And I Quote

"We have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is

little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical

grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office."

-- Peggy Noonan, speaking for a lot of Republicans

Magnetic beauty on the sun

Above are magnetic structures on the surface of the sun, imaged by the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope, operated by the Institute for Solar Physics.
This photo is one of a series of photos of the sun recently posted to the Big Picture blog at Boston.com

The Sun at The Big Picture

Science News

Forty-foot long ancient snake

Researchers in Colombia have found fossils of a snake that was more than 40 feet long and weighed over a ton. The paleontologists from the Florida Museum of Natural History say that the snake was a relative of the boa constrictor and slithered around 60 million years ago.

From Science News:

At a site in northern Colombia, (paleontologist Jonathan) Bloch and his colleagues unearthed the partial remains of an ancient snake. Each of the dozen or so vertebrae in that body segment measured about 10 centimeters across. That’s about twice the width of the largest vertebra taken from a 6-meter–long, modern-day anaconda, another modern relative, Bloch notes.

None of the ribs included in the fossil are complete, but the size and curvature of the fragments that remain indicate that the snake “would have had trouble fitting though the door into your office,” he adds. The gargantuan fossils represent an as yet unnamed species.

Fossil Find May Document Largest Snake

Yankees arrested for Cyberstalking

An Andover couple arrested while jogging today is accused of launching a cyber attack against their neighbors – from reportedly signing them up for a nudist group to filing false reports to child welfare workers about their kids, prosecutors charged today.

Bill Johnson, 50, was ordered held on $2,000 cash bail and his wife, Gail Johnson, 50, was ordered held on $1,000 cash bail for their alleged part in the months-long harassment and adult pranks – all waged over a land dispute, prosecutors claim.

The couple was charged with identity fraud, criminal harassment, conspiracy and filing a frivolous child abuse report during their arraignment in Lawrence District Court. An acquaintance of the Johnsons has already been charged in connection with the case.

“If you aren’t miserable, I ain’t happy. Let’s play,” read one nasty e-mail sent to the Johnsons’ High Vale Lane neighbors in March, according to a police report.
Prosecutors claim that the Johnsons’ neighbors — a married couple who appear to be in their 40s or 50s — were signed up as members of the American Association for Nude Recreation, and received a letter thanking them for donating a boat to charity.

In April, a letter was sent to the male alleged victim confirming that he wanted donate his body to science, prosecutors said. “(He) felt it was a direct threat on his life,” according to a police report.

Assistant District Attorney Maura Officer suggested that the Johnsons engaged in a “disturbing” series of events as part of an ugly land dispute with the alleged victims.
She claimed that the Johnsons, with the aid of the third party, took part in the posting of a fake craiglist.com ad for the sale of nine golf carts, as well as the sale of a 1973 Harley and listed their neighbors phone number, noting that calls should be made after 10 p.m.
The alleged victims were bombarded with calls and visits from strangers seeking to buy the items, Officer alleged.

The Johnsons also allegedly made a false report to the Department of Children and Families, prompting social workers to show up at the couple’s home late one night to interview their 14-year-old son.

The alleged victims also received e-mails indicating that someone had acquired all their personal information, including Social Security numbers, cell phones, their home address and names of their children, Officer alleged.
In March, someone used one of the victim’s Social Security numbers to try to open a bank account, according to the police report.

The alleged victims were in court today, but declined comment.

Bill Johnson’s attorney, Ronald J. Ranta, argued that in fact the third party, Gerald D. Colton of Lowell, 55, an acquaintance of the Johnsons who was charged in June with stalking and identity fraud in connection with the case, performed much of the computer harassment.

Colton pleaded not guilty and was ordered held on $7,500 cash bail.
“All these acts were done from Mr. Colton’s computer,” Ranta said.

Gail Johnson’s attorney asked that her client be released on her own personal recognizance, given that she is the primary caretaker for the couple’s three teen-aged children, as well as her cancer-stricken parents.

Don’t Eat High Fructose Corn Syrup? You’re Both Snobby and a Racist.

Even though Lloyd wrote about the Corn Refiners Association ramping up an ad campaign to push back against the rising tide of realization that perhaps our current corn-centered agricultural system isn’t the best thing for our collective health or the environment, I confess that the whole thing wasn’t on my radar until this week, when New York Magazine’s ever popular and ever amusing Approval Matrix pointed it out to me. The whole thing is truly bizarre.

The second in the series of commercials, and a hilarious video response follows:

HFCS in the Park

Response to HFCS in the Park

It’s an End Product on Our Increasingly Unsustainable Food System, To Start...
So why is high fructose corn syrup so nasty anyway? Mothership Meals says it as about good as anyone:

...because it's a crappy industrial product produced through weird enzymic processes, because it gets digested by the liver instead of the stomach, because it is part of our national corn-addiction, because it is so cheap that it is responsible for Big Gulps and the ever-sweetening of things like soup and ketchup, because it is the end product in our increasingly industrialized unsustainable food system and because it is at least in part responsible for the obesity epidemic...

via: New York Magazine and Mothership Meals

Found this over at Treehugger - full article here.

Man arrested for voter (registration) fraud

With all the whining from the repugicans about 'voter fraud' you might be interested to learn that a man has been arrested for just that ... and here's the kicker - he's a repugican!

From the LA Times

The owner of a firm that the California republican party hired to register tens of thousands of voters this year was arrested in Ontario over the weekend on suspicion of voter registration fraud.

State and local investigators allege that Mark Jacoby fraudulently registered himself to vote at a childhood California address where he no longer lives so he would appear to meet the legal requirement that all signature gatherers be eligible to vote in California.
His firm, Young Political majors, or YPM, collects petition signatures and registers voters in California and other states.

*****

Don't you just hate it when that happens ...
These idiots just can't help themselves - stupidity and criminality go hand in hand with these dolts and the keep proving that over and over and over again.

Mac Duff opts for Obama

Just so you know how bad it is for McPain - even our dog thinks he's full of shit or covered with it at least!

This morning I placed an 8X10 of each - Obama and McPain on the floor out on the porch and told Mac Duff to go and bring me the one he liked when we were in the house.
He bolted out the door and instantly came back in with the picture of Obama and was bouncing excitedly around the room.
I went out to retrieve the picture of McPain and found that Mac Duff had 'relieved himself of all his burdens' on it because it was covered by the biggest pile of doggie-do I have seen him produce to date and it centered square between McPain's eyes.
I didn't think he was out there on the porch alone long enough to leave such a statement, but I was obviously in error.

So there you have it folks - even the animals of America are backing Obama and crapping on McPain.
And you know animals are better judges of character than most people are ... so it is saying something when most people and the animals are in agreement!