Barney he's not...

From the article: (thanks, Steve)

The dinosaur, supposedly a week-old camarasaurus from the Jurassic era, makes even Furby -- once banned from the offices of the National Security Agency for fear it would learn and repeat classified information -- look like a sock puppet.

Pleo's surprisingly realistic movements are created by 14 motors and six processors. (Furby had one of each.) Thanks to a nose-mounted camera and 30 sensors, it's clever enough to avoid walls and table edges. It's also sensitive to touch, noise, movement, and even other Pleos. Its personality is so complex that [co-creator Caleb] Chung says it'll take years for each individual dino to come into its own.

Also more evolved, however, is the price tag $300, compared with Furby's $40. That's a bargain next to Sony's ill-fated robot dog, the $2,000 Aibo, but it's a couple hundred more than most toy retailers would like. So Chung is bypassing them, selling Pleo on Ugobe's website and through high-end retailers like the Sharper Image. Last year the company had more than $18 million in purchase orders.

"Pleo will have more impact than Furby," predicts the ever optimistic Chung.

Sorry, still lots going on at work.  And we're doing crafts at VBS this week.  And we're going to Vegas on Thursday.

So, yeah, should be an uneventful week.

Here's another clip from last year's SuperWow trip:

Tom Wilson ( ), probably best known for his role as Biff (and associated family) in the Back to the Future trilogy - though I still usually think of him as Maniac.  Today he's doing some really good stand up (especially considering he manages to keep it family-friendly).  He's also a man of great faith.  Anyway, among his other work he has a great piece called Biff's Question Song:

Still very very busy with work stuff so the video parade continues.  Here's one from last year when we took the Youth to SuperWow.  It's (my nephews) Jacob and Joseph playing with the DVD player's screensaver.  I'm behind the camera turning the TV back on every time they turn it off.

Huh.

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Researchers Catch Motion Of A Single Electron On Video


From the article:

To observe the motion of an electron – an elementary particle with a mass that is one billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a gram – has been considered to be impossible. So when two Brown University physicists showed movies of electrons moving through liquid helium at the 2006 International Symposium on Quantum Fluids and Solids in Kyoto, they raised some eyebrows.

Captured on a home video camera, some electrons follow a straight path through superfluid helium (far left). Those entrained in a superfluid vortex follow a snakelike path. (Credit: Humphrey Maris and Wei Guo)

The images, which were published online on April 28, 2007, in the Journal of Low Temperature Physics, show scattered points of light moving down the screen – some in straight lines, some following a snakelike path. The Matrix it’s not. Still, the fact that they can be seen at all is astounding. “We were astonished when we first saw an electron moving across the screen,” said Humphrey Maris, a professor of physics at Brown University. “Once we had the idea, setting it up was surprisingly easy.”

Maris and Wei Guo, a doctoral student, took advantage of the bubbles that form around electrons in supercold liquid helium. Using sound waves to expand the bubbles and a coordinated strobe light to illuminate them, Guo was able to catch their movements on a home video camera.

This could really enhance our knowledge as to electron "movement".

Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no way to a city where they could settle. They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away. Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straight way to a city where they could settle. Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men, for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. Some sat in darkness and the deepest gloom, prisoners suffering in iron chains, for they had rebelled against the words of God and despised the counsel of the Most High. So he subjected them to bitter labor; they stumbled, and there was no one to help. Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He brought them out of darkness and the deepest gloom and broke away their chains. Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men, for he breaks down gates of bronze and cuts through bars of iron. Some became fools through their rebellious ways and suffered affliction because of their iniquities. They loathed all food and drew near the gates of death. Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress.

---

It's very easy to give into a little schadenfreude here but I'm trying to refrain.  She's a spoiled, arrogant, sinful creature.  But then so am I.  It's important to remember that Jesus died for her.  And though it's no excuse, as we're all accountable for our own actions, her life and upbringing has not been one that lends itself towards God.  For that I suspect her parents will be held accountable to some degree.  Still, I hope this serves as some kind of wake-up call - that she doesn't just shrug it off afterwards or turn it into a reason to feel persecuted and injured for the rest of her life.  I honestly suspect that will be the case, unfortunately.  But I will do what I can and pray.

In case you haven't seen it yet, they unveiled the new logo for the 2012 Olympics in London...

