in health care costs, child endangerment and clean-up.

But as St. Louis Public Radio’s Maria Altman reports a local pharmaceutical company may have the answer.

http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/st-louis-company-may-have-answer-ending-meth-labs

Sen. McCaskill Promises To Take Pay Cut

Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri says she will take a cut in pay as a show of solidarity with those federal workers who face furloughs due to the sequester.

McCaskill and Senator Bill Nelson of Florida have proposed a bill that would reduce congressional salaries once the furloughs begin. McCaskill says she wants to hold lawmakers accountable for not coming up with an alternative to the sequester as a means of cutting federal spending.

"I think it’s important that those of us who can’t get an agreement about a more thoughtful way to impose cuts, that we should feel some of that pain, too," McCaskill told reporters this week.

McCaskill says if her bill fails -- or fails to get a vote -- she will voluntarily take a cut in her pay in proportion to federal workers who face salary reductions due to furloughs.

http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/sen-mccaskill-promises-take-pay-cut

As much as I have a problem with the Senator on some issues, I must respect this decision from her.