Waiter, there's a mayfly in my beer cheese soup.

Reported on boingboing today:

In Wisconsin, the mayflies are so thick that they are actually showing up on local weather radar as a rainstorm.

Oh, THAT'S brilliant.

Hey everybody, Tennessee Senator Bill Frist (R, natch) is offering you a "bold package that will give consumers some relief"! (His words, not mine.) Move over Bob Dole, there's a new man in town.

Hot on the heels of Bush's equally brilliant announcement that he would like to waive Clean Air provisions with regard to gasoline fuel additives in an effort to reduce soaring gas prices, Senate Republicans come up with this doozy-- $100 rebate checks for everyone! That'll buy a tank of gas for my new Excursion! Oh, and while we're at it, we'll start drilling in ANWR! Wait, look over here-- don't pay any attention to the men behind the remarkably American flag-like curtain who voted for over $2 BILLION in tax breaks for oil companies just last year-- which the oil executives now say they don't need.

Meanwhile, oil companies post record profits, as do manufacturers of pharmaceuticals that promise "bold packages that will give . . . relief." Whoa!

We're Number One!!!

It was revealed this past Monday (4/17) that the United States produced more greenhouse gases in 2004 than at any time in history. How much of an increase is that? +110 million tons of CO2-- now that's impressive! But not as impressive as the total output of 6,300 million tons. What percentage of the world's total do we emit? Oh, about a quarter. 25%-- burn, baby, burn! Disco inferno!

Meanwhile, everyone's asking, "Will Tom Cruise's new baby girl grow up to be as creepy as her dad?"

Wet Lands : Wetlands :: Rhetoric : Politics

Add this to the steadily accumulating pile of concrete evidence that the Bush Administration consists almost entirely of scholars of Doublespeak.

Outgoing Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton has proudly announced -- without a hint of irony -- that there has been a massive gain in US wetlands between 1998 and 2004. At first glance, that's excellent news. Unfortunately, most will stop at the first glance. A deeper look will reveal that this report depends entirely on rhetoric and semantics-- specifically, how does one define a wetland?

Does a watertrap on a golf course constitute a wetland?
Do retention ponds that collect runoff from parking lots constitute wetlands?
Do shallow, man-made ponds constitute wetlands?
Does a mine reclamation pond constitute a wetland?

In short, does the mere presence of a certain depth of water a wetland make?

According to the Bush Administration, it does. Go forth and be astonished:

• Gristmill Blog
  
• St. Petersburg Times
  
• New York Times (if you have a NY Times account)
  

The only thing that's wet here is the logic.

Four-eyed trouser snake?

"We expect the sale of We to be on the same level of demand as a priceless art object," he said.

Read more about the two-headed, one-stomached albino rat snake here.