Monday, March 31, 2008

Saturday, March 29, 2008

JB Sent this Fine Joke

Too true:

*Subject:* Biker in the News

A biker is riding by the zoo, when he sees a little girl leaning into
the lion's cage. Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the cuff of her
jacket
and tries to pull her inside to slaughter her, under the eyes of her
screaming parents. The biker jumps off his motor cycle, runs to the
cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch.
Whimpering from the pain the lion jumps back letting go of the girl,
and the biker brings her to her terrified parents, who thank him
endlessly.

A NYT reporter has seen the whole scene, and addressing the biker,
says, " Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I saw a man do
in my whole life."

"Why, it was nothing, really, the lion was behind bars. I just saw
this
little kid in danger, and acted as I felt right."

"Well, I'll make sure this won't go unnoticed. I'm a journalist from
the New York Times , you know, and tomorrow's paper will have this on
the first page. What motorcycle do you ride and what political
affiliation do you have?"

" A Harley Davidson and I am a Republican. "

The journalist leaves.

The following morning the biker buys The New York Times to see if it
indeed brings news of his actions, and reads, on first page:



*BIKER GANG MEMBER ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT AND

STEALS HIS LUNCH. *

Women and Driving

I think I should give it up myself.



I saw it at FMFT

Friday, March 28, 2008

Film Critical of Islam

Do you think they will notice? Adam's linked to it, I will put it up as youtubes with the cartoons and pray to the one true God, who weeps at our insistent idiocy, that civilization can metabolize these monsters in spite of the baby boomers and the left.

I'm not satisfied with this post and my wording so I will likely update...I wanted to post a link to the film and don't want to wait to get the words right so go to Adam's and see...

Adam has a fantastic post with excellent art and layout here...

Zaftig Ballet

Dave Barry links to this Krispy Kreme bacon cheeseburger:

Ballpark burger


which may lead to another of his links, this:

Look

through a window with a better view with Earthcam.

Such as Almeria.

Or Mykonos.

If you're really lucky you can catch a glimpse up a bird's butt like I just did:

1.webcam on zakynthos zante- sponsored by House Marathia Zakynthos greece Griechenland


Outsourcing Passports

Well the Guv'ment went and outsourced the manufacture of our new electronic passports to foreign companies. What could go wrong?

Wow. We deserve everything we get.

via Boortz

They also link to this couple who are having Great Crested Newt headaches.

Rare: The great crested newt is protected

by British and European legislation

Megalodon Find

David Wentz, 16, holds a fossilized shark tooth, Wednesday, March 26, 2008, inside his home in Port Huron, Mich. Wentz found the tooth while snorkeling with his brother Shaun, 21, off Marysville (Michigan) beach at the end of summer last year. (AP Photo/Times Herald, Melissa Wawzysko)
AP Photo: David Wentz, 16, holds
a fossilized shark tooth,
Wednesday, March 26, 2008, inside his home...

This lucky guy found a nice chomper. They are still out there.

This blog has been keeping a wary eye out for some time now.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Politicians and Journalists Need Road Rash Applied with Enthusiam

Reading this I tried to unravel this and this.

It is all in keeping with how they prevail. The political class, and in that I now lump the fourth estate into one unholy class, relies on this process.

If you do not understand what I am getting at then ask and discuss with me in the comments. I am eager to be dissuaded from the tar I feel guilty over not heating.

"If man makes it, I don't eat it."

Jack LaLanne at 93, and still fit and functioning. One of the only folks who told folks of a healthier way to live and also lived it through to say it again.

Yeah, luck and whatever else involved. It's still fun and encouraging to see.

via Instapundit

Site Favorite

I have to set up the links on the side again. If you want to see the incomplete older list (better than the current, certainly) click on "a previous fine mess" on the right.

I have had less 'puter time this last day or so but I just scooted over to J.L. Bell's Boston1775 and more excellent material is up! I need to put them in permanently on this page with ultra emphatic endorsement so anyone stopping through can click over and enjoy. Hopefully any zombie or bigfoot fun will not discourage the uninitiated.

