• Angry residents of Lantana, Fla. sent a not so subtle message to Post Master General John Potter about his plans to close their local post office: 1,000 coconuts. Potter, in turn, donated the produce to the D.C. food bank Bread for the City.  [h/t: DCist]
• The Smithsonian uses the photo sharing Web site Flickr to remind us of an era in photography where you couldn’t instantly share an image with thousands of your closest friends around the world without ever making a print.  [h/t: NPR]
• The TSA now allows you to bring ice through security checkpoints, provided it is not partially melted. [The TSA Blog]
• Sesame Street marks its 40th anniversary on Tuesday. The stars of the PBS show are frequently federal spokesmuppets, as seen most recently in these ads raising awareness about flu prevention.

According to this FedBizOpps notice, which topped the Drudge Report today,  the programs will “discuss the power of humor in the workplace, the close relationship between humor and stress, and why humor is one of the most important ways that we communicate in business and office life.”

The requirements:

Participants shall experience demonstrations of cartoons being created on the spot. The contractor shall have the ability to create cartoons on the spot about BPD jobs. The presenter shall refrain from using any foul language during the presentation. This is a business environment and we need the presenter to address a business audience.

At the end of the day the bureau wants its workers to learn the following:

• Understand the importance and power of humor in the workplace in a responsible manner
• How to use talents in a creative way that adds humor to everyday experiences
• Alleviate stress in home and the office
• Know how and why humor is important to communication
• Improve work-place relationships
• Prevent burn-out

While every workplace could probably use a little humor, one has to wonder whether the right way of going about it is a cheerless training session paid for by taxpayers.

Update: Treasury has canceled it’s search for workplace humor following a congressional inquiry into the item on Drudge. Guess FedLine wasn’t the only one wondering why taxpayers should pay to make Treasury laugh.

The Smoking Gun

“Oh gosh, that was on the front of a coloring book?” Kim Pressley-Herrick, founder of Coloring Away Pain, told Fox News. Pressley-Herrick’s company produces coloring books intended to help children deal with traumatic events. “As a parent, I don’t think children need to see that. There are ways of delivering messages to children on their level without being graphic.”

But with some of these drawings, you have to read between the lines to find out what FEMA’s really trying to warn you about. Hidden subtext after the jump:

Take this picture, for example:  

FEMA’s clearly trying to tell us that the zombie menace is going to be the next major threat we face. Look at this “girl’s” cold, dead eyes. And the fact that she’s trying to eat whole fruit with a spoon. Those are the signs of an undead ghoul trying to hide that she hungers only for human brains.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here we see the threat of fly-by-night contractors – who often swoop into disaster zones with dubious credentials and fail to provide promised goods and services to desperate victims — clearly illustrated. This guy gets bonus points for being some kind of post-apocalyptic radioactive mutant who thinks he’s Lucy Van Pelt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They're already dead.

There are other coloring books remaining on the FEMA Kids Web site, like Urwin and Wufi’s Adventures With Wildfire and this one from Racine County, Wisc. But kids…if a seven-foot dog-man monster blocks the door and says “Where do you think you two are going,” you run. Seriously, GET OUT. Find a window, find a back door, anything. No good can come of this.

Of course, the coloring books still pale in comparison to the infamous “FEMA Rap” — the single greatest hip hop track of all time. Better than Grandmaster Flash. Better than Public Enemy. Better than The Roots. Click here for the Real Audio track and the lyrics are here.

A NASA image of methane, not martians, on Mars.

No, little green men have not been found on Mars and residents of West Windsor Township, N.J. have nothing to fear. But a team of NASA scientists have discovered something that could prove there is life on the red planet: methane.

The gas is a byproduct of biological and geological activity. On Earth, much of the methane in Earth’s atmosphere is released by organisms as they digest food. But geological processes, such iron oxidation, also release the gas.

NASA observations of the Martian atmosphere over the last several years have shown that methane is being continually released into the air there, but the scientists have not been able to determine the cause.

