Recycling vuvuzelas?

Readers will recall mention of the vuvuzela in these pages during the World Cup tournament earlier this year.




Well, millions were sold and distributed . . . and now there's the problem of what to do with them. In an effort to find a solution, a competition was launched, inviting suggestions from South Africans and international visitors. The BBC reports:

Some ideas submitted so far include turning the plastic horns into chandeliers, lamp shades, bird food dispensers and table stands.

The winning design, to be announced later this month, is to be produced and sold through a local retailer.

The vuvuzela reached the world's attention during the Word Cup which South Africa hosted in June and July.

Competition organiser Jono Swanepoel says designs will be handed over to local manufacturers, who will receive all the proceeds from the sale of the new-look vuvuzela.

"This is ultimately designed to create jobs for crafters out there," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

Many of the designs were impractical but funny, Mr Swanepoel said.

"We've seen quite a few entries of hearing aids; things to magnify the sound on your cellphone if you put it on speaker phone," he said.

. . .

A prize of 10,000 rand (£916; $1,460) will be distributed among the 10 best suggestions.

There's more at the link.

Entries for South Africans closed today, but international entries will be accepted up to 25th October. If you have a good idea, why not submit it to the competition's Web site? You might make some money out of it. If you need inspiration, take a look at some of the suggestions there. They're quite ingenious - if perhaps impractical!

Peter

The funny side of music, Part II

Continuing the series we began two days ago, I'd like to introduce those who haven't yet heard it to the music of Flanders and Swann. This great musical comedy duo flourished in the 1950's and 1960's, and were a source of constant entertainment to me as I grew up. My father used to sing "The Hippopotamus Song" endlessly as he pottered around the house (to my mother's frequent irritation, particularly when I picked up on the chorus with him!)

They did many wonderfully funny songs together. Here's another: Michael Flanders sings Mozart's Horn Concerto, to piano accompaniment by Donald Swann.

Here's their "Song Of Patriotic Prejudice", asserting (with tongue firmly in cheek) the superiority of the English race over the rest of the British Isles. This rare live television footage was recorded on Broadway, New York in 1967, near the end of their performing careers.

They recorded many more songs that are perennial favorites of mine, but not many have made it to YouTube or other freely available sources. If you want to invest in CD's of their shows, it's well worth the price!

Peter

A different kind of formation

Most of us, I'm sure, are familiar with the Red Arrows, the aerobatic display team of the Royal Air Force. They're among the top performers in the world at their demanding profession.




It seems they recently swapped their jets for rather more mundane transport, in the interests of charity.

How long does it take the Red Arrows to get from Lands End to John O’Groats? That depends. In their usual Hawk jets, it’s just over an hour to cover the 1,000 miles. But this September it’ll take them four days, as they’re swapping supersonic planes for super-cool scooters.




The RAF display team are aiming to raise money for five charities by doing the marathon ride on 125cc Vespa scooters. Some of the pilots already ride motorcycles, others have taken their CBT specially so that all 14 of them can ride together.

The ride was organised by Flight Lieutenant Mike Ling, who says, "I have always wanted to ride a Vespa from Land's End to John O' Groats, so I decided to do it at the end of our display season. The other pilots wanted to get involved as it's such a great opportunity to raise money for good causes."

There's more at the link. Apparently the ride went smoothly, although I've not yet found out how much was raised for the designated charities. Here's a video clip of their preparations.

I wonder if we could get the Thunderbirds or the Blue Angels to do a coast-to-coast run to raise funds for the families of service personnel who've become casualties in the War on Terror? I think 125cc. scooters might not be the most practical transport for such a ride, but I'm sure Harley-Davidson could suggest something more appropriate!



Peter

Doofus Of The Day #400

Today's Doofus, marking our 'fourth century' of Doofi, comes from Florida.

When sheriff's deputies allegedly discovered a bags of marijuana and cocaine between a man's buttocks, they said he gave a quick explanation. Manatee County deputies said Raymond Stanley Roberts told them "The white stuff is not mine, but the weed is."

