Nice Kitty

So, this lady and her daughter rescue an injured kitty on the side of the road, and take it to the vet.

A woman who helped rescue an injured cat on the roadside got a surprise when a veterinarian told her it was a wild and potentially dangerous bobcat.

It makes you wonder what kind of kitties she has in her house to mistake a bobcat for a pet. The kitty is on the loose again.

Veterinarian Andy Duke, the clinic's owner, said the bobcat did not appear to be suffering any pain from the injured paw when he released it about 10:30 p.m. Monday less than a mile from where Eldred had found it.

"It left the cage like calf coming out of a rodeo chute," Duke said.

Now That's Good Eatin'

In Virginia, this kid would never be able to attend public school again. Fortunately for him, in Alabama they're more sensible.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Hogzilla is being made into a horror movie. But the sequel may be even bigger: Meet Monster Pig. An 11-year-old boy used a pistol to kill a wild hog his father says weighed a staggering 1,051 pounds and measured 9 feet 4, from the tip of its snout to the base of its tail. Think hams as big as car tires.

And, how exactly, does a sixth-grader accomplish such a feat?

Jamison, who killed his first deer at age 5, was hunting with father Mike Stone and two guides in east Alabama on May 3 when he bagged Monster Pig. He said he shot the huge animal eight times with a .50-caliber revolver and chased it for three hours through hilly woods before finishing it off with a point-blank shot.

Good job! So what are you going to do with it?

The hog's head is being mounted by Jerry Cunningham of Jerry's Taxidermy. Cunningham said the animal measured 54 inches around the head, 74 inches around the shoulders and 11 inches from the eyes to the end of its snout.

"It's huge," he said. "It's just the biggest thing I've ever seen."

Mike Stone is having sausage made from the rest of the animal. "We'll probably get 500 to 700 pounds," he said.

Larnin' is a Gud Thing

The photograph says it all.

Students who had been planning to walk across the stage at graduation ceremonies this weekend were instead walking a picket line Thursday morning.

The Trimble Tech High School seniors marched in front of Fort Worth Independent School District headquarters to protest Wednesday's decision by trustees to bar students who failed the TAKS test from commencement exercises.

Let me say it again. Read the sign.

Norwegians Announce Plan to Migrate to Reindeer Pulled Sleighs

OK, they claim to want to convert to biodeisel.

Norway's government is working on a proposal that could lead to a ban on the sale of gasoline-powered cars.

The parliamentary transport groups in the governing Labour, Socialist Left and Center parties have aired the proposal, and the Transport Ministry is now working intensely to determine whether such a ban is possible, newspaper VG reports.

"This is not a problem to arrange. In Brazil over 80 percent of cars sold run on bio-ethanol. Most of the major car makers are banking on flexi-fuel," said Labor parliamentary transport committee representative Truls Wickstrøm.

"Such a ban would pressure the automobile industry into developing technology faster than it otherwise would," said Jenny Klinge, the Center Party representative on the transport committee.

Yes, but where are you going to get the plant matter for this? Norway is not notes for its extensive vegetation cover.

Designer What?

I don't know what to say. (***snigger!***)

One of the world's most prestigious health journals has lashed a fast-growing trend in the United States and Britain for "designer vaginas," the tabloid term for cosmetic surgery to the female genitalia.

Patients who sought genitoplasty "uniformly" wanted their vulvas to be flat and with no protrusion, similar to the prepubescent look of girls in Western fashion ads, they found.

Too much money, not enough healthy social interactions.

Participatory GIS - Gas Prices

There is a site out there called Gasbuddy.com that is a good example of participatory GIS. People submit the local price of gasoline to the site. The website then maps the station and displays it for all comers. You can zoom and pan on the map to wherever you want.

However, as you zoom out you eventually get to this "heat map" (sort of like the one for Zillow on housing prices). Prices only stay posted for 12 hours, so you know you're always seeing the latest. Members get points towards prizes for submitting more prices.

