Mt. Redoubt Ready to Blow [updtd]

100 miles southwest of Anchorage.

Wiki.

That photo (click for large image) is from Wikipedia Commons, and is of said mountain during an actual eruption, in 1990.

Ascending eruption cloud from Redoubt Volcano as viewed to the west from the en:Kenai Peninsula. The mushroom-shaped plume rose from avalanches of hot debris (en:pyroclastic flows) that cascaded down the north flank of the volcano. A smaller, white steam plume rises from the summit crater.

Photograph by R. Clucas, April 21, 1990.

Update: February 2, still ticking:

Overnight "a high-intensity burst of volcanic tremor" occurred for six minutes, reports the Alaska Volcano Observatory. The observatory asserts "there was no eruption associated with this tremor."

Increasingly, though, it's appearing that the volcano will indeed erupt, which is an ominous prospect for those those living in communities directly across the Cook Inlet on the Kenai Peninsula.

Update: Wednesday, from the Alaska Dispatch.

Obama's First Bill Singing: Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

First at bat home run.

Hey, it happens in baseball, too. Go figure.

Steve Forbert: My Seaside Brown-Eyed Girl

Under the new tag "underground pop," here's a nice little video from a great strange songwriter.

Republican Ass-kissing Extraordinaire

It's one thing to be a cringing little suckup poltroon - but to Limbaugh? That's from a whole new secret underworld of cowardice.

Deep Thought

Spending trillions of dollars on an unnecessary war is awesome - and spending $800 billion to repair our broken economy is a treasonable outrage.

FOX News on the Obamas' "Fisting"

Um, no, please.



Reminds me of a song: "Fistin', fistin', fistin' the night awayyyy...."

Israel

I spent some months in Israel many years ago. I ate good food, drank good booze, smoked the world's best hashish, stayed on a friend's family's kibbutz for a few days, went to his sister's big, traditional Jewish wedding, was treated at a Jerusalem hospital for a condition you don't want me to go into, walked the narrow streets of the Old City for hours and hours, sat in the strange bare rooms of temples I can't remember the names of, swam/floated on the Dead Sea, froze my ass off in Lake Tiberias - I loved Israel. I loved the feel of it, the music of it, the smell of it - I loved it.

That said now: Does the Israeli government think they'll get anything but a reputation as inhuman monsters out of what they've done and are still doing in Gaza? I just do not understand this.

New Video of Plane on the Hudson

This is kind of funny. There's no sound, but you can almost hear the person with the camera, who appears to be filming a docked barge, say, "What the...?" as the camera snaps up and just misses the plane going down. And even though you don't see the plane hit, the video tells you a lot: the line on the surface of the water shows that the pilot must have been able to skim the plane lightly along the water for a very long way, and as the camera zooms in - it's just a plane floating calmly on the surface. (Just? Wll, you get the drift.) It's all very non-traumatic, from this view. And you can even see people pop out of the emergency exits in just seconds.



Bonus: "Obamas Juggle Inaugural Balls." Ahem.

Could Brad Pitt Act Without Hands?

Just something to ponder. In the meantime, this video is pretty darn funny.

The Curious Case of Forrest Gump - watch more funny videos

Anne Feeney Inauguration Party

Where I'll be on Tuesday night is celebrating with hellraiser and union maid Anne Feeney.

Here's a post I did on Anne last May.

Pete Seeger

A presidential inauguration that includes and even highlights one of the true American national treasures - I don't even know what to say. Thanks, Pete Seeger, for all you've done and said and sang all these many, many years - and for sticking around for long enough to see this day - and thanks to team Obama for including him in this historic event.

And as Digby points out, those were the extra verses to what is our unofficial national anthem, "This Land is Your Land."

Andrew Wyeth

Stop.

Top 50 Sportscasters

American Sportscasters Online has come up with a list of the Top 50 Sportscasters of All Time. First ten:

1 - Vin Scully

2 - Mel Allen

3- Red Barber

4- Curt Gowdy

5- Howard Cosell

6- Bob Costas

7 - Jim McKay

9 - Al Michaels

10 - Dick Enberg

I dont' care much one way or the other, but I think Cosell should have been top three at least. And: Bill Walton's on the list. Bill Walton. Did I miss something? I mean I like the guy alright, but Top 50 sportscasters? Bizarre.

But I did this post just to point out that the ASO somehow missed WGR's (Buffalo, NY) "Voice of the Sabres," Rick Jeanneret (the guy pictured in the suspenders above). You don't know hockey excitement - and hockey is, as everyone knows, the most exciting sport there is - until you listen to Jeanneret call a game. One small example, "Top shelf, where mumma hides the cookies!"

The Billies

I just thought to myself that "The Billies" would be a good name for a band. I googled it, and found:

The Billies are an all-female sax quartet with percussion, based in Seattle. This group is a recent reformation of the internationally renowned Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet (BTMSQ). The group was started in 1990, and chose its name to pay tribute to big band saxophonist and pianist Billy Tipton, following the postmortem revelation that Tipton was actually a woman who lived as a man for more than 50 years.

The things you find on the intertubes.

More on Billy Tipton.

Photot of Jessica Lurie of The Billies from here

William Zantzinger Killed Poor Hattie Carroll

And now he's dead.

"Cat Alerts Family To Fire Started By Goat"

I think the cat did it - and got himself a fire escapegoat.

