Message from John Cleese

To the citizens of the United States of America:

In light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories (excepting Kansas, which she does not fancy). Your new prime minister, Tony Blair, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium," and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour', 'favour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise." You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra'; you may elect to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you find you simply can't cope with correct pronunciation. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels (look up "vocabulary"). Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.

2. There is no such thing as "US English." We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize."

3. You will relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out Task #1 (see above).

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but to be celebrated only in England. It will be called "Come-Uppance Day."

5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

6. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

7. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling "gasoline")-roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.

8. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps." Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with mayonnaise but with vinegar.

9. Waiters and waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

10. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer," and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager." American brands will be referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine," so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

11. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie MacDowell attempt English dialogue in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

12. You will cease playing American "football." There is only one kind of proper football; you call it "soccer." Those of you brave enough will, in time, will be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the "World Series" for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable.

13. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

14. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation and have a great day.

The Virgin Mary Shot the Pope

Breaking news: CNN says that the pope believes that he survived his assasination attempt because the Virgin Mary guided the bullet and saved his life. Using his logic, I can only conclude that she shot him but didn't intend to kill him. If she had power over the bullet but didn't prevent it from injuring him, I guess she wanted him injured.

The Germans and George the Frat Boy

You all know that when George bin Lyin appears at town meetings, the attendees are carefully screened so that only friendly questions are asked, right? So the Bushites wanted to do a German version of this farce, but the Germans refused to screen out unfriendly questioners so our dear leader bravely faced the tough questions, right? (C'mon what have you been smoking?)

Der Spiegel has the story:

During his trip to Germany on Wednesday, the main highlight of George W. Bush's trip was meant to be a "town hall"-style meeting with average Germans. But with the German government unwilling to permit a scripted event with questions approved in advance, the White House has quietly put the event on ice. Was Bush afraid the event might focus on prickly questions about Iraq and Iran rather than the rosy future he's been touting in Europe this week?

It's probably mostly because he's an idiot and can't answer questions unless someone gives him the answers in advance. He could have worn that device used during the debates with Kerry, I suppose, but the Germans might not have allowed that either. Apparently they are less sheep-like than Americans - or maybe they still operate under a democracy with a free press. Makes me yearn for the good old days.

Darwin Under Attack

Eighty years after the Scopes "monkey" trial we're still trying to explain evolution to the dimwitted. If we want to compete in the modern world, our children need to be scientifically literate, but that's becoming increasingly difficult to accomplish while fundies continue to try to insert their BELIEFS into our FACTS. Children need to understand that scientific method can be tested and proven, and that Bible stories are just that - stories.

Several states are refusing to use the word "evolution" in their textbooks and in many red states, fantasy-based parents are demanding that evolution be taught as only an unproven theory, no more valid than their biblical story about Adam and Eve.

Fundies are now arguing for something they call "intelligent design" (the designer being God), and I'm no engineer, but if I were going to create a human being I would have moved the fun parts a little farther away from the elimination thingees. Oh, yeah, and how about the whole childbirth thing - that could have been done better. Intelligent design, my ass!

Because of the Koufax Awards, I've discovered a blog dedicated to discussion of evolution. I haven't had a chance to read much of it yet, but want to share it with you anyway.

Oh yeah, don't forget about Ring of Fire's Darwin fish car emblems - that'll show those stupid fundies.

Yo! Gizoogle it!

Do you have street cred? I'll admit that I don't, but Gizoogle does. Enter a URL and Gizoogle will translate it into street talk. For fun try this Ring of Fire Enterprises' Darwin fish or Fish Wars on Cars.

Who Benefits From Lebanese Assasination?

I'm pleased to report that I'm not the only person who thinks Rumsfeld is capable of having Mr. Hariri assinated for political reasons, but one anonymous reader suggested that the Israelis are also suspects and this reader recommded that I read a UK journalist named Robert Fisk:

Administration officials have raised the pressure on Syria since President Bush's Inaugural Address and the Congressional testimony of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her confirmation hearings, when she called Syria one of several "outposts of tyranny" in the world.

I wonder if the Bushites are deliberately forcing Syria and Iran to collaborate or if that's a side effect of their arrogant and short-sighted foreign policy in which they believe they can swagger and bully the world into compliance?

Tin Foil Hat Warning

Am I the only one who suspects that Rumsfeld's death squad was responsible for the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri so that the Bushites could blame Syria and pick a fight with them?

GOP Plan to Take Over California

This is from an article in Reuters, excerpted here:

California began circulating a new referendum petition on Thursday that could boost Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's political strength by redrawing the political map to boost candidates who share his centrist political views.

The former Hollywood superstar, himself elected after a petition campaign ousted his Democratic predecessor, has criticized California's existing political boundaries. He backs stripping the state legislature of its power to redraw legislative and congressional districts and wants a panel of judges to redraw them.

Politics in the most populous U.S. state are dominated by a majority of liberal Democrats and a minority of conservative Republicans. Democrats hold a commanding majority in the state legislature, and analysts say California is mostly divided into safe Democratic and Republican districts, giving moderates from both parties less of a chance....

