The Animals Are Going to Win

Queensland's flying foxes may be spreading a deadly virus to humans...as a reaction to habitat loss.

"It's like a biological weapon protecting their ecological niche. Only when humans try to destroy that balance that the virus jumps out."

Dalai Lama Out of Hospital

No statement, though. Hope he's alright. I'm lucky to have heard him speak once, in 1987 or so, with a couple hundred thousand others in the dust and dirt of Bodh Gaya, India. A truly warm and caring and I think wise human. I wish him the very best.

Saturday Sonata: Ooga

My 12th Saturday Sonata is up at the Peace Tree.

Ooga.

30 Officers Raid Protesters Rental Hall

With guns drawn.

They detained and photographed 50 people, then left, telling them they'd violated a fire code.

Dalai Lama Hospitalized

Get well quick, you good goofy old guy.

Ls & Gs, I Give You...Sarah Palin [Updtd]

Um, Jerry? Could you tell Elaine what a vice president does?

Update: This image the work of Kodiak Konfidential (which I did not know until 8/31).

Tim Pawlenty: Let's Be Like Canada

Dear John McCain: Please pick Tim "Socialized Medicine ROCKS!" Pawlenty to be your V.P.

Thank you.

Tim Pawlenty: Ban Drug Companies From Advertising

Dear John McCain: Please pick Tim "Drug Companies Are Evil" Pawlenty as your V.P.

Sincerely, Irony

BIZARRE Goblin Shark Caught on Video

"Caught on video." Nice phrase, isn't it?

Anyway, a Goblin shark, inspired by Alien:

Earthquakes off Vancouver Island

Several since Monday, largest a 6.1 today (USGS calls it a 5.8, so does CNN).

Time given is Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC. You can convert to your time here.

These maps are cool. That's a big blue box.

Republicans Mock Obama's "Greek Columns"

Too funny. They mock Obama for the Invesco Field stage he'll be speaking from tomorrow night.

I wonder what they'll say about the stage McCain speaks from next week. Very "county fair"?

More like Ancient Rome meets the Star Trek Enterprise on red alert.

I OWN Arabic Joogle Earth

Oh yes I do.

Deceptive "Tiny Iran" McCain Ad

Simple analysis at Raw Story:

The ad is misleading because it states that Obama said Iran is "tiny" and "doesn't pose a serious threat" without noting that Obama was comparing the threat Iran poses today to the Soviet Union, the nuclear-armed adversary of the U.S. during the Cold War.

Soviet Union: more than 45,000 nuclear weapons. (Source and source.)

Iran: O (zero) nuclear weapons.

"0" is to "45,000" as "tiny" is to "not so very freaking tiny at all. Downright enormous, actually."

Perspective IS important.

Keystone Homophobe Guarding Federal Building

A woman was told to leave an L.A. federal building yesterday because she had a "lesbian.com" T-shirt on.

Lapriss Gilbert said she was picking up a Social Security card for her son when the guard was offended by her "lesbian.com" shirt and threatened her with arrest.

The private contractor guarding your federal buildings: Paragon Security.

3,000,000 Views on Youtube

And deserving of every one.

McCain Considering Powell For VP? Ha!

Ha! Like he'd even consider it. This is a McCain campaign attempt to look sane - and it ain't gonna work.

Cheney Linked to Indicted Ted Stevens

Cheney's in trouble because of a secretly recorded phone call. How rich is that?

In a conversation secretly tape-recorded by the FBI on June 25, 2006, Stevens discussed ways to get a pipeline bill through the Alaska Legislature with Bill Allen, an oil-services executive accused of providing the senator with about $250,000 in undisclosed financial benefits. According to a Justice motion, Stevens told Allen, "I'm gonna try to see if I can get some bigwigs from back here and say, 'Look … you gotta get this done'." Two days later, Cheney wrote a letter to the Alaska Legislature urging members to "promptly enact" a bill to build the pipeline.

[...]

Stevens confirmed to NEWSWEEK last week that he asked Cheney to write the letter.

The case against Stevens is about how he used his power to help his oil-rich friend, Bill Allen, get richer. Cheney, it is clearly shown here, was part of that scheme. So?