Personally, I wondered about the high prices in the Midwest. It turns out this site also has a page for gas taxes, and those are 15-20 cents higher per gallon in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan than in surrounding states. So, Representative Stupak of Michigan can just kiss our a**.

Ugly Men

Apparently, I'm a hot commodity. Well, maybe I score one out of three. -

In a recent study, sociologist Diane Felmee found only a third of women said looks were the first thing that attracted them to a man. Most preferred a sense of humour or financial and career success.

Researchers at Newcastle University also believe ugly men exist as a way of repairing our gene pool. Women would rather date men with good genes, who can fight disease easily, than a classically beautiful man.

Ace points out a case in point.

AN Essex girl may be the first lady with a tongue stud to have set her sights on the White House. The wife of Dennis Kucinich, a left-wing Democratic congressman and 2008 presidential candidate, is a 29-year-old hippie chick from Upminster at the end of London Underground’s District line.

Trade-offs

If Congress and the President are about to sell us out on immigration, as apparently they are, they ought to at least get us something back for it. no, I don't mean the Republicrats need to give something to the Democrans, or vice-versa. WE need to get something from Mexico.

We're being asked to take in about 10 million Mexicans (plus assorted stragglers from other countries), which is about 10% of their national population, in order to relieve the pressures on one of the most autocratic, corrupt, and imbecilic governments that has graced this planet over the past 500 years. I think they owe us.

Specifically, I think they owe us about 20% of their land area. This would be the states of Baja California, Baja California Sur, and Sonora. The existing populations will have to leave, but, hey, that's not our problem.

If the government of Mexico has a better proposal, like all of the Yucatan and Chiapas, where a lot of these desperate people come from to start with, we can listen. Especially if it includes a few areas with nice beaches and/or unexplored oil reserves.

(Strawman follows) Some will argue that such a transfer is unthinkable. Nonsense, I say! Did they not earlier cede all of the southwest to the U.S.? Did they not lose Texas to a small band of settlers? Hell, the only people they've ever managed to resist, were the French. Besides, isn't this a big step toward that North American Union some people are so crazy for?

Queen Victoria's Secret

Today is the Victoria Day holiday for our neighbors in Canada. This is a sort of iconic picture of her, and we tend to think of her in those terms. Plump and stolid.

Well, if you had to sit perfectly still for 10 or 15 seconds for the photograph to be taken, you'd probably look pretty somber too. Ever try to hold a smile for 10 seconds? As for plump, give her a break. By the time of this photo she had been queen for 50 or 60 years. You should look so good at that age.

Besides, with all that satin and lace on display, can you really believe she was confined in tidy whities underneath? I mean she was passably cute as a young woman, but she went on to have nine children while still running the largest empire the world has ever seen. No doubt she took her comfort where she could find it.

Somehow, I doubt that was to be found in massive underwires and thongs as at today's Victoria Secret, or in rough linen or wool with drawstrings.

So, what was her secret?

Zero Tolerance for Guns

Some elementary school students handled a BB gun near a school bus stop. The result is that they've been expelled.

NEWPORT NEWS -- A group of boys played with a BB gun near their bus stop on March 27, according to mothers who were not there but gathered information on their own. The BB gun was unloaded, the parents said, so when the children took turns pulling the trigger, it only fired air. When the kids saw the bus coming, the last boy to hold the BB gun put it down.

Four children were suspended and then expelled for the incident from Sanford Elementary, which is on Colony Road in the Denbigh part of Newport News.

I think the school district is on shaky ground here. Yes, their policy says students may not have weapons at school bus stops. But where does that end? How far away would you have to be before it's not at a school bus stop?

So, if the kids usually stand in your driveway to load onto the bus, and you decide to take junior deer hunting, if someone sees him touch a weapon while loading the truck up, he'll be expelled?

Worse yet, these are the rules for all of the students, not just the elementary kids.

