Monday, December 16, 2013

NORAD Tracks Santa

You better watch out.  You better not cry.  You better not pout.  I'm telling you why.  Santa Claus is coming to town...and NORAD is tracking him.  The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has been tracking and reporting Santa's position on Christmas Eve since 1955.  This site explains how the tradition began, thanks to a misprinted phone number in a newspaper, and provides a link to the tracking site:

http://www.norad.mil/AboutNORAD/NORADTracksSanta.aspx

Parents can watch Santa's progress with their children and reassure them that Santa has not upgraded to delivery drones, but still delivers his toys the old-fashioned way.  Happy holidays!

Monday, December 9, 2013

U.S. African Development Foundation

The recent passing of Nelson Mandela may have all of us feeling as though we're just a little bit African.  As an African, you might be pleased to know that there's a U.S. government agency, the U.S. African Development Foundation, whose sole purpose is to help the people of Africa:

http://www.adf.gov/

As its site says, "USADF provides grants of up to $250,000 directly to marginalized community groups and enterprises in Africa. These grants help organizations create and sustain jobs, improve income levels, and address social development needs."  Who knows, one of those grants may be helping to feed or educate the next generation's Nelson Mandela right now.  So, hakuna matata, y'all.

Monday, December 2, 2013

Economic Data Cuts

It's "The Case of the Disappearing Data," but there's no need to call in Nancy Drew.  It's quite clear that the cause of this disappearance is budget cuts.  The Bureau of Economic Analysis can no longer afford to gather and publish all the statistics it has been producing over the last several years.  You can see details about the data no longer being collected in this BEA blog post:

http://blog.bea.gov/2013/11/21/lapi-budget/

The situation begs the question, if the economy has gotten so bad that we can no longer track the economy, how will we know when it gets better?  Solving that mystery may require someone even smarter than Sherlock Holmes.