Freak Parade

Country music will never be the same. Big & Rich’s first video, to the song “Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy” is indeed a freak parade. It’s got a midget, a marching band, women wearing very skimpy business suits, a mannequin, a farmgirl riding a tractor, mysterious looking men in a black limosuine, and who knows what else. And the freak parade is led by Big & Rich themselves, alternately riding a horse and then strutting along carrying parasols! Have yourself a Big & Rich time and watch the video here. Not your daddy’s country music! Saddle up!

What Up, Ashlie?

Part of our fascination with Hilary Duff extends to actress Ashlie Brillault, who played Kate Sanders on the Lizzie McGuire Show. Not only did we enjoy Ashlie’s fine portrayal of the evil Kate, but we noted back in December that she is also a straight A student in real life. So, we await Ashlie’s next performances, and we wondered, what’s new with Ashlie? In the forums at her web site, Ashlie tells us what is going on in her life right now:

… for me acting isnt my life right now and i dont want it to be. so everything with acting is kind of in the back of my mind right now. im more concerned with being a teenager and hanging out with my friends right now. since lizzie ive been kind of taking a break from acting. someday ill get back into it. maybe soon. who knows? i really dont haha but that doesnt mean i dont appreciate everyone that comes by, of course i do! i know its a special thing to have and i dont take it for granted.

one more thing, i am never ever ever going to come out with a CD and you have my word on that. trust me, its better for everyone that it is that way.

Straight A student? Taking a break from being a Hollywood star? More concerned with being a teenager and hanging out with her friends?

Good for you, Ashlie!

Amish In The City

When I first heard about the new UPN reality TV show Amish In The City, I was appalled. I envisioned the Amish being taken advantage of, and generally shown to be stupid country bumpkins. But that’s apparently not what has happened. In fact, the Amish are shown in a very positive light. For example, Bruce R. Miller of The Sioux City Journal says:

All kids should have the manners of an Amish teen-ager. … The messages come through, loud and clear, when five Amish kids move in with six “city” kids in the new UPN reality series. Unfortunately, the “city” gang represents some of the worst aspects of a generation. The non-Amish are rude, judgmental and loud. They make life difficult for their visitors and take every opportunity to lampoon them. The Amish, meanwhile, are grateful for the experience, thrilled with little things like swimming and television. … In the opening episode, the five Amish kids get new clothes — not the homemade stuff they’re used to — go swimming and learn how to maneuver. The Amish are extremely open. When Ruth sees the ocean for the first time, she cries. It’s amazing how truly excited they can be with so little.

“America can do better. And help is on the way.”

We have written several times (here and here) about how we like John Kerry’s approach to outsourcing of American jobs to overseas locations. We like Kerry’s idea of chaning the tax code so that companies no longer get tax breaks for sending jobs overseas; instead, companies get tax breaks for keeping jobs in America. The Bush administration’s response so far has been to do virtually nothing, and to imply that the outsourcing of jobs to overseas locations is good for America.

We also have found many other reasons to like John Kerry. We see his service in Vietnam as a huge strength. Then-Lieutenant Kerry distinguished himself as a soldier, and he clearly has the skills and capabilities to do the same as President. We believe he will be as ferocious as President Kerry as he was a Lieutenant Kerry when it is necessary to fight for America. We also support his call for repealing President Bush’s tax reduction on highest income families and we support his call to reduce taxes on the middle class; we support Kerry’s concern about making health care more affordable and available. In fact we also support most of Kerry’s positions.

Kerry’s acceptance speech last night at the Democratic National Convention touched on these and many other themes. Kerry said:

As President, I will ask hard questions and demand hard evidence. I will immediately reform the intelligence system — so policy is guided by facts, and facts are never distorted by politics. And as President, I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: the United States of America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to.

… And let me tell you what we won’t do: we won’t raise taxes on the middle class. You’ve heard a lot of false charges about this in recent months. So let me say straight out what I will do as President: I will cut middle class taxes. I will reduce the tax burden on small business. And I will roll back the tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals who make over $200,000 a year, so we can invest in job creation, health care and education.

… America can do better. And help is on the way

John Kerry for President.

Al Sharpton

Normally, I despise Al Sharpton. But I also firmly believe that even a person whom I despise can step up and do something good, something worthwhile. And so last night, Sharpton addressed the Democratic National Convention and gave a ringing speech. Another speech full of hope, and just like Barack Obama, it was a speech that resonated with me, a 40-something white man. Read Sharpton’s speech here.

