Happy anniversary, chere!

It's a special kind of face that looks like Magic Johnson, Manuel Noriega and Claudia Schiffer (67%). Must be all the right parts in the right places.

I do have an 83% match with Beyonce Knowles, and I'll take that anyday.

(Thanks, Jordana. Click anywhere on the panel to do your own.)

Radley Balko says that the mild growl against the Time headline (see below) is so much PC.

Let's try another major headline: "External auditors review La Raza finances: Spic and span."

UPDATE: Mr. Balko responds this way. Which is none.

Peg Britton emailed me yesterday evening to tell me she'd just seen Parrots in the Land of Oz on PBS.

So I checked the local Louisiana Public Broadcasting schedule. I woke at 2 a.m. this morning to catch the show. It will air again at 2 a.m. on February 3.

There was a segment on the Australian Eclectus, which is Lucy's close cousin. The show focused on one pair they'd been watching for some time. The female has seven of those handsome green boys servicing her, both sexually and bringing food to the nest during confinement. However, 19 of 24 chicks they've observed were offspring of the same mate.

What she might not know is that he attends four other females, too. Which might explain why he roams a territory of 40 square miles searching for food.

It would seem that Lucy's, ah, sexual proclivities are in order.

There were segments on budgerigars, galahs (finally heard that pronunciation), a few cockatoos (destructive to farm crops), cockatiels, some parrots who survive on the southern coast. The Palm cockatoo rated a long segment because it is the oldest parrot in Australia and uses a tool -- the male uses a stick to beat on the nest. Apparently the female can tell by the sound whether a nest might be worth looking into. Then he sometimes shreds the stick into the nest for nesting materials.

The show was worth an hour in the middle of the night. You might prefer to use a recorder. Thanks, Peg.

Likely true. Can't you hear the snickers in the background?

UPDATE: One of the problems with the headline was the ambiguity of "Obama's Rout." That could mean the rout by Obama or the rout of Obama.

I won't accept that the rarely used "rejiggers" was innocent. It cleverly combines the pejoratives "jig" and "nigger" to describe the result of a racially charged contest in which African-Americans played a large role.

As Mr. Van der Leun suggests, one of the editors was probably feeling his or her oats on Saturday evening. Or do the editors of Time not keep up with the news?

How funny!

Tony Woodlief would be proud of that boy.

Some months back, my brother's doctor revised his diagnosis from histoplasmosis to sarcoidosis. Not before he'd spent $1200 on antifungal medication.

My brother landed in the hospital again this weekend suffering from dehydration and anemia, after several days of fevers and sweats.

Another round now of CT scans and bone marrow tests, with the addition of a GI scope for ulcers -- caused, if they exist, by the prednisone used to treat the sarcoidosis.

Poor guy. He has never been ill before. Prior to all this he'd spent an overnight in the hospital with a broken arm when he was 12 years old. And he is a lousy patient. Big baby.

Gary Farber is upset that more people haven't linked to his posts on Andrew Olmsted.

I was told early by a neighbor to stay out of it. Not regarding Mr. Olmsted, but another mother's son and sister's brother who was at risk.

I need to tame this aloe -- to break it up into separate plants in separate pots. I don't know how to do that properly.

Today, I think I'll try this soup.

UPDATE: Ummm, that's good. Thanks, Chris.

I made a few changes. Since I don't have a slow cooker, I browned the sausage, onions and celery together, added everything else up to the beans, carrots and pasta, then simmered the soup for an hour or so.

Then I added a couple of cups of frozen baby limas beans rather than canned kidneys. After 10 minutes or so, I added the carrots and simmered until done. Then added the precooked pasta.

Lyman wants more carrots, as do I. But it's a keeper, too.

The ongoing search for a good fish taco recipe led to a trial of the recipes here.

Though they were nothing like the catfish tacos at Mainstream Fish House in Dallas, they were crunchy and tasty.

The coleslaw would be interesting as a side with other foods, too. We'll use the tartar sauce for salmon croquettes tomorrow.

Into the "keeper" file with these.

Let's go visit Mike the Tiger.

Hunh. Look at that.

But where is Mike? There he is, silly cat.

Good on Mr. Kucinich.

There are threads of suspicion about the New Hampshire results cropping up on even the most staid of blogs based on contrasts between hand-counted and machine-counted ballots.

If Mr. Kucinich is willing to pay the expense to put those results to test and suspicions to rest, he'll have done a great service during this election cycle.

Of note in the story, however, is Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlon's statement:

Scanlon said his office had received several phone calls since Tuesday, mostly from outside the state, questioning the results. New Hampshire's voting machines are not linked in any way, which Scanlon says reduce the likelihood of tampering with results on a statewide level. Also, the results can be checked against paper ballots.

"I think people from out of state don't completely understand how our process works and they compare it to the system that might exist in Florida or Ohio, where they have had serious problems," he said. "Perhaps the best thing that could happen for us is to have a recount to show the people that ... the votes that were cast on election day were accurately reflected in the results. And I have every confidence that will be the case."

At this hour last Wednesday it was about 31 degrees. Today it is 71.

I'm amused that so-called "progressives" insist that a rich Southern white boy is the only way to go.

Let's pit Michelle Obama against Chrissy at Kevin Drum's site:

Hillary did a lot in changing the perception of First Lady from pottted plant to one who reached out and traveled and promoted the rights of women and children especially. She worked hard on healthcare. (hardwork being a foreign concept to Obama) Her extreme grace under unceasing pressure and criticism from rabid haters on the right and in the press (like Matthews) was remarkable. Now she faces it from rabid unthinking mobs on the left. Ungrateful sob's.

Posted by: Chrissy on January 5, 2008 at 5:20 PM | PERMALINK

All the hoopla about the Iowa caucus, and I don't see one blogger mentioning Michelle Obama.

What a terrific asset to any campaign: south-side Chicago Princeton grad, Harvard law grad, mother of two girls, elegant dresser, and career woman in her own right.

Here she is in an article from Vanity Fair.

If John Edwards insists that he's closer to women, and Hillary insists that she's closer to blacks, Ms. Obama might go ballistic.