It’s hard to watch CNN recently due to their constant Reagan-o-Rama Love Fest, and I imagine it must be insufferable in the U.S. His legacy, already badly distorted by conservatives, is getting a complete whitewash due to sympathy. (Reality check here.)

In addition, one can just picture the PR team in the White House now, gleefully relieved to be free of the media attention to everything from Abu Ghraib to Valerie Plame, and busily working on how to get back control over the news cycle, putting the press on the track they want instead of focusing on all these felonies and disgraces.

British theaters (excuse me, “theatres”) are being issued night-vision goggles so the ushers can monitor the crowd during the film and catch anyone with a video camera.

I have some experience with movie theaters, and quite frankly, I think this is ridiculous. First, they only seem to be doing this in England, which is meaningless as the “World Wide Web” is, naturally, “world-wide” and a taping made anywhere could be posted on file-sharing services and made universally available.

But more importantly, I will bet you that many if not most pirate videos are made by people working at the theaters themselves. theaters are not always well-policed, and all it takes is one projectionist to run the film during non-business hours and make a videotape of it. Projectionists always test-run new films to scan for problems in the print, and while some of these are attended by theater staff, I am certain a projectionist could get away with doing it after midnight when the manager and staff have left.

People are being warned not to look at the sun directly during the transit of Venus against the sun tomorrow, and I can tell you from personal experience how this is excellent advice. When I was in my early teens, and an avid astronomy buff, I wanted to watch a partial solar eclipse. I had my telescope and had applied a solar filter to the eyepiece, making it safe to view the sun through the scope (a 2.4″ refractor, BTW–I got an 8″ reflector later on). My father had even removed the sighting scope so that I would not accidentally look into it. And then, as the stupid young kid I was, I used the rings that held the sighting scope as a target finder and looked through them, at the sun, with my right eye, in order to align the scope. And that’s how I got a blind spot just off the center of my vision in my right eye.

Fortunately, the spot is only in one eye, and when using both eyes, the left eye compensates and I don’t see the spot–but if eye floaters get in the way in my left eye, or if I close my left eye, then the blind spot becomes apparent and interferes with my vision.

So I would heartily endorse the advice not to look at the sun directly, never do that; if you want to view the transit of Venus, you would need a scope for that anyway–I’m pretty sure that even using a dark plastic filter for naked-eye viewing (as some people do at eclipses), the transit would not be visible as Venus would likely be too small to see anyway. If you have binoculars, put them away–way too dangerous! And if you have a telescope, only a solar filter–specially made, not improvised–would be acceptable, and at that, learn from my example and don’t look at the sun to target the scope.

Better yet, just wait for TV and web sites to publish the pretty photos.

Got a heads-up from Kevin Drum’s column (his media link is subscription only) that the Texas GOP approved its 2004 party platform, and it’s a doozy. Among the highlights:

–Support for “the traditional definition of marriage as a God-ordained, legal and moral commitment only between a natural man and a natural woman.”

–Support for state legislation that would make it a felony to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple and for any civil official to perform a marriage ceremony for a same-sex couple.

–Opposition to government action to restrict, prohibit or remove from public display the Ten Commandments or other religious symbols.

–Denouncement of “any unconstitutional act of judicial tyranny that would demand removal of the words ‘One Nation Under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance.”

And according to Drum’s read of an Austin paper article:

A plank in a section titled “Promoting Individual Freedom and Personal Safety” proclaims the United States a “Christian nation.”

….Also new this year is a section declaring that the Ten Commandments “are the basis of our basic freedoms and the cornerstone of our Western legal tradition.”

“We therefore oppose any governmental action to restrict, prohibit or remove public display of the Decalogue or other religious symbols.”

….As delegates prayed and sang, oversized religious images, including Jesus on the cross, were displayed on the hall’s giant video screens. Christian clergymen took turns leading the prayers, some with political overtones.

Add to that the Texas GOP’s vow to do away with separation of church and state, repeal the minimum wage, make it illegal for a gay person to raise a child, do away with the IRS, get the U.S. to leave the U.N., and take back the Panama Canal–but I think this stuff has been on their docket for some time.

Yes, the Texas GOP–the Party of Scary People.