I am looking forward to seeing dvd's of the "Adams" miniseries with all of that great posting in mind!!

Cockroaches

are always mentioned when it comes to surviving radiation. I have read that there is a type of wasp that beats the roach. It seems rotifers take the cake.

These bacteria are pretty tough. NYtimes.

Water Bears
are pretty hardy.

Of course it turns out that radiation is actually good for you.

NatGeo

Film contest. Vote for your favorite.

Polar Bears Playing with Dogs

I first saw this at Haha.nu and then looked and saw this bit from snopes. Here is the Nifplay site.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Site Traffic

a fine mess may get it's 30,000th page view this week, which means I am thoroughly sick of clicking on my own site and have worn out my buttons. I think it's about time to come up with a cafepress tshirt to give away as prizes!! This sad solipsistic intellectual onanism can't go uncelebrated! :

VISITS

Total8,512
Average Per Day34
Average Visit Length9:05
Last Hour3
Today24
This Week235

PAGE VIEWS

Total29,442
Average Per Day124
Average Per Visit3.7
Last Hour16
Today149
This Week870

Interesting NorK videos

here in 14 parts, via Samizdata. There is a lot of content over at VBS.tv.

Very cool.


Episode 5 - The Tea Girl
"We may still be the last people
this girl has hung out with."


Episode 9 - The Pyongyang Metro
The most lavish two-stop subway
money can buy (from East Germany).

"A lot of them don't like you because they have been told you are the devil since they were 2 years old."

Episode ten quote "Abby Road...I understand those bastards now..."


Oh Dear

Not another scandal. Spitzer, McGreevy and now this?

Louis Lunch Grill

SteakHouse Grill

This might cook like they do at Louis Lunch, birthplace of the hamburger!

Product link via Haha.nu

From White Whale

to white shark. Watch the movements here.


Shark Tales: Photo by
Monterey Bay Aquarium

George Will

has a piece on Judicial remuneration. The last portion discusses much more than just "you get what you pay for":

"Upon what meat hath our judiciary fed in growing so great? The meat of modern liberalism, the animating doctrine of the regulatory and redistributionist state. Courts have been pulled where politics, emancipated from constitutional constraints, has taken the law — into every facet of life.


In the 1930s, the Supreme Court, coming to terms with New Deal politics, put aside the idea that the Constitution created a federal government of limited, because enumerated, powers. As politics permeated economic and other spheres of life hitherto ordered by private arrangements, the judiciary was drawn into the ordering of life under metastasizing laws. There is no longer any living memory of life before the federal government slipped the leash of constitutional limits on its scope of action and stopped acknowledging any practical limits to its competence. Since the New Deal, under the Great Society expansion of the political sphere, the trend intensified. As James Q. Wilson has written, New Deal liberalism was concerned only — only! — with who got what, when, where and how; liberalism in Lyndon Johnson's hands became concerned with who thinks what, who acts when, who lives where and who feels how. Conservatives regret this development but must come to terms with its imperatives, one of which is:


The enlargement of the judiciary's role by the regulatory state requires compensation of the judiciary commensurate with its ever-expanding importance. That importance, although regrettable, is a fact, and so is this: You get the quality — and the perspective — you pay for.
"

Moby Dick

I have finished the novel and I think it is a masterpiece. It combines wicked humor and science of the day along with an elegant weave of a daunting cross section of the human condition...typical humans and their faults and tendencies all laid bare. I could have done without some more "poetic" aspects but I will leave this here for now.

Jimmy raised some valid criticisms and I agree most emphatically with the notion that it, like so many works, is given a special status which it does not deserve.

Samuel Clemens once said "A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read."

I think that quote suggests that the "experts" over-analysis exhausts folks on good reads...If you like it you like it...If it stinks say it out loud! Everyone will be better off!!!

I like many things that stink, for the record!