Republicans in Texas forced through a redistricting plan in that state in 2003 aimed at picking up six or seven U.S. House of Representatives seats for the party....

One sponsor of the measure is conservative populist Ted Cost, an activist who was behind the recall of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis -- which paved the way for Schwarzenegger's ascent to the statehouse.

Schwarzenegger said last week that he would personally work to gather signatures as early as later this month.

"You will see me at different shopping malls. I will be out there gathering the signatures and helping to make sure they get all of those things on the ballot," he said. "This is the year where we have to turn California around."

He will work to change California to a red state.

Nazi Party & Jewish Defense League Together

I borrowed the following comment from someone who posted it to Common Cause's blog:

Schwarzenegger cannot be trusted. The notion of Common Cause and Schwarzenegger working together is as weird as the American Nazi Party and the Jewish Defense League working together. Utterly implausible.

Common Cause Lost Its Common Sense

Common Cause has done some good work in the past, but they no longer have my support. They've apparently been "taken in" by Gropinator Schwarzenazi's star power and are now supporting his attempt to redistrict California.

I want to let you know that this afternoon we are going to join forces with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to put an end to California's failed system for drawing Congressional and state Legislative boundaries.

FTCR: Questions About Schwarzenegger's Common Cause with Common Cause2/17/2005 9:02:00 AM

To: National and State Desk Contact: Jamie Court of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, 310-392-0522 ext. 327

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Feb. 17 U.S. Newswire -- Governor Schwarzenegger, under increased scrutiny in California for illegal campaign fundraising and broken campaign promises, will try to shore up his image today at the offices of DC-based Common Cause.

The nonpartisan Foundation For Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) raised the following questions regarding Common Cause's expected announcement today of support for a "compromise" model proposal on redistricting - a plan very different from the redistricting ballot initiative planned for 2005 by Schwarzenegger in California.

-- Does Common Cause oppose the redistricting ballot initiatives on file with the California Secretary of State to be circulated for the November 2005 special election? Staffers informed FTCR that Common Cause opposes the ballot initiatives on file. There is no time to collect signatures for a "compromise" plan in 2005.

-- Will Schwarzenegger wait until 2006 to submit the Common Cause compromise plan or go ahead in 2005 with a plan Common Cause opposes?

-- Is Common Cause opposed to Arnold Schwarzenegger's practice of raising contributions in excess of $22,300 for committees sponsoring his special election ballot measures -- practices being challenged for violating state campaign finance laws?

-- If Schwarzenegger does not agree to redistricting only once per decade and Common Cause does not agree to mid-decade redistricting, how can there be a compromise?

The redistricting initiatives and others supported by Schwarzenegger for a special November 2005 election are being used by Schwarzenegger to evade state campaign finance laws limiting how much money a political figure can raise for initiative campaigns, a tactic Common Cause opposes. See Arnold Watch

"Governor Schwarzenegger, who ran on a platform of sweeping money out of politics, is the poster child for cash register politics by raising more money in a year than any California politician or $80,000 per day," said FTCR president Jamie Court. "The California public should understand any redistricting proposal they will vote on this year is not one that has the approval of Common Cause or any other campaign finance reform group. Schwarzenegger should not be allowed to pull a bait and switch by winning Common Cause's endorsement for a model plan and substituting a ballot initiative on redistricting opposed by every public interest group in the state and nation."

FTCR is California's leading non-partisan consumer advocacy organization.
© 2005 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770

Reality Bites in Cyberspace Romance

A married Jordanian man spent 3 months wooing a woman through an Internet chat room. Cyber love blossomed and the two began making wedding plans. When they met, he discovered that his fiance' was already his wife. The angry man yelled, "I divorce you." The wife fainted.

This proves that fantasy is more exciting than reality. I guess that explains all those wingnuts who voted for Bush.

Please Help Protect Mountain Lions

A Republican tool from Visalia has introduced a bill that would allow trophy hunting of mountain lions (or cougars) in California. AB24 would enable anyone over the age of 12 to compete for the chance to kill a mountain lion in the wild. Cubs and mother lions would not be exempt from slaughter.

If you are a resident of California, please call your representative and ask him or her to oppose this heartless sbill. If you don't live in the state, you can still register your disgust by sending an email to Guvnuh. Ahnie. Tell him you won't vacation in California if he signs this bill into law. Better yet, email Rep. Maze and tell him what you think of his vile bill.

The Sierra Club reports:

Between 1916 and 1971, more than 12,000 mountain lions were killed forbounties and for sport in California. It was common to hear tall tales about the prowess of hunters who single-handedly brought down a wild cougar. After all,the evidence was hanging on the wall above the rifle rack, where a taxidermisthad twisted the face of a mountain lion into a final vicious snarl. The rest ofthe arsenal was not on display: the steel-jawed leg hold traps, snares, poison,the hired tracker and his pack of dogs. It was just a little deception.

