Robert H. gets a strangely attractive squealing no-prize for bringing us an interesting variation on the "God kills a kitten" saying.

In-laws are up, complete with children and pets, so it's going to be pretty quiet around here for awhile. Will keep you posted...

Richie gets a very pornish No-prize with the latest video game for adults only!

I guess we can call the whole blog thing officially over if this guy can get one:

Big day. Storming the rebel ice fortress.

Took a nap first so I would be peppy. Leg feels pretty good.

Admiral Ozzol took the fleet out of hyerspace too close to Hoth, and the Rebel Alliance were -- you guessed it -- alerted to our approach. The cornerstone of Ozzel's arrogance is his insistence that rebel technology is so vastly inferior to Imperial technology that we need broker no caution.

This attitude is typical of a man who could not rephase his own fusion orb if his life depended on it. He cannot fathom what rebel engineers may accomplish out of desperation. People who are good with things, people like me, can appreciate the infinite diversity of possible tools buried in artful combinations of even the humblest technologies. Give me an hour to reconfigure an industrial grade repulsolift and I will give you an ion cannon and enough parts left over to build a droid to run it.

Ozzel just isn't the creative type.

The problem is solved now, however. I crushed his trachea with my mind, and promoted Piett to command the fleet.

Surprisingly well written, and not completely silly after all. Recommended to all Star Wars fans.

Via Siflay

Ever wonder what they do with all the confiscated crap at the airport?

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking Pinky?"

"I fink so Brain, but thirty-five pounds of scissors? The fetish club would never be the same!"

Ron gets a no-prize he can drill holes with for bringing us news of the discovery of living specimens belonging to a woodpecker species thought to be extinct:

The ivory-billed woodpecker, long feared extinct, has been seen in a remote part of Arkansas 60 years after the last confirmed U.S. sighting, ornithologists said Thursday.

Includes this nice bon mot: ''This is huge. Just huge,'' said Frank Gill, senior ornithologist at the Audubon Society. ''It is kind of like finding Elvis.''

Well, we all gotta get excited about something.

As expected, media revision about the economy is in full swing:

Economy grows at slowest pace in two years

APR. 28 8:49 A.M. ET Buffeted by rising energy prices and weakened consumer and business spending, the economy grew at an annual rate of just 3.1 percent in the first quarter. It was the slowest pace of expansion in two years, offering fresh evidence that the economy has hit another "soft patch."

That's right folks! Just like in the 1980s, we've suddenly swung from "recession woes" to "when will the current expansion end?" without so much as a whisper about the transition. Even better, back in the 1990s, a "soft patch" of 3% growth was considered ideal (emphasis added):

An analysis of the Federal Reserve’s Humphrey-Hawkins report to Congress and Mr. Greenspan’s public statements indicates that the Fed’s current view is that the long-term sustainable growth rate is a bit better than 3 percent.

Historically, developed nations have averaged a 2% growth rate for nearly 200 years now*. Anything more or less than that is a sign of a business cycle. We don't want growth rates higher than 5%, because this always means a recession is in the wings. A 3.1% growth rate is just about right, especially considering the steps the fed has had to take recently to reign in inflation. This is not the sign of an economy "gone soft", it's a sign of a robust economy with a well-managed money supply and healthy capital markets.

While the article has a Business Week header, it's really an AP report, which I find comforting. I normally expect a trade publication to actually be savvy about the trade it purports to cover, and I found such an obvious liberal MSM spin rather disconcerting. Instead it's just standard wire-service Bush bashing, albeit to me in an unexpected place.

For awhile there it was sort of like having your grandmother walk in, sit down, and then beat you stupid at Halo or something.

-----
* Not as depressing as it sounds, actually. While the average growth rate of a developed industrial nation has been about 2% for the past two centuries, the average growth rate of a developed agricultural nation (which is what all sophisticated civilizations were until about 1820) was about .01%. When you mix in the explosive growth developing economies experience as they modernize, the picture becomes quite rosy indeed. For further reading, see The Birth of Plenty.

Pile it on!

While the Huygens probe's mission may be over, Cassini continues to examine that enigmatic Saturn moon, Titan:

During its closest flyby of Saturn's moon Titan on April 16, the Cassini spacecraft came within 1,027 kilometers (638 miles) of the moon's surface and found that the outer layer of the thick, hazy atmosphere is brimming with complex hydrocarbons.

Scientists believe that Titan's atmosphere may be a laboratory for studying the organic chemistry that preceded life and provided the building blocks for life on Earth. The role of the upper atmosphere in this organic "factory" of hydrocarbons is very intriguing to scientists, especially given the large number of different hydrocarbons detected by Cassini during the flyby.

While Mars's atmosphere is thin enough that flying probes can be problematic, I wonder if Titan's is thick enough? After all, the chances for a liquid surface on Titan are much greater, and I'd hate for the next mission to that moon to end with a sad "splork!"

The more morbid and/or odd-history fans out there should find this Washington City Paper article on the history of body snatching in the DC area of interest:

When it came to professional grave robbers, the District of Columbia—which boasted four medical schools and some 50-odd cemeteries—had them in spades. In the last two decades of the 19th century, it was home to some of the most infamous resurrection men—and women—in the United States. William Jansen, the brother-and-sister team of Percy and Maud Brown, and the trigger-happy Marlow Gang all conducted business in the city during those years. All of them achieved the kind of public notoriety that is reserved, nowadays, for upper-echelon Mafiosi and high-profile killers.

The city's laws against grave robbing were, until the very late 1800s, remarkably lax. Indeed,Washington had no law against body snatching per se until the 1890s. As long as the "ghouls" left the victims' clothing behind, they couldn't be prosecuted for larceny. As a result, police who caught grave robbers even in the act were reduced to charging them with violation of obscure laws that brought about only token penalties.

YiCk!

I'm sure there really are loons on the left who think Bush is targeting Venezuela for invasion:

Telephone callers at Venezuela's oil ministry are getting the low-down on the country's oil strategy direct from President Hugo Chavez.

"What is the reason for the imperialist aggression against our country? Venezuela is the world's top oil reserve and the world's oil is running out," the short, repeated recording of a recent Chavez speech tells phoners as their call is put on hold and transferred internally.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my old Argentinian boss, maybe in 1997:

A: [Must be imagined in ridiculous Ricky-Ricardo-style* Latin accent] "It will be such a shame if America and Argentina don't repair their relationship. It could lead to a war."

