Oregon…

was admitted to the Union as the 33rd state on this date in 1859.

Oregon has the distinction of being the only state in the union whose flag has a different pattern on the reverse side. The flag’s reverse side depicts a beaver.

Happy Saint Valentine’s Day

NewMexiKen wishes he had said it as well as Body and Soul —

I have nothing the least bit original or insightful to say about the political or moral implications of San Francisco’s decision to marry same-sex couples. Just a straight-from-the-heart, personal reaction: If you can look at this picture of two elderly women who clearly adore each other and have waited five decades to declare that love to the world, and not share their joy, I don’t think I want to know you.

True Love

Paraskevidekatriaphobia

Fear of Friday the 13th

So where does it come from — the fear of 13? Its origins can be traced to Norse mythology and a dinner party at Valhalla, home of the god Odin, where Odin and 11 of his closest god-friends were gathered one night to party. Everyone was having fun, but then Loki, the dastardly god of evil and turmoil, showed up uninvited, making it a crowd of 13. The beloved god Balder tried to boot Loki out of the house, the legend goes, and in the scuffle that followed he suffered a deathblow from a spear of mistletoe.

From that mythological start, the number 13 has plowed a path of devastation through history. There were 13 people at Christ’s Last Supper, including the double-crossing Judas Iscariot. The ill-fated Apollo 13 lunar mission left the launching pad at 13:13 hours and was aborted on April 13. Friday hasn’t been much kinder to us. Friday was execution day in ancient Rome — Jesus was crucified on a Friday. Put it all together, and Friday the 13th spells trouble for triskaidekaphobics. It’s a testament to the phobia’s prevalence that Hollywood was able to parlay our fear into a hugely successful series of slasher movies starring a hockey-masked guy named Jason.

But triskaidekaphobia isn’t an exclusively American affliction. Italians omit the number 13 from their national lottery. There is a hush-hush organization in France whose exclusive purpose is to provide last-minute guests for dinner parties, so that no party host ever has to suffer the curse of entertaining 13 guests.

— Excerpted from Jon Bowen, writing at Slate.

Chuck Yeager…

first person to break the sound barrier, was born on this date in 1923.

Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, reportedly with two ribs broken two nights before in a drunken horseback ride. The plane, Glamorous Glennis, is hanging from the Air & Space Museum ceiling. Glennis was Mrs. Yeager.

Yeager is the basis for the character played by Sam Shepard in The Right Stuff. Glennis was played by Barbara Hershey.

In his wonderful book The Right Stuff Tom Wolfe explains that West Virginian Yeager is the reason why all airline pilots talk with a drawl — to be like Yeager, “the most righteous of all the posessors of the right stuff.”

The wired world

Catherine Seipp —

My 14-year-old blogger daughter got Instalanched last week, after she wrote about how her English teacher had ridiculed her in front of the class for writing an un-p.c. paper. I’ve heard what happens when the mighty Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds links you but never seen it up close, and it really is amazing: From 100 hits a day (typical for a teenager’s blog) to 100 an hour, with links to dozens of other blogs and almost 200 posted comments from Edinburgh to Auckland.

That’s my Congresswoman!

Josh Marshall —

Credit, I always say, where credit is due.

And with that in mind, tonight we’re awarding Congresswoman Heather Wilson (R-NM) the first annual Heather Wilson “I think the American people are a bunch of god-forsaken idiots” Award….

After detailing all the reasons why the president’s pre-war rationales for war make sense in retrospect, she uncorked this beauty. “And to me,” she told CNN’s Heidi Collins, “the most important thing was his biological weapons program, which we’ve now confirmed he was continuing to pursue up to the day of the invasion, and the ability to deliver those biological weapons against Americans on American soil.”

An on-going biological weapons program? Really … Continuing research into delivery systems for biological weapons attacks on the United States mainland? She really needs to bring her data to David Kay and the president. The president, I think, would find Wilson’s new findings really helpful right now.

Important, If True

From CJR Campaign Desk —

During the Civil War, some northern newspapers, uncertain as to the reliability of dated dispatches sent overland by part-time correspondents at the front, resorted to a standard headline that read:

“Important, If True”

The post goes on to discuss how this phrase applies to today’s wildfire story about Kerry.

Probably not all that far off

From The Onion —

Majority Of Americans Thought We Already Had A Moon Base

WASHINGTON, DC—A NASA poll conducted to gauge support for President Bush’s space-exploration initiative revealed that a depressing 57 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. already has a research base on the moon. “We put that international space-station thing up there in the ’60s,” phone-poll respondent Randy Snow said. “It might be on Mars, but I think it’s the moon—wherever they have the golf course that President Kennedy played on. Remember, the Cubans tried to take it over?” NASA officials said they hope someday to make Americans’ perception a reality.

Ex-officer: Bush file’s details caused concern

NewMexiKen isn’t certain what this Bush-National Guard AWOL thing really amounts to, but when the story gets this kind of treatment in USA Today of all places, it’s mainstream. (It’s been hot in the blogs since Peter Jennings asked Wesley Clark why he didn’t repudiate Michael Moore’s endorsement because he, Moore, called Bush a deserter. That was at the New Hampshire Democratic debate January 22nd.)

It’s beginning to look like a cover up of some sort. And, as we all should have learned by now, it’s the cover up that gets you in the end.

Calpundit has been providing the most details on the AWOL story.