Geography
Summary of the Gulf oil spill
It has been a rough decade for the planet, and the latest oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico isn’t helping things. Let’s get you up to speed about this massive oil spill which is threatening to be worse than the Exxon Valdez in 1989. Cause: a rig owned by BP called the Deepwater Horizon exploded [...]
Iceland – island, fishing, volcanoes and more
Thanks to a spewing volcano from Iceland over the past 48 hours, air traffic from several parts of Europe has been halted and dramatic scenes of the Icelandic volcano are leading newscasts. Before you find yourself involved in a conversation about Iceland, you want to make sure you aren’t just blowing smoke (pun served and pun [...]
The Pentagon – world’s largest office building
Yesterday evening’s shooting at the Pentagon is sure to keep the famous building in the news. If you haven’t read about the shooting, you can find that story here. While talking about it tonight, it would help to know some facts about the Pentagon other than its obvious shape. Not obvious from the many overhead [...]
Brief date night primers – Georgia, Nordic combined
If you’re going to find yourself out to dinner tonight in celebration of Valentine’s Day, your date is likely to bring up the tragic death of the luger from Georgia. You should know that Georgia is a country south of Russia and north of Turkey. 4.3 million people live in the country which the United [...]
Olympics – Where is Vancouver?
The Winter Olympics begin this evening in Vancouver, Canada, and Dinner Topics will likely provide a few Olympic-related posts over the next two weeks. Like it or not, people talk about the Olympics, so we’ll make sure we’ve got you covered. Today we start with the basics. Everyone knows Vancouver is in Canada, but where [...]
Richter Scale
With the earthquake in Haiti still fresh in everyone’s mind, it’s likely that even you may have uttered a Richter scale reading in the past day (I believe the last I heard for Haiti was 7.0). Sure, you know that the larger the number, the stronger the earthquake, but here are a few additional facts [...]
Earthquake in Haiti
Sorry about the lack of a post yesterday – I think I was hung over from celebrating a binary palindrome day on Monday. Back to your regularly scheduled Dinner Topic. The most important story hitting the wires right now is the tragic earthquake in Haiti. The massive quake has already crumbled buildings, destroyed a hospital, [...]
Gitmo to Thomson??
The story is about a week old, but there’s a good chance if you live in the Midwest, people will still be talking about this topic at your next get together – the prisoners from Gitmo are scheduled to be transported to the Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Illinois. President Obama’s plan is to close the [...]
