Male belly dancing appears to be growing in popularity, at least in Turkey. Ellen's come across a few male belly dancers on youTube over the years; maybe this guy is one of them.

Oh don't you worry folks, I won't be exposing pale skinny Scott-belly any damned time soon.

Of course, this assumes we would want to sleep with them:

A new phenomenon in New Zealand is taking the idea of you are what you eat to the extreme.

Vegansexuals are people who do not eat any meat or animal products, and who choose not to be sexually intimate with non-vegan partners whose bodies, they say, are made up of dead animals.

Considering the looks of the couple featured in the article, doesn't seem to me to be much of a loss. Besides, I thought vegans didn't like being around people who eat meat because they smelled funny.

And that's another thing... I mean, if the milk comes from a free-ranging cow who's destined to live a long life of pleasant munching and farting, why not drink it? Yeah, yeah, I know, we're talking fringe-left politics, not facts. Expecting these people to be rational is like expecting a fair hearing of evolution in a creationist museum. But still...

Via Misha.

Carrie gets a no-prize full of wonder for bringing us the Hubble Space Telescope's picture gallery. It even has way-nifty Hubble wallpaper for your PC! Woot!

Scientists are reporting the discovery of a specific section of the brain which appears to be responsible for sums and integration. It seems we're hard-wired to be able to make a guess at how many M&Ms are in the jar.

Alternate title: paging Tim Allen, white courtesy phone please:

A consignment of potentially deadly petrol-powered roller skates have been impounded amid fears they could end up being used on the streets.

The adapted inline roller blades travel at speeds of up to 20mph with no way of braking and could explode in an accident, Trading Standards said.

Now that's a party, folks!

Considering my skills with the regular sort of in-line skates, I think I'll have to give these a pass. But if you pick up a pair be sure to send some video of your stunts!

One of the best features of a well-designed program is it often allows users to do things the designers didn't originally intend. Like using Google Earth as a kind of sleuthing tool. I'm really interested in what the hell a Mirage III is doing in the parking lot of (what appears to be) an office building in a suburb of Paris. I wonder if they take orders?

Futurama is scheduled to return in late November. The details are kinda complicated, but it does seem as if those of us who don't want to purchase the DVD will be able to see the episodes on Comedy Central. I think.

My good friend Gabby over at her personal art site did this for me. She did Ted also.

We love it! It really captures his spirit. We LOVE you Ajax!

Hell, I didn't know French navy fighters could land on US aircraft carriers. You people are supposed to tell me these things, ya know?

Sociologists are finally coming to realize that giant, sprawling virtual worlds are ideal models to examine social interaction. Because, well, that's exactly what they are. The fact that it's taken years for them to stumble onto the idea speaks volumes about how long information takes to percolate up to the highest ivory towers.

What would we do without athletes and the screw-ups they perform on national TV? This time with personal-injury goodness!

Ron gets an outrageously irrational no-prize for bringing us "the ultimate room." I guess if you have that much money to burn, why not drop some of it on an artist? While interesting, I think all the visual "noise" would eventually give me a headache.

Which just shows I'm not a TruFan^tm. But you already knew that.

Scientists have determined that recall of emotional events is genetically influenced. Interesting, but can it help me find my keys?

It's official, the New York Times is positive about the war. Cautious and with reservations, but undeniably optimistic. Meanwhile, the Post has been reduced to making vague implications of delusion, with a weird tendency to keep saying "hedgehog."

I will admit it's rather fun. "Hedgehog! Hedgehog hedgehog hedgehog hedgehoghedgehoghedgehoghedgehoghedgehog!"

Why yes, I think I would rather like a bit of a lie down, thanks for offering! It'll help me pass the time while I wait for my pizzas to start arriving.

Via Instapundit.

No, really! giant jumping sturgeons:

Boaters and other watercraft riders are being hit and injured by giant jumping sturgeons at record pace within a 40-mile stretch of water in Florida.

The fish can grow to enormous size, so getting hit by one is not something to put on your to-do list. Explain that one to the insurance company!