I'm Guessing It's Going to Be Biden

Oh look, I'm right. You heard it hear first, remember.

Crushing New Video From Dave Stewart

of the Eurythmics. Watch it all. Soak it up. "I may not make it there with you..." Jesus.



You can read Stewart's thoughts on the song here.

Jurors Had to Watch Boys' Sexual Torture

Just wrong. And why? So they would be more likely to give him the death penalty.

That guy is one of worst I've ever heard of, but there is just something wrong with putting a jury through that, and for that reason.

Limbaugh: Racism Disguised as Complaint

Limbaugh is continuing his not very well disguised racist tack against Obama with, "They won't let us criticize the ni**er!" Except he doesn't say ni**er, he says "little black man-child". Really.

He knows, of course, that the complaint means nothing. It just allows him to say "little black man-child."

Obama's Fundraiser for Saddleback Church

They charged $500 to $2,000 a ticket to get into that pandering event at that megachurch the other night.

Unbelievable.

Gateway [Pundit] to Infinite Ignorance

This is dumb you have to measure in parsecs.

Saturday Sonata XI: Cliff Eberhardt

My eleventh Saturday Sonata is up at the Peace Tree. This week's feature: the great American songwriter Cliff Eberhardt, in a duet with Richie Havens.

Sniff'n the Tears: "Drivers Seat"

Is there a worse band name in the history of music than "Sniff 'n' the Tears"? Possibly not.

Anyway, I woke up with this song in my head this morning. I actually like this song.

We're Ready For the Chinks!

Holy crap. The Spanish women's tennis team actually put this photo on their Web site. It was captioned "We are prepared for China." These guys stuck a similar pose.

You'd think that at least one of them would say, "Uh, maybe this isn't such a good idea." But no.

Phelps Lost!

I like that Phelps kid, seems like a good goofball. But damn, it sure looked like he lost last night. I'm not saying I think he did, and I'm happy for him, but if I were the Serbs, I'd have protested, too.

And good for the the mustached one.

Big Foot Idiots

Two guys in Georgia (the Ameruhkin one) claim to have found the body of a "Bigfoot" creature. They've released photos [link fixed] of their dead Bigfoot.

Oy.

In putting together this prank, they apparently said to themselves, "We should make it look like the real bad drawings of imaginary creatures," instead of, say, an actual animal. Idiots.

Google Joogle

I Google "Joogle" on my Boxing blog, with Somali results.

Space Shuttle Take-off Filmed From Airliner

Holy smokes!



I saw one of the early shuttle take-offs, in 1982 or '83, in Titusville, Florida (maybe this one). Even from a mile away, which is as close as they allowed us, it was pretty spectacular. I got tons of photographs of a big blue sky...with a tiny orange dot in the center of it, trailing smoke.

Glenn Beck Said Something Stupid

America's Creepy Uncle™ still has a job at CNN. Only he and whoever he has the photos of know why.

Wind Turbine Syndrome

You've got this story, linked by Drudge, that tells us about a new book coming out titled Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Report on the Natural Experiment. In this book we'll learn that wind turbines...

...can cause sleep disorders, difficulty with equilibrium, headaches, childhood "night terrors" and other health problems.

The author seems like a downright amazing person:

I am an unabashed lover of wildness. I did my Ph.D. research living in a tent in the Amazon jungle for several years, studying bird behavior. In pursuit of wildness and native cultures, my husband and I lived for another several years with Yup’ik Eskimos on the Alaska tundra, near the Bering Sea (where I became chief of pediatrics at a native-run hospital). Likewise we spent a summer living on the Navajo reservation (as I did a sub-internship in medical school).

There may be merit to some of this. Living next to a wind farm may be, say, a tenth as bad as living next to a coal plant, for instance. Which would be bad.

You have to wonder: did Drudge link to that story because Ms. Pierpont is "an unabashed lover of wilderness," or because she's written a book that makes wind energy, that dirty f*ing hippie nonsense that will ruin the world one day, look bad?

I've left a comment for Ms. Pierpost. We'll see if she has anything to say about her Drudge link.

And I love this quote from the original link:

"Man, this whole country is going to be windmills," said a dismayed Denny Wade, 59, a railroad worker and neighbor of the Eatons.

