RelentlesslyOptimistic

Another gorgeous photo from the5thdentist

Too busy to keep up with news and feeds, but did look at my photoblog subscriptions. From the5thdentist

Gives "Kicking back and relaxing" a whole new meaning

Adult kickball popularity is soaring

Mirroring a nationwide rise in interest, Onondaga County formed a kickball league last summer with eight teams. The league proved so popular that the county formed a fall league, added a second night and expanded to 13 teams. This summer, the league swelled to 24 teams - and county parks officials had to turn away another dozen teams because there weren't enough fields.

To learn more: The World Adult Kickball Association - not just the US - (though I'm not sure they considered their acronym carefully enough). You know it's big when there's Betty Boop merchandise available!

Even I tried to join a league, but I just couldn't make myself drive way down south to play. I am going to see if there's a midtown league, though. Thanks RC for the tip!

My Dog is Tom Cruise: "I need to get up on my hind legs and holler, you know!"

"I have to tell you, things are good. I am . . . I am . . . Whooo! . . . I am very good. I just returned from a walk and . . . ha! Things. Are. Good. I’ve got a bowl of hard kibble with some soft stuff mixed in. My name’s on the bowl! I am passionate about this lamb-and-rice recipe. What’s been going on? haha! I’m so in love with this bitch! hahaha! I can’t . . . I’m so . . . I can’t restrain myself. hahahahahaha!"

"...Look at my tail! I’m panting 24/7"

Read the rest at The New Yorker. Via Joe. Photo from damnfunnypictures.

Dogblogging Friday: this dog knows how to have fun

Rurality's, dog Jasmine, clearly enjoying life (and Mountain Dew)!

Pungnacious reporters' ghosts live in Queens press room

If the Queens Courthouse Press room was a person, it'd be an old guy with a big nose reddened by lunchtime shots of whiskey from the bottle kept in the back of the top drawer of the grey metal desk. He'd have big hands that could type quickly with two fingers on an old manual typewriter, and you'd know that he kept a reporter's long notebook with beat up cardboard covers in his back pocket next to his handkerchief. Or so I see it after reading the New York Times' Corey Kilgannon's wonderful character sketch Where Scoops Go to Die.

"In the Queens courthouse press room, there are two large metal file cabinets with three old typewriters on top, each supporting an old telephone. The tools of the trade are stacked like headstones, as if to memorialize a bygone era of newspapering."
[...]
"The scene is like a David Mamet rewrite of "The Front Page," with the reporters badgering, spying and tailing one another throughout the building in a battle for exclusives."

The blog link tool doesn't work on this article, so I've included the entire article in the extended post.

King of Comedy

Another post lifted whole because it's too good to excerpt, from Whiskey Bar: King of Comedy

"Well, White House officials say it's ridiculous to think the president would rush a decision to do that, because however the Karl Rove case turns out, whether it damages the president long term or not, this is something that will be very influential in this president's short-term political standing over the next few months, and then his political legacy over the next quarter century or more . . . the idea that they said, 'Oh my God, we're in trouble because of Karl Rover; we need to rush this' -- I think that's a bit of a stretch."
John King, CNN, July 20, 2005

"Bush accelerated his search for a Supreme Court nominee in part because of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's name, according to Republicans familiar with administration strategy.
Bush originally had planned to announce a replacement for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on July 26 or 27, just before his planned July 28 departure for a month-long vacation at his Crawford, Texas, ranch, said two administration officials, who spoke on the condition they not be named.
The officials said those plans changed because Rove has become a focus of Fitzgerald's interest and of news accounts about the matter."
Bloomberg News, Supreme Court Pick Shifts Attention  From Rove, Agent Disclosure, July 20, 2005
(Props to atrios and Kos, respectively)

More technological wonders from Google: New, Improved Google Maps!

To commemorate the 36th anniversary of the first moon landing, Google Maps is milking their success with Google Moon. You can't get directions, but you can zoom in to see surprising details. Center one of the landing spots and then select the highest zoom level. You'll be amazed! Word on the street is that Mars and Venus are next. Via Fazed.

