very cool

So very, very cool.

Man Finds 56-Pound Mushroom in Missouri

Thursday, October 27, 2005

(10-27) 14:08 PDT Kansas City, Mo. (AP) --

The mushroom Ty Whitmore found on a relative's farm near the northwest Missouri community of Maysville this week tipped the scales at 56 pounds — and that was only part of it.

Whitmore, 19, of Kansas City, was cutting firewood Monday when he saw the orange and yellow mushroom growing from the base of a maple tree. He cut it off with a saw and said the biggest half of it fell into a creek.
...
Whitmore got it to his pickup truck, half a mile away, and had it weighed at a Maysville grocery store. He did some checking on the Internet and determined the big fungus was a sulfur shelf mushroom. Its scientific name is Laetiporus sulphureus, and it's commonly referred to as the "chicken of the woods" for its good eating qualities.

"I hunt and fish, but this is the best thing I ever got, a real trophy," Whitmore said.
...
The mushroom, measured Tuesday by a Missouri Department of Conservation, was 30 inches wide and 16 inches high. Harold Burdsall, a retired U.S. Forest Service fungus expert in Madison, Wis., said after looking at e-mailed photos that it was the biggest sulfur shelf mushroom he had ever seen.

James W. Kimbrough, an expert on molds, mildews and mushrooms at the University of Florida, said reference books list the biggest sulfur shelf mushroom as being about 20 inches wide.

While experts say it's doubtful anyone has a reliable record book for individual mushroom species, Kimbrough said the one Whitmore discovered has "got to be among the largest ever found in North America."

More at the link of course.

because "unhealthy" people don't deserve jobs

(I tried posting this earlier but Firefox crashed and ate my post.)

In case anyone needed any more evidence that Wal-Mart execs are pig-fuckers, read on:

October 26, 2005
Wal-Mart Memo Suggests Ways to Cut Employee Benefit Costs
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
and MICHAEL BARBARO

An internal memo sent to Wal-Mart's board of directors proposes numerous ways to hold down spending on health care and other benefits while seeking to minimize damage to the retailer's reputation. Among the recommendations are hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from working at Wal-Mart.

In the memorandum, M. Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart's executive vice president for benefits, also recommends reducing 401(k) contributions and wooing younger, and presumably healthier, workers by offering education benefits. The memo voices concern that workers with seven years' seniority earn more than workers with one year's seniority, but are no more productive.

To discourage unhealthy job applicants, Ms. Chambers suggests that Wal-Mart arrange for "all jobs to include some physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart-gathering)."
...
One proposal would reduce the amount of time, from two years to one, that part-time employees would have to wait before qualifying for health insurance. Another would put health clinics in stores, in part to reduce expensive employee visits to emergency rooms.
...
Ms. Chambers's memo voiced concern that workers were staying with the company longer, pushing up wage costs, although she stopped short of calling for efforts to push out more senior workers. She wrote that "the cost of an associate with seven years of tenure is almost 55 percent more than the cost of an associate with one year of tenure, yet there is no difference in his or her productivity. Moreover, because we pay an associate more in salary and benefits as his or her tenure increases, we are pricing that associate out of the labor market, increasing the likelihood that he or she will stay with Wal-Mart."

I don't even know where to begin. I have neither the time right now nor the energy to form a truly coherent response, but jesus tap-dancing christ!

OK, so only "produtivity" matters? You know, the employee that has been there seven years will have craploads of knowledge that a newer employee will not. That is why senior employees typically get paid more. It is not about "productivity" alone. It is about knowledge and experience. People are not machines. There is value to our experience.

And "in-store" health clinics? Puh-lease! Are the executives going to be asked to use these rather than the ER? Yes, just what we all want--doctors employed by our workplaces. Ewwww! What would a Wal-Mart health clinic be like, anyway?

And forcing physical activity (like cart collecting) in jobs that don't inherently require it as a means to keep out elderly and disabled applicants is reprehensible. Next thing you know, they will avoid hiring women of child-bearing age because we get pregnant and use our health insurance for such frivolous things as pre-natal care and delivery. Oh wait, do they already do that? Perhaps.

Hello, 1955!
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More at the link above.

Actual memo here: http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/business/26walmart.pdf