It may go on forever, but this week's Fark Caturday thread sure starts out strong enough. It's someone else's bandwidth, so enjoy!

Four foot worth of WWI-era German torpedo will definitely put a crimp in anyone's fishing plans, donchaknow? At first I think it's amazing they're still finding explosives from WWI after all this time. Then I remember just how gleefully Europe went at itself during those years, and I wonder why they don't find more.

Computer scientists have created a program that is apparently quite good at predicting terrorist targets in Iraq. On reading, the software sounds rather similar to what the New York City police department used in its successful fight against crime in the 1990s.

Hey, anything that puts Hajji in closer contact with his 72 wirgins is all right by me!

Ron gets an enormous, obsolete no-prize for bringing us yet another guy trying to make money off an abandoned missile silo. If that doesn't count as beating swords into plowshares, I'm not sure what does.

Scietists have discovered a solar system very like our own. By "very" they mean two planets about the size of Jupiter and Saturn orbiting twice as close to a star half as bright as ours. Of course, considering just how weird the planetary systems found so far have been, maybe "very" really isn't that much of an exaggeration.

Via Instapundit.

Damion gets a no-prize that simply shouldn't exist for bringing us the Civette, a Honda Civic-Chevy Corvette hybrid.

No, really!

It appears that weak flames behave differently in space than they do on Earth. "Paging Ric Romero," you say? Well, it turns out the reasons are more subtle, and less well understood, than you'd think.

Everyone at AMCGLTD would like to wish you all a very:

Happy Valentine's Day!

My own suspicions about what causes long term poverty just got a boost:

Alone on a dark gritty street, Adam Shepard searched for a homeless shelter. He had a gym bag, $25, and little else. A former college athlete with a bachelor's degree, Mr. Shepard had left a comfortable life with supportive parents in Raleigh, N.C. Now he was an outsider on the wrong side of the tracks in Charles­ton, S.C.
...
During his first 70 days in Charleston, Shepard lived in a shelter and received food stamps. He also made new friends, finding work as a day laborer, which led to a steady job with a moving company.

Ten months into the experiment, he decided to quit after learning of an illness in his family. But by then he had moved into an apartment, bought a pickup truck, and had saved close to $5,000.

A few on the left side of the peanut gallery may sneer about sex and skin color, which to me is a demonstration of just how fast goalposts can be moved when a score would threaten to upset someone's most deeply held misconceptions.

Via Instapundit.

After watching Ellen try and get shots like this one, I can say with some confidence that it's not the gear that you use which makes this work, it's getting the @#$#@ bug to sit still long enough to snap the picture. Although admittedly having the correct macro lens definitely helps.

And I do wonder if the "rain" came out of a sprayer.

Scientists have discovered, well, titanic liquid hydrocarbon reserves on Saturn's moon Titan. Great. Now we all know the real reason behind sending that Cassini probe. Put Rumsfeld on trial! Impeach the President! Arrest Carl Rove!

Ron gets a damned cold no-prize for bringing us the latest discoveries regarding the migration of humans from Asia to America. Turns out, at least according to this research, the people in question may have had to wait up to 5,000 years before they were able to complete the passage.

A microwave can melt a hole in a beer bottle. Who knew? And give that guy a blue ribbon for "nastiest microwave insides" while you're at it. Microwaving beer bottles is probably all I'd do with that one!

Making the rounds: Lucasfilm has announced Clone Wars will be a CGI animated feature film to be released this August, with a series to follow in the fall. The look of the clips I can see make it seem as if they've brought Ralph McQuarrie's original storyboards to life, which is a good thing. What remains to be seen is if they concentrated on the look more than the story, which would be a bad thing.

I guess it's finally getting about time to show Olivia the originals, because when Lucasfilm starts its typical carpet-bomb promotion of this one she'll definitely put it on her list.

Scientists have discovered new evidence that bats first developed flight, then the echolocation system common to all extant species. The fossil evidence dates back 53 million years, and seems to show all bat species alive at that time were already proficient fliers. Perhaps they developed flight during the age of the dinosaurs?

Mark gets a no-prize he just shouldn't look at for bringing us the real secret behind Google Maps. It's getting to the point Google is nearly as scary as Microsoft!

