Random
1. The power of the Big Story. Mount St. Helens is showing a plume of steam today. Though old Helen has been puffing and snorting rather regularly in recent years, the scientists on site say this isn't even a steam puff, let alone an eruption. It's just a fog cloud caused by cold water vapor hitting the hot surface. Fox News is breathlessly watching the cloud, waiting for the eruption.

Fox never paid attention to old Helen before, but this week's BIG STORY is those (now presumably dead) idiot climbers on Mt. Hood. Mt. Hood is a Mountain. Mt. Saint Helens is a Mountain, so it must be part of the same BIG STORY. This level of logical thinking is typical of cats; most dogs and nearly all humans can do a better job of separating facts.

2. Another piece of atrocious logic, this one doing real damage. Comrade Paula Zahn at CNN has decided to destroy the town of Vidor, Texas because it had a reputation of being unfriendly to black folks back in the old days of segregation. What does this have to do with current events? Here's the connection. The Kramer asshole brought racism back into the news, so CNN needs to destroy Vidor, Texas. Is the Kramer asshole a Texan? No. The Kramer asshole is pure 100% New Yorker, like Comrade Zahn. Has the Kramer asshole ever been to Texas? I'll bet he hasn't. So it's all perfectly logical. What's that you say? The Kramer asshole's eruption says more about the racism of modern New Yorkers than about the racism of an earlier generation of Texans? Huh? What a silly idea. Everyone knows that the Kramer asshole's eruption logically requires the destruction of Vidor, Texas. Case closed.

3. Meanwhile, thousands of people are still without electricity in Washington and Oregon. Six have now died from carbon monoxide, and many older folks are on the edge of survival.

Story? Nope, no story here.
  ¶ 3:00 PM