Car fans probably already know about Danny Botkin, the man so obsessed with DeLoreans he owns pretty much all there is to own of them. But they probably don't know He's planning to return the car to limited production. I saw a story segment on this guy a few years ago (Discovery channel I think), with him proudly displaying row upon row of DeLorean spares he'd purchased from the defunct company. It's nice to hear about him using them to bring the car completely back.

According to Wikipedia, the car is frame-based with a fiberglass monocoque. The Avanti, a Studebaker design that seems vampire-like in its immortality, was constructed in a roughly similar fashion, and was kept in very low-volume production for (as I recall) something like 30 years, so not only is this sort of thing feasible, it can even been profitable.

I'm not completely sure how he'll get around NHTSA and EPA standards, but most likely it'll involve some interesting bureaucratic hoop-jumping.

Hey Amber! You can do this tonight!

Takes a bit to get started but it is too funny!

An "amateur scholar" claims to have found a secret image hidden in Da Vinci's famous painting, "The Last Supper. By superimposing a reverse image of the painting onto the original, he claims to have found an image that includes a Templar knight and another individual holding a baby.

Unfortunately no examples are provided. You'd think someone over at MSNBC would have a copy of Photoshop handy, eh? To me, sounds like something along the lines of the Jesus Toast, but I'm a hard-bitten old cynic. Now get off my lawn.

How many relationships could be saved by viewing this simple video? The transition from dating to marriage alters several variables in this equation, but these seven steps are still worthwhile.

How about 16.5 feet of Lego aircraft carrier goodness? Now if you ask me, that'd make a damned fine living room decoration right there. At least until a cat crawled inside and peed in it, I suppose.

Ah well, can't have everything.

Always remember folks, no matter how weird you think you are there's always someone out there who'll make you look like Ned Flanders:

Here’s a good case-study on both the creepiness and the pitifulness of the Furry Community. Meet Nekobe, the skeeviest furry ever. Wearing a filth-encrusted tiger outfit as his second skin, Nekobe — aka Bart Bervoets — is a toothless homosexual who has had unprotected anal sex with, by his own admission, “hundreds” of other people. He’s so creepy and insane that the furry community has put together an entire site to warn people about him.

Site has graphic descriptions, which may require mental bleach, but seems safe enough for work.

Weer In Ur Stores, Buyin' all ur warez:

The US economy grew last quarter at the fastest pace in more than a year as rising exports helped offset a slowdown in consumer spending.

Gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of 3.4 per cent in the second quarter, well above the anaemic growth of 0.6 per cent in the first quarter, according to the Commerce Department.

The surprisingly strong economic rebound showed business activity took over from household spending as the driver of growth in the period. Factories increased output to meet demand from Europe and Asia for US imports.

The primary advantage of a diverse and growing economy is that when one sector falters, there are several others which can suddenly take its place. Remember all those guys who predicted doom at the fall of the US dollar? Yeah, not so much now, eh?

Mark gets a massive and admirable no-prize for bringing us the official site of the "new 7 world wonders". As with any list, I'm sure your favorite isn't on it.

Another Friday, another AMCGLTD Caturday. This time with ottery goodness!

I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later: Lolcats has become LOLCODE:

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
VISIBLE "HAI WORLD!"
KTHXBYE

There's even an early alpha .net compiler for the dratted thing! Meh, I guess if they can make COBOL.net, anything is possible.

Via ASFD.

I'm sure fans of Queen have known for a long time that guitarist Brian May was an astrophysics student when the band started out. I bet they don't know that he's finally getting his PhD this year. I think. British uni != US uni, so the rules may be different. At any rate, at least it's good to see he's keeping busy.

While it's a little rah-rah goofy in its presentation, this "pop sci" video on the soda bottle tripod was still pretty neat. Since HDR photography basically requires a tripod, having the ability to create one on the spot can be quite valuable.

Forget test-tube babies (shows my age... how long ago was that term even current?) Now we may end up with wombs on a chip. No, really! By protecting and managing the earliest stages of fertilization, scientists hope to increase the success rate of IVF.

Mark gets a no-prize that'll be delivered with his next Volkswagen for bringing us the world's most impressive car garage. I can't get over how expensive the damned thing must've been to build. Dude, just pave over a field and park the things there!

Meet Oscar, the fuzzy feline harbinger of doom! Now I know why mine are always laying on our bed watching me. They're just not as good at it as this one is.

