All those times Ellen griped when the Spider went all wobbly while I adjusted my seat? Yeah, could be worse! Hey, is it My fault the seat adjuster stopped automatically locking twelve years ago?

Oh, come on. You didn't all have to yell, "DUH!!! YES!!!" all at once. Woke up the kid, it did.

Oh yes... a reality show with belly dancers!

Funny thing... is that I personally KNOW some of them.

Yes, some of them get overly dramatic and emotional. No really. They do.

It would seem Obama's new space policy is already quietly doing its work. Of course, Virgin hinting they're working on an orbital component is emphatically not the same thing as Virgin having an orbital component, but do you really think they'd even be mulling it over without the prospect of a fat government contract in the offing? Hey, it worked for commercial flight in the 20th century. Who's to say it won't work for spaceflight in the 21st?

An annual Thanksgiving tradition...

Leave it to Top Gear to finally test if skills gained in a racing simulator translate to real-world speed. The answer is about what sim junkies like I expect... the parts of racing which are mostly mental can most definitely be acquired sitting behind a desk, but the important stuff that's mostly physical can't. Hey, there's a reason F-1 guys use these tools too, ya know?

Hey, man, if dancing with the stars was more like this, I'd be a lot more interested. Ok, hang on, check that, I just remembered some of the more memorable stars on that show, and realized maybe most of them need to stay covered up.

Clip contains nobody in the nood, but is likely still NSFW.

Ever wonder what really happens to a package after you hand it off to your carrier of choice? Popular Mechanics did too, and they had the smarts, and the budget, to find out. The comments follow my own experience... packaging is critical to an item surviving a trip. The shipper's guidelines are there for a reason, and not following them will nearly always result in damage the shipping company will refuse to pay for.

It's nice to know we're not the only family with pets who react with psychosis to moving to a new house. When we moved the (then) five cats, it resulted in an outright palace coup. In the old place, since Magrat was the eldest cat she was the alpha cat. However, as a kitten, Ellen had taken Goblin outside several times and so youngest, and therefore most junior, cat Goblin was quite used to the idea that the sky could disappear into clouds and the world was bigger than a 900 square foot apartment. The others, not so much, and while they spent the next two weeks twitching in their carriers Goblin laid claim to the whole house. The world was never quite the same again for Cat, the Eldest (Magrat), although they eventually managed to negotiate an uneasy truce.

Ellen was convinced Coconut, the cat that almost literally was born and raised in one, small, place, would ever be right again. Eight years later it's like they've never lived anywhere else. Now that Goblin and Coconut have the entire house to themselves, they seem to spend most of their time being startled by, or plotting the demise of, the feathered "tiny green fud that is much less dangerous than the big green fud" that has been thrust into their lives.

Ah, animals...

The earth never ceases to amaze me.

Icelandic photographer Ragnar Sigurdsson captured the spectacular scenes as he documented the progress of the eruption - even bravely flying over the bubbling crater.

Check out the rest of the photos here.

That's right. Create your own infomercial.

We've been running this blog for, what, nearly ten years now? I still don't get offers like this one. Then again, if I actually worked at this thing, maybe a B-1 ride would be in the cards. Will desire for a dream ride in a high performance aircraft override general laziness?

Meh.

Yes, teenage boys wake up dead due to any number of causes. It's not at all common for them to end up that way 800 miles from where they were last seen. The latest theory is he may have fallen out of an airplane wheel well. Police, grasping at straws? Oh hell, I dunno...

Rick gets an oxcart-shaped no-prize* for bringing us this fun reminiscence from an SR-71 driver. I've read the story before, heck we may have linked it up before, but it's always good for a chuckle. It seems to be true, and part of a very rare book. If this story is typical of what's in that book, there's a bunch of specialist publishers totally missing out on an opportunity to make some cash.

----
* Yes, it's a reference. Yes, you'll have to look it up.

Via Instapundit.

Scientists have finally confirmed reports that not only can some squid species jump out of the water, they can actually fly. Every time you think you've seen everything nature can cook up, out pops another dish of surprise.

Can I get an awww....

Tiny horses that ring bells...CUTE!!

The mummy, housed at Saffron Walden Museum in Essex, was shrouded in mystery after it was discovered in a private collection in 1878.

However, studies last year discovered it was wrapped in clothing adorned in feminine symbols, wearing girl’s breast cones and a female bracelet.