There's more at the link.

*Sigh* . . . I can't tell you how often I, as a chaplain, heard this from inmates in prison. They're caught red-handed, with drugs or stolen property on their persons, yet they protest that it's not theirs, they've no idea how it got there, and 'someone must have put it there'. The latter is usually accompanied by meaningful glares at the arresting officers, followed by allegations in court that the cops 'had it in for them' and 'planted' the evidence. Fortunately, most judges and juries know better!

In this case, of course, the miscreant clearly hoped to get away with a misdemeanor possession charge for the marijuana. Crack cocaine carries a far heavier sentence, being a felony rather than a misdemeanor. Needless to say, his protestations didn't sway the arresting officers one bit!

(And I can't help but wonder how many customers realize that their rocks of crack cocaine are very likely to have been transported to their dealer between the buttocks of other criminals . . . without benefit of sanitary conditions or protective wrapping? Believe me, it's very common. Not that drug use is particularly sanitary at the best of times, but fecal contamination adds a whole new element to the damage it can cause!)

Peter

Is it possible to 'sell' fiscal restraint to the American people?

I've written several times about the need to reduce the size of government and the amount it wastes on non-productive expenditures. It's a huge problem . . . and the biggest problem of all is that virtually no politicians (with a few honorable exceptions, of course) are willing to stick their necks out and speak the truth to the American people.

That truth is very simple: the United States of America is broke. We simply don't have enough money in our national budget to continue to pay entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare, and welfare programs at their current level (never mind the growth that they're guaranteed under current legislation, which indexes many payments to the rate of inflation). The so-called 'Social Security trust fund' doesn't exist. Instead, politicians (from both major parties) have looted Social Security receipts as they came in, applying them to other Government programs, and leaving only a series of IOU's in the Social Security kitty. Now that Social Security payments exceed inflows, those IOU's are coming due, and there's no money in the general treasury to pay for them. That means we're going to have to devote an inordinate share of general taxation income, and a huge amount of borrowed money, to pay the benefits promised by these programs - money we don't have to spare.

Trouble is, many of our current politicians are the same people who looted Social Security in the past. They daren't own up to what they've done. They know that if they tell the American people what they've done, and the now-inevitable consequences of their actions, they haven't a hope of re-election . . . and they're addicted to power and the privileges of their positions. They'll cling to them at all costs, even if it means going on lying to those who elect them. Just look at Barney Frank and his shenanigans in Massachusetts as he tries to evade responsibility for the fiscal disaster at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He's the one who insisted that there was nothing wrong, that attempts to rein in those organizations were 'racist' - but now he's ducking and diving to avoid accepting any blame for the consequences of his actions.

John Stossel put it rather well in a recent article.

All that spending is taken from your and my pockets -- some in taxes, much in sneakier ways like government borrowing. The national debt -- now $13 trillion -- simply represents future taxes or the erosion of the dollar.

Yet progressives want us to pay more. One woman activist told our camera, "It costs to live in a civilized society, and we all need to pay our fair share."

Our "fair share" sounds good. Progressives say taking from the rich to help the poor is simply fair.

I put that to Arthur Brooks, who heads the American Enterprise Institute.

"No, the fairest system is the one that rewards the makers in society as opposed to rewarding the takers in society."

Brooks wrote "The Battle," which argues that the fight between free enterprise and big government will shape our future.

"The way that our culture is moving now is toward more redistribution, toward more progressive taxation, exempting more people from paying anything, and loading more of the taxes onto the very top earners in our society."

But it seems "kind" to take it away from wealthier people and give it to those who need it more.

"Actually, it's not," Brooks says. "The government does not create wealth. It uses wealth that's been created by the private sector."

He warns that "Americans are in open rebellion today because the government is threatening to take us from a maker nation into taker nation status."

