Ad from 1962: Equip Your Fallout Shelter

More old ads here.

Deer Repeatedly Destroys Only Obama Signs

Must be a racist.

The new job that everyone wants is stay-at-home mom. This makes sense to me.

Althouse:

"It’s clear that women don’t want to bust through the glass ceiling, or they’d have done it by now. And it’s clear that men are not pulled by kids in nearly the same way women are, because women’s careers tank when they have kids and mens’ careers don’t."

That's Penelope Trunk, noting a new Forbes survey that says 84% of working women want to stay home with kids. Forbes notes that "more than one in three resent their partner for not earning enough to make that dream a reality." Resentment is a bad place to be. I like these 2 items from Trunk's advice:

Live below your means.
You know at age 23 if it’s likely that you’ll want to stay home with kids. Which means the minute  you get married you should adjust your spending for one income....

Pick your spouse carefully.
If you want to stay home with kids, don’t marry a guy who can’t earn a living. If you want to stay home with kids, make it clear that even though you earn more than the guy, the guy will be the breadwinner. If you want to stay home with kids then you put all your financial hopes in the guy’s career. Whatever his earning ability is, then that is your earning ability, because you are a team, and he is the breadwinner.

Are people of today able to do and say such things? It seems radical and dangerous. But resentment... resentment is slow-growing and corrosive. 

How to keep colonoscopy patients from exploding

Colonoscopies sometimes end with intestinal detonation, or what's known in more official circles as a "colonic gas explosion." 

Mark Steyn: Male Genitalia Shrinking - due to global warming?

CBS News, in an alarming story headlined “Male Genitalia Shrinking“, is reporting that global warming may be responsible for a ten per cent reduction in male private parts over the last fifty years.

States and Organizations Fight to Preserve Liberty from Dodd-Frank Act Intrusions

The legal challenge by the states and private organizations seeks to enforce constitutional limits on the ever more intrusive federal government.

via Newsalert.

Mark Steyn: Bowing to the Mob

If government functionaries want to do movie reviews, they should have a PBS fundraiser, offering a “Barack Hill at the Movies” logo-ed burqa for pledges of over $100, and a complimentary clitoridectomy for pledges over $500.

Last year Hillary Clinton went to see the Broadway musical Book of Mormon. “We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others”? The Book of Mormon’s big showstopper is “Hasa Diga Eebowai” which apparently translates as “F*** you, God.” The U.S. secretary of state stood and cheered.

...how quickly the supposed defenders of liberal, pluralist, Western values came to sound as if they were competing to be Islam’s lead prison bitch.

Reminder of Obama’s Disdain for Israel

Mona Charen, writing in The Corner, reposts this piece she wrote in December 2011: "It’s a summary of this administration’s treatment of Israel. I cannot discuss the Jewish vote without getting an ulcer, but I’d simply ask that you  forward to anyone you know who is sympathetic to Israel."

The Obama Administration has tirelessly — one might even say tiresomely — proclaimed its rock solid commitment to Israel. The message has been delivered by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Advisor, and most flamboyantly, by the president himself. At a recent fundraiser attended by Jewish donors, President Obama boasted, “I try not to pat myself too much on the back, but this administration has done more for the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration.” Both clauses of that sentence are risible.

In fact, the Obama administration’s approach to Israel has been decidedly cool when it has not been openly irate. It began in the early weeks of the new administration. Traveling to the region, the president visited American allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia. He skipped Israel.

Rather than consult with Israel about the delicate state of relations with the Palestinians, President Obama jumped directly into the process with a peremptory demand: Israel should cease all settlement activity. Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, had made no such demand regarding renewing negotiations. But once the president of the United States had essentially declared the opening position of the Palestinian Authority, he could hardly demand less. Accordingly, while Netanyahu had agreed to a settlement freeze and no preconditions for resuming negotiations, talks stalled as Abbas refused to participate.

That the administration blamed Israel, and not the Palestinians or itself for the impasse became clear when Vice President Biden was visiting the Jewish state in 2010. During the Vice President’s trip, a municipal authority in Jerusalem announced a building permit for a block of apartments in Jerusalem. The usually phlegmatic President Obama went ballistic. Though Netanyahu apologized to Biden, and Biden accepted the apology on the spot, President Obama insisted that Secretary of State Clinton call Netanyahu and chew him out for 40 minutes. Details of the dressing down were immediately released to the press.

