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                         Another Foggy Moment

      These are the continuing adventures of a typical resident
      of the self-proclaimed center of the Pugetopolis universe -
      Seattle. Most are true stories but some are made of whole-
      cloth. I ain't the Mayor, the Governor or a Big Shot. Just
      another Working Stiff with a Bad Attitude.

                     THIS AIN'T NO STINK'N BLOG

         ------------------------------------------------
         WARNING: This is not a Child-Proof Neighborhood.
         If you're a kid - scram!, beat it! you little
         punk before your Old Lady catches you and calls
         the cops. They'll throw you in the Big House in
         Walla Walla and won't let you out until you're
         89 years old. There. Don't say I didn't warn you.
         -------------------------------------------------

                             - 188 -

 One of the joys of early morning is watching those crazy ravens
 doing their Dawn Dance over Lake Washington's Union Bay. Back 
 and forth, in massive clouds of hundreds, they zoom high above 
 the water cawing and crowing for all their worth. I never knew
 they did such a thing until I saw it the first time. But they're
 out there most every morning doing their thing. 

 They gather every evening by the thousands to sleep in the wetlands 
 around Foster Island and into the Arboretum sandwiched between 
 Montlake and Madison Park. Aside from the ugly gash of 520, it's 
 all very natural and unpopulated by humans. That's the direction 
 the ravens come from anyways. I'm sure there must be other big 
 colonies of them around the lake as well. Their excitement and 
 pure joy are unmistakable. Birds don't get much happier. 

 HOOTERVILLE HISTORY...

 It was 30 years ago this coming Satuday (8th) that the Injuns, 
 led by Chief Bernie Whitebear of the United Indians of All 
 Tribes, invaded Fort Lawton in the Seattle frontier neighborhood 
 of Magnolia. The settlers were pretty much on their own as the 
 fort's detachment of Long Knives had left some 20 years earlier 
 at the end of World War II. They left behind a small detachment
 of Forked Tongues (lawyers) to 'hold down the fort'. Following 
 his usual dictum - never pay for what you can rip-off - Uncle 
 Sammy had founded the fort on what was Injun treaty land to begin 
 with. The counter-attack may have been a long time coming but 
 there was no denying its legitemacy. After an unsuccessful attempt 
 to imtimidate and threaten the Injuns, the Army's lawyers sat down 
 with the Injuns lawyers and did-lunch. And that's how "Daybreak
 Star" cultural center was born. Chief Bernie died going on
 three years this July but his dream lives on in the hearts of
 the many who miss him. Resistance is never futile.

 STEVE...

 The late Dr. Steven Jay Gould, aside from being one of those rare
 birds who not only was a first-rate scientist but also highly
 adept at explaining his craft to the unwashed masses, was first
 and foremost: a "Steve". So in his honor, his collegues at the 
 AAAS's National Center for Science Education initiated "Project 
 Steve" a week or so ago. They even got t-shirts.

 To counter the gibberish from the 'creationist' fruitcakes flogging 
 their anti-evolution brain-farts, they got up a petition in support
 of evolutionary theory. They basically wanted to reassure everyone
 that evolution theory was in no danger of being stricken from the
 textbooks as the anti-evolution nutcases suggest. They put it in a 
 number of newspapers. I don't know if Smile'n Frank at the Hooterville
 Times allows this sort of pseudo-scientific pornography and filth or 
 not. I don't read his rag. But it clearly challenges the established
 order of things in his world and in Frank's book, that's never a
 Good Thing.

 All 200+ signatories to this petition share one distinction: they
 are all named "Steve". The rules were relaxed enough that they
 allowed Etiennes and Estebans as well as Stephanies. Dr. Stephanie
 "Steve" Tristran-Nagle of Carneige-Mellon in Pittsburg would have
 been very disappointed otherwise. Aside from biologists, they
 relaxed the rules even further to allow other PhD's, MD's and
 similar lesser academic riff-raff from non-biology faculties to 
 sign as well. 

