EPA Adopts Strong Standards for Large Ships to Curb Air Pollution
News release: "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has finalized a rule setting tough engine and fuel standards for large U.S.-flagged ships, a major milestone in the agency’s coordinated strategy to slash harmful marine diesel emissions. The regulation harmonizes with international standards and will lead to significant air quality improvements throughout the country."

New GAO Reports
International Space Station, Medicaid, Nursing Homes
International Space Station: Significant Challenges May Limit Onboard Research, GAO-10-9, November 25, 2009
Medicaid: Ongoing Federal Oversight of Payments to Offset Uncompensated Hospital Care Costs Is Warranted, GAO-10-69, November 20, 2009
Nursing Homes: Opportunities Exist to Facilitate the Use of the Temporary Management Sanction, GAO-10-37R, November 20, 2009

Who is that masked man?
The Lone Ranger's last name is "Reid," because his brother who was killed in an ambush by the Cavendish Gang was named Dan Reid. (This is also the name of the Lone Ranger's nephew, although we do not know what his true first name was. His mother was killed in an Indian attack and the kindly woman who raised him got the name Dan from a locket that Dan's mother had worn.) No first name was given to the Lone Ranger during the radio and television program. http://www.endeavorcomics.com/largent/ranger/faq.html

Don Diego is Zorro. The story began with The Curse of Capistrano in 1919.
http://www.zorrolegend.com/development.html

Voltaire claimed that the identity of the Man in the Iron Mask was so obvious that it wasn't even necessary to state his name. He theorised that this man was indeed a brother of Louis XIV, not a twin but an older brother, son of the queen, his mother, but not of his father Louis XIII, whose existence would have complicated the line of succession. This enigmatic figure had originally been imprisoned at Pignerol and then St Margaret's Island before being transferred to the Bastille in 1698. There is still no definitive answer as to his identity. Historically, Voltaire was the first to record the Man in the Iron Mask, in an authenticated history entitled Siècle de Louis XIV. He records that a man who was never seen, except when his face was hidden by an iron mask, was transferred to the Bastille in 1698 and died there in 1703 at about the age of 60. It is thought that the existence of this mysterious figure was only brought to the notice of the general public after the storming of the Bastille by rioting citizens in 1789. During the insurrection they discovered a strange entry in the records of the Bastille that referred to a prisoner, number 64389000, described as the 'Man in the Iron Mask'. Those citizens had obviously not been reading Voltaire, as this notable writer and philosopher, who had written about this mystery, had already been dead for 11 years. The good citizens did discover, however, that the man had been buried under the name of Marchioli. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A293230

On New Year's Eve, when merrymakers crowd the streets, a blue moon will shine over their festive heads - bringing to the holiday both a night-sky rarity and a decades-old quibble. Most plainly, a blue moon means seldom ractically never. It's shorthand for an event that happens so infrequently you might as well wait for the big white pumpkin in the sky to change color. But the meaning and roots of the phrase are tangled up in error and dispute. Pick your own explanation and raise a glass to Earth's lonely satellite. http://www.newsobserver.com/news/health_science/story/258491.html


"America's poet" is a term sometimes used for the Poet Laureate of the United States. It has also been used for Robert Frost, Walt Whitman and Johnny Mercer.

Comic strip humor
Is "hearprint" a term? (response to the word hearsay) Get Fuzzy Dec. 21, 2009
I found the yule clog. (tree lights all tangled) Crankshaft Dec. 22, 2009

Shortened words
droid from android
blub from blubber
burbs from suburbs
meds from medications /medicines
vid from video
comp from computer/compensation
app from application
blog from weblog
The trick of jump-starting the cooking of foods that take longer to cook is a good one. Use it with other vegetables that you want to roast such as chunks of squash, carrots, turnips, rutabaga and such. Just microwave a few minutes then spread out on a shallow sheet pan to finish roasting in the oven. Keep an eye out for yellow or red turnips; they are sweeter and milder than the traditional varieties and taste great mashed with a little butter and nutmeg. The Splendid Table December 23, 2009