Free public education? Apparently there’s no such thing in the United Arab Emirates. An article in the Abu Dhabi paper discusses the problems of the working people as costs rise:

Instead, Mushtaq Ur Rahman, 45, from Pakistan, is postponing enrolment for his second daughter to allow him time to save up for the fees and other costs.

Mr Rahman recently paid Dh5,500 (US$1,500) in tuition fees and transport for his elder daughter, Alaina, nine, but cannot afford similar costs for his other child, Kashmala, aged four.

It’s interesting to note the various nationalities of the people interviewed. They’re coming from all over the world to live there.

GrrlScientist has another NYC subway mosaic on display here. Here’s the link to her archive.

Less than a month ago, on Face the Nation, Karl Rove said this about Gov. Tim Kaine, the person he thought Obama might chose for his vice president:

With all due respect again to Governor Kaine, he’s been a governor for three years, he’s been able but undistinguished. I don’t think people could really name a big, important thing that he’s done. He was mayor of the 105th largest city in America. And again, with all due respect to Richmond, Virginia, it’s smaller than Chula Vista, California; Aurora, Colorado; Mesa or Gilbert, Arizona; north Las Vegas or Henderson, Nevada. It’s not a big town. So if he were to pick Governor Kaine, it would be an intensely political choice where he said, `You know what? I’m really not, first and foremost, concerned with, is this person capable of being president of the United States?

So was Rove behind the choice of Sarah Palin (governor of Alaska for 20 months; former mayor of Wasilla (population 8,000)?

Jeff Master’s tropical storm blog at Weather Underground is my favorite place to go to read discussions about the storms. He runs through computer model forecasts and explains a bit about the factors at play. Currently, he also gives a review of Betsy that hit New Orleans in 1965. What a wild path that storm followed.

I’ve been following the tropical storms at two or three sites, but the link I received from Ralph today tops them all for interactive graphics. The MSNBC Hurricane Tracker is extra fine.

A pair of NYC high school students used about $300 to buy supplies for their study of restaurant fish. They spent it mostly at sushi bars. They discovered that customers often aren’t getting what they pay for:

They found that one-fourth of the fish samples with identifiable DNA were mislabeled. A piece of sushi sold as the luxury treat white tuna turned out to be Mozambique tilapia, a much cheaper fish that is often raised by farming. Roe supposedly from flying fish was actually from smelt. Seven of nine samples that were called red snapper were mislabeled, and they turned out to be anything from Atlantic cod to Acadian redfish, an endangered species.

They’ve been praised for their amateur inquiry.

That’s the conclusion of a World Health Organization study:

…a toxic combination of bad policies, economics and politics is in large measure responsible for the fact that a majority of people in the world do not enjoy the good health that is biologically possible. Social injustice is killing on a grand scale

Anna Bowdlen writes in the Guardian that the health threat from obesity is every bit as strong as the threat from malnourishment.

With a son in Miami and a daughter in New Orleans, I have a new interest in hurricanes. As a Midwesterner - where storms move across the region at a good pace - the strangest thing to get used to with hurricanes is the slow pace of travel. Tornadoes are suddenly here; hurricanes are watched for days and days before they arrive.

China and the democratic government of Iraq have signed a $3 billion oil deal. As one cynic said: More than 4,000 American troops have died to pave the way for China to get Iraq’s oil.

But it is their oil and their choice of what to do with it. Now maybe they can start making some good choices of what to do with all their money. Water and electricity for Baghdad might be a good choice.

To go along with the post below about wind power, here’s a link to a map showing installed megawatts for each state. Michigan is pretty weak, unless you compare it to Ohio. Bowling Green’s projects are about all Ohio has to show, but Michigan is mostly limited to the Huron County wind farm under development. We’re way behind many states.

What is oilman T. Boone Pickens doing promoting renewable energy? In an interview with Joseph Romm, Pickens said U.S. consumers in the next decade will engage in “the largest transfer of wealth in human history,” some $10 trillion, to oil-producing nations.

“It’s absolutely stupid that we’re pouring out that kind of money and getting nothing for it,” Pickens tells me. “There’s no jobs created, no taxes paid and no profit made.”

Romm has no quarrel with that, but he says there’s nothing behind Pickens’ words until he stops boosting politicians who stand in the way of renewals.

Perhaps you heard that Dave Freeman, author of “100 Things to do Before You Die,” has died. Unfortunately, he had only visited about half of his suggestions before his accidental death at age 47.

This CNN article mention a couple of his odder suggestions: “taking a voodoo pilgrimage in Haiti and ‘land diving’ on the Island of Vanuatu, which Freeman once called ‘the original bungee jumping.’”

Take care, you aging Baby Boomers. Freeman died when he fell and hit his head. He was at home at the time.

The U.S. came home with lots and lots of medals, and why shouldn’t we? A big population with lots of funding for training. Justin Wolfers looks at the winners on a per capita basis and declares Jamaica the winner, followed by Bahrain. Take the link for a chart.

This analysis is for gold medals per million inhabitants. The U.S. came in 33rd, right behind Azerbaijan. We’re well ahead of the big population countries of China and India:

Indeed, the real puzzle from the 2008 Olympics is why the United States is so terrible at transforming raw talent — the millions of Americans born every year — into world champion material. Moreover, the puzzle deepens once one accounts for the fact that, living in one of the world’s richest nations, U.S. athletes have unparalleled access to the latest training technology.

Ian Ayers looks at the citizenship of athletes and notes how it’s improving competition. There are plenty of anomalies, such as Bahrain’s gold medal winner, Rashid Ramzi, of Morocco.

Troublesome drivers have higher insurance rates. Smokers don’t get breaks from insurance carriers. Should it follow that obese people pay higher insurance rates? That’s what’s happening for state employees in Alabama. Market Place presented a report on the issue yesterday:

Here’s a number for you: Obesity costs the U.S. health care system $93 billion a year. But honestly, the number I wanted to know when I first heard about this policy was my body mass index. So I went to the Web.

My height is 5-foot, 2 inches. And my weight is 164 pounds. We hit “compute BMI” and the answer’s 30.

Under the new plan, state employees in Alabama who have a BMI of more than 34 and don’t address their problems with cholestoral or blood pressure, will have to pay $25 more a month for health insurance.

Commenters don’t agree that BMI is a good measure. Hit the link and look for the BMI calculator.

This makes two weeks in a row that I’ve had an incorrect date in a story. Morenci’s JV football team plays Farwell tonight, not the traditional Thursday, here at home.

Farwell? What are they doing driving all the way down here with these gas prices? That doesn’t make sense. Morenci is giving them some cash to help with fuel.