 They're still accepting Steves if you'd care to join in...

 BASSAKWARDS...

 Here we go again. Everybody wants our money but nobody wants 
 to have to take the blame. Just like in the Ronny Ray Gun years,
 Uncle Sammy is sloughing off his tax burden on state and local
 government. He's throwing money around like confetti while 
 allowing his committments to slip. What the hell, unlike the
 states and counties, he can print as much money as he likes.
 Mr. Greenspan is more than willing to accomodate him. So what
 if there's little more than the vacumn of outer space behind 
 the cash, gradually rendering our Buck worth about as much as
 the Argentinian moolah - bugger all.

 The method behind Sammy's madness: to create the illusion that 
 taxes are going down. Actually, they go up. We just get it up
 the Kaboose from a different source is all. The last time he
 did this, national infrastructure went down the tubes. All the
 Federal money he slips to state and local government to police 
 and maintain Interstates, evaporates. They turn into pot-holed
 nightmares. The money he kicks in for maintaining dams likewise
 evaporates. They begin to leak. The social-safety-net, already 
 shredded, all but disintegrates. States and counties scramble to 
 try to maintain some semblance of normalcy while Sammy wanders 
 off on his tax drunk. We, of course, get it in the neck everytime 
 we spit.

 Unlike the Ray Gun Tax Drunk, this time we're running a trade 
 deficit right off the scale and are a Net Debtor nation. A 
 massive chunk of our economy is held by foreigners. Foreigners 
 President Yellowbelly has been royally pissing off and bullying
 around. Our dollar has been in continuous decline while the
 Euro has been ascending every since that dumbass hillbilly 
 wandered into the White House. What the hell, he's got his Casa
 Just-In-Case in the Caymans to run to if they pull the plug on 
 us. He's covered.

 INS SCREW-UPS...

 You may have heard about the L.A. INS office's amazing screw-up.
 Over 100,000 documents, many of them originals, were shredded to
 clear a backlog. I kid you not. American passports, foreign
 passports, original birth certificates, etc. etc. Chomped them
 all up into confetti. 

 It turns out it wasn't actually the INS that did the job. It was
 one of their private contractors. They developed a massive backlog
 and one of their managers decided to make it all disappear. She
 assigned five of her night-shift workers to start feeding bags of
 documents into the shredder. No one at the INS seemed all curious
 as to how the backlog magically disappeared until months later.
 You want to trust those jackasses with important papers? Me 
 neither.

 MONTLAKE MUTTS...

 Coach Knutson's baseball puppies are back at it again. Once more
 it's time to venture down the ridge of a summer evening to the 
 Dawghouse and watch the mighty Montlake Mutts whack a few balls
 around. They've been back for a month now though they haven't 
 played at the Dawghouse until last weekend. The schedule-writer
 traditionally and compassionately keeps them out of town for most
 of February. It only costs a few bucks and the baseball's as good
 as AAA any day. This year, the Kountry Kousins from Wazoo, Cal 
 State Northridge, Oregon State, Hawaii-Hilo, Cal, Lewis & Clark
 plus national-powerhouse Arizona State will be visting.

 After last year's late-season charge they brought them all the way 
 to the NCAA playoffs for the first time in a few years, this looks 
 to be a transition year. Only 4 seniors - Brandon Jacobson, Tila 
 Reynolds, Scott Robertson and (fortunately) their Hottie Hurler 
 Sean White - but with 13 Juniors. So they aren't exactly starting 
 from scratch and there should be a couple pleasant surprises emerge
 over the course of the spring/summer. Aside from 3 Ringers from 
 Colorado and one Rooskie from Moscow (Idaho), it's an all-Washington 
 line-up. Home Town to the max.

 They kicked things off at the beginning of February in sunny SoCal
 with a tournament in Malibu against UC Santa Barbara, Pepperdine
 and Houston in which they took 2 outta 3. Good start. Then the
 following weekend they did a 3-game series against the Katlicks
 at Loyola Marymont in which they lost 2 outta 3. Slipping. Must 
 have put a Whammy on them eh. Finally, they came home for a 3-game
 weekend against Gonzaga in which they again lost 2 outta 3. Slipped
 a little more. Baseball is their pleasure, not their life. A little
 slippage is preferable to failing an exam.

