Another thing that bothered me in the debate last night. This quote by Bush:

"[Africa’s] an important continent. But there’s got to be priorities. And the Middle East is a priority for a lot of reasons, as is Europe and the Far East and our own hemisphere. And those are my four top priorities should I be the president."

Let’s see… if you take away the Middle East, the Far East, Europe, and the Western Hemisphere, you’re left with Africa. And Australia. And Antarctica. So he tells Africa that should he be elected, he’s going to put virtually the entire world ahead of them. Sure, terrifying numbers of people are dying from AIDS and other diseases, governments are being forced by Western nations to spend more on loan interest payments than on all social programs combined, the absolute poverty leads to wars over resources with killings and conditions more horrific than you can imagine. But that’s not “in our interests”. No, I don’t have the answers. But I know telling them they are our lowest priority is not right. It offends me.

_I’ve gotfive pockets in my overalls Got five pockets in my overalls
I got two on the back, one on the bib
and two in the ordinary, everyday, regular place
In the front.

In the one on the right in the back
I got a dollar from my old Uncle Zak
It’s so special, got an Indian on it
With a great big buffalo on the back
Got a great big buffalo right on the back…_

The Cassini spacecraft, on its way to a 2004 meeting with Saturn, is nearing Jupiter for a slingshot boost. Here’s a wonderful color photo, the first color picture returned by the craft. Sure, just a photo of Jupiter alone is nice. But the addition of Europa and its shadow on the Jovian surface is what makes this picture especially nice.

In 1897, a rash of airship sightings were reported in newspapers across Michigan and other states. These airships often had blinking colored lights and were unlike anything known at the time. This webpage has collected all the news stories it could find from the time.

“Rebecca Ransohoff, 9, watches Vice President Al Gore explain how to hypnotize chickens.”

Oh! Uri Gellar was what made the olympic flame stall during the Sydney opening ceremonies! That rascal!

The Cathar religion was extinguished by 1230 by the brutal Albigensian crusade. But that hasn’t stopped all kinds of wackos from appropriating the Cathar name.

10 years before L. Frank Baum had a bestseller with The Wizard of Oz , Baum was publisher of The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer in Aberdeen, South Dakota. It was 1890, a dangerous time to be in South Dakota, especially if you were Native American. Chief Sitting Bull was murdered. The U.S. Army killed about 300 Lakota men, women, and children at Wounded Knee Creek. And L. Frank Baum, in his editorials, called for “the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians.” I had no idea.

There’s another presidential debate Wednesday (go Cardinals!). Tom Tomorrow has summed up the last one nicely in this week’s This Modern World.

The University of Georgia football team beat hated rival Tennessee at home Saturday night, in a game that was televised on ESPN. The evening ended in a near-riot as fans stormed the field (early, at that, nearly resulting in Georgia forfeiting the game). During the “celebrations,” a young woman was nearly killed and the stadium suffered over $100,000 in damages. The day before the game, this amusing letter to the editor ran in the local paper.