Month: February 2006

Their Own Version of a Big Bang

WAYNE, N.J. — Evangelist Ken Ham smiled at the 2,300 elementary students packed into pews, their faces rapt. With dinosaur puppets and silly cartoons, he was training them to reject much of geology, paleontology and evolutionary biology as a sinister tangle of lies.

“Boys and girls,” Ham said. If a teacher so much as mentions evolution, or the Big Bang, or an era when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, “you put your hand up and you say, ‘Excuse me, were you there?’ Can you remember that?”

The children roared their assent.

“Sometimes people will answer, ‘No, but you weren’t there either,’ ” Ham told them. “Then you say, ‘No, I wasn’t, but I know someone who was, and I have his book about the history of the world.’ ” He waved his Bible in the air.

“Who’s the only one who’s always been there?” Ham asked.

“God!” the boys and girls shouted.

“Who’s the only one who knows everything?”

“God!”

“So who should you always trust, God or the scientists?”

The children answered with a thundering: “God!”

Los Angeles Times

Key quote: “He shows his audiences a graphic that places the theory of evolution at the root of all social ills: abortion, divorce, racism, gay marriage, store clerks who say ‘Happy Holidays’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas.'”

300,000 acres, must go

From a report in th Los Angeles Times:

The Bush administration Friday laid out plans to sell off more than $1 billion in public lands over the next decade….

Most of the proceeds would help pay for rural schools and roads, making up for a federal subsidy that has been eliminated from President Bush’s 2007 budget.

Congress must approve the plans, which several experts said would amount to the largest land sale of its kind since President Theodore Roosevelt established the U.S. Forest Service in 1905 and created the modern national forest system.

Here’s the list of Lands Potentially Eligible for Sale by State and National Forest from USDA.

Totals for a few states:

Arizona……….1,030
California…..85,465
Colorado……21,572
New Mexico..7,447
Oregon………10,581

MRI

Scott Adams, aka Dilbert’s creator, gets an MRI. Here’s part of his report:

First you fill out a questionnaire designed to discover if you have any metal hidden in your body, such as shrapnel or IUDs or surgical leave-behinds and whatnot. This is important because the MRI is a gigantic magnet.

I’m almost positive that I don’t have an IUD, but the idea of metal ripping through my body and coming out of my ear really made me think about it carefully. I’m not what you call a good detail person, and it’s exactly the sort of thing I would forget having done, perhaps as a college prank. I took a chance and checked “no.”

I didn’t know how forgiving the MRI machine would be, so when I got to the question that asked if I ever worked around metal shaving, I started to panic. I spent countless hours in my youth working with an Etch-a-Sketch, and I don’t know what that grey stuff in there really is. I’d hate to die because I forgot to disclose how many times I tried and failed to draw a circle using only two knobs. But I also didn’t want to appear too concerned. For some reason I felt it was important to impress the MRI technician with my unnatural state of calm. So I took a chance and checked “no.”

Death Valley

… was proclaimed a national monument on this date in 1933. It became a national park in 1994.

Death Valley

Hottest, Driest, Lowest: Death Valley is a land of extremes. It is one of the hottest places on the surface of the Earth with summer temperatures averaging well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. At 282 feet below the level of the sea, it is the driest place in North America with an average rainfall of only 1.96 inches a year.

This valley is also a land of subtle beauties: Morning light creeping across the eroded badlands of Zabriskie Point to strike Manly Beacon, the setting sun and lengthening shadows on the Sand Dunes at Stovepipe Wells, and the colors of myriad wildflowers on the golden hills above Harmony Borax on a warm spring day.

Death Valley National Park

Sacajawea gives birth

From the Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, February 11, 1805:

Meriwether Lewis:

The party that were ordered last evening set out early this morning. the weather was fair and could wind N. W. about five oclock this evening one of the wives of Charbono was delivered of a fine boy. [1] it is worthy of remark that this was the first child which this woman had boarn and as is common in such cases her labour was tedious and the pain violent; Mr. Jessome informed me that he had freequently adminstered a small portion of the rattle of the rattle-snake, which he assured me had never failed to produce the desired effect, that of hastening the birth of the child; having the rattle of a snake by me I gave it to him and he administered two rings of it to the woman broken in small pieces with the fingers and added to a small quantity of water. Whether this medicine was truly the cause or not I shall not undertake to determine, but I was informed that she had not taken it more than ten minutes before she brought forth perhaps this remedy may be worthy of future experiments, but I must confess that I want faith as to it’s efficacy.

Background by Journals editor:

Jean Baptiste Charbonneau would have a varied and lengthy career on the frontier, starting with his role as the youngest member of the Corps of Discovery. Clark nicknamed him Pomp or “Pompy,” and named Pompey’s Pillar (more properly Clark’s “Pompy’s Tower”) on the Yellowstone after him in 1806. Clark offered to educate the boy as if he were his own son, and apparently took him into his own home in St. Louis when the child was about six. In 1823 he attracted the notice of the traveling Prince Paul of Wurttemburg, who took him to Europe for six years. On his return to the United States he became a mountain man and fur trader, and later a guide for such explorers and soldiers as John C. Frémont, Philip St. George Cooke, W. H. Emory, and James Abert. He eventually settled in California and died in Oregon while traveling to Montana in 1866.

