Mark's Views, Perhaps — from behind my eyeballs
Long deadlines and extra deadlines are considered a standoff?
I’d call it appeasement, but what do I know?
EU gives Iran two more weeks in atomic standoff
| The European Union agreed on Saturday to try to clarify Iran’s nuclear stance within two weeks and Iran told visiting U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan it wanted fresh negotiations on the issue. |
History insists on repeating itself.
| European champions Greece have proved that the US National Basketball Association players still have some work to do before they can claim they are the best in the world. |
Not that I particularly care. I just haven’t posted something here in a while. 🙂
| Little Pluto, formerly the solar system’s smallest planet, has been stripped of its status by the International Astronomical Union, reducing the number of planets to eight.
The new guidelines — introduced in Prague on Thursday after a week of debate by the 2,500 astronomers at the organization’s conference — define what is a planet and what is not. Pluto didn’t make the cut. Pluto has been considered a planet since its discovery in 1930. Pluto is now considered a “dwarf planet,” and the eight others — Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — are now called “classical planets.” Among other implications, Thursday’s new definition means students will have to find a new way of remembering how the planets are arranged in order from the sun. The old mnemonic device of “Mark’s Very Extravagant Mother Just Sent Us Ninety Parakeets” helped them recall that the order was Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. |
As a former teacher, I offer this alternative:
Mark’s Very Extravagant Mother Just Sent Us Ninety (dwarf) Parakeets
That way students will only have to drop dwarf when the definition changes again.
Plus it reminds them of the good old days.
Plus it drives home the point that Pluto is still classed as a planet, albeit a dwarf.
You’re welcome.
As I’ve kept tabs on the post-presidential-election uncertainties in Mexico, I’ve wondered if the loser would have demanded recounts and staged protests if he would have been on the other side of the super-close margin.
My conclusion has been, “Of course not.”
This morning I see this developing story:
| Mexico’s main leftist party was ahead by a hair on Monday in a governor’s election in the largely Maya Indian state of Chiapas, adding to tension over a fiercely contested July 2 presidential vote.
Juan Sabines of the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, had 48.43 percent of the vote with votes in from 93 percent of polling stations, a lead of just 0.29 percentage points over his main rival, according to state electoral authorities. A hefty 5 percent of ballot box returns had irregularities, meaning the final result will likely be challenged. Chiapas has a long history of political violence and is home to Zapatista rebels who took up arms in 1994. The PRD’s presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, cried fraud after narrowly losing the July 2 election and has led weeks of protests that have raised tension in the country and brought chaos to the center of Mexico City. |
What a super-super-skinny lead for Lopez Obrador’s man!
The tables have been reversed!
Good deal. Now Mr. Obrador can get double mileage from his rants, lawsuits, and protests. He can carry on about his narrow loss in the presidential election and he can carry on about his man’s narrow win in the gubernatorial election.
Yeah. Sure.
Oh the humanity!
Seattle port terminal evacuated
| A terminal at the Port of Seattle was evacuated on Wednesday and a bomb squad was investigating a ship container that alarmed bomb-sniffing dogs, a port spokesman said.
The container first raised suspicion when a screening using gamma ray technology about the contents’ density did not match the items listed on the ships’ manifest. Coast Guard Petty Officer Tara Molle said the ship’s inventory list indicated the container held oily rags. The Coast Guard did not know where the ship originated. |
A ship in port and the Coast Guard doesn’t know where it came from?
Maybe our ocean borders are even more porous than our land frontiers.
You could say (I suppose) that he should have avoided PA: Some More Chevy Reliability
| I inspected the bill and discovered that they charged me $45.81 for the chevy serpentine belt!
Good lands! Astounded, I looked it up on NAPA’s website and found the price there to be a mere $18.99! So I’m less than thrilled about that. |
Sorry, Tom. Maybe when the NAPA chief reads my post, he’ll see to it that you have a lifetime supply of belts.
…how many folks will see matters this way?
What difference will it make?
I expect the snoring to continue.
| THUS, BY supplying weapons to Hizbullah, Syria and Iran have inadvertently provided concrete evidence for all the world to see of just how dangerous the combination of “outlaw regimes” and their “terrorist allies” can be.
In this respect, Israel is fortunate that the conflict erupted when it did, because had it occurred in another five or ten years, who knows what types of horrific weapons might then have been found in Hizbullah’s arsenal. And so, by inciting the start of hostilities last month in an effort to divert the world’s attention from their nuclear program, Iran may actually end up achieving precisely the opposite. Through their actions, Iran has just made the case, better than the most eloquent of Washington press spokesmen ever could, as to why they pose a grave and immediate threat to the entire free world with their obstinate pursuit of nuclear weapons. And it is this very same argument, which the Iranians have just unwittingly bolstered, that Bush may one day soon choose to make in justifying the need for possible military action against Iran to stop their drive toward nuclear weapons. |