 This weekend they return to SoCal for a couple against San Diego
 State and one against Cal State Northridge. The following weekend,
 March 7th, they got a series at the Montlake Dawghouse against the
 Vertiginous Veterinarians of Wazoo. Come on down and hack a loogie 
 at the fence with the rest of the Boyz and watch the low-flying 
 Lake Washington geese take aim on the outfielders. Free hotdogs if
 they nail one.

 And somewhere in Yakima, all-time Husky home-run hitter Eddie "The
 Yakima Yiant" Ericsson, feels an irresistable urge to beat the 
 daylights outta little white balls. And I ain't talk'n golfballs
 Johnson. Steady Eddie.
  
......................................................................

                       PUBLISH OR PERISH

 Scientists live and die on their ability to attract grant money. 
 They can be as brilliant and innovative as all get out but if 
 their interests lie outside of what grant money is available for - 
 forget it. They're dead meat. No lab or school will want anything 
 to do with them. Even grad students and post-Docs, notorious for 
 working for practically nothing, will give them a wide berth. 
 That crowd can't afford to volunteer. Dr. Genius is just another
 lonely Egghead with no cash flow. Initative sucks in the world 
 of modern science. Follow the grant money or start studying for 
 your real-estate licence exam.

 The way they get grants is by being noticed. And they accomplish 
 that in two inter-related ways: getting published and getting 
 citied in other peoples papers. They need both, but citations are
 what put them over the top and put them on the map. It's a vicious 
 racket. Trying to get published is a major bitch. There are literally
 thousands of worthy canidates vying for 'your' spot. Mr. Journal 
 Editor, who may know next to nothing about your field. Like for
 instance that pompous ass at "Nature". But he has nearly absolute 
 power over the careers of scientists with real credentials and
 brains. Mr. Editor is required by protocol to take his cues from 
 the peer-review crowd. Often there are more deserving papers than 
 there's room to publish them. That's where his discretion comes in. 

 Needless to say, this is also a highly effective means by which to
 utterly destroy the career of any scientist who doesn't toe the line. 
 Dr. Duesberg, a much awarded and highly-distinguished biochemist, can
 tell you all about that. He refused to join the AIDS/HIV chorus and 
 they crushed him, completely censoring out his dissenting voice. No
 journal would publish his papers and no lab would hire him. 

 The bottom-line is, it's like baseball or any other sport. Your
 contract and bonus' depend on your stats. For ballplayers it's
 hits, homers and ribbies. For scientists it's published papers 
 and citations. Think of the former as a 'hit' and the latter as
 a 'ribbie'. Think of each individual scientific discipline as 
 a 'league' and each school/lab as their 'team' with the PI 
 (Principle Investigator) as its 'starting pitcher'. Citations
 are like votes from your peers. There are no dumbass reporters 
 or retarded fans involved. It's all strictly in-house.

 Teams/Schools/Labs love a winner. They pay good money to get 
 their hands on one. They smell like money and attract grants 
 like guano attracts flies. But the winners often prefer being 
 a big fish in a small pond. They got more clout at a small 
 school. While the pace in science is a little slower than in 
 baseball, the principle is the same. Besides, science has no 
 'off-season' - they play year-around. It evens out.

 Take molecular biology just for instance. The top five 'players'
 in the world right now are:

    Name:               Team:                      Citations
    Jean Weissenbach    Genoscope, FR              21,050
    Bert Vogelstein     Johns Hopkins, USA         17,057
    Pierre Chambon      Universite Strasbourg, FR  16,675
    Mike Karin          UC San Diego, USA          16,453
    Joan Massague       Howard Hughes Hosp., USA   15,951

 But that only tells part of the story - gross hits. If you're
 a scout, you might need a mature player who can give you the 
 most 'bang' for your Buck. You want somebody with a high citation
 average.

