By Maui Curmudgeon

Recession’s imigration benefits
It seems every recession has a silver lining: in the past year, 724,000 fewer Mexicans tried to jump the border into the U.S. over the previous year, the lowest number of attempts in 35 years. In fact, there is a growing business in border states: companies that help Mexicans return to their former residence – permanently.

New hottest chili
There’s a new chili in town: the Dorset Naga. The hotness of chili is measured by the Scoville scale. For example, habanero chilis score 577,000 on the scale. The Dorset comes in at 1,600,000, just under the force of pepper spray. The hotness of a chili is caused by the amount of capsaicin in the thing, and no, it does not cause permanent internal damage. Go figure.

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NEW YEARS DAY Day 1 of 2009 364 days left in this year

WEB SURF SPOT OF THE WEEK — Think Green Hawaii
WEB VIDEO OF THE WEEK — Dance around the world with Matt
NETCAST OF THE WEEK — Slate’s Podcasts
GOOD DEED SITE OF THE WEEK — Maui Food Bank

• Thirty-four identified wars are waging on mother earth.
• Every Western religion is at war someplace on the globe.
• The United States has more than $10.5 trillion in public debt, increasing $1.3 billion per day, with your share currently being $36,000.
• Private debt in the U.S. exceeds $12 trillion.
• In the U.S. an estimated 5million people will lose their homes in 2009 due to financial mismanagement, theirs and lending institutions.
• Up to 40 million children in the U.S. live below the poverty line.
• More than 80,000 humans a day die of starvation and starvation-related diseases each day, one every 3.6 seconds. 40,000 of them are children under the age of five.
• Worldwide 15 million children will die of starvation in 2009

“How to Convert to a Peace Economy” – Deepak Chopra

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