Faith over fear: James Stockdale dies at 81

Robert Patterson's blog alerted me to this: James Stockdale Dies at 81. Stockdale was perhaps best known for introducing himself as Ross Perot's running mate in the 1992 race's Vice Presidential debates by saying: ""Who am I? Why am I here?" The result was undeserved ridicule.

He is better remembered for his time as a prisoner of war for eight years during the Vietnam War. Jim Collins' "Good To Great" Introduces the Stockdale Paradox:

"You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never  afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

I tend to follow Ghandi's path more than Stockdale's, but Ghandi's statement that "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony," is one with which I think Stockdale would agree, and I'd bet that he lived by that description.

I think that maintaining faith is often a matter of living with fear without yeilding to it, which is why Stockdale is deservedly considered a hero. Faith is the key to optimism: faith in yourself, faith in the essential good of other people, faith in your community, faith in a purpose. He recieved the Congressional Medal of Honor because for the eight years he was held captive he helped other prisoners to confront reality, live with fear and torture, and still keep faith that they would eventually return home.

"Look at all these bananas!" Rwandan Prison Turns Sewage To Biogas

If you want inspiration and hope, read about the projects receiving Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy. In Rwanda, a prison of 10,000 inmates awaiting trial on the genocide campaign that occured there can produce over 13,000 gallons of sewage per day, and use vast amounts of energy. The Kigali Institute of Science, Technology and Management (KIST) designed biogas plants that convert the sewage to fuel and produce safe and useful fetilizer, which are now in use in about half of the 30 prisons in Rwanda. From the Ashden Awards:

Travel west from the Rwandan capital, across the peaceful patchwork of this tiny country's hills and valleys, and you'll see little sign of the horrendous genocide which ripped this land apart a mere decade ago.

One exception is the large, fortress-like brick buildings rising here and there from the hilltops, many of them newly-built: they're prisons, home to the 120,000 genocide suspects currently awaiting trial.

Wired News reported that "Once the methane is produced, the remaining waste is used as an odor-free fertilizer for the gardens at the prison...while [the] waste smells bad initially, the biogas that is produced has no foul odor." As the Warden of a prison in Cyangugu said: "Look at all these bananas! This fertiliser really is the best!"

Check out the Ashden Trust's Awards site to see some other amazing projects, and KIST for more on other Rwandan projects.

Roll-mop herring and smoked elk sausage, some assembly required

FoodProductionDaily.com reports on a scoop from the UK's Grocer magazine that Ikea will soon add its own brand of specialty groceries to their product line, including the two mentioned in the title. Brand Experience Lab poses the question: "Will you have to put the food together yourself?"

Ikea also plan to use as many organic indgredients in its grocery line as possible, including "organic coffee, strawberry/ orange jam and blue cheese."

Norway resident Oslo Foodie loves Ikea's Blueberry tarts and finds the elderberry flower concentrate "quite wicked mixed with some sparkling water." [O.F. is photo source]

Via PSFK

Maybe they could rename the Panda "Gray Davis?"

Settlement Is Reached With Enron - New York Times.

"More than four years after rolling blackouts and skyrocketing electricity bills shook California and the rest of the West Coast, the Enron Corporation finally settled claims that it played a major role in the energy crisis of 2000 and 2001."

"Enron...announced yesterday that it had reached an agreement to pay as much as $1.52 billion to the State of California" but under their bankruptcy plan will pay "about 20 cents on the dollar on average, said Jennifer Lowney, a spokeswoman for Enron."

Gray Davis, of course, was the California governor at the time, and lost a recall election at least in part because of residents' anger over his handling of the energy crisis.

Panda pic from Majikthise. Gray Davis reference from Balloon Juice.

What we can expect to hear from the Republicans this week

For those of you following the "Karl Rove espionage for political gain" story at home, The Raw Story has obtained a copy of the Republican National Committee's talking points. It's so nice to see them on the defensive for once, instead of always being so offensive.