During this same period, Californians were gaining a greater understanding about the value of wildlife. In 1922, as the bear flag flew overthe Capitol, the last California grizzly bear was shot. It became very clearthat California's cougars were destined to endure the same fate.

Twenty-fiveyears ago, experts estimated that as few as 600 mountain lions had survived thestate's management practices. Governor Ronald Reagan became convinced that amoratorium on hunting mountain lions was necessary to protect California's last cougars from extinction. In 1971, he signed a moratorium against trophy hunting of mountain lions.

Fifteen years later, in 1985, the legislature was still convinced of the value of protecting California's cougars, and passed legislation that would have extended the moratorium on trophy hunting while biologists measured the lion population in California. Governor Deukmejian vetoed the bill. When the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) tried to open a lion hunting season, citizen groups blocked the hunt in court, where a judge held that the department had not adequately assessed the lion population before deciding that there were huntable numbers.

For some people, the numbers that matter are the dollars and votes. The National Rifle Association (NRA) and Safari Club lobbied relentlessly to lift the moratorium and allow the trophy hunting of mountain lions. Over the years, DFG gained money and influence by selling permits to hunt bears, bobcats, and bighorn sheep. Wealthy trophy hunters, many from out of state, will pay for the pleasure of shooting a lion.

And in the past five years, the political clout of the NRA and the trophy hunters has increased, along with their ability to influence the media, and the dollars they can raise and spend on partisan campaigns. It finally became clear that the people of California needed to send a clear message to their elected and appointed officials that trophy hunting of mountain lions is a cruel and inhumane way to manage lion populations. In 1990 people across the state collected more than 700,000 signatures to qualify a ballot initiative, Proposition 117, that would permanently ban the trophy hunting of mountain lions in California. Proposition 117 addressed concerns about public safety, charging the Department of Fish and Game to remove or take any mountain lion, or authorize an appropriate local agency with public safety responsibilities to remove or take any mountain lion that is perceived to be an imminent threat to public health or safety. The measure was passed by the voters in June of 1990.

Since then, the Department of Fish and Game has been derelict in its duty to manage mountain lions to protect public safety. DFG officials have said that they currently have the ability to reduce mountain lion population density in a specific geographical area, and to reduce the number of encounters between lions and humans. But the Department of Fish and Game has decided not to do its job of protecting the public. Instead, they have focused on creating a climate of fear in order to reopen a trophy hunting season on mountain lions.

For example, DFG keeps a count of dangerous incidents that requires only a telephone call to report. When questioned at a recent Senate hearing, DFG admitted that they could confirm only a small fraction of the reported lion incidents. There is no confirmation process following the call, but each call becomes a part of the statistics you hear on the evening news, and which are used by lobbyists and legislators to support a trophy hunting season. Even DFG's own experts admitted that trophy hunting of lions public safety will not improve.

Proposition 197, defeated March 1996, was a sham. In a classic example of bureaucratic jargon and deception, the word "hunter" was removed from the legislation and replaced with the word "designee." The NRA and the Safari Club lobbied Proposition 197 through the legislature. Without collecting a single voter signature, and hiding behind a disingenuous concern for public safety, trophy hunters have persuaded the politicians to rescind the ban on trophy hunting of mountain lions.

The efforts to have sport hunting of mountain lions in California have been a history of deeper and deeper deception. But even with the arsenal the NRA can bring to bear, California voters oppose for sport. Trophy hunting of mountain lions is an inhumane, and inappropriate method for managing their populations. Trophy hunting of mountain lions does not protect the public safety.

I was watching her eyes. They were dead. Finally, we realized that her last act had been to deny the hounds her body by taking a death grip on a limb with her teeth. I climbed up to the tree, felt her hard body, and pushed her out to the hounds./ - American Hunter Magazine , December 1991

Mountain lions are cautious, elusive creatures. Proposition 197 brings back the hunting of these animals for sport. For large sums of money, a hunter hires a professional tracker and his pack of hounds fitted with radio collars. In a remote area, a wild cougar is pursued by the dogs until, frantic and exhausted, the mountain lion climbs a tree in desperation. In his vehicle, the tracker follows the radio signals at a distance. The cougar may remain treed for days, until the hunter can be called to the scene. Sometimes the cougar is shot in the paws by the tracker to ensure that it will remain alive, but immobilized, while the client-hunter flies in from out-of-state. Finally, a handgun is used to kill the cougar at point-blank range.

California's current law designates the mountain lion as a specially protected mammal, a classification that simply means that it is not a game or trophy animal, and may not be killed by hunters for sport. The law was passed overwhelmingly in 1990 by the voters of California, under Proposition 117, and was intended to protect California's cougars from cruel and indiscriminate trophy hunting by people lacking training in wildlife management.

Current law also requires the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) to remove or take any mountain lion, or authorize an appropriate local agency with public safety responsibilities to remove or take any mountain lion that is perceived to be an imminent threat to public health or safety.

Mountain lions can be killed in California when they pose a risk to people, property, pets, or livestock. In 1994 alone, 122 mountain lions were killed under depredation permits issued by the California Department of Fish and Game.

