Finally, important stuff on C-SPAN

They're talking about funding the National Parks. A representative from the National Parks Foundation is describing how underfunded the parks currently are, and what the benefits of the parks can be to the public beyond the obvious (i.e., hiking trails).

Naturally, the first caller was a member of the tinfoil hat crowd and treated listeners to a rambling paean to a park that is not part of the National Park system. Fortunately, that person seems to be the exception. All the calls since then have been from rational adults who love the parks and are concerned about the impacts of idiotic legislation like the recent bill allowing people to carry loaded weapons in National Parks.

Photo is from Cane River Creole NHP in Louisiana.

The Pinochet treatment

I was hoping this would happen, but didn't expect it quite so soon:

Judges at Spain's National Court, acting on complaints filed by human rights groups, are pursuing 16 international investigations into suspected cases of torture, genocide and crimes against humanity, according to prosecutors. Among them are two probes of Bush administration officials for allegedly approving the use of torture on terrorism suspects, including prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Maybe my fantasies about seeing Darth Cheney do a perp walk will come true after all.

No surprise here

From today's AJC:

Georgia drivers among nation’s worst

In fact, the only unexpected thing was reading that Georgia wasn't at the absolute bottom of the list.

Packing

Charlie and the S.O. are leaving for Michigan later this morning. They're spending the summer up on the tundra; I'll be stuck here in Atlanta sweating and cursing the smog. Thanks to accepting the 90-day detail with the journal, I can't take annual leave until July.

I'm not sure which of them I'm going to miss more. Granted, Charlie is Tammi's dog so he's usually not here, but I have been enjoying the early morning walks with him.

The S.O., on the other hand, cooks.

Never eating sushi again, redux

The June issue of the journal is out. Once again readers can learn stuff that I'm reasonably sure some of us would be happier not knowing. You know what the worst part of the article accompanying the above illustration was? It was learning that despite having several meters of tapeworm emerge from one's butt, as well as experiencing various other symptoms of gastro-instestinal distress (e.g., the trots), sufferers generally did not lose any weight! I mean, what's the point of hosting a parasite if the not-so-wee beastie doesn't even live up to its reputation*?

[*Back before the FDA started cracking down on drug companies in the 1930s, there were a few that actually sold encapsulated tapeworm segments as a "diet" aid.]

TGIF

We ran out of coffee at work today. It was hell. Our normal brew is cowboy coffee so strong it's hard to get a spoon into it; caffeine from a vending machine in the form of Coke or Dr. Pepper just doesn't make the grade.

Brown v Board of Education

I can't believe I managed to forget about the 55th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. It was Sunday, May 17.

Brown v. Board NHS was established in 1992 when President George H. W. Bush signed the enabling legislation, but did not open to the public until 2004. The site interprets, for the benefit and inspiration of present and future generations, the people, places, and events that contributed to the landmark United States Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregation in public education. Furthermore, the site interprets the integral role of the Brown case in the Civil Rights Movement, preserves the former Monroe School and cultural landscape, and assists in the interpretation of related local, national, and international resources that further the understanding of the Civil Rights Movement.

The Monroe School and its cultural landscape have been beautifully restored and the exhibits are first class. If you're ever in Topeka, don't miss it. Just be sure to bring lots of Kleenex -- the film "Race and the American Creed" is a heart breaker.

Still missing Omaha

It's only been two years. Maybe one of these days I'll stop missing Omaha and the Park Service.

Day at the museum

The younger daughter was in town for the weekend. The original plan had been to go up to Cartersville to Etowah Mounds State Park to gape at the mounds and gaze at the Mississippian artifacts in the park museum, but it rained. So we settled for the Fernbank Museum of Natural History here in Atlanta.

The place wasn't nearly as busy as you'd think it would be on a rainy Saturday -- it strikes me as the perfect place to bring kids, especially little boys, because they all seem to go through a Calvin-like phase where they're fascinated by T. Rex -- but maybe more families are seeing museums that charge admission as an expense they can't afford.

The museum is currently hosting a traveling exhibit, "Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries," that's quite interesting. Turns out a lot more dinosaurs apparently had feathers than was suspected a few years ago. Some of the newer finds are also really, really strange looking. The colors are all pure speculation, of course, but the tail knobs, horns in odd places, and other weirdness shown in the dioramas are based on actual fossils. All in all, an interesting afternoon.

[Persons in photo are total strangers who just happened to be standing by Giganotosaurus when the S.O. took the picture.]