Speechless, yet appreciative.
In a move that could dramatically reduce air pollution in much of rural California, the Bush administration proposed tough new emissions regulations Tuesday for diesel-powered farm and construction equipment.

*blink* They did what?

Empire in Denial
Maureen Dowd sez...

Whether the tacky tyrant is MOAB dust or has a new face, he's gone. And we now own his country for the bargain down payment of $79 billion. America broke away from the British empire, and now it's building its own British-style empire. We are, as Niall Ferguson, the author of "Empire," put it, "an empire in denial."
...
The government should have taken 20 seconds, when it was awarding the Halliburton contract, to protect the art, the books and the hospital supplies.

Quite. Read here!

Hey! Sexy galaxies too!
Must be the springtime thing. Astronomical jigginess.

Three "naked" galaxies, not surrounded by cloaks of dark matter, have been found by an international team of astronomers.

Here.

Sexy worms fight cancer.
Or something like that.

Worms contaminated by radioactivity from the Chernobyl nuclear accident have started having sex with each other instead of on their own.

According to Ukrainian scientists, they may have changed their sexual behaviour to increase their chances of survival. It is one of the first pieces of direct evidence on how wildlife is affected by radioactive pollution.

Yeah, baby.

Poincare is his bitch, yo.
Yum! Three dimenional manifolds!

As for Poincare's Conjecture itself...scintillating reading here.

YAY, gourds!
I find this oddly interesting. Every god should have fangs and a staff. This I decree. Shitty picture here of the Staff God..

CHICAGO, Illinois (Reuters) -- The image of a fanged deity inscribed on a 4,000-year-old Peruvian gourd indicates an early Andean civilization practiced religion a thousand years earlier than previously believed, scientists said on Monday

Viceroy Jay Garner weighs in on Viet Nam
The soon-to-be top dog in Iraq served in Vietnam and says he's learned valuable lessons from the failures of that conflict. "We should have taken the war north instead of waiting in the south. Just like here," said Garner, who then added, "If President Bush had been president, we would have won."

Here, at bottom.

What happens...
...when you sympathize with the terrorists? I do. Come and get me Tom Ridge!

Actually, I think the anti-war thing is a bit dated now...it's SO March 2003. The SUV vandalism is amusing, however. Quite.

And hey! Did you know there's an organization called Northern California War Tax Resistance? I didn't, until I read this.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to pay for this shit.
This. Outrage now!

Who's opposed to that?
I'm absolutely amazed that Mr. Bennett can actually take this tack:

William Bennett, education secretary under President Reagan and author of "The Book of Virtues," came to Paige's defense.
"He'd prefer to have a child in a school that has a strong appreciation for the values of the Christian community. Who's opposed to that?" Bennett said.

I just don't understand how he can be so utterly ignorant of the concept of a secular state. It doesn't prohibit individual worship, but it definitely doesn't support enculturation outside what's necessary to create a good citizen. Christianity, as proven thoughout history, is not a prerequisite for good citizenship.

Be appalled.

Mega-banteng!
I'm picturing abnormally massive ungulates stalking the land...

It's actually kinda cute. Too bad it's a freak of science!

Bush speaks to the Iraqi People
"Good morning, people of Texraq. This is your superior white liberator speaking. Please discontinue your anarchic orgy of looting and burning for a few minutes in order to luxuriate in a rich sonic bath of my monosyllabic magnificence."

Transcript here, courtesy of whitehouse.org.

USA PATRIOT Recap
For those who've asked about why PATRIOT is bad law, please read up and get outraged!

Cpl. Edward Chin of the Third Battalion, 4th Marines Regiment embarrasses one nation and humiliates another!
My God. It takes a direct order? Unbelievable!

I've also read this morning that that flag was the one that was over the Pentagon in 11 September. I'd like independent verification, however, because that's too poignant to exist in real life, as far as I'm concerned.

What the fuck do these people WANT, anyway?
You know...I'm peeved. What do these people want? It's like some sort of masturbatory impulse to go out and make some noise.

Well here's some advice, unasked for and most likely unpleasant: if you have to keep changing your message, your message isn't big enough.

Quote for the Day...hell, for the whole New American Century!
“Either war is obsolete or men are.”
    —Buckminster Fuller

Somebody needs to remind Mr. Hatch...
...that installing tyranny at home is dumb. No really. It's just dumb. Why expend all the energy to get rid of one evil regime, when you're just going to turn around and plug in another.

How could making the USA PATRIOT -- gag! -- Act a permanent fixture in the vast constellations of astronomically dumb legislation already in existence improve life in this country? God, this depresses me.

Who's next? North Korea, Syria, Iran...France?
Well, looks like they found Syrian (!?) soldiers hiding out in one of Saddam's Palaces? Add this to the material support that Syria was accused of providing earlier, sounds like maybe a case is being laid down for future use.