All right...take a few minutes and read about Toothpaste for Dinner. And then go check out Toothpaste for Dinner.

"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."

Whoa- the voice of Piglet died this weekend. So did the voice of Tigger. Within a day of each other. That's creepy.

David Brooks, jackass extraordinaire, in his new column:

Sachs is also a materialist. He dismisses or downplays those who believe that human factors like corruption, greed, institutions, governance, conflict and traditions have contributed importantly to Africa's suffering. Instead, he emphasizes material causes: lack of natural resources, lack of technology, bad geography and poverty itself as a self-perpetuating trap.

David, "corruption, greed, institutions, governance, conflict and traditions" and "poverty" are barely distinguishable. In fact, the idea of poverty as a self-perpetuating trap requires a mechanism- and poor governance, corruption, greed, and [these are] traditions form that mechanism.

On NPR today there was a segment on the effects of advertising new drugs. The essential arguments for and against were as follows:

For

• It makes people aware of both conditions and treatments
• It helps engage people with their healthcare

Against

• People tend to both hypochondria and unfounded optimism about the next big thing
• Doctors are frequently undereducated about new drugs
• Overmedication leads to higher healthcare costs

Now, I'm not sure about the veracity of any of these claims, but they mostly seem reasonable. What I'm wondering, is: doctors have an ethical duty to give their patients good care. Do they have a similar duty to society and its needs? For example, if overmedication (or "lifestyle" medications, like Cialis or Propecia) really does raise the cost of healthcare to everyone, are doctors obliged to resist?

Girls State was so much freaking fun!! Although they did looove to embarrass us, I still had fun. They made us chant these stupd songs about girls state while we were at meetings or walking around the campus! One of them was: "Girls State is long and fine just like these legs of mine and when we cross the street boys state goes 'beep, beep, beep-woop woop," HA! Other than that, it was awesome. I was in the house of representatives and debated for like 7 hours each day. It was cool. Also, all the girls were split up into countys, and that was who you lived with and voted for and what not. My county was great, and I think I will go back next year to be a councelor!

Megan- how was Girls State? Write about it!

Funny thing heard on American Chopper:

"Looks like the tranny's cocked." - Vinnie

Heh heh...

I'm Batman. No, really, I swear! See, here's my utility belt (got it at Hammacher Schlemmer, and here's my Bat-z-boy (from the Sharper Image) ...

I knew it. I just knew it. Apparently, the tendency to be an early or late riser has genetic components. So there! I wasn't lazy after all.

Whoa. This is a pretty crazy story. (And a good reason not to move to Ethiopia...not that I needed a reason.)

Yikes.

Citing Flaws, Maker Recalls Heart Devices

Ouch.

Now here's an effective use of state gov't resources. Way to waste some money there, Jebby.

Earthquake

Wow- we just had an earthquake! Sweet! It really shook for a couple of seconds. Hopefully nothing bad happened.

There's an interesting article about Spielberg and Lucas in Slate.

This is why "because that's the way it's always been" or "why mess with tradition" are poor reasons not to seek and correct injustice. (found via GeekPress)

Concert time
Susan and I went to a concert in Hollywood last night. We went to the show to see OK Go and the Kaiser Chiefs. OK Go was the first opener, though we wanted most to see them, I think. We were happy to also see Kaiser Chiefs... sadly, they had a second opener- a band called Jason Faulkner or Jason Wagner or something- and they sucked... it was like 1989 come home to roost. They wouldn't have been out of place with makeup and long hair.

OK Go played a really short set. It was very good, but much too brief. At the end of their set, they did a funny little music video-boy band-dance routine to one of their new songs! It was freaking hilarious- I was all light headed by the end of it.

Kaiser Chiefs were great fun- super energetic. The lead singer dove into the crowd (I think twice), pulled up a girl onto the stage and danced with her, and generally bounced around like a Tigger. Their songs were fun and the crowd (which was pretty well packed in) was really into it...

Aside from the second opener, it was a great, fun show.

