Happy Cat

For Cat Blog Friday:



This is the face of a cat who doesn't have to worry about computers!

Lucky kitty.

Computer Woes

The BLOG is experiencing computer difficulties. Regular posting will resume as soon as possible. In the meantime, read some of the old stuff...

Things Teddy Didn't Say This Week

1. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass) didn't say a word about the recent
36th anniversary of the Chappaquiddick incident. He didn't have any words of condolences for Mary Jo Kopechne's family.

2. According to Bill Gertz of the Washington Times, here Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass) didn't say a word about the recent harsh criticism leveled at him by soldiers from Massachusetts who work at the U.S. military detention facility at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during his recent visit to the island.

Pentagon officials said soldiers criticized the harsh comments made recently by Senate Democrats. "They [Kennedy and Senator Akaka (D-Hawaii)] got stiff reactions from their home-state soldiers," one official told us. "The troops down there expressed their disdain for that kind of commentary, especially comparisons to the gulag.

A spokesman for Mr. Kennedy had no comment. Both senators made no mention of the incident in press statements after the visit.

I guess this puts to rest the notion of Kennedy being an extreme gasbag who can't keep his trap shut. There are some things that he can remain silent about.

Rest In Space, Scotty.

From the BBC comes news that the ashes of Star Trek actor James Doohan, who died on Wednesday, are to be sent into space, following those of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.

The Space Services Inc company said Doohan's ashes could be on a Falcon 1 rocket launching from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base, tentatively scheduled for launch in September.

Doohan, who was 85, played engineer Scotty in the original sci-fi series and became synonymous with the line "Beam me up, Scotty", despite the fact that the phrase was never actually said in the series. The closest Captain Kirk came to saying it was in the fourth Star Trek movie, when he said "Scotty, beam me up".

Rest in space, Scotty. Hope you, Bones, and Gene are throwing back a whiskey or two.

Moon Google

In honor of the first manned Moon landing, which took place on July 20, 1969, Google has added some NASA imagery to the Google Maps interface to help you surf on the lunar surface.

Go here to surf the moon.

Make sure you ZOOM all the way in for a surprise...

New Undersea World

The collapse of the giant Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica has revealed a thriving ecosystem half a mile below the sea.

Despite near freezing and sunless conditions, a community of clams and a thin layer of bacterial mats are flourishing in undersea sediments.

Since light could not penetrate the ice or water, these organisms do not use photosynthesis to make energy. Instead, these extreme creatures get their energy from methane.

Despite popular belief, the methane does not come from the periodic gaseous discharge that emanates from the rectal orifice of millionaire "documentary" filmmaker, Michael Moore. The methane is produced inside the Earth and is distributed to the sea floor by underwater vents.

This fascinating article, by Bjorn Carey, can be found here .

Plame Name Blame Game

Karl Rove demonstrating Joe "Yellowcake" Wilson's credibility?

No, because Wilson doesn't have any credibility to speak of...not even that little bit.

Mark Steyn, columnist for the Chicago Sun Times writes, "But in the real world there's only one scandal in this whole wretched business -- that the CIA, as part of its institutional obstruction of the administration, set up a pathetic ''fact-finding mission'' that would be considered a joke by any serious intelligence agency and compounded it by sending, at the behest of his wife, a shrill politically motivated poseur who, for the sake of 15 minutes' celebrity on the cable gabfest circuit, misled the nation about what he found.

Steyn is right on the mark. Read the rest of Steyn's insightful piece here .

Believe me, it's worth the read.

This is another politically motivated, cooked up non-issue. We have more important things to deal with than the MSM's irrational need to "Get Bush".

3:51 PM EDT

Godspeed, Discovery.

Cat Hoarding

From Reuters - A report about an elderly woman hoarding hundreds of cats. About 300 cats, nearly a third of them dead, were removed from an elderly woman's Virginia home after neighbors complained of a stench coming from the house, police said on Tuesday.

"Cats were coming out of the cabinets and drawers and were inside the walls. There were hundreds of them," Fairfax County Police officer Richard Henry told Reuters.

He said animal control officers removed 273 cats -- 86 of them dead -- over the weekend and slapped a condemnation order on the door of the house. The woman, her husband and daughter were told to leave.

Ruth Knueven, 82, was charged with failing to care for her animals and of improperly disposing of them. Dozens of dead cats were found in plastic bins around the house.

What is it about cats that drive people crazy?

Good Riddance, Dennis!

The sun is shining again and we were spared by Hurricane Dennis.

