Let your speculation run wild.

There's footage of both of them in the early '80s in this post. Plus links to recently unearthed VHS-converted footage of a early-'80s Seattle rock and punk bands. Fun!

Posted by news intern Paul Holmes

Here's what Scooter looked like back on August 25, when he could fit into your shirt pocket:

And here's what he looks like today:

Continue reading »

• Me

In Granted this week, I posit that beats—or more specifically hip hop and most electronic music—do not work in the woods. Join the discussion, already featuring this comment from Forgotton2011:

HEY NOW, really, try to tell that beats in the woods are wrong to the multitudes of forest ravers and faeries - not all of our parties are out in the desert !!! Check out : http://photosynthesisfestival.com/ ; or perhaps , http://www.faerieworlds.com/home.html would be more your cup of tea? I know, lost cause - as most people just don't 'get it'

Read it here.

This makes so much damn sense it's amazing that it's such a new program: Veterans back from military service get the opportunity to decompress—while still serving our country—by doing work in small units inside our National Parks.

Win. Win. Win. Win. Win.

Among the many good outcomes the New York Times noticed when one of its reporters recently dropped in on a group of veterans helping out in California's Sequoia National Park:

The veterans benefit from having work (albeit at $8 an hour) and from being in a familiar situation: part of a small group in a far-off location with a little-understood job to do.

“This reminds me of Fallujah, being in a remote area with a tight family,” said Aaron Hernandez, a former Marine who served as a diesel mechanic in the Iraqi city during a bloody assault in 2004. “There were 10 mechanics, and we all lived together, we all ate together, we all worked together. That was what kept us going.”

Only about 300 veterans have been a part of this program so far, but it's easy to imagine many more joining up if the government—ahem, Senator Patty Murray, Chair of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs—made a point of encouraging them to do so on a larger scale.

"You’re out here in the middle of nowhere,” a 26-year-old veteran told the Times. “It gives you time to reflect. You don’t have to deal with all the chaos in society."

Mental space, money, and a comforting kind of regimentation and camaraderie for the veterans. Better trails and improved park safety for civilians. Very little cost to anyone involved. More like this, please, America.

Posted by news intern Paul Holmes

A friend, who knows I'm a crazy squirrel person, dropped it off yesterday after finding it on the street, motherless and with a bloody nose. We're feeding it Esbilac puppy formula in an itty bitty syringe, since the small bottles and nipples used to nurse kittens and puppies are too large. Thankfully, the little guy seems to be doing okay, and now has quite the appetite. Once he's recovered, we'll send him (her? It's kinda hard to tell...) to a squirrel sanctuary in Redmond.

I learned on Shark Week that six-gill sharks swam closer to my very bed above Puget Sound last night.

This is the worst mariachi music I have ever heard. Also, the whale poops at 1:05.

ABC News reports that Grandma's house was "eerily near" where famed hijacker D. B. Cooper is thought to have landed after parachuting out of a plane with $200,000 on November 24, 1971. The D. B. Cooper case is the only unsolved airplane hijacking in American history—his identity has never been confirmed—and the case has "haunted the bureau for years," ABC News says.

"I was spying on them from around the back of my grandmother's house and I heard my uncle say, 'We did it. Our money problems are over.'" In 1995, before he died, her father allegedly confirmed that her uncle was D. B. Cooper. Marla Cooper is reportedly working on a book about this case but ABC News says that's not her motivation for coming forward.

This story from Yosemite makes my stomach jump.

It's easy to see how it would happen: A group of hikers makes it up Mist Trail, a short, shady, family-friendly trail that, in spite of being such an easy hike, leads to one of the most beautiful lookouts at Yosemite National Park, as well as one of the most beautiful swimming holes, Emerald Pool. It's got intense green algae (thus the name) and slippery granite sides, so you can spend hours goofing off like this. (That might as well be a photo from the Frizzelle family album—my parents loved Yosemite, loved the Mist Trail, loved the Emerald Pool.)