The gun groups own Prop. 197 (defeated by voters in 1996)

DFG is dependent on trophy hunting enthusiasts for direct fee support, and relies on trophy hunting lobbyists from the Gun Owners of California, the National Rifle Association (NRA), and Safari Club for influence on elected officials, who are in turn responsible for the department's budget. These groups advocate trophy hunting of mountain lions purely for sport, and hope that DFG's failure to appropriately manage the lion population will create such a climate of fear that the public will reluctantly reinstate a massive hunt.

In the latest issue of DFG's publication Outdoor California, Terry Mansfield, chief of the wildlife management division of the California Department of Fish and Game, is quoted as saying that, "recreational hunting of mountain lions would not be expected to prevent public safety threats unless it involved removal of a significant portion of the mountain lion population."

The DFG has failed to do its job. They have been slow to act to create a balanced, humane, and scientific approach to the management of mountain lion populations in California. Such a selective and discriminating approach would deny trophy hunting as a management tool, and would therefore anger lobbyists and campaign contributors.

For example, Safari Club International is an organization dedicated to trophy hunting. In the November 1995 issue of their monthly publication, Safari Times, the trophy hunters revealed that Proposition 197 will allow sport hunting to resume: "the department can propose and the Fish and Game Commission can adopt regulations to allow the sport hunting of mountain lions." The article asks that supporters of the measure raise huge funds nationally for the California campaign, since they believe that the outcome of the election will have a far-reaching, nationwide impact for trophy hunting.

Mountain Lions and Public Safety: Who's Really Under Attack?

Sport Hunting of Mountain Lion Defeated on Ballot (1996)

In the last few years, there have been several mountain lion attacks on individuals in California. They were heavily publicized in newspapers throughout the state. Groups, particularly the National Rifle Association, are trying to take advantage of these incidents to reverse a hard-fought grassroots victory that protects mountain lions from trophy hunting.

In 1990, more than 700,000 volunteers and hundreds of organizations worked together to protect mountain lions in California from being shot for sport. California voters passed the Mountain Lion Initiative. Since then, opponents have been trying to overturn this voter decision in the state legislature. They have not been successful.

Now the National Rifle Association (NRA) is sponsoring a ballot initiative set for March 1996 that would reverse the Initiative. According to the California Wildlife Protection Coalition, such a reversal "will set a dangerous precedent for future protections of California wildlife, and for other successful environmental ballot measures both in California and across the country." The California Wildlife Protection Coalition is a project of the Mountain Lion Foundation & the Planning and Conservation League. They produced the following fact sheet.

The Truth About Mountain Lions And Public Safety What's at stake?

Our hard-won protection for California cougars. Trophy hunting enthusiasts hope that a campaign of fear and misinformation will allow them to overturn the voters' 1990 decision to ban their cruel sport. If the NRA-sponsored ballot measure challenging Proposition 117 was passed by voters in March 1996, it would have:

1. Allow hunting of mountain lions for sport in California, everywhere in the state except within state parks even in local public parks or on private property

2. Encourage the use of cruel steel-jawed traps, leghold traps, and poisons3.Steal $1.2 million from Proposition 117's habitat protection money for private hunting zones for the Safari Club.

*It didn't pass that time - let's not let it pass this time either.

Real Men Like Cats

There is a perception that men choose dogs for pets and women have cats (dogs are from Mars, cats are from Venus). I believe that some of men's traditional dislike of and abuse of cats is a projection of their feelings toward women. And there's that old association of cats with witches or women who resisted being controlled by men or religion. This was passed down to us and resides in the collective subconscious and so, when you meet a man who loves cats, he's a real treasure. I'm fortunate to know several such men and each one is fascinating.

One of the things that I found so attractive in Rob when we first met was that he had a cat - just a cat, not a dog and a cat. Rob's communication style and his calm, easy-going manner were also sexy, but the fact that he had a cat convinced me that I needed to get to know him better. Even though we've been together for almost 12 years and his cat now considers me part of the family (one of the offical can openers), Rob still has a special relationship with her. He cooks souffles of ground turkey and eggs for her and he gives her special massages on a regular basis. She's spoiled but she deserves it - she's an elderly kitty.

Our UPS driver adopted a kitty at the shelter. Chester was a bit of a feline delinquent at first. He roamed the neighborhood stealing Beanie Babies. Erik tried to find the owners to return the Beanies but they'd lost some value after Chester chewed the tags off. Later Chester drank some anti-freeze and had to undergo dialysis which was costly for Erik but Chester survived. Once when Erik was setting the table for dinner with his roommate, Chester tossed a freshly killed critter into the air and it landed on a dinner plate. I love hearing about Chester's exploits when Erik stops by to pick up our outgoing packages. What a fascinating man and cat duo.