Ground-breaking CT scans carried out at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, have finally solved the mystery revealing the mummy is a boy dressed in girl’s clothing.

And cue Zahi Hawas...

First the F-14s went, now Harriers will no longer fly from British carriers. An aviation nut comes of age with old airplanes just retiring, and new ones taking their place. A middle-aged aviation nut gets to watch those same new aircraft fly off to the bone yard. No, I'm sorry, you don't understand... those new airplanes were never supposed to grow old. I did not vote for that!

If non-sequiturs are wrong, I don't want to be orange!

Science is amazing!

How artificial eyes are made.

Leave it to a Canadian newspaper to explain just what, exactly, is involved in a stoning. Unfortunately this time around "women with false beards on" isn't part of the equation.

Thank you Grammy and Poppy!

Another day, another poster-worthy shot from space. Dubai seems to have set out to become the coolest Arab country on the planet. So far, it seems to be succeeding.

The NASA's beleaguered manned spaceflight team now needs to add "congressmen sniffing around causing trouble" to their worry list. I guess it should be, "more than usual," since Congress seems to cause most of the problems NASA has in the first place.

Turns out Charon is not just a character in a story, he's a guy with a boat on a river in China. So, does his charging for his service make him a greedy monster, or is it what keeps him and his family from starving? And just what, pray tell, makes your judgment valid, and mine not? And why, exactly, can't we push the power to judge down as far as it will go, until it's between just him and the parents who have to look at what he rolls over?

You can silently push me away, sir, but that makes my pins no less sharp.

Important to remember: I always give credit to people who send me stuff, but I'll steal anything not nailed down the minute I spot it.

Robert H. gets a no-prize that's just as good the second time around for bringing us another look at Mercedes' new, green, super show car. Me, I still can't make out where it exactly touches the ground. A nation of toymakers figuring out how to defy gravity? I promise you it has three times as many parts as it really needs, takes twice as many people as it should to put together, and will last for a thousand years. Five years later the Japanese will build one that does 80% what this does for 20% of the cost that will last longer than you will. The Americans will build one that reaches 200 mph in five seconds but kill you if you try to turn it. The Swedes will keep it from rusting for a millennia while the British will figure out how to make it rust under the six inches of oil it just leaked out.

The Italians? Oh, the Italians will make one that you'll want to sell your right foot just to touch and trounce the Germans on any race track of your choosing four years after everyone had written it off as obsolete, right up until the doors fall off. Because, let's say it all together... "they will make it be, all it can be... briefly."

Sometimes it's useful to engage in a dialog. Many times, it's more effective to simply ask questions, and keep asking them, until you're locked out of the comments section. But sometimes, well, sometimes it's best to just unload with both barrels. Hell, the left side does it every chance they get. Oh I know, I know. They're speaking truth to power. It's my side that's a stalking horse for fascism. I keep forgetting that part.

For only the fourth time since 2004, a Delta IV heavy, one of the most powerful launchers currently in use, has lofted up something for the NRO. The article actually doesn't say how heavy the satellite it launched was, but does compare it to a seven ton communications satellite launched last year.

Our girl!

As part of the run-up to the LA auto show, Fiat group has finally announced exactly where their dealers will be located in the US. One's going to end up about fifteen minutes from our house! Can I get a "woot-woot?!?" Aww, yeah...

Robert H. gets a no-prize that doesn't really care what the movie'll actually end up being for bringing us a trailer for the upcoming movie, "Your Highness." Here's to the first genuinely silly fantasy adventure of the second decade of the Twenty-first century.

Ok, that should be enough to make all the women go to sleep. For all the guys, code words: Natalie Portman Leather Thong. Yea, and we all bow down to ol' R.H.'s instinct for awesomeness, and verily!

Mark gets a damned impressive no-prize for bringing us video of an armless pistol shooter. No, really! Hell, I have trouble loading up a clip with my hands. Just a heckuva thing, s'all I'm sayin'...

By using what seems to be a sophisticated electronic one-way valve, scientists have for the first time converted information directly into energy. The experiment proves a hypothesis proposed some 150 years ago by physicist James Clerk Maxwell that the second law of thermodynamics can be reversed without using energy.

As with most of these sorts of pure science... thingies... I don't completely understand what anyone is talking about, but they are all excited so I'll take their word for it that it's cool. Or hot, as the case may be.