It would appear the Air Force is mulling over a shoot-down of the failed spy satellite that's been in the news lately. If it keeps the thing from falling on someone, I'm all for it. But it will definitely be interesting to see just what, exactly, is used to do the deed.

2' 9" bodybuilder, anybody? Hey, gotta earn a living somehow!

In the "I honestly didn't know that was a problem" file we have WATCH FOR FALLING MOOSE. Explain that one to the insurance adjuster!

Bitchy employers:

Mike Bunner calls it a ''cowboy mentality,'' the attitude he sees in so many people who come seeking jobs from him.
...
''They don't want to follow rules, and in a workplace there are certain rules,'' Bunner said. ''It's almost like it's a cultural thing.''

A culture where labor is subject to market forces just as any other commodity, and in which Mr. Bunner's area appears to have switched from a buyer's to a seller's. Which reminds me of a connection you get to make when your head is stuffed full of useless history...

What struck me was how much this whining sounded like the whining of Abbots and Lords about what happened after the Black Death. Then, a terrible disease tightened the labor market by at least 33% (perhaps 50%). Since, unlike the Ottomans or Chinese, Europe was unable to simply bludgeon its peasantry into working without wages, European employers had to pay a premium for good workers or settle for less. Since a medieval boss was not much different from a modern one, the chronicles of the day are filled to bursting with complaints about how it was impossible to fill jobs and the workers you could get were awful and how the king or the Pope aught to do something about it. The fact they couldn't is one of the fundamental forces which created our modern world, and why it started in Europe instead of anywhere else.

Fortunately today it's economic growth rather than the scythe of disease tightening up the labor market. However, as long as that market is allowed to function, no matter how bitchy employers get or how arrogant employees become, not only will the economy continue to function it will grow faster and more efficiently than any government program ever could.

Which is not to say people will like it.

Problem: Precious male snowflake decides on a novel route to avoiding the second grade by insisting on dressing as a girl.

Solution: Not exactly what I'd vote for, at any rate:

An 8-year-old boy is preparing to return to his home school district in Colorado as a girl, so school officials are designating two school restrooms as unisex facilities, and preparing to counsel other students on the issue of transgenderism.

I've known for a long time that the existing public school system structure was fundamentally flawed, but I never thought it would result in something like this. And yet, once you get your head around the incentives that our centrally-planned, government-managed, "progressive" public school systems create, such an outcome is not only logical, but inevitable.

Yet another in the legion of reasons why Milton Friedman's voucher system is so urgently needed.

Pat gets a no-prize that just won't go away for bringing us news of just how difficult it is to delete one's Facebook account. To me, this indicates more of a design problem than anything else. Their system's back-end is most likely cobbled together from a lot of disparate applications, and nobody's had time to write the requisite scripts needed to get rid of it all, all at once.

When some people trash a house, they really go all the way:

A years-old mummified body has been found in a cottage bathtub beneath layers of wood, plastic, dirt and sand, Phoenix police said.

No word yet if it's the former tenant or an unfortunate victim.

Roy Scheider, 1932-2008. I always thought he was an actor with immense charisma, someone with, whatever reason, I always identified. While I know he must've had his fair share of klinkers in his career, I can't think of any. 75 is a pretty good run, but it's a shame he couldn't have stuck around longer. Another one who will be missed.

I guess it's nice to know the US holds no monopoly on bizarre money scams. I hate the phone so much I just don't answer it if I don't recognize the number. However, I don't run a business, so I have no reason to expect cold-calls out of nowhere. Considering that a successful business owner will already be a pretty savvy person, I can't imagine this particular scam would work all that well. Then again, nobody who turns to a life of crime does so because of an excess of brains. Quite the opposite, in my experience.

An interesting question: If as many factors are figured in as possible, which impacts the environment more, a dog or an SUV?

It's not as simple a question as you'd at first think.

A new theory seems to indicate that dark matter and dark energy are actually the same substance. Termed a "dark fluid," the theoretical stuff accurately accounts for all known observational evidence for either substance. It also (seems to) make more testable predictions, allowing headway to be made in one of the most mysterious phenomena in astrophysics today.

What does it mean? Hell if I know. But even the most esoteric scientific phenomena can lead to wonderful things, so why not cheer from the sidelines?

