panda ponders

This is one of my favorite fan vids of Mr. Darcy. It’s a great split screen comparison of the 2 most recent versions. There will never be an equal to the Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle 1995 version, however, the 2005 version does have some interesting interpretations!

To show Sawa after a terribly bad timed jump from her kitty cat that nearly ripped her face off … kitties can still be cute!

I know you still luv TL! Well maybe after the swelling goes down…

Every year for the last 5 years or so, my family and friends have gathered to watch the amazing fireworks show in Addison, Texas known as Kaboom Town. If you went this year, you would have seen some fabulous fireworks but left a tad disappointed as the much anticipated finale … didn’t happen.

From Addison on Kaboom Town:

When rain caused Addison’s award-winning Kaboom Town fireworks to sputter and fizzle Monday night, July 3, the irony of that famous line from the movie Apollo 13 couldn’t have been more appropriate! Not only was an Apollo 13 recovery team member honored as one of the evening’s armed services veterans, but the movie itself — which had been scheduled to follow the fireworks — was cancelled due to the weather.

But at the Tuesday, July 11 Addison City Council meeting, council members picked up yet another famous line from the movie, Gene Kranz’ legendary statement, “Failure is not an option!”

The council voted to repeat the famed fireworks show, which is annually recognized as one of the top 10 fireworks displays in the nation. The fireworks will be rescheduled to coincide with Pepsi Kid-Around, an event to be held in Addison Circle Park over the Labor Day weekend. The fireworks show will start at 8:30 p.m. Sunday, September 3. The movie will be aired following the fireworks’ grand finale.

The most important note being…

The fireworks show will start at 8:30 p.m. Sunday, September 3.

So tell all your friends and go have fun!!!

I want to wish all who visit here a safe and Happy Thanksgiving! I hope that all of you, your friends, and your families have a wonderful holiday weekend.

Thank you for visiting Panda Ponders

Today in Ft. Worth a massive fire destroyed a chemical plant. Local TV ran live coverage for most of the early afternoon. The fire started about 1:45 CST and lasted until well in to the late afternoon. The cause is unknown, but the most important thing is that all employees were accounted for with no life-threatening injuries.

As a WFAA news crew left their studios in downtown Dallas, they could see the smoke towering above Ft. Worth. The fire had hot spots that were still on fire at the 10:00pm news report and expected to last through the night.

Among the chemicals involved were methanol, sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, phosphoric acid, napthalene and isopropyl alcohol, according to fire officials.

Most of the chemicals were considered to be toxic by the federal government. Napthalene is a known human carcinogen. Sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid and phosphoric acid are lung irritants.

Some of the chemicals were stored in vats holding up to 4,000 gallons, fire officials said.

Those vats along with other containers provided spectacular explosions that forced firefighters to stay at a distance. I was simply amazed at the power of those explosions and how the fire seemed to not notice that water was being poured on it at a high rate. Eventually firefighters had to focus on keeping the fire from spreading and letting it burn itself out. Wow!

There was at one time a concern that water run-off from the fire would contaminate the local water supply however Dr. Elvin Adams, a Tarrant County Public Health representative said there was no threat.

“The water supply is not … contaminated in any way by any run-off from this fire or any chemicals that that run-off may contain. The water supply is entirely safe for drinking and for bathing,”

The article from NBC5i also has a link to some amazing pictures and a video.

So far, the launch appears to be clean! I watched the launch live on my local Fox 4 affiliate… it was amazing as always. You hold your breath as the smoke starts to rise, then you just watch as the blast takes place … Hoping beyond hope everything you see is what you are supposed to see! And that is what happened today.

NASA/KSC

Lots of pictures are here.

Discovery’s mission: “During their 12-day mission to the International Space Station, Commander Eileen Collins and her six fellow astronauts will test new techniques and equipment designed to make Space Shuttles safer. They also will deliver supplies and make repairs to the Space Station.”

<-- For more info.

From the Washington Post …

I heard it on the Mark Davis Show.

After London, Tough Questions for Muslims
(free subscription required)
By Mona Eltahawy

Sunday, July 24, 2005; Page B07

The July 7 London bombings did it for me. Perhaps it was because my parents moved us from Cairo to the British capital when I was 7 years old, and so London was my childhood “home.” Or maybe it was because our route to work and school every morning crisscrossed those same Underground stations that were targeted.

I’m sure it was also those dog-eared statements that our clerics and religious leaders read out telling us that Islam means peace — it actually means submission — and asking us to please forget everything they had ever said before July 6, because as of July 7 they truly believe violence is bad. Their backpedaling is so furious you can smell the skid marks.

Some are not even bothering to put their feet on the pedals, such as the 22 imams and scholars who met at London’s largest mosque to condemn the bombings but who would not criticize all suicide attacks.

Sayed Mohammed Musawi, the head of the World Islamic League in London, insisted “there should be a clear distinction between the suicide bombing of those who are trying to defend themselves from occupiers, which is something different from those who kill civilians, which is a big crime.”

In a classic example of laying blame everywhere but at our own door, Musawi actually criticized the Western media (for supposedly confusing frustrated young Muslims) rather than those scholars who had blessed suicide bombings as long as they targeted Israelis.

Suicide bombings are the Muslim weapon of choice not only in London and Israel but in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. They are killing Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and yet our imams and scholars cannot condemn them.

As I said, the London bombings did it for me. Or maybe it’s the knowledge that the more these faceless cowards strike, the more Muslim men in the West like my brother are pushed onto the stage of suspicion. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Ehab — who spends virtually all of his time caring for his cardiology patients or fulfilling his role as husband and father — was one of the 5,000 Muslim men questioned by the FBI; two years later he was among the thousands more who had to submit to being fingerprinted and photographed as part of a special registration.

