MLManley

A mantis hangs upside down from a bird feeder, eating a dead hummingbird.

Tweet this!

South Korean Special Army soldiers flip simultaneously as they demonstrate their martial arts skills during a rehearsal for the 61st anniversary of Armed Forces Day at the Gyeryong military headquarters.

Tweet this!

Residents clear mud off a vehicle in the storm-ravaged village of Rodriguez, in the Philippines.

Tweet this!

10 secret fast-food menu items
Mental Floss uncovers a world of options to satisfy your hunger

By Stacy Conradt
MentalFloss.com

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to seek out covert items at fast food chains around the country. Be warned, this mission includes very real dangers such as hardening arteries and skyrocketing cholesterol. We’ve compiled a list to get you started.

Starbucks
The small
If you’re at Starbucks and in need of just a little caffeine, don’t worry – there’s a tiny option for you. It’s the Short size, and they don’t advertise it. It’s like a little baby cup of coffee. It also comes in handy when you’re scrounging for change and don’t have enough for a tall (not that that has ever happened to me).

Jamba Juice
Candy in your smoothie
It’s a good thing we don’t have Jamba Juice here in Iowa, because I would be all over candy-based smoothies. Because it’s considered a health-food chain, Jamba Juice doesn’t officially list these on their in-store menus, but the website Mighty Foods assures us that the secret flavors exist. The ones they confirmed with the company’s headquarters include Strawberry Shortcake, White Gummy Bear, PB&J, Various flavors of Starbursts, Fruity Pebbles, Push-Up Pops, and Skittles. Other tantalizing flavors that are rumored to exist: Chocolate Gummi Bear, Apple Pie, Sourpatch Kid, Tootsie Roll and Now and Later.

Fatburger
The Hypocrite
This one might be my favorite. At Fatburger, you can order a Hypocrite – a veggie burger topped with crispy strips of bacon.

Chipotle
Whatever you want
Chipotle has a whole secret menu that is limited only by your imagination – they have a store policy that says that if they have the item available, they will make it for you. Things that have been tested include nachos, quesadillas, taco salads and single tacos. Some stores are testing out quesadillas as a regular menu item, however, so maybe someday soon you won’t need a super-secret handshake to order one.

Wendy’s
The Meat Cube
If you’re at Wendy’s and you’re really hungry – like, three-patties-just-won’t-cut-it hungry – go ahead and order the Grand Slam, which is four patties stacked on a bun. This option is only available at select Wendy’s, and it’s also known as the Meat Cube.

McDonald’s
The Neopolitan
Several places, including McDonald’s and In-N-Out, will serve you the Neapolitan milkshake. It’s just what it sounds like – chocolate, vanilla and strawberry shakes layered in a cup.

In-N-Out Burger
The secret’s out
In-N-Out Burger’s “secret menu” isn’t so secret these days – in fact, they’ve posted it on their website. But in case you’re not in the habit of surfing fast food sites, here’s the skinny on their rather un-skinny items: ordering something “Animal Style” at In-N-Out means you’re going to get it with lettuce, tomato, a mustard-cooked beef patty, pickles, extra spread (it’s sort of Thousand-Islandy) and grilled onions. You can even get your fries Animal Style.

“Protein Style” is a burger wrapped in a lettuce leaf instead of a bun. A Grilled Cheese is two slices of American cheese, lettuce, tomato and spread on a bun (grilled onions if you so choose). And you can get just about any combo of meat and cheese that you want if you order it like you’re ordering lumber: 3�3 gets you three beef patties and three slices of cheese, 4�4 gets you four of each, and so on. According to photos posted at SuperSizedMeals.com, one gluttonous patron requested and received a 100×100 at a Las Vegas store a few years ago. One item not listed on the website secret menu: the Flying Dutchman, which is two slices of cheese sandwiched between two patties, hold the bun.

Popeye’s
Naked chicken
Feeling a little health-conscious at Popeye’s? If you are, you really should have gone somewhere else. But there’s a little hope for you – ordering “naked chicken” will get you breading-free poultry. The word is that this is on the menu at some Popeye’s, but not all of them, although it is an option at all of them.

Taco Bell
Green chili sauce
Like Chipotle, Taco Bell will make you just about anything within reason as long as they have the ingredients for it. Since most of the food at Taco Bell is made out of the same basic items, that means you can probably ask for most discontinued items and get them. One “secret,” though, is that they have a not-advertised green chili sauce at most locations, and apparently it’s excellent.

Subway
Pizza sub
Some Subways will still make you the popular pizza sub from the 1990s. Once the chain decided to make their focus healthy eating, the pizza sub disappeared from the menu in most places (the word is that Canadian and Mexican Subways still offer them on a regular basis). But if you ask, lots of places will still make it for you. Be warned, though – Jared would not approve of the nine slices of pepperoni and copious amounts of cheese slathered in marinara sauce.