While using a bajillion-dollar space station as a glorified camera brace may seem a bit ridiculous, the results are nevertheless spectacular. I could see turning at least a few of those into posters.

Presumably tired of making the lives of veterans' families miserable, the loons of the Westboro Baptist Church have decided to picket a mosque in Dearborn, MI. It's listed as being the largest mosque in the states, so I'm thinking the vast majority of attendees are just normal people trying to get by. Unfortunately, as with any religious community, simple statistics means there are likely even more of the wacko kind of Muslim nearby.

In other words, they seem to have taken on a target that's much more likely to hit back.

I finally cleared my phone's video cache out, and found these. All were taken in the past six weeks.

The last one was at a recent birthday party. The three year-old Olivia did everything the seven year-old Olivia did every chance she got.

Ellen: "What the hell is pumpkin pie, without Thanksgiving?!?"

Me: "..."

"What?!"

"I think you got that backwards."

"I. DID. NOT."

Ok, YOU argue with her, then.

Remember, folks, just because Google Maps says it's true, don't make it so. A shooting war breaking out because of an on-line service goof? It's more likely than you think.

Tragic sea life die-off from a super-massive Gulf oil spill? What tragic sea life die-off from a super-massive Gulf oil spill? So, if you got to blame Cheney's shenanigans for the whole debacle, does that mean I get to credit Cheney's shenanigans for the resurgence of fish in the Gulf?

An obscure state-run research agency getting demonized as the most incompetent bunch of right wing deniers the world has ever known in 3... 2... 1...

Via Instapundit.

I like Top Gear's explanation better: "a ferocious hobgoblin with a penchant for cage-fighting captured the Ork princess and was defeated by a hairy vegetarian cyclist who remoulded the beast to form this bug-eyed concept." Bonus: It's a Mercedes. I think.

Scientists have discovered Saturn is surprisingly variable in the amount of energy it emits from season to season and year to year. A better understanding of how this cycling works over time will likely provide insight into just how the ringed planet's interior is screwed together.

And in the, "Thank You, Captain Obvious" folder we find this morning the revelation that city morgue workers treat dead bodies the way the DMV treats everyone else. When you deal with it every day, even the grimmest duty can become routine.

"Doing bad things to dead people" trifecta now in play...

It's now been revealed that, for some forty years, pathologists in the UK routinely removed organs of certain deceased "nuclear workers" without notification or consent of the families of the deceased. Yeah. Tacky.

Even though the subject of the article mostly works on Lancias, this profile of a typical old-car mechanic still reveals at least some of the reasons why we put up with these blasted cars. Heck, I even know exactly what he's doing when he's putting the thermostatic actuator on the lathe. I'm not completely clear as to why, but I have some ideas. For me, there's also this bar conversation:

Guy 1: "Well, my Chevy..."

Guy 2: "Well, my Audi..."

Guy 3: "Well, my Honda..."

Me: "Well, my Alfa Romeo..."

Yeah, I know, but if I actually did get out more you wouldn't come around as much!

The Chandra X-ray telescope has, if the data holds up to scrutiny at any rate, imaged the youngest black hole yet to be observed. This one formed from a supernova scientists actually witnessed back in 1979, and promises to provide unique insights into the very earliest stages of the life of one of the most unique of the universe's objects.

Another year, another extreme example of just how customized a Japanese can make his ride. I wonder how, or even if, it gets under bridges? Maybe all those fins are collapsible?

see more Monday Through Friday

Posted by Ellen at 06:24 AM | Comments (0)

I Don't Think The Guys Will Notice The Props...

Posted by Ellen at 06:08 AM | Comments (1)

Coming In At Number 9

At the age of 12, an intrepid Wernher von Braun loaded his toy wagon with some firecrackers and shot off across a crowded German street. It was a sign of things to come. The brains behind Hitler's V-2 rocket program arrived in the United States as a prisoner of war and went on to be its champion of space and lunar exploration. While putting people on the moon, von Braun also mastered scuba diving and philosophy.

Meet the other scientists.

Posted by Ellen at 05:58 AM | Comments (0)

Yuck On A Bun

After selling more than one million Double Down sandwiches in less than a month, KFC has removed the controversial item from its menu, the restaurant chain announced Monday.

Dear God! People actually ate this!?

