carcin-what?, newspaper flames, and banana skins

Today I learned that bugs are eating the Oregon coastline. Tiny Australian crustaceans, which are a type of arthropod, aka bug, came over roughly 150 years ago and are burrowing into everything, including trash, and causing coastal erosion. Also, the study of crustaceans is called carcinology, which makes you wonder if carcinologists can use 'carcinogenic' in a confusing fashion.

In other news, I'm not used to editorials starting out with sentences like this: "It sounds like a late-night parody of President Bush’s bad habit of filling key posts with extreme ideologues and incompetents." Besides not being too impressed with President Bush, The New York Times is not overly impressed with President Bush's choice for the national guy in charge of family planning, Dr. Eric Keroack, who is apparently completely against family planning. A quick search of the web revealed that pretty much anybody with web access who has expressed an opinion agrees with the New York Times, except for one blogger who reposted a news article from the Center for Moral Clarity's website saying that Pastor Rod Parsley and his Center for Moral Clarity insisted that Bush appoint someone who was a wholehearted and enthusiastic supporter of abstinence. I think what I learned here is that, as a product of the Schoolhouse Rock cartoons of the 1970s, I think 'Pastor Parsley' would be an excellent name for an educational cartoon character.

And in case you were curious, here's the history behind the story about smoking banana skins making you high.