© 2009 MSNBC.com

URL: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/33091304?pg=1#TDY_090930_SecretFastFood

Tweet this!

by O. Kay Henderson on September 30, 2009

in Uncategorized

Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Rants of Sioux Ctiy is calling for another new amendment to the state’s constitution, one that guarantees Iowans have the right “to keep and bear arms.”

Iowa is one of six states which do not have such an amendment in their state constitution, and Rants says that’s important given today’’s announcement that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a gun rights case.

“We know that the U.S. Supreme Court is revisiting the Second Amendment,” Rants says. “And one of the key decisions they’re going to make is whether or not localities like Chicago or state governments can pass legislation or ordinances that temper or take away people’s rights to bear arms, pass handgun controls, for instance.”

Rants is a member of the Iowa House who tried but failed last spring to set the wheels in motion for a statewide vote on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in Iowa. Rants says it’s time to ensure Iowans have the right, under the state constitution, to own firearms and an amendment to the state constitution would do that.

“With Justice Sotomayor on the Supreme Court and given her previous options…(it) leads me to believe that the court will say that the Second Amendment applies to federal legislation and may not apply to state or local ordinances,” Rants says. “Therefore, if Iowans truly want to protect their Second Amendment rights, we need a state constitutional amendment. I’ll be introducing that legislation in January when the legislature reconvenes and I’ll make that part of my agenda if Iowans were to elect me governor next fall.”

Rants is not a gun owner or a hunter, and he is not a member of the National Rifle Association (NRA).

“I still believe that’s a right that someday I may want to take advantage of,” Rants says. “My neighbors, my fellow citizens certainly should have that right, regardless of whether I take advantage of it.”

Iowa along with the states of California, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey and New York do not have state constitutional provisions which guarantee a right to keep and bear arms. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a lawsuit challenging Chicago’s ban on handguns and other restrictions on shotguns and rifles. Last year the Supreme Court struck down portions of a Washington, D.C. handgun ban.

Tweet this!

By Frank James

It appears that car maker Saturn will soon be history.

Penske Automotive announced Wednesday afternoon that it’s dropping its planned purchase of Saturn from General Motors Co. because a plan fell through to have a third company make the cars after GM stopped. Penske didn’t name the third company.

Quickly responding, GM said it’s closing its Saturn unit. This from a GM press release with a statement from GM CEO Fritz Henderson:

As a result of PAG’s decision, we will be winding down the Saturn brand and dealership network, in accordance with the wind-down agreements that Saturn dealers recently signed with GM. Pursuant to the terms of those agreements, the wind down process will be determined and communicated shortly.

Saturn customers and owners will continue to be able to purchase and have their vehicles serviced at Saturn retailers during this process. Once the wind down is complete, Saturn owners will still be able to have their vehicles serviced at other GM dealerships. We will be communicating with our customers very soon to explain the next steps in this process.

Penske, which operates auto retailers, blamed the board of the third company for rejecting the manufacturing agreement and bringing down the entire deal.

An excerpt from Penske’s statement:

Since announcing its discussions with GM on June 5, 2009, the company has been in the due diligence process to determine the feasibility of developing an independent distribution model for Saturn-branded products and service parts in the United States, including the sourcing of vehicles from GM and other potential suppliers. The company had negotiated a definitive agreement with GM to source vehicles on a contract-manufactured basis for a period of time. After this period, the company would have been required to source vehicles from another third party under a similar contract-manufacturing agreement.

Penske Automotive Group negotiated the terms and conditions of an agreement with another manufacturer; however, that agreement was rejected by that manufacturer’s board of directors. Without that agreement, the company has determined that the risks and uncertainties related to the availability of future products prohibit the company from moving forward with this transaction.

Tweet this!

Well it is time to sign off for a few hours while I get some sleep. In the meantime, check out the story / post below this one about the bugs, it will make your stomach squeamish reading about the bugs.

There were some updates available today for Karmic Koala. Till later…./mm

Tweet this!

Before fast food, farms, or even wild game, insects fed prehistoric hunter-gatherers all over the planet. A near taboo in the Western world, entomophagy (insect-eating) is still practiced by millions of people in traditional societies—and by us, a couple of gastronomically adventuresome Western journalists. It began simply enough with witchetty grubs in Australia, but before we knew it, we were caught. In this slide show, explore just a few of the stops on our journey to becoming gourmands of all things creepy-crawly.*—Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio

<!– // In this section we set up the content to be placed dynamically on the page. if(PBS_FlashCanPlay(6)) { // if we've detected an acceptable version var oeTags = 'Launch interactive\‘ + ‘\
Printable version\‘; document.write(oeTags); } else { // flash is too old or we can’t detect the plugin var alternateContent = ‘This feature requires Flash, a free software plug-in. ‘ + ‘Install Flash\‘ + ‘\
or see the feature\’s printable version\‘; document.write(alternateContent); // insert non-flash content } // –> Launch interactive
Printable version

Tweet this!