Random

• The growing jellyfish ("the cockroaches of the open waters") population is seen by scientists as a signal of the declining health of the world’s oceans. ~ Link

• Speaking of ocean health -- Corals in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands may be susceptible to disease because of a single-celled algae called dinoflagellate, a microscopic partner originally thought to be beneficial. But University of Hawaii researchers are now thinking that the dinoflagellate are harming their coral hosts. ~ Link

Personally, I've always been very suspicious of the dinoflagellate -- even though that's not a politically correct thing to admit.

• The Haynesville Shale may be the largest natural gas field ever discovered in the continental US -- and it's making some simple folk from Lousianna quite wealthy -- quite quickly. ~ Link

• Rob Cunningham, who I knew from his work with the newspapers in the Turlock area, went on to do some pastoral ministry. Now it seems that he thinks God is leading him to do something new -- he's just now sure what it is, yet. I suspect that he'd like to do something where he could combine editing/writing and "ministry." He's a good guy and a good communicator. Anyone have a lead for Rob? ~ Link

• Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the intellectual acid which helped rust and corrode the Iron Curtain, has died. ~ Link

• Occasionally we get a little VOG on Guam. Anatahan up on the northern end of the Marianas Islands spits a bit this direction -- off-and-on. At times we've even received some from Kilauea on the Big Island of Hawai'i -- merely 3,800 miles away. So, locals on Guam might find this article Vog 101: A guide to understanding 'volcanic smog' to be of interest.