ME: "A war? Really?"

A: "Yes!"

ME, quietly, after a really long pause: "Well, that would be kind of a short war, don't you think?"

No, I've never been one for subtlety.

--------
* Yes yes, I know, Ricky Ricardo was from Cuba. If I said "in ridiculous Argentinian accent" you'd have no idea what I was talking about. Trust me, this is close enough.

BBCnews is carrying this report detailing a rather startling method of predation recently found in a species of ant:

A fierce species of Amazonian ant has been seen building elaborate traps on which hapless prey are stretched like medieval torture victims, before being slowly hacked to pieces.
...
There is no limit to the ants' ambition and they will attempt to catch any mammoth of the insect world - so long as it has slender legs.

Color me glad I have big feet!

There's pizza cutters, and then there's pizza cutters. Not sure I'd go for the one with the spike on the handle. I wonder if they're dishwasher-safe?

Jeff gets a gigantic flying no-prize for letting us know Airbus's A380 has successfully made its first flight. Dulles is big enough for one of these things, but AvWeek didn't list it as one of the airports scheduled for them. Bugger.

Ok, that's it, under no circumstances am I going anywhere near a turkey:

Two elderly men who had gone turkey hunting together died from apparent heart attacks just minutes apart, authorities said.

CHEECH: "I mean, don't you see it? They're psychic killers now man! Like, they got, I dunno, turkey death rays or something. We'll all be, you know, walking through the forest and, like, all of a sudden WAOWAOWAOWAO! The turkey's eyes'll start all glowing and stuff man, and we'll just all keel over!"

CHONG: "I dunno man, psychic killer turkeys sound pretty cool to me."

CHEECH: "Well, yeah, I guess so. Except around, you know, Thanksgiving and stuff..."

Rob E. gets a L33T no-prize for bringing us the story of the "dangerous" hacker. It's a little technical, but not much. Sysadmins in particular should get a good chuckle.

First radio-controlled rats, now mind reading machines:

It is possible to read someone’s mind by remotely measuring their brain activity, researchers have shown. The technique can even extract information from subjects that they are not aware of themselves.

So far, it has only been used to identify visual patterns a subject can see or has chosen to focus on. But the researchers speculate the approach might be extended to probe a person’s awareness, focus of attention, memory and movement intention. In the meantime, it could help doctors work out if patients apparently in a coma are actually conscious.

Further reading seems to indicate they're actually a long way from reading minds. In fact, this sounds quite similar to a primate biology experiment I read about back in high school, but as I recall that required the injection of special chemicals to allow a scanner to read the patterns.

So I wouldn't expect mind reading devices to show up any time soon, but it is nice to know they're working on comparatively objective methods of judging consciousness.

From various sources: Boy, the press sure does think mighty highly of Humvee armor. Note caption on the lower-left side:

The Armor Tempered steel, 3/8-inch thick, is capable of withstanding 155mm Howitzer rounds.

For those of you who don't spend your free time memorizing the various statistics of military gear (I have a life! I do! It just involves learning about cool things that blow stuff up. It is so a life! THhhppt!!!), the caption claims that, with this armor, a Humvee can withstand a hit from one of these. Most buildings can't stand up to a 155.

Silly press monkeys.

Well, how good are you at guessing?

Best I've done so far was 254.

Via Silflay

Remember folks, cause and effect should never stand in the way of your bias politics agenda point of view:

While the crime rate has fallen over the past decade, the number of people in prison and jail is outpacing the number of inmates released, said the report's co-author, Paige Harrison.

Nope, no connection at all. Nothing to see here folks, please don't mind the man behind the curtain.

But wait! It gets better! (emphasis added):

Florida has a track record as a gun-law trendsetter. In the mid-1980s, the NRA chose Florida to launch a push for "conceal carry" or "right-to-carry" laws.
...
At the time, fewer than a dozen states had right-to-carry laws. Now there are 38.
...

[O]pponents [of Florida's recently passed "meet force with force" law] counter that Florida's drop [in violent crimes over the past 16 years] is not tied to the gun law and note that national violent-crime rates have been trending down.

Of course, the reporters aren't the ones who are biased. They're just regurgitating press releases (the first story is AP, but was essentially identical to the WaPo story I read). It's not their fault the sources have an agenda. I mean, come on, do you actually expect them to find other points of view? Present both sides with equal time and even treatment? Actually get out and do some reporting instead of parroting press releases from their friends? Find out the truth?!? That's not their job!

Oh, wait...

Slashdot linked up news "from the source" concerning new developments in the Star Wars universe. Lucas has now confirmed both a full-length (30 minute) 3D animated series based on the much shorter Clone Wars series, as well as a live-action TV series. The live-action variety will be set between episodes III and IV, and apparently will not concentrate on the same characters as the movies.

Lucas has always been a better producer than director, so I'm actually optimistic about this stuff. We'll see!

Fark linked up this nice de-bunking of the "Paul is dead" urban legend. It was bad enough that I had to explain it all to Ellen a few months ago. Now I'm beginning to realize I'm probably going to have to explain who Paul is to Olivia.

Why yes, I just did have a birthday. Why do you ask?

As you can see, she detests the hair wash.

Note she is wearing MY sneakers, my jacket and my sock in her hand!

This is just gross!!

Ok, I have a hard enough time standing up straight as it is. Any of you people re-work your living room to "defy gravity" and then invite me over, I'm not paying for stuff I break. Capice?

Just ginned up another regular expression that will hopefully prevent a new kind of comment spam from getting through. This time, we take advantage of someone who seems rather lazy about their random e-mail address generator. However, as with all reg-ex's, it might catch someone legit. If you suddenly find you can't comment, e-mail us and we'll fix it.

Lest ye think all DC-area political action happens on the hill, we have this story of a more local political drama:

People have dragged a hodgepodge of props -- sheep, tractors, Darth Vader, Patrick Henry, fake coffins, the music of Tammy Wynette, thousands of Monopoly houses -- into the battle over suburban sprawl in Loudoun County.

But none of the theatrics ever got anyone into serious trouble, until a man walked up to the podium at a board of supervisors meeting last year and identified himself as "Mr. Valerie Kelly," the husband of a vocal critic of development.