Physicists are really dorky

Physicists Do It....
with the least action (Devlin Gualtieri)
discretely (Steven Watanabe, Bryan Dorland, Caroline Ritz-Gold)
with a Big Bang (Damian Handzy)
in Super-Positions (Todd Pittman)
with gravity (Roald Wangsness)
with increasing entropy (John Hornstein)
with chaotic motion (John Hornstein)
quantum coherently (John Hornstein)
with minimal coupling (Lewis Orphanos)
with momentum (James McGee)
relatively well
with uncertainty

Sex is the physics urge sublimated (Daniel Grupp)
Old physicists never die; they just accelerate to light speed! (Bill Martin)
This car brakes for Schroedinger's Cat (Devlin Gualtieri)
Maintain chirality: Pass on the left only (Devlin Gualtieri)
Conserve energy: Don't be a joule thief (Joel Liebman)
Conserve energy: Commute with a Hamiltonian (Enid Sichel)
Ys Matters! (Chris Paul)
Gravity Gets Me Down (Seyffie Maleki)
Excuse me while I collapse my wave function (Leonard Anderson)
Know a Good Quantum Mechanic? (Loren Booda)
Honk if you love phonons (Loren Booda)

Oh- this is really neat...

Every year, in addition to granting honorary degrees, Williams also honors four high school teachers. But not just any high school teachers. Williams asks the 500 or so members of its senior class to nominate the high school teachers who had a profound impact on their lives. Then each year a committee goes through the roughly 50 student nominations, does its own research with the high schools involved and chooses the four most inspiring teachers.

Each of the four teachers is given $2,000, plus a $1,000 donation to his or her high school. The winners and their families are then flown to Williams, located in the lush Berkshires, and honored as part of the graduation weekend.

On the day before last Sunday's graduation, all four of the high school teachers, and the students who nominated them, sat on stage at a campuswide event, and the dean of the college talked about how and why each high school teacher had influenced the Williams student, reading from the students' nominating letters. Later, the four teachers were introduced at a dinner along with the honorary degree recipients.

"Every time we do this, one of the [high school] teachers says to me, 'This is one of the great weekends of my life,' " said Williams's president, Morton Owen Schapiro. "But it is great for us, too. ...

A very fine idea.

Goodness

My conference submission has been accepted and I will be giving a 15 minute presentation at the Frontiers in Optics/Laser Science Optical Society of America annual meeting!

Yay!

Homeland security? What's that? (Warning, the guy in this article is really creepy-looking.)

Apparently, according to a U.S. customs official, "Being bizarre is not a reason to keep somebody out of this country or lock them up. ... We are governed by laws and regulations, and [the creepy guy in the article] did not violate any regulations." And yet, how much does anyone want to bet that if this guy had been wearing a turban when he tried to get across the border, he'd have been immediately detained?

Hehe. Ph.D. satirizes Revenge of the Sith.

Can you imagine what the people sitting next to this woman on the plane from Singapore to Australia must have thought?

Apparently, some female dolphins are figuring out that certain areas of the sea floor are sponge-worthy.

Here's an insane thing from Hitachi- they've developed a HD technology using magnetic domains oriented vertically (out of the plane of the hard disk platter). They're trying to promote it with creepy anthropomorphization. Bad idea.

Salsa Cruda:
(for 4 servings)
This is a very quick and easy sauce to make, and it's great for those times when you want a change from jarred sauce but don't have the time or inclination to make marinara from scratch. You can go from ingredients to finished product in the time it takes to boil the pasta.

Ingredients
4-5 small or medium tomatoes (the riper and tastier, the better), chopped
1/4 onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
~2 tablespoons olive oil
salt, pepper, parmasean cheese, to taste

Chop/dice/mince the various vegetables and place them in a large bowl. Use a potato masher to smash the tomatoes, thus liberating all their tomatoey goodness. Add olive oil, salt, pepper and parmasean, and stir. Spoon over al dente pasta and enjoy!