The copy center in Santa Cruz has another interesting pair. I don't actually know the name of the man, but the cat is called Elvis. When the man gets ready for work, Elvis hops into the car and goes to work too. If Elvis doesn't get in the car, he can stay home, it's his choice, but almost every time I go there, Elvis is in the building. Elvis has reached elderly status now at age 15, but his long coat is always perfectly groomed. He's rather aloof. He allows his fans to pet him and admire him, but I think he prefers to be left alone. Originally I assumed that Elvis lived at the copy center because my cats all hate to travel by car, but when I asked if Elvis spent the nights alone at the store, the manager said, "No! That would be cruel." I suspect that Elvis is so devoted to his caretaker, he's willing to endure daily rides in the car and the attention of pesky customers like me.

My favorite doctor had a cat, Nermal, who commuted to visit the neighbors when he and she moved a short distance away from their old home. He, Dr. Bill Heller, has a great sense of humor and is caring and compassionate in his medical practice so it makes sense that he and a cat would bond - unlike Senator Frist who killed cats to advance his career in medicine. I've even heard stories that Dr. Bill has accepted rabbits in trade for his services, although I'm not certain if that is true.

Buddhist monks care for homeless cats in several Asian nations and so I've concluded that real men like cats and vice versa.

SFGate.com has an interesting article about men and cats titled Single-Minded: Women like men who like cats

It seems as if single men are discovering what single women have known since ancient Egyptian times: Cats are worthy of worship.

At least unmarried British men say so, in a recent survey conducted by Cats Protection, a leading animal welfare society in the United Kingdom. And judging by the delirious worship that single men I know lavish on their kitties, I'd like to think
American men -- those brave enough to stand up and be counted -- feel the same
way. The survey showed that 85 percent of men, and 94 percent of women,
don't think it's wimpy or needy for a man to love his cat. In addition, just as
many single men as single women said they enjoy "lavishing care" on their
cat....

More than anything, the survey showed that unmarried laddies go as delightfully off the deep end over their pets as women have been teased for doing for centuries. Single male cat owners are more likely than their female counterparts to have made, or consider making, a sacrifice for their cat, including giving up a vacation and going into debt. Three-quarters of male respondents say their cats fulfill their cuddle requirements, and single men are also almost as likely as single women to consider choosing their cat over their partner.

It's long been said by women that cats are excellent guy-o-meters -- capable of spotting a bad one with a sniff. I always found the converse to be true: Men who were good to my cats -- and not in a manipulative, let's- impress-her-with-my-sensitivity kind of way -- were going to be good to me. Noodge has always been easy to like. A bulldozer of a Maine coon cat, he is like a dog in cat's clothing. He's fearless, assertive, funny and loud. He possesses, as his vet said recently, more attitude than any other 16-year-old cat she'd seen. I've never looked to him to be an impartial judge on the men in my life; he liked anyone who would feed him and stay out of his chair.

But Bunny was harder to warm up to. She came to us in 1991, on the day of the Oakland hills fire -- a tiny, ragged survivor of a brood most likely born in the field nearby. Terrified but plucky, she hung out behind the water heater in the garage for two days before she finally allowed my daughter to hold her. I came home from work and Erin was doing her homework on the concrete garage floor, beaming and ecstatic at the gray fur ball curled up in her lap.

Although we were able to tame her feral nature, Bunny (named for the rabbitlike way she would nestle under your chin, purring loudly) bonded only with the two of us, and was terrified of everyone and everything else -- from the UPS man to the vacuum cleaner. Only a few boyfriends in the past 13 years have been patient and loving enough to coax her out of her hiding places with sweet words and smiles. Those were good men indeed.

Bunny loved her food -- OK, OK, she was a bit of a porker. Erin would admonish me when she came home from college for letting her get fat, while I would argue back that Bunny was merely big-boned. She loved Erin fiercely and even if they didn't see each other for months, the cat would recognize her instantly and burrow under her chin, relieved and happy.

After watching Bunny slow down in recent months, I should not have been surprised that she timed her collapse for the night Erin came home for Christmas. She knew the wagons were circled; she knew we'd be able to go through this together. At the vet hospital the next day, Dr. Heidi McClain noted that with a kitty this fat ("She's just big-boned!" I mouthed to Erin to keep her from crying), it was hard to get a sense of what had gone wrong inside. But it soon became apparent:
kidney failure.

After five days of Christmas-week back-and-forth visits to the hospital, which saw her improve to the point of almost coming home, Bunny's heart unexpectedly gave out. I held her still body and called Erin. Through the tears we knew Bunny was better off without the tubes and the monitors, and all the scary things that had daunted her.

It's been two weeks and Noodge is confused and alarmed that his mate is gone. I watch him closely to see if his tough attitude softens and he starts to die, too. At that point, I will find him a new friend. In the meantime, if a new man comes into my life, I guess I'll have to suss him out the old-fashioned way. And hope that any new kitty I get will be as difficult to love as Bunny was.

There is a moral to this story.

Men, if you want many good things in life, get a cat. Why? So many reasons. There is the unconditional-love thing, the way science has proved that stress levels come down drastically when one is stroking a pet, etc. But here's additional incentive: They are babe magnets.