Americans in "open rebellion"? I'm skeptical. Handouts create fierce constituencies. The tea party movement is wonderful, but it takes strength to say no to government freebies. When I've said to tea partiers, "We should cut Medicare, eliminate agriculture subsidies, kill entire federal agencies," the enthusiasm usually fades from their eyes.

I hope that I am wrong and Brooks is right.

There's more at the link.

Who's going to have the guts to stand up and tell the American people, loud and clear, that their expectations concerning Social Security, Medicare and welfare cannot and will not be fulfilled? And how many of the American people will be prepared to face reality and 'bite the bullet', accepting the facts of the situation, rather than scream blue murder and vote for anyone who promises to drive this country further into bankruptcy in order to pay them what they want?

Robert A. Heinlein, speaking through his fictional character Lazarus Long, put it very succinctly.

"Bread and Circuses is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader--the barbarians enter Rome."

Amen! Let's not forget, either, the warning of Alexis de Tocqueville, who spoke of democracy in this country more than a century and a half ago. This is what happens when government gets too big:

"After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the government then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence: it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."

Amen once more! Double Amen! And today, will the American people have the guts to accept that the shepherd's got too big for his boots, and be willing to stand on their own two feet, and do without his largesse - even if it costs them personally?

Peter

For geriatric speedsters?

It seems someone in England has far too much time on his hands - and a fair bit of mechanical ability! The Daily Mail reports:

For anyone who’s had to leap out of the way of a passing mobility scooter, it’s the stuff of nightmares.

Colin Furze has adapted a conventional electric model into a petrol-engined speedster which has reached an astonishing 69mph.

‘You hear people complaining about scooters going slowly around supermarkets and blocking aisles so I thought it would be a laugh to make a really fast one,’ said Mr Furze, 31, a plumber from Stamford, Lincolnshire.

Guinness World Records said he would be considered for the first mobility scooter speed record if he could hit 100kph – 61.4mph.

He is now planning a time trial at the Santa Pod Raceway in Northamptonshire to claim his place in the record books, and says: ‘My aim is to hit 70mph.’

Mr Furze was given the scooter by a friend who sells and repairs them.

The 125cc engine was taken from a motorbike.

He added: ‘I was told by Guinness that I could modify the engine but I wasn’t allowed to change the appearance in any way so I couldn’t give it bigger wheels or make it more stable.

. . .

‘I haven’t had any crashes but the wheel fell off when I was slowing down once. I’ve nearly been in the hedge a few times.’

There's more at the link.

Having had to use one of these things for a couple of years after my injury in 2004, I know how fundamentally unstable they are, even at six or seven miles per hour under battery power. The thought of driving one ten times as fast with a gasoline engine gives me shivers! (On the other hand, I'm betting shoppers would clear a path for me through the aisles at Wal-Mart! Perhaps I could fit a truck air-horn to the thing, to make sure of that . . . )



Peter

More daft action scenes

In February I mentioned a 1995 Indian ("Bollywood") movie, Alluda Majaka, which had one of the daftest action sequences I'd ever seen in my life. For those who missed that earlier post, YouTube has subsequently disabled embedding of the clip: but you can watch it here.

I've just discovered two more action sequences from the same film. The first of them I'll call (for want of a better term) "Duelling Tractors".Just like the first scene, it's so ghastly, so badly acted, so over-the-top that it's actually funny! Once again, I can't embed it here, but you can watch it on YouTube by clicking here.

The other scene shows the hero's sister in a police station, where she's been mistaken for a prostitute. Needless to say, he has to rescue her in his own inimitable fashion. Watch the fun and games here.

I find it very hard to believe that this level of movie-making can really be taken seriously anywhere, but India and Bollywood continually prove me wrong!



Peter

E-mail in-boxes of (in)famous people

There's an e-mail services site, Email Marketing Reports, that's written by a person or persons with a sense of humor. So far they've put out eight articles, speculating what the e-mail in-boxes of various famous (or infamous) personalities, real and fictional, might look like. Here's just one example, the first in their series: Darth Vader.