But most of all, the London bombings rid me of all patience with the excuse that “George Bush [or Tony Blair or take your pick of Western leaders] made me do it.” We don’t know who was behind Thursday’s explosions, but an Arab analyst told a satellite channel that if Blair hadn’t learned the mistake of the Iraq war, these new attacks were a firm reminder.

I never bought the explanation that U.S. foreign policy had “brought on” the Sept. 11 attacks, and I certainly don’t buy the idea that the Iraq war is behind the attacks in London. Many people across the world have opposed U.S. and British foreign policy, but that doesn’t mean they are rushing to fly planes into buildings or to blow up buses and Underground trains in London.

I was against the invasion of Iraq and would not have voted for George Bush if I were a U.S. citizen, but I’m done with the “George Bush made me do it” excuse. We must accept responsibility for this mess if we are ever to find a way out.

And for those non-Muslims who accept the George Bush excuse, I have a question: Do you think Muslims are incapable of accepting responsibility? It is at least in some way bigoted to think that Muslims can only react violently.

We all must ask a host of difficult questions. How about beginning by acknowledging once and for all that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a Muslim issue? It is a dispute over land that too many clerics and religious leaders, radical or otherwise, use to flesh out the victimized-Muslim scenario.

Yes, Palestinians deserve a state, and, yes, Israel must end its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

But rather than dwelling endlessly on these issues, we would do well to spend time encouraging our young people to become more active members of their communities and to not live caught between two worlds: a Muslim one at home and in the mosque, an “infidel” one outside.

And what about assimilation? It is not bigoted to ask Muslims if they are integrating into the societies they are living in. Just as the British government has responsibilities toward its citizens, immigrants included, so too do those immigrants. Muslims ask for time off work for prayer, for example, and they often get it. But are they truly living in Britain or are they perpetuating an existence that even their relatives “back home” long ago left behind? Domestic policy is too often ignored by many Muslims who are more concerned with Palestine, Iraq or any other place where Muslims are believed to have suffered injustice.

I raise these questions because London might have done it for me, but I’m not done with Islam. The clerics and the terrorists will not take it away from me. God belongs to me, too.

Excellent article!

Yesterday, but we are celebrating it today!

Happy Birthday Mom!!!

I am sure by now most of you have read the comments of Australian Prime Minister John Howard at a press conference in London yesterday. In case you haven’t though,

The reporter asked …

To both Prime Ministers, what was your immediate reaction on hearing that some incidents had occurred, was it here we go again? And do incidents like this, coming just 14 days after the horrific attacks, suggest that the war against terror is being lost on the streets? And yesterday an Australian bomb victim of July 7 linked the bombings to Iraq. Does that suggest that the propaganda war against terrorists is also being lost?

and the unexpected answer … at least unexpected by the snippy reporter

PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:

Could I start by saying the Prime Minister and I were having a discussion when we heard about it, and my first reaction was to get some more information, and I really don’t want to add to what the Prime Minister has said. It is a matter for the police and a matter for the British authorities to talk in detail about what has happened here. Could I just say very directly, Paul, on the issue of the policies of my government, and indeed the policies of the British and American government on Iraq, that the first point of reference is that once a country allows its foreign policy to be determined by terrorism, it has given the game away, to use the vernacular. And no Australian government that I lead will ever have policies determined by terrorism or terrorist threats, and no self-respecting government of any political stripe in Australia would allow that to happen. Can I remind you that the murder of 88 Australians in Bali took place before the operation in Iraq; and could I remind you that the 11 September occurred before the operation in Iraq; can I also remind you that the very first occasion that Bin Laden specifically referred to Australia was in the context of Australia’s involvement in liberating the people of East Timor. Are people, by implication, suggesting that we shouldn’t have done that? When a group claimed responsibility on the website for the attacks on 7 July, they talked about British policy, not just in Iraq, but in Afghanistan. Are people suggesting we shouldn’t be in Afghanistan? When Sergio de Melo was murdered in Iraq, a brave man, a distinguished international diplomat, immensely respected for his work in the United Nations, when al Queda gloated about that they referred specifically to the role that de Melo had carried out in East Timor because he was the United Nations administrator in East Timor. Now I don’t know the mind of the terrorist, by definition you can’t put yourself in the mind of a successful suicide bomber, I can only look at objective facts, and the objective facts are as I have cited. The objective evidence is that Australia was a terrorist target long before the operation in Iraq, and indeed all the evidence, as distinct from the suppositions, suggest to me that this is about hatred of a way of life, this is about the perverted use of the principles of a great world religion that at its root preaches peace and cooperation, and I think we lose sight of the challenge we have if we allow ourselves to see these attacks in the context of particular circumstances, rather than the abuse through a perverted ideology of people and their murder.

PRIME MINISTER BLAIR:

I agree 100% with that.

And with that Australia stood proud with Britain and the United States in not allowing street thugs control world politics. Granted they are well organized, trained, and armed street thugs, but that is all they will ever be. The Left would have us cower in fear and give the terrorist what ever they want to bribe them into stopping their Reign of Attacks. (Note: Not Reign of Terror)

There is hardly a country that has not seen a terrorist attack of some kind, yet few have stood up and said “We will not stand for this.” Some have crumbled in fear and given in to the terrorists. Maybe the terrorists are testing the water in countries they fell may crumble, however they obviously don’t know much about history. The day Britain and the United States and Australia (and a few other countries) crumble in fear to terrorists … will never come.

Great Blogs:
John Howard sets a reporter straight (if possible)
Good on ya, John Howard!
A Friend From Down Under
Heroes, heroes everywhere
Its All Our Fault … That, at any rate, is the position of our leftwing friends …

Government Sites:
Prime Minister John Howard
Prime Minister Tony Blair
President George W. Bush

Hat Tip: Sawa