Not satisfied with this, a few days later presidential advisor David Axelrod appeared on a Sunday chat show to reiterate that the White House regarded building apartments for Jews in the capital of the Jewish state as “an affront.” Later, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House, President Obama delivered the final slaps – declining to pose for pictures or take press questions with the prime minister; delivering a list of steps Israel would have to take to restore trust; and then pointedly walking out on the prime minister with the parting words “Let me know if there is anything new.”

Contrast that treatment with the administration’s passivity in the face of Palestinian conduct. In March of 2010, Palestinian terrorists entered the home of Udi and Ruth Fogel in the town of Itamar on the West Bank. The terrorists first slit the throats of Udi and his 3-month old daughter Hadas. Ruth was in the bathroom but was attacked and killed as she emerged. Two more sons, Yoav, 11, and Elad, 4, were also killed by knives to the heart. Their throats were slit as well. There were three more Fogel children. Two other boys, ages 8 and 2, asleep on the sofa, were apparently missed by the murderers. Twelve-year-old Tamar, who had been spending Shabbat with friends, returned home to discover 2-year-old Yishai standing over the bodies of his parents and begging them to wake up.

In Rafah, Palestinians celebrated the news of the massacre by dancing, singing, and handing around sweets.

The Obama Administration issued a pro-forma condemnation. “There is no possible justification for the killing of parents and children in their home” it read. Secretary Clinton called the murders “inhuman” and reportedly coaxed a more robust denunciation of the atrocity from Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas than he had at first offered.

But there has been little else – no ongoing campaign to shame or humiliate the Palestinians; no list of actions they must undertake to show their good faith – not even a particularly strong expression of revulsion.

The administration has let it be known, again and again, that it regards Israel as the obstacle to peace. This, at a time when Israel’s neighbors have given the world abundant reasons for worry. The Palestinian Authority has formally allied with the terrorist organization Hamas. Mahmoud Abbas announced just last week that “there are now no differences between us.” Does that include Hamas’s implacable determination to destroy the Jewish state and to exterminate Jews all over the world “no matter how long that should take”?

Meanwhile, in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood won 40 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections, while another 25 percent went to Salafi forces. The Salafis regard the Muslim Brotherhood as squishes. Sheik Abdel Moneim el-Shahat, leader of the Salafis, is scornful of the Muslim Brotherhood for talking about citizenship and freedom outside the strictures of Islamic law. El-Shahat is not so broad-minded. “I want to say: citizenship restricted by Islamic sharia, freedom restricted by Islamic Sharia, equality restricted by Islamic Sharia.” So two-thirds the Egyptian electorate supports candidates who will find Hamas utterly congenial.

The regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria is engaged in a bloody repression of his restive people that has claimed the lives of more than 5000 brave protesters.

But the Obama Administration is dismayed by Israel.

Every previous US administration has tacitly accepted that Israel has nuclear weapons and has chosen not to make an issue of it. And for good reasons. Every fair-minded analyst understands that Israel is a tiny nation surrounded by enemies dedicated to her destruction. Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons is understood to be a purely defensive measure. But the Obama Administration, in the person of Rose Gottemoeller, Assistant Secretary of State and America’s chief nuclear arms negotiator, has called on Israel (along with Pakistan, India, and North Korea) to sign the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. It is hard to interpret this as anything less than a hostile act by the United States.

When Turkey and a consortium of Islamist and leftist groups (including Obama friends Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn) organized the so-called “Freedom Flotilla” to run the legal blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza, President Obama failed to condemn the Turks. Yet when Israel was forced to confront the ships at sea, the U.S. declared that the blockade (also imposed, incidentally, by Egypt) was “unsustainable and unacceptable”. Rather than defend Israel at the United Nations when the inevitable resolution condemning Israel was presented to the Security Council, the U.S. voted with Israel’s enemies. It was a move that Elliott Abrams called “joining the jackals.”