Countdown from 100

Ace has a link to a great set of movie quotes. This is too fun.

What Can't Science Accomplish?

If you like pizza. If you like beer. You're sure to be disgusted by pizza beer.

(CBS) ST. CHARLES, Ill. Beer and pizza are tastes that, for many of us, just seem to go together. But, beer that tastes like pizza?

As CBS 2’s Vince Gerasole reports, a suburban brewer has put a new twist on tap.

Something’s brewing in a garage in St. Charles. Tom Seefurth is mixing up a concoction he'll eventually pour out as beer – pizza beer.

“It's pizza and beer in a bottle,” Seefurth, a self-proclaimed beer nut, says.

There are actually real pieces of pizza stirred into the mix.

American Vacations

One of the things that Euro-peons are always whining at Americans about is that we don't travel overseas. Goodness, most of you colonists, don't even have a passport.

Well, up until this year we didn't need one if we were staying inside the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and most of the Caribbean. This amounts to almost a fifth of the land area of the planet, ignoring Antarctica (for which I doubt you need a passport for anyway, since it's supposed to be "neutral" ground).

The other factor, as I see it, is that while foreigners get a lot of vacation, American bosses don't have to give you squat.

Workers in Finland had one of the best annual leave packages among developed countries, a study by the center found. Finnish workers received 30 days of paid vacation plus another nine paid holidays.

French workers were guaranteed 30 days of paid annual leave, but only one paid holiday. Most European workers were guaranteed at least 20 days of vacation, and some also received as many as 13 paid holidays.

Canadian workers were guaranteed 10 days of vacation plus another eight paid holidays, while Japanese laborers only were guaranteed 10 days of annual leave, the study found.

U.S. workers were guaranteed neither paid vacations nor paid holidays.

Despite the lack of government guarantees, 90 percent of U.S. employers offered vacation, the study found. Workers received an average of nine days of paid vacation and six paid holidays, a total of 15 days off per year.

Now, remember, in these foreign countries this is the minimum vacation they can give a new, first-time employee. It negotiates upwards from there.

What you do in your free time...

...is your own business.

A Palestinian working for Doctors Without Borders has been charged in an alleged plot to assassinate Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other top Israeli officials, according to court document released Thursday.

Paris-based Doctors Without Borders offers emergency medical treatment at trouble spots around the world. An official from the group, Michael Neuman, said Bashir has worked with them for five years, but the charges were "completely unrelated to his work."

Poor Baby!

Imagine my sympathy -

WASHINGTON — An accused enemy combatant held at Guantanamo Bay told a military hearing he was physically as well as mentally tortured there by having to read a newsletter full of 'crap,' being forced to use unscented deodorant and shampoo and having to play sports with a ball that would not bounce.

Majid Khan of Pakistan denied any connection to Al Qaeda and said he was tortured and his family hounded by U.S. authorities, according to a redacted transcript released Tuesday by the Pentagon.

Khan told an April 15 hearing called to determine whether he was rightly classified as an "enemy combatant" that he also had his baby pictures taken from him, that cleaners left marks on his cell walls and that detainees have no DVD players or other entertainment.

Jamestown Entertainment - Part 2

I noted that a black supremacist leader in the New Black Panther Party intended on being at Jamestown on Saturday. I never did see any mention in the paper of that protest. Then, it was to be on to Toronto for him.

Michelle Malkin notes a report that he never quite made it. Why not? Well, you know, it was the Jews again.

Malik Zulu Shabazz was denied entry by customs officials apparently because of a minor criminal record — a misdemeanour five years ago, members of the group told reporters.

They said they invited Shabazz to speak on issues such as establishing black-focused schools and changing curriculums to include contributions by black people.

Shabazz had been scheduled to attend a rally in front of the Ontario legislature Tuesday afternoon and deliver a lecture at Ryerson University later in the day.

The group held a raucous and angry news conference at Ryerson, lashing out at what they said was the role of the "Jewish lobby" in keeping Shabazz out of the country.