Here are some excerpts:

I stood with both John Kerry and John Edwards on over 30 occasions during the primary season. I not only debated them, I watched them, I observed their deeds, I looked into their eyes. I am convinced that they are men who say what they mean and mean what they say. …

I suggest to you tonight that if George Bush had selected the court in ‘54, Clarence Thomas would have never got to law school.

This is not about a party. This is about living up to the promise of America. The promise of America says we will guarantee quality education for all children and not spend more money on metal detectors than computers in our schools.

Barack Obama

There has been a lot of praise lately over the speech by Illinois Senatorial Candidate Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention. Read the praise here, here, here and here. And don’t forget here. And Ezra is saying “Edwards/Obama 2012”. So finally, I decided to watch the speech myself (via C-Span). (Or read his speech here).

I must say, I can see why everyone is so impressed with Obama. First, he is a marvelous speaker. He is clear, he sounds sure of himself, and his body language and facial expressions convey the proper emotion. But the words were what struck me. He spoke of an America that resonates with me. It is the America I would like to live in, and what makes it all the more shocking is that Barack and I come from such different backgrounds. Yet the hope he expressed for the future sounds much like the hope I have for the future. His refusal to separate America into different categories of people and pit those categories against one another was exemplary. "We are one people...", he said. I look forward to seeing more of Barack Obama.

Presidents and The Environment

Former Secretary of The Interior Stewart Udall writes in today’s Los Angeles Times about the records of recent Presidents on environmental issues.

From 1961 to 1981, every president — Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter — gave his unwavering support to environmental reforms. Richard Nixon set a high goal by declaring that the 1970s should be the “environmental decade.” He created the Environmental Protection Agency and approved laws to protect endangered species.

As the country moved rightward with Reagan, the rhetoric may have been negative, but in the end no effort was made to repeal important environmental laws. George H.W. Bush had a positive record, and although Bill Clinton was stymied by a hostile Congress, he used his executive powers to achieve positive results.

… [George W.] Bush and company have not put forward a single positive new conservation concept. They have systematically lowered pollution regulations to please favored industries. They have allowed park and forest maintenance to be neglected and under-funded. I view these events and developments with dismay. This is a time for straight talk, for those who love the land to make their voices heard before more damage is done to the resources we all own.

(Link via Political Animal)

Center for Inquiry to Expand

The Amherst, NY Center for Inquiry has taken on many of today’s most popular mysteries, such as crop circles, UFOs and ghosts. But The Center for Inquiry has a deeper mission, to educate the public on science and the proper way to evaluate evidence.

According to Center for Inquiry Chairman Paul Kurtz:

The United States is the leading scientific and technological power on the planet, with amazing breakthroughs, yet the general public is basically illiterate about science.

Kurtz goes on to say that the dangers of a public being knowing so little about science extend to a willingness to embrace unproven alternative medical treatments and to reject advances like embryonic stem cell research, opposed by many on religious grounds.

The center hopes to raise $26 million in the next four years to add on to its suburban Buffalo world headquarters. (Link via Pharyngula)

Congratulations, Eck and Molitor

Baseball inducts two new members into the Hall of Fame: relief pitcher extraordinaire Dennis Eckersley and the first designated hitter to make the Hall, Paul Molitor. Congratulations!

Ref shoots coach

Need I say, you really shouldn’t do this.

Bigger breasts offered as perk to soldiers

Want a bigger bust? Join The Army! Those wonderful American taxpayers will pay for it!

Osama bin Laden Suicide Virus

The bin Laden suicide Virus is now running around the internet. If you get an e-mail purporting to show pictures of good ole OBL committing suicide, you can either:

1. open the attachment and have a computer virus do serious damage to your computer; or


2. discard the e-mail, and get a big smile of satisfaction on your face knowing that you have foiled some virus-writing scumbag somewhere

The system was blinking red, but Bush was on vacation

From John Emerson at Seeing the Forest:

The 9/11 report doesn’t dot the i’s or cross the t’s. It doesn’t come out and say that Bush and his team screwed up. But if you read Chapter 8, there’s really no other conclusion that you can come to.

On Aug. 6th Bush was read a brief titled ?“Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US”, which was the 36th briefing he had mentioning Bin Ladin or al Qaeda. He then went on vacation for a long month, apparently without talking about al Qaeda either with Ashcroft, with Rice, or with Tenet.

The official story line of the 9/11 report is that there were failures of process and structure leading to inefficiency and lack of coordination, which led in turn to a failure to confront the challenge of terrorism. But the details of the story itself show us Bush, Ashcroft, and Rice repeatedly being briefed about a rising threat level by Tenet and an increasingly agitated Clarke, without any of the three of them ever taking any initiative on the issue whatsoever.