While trolling around in Fark's comments, I found this rare TV interview with Kevin Clash, the man behind the gargantuan red fuzzy success story that is Elmo. Olivia seems to have outgrown the giggly monster around age 3, but she definitely still knows who he is. At the moment, Dora and Diego are much bigger hits.

While the titular menu item is not in this list of "localized" MacDonald's menus, a bunch of other things are. Hey, I'm all for beer at a McD's, but I think I'll pass on the shrimp burgers.

Mark gets a giggly no-prize for bringing us this fun little "Jet Blue" joke.

Barbeque shaped like a giant chrome-plated pistol, anyone? Ron gets a rootin' tootin' no-prize for doing the legwork required to find this guy after he saw one of these smokers being towed down the highway. It's a good thing!

Michael Totten's latest report from Baghdad is definitely worth a read:

Everyone was friendly. No one shot at us or even looked at us funny. Infrastructure problems, not security, were the biggest concerns at the moment. I felt like I was in Iraqi Kurdistan – where the war is already over – not in Baghdad.

He was quite blunt about reporting how bad things were in 2005, so I take his positive reports quite seriously. We may actually pull this off.

Slashdot linked up Space.com's top 10 list of Mars rover discoveries. I thought the one about Mars's geological eras was the most interesting of all. Not sure how that got past us the first time.

Ward Churchill, the guy who compared 9/11 victims to Adolf Eichman, just got fired. Can't say I'm displeased.

Compare with:

The only distance between the former and the latter are five feet and three years. It staggers me.

Then, I don't think Olivia had ever ridden in the Spider. Now, she rides in it far more often than Ellen does. Maybe this summer we'll take our first father-daughter road trip? You never know.

I only have, what, nine years before she'll never want to talk to me again?

All the time in the world. And it'll be over tomorrow. Lord help us all.

"I worry that if my [mom] is alone in the house and she falls, does she make a sound?"

I'm a bad, bad son. But you all knew that a long, long time ago. You remind me every time you talk to me.

Calm down. If you're confused, I'm not talking to you.

I also liked:

In a relationship you have to communicate, which means listening to her talk. Ladies, you fake orgasms. We fake listening.

and:

Marriage is built on paranoia and mistrust. I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and she wakes up out of dead sleep to say, 'Where are you going?' Why, to have sex with the midget I store in the medicine closet.

In the past two days: ring pops dipped in ketchup, and hamburger buns dipped in grape soda. Rachel Ray better just watch the hell out; s'all I'm sayin'.

The new lower-cost HD Tivo has been officially announced. No surprises from the previous "leaked" version, which is good! The biggest "get" to me is the SATA port. According to this article, it's disabled for now, but it should mean extremely easy (and cheap) expansion of the Tivo space. Our very first Tivo was an original 16 hour unit, so I can say with certainty 20 hours will be usable, but tight. However, we've never filled our 40 hour Series 2, so if there's a quick and simple way to (eventually) expand to 40+ HD hours, then we're set.

See, there are advantages to waiting!

I thought I'd heard of it all until Liz found a scam that involves a freaking reality TV show. Getting college kids to work really awful jobs nearly for free just on the off chance they'll end up on TV is damned devious. Unfortunately I'm not sure it's illegal. Another thing to file away for when Olivia is old enough to have her own checking account.

Scientists have discovered that the iron that enriches stars with planets seems to be coming from the planets, and are not part of the star's makeup. Stars which show strong iron signatures are much more likely to have planets than those which don't. Scientists weren't sure whether the star formed with the iron, or if the iron "fell" onto the star like chocolate powder on the dessert in the title. By examining red giant stars with planets, scientists did not find the expected iron signature, strongly suggesting that the iron is pollution from the planetary disk, and not something that the star formed with.

Looks like Lindsay Lohan is going to be the next tenant at the Paris Hilton LA Jail suite. There. We've mentioned it once. We will now go into "I officially don't give a crap" mode on this story.

So, is the nation's obsession with the JFK assassination really caused by liberalism's inability to come to terms with the ideology of the assassin? It's definitely a plausible, and as far as I know new, way to look at the problem. However, to me the author (of the article, if not the book) provincialises the cultural upheaval of the 60s, seeming to me to make it out to be a singularly American event. On the contrary, the whole world experienced cultural upheaval of various sorts as the cadre born just after WWII came of age.