Susan, post the recipe for the salsa cruda. It's too good.

Over the course of our country's history, at least 6 times amendments to the constitution changing the preamble to say that our rights derive from God and that Jesus is the divine governor of all nations. In 1863, 1874, 1894, 1910, and 1954 (and one other time that I can't remember)- and that's not to mention the hullabaloo over ratification! Each time it was defeated. Every time. The constitution, sans God, was ratified, my lambs.

Is this a Christian nation? Founded and framed by religious men to be a religious country?

I'm going to check out this book, The Godless Constitution, by Isaac Kramnik. On This American Life this week, the author talked about the current upwelling of religious sentiment and the crazy religious correctness prevalent, nowadays. Sounds pretty good.

In the 1830s, Abolitionists and Women's rights activists often occupied the same stage. When the activists were women, this drew quite a bit of criticism from both religious nutjobs (i.e., a goodly portion of the country), and men (who felt their proper place threatened, not a little bit because a great many men were the aforementioned religious nutjobs). In 1837, the Massachusetts Association of Congregational Ministers, prompted by the popular lectures by two such women (the Grimke sisters), produced a Pastoral Letter comdemning the public speaking-out done by women, to be read from each pulpit. William Lloyd Garrison was a supporter of both abolition and women's rights, and called it "Pastoral Bull," analogizing it to both the Catholic Papal Bull, and, of course, crap. The women also responded:

"They've taken a notion to speak for themselves,
And are wielding the tongue and the pen;
They've mounted the rostrum; the termagant elves,
And—oh horrid!—are talking to men!"
--Maria Weston Chapman

Wow. She's sooo scary! (As seen on a banner at The American Spectator).

Wow. Just when you thought TV programming couldn't get any worse...and these are supposed to tide us over until shows like The West Wing and CSI return in the Fall?

At TAPPED, Matt Yglesias posted a good reading list. After all, if Phyllis Schlafly thinks something is bad, there's a good chance you should admire it.

My grandparents were shopping here when this all went down, yesterday. Fortunately, they're okay.

Things that make you go..."Buh???":

"I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn't here."
-At the President's Economic Forum

"We discussed the way forward in Iraq, discussed the importance of a democracy in the greater Middle East in order to leave behind a peaceful tomorrow."
-At Tbilisi, Georgia, earlier this month

Brought to you courtesy of our very own Fearless Leader.

Listening to Jeremy Hotz... funny guy.

I see a psychiatrist now, too. She hates my guts. She says that I suffer from delusions of sexual superiority. She just wants to [date] me. Get in line, lady!

Lets get out of here: lets just go. Three hundred of us, that'd be great. Let's go bowling right now. Oh, Christ that'd be hysterical. We show up at the same bowling alley at the same time, just freak the guy behind the counter out.

We're here!

Holy [crap]! I don't have shoes for these people!

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

So we went to see Revenge of the Sith last night. It was okay. Like most every review says, the dialogue is crap. The movie is visually good, except some few dumb things. The most memorable dumb thing was the insistence that cutting up close to a light-saber fight will somehow work out well- completely useless shot.

Mace Windu just doesn't sound like he believes the stuff he's saying. Samuel Jackson really seems like he's acting, which is too bad. Yoda's syntax is so stilted that it is a speech impediment, though he has the best line of the whole movie (all the other speaking is down hill from there):

Good relations with the Wookiees, I have.

Sadly, though, Yoda also breaks character when saying goodbye to Chewbacca. I mean- Jedi masters aren't supposed to be sentimental, and there Yoda goes, telling that big ol' overgrown Lhasa Apso that Yoda will miss him? Huh?

The incident which confines Vader to his armor is quite gruesome, though I suppose I expected something a little worse when I saw where it was going to go down... and there are some really dark moments during Anakin's turning. Though I suspect it was more for reasons of ratings that it wasn't more explicit, the implicit menace of Vader's actions in the Council room during the sacking of the Jedi temple was more than sufficient.