Others in the series include Lord Voldemort, Sauron, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, Julius Caesar, Satan, James Bond and Kermit the frog. Each is funny in its own way.

Kudos to Email Marketing Reports for a fun and novel way of spreading interest in their Web site and the services they offer. I'll certainly keep them in mind for my book marketing efforts in due course, if only to thank them for the chuckles.

Peter

Lame-duck Congress a threat to private pensions?

There appear to be two measures on the table after the mid-term elections next month. It's reported that the current Congress, in its final, so-called 'lame-duck' session before the newly-elected Congress takes over in January, may consider both and try to ram them through.

The first is a measure to force the US taxpayer to fund gold-plated union pensions. The second measure seeks to 'nationalize' privately-held pension funds (in things like 401(k) accounts) and institute a Government-controlled national pension scheme in their place. Human Events reports:

Democrats in the Senate on Thursday held a recess hearing covering a taxpayer bailout of union pensions and a plan to seize private 401(k) plans to more "fairly" distribute taxpayer-funded pensions to everyone.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee heard from hand-picked witnesses advocating the infamous "Guaranteed Retirement Account" (GRA) authored by Theresa Guilarducci.

. . .

In a nutshell, under the GRA system government would seize private 401(k) accounts, setting up an additional 5% mandatory payroll tax to dole out a "fair" pension to everyone using that confiscated money coupled with the mandated contributions. This would, of course, be a sister government ponzi scheme working in tandem with Social Security, the primary purpose being to give big government politicians additional taxpayer funds to raid to pay for their out-of-control spending.

. . .

As reported in HUMAN EVENTS the Casey bill from Sen. Bob Casey (D-Penn.) is a new entitlement program that would set up a permanent bailout of the union multi-employer pension plans that are desperately underwater through a new "fifth fund" at the government Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). Casey’s bill would create a line item on the federal budget through the PBGC to fund these union pension bailouts annually -- union pensions that are underwater as a result of mismanagement that pre-dates the 2008 financial upheaval.

. . .

And, of course, the theme of the day was "fairness" as it's somehow "fair" to take what one person has earned in the free market and give it to another in a government-run wealth redistribution retirement scheme.

. . .

Overall McMahon said the pressing issue for the lame duck is the union pension bailout with new Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rules currently set to take effect December 15. These new rules would force companies to account for the cost of penalties to extract themselves from these union pension plans against their bottom line.

"The pension bailouts are something they need desperately and they need quickly because as everyone involved with the forthcoming new FASB rule acknowledges, you cannot stop the accounting board from a new transparency requirement," McMahon said. "It's going to hurt."

. . .

The lame duck session would offer the last chance for unions and companies to be able to place liability for their underwater pensions on the taxpayers' backs before the new FASB rule goes into effect.

There's more at the link. Earlier articles in Human Events covering this issue may be found here, here and here; and an article on CNN's Web site addressing (and arguing in favor of) the 'nationalization' of 401(k) plans and private pensions may be found here.

Needless to say, I think both proposals are nothing more than a politically-motivated boondoggle. If I've taken the trouble to provide for my own retirement by funding my 401(k) or some other plan, just who the hell does any elected representative think he or she is, to turn around and tell me I have to hand over my hard-earned savings to the government? And why should I, as a taxpayer, fund union retirement plans that the unions - and the companies unfortunate enough to have to put up with them - have mismanaged and under-funded?

Both ideas are yet another 'Big Brother' attempt to steal from those who have, and redistribute the proceeds to those who don't. I suggest readers find out whether their elected representatives are in favor of either or both concepts, and if they are, vote them out of office as quickly as possible - then make sure to hold the current Congress' feet to the fire during its lame-duck session, to make sure outgoing politicians don't try to pull a fast one and ram this through over our objections.

Politicians! Grrrrr!





Peter

Incipient heart attack in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .

I thought I'd heard of most of the more unhealthy varieties of food out there, particularly after reading the warning literature given to me after my heart attack last year.

I was wrong.

