Ugh...mouse button broke

The left mouse button on my Thinkpad has died. It's actually the second time this has happened, surprising in that my Thinkpad is barely two years old. The button relies on a little rubber nipple piece that sits between the physical button and the switch. When it broke last year I took the laptop apart and switched the piece from the middle button (which I've yet to figure out how or what to use it for) with the left button. Now I have no pieces to switch and must make the dreaded call to IBM service. Dreaded...because I know they will refused to sell me the replacement piece, instead that I will need to ship it in for repairs (kind of stupid for what must be a $0.50 piece at most). Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

A quick search of the ibm.com website shows that the suggested fix is to replace the entire keyboard (FRU 02K5883). Of course, nearly ten years after ibm.com went online there is still no mapping of FRU to part number on the stinking website.

The (Agri)Cultural Contradictions of Obesity

In The (Agri)Cultural Contradictions of Obesity, Michael Pollan writes about one (possible, probable) cause of the obesity epidemic. Namely, the shift away from a price support system to an all-out subsidy to corn farmers. The net result has been a shift from a managed market of corn supply, to an ever-increasing supply of corn. Farmers need to produce more corn year over year to make the same money as the price of corn has dropped. All of that corn has to go somewhere and it ends up in the food supply as additives, high-fructose corn syrup, and feed for cattle.

Sometimes even complicated social problems turn out to be simpler than they look. Take America's ''obesity epidemic,'' arguably the most serious public-health problem facing the country. Three of every five Americans are now overweight, and some researchers predict that today's children will be the first generation of Americans whose life expectancy will actually be shorter than that of their parents. The culprit, they say, is the health problems associated with obesity.

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blog template work: accessible calendar

I am still futzing with the layout of the site. While doing so I found Accessible Calendars and tips and tricks: previous and next on your calendar helpful (moreso in navigating Movable Type stuff). One comment on the Accessible Calendars piece, he (and Movable Type) use abbr in the th tag not for an abbreviation but for the full length version of the day, where I thought one would use the title attribute. I'll have to confront my demons and load JAWS again.