Still, the position that Oswald's undeniably pure communist belief represented a challenge to 60s liberals that they simply could not overcome is damned intriguing. I guess I'll have to buy the book and see if he really does pull off this historical 180 degree turn.

Via Instapundit.

I'm sure portraits made of chewed bubble gum are art, of some kind. I'm just not sure what sort of art it'd be. None for our house, Olivia would be picking it apart in moments.

Brake'in ur comments.

Not sure what the hell is wrong right now. It's definitely not the old banning problem. I thought it was weird that all the comment spammers all of a sudden went away. At any rate, if you want to say something e-mail us. Will keep you posted.

Update: Found it. Had a line return stuck in the IP blacklist, effectively banning the world. Ah well, I thought the spammers suddenly giving up on us was too good to be true.

Fark (of all places) linked up this economics 101 lesson in why oil prices are high (hint: it's an op-ed from the Ayn Rand institute). The comments on the article provide an abject lesson in the economic illiteracy of the Western world's 21-45 year demographic.

The second is about an unintended consequence of the current state of civil union laws. I definitely agree that a man who's wife now has a legally recognized domestic partner (male or female) should be off the hook for alimony. However, I do not think that it automatically follows that the only solution is legalizing gay marriage. It simply means the laws need further adjustment and re-writing to accommodate the change in circumstance.

My feelings on the legality of gay marriage are too ambiguous to have a firm stand (I'm mildly against it, but am still open to debate). However, I very strongly feel this is a matter for the states to resolve via legislative and most definitely not judicial means. Those who feel differently should more closely review the social and legal costs of our most famous policy-via-judicial-fiat decision, Roe v. Wade.

Scientists are reporting new evidence that certain types of volcanoes have lava that "fizzes" to the surface. By using new infrared detection techniques, scientists were able to determine the lava formed in the Stromboli (no, really!) volcano in Italy formed much deeper than previously thought, leading to speculation that cracks in the volcano's floor was allowing lava to bubble up. Sounds more like a lava lamp to me, but who knows?

July 22, 2007

I have shared with you your laughter,
You have wet my fur with tears.
We've come to know each other
Throughout these many years.
Just one more hug this morning
Before you drive away,
And know I'll think about you
Throughout your busy day.

The time we've left together
Is a treasured time at that.
My heart is yours forever.
I Promise

- This old cat.

~partial poem by KC Bigamon

Messner died on Friday after a long battle with cancer, CNN said. CNN's Larry King, who interviewed Messner on his "Larry King Live" talk show on Thursday night, said her family had asked him to make the delayed announcement of her death.

"She died peacefully," King said on CNN's Web site.

Read article on Yahoo .

You can also check out her last interview with Larry King.

Everyone's favorite source of Bat Boy news is shutting down. I only read a few editions of Weekly World News in my time, but the headlines always were an amusing distraction while waiting in the checkout line of the grocery store. They will be missed!

Slashdot today linked up this intriguing article detailing the difficulties involved in getting a manned mission to the surface of Mars. There's a surprising number of difficulties involved, to the point that (according to the article) we simply have no idea how it can be done with current technologies. Which is to say, if we really want to do it it's going to be a helluva lot more expensive than NASA first believed.

Which is another way of saying, "business as usual at NASA."

Jeff gets a flamin' fast no-prize for bringing us the 75 year old grandma with the fastest internet connection in the world. Yeah, it's a publicity stunt to advertise new equipment, but as long as it works, why not?

For today's serving of "Those Arabs and Their Wacky Safety Regs" we have road skating. At least this bunch doesn't have explosive belts tied around them. For now, at any rate.

It would seem recent immigrants are actually ten times less likely to commit a crime than the native-born. This is so counter-intuitive I'm having a bit of trouble getting my head around it. However, Bryan is an economics professor. If the authors of the paper were twiddling with the numbers for effect, I would think he'd spot it right away.

