News hour with Ian

[ilai]

I opened up the Metro today and found the following gems:

• Oh My God page 4 is the Denis Leary Fan Club page. It's got a giant photo of Denis Leary and the boat he's donating to the Boston Fire Department, two articles and a brief about his philanthropic efforts, and two quotes. One of the Denis Leary quotes isn't even relevant to anything else on the page:

  Yeah, watching [Sergei] Samsonov play for the Stanley Cup Finals. Yeah, that had no affect [sic] on me whatsoever. And yeah, watching Joe [Thornton] get the MVP Award. Yeah, that was a brilliant trade.

  doma suggested that it might be some summer intern's last day.

• Sixty or so puppies in a tractor-trailer died when the truck went up in flames on I-495. I am sad.

• A nonprofit called "The Gentle Wind Project" is being dissolved for false advertising. They apparently touted "devices ranging from small laminated cards to hockey puck-like disks" that can "help repair a person's energetic structure, thereby improving one's emotional, mental and physical functioning."

• Yup, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited the Yasukuni shrine again yesterday. What is this, like a yearly occurrence? Expect student riots in China.

• The solar system is expanding! ... as a result of the International Astronomical Union revising their definition of "planet". One of the new planets might be called "Xena" and its moon "Gabrielle".

Comments

[ploamphed.livejournal.com]

oh those poor puppies. This hasn't been a good week for animals transported on trucks. These penguins (http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060808/LOCAL/60808034) also had it rough.

[ilai]

D'oh! I feel sorry for the poor animals. Maybe we can fly them... oh wait....

[ploamphed.livejournal.com]

And I absolutely hate it when the press jump the gun. The freaking IAU vote is not until August 22nd, right now there are only several competing proposals (though most of them admit Pluto as a planet). The news outlets keep speaking of it as a fait accompli

[ploamphed.livejournal.com]

Ha! I have so much to say!

The Chinese students tend to make a mountain out of an ant hill. Massey University (of NZ) has a magazine called Chaff. They recently put out a photoshopped image of Mao Ze Dong in drag and a perl necklace, titled "Chairman Mee-ow". The responses: (in chinese) http://news.chinatimes.com/Chinatimes/newslist/newslist-content/0,3546,110505+112006081600088,00.html http://www.ettoday.com/2006/08/16/162-1978921.htm

[ilai]

Oh dear I can't stop laughing, I assume you saw the image :-)

Whenever stuff like this happens I always assume somewhere back there's the CCP fanning the flames. Maybe that's not the case, but why get so riled up?

[rusalka.livejournal.com]

Pluto is not a planet, dammit! It's a Kuyper Belt Object! They've even found bigger KBOs farther out! Argh!

[nuclearpolymer.livejournal.com]

would you believe they have a Swedish Metro, too? I can't believe it's an international racket.

[ilai]

Actually I think Metro International started out in Sweden... and now they're threatening to take over the world!