Yeah, that's pretty much what everyone else has thought of it too.  The shapes are supposed to be the numbers 2012, but it's hard to tell if you're not looking for it.

Unfortunately, they've had some problems with it and advertising around it when viewed by epileptics:

Animated footage promoting the London 2012 Olympics is being removed from its official website amid claims that it could trigger epileptic seizures, organisers said.

Allegations were made on the BBC that footage involving a diver plunging into a pool had already caused seizures.

A London 2012 spokeswoman said: "We have just been notified of the problem and we have taken immediate steps to remove the animation from the website. We will now re-edit the film."

The footage controversy follows widespread ridicule surrounding the 2012 logo. The bold, jagged £400,000 brand, which is a modern take on the Olympic colours, took a year's research, including consumer testing. Organisers have hailed it as dynamic and vibrant, but other people have said it resembles a "toileting monkey" or a "broken swastika".

Speaking on BBC London News about the promotional footage, epileptic photo sensitivity expert Graham Harding said: "We now know of eight cases of which seizures have occurred. What it appears has happened is that the flash rate of the diving sequence contravenes the Ofcom guidelines."

Despite a growing petition against the logo, London organising committee chairman Coe remains clueless:

"It won't be to be everybody's taste immediately, but it's a brand that we genuinely believe can be hard working... and reach out and engage young people, which is our challenge over the next five years," he said.

"It's not a logo, it's a brand that will take us forward for the next five years."

All about the youth.  You kids with your pink and yellow jagged numbers and seizures...

Same routine.  Out walking the dogs and what do I see?





See him?  This is usually where I find him in the evening - in a niche between the front patio and the foundation.








Hey there!

Way too busy with work to do any kind of writing so I'm going to have to phone this one in.  Here's a video of our Shih Tzus competing for my attention for your amusement.

Edit: Now brighter.
Edit 2: Now playable! 

Good for a laugh for all the cat-loving readers...

Mike Huckabee on evolution vs. creation:

When the topic came up again Tuesday night in a CNN-sponsored debate in New Hampshire, one of those evolution skeptics, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, offered a spirited defense of the biblical creation narrative.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth," said Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister. "A person either believes that God created the process or believes that it was an accident and that it just happened all on its own."

Huckabee also said that if Americans "want a president who doesn't believe in God, there's probably plenty of choices. But if I'm selected as president of this country, they'll have one who believes in those words that God did create."

He went on to quote Martin Luther: " 'Here I stand, I can do no other.' And I will not take that back."

Huckabee later added, "If anybody wants to believe that they are the descendants of a primate, they are certainly welcome to do it."

However, when pressed about whether he believed in a literal interpretation of the timeline laid out in Genesis -- that God created the world in six days about 6,000 years ago -- Huckabee said, "I don't know."

"Whether God did it in six days or whether he did it in six days that represented periods of time, he did it. And that's what's important."

And Huckabee made it clear that he did not appreciate the question, either, calling it unfair.

"It's interesting that that question would even be asked of somebody running for president," Huckabee said. "I'm not planning on writing the curriculum for an eighth-grade science book. I'm asking for the opportunity to be president of the United States."

A good point, that.  It's just too bad he has no chance of winning.  From everything I've read he seems an excellent candidate for President.

Heard an interesting exchange towards the end of National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley's press briefing on 6/1/07.

Q Steve, on Russia before, you were talking about President Putin and saying, well, there's been an escalation in rhetoric. But it seems like it's been more than that when he's comparing the U.S. of imperialism -- he's used the phrase, "Third Reich." When you talk about working with Russia, how do you really work with them as a partner when he's throwing out rhetoric like that?

MR. HADLEY: Well, there's been a lot of press reporting on that. We, of course, talked to the Russians about that specific reference, and they told us that they were not making any comparison between the United States and the Third Reich.

They're talking about this comment where Russian President Putin compared our "imperialism" (whatever he means by that) to that of, well, Hitler.  Unfortunately there's no Godwin's Law in international politics.

For that matter, given recent levels of social discourse, having one in domestic politics would be nice too...

Anyway, what struck me is that I can't for the life of me understand how they can say what they said and then come back and say they weren't making a comparison between the U.S. and the Third Reich.  Let's go to the quote:

"We do not have the right to forget the causes of any war, which must be sought in the mistakes and errors of peacetime," Mr Putin said.

