This is one of the better uses I’ve seen of heat-sensing materials:

It’s a tub painted by Alsacorp. Now, instead of this disgusting radioactive-waste colored thing, imagine a tub that turned from white to an attractive shade of azure blue when it was just the right temperature to step into. Or perhaps we could get some cooking pots that would show their temperature by color. For example, don’t touch a handle that has turned red. Even better would be servers and racks, or similar heat-sensitive equipment, painted to show current heat-levels. (you saw it here first) Anything running red, for example, would need more localized cooling. Immediate improvements would be realized as the paint changed its shade.

More information is good, and choosing the right color is probably important if you don’t want to bother with specialized training. I figure most people (including me) see lime green water as a rather unattractive sign for a bathtub no matter how helpful it is to know the temperature.

Every once in a while when I need some comic relief, I go back and read the Vice President’s statement posted on Whitehouse.org:

In closing, please keep in mind that I’m speaking as the mastermind of a legislative agenda predicated almost exclusively on Social Darwinism when I confess that I experience a slight, non-pacemaker-induced pang of chestal discomfort each time so-called American citizens – like these WHITEHOUSE.ORG terrorists – err on the side of publishing ideologies that doom them to lifetimes of FBI monitoring, politically-motivated income tax audits, and – in special circumstances – mysterious newfound predilections to bathing fully clothed with a whole Radio Shack’s worth of plugged-in appliances. Do I have to remind anyone what happened to that Enron would-be snitch? No, I didn’t think so.

That case is history now, I believe, but taxpayer legal staff are at it again and apparently sending nasty memos to the Onion about the use of Presidential imagery such as their official seal. Emergent Chaos reports:

Silly Onion. Everyone knows the President reads and endorses Emergent Chaos, not the Onion. Who’d read anything with such a silly name?

From The New York Times, “Protecting the Presidential Seal. No Joke.”

PS: Dear Mr. Dixon, I’d like an exception for satirical use, but couldn’t find a form on your web site.

The Counterterrorism blog reminds us that Pakistan is still playing both sides of the fence, by working with the US to catch terrorist plots, while harboring the terrorists and even signing treaties with them:

As Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper explains, the Pakistani government has entered into a peace agreement with the Taliban insurgency that essentially cedes authority in the North Waziristan tribal region to the Taliban and al-Qaeda

What better country to hide in than a shaky ally of your enemy who has nuclear weapons capabilities? The duplicitous logic runs deep:

Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf has proclaimed that the U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan won’t be allowed into the tribal areas covered by this peace deal: “On our side of the border there will be a total uprising if a foreigner enters that area. It’s not possible at all, we will never allow any foreigners into that area. It’s against the culture of the people there.”

Taliban and al Qaeda are not foreigners? Do they mean non-fundamentalist Muslim when they say “foreigner”? Identities are so tricky when it comes to access control. Speaking of local identities and fighting, American troop casualties will decline as the civil war heats up in Iraq, according to the Telegraph:

American combat deaths in the capital are down 50 per cent on this time last year and some terrorists say the US has succeeded in deflecting attention from its own troops.

“Now we are fighting each other,” said one insurgent. “That is what the Americans wanted and now they are winning.”

[…]

Abu Tayseer, a Baghdad councillor, said he was very angry that the militias were fighting each other instead of the Americans.