The Toronto Star reports -

“What is to blame is the power of the Jewish lobby to influence politicians, to influence media, to influence whatever,” said Nkem Anizor, 26, president of a radical new Toronto group called Black Youth Taking Action.

“Because it took just one letter, one press release from B’nai Brith and the firestorm began,” she told a news conference at Ryerson today in Shabazz’s place.

Uh, huh. That you are violent hate-mongering freakazoids has nothing to do with it.

Swedish Meatball

So, there's this magician from Sweden, see. And, he has a hard time getting a regular gig. So, why is that?

Swedish magician Joe Labero has provoked a strong reaction with suggestions that Las Vegas is controlled by "Jewish business syndicates, American dollar millionaires and homosexual booking agents".

As a prelude to his controversial thesis, Labero explained that he has long been close to getting his own show in Las Vegas.

"But at the end of the day it seems to be impossible - unless you are a homosexual, a Jew or an American.

Oh, dear. I think we can let the slurs pass for a moment. However, has anyone bothered to tell this guy that Americans consider any performer that gets a regular show in Vegas as a has-been, who'll never be able to get another serious job again?

Now, to the slurs. I am unclear on which group he most dislikes, but summing up, he seems to be upset that jobs in America, even in entertainment, might go to Americans. Indeed, that we would prefer Jews or homosexuals over him.

The guy has now apologized, but in the bigger scheme of things, you can understand why he'd pull almost any rabbit out of the hat to get out of Sweden. He could get burned for doing magic. Or, at least beheaded.

Jamestown Update

It sounds like the festival did better over the weekend than what I saw on Friday. Well, I did go that day because I thought the crowds would be smaller.

Organizers said official attendance figures for the three-day festival would take time to compile, but that a preliminary tally showed roughly 70,000 single-day tickets were sold, out of a possible 90,000.

Only about 37,000 tickets were sold in advance -- "certainly not what we had hoped for," said Jane Zeidler, executive director of Jamestown 2007, the state organization coordinating the festival. But more than 33,000 people apparently bought tickets at the gates.

Absolutely Depraved

What was this judge thinking?

A judge today dismissed a child abuse charge against a woman whose 2-year-old son spent the night in the hospital after apparently ingesting heroin.

Tracie Chaffee, 29, told child protective services worker Darlene Griffith that she had used heroin for a couple months, taking it before and after work, but never at home.

Chaffee’s lawyer, Allan Zaleski, argued there had been no evidence about what caused the boy’s injury. Judge M. Randolph Carlson II agreed, and dismissed the charge against Chaffee.

I'm speechless.

Yeah, That's Your Theory

We have some interesting liquor rules here.

Consumers may bring no more than one gallon (or 4 liters) of alcoholic beverages across state lines. That limit is constitutional because it does not restrict how much a person buys from an out-of-state retailer, the appeals court said.

Hell, I buy more than that on a three day out of town trip. I think my bar/wine rack probably have eight or nine gallons in them at the moment. Yeah, I bought almost all of it here, but I'd never think twice about bringing >4 bottles of wine home from vacation. The trick is usually how to transport a whole case via aircraft with the security for carry-on and kleptos inspecting the bags.

Jamestown 400th Anniv

We went over to Jamestown for the festivities yesterday. Some of it was good. Some of it was bad.

The Good things:

• The grounds were spacious and clean. The area provided probably could have handled 50,000 a day. Actually, the area was so large that the arrangement was kind of confusing. It looked small on the map, but you walked and walked. The four performance stages had to be a quarter mile apart.
  
• The entertainment was very good. We got to see a combined performance of the Virginia and Richmond Symphonies, including the premier of four works commissioned for the festivities. Three of the composers were there to introduce their works. The combined group also did Dvorak's "New World Symphony". The finale was choreographed with a fireworks display. On the flip side, we were allowed to sit through speeches by Governor Tim Kaine and Sanator Jim Webb, while waiting to hear from Sandra Day O'Connor.
  
