Yahoo News: Masters of the Obvious

I particularly like the study about walking and biking to work being good for health. That is not quite as good as the health booklet's topic, which is somehow controversial: teen sex can be fun.

It's Raining Frogs!

Perhaps you recall the somewhat mesmerizing scene from the movie "Magnolia" in which it is literally raining frogs. In Ishikawa, Japan, this may have become a reality. During torrential rains, "tadpoles, fish, and the occasional frog" appear to have been found in fields and playgrounds outside of their habitat.

No one is quite sure how they arrived, although there is no lack of theories for the strange events. Was it strong winds carrying the tadpoles from their homes or even birds carrying and then dropping their prey onto the ground? Were the animals "sucked up by waterspouts"? Or was it perhaps something more mysterious better investigated by Mulder and Scully than ornithologists and meterologists? Or, as Masafumi Matsui, a professor specializing in amphibians, was it just an elaborate prank? http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/ishikawa-mystery-deepens-first-tadpoles-rain-down-now-dead-fish-found

The latest news on the street (and fields) of Japan is that the mystery is spreading other parts of Japan.

"In a field in Shiwa, Iwate Prefecture, a 67-year-old woman said she heard a pitter-patter sound at around 6 p.m. Saturday and soon after found about a dozen tiny fishlike creatures lying on a sheet covering crops in the field. Some of the animals were still moving, she said."

As they say, there's nothing quite like the "pitter-patter" of little tadpoles plop, plop, plopping around you.

Kermit the Frog was not available for comment.

Yoga 4 Dogs

The NYT has a great article on Yoga for Dogs.....it's a special place where dogs and people can bond while developing greater flexibility and deeper breathing......imagine a dog trying to control their breathing....it's difficult to do, isn't it?

I like this woman's take on it:

“A stuffed animal — but not even a dog-shaped stuffed animal — was used by the instructor,” she said. Owners struggled to get their very real dogs to replicate the stuffed-animal poses, she said, and bags of treats were used to get the dogs to change positions. “It was lunacy,” Ms. Apro recalled. “Peanuts, my retired racer greyhound, didn’t participate at all. Instead, I did downward-facing dog while he ate the most treats he’s ever had in a 60-minute period.”

Poor Peanuts seems to have wasted his precious time.

The Master Plan

South Korea 'poisoning' claim

By Kim Junghyun in Seoul

Tuesday, 7 April 2009



South Korea has rejected claims by North Korea that it poisoned its players before last week's 2010 World Cup qualifier in Seoul, as tensions mounted over the North's long-range rocket launch on Sunday.

OK, now I understand why they tried to fire the test rocket. They were angry about the poisoned players in the soccer game. I sense a master plan unfolding right before my eyes....

Korean Missile Test

This is from today's NYT.:



I am not afraid of North Korea. I lived in Korea off and on for ten-ish years. In the summer of 1997, North Korea threatened to attack South Korea. We were encouraged to register at the American embassy should anything untowardly go down. Our friends and family back in the states were aghast that we would stay in the danger zone.

The South Koreans, on the other hand, weren't scared at all. They told us to relax, it would be all right.

And, so it was. In the fall of 1997, Asia had an economic melt-down and the threat of North Korea was soon forgotten. Not only did they not attack, it seemingly was not even mentioned again.....

In my opinion, North Korea has had a history of trying to manipulate South Korea using threats, the one-people idea (The Korean word for the Korean peninsula means one-nation), and various other strategic tactics. In the press, Kim Jong Il has been shown to be a kind of kooky guy with a fascination for Hollywood movies. I think reports of his craziness have been greatly exaggerated and that he knew exactly what he was doing.

Now, the situation might have changed some. Kim Jong Il may be gravely ill and it isn't clear, so far as I know, who has been making the decisions. It's anybody's guess what their true game is, but I'm thinking it's more of the same.

SPAM MESSAGE of the DAY

Go Sounders!

http://soundersboard.blogspot.com/

Metrosexuals.....

Isn't really a lot of what we call "Metrosexual" just French?

