news

Looking for a good time? Head on over to Slashdot for a good ol' round of Watch the Nerds Debate the True Meaning of the Word Manga. Coming soon to a cable channel near you. ;D

Well, the KTVU news advertising department is at it again. Not satisfied with its Bay Area Big Foot hunter's 'elusive hunt' (see 2005 11 04), they're back at it with this stellar bit of television trollery:

'Traitor or peace activist? The Cindy Sheehan you don't know.' And how about that flattering picture?

Hmm. At least Leslie and Dennis are still happy about their jobs spreading FUD.

In an effort to figure out where KTVU is coming from, why the stunningly inflammatory advertising, I visited their website and discovered the real reason: KTVU Channel 2 is the Fox affiliate.

No wonder.

Jonesy don't wear no NINJA MASK!

So I'm reading some story on the sfgate.com Chronicle website, and my eyes are caught on the right-hand side by a still from the familiar Big Foot footage. It was part of a banner apparently advertising a slow news day on local television:

I'm thinking to myself, is it really his hunt that's elusive? Perhaps that's the story -- the Bay Area Big Foot hunter's hunt is hard to keep track of, dodging and weaving through the Pacific Northwest wilderness. Or perhaps it's the other meaning of elusive, that it's difficult to remember where he's been before, which in my opinion pretty much dooms any exobiology hunts.

In any case, the anchors seem awfully happy to be covering the tough news assignments.

Contrast this with a few years ago when a different elusive figure dominated the headlines, though he was more fond of Pakistani caves than dense forests. Does this mean the war is over?

Body found in Sierra Nevada glacier believed to be WWII airman

Park rangers were working with military officials Wednesday in a remote Sierra Nevada glacier to excavate a body believed to be that of an airman who crashed in 1942. Two unidentified climbers spotted the frozen head, shoulder and arm of body that is 80 percent encased in ice while climbing the glacier on the 13,710-foot Mount Mendel in Kings Canyon National Park, said park spokeswoman Alex Picavet....

And so, the World Series is set: Chicago White Sox at Houston Astros. Will the curse of the Black Sox be lifted? Will the underdog Astros win it all their first trip ever? Can't wait to find out!

Elsewhere:

• O'Reilly: Vienna Calling
• blogging.la: Dodger Stadium Getting a Facelift
• Grown Diaries: Pineapple

'A truly great man will neither trample on a worm nor sneak to an emperor.' - Benjamin Franklin

via MetaFilter:

In the last three years there had been about 13 similar coincidences - a political downturn for the administration, followed by a 'terror event' - a change in alert status, an arrest, a warning. We figured we'd better put that list of coincidences on the public record (.mov.)

Wild gorillas seen using tools for first time (Reuters) and Wild gorillas seen to use tools (BBC).

Two female gorillas have been photographed using sticks as tools to get through swampy areas, the first time the apes have been seen doing so in the wild, researchers reported on Thursday.

'This is a truly astounding discovery,' said Thomas Breuer of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who led the study....

One time I was visiting an ape exihibit at a primate center, in which you could get much closer to them then in a zoo setting. A female gorilla was sitting on the ground next to the outer bars, and as I stood nearby, watching, she took two sticks and began rubbing them together.

I expect she was trying to teach the poor hairless ape a thing or two. ;)

b.la: The Thurman Fire. Photos at my flickr page.

Sirens scream through town every so often, alternating with the heavy drones of fire-fighting planes overhead. There's another fire out in the I.E. which isn't on that CDF info page as yet -- it's near Angeles Oaks in the San Bernardino Mountains, and has forced the closure of Highway 38. And since 330 is also closed for road work at the moment, Highway 18 is the only way up or down from Big Bear on the San Bernardino side of the mountains....

Tom outs Michael Chiarello. The bastard. Chiarello, that is, not Tom.

Tom's a bastard for picking the coolest place to propose. ;D

New:

• O'Reilly: Re-revisiting emacs In which our hero turns back toward the feared emacs and re-evaluates his previous utterance.
• b.la: Fire season is definitely here

New articles:

b.la: Jihad in L.A.? Yeah, okay... - The CNN headline over the AP story proclaims: FBI: 'Jihad' prevented in Los Angeles....

b.la: Altogether a confused Friday - I was reading a Union-Tribune story on Greyhound ticket agents being told not to sell tickets to people they think might be illegal aliens (Bus company policy irks Latino groups) when this absolutely astounding picture appeared in the middle of the article....

O'Reilly: Again with the emacs - I am a text editor window shopper extraordinaire. With as much time as I spend either hacking config files or writing text, having a good editor in my toolbelt is a must. I'll download pretty much any new one that has any promise, just to give it a shot. Sometimes, against my better judgment.

CNN, the BBC, and the Wiesenthal Center website are all reporting that Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal has passed away.

Rest in peace, Simon -- thank you for all the important work you both did and inspired.