The president telegraphed his intention to distance the United States from Israel in his first address to the United Nations. “The United States does Israel no favors,” he said, “when we fail to couple an unwavering commitment to its security with an insistence that Israel respect the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians.” The clear implication is that Israel is not, in fact, respecting the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians.

In his second address to the UN, the president went further — demanding that Israel withdraw to the 1967 borders (with land swaps). After enduring bitter criticism from Republicans and even some Democrats in Congress, the administration attempted to justify its recommendation of what Abba Eban called “Auschwitz borders” by suggesting that “everyone knows” that a future Palestinian state will be on the West Bank and Gaza. But once again, rather than insist that the Palestinians accept Israel as a Jewish state, or that the Palestinians purge the terrorists from their midst, the president placed all of the onus on Israel. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, repairing to the language of those with nothing on the line, encouraged Israel to “take risks for peace.” In his less serene moments, he has barked that Israel should “get back to the damn table” — an extraordinary example of anti-Israel bias by the Obama administration since it is the Palestinians, not the Israelis, who have refused to talk.

Incredibly, even Iran’s march toward a nuclear bomb — arguably the greatest foreign policy challenge of this decade — has been blamed on Israel by the Obama administration. Former National Security Advisor James Jones offered that “We understand Israel’s preoccupation with Iran as an existential threat. We agree with that. . . . By the same token, there are a lot of things that you can do to diminish that existential threat by working hard towards achieving a two-state solution.”

This was no stray remark. A few weeks later, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, made the same point: “For Israel to get the kind of strong support it’s looking for vis-à-vis Iran it can’t stay on the sideline with respect to the Palestinian and the peace efforts . . . they go hand-in-hand.” In other words, any effort to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons is perceived by this administration not as a national security priority for the United States, but as a favor to Israel.

Even assuming that the U.S. were going to “reward” Israel with, say, tough sanctions on Iran in exchange for “progress” on a Palestinian state, what world are living in when you imagine that a two-state solution would have any bearing whatsoever on Iran’s nuclear ambitions? Does President Obama believe that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons in order to achieve a Palestinian state?

President Obama brought to relations with Israel the leftist views he’d imbibed from academia, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Prof. Rashid Khalidi, and from the left wing of the Democratic Party (Jimmy Carter supported the Palestinian’s bid for statehood at the UN). Yes, he’s sold the Israelis bunker buster bombs, and engaged in military to military cooperation. But the most important support America provides to Israel is public. The most damaging attacks on Israel in the 21st century (so far) have not been military but moral and psychological. Israel’s enemies have sought to delegitimize and defame the Jewish state — with some success. So-called “Israel Apartheid” protests have proliferated on university campuses. UN conferences at Durban have trafficked in anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic slanders. It is becoming acceptable in Europe to say that Israel’s birth was a mistake. Even a liberal columnist for the Washington Post, Richard Cohen, has expressed this view.

The nations of the world, never a sentimental lot, have the capacity to descend to a lynch mob where Israel is concerned. Only the military, political, diplomatic, and moral support of the United States prevents that. President Obama, whatever behind-the-scenes aid he has provided to the Jewish state, has failed in the far more important public support for one of America’s closest allies.

The Effects of Peanut Butter on the Rotation of the Earth

Scholarly article co-authored by 198 Ph.D. physicists comes to this conclusion:  So far as we can determine, peanut butter has no effect on the rotation of the earth.

Nick Jr. Suspends Production On 'The Almighty Muhammad's Porkalicious Toon Jihad'

The half-hour animated television show, which centers around the wacky Jihadist adventures of the Islamic prophet and his mischievous pig friend Abrahammy, was slated to begin airing this October.

Extensive report on bath salts: The Drug That Never Lets Go

Science and anecdotes.

The Most Incredible Volcano Video of ALL Time

via BoingBoing.

World Battleground: 1000 years of war in 5 minutes

Pink Floyd's David Gilmour Talks About The Wall

Jonah Goldberg: Free speech isn't the problem

If free speech in America causes a comparative handful of zealots to want to murder Americans, the correct response is to protect Americans from those zealots (something the Obama administration abjectly failed to do in Libya) and relentlessly seek the punishment of anyone who succeeds. Because, as far as America is concerned, there is no alternative to the First Amendment.