Hugo Chavez's "socialist paradise" continues down its depressingly predictable path to destruction:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, in an effort to deal with food shortages nationwide, threatened today to expropriate farms and raised the price rice producers are permitted to charge.

Old-guard Bolsheviks like Lenin or Stalin would've responded by stealing confiscating all food resources in the offending regions and letting the farmers and their families starve. Millions would end up dying in what was, to fans of Communism, a justified pogrom against traitors to the state. Fortunately, Chavez is no Stalin. At least, not yet.

Watch carefully. This is where radical socialism always leads.

Via Instapundit.

I, for one, welcome our new short disco-dancing overlords. I can remember when it was really amazing that Honda had created a walking robot. It was huge and moved very slowly. Now we've got dancing kiddie-sized robots. And yet I still have to badger my kid into getting me a beer. I think it's well past time to commercialize these products!

Resolved: If it explodes, moves fast or produces ridiculous amounts of torque, it's cool.

Seconded, passed unanimously. Now where's the fuse?

Via Violins and Starships.

Scientists have announced the ability to create three-dimensional structures using DNA as the constructor. The article touts it as a 'Holy Grail' for nanotech. I'll have to take their word for it. Now, bring on the stuff!

Home pets: 1, raccoon: 0. I wonder how long it took them to figure out just what was stealing all the cat food?

Via Dust Bunny Ramblings

Please choose regular or super. You have fifteen seconds to comply. Yet another automotive innovation the ol' Spider will happily ignore.

Thomas Sowell's got a new one out! Those of you who want a clear, concise, and interesting summary of how economics really works should definitely consider it. Those who want to know where the F--- I get all these idiotic, wrong-headed ideas should most likely stay away. Disillusionment is, after all, something I try to avoid with people who mistake watching TV news for actual learning.

No, not you, the other one.

There, but for the grace of God and six million free bucks, go I:

While the KSS is technically an 8.8-channel audio system, it uses a lot more than eight speakers and eight subwoofers. Kipnis felt that a lone center speaker sounded a tad undernourished compared with the eight Snell THX Cinema & Music Reference towers, so he opted for three Snell LCR-2800 center-channel speakers. The original contingent of eight subs sounded "really good" but, unfortunately, didn't deliver the full earth-moving-under-your-feet effect he wanted. So, he wound up with 16 18-inch Snell subs! To balance the other frequency extreme, and for the ultimate in transient speed and transparency, the Snell speakers' treble has been augmented with MuRata ES103A super tweeters.

Meh. Gives me a goal on which to spend my child's inheritance.

Joshua gets a no-prize that throws out more jokes per second than Robin Williams on crack for introducing us to Ben Croshaw, the lord of Zero Punctuation.

Just go straight to the Super Mario review, then Guitar Hero III. You can thank me later.

And remember, he is Not. Gay!

This week's "crap literally falls out of an airplane and punches a hole in someone's roof" story is brought to you by Calgary Canada.

It falls through the roof, then you say it, then you do it. Trifecta!

Always remember one of the hallmarks of a spoiled brat is the ability to dish it out but not take it:

As six Republican senators devised a plan to yank $2.3 million in federal funding for Berkeley programs, the mayor of the famously liberal city apologized Wednesday for his hard stance against a Marine recruiting center.

Too bad these aren't actually six-year-olds, and they're running a city.

Being able to think more than three turns ahead is the mark of a grand master, in politics as much as chess. I'm not sure what sort of mark is made when someone doesn't even think of the consequences of the move their making right now.

Via Instapundit.

While the Republicans, by design, now have a single candidate and nearly a whole damned year to campaign against the Democrats, it's becoming increasingly clear the Democrats will be campaigning against each other until at least August. That's right folks! While the Republicans will be spending their time telling everyone about their platform, and how awful the Democrats are, the Democrats will be... explaining to everyone how awful the Democrats are. This too, is apparently by design.

Sorta says it all, eh?

Mark gets a no-prize that probably shouldn't look like that for bringing us this collection of unique "look-a-likes". Nobody said duplicating someone at 1/8th scale was easy!

A formal report has been released after a state investigation of the fatal explosion at Scaled Composites last year. Unfortunately, the investigators seem to have shrugged at what might have caused the disaster at the company known for its innovative SpaceShipOne and Two vehicles. The evidence has now been turned over to the district attorney to see if anyone may be liable for the deaths.