Ms. Kelly is a real charmer too:

Valerie Kelly was sitting in the audience that February morning last year when Grigsby appeared before the board inside its Leesburg chambers. The 56-year-old Middleburg woman was outraged. Here was a man she barely knew pretending to be her husband, telling everyone that she didn't respect him anymore.

"I was stunned," she recalled. "I was completely stunned."

But she didn't say anything. Actually, she couldn't say anything: Her mouth was taped shut.

At the previous board meeting, Supervisor Stephen J. Snow (R-Dulles) had referred to Kelly as an "idiot" after she blurted out a remark about his ancestors (he later apologized). So in part to protest Snow's comment, Kelly attended the meeting wearing a piece of duct tape over her mouth, one of several theatrical presentations she has made before the supervisors over the years.

Our old friend the Bishop would almost certainly feel right at home with these people.

My mom used to be a part of a local city council, and her tales of pettiness, lunacy, and political mayhem were quite similar to this.

This guy's video game collection is actually bigger than the one at the local Chuck E. Cheese. Complete with working change machine! This'll definitely go in the plans for the "lottery-win" dream home.

New Scientist is reporting on a startling new development in a DARPA-funded research project that seems to have created remoted controlled rats:

The rodents are directed using a series of brain implants, which can be operated wirelessly from a distance of several hundred metres. Now, for the first time, the researchers behind the project have demonstrated the ability to control the rodents' movements before activating their “sniffer dog” instincts.

The objective is a much smaller (and cheaper) bomb and drug sniffer. Foil hat "this is what the Republicans are gonna do to all of us! Run for your lives!" responses in 3... 2... 1...

Impressive, most impressive:

25 year old Brandon Erickson of Portland, Oregon will attempt what few have achieved - a non-stop marathon play of the original Star Wars Arcade video game. From noon May 16th to the midnight screening of Episode III on May 18th, he hopes to break a 22 year old record standing since Return of the Jedi in 1983.

I was top-dog on this game back in high school (it was a small town after all), but I honestly can't remember what my highest-of-high scores was. I guess it's time to hang up the ol' nerd badge after all.

Happy Birthday Scott!

No, I won't tell everyone how old you are :)

Swiffer it, just a little bit!

Rich, you need one of these.

Make your very own fizzing fizzing bath bomb!

Our child a primate? You don't say.

You just can't make this stuff up:

Hundreds of toads have met a bizarre and sinister end in Germany in recent days, it was reported: they exploded.

According to reports from animal welfare workers and veterinarians as many as a thousand of the amphibians have perished after their bodies swelled to bursting point and their entrails were propelled for up to a metre (three feet).

Includes a great non-sequitor shot of some toads gettin' bizzy. If this story is to be believed, the male may find himself in the next county if he's not careful.

Talking Jesus action figures.

Don't forget to click on each character to hear them talk!

I Post your pix you took:)

Note the normal clothing is covered in bellydance costuming with the snow boots (they light up).

NSFW due to banners!

Bunny loves you.

The Egyptologists in the audience should find this news about an ancient Egyptian burial find interesting. And when you put the words "ancient" and "Egypt" together, you know you're really saying something:

Archaeologists digging in a 5,600-year-old funeral site in southern Egypt unearthed seven corpses believed to date to the era, as well as an intact figure of a cow's head carved from flint.

The American-Egyptian excavation team made the discoveries in what they described as the largest funerary complex ever found that dates to the elusive five millenia-old Predynastic era, Egypt's Supreme Council of antiquities said Wednesday.

Yup, this stuff is nearly a thousand years older than the pyramids. Say it with me folks... cooool...

No, really, when chimps attack:

When St. James Davis adopted an orphaned chimpanzee he found while on safari in Africa almost four decades ago, he hardly could have guessed how that relationship would lead to devastating trauma today.

Davis, 62, currently lies in a medically induced coma in a California hospital, his nose chewed off and his genitals and limbs severely mauled. Last month, Davis and his wife, LaDonna, were visiting the chimp they adopted at a wildlife preserve, when two other chimps attacked them.

Essentially a more detailed account of what exactly happened a few months ago when some berzerk chimps got loose and mauled two people. Even stranger, Ellen thinks she knows the "perpetrators". She once worked at an animal research facility, and when it closed some of the chimps went to this place.

BBC news is reporting a new caving record:

A Ukrainian team has reached a record depth of 2,080m (6,822ft), passing the elusive 2,000m mark at Krubera, the world's deepest known cave.

The nine-strong group were part of a project that has made breaking the 2,000m depth its goal for four years.

From the pictures, this isn't one of those "spectacular stalactites and stalagmites" sort of cave. Rather, it looks more like the "cold, dark, muddy hole" sort that I used to trapse around in when I was in college.

Hibernating astronauts are a staple of science fiction. Now it appears they're one step closer to reality, and you won't believe the cause:

Suspended animation has been deliberately induced in a species of mouse which does not naturally hibernate. It is the first time such a feat has been achieved, say the procedure’s pioneers.
...
The mice were induced to fall into their deep sleep after being exposed to hydrogen sulphide - the gas which gives rotten eggs and stink bombs their characteristic foul odour. The animals later revived in ordinary air.

And all this time Ellen's been complaining about me farting under the covers. I'm helping you sleep!

I think it's time to raise the terror threat level:

Wild turkeys, some as large as four feet tall, are terrorizing people along Concord Street in Cranford [NJ].

In one instance, a letter carrier killed a bird with a stick after a group of the aggressive gobblers surrounded his truck and wouldn't let him out.

At least we know these terrorists go well with cranberry sauce!

A very addictive site.

Oh-and she never gives out
And she never gives in
She just changes her mind...

"I want a snake. I want this snake."

Ellen promptly plonked her computer on my lap, wherein I was confronted with a very large picture of a very small snake. Something red and black and (by the text) non-poisonous. Can't remember what it was exactly, because...

"What the?!? You hate snakes!"

"But look at this one! He's so cute! He'd be just perfect for a tribal belly dance routine I've been thinking about!"

"You hate snakes! You scared everyone stupid at the aquarium because you backed into a snake exhibit and screamed like a chimp on helium. Remember the trash can incident?"

And this is where they cue the wavy lines...

The only real weakness of my bike was the tires it came with. They were, to be blunt, crap, getting punctures and blowing out just by driving past sharp gravel. While it's possible to patch inner tubes, it's simpler to just replace them and be done with it. Which I was doing for the third time that month.

