I’ve added a couple "live" webcams (actually, 0ne is updated every half hour) to my slideshow at the right. They show the current view of the Augustine (Alaska) volcano, which is set to blow any day/week now. Maybe.
The cam from Homer, Alaska is from a vantage point 75 miles away, so it may not look like much, especially on bad weather days.
Some very smart men apparently have too much time on their hands:
Scientists in Taiwan say they have bred three pigs that glow in the dark.
They claim that while other researchers have bred partly fluorescent pigs, theirs are the only pigs in the world which are green through and through.
The pigs are transgenic, created by adding genetic material from jellyfish into a normal pig embryo.
***
Taiwan is not claiming a world first. Others have bred partially fluorescent pigs before. But the researchers insist the three pigs they have produced are better.
They are the only ones that are green from the inside out. Even their heart and internal organs are green, they say.
Marginally Interesting: Carole Keetan Strayhorn, the mother of White House spokesman Scotty McClellan, is running for Governor of Texas.
Slightly More Interesting, Slightly Amusing: Despite the fact that her son is Bush’s spokesman and the most visible face of the Republican White House, she is running as an Independent.
Funny: On her campaign form that she filed with the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, she misspelled her last name, leaving off the "y".
Funnier: On her campaign form that she filed with the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, she misspelled her last name, leaving off the "y". Twice.
Link.
Says Cheney …
"And Steve Hayes is of the view — and I think he’s correct — that a lot of those documents that were captured over there that have not yet been evaluated offer additional evidence that, in fact, there was a relationship that stretched over many years between Saddam Hussein and the al Qaeda organization."
…So let’s look at this statement. Cheney says there are all these documents "that have not yet been evaluated." But those unevaluated documents provide "additional evidence" of the fabled Iraq-AQ tie.
Does that make any sense?
You start to see how the Veep has managed to spout so much malarkey over the last five years when he seems to have so much difficulty spotting a logical fallacy.
From The American Spectator:
In supporting your country’s war efforts, it’s quite logical to invoke dastardly actions of the enemy. Historically those actions have been grossly exaggerated or fabricated. In this case, exaggeration is not only superfluous it’s essentially impossible. While taking their lunch breaks from blowing up civilians they do saw through necks with knives.
Actually, the overwhelming majority of terrorists do not saw people’s head off with knifes, and those that do probably don’t do it on their "lunch breaks from blowing up civilians". So any statement to that effect would be, you know, an exaggeration.
Apparently, the "impossibility" of exaggeration is itself somewhat exaggerated.
9:00 Specter reconvenes the hearings. Mrs. Alito is once again sitting behind her husband. She’s dressed in black today, and has a black purse on her lap. She clutches it tightly, much like a Nebraskan tourist on the New York City subway.
9:10 Leahy has the floor for 25 minutes. Mrs. Alito closes her eyes. Her lips are moving, as if engaging in silent prayer.
9:15 Leahy begins asking about whether the Constitution permits the execution of an innocent person. Mrs. Alito puts her hands to her neck, and invokes a "Well, I never…" expression.
9:25 Leahy turns to physican-assisted suicide. Mrs. Alito shifts uncomfortably in her seat.
9:45 Kennedy’s at bat. He’s asking about "unitary executives" and the separation of powers. Mrs. Alito takes a handkerchief from her purse and wipes her brow. I’ve only seen this in the movies, but I think she’s getting the vapors.
10:03 Whoa! As Kennedy was questioning Alito about his non-recusal in the Vanguard case, Mrs. Alito raised her handkerchief to her face!
10:04 No, it was only a booger.
10:06 I wish she’d stop playing with it.
10:10 Orrin Hatch is talking now. He thinks it’s "beyond the pale" to bring up Vanguard now. Mrs. Alito pointedly nods in apparent agreement. Uh, oh. Her bottom lip is trembling.
10:15 It’s Biden’s turn to ask questions now. Again, Mrs. Alito looks heavenward and moves her lips in silent prayer. Oddly enough, everyone else is doing the same thing. Who says these things are partisan?
10:25 Lots of talk about stare decisis. It’s almost like each mention of the phrase acts like a knife through Mrs. Alito’s heart.
10:35 Okay. Now she’s visibly cringing. Even the people around her are starting to notice.
10:45 She closes her eyes, and shakes her head quickly. She straightens up in her seat. She’s admonishing herself to "Keep it together, girl!"
10:52 Senator Kohl is asking about age limits for judges. Mrs. Alito gives him a cold stare, as if to say "Just what are you insinuating, Senator?"
10:53 Well, that didn’t last long. She’s bows her head and closes her eyes. The pretty girl leans over and asks if she’s okay.