The Onion: No One Murdered Because Of This Image

The link below is definitely NSFW.

The image of the Hebrew prophet Moses high-fiving Jesus Christ as both are having their erect penises vigorously masturbated by Ganesha, all while the Hindu deity anally penetrates Buddha with his fist, reportedly went online at 6:45 p.m. EDT, after which not a single bomb threat was made against the organization responsible, nor did the person who created the cartoon go home fearing for his life in any way. Though some members of the Jewish, Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist faiths were reportedly offended by the image, sources confirmed that upon seeing it, they simply shook their heads, rolled their eyes, and continued on with their day.

Friday links

Insane Hand Painting.

Gorgeous video: The beauty of pollination.

The U.S. Conducted Atomic Weapons Tests On Beer.

Giants of the canine world.

U.S. Postal Service asks Floridians to stop crashing into post offices.

Tomorrow is the autumnal equinox - quotes, poems, Nat King Cole and Vivaldi

No, you can't balance an egg on the equinox.

The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold....
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sunburned hands, I used to hold
Since you went away, the days grow long
And soon I'll hear ol' winter's song.
But I miss you most of all my darling,
When autumn leaves start to fall.
~Johnny Mercer

Here's Nat King Cole singing Autumn Leaves:

Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.
~Samuel Butler

The leaves are falling, falling as from way off,
as though far gardens withered in the skies;
they are falling with denying gestures.
And in the nights the heavy earth is falling
from all the stars down into loneliness.
We all are falling. This hand falls.
And look at others: it is in them all.
And yet there is one who holds this falling
endlessly gently in his hands.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Autumn

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou may'st rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe;
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruit and flowers.
~William Blake

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells.
 ~John Keats

It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.
~P. D. James

Autumn wins you best by this, its mute
Appeal to sympathy for its decay.
~Robert Browning

Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower.
~Albert Camus

Autumn's earliest frost had given
To the woods below
Hues of beauty, such as heaven
Lendeth to its bow;
And the soft breeze from the west
Scarcely broke their dreamy rest.
~John Greenleaf Whittier

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.
~George Santayana

The day becomes more solemn and serene,
When noon is past - there is a harmony
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,
Which through the summer is not heard or seen,
As it could not be, as if it had not been!
~Percy Bysshe Shelley

The teeming Autumn big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime
Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease.
~William Shakespeare

Tomorrow (22 September) at 10:49 in the morning (EDT), we will mark this year's Autumnal Equinox, the moment at which the sun appears to cross the celestial equator from north to south - or more simply, the first day of fall, with equal hours of light and darkness. It's not generally appreciated that perhaps the best-known of all works of baroque music, Le Quattro Stagioni ("The Four Seasons") by Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi (ca. 1675-1741), was first published with four Italian poems - likely by Vivaldi himself - that describe the several scenarios represented in the music.

Below is Vivaldi's poem Autumn, and here's a performance of the third movement of "Autumn" in Venice's foggy Piazza San Marco:

Allegro

Celebra il Vilanel con balli e Canti
Del felice raccolto il bel piacere
E del liquor de Bacco accesi tanti
Finiscono col Sonno il lor godere

The peasant celebrates with song and dance,
The harvest safely gathered in.
The cup of Bacchus flows freely,
And many find their relief in deep slumber.

Adagio molto

Fà ch' ogn' uno tralasci e balli e canti
L' aria che temperata dà piacere,
E la Staggion ch' invita tanti e tanti
D' un dolcissimo Sonno al bel godere.

The singing and the dancing die away
As cooling breezes fan the pleasant air,
And the season invites each and all
To a sweet sleep, without a care.

Allegro

I cacciator alla nov'alba à caccia
Con corni, Schioppi, e canni escono fuore
Fugge la belua, e Seguono la traccia;
Già Sbigottita, e lassa al gran rumore
De' Schioppi e canni, ferita minaccia
Languida di fuggir, mà oppressa muore.