Over all, I am with most people in thinking that this one was better than episodes I and II, but inferior to episodes IV and V... I won't comment on episode VI, as I'm having trouble remembering much from it. However, Lucas should be dragged out and shot. And then never allowed back into the director's chair, or be permitted to type, write, or dictate any dialogue. For the good of all mankind.

You'll go blind!

If this isn't a ringing endorsement for an ability-based education system, I don't know what is.

In the six charter middle schools in [New York City], 49.8 percent of eighth graders met the state standard on the English Language Arts exam [...] In contrast, only 32.8 percent of eighth graders in the public schools were reading and writing at grade level.

So, just over half of the charter school 8th graders in NYC are NOT reading at the 8th grade level, and this is an improvement over performance in public schools?! I would ask what in the hell is wrong with this country, but I think I've already got my answer.

As always, Giblets says it best:

It's hot today - TOO hot - and Giblets bans the sun. It is outlawed in all decent Gibfearing lands! Never again shall the brow of Giblets be sullied with its base photonic energy. Three huzzahs and a tally-ho!

Tom DeLay can't distinguish reality and fiction.

Ahh, the sweet forbidden fruit of the Fruit Pie. What's it like, Fafnir?

And you're off! Runnin over the tops a cars to make the winnin touchdown an punchin out Hitler's brain before it lays a tentacle on your lady friend an the ninja coach gives you the all-star trophy an it's all on accounta pie! An you hold it up in the air an the camera spins all around you an you toss it back to Spiderman or Mr. Rogers or trusted newsman Walter Cronkite who's givin you a thumb's up an the hot pie fillin hits him in the face killing him instantly. The jury is merciless; you receive twenty years to life.

Diet Coke with Splenda vs. Diet Coke with Aspartame:

Note first the ingredient lists:

Diet Coke: Carbonated water, caramel color, aspartame, phosphoric acid, potassium benzoate, natural flavors, citric acid, caffeine

Splenda-y: Carbonated water, caramel color, natural flavors, phosphoric acid, potassium benzoate, sucralose (splenda), acesulfame potassium, caffeine, citric acid

The Diet Coke with Splenda has a more definite vanilla scent, and is generally sweeter- I couldn't really taste the sour note that I like. I didn't get a filmy feel that Coke with high fructose corn syrup leaves. There is much less of a chemical taste to the sweetness than in regular Diet Coke. Strangely, I've come to enjoy that strange little frisson of "What is that? Why, you strange, Ridley Scott-style sweetener!?"

Heh. Rock & Roll - Thesaurusized, a la McSweeny's.

"Talkin' bout my generation" --> "Discussing on the subject of my age group"

Here's a neat thing from Slate, about missing women throughout the world. There's a buried story in there, referring to Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, a servicable, if a bit half-baked, book.

The thing about Gladwell is, he's good at writing. His books are entertaining, ultimately unsatisfying to me. His books, which, I will grant, are for popular consumption, seem to only graze the surface of the ideas he presents. The lack of depth frustrates me.

I'm beginning to get a little freaked out by NPR. The little musical interludes between segments this afternoon have all come from my iPod.

Winning vs. losing?

During a joint appearance with Hamid Karzai, President Bush fielded some questions...

[Q:] ...and if I may ask you, Mr. President, as you know, the casualties of Iraq is again high today -- 50 more people dying. Do you think that insurgence is getting harder now to defeat militarily? Thank you.
PRESIDENT BUSH: No, I don't think so. I think they're being defeated. And that's why they continue to fight...

So... we're continuing to fight, too, right? Does that mean we're losing, also?

Tom introduced me to more songs by The Proclaimers this weekend (where by "more songs" I mean anything other than the one - "I'm Gonna Be" - that I already knew). I can agree with him that they're a highly underrated band. And they're just so...Scottish! Here's an excerpt from "Sunshine on the Leith":

Your beauty and kindness
Made tears clear my blindness.
While I'm worth my room on this earth
I will be with you.
While the Chief, puts Sunshine On Leith
I'll thank him for his work
And your birth and my birth.

