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.)