Emerald Pool and the edge of the waterfall are separated by a metal barricade and signs in multiple languages warning people not to climb over it, but after the hikers spent time goofing off in Emerald Pool, someone got the big idea to scale the barricade and get closer to that glorious lookout—after all the barricade is still a ways from the edge of the waterfall. But granite covered in algae covered in water is slipperier than an oil slick on an ice rink. Reportedly, the 21-year-old, 22-year-old, and 27-year-old "were in the water about 25 feet from the edge of a waterfall, standing, playing and taking photographs." Then: "One of the victims then slipped and fell, the second victim tried to rescue that person, and the third victim tried to save the other two."

Their bodies haven't been found yet.

• Chris Blakeley via Flickr
• Living the dream.

When the seawater returned and Minorca returned to its island status, the rabbit found itself with no predators. Over time, it grew to become 10 times the size of its now-extinct mainland cousin. Other inhabitants of the island at the time included a bat, a large dormouse and a giant tortoise.

With no need for defense, the rabbit lost visual and hearing acuity. Its eye socket reduced in size over time, as did its ears.

On Tuesdays, I usually fantasize about the day I can successfully retire someplace nice and affordable, like my mother's basement, and live out a sexless existence filled with pudding pops and daytime talk shows. Now I will fantasize about this rabbit.

I buckled last night and watched the television news, but it was worth it for this. Kitsap Sun takes up the story:

The mailboxes along Old Belfair Highway in early 2010 were a little lighter than they should have been, federal prosecutors say, because a particular postal worker was pilfering mass mailings to burn in his home's outdoor fire pit.

Richard A. Farrell, 45, was sentenced Tuesday to three years' probation, 120 hours for community service and a $25 fine after pleading guilty to the crime of delaying or destruction of mail.

The article goes on to quote U.S. attorney Thomas Woods from court documents:

He did not fail to deliver the mail because of an injury or sickness, or because he was spending his time at another job. Rather, his actions can be explained only by extreme laziness and lack of consideration for his job responsibilities and his customers.

But here is the real gem:

The Belfair postmaster alerted law enforcement in January 2010 that instead of delivering a mass mailing, Farrell had filled recycle bins with them. Once federal investigators started trailing him in January and February, they found a pattern. He would conceal the mass mailings in his delivery vehicle, take it home, and "use the mail to start the fire, and then add mail to the fire to keep the fire going," Woods wrote.

Did you hear that? They found a pattern! Farrell would use the mail to start the fire, and then add mail to the fire to keep the fire going. Holy shit! Did a pocket calculator write that sentence? Go on Woods—tell us how it works! What else did he do? I love everything about this story.

These people need help!

Help a guy out.

Git some.

Read it, here.

Or something. And Grant Brissey watches Drew Barrymore watch Belle & Sebastian.

The first of thirty-three Chilean miners trapped half a mile underground in a gold and copper mine for the last 68 days could be free tomorrow, barring technical complications. Safety runs of the rescue capsule that will bring the men individually up through a roughly 2,000-foot tunnel are planned for today.

This is great news—it's amazing that they've survived this long. Especially when you read the details of what they've been through the last few months—their ordeal sounds less like reality and more like hallucinations of the doomed. For instance, they've been sending letters a half-mile up to the surface to their wives. They've had lawyers dropping documents down the shaft to ensure they equally profit from media and endorsement deals for beer, mining equipment, and sex-aid vitamins.

They've also shunned each other and taken vows of silence never to speak of their first few weeks underground. Via the Telegraph:

It has emerged that in the early days of being trapped five of the men had formed a breakaway group after becoming isolated from the rest because of their status as “subcontracted workers”.

“It seems they were treated as second class citizens within the refuge,” a source within the rescue team told Chilean national newspaper El Mercurio. “Actually they were marginalised and had set up camp in another part of the mine, away from the rest of the group.”

Psychologists on the surface had to come up with a strategy to overcome the divisions within the group.

“It was important to have them all working together as a team,” said Alberto Iturra, the chief psychologist at the mine, confirming that there had been a split. “I don’t exactly know what occurred between them but the most important thing is the problem was resolved. The system we used worked and since then they have been operating well as a team.”

It is understood that the men have vowed never to talk about exactly what went on during the 17 initial days after the mine collapsed and before a borehole reached their refuge and rescuers found them alive.

Josh Bis witnesses the Flaming Lips carnival at Paramount, Eric Grandy muses on authenticity and music, Brian Cook on talking about the music we love and hate, and about a million other things!

Have a look.