Good stuff.

I really shouldna read this so long before lunch...

The brisket we ordered was moist and incredibly smoky. His ribs were even better, crusty on the outside, with meat that pulled right away from the bone, as a perfect rib should.

To anyone in the vicinity of a Trader Joe's (even if said vicinity is large): Get your hands on some lemon Citrons Givres "Lemon sorbet in naturel shells" (i.e. lemon husks)...80 calories each and de-freaking-licious!

I should say about the below recipe: really good avocado helps a lot. Use really good tomato with good avocado and the stuff is transcendent. Some people add a little hot pepper- and that's good, too, if you go in for that.

Recipe: Guacamole (this one's for Mom)
Materials

• Salt
• Black pepper
• Two sections of garlic
• 1/4 large tomato
• 1/4" thick section of medium red onion
• Two large avocados, slightly softer than you'd really think

Preparation

• Remove avocado pits, reserving them for later, scoop flesh into bowl
• Dice onion and tomato
• Mince garlic
• Put garlic, onion, and tomato, into the avocado bowl, mash well
• Season with salt and pepper to taste

Note that the onion and tomato quantities are approzimate, and you'll learn to adjust to your tastes. If you want the guacamole to keep, make sure to refrigerate. The avocado flesh will turn a Yoda-like color, but this can be slowed by putting the pits back into the finished dip, or putting in a tablespoon of lime juice.
Try it- you'll like it (and it's really no fattier than the avocado!)!

Whoo-hoo! Arrested Development ain't dead after all.

Ooh...the USGS has put a real-time earthquake probability map online for California. Be interesting to see how accurate the thing turns out to be. Shake, rattle & roll, baby.

Today on Fresh Air, one guest is D.James Kennedy, founder of the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ.

Here's a bit about the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ

the CENTER focuses on five key fronts of the modern-day culture war: (1) Religious Liberties, (2) the Sanctity of Life, (3) the Homosexual Agenda, (4) Pornography, and (5) Promoting Creationism.

...and amazingly, the interviewer is able to listen without vomiting.

Ick, I got some Homosexual Agenda on me.

26 Songs About Scientists: Vol. I - Anning to Malthus...definitely looks entertaining.

Hey, bebe. How you doin'?

Whooo, me?

Yeah...

Great...just what NPR needs - less news and more crappy jazz (oh, and more censorship).

This one's for Dad: Freakonomics author Steve Levitt addresses some criticisms of his hypothesis that the legalization of abortion in 1973 was responsible in large degree for the large drop in crime the U.S. experienced in the '90s. In so doing, he summarizes the evidence supporting his theory. The book presents the case a little more fully, and his technical work more so.

Possible differences in Richard III if the title Richard was a humpback rather than a hunchback:

• They'd need a much bigger stage than most theaters have
• Probably Richmond could not have killed Richard without more specialized equipment than a sword
• The squeaks and whalesong would not be ideally suited to sweet-talking widows
• Update: A whale would look funny in a crown.

Recipe: Tamale-type Corn Cake Thingies (like at Hamburger Hamlet)
Materials

• 1/4 cup cornmeal
• 1/4 cup pancake-mix
• 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tbsp salt
• about 1/2 cup room temperature water
• sbout 1/2 cup corn kernals (freshly scraped or thawed frozen)

Preparing the batter

• Stir together cornmeal, pancake-mix, sugar and salt in a big ol' bowl.
• Stir in water until the batter is smooth. The texture should be quite viscous.
• Stir in corn kernals until evenly distributed

Cooking

• Add about 1/4 of an inch of neutral oil to the bottom of a saucepan. Heat until small water drops flung into the oil (from a respectful distance, mind you) kick up oil vigorously but not violently. I'll get a thermometer and determine the actual temperature later.
• Make drops of batter approximately 3 inches in diameter in the hot oil. When a golden-brown color begins to show about 1/3 of the way up the side of the cake, turn and cook until done (total about 2 minutes).
• Remove cakes from oil and drain excess oil.
• Serve with delicious sauces and garnishes that I will figure out another day.