Redskins Marching Band members are volunteers who have day jobs as teachers, band directors, school board members and judges. Some are retired and many of them were trained in military marching bands. Although no one gets paid for their time, every band member gets a pair of tickets to each home game that they can give to friends or family members — or sell with the team's blessing — at their discretion.

Get ready. It's from NPR, so get your head phones out if you are at work to listen!

Deep down inside I still want to try one.

Fortunately, it didn't kill me. It just robbed me of my innocence.

One man's encounter with Smooth Move Tea.

*Tea-hee*

"Cold and nice," he said after giving his coach, Jordan Wood, who swam with him, a very wet high-five when they hit the sand.

And the sound you hear are thousands of triathletes crying.

The long-term effort to get a commercial space station into orbit seems to be progressing nicely. Saying a space station could be launched by 2015 is, of course, not the same thing as actually launching one, but Bigelow has managed to stay afloat for this long, I wouldn't put it past them to finish the job. And, now that they seem to have Russian competition, maybe that will help legitimize the whole field.

It seems that, after eight years of experiments, a scientist discovered the evidence parapsychologists have been claiming they had for years. By taking common psychology tests and simply reversing the order in which they're taken, Daryl Bem of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York seems to have produced repeatable evidence we are influenced by events before they happen. At least one attempt to duplicate the results have failed, but (if I'm reading the article correctly), this attempt used a different protocol. Regardless, this isn't someone bending spoons. The experiment is well-described and presumably makes even more testable predictions.

No, I don't know what it ultimately means, either, but it sure seems cool!

News flash: if you spend four hours going at it, you can make a version of the McRib sandwich that tastes much better than the original. With that sort of time involved, I'm of the opinion one should do it all properly and use smoked pork shoulder and pull the meat as God and every BBQ place from here to San Jose intended. But I'm a purist that way.

If Monkey can fit, so can she! Well...she tried.

Problem: too blotto to drive, but don't want the hassle of coming back in the morning to get your car. Solution: a guy with a clown-scooter and a $20 bill. How anything like this can get past the acres of red tape imposed by local, state, and federal governments, let alone various transportation unions, I never will understand. But hey, more power to him!

A new, stealthy, anti-ship missile being developed as part of a DARPA program has been given the green light for more extensive tests. The missile itself is thought to be evolutionary, based on the JASSM air-launched cruise missile. What's thought to be revolutionary enough to hold DARPA's interest is the navigation and guidance, with the ultimate goal apparently to be full autonomy when hunting for Chinese red-force ships.

No, really, Australian pro rugby athlete now unemployed after a picture of him doing... something... with a dog gets loose on the internet. The specifics are not in the article, and I'm pretty happy with that. Dog seems to have been unharmed.

Me: "Olivia, I've never been to the Native American Museum before. Where do we go to get inside?"

Olivia: "We use the entrance, dad."

So, let me channel Amber here for a second... *ahem* (shake the arms a bit, a twist of the neck, flip the hair) You're tossing your pussy! You're tossing your pussy! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! (Completely SFW).

Ok, those who know Ellen's actual life partner will understand. The rest of you, well, let's just say you only thought Ellen was singular in her "crazy-cat-lady-to-be" obsession.

So, for all those folks who've either forgotten that those insane little fuzzballs known as, "kittens" really do have an "off" switch, or for those who never knew, we now have video proof. I especially like how they just sort of roll off one by one, and then get scooted around by the thing. I guess these things are quite a bit less terrifying than your garden variety vacuum cleaner.

Ok, not completely sure it's real, but if it is, this, friends, is an abject lesson about why one "must keep hands, feet, and head in the ride at all times." SFW and not gross, but dang, I bet that left a mark.

Ever wonder what a for-real dead stick landing onto a major road looks like? Hey, do you think I'd really ask that question without providing an answer? It's all about keeping the energy up and the panic level down. The rest is just finding a spot to pull off when you're done.

Ron gets a no-prize that all true petrol heads must own at least once to be taken seriously for bringing us the top 40 reasons "to be an Alfa-holic." The slideshow includes stylish accessories and the obligatory hot Italian chicks. All in all, A Good Thing.

Ron gets a sawed-off no-prize for bringing us The Zombie Research Society, your one-stop-shop for anything you might need to fight off a night of the living dead. The endurance of this fad never ceases to surprise me.