Cyclotron

Famous device which helped usher in the nuclear age is scrap-bound.

via Slashdot

It sounds like there are fond memories:

"...word-of-mouth instructions: Find the out-of-order men’s bathroom, and send the skinniest person in your party shimmying up the heating vent and into the hallway of the abandoned laboratories, where she can open the door for everyone else."

New Haven Art Exhibits

A visit is in order, it looks like a wonderful opportunity.

photo shows detail of men fishing in canoe

Detail from Indians fishing, by John White. Inscribed
‘The manner of their fishing’ and ‘A Cannow’ c.1585.
© The Trustees of the British Museum

Bat Disaster?

This blog has given some attention to the lovely and incredible critters.

This outbreak is looking very bad indeed.

Michael Durham/Getty Images

Dishdasha as Uniform

Perry de Havilland pulls a short bit out of Totten's recent post. Both Totten and de Havilland are essential reading.

Zombie Awareness Film

Adam sent over this clip on the important matter:

Radioactive Zombie Badgers

It seems badgers are digging up graves in merry old England. That reminded me of the dreaded Komodo Dragon.

This blog has always had deep concerns over the Zombie menace, and it turns out that we can use zombification to produce weapons which could in theory be used against Zombies. For instance a "Radioactive Zombie Badger Launcher."

Image:Zombiebadgerlaundher.jpg
RZBL being test fired

It's all true. First link via DaveBarry

Garfield

The comic strip without the eponymous figure is quite creepy indeed.

via DaveBarry

Smallpox

Boston1775 has more on inoculation and the HBO John Adams miniseries. It's a pus and scab filled historical treat!!

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Hey There Buddies!!!


You guys need some pettin' rubbin' 'n pattin'!

It Led Back to Obama

So the media will let it drop entirely. Just as they would if it led back to a republican, no?

Maggie

Well I suppose the Brits will get demands to lavish cash on the Argentinians. I once heard an Argentine joke from a Uruguayan:

Why do they put holes in Argentinian's caskets?

So the worms can crawl out and puke.

vi Instapundit

He also links to this very cool drag race video.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Firethrower

I used to have one of these. What ever happened to it?




Make a Fireball Shooter! - video powered by Metacafe

Friday, March 21, 2008

Pretentious

I have been informed that my blog is pretentious. I apologize, however I would like some subsequent opinions, so please chime in!! ;))

Update: Upon diligent consultation and consideration it has been determined that this blog is indeed fiercely pretentious and proudly so!!!

Carry on!

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Rollerman

Last video today. Strangely I have had dreams like this for years:

Snow Dog

I remember a dog doing this years ago:

Mountain Bike Fall

This is an old one everyone has probably already seen:

Kurlansky

I have loved several of his books.

Still, read this book review and form your own conclusions on the man's reasoning skills...

"(Isn't it curious that Asians carry out "sneak attacks," whereas Westerners launch "preemptive strikes"?)"

Whatever you think of the Iraq situation this conflation is pathetic. Giving an opposing force a set date and staging your build up candidly- even if he thought you were bluffing- is analogous to the Japanese strike?

That snide comment with it's suggestion towards contemporary racism (he writes a litany on the allied racism and gives a pass to the Japanese etc.?) I thought was beneath what skills this individual possesses...but this review proves otherwise.

Update: a City-Journal review of the Baker book titled "History for Losers" here.

Historical Aircraft Photos

Jimmy sent an attachment of neat pics that can be seen here.

Here is another batch unrelated to that.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Major Bookcover

This is a nice view of the process in creating a lovely illustration for 20major.

Overheard In NY

Jay has noticed some funny stuff here more than once. It reminds me of Professor Seagull's project which never really happened.

Here is the overheard celebrity page.

Eyetooth

Blind man's vision restored after son's tooth implanted in his eye.

via Speculist

Wolves

attacking in Iraq.

"Among children, supernatural powers were attributed to these adversaries. They could withstand intense cold, according to legend, and their eyes changed from yellow to orange to green."