Wind: Nature's Terrorist

Baby's tumor licked by tycoon!

Y'now, I think I should apply to be a headline writer for CNN. I mean you've gotta admit that my headline's better than theirs.

Do It Yourself Electric Car Conversion

Average cost down to $12,000 says CNN.

"Anyone who has basic mechanical skills can build one of these," Horsley said. "But it takes time," he said, about three months. Most of that period was spent waiting for the parts to be shipped.

Map of Non-Metric-System Nations

Lonely ol' USA.

Monkees: What Am I Doing Hanging Around

Monkees: Love Is Only Sleeping

Why I can't put this video here I don't know, but it's worth going over there, man. Very, very groovy.

Two-thirds of Corporations Pay No Taxes

The Republican Dream marches on:

Two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress.

The study by the Government Accountability Office, expected to be released Tuesday, said about 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes over the same period.

Collectively, the companies reported trillions of dollars in sales, according to GAO's estimate.

[...]

About 25 percent of the U.S. corporations not paying corporate taxes were considered large corporations, meaning they had at least $250 million in assets or $50 million in receipts.

CNN: Steroids Lead to Sex Change in Athlete

And I thought it just made your skull grow four sizes. Nope.

Next We Attack Costa Rica

I'm thinking most people in the U.S. haven't heard this story:

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — A Texas woman wanted by the FBI for international parental kidnapping has been awarded asylum in Costa Rica and cannot be extradited to the United States.

Costa Rican court on Friday ordered the release of former Fort Worth, Texas nurse Chere Lyn Tomayko, who had been in a Costa Rican prison since September awaiting extradition to the U.S.

Under Costa Rican law, those awarded asylum cannot be extradited.

The reason: her ex-boyfriend had been granted joint-custody of their daughter. Tomayko says he abused her, so she took the kid to Coasta Rica, after which she was added to the FBI's (and Interpol's) Top Ten Most Wanted International Parental Kidnapping List.

I'm thinking the Bush administration already has invasion plans written up.

The One Billionth Call For Impeachment

How much more do they need?

A former top CIA official, Robert Richer, told a journalist, on the record, that senior Bush administration officials ordered the production of a letter that made it appear that Saddam Hussein was tied to the attacks of 9/11. That fake letter was leaked to the press, and was used to justify the Iraq War. Richer, being in a position to know such things, believes it came from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Suskind's new book asserts that senior Bush officials ordered the CIA to forge a document "proving" that Saddam Hussein had been trying to manufacture nuclear weapons and was collaborating with al Qaeda. The alleged result was a faked memorandum from then chief of Saddam's intelligence service Tahir Jalil Habbush dated July 1, 2001, and written to Hussein.

The bogus memo claimed that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had received training in Baghdad but also discussed the arrival of a "shipment" from Niger, which the Administration claimed had supplied Iraq with yellowcake uranium -- based on yet another forged document whose source remains uncertain.

The memo subsequently was treated as fact by the British Sunday Telegraph, and cited by William Safire in his New York Times column, providing fodder for Bush's efforts to take the US to war.

That former top CIA official, Robert Richer denied it when the story came out, and the journalist basically said, "Fine. Here's the transcript of the tape I made of you saying it."

Ron: Now this is from the Vice President's Office is how you remembered it--not from the president?

Rob: No, no, no. What I remember is George saying, 'we got this from'--basically, from what George said was 'downtown.'

Ron: Which is the White House?

Rob: Yes. But he did not--in my memory--never said president, vice president, or NSC. Okay? But now--he may have hinted--just by the way he said it, it would have--cause almost all that stuff came from one place only: Scooter Libby and the shop around the vice president.

Ron: Yeah, right.

Rob: But he didn't say that specifically. I would naturally--I would probably stand on my, basically, my reputation and say it came from the vice president.

That's evidence. That's credible evidence that the Vice President HIGH crime.

Bottomfeeders

Look! You have an empty spot on your iTunes or iPod or whatever digital music device you have there. That empty spot wants a song, nay, it needs a song. Look - there are some songs right down there! Only 88 cents a pop! That's good luck!

There are of course many other internet outfits that you can get my songs from. Look under "Vital Links" up at the top right of the page.

Thanks. That's all.