A supercow - this thing has ridiculously large muscles. I mean, cows are pretty big anyway, and can be scary when out of control...but this one is scary even under control.


Antidepressents don't help any but the worst off.

People who own cats are at less risk of heart-attack.

"The Worst Technology Laws"

If any of you are looking for a job, have you considered moving to China...to live and work in an "English community"? I'd heard of it, but here's a place that's actually looking to hire!

And since I don't feel like posting much more, I'll give you a video, the title of which is awesome.
Iraqi Researcher Defies Scientific Axioms: The Earth Is Flat and Much Larger than the Sun (Which Is Also Flat). It's really great.

A Tenfold Improvement in Battery Life?
Some smart guys figured out a way to store a whole lot more power in batteries.

Brain changes make elderly vulnerable to fraud - study | World | Reuters
So they aren't just gullible after all.

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Move Over, ‘Meerkat Manor’ | Newsweek Books | Newsweek.com
I wish I knew what process led to this particular outcome:
a writer did a feature on the highly-endangered, black-footed ferrets. It was "recycled" as dialogue in a romance novel...between the two main characters...after they've just finished...enjoying each other. It doesn't seem to fit in very well.
I'd heard the dialogues in those were usually bad...but...I can't imagine anything much worse. (Not to mention anachronistic - they describe ferrets coming over the land bridge from Siberia...and the story is set in 1850 - and no one had thought of land bridges yet).

A response to "Liberal Creationism." - By Stephen Metcalf - Slate Magazine
Remember the link I posted a little while ago about the IQ differences in races? It being due to genetic factors? Here's another guy who says that's highly questionable. I'm a little more inclined to believe him. I want to believe that "all men are created equal", at least in general, and not just spiritually. I want to live in a world of equals, not castes. But I also want to know the truth. I hope more research is done on this issue...if it really were to turn out that certain groups have higher or lower intelligence, that'd have huge implications...most of them bad.


China expresses "grave concern" that USS Kitty Hawk passed Taiwan on way back to Japan - International Herald Tribune
You might have heard of this whole mess. Now the Chinese are saying they're unhappy that the ships may have gone through the Taiwan strait after being turned away from Hong Kong.
I'm at least a little surprised at their astounding blindness as to the importance of public opinion - people in this country already dislike them quite a bit, and this is going to make their paranoia and hatred much worse.
But, I'd believe that we probably did go through that strait on the way home. After all, since Taiwan is our ally, why not swing by? heheh. Not like we were going through a sovereign state's internal territory.


Krugman: The making of a mess - International Herald Tribune
This writer is of the opinion that we're headed for a huge financial mess - not only because of all the things you already know about, but because the people who created our modern financial system don't actually understand it. It's gotten too byzantine for anyone to predict or navigate.



Brazilians giving up their American dream - International Herald Tribune
Thanks to the idiocy of our current immigration policy, as well as the impossibility of even becoming a legal citizen for many legal immigrants (thank you, again, bureaucrats), many of the hundreds of thousands (or millions, no one knows) of Brazilians who came here are now leaving. It just isn't worth it anymore. I expect more groups will follow, and we will be worse for it.

Also, you've almost certainly seen it by now, but I've been meaning to post that Mike Huckaby/Chuck Norris ad. I was surprised it was made.


It's funny...but I don't know how you'd follow up on that. It seems like the sort of thing that, should he win, will come back to bite him in the ass. I mean, we both know the whole immigration mess isn't going to get fixed, probably ever.

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All I can say is, holy crap.
This guy is called the "tree man" for the way his hands and feet look. I wish I could embed the video, but I can't.
Tree Man video
Wow. It looks painful.

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Woman Killed by Stray Dogs in Bulgaria
I'd heard it was bad over there, but I though it was exaggerated.
Like in this comic (which admittedly is about Romania, but hey, it's a problem in most of the area, I guess)






















Sore Thumbs Online

She went to walk her own dog in the small village she lived in. She's British...so...I don't really know why she was there. Doesn't matter, though.
A pack of stray dogs attacked her. They ate the meat from her legs, then, with the bones jutting from her ruined, eaten stumps, they left her bleeding to death. It's kind of hard to imagine worse ways of dying than watching your legs get eaten, then hoping that maybe, since the dogs left, that you might survive, horribly crippled, and then bleed to death anyway. False hope is bitter.

So...to those people overly attached to your cute little doggies...they are still animals, and if they have to, they will kill you. Except lapdogs. They'll just bite really annoyingly and bark until maybe you die from it.
Also, I lost the link, but packs of stray dogs are acting much like wolves in the de-militarized parts of Cyprus. So. Remember they are animals, not people. Even if they were people, of course, you probably still should not entirely trust them. People with that many sharp teeth would be inherently a little untrustworthy. Hehhe.


China's African Misadventures
You may have heard of China's spending spree in Africa. They prop up evil governments and etc. Usual business.
It turns out, Africa is still a really screwed up continent that even the Chinese have trouble with.


The (Impossible) American Dream
You may have heard recently that the American dream has failed - that children no longer grow up to be richer than their parents, etc., etc. It turns out to be mostly bullshit. Unsurprisingly. Also, the thing about black children growing up in the middle class and ending up poor...is kind of true, except that it ignores the fact that the size of the black middle class has doubled since the 70s, which was the generation being observed. It turns out that in this country, things are at least somewhat meritocratic - if you start out rich, there's no guarantee you'll end up that way, and if you start poor, it's not guaranteed you'll stay there, either. So unless every black family had six kids, four of whom grew up to be prosperous, and two which were utter failures, you'd have to conclude the system is working for somebody. Groups don't just double in size by accident. (except trailer trash. Oh! Insult! Except they're due to lots of accidents. heheh.)


Dickey: The Truth About Illegal Immigrants
According to this guy, the cities with the most immigrants, illegal or otherwise, are also the safest cities. Of course, there's no mention of what, exactly, they meant by safest - lowest murders per capita, lowest numbers for property crimes, what? I'm pretty sure the places listed - border towns, mostly, New York City, and Honolulu - have all got some problems with theft. Mostly the border towns. They sure as hell do.
Also, he doesn't demonstrate that the immigrants themselves make these places "safer". It could very well be that there is an increased police presence, or that other measures are being taken to deal with that community, that keep the "safeness" level where it is. I'd really like to believe him, because I like immigrants, think they make our country better and stronger, and generally dislike any sort of government controls, especially ones on where people are allowed to go - but he really fails to make the case. Too bad.

Hmm...I actually looked the thing up, and I'm not sure what he's referring to - here's a list of the safest/least safe cities for 2006 and 2007 from the Wikipedia article about the company that made his list. Apparently there is quite a bit of controversy over their methods: even the FBI says not to trust them.


Finally, because the first link is terrible, and the last depressingly stupid, here is a good story.
A Mexican man was walking over the borderlands. He came across a little boy on the side of the road, holding the mirror of his van. He had been camping with his mom, and driving back on Thanksgiving, she had left the road. The fall destroyed the van and took her life, but left the boy unhurt and alone. Though the man could not understand the boy, nor the boy him, he decided that he would help. Even knowing that he would be deported for doing so, he stayed, made a fire, gave the boy his sweater, and found some food in what was left of the van.

They were found the next day by hunters. The boy was returned to his uncle, and the man was sent to Mexico, where his own seven children depend on him. He does not regret what he did.
I'm really glad there are people like this in the world. We need more of them.