Yes, according to this same British survey, women love men with cats. Ninety percent of single women surveyed thought men who like cats are "nicer" -- i.e., more caring and sensitive -- than those who don't. A quick poll of my cat-loving single girlfriends bears this out.

Additional points were awarded to those who adopted mature felines from shelters, rather than adorable kittens that have a much easier time finding homes. I suspect I shall find myself doing that very thing quite soon. More than anything, I'm pleased to find that single men might just be warming to the notion of single-with-cat as a worthy lifestyle. It might help deflect the endless guff single women with cats have taken over the centuries. And it will certainly be good for cats.
And rightly so. They rock. Even when they break your heart.

Valentine's Day

This is one of my favorite holidays - it gives me an excuse to eat chocolate (okay,I don't really need an excuse, but when one comes along I won't reject it).

I'd heard something about Valentine being a saint, and I'm not inclined to celebrate saints, so I went looking for the origins of Valentine's Day. Barbara Walker says in her book The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets that the original Valentine's Day was Rome's Lupercalia, a time when young men chose partners for erotic games by drawing small papers with women's names on them. Christians considered these valentines as "heathens' lewd customs." Churchmen tried to get people to put names of the saints or sermons on the papers but it didn't catch on.

February was sacred to Juno Februata, Goddess of the "fever" (febris) of love so the church replaced her with a mythical maryr, St. Valentine. They had trouble getting the story straight on him though, some said he was a handsome Roman who had been executed just as his sweetheart received her valentine.

During the Middle Ages, St. Valentine was much invoked in love charms and potions, since he was a Christianized (and therefore acceptable) version of such love-gods as Eros, Cupid, Kama, Priapus or Pan.

Daily Kos :: The First Diary of a Stark Raving Atheist Liberal

I haven't had much time lately to write - or even read much, but tonight I found the following on Daily KOS and ... well... yeah! Here's the voice of sanity in an insane world.

Daily Kos :: The First Diary of a Stark Raving Atheist Liberal:

"The story of Abraham taught a deeper lesson then the one commonly portrayed. God's absurd command that Abraham commit infanticide flies in the face of human instinct and basic goodness. Submitting to God's celestial law in defiance of reason, out of a dread of damnation, Abraham botched the test. If God's choosing alone renders an action good, then what is there to impede God from choosing torture and massacre? Has he not already set the standard in myriad Old Testament stories of gratuitous slaughter and genocide?

By rights, we should be dismissing such wanton hypocrisy out of turn, relegating these ideological zealots to society's fringes, where snake handlers and Apocalypse junkies rightfully belong. Yet, their numbers are legion, becoming increasingly emboldened as their ideological leaders beat the Moral Drums of War in an unholy circle-jerk with their neo-conservative puppet masters. Given free reign, this crazed, National-Supremacist juggernaut would gleefully raze the social progress of decades, leaving corpses, orphans, totalitarianism and desolation in its wake. Eerily, such collusion between the Christian Right and the neo-con Warlord-Thugs parallels the relationship between the German Protestant Church and the Nazi machine.

Taking this parallel the next logical step, will our democratic experiment withstand the Horde's rage once their feckless illusions of Corporate Christian conquest crash down around their combat boots? Does history not forewarn that their inevitable humiliation will result in a wild-eyed and fascist turning inward? Will the last thing we atheists, intellectuals, liberals, progressives, socialists, Muslims, Jews, artists and faggots see be their brown shirts and pitchforks undulating through the flames of our executions? Perhaps. But would the pain of being burnt alive not pale in comparison to the anguish felt by a young, blood-spattered Iraqi child, whose life and family has been inexorably smashed by the chaos of empire, and whose reddened arms will forever reach out and ask us to answer the simplest question, "Why?"

Would not such pain be deserved, if we failed to demand the answers on her behalf?

This is no dream. Our leaders have unleashed our martial might upon the world under the crimson banner of Yahweh...the very same God whose sight, love and power are ostensibly boundless. If he is blind to our imperial exploits, if he sanctions our belligerence, and if he is incapable of intervening on behalf of those we conquer, then he has none of these qualities. Blind-faith may reconcile this disparity, but a moral person would not seek such a squaring-off of fact and faith. It is impossible to claim the moral high ground while simultaneously professing a faith in this God.

Although I abhor the plague of fundamentalism sweeping through our country, this atheist has become convinced of two things. First, that the end is truly nigh; and second, that evil does exist.... "

Wrong Wife Swap Program

We watched last night's Wife Swap episode but it wasn't the one we've been waiting for. The one in which our products are displayed will be about an atheist and last night's episode was a swap between a southern Christian family (intolerant & bigoted) and a lesbian from Arizona. Although the religion of the lesbian wasn't discussed, many of the gay and lesbian people I've known are Christians.

The southern Christian woman seemed to value the income of her husband and the diamond rings he could buy her over any compassion or empathy for anyone outside her accepted system of beliefs. She behaved as I expected - she was harsh and cruel toward a lesbian woman who had the courage to be "out" on TV.

It's strange that people who claim to be followers of a man of compassion, are so lacking in that quality themselves. Depraved and contemptible. God save us from your followers.

