"dedicated to the men who died defending little desktop."

via Everlasting Blort.

Corn fuel mandate continues to raise food prices and hurt the poor - corn is also a key ingredient in the combine of political power and corporate welfare that is U.S. alternative energy policy.

If not for the politics, the ethanol mandate would have been gone years ago. Oil costs and imports are up (ethanol makes up less than 1% of world-wide transportation fuel), and even the green lobby has turned against the fuel (because of the carbon-increasing deforestation it causes).

Protection against grave robbers during the 1700's and 1800's.

I love this, from an advertisement:

"...sleep well sweet angel, let no fears of ghouls disturb thy rest, for above thy shrouded form lies a torpedo, ready to make minced meat of anyone who attempts to convey you to the pickling vat."

On Woody Allen's show, in 1967.

Lifehacker has useful info - I highly recommend this site.

With her kids in the car. Allegedly.

via BoingBoing.

The Onion: Romney owes an explanation to the American people as to why he murdered JonBenét Ramsey.

Titled “He Did It,” the advertisement asks if anyone can truly remember where Romney was the night of the child’s murder, and whether the U.S. populace wants a president capable of strangling a little girl and dumping her body in her parents’ basement.

And this: According to sources at Obama’s Chicago headquarters, the “He Did It” commercial is just the first in a new series of attack ads that accuses Romney of drowning actress Natalie Wood in 1981, convincing cult leader David Koresh to burn down the Branch Davidian ranch in Waco, TX, and causing the Challenger disaster.

NoVa (where I live) is generally significantly Democrat - especially since so many are employed or contracted by the federal government.

Statistical dead heat.

From NASA - download it here.

May be NSFW (probably not)

This is what liberals do. They metaphorically lash children to the fenders of government so that the budget cutting blade must slice through them first.

Malkin: And died 5 years after her husband lost his.

A couple of points that are fairly well known by now, because we’ve been here before. Romney left Bain in 1999. GST Steel declared bankruptcy in 2001. The woman mentioned in the ad died in 2006 — seven years after Romney left Bain and five years after Soptic was laid off. Who was running Bain when the man lost his job? A high dollar Obama campaign bundler. They keep leaving that part out.

Update: According to CNN, not mentioned in the ad is the fact that during the time after Soptic lost his job, his wife had her own job with health insurance coverage:

Over a 5 year old article based on an unclassified document about a weapon never built.

Plus, a discussion on how the leak investigations are going after low-level individuals and protecting the administration and congress.

The Obama administration’s decision to not appoint an independent counsel to investigate the MF Global scandal, despite more than 60 members of Congress demanding it, also reeks of cronyism.

I scrammed out of London a few days before the Olympics began, but after getting an earful on what the locals make of it. On the whole, the residents of that great city would rather the honor of hosting the world’s most disruptive sporting event had gone to some joint that needs the publicity more — Alma Ata, or Ouagadougou, or Oakland. In 21st-century London, traffic moves at fewer miles per hour than it did before the internal-combustion engine was invented without the added complication of fleets of Third World thug bureaucrats and the permanent floating crap game of transnationalist freeloaders being dumped on its medieval street plan.

Read the whole thing.

My younger daughter called me about this column, because of the Guys and Dolls reference - needless to say, this is totally stuck in my head.

This fellow hopes to break a world record throwing playing cards with vegetable-slicing speed and accuracy.

They took a tennis ball, soaked it in gasoline, and lit it on fire. Watch it served in slow-motion. Some possibly NSFW language.

via Mental Floss.

Two of Connecticut’s popular public beaches -- maintained with taxpayer money -- will close all day Monday to accommodate President Obama’s fundraising excursion that ends with a $35,800-per-plate event.

The history of toilet paper.

Patented method for exercising a cat.

Italy rules ‘no balls’ insult for men is a crime.

Luxury chickens.

Patrick Combs deposits a junk-mail cheque for $95,000 – for a joke. The bank cashes it.

The only existing video footage of Mark Twain, as filmed by Thomas Edison.

“Could you imagine if a Republican ever did such a thing? They’d be screaming from every corner."

A popular Connecticut park and its 234 acres of wetlands, woodlands and beach on Long Island Sound will be shut down all day Monday so that President Obama can use the location as a base for fundraising nearby.

The Sherwood Island State Park in Westport, Connecticut will have to turn away thousands of bathers so that Obama can get to and from his events, including a $35,800 per head bash at the 9,000-square-foot, $8.3-million waterfront estate of movie mogul Harvey Wienstein.

The National Guard Association of the United States and more than a dozen other fraternal military groups asked a U.S. judge for permission to intervene in and oppose a lawsuit filed by President Barack Obama’s campaign challenging the fairness of Ohio’s early voting rules.

via Gateway Pundit.

Details and links at Slashdot, via Instapundit.

BoingBoing has links and comments.

“For I am the Lord Govt, creator of Eden! ³² I gave unto you the roads and bridges, and schools and cops, brought unto you of gentle showers of Tarp and Stimulus and rivers of Subsidy, I am the purifier of the waters, cleanser of the air, without which you and your profits would not exist. Thus all that thou have created is created by Us. Thus ye shall render unto Govt what is Govt's, and this is the Word of your Lord.”

Read the whole thing here.

Thoughts while hanging out with grandkids:

I hear babies cry, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more, than I'll never know
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Friday, August 10, 2012

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

LEGO roundup: Seven-foot long minifig-scale Serenity model, an Olympic Park replica, and a recreation of the Ringwraiths’ hunt for Hobbits. Also, kid had a LEGO stuck in his nose for 3 years.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Monday, August 6, 2012

The history of toilet paper.

Sunday, August 5, 2012