    Name                 Team:                     Citations/Paper
    Colette Dib          Genoscope, FR             547.23
    Roberta Parsons      U Cent. Florida, USA      533.08
    P. Millasseau        xxx                       471.21
    WS Eldeiry           xxx                       438.06
    DJ Mangelsdorf       xxx                       359.50            

 Even lowly Dr. Mangelsdorf puts "Frenchie" Weissenbach in the shade 
 in this department. Frenchie only pulls 89.96 citations/paper. And
 amazingly, Colette and Roberta - the reigning champs - got their
 whopping huge averages from a mere 13 papers apiece! The little
 ladies stil have an especially hard time getting published. Science,
 at least in America, is still a Boyz game. One of the advantages of 
 science over baseball is that even after you retire you're papers
 live on racking up more and more points in the Citation Race. Dead 
 guys even get votes in this league and nobody thinks it's weird.

 The analogy carries further into 'teams'. These are the top teams 
 in American biotech right now:

    School/Lab            Papers       Citations/Paper
    Caltech                 431           18.28
    Rockefeller U           635           18.07
    U Texas SW Med Ctr     1381           16.52
    Harvard                4583           15.55
    UC San Francisco       1999           15.19

 Notice anything? Yep. Quantity don't translate into quality eh.
 Those Harvard boys really crank out the paper but they ain't
 got a whole lot to show for it. The cowboys at Texas SW whoop
 their asses regular. And they, in turn, get their butts whooped
 by the Geeks at Caltech with only a third the effort.

 BTW - MIT and Caltech once got together and decided to set up
       their own football bowl game - the Geek Bowl. The only
       teams they had were intramural so they each had to skarf 
       sort of an all-star team from them. As game day approached,
       many of the players informed the coach that they wouldn't
       be able to make it. They had to study for something or
       another. So they called it off. Nobody would dream of 
       calling off a Rose Bowl game because the stink'n students
       had to stink'n study for some stink'n exam eh. Those geeks
       might be smart but they got no perspective.

 It's highly improbable that you've ever even heard of any of the 
 people mentioned above. This stuff is way too complicated for our
 scientifically-illiterate News Nazis. Yet, without knowing the 
 slightest thing about molecular biology, you know who's hot and 
 who's not. You can see the beauty in this system. The people who 
 hand out grant money - scientifically-challenged politicians and 
 has-been scientists-turned-administrators - can even figure things 
 out pretty quickly. It's a no-brainer. 

 With very little effort at all, we could yank the sports section
 outta the papers and off TV with something like this. It could
 easily take its place and be every bit as exciting. They could 
 even use the same Media Jocks. They know bugger all about sports
 but still manage to survive. Why not science?


.........................................................................

                        'OL YELLER'S TWAT
                 (aka The War Against Terrorism)

 One of the more amazing things about this amazing time is how clearly
 it demonstrates the death of anything vaguely like democracy. In the
 UK while their leader Tony B bangs the war drums, millions march 
 against his dirty little war and all polls indicate he has no public
 support for his warmongering whatsoever. Ditto for Turkey. Ditto for
 Poland. Ditto for every frik'n where. In America where our pollsters
 have been trying to mesmerize us into supporting Yeller's TWAT, there 
 are no outward signs of any support. At best, what's being offered as
 vague opinion is being taken for committed backing. There ain't any 
 here. There has been an across-the-board political failure everywhere
 aside from France and Germany. Few pols anywhere can pass for anything
 short of buyable whores.

 While liberalish chickenshit Congressman Kuchinic of Ohio lobbies for
 support for a memorial to our WW-II concentration camps, he seems
 utterly oblivious to our present-day/right-now concentration camps.
 Both the hidden FBI system in which thousands of American citizens
 and legal immigrants are being held without charges and without access
 to legal defense for an unlimited amount of time, and our Camp X
 Prisoner of War death camp in Cuba. Somebody what to wake this idiot 
 up and tell him to forget about yesterday, we got problems right NOW.

