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.

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?