  As we were leaving that, there were some folks trying to snag people to attend another performance at one of the smaller stages. Someone's performing now, after the Symphony? After 10pm? Yes, some little kids from
  Dillon Montana (pop. about 5000). The "Dillon Junior Fiddlers." Apparently they were supposed to perform earlier, during the Symphony, but something got snafu'd (like anyone would have attended then.)
  
  Anyway, we and quite a few other people felt bad about it, and went over to see them. The thing was, they were quite good, and fun. There were about 10-15 kids that really played (3-4 that could solo), and then about 8 to 10 more kids they had doing line line dances in costume. (Just ignore the few adults in the background backing them on piano, bass fiddle and guitar.) We all made sure they got rousing applause after coming so far, and potentially getting stuck with no audience. We left after about 15 minutes to catch our bus, but we could have stayed longer since the buses were only moving about every 15 minutes.

The Bad things:

• There weren't very many people there. The grounds could handle at last 50K a day, and they we hoping to sell 30K tickets a day, and yesterday under 20K showed up, spread over a 14 hour period. Hopefully, there will be a lot more on Saturday and Sunday.
  
• The bus drivers to the remote parking lots had no idea where they were going, and had to keep asking the passengers for directions. Never a good sign.
  
• Everything closed too early. After the concert that was it, everything was closed.
  
• The USPS had a postal substation there to sell first day covers and stamps. They were running out. At 4 pm on Friday.
  
• Do you know how annoying it is to see that the employees of the event sponsors get to sit in air-conditioned tents and eat from white tableclothed tables with uniformed waiters while you sit on the ground outside eating your Indian taco?
  
• Or, that they've reserved all of the real 'seats', up in front, for these people to listen to the concert? Chairs for the peons were available for a $3 rental (w/ additional $7 deposit) fee. Thankfully, they eventually realized the sponsor's employees weren't going to fill things up, so they let us in to use the extra seats.
  

Don't Get All Shy Now!

College girls gone silly.

Young women embarrassed by their bulging beer bellies stole nearly 1,000 copies of the Framingham State College newspaper to cover up the front-page exposure.
Now administrators and editors want the fat-concerned ladies to pay.
“This is the most stupid reason the paper has been stolen,” said English professor Desmond McCarthy, faculty adviser to The Gatepost.

I dunno. I think they look pretty good compared to some of the locals here.

Jamestown Entertainment

Well maybe the show outside the grounds of the Jamestown 400 commemoration will be entertaining, too. Well, I hope they keep it outside.

Malik Shabazz, with Black Lawyers for Justice, will lead a forum exploring colonial racial politics Friday, followed by a demonstration at Jamestown Settlement Saturday. The protest coincides with America's Anniversary weekend, the May 11-13 pinnacle of the 18-month Jamestown 2007 commemoration.

Both events protest the commemoration of what Shabazz called ground zero for black enslavement and Indian genocide.

"We felt a moral obligation to organize and to give the other side of Jamestown," said Shabazz, a Washington, D.C., attorney and activist known for his controversial views on race relations.

Yeah, he's an activist known for his "controversial views", alright. Views like -

"The only solution any time there is a funeral in the black community is a funeral in the police community," Shabazz told the marchers at the time.

Hmm. Maybe that was a one off. Anything Else? I guess so! He's going to be a busy boy! (Pardon the expression.) Jamestown on Saturday, and Toronto on Tuesday.

"The Jews have taken the entire state of Israel, West Bank, and Gaza, all of that is stolen territory," Mr. Shabazz said on a U.S. TV news program last year. "And they are the reason that someone else would blow themselves up. It is not the Palestinians' fault. It is the fault of the Zionists."

Downs Syndrome Abortions

Some parents are banding together to explain the "richness" of the lives of children born with Downs Syndrome. Their objective is to get parents not to abort these babies.

