I expected the next increase to be in 2009 and to be greater than one cent. But this excellent news means there will be stamps emblazoned with The Answer.

AmericaBLOG.com: US 42nd in Life Expectancy.

A baby born in the United States in 2004 will live an average of 77.9 years. That life expectancy ranks 42nd, down from 11th two decades earlier, according to international numbers provided by the Census Bureau and domestic numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics….

Forty countries, including Cuba, Taiwan and most of Europe had lower infant mortality rates than the U.S. in 2004….

“Even if we focused only on those four things, we would go along way toward improving health care in the United States,” Murray said. “The starting point is the recognition that the U.S. does not have the best health care system. There are still an awful lot of people who think it does.”

Original Yahoo News article.

Palm Beach officials cited Trump for hoisting a large American flag atop an 80-foot pole at his lavish Mar-a-Lago estate and club.

Town officials said the real estate mogul has violated zoning codes with a flagpole taller than 42 feet and for erecting it without a building permit and permission from the landmarks board.

Trump has until November 27 to apply for approvals or face a December 21 code enforcement hearing that could result in $250-a-day fines.

(Emphasis added.)

I can’t. They make me a little dizzy and I keep seeing oddly-proportioned heptagons.

We’ll call this a contest.

The prize is a gold star.

I was subbing for my favourite second grade class and we had just read today’s version of Weekly Reader. I was asking them questions about it… I think the topic was space. One of the kids was like “42, Miss Miller.” I was like wait, what? I was trying not to laugh because that had absolutely NOTHING to do with my question, and he was like, “The answer to all questions is 42.” How does a punky little 7 year old come up with that? :) It makes me want to watch the movie of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy again.

We don’t know if the kid has subversive parents or if he just came up with 42 on his own.

She doesn’t always use “like” like that. Honest.

… Intelligence work has one moral law–it is justified by results. Even the sophistry of Whitehall paid court to that law, and Leamas got results. Until Mundt came.

It was odd how soon Leamas had realised that Mundt was the writing on the wall.

Hans-Dieter Mundt, born forty-two years ago in Leipzig. Leamas knew his dossier, knew the photograph on the inside of the cover; the blank, hard face beneath the flaxen hair; knew by heart the story of Mundt’s rise to power as second man in the Abteilung and effective head of operations. Mundt was hated even within his own department. Leamas knew that from the evidence of defectors, and from Riemeck, who as a member of the SED Praesidium sat on security committees with Mundt, and dreaded him. Rightly as it turned out, for Mundt had killed him.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold by John LeCarré, pp.8-9. (emphasis added.)

“They’re an oversight. Some poor designer was too busy thinking about next week’s production quotas, or his digestive troubles, or his unrequited love for whatever norm-conforming certifiably A-Equivalent piece of tail he happened to be chasing at the moment. His mind strayed”–Arkasha’s free hand slid down Arkady’s chest and across his belly–”unforgivably from the all-important work at hand. An error crept into the D1746 gene at site forty-two of chromosome eighteen. That’s the frizzy D site to you and the rest of the hoi polloi. Our poor designer failed to notice the error. It began to replicate. The control team, perhaps similarly distracted by work, lust, or digestion, also failed to notice the error. Which continued to replicate. Which resulted in your spectacular cowlicks. Which resulted in my falling in love with you. Which is about to result in … here, hold this.”

Spin State by Chris Moriarty, p. 286. (emphasis added.)