In the KC Star:

Amtrak announced Tuesday that buses would run from Kansas City to Galesburg, Ill., because of flooding on tracks owned by BNSF Railway. A train will run the rest of the route.

Has anyone considered where all that Iowa flood water is going to wind up?

Yep.

New Orleans.  Isn't that a cheery thought?  At least Louisiana now has a competent governor.

. . . like Linda Blair in the Exorcist . . .

I'm talking about the Congressional Democrats, when faced with Bush's proposal tomorrow to open up off-shore domestic oil drilling.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush will make an announcement on Wednesday about energy and call on Congress to pass legislation lifting a ban on offshore oil drilling, the White House said.
. . .
Republicans have called for ending a ban on offshore drilling that has been in place since 1981, but Democrats have repeatedly rebuffed such attempts, citing environmental concerns.

This should be fun to watch . . .

Two of my favorite drinks, of course.

Coffee drinkers have slightly lower death rates:

While accounting for other risk factors, such as body size, smoking, diet, and specific diseases, the researchers found that people who drank more coffee were less likely to die during the follow-up period. This was mainly because of lower risk for heart disease deaths among coffee drinkers.

And, red wine is good for you . . . again!

The new finding is consistent with the theory that the resveratrol in red wine explains the French paradox, the observation that French people eat a relatively high-fat diet but have a low death rate from heart disease.

"Resveratrol has anti-obesity properties by exerting its effects directly on the fat cells," Fischer-Posovszky said. "Thus, resveratrol might help to prevent development of obesity or might be suited to treating obesity."

A follow-up:

One of my new (and increasingly) favorites for blogs is of course Ace of Spades HQ.  They have the right attitude about a lot of things.  I'm re-thinking my overall position on the Associated Press' attempt to unilaterally re-write copyright law, based on this post from Ace himself:

AP Announces $2.50 Per Word Charge for Quoting its Stories; Blogger Suggests Counter-Offer

That's AP's plan, apparently, based on its decision that it is, unlike any other publisher, exempt from the "fair use" doctrine of copyright.

Here's my counter-offer:

I will limit the the words actually quoted from AP stories, limiting myself to paraphrase and direct quotes of relevant officials. (AP can't copyright someone else's words -- at best, they can pitch an unfair trade practices beef, but that's a harder case to make.)

Furthermore, I will no longer provide any links to any AP stories anywhere, and in fact may not even bother to mention the story comes from AP. I will cite instead a "news organization."

If AP wants a link, it can begin paying me $25.00 per link. I charge for advertising.

There's my counter-offer. It's not negotiable.

The AP's scheme resembles its previous "price schedule" for quoting its stories, which included this cute little nugget:

The AP claims that it can revoke the license at any time if it feels you're saying something negative about the Associated Press: "Publisher reserves the right to terminate this Agreement at any time if Publisher or its agents finds Your use of the licensed Content to be offensive and/or damaging to Publisher’s reputation."

The AP picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue if it thinks it can charge people or outright forbid them from critiquing their coverage.

Perhaps politicians should copyright their words and begin charging AP to quote them, and perhaps politicians can and should revoke the license if they find people are unduly criticizing them.

Posted by: Ace at 05:38 PM

Yes, I'm definitely re-thinking my policy.  I wonder how much Ace is going to charge me to copy in full his post--and what's more, to copy his policy regarding the news organization in question.

Methinks the news organization has bitten off way more than it will be able to chew, here.

Space.com attempts to explain why the rising (or setting) full moon seems so much bigger than when it's up high in the sky:

The moon illusion, as it's known, is a trick in our minds that makes the moon seem bigger when it's near the horizon. The effect is most pronounced at full moon. Many people swear it's real, suggesting that perhaps Earth's atmosphere magnifies the moon.

It's going to happen tomorrow, Wednesday, June 18th.