A PDF file containing Chapter 8 of the 9/11 Commission’s report is here.

White House Blocks Extension of Tax Cuts

From the New York Times, discussing existing middle-class tax cuts:

[I]n an improbable series of machinations, White House officials opposed the tentative deal worked out between House and Senate Republican leaders that would have extended the tax cuts for two years at a cost of about $80 billion.

From the Wall Street Journal via Billmon:

Upper-income families, who pay the most in taxes and reaped the largest gains from the tax cuts President Bush championed, drove a surge of consumer spending a year ago that helped to rev up the recovery. Wealthier households also have been big beneficiaries of the stronger stock market, higher corporate profits, bigger dividend payments and the boom in housing.

Lower and middle-income households have benefited from some of these trends, but not nearly as much. For them paychecks and day-to-day living expenses have a much bigger effect. Many have been squeezed, with wages under pressure and with gasoline and food prices higher.

Actions speak louder than words, Mr. Bush.

Do I Feel Safer Now?

Are our ports safer? Not according to P. J. Crowley.

[T]he Coast Guard has estimated that the program required under the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002 will cost the nation $7.5 billion over ten years — and $1.3 billion in the coming year alone — the Bush Administration has asked for only $46 million for fiscal 2005 to support states agencies and the private sector that operate the ports, facilities and vessels affected by these new regulations. Rather than increasing federal assistance in the face of new security requirements, the Bush Administration’s port security grant request is actually a huge reduction from the still inadequate total of $500 million allocated for port security in the first three years of the Bush Administration.

Jenna Bush’s Tongue

Jenna Bush sticks out her tongue at reporters. This is legitimate news, because as most of you know, there is nothing important going on in the world. That must also be why the new liquid Krispy Kreme donut in a glass is news.

You know, for the first time in ages, I like reading the news today!

The Arabian Candidate

Paul Krugman imagines what would happen if a stealth pro-Arab candidate were elected President of the United States.

What would happen? Read it here.

Nude man caught covered in Nacho Cheese

Read it yourself, I have no further comment. (Link via South Knox Bubba)

Cover Those Toes

There was a weirdo on the loose in Greensburg, PA. He has been arrested for sucking women’s toes. All we can say is “Blech!” If you know anyone in the area, mail them some close-toed shoes today! (Link via Girl Meets World)

Science, or Politics?

The Washington Post reports on how the water in Chesapeake Bay has not gotten any cleaner, while the government agency leading the cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay has documented more than a decade of steady progress.

The government based its conclusions on a computer model, while bay fisherman continued to watch fish and crab populations dwindle, and environmental scientists using actual monitoring of the water, found little improvement in pollution levels.

Imagine that, what a novel idea, monitoring the water to see if it gets any cleaner! The government now admits that its computer model was “distorted by overly generous assumptions”. Now I know very little about marine evironmental science, but I do a little something about computer modeling. Somewhere in all that modeling, you have to connect the results to some objective measurement of reality. So how could the model mis-predict the results for over a decade? I can think of no scientifically valid reason. I can only believe that what we have here is yet another case of what appears to be horrendously done studies that support the Bush administration’s position, to the detriment of the truth.

That’s also what J. Charles Fox, former secretary of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources thinks.

Basically, what we’re seeing is that the government has had its thumb on the scale for years. There’s no question now that the government was inflating progress in the Chesapeake Bay.

It’s time to let science once again flourish, and provide the best possible information for us to make decisions with.

Your Patriot Act At Work

Ian Spiers was taking photographs of Seattle’s Ballard Locks for a photography class, when he was approached by three armed Seattle Police officers and three armed officers from the Department of Homeland Security. A Homeland Security agent who flashed his badge told him he had broken a law by taking pictures of a federal facility. Spiers was detained and questioned.

But according to spokeswoman Patricia Graesser of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which owns and runs the locks,

Everyone — all members of the public — are welcome on the locks property, and photographs are allowed, and there’s no need to get prior permission.

Said Donald Winslow, editor of the National Press Photographers Association's magazine:

We’ve seen the constant erosion of our civil liberties amid this cry for homeland security by doing things that have an appearance of making us safe, but in reality it’s a sham. No one showed up at the World Trade Center and took photographs from nine different angles before they flew planes into it.