10:54 Her head’s still down. The girl next to her takes Mrs. Alito’s purse and start fishing through it. I wonder why.
10:55 Oh, aspirin. Or some pill. Whatever it is, Mrs. Alito takes two tablets without any water. Takes a heavy breath.
10:56 Her head’s still down but her shoulders are shaking. Is she…?
10:57 Yes, she is! Her eyes are red and puffy. She looks up and extends her right arm to the back of her husband’s shiny bald head. "Sammy, Sammy…" she’s saying. I can’t hear her, but it’s obvious from lip-reading. The pretty girl is looking around for help, or something.
10:58 Kohl asks if Alito will be a centrist judge in the vein of O’Connor.
10:59 Oh my GOD! She’s got a gun!!!
11:00 C-SPAN cuts away to take viewers’ calls.
UPDATE: Apparently, there’s a lot of this behavior going around in D.C. today.
2005 Wingnut Of the Year, John Hindrocket gushes over Bush’s speech in Louisville, Kentucky yesterday. Hindrocket writes:
You can read it all here. Please, please do. Here are a few excerpts, but they can’t begin to capture the sincerity and the compelling logic that President Bush put forward.
Let me briefly address the "sincerity" issue.
Nobody is seriously questioning the fact that Bush really believes the crap that comes out of his mouth. Actually, I find the fact that he is sincere about what he says to be a little unsettling.
So now we turn the John’s highlighted snippets of Bush’s speech, as exemplars fo "compelling logic":
Bush said:
I vowed that we’d find those killers and bring them to justice. And that’s what we’re doing. We’re on the hunt for an enemy that still lurks. I know, because I’m briefed on a daily basis about the threats that face the United States of America. And my duty is to assess this world the way it is, not the way we’d like it to be. And there’s a danger that lurks — and there’s a danger that lurks because we face an enemy which cannot stand freedom. ***
Listen. I’m NOT briefed on a daily basis, and even I know that threats face America. I’ve known that my entire life: there are people out there who do not like America. Of course, it is bad form for Bush to mention the fact that he gets briefed about this — we all remember the PDB entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike U.S.", which was summarily dismissed by the Bush Administration.
Furthermore, while we may face an enemy that "cannot stand freedom", there has always been such people in the world. That alone is not inherently a danger. Frankly, I don’t think al Qaeda has the means to take away our civil liberties. I wish I could say the same for the present Administration.
Compelling logic score: 2
Bush said:
And so we took action. We took action because the Taliban refused to expel al Qaeda. And we took action because when an American President says something, he better mean it. In order to be able to keep the peace, in order to be able to have credibility in this world, when we speak, we better mean what we say. And I meant what we said. And we sent some brave souls into Afghanistan to liberate that country from the Taliban.
U.S. credibility is at an all-time low worldwide, precisely because Bush spoke, and didn’t mean what he said. Remember how he assured the American people that he "hadn’t made up his mind whether or not to invade Iraq"? Remember how he put the ball in Saddam’s court, saying that the only way that Saddam could avoid invasion was to let the UN inspectors back in? And so Saddam let the inspectors back in, and Bush invaded anyway?
Compelling logic score: 1
Bush said:
You know, when I was growing up, or other baby boomers here were growing up, we felt safe because we had these vast oceans that could protect us from harm’s way. September the 11th changed all that. And so I vowed that we would take threats seriously. If we saw a threat, we would take threats seriously before they fully materialized. And I saw a threat in Saddam Hussein.
I guess baby boomers never learned about Pearl Harbor, and were sleeping through the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Compelling logic score: 3
Bush said:
We gave the opportunity to Saddam Hussein to open his country up. It was his choice. He chose war, and he got war. And he’s not in power, and the world is better off for it.
Saddam DID open his country up to UN inspectors. Remember?
Compelling logic score: 0
Bush said:
[Things in Iraq] are good. I’m confident we’ll succeed. And it’s tough, though. The enemy has got one weapon — I repeat to you — and that’s to shake our will. I just want to tell you, whether you agree with me, or not, they’re not going to shake my will. We’re doing the right thing.
If that’s the only weapon the enemy has, I guess that explains why we don’t bother to give soldiers body armor.
Compelling logic score: 1
Bush said:
You hear a lot of talk about troop levels. I’d just like to give you my thinking on troop levels. I know a lot of people want our troops to come home — I do, too. But I don’t want us to come home without achieving the victory. (Applause.) We owe that to the mothers and fathers and husbands and wives who have lost a loved one. That’s what I feel. I feel strongly that we cannot let the sacrifice — (applause) — we can’t let their sacrifice go in vain.
