Everything we know is wrong?

[Article here - "Second Genesis on Earth?"]

Scientists locate arsenic-tolerating bacteria, demonstrate that the bacteria are using the arsenic in place of phosphorus. So what? This means that the bacteria have cracked the traditionally held carbo-oxy-hydro-nitro-sulph-phos cell structure that was assumed to be the essential building blocks of life. We may be a long way from Star Trek's silicon-based life (in lieu of carbon), but it appears substitution can happen even here on earth.

Rally to Restore Sanity - Great Sign

Text: GOD HATES FIGS. MARK 11:12-14

"...[Jesus] was hungry. And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon, and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever..."
(King James Version for copyright simplicity reasons)

Memory

"If I had a nickel for everything I'd forgotten, I'd really and truly have no idea how much money I'd have."
The Brain

Deficit spending

With thanks to Nicholas B. for bringing the topic up, since graphs are so much fun, here is the data from Treasury Department statistics on deficit spending for the Bush43 and Obama (so far) administrations. (Sorry if the numbers aren't so readable - click the photo to enlarge; the chart starts in January 2000 and the spiky blue and pink lines change to smooth in April 2005.)

The higher pitch of the line after January 2009 indicates increased rate of deficit spending. And that bump around September 2008? That represents $ 400 billion in new deficit spending in two weeks. Almost half a trillion dollars. Or pretty close to the total GDP (or twice the US wages) for that time period.

Do not attempt to beat this girl's father

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/6244076/Farmers-daughter-disarms-terrorist-and-shoots-him-dead-with-AK47.html
Never tell yourself you are a victim. Take control. No other commentary needed.

[Published a year later than intended, because it was left in my drafts folder, which I rarely check --ED.]

Popular Among Athiests

"Christianity is the belief that a cosmic Jewish zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree."

Legal word of the Day: Mayhem

Mayhem ['mae-'hem] (n)

willful and permanent crippling, mutilation, or disfigurement of any part of another's body; also, the crime of engaging in mayhem

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law ©1996

This term falls under the fun category of words which have a specific technical meaning but are applied metaphorically in common usage. These are the words that mess with someone's head if they get used to the technical usage and then hear people throw them around where they don't really apply, e.g.,
"The rowdy youths did all kinds of mayhem."
"But I thought you said they only spray painted some mailboxes and broke a few windows."

It was only a matter of time

The L.A. Times reports that the first health insurance companies to begin trimming back their offerings after the reform bill are now doing so. [Article here.] It should probably come as no surprise that when you take away someone's incentive to provide a service, they cease to provide it.

I found particularly funny the (in his mind) rhetorical question posed by the reform pundit in the article: "Insurers need to decide if they are in the business of providing care or denying coverage." Actually, neither. They are not in the business of providing care, but risk management. Requiring them to do something else sounds like an invitation for them to go on strike to me.

Legal word of the day: Champerty

Champerty (n.) ['cham-per-te]; Champertous (adj.) ['cham-per-tes]

An unenforceable agreement to fund litigation for another in exchange for a portion of the proceeds of the suit.

Näkemiin?

Rumors are that Kimi Raikkonen may not go back to Formula 1, but stick around with rally racing. Best of luck to the Finn either way, but we'll miss him in F1.

Wolverine

"Essentially, this movie is about Hugh Jackman, the hottest actor ever, with the most un-attractive haircut ever. But, somehow it works."

~EKL

Luxury car worth £1.2m clamped outside Harrods

Click title for the story!

I seriously need some of these!

Lone Ranger

What many people don't realize is that when the Lone Ranger's parents died, they had not passed their property on directly to the Lone Ranger, but instead had created a fund for his maintenance, which was administered by Tonto. This is why Tonto is always referred to as The Trustee Sidekick.

Prison yard auto repair

If you ever find yourself needing to put a water pump belt back on its pulleys in a car with less than two inches of clearance, there is nothing like a homemade tool for pulling off the job. Not shown is the 1x4 which went through the loops to provide a foot pedal/pull bar. Also thanks to a kind contractor who provided the third hand needed for finishing.

Tool not recommended to establishing turf or maintaining dominance in maximum security pen.