HilaryStuff

Can’t get enough of Hilary Duff? Read HilaryStuff, the new on-line PDF magazine devoted to everyone’s favorite tween! Three issues are online right now, free for you to download (warning, Adobe PDF Reader version 6.0 required).

In one issue, we read reviews of Hilary’s concerts, see what the latest Duff fashions are, and find out what ever happened between Lizzie and Gordo in the final episode of Lizzie McGuire, a complete Lizzie McGuire episode guide, and find out some things that Hilary likes to do (ride horses) and eat (okra, olives).

By the way, this was way too much Hilary, even for me.

Side issue: why does an on-line magazine that you can download need a barcode symbol in the lower right hand corner of the front page?

Burying A Child

A friend of mine had to bury his 19 year old daughter today. The girl died in a car accident — carelessness, and not alcohol, was the cause. I have no idea how my friend must feel today. However, the church was filled to capacity at the funeral, and last night at the wake the line of mourners extended out the door and down the driveway. The girl, and her family, touched a lot of people. RIP Kelly Michelle Zaborowski.

Stephen Hawking Speaks!

Stephen Hawking, probably the world’s most well-known physisict, says:

The Euclidean path integral over all topologically trivial metrics can be done by time slicing and so is unitary when analytically continued to the Lorentzian. On the other hand, the path integral over all topologically non-trivial metrics is asymptotically independent of the initial state. Thus the total path integral is unitary and information is not lost in the formation and evaporation of black holes. The way the information gets out seems to be that a true event horizon never forms, just an apparent horizon.

Which, I’m told, means that contrary to previous thought, stuff can dribble out of a black hole.

Electoral College Results

Using the most current state by state polls, the Electoral Vote would split 312 for Kerry and 215 for Bush.

Hate and Intolerance

From Kevin T. Keith at Lean Left:

What people embrace, and what they shun, tells you who they are. … It’s not like there’s anything unclear about Bush’s hatreds, petty resentments, and divisiveness, but sometimes they picture-frame it in particularly telling ways. In the last 24 hours they’ve painted it as starkly as can be. For Kerry and Edwards, the Hate Amendment was beyond the pale; the NAACP is an historic force for civil rights. For George Bush and Dick Cheney, the Hate Amendment was “necessary” to “protect” a “fundamental institution” (i.e., making sure Cheney’s own daughter can never get married); the NAACP is “intolerant.”

JLo Orders 10,000 Hangers

We’re not sure what this means, but the Great American Hanger Company reports receiving an order for 10,000 hangers from Jennifer Lopez. A source for the company said: “We often get big orders from department stores — but this is the largest we’ve ever had from one person.” (link via Nibbly Things)

George Eastman

Today is George Eastman’s 150th birthday. Eastman popularized photography by inventing methods of mass producing film and by making cameras affordable. Eastman also donated over $100 million dollars to charity (that’s over $2 billion in today’s dollars).

Eastman is one of the few people who can say that his invention or discovery truly changed the world. There aren’t many names on the list — Gutenberg, Edison, Ford and Tesla come to mind. Can anybody think of others?

The Price of Disagreement

Another employee of the Bush administration has been fired for disagreeing with the President. This time, former U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers was fired from her job, she claims, because she disagreed with the Bush administration policies.

This is disturbing for many reasons. First of all, as Chambers says:

The American people should be afraid of this kind of silencing of professionals in any field. We should be very concerned as American citizens that people who are experts in their field either can’t speak up, or, as we’re seeing now in the parks service, won’t speak up.

Equally disturbing is that it would seem that the only way to get fired is to speak against Bush. We have seen Bush praising former CIA director George Tenet, even though it had been known for a while that the CIA had fed incorrect intelligence to Bush. No outrage on Bush’s part for this screw-up, nor did Bush move to fire or admonish Tenet. Similarly, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, after taking responsibility for the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib, and also after Rumsfeld obviously has failed to manage the post-war situation in Iraq, Bush offered high praise of Rumsfeld. No firing, no outrage, no admonishment.

The final disturbing thing about this is that Park Police Chambers had charged that the Bush administration has underfunded the Park Police to dangerous levels. In fact, she claims that the staffing levels are so low now that the Park Police might not be able to properly protect United States Landmarks, as well as do other things that the Park Police needs to do. While Bush talks tough on terror, he simultaneously weakens our defense of national landmarks with his budget policies.

The Latest Polls

DemFromCT at Daily Kos has compiled all the polls from the major news and polling in one spot. (Okay, the Newsweek poll showed up late, it’s here.) The conclusion: Kerry in the lead, regardless of who does the polling.