Here is what NASA’s Michael Mumma, the lead author of an upcoming paper on the findings, had to say:

Right now, we do not have enough information to tell whether biology or geology — or both — is producing the methane on Mars…But it does tell us the planet is still alive, at least in a geologic sense. It is as if Mars is challenging us, saying, ‘hey, find out what this means.’

• The Postal Service will deliver more than 20 billion pieces of mail throughout the season.
• Last year holiday shoppers spent $30.5 billion on gifts.
• Christmas tree farmers sold $493 million worth of pine trees last year; $114 million worth were sold in Oregon alone.
• Approximately $1.3 billion worth of candles were shipped to stores in the U.S. in 2002, many of which were lit during Hanukkah and Kwanzaa celebrations.
• Approximately $475 million worth of bubbly was shipped to U.S. wine sellers in 2002.

Bonus: There are many festively named cities and towns in the U.S. including Santa Claus, Ind.; Santa Claus, Ga.; Noel, Mo.; Rudolph, Wis., Dasher, Ga.; Snowflake, Ariz.; Holly Springs, Miss.; Mount Holly, N.C.; and Champaign, Ill.

But because CIA Director Michael Hayden was the guest for “Not My Job,” the portion of the show where they ask famous people obscure questions to win a listener the privilege of having Carl Kasell’s smooth voice on the listener’s answering machine.

After telling some funny spy stories, Hayden was tested on his knowledge of obscure breakfast cereal.

So how did the director of central intelligence do? Listen for yourself here. Simply click on “Not My Job.”

Bonus: To hear Kasell’s dramatic reading of the Blagojevich transcripts click on “Who’s Carl This Time?” It’s [bleeping] golden.

Don't be like this guy.

Anyone with a human resources background — or even a lick of common sense — will cringe as often as laugh at the boneheaded management tactics depicted on NBC’s The Office. But if you want to find out what HR people really think of Michael Scott’s … um … unique leadership style, check out the blog That’s What She Said.

Every Friday, a former HR professional analyzes the management sins from the previous night’s episode and tabulates how much the fictional Dunder Mifflin paper company might have to pay if a fed-up employee filed a lawsuit. For example, the entry for the episode “Did I Stutter?” estimates Stanley — the office’s only black salesman — could net $450,000 after Michael asked him to record an “urban” message and then pretended to fire him.

It’s a great read, and often insightful. Some of the blog’s advice — like ”I don’t recommend secretly marrying a coworker against her will,” or “Don’t plant weed (or Caprese salad) in an employee’s desk and call the cops on him” – falls under the category of common sense.

But there’s often some useful advice, like this discussion about how even a harmless-seeming joke about homosexuality can lead to trouble, or this post about how small incidents can, over time, create a hostile work environment. (Which, of course, is the only way to describe Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton branch.)

Hat tip to my colleague Tim Kauffman, who first showed me this blog last year.

How about 271 million turkeys for starters? That’s the number of turkeys that were raised in the U.S. since last Turkey Day, according to the Census Bureau, the keeper of all fun facts. According to Census the average American consumes 13.3 pounds annually.

Here’s what else Census has to say about other Thanksgiving eats:

• The U.S. cranberry industry produced 689 million pounds of cranberries this year, up 5 percent from last year. And surprise, Wisconsin, not Massachusetts, leads the nation in cranberry production.
• Approximately 1.8 million pounds of sweet potatoes were harvested in 2007. (Bonus: Per capita sweet potato consumption is 4.6 pounds).
• A total of 1.1 billion pounds of pumpkins were produced for all those pies we’ll be consuming.
• And finally: 769,760 tons of green beans were harvested this year, perfect for those casseroles.

Bonus fun fact: TSA says you can bring your pumpkin (or other flavor) pie as a carry on for your holiday flights, provided you agree to put it through the x-ray machine. Apparently pie is neither liquid nor gel, just 100 percent solid yummy goodness.