Since it was the day before trash day, after I tossed the old tube I decided to be a really thoughtful husband-type and take the big wheeled trash can out to the curb. It was mostly empty anyway, since we hadn't put any of the regular garbage in it yet. So out the garage door it went, into the setting sun of a standard late-summer suburban afternoon.

"Trash taken out?" she asked as I walked upstairs.

"Yup. Want me to put the kitchen garbage in it?"

"Nah, I'll do that. It's your turn to wash Olivia." We take turns at our house, alternating between cooking duties and child-washing/bedding. So while Ellen gathered up the kitchen trash bag and a few boxes to be thrown out, I started to play "chase the baby", a well-known pre-bath ritual.

As I lifted the now completely "caught" baby for the trip upstairs, I looked out the window just as Ellen lifted the lid off the trash can outside. It was at that moment, and I swear only at that moment, that I remembered something.

The inner tube I'd thrown away bore an amusing and rather convincing resemblance to a snake. A really big snake too.

She spotted the thing in mid-toss. Suddenly the trash bag went from travelling in a nice, lazy arc to a hard underthrow, sailing impressively out into the street. Time seemed to suddenly slow down as boxes held in the other hand bounced off the car parked in the driveway three feet away. She must've jumped up and backward one, maybe two feet into the air, landing square on her butt, scrabbling in a reverse spider crawl that carried her all the way to the flower bed, a good ten feet from the curb. Miraculously, there was no scream, just a faint, desperate "shi-!! shi-!! shi-!!", barely audible through the open window.

At this point I was laughing so hard I had to put the baby down. But only for a moment, since I knew "in trouble" would be a minor description of what I was in after Ellen cautiously crept up commando-like to the trash can and peered inside. Time to wash the baby.

Luckily by the time she'd gathered everything up, dropped it in the can, and came back upstairs she'd calmed down quite a bit. It also helped to have a cute baby very close by. I mean, if you can keep from smiling when Olivia plays "splash splash!" with a huge grin on her face, you're just not human.

So the voice that came over my shoulder was more sardonic than enraged. "Had a flat tire yesterday?" she asked.

Without turning around, I said, "oh yeah, sure did. Changed it just before I came upstairs." Well, no cast-iron skillet to the head yet. "Heh... it's funny, you know, that inner tube actually sorta looked like a--"

Which was right about the time she shoved me into the tub. Olivia thought this was extremely neat, and clapped enthusiastically.

And that, my friends is how daddy learned to fold the inner tubes up and put them in a bag before throwing them away.

And this is where they cue the wavy lines again...

"But this is a little snake. Not scary at all."

"No snakes."

"Awww... c'mon... just a tiny one?"

"No snakes. Your mom would have a heart attack. My mom would have a stroke. You've been terrified of these things for as long as I've known you!"

*Pout* "You're no fun at all. Nobody would be scared of this little thing. Well," and here she got an evil grin, "maybe my mom would."

"No. Snakes."

*POUT!* "Fine." Dramatic pause. "What about a chameleon?"

She is frequently kind
And she’s suddenly cruel
She can do as she pleases
She’s nobody’s fool
But she can’t be convicted
She’s earned her degree
And the most she will do
Is throw shadows at you
But she’s always a woman to me

BBCnews is carrying the first (that I've seen anyway) review of the upcoming Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Their verdict: definitely doesn't suck, probably could've been better.

Of course, one review does not a hit or bomb make. I'll wait for the rest of my normal reviewers (both professional and friend) before I figure out whether or not I need to find a babysitter, wait for the DVD, or pass completely.

Instapundit linked up this NY Times story that does a nice job summing up and comparing the latest digital SLR offerings from Nikon and Canon. Considering Ellen hasn't had her D70 more than a few weeks, we may just see if we can browbeat Best Buy into giving her a D70S (they SEEM to be the same price). *shrug*... stranger things have happened.

Actually, that was a pretty good shot:

A driver is recovering after a frozen sausage was thrown through the window of his moving car, breaking his nose.

The man was driving near his South Woodham Ferrers home in Essex on Monday afternoon when the "bizarre incident" happened, the ambulance service said.

I've owned convertibles for nearly twenty years now, and from experience getting stuff tossed into one is not uncommon. Typically it's the stuff that gets in at low or no speed that's the worst... wasps and spiders are particularly common. However, I've nearly been set on fire twice from flicked cigarette butts, and a bird once kamikazed into the windshield and tumbled through the cabin between Ellen and me before careening into the street.

Worse were the things I've found after leaving the top down overnight. Empty beer bottles and (just once) a condom have "mysteriously" found their way into cars I've owned over the years. Which is why I put the top up if the current spider's going to be sitting outside somewhere overnight. All together now... ewww!

Ron gets a cast-iron no-prize for bringing us news of recent discoveries about the Earth's core:

New evidence of a solid iron inner core to the planet comes from a digital broadband seismic array in Germany that is located in a lucky enough position to have captured a faint, but telltale, seismic signal. The signal was sent through the Earth from a particularly clear sort of earthquake deep in the crust on the other side of the planet.

Reminds me of someone whacking a bell or something. Geology is cool!

By day, defense attorney; by night, porn star:

Criminal defense attorney Ronald S. Miller does more than file his briefs -- he also takes them off.

Miller has spent days in front of a judge and nights in front of a camera as Don Hollywood -- porn star.

He has performed in more than 90 films in the past seven years, including "Justice Your Ass" and "The Jerry Shag-Her Show."

Article is SFW. I'll have to google search their names when I get home, see if they're the kind of people who should be seen naked, or simply the kind who want to be seen naked. Usually it's the latter. *shudder*

Because I'd hate to think he got this education on my dime:

hat said, perhaps some readers will understand why my friends and I rip yellow ribbon "support the troops" magnets off of cars or wherever people have affixed them. By ripping off these ribbons, we find a way to deal with our guilt, as though with each ribbon swiped we take back a life that was taken by this senseless war started by our senseless president and those who support him.

I will never say, "support the troops." I don't believe in the validity of that statement. People say, "I don't support the war, I support the troops" as though you can actually separate the two. You cannot; the troops are a part of the war, they have become the war and there is no valid dissection of the two. Other people shout with glaring eyes that we should give up our politics, give up our political affiliations in favor of "just supporting the troops." I wish everything were that easy.