This has to make Barack "Surrender Now!" Obama happy, right?
President Bush announces withdrawal of 30,000 from Iraq

PRESIDENT BUSH: We're withdrawing troops. We anticipate the 30,000 surge troops will be coming home by July -- more or less, 30,000. And so the plan is, bring them home based upon success. That's what we expect the British Prime Minister to do. That's what I'm doing -- that as the Iraqis are trained up, as they're taking more responsibility, as the security situations decline, as the economy is improved, as political reconciliation is taking place, we can bring more troops home. That's the whole purpose of the strategy. And so, give the Iraqis more responsibility. Let them take more -- be in more charge of their own security and their own government, and that's what's happening.

Hat tip:  Gateway Pundit and Ace of Spades HQ

Yahoo News:  Study:  Chimps calm each other with hugs, kisses

For most folks, a nice hug and some sympathy can help a bit after we get pushed around. Turns out, chimpanzees use hugs and kisses the same way. And it works. Researchers studying people's closest genetic relatives found that stress was reduced in chimps that were victims of aggression if a third chimp stepped in to offer consolation.

Bonus points!  It's an AP story.  You perhaps had not heard that the AP wanted to unilaterally repeal the Fair Use section of copyright law, saying "you can't quote us!  At all!"

Now that's monkey-thinking.

So, therefore, I quote them.  Come and get me, AP.  When it's over, me and my lawyers will own your ass.  Perhaps it would help if you hugged someone right now.

Sometimes, simian-blogging is its own reward.

Notice:  The AP quote above was used for criticism and commentary, allowed under U.S.C. Title 117.  Oh, for bonus points, I'm using it for purposes of satire and ridicule, and do not expect to reap any commercial benefits at all.  Therefore, it is a permitted and legal use of copyrighted material and any "takedown" request would violate the DMCA, and I would aggressively pursue all legal recourse for any such false request.  Deal with it, AP.

From Waterstone's:

That attitude - of homage and parody - lasted for two books, and then the parodies became novels. Starting with Equal Rites, the story of the first female wizard, Terry was writing actual Discworld novels. Over the next few years (with occasional lapses back into madcap romp) he became our foremost comic novelist and then a genuine satirist, willing to tackle real issues - war and prejudice and what it means to be human. The stories, meanwhile, were all set on the Discworld: a flat earth on the backs of four elephants, themselves riding on the back of an enormous turtle.

A quarter of a century after his first book was released, Terry has become a much-loved and bestselling author of fantasy fiction for adults. He wrote a book with me (called Good Omens, a funny novel about the end of the world and how we're all going to die), won the Carnegie medal for his children's book, The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, and has been awarded an OBE. He has also been chairman of the Society of Authors and has a box-load of honorary doctorates. Yet when we spoke last week, he seemed proudest of a most unlikely award.

In case you thought that those feel-good ads from Al Gore's of people sitting on the couch "coming together" on climate change were in any way sincere:

Gore appears with Obama

Former Vice President Al appeared in Detroit tonight for his debut campaign appearance with Senator Barack Obama, extending an endorsement and urging all Democrats to rally behind the party’s fall ticket.

"Climate Change" is a partisan issue, and it is the Al Gores of the world who made it so.  Like everything else, it is about power--power to dictate how other people run their lives.  Al Gore wants it, and he thinks Obama is the best way to get it.

Kansas City local radio talk host (and sometime national talk show fill-in) Chris Stigall refers to the Kansas City Star as the "Falling Star."

How apt:

Barely a year after Sacramento, California-based McClatchy paid $4.6 billion for Knight-Ridder Inc. and sold the parts it didn't want, the publisher of the Sacramento Bee and Kansas City Star now has a stock price that's 31 percent lower than it was the day the acquisition closed. While the market has rendered an early verdict on the Knight-Ridder deal, McClatchy's financial statements don't reflect it.

Perhaps if they didn't go out of their way to editorialize in their "news" articles, they might not be falling quite so fast.  There is a place for muckracking.  Perhaps that place is in news stories, but not until the "profession" of journalism owns up to their biases and drop the sham of "objectivity" that fewer and fewer people take seriously any more. 

(Oh, yeah, Stigall is a particularly good radio talk host, by the way.  One caller, a liberal, once grudgingly said that he liked to listen to Stigall because he "enunciates well.")