The hunters emerge at dawn
With horns, shotguns, and dogs baying.
The quarry flees while they give chase.
Terrified by the dogs and wounded by the guns
The prey struggles on,
But harried, dies.

The two revolutions, I mean the annual revolutions of the declination and of the centre of the Earth, are not completely equal; that is the return of the declination to its original value is slightly ahead of the period of the centre. Hence it necessarily follows that the equinoxes and solstices seem to anticipate their timing, not because the sphere of the fixed stars moves to the east, but rather the equatorial circle moves to the west, being at an angle to the plane of the ecliptic in proportion to the declination of the axis of the terrestrial globe.
~Nicolaus Copernicus

City may sue developer who spent $20,000 to remove 40 tons of trash from vacant lot

He spent more than $20,000 of his own money not only to remove the trash but also to level the soil; add cherry trees, fencing and park benches; and repave the sidewalk.

"This was a lot of garbage," local resident Elaine McGrath told the paper. "Now it's gorgeous. I'm excited."

However, the city agency was less excited, demanding that Feibush return the vacant lot to its previous condition and saying it is considering legal action against him.

A Love Story In 22 Pictures

This blew me away.

via Jonah Goldberg.

Seven Of Nation's Ten Wealthiest Counties Are In DC Area

The only real industry in and around DC is government and the legions of power brokers who make their living greasing its wheels.

Has Obama Already Pledged With a "Wink and a Nod" to Release The Blind Sheikh, Mastermind of the 1993 WTC Bombing?

When He Has More "Flexibility" After The Election?

State Department now running TV ads in Pakistan denouncing Mohammed movie

Your tax dollars at work

As always when the government strains to show respect for Islam, there’s nothing genuinely respectful about it. The thought of Hillary cutting a video like this for the Israeli market in response to some U.S. citizen’s anti-semitic propaganda because she “respects” Judaism is unimaginable. The motive here is fear, not respect. 

DNC rabbi: I'll vote for whichever candidate seems likelier to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

At TIME, The rabbi who gave the benediction at the DNC asks, Which candidate will prevent nuclear terror?

Photographs Of Things Refracting Through Water Droplets

See them all here.

A short visual history of the creepy Obama cult

Creepy, indeed.

Elderly woman who botched religious fresco demands royalties

The Sancti Spiritus Hospital Foundation, which owns the Sanctuario de Misericordia, has also retained lawyers to defend the action and retain their right to proceeds from visitors to the church.

Palate cleanser: I met a man who had no shoes

The bus driver jumped off the bus to chat with a man that looked to be down on his luck; by all accounts, a homeless man. I first thought the driver was going to offer the man a ride until our driver took off his own shoes and gave them to the man on the sidewalk.

Unexpectedly - jobless claims up

ZeroHedge has graphs and comments.  Also, check out the ridiculous disconnect between initial claims prints and subsequent revision:

Image of the day

It’s a remarkable spectacle in a way: the Fed is printing money that nobody wants.

The Fed is trying to stimulate the economy by keeping interest rates low, especially for mortgages, but many borrowers aren’t qualifying for loans. If banks don’t want to lend or can’t find qualified customers, it doesn’t really matter how low interest rates go.

via Instapundit.

Good for her: Iranian cleric said he was beaten by a woman after giving her a warning for being “badly covered,”

Bloomberg, via HotAir: “I fell on my back on the floor,” Beheshti said in the report. “I don’t know what happened after that, all I could feel was the kicks of this woman who was insulting me and attacking me.”

VDH: Obama admin was left stunned and clueless about the latest Middle East madness

Speaking loudly while carrying a small stick.

Bloomberg "doesn't want anyone to have fun. You can't have a giant soda, You can't have a vibrator."

Vibrator giveaway shut down due to crowds

Benghazi: former seals were not there as security, but stepped in to help. With bonus Kipling

Richard Fernandez at Belmont has links and comments to/about this:

The two former SEALS, Tyrone Woods, 41, and Glen Doherty, 42, were not employed by the State Department diplomatic security office and instead were what is known as personal service contractors who had other duties related to security, the officials said.

They stepped into action, however, when Stevens became separated from the small security detail normally assigned to protect him when he traveled from the more fortified embassy in Tripoli to Benghazi, the officials said.