Life is good.

Happy Birthday, Jennifer

Have a good one, kiddo!

P.S.  Birthday wishes to President Bush and former First Lady Nancy Reagan, too!

War Of The...Cats

For Cat Blog Friday:


It took Tim Pruitt of Alton, Illinois over one half hour to drag this blue catfish into his boat. At 124 lbs., 58" long and 44" around, it is the largest in state history.

But on the other side of the world:



Nearly nine feet long (2.7 meters) and as big as a grizzly bear, a huge catfish caught in northern Thailand may be the largest freshwater fish ever recorded.

Caught last month (May 1) in the Mekong River, a team of fishermen struggled for more than an hour to haul the creature in. It tipped the scales at an amazing 646 pounds.

What the heck are these humongous fish eating?

Hobbits Beware!

Via New Scientist Space.com:  A recent image captured with the Hubble Space Telescope - which looks uncannily like the Great Eye of Sauron from the blockbusting Lord of the Rings trilogy .

Actually it is a spectacular, luminous ring, composed of dust particles in orbit around Fomalhaut, a bright star located just 25 light years away in the constellation Pisces Australis -- or the Southern Fish.  Read the rest of this fascinating article about how the ring offers the best evidence yet that a nearby star is circled by a newly formed solar system < here

The image was captured by astronomers at the University of California, Berkeley, US, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center using Hubble's coronagraph, which blocks the glare of a star while gathering the reflected light from any surrounding ring.

Gotta love that Hubble!

Ooh Rah, Mr. President!

"We fight today because terrorists want to attack our country and kill our citizens, and Iraq is where they are making their stand. So we will fight them there, we will fight them across the world, and we will stay in the fight until the fight is won." -- President George W. Bush

Cosmic Concinnity?

Paul Winchell, actor, inventor, & the voice of Jerry Mahoney & Knucklehead Sniff (if you're old enough to remember), the scrubbing bubbles on TV commercials, and countless other voices including most recently that of Tigger the Tiger from Winnie the Pooh fame, died on 6/24/05.


John Fiedler, character actor, who played many roles that I know you remember, including Mr. Hengist (the consciousness of Jack the Ripper) on Star Trek: Wolf In The Fold, the meek Mr. Peterson on the Bob Newhart Show, the giggling morgue attendant on Kolchak, and the voice of Piglet from Winnie the Pooh died on 6/25/05.

Is that weird or what?

Yikes! If I were Winnie the Pooh, I'd watch out.

One World, One Dream

From the Washinton Times comes an article that recounts how "Beinjing is devoted to weakening 'enemy' US according to a defector and former Chinese diplomat, Chen Yonglin."

China's communist leaders view the United States as their main enemy and are working in Asia and around the world to undermine U.S. alliances. The article by Bill Gertz can be found here and makes for a sobering read.

It certainly puts the recently unveiled slogan for the 2008 Olympic Games in an ominous light. One world, one dream. Yeah, one big RED world.

Whose bright idea was it to award China the Olympics anyway?

Princess Leia?

From Reuters, we get a photo of Crown Prince Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands proudly shows his newborn daughter which his wife Princess Maxima delivered at the Bronovo hospital in The Hague June 26, 2005. The girl will be third in line to the Dutch throne after her father and her sister Catharina-Amalia, born on Dec. 7, 2003. The couple have not yet decided on a name for the baby.

Hint:

Got Mouse?

Yes, it's Cat Blog Friday!


More politics on subsequent posts. I mean it.

Numbers Count!

From Scientific American:

Measured to be equal to 1/137.03599976, or approximately 1/137, [the fine-structure constant] has endowed the number 137 with a legendary status among physicists (it usually opens the combination locks on their briefcases).

Mathematicians might use the digits of pi....314159  or the base of natural logarithms, e,... 271828

This is a fascinating subject. If you know someone's passion for a subject, you can guess their passwords. A Trekker might use 047, or an X-Files fan might use 1013.

Anyone out there have any other important numbers?


[Via Schneier.com who brought it to my attention]

Turban Durbin

Dick "Turban" Durbin, star of al Jazeera, shown here demonstrating the number of neurons in his brain...

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., set off a political firestorm last week when he compared U.S. treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo to practices employed by Nazis, Soviets, Pol Pot and other oppressive regimes. His statements were condemned by the White House, the Pentagon, the Christian Coalition, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Newt Gingrich (who called for his censure by the Senate) and by right minded (pun intended) media outlets. The uproar over the treasonous remarks grew so loud that, late in the week, Durbin apologized if his remarks had been "misunderstood".