I don't remember being this much of an idiot in college, but then again who does?

Members sitting on the left side of the peanut gallery should take note... these are the people who get you called "unamerican." Not fair you say? Perhaps, but keep that in mind next time you read a far-right editorial. We all have loons in our attic.

Via Jason.

Oh, and by the way? Allergies suck. I'm on three different meds for them right now, and I still feel like someone's shoved my head in an overfilled vacuum cleaner bag. *ACHOOO!!!*

Thing is, she's actually slightly more animated than most porn chicks. Which is why, I suppose, I'm not all that "in" to most porn.

Woot! Scott got a naughty bit! Scott got a naughty bit!

As startling as these sand sculptures are, I can only imagine what they must be like in person. And it all washes away with the tide.

Power blackouts at the office are fun. Each one gives the network the electrical equivalent of a kick in the crotch. So far we've had 3 today. Primary casualty: a RAID controller that had to be re-seated in its slot to start working again. Not bad for a network that's mostly bailing wire and duct tape. However, it usually takes 2-3 days before all the problems manifest, so keep your fingers crossed!

So, has the speed of light, one of the bedrock constants in physics, changed over the life of the universe? Maybe, maybe not, but they sure are looking hard to check:

A new study of distant galaxies is adding a fresh perspective to the debate over whether a fundamental physical constant has actually changed over time. The work suggests the number has not varied in the last 7 billion years, but more observations are still needed to settle the issue.

Essentially, one study found it had changed, but subsequent studies have not. This is a new technique to look at the problem, but they're just starting out and their "resolution" isn't as good as the previous experiments, at least for now.

No, I don't know what good it does us to know this either. But then again, that's what people said about guys screwing around with static electricity back in the 18th century, and look where that's go us.

Lucky' former owner, Nick Sigmon, 19, and his friend Paul Collins, 21, pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges of animal cruelty charges for taping an M-1000 -- a firecracker with the power of a quarter of a stick of dynamite -- into Castro Valley's Lake Don Castro on July 13.

Read more about these sick little bastards here.

I hope they are in counseling for a long long time.

Like the article says, either turn it off or put it on "vibrate":

A couple of years ago we reported on the Jamaican mobile phone thief who got herself into a bit of a sticky situation in Negril when "a cellular phone which was stolen from a female shopper was found after it rang from within another shopper's vagina".
...
You'd think that this cautionary tale would be enough to deter even the most desperate mobe-lifter, but they obviously don't read Jamaica's Western Mirror in Romania, because light-fingered Ruxandra Gardian has been snared by the same "let's dial the number and see where she's stashed it" ploy.

I mean, cell phones are small, but I can't recall seeing one that small. 9 kinds of yuck going on there!

Let's just say this idiot should be happy he did this in the UK, because in many (not all) states in the US it's legal to shoot people in defense of your property:

An artist who randomly vandalised nearly 50 cars for a project said the owners should be happy they were part of his "creative process".

Mark McGowan, 37, will exhibit pictures of himself scratching the vehicles' paintwork in London and Glasgow.

Would I shoot someone if I caught them running keys down my car? No, but I might introduce them to Mr. Louisville Slugger. You see, I have it on good authority shooting them causes too much paperwork.

OW! OW! Ok, who was the one dumb enough to give the stick to the buddhist in the first place?

Pat gets a mitered no-prize for being the first to tell us a new pope, German cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, has been elected. At age 78, conventional wisdom seems to have held... the hierarchy has elected someone that (presumably) will not become the next "longest reigning" pope in history. Then again, John XXIII invoked Vatican II at the ripe old age of 76, so you never can tell.

So there you go. Now, no more "is the pope Polish?" jokes for you!

And you thought a pile-up on the interstate was bad:

An iceberg the size of Luxembourg has smashed into another vast slab of ice that juts out from Antarctica.

The 115km-long B-15A iceberg broke off a 5km-long section of the Drygalski ice tongue when it collided with the protruding ice rivet in the Ross Sea.

Apparently it's big enough it might warrant re-drawing Antarctica's maps. Explain that one to the adjuster!

Another day, another drunken celebrity with a warrant:

A New York judge issued an arrest warrant on Monday for "American Pie" movie actress Natasha Lyonne, who failed to appear for a court hearing on charges stemming from a rampage during which she was heard threatening to molest a neighbor's dog.

I'm not sure why I care either, but there it is.

In spite of its many and famous failures, the only-socialism-will-save-us-from-the-plebes mindset is still alive and kicking in academia. This time they're calling it "libertarian paternalism":

H.L. Mencken famously defined Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone somewhere may be happy." Being a libertarian-conservative means being possessed of the haunting fear that someone somewhere is itching to play busybody on a level one might have once thought was inconceivable.

That fear becomes justified when one reads articles like this one by the New York Times ("Choice is Good, Yes, No or Maybe?"), which informs us that there is a movement afoot to limit our choices as consumers and citizens. You see, the fear is that we may not have the capacity to "choose properly" or that we may simply "refuse to choose." As a result, "government should limit people's choices. That is, choose for them." This is because "More choice can be worse than less choice," according to Columbia University psychologist Sheena Iyengar.

Which reminds me of an earlier quote on Instapundit's website: ""Every time I grow tired of the Republicans a lefty opens his mouth, suddenly I'm not quite as tired."

What's that you say? Libertarians aren't lefties? Aside from their questionable bona-fides, this may still be true. But collectivisim wasn't always a left-only concept. It had a right-side component too. They were called "fascists", and you know how well that turned out.

Via Instapundit.

I mean, what better place can you think of to have a child:

A Berlin couple plan to have their first baby at an art gallery, the gallery owner said on Saturday, confirming a newspaper report.

"It's a gift to humanity, a once in a lifetime thing," Bild newspaper quoted Winfried Witt, partner of mother-to-be Ramune Gele, as saying.

Been there, done that, toddler has the t-shirt. It may be a miracle, but it's not a very pretty miracle. Kinda smells funny too. I'm not sure who is weirder... the couple who want to do it, the gallery owner who's going to let them, or the (presumably) hordes of people who will try and watch. They do have something like the Discovery channel over there, don't they? Trust me, it's a lot like professional sports... it's much better to see it on TV.

Kudos to Amber for coming up with the perfect idea for a bachelor party that did not actually involve boobies

It's a gun...