 We've always had enemies. Everyone has. And, often, they are well
 deserved. It's no different from Real Life. I got people who would
 love to strangle me with their bare hands. Some of them have good
 reason to feel so; most only think they do. You have enemies too, 
 whether or not you're willing to admit it. Enemies are an unavoidable
 fact of life. We have whole industries devoted to giving us protection
 against our enemies. Concealed weapons permits are given out by
 Washington state like toys in Cracker Jack boxes so that we can 
 legally Pack Heat. Prudent people protect themselves.

 Our 'terrorist threat' isn't new. It's always been with us. And our
 guardians - the people we pay to protect us - have, up until very
 recently been generally good for our trust in them. But not any more.
 They have become in fact the greatest threat to our well-being. An 
 INS that holds the door open for 20+ terrorists, many of whom had
 extensive/well-documented histories of hating our guts, is a serious
 threat to our well-being. Ditto for a CIA that is too chickenshit to
 get down in the trenches and find out what our enemies are thinking.
 Ditto for a Department of Defense that failed to raise a finger in
 our defense when we came under attack. We got two Marine fighter
 wings stationed at Andrews AFB outside DC whose only reason for 
 existing is to protect DC. Neither one of them even got off the
 ground in the attacks on the Pentagon. How can that be? On and on
 it goes. We have far less to fear from imaginary terrorists than 
 we do from our slackass guardians. They are the real threat.

 We don't need foreign entanglements and horseshit wars against
 defenseless poverty-ridden nations. They cost too much and accomplish
 nothing whatsoever in terms of making this nation secure. What we
 do need is a President and Congress who have the guts to demand
 an honest effort from our paid guardians. Despite all the failures
 during 9/11, not a single one of those bastards was repremanded
 let alone disciplined. Not a single one. The whole goddam bunch of
 them should have been put up against a wall on 9/12 and shot. I
 ain't kid'n baby. Goddam traitors.

 The Bottom Line is simply that, given our extensive economic ties
 and our huge borders, we really can't afford to gratuitously piss 
 people off. Our guardians are too sleepy and dishonest to defend 
 us anyways. Those you can't walk past, you can easily buy. Many of 
 them are for sale - like FBI agent Hannsen or CIA #2 Man Aldrich
 Ames. They're cheap. Our best defense is simply to be fair and
 nice to people, however corny it sounds. Running around like the
 biggest asshole in the world is not only giving a lot people reason
 to come after us, it's economically cutting into our action. We
 can't afford it. It'll kill the Sweet Thing we've had going for
 the past 50 odd years.
 
................................................................

 In Heaven there is no beer
 that's why we drink it here.
 And when we're gone from here
 all our friends 
 will be drinking 
 all our beer.
 La La-La-La La La-La-La La La-La-La 

 - Lyrics of traditional Polka song -
  
.................................................................

                    -  MONDO VATICANO -

 Fr. Mike Fey in the German city of Duisberg, like any good
 German, knows his beer. And like many Euros, he takes especial
 interest in the technical details as he likes to brew his own
 more than occasionally. In fact he's always thinking of new ways
 of coming up with the perfect brew.

 This week he came up with one so novel it set the Internet abuzz.
 He's brewing Hootch in an old top-loader washing machine. He says
 he can crank out 20-liters of beer in 10-hours that way. Of course 
 he had to buy another washing machine for his clothes. A small 
 price to pay, I'd say.

                             +

 Fr. Jeff Windy Update:

 Turns out that 'prison' he's in is actually a hospital. He
 must have been pretty strung-out on GHB when he got arrested.
 You'd think a thing like that would be obvious to a judge or
 a bishop. Guess not.