By using high-speed photography and way too much spare time, scientists have worked out how cats manage to drink without getting their faces wet. I could've sworn I saw something very similar to this on Nova or some other documentary show years ago. Discovery springs eternal, I guess.

Funny only because nobody (seems to have) got hurt... using explosives to demolish large structures can be hard. The power lines whipping around like, well, whips, is mighty impressive.

They told me if I voted for McCain, the administration would do whatever it took to cover up the next horrific environmental catastrophe, AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Again, your side thinks government stinks because the wrong people get put in charge. My point is, well, simpler than that.

By using nanoparticles of gold, scientists have figured out how to make trees glow in the dark. The article is big on "ooh! ahh! pretty!" but short on the details that would convince me, at least, that this might be a viable substitute for street lights. I mean, what happens when the leaves fall off, and are eaten by a critter? Just how bright is it, anyway?

Making the rounds: a naked stoner high out of his mind who was arrested on burglary charges was later found to have a mouse stuffed up his backside. For the longest time, folks said rodent felching was a myth. Somehow, I would've been happier holding onto that illusion, ya know?

To wit: "THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN WE’D JUST BE BOMBING VILLAGES AND KILLING PEOPLE. And they were right!" Is this the hope, or is this the change: Afghan Air War Peaks With 1,000 Strikes in October. Oh, don't worry. For at least thirty years kids have been taught that Kennedy did something strange with Vietnam, which Johnson sort of let slip away while he was taking the oath on that jet next to Jackie, AND THEN NIXON BOMBED CAMBODIA!!! I have no doubt at all that history will record Obama being just as innocent.

You know, at the end of his first term.

Via Instapundit.

Not all the iPhone users I know are girls, and said "not all" better not show up at my house in a miniskirt. Capice?

Source: C-Section comics.

By using forensic analysis on the Trinity nuclear tests, scientists have determined if hajji ever does manage to get his hands on a bomb, we should be able to tell where he got his stuff. I'm actually more interested in what can be gleaned from the information they gathered, since (as I understand it), a great deal of information surrounding the Trinity tests is still classified.

The Winnipeg Humane Society is calling for a protest over an item in a holiday gift guide — a piggy bank made out of a real piglet, stuffed and mounted.

A consortium of doctors and engineers are working together to create mobile phone kits that will diagnose STDs privately and discreetly. Yep, that's right, you pee on your phone and it'll tell you if you've got the clap. A more effective way of preventing someone from sharing said phone, I literally cannot imagine.

Making the rounds: a mysterious contrail has been filmed off the coast of California. The armed services aren't claiming it, so officially nobody knows what it might be. Unofficially, current betting is favoring a contrail being lit in a strange way by the setting sun. I'll put a $5 chip down on that square, too.

A Carnival cruise ship is stuck off the west coast of Mexico with broken engines and a full load of passengers. Tow assistance is expected (if I'm reading it correctly) some time tomorrow. Meanwhile, the Coasties are there to, well, I guess make sure Somali pirates or drug lord ships don't crash the party. At least everyone knows where the toilet is, and I hope the folks with lower-level outside balconies brought umbrellas.

"How can you possibly be apposed to climate change policies?!? What's wrong with you?!?" is a constant refrain from the green left. To me, this indicates a misunderstanding, so I figured How Progressives Misunderstand Much Conservative Skepticism of Climate Policy might be worth a link:

Conservative action to proposed climate policies is driven by opposition to extensive government interference in the economy.
...
That mandating dramatic near-term emission reductions is a more sensible ... risk management strategy than investing in technological innovation, exploring geoengineering, or preparing for adaptation is something to be shown, not blithely asserted.
...
If everything calls for the same big government solution, why does it matter what the problem is?
...
Environmentalists will be more successful enlisting conservatives (and many moderates) to their cause once they become more focused on solutions, and less insistent on government control.

And those are just the highlights. I know, I know, the fact that I'm the slightest bit skeptical of any environmentalist's claim or have even vague misgivings about government policy as the only way to fix it means I'm a denier of the first order, and therefore cannot be trusted. I just want you to say it out loud.

Via Instapundit.

So, what should a hipster who's stumbled onto a huge collection of photos from the English pop scene of the early 80s? Call it gothic, of course. Almost everyone in those pictures is now completely grown up, desperately hoping their own now-grown kids just can't recognize them in those photos.