"Let me, uh, think about how to say that again."

Joe the Dumber does some more reporterizing:

But, you know, okay, you don’t have to see, you know, 800 dead, 801 dead. It’s like they drill that in your head. … They want you to sit there saying 'there are so many people dying.' You know these are large, these are numbers, you know I don’t want to take away from that. Let me, uh, think about how to say that again.

You think about that, Wurzelknocker. We'll be here.

Poor Drudge

It is increasingly hilarious to see what Matt Drudge chooses to post at the Drudge Report. His purpose in life shines through so clearly. The first two items up right now:

NAACP criticizes use of 'plantation-like' Trail Maids in Inaugural Parade...

5,000 port-o-potties planned for day 'grossly inadequate'; Lawsuit warning...

Dude can not get over the fact that even though he rules the world he could not stop the election of Barack Obama as president of the U.S. of A. So now he's gotta post about Trail Maids and porta-potties to make Obama pay. Ouch.

What else? Well, topping the left hand column we have:

Sharp cold wave shocks upper Midwest, temps to -36...

If it's cold somewhere - you'll hear all about it on the Grudge Report. Why? Because it proves that global warming is a hoax. Note to Grudge: It proves it even more if you put your fingers in your ears and say "La la la la la la la la" really loud AND find somewhere cold. In Winter. Honest, it does.

Next one is funny:

Iranian protesters burn Obama picture...

Ha ha! Take that Mr. "Everybody Likes Me"! Iranian protesters like so totally hate your ass...um...

Hey, Matt, I thought Obama was a Muslim. You played that card for months, and now you give us "Iranian protesters burn Obama picture"? What the hell?

Hey look - it's a story about Hillary Clinton! Along with what a completely unrelated and unflattering photo! Wow! That one never gets old!...

Note: Photo of giant turd taken from Gumtree Forums.

We're Being Lied to About the Somali Pirates?

Interesting, to put it mildly.

Joe the Palin: There Should Be No Me

The man who makes WTF? say WTF?

Saturday Sonata XX: Lobsters

My twentieth Saturday Sonata is now up over at The Peace Tree.

This week: a lobster theme. A crabby sample:

Joe the Socialist Israeli Plumber

No doubt you've already heard yesterday's funniest story: Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelknuckleheadbacher is becoming a war correspondent.

This has been covered by everyone in the intertubes; my only request is that when Joe the pro-Israel free-marketeer actually gets to Israel, can someone show him around their socialized health care system? And could someone tell him that personal income tax in Israel tops out at 47%? Just to see his reaction?

Please?

Sheriff Arrested For LEGAL Jail Food Scam

This will make you want to bite a chair:

A northern Alabama sheriff was in federal custody Thursday after a judge ruled he purposely fed inmates skimpy meals so he could make money from an unusual system that lets sheriffs turn a profit on their jail kitchens.

Morgan County Sheriff Greg Bartlett testified at a Wednesday court hearing that he made $212,000 over three years by cheaply feeding prisoners — every cent of it legal under a Depression-era state law and reported on his tax forms as income.

But U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon ordered federal marshals to arrest Bartlett after hearing a string of skinny prisoners testify they were served paper-thin bologna, bloody chicken and cold grits in the north Alabama county's jail.

More here.

More Americans need to understand that this is an illustration of the Modern Republican dream. They want everything - Social Security, the military, prisons, schools, they'll even go after the Post Office - privatized, because they can cheat the system like this sheriff does - legally - and make a ton of money. This is all they mean by "small government." It's the entire story. They are all Boss Hogg wannabes.

Palin and Paliner

A sustainable source of goofball political crookery. And maybe worse.

RW Blog Idiocy Fodder [updtd]

The FBI, we learn today, is going on a hiring spree:

Despite a bleak economic environment featuring wide-ranging layoffs and rising unemployment, the nation's premier law enforcement agency is touting "one of the largest hiring blitzes in our 100-year history."

The FBI is about to embark on its biggest hiring spree since immediately after the September 11, 2001.

The FBI posted openings for 850 special agents and more than 2,100 professional support personnel. Officials say it's the largest FBI job posting since immediately after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

I'm predicting that within hours some of the dumber blogs on the net will be writing about how this is Obama's fault. You wait.

Update: It begins, with a twist. I thought they'd be saying something along the lines of "They have to hire more agents since so many quit because they hate Obama." This is even better: they think that Obama spurred the hirings himself...to help his socialist police state.

Or something.

$240,000 to Man Forced to Cover T-shirt With Arabic Script

Xenophobia: it's expensive!

Jarrar, a US resident, was apprehended as he waited to board a JetBlue flight from New York to Oakland, California, and told to remove his shirt, which had written on it in Arabic: "We will not be silent."

He was told other passengers felt uncomfortable because an Arabic-inscribed T-shirt in an airport was like "wearing a T-shirt at a bank stating, I am a robber,'" the ACLU said.

Because, you know, all 280 million people who speak Arabic, the native tongue of people in more than 30 countires, only go to airports to do terroristy things. Yep.

Sylvia's Mother

This Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show song just popped into my head uninvited.

The Educators

Very funny.

Happy Birthday, Long Tough Blog

This blog was born on New Year's Eve, 2005. Three years and 74,000 unique visits later, still going, well, just going, really.