Reminder:

Anyone is welcome to comment!

All you have to do is click the "comments" link at the end of the post you wish to comment on. A window will come up where you can put a name in the name box if you like (the email and URL boxes don't have to be filled out unless you want to) and write what you have to say in the comments box.

Seriously, is there anybody out there? Just nod if you can hear me.

Mathematical terms that sound like spy novels:

• The Fredholm Alternative
• Absolute Convergence
• Exponents of Singularity
• The Frobenius Method
• Impulse Response
• The Parseval Equation
• Asymptotic Expansion
• The Fixed Point
• Separatrix
• The Tautochrone
• The Outer Product
• The Vector Product

Good quiz. Via Pharyngula.

I see a lot of things going on lately that suggest when the bathwater gets too cool, or too soapy, or too wet, one should not hesitate to chuck it right out, baby or not...

John Adams Hurson, a member of the Maryland House of Delegates who is president of the National Conference of State Legislatures, said: "I am a Democrat, a liberal Democrat, but we can't sustain the current Medicaid program. It's fiscal madness. It doesn't guarantee good care, and it's a budget buster. We need to instill a greater sense of personal responsibility so people understand that this care is not free."

So the problem with providing healthcare for the very poor is that we have too many poor and their health needs are too great. Well, restricting their access to healthcare is definitely one way of reducing the number of poor people.

Today the Oregon Supreme Court was hearing cases in the PAC at my school. Any student could watch, but then when they broke for lunch they came into my class to eat, and the class had to go to the computer lab to work on stuff, or they could stay and talk to the Justices. My friends Kelly, Maddie, Thea and myself were the only ones to stay and talk to the justices. I met Jusctice Robert Durham, and he told me to call him Skip because he likes that name. So that was pretty neat-o.

In another town shill hall-style event about Social Security removal reform, Vice President Dick Cheney and various communicants congregants citizens referred to the Democratic Party as people of "the other faith."

This should make people uncomfortable- the continual establishment of an out-group by may be sound as politics-by-division, but the final result of that tactic leaves us farther from comity than ever. In fact, it sets us on the slippery-slope of contracting the moral circle... and that is a scary proposition (outside the moral circle is a scary preposition).

It reminds me of (of all things) a Tom Clancy novel, where the protagonist says something about politicans from one state promising to stick it to people from another state and wondering rhetorically if residents of that "other" state are not Americans, too.

How republican are you?

Go. Forth. Camel. Giddy. Up.

Yay for Megan! I was selected to be a delegate for Girls State, a political camp in Willamatte(?) just for girls to go and ...learn about government! Yay! What we do is we make our own government, lobby for bills, etc. It's a nationwide thing, and each state selects two girls to be senators, and then those girls all go to D.C. and introduce new bills. I want to be a senator. And hopefully, I will be elected director of the CIA. The only problem is that the organization is really republican, so I'm afraid I may be ostrasized. Well I got it, and that's the first step, eh?

Hmm...it occurs to me that I should probably make it clear I'm not trying to hint at anything with these last two posts. Just thought the Slate article was interesting, and Tom told me about the Name Wizard thing the other day, which I found to be way too nifty not to share. So no speculating, all ye speculators!

The Baby Name Wizard - NameVoyager is pretty neat. I killed a good half an hour last night just typing in random names and seeing how popular they've been over the past hundred years.

Interesting Slate article about baby names, how they become popular/unpopular, various historical trends, etc. Jack and Jill, meet Aldo and Annika.

Fair Verona this ain't.

Passed. Still not totally official, as one of the four profs didn't show- I'll have to present to him later. However, it says "Passed" on the examination result line. Go me.

Wow. Google now offers satellite mapping through their regular map engine. For free.