"Moreover, in our time, these threats are not diminishing," he said. "They are only transforming, changing their appearance. In these new threats, as during the time of the Third Reich, are the same contempt for human life and the same claims of exceptionality and diktat in the world."

The Kremlin press service declined to clarify the statement, saying Mr Putin's spokesman was unavailable because of the Victory Day holiday, the report said.

But Director of the Institute of Political Studies Sergei A. Markov, who works closely with the Kremlin, told the paper that Mr Putin was referring to the US and NATO.

"He intended to talk about the United States, but not only," Mr Markov told the Times in reference to the sentence mentioning the Third Reich. "The speech said that the Second World War teaches lessons that can be applied in today's world."

So maybe I'm missing something, but if he's saying that we have the same contempt for human life (a bold claim coming from Russia, considering) and same claims of exceptionality as the Third Reich, how is that not comparing us?

Anyone have an idea?  Something I missed?


^* I KNOW, strictly speaking, Godwin's Law doesn't say anything about the morality of invoking Nazis, just the inerrant probability thereof.  It's a good rhetorical device, so sue me.

^** Not really.  No suing.  Thanks.

Just in case you haven't yet heard, it seems our old friend Cynthia McKinney has resurfaced and is considering a run for the 2008 Presidential election.  Like similar efforts back in 2004, she is being encouraged to run as a Green Party candidate.  Says she:

With the failure of the Democratic Congress to repeal the Patriot Act, the Secret Evidence Act, the Military Tribunals Act, I have to seriously question my relationship with the Democratic Party. The idea has not been ruled out. All the current Democrats running for president support the principle of potential military action against Iran; none of them is for impeachment of the President. They can’t speak for me. I am open to a lot of ideas in 2008.

It's not entirely clear why she is for impeachment of the President or, more importantly, how electing her President will affect that.

Personally, I think, the only thing better than her getting the Green Party nomination would be if she could somehow get the Democratic nomination.  So Smiling Kevin is proud to offer its unqualified support for Cynthia McKinney as nominee for the Green Party for President of the United States.

James Lileks's writing is more ebullient today than it has been in weeks after finding out yesterday that he's getting the job he's been wanting ever since he found out his old column had been cancelled.  His paper, the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, recently announced huge swaths of buyouts due to their new management.  His job had been one of those - he was offered the choice of a buyout or of being a standard beat reporter - covering city council meetings and other such trilling endeavors.

But then, no doubt bowing to the pressure of it no longer being 1925, they announced an opening for a blogging position.  It's hard to imagine that they would consider anyone else for the position given his many years at the paper, approachable writing style, and ability to keep up a daily personal blog for 10 years without pay.  But he's been agonizing over it for some time now.  He hasn't released many details (and they may in fact not even have them finalized yet) but from what he's said it seems to be just what he wanted to do.  Says he:

I’m still not sure if I can announce the particulars, even if other media sites have made speculations – and how do they know these things? I said not a word to anyway, but I suppose clever reporters note who you’re talking to, who you’re walking around with, who you’ve struck with a paving stone and stuffed in the trunk of car in the parking lot. Which is visible from the windows of two metro columnists. So I was asking for it, I guess.

Anyway, it’ll be fun. It has to be fun, or it’s not worth the candle. I’ll just say that it involves blogging, and I’ve been handed a gigantic sandbox. Just in time, too.

So congratulations on that; we were all pulling for you.  I'm glad to see his paper had the sense to see the chance for a much larger audience for him than just Minneapolis.  And I'm sure Gnat's glad that she won't have to start sharing her father with an office any time soon.


Edit: Turns out he's been made Editor of the paper's community site: buzz.mn

In lieu of a story today I'd like to tell you about an undead oak toad.

For the past few days when we go out to walk the dogs for the last time that day there will be a very small toad on the front porch.  Every time we approach it all it does is just sits there.  If you poke at it then it will roll over on its back like it's dead.  I'll then kick it into the pine straw under a bush and all the time it never moves.

But when I go back to the bush to try to find it later, it's gone.

Then the next night there it is again on the porch!

And no, it's not the dogs doing it; I'm watching them.  And I don't think it's more than one toad.  It must be that it's playing dead or something because every night it's the same routine.