Scientists have discovered a whole cluster of galaxies colliding with each other. Unlike the previously discovered (and aptly named) bullet cluster, whose collision we see from the side, this cluster faces us with the collision oriented head-on. Having two different views of the same spectacularly humongous type of event will of course provide important insights into just how these things happen. And make me want to go have a lie down.

In other news, "humongous" is actually in Firefox's spell check dictionary. Ask me how I know!

Today on Pip and Pog, the lads learn about something they found in daddy's study. Yet another reason to keep it all on your computer, encrypted under your password.

Or, so I've been told.

This reminds me of college:

The three-man crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will do a little housekeeping during a spacewalk next week to make way for future expansion of the laboratory.

On July 23, Expedition 15 crewmember Clayton Anderson will journey outside of the space station to throw two large hunks of unneeded equipment towards Earth, officials said during a press conference today at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

I mean, doesn't everyone toss something out the window of their first high rise?

We just wanted to announced that crocodiles waking up with your hand in their mouth is bad mmkay?

Note: article contains very graphic, "look what the cat croc dragged in" picture. SFW, I suppose, but not particularly nice.

Lisa gets a no-prize that'll turn her off of hamburger for awhile for bringing us this rather grisly, albeit suitably bizarre, tale.

Those of you with HD sets jonesing for an HD Tivo won't have to pay $800 for the experience for very much longer. This one's a real biggie for our house, as we've been Tivo nuts for something like eight years. We're also planning a complete HD re-vamp of our main TV setup for Christmas. If the new box includes an eSATA connection, adding space is stoopid easy, so that may very well be the way we go. Otherwise, well, it's nice to also see that more options may be on the way and that the main "super" box can be found for slightly less.

All in all, a good (even great) thing!

I was grateful, but a little puzzled, at the sudden pop of the boy band balloon. Seems that some of the reason behind it is the engine behind the movement has been tossed in the pokey.

You really don't think that a Swivel Sweeper would do something like this. Usually they are used on a floor, but this little girl tried it on her head.

How I fixed the bald spot.

Why yes, that is permanent marker smiley face on her head.

Problem: Your economic (mis)management has created inflation reaching 60,000%, making prices so high they have zeros falling off the end.

Solution: Wal Mart-ize the prices, and arrest any shopkeeper who wants to stay in business.

Mugabe's in his 80s now, but he's done such deep and lasting damage to the country even if he died tomorrow it'll take decades to dig it out, and even then only if absolutely everything holds together and is done right. Considering most of Africa's governmental track record, that seems a vain hope indeed.

Unfortunately there are far too many of you out there who think simply commanding prices to be set really is a valid way to manage an economy. If that thought has ever even skittered across your radar screen (say, at a gas pump) watch Zimbabwe carefully, and learn.

Via Econlog.

Farscape simply refuses to die. Which I think is a good thing! Sure, the episodes will only be a few minutes long each, but that's better than nothing, and it could introduce the thin wedge needed to bring the whole thing roaring back. Assuming it doesn't suck, of course.

At least some scientists are claiming walking upright was a response to pressures that put a premium on energy conservation. According to this group of anthropologists, walking upright is a whopping 75% more efficient than the quadrupedal locomotion chimpanzees use. This would of course be rather useful in the rapidly changing environment of Pliocene Africa, where treks for food may have meant the difference between survival and starvation.

From now on, I'm not so impressed at an escape artist "mysteriously" getting free of handcuffs. As noted in one of the comments, this is not how to escape from police custody, but rather how an escape artist would pull the trick off. It never occurred to me that where and how the hands were placed in restraints is important in escaping from them. Now I know.

Making the rounds: quarterback Michael Vick has been indicted by a federal grand jury in a lurid dogfighting scandal. Comes complete with tales of vicious cruelty!

I enjoy watching NFL football in part because the players are distinctive and colorful. Sometimes I just wish they'd be slightly less so.

The American tour of Walking with Dinosaurs - the Live Experience is starting this month! 6 dates in our area, and they've got many stops on the tour all over the US and Canada. Amex card holders can purchase tickets now, general sale is next week. Woot!

Yet another new technology promises to replace expensive LCDs with simpler and cheaper materials. This time it's plastic-coated bits of rust suspended in solution. The plastics repulse through electrostatics, and the rust allows magnetic fields to control them. The particles then arrange themselves into some bizzarre sort of squishy crystal, which can then be "tuned" to reflect different colors. The (potential) result? A cheap, colorful display that actually works better in direct sunlight than current technologies.