Convinced that more couples would choose to continue their pregnancies if they better appreciated what it meant to raise a child with Down syndrome, a growing group of parents is seeking to insert their own positive perspectives into a decision often dominated by daunting medical statistics and doctors who feel obligated to describe the difficulties of life with a disabled child.

hey are pressing obstetricians to send them couples who have been given a prenatal diagnosis and inviting prospective parents into their homes to meet their children. In Massachusetts, for example, volunteers in a “first call” network linking veteran parents to new ones are now offering support to couples deciding whether to continue a pregnancy.

he parent evangelists are driven by a deep-seated fear for their children’s well-being in a world where there are fewer people like them. But as prenatal tests become available for a range of other perceived genetic imperfections, they may also be heralding a broader cultural skirmish over where to draw the line between preventing disability and accepting human diversity.

Perceived genetic imperfections? It's only perceived? These children aren't, in fact, mentally retarded and don't live, on average, until only about age 30?

Well, whatever. Anyway, you might expect such a silly pro-life "save the babies" article from a church newletter.

Oh, wait! It wasn't a church newsletter, it was The New York Times. I thought they were pretty much in favor of abortion? I guess they have concerns about it cutting into their reader base.

Ever Heard of Breast Milk?

Aren't ecologically sensitive people always touting how breast milk is the perfect baby food? That it provides everything a growing child needs? That babies should be fed exclusively on breast milk for at least 6 months?

Apparently this couple didn't get the message.

ATLANTA (AP) - A vegan couple were sentenced Wednesday to life in prison for the death of their malnourished 6-week-old baby boy, who was fed a diet largely consisting of soy milk and apple juice.

Superior Court Judge L.A. McConnell imposed the mandatory sentences on Jade Sanders, 27, and Lamont Thomas, 31. Their son, Crown Shakur, weighed just 3 1/2 pounds when he died of starvation on April 25, 2004.

The couple were found guilty May 2 of malice murder, felony murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children. A jury deliberated about seven hours before returning the guilty verdicts.

Defense lawyers said the first-time parents did the best they could while adhering to the lifestyle of vegans, who typically use no animal products. They said Sanders and Thomas did not realize the baby, who was born at home, was in danger until minutes before he died.

But prosecutors said the couple intentionally neglected their child and refused to take him to the doctor even as the baby's body wasted away.

"No matter how many times they want to say, 'We're vegans, we're vegetarians,' that's not the issue in this case," said prosecutor Chuck Boring. "The child died because he was not fed. Period."

Although the life sentences were automatic, Sanders and Thomas begged for leniency before sentencing. Sanders urged the judge to look past his "perception" of the couple.

"I loved my son—and I did not starve him," she said.

When the judge told the defendants they could ask for a new trial, Thomas hung his head low.

"I'm dying every day in there," he said, "and that could take three years."

French Riots

Are you evenly vaguely aware, from the normal media coverage, of the riots that have been occurring in France since the election of Nicolas Sarkozy as President on Sunday?

For the best coverage, with stories, photos, and video, I suggest visiting No Pasaran.

Ho, hum. No big deal in the U.S. However, the French have a new law that makes it a crime for amateurs to report the news. Seriously.

One of the stories there suggests we could learn something about offering speedy trials to our "accused". I don't read French (and translation programs suck), but apparently three of the rioters have already been tried and sentenced in the two days since the riots began.

GIS Page

I added a GIS page over at my website to decribe systems I use or have worked on. Ah, the excitement!

My latest toys, being Google Earth and Panoramio, are seeing lots of attenion right now.

Zero Tolerance for Drugs

Isn't this taking things just a little too far?

A Norfolk middle school student suspended over a tablet of Tylenol gets to go back to school, but has to attend drug and alcohol counseling.

13-year-old Gabriella Nieves has missed two days of class already over the tablet of Tylenol she says a classmate gave her for a headache. While she's eager to hit the books, she doesn't think she needs counseling.