Another year, another warbird gets fished out of Lake Michigan. This is far, far from the treasure trove you'd at first think. The Navy got some legislation moved through congress back in (as I recall) the sixties and now owns any recovered Navy hardware outright. It has a well-earned reputation for being a gigantic PITA about these things.

People fish them out of the lake anyway, so who knows? Maybe whoever's in charge of that department has lightened up.

First we put (presumptive) grown-ups back in charge, and now the GAO is actually pleased about something. Something from the Pentagon, no less. "I'm feeling... happy, and that's a big deal... for me..."

Well of course an Alfa made the list of 10 nightmare cars you can't resist. In fact, the only one more highly rated was an f'ing Lamborghini Miura! I'll just about promise at least one of the other cars is on your secret list. Well, except maybe for Ron's, since, if it can't be dropped into a mud pit at the bottom of a fifteen foot sheer drop, he doesn't seem all that interested in it. But hey, we all have our vices.

Via Instapundit.

Well, if you weren't in the mood to watch the race, maybe the armed assaults at the Brazilian Grand Prix were of interest. Well, they're on to Abu Dabi now, so it'll be much safer there. Right?

It's official: the whole "Jersey Shore" phenomenon has officially jumped the shark. I'm pretty sure at least some of those pictures are of Halloween costumes. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure several of them are not.

Scientists have announced the development of a technique that turns human skin cells directly into blood. Not just the red cells, but several other types which make up this vital substance. What's not exactly clear is just how much blood is made in a particular batch.

Turns out it's a lot harder to stuff explosives in a dog than it is to stuff them in a printer cartridge. The stuff that starts leaking out of a dog is, you know, important. Oh, don't worry, I know, I blame Dick Cheney too.

Mike J. gets a no-prize that's a surreal mixture of Disney, Grease, and some film with that short guy from Teen Wolf in it for bringing us Back to the Future, Bollywood-style. Aside from its prodigious length, I actually rather liked the Bollywood show we got on Netflix a few weeks ago. Slapstick comedy, catchy tunes, fun actions sequences with no pretense of reality, and hot women. What's not to like?

See! See! It's not just nutty people in the US who keep up with these dratted cars. They get the best of all worlds... import US cars, and new Alfas. But we'll be getting them soon too, oh yes we will...

Mike J. gets a no-prize that uses a really annoying sound to make a really neat point for bringing us this brief, but vivid, demonstration of "the McGurk effect." It would seem our perception of language relies more on vision than would at once seem to be the case. I wonder what the implications are for blind people?

And in the, "I'm actually surprised it's taken this long" file, we have the blow-up Obama sex doll for sale in China. I mean... well, hell, if we stopped featuring weird, tasteless items you wouldn't come around here so much, eh? Oh, really, tell the truth!

Mark gets a no-prize that'll put the fire out now for bringing us a demonstration of what state-of-the-art fire fighting aircraft look like. Firebombing is the very last bastion of the big piston-engined aircraft. Some of the very last WWII aircraft working for a living are doing just this. It's well past time for a turbine-powered craft to take over the job, and these look to be very good at it indeed.

Cool only because nobody got hurt... Look, everybody! This is the race series Ellen really REALLY wants to become a part of. This wasn't too bad. In other parts of Europe, the would've twirled over a couple hundred spectators before they hit the ground.

Ever wonder why the engine dyno is in another room? Yeah, this is why. You'd think when it started making the really weird whining sound someone would've hit a kill switch somewhere. That's a damned expensive bomb right there, folks.

Nothing like local news to put "screw up on TV" into perspective. And heck, this was, what, 11 am? I get yelled at if I start drinking before noon, and I'm not on TV!

Ok, this is just disgusting.

*vomit*

Remember, the coach always says to keep digging no matter what happens, because you can never tell what might happen. There's a similar video out there of a cyclist celebrating his stage win just before he wipes out his bike and the guy ten seconds behind him goes sledding past.

Yeah, America's definitely becoming more segregated, more divisive, and more racist. Just ask this guy. Progress happens, as long as progressives are kept away from everyone else.

Boeing has unveiled a hydrogen-powered UAV with a 150ft wingspan and an endurance measured not in hours, but in days. When you can putter around at 75,000 feet, stealth isn't all that important... from that height, you can peer sideways a very, very long way indeed. It's pretty hard to hit something like that with an RPG, ya know?