Don't let anyone try to convince you otherwise: The Wisconsin State Fair is all about food that's battered and fried, dipped in chocolate, stuck on a stick, or slathered in decadence.

. . .

Just two days after a sobering report about obesity was released by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the fair opened its 11-day run with a bevy of traditional high-calorie favorites and new hot-sellers, including a Krispy Kreme cheeseburger packing 1,000 calories.




The Machine Shed expected to sell about 3,500 salty-sweet Krispy Kreme cheeseburgers over the first three days of the fair. Roughly a fourth of the $5 burgers sandwiched between two halves of a Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut were ordered with chocolate-covered bacon for an extra buck.

There's more at the link, including the widest variety of battered, deep-fried vegetables I've ever heard of!

If the thought of a cheeseburger sandwiched between two halves of a grilled glazed doughnut isn't enough to harden your arteries at 20 paces, how about this for dessert?

Even the most fervent chocoholic would have trouble tackling this beast - the world's largest brandy truffle ever created.

Weighing in at a whopping 253.9kg [about 560 pounds] and made using £1,600 [about US $2,544] of ingredients, the mega sweet treat contains a staggering 433,330 calories and 22,941g [almost 51 pounds] of fat.

The creators of the truffle are celebrating after their chocolate masterpiece, smashing the previous world record by almost 60kg.




. . .

Owner of The Queen's Head Inn, in Bromsgrove, Worcs, Gianni D'Aniello and head chef Chris Long spent five and a half hours constructing the truffle from a traditional recipe of chocolate, brandy, double cream and cocoa powder.

The truffle, in accordance with the official guidelines, was created in the correct proportions and prepared in the same way as a normal size truffle with a ganache centre before being coated in cocoa powder.

Evidence of the attempt, to mark the start of National Chocolate Week, will now be submitted to the Guinness World Records so it can be formally verified as an official record-breaker.

Again, more at the link.

I'll be in my bed, groaning and holding my aching blood vessels . . .





Peter

The funny side of music, Part I

A few weeks ago I published an article linking to several music videos of Tom Lehrer. In talking about them with others, I've found there doesn't seem to be a wide appreciation of the rich field of musical comedy among people today. I have to admit, I find this strange, as I grew up to enjoy 'funny music' on an almost daily basis. My family would gather around the gramophone and roar with laughter (and sing along) to the music of Flanders & Swann, or Rolf Harris, or Lonnie Donegan, or a number of Irish singers.

Anyway, I'd like to do something to re-introduce my readers to many of those now-almost-forgotten musical legends. I'll start tonight with a song firmly based on history.

Lydia Pinkham was the developer and marketer of what she called her 'vegetable compound', a patent medicine popular in the late 19th and early 20th century to treat 'female complaints' (i.e. menstruation and menopause). A popular tune, 'The Ballad Of Lydia Pinkham', subsequently became popular, particularly among servicemen (at the end of World War II it was the unofficial regimental song of the Royal Tank Corps, according to Wikipedia). The verses were more than a little scatological, referring to the (imagined and/or desired) effect on women of drinking Mrs. Pinkham's 'medicinal compound', as the song called it.

In 1968 a British group, The Scaffold, 'cleaned up' the verses and recorded a revised version of the song - and to everyone's surprise, it shot to the top of the UK hit parade for a few weeks. I was ten years old at the time, and remember singing it in chorus with my father (who taught me some of the military verses, to my mother's extreme displeasure!) It's remained a favorite of mine.



Here it is, from 1968: 'Lily The Pink'.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #399

Today's Doofus comes from Gloucester, MA.

It seems a Gloucester mail carrier is suspected of stealing a cellphone left by a woman on her mailbox for a couple of minutes while her back was turned. Police found him with the phone only 13 minutes later . . . but the owner then complained that "there were now six pictures of a man's penis on her phone that were not there before. Police also learned that the pictures were sent to a friend of the woman via e-mail through the phone's contact list."

The cops duly called in the Post Office's own police, who investigated and confirmed that underwear visible in some of the photographs was identical to that worn by the mail carrier that day. He was duly arrested.