Wife Swap and Ring of Fire

Some of Ring of Fire's Darwin fish type products will probably be shown on tomorrow night's episode of the TV program Wife Swap (at least we signed a release to allow our Reality Bites and No Preaching emblems to be shown). This upcoming episode is described as:

In the most controversial swap yet, an ultra-conservative Texas mother who believes gays are "depraved" trades places with a liberal lesbian mom from Arizona.

The New York Post has this:

A white, liberal lesbian wife and mother, Kristine Luffey, switches lives with an ultra-conservative, very uptight, Republican evangelical African-American woman, Kris Gillespie, married to an equally uptight white man.

The most astonishing part is how blind to any change and intolerant of any other kind of life Kris, the Christian, actually is. She opens by describing her wonderfully opulent life (including her 9-karat diamond ring!), and sees nothing even slightly weird about not allowing her children - 12, 14 and 16 - any freedom whatsoever.

Kris, shocked to find she's moved into a lesbian household, wants very much to impose her values on Kristine's family, calling the two women's living arrangement "depraved" and arguing that living with Kristine's partner's 8-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, did not make them a "family" unit.

Kristine, meanwhile, tries to loosen up Kris' family - forcing the husband to take dance lessons at the local Texas gay gin joint.

Shockingly, the uptight husband - who says things about his wife like, "It's like having a diamond; you always know the value of the diamond but you still want to have it in your possession" - actually begins to enjoy having a little fun.

Kris, who must know that even 20 years ago, her interracial marriage would have been considered as "depraved" to many as Kristine's lesbian relationship is to her now, goes so far as to imply that because Kristine is gay, she could possibly be a sexual predator. She believes that it was immoral for her to be in the same household as her 12-year-old daughter because the child may be in danger.

When Kris left home, she exclaimed: "Excellence is a journey, so if I find a way to make it more excellent, that's very valuable for me."

After the 10-day "journey to excellence," Kris denounces Kristine's lesbian lifestyle - saying, "I think you are, according to the word of God, depraved, and I don't want anyone depraved near my kids" - making Kristine cry hysterically.

Kris' kids had a great time being allowed to have friends over for a sleepover for the first time. Meanwhile, Kristine's adopted daughter, 8-year-old Elizabeth, loved being treated by Kris to "princess day," when she got to wear a tiara and do girlie things with her stay-at-home "mom."

The parents might not have learned anything about life - either from each other or from their kids - but we sure do!

Volcano Due To Erupt In Yellowstone Park

A program titled Supervolcanos aired recently on the Discovery channel and it suggested that a caldera in Yellowstone Park has a history of devastating eruptions about every 600,000 years. It's last eruption was a little over 600,000 years ago, so another eruption is due any time.

An eruption of a supervolcano would have a catastrophic effect on life all over the planet but especially on the plains states of the U.S. The volume of extruded magma in a supervolcano is large enough to radically alter the landscape and to severely impact global climate for years, with a cataclysmic effect on life.

Volcanologists have been tracking the movement of magma under the park and have calculated that in parts of Yellowstone the ground has risen over seventy centimeters this century.

The most recent caldera-forming eruption at Yellowstone occurred about 650,000 years ago and it produced a caldera 53 x 28 miles (85 x 45 kilometers) across what is now Yellowstone National Park. During that eruption, ground-hugging flows of hot volcanic ash, pumice, and gases swept across an area of more than 3,000 square miles. When these enormous pyroclastic flows finally stopped, they solidified to form a layer of rock called the Lava Creek Tuff. Its volume was about 240 cubic miles (1,000 cubic kilometers), enough material to cover Wyoming with a layer 13 feet thick or the entire United States with a layer 5 inches thick. The Lava Creek Tuff has been exposed by erosion at Tuff Cliff, a popular Yellowstone attraction along the lower Gibbon River.

The eruption also shot a column of volcanic ash and gases high into Earth's stratosphere. This volcanic cloud circled the globe many times and effected Earth's climate by reducing the intensity of solar radiation reaching the lower atmosphere and surface. Fine volcanic ash that fell downwind from the eruption site blanketed much of North America. This ash layer is still preserved in deposits as far away as Iowa, where it is a few inches thick, and the Gulf of Mexico, where it is recognizable in drill cores from the sea floor. Lava flows have since buried and obscured most of the caldera, but the underlying processes responsible for Yellowstone's tremendous volcanic eruptions are still at work. Such an eruption would disrupt global climate by injecting millions of tons of ash into the atmosphere. Some of the ash would remain in the atmosphere for years, reflect sunlight back into space and cool the planet, significantly effecting life. In addition, a blanket of ash over a meter thick would be deposited in nearby regions and effectively smother life there.

BBC had a report on supervolcanos in which they stated, "Scientists have very few answers, but they do know that the impact of a Yellowstone eruption is terrifying to comprehend. Huge areas of the USA would be destroyed, the US economy would probably collapse, and thousands might die."

Seismic activity in the area could presage an eruption. Earthside.com is monitoring and reporting such activity.

