American Aid

Americans along the Gulf Coast need help. Instapundit.com
has an excellent round-up of charities to which you can send donations.

Please give what you can and then give a little more. It's a good cause and you'll feel good about it - a nice unintended consequence.

BTW I sure wish Hollywood and the Live-Aid people would rush to help Americans in their hour of need.

I know I will.

Cup Of Antioxidants?

Remember when coffee was bad for you? Well, now it's good for you again. Current research by Joe Vinson, a professor of chemistry at the University of Scranton shows that coffee provides more healthful antioxidants than any other food or beverage in the American diet.

According to the Agriculture Department, the typical adult drinks 1.64 cups of coffee daily for an average consumption of 1,299 mg (not 1,300 mg, mind you, but 1,299!). I would've guessed 2-3 cups, but that's just me.

But to further complicate matters comes an article from New Scientist.com
by Kurt Kleiner which states that most published scientific research papers are wrong. Assuming that the new paper is itself correct, problems with experimental and statistical methods mean that there is less than a 50% chance that the results of any randomly chosen scientific paper are true.

What does that say about the recent coffee study?
Or the global warming studies?
Or hormone replacement studies?
Or the cholesterol-heart disease link studies?

Other than education, common sense, and moderation, what is a consumer to do?

I don't know. I'll get back to you on that, once I have another 1,299 mg of antioxidants.

Precipice View

An American Indian tribe, the Hualapai, is planning to build a glass-bottomed walkway that will jut out 70 feet from the edge of the Grand Canyon.

The horse-shoe shaped walkway, with a glass bottom and sides, will be supported by steel beams, is designed to hold 72 million pounds, and will accommodate 120 people (unless one of them is millionaire "documentary" filmmaker, Michael Moore, in which case he and his lardass will have to venture out alone), said Sheri Yellowhawk, chief executive officer of the Grand Canyon Resort Corp., the tribal-owned company that is overseeing the project.

"You're basically looking 4,000 feet down. It's a whole new way to experience the Grand Canyon," Yellowhawk said.

The project is still seeking an insurer, said architect David Jin, who said he came up with the skywalk idea while visiting the canyon in 1996.

Yeah, I just can't resist a gratuitous Michael Moore insult.

Kat Blog Friday

This kitty is doing the Go Away Hurricane Katrina dance.

GO AWAY, KATRINA!

GO AWAY, KATRINA!

Leave my state and dissipate.

Coulrophobia

It's nothing to clown about!

Furong Furor

The Chinese government has created a special Internet police force believed responsible for shutting down domestic sites posting politically unacceptable content, blocking some foreign news sites and jailing several people for their online postings.

Sister Furong, the latest target of the crackdown, is seen above demonstrating either the lack of basic necessities like toilet paper in communist regimes or what the Chinese government can do with their latest crackdown on her photos posted on the Internet.

The Chinese authorities told the country's top blog host to move Furong-related content to low-profile parts. While her pictures can still be found online, links to them and chatrooms about her have disappeared from the front pages of major Web portals. Read more about the Chinest internet crackdown here

Aren't you glad you live in America or a free democratic republic?

Blog Of The Day!

Yes, it's true. The BLOG is today's featured Blog of the Day on Blog Explosion. I want to thank all the litle people... just kidding.

Happy Happy Joy Joy.

Octo-haute Couture

No, this isn't a photoshop photo. This model displays a creation of Colombian designer Carlos Valenzuela during the Colombiamoda fair in Medellin.

This is illustrative of the over-rated, over-priced crap that is churned out by the fashion industry. Who can take this seriously?

Tom Zaps Oprah!

From News.com.au comes news that loony Tom Cruise is doing everything in his considerable power to convert Oprah to the cultish faith of Scientology. In addition to zapping her with purple rays (shown above), crazy Cruise recently bought a house two doors away from Oprah in the glamorous suburb of Santa Barbara, California, so that under the guise of being a good neighbor, he can zap her with the mind control scientology rays with impunity.

Fellow Scientologist and Pulp Fiction star John Travolta is also trying to woo Oprah into joining the nutty cult by recently presenting her with a $700,000 Bentley car for her birthday.

Oprah would be a huge catch for the Scientologists, one internet site announced this week, and you can almost see Cruise's eyes gleaming at the prospect. Another adds: "If Oprah falls into the hands of Scientology, who can tell what influence she might have on the population? The prospect is terrifying."

All I can say is, "Oprah, you don't go there, girl!"

Papal Wind

God help me, for a split second I thought Senator Robert Bird [D-WVA] had reverted to his old rank of Grand Cyclops in the K.K.K.

Turns out this was a photo of Pope Benedict XVI's cape blown by the wind as he arrived at the Cologne-Bonn airport in Germany. [AFP/David Hecker]

Forgive me, Holy Father.

Fuji Smear?

I must admit that when I first saw this photo, I thought this guy had some kind of beef with the Fuji Corporation and went to elaborate ends to show it.