There is no misunderstanding. This was a premeditated attack against our military and our government and was designed to provide aid and comfort to our enemies all over the world.

With Senators like this, America doesn't need enemies.

Shame on you, sir.

Scientologist All Wet

While Tom Cruise was giving yet  another interview at the "War of the Worlds" premiere in London, he was squirted in the face with water. The water came from what appeared to be a microphone.

Four men who were part of a freelance camera crew were arrested & could face  assault charges.

Assault charges for squirting water on a nutcase celebrity whom we are sick of seeing in the news? These guys should get a medal for making Cruise at least think twice before talking to the next reporter holding a microphone.

Sheesh, enough already.

Feces Pizza

Keller, Texas - Four Keller High School cheerleaders were sent home early from camp after allegedly putting human feces on a pizza and trying to frame rival cheerleaders for the deed.

Cheerleaders from rival Fossil Ridge High School had sent the pizza to the Keller squad on the last night of a four-day camp at the University of Texas at Arlington. Less than an hour later, some Keller cheerleaders took the pizza to the Fossil Ridge sponsor, claiming that Fossil Ridge cheerleaders had doctored the pizza with feces.

Federal laws bar officials from discussing the girls' discipline, but such an incident would be considered "serious misconduct," district spokesman Jason Meyer told the newspaper.

Mama mia!

At the very least, the prank should be the end of their cheerleading days.

No Soup For You!

In Florida, possession of gopher tortoises is a second-degree misdemeaner punishable by up to 60 days in jail, a $500 fine or both.

So learned Carl Franklin King on Saturday evening when a Pinellas County sherrif's deputy stopped him in Palm Harbor for outstanding warrants (burglary & criminal mischief charges) & found 6 gopher tortoises in the trunk of his car.

When challenged about the tortoises, King told deputies that he wanted to cook them for a soup. Apparently, gopher tortoise meat is considered a delicacy.

Who knew?

Flag Day

Freedom isn't free.

Reno's Red Wreck

No, it's not a tongue twister...

In a tiny blurb buried on page 8 of the Tampa Tribune, I found this story about Former Attorney General Janet Reno and her beloved red pick up truck (pictured here in better days).

In the Florida Keys on Friday, Reno's truck rear-ended a car that had stopped at a red light, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

No injuries were reported except to Reno's truck.

I wonder if A.G. Ashcroft had rammed his car into the rear-end of a vehicle stopped at a redlight, would it be considered more newsworthy?

Waterlogged Cat Blog Friday

Another major rainfall event for Florida as Tropical Storm Arlene approaches.

Some strengthening is forecasted during the next 24 hours and it is possible that Arlene could reach hurricane strength before landfall, the National Hurricane Center said. 

 

It's going to be a looooong summer!

Would You Let Him Into USA?

On April 25, Gregory Despres arrived at the U.S.-Canadian border crossing at Calais, Maine, carrying a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, brass knuckles and a chain saw stained with what appeared to be blood. U.S. customs agents confiscated the weapons and fingerprinted Despres. Then they let him into the United States.

YIKES!

 

Some ask how the customs agents could know Despres had decapitated a man with the bloody chain saw. There was no way to run a field test on the chain saw to tell if it was blood.

Upon seeing this creep & his arsenal, what kind of idiot do you have to be to think the dried red stuff caked on the chain saw is catsup or red dye #2?

Nuanced Intellectualism

GPA 76 at Yale...

Early warning signs of gasbaggery...can't keep mouth shut even during a school photo shoot.

Read the Boston Globe article about Kerry's college grades here

D stands for distortion, too.

Porta Potty Go Boom

A Pennsylvania man injured when a portable toilet exploded is suing a general contractor and a coal company for negligence to the tune of 10 million dollars. The explosion occurred July 13, 2004, at Parrish Shaft in Blacksville. John Jenkins, 53, is a North West Fuels Development methane power plant operator. He entered a portable toilet, sat down and tried to light a cigarette. When he struck the lighter, the toilet exploded. The lawsuit says the cigarette ignited methane gas leaking from a pipe underneath the unit. Jenkins was burned over much of his body in the ensuing explosion.

I don't know what the coal company has to do with this accident other than having deep pockets, but this is definitely one more reason why smoking is hazardous to your health.

'Cane, 'Cane, Go Away...

Hurrican Season begins today.

And so it begins anew...

... the stress, the anxiety, the extreme pucker factor.