Re the security firm who "became separated": The firm had been selected because they were amenable to State Department Rules of Engagement which specified that the guards have no bullets in their guns.

He also posts this, from Kipling:

There were thirty million English who talked of England’s might,
There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.
They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade;
They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade.

They felt that life was fleeting; they knew not that art was long,
That though they were dying of famine, they lived in deathless song.
They asked for a little money to keep the wolf from the door;
And the thirty million English sent twenty pounds and four!

The poor little army departed, limping and lean and forlorn.
And the heart of the Master-singer grew hot with “the scorn of scorn.”
And he wrote for them wonderful verses that swept the land like flame,
Till the fatted souls of the English were scourged with the thing called Shame.

Shame? No. There’s none of that any more.

The “O” logo American flag

You can buy one here.

Will Humans Eventually All Look Like Brazilians?

Globalization, immigration, cultural diffusion and the ease of modern travel will gradually homogenize the human population, averaging out more and more people's traits.

This is interesting: before the invention of the bicycle, the average distance between the birthplaces of spouses in England was 1 mile (1.6 kilometers).  Scholars have identified similar patterns in other European countries.

Ringleader of Benghazi attack released from Gitmo in 2007?

That would give the whole thing a nice "blame Bush" aspect, wouldn't it?

Dodd-Frank Financial Regulation: We'll Figure It Out When We Get There! Maybe!

Read the whole thing at Reason: They had passed TBD legislation, and they would figure out how it all worked when they got there. They’re still trying to figure it out.

Links to those French cartoons

Google images.

At HotAir: France's turn?

Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought

Life imitates Star Trek.

Spengler: Maybe it's a good idea if Israel attacks Iran

Read the whole thing: Consider the possibility that all-out regional war is the optimal outcome for American interests. An Israeli strike on Iran that achieved even limited success - a two-year delay in Iran's nuclear weapons development - would arrest America's precipitous decline as a superpower. 

Dave Barry's Talk like a pirate column from 10 years ago

Is that a yardarm in your doubloons, or are you just glad to see me?

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2002/09/08/100129/arrrrr-talk-like-a-pirate-or-prepare.html#storylink=omni_popular#storylink=cpy

Frank J.: The Only Guaranteed Way to End Islamic Radicals Murderous Rage

The DeRager™.

Counter-terrorism conference to include zombie attack

“Whatever the catalyst is for a mass casualty event, nobody really cares,” Barker said. “What you’ve got is chaos, mass casualties and a whole lot of confusion. What we’re looking to do is to recreate the chaos.”

Arrrg! Today is Talk Like a Pirate Day

A 12-step program for drawing a pirate.

Official Site and the Wikipedia page.

Instructions: How to talk like a pirate.

Here's an English to Pirate translator.

Talk Like a Pirate Day: The Five A's:

Krispy Kreme is giving out free doughnuts for talking like a pirate(or wearing an eye patch) today.

Read more here: http://blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_blog/#storylink=cpy

Japanese scientists may have ended tooth decay

Scientists in Japan have created a microscopically thin film that can coat individual teeth to prevent decay or to make them appear whiter.

Game of Thrones Season 2 FX reel

Watch how they developed the lands of Westeros and beyond, for the show's second season.

Tomorrow is Talk Like A Pirate Day!!

Official Site and the Wikipedia page.

Instructions: How to talk like a pirate.

Krispy Kreme giving out FREE Doughnuts For Talking Like a Pirate on September 19.

Check out this picture of a fire tornado

A tornado sucking a brushfire into the sky near Alice Springs, Australia.

When is it OK to ask a woman if she's pregnant?

An Unserious President In Seriously Perilous Times

IBD: The Mideast is in turmoil, the economy is faltering and the president opts to spend precious time with David Letterman, Beyonce and Jay-Z. Are we the only ones to wonder if Obama's suited to be president?

Tuesday links

Dr Samuel Johnson was born on this date in 1709.  Some quotes and history.

How the French Revolution Gave Birth to the Restaurant Business

The First Ads for Famous Books

The World's Largest Onion.

