Miki and Debbie!!!

Here's video of a very nice run that Miki and Debbie made in competition last Sunday.  They did a terrific job...

Proof Positive...

Reader Simi L. sends this comforting thought along...

There is finally conclusive evidence that Osama bin Laden and Muammar Gaddafi are dead.

Yesterday, they both registered to vote in Chicago.

Doormats...

Reader Jim M. sends along a collection of photos of doormats.  I liked this one!

Two Parables...

Two readers send me parables about the perils of assuming senior stupidity.  First, from my mom:

A lawyer and a senior citizen are sitting next to each other on a long flight.

The lawyer is thinking that seniors are so dumb that he could get one over on them easily.

So, the lawyer asks if the senior would like to play a fun game.

The senior is tired and just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines and tries to catch a few winks.

The lawyer persists, saying that the game is a lot of fun...."I ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, you pay me only $5.00. Then you ask me one, and if I don't know the answer, I will pay you $500.00," he says.

This catches the senior's attention and, to keep the lawyer quiet, he agrees to play the game.

The lawyer asks the first question. "What's the distance from the Earth to the Moon?"

The senior doesn't say a word, but reaches into his pocket, pulls out a five-dollar bill, and hands it to the lawyer.

Now, it's the senior's turn. He asks the lawyer, "What goes up a hill with three legs, and comes down with four?"

The lawyer uses his laptop to search all references he can find on the Net.

He sends E-mails to all the smart friends he knows; all to no avail. After an hour of searching, he finally gives up.

He wakes the senior and hands him $500.00. The senior pockets the $500.00 and goes right back to sleep.

The lawyer is going nuts not knowing the answer. He wakes the senior up and asks, "Well, so what goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four?"

The senior reaches into his pocket, hands the lawyer $5.00, and goes back to sleep.

Then from reader Jim M.:

An older, white haired man from Ft. Lauderdale inFlorida , walked into a jewelery store this past Friday evening with a beautiful much younger gal at his side.

He told the jeweler he was looking for a special ring for his girlfriend. The jeweller looked through his stock and brought out a $5,000 ring.

The man said, 'No, I'd like to see something more special.'

At that statement, the jeweller went to his special stock and brought another ring over. 'Here's a stunning ring at only $40,000 the jeweler said. The lady's eyes sparkled and her whole body trembled with excitement.

The old man seeing this said, 'We'll take it.'

The jeweler asked how payment would be made and the man stated, 'by check. I know you need to make sure my check is good, so I'll write it now and you can call the bank Monday to verify the funds and I'll pick the ring up Monday afternoon.'

On Monday morning, the jeweler angrily phoned the old man and said 'There's no money in that account.'

'I know,' said the old man, 'But, MAN! Did I have a GREAT WEEKEND!'

288,000 Jelly Beans...

I'm not a big jelly bean fan.  I can't remember the last time I ate one.  But I love this video!




How it was made.

Borrego Springs...

Borrego Springs is a community in the desert just to the east of our coastal range.  Reader Larry E. was out there this past weekend, and sent along some photos.  Here's just a couple that caught my eye...

The Badlands area - striking, desolate, beautiful...

One of 50 or so sculptures Larry saw...

Piss Power...

This reminds me strongly of an episode in Neil Stephenson's trilogy...

Strange Pairing...

This is something I would never have predicted: the Zetas (the notoriously violent Mexican drug cartel) and the hacker's group Anonymous are edging toward outright war.  A real war, in which people are likely to die...

Still Working After 40 Years...

Now this is cool – forty years ago, Jerry Lowe built this ring-counter based clock.  This is before microcomputers and before LEDs (and before most of my colleagues were born!).  It's still working.

Nice, Jerry...

New Terrorist Threat...

The Wall Street Journal's commentary pages today prominently feature an article by Andrew Krepinevich, who describes a new and parlous terrorist threat: attacking offshore oil rigs.

Well, maybe.  His whole point, really, is that offshore oil rigs are “soft” targets, meaning easy to attack.  Sure they are.  So are many other targets (dams, water supplies, hydrocarbon storage facilities, mass transit, etc., etc. ad infinitum).  I'm not convinced there's anything special about the offshore oil rigs.  But I have a real problem with those, like Krepinevich, who think that we should try to defend all these things.  To steal someone else's phrasing: we do that, and the terrorists really have won...

Twenty Four Hours at Fukushima...

This is the best summary I've seen yet, from IEEE Spectrum...

Put Down Your Morning Beverage...

...then go read this!

Nuclear Event Detector...

This appears to be for real – here's the data sheet (PDF) right off Maxwell's site.

Awesome...

Spam...

Randy Cassingham's excellent spam (email spam, not the meat product) primer.  You should read this even if you think you know everything about spam...

Echinopsis huascha...

I have no idea how to pronounce that, but I know it's beautiful.  From Botany Photo of the Day, of course.  As usual, click to enlarge...

Groan...

Reader Dave H. passes this along, saying

“If you are in a book store and cannot find the book for which you search, then obviously you are in the...”

Agility Cat...

Via my lovely wife (who competes in dog agility), this video of cat agility.  As someone who has lived with many cats for many years, I must admit that I would not have thought it possible to train a cat to do this...

X-47B UCAS...

This is the U.S. Navy's next-generation UAV, intended for use on carriers.  It's highly stealthy, has quite a large operating radius, and can carry both weapons and sensors.  A task force equipped with a few of these could monitor and control a very large area at sea, and could also project force effectively on land when the task force was 500 miles or more offshore...

Can Our Dogs Do This?

Reader Simon M. asks: can our dogs do this?

Sadly, Simon, they cannot...

Go Home, You Hypocrites!

What could I add to this?