One has to admit, he's a fast worker. He had the phone for only 13 minutes, yet in that time he managed to scoot round a corner, drop his pants, photograph Mr. Happy, and e-mail the pictures to a complete stranger! I wonder if his mail deliveries were as speedy?

Inscribed on the General Post Office in New York City at 8th Avenue and 33rd Street is the motto, "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds". (Some want to know, "Well, what is it, then?") I suspect our Doofus took that motto to heart - or perhaps, under the circumstances, to another portion of his anatomy!



Peter

The climate change scandal rumbles on . . .

It seems the lack of ethics and professional standards in the climate change debate has claimed another casualty - although he'd probably not regard himself, but 'the system', as the victim. Physicist Harold Lewis has resigned from the American Physical Society in protest against that organization's biased approach to the problem. Here's an excerpt from his letter to the President of the Society, Curtis G. Callan.

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence---it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists.

. . .

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d'être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford's book organizes the facts very well.) I don't believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it.

. . .

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people's motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don't think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I'm not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation.

There's more at the link.

It's particularly damning when a world-renowned physicist of Prof. Lewis' standing, with well over sixty years of experience in the field, feels compelled to take such a step. Needless to say, the conspirators scientists supporting the climate change fraud theory won't lose any sleep over it . . . but if they had any sense of honesty, professional ethics or morality, they should.

Peter

Life on a very small scale

There's a new book out, 'Microcosmos: Discovering The World Through Microscopic Images'. It looks really interesting. The Daily Mail reports:

Microcosmos takes readers into a secret world of extreme close-ups. Some subjects have been magnified by as much as 22 million times.

Detailed descriptions of the subjects are contained within.

Magnified 22 million times, this microscopic photo is of household dust
containing long hairs such as cat fur, twisted synthetic and woollen fibres,
a pollen grain, plant, serrated insect scales and insect remains.

. . .

Compiled by London-based science author Brandon Broll, Microcosmos takes a piercing look at the everyday in six sections including Zoology, The Human Body and Botanics.

Taken by over 30 'microscopists' using a variety of powerful microscopes, the book charters a voyage through a miniature world showing the unlikeliest parts of our lives in minuscule detail.

Eyelash hairs, magnified 50 times

Readers can view extreme close-ups of items including ladies' tights, the surface of the human tongue and the beautiful scales on butterfly wings.

Also included in this weird and wonderful selection of images are a rusty nail and cut human hair on a razor blade.

The corroded surface of a rusty metal nail, magnified 600 times

The spectacular visuals were captured using a variety of traditional light-based microscopes, powerful scanning electron microscopes which bombard the subject with electrons and build the image using a computer and transmission electro microscopes.

South African Broll, who specialises in science and health writing, said: 'The book will show readers the beauty of what is too small to see with the naked eye.'

There's more at the link, including many more photographs (all larger than the three I've reproduced here as examples).

I think this book goes on my 'Must Read' list.

Peter

Stupid bus hijacker

Hint to wannabe hijackers: it's all about the destination . . .

Peter

Bureaucracy gone mad!

The Pentagon has a critical need for cyber-security policies, procedures and software to protect America's security secrets. Common sense alone tells us that. However, in practice, it's a bureaucrat's wet dream and a cyber-security specialist's nightmare. Wired reports:

Some people may find it strange that the Defense Department, which helped create the internet, is having so much trouble securing its networks. Those people have not seen this mind-numbing, 2-foot-long chart, outlining the 193 documents that govern the activities of the Pentagon’s geek squads.

Developed by the DASD CIIA (that’s the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber, Identity & Information Assurance), the goal of the chart is to “capture the tremendous breadth of applicable policies, some of which many IA practitioners may not even be aware, in a helpful organizational scheme.”

. . .

Obviously, operating networks for the millions of people who make up the world’s largest military is no simple task: The financial, legal, organizational and technical issues are nothing short of staggering. On the other hand, the hackers trying to break into those networks don’t have to check 193 different policy documents before they launch their malware. It’s hard not to think that gives the attackers an edge.

