February 16, 2006 by s.z.

Thursday Night Pet Blogging Photo: A fish not named Blinky Okay, the batteries are dead in the cheap digital camera (and the pets will never remain close enough to an electrical outlet to allow me to use the adaptor), so word pictures will have to suffice. 1. Tomorrow morning Zigra and Tibby get to go the vet to get tutored (which is how we refer to it in my household, since we're all "Farside" fans). This is a big day in any male's lifetime, so I served them a big celebratory dinner of Kitty's Stew (formerly "Kitty Stew," until somebody got uneasy) canned cat food, and then put away the bowls of dry food, since the kittens aren't supposed to eat anything for at least 12 hours before surgery. (This last move will effect Jet Jaguar the most, since he loves the Science Diet kitten food that I put out for the kittens -- he's apparently trying to emulate his namesake by increasing in size, and is now up to about 100 pounds. Okay, 20 pounds maybe -- but he ain't heavy, he's my cat.) UPDATE: Jet Jaguar woke me up at 6:30 this morning because he was on the brink of starvation (that was his story). So, I offered him some of the delicious "Iams for Cats Who Want to be Runway Models" that I bought just for him. He sniffed that he wasn't THAT hungry, and walked away from the bowl in disgust. So, the tutoring has been tough on everybody.  2. Fish, the beta betta fish, died right before Christmas. His place has been taken by Blinky, a large Black Moor goldfish (he looks like the fish in the photo), and Glitter, a smaller black-and-gold goldfish. The kittens love to wait until I feed the fish, and then jump on the arm of the chair near their tank, lean in precariously, and try to swat the fish when they come to the surface (presumably, the plan is to stun them, scoop them out of the tank, dip them in cornmeal batter, fry them, and then eat them or something). So far, all the kittens have achieved for their efforts are wet paws. But it's nice to have dreams. 3. I also have a new hamster. He's a very handsome white-and-gold long-haired adult with red eyes. His name is Bitey. He may or may not be a vampire hamster, but he's tasted human blood, so I think this may end with my throat being ripped out. Anyway, I have to get up early to catch and cage kittens. As they were born free, they have a particular dread of captivity, and don't react well at all to being locked in their carriers. (Zigra tries to squeeze between the mesh, which lead to a scratched nose and a bloody mouth on his last two visits to the vet.) I anticipate a stressful morning for all of us, but I'll update you later.  11:06:24 PM

Putting the Nut in Wingnut Here's a tip for the "Hannity & Colmes" production staff: try Googling your proposed guests before you book them.  That way you you might avoid such fiascos as Dr. William Hammesfahr (the guy who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for Medicine), and Nicole Krogman (the college student who wasn't being allowed to graduate just because she was conservative). Anyway, I was clicking through the channels when I came across today's H&C fiasco, our old friend UNSCOM "inspector" Bill Tierney.  See, apparently Bill translated those world-shatteringSaddam tapes for the FBI (you know, the ones that reveal that in the mid 1990's, Saddam was talking about how someday in the future, some country other than Iraq might use chemical, germ, or nuclear weapons in a terrorist attack on America, thus proving, um, something).   And apparently Bill stole copies of the tapes and gave them to John Loftus, president of the "Intelligence Summit," a group which is going release them this week in order to demonstrate that Saddam was evil, EEEEEVIL! (this group is reportedly largely funded by an Israeli with ties to the Russian mafia, so the intrigue continues).  So, Bill didn't approve of the claims the Intelligence Summit was making about his tapes, or didn't think he was getting enough attention or something, and so he then gave copies of the tapes to ABC, "because he thought it wrong that the US government should keep the tapes secret" -- thus proving that the FBI should probably Google its prospective employees before hiring them, even as translators. (Even an amateur screener should have figured that not only does Bill have a few screws loose, but that he has an insatiable need to be in the spotlight, as his attempts to give water to Terry Schiavo -- to provide just one example -- demonstrate.) Anyway, Bill was invited to appear on "Hannity & Other Guy" to give his insights into the tapes, and to claim that they are a smoking gun that proved that Saddam was behind 9/11, and that Iraq really DID have WMDs (Fox News viewers love that kind of stuff).  Some general was a guest too. After several minutes of Hannity demanding of his guests that since Saddam talked about WMDs and terrorist attacks on America, didn't the tapes prove that the liberals were wrong about everything, Colmes jumped in to ask the general a question about why nobody in the intelligence community thought that these tapes were a big deal.  Bill interrupted to say something about how the tapes actually demonstrate that Iraq still has WMDs (or something -- his point was kind of confusing).  When Colmes tried to ask him a question about his assertions, Bill refused to let him talk, accusing Colmes of trying to suppress the truth, and telling Colmes that he couldn't ask him any questions.  (Really.  After trying to jump in several times, Colmes asked Bill if he was refusing to let Colmes ask him any questions, and Bill said yes.) Finally Colmes managed to say that the revelations in the tapes about them having WMDS in 1995 (and trying to hide them from the U.N. inspectors) wasn't anything we didn't know before, and that David Kay had determined that the WMDs Saddam had then were destroyed in 1998, under bombing ordered by Clinton, so this didn't prove that this pretext for the Iraq War had been validated.  Bill actually sneered at this (it was a really over-the-top sneer, like the ones employed by Bond villains), and shouted that he knew a lot more about it than Kay.  See, Bill was a chief warrant officer who worked with UNSCOM in Iraq from 1996-98, apparently serving as a translator, while Dr. Kay was our top Weapons Inspector during the final search for those WMDs, and an expert on Iraq's weapons for many years prior to that (you can read his bio here), so you can see why Bill should have been the one making the final report on the matter instead of Kay. The general and Hannity both tried to keep their faces blank after Bill's outburst, but they seemed to be embarrassed for him (and hopefully, embarrassed for themselves, for being on the same side of the debate as this nut).  Nobody said anything for a few seconds.  Then Hannity tried to wrap up the segment, but Bill kept yelling at Colmes that the matter wasn't over, and that he wanted to continue to debate him.  Hannity said that they would invite Bill and the general back on Monday, after the country had had a chance to view the tapes -- I presume that Hannity was just humoring Bill until they could safely escort him out of the studio, but I guess we'll have to watch H&C next week to find out for sure.  Maybe Hannity actually thought that Bill made a lot of sense. So, Bill Tierney.  I think now would be a good time to review my favorite Bill Tierney moment:  It comes from a summary of his Feb. 2003 appearance on COAST TO COAST AM WITH GEORGE NOORY (Noory is Art Bell's replacement): Tierney's methods of ascertaining this location [a site where, per Bill, Iraq is currently running a uranium enriching processing plant] Bill claimed that were rather unconventional. "I would ask God and just get a sense if something was valid or not, and then know if I needed to pursue it," he said. His assessments through prayer were then confirmed to him by a friend's clairvoyant dream, where he was able to find the location on a map. . So, even though Bill hasn't been in Iraq since 1998, he probably does know a lot more about Saddam's WMDs than David Kay does, thanks to Bill's clairvoyant friend's dreams.  And God. 9:27:16 PM