Update (7/11/04): Via Media Matters, there is indeed one poll, the AP-Ipsos Poll, that shows Bush/Cheney ahead of Kerry/Edwards by a margin of 50-46.

Security Flaw in Mozilla?

We have been promoting Mozilla as an alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer, for several reasons. One reason is the myriad of security flaws that plague Internet Explorer, some of which have not been patched in months. Yesterday, a security flaw in Mozilla was found. What to do? Simply click here, download the XPI to disable the problem, and ten seconds later you're once again browsing securely with Mozilla.

This is just totally sick

John "Winter" Smith is on a mission to visit every Starbucks in the world, and he has to drink a caffeinated beverage at each store. So far he has visited 4,122 stores in North America (including some that have since closed), 114 in Britain, and 53 in Japan. Good luck to you Winter, and I hope the rest of your life is devoted to something more useful, like, maybe eating 53 hotdogs in 12 minutes.

Hilary, Hilary, Hilary

Is sixteen year old Hilary Duff dating 25 year old Joel Madden, singer in the band Good Charlotte? I am shocked, I tell, shocked!

Meanwhile, in the war of words between teen stars Duff and Lindsay Lohan, it appears that Hilary has decided (so far) not to kiss and make up, despite Linday’s attempts to end the feud. Tsk, tsk!

Speed Matching

An e-mail arrived today from Match.com, advertising “Speed Matching”. You meet at a public location, and then the organizers give you a few minutes of conversation time with several different members of the opposite sex. I have tried the telephone version of this as sponsored by Match.com and was very underwhelmed. So, the price to go to this event is $30. Does anybody out there have any experience with this?

Iraq Scorecard

Over at The Left Coaster, Steve Soto gives a report card of sorts on the invasion of Iraq.

1. Imminent threat? No
2. WMDs? No
3. A 45-minute capability? No
4. A connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda? No
5. A connection between Saddam and 9/11? No
6. Any reason why inspections couldn't continue? No
7. Did the war cripple terrorism? No
8. Have Americans been treated as liberators? No
9. Has the war made us safer from terrorism? No

I just have to mention the over $120 billion spent so far. That’s a lot of money for little results.

Reviewing A Technical Paper, Part 2

Every once in a while, I get the opportunity to referee a technical paper for a professional journal. It’s a big responsibility. In the latest case, I had to say that the paper was, essentially, worthless. Now I know the authors of that paper worked hard on this and I truly feel bad for them. I don’t really want to make them feel bad, and I know how hard it will be for them to read a rejection letter — but on the other hand, the editor of the journal wanted my honest opinion, and I gave it to him. The result arrived in my e-mail yesterday.

The editor agreed with me that the paper was not publishable. And so the paper was rejected. And you know what? I felt really proud of myself for a bunch of reasons. First, it’s nice to know I can read a mathematical paper and determine if it is hogwash or not. Second, it’s also nice to know that I can write a review clearly enough to get my points across. And finally, it felt really good to see that the editor of the journal understood and agreed with my points. So you’ll have to forgive me if I dance in aisles over this, maybe it shouldn’t feel so good, but it does.

US Government Warning About Using Internet Explorer

You are still using Microsoft Internet Explorer? Shame, shame!

The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (a part of the US Department of Homeland Security) has issued a warning that serious security problems exist in IE. One recommended solution was to use another browser. Wired News reports that downloads of free browsers, named Mozilla and Firefox, both made by Mozilla.org, have accelerated in the last few days. Mozilla and Firefox do not suffer from the same security flaws as IE, and have added features, including tabbed browsing and built-in pop-up blocking. Caveat emptor.

65 Years Ago Today

July 4, 1939, Lou Gehrig Day at Yankee Stadium. Gehrig, having played in 2,130 consecutive baseball games and been one of baseball’s most feared hitters, had been diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, an incurable and fatal disease. In an impromptu speech, Gehrig told the Yankee Stadium fans who had gathered in his honor:

For the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth.

One of baseball’s greatest writers ever, Shirley Povich of The Washington Post, wrote in his column This Morning...

New York, July 4 — I saw strong men weep this afternoon, expressionless umpires swallow hard, and emotion pump the hearts and glaze the eyes of 61,000 baseball fans in Yankee Stadium. Yes, and hard-boiled news photographers clicked their shutters with fingers that trembled a bit.

Gehrig died in 1941, of a disease now known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

Happy Birthday, America!

A history of the American Flag can be found here and here. Fun stuff to read on this special day.