It turns out to be the Los Angeles Kings' newest goalie, Tokyo-born, Yutaka Fukufuji, displaying his jerey during a news conference in Tokyo Thursday.

Pitiable Cindy

Move America Forward will be conducting the “You Don’t Speak for Me, Cindy” caravan beginning next week. It will feature military family members who have loved ones serving in the war against terrorism in Iraq or Afghanistan. The delegation will be led by Deborah Johns of Marine Moms. (Her son has served in Operation Iraqi Freedom).

Cindy Sheehan speaks for liberal fringe groups like moveon.org, who don't have America's best interests in mind. She does not speak for me!

If she doesn't speak for you either, check out the
Move America Forward website.

Freedom and free speech aren't free. Volunteer to caravan, send a donation, or do both if you can.

Raise your voices, America. Cindy isn't the only one with something to say.

Fish Catches Man!

From Reuters (Berlin): Comes a story of a fish caught in an east German lake that lured a 46-year-old fisherman to his death, police in the town of Eisenhuettenstadt said Tuesday.

A police spokeswoman said the fish pulled the fishing rod out of the man's hands and dragged it about 100 metres away from shore at the Kleinen Pohlitzer lake near Eisenhuettenstadt. The man took off his clothes and swam after the pole.

An eyewitness said the man reached the rod floating on the surface but then suddenly stopped moving. The witness, 54, swam out to help him and pulled the fisherman back to shore, where he was later pronounced dead, police said.

"I know it sounds like an incredible story but it really happened," an Eisenhuettenstadt police spokeswoman said. "It was apparently just an ordinary fish."

An ordinary fish, but an extraordinarily stupid man.

Dead Zone

Floridians are familiar with red tide, algae bloom outbreaks that occur along the Gulf Coast beaches every summer. This year's red tide blooms have been the worst many locals have ever experienced, lasting longer, covering a larger area, and killing more marine life.

Divers have documented a dead zone 20 miles offshore in the Gulf Shore from Johns Pass to Clearwater. And by dead zone, diver Mike Miller said, "I'm talking zero things are alive out there. The only way to describe it is a nuclear bomb."

Scientists theorize that the red tide blooms (caused by the microscopic troublemaker algae, Karenia brevis) became trapped underneath a thermocline, or a zone of colder water, which has forced the bloom to stay in the area much longer than normal.

Florida is one weird place.

Name That Spider Monkey

One day old female Red-Faced Black Spider Monkey (orphaned when her mother died after giving birth) is being held at the Estoril Zoo about 20 miles south of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The zoo reports that a contest will be held to name the baby primate...

With those extra-long digits, I vote for Skeletora.

Excellent, He-Man!

Crawford Redux

Am I the only one that thinks of the theme to Bonanza when I see this scene?

Dum teh deh dum teh deh dum teh deh dum dum dum dum....

Somatotropin Anyone?

NY Liberty's Becky Hammon (front) guards Connecticut Sun's 7'2" center, Margo Dydek of Poland during the 2nd half of their WNBA game at Madison Square Garden on 8/2/05.

I don't know, but I have a nagging suspicion that Dydek's anterior pituitary got a little help...*wink*wink*

BTW...anyone out there know the final score?

For Al Jazeera & Al Arabiya TV

Our guys aren't getting all wobbly and neither should we.


This wonderful photo was sent to me by a friend. I'm forwarding it to those paragons of freedom of the press, al Jazeera TV and al Arabiya TV. It should provide a break from the steady diet of terror videos that continue to magically appear in their offices.

Whew!

After 219 orbits of Earth and 5.8 million miles, Discovery lands safely at Edwards Air Force Base at 5:11 a.m. PDT.

After holding my breath since Discovery's lift off on July 26th, it feels good to breathe normally again.

Good job!

Brat Queen

From Sheboygan, Wisconsin - Sonya Thomas, a.k.a. The Black Widow, a 99 lb. eating machine has won the first Johnsonville Brat-Eating World Champsionship by gobbling 35 brats in 10 minutes. Thomas' various eating records include ones for hard-boiled eggs (65 in 6 minutes 40 seconds) and chicken wings (167 in 32 minutes). The day before the bratwurst-eating contest, she won a grilled-cheese-sandwich eating contest in San Diego, eating 22.

I'm getting a stomach ache just thinking about it.

August 4

On this day in 1892 & in this house:

Andrew and Abby Borden were axed to death in their home in Fall River, Mass. Lizzie Borden, Andrew Borden's daughter from a previous marriage, was accused of the killings, but acquitted at trial.


On this day in 1944 & in this house:

Nazis raided the secret annex of a building in Amsterdam and arrested eight people, including 15-year-old Anne Frank, whose diary became a famous Holocaust-era account. (She died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.)

An eerie connection that means absolutely nothing.

Vapor Circle

Excellent photo of water vapor build up around a U.S. Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet as it breaks the sound barrier during a fly by near the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk. Kitty Hawk and the Carrier Air Wing 5 are currently conducting operations in the Phillipine Sea.

This Reuters photo is great on many levels...wish I'd taken it.