Ok, so, Congressional leadership has changed, Obama (hopefully) realizes his messiah image only works on MSNBC, and everyone on my side realizes we don't have the votes or the mandate to actually repeal Obamacare outright. Is there a third way? This guy thinks so.

Allowing any people, especially young people, any sort of choice in their health care decisions is of course anathema to progressives, but since they've now been de-fanged, could something like this have a chance? On the one hand, it makes way too much sense to go anywhere in a typical Congress. On the other, this is not going to be a typical Congress. Definitely something to watch, in my opinion.

Ok, ok, sorry, just can't resist poking a little more fun at the left side of the peanut gallery. Oh, don't worry, I'm not expecting sunshine and candy to come rushing out of the rear ends of the freshmen GOP members any time soon. Then again, I never do. Can't quite say the same about the left's expectations for their side two years ago, eh?

Ever wonder what the band on the Titanic sounded like, after the boat hit the ice berg? Yeah, pretty sure it was something like this. Except, you know, less obnoxious. And boy, get a load of that good ol' MSNBC diversity. I tell ya, those people really had a point when they called the rest of us out about how racist we all were.

This is why I have no plans to go camping in the bush any time soon. Wait... hang on... dammit, someone throw a bucket of water on Ron. He just passed out from giggling.

Ah, Yellowstone. The trees. The cliffs. The geysers. The grizzly bears chasing par-boiled bison down the highways. I dunno. To me there's nothing that yells, "get out of the f'ing way!" quite as loudly as a ton of herbivore being chased by half a ton of predator.

Yes, that "mine! mine! mine! mine! mine! mine!" chorus you're hearing is caused by the return of the infamous McRib sandwich. This'll be the first time in 16 years that it's available nationwide, to which I cautiously reply, "woot?"

I seem to remember, back when I was on the road to recovery from my picky-eater days, trying and liking the thing. As I recall, it's the sauce that makes or breaks it, otherwise it's not much more than a garden variety pulled pork sandwich that's been, well, "un-pulled," if you take my meaning. Still, can't see ordering one for myself, but that's not going to make me disapprove of or try to stop you from doing it. Foodies and other general busy-bodies, well, not so much.

Scientists have documented a startling case of a boa constrictor with not one but two successful virgin births. Even though the snake lived with males, the offspring are not genetically related to them, and in fact are a genetic variant so bizarre it's only ever previously been created in a lab via very intricate techniques.

So, great. Now I have to worry about having more snakes without Ellen actually going out and buying them. Thanks, God. Way to help a brother out.

The object is about 4 feet in diameter. It has moved about 6 feet down the shoreline in the last 24 hours. It 'jiggles' when the waves in the lake hit it… when we prod it, it seems to be spongy feeling… The texture appears to be that of a rock with algae spots on it — it is brown and yellow, with a pattern of some type.

This is when you get it out of the water and get it tested.

So, while not all of my predictions came true in exactly the order I thought they would, I got pretty close with a lot of them:

41 [Republican Senate] seats [in 2004] means the more radical stuff ... must be modified... 40 seats? Then it'll be down to the media and the Democrats' own incompetence. Not a pretty picture.
...
And that's when the people will turn on him. Just as in '94, idealistic Americans who simply wanted change will suddenly realize ... the Democrats really are going to raise taxes, are going to go soft on defense, and are going to try socialized medicine and an expansion of the welfare state.
...
And that's where my side comes in... In the Clinton years, the Democrats were such utter f-ups they went from holding all the cards to being completely out of power at the next election ... Will it be that fast? If we can't hold them back in the Senate, it's a dead certainty, but the mess will be a lot bigger when we get there.
...
[After Obama takes office] we'll get ... perhaps two years of truly odious attempts to turn the US into New France, followed by our regular (and seemingly preferred) two-party gridlock to take us into the next Presidential cycle.

So, my predictions after a two year course correction?

The economy will now come roaring back. The MSM has been too fascinated with the looming Republican Eschaton to talk much about it, but the financial press has regularly noted corporate profits are up, but instead of expanding they've been sitting on the cash because nobody knew what ridiculous stunt the Democrats would pull next. Now that businesses know all that nonsense is over, they'll begin to expand again.

This will mean that, like Clinton before him, Obama will be in the fortunate position of simply standing on the platform when the train pulls in. The MSM will, of course, hold triumphs in Obama's honor, throw flower pedals in his path, and compose pangyrics to him that'd make Sidonius blush. I think a saint's life will not be too far behind.