Source: Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Online February 11, 1805

It’s the birthday

… of actor Leslie Nielsen. Lt. Frank Drebin is 80.

… of Conrad Janis. Mindy’s father on Mork and Mindy is 78.

… of Tina Louise. Ginger, the movie star from Gilligan’s Island, is 72.

… of Burt Reynolds. Bandit is 70. Burt — his real name is Burton Reynolds — was nominated for a supporting actor Oscar for Boogie Nights.

… of Gerry Goffin. Married to Carole King while they were still teenagers, Goffin is 67.

Songwriting partners Gerry Goffin and Carole King composed a string of classic hits and cherished album tracks for a variety of artists during the Sixties. A brief sampling: “Up On the Roof” (the Drifters), “One Fine Day” (the Chiffons), “I’m Into Something Good” (Herman’s Hermits), “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” (the Shirelles), “Take Good Care of My Baby” (Bobby Vee), “Chains” (the Cookies), “Don’t Bring Me Down” (the Animals), “Take a Giant Step” (the Monkees) and “Goin’ Back” (the Byrds). The prolific duo, who remained married for much of the Sixties, even tapped their babysitter to sing one of the songs they’d written, and the result was a Number One hit and a new dance craze: “The Loco-Motion,” by Little Eva. (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)

… of Bobby “Boris” Pickett. Still doing the “Monster Mash” at 66.

… of Sheryl Crow. She’s 44.

I wanna rock and roll this party
I still wanna have some fun
I wanna leave you feeling breathless
Show you how the west was won
But I gotta fly
I gotta fly o

Like Steve McQueen
All I need’s a fast machine
I’m gonna make it all right
Like Steve McQueen
Underneath your radar screen
You’ll never catch me tonite

… of Jennifer Aniston. She’s 37. Had her photo taken enough to be 137.

… of Q’orianka. Pocahontas (The New World) is 16.

Turn the Page

An excerpt from Friday night’s posting from an Oregon hotel room by La Queen Sucia — bestselling author Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez:

I love the opportunities my life has afforded me. I love the people I meet along the way. But there is something terribly sad about meeting so many fantastic people, like Tiffany, the student director of the Women’s Program I’m speaking at tomorrow, knowing that in a day or two I will fly off and most likely never see or speak to them again. Brief connections. Lots of them. Conversations filled with meaning, ephemeral. Giving, giving, giving. Energy. Lots of it. Almost like a high-class literary call-girl. In one day, used up, out the next. Needed only for the time it takes to entertain the client.

Chappelle Show

Virginia Heffernan reviews Chappelle’s appearance with James Lipton (Sunday on Bravo). She begins:

Dave Chappelle’s comeback tour has so far included two enigmatic television interviews. The first was that awkward and poetic interview Feb. 3 on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” in which he told Ms. Winfrey that the creepy laugh of a white person contributed to his decision to quit “Chappelle’s Show,” walk away from his $50 million television deal and flee to Africa in May 2005.

The second performance comes Sunday on Bravo. It’s a more calculated, more antic but ultimately more satisfying interview with James Lipton on “Inside the Actors Studio.” The special is two hours long, and you may wish it were four. These simple showdowns — minimalist two-person plays, really — have become high art on television lately, and watching Mr. Chappelle square off with the wonderful prig-buffoon Mr. Lipton, it’s possible to conclude (as Mr. Chappelle himself does, half in earnest) that the two men should take their show on the road.

Mr. Chappelle tells a student on the program tonight that an early influence on him was Bugs Bunny, and you can see what he means. At every second, he seems to have available to him a much wider range of physical choices even than most slapstick comedians. He lurches, leaps, glares, crumples, slumps, mopes, gloats, blurts, retreats, beams.

NewMexiKen isn’t getting cable for the time being. Someone please TiVo this for me.

Warren Buffet on the estate tax

Question: Could you discuss your views on [the estate tax] and how you will allocate your wealth to your children?

Buffett: It really reflects my views on how a rich society should behave. If it weren’t for this society, I wouldn’t be rich. It wasn’t all me. Imagine if you were one of a pair of identical twins and a genie came along and allowed you to bid on where you could be born. The money that you bid is how much you had to agree to give back to society, and the one who bids the most gets to be born in the US and the other in Bangladesh. You would bid a lot. It is a huge advantage to be born here.

There should be no divine right of the womb. My kids wouldn’t go off and do nothing if I give them a lot of money, but if they did, that would be a tragedy. $30 billion will be generated from estate taxes, which will go to help pay for the war in Iraq and other things. If you take away the estate tax, that money will have to come from somewhere else. If not from estate taxes then you inherently get it from poorer citizens.

Less than 2% of estates will pay the estate tax. They would still have $50 million left over on average. I think those that get the lucky tickets should pay the most to the common causes of society. I believe in a big redistribution. Wealth is a bunch of claim checks that I can turn in for houses, etc. To pass those claim checks down to the next generation is the wrong approach.