I don't know about the eyes but this doesn't sound very pleasant:

"It grows up to 6 1/2 feet long and stands as tall as 3 1/2 feet, weighing up to 120 pounds, said veterinarian Fahad abu Kaheela. It has powerful jaws and can sprint at speeds of 40 mph."

via Danger Room

They also link to the Blackwater surveillance blimp.

Queenfish

NYTimes has this on the Arctic and cold war submariners.

Silent Service sites.


"And I'm thinking, 'How am I going to explain teeth marks on
my periscope when I get back to port.?' " Dr. McLaren recalled in 2002.

Danger Room links to this book on cold war operations against Sweden?

Erik Mongrain

via LGF this fine guitar styling:

The Lion Remembers



via Aceofspades

Update (04/04/08): here is a video of a woman receiving a hug from her lion which now resides in a zoo, thank you Netherlanders:

St. Exupery

His plane found and now a confession. Last link via Jungletrader.

Jungletrader also links to this: Africa. Yeesh.

Kalamazoo

Air Zoo. What a cool name. I saw it over at Murdoc's.

10 Ways to Cheer Up

Again, via Haha.

If those don't help they also link to the 30 strangest deaths in history.

Finally from Haha, soggy elephants, (Jungletrader has this elephant article.):

Ballpoint Masterpieces

This is also from Haha.nu

"Bic money: Casas can use up four 14p ballpoints on one picture, but his prizewinning works already fetch up to £3,750 each"

Giraffe

I think the little critter got sucked back and eaten like a lizard.

@ haha.nu.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Twenty Major

has this remarkable photo. I guess the last year of your administration you can get away with quite a bit. His can be a funny blog and may be worth checking in on tomorrow, if you know what tomorrow is you may recognize the gentleman in the green tie.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Politicians

This is too true. When that piece of crap Corzine was in a coma after running other people off the road while presiding over seat belt and speed limit laws to which he never ever felt the least obligation I felt much the same sentiments. More than a quarter of a million tickets for that one restraint infraction. They fear no constituent, and nothing will change until the culture, the vast lot of us, actually puts teeth into the beauty of living lives unaccosted by those that think we are their responsibility.

First link via Instapundit. (and now a link to the great Kimball)

Here is a link to Samizdata because they understand, and they are a must bookmark.

That ass Blumenthal made a reference not long ago about the vagueness of a law's wording giving it power. He is of course correct, but he feels that power, we just suffer at their discretion. I will look up links to that...off to HDepot.

Friday, March 14, 2008

No More Liquid Laundry

I'm just going to Moxy everything up!!

(did I cover this before?)

Neat Newt

Nice Science Daily article on newt toxin and the evolution of some garter snakes.

Tetrodotoxin:

History
  • The first symptoms occur 15 minutes to several hours postingestion of tetrodotoxin-containing food. A recent report on toxicity found that initial symptoms may occur up to 20 hours after ingestion.
  • Initial symptoms include lip and tongue paresthesias, followed by facial and extremity paresthesias and numbness.
  • Salivation, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea with abdominal pain develop early.
  • Motor dysfunction with weakness, hypoventilation (may be from dysfunction of central and peripheral nervous systems), and speech difficulties then develop. A rapid ascending paralysis occurs over 4-24 hours. Extremity paralysis precedes bulbar paralysis, which is followed by respiratory muscle paralysis. Deep tendon reflexes are preserved early in the course of paralysis.
  • Finally, cardiac dysfunction with hypotension and dysrhythmias (bradycardia), central nervous system (CNS) dysfunction (eg, coma), and seizures develop. Patients with severe toxicity may have deep coma, fixed nonreactive pupils, apnea, and loss of all brain stem reflexes.
  • Death can occur within 4-6 hours. Typically, death occurs from respiratory muscle paralysis and respiratory failure.

Physical

  • Loss of sensory and motor neuron function is a prominent finding.
  • Ascending paralysis with respiratory depression.
  • Cyanosis occurs with respiratory failure.
  • Hypotension can occur with myocardial dysfunction.
  • Cardiac rhythm disturbances, especially bradycardia, atrioventricular (AV)–nodal block, and bundle-branch block, can be life threatening.
  • GI effects are not prominent, but vomiting and abdominal tenderness can occur.

