Woman fends off bear attack with zucchini

Someone finally made use of one of those zucchini "clubs" that grow too big to be edible.

Average Government Worker Receives 85 Percent Higher Pay, Benefits than Private Employees

Info compiled by Cato and Heritage:

The typical federal worker received a salary of more than $79,000 in 2008, with benefits raising total annual compensation to more than $119,000. The typical private sector worker received pay of about $50,000, with total compensation just under $60,000.

Segway owner dies on Segway

Read the whole thing - quite a fascinating guy.

Rampant 2008 Voter Fraud in Houston

Read the whole thing:

"Most of the findings focused on a group called Houston Votes, a voter registration group headed by Steve Caddle, who also works for the Service Employees International Union. Among the findings were that only 1,793 of the 25,000 registrations the group submitted appeared to be valid. The other registrations included one of a woman who registered six times in the same day; registrations of non-citizens; so many applications from one Houston Votes collector in one day that it was deemed to be beyond human capability; and 1,597 registrations that named the same person multiple times, often with different signatures."

Sounds just like ACORN.

Health insurers drop coverage for children ahead of new rules

Natural consequences.

"...extending such coverage in child-only policies “provides a very powerful incentive for a parent to wait until their child becomes very sick before purchasing coverage.”

Zirkelbach added that in 2014, when similar protections kick in for all individuals with preexisting conditions, virtually all Americans will be required to get health insurance.

With no such mandate currently in place, however, the result over the next several years could be that the pool of children insured by child-only plans would rapidly skew toward those with expensive medical bills, either bankrupting the plans or forcing insurers to make up their losses by substantially increasing premiums for all customers. And Zirkelbach said the effect could be compounded if only a few plans remain in the market."

New US Embassy Adopts Defenses From Middle Ages

To be built in London.

Leaked Memo: DHS Contemplates Amnesty By Executive Fiat

At American Spectator: "Remember the amnesty memos? The leaked documents that showed officials in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency discussing an Obama administration end-run around Congress to implement an administrative amnesty for untold numbers of illegal immigrants? It turns out that USCIS wasn't alone."

Must read: No More Control

Dr. Zero hits one out of the park. 

"Political control is what’s killing us.  It is expressed in hundreds of ways: high tax rates with carefully tailored exceptions, massive bailouts, laws rigged to favor government-controlled industries, restrictions on resource development, and a vast poppy field of subsidies and penalties.  The Democrats have added thousands of pages of fabulously expensive legislation since Obama took office.  Two messages echo through those pages: Obey and be rewarded.  Resist and be punished."

Is your child a "prehomosexual"?

At Scientific American.

ObamaCare's Fatal Flaw?

At American Thinker, an argument that the potential elimination of a personal mandate (via lawsuit by Virginia and/or several other states) could render the whole of Obamacare unconstitutional because there was no severance clause included.

"If Virginia prevails, it leaves the question of what happens to the rest of the ObamaCare statute. This is where the concept of severance comes in. Normally, all comprehensive laws contain a boilerplate severance clause: it says that if any portion of the law is found to be unconstitutional, that portion is severed from the rest of the law -- that is, the rest of the law stands.

But ObamaCare contains no severance clause."

Today is the 689th anniversary of the death of Divine Comedy author Dante Alighieri

              PER ME SI VA LA NELLA CITTÀ DOLENTE

              PER ME SI VA NELL'  ETERNO DOLORE,

              PER ME SI VA TRA LA PERDUTA GENTE...  

              LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA VOI CH'ENTRATE! 

                               - Id., Canto III, line 1 

                                 (inscription at the entrance to Hell) 

                (Through me is the way to the sorrowful city.

                Through me is the way to eternal suffering.

                Through me is the way to join the lost people.

                Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!) 

Today is the 689th anniversary of the death in Ravenna of the proto-Italian poet, Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), whose allegorical traversal of hell, purgatory, and heaven in the Divina Commedia (the "Divine Comedy") is one of the major works of Renaissance - nay, world - literature.  A Florentine patrician, Dante was deeply affected by an early unrequited love for a noblewoman, Beatrice Portinari, that colored his outlook and writing for the rest of his life.  He was also active in local politics and as a result of the ongoing conflict between the Guelph and Ghibelline parties was banished from Florence in 1302 and wrote the Divina Commedia in exile, eventually settling in Ravenna.  With his magnum opus, Dante almost single-handedly established Tuscan as the literary language of Italy, and he also wrote a collection of prose and lyrics that celebrated his love for Beatrice, as well as treatises on language and politics. 

(Copied from Ed's Quotation of the Day, not available online.  Email me if you want to be added to his email list.)

Pelosi has pocketed nearly twice as much lobbyist cash as Boehner

Facts getting in the way.

The NYT devoted about 1,700 words to how much money Boehner has taken from lobbyists.

But did you know:

• Nancy Pelosi has raised almost twice as much money from lobbyists this election as Boehner has?
• At least 18 House Democrats have raised more lobbyist cash this election than Boehner has.
• Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid have pocketed more lobbyist cash in the past 18 months than Boehner has raised in the past 6 elections, combined?

Tolstoy quotation (for his birthday)

I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.
          

~ Tolstoy (What Then Must We Do?, Ch. 16)

                                                -

                                                 

An Industry by Industry Look at the Stimulus Failure

At Big Government, a comparison of the job gain forecasts by industry from the stimulus bill (1st column) with the actual jobs created/lost (2nd column).  Read the whole thing.

Mining		26,000	-14,000
Construction		678,000	-862,000
Manufacturing		408,000	-660,000
Wholesale Trade		158,000	-173,900
Retail Trade		604,000	-288,900
Information		50,000	-161,000
Financial Activities		214,000	-321,000
Professional and Business Services		345,000	-246,000
Education and Health Services		240,000	+473,000
Leisure and Hospitality		499,000	-86,000
Other Services		99,000	-71,000
Utilities		11,000	-11,400
Transportation and Warehousing		98,000	-143,500
Government		244,000	-64,000

Ancient Nubians Made Antibiotic Beer

Nelson found large amounts of tetracycline in the bones tested from the ancient population, which lived in the Nubian kingdom (present day Sudan) between 250 A.D. and 550 A.D. and left no written record.

“The bones of these ancient people were saturated with tetracycline, showing that they had been taking it for a long time,” Nelson said in a press release August 30. “I’m convinced that they had the science of fermentation under control and were purposely producing the drug.”

via Instapundit.

Original Owners of GZ Mosque Site Rejected $18M, Sold Property for $4.8M

Details at HotAir's Green Room.

Labor Day stuff

The history of Labor Day.

 

Top 10 Lost Technologies and The 10 Greatest Fictional Inventors of All Time.

 

“Great Microbiologists” is a short lego stop-motion history of microbiology.

 

The effect of mobile phones on rabbit sex.
What It Looks Like When a Bullet Slices Through a Water Droplet.

 

Modern book sizes are based on sheep.

Mega Dashboards and Instrument Panels.

 

Video: WWII vet talks about playing his trumpet for both sides after D-Day.

1959 prediction for the electronic home library of the future.

Russians urged to smoke, drink more.

Early humans killed children and ate their brains.

Gallery of Microscopic Photography of Insect Eggs by National Geographic.  Also, Frozen Moments of Speed Photography, a Gallery of Deep Sea Creatures, and Scanning Electron Microscope pictures of grains of pollen.

Engrish in Asian Airports.

 

Whiskey made from the urine of diabetics.

Government to Deploy Broader Mortgage Aid

Article at WSJ.  Boy, do I feel like an idiot for just paying my mortgage all these years.