The U.K. version of Yahoo News reports:

Slumbering supervolcanoes powerful enough to wipe out much of the planet may awaken much sooner than it had previously been thought. Experts believed it would take hundreds of thousands of years for reservoirs of molton rock, or magma, beneath a supervolcano to build for an eruption.But a new study indicates the time between super-eruptions can actually be tens of thousands of years - and many are already long overdue.

A blast from a supervolcano would be strong enough to cause mass extinction and change the world's climate.

The findings, published in the Journal of Petrology, are bad news for anyone living in the centre of the US.

An overdue monster supervolcano is hidden underneath one of the country's premier holiday spots - Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.

The last blast there, which occurred more than 600,000 years ago, covered half the US - around 3,000sq miles - with volcanic ash.

Researchers in New Zealand analysed zircon crystals, which grow within volcanic magma, to calculate how long build up takes before eruptions.

Their answer was no more than 40,000 years - a relatively short time in geological terms. Supervolcanoes are estimated to carry a force thousands of
times that of a normal explosion. They spew thousands of cubic yards of ash,
dust and poisonous sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere and create a giant crater, or caldera.

Recent measurements indicate that over the past century the earth above the Yellowstone magma chamber has risen almost 19 inches. Scientists say this is telling evidence of pressure building below.

Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition

But now we have torture advocate, Alberto Gonzales, as attorney general. And we thought John Ashcroft was appalling.

From a diary on Daily KOS:

Alberto Gonzales grew up poor and Hispanic, just like millions of other Americans we normally wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. But through hard work, intellect, and by attaching himself remora-like to a wealthy and intellectually lazy man, he has been lifted to the highest positions of trust in our nation, and is now living every Republican's dream: helping to execute people whose lawyers slept through their trials; reinterpreting the Constitution to allow monarchist powers; and helping to set up offshore prison camps for the torture of foreign nationals.

Celebrate Darwin Day

Darwin Day (like Christmas ony better) is coming up February 12. This is a wonderful opportunity for the reality based community to celebrate science and humanity and there's still time to order Ring of Fire's Darwin Fish for the celebration.

The "Evolution" of Sexism

I recently received an email from a Thomas Vaichus who stated the following:

I challenge you to post this link to your website, but then again I am not holding my breath. Does the truth about Darwin matter to your thought process?,I think not. It is clear that if truth were important to you, you would trash the Darwin symbol all together. I suspect that it is the $ motivates your ideology, not truth.

Thanks for your time,

Regards,Tom

Vaichus was apparently trying to goad me into posting a link to his web site, which I will not do because a link from us would only help him get a higher ranking among search engines.

The link he provided for me to visit is to a page titled "The history of the teaching of human female inferiority in Darwinism" and he reveals his bias in the title of the web site, "Answers in Genesis". His web site also advertises a magazine called Creation. His article could have been more revealing if titled, "The history of the teaching of human female inferiority in the Bible and its practice in the major religions, including Christianity."

Mr. Vaichus' bias is revealed when he interprets Darwin's theories on evolution to prove that Darwin believed that men evolved to be superior to women. He cites Darwin's observations about the differences between males and females and concludes that based on those differences, men are superior to women.

It's obvious that biological differences exist between men and women and, undoubtedly, evolution played a role in developing those differences - it doesn't mean one gender is superior to the other regardless of what the Bible says. Sexism existed long before Darwin's theory of evolution and Christianity and the Bible are full of it (in more ways than one).

If I had more time, I'd write more about Mr. Vaichus' distorted view of the theory of evolution, or maybe I wouldn't. I'm not sure he deserves any more attention.

Families That Pray Together Don't Stay Together

The lowest rate of family breakups in America is in the blue Northeast, while the highest will be found in the Bible Belt, where you still see bumper stickers that proclaim, "The family that prays together, stays together." A study by the George Barna Group, a Christian research and advocacy firm, finds that only 19% of Northeasters have divorced compared to 27% of people in the South and Midwest. Barna also found that born-again Christians have more divorces than other Christians and considerably more than atheists and agnostics. This is why gay people must not be allowed to marry. Their unions would outlast those of the fundies and we can't have even more "godless heathens" behaving better than those knuckle-dragging, slack jawed born-agains.

George Troubya Bush

Like the proverbial bull in the china shop, the U.S. has destroyed priceless artifacts in Iraq. They drove trucks through the ancient ruins of Babylon, crushing ancient artifacts, according to British Museum officials. American and Polish troops initially came to the archaelogical site to protect it from looters but then they used it to dump tons of gravel for making roads and helipads and later filled sandbags with dirt containing shards of pottery - easily causing as much damage as thieves would have. Heavy military vehicles also crushed a brick road dating from the time of King Nebuchadnezzar, who built the famous hanging gardens around 550 B.C.

John Curtis, keeper of the British Museum's Near East department, who was invited by the Iraqis to study the site, said in the report,

"This is tantamount to establishing a military camp around the Great Pyramid in Egypt or around Stonehenge in Britain."