Fundamentally Misunderstanding the world:

Headline:  Why are dolphins dying in Gulf?
 
um.  two words: oil. spill.  Look it up, i'm pretty sure there was a pretty big one in and around the gulf area.  The point of asking a question in a headline is to get readers to ponder what the possible answer to that question might be.  While i admit that there may be many ways the oil has affected the dolphins in the gulf, they all seem to stem from that pesky crude oil, no? 

Headline: For astronauts in space, no time for the Oscars

Do you think that those astronauts got to space by never missing any of their favorite movies?  How much free time do you think that actual astronauts have for watching movies.  Enough to watch them, invest in the actors who play their favorite characters, compare them to performances from other actors in other movies this year, and figure out which ones were the best.  All this year, by the way, you know, the year leading up to being shot INTO F'N SPACE.  And now they are in space.  Is it really worth writing a story about how the few humans who are doing what is unbelievably unthinkable to us aren't spending their hours watching self-indulgent awards shows.  Turns out, as the mission's lead flight director notes, he wasn't aware that the astronauts even requested to watch the show.  So, wouldn't it be more of a story if the astronauts were watching awards shows in space:  Astronauts stop transferring space cargo in order to bitchily critique starlets dresses and bodies.   Sample:  "Ugh, even in zero gravity she'd look dumpy in that dress."  

I would argue that the astronaut who obsesses over Hollywood is probably not fully engaging their own profession.  And this just speaks to how screwed up American values have become.  It used to be that astronauts were the people to be looked up to (pun), well above and beyond actors.  The headline would read, "Nominees for best actor to watch spacewalk from NASA."  Now we are more concerned if our peeps in space are looking down (waaaaay down) on Hollywood, as if the singing and dancing of Franco and Hathaway (don't get me wrong, i like both of em), is grander or more compelling than whipping around in space miles about the earth.  Maybe this is due to us not going into "deep space" at the moment, but somehow i doubt it.

(As a end note to this article, it's funny to me that the article takes pains to note that all the astronauts up there have seen "The Social Network."  I think this point was made to legitimize writing the article in the first place, but the fact that they were beamed the movie about how one of the biggest time-sucks in human history was invented does seem to have hints of irony.)

And now, here are some things i've learned, 2 months into dog ownership.

1.  There are such things as "free poops." These are poops the dog take "off-road" aka.  somewhere that doesn't require us bagging and carrying it away.

2.  Dog love tempur-pedic too. 

3.  Most recently (last night) i learned that dogs can have horrible gas.  And that doesn't mean, "oh, how cute, the pups got the farts."  it means he's got a WMD under that tail and you better be by the front end.  

I wonder what i'll learn today.