                            +

 Bernadette Devlin of Northern Ireland was denied entry to the
 United States at Chiago's O'Hara International Airport this
 week. As you may recall from the 60's, she's the lovely and
 very classy Irish-Catholic civil-rights leader who rose from
 Northern Ireland's Catholic working-class neighborhoods to 
 courageously, fiercely and intelligently lead the fight to free 
 Ireland of the occupying Limies. She was living proof that you 
 could be Catholic and have a real social conscience.  To many 
 of us, she was a real one-of-us kind of hero. To many Irish-
 American Catholics, she was a venerated warrior for freedom.

 A 50-ish Granny now, she's visted America more than 30 times 
 over the years without a hitch. But now, our Coward King - 
 President Yellowbelly - has declared her a danger to this 
 country. Imagine, that hillbilly is even scared of old Irish 
 Grannies now. Or could this be Tony the Poodle's doing? Either
 way, Yeller's about to discover we got no Limies here to speak
 of but we do have a helluva lot of Micks. And right now they
 are mighty pissed about this. Doh!

                             +

 It's very difficult to find a website or blog that accurately
 and honestly reflects the sort of turmoil presently eveloping
 the Catholic Church in America. Virtually all of them want to
 pretend everything just honky-dory. No problemo. A temporary
 glitch. Yeah sure. That's why donations are at rock-bottom and
 people are bugging out by the thousands. Not to mention the
 serious disrepute our bishops have brought upon our Church in
 the eyes of the general public. 

 A pal named 'Fitz' passed along a link to an interesting site
 recently. It's worth checking out. They're anti-abortion but
 sincere without getting crazy. They likely wouldn't approve of
 me but don't let that stop you.

                http://www.rcf.org/index.html

                             +

 Today is the memorial of St. Jerome's buddy Eusebius. Jerome is
 the guy who translated the Bible into Latin. It never fails to
 amaze me in this age of over 60 copywrited translations of the
 Bible into English, what a terrific job he did with virtually no
 resources to speak of. As I read the psalms in Latin I often use
 a Jewish Hebrew/English "Metsuda Tehilim" for the times when I
 get stuck and need an accurate English translation. The Jews
 don't fool around with the Torah like we fool around with the
 Bible. Jerome's rendering of the original Hebrew is nearly word 
 for word. The Metsuda and his translations are effectively
 interchangeable. And the Hebrews have a nice way of reminding 
 us of how incomprehensible God is: in private He's referred to 
 as 'Adonai', while in public He's called 'HaShem'. None of the 
 names we make up is capable in and of itself of expressing Him. 
 As the Muslims say: He has a hundred names.

 Eusibius was sort of Jerome's Bagman. They originally met in Roma
 when Jerome was a Papal Secretary. A very humble man who was true
 to his vow of Poverty, Jerome deeply impressed Eusebius. When Jerome
 decided to move to the Holy Land, Eusebius went along. At Antioch
 in Greece, they were joined by St. Paula and her daughter Eustochium.
 After travelling around a bit, they settled on Bethlehem as a base.
 They were all deeply touched by the many pennliless pilgrims who
 used their last dime to make the journey, often arriving without
 means or shelter. The four of them decided to build a hostel for
 pilgrims. Eusebius was delegated to return to Europe to raise some
 cash. He did a fine job of it and the first hostel was erected.

 When Jerome died, Eusebius took over his spot in Bethlehelm. It's 
 thought that he was buried next to Jerome in a crypt in the Church 
 of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The one the Israeli Defense Force was 
 trying to demolish recently. On the other hand, the Italians in 
 Cremona, Italy say they got him. Who else but Catholics would be 
 crazy enough to fight over a dead guy?

----------------------------------------------------
 The above is copyright material. You want to use it,
 ask. You want to make money off it, gimme some first.
 I'll let you know if it's enough. You want to steal it,
 I'll sic my lawyer Yoshi 'The Proctologist' Rasmussen
 on you baby. He'll teriyaki your sorry butt and turn
 it into Lutefisk.
~--------------------------------------------------
 MAIL:    tofoggymoment@yahoo.com
 ARCHIVE: https://www.angelfire.com/nb/afm
---------------------------------------------------