Causes

  • Ingestion of tetrodotoxin causes the syndrome.
  • Almost all toxicity is caused by the ingestion of fugu, but other species of animals have been shown to produce tetrodotoxin (eg, California newt, parrot fish, blue-ringed octopus). A death from ingestion of tetrodotoxin from a California newt has been documented.
(Blue-ringed octopus, where have we seen that before? By the way never trust a hexapus.)

That primer was an eMedicine link from "Molecule of the Month" which I did not know existed.

Which brings us to zombies, of course. I didn't realize salt can bring them around.

Some doubt. Hmmm...

Ten things not to do during a zombie outbreak.

Previous here and here.

TB

The topic came up and I only vaguely recall this about raw dairy and an outbreak in NYC from a few years ago. Or maybe I just think I do.

CDC Q&A

CDC screening paper


Pasteur

Here is a nice germs and city piece at City-Journal. City-Journal is a definite bookmark.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Amusing Alien

reference in the comments over at Samizdata:

"OK, I know that a lot of you guys are engineers and physicists, etc., and I appreciate the technical expertise you bring to this site, but vivictius, why the hell would you specify setting the oven at "760 Rankin"? I'm used to Fahrenheit, I understand Celcius, I could even deal with Kelvin, but who has ever even heard of "Rankin"? I had to look it up, and frankly I see no purpose to it. Is your oven calibrated in Rankins? If so, how did you get the aliens to deliver it? (In my experience, they're always taking, not giving.)


Posted by Laird at March 11, 2008 07:59 PM"

Those greedy otherworldly swines (oops. should read "swine") , who can't relate to the experience?

Wired article.

I mentioned some anti emf/rf clothing here. For the passport I would move in this direction.

McCain's

"secret" history. Why am I not "astonished?"

"McCain's voting behavior during Bush's first term is almost never mentioned in the press anymore." Go figure.

via Instapundit

The book recommended, The Myth of a Maverick, will get a looksie.

Instapundit also links to this involving the current 2nd Am. issue before SCOTUS.

Illegals

they told us nothing will work, we are stuck forever with them no matter what.

via Boortz

He also links to this piece which goes to a pooch IQ kit.

Lastly he links to this on science stuff:

Octopus

Lovely Art

here. I had this for a background for quite a long time:

Winter Evening by Bryan Larsen
Winter Evening

It is by Bryan Larsen

KC-X

Aviation Week examines the Boeing tanker bid loss, with an update here.

They also mention that South Africa is working up it's new Gripen force.



Gripen.

WikiGripen.

Gripen vs. F-16 discussion.

Dolphin

saves mother and calf Pygmy sperm whales, with video.

I have not finished Melville.

I do not believe this gentleman, Buster Martin, who will attempt the London marathon, is 101 years old.

From the BBC:

"He also found fame when The Zimmers, who had a combined age of more than 3,000 years, scored a hit single last year with a cover of The Who's My Generation."

We Could

all do better than this, the new NatGeo planet mnemonic.

Spitzer part II

Well many are enjoying it thoroughly. I find it all just depressing...and where are the tar and feathers?

more.

a little more, kind of, here.

U.K. Storm

A huge wave lashes the seafront in Porthcawl, Wales, as the storm takes hold

Storms and high seas batter the Cornish village of Porthlevan as 'Johanna' hits Britain

Via Drudge

Dragonfly

Paddy sends a link to a piece on the toy's effects on raptors and the manufacturer's challenge.

Monday, March 10, 2008

The Muslims

are a problem in China as well.

via Boortz

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Wild Turkeys






They attack. It can be devastating if not disfiguring. I tried to get several intimate photos of these cassowary cousins but the last blurry photo is evidence of their heinous aggression.

Yes, I ran like a girl.

Well I've tried loading these images repeatedly...I will stick them on a stick and try tomorrow. Blogger may be having hiccups right now...gird yourself for the terror!!!