No! No! It's a...

Flame thrower!

Special thanks to Joshua at Bluelens for bringing his camera along, and for finding the best quote imaginable for these pictures (sadly, we cannot replicate the thick West-End accent this dialog was spoken in. You'll have to imagine them said as if Eliza Doolittle's three-times-great grandson never got out and instead went very, very bad):

Now, dicks have drive and clarity of vision, but they are not clever. They smell pussy and they want a piece of the action.

And you thought you smelled some good old pussy, and have brought your two small mincey faggot balls along for a good old time. But you've got your parties mangled up. There's no pussy here, just a dose that'll make you wish you were born a woman.

Like a prick, you are having second thoughts. You are shrinking, and your two little balls are shrinking with ya. The fact that you've got "Replica" written down the side of your gun. (withdraws his gun) And the fact that I've got "Desert Eagle point five O" written on the side of mine, should precipitate your balls into shrinking, along with your presence.

Now... Fuck off.

Ok, that's not normally what you'd want to happen during surgery:

Seattle police launched an investigation on Friday to determine how a patient undergoing emergency heart surgery caught on fire at a local hospital in 2003.

The male patient, who was not identified, went up in flames after alcohol poured on his skin was ignited by a surgical instrument.

The article says the patient died, but from heart failure, not burning. Not knowing just how big a fire they're talking about, I guess it could be true. Then again, if I were that family I'd be pretty interested to find out just who did the autopsy.

I mean, I can see trading her for, I dunno, an Alfa or something, but a Cougar?!?

A woman was arrested for allegedly forcing her 12-year-old daughter into prostitution and trading a 14-year-old daughter for a car.
...
The older daughter refused to be a prostitute and was allegedly sold for a car.

"She was sold to a man for a Mercury Cougar," Ammons said. "But he never gave the mother the vehicle." He was arrested in the case.

I mean, come on... standards people, standards!

BBCnews is carrying this summary of the discovery of perhaps one of the first stars that formed in the universe. While some of the chemical signatures in its light properly identify it as such, others are just wrong enough to call some theories into question. Figuring out how such stars formed provides important insight into how the universe itself was created.

One of the darling projects of the new generation of high-tech elitist lefties is publicly funded broadband technologies. "Make the city pay for it! The state! The feds!" they cry, "only a Republican trying to ensure the Internet will be for the rich would oppose this!", all the while ignoring and then decrying the real implications of state-controlled media access. Basically, making the classic liberal mistake of not thinking past stage one:

"HB 3314, up for hearing in the Texas House State Affairs committee on Monday, would require the state to filter wireless internet access at highway rest stops. This bill mandates filtering at any state-provided wireless network on public property. Since last May, the Texas Department of Transportation has offered wifi access at state rest stops.

In a competitive market, an internet provider that decides to filter content succeeds or fails based on whether or not anyone wants filtered content. When the state provides access, the state controls access, and suddenly what you can and cannot see is determined by whomever happens to be the most successful group of busybodies this week*. Even worse, since there's no competing with "free" there will be no alternative. Well, not quite... people able to pay more will do so, and therefore get better access.

Which leads to the depressingly familiar yet willfully ignored consequence of any attempt to control a market through mandates: in an effort to "help" by gauranteeing results instead of providing incentives, the result of government action is ultimately less access for the poor with increased empowerment of the wealthy.

Keep that in mind the next time you think a government should spend its way out of a bind instead of providing tax breaks to allow the people to do it themselves.

-----
* "Well, if we could just keep the fundies out of government it would work. The evil Republicans stack the deck to derail the project into a debate on censorship!" And just how long do you think it would take the people who brought us Ward Churchill and "college diversity" to impose filters on "hate speech", "exploitation", and "dangerous reactionaries"?

For those of you that can't take the real picture, we have done a reinactment for you with some of Olivia's toys.

The real picture taken today at the Nature Reserve.

Taken at the Nature Reserve in Alexandria, VA.

From slashdot: scientists have made a breakthrough in scanning technologies that could potentially increase the number of classical works by as much as 20%:

The original papyrus documents, discovered in an ancient rubbish dump in central Egypt, are often meaningless to the naked eye - decayed, worm-eaten and blackened by the passage of time. But scientists using the new photographic technique, developed from satellite imaging, are bringing the original writing back into view. Academics have hailed it as a development which could lead to a 20 per cent increase in the number of great Greek and Roman works in existence. Some are even predicting a "second Renaissance".

Cool!

Tabitha is one of the cats that comes to board at my cat clinic I work at.

Space.com is carrying up-to-the-minute coverage of NASA's ongoing DART experimental satellite. Designed to test technologies that would allow fully automated rendevous and docking, DART was successfully launched this morning aboard a Pegasus rocket. If all goes well it will complete its mission sometime tomorrow morning.

While the technologies behind DART were planned as part of the now defunct Orbital Space Plane project, research was allowed to continue because of its value for future space projects. If successful, this will mark the first time a US space project performed a rendevous and docking with zero human input throughout the entire process.

But then again, I guess someone's gonna think this is cute:

Kintana, a four-day-old aye-aye, is revealed by Bristol Zoo Gardens in the UK after becoming only the second to be born and reared in captivity. Aye-ayes, from Madagascar, are the world's largest nocturnal primates.

They're even weirder looking when they grow up.

Wired is running this nifty story on the impact of Google's new satellite imagery archive. From Burning Man to Tsunamis, it would seem almost every picture from space has a story to tell. Includes, of course, pictures!

Now that's what I call family planning:

U.S. officials bolstered security on Thursday for a duck nursing eggs near the White House to protect her from demonstrators at a global economic summit beginning on Friday.

Officials are concerned protesters could disturb the mallard hen, who is incubating what officials say are nine eggs at the foot of a tree on the sidewalk in front of the Treasury Department and next door to the presidential residence.

I wouldn't put it past some of these punks to do something mean to an animal just to make a point, and everyone knows these chimps like to throw things.

New Scientist is reporting in this article on the first discovery of fossilized eggs inside the dinosaur about the lay them. Consisting of a pelvis and part of a leg from an oviraptor, the find provides the first strong evidence of how dinosaurs laid their eggs. Article includes two cool pictures of the find!

More of those strange penis stretching exercises! Now on video!

Scott: "Now thats what I call choking the chicken."

Dancing Furries.