Looks interesting, but I won't be holding my breath waiting for a screen based on this stuff to appear.

For proof that 20-something yobs are the same the world over one need only peruse this video dedicated to opening everyone's favorite chilled adult beverage. Nothing hanging on the walls: check. Carpet of indeterminate age and questionable cleanliness: check. Cheap furniture and expensive video games: check. Ah, memories of college abound. Hell one of 'em even has a hot girlfriend who can open a beer bottle with a CD. No, really!

What's about four feet long, can weigh over a hundred pounds, and swims? I don't know either, but Siflay does, and he includes some very impressive pictures of said monster of the deep. Hell he even links up advice for keeping one in a (very large) tank.

No, Ellen, you definitely can't have one!

The "super predator" MQ-9 Reaper is now operational, with the first squadron of four deploying this week to Iraq. While development was troubled, with the program nearly being canceled a few times as I recall, the result seems to be an extremely capable weapons platform. Upgrading from two hellfire missiles to fourteen definitely gives you more options.

Cindy gets a no-prize as thick as an encyclopedia for bringing us city-data.com, which seems to be a massive compendium of data about every locale (that I thought to search for) in America. A truly mind-boggling amount of stuff, both trivial and important. Search yours today!

Mark gets half a no-prize poured into a cup with ice for bringing us How to Fix the Airlines. Yeah, it's goofy, but what's wrong with that?

Scientists claim to have discovered the most distant galaxies found to-date. By using gravitational lensing and the 10 meter Keck telescope, a team of scientists have discovered six galaxies approximately 13 billion light-years away, at a time when the universe was only four percent of its present age. If I'm reading the article correctly, these objects are thought to represent some of the very first objects that could be visible at all, since conditions that allowed stars to "turn on" are thought to have occurred right around that time.

I think. Ultra-deep space astrophysics make my head hurt. But it's a good pain!

Introducing Runbot, the learning robot that walks. Unlike much larger projects like Honda's Asimo, Runbot's goal is to create a decentralized system that offloads most of the effort of walking to local control loops, leaving the "brain" of the system needed only to learn new methods of walking on different terrain. Don't miss the amusing "not-quite-a-chicken-but-close" video of Runbot slowly learning to walk up an incline.

Those of you who strongly think our current tax structure unfairly favors the rich may wish to peruse this fact-based op-ed:

The C.B.O.’s most recent calculations of federal tax rates show a highly progressive system. (The numbers are based on 2004 data, but the tax code has not changed much since then.) The poorest fifth of the population, with average annual income of $15,400, pays only 4.5 percent of its income in federal taxes. The middle fifth, with income of $56,200, pays 13.9 percent. And the top fifth, with income of $207,200, pays 25.1 percent.

At the very top of the income distribution, the C.B.O. reports even higher tax rates. The richest 1 percent has average income of $1,259,700 and forks over 31.1 percent of its income to the federal government.

This is not the first article I've seen debunking the idea that the rich somehow get a free ride. That many people continue to hold this view speaks more about their own intransigent beliefs than any series of facts they may find.

Via Instapundit.

Making the rounds: a construction permit for the first plant that will make ethanol from cellulose has been issued in Georgia. If it comes on line as expected in 2008, millions of gallons of the stuff will be available, all produced from much more efficient and easier to find cellulose (which all plants have) instead of sugar (which hardly any plants have). Article includes an absolutely priceless "completely and utterly doesn't get it" quote about peak oil.

Ron gets a no-prize that'll be here Saturday Saturday Saturday!!! for bringing us this summary of a fossil review recently published about the Galve region of Northeast Spain. The specimens include horned sharks and the dinosaurs who loved to eat them, as well as crocodile-like critters the size of a bus.

It really amazed me when people do bad things to animals.

Bob, an African spurred tortoise, was in guarded condition Saturday after thieves stole him July 7 and tried to cut his neck and slice his legs from his shell, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

Let's hope they find the guys that did this.

Thank You, Thank You! I'll be serving dinner off of it at 10!