This is the "logic" of a losing gambler who (literally) keeps throwing good money after bad. To create more pain to future mothers and fathers and husbands and wives in order to justify pain to prior grieving mothes and fathers and husbands and wives is perhaps the WORST rationale for continuing this war that the Bush Adminstration has ever offered up.
Furthermore, To suggest that we continue to fight to "victory", without even being able to say what "victory" looks like, is absurd.
Compelling logic score: 1
Bush said:
This is an ideological struggle, as far as I’m concerned, and you defeat an ideology of darkness with an ideology of light and hope. History has proven that democracies yield the peace. If you really look at some of the past struggles where — in which the United States has been involved, the ultimate outcome, the final product, was peace based upon freedom. Europe is whole, free, and at peace because of democracy.
Well, aren’t WE a democracy? Yes. Are WE at peace? No. In fact, you just made the argument that our freedom is what provokes attacks and threats to this country. You can’t make diametrically opposed arguments — democracy either brings peace/freedom to its people, or it results in threats from people opposed to peace/freedom. (The truth is that democracy is no panacea for either peace OR freedom).
Compelling logic score: -2
Oh, I could go on, but you get the idea. What Hindrocket sees as "compelling logic" is merely mindless flag-waving at patriotic, but intellectually devoid, rhetoric.
Last November, I wrote about a woman who was stopped by state police because she was driving in the HOV lane (High Occupancy Vehicle Lane) — the "carpool" lane limited to automobiles carrying 3 or more people.
The woman said that she was not breaking the law, and that three people were in the car: herself, her son in the child safety seat in the back . . . . and her unborn child in her belly.
Today, a judge ruled on the case:
Fetuses do not count as passengers when it comes to determining who may drive in the carpool lane, a judge has ruled.
Candace Dickinson was fined $367 for improper use of a carpool lane, but contended her unborn child qualified to use the lane. Motorists who use the lanes normally must carry at least one passenger during weekday rush hours.
Municipal Judge Dennis Freeman rejected Dickinson’s argument Tuesday, applying a "common sense" definition in which an individual is someone who occupies a "separate and distinct" space in a vehicle.
Nice try though, Candy.
Mea culpa: When I reported this in November, I stated (incorrectly) that his took place in Virginia. It didn’t. It took place in Arizona.
Chinese man is unable to be photographed:
On January 6, 2006, Henan Province’s Dahe Daily newspaper reported that the local police department was unable to take an ID photo of Ye Xiangting from Yelou Village in the Yangzhuang Township of Wugang City, Henan Province. No image of Ye Xiangting showed up in the computer photos, and there is still no clear explanation for the result.
Ye Xiangting told the reporter about his recent visit to the Yangzhuang police station to get a photo taken for a new ID card. He sat in front of the camera, but no image of him would show up in the photo. The staff checked the camera very carefully, but found no problems. He retook photos of Ye Xiangting, but no photos of Ye Xiangting was found on the computer images.
The staff had Ye Xiangting carefully check his clothes to be sure he did not carry anything that would interfere with the equipment. Finally, Ye sat in front of the camera and was photographed from every angle. The staff still failed to get any images of him.
The staff could not find a reason. They took images of Ye Xiangting with other people. They were stunned when the other people showed up in the computer images, but not Ye. Ye Xiangting seemed to have "disappeared" from the photos. In the end, the staff had to give up. Ye Xiangting said that he has never encountered this kind of problem before. Normally, he could be photographed.
The last paragraph is where they really lost me:
The police station chief told the reporter they have encountered two similar cases. They are unclear about the cause and hope the experts can offer an explanation.
Okay, this iPod craze is getting a little out of hand.
Only in Iran.
It seems that a university in an Iranian provence is establishing a policy in which teachers who divorce their spouses will get fired.
This shows how blind devotion to fundamentalist tenets can lead to absurd and offensive results.
Ooops? Did I say Iran? I meant Oklahoma:
EDMOND, Okla. — An Oklahoma university has proposed a policy that would allow them to fire people who get a divorce.
Oklahoma Christian University is already getting some attention for a letter it sent to faculty that stated:
"Because the Christian mission of the university is most effectively fulfilled through mentoring and example, all married faculty and staff should strive to model (healthy) marriages to students."
University president Mike O’Neal said this doesn’t mean everyone who gets a divorce would lose his or her job. He said the university would look at each individual case.
Oy.
This is rather unheard of. Random House is offering a refund to people who purchased one of the books it published — a book entitled A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. Frey’s book, a non-fiction drug-and-alcohol memoir, was on Oprah’s Book-of-the-Month list last September.
It was also, as it turns out, much exaggerated. Read more.
A nineteen-year old kid is planning to spend $100,000 (his own money from his businesses) to live at Disneyworld for one year, and liveblogging his experiences.
