September 28th. Burger King marks its fifth anniversary back in Japan with an "irrationality" themed burger - because hamburgers with black buns ARE CRAZY.The buns are made with bamboo charcoal and the burger is slathered in "black ketchup", which is made from squid ink and garlic.Price at ¥480 (6 bucks or so), the Premium Kuro Burger will be available for a limited time only.Burger King Is Launching Squid Ink Ketchup and a Black Hamburger by Brian Ashcraft, Kotaku.com

The XM25 Counter-Defilade Target Engagement System is not new. The 1970s myth of military contractors throwing rubbish out there for high costs (well, mostly myth - just like the myth that NASA put a man on the moon, when military contractors did) is just a myth. The military is exceedingly slow to approve anything these days and so XM25 "Punisher" has been looked at for 10 years. 

Here's an ethics doozy, hot on the heels of some ethicists in England contending that not only is late-term abortion an ethical right, post-delivery abortion is an ethical right.This isn't quite so controversial, but still taking a contrarian position to the knee-jerk reaction that gender selection is bad.  Virtually everyone says it is bad and yet virtually every country has people doing it. Isn't this just modern eugenics, the 21st century equivalent of that 20th century tool of progressives out to create a Utopia where there was no promiscuity and no mental retardation and no disease- the only price was forced sterilization, forced abortion and selective breeding?

Farmers and activists from all over the continent converged on European Union headquarters in Brusssels to push for a food policy that is fairer to family farmers and kinder to the environment and developing nations.Meanwhile, the deny what has gotten them all to this point; science. At the European Parliament in Brussels, a reform of the costly pan-EU farm system is being discussed. And everyone has their hand in the pie, people selling stuff in the Slow Food movement to the Friends of the Earth environmental group.

Think sodas and other drinks are too sweet? You are not alone.Barry Nalebuff, professor of economics and strategy at Yale School of Management, thought that too and so 14 years ago he started Honest Tea Inc. with one of his students. They make tea that tastes like tea and it has fewer than 100 calories each. They will have sold 100 million bottles this year.But not in New York City.  Because Honest Tea comes in 500 milliliter bottles, it will be banned. 500 milliliters is 16.9 ounces and, because New York City wants to mimic the social authoritarian, anti-science quackery of San Francisco, it will be outlawed to cure obesity.

The date for solving 'cold cases', those unsolved murders from the past, has just been pushed back a little farther.  72-year-old Jack McCullough has been found guilty

Despite all science showing it is unjustified and a French court overturning a moratorium that had no legal or scientific basis, the Prime Minister of France, Jean-Marc Ayrault, has declared that France will continue to ban any genetically modified food despite objections from its own scientists and those across the EU and the world.

In 2012, you'd have to be crazy to get into the cereal business. The start-up costs are high, margins are low and competitors are gigantic. Food scientist Mike Abrams and business partner Chuck Mason think they can make a go of it because they have an edge; caffeine. Cappuccino Crunch is toasted rice flour cereal made with coffee.Can they market that to kids?  Why not? The Starbucks closest to my office is near both an Intel site and a high school and which do you think has more representation in there?  That's right, the high school.

Beef Products Inc.(BPI) has had enough, it seems.  A lawsuit filed in a South Dakota state court  goes after ABC News, Inc. for defamation over its"pink slime" coverage, claiming the network damaged the company by misleading consumers into believing it is unhealthy and unsafe.They are also going after ABC news anchor Diane Sawyer and the Departure of Agriculture microbiologist who coined the term "pink slime", claiming about 200 "false and misleading and defamatory" statements about their lean, finely textured beef.

Did you know evolution was 'in crisis?' Neither did I, but Jason Rosenhouse at Scienceblogs is on the case, this time debunking a somewhat sing-songy phrase by philosopher of science John Dupre.