The (Court-Ordered) Unmasking of the Lone Ranger

Physics of Champagne.

Smoke from burning US flag kills Islamic "rally participant"

Mark Steyn: What So Proudly We Inhale at the Twilight’s Last Gleaming

Libya: We gave US three day warning of Benghazi attack

Libyan government had information that the attack on the US consulate had been planned by an Islamist group with links to al-Qa'ida and with foreigners taking part.

Malcolm Gladwell: How child molesters get away with it

Jerry Sandusky and the mind of a pedophile.

Today is National Cheeseburger Day

Cheeseburgers are eaten an average of 900 million times per week in the United States.

Oops: visitors using restrooms on 18th floor of swanky Manhattan hotel are visible from the street

Bathroom users at the Boom Boom Room club at the swanky Standard Hotel in Manhattan are entirely visible to people on the street thanks to the 10-foot windows lining the walls.

Mom Jailed For Letting Her Kids Play Outside

"Orange jumpsuit, in a cell, slammed the door, for 18 hours."

If the Final Season of Breaking Bad Was Written by Dr. Seuss

But it’s not over yet. Walter might be the king
There’s just one small detail, just one tiny last thing:
When this saga concludes at the end of part five
It’s quite likely that few of Walt’s crew might survive
‘Cause his darkness delves deeper inside this finale
Like roots on a lily from down in the valley

More here, via Neatorama.

Should we upgrade the intelligence of animals?

At io9, some interesting bioethics.

I go in the Oval Office, pretend I’m going to work, and then I switch on ‘Homeland.’

Geraghty quotes from an article in the NYT.

Obama Administration - Regulating Businesses Into Submission

A handout of a Congressional Research Service analysis of a 2008 study commissioned by the Small Business Administration ... estimated the annual compliance price for all federal regulations at $1.7 trillion that year.”

"Economists with the Chamber ... calculat(ed) that if every U.S. household paid an equal share of the federal regulatory burden, it would mean a $15,586 tab for each household in 2008."

Occupational Licensing Gone Wild

Read more at Bloomberg: The average cosmetologist in the U.S. trains for 372 days before earning a license. The average emergency medical technician spends 33 days in training.

Much of the work that genuinely warrants a license -- nurses are among the most commonly licensed professionals -- requires a college or associate’s degree. By imposing similarly onerous licensing restrictions on trades that are neither dangerous nor complex, state governments erect additional barriers to the prosperity of their poorest and least-educated citizens, who also end up paying higher costs as consumers of licensed services.  

via Carpe Diem.

The Road to Serfdom (in cartoons) by Frederick Hayek

Chicago teachers union will continue strike into second week

The Chicago teachers union decided Sunday to continue its weeklong strike, extending an acrimonious standoff with Mayor Rahm Emanuel over teacher evaluations and job security provisions central to the debate over the future of public education across the United States.

Must read: 39% of Chicago teachers send their kids to private school

Comments and links at HotAir - read the whole thing.

As the Chicago teachers’ strike continues, we’ve learned that they make $71-76,000 a year and they turned down a 16% pay increase, which amounts to $11,360.  They work nine months out of the year, but say that this strike is benefits oriented.

Anti school-choice politicians are no less hypocritical: President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Jesse Jackson, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore (to name just a few) all send or sent their children to private schools.

Your supermarkets and movie theaters aren’t closed because of strikes. That’s because private companies have competition. Government monopolies don’t.

How Much Does the U.N. Cost Us?

At NRO: According to OMB, FY 2010 marked the third consecutive year in which U.S. contributions reached record highs. In FY 2010, they exceeded $7.691 billion — more than $1.3 billion higher than FY 2009’s record of $6.347 billion.

If you’re wondering how much we contributed last year, good luck. Congress neglected to renew the reporting requirement. I’ve spoken to Obama-administration officials, and they say they’ve prepared the data in anticipation of producing the report, but OMB will not issue the report without a Congressional mandate.

Crunchy on the outside and softer in the middle: Mystery Spheres on Mars Baffle Scientists

A strange picture of odd, spherical rock formations on Mars from NASA's Opportunity rover has scientists scratching their heads over what exactly they're looking at.