Tick... tock... tick... tock... (reminds me of something I think Dennis Miller said about Morley Safer gettin' old: "How do you think he likes the sound of that clock ticking?!" Mind you, this was in the 90s (I mean the date, not Safer- though that's not an unreasonable estimate))

April fools from Google. Funny folks, those Google peoples.

Requiescat in pace, Mitch Hedberg... He made me laugh until I cried.

Now here's a cool thing - a watch that monitors your sleep pattern and wakes you up at the most optimal time. Definitely a neat gadget.

Penny Construction Project: Creations built entirely out of pennies. No glue, no additional support of any kind. Really neat. (And a good band name.)

Cool new MRI application.

Good ol' McSweeney's: Lyrics to the Billy Joel song "We Didn't Start the Fire" if they were written by a muskrat instead of by Billy Joel.

Funny CNN headline: Laura Bush Making Unannounced Trip to Afghanistan
Um...so much for unannounced, there, CNN.

Gee, this is great. There's a law on the books to prevent collection agencies from defaulting active-duty military personnel (or their spouses) on loans, mortgages, etc. while said personnel are deployed. The problem is, there are a fair number of judges who don't know the law exists, so they've been phenomenally screwing people who are supposed to be protected. Good job, folks.

NCAA+NCLB = Harrison Bergeron? (you'll have to read to the end of the list)

1. All teams must advance to the Sweet 16, and all will win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.

2. All kids will be expected to have the same basketball skills at the same time and in the same conditions. No exceptions will be made for interest in basketball, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY BASKETBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL.

This morning while walking to the convenience store at Caltech, I saw an really old fat white guy walking a tiny little dog. He was wearing a FUBU sweater.

A completely fascinating piece on This American Life, tonight. In the mid 80's, Jello Biafra was prosecuted in Los Angeles for obscenity by ADA Michael Guarino. The prosecution failed, and eventually, the Guarino dude left the DA's office and has come to like Jello. They spoke, in this piece. It was pretty cool.

I like dried cranberries, but craisins are disgusting. The concept is great, but the consistency is all wrong, and I accidentally got the cherry flavored kind... ugh.

More animal blogging...this is totally wacky. There's a small species of octopus that can do this funky two-limbed tiptoe thing. Definitely check out the video clips (requires QuickTime).

Apparently, elephants have now been added to the list of animals that can vocally mimic. Pretty funny.

Here's an interesting NYT article about a problem with urban development that I hadn't really considered:

"Portland is a great city that attracts a lot of educated people. But the real estate is becoming outrageously expensive. And then you get wealthy singles and wealthy retirees. What's missing are kids."

School enrollment in Portland has apparently decreased by 10,000 kids in the last decade, and there are currently more dogs than children in San Francisco.

Target tops wedding registries. Interesting- bed linens and bath towels are the most common items registered for both first-time wedders and repeat offenders.The average wedding gift rings up at about $130, while the average shower gift is roughly $60. Crazy.

Ahh, Susan's kind mother:

CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) - An Oregon State football had a stolen sheep in the bed of his pickup when he was pulled over for speeding last week, Benton County authorities said.

That's some alma mater. Ba-dum dum!

The members of the King of Kings Skateboard Ministries team "do not skate for adulation or even for the thrill of catching big air. They skate for Jesus."

Turquoise-colored reproductive organs?!

I probably need this.

Here's a neat, short NYT article about blue lobsters.

Oh man. I would have killed to have been able to do this when I was a kid.

Sick cat

Loki, the evil cat that lives with us, developed a stricture in his urethra a week we took him to his vet. After a week, his vet for some reason did not get back to us about his urinalysis (we took him in last week because he was spending a lot of time at the litterbox to little effect). So yesterday we took him to the emergency animal clinic and they had to catheterize the poor bastard to allow him to eliminate liquid waste.
Damn our regular vet (with whom Loki will be staying for the next few days).

Okay, this is just ridiculously amusing.

Your Honor, the prosecution rests, doggone it.