Intentional Naughtiness

We found out that Warwick blew a head gasket, and will be in the shop for a week. Soon after hearing this Helmy decided that he was not getting enough attention. On our way home from a weekend away, just before we crossed back into Virginia, his temperature spiked and after we looked him over we found he had split the belt that drives the water pump. Since we will not put up with intentional naughtiness we left him north of Lucketts for the night, just to see if he would start behaving. We will be bringing him back home tomorrow, and we got him a new belt. We are not rewarding him, but the old belt is totally useless since he pitched his little fit.

AAA

Once again we are thankful for AAA. We are not quite sure what is wrong with Warwick, but we are glad we did not have to leave him on the side of the LCP.

Blast!

In Virginia, the use of non-mining explosives (e.g., for road construction) requires the user to have a blaster's license from the State Fire Marshall, pursuant to Virginia Code § 27-97.2. Once granted, the license is good for three years and can be renewed at three year intervals. However, each time a set of fingerprint cards must be submitted with the application.

Which leads me to wonder, in addition to running background checks, do they keep track of how many fingers each blaster still has?

Pesky Puritans

Reuben was determined to stay on track. "[The United States] can have riots, but not sustained [civil] wars, because the sides are too geographically mixed and the resources are too one-sided."

[Dr.] Torrent shook his head. "The seeds of civil war are always there, in every country. England in the 1600s--nobody would have believed that those pesky Puritans could provoke a Royalist versus Puritan civil war, and yet they did."

--Orson Scott Card, Empire

Don't mess with old guys

Four German pensioners, in their 60s through 80s, found guilty of kidnapping their financial adviser after he lost over $3 million of their money. The quartet not only managed to bind him with tape and gag him, they got him into a box and shifted him into the trunk of a car before driving him across Germany and stashing him in a basement. Oh, and they beat him badly enough to break several of his ribs.

Full story here.

Matchless

Brit army bike, Dutch made, all original still and in working order, it is 1 of 300 of its kind.

The owner thought it was flattering that I wanted to take its picture.

Boys, stop drooling.

(And I really like that German car next to it.)

Oscars: Best Picture

If Avatar wins, the Oscars are bought.
If Up in the Air wins, the Oscars are stuck in a rut.
If Inglourious Basterds wins, the Oscars just go to whatever the most outrageous idea is.
If Precious wins, the Oscars are liberal heartthrobs.
If The Blind Side wins, the Oscars are conservative heartthrobs. (Ha!)
If An Education wins, the Oscars are perverts.

I guess that leaves The Hurt Locker (since District 9 has sci-fi-itis, and anyway shouldn't be permitted to win if Invictis can't)?

Biathlon rifle facts

Nice short piece on equipment for one of the hardest-core Olympic events. (Spoiler - most biathletes use the Anschutz Model 1827 Fortner rifle.)

Article Here, courtesy of Yahoo Sports.

Neither of these is going to pass with TSA

Thanks Adam!!

A moment of explanation

:::Breaking News:::

Washington, DC - The White House today released information from a recent medical exam of the President indicating the existence of minor nerve degeneration in the chief executive. The symptoms are limited to a loss of inner ear equilibrium when bilateral pressure is applied to the President's right hand, giving purely medical episodes the appearance of bowing during a handshake.

Some things should not be published

Others should be published so you can judge for yourself whether or not they should be published. As an example, I provide the following comic strip annotation (on a strip poking fun at Aragorn for trusting the oath of an oath-breaking ghost army), authored by David Morgan-Mar of Irregular Webcomic fame:

Swearing of oaths used to actually count for something. It used to be that people really respected sworn oaths, and would take you at your word, pretty much without question.

Nowadays we're much too cynical a society to really put anywhere near as much credence on to an oath. I mean, if the director of a huge company swore on his mother's grave to stop polluting the rivers near his chemical factories, would anyone really believe him?

It would be nice if we could revive faith in oaths, so that you really could believe someone if they swore to stop dumping toxic chemicals into the waterways. Lend such things more credence.

It would be a credence clear-water revival.

Nintendo 1, President 0

Change Chomp Ball t-shirt at Split Reason.