Olivia liked it.

India is one of the residents at my work.

Making the rounds: the UN, in it's role as "the world's most famous qualuude-addled traffic cop", has decided to make nuclear terrorism illegal. I can just hear it now...

"Dammit Achmed! I told you we needed to act sooner! Now these camel fleas have closed our loophole!"

"I know, I know, Osama, and I'm sorry. *Sigh* ... ok boys, let's pack it all up and go home."

Yeah, that's the ticket.

Japan's obsession with robotics really seems to be paying off now, as this New Scientist article demonstrates:

A ROBOT suit has been developed that could help older people or those with disabilities to walk or lift heavy objects.

Dubbed HAL, or hybrid assistive limb, the latest versions of the suit will be unveiled this June at the 2005 World Expo in Aichi, Japan, which opened last month. A commercial product is slated for release by the end of the year.

Will robotics be "the next Internet?" If so, I think it'll be the first time in modern history an entire field of research, engineering, and production was brought to term with a non-western country in the lead. And good for them too!

Bionic grammas... whodathunkit?

Via Site-Essential.

Dude, Pedro's house is for sale!

Oh get over it. It's not often we're actually with it on some pop culture trend. We're gonna ride this one until it blows a gasket.

Which of course simply means we're a whole lot less "with it" than we'd like to be. Idiots!!!

Brownsville to PETA: Drop Dead

A trio of protesters with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals didn't find the welcome mat out when they stopped at a KFC in Brownsville on Wednesday. The sprinkler system was on for them, though.
...
"I'm waiting for someone to throw a cabrito head at them so they know what part of the country they are in," [David Ingersoll, of Los Fresnos,] said, referring to the goat meat that's used in some Mexican dishes.

Not quite as good as the beat-down those Greenpeace hippies got in London, but I'll take it.

OW! Dammit! Will someone take that buddhist's stick away please? OW!

Spaceflightnow has this interesting montage of pictures chronicling the space shuttle Discovery being mounted to its tank and boosters. I especially like the second picture in this series, because it provides a great perspective on just how big the VAB is.

Fark this morning brings us proof there's no such thing as a story that's too weird:

There is a new twist in the case of a woman who claimed she discovered a human finger in a bowl of chili at a Wendy's restaurant.

San Jose police are investigating a woman who had part of her finger bitten off in late February by a pet leopard.

You just can't make this stuff up...

~Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back!~ To the 1890's, that is.

Indianapolis News Channel 8 released a video taken Thursday evening of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City showing what appears to be an unidentified flying object moving across the upper left portion of the screen. The video, taken from a network feed camera at around 6:00 am Roman time, was filmed as Pope John Paul II lay in state.

Read entire article here.

No children were harmed in the making of this film. Well, that we know of.

Remeber that German guy who killed and ate another man at the victim's request and with is co-operation and participation? Well, Hee's baaa-ack:

A German cannibal and prosecutors launched rival appeals at Germany's top criminal court Wednesday against his manslaughter conviction for killing and eating a willing victim.

The prosecutors are trying to get the case reconsidered for stronger sentence, and the defense is trying to get it knocked down to "killing on request", which would peel 3 years off his sentence.

The details of the case are still incomprehensible to me. It would be tempting to try to assign blame... to parents, society, culture, TV, carrots, really anything just to try and find a grip on something like this. The truth is probably a lot more frightening... it was all of those things that made these people, and none of them, both at the same time.

Which is merely the existential angst the self-styled post-modern intellectual inside me goes through when I read about something like this. The practical redneck inside me knows there's no such thing as too much crazy, and the only real solution to folks like this is either a bible or a gun. The buddhist inside me stands between the other two, whacking them with a stick whenever they get too far out of line.

And you thought your head was complicated...

I bet this is what people in the 1940s thought rodeo belt buckles would look like by now.

Instapundit linked up this Defense Tech summary of recent assessments of China's military capability. In a nutshell: they're getting better and bigger and geared up for amphibious assault. Which should make Japan and Taiwan real happy with them.

This is a marked change from previous assessments, which pointed out systemic corruption and the corporate nature of the PLA was holding it back from first-rank status. They appear to be overcoming these obstacles now.

Worrisome? Perhaps, but then again perhaps not. The whole point of some thirty years of US and European realpolitik foreign policy with China has been to knit it so tightly into the international community it won't want to act unilaterally to distrupt the global system. In spite of decades of well-meaning but naive attempts by various human rights organizations to reverse this goal by getting governments to ostracize the Dragon, the strategy does seem to be working. One only needs to see China's trade balances (or talk to its textile competitors) to understand where its prosperity is coming from, and Chinese leaders can read that sheet just as easily as anyone else.

However, nations throughout history have done damned foolish things to themselves for the sake of pride and prejudice before, and the world has paid a spectacular price in blood, tears, and treasure for overestimating the wisdom of other contries's leaders. History has proven quite clearly that the industrial might of a modern nation is an extremely dangerous tool to blindly trust a few foolish old men with. Inclusion is good, yes, even necessary, but only a soft-headed utopian would think money is the only thing required to keep an ambitious and growing nation from wreaking havoc on the world's stage.

So color me concerned about China, but not worried, at least not right now. A vigorous, powerful China could be an asset, as competition, even between nations, always improves the breed. The Dragon in the East has grown powerful enough now that it will rise or fall due to its own efforts. We must be extremely careful to not let emotion or idealism or pride to blind us to this simple fact. Because while we cannot stop its rise, the decisions we make will determine if it steps to the front of the world's stage as a friend, a competitor, or an enemy.

This New Scientist article describes what must be the most ambitious gene mapping project to-date. Scientists plan on taking genetic samples from at least 100,000 people from all over the world in an attempt to use genetic markers to track human migrations over the past 10,000 to 15,000 years. Anyone can participate by purchasing a $100 sampling kit (most of the money will go toward funding the project).

The study itself will only use male DNA to create the map, because women just stop and ask for directions.

We've updated our comment spam filter, creating a more sophisticated "dash trap". Instead of looking for "a dash, then anything, then another dash, then anything, then another dash", it looks for "a dash, then 2-15 characters with no spaces, then another dash, then 2-15 characters with no spaces, then another dash, then 2-15 characters with no spaces, a period, and at least two alphabetic characters."