“I think it's unfair that I have to go to a drug and alcohol counseling, even though it was over an aspirin. I mean, they're making it out like I brought a gun to school,” said Gabriella.

Gabriella is worried the drug program will mark her future with a giant red flag.

“When they look at my record, when I try to apply for college and they see that I went to drug and alcohol counseling, a drug offense in middle school, they're going to reject me,” she said.

“She's not going to no drug and alcohol program,” remarked Gabriella’s mother, Dawn.

Her mother wants Gabriella to have a talk about drugs and alcohol with their family doctor, and not a juvenile delinquent counselor. She feels Northside Middle School administrators are making an example out of her daughter for no good reason.

“It wasn't a narcotic. It was not a joint. It was not a little small bottle of alcohol. This was an aspirin for a headache,” said Settles.

On Monday, May 7th, Gabriella and her mother will find out if she will be able to get counseling from her doctor. Either way, Gabriella, who's an eighth grader, won't be going to high school in Norfolk next year. She and her family are moving to Hampton.

Folks, there's a reason these are called 'over the counter" drugs. Our society and government have determined that they are so safe and so benign that anyone can and should be able to purchase them. The stupid DARE programs in school weren't really supposed to be about imposing totalitarian rules were they? But,then, what do I know? I'm on drugs.

Update: But at least I managed to parlay this into a 'hat tip' on Best of the Web.

Update 2: A radio interview with the mom is posted here.

More Silly Canadians

Their former Defense Minister believes our last best hope for preserving life on Earth from "Global Climate Change" is to use all that super technology we rescued from the crashed alien spaceships.

A former Canadian defence minister says be believes advanced technology from extraterrestrial civilizations offers the best hope to "save our planet" from the perils of climate change.

Paul Hellyer, 83, is calling for a public disclosure of alien technology obtained during alleged UFO crashes -- such as the mysterious 1947 incident in Roswell, New Mexico -- because he believes alien species can provide humanity with a viable alternative to fossil fuels.

Mr. Hellyer has been a public UFO advocate since September 2005 when he spoke at a symposium in Toronto. But with concern over global warming at an all-time high, and Canadian political parties struggling to out-green one another, Mr. Hellyer said governments and the military have a responsibility to "come clean on what they know" now more than ever.

"Climate change is the No. 1 problem facing the world today," he said. "I'm not discouraging anyone from being green conscious, but I would like to see what (alien) technology there might be that could eliminate the burning of fossil fuels within a generation ... that could be a way to save our planet."

Canadians

Canadians often seem to believe that Americans don't take them very seriously.

This is incorrect.

We never take them seriously.

OTTAWA -- The sasquatch, the legendary hairy man-like beast said to roam the wilderness of B.C. and other parts of North America, should be protected as an endangered species, says MP Mike Lake.

He wants the sasquatch -- a.k.a. Bigfoot -- to be protected under Canada's Species at Risk Act.

A petition to the House of Commons, signed by almost 500 of Lake's constituents in Edmonton and due for debate next week, asks the government "to establish immediate, comprehensive legislation to effect immediate protection of Bigfoot."

A similar appeal has been made to the U.S. Congress.

Bigfoot researcher Todd Standing, who was behind the petition, claims to have proof of the sasquatch's existence and says he fears for its safety.

Queen Elizabeth

Downtown Richmond was largely empty today, at least of office workers, while we awaited the arrival of Queen Elizabeth. An office mate was watching the streaming video of her arrival at the airport, and we realized she had to pass just a few blocks from our office, so we hiked on over, and I got a short video of the motorcade.

Baseball - Google Earth

Last year I created a Google Earth layer for the baseball teams, and their stadiums, for 22 leagues in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

I just updated the file last week with the changes for this year. Each team is represented by what I consider to be the best view of the stadium from Google Earth, plus a hyperlink is provided that takes you to the official team website.

Click here if you'd like to download a zip file with the G.E. kmz file in it.