Mount What's-Its-Name

(More pictures available at The Boston Globe.)

Eyjafjallajökull. Legend has it that the erupting Icelandic volcano will only cease its wrath of lava, ash, lightning, and European flight delays when somebody pronounces its name correctly.

I wonder if Bobby Jindal still giggles at the thought of volcano monitoring?

Older Than The Universe

What started 70 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years ago got really funny on ABC's Nightline this past weekend:


(YouTube video)

At about 3:30 into the above video, ABC's Martin Bashir starts asking Scientology PR person Tommy Davis about Xenu. You know Xenu, right? The dictator of the "Galactic Confederacy" who, 75 million years ago, brought his people to Earth in spaceships and then boiled them in volcanoes... and well, seems every clown on the street knows a bit of this story already.

But Davis wanted to act like he was offended by Bashir's questions. Seems more like Davis was embarrassed. But every religious person I've ever known will tell you about their beliefs with great enthusiasm. In fact, they usually view it as their duty to spread the word. So what was up with Davis?

It's like the P.T. Barnum trick of The Great Egress. You have to pay a quarter if you want to see it. Or in the case of Scientology, you have to pay a lot more. And instead of a sideshow tent, your super-secret training will be aboard a Scientology owned cruise ship sailing the Caribbean.

So back to Mr. Davis. He must be really pissed that television networks and those rogues on the Internet want to give this information away for free!

I'm skeptical of any so-called religion that puts secrecy and profits above altruistic contributions to society. And although it's easy to poke fun at Xenu, the entire deity club shares this: they are all much younger than the universe, and even younger than their creators.

Volcanoes!

I bet the ancient people of Pompeii wished they had a volcano warning system. Unfortunately, they lacked the technology and didn't understand the warning signs.

But 1700 years later, technological and scientific research was progressing. In 1839, King Ferdinand II agreed to the construction of the Vesuvius Observatory. It was celebrated as a place of research and observation of natural phenomena. Today, the observatory is still a center for Geophysics, Volcanology, Geodesy and Geochemistry studies.

Where are we today in the US? Do our politicians possess the same logic, forethought and self-interest? Paul Krugman sums up the current philosophy of the GOP as "snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. " Of course Krugman is referring to Bobby Jindal's speech earlier this week where he attempted to discredit the economic recovery package by mocking magnetic levitation trains and volcano monitoring...

A $140 million provision of the The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act goes to the United States Geological Survey for "repair, construction and restoration of facilities; equipment replacement and upgrades including stream gages, and seismic and volcano monitoring systems; national map activities; and other critical deferred maintenance and improvement projects." After all, the goal of the USGS is to reduce the vulnerability of the people and areas most at risk from natural hazards. And surely the employment of people for these projects will have the intended stimulative effect.

Jindal should know all about natural disasters, but he'd rather remain ignorant and play politics with people's lives. How is it that a king of yore was more enlightened than this guy?