The Blog That Goes Ping

I read today in the headlines that there was a shooting at a church in Tennessee. I thought something like this, though not in these exact words: “That’s weird, in the South, churches are usually in the business of inciting violent hatred; they’re not usually the target of it.”

When I actually read the news story about it though, my prejudiced thought seemed to be vindicated: this was far from a stereotypical southern Evangelical church: it was a progressive, liberal, ACLU-supporting, Unitarian Universalist church. Very much a target for crazy gun-toting hateful people in America.

UPDATE:

Yahoo News: Man Shot Churchgoers Over Liberal Views

On the flipside, Topher noted in the comments that when you hear “violence in a church in the South” the first thing you might logically think of is church burnings, which have been linked to race, robbery, and just general malice.

UPDATE: As Mike pointed out in the comments, Syd’s death happened 2 years ago.  I ran across a link to it somewhere today — I don’t remember where — and thought, “Huh, I thought I’d heard he’d died before… maybe that was just when he got really sick with the the diabetes that killed him.”  However, that didn’t cause me to look at the dateline of the article and realize this WAS old news.  Oh well.  I cannot brain today, I have the dumb.

Despite it being old news, here are some of my favorite songs from Syd-Barrett-era Floyd, one from his solo album Opel, and one more tasty piece of pastry.

Syd Barrett died at only 60, of diabetes.

Some syd….

Bike

Gnome

Lucifer Sam

Dark Globe

And now for something completely different… Inspired by all those psychedelic tunes with videos of guys wearing fluffy white cravats…

UPDATE: it’s complete BS. Thanks Eric A and Phil O on the climate science and Tom S on the sunspots.

Sunspots have an 11 year cycle. In March 2007 they were supposed to hit a low and start rebounding. Instead they disappeared completely.

In the late 17th century, there was a 50-year “little ice age” which coincided with a period of no sunspots.

Guess what! Global temperature dropped 0.7C in 2007, reversing 78 years of temperature increase in one year!

Warning: Science often undergoes wild permutations and distortions between its production and its appearance in the news media. God only knows if there’s anything to this whatsoever.

Sun Goes Longer than Normal Without Producing Sunspots

Prepare for New Ice Age, Says Scientist

I’ve had very few kind thoughts towards Tim Russert this election season, but this is a tragic death at a young age, for anybody.

Tim Russert, NBC journalist and political heavyweight host of “Meet the Press,” has died after collapsing at NBC’s Washington news bureau, a source said. He was 58 years old.

[From TIM RUSSERT DIES FROM APPARENT HEART ATTACK - New York Post]

That’s what I’m talkin’ bout.

It’s been less than two days since he crossed the delegate threshold to become the Democratic presidential nominee and Sen. Barack Obama’s mark on the party is already being felt.

On Good Morning America Thursday, ABC News’ Chief Washington Correspondent George Stephanopoulos reported “the Democratic National Committee will no longer accept contributions from federal lobbyists, will no longer take contributions from PACs” in keeping with Obama’s well-publicized policy.

[From Obama's In Control: No More Lobbyist Contributions To Democratic Party - Politics on The Huffington Post]

I don’t actually think that policy is very well-publicized. I hope it gets more so.