There's more at the link, with a remarkable diagram portraying all of the rules and regulations and how they interface with one another.

I highly recommend reading the article, and particularly trying to decipher the diagram. With this sort of bureaucratic maze to navigate, just how the hell do our cyber-security experts manage to get anything done? Ever?

The only consolation is that anyone trying to hack into networks protected by such a convoluted layer of official specifications and requirements is likely to end up chasing his own tail through an electronic chamber of horrors, pursued by screaming silicon zombies.

Ye Gods and little fishes . . .





Peter

Doofus Of The Day #398

Today's Doofus comes from Virginia.

Krystal Ball dressed as a naughty Santa at a party "right after college." Her then-husband wore a dildo on his nose and leash around his neck.




Years later, Krystal decided to run for Congress in Virginia. Guess what happened next?

Krystal Ball is running as a Democrat in Virginia's solidly Republican first district, which means there's no way she'll win. Which is too bad, because how funny would it be if future history books had to include a paragraph about Krystal Ball's Great Dildo-Nosed Reindeer Scandal of 2010 ? Anyway, Krystal's 29 and graduated from UVA in 2003, which puts her squarely in the Facebook generation. So consider these nine pictures ... our first glimpse at the coming ludicrous future where all political candidates have caches of embarrassing digital pictures lurking on the internet.

There's more at the link.

I suspect that this Christmas, in and around Virginia, the traditional carol about Rudolph the Reindeer will be rather more anatomically specific than usual!





Peter

Drowning in laws

I've written on several occasions about the need for smaller, less intrusive government. An article in the New York Daily News has summarized all my objections to the present state of affairs, given hideously many examples of government overreach, and shown why too much government is such a disaster. Here's a few excerpts.

Legal mandates and entitlements have accumulated, like sediment in the harbor, until it is almost impossible for Americans to get anywhere without trudging through a treacherous legal swamp. Only big businesses, not small entrepreneurs, have the size (and legal staffs) to power through the legal sludge.

. . .

... the land of opportunity is more like legal quicksand. Small business owners face legal challenges at every step. Municipalities requires multiple and often nonsensical forms to do business. Labor laws expose them to legal threats by any disgruntled employee. Mandates to provide costly employment benefits impose high hurdles to hiring new employees. Well-meaning but impossibly complex laws impose requirements to prevent consumer fraud, provide disability access, prevent hiring illegal immigrants, display warnings and notices and prevent scores of other potential evils. The tax code is incomprehensible.

All of this requires legal and other overhead - costing 50% more per employee for small businesses than big businesses.

The sheer volume of law suffocates innovative instincts, while distrust of lawsuits discourages ordinary human choices. Why take a chance on the eager young person applying for a job when, if it doesn't work out, you might get sued for discrimination? Why take the risk of expanding production in another state when that requires duplicating legal risks and overhead? Why bother to start a business at all?

. . .

Doctors are conditioned by our lawsuit culture to see patients as potential plaintiffs and practice medicine wearing blinders of reimbursement bureaucracy. Every incentive is upside down - driving up health care costs to almost double that of other developed countries. The new healthcare bill does almost nothing to fix this, and instead stacks 2,700 pages of new requirements on top of the giant heap of old law.

Schools are bureaucratic viper pits. Mandates from Washington, from state capitals and from aggressive local districts transform teachers into pedagogical drones. Because of fear of lawsuits, they're told never to put an arm around a crying child. Good teachers quit, surveys show, because they don't feel free to do what's right, or indeed, even to be themselves.

Government itself is choking on accumulated law. The simplest choices take years to grind through labyrinthian requirements mandated by obsolete laws. Good public management takes superman, because accountability is nonexistent. Firing an insubordinate civil servant is even harder than firing a teacher.

. . .

