What's the upside?

Yes, sure they're trying to favor big business as always and put OSHA and the EPA out in the cold, but at least now, this is nearly front page news.



4 years ago, the "drive by" media as Big Pharma like to call it, wouldn't even have reported on this story.



The Reign of Cheney is in its last throes.

Critters

My friend Diane sent me this in an email. Amazing and adorable all in one.

The Hippopotamus and the Tortoise“Much of life can never be explained but only witnessed."

NAIROBI (AFP) - A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa, officials said. The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean , then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him.

"It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems tobe very happy with being a 'mother'," ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park , told AFP.

"After it was swept away and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately , it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together," the ecologist added. "The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it followed its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother," Kahumbu added.

"The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very tender age andby nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years," he explained.

This is a real story that shows that our differences don't matter much when we need the comfort of another. We could all learn a lesson from these two creatures, "Look beyond the differences and find a way to walk the path together."

Inbound I-90 from the West...

... was a tad slow this morning so I had some extra time to listen to tunes. Here are the rock steady beats keepin' me feelin' irie in that monster traffic today. What were yours?...

Cities--Talking Heads
The Modern Age--The Strokes
Siren Song--The Fags
River of Orchids--XTC
Give Me Flowers While I'm Living--Knitters
Get Miles--Gomez
I Put a Spell on You--Creedence
Puke--Eminem
Make it Rain--Tom Waits
Till the End of The Day--The Kinks

Pretty Vacant

Sunny Jim Kunstler got his smiley face on today. Then Atrios links to this to bring it all home.

In every dream home a heartache...

Tom Dispatch

Tom Engelhardt is always an excellent chronicler of the details that are so easily and frequently overlooked.

Here's his latest masterpiece.

I report, you decide

So, is this site a parody or not?

Regardless, his choice of "gay" bands is pretty funny. Particularly the "safe" bands. Here are the Dresden Dolls, in case you're not familiar.

Idiot America

Yet another victory for the mouthbreathers.

Here's what is wrong with this country. It's easy to blame politicians, Hollywood, drunk driving, abortion, etc. for the downfall of this once proud country. Now I know that anti-intellectualism is part of the bedrock of the 'Murkan experience, but do we really have to celebrate and exploit it so gleefully?

Click here for the next logical step towards End Days.

What's Groucho's famous quote?

I think it goes something like, "Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member".

Cracks me up..

University Holds Meeting on Bush LibrarySMU Faculty Concerned About Reputation, Political Interference

DALLAS, Jan. 24 -- Members of the Southern Methodist University faculty again raised concerns that the building of the George W. Bush presidential library on campus might damage the school's reputation, said a participant at a closed-door meeting on Wednesday.
At the tightly guarded meeting, several members of the faculty questioned school president R. Gerald Turner about the political institute that will accompany the library. The institute will conduct research on issues that will be determined by Bush. Many of the questioners wondered whether such a powerful institution on campus will influence the type of research that can be conducted by SMU faculty and whether it will have an impact on the university's reputation.

"We're worried about a group of people on campus with a lot of money and a lot of power who aren't concerned for our values as an academy," Dennis Foster, a professor of English and a faculty senate member said, according to a participant in the meeting who asked not to be identified.Turner responded by saying that because the institute will be governed by a separate board, any controversy would not reflect poorly on the university.

"The tail will not wag the dog," he said, according to the participant.
No official action was taken during the meeting. Faculty members will relay any further concerns to the faculty senate, which will then summarize them and present a list to Turner. Turner said after the meeting that he will take the concerns into advisement as he goes into negotiations with the president's site-selection committee in the coming weeks.

"I think the faculty is working its way toward a consensus on this," said James F. Hollifield, the director of the Tower Center for Political Studies on campus. He said that the main thing for many faculty members was just "getting their questions answered."
In reality, the faculty can do little to stop the library because several university leaders, including Turner, are committed to bringing it to SMU.

SMU, the alma mater of Laura Bush, was named the sole finalist for the library in December. The site selection committee -- which includes Bush's former chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., and former commerce secretary Donald L. Evans -- requested that any proposals for the library include plans for a public policy institute. In the meeting Wednesday, many faculty members expressed concerns that the Bush institute would become nothing more than a conservative think tank working to advance the ideologies and policies of the Bush administration.

The controversy began in November when two faculty members wrote in the school newspaper criticizing the absence of university-wide discussion about the library. The editorial also questioned the ethics of pursuing a presidential library "regardless of an administration's record and its consequences," a reference to the war in Iraq.

Me?...not so Jolly

Steve Bell rules supreme.

The mouths of babes

Not only is she adorable, she speaks the truth.

G'night indeed.

Cue Lee Greenwood

Yes folks, it's time to evaluate the way we're viewed annually as a nation.

Not only do we continue to LOSE hearts and minds with those countries that were on the fence, they're even starting to hate us where once we were seen as a force for good.

The countries whose citizens were most strident in their opposition over Guantánamo Bay were Germany, Egypt, Turkey, Portugal, Italy, France and Lebanon, with 80 per cent or more opposed.

I guess those pictures of Britney's snatch aren't really helping. Huh.

More here

Oh, and by the by, here's some snapshots of Miserable Failure and the Lump from tonight's SOTU address.

Before

And after...

and then there's the "after" After party

Be sure to put in a good supply of ice, folks.

Old Europe

The ever lovely Arianna hardly needs my meager assistance in making a point, but here's the link to her article.

My limited international travel would most definitely confirm her thesis that the Yurpeens are vastly superior to us technologically as consumers when it comes to fresh thinking about communications, phones, computing and gadgets.

More video

Until I become proficient at uploading videos to LMS, I'll have to rely on links.

This is making the rounds on the soft news broadcasts and desevedly so. But this way, you don't have to listen to the local anchor mannequins talking over the footage.

With that, I give you...Slippery Pete, the sliding deer.

Ricky Gervais

I don't get the HBO, but the buzz that Gervais is generating with his Extra's show is getting pretty big again this year.

If this clip is evidence of the regular offerings, I may have to pony up the dough for the pricey pay cable.

Pretty effin' hilarious.

The Truth

Pour yourself a cocktail, (and yes, I know that's it's 7:45 in the morning), and go read jurassicpork today.

I weep for the future of this once great nation.

If it's Thursday...

...it must be time for Mark Fiore.

Behold the King of OppositeLand.

One last thing

Check out this cool interactive chart from the good folks at Think Progress.

For those of you scoring at home, North East Ohio is batting .1000 in its oppostion to the Chimp's Death March.

Hey now.

Dennis!

That's what I'm fuckin' talkin' about.

Grim Reaper

Well...finally, Art Buchwald got around to dying.

All kidding aside, he was a great American.

On of my favorite quotes of his..."You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it".

RIP, funny man.