This already seems to be catching the massive amount of "dash trap" comment spam we get every day, and it should stop snagging you folks who just happen to like writing comments that contain 3 dashes in a single paragraph. Please let me know if you find you're still getting trapped.

I'll post the actual regEx once I'm sure it's working as advertised.

The sad thing is, this guy's dancing isn't half bad. Certainly better than I could do.

I'm still glad it's not me on that tape though.

Ron gets a very retro no-prize for bringing us the story of The Car that Might Have Been:

Built for the 1953 Detroit Auto Show, the F-88 was Oldsmobile's answer to the Chevrolet Corvette. The Corvette had just been introduced, featuring a 6-cylinder engine, 2-speed automatic transmission and no windows. Meanwhile, the F-88 sported an Oldsmobile Rocket 88 V8, 4-speed Hydromatic transmission, and power windows and door latches. Designed by Harley J. Earl, the F-88 was roughly the same size as a Corvette and sporting a fiberglass body, the F-88 is considered by many to be the epitome of automotive forward-thinking of the 1950's, with its open top and lightweight structure.

Not so sure I agree with the "would've buried the Corvette" idealism though. This thing would've been quite a bit more expensive than the Corvette, perhaps even more than the Thunderbird. The T-bird was transformed into a big 4 seater precisely because it wasn't selling very well as an expensive sports car. The Corvette stayed alive mostly through politics and (comparatively) low cost. Detroit was, and to an extent still is, all about moving big numbers of cars, and the Olds just wouldn't have sold in the numbers required to be a success.

But it is awfully pretty, in a classic American '50s sort of way.

Instapundit linked up this Virginia Postrel note that claims the breast implant controversy is not a medical problem, but a flat out culture war. Further, she notes that the divisions driving the debate haven't changed perceptibly since she wrote this extremely interesting op-ed in 1992:

But the breast-implant debate reveals at least three other fundamental divisions -- about the interests of consumers, of women and of science -- that reflect very different sets of values and ways of understanding the world: How much justification must consumers give the government for their choices? Are women liberated by rediscovering their natural femininity or by seizing control over their biological destinies? And, at least for the sake of public policy, how do we sort evidence from anecdote?

The longer clinical research revealed no link between silicone breast implants and connective tissue diseases, the more I became convinced this was politics and agenda-pushing rather than any real attempt at protection. It was one of the things that pointed me down the road of dynamism and libertarianism (the "it's-my-damned-money-I'll-do-what-I-please-with-it" school of South Park conservativism, if you will).

No, the current administration and congress isn't much, if any, better. But thinking getting Bush or the Republicans out will make it all better misses the point. When you hold a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you want to keep someone from trying to open a wine bottle with it, you don't give the hammer to a different person, you take the hammer away.

Well, for the rest of you Unitarians anyway:

Greetings to the Imprisoned Citizens of the United States. We are Unitarian Jihad. There is only God, unless there is more than one God. The vote of our God subcommittee is 10-8 in favor of one God, with two abstentions. Brother Flaming Sword of Moderation noted the possibility of there being no God at all, and his objection was noted with love by the secretary.

Via Reflections in D Minor.

Slashdot linked up the latest in "can't-see-it-coming" apocalypses, gamma ray bursts:

In the latest issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters, scientists argue that a gamma ray burst, the most powerful explosion that occurs in the universe, was responsible for the Ordovican mass extinction in which 60% of all marine invertebrates died.

Unfortunately the article doesn't reveal what sort of evidence these scientists are relying on. Unlike BFRs* falling from the sky, gamma rays don't leave trace evidence of exotic minerals scattered all over the planet. Even better, since they travel at the speed of light there's no way to detect a gamma ray burst on the way. This may change if we ever figure out where the dratted things come from (right now we have no idea), but until then if it's gonna get us, it's gonna get us.

Ain't the universe grand?

----
* Big Fu--- rrm... Fat Rocks. Yeah, fat.

Has radical Islam, stymed in its international apocalyptic agenda by the west, changed its target? Ahmed Taheri thinks so:

When the Taliban fell, two visions emerged within the Islamist terror movement.

One vision, identified with Osama bin Laden, wants the movement to continue targeting the West, especially the United States. The other, advocated by Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2, wants the "holy war" concentrated in Muslim countries, especially Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

The events of the past year or so show that the al-Zawahiri vision is in the ascendancy.

Even more interesting to me is the Iraqi terrorists changing targets from Iraqi civilians to US soldiers. This is a fundamental mistake, since our soldiers can shoot back and they have much bigger guns with which to do so. The press plays up the co-ordination and organization exhibited by these attackers, and considering these "troops" tend to be little more than enthusiastic teenagers they are right to do so, but that still misses the larger picture. Yes, they co-ordinate their attacks; yes, they organize command; but they have lost, and badly, every single time they've launched one of their carefully planned attacks.

Combined with the visible setbacks that Islamic facists and fundamentalists have received in the past year, it's growing harder not to be at least a little optimistic.

Have we won yet? It's far too early to tell, especially while the heart of this lunacy still beats inside the Arabian desert. But only a fool or a fanatic would fail to see we are winning.

Remember the "finger-in-the-chili" lady? Turns out she has something of a history:

Anna Ayala, 39, who hired a San Jose, Calif., attorney to represent her in the Wendy's case, has been involved in at least half a dozen legal battles in the San Francisco Bay area, according to court records.
...
Speaking through the front door of her Las Vegas home Friday, Ayala claimed police are out to get her and were unnecessarily rough as they executed a search warrant at her home on Wednesday.

Yeah, I know, "just because you're paranoid..." But keep in mind most of the time nobody actually is after you.

For those of you ladies that want to be Jewish under your clothes.

Meet Sugar Bush Squirrel!

Sugar Bush Squirrel is a real, live Eastern Gray Squirrel who is owned and photographed by Ms. Kelly Foxton. Rescued from a tree, she is now living the 'good life' with Kelly in Boca Raton, Florida. A small, lime-green parrot, named Rio, is her big sister and constant companion. Being a Supermodel, Sugar Bush loves to dress up, and has over 1,000 outfits with matching hats and accessories. Sugar Bush has her own studio with an elaborate stage and thousands of stage props, and she has posed for over 1,000 photos since her modeling career began. She poses for greeting cards, calendars, children's books, advertisements & photos for our troops!

No Prize to Rich who shares this recent pix from a trip to Florida!

More information on the plant can be seen here.