But for those that think I am perpetuating the welfare state, consider if you are born to a rich parent. You get a whole bunch of stocks right at the beginning of your life, and thus you are sort of on a welfare state of support from your rich parents from the beginning. What’s the difference?

Andrew Tobias – Money and Other Subjects

In fairness, I suppose, it would be interesting to hear Warren Buffet’s children’s take on the estate tax.

The Sky Is Falling in Alaska

Anyone who has ever been to Homer, Alaska, and NewMexiKen has, will I think like this article about the town and its reaction to the Mt. Augustine volcano. The article is from Los Angeles Times — just two excerpts here:

HOMER, Alaska — It is, in the world of volcanoes, one of the little guys — a bump on the sea, a molehill among mountains. Some days, Mt. Augustine barely peeks above the mist that settles across Cook Inlet in south central Alaska.

Residents of this fishing town 70 miles to the east have been keeping an eye on the volcano, which woke up Jan. 11 and dusted the inlet with ash. The mountain has been erupting intermittently ever since. It is the focus of attention for the region and the talk of the town for Homer, the nearest community of any size.
…

One of Homer’s claims to fame is that a person could get in a car in New York City and drive all the way here, the westernmost point of the U.S. highway system. Pavement gives way to beach and water, and to an unobstructed view of the Kenai Mountains — so otherworldly white they appear blue in the morning and pink at sunset.

The town is populated by fishermen and freethinkers, loggers and artists — many of them refugees from big cities. Another 5,000 to 6,000 people live beyond the town limits.

On the beach one morning, ice floes carrying raucous crowds of sea otters drifted past. One held more than 30 otters, happily slipping on and off the ice, floating west, in the direction of Mt. Augustine.

Disney Loses a Voice, Pulls Rabbit Out of NBC’s Hat

OswaldIn the first known swap of a primo sportscaster for a geriatric cartoon critter, Walt Disney Co. is trading ABC’s Al Michaels to NBC for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

Oswald who?

It turns out the big-eared bunny was one of Walt Disney’s first animated characters, a star in his own right before Mickey Mouse was even a gleam in his creator’s eye. But Disney lost the rabbit after he found out that Universal Studios, now part of NBC Universal, owned the rights to develop the character.

Now Oswald will be returning to Disney, it was announced Thursday. In exchange for the rabbit and other concessions, ABC parent Disney agreed to let Michaels, the longtime voice of Monday Night Football, jump to NBC Universal’s NBC network, where he will remain teamed with partner John Madden.

Los Angeles Times

I’ve noticed

The audience for Web-logs, or “blogs” had an auspicious start, going from practically zero to almost 20 in a very short time frame (20 being the percentage of Americans today who report reading blogs on at least an occasional basis). However, according to recent Gallup data, it seems the growth in the number of U.S. blog readers was somewhere between nil and negative in the past year.
…

To put blog readership in context, the December survey found that checking online for news and information is done regularly by 72% of Web users. Fifty-two percent regularly shop online, 40% pay bills, and 28% play games. At 20%, blog reading is on par with downloading music and participating in online auctions such as eBay.

Gallup

Malcolm Gladwell

Regular readers of NewMexiKen know that I am a fan of Malcolm Gladwell, author of “Blink” and “The Tipping Point.” There was an interesting profile of the journalist in this past Sunday’s New York Times Book Review. I found this background about the 42-year-old writer particularly interesting:

On his Web site, Gladwell offers an apologia pro vita sua: “If I could vote (and I can’t because I’m Canadian) I would vote Democrat. I am pro-choice and in favor of gay marriage. I believe in God. I think the war in Iraq is a terrible mistake. I am a big believer in free trade. I think, on balance, taxes in America — particularly for rich people — ought to be higher, not lower. I think smoking is a terrible problem and that cigarette manufacturers ought to be subjected to every possible social and political sanction. But I think that filing product liability lawsuits against cigarette manufacturers is absurd. I am opposed to the death penalty. I hate S.U.V.’s. I think many C.E.O.’s are overpaid. I think there is too much sex and violence on television.”
…

When Time magazine and other media outlets declared an attention-deficit hyperactivity epidemic in America, Gladwell argued that people were no more distracted than they’d ever been, but that Ritalin had replaced nicotine as a socially acceptable focusing stimulant. While others were vilifying the pharmaceutical companies over the cost of prescription drugs, Gladwell’s New Yorker article on the topic mapped out a broader codependency. “It is only by the most spectacular feat of cynicism that our political system’s moral negligence has become the fault of the pharmaceutical industry,” he wrote. And in an article on intelligence reform published when the country was in a furor over the failings leading up to Sept. 11, 2001, Gladwell proposed that free-market-style competition between the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. might actually be good for intelligence gathering. Lately he’s been investigating racial profiling. At first, “I had a reasonably benign attitude toward it. I felt that under certain circumstances it was justifiable — like looking for terrorists. But now I think that’s wrong,” he said. “I think it’s never justifiable. And not on ethical grounds but on pragmatic grounds. I just don’t think it works.”