Go Georgia!!

At the Little League World Series

Columbus, GA: 7
Beaverton, OR: 3

My old home town moves on to the Finals! In a great gesture at the end of the game, the Columbus players went over and invited the Oregon kids to take a lap around the field with them. Columbus will play either Mexico or Japan for the Series title tomorrow. Those two teams are just getting underway.

Man, I can't imagine what it is like for these kids. ESPN is broadcasting their games with all the bells and whistles, the stadiums are professional quality with large enthusiastic crowds, and the caliber of play has been outstanding.

Meanwhile, in a game that FOX blacked out, my Giants beat the Reds 4-1.

The British are coming, the British are coming!

Well, maybe not that, but we're trying to spread the word around LJ land that docwebster will not be broadcasting his legendary internet radio show tonight due to a 3 state crime and sex spree that has left him holed up in a decrepit motel outside Austin with a bottle of gin and a Vickers machine gun network difficulties.

Homeland Security has been notified, and those National Guard units not currently deployed or about to be deployed to Iraq (currently six guys, all of whom are named "Bennie" in a statistical fluke) are being deployed to deal with the emerging situation.

Hmm.. being slightly drunk and listening to Frank Zappa seems to impact my posting style...

Message passed at the behest of trial_by_flame.

A mildly drunken rant.

Will everyone please get over the IAU's decision on Pluto? Seriously, I'm seeing Pluto being used in columns about baseball! Every ill-informed yahoo is jumping up and down about this. Reactionary Christians are screaming that this proves that science is wishy-washy, and evolution is a fraud. (Do not ask me to explain the logic there.) People are making countless "save Pluto" products, actual news programs have wasted hours on the subject.

Ladies and gentlemen, Pluto is still there. It is still 2274 km in diameter, and still orbits with a period of 248.54 years. To quote The Nine 8 Planets:

"The IAU has changed the definition of "planet" so that Pluto no longer qualifies. There are now officially only eight planets in our solar system. Of course this change in terminology does not affect what's actually out there. In the end, it's not very important how we classify the various objects in our solar system. What is important is to learn about their physical nature and their histories."

This is science at its best. We have learned new things and change our definitions to match those findings. I'm sure as we learn more about our solar system we will run up against more objects that challenge our established views. Good. Astronomy has been doing that since Galileo noticed that Jupiter had moons.