Be sure and check out Carnival of the Cats #130.  A litany of links will give you all the feline fun you can stand.

This could have been disastrous.  “Three astronauts cleaned up a toxic spill onboard the International Space Station on Monday morning. The cleanup appears to have contained the problem and NASA believes the crew is safe.”  The chemical was potassium hydroxide and is dangerous when inhaled (causing “a burning sensation, cough, sore throat and shortness of breath”).  But it wasn’t just the spill that caused concern.  “[A] rubber gasket on the generator overheated, producing … smoke and odour.”  You can imagine what a fire aboard the ISS could mean for those folks, not to mention for the entire structure.

Can ABC be any more ignorant?  It’s an article about crop circles.  Unfortunately, it’s an awful presentation.  Get this: “From crop circle designers and top-level researchers to the baffled farmers who usually find them, nobody really knows the origin of crop circles.”  Um, if those who design crop circles are not sure where the circles come from…  Well, let’s just say that’s one of the most ignorant sentences I’ve ever read.  But wait!  There’s more, and it’s separated from that line by only four sentences: “Lundberg has been building crop circles for more than a decade in southern England. Trained in fine art, he says he began building circles as an extension of his artwork.”  So, uh, what’s up with not knowing the origin of crop circles?  And what editor let that article get posted without realizing its inherent contradictions — not to mention how utterly stupid it is.  Have these people never seen any of the myriad of television programs showing precisely how they’re built?  And who builds them?  Did they not ask the crop circle designers with whom they were already speaking?  Ugh.  To ensure the insult was complete, the end the article with this: “‘If you’re looking for an angle to sell, the mystery is still out there.'”.  ABC is a lost cause.

You simply must go read this article regarding the Diebold electronic voting machines.  It’s frightening.  People able to vote more than once, others not able to vote at all, system crashes, the company’s apparent disinterest in fixing the issues or even admitting they exist, security procedures that put control of who votes (or who votes more than once) and who doesn’t vote in the hands of local partisan election judges, the ease with which the machines can be hacked (including the recent announcement of a virus designed to infect and spread through the entire Diebold voting network), and the list goes on.  The article links to a study report from the latest primary vote (last Tuesday) in Maryland.  Again, Diebold claims the report is inaccurate and based on old software, but you’ll be disturbed to find it is the result of monitoring elections less than a week ago where Diebold was “showing off” their latest and greatest — essentially using Maryland’s democracy as its own guinea pig.  This is more than troubling.

We can only hope Popeye understands the problem.  The FDA now says don’t eat ANY fresh spinach.  It was last week a concern only with bagged spinach.  You must remember this even when eating at a restaurant.  When in doubt, avoid spinach altogether.  Since I happen to luuuurve spinach, let’s hope this issue is identified and remedied in short order.