ION, the Mars Recon Orbiter has a really freakin cool camera, and it took pictures of Opportunity Rover, just as the rover got to a really big hole in the ground.

“I’m looking at the data,” said Ron Luce, who organized the meetings and founded Teen Mania, a 20-year-old youth ministry, “and we’ve become post-Christian America, like post-Christian Europe.

Thank God.

Heh. I was thinking more like "not fast enough".

The 2006 Ig Noble Prizes have been awarded. The actual Ig Noble site is currently slashdotted, though.

This year's winners were boingboinged today (for their groundbreaking research on curing hiccups with a finger up the butt), so I'm sure that's why. And last night, the BBC world service had a big hi-larious story on the Ig Nobels, featuring an interview with the gay mallard necrophilia guy. I think the Ig Nobels are just too much for the poor internet to handle....

I look like Sparky? Mucho excellento.

I missed this idea from Teppy, yesterday. So cool!

::wanders through thread singing tunelessly, "My doppleganger is the prettiest doppleganger ev-ah!"::

LaHood was being interviewed on the radio when I left work yesterday, and he was spouting that "get rid of the page program" drivel, but his contention was that, not only was it putting the children in the program at risk (as the interviewer said, "You mean to tell me that you don't trust any of the 534 remaining members of Congress around teenaged kids?!?"), but the entire concept of having the pages do busywork/courier service on the floor was outdated. He feels that shifting the pages into more of an intern setup, with them assigned to specific Congress members offices, would be more useful.

Apparently, he said some vaguely antigay comments before I began listening to the interview, people were calling in response to those when I tuned in, and he spent a lot of the remaining interview covering his ass (the usual "I didn't intend to say that, and if it came out sounding like that, I'm sorry" BS).

He feels that shifting the pages into more of an intern setup, with them assigned to specific Congress members offices, would be more useful.

That sounds about right.

You have to like that the Republicans are trying to blame the Democrats and, yes, Bill Clinton...

From CNN:

WOLF BLITZER: Some Republicans, including Hastert, are going on the offensive, saying Democrats and the news media are behind the spreading scandal. Let's bring in CNN's Mary Snow. She's in New York. She's watching this part of the story. Mary?

MARY SNOW: Well, Wolf, the House speaker is pointing fingers at Democrats over the scandal, suggesting the news was politically timed to coincide with November's elections. And those who are being blamed are now firing back. As pressure builds around House Speaker Dennis Hastert, the Republican leader is blaming political opponents for the widening scandal surrounding Mark Foley. He tells the Chicago Tribune, "The people who want to see this thing blow up are ABC News and a lot of Democratic operatives. People funded by George Soros." In the same interview, Hastert said political operatives aligned with former President Clinton are also behind the Foley story getting out. But at a press conference today, Hastert stuck to generalities.

DENNIS HASTERT: Our friends on the other side of the aisle really don't have a story to tell, and maybe they're resolving to -- another way to -- to another political tactic.

But at a press conference today, Hastert stuck to generalities.

Technically, it's more like sticking to inarticulateness.

Should we conclude that ABC News shouldn't have investigated the story if they were conservative Republicans?

He tells the Chicago Tribune, "The people who want to see this thing blow up are ABC News and a lot of Democratic operatives. People funded by George Soros." In the same interview, Hastert said political operatives aligned with former President Clinton are also behind the Foley story getting out. But at a press conference today, Hastert stuck to generalities.

Damn, somebody must have told him was a half-step away from blaming a "vast left-wing conspiracy".

Pat Buchanan was on some 24 hrs news network last night spouting off about how this is all the media's fault. I didn't listen to all of it, but basically he was arguing that if the media knew about this for a year they should have done something about this and because they didn't it's all their fault.