Until tonight.

Tonight I nudged it with a stick and it jumped!  So I assume it's back from the dead now because it's very lively.

Here's a picture I took tonight.  Sorry about the focus and scale.  I'll take a better one tomorrow - I'm sure it'll be there.  Also not sure it's an Oak Toad, but based on the description I found, that's the closest I've seen.  It's very small in any event, so I don't think it's a regular common frog.

For those of you no longer watching The Simpsons (and in many ways, I admire your ability to let go as I can't yet) you may not have seen some of the bizarre turns it's taken lately.  Here are some screencaps from The Bart-Mangled Banner, aired May, 2004.  It was on syndication yesterday and that reminded me I meant to this a while back.

Honestly, the episode is just a great big mess.  (Great meaning large or immense; I use it in the pejorative sense)

The backstory is that through a series of misadventures, Bart accidently mooned the U.S. flag.  To defend that, he goes on a bizarre simulacrum of The O'Reilly Factor.  This is handled with the same broad strokes as they used in earlier episodes with their Rush Limbaugh clone, Birch Barlow.


After the TV appearance goes sour, this being Bush's America and all, they're imprisoned in what turns out to be Alcatraz:

With them is that constantly-persecuted, stifled champion of freedom: Michael Moore...




and the censored Dixie Chicks who have suffered so.




The family is taken to, naturally:




...where they are forced to watch a video on...




how the Bill of Rights sucks.



This is, of course, supposed to be the conservative viewpoint of the Bill of Rights: that we don't like it.

This differs from the LIBERAL viewpoint on the Bill of Rights which is:

• Expand the 1st Amendment so that we can show hardcore sex on broadcast networks during the day
• Expand the 4th Amendment to allow infanticide
• And to make room for those changes go ahead and remove the 2nd, 9th, and 10th Amendments.  They're really outdated anyway...

But, you know, whatever... After a while you just stop caring.  This actually pales to the 18th season finale (May 20) which shows it as extremist to be upset about profanity on broadcast networks.  Invoking, you guessed it, the First Amendment.  Then it goes on about how stupid and wrong Fox News, etc.

That and the Family Guy episode the same week that was set in Texas and, well, you can imagine, I'm sure.

I don't even care if they have a liberal bias, so long as it's funny and they occasionally jab the other side too.  The Simpsons used to do that; but now it's just become nonsensical ravings.

John Edwards, of all people, actually got it right yesterday at the Democratic debate yesterday.  Says Edwards:

The job of the president of the United States is not to legislate but to lead

Yes, yes yes.  Exactly.  Thank you - someone finally said that.  I'm glad that someone was paying attention when they were being taught about the three branches of government.

Of course...
John Edwards's Health Care Plan
John Edwards's Plan for a Worker's Paradise
John Edwards's Plan to Halt Global Warming
etc.

Ah, well.

Moving along from yesterday...  I promise this one doesn't end with anyone drunk, dead, or hopeless.

The ink hadn’t quite dried on the certificate when...

---

The ink hadn't quite dried on the certificate when Peter was in his neighborhood Christian bookstore looking for some generic clerical vestments.  His sister's wedding was in three days and he had finally prevailed upon her to let him become ordained over the Internet so he could perform her wedding.

A friendly-looking clerk approached him as he entered  the store.  He was tall and thin, dressed in a suit that was open at the neck.  "Anything I can help you find, sir?"

Peter smiled, "Actually, yes.  I'm looking for some minister-like clothes.  See, I'm marrying my sister in a few days and I want to look the part."

"Sorry, you're..." the man looked to his left and right and then back to Peter, a slight smile on his lips.  "You're marrying your sister?  So, why..."

Understanding his confusion, Peter laughed.  "No, no."  He held his hands up.  "I'm officiating.  I'm doing the wedding.  She's marrying someone else entirely.  Someone else.  Not me.  Named George."  The clerk pursed his lips but seemed to let it go.

"Right.  What, ah, denomination are you looking for?"

"Oh.  Well, actually, I have no idea.  She's Baptist, I guess, so whatever's that is.  I just got ordained on the Internet so I'm not all that choosy as to the dress.  Just something appropriate for that."

An hour and $180 later, Peter left the store with some generic Protestant robes and a service book with the right words to say...

---

Long day - continued tomorrow...