So, in other words and in my opinion, barring actions of the Obama administration itself, his second term is now a lock. But there, as they say, is the rub. Clinton is rightly recognized as a, if not the, supreme politician of the 20th century. He was willing to tack wherever the winds blew him, and when they blew right he sailed along with them, and in truth did most of his best work then.

Obama is not Clinton. He has what I believe is a deserved reputation for arrogance, is committed to an ideology that's much further to the left than Clinton's ever was, and has mostly surrounded himself with like-minded friends at best, and combative toadies at worst. If he continues to spin his wheels to the left, or attempts even more egregious (and, at this stage, likely illegal) stunts to get his agenda forced through, then he may not see the end of this term.

To his advantage, he does not have to apologize for Pelosi and Reid anymore. Will it be enough? We'll see...

That is some pot hole!

With photos!

The earth is going to continue to spin on its axis.
The sky has not turned purple and the clouds are not raining sulfuric acid.
You will continue to support the economy by spending spending spending (Xmas is coming up!)
None of you are moving to Canada or Europe (it's not any better there, it's worse).
Fish and frogs are not going to rain down from the sky.
Angels are not thundering across the heavens (though I did give a strangely pale horse an apple recently.)
The missiles are still in their silos.
The rivers are not running with blood (well maybe the one with the dead guy in it.)
We have barely seen a grasshopper, let alone a plague of locusts (though if my skink turns up again, I'm taking a picture.)
My Italian grandmother has not climbed out of her grave demanding to see her great-grandchild.

Cats and dogs are not sleeping together! Nor is there mass hysteria!

You can put on your sack cloth, you can dust yourself with ashes. You can whack yourself on your heads with boards just like in Monty Python. If you feel you really need to mourn, let me know. I'll hire you some professional Italian widows. But 2 weeks from now, suck, it up.

You can go about your business now.

Move along, move along.

As appropriate today as it was 6 years ago when Ellen wrote it.

I've been watching elections seriously for right at thirty years now*. I literally have never been so excited. Oh, tomorrow will definitely be "ok, dog, you caught the car, now what?" but tonight, well, tonight I smile.

----
* Yes, mom, I do remember 1980. I've always been a precocious child :).

Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne are having their genomes sequenced, and it turns out Ozzy may (now) be healthier than Sharon. The bit about him having Neandertal genes is a bit puzzling, since it was my understanding nobody'd found conclusive evidence of that ANYWHERE in anybody's genome. Still, if anyone were to have it, I'd definitely pick Ozzy.

Someone over at Google Maps is getting clever again. Not that it matters all that much to anyone in China, since I'm not completely sure they can even get to anything Google does anymore. Then there's the whole "South China Sea pirates" problem...

Scientists have decided silica deposits on the side of a volcano may be the best place to look for signs of life on Mars. Not present life, mind you, but life during Mars' watery past. They're getting ready to fling a nuclear-powered rover the size of a car that way soon, I'm thinking this or something like it may make for a fine destination.

It looks like the adoption of the Small Diameter Bomb into the F-22's inventory is going well. Thing is, I'm pretty sure they can drop these things from 75,000 feet and have them hit something as small as a tank. No idea how fast an aerodynamic projectile is going after it's fallen more than fourteen miles. I'm thinking that, for most purposes, just putting smart kits on lumps of concrete would be pretty effective for that kind of fall.

So, does the internal combustion concept really have depths left to chart? This guy thinks so. As I first read the description, I thought, "two stroke flat four, dur." Then I watched the video, and things got much more interesting. Two pistons in the same cylinder, which complete a power stroke by pushing toward each other? I'll bet you a nickle the idea was worked out a hundred years ago, but material science couldn't come up with the alloys to make it practical. We've come a long way with material science, donchaknow?

Sometimes the lead says it all: A person accused of murdering a cross-dressing human rights lawyer is a man undergoing a sex change, it was revealed today. Quick! Get them a reality show!

Scientists have announced the creation of a (very) small-scale human liver. They've got a long way to go before they can grow a whole liver from scratch, but they're making progress.

No, it's not an Alfa, but you'd only know that because of the pictures: "And those other cars, [t]heir horns make cute little beeping noises, so considerate to not be rude. They don't have horns that sound with the arrogance and fury of some long dead Mongol warlord. "