Cherry Blossoms

I spent a lot of time in Korea. Too much time, you could say, which may account for the cynicism of my posting.

Every year in the spring in Korea, two things become the subject of conversation without fail.

1. Yellow Dust, the terrible pollution that the winds blow over from China for a few days each spring, causing terrible eye infections and lung problems. Warnings are issued to people to stay indoors and visibility decreases to the point of being in a contiguous fog.

2. Cherry blossoms. In Korea, it's the thing to see. The funny thing about it to me, though, is that Koreans seem to think that Cherry Blossoms exist ONLY IN KOREA. Nevertheymind the picture above from a news report in WADC. They didn't want to hear about the cherry trees in my backyard.

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- A 14-year-old New Jersey girl has been accused of child pornography after posting nearly 30 explicit nude pictures of herself on MySpace.com -- charges that could force her to register as a sex offender if convicted.

Is this another case where the punishment does not fit the crime? Registering as a sex offender means she would have to introduce herself into each new neighborhood she moved into for the rest of her natural life. WTF? For the said crime of what? Putting pictures of herself online.

From the article I read, I got the idea that the prosecutor wanted to make this an example case to stop the terrible scourge of minors sending each other text messages w/compromising photos of themselves. I think that we are indeed in new territory here, but don't we have more important things to worry about than naked teenagers sending pictures to other naked teenagers?



http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/03/26/us/AP-Teen-Child-Porn.html

Nickelsville

What does Seattle, Washington have in common with Fresno, California? Tent City. While Seattle may be riding high with the successful addition of the Sounders,100 residents are still living in tents and have been living there for quite some time. These are people who are trying to organize themselves to live a better life. Their website can be found here.

Everyone from The New York Times to Oprah are talking about the conditions of people in the tents. Earlier I posted about the Slumdog Millionaires young stars and the unjustness of their lives in India. They may not have been much better off here.

The Pope is an Idiot

From Yahoo News:

… YAOUNDE, Cameroon – Pope Benedict XVI said condoms are not the answer to the AIDS epidemic in Africa and can make the problem worse, setting off criticism Tuesday as he began a weeklong trip to the continent where some 22 million people are living with HIV.

I don't understand this guy. I guess he is just taking the place in Africa where the Bush administration left off. Bush's abstinence-only education program was such a resounding success there in halting the spread of the AIDS virus that the Pope decided to continue on his merry little path down the same road. I would also like an explanation of how exactly condoms make AIDS worse. From what little understanding I have of the whole thing, those little rubber things are just about the best barrier we've got.

I also think the Pope is forgetting his roots. He's from Bavaria, right? Aren't they supposed to be happy-go-lucky beer-swilling folk, who presumably, do not rely on abstinence as their only form of birth control or as AIDS prevention?

Sore Throat

OK, so I am not permanently Bozo the Clown, thank God, where ever She may be. I do, however, seem to be afflicted with a sore throat that makes it difficult to swallow, perhaps giving me, for the first time, the ultimate excuse for not swallowing....

Shoes and Bombs

Justice is served once again.


The Guy who is now a hero for throwing a shoe at George W. Bush was just sentenced to 3 years in jail for his crime.

The guy who started the war in Iraq, whose administration lied to start the war in Iraq, what did he get for his war crimes? a shoe thrown at him. which didn't hit him because he ducked.

Image taken from www.iraqbodycount.org

BIg Red

Looked in the mirror tonight and being the observant girl that I am, noticed that my peach fuzz was showing up again above my lip. I did what I had been meaning to do for days and took a cream to get it off. After leaving it on too long (despite a warning from my husband), I now have what looks like a Clown Mouth or the mouth of a child eating a Cherry Popsicle.....you get the idea. I've been looking all over the Internet and am worried that I can never show my face in public again. Of all the times not to listen to my husband, why did I choose this one? I'm also wondering if people will notice that I'm walking around with a kleenex attached to my mouth. I could just kind of blend in like Cabbage Head from "Kids in the Hall". In Seattle, there are surely sights weirder to see than me.