Kobayashi Wins Hot Dog Eating Contest — Again!

Takeru Kobayashi, for the fourth straight year, won the Nathan’s Famous hot dog eating competition. Two years ago, Kobayashi left observers astonished when he destroyed the previous record, wolfing down 50 1/2 hot dogs. This year, Kobayashi broke his own record, eating 53 1/2 hot dogs in twelve minutes. Do not try this yourself! Kobayashi stands 5-foot-7 and weighs 132 pounds. In third place was Sonya Thomas, who set records for the most hot dogs eaten by a female, and most by an American. The 105 pound Thomas ate 32 hot dogs in twelve minutes.

Bush’s Military Service

Investigator Paul Lukasiak has examined all of the records released regarding President Bush’s military service. He has also examined military regulations in existence at that time. He has written an extensively detailed report, including scans of key documents and key regulations. His conclusion: “An examination of the Bush military files within the context of US Statutory Law, Department of Defense regulations, and Air Force policies and procedures of that era lead to a single conclusion: George W. Bush was considered a deserter by the United States Air Force.” (Link via Orcinus)

Update (7/4/04): The second part of this series by Paul Lukasiak is now online. It shows how the Bush files show that Bush deliberately ignored his legal obligations to America’s national security.

Cassini-Huygens

Everything you could possibly want to know about the spacecraft Cassini-Huygens and its visit to Saturn is right here. It has pictures, multimedia, project descriptions and a special section for kids.

Be Careful What You Say

On CNN’s Crossfire, host Paul Begala tries to make Robert Novak retract his words that implied President Clinton was involved in people’s deaths during the Whitewater scandal. Novak first denies he said it, then when confronted with his own words, he refuses to explain those words or retract them.

BEGALA: And let me ask you, Mr. Novak, with your new self-founded — newfounded self-righteousness, are you going to retract the statement you said last week on Meet the Press where you implied that President Clinton was involved in people's deaths over Whitewater? That’s the most outrageous things I’ve heard said about an American president.

NOVAK: I didn’t say he was engaging — and you’re lying.

BEGALA: I’ll read your words.

NOVAK: And when I said that...

BEGALA: “I don't believe that the Whitewater case was ever fully investigated. People died, and I believe Bill Clinton beat the rap on Whitewater.”

NOVAK: Well, I didn’t say he was involved with the thing.

Read the whole thing here. (Link via Pharyngula)

Words You Won’t Often Hear

Seventeen year old Maria Sharapova won the Wimbledon ladies singles finals today. She displayed more humility in one speech than you hear in a year of sports news. Sharapova told the crowd:

I want to cut up this trophy and give it to everybody, this whole crowd.

Then, turning to her opponent, Serena Williams, she said:

I have to take this trophy from you for one year. I’m sorry. I’m sure we’re going to be here one more time and hopefully many more times in other Grand Slams and fight for the trophy. Thank you for giving me a tough match but I’m sorry I had to win today.

Saturn’s Rings

At Astonomy Picture Of The Day (APOD), we get this lovely close-up view of Saturn’s rings, taken just the other day by space ship Cassini. According to APOD, “Yesterday, Cassini became the first spacecraft to enter orbit around gas giant Saturn, rocketing through a 25,000 kilometer wide gap in the distant planet’s magnificent system of icy rings at about 15 kilometers per second. Turning to snap pictures, Cassini’s narrow angle camera recorded this stunning close-up of a much smaller gap in the rings, the Encke Gap. A mere 300 kilometers wide, the Encke Gap is flanked by amazing structures within the rings — scalloped edges and patterns of density waves are clear in the sharp image. While the rings of Saturn are likely debris from the breakup of a fair-sized icy moon, the Encke Gap itself is created by the repeated passage of a tiny moon. Only 20 kilometers wide that tiny moon, Pan, was also detected by Cassini’s camera as the spacecraft approached the Saturnian system.”

Are Fireworks Dangerous?

According to serial abuser of statistics and logic John Lott, fireworks are not dangerous, and the only reason there is a perception of danger is due to media distortions. Fortunately, we have a more logical argument, complete with valid statistics, from Hunt Stillwell at Empty Doorway, to indicate just how very dangerous fireworks really are. (Link via Deltoid)

Enjoy your Independence Day celebrations safely.

Canada Boldly Goes With New $5 William Shatner Coin

Those wacky Canadians! The Toque reports that Canada has chosen to feature Canadian television and movie star William Shatner on their upcoming release of a $5 coin. William Shatner will be minted like no man has been minted before! (Link via The Presurfer)