Clearing away the poisonous legal overgrowth does not require genius. It just requires different choices. Balancing budgets demands we pare back legal mandates, entitlements and subsidies. Containing healthcare costs requires realigning incentives so that patients and doctors have a financial responsibility to be prudent. But those choices are impossible in the current legal jungle.

"Good ideas to reform government," New York City Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith recently remarked, "are often illegal."

America can't move forward until it cleans out this legal swamp. The accretion of law has made democracy inert - a sludge heap of programs and entitlements swarming with special interests - while also slowly suffocating the American spirit.

Changing leaders or parties will not solve this problem. Decades of accumulated law and bureaucracy have made it impossible for anyone to use common sense. A new President can ride into Washington on the mighty steed of public opinion - Yes We Can! - but will immediately get stuck in the bureaucratic goo.

. . .

"We are not far from the point," Nobel economist Friedrich Hayek warned in 1960, "where the deliberately organized forces of society may destroy those spontaneous forces which have made advance possible." We may finally be there. Government is basically bankrupt, and the accretion of law is suffocating individual initiative. Nothing will work until we clean it out.

There's more at the link. Essential reading for anti-statists.

Peter

Traveling

I'm afraid I have to hit the airport shortly, and I haven't had time to prepare my usual posts for the evening. I'll be back home tomorrow evening, and will try to post as usual. Meanwhile, please amuse yourselves in the blog archives, or at any of the blogs to which I link in the sidebar.

Peter

A lucky escape!

This rally driver and his navigator had a very lucky escape in this crash.

Note how the branch speared straight between them from the rear of the car. A bit to one side or the other, and their rally might have been considerably less enjoyable!





Peter

More about Governor Christie of New Jersey

I've mentioned Governor Christie of New Jersey in one or two previous posts. He's getting a grip on the tangled administration of that State and imposing financial discipline, to the fury of established interests and institutions. He's even succeeding in doing so in a bipartisan fashion.

The Wall Street Journal has published an article about him. Here's an excerpt.

The main fault lies with ... elected officials. They have, over decades, tended to give in, buying themselves peace with taxpayer money. Both Republicans and Democrats have been among the spineless.

This is why Christie's been a sensation. Certainly it must be surprising, even in New Jersey, to hear a governor evoking that scene in "The Untouchables." One hastens to add that there's no sign Christie ever actually struck anyone with a bat or anything, though fact-checkers may yet dig up some Little League mishap. Presumably, voters know it's metaphor. His approval ratings are, depending on the poll, either even or, at 57%, rising.

The really shocking thing is to see an official, especially a Republican, who is forceful in driving a hard bargain with taxpayers' money rather than caving the moment someone says he's mean. Christie could do this in part because New Jersey governors are powerful and he has the personality. But those aren't prerequisites, Christie insists. His success is duplicatable.

"This is all working through the legislature," he said, "a Democratic legislature, I might add." That body approved Christie's package of 401(k)-style plans, employee contributions, an end to double-dips and other good sense even as unions howled in mass protests. The bat Christie took out was his power of persuasion.

You persuade, he says, by telling cold truth. His state was going broke. He said so, repeatedly and to all. You can't have voters look you in the eye, he said, and wonder whether you're just placating them. They must hear that when government labor is costly, less essential service can be afforded by taxpayers' finite wallets.

This must be duplicated, Christie said, because having enough fiscally conservative governors could pressure Washington into reform. He's touring to support like-minded candidates such as Walker, he says, because if fiscal conservatism ever had moment, it's now.

There's more at the link. Recommended reading.

I like very much what Governor Christie is doing. We need more people like him in politics. He's stated very bluntly that he's not interested in running for President; but his example shows us what we need in a candidate for that office.

Peter

Life - and poker - lessons

Charlie McDanger has some useful life lessons, in the context of poker, on his blog. Here's an excerpt:

On leaving the table, the pro remarked, "Of course when I play against you, you have a real hand."

This is such phenomenal loser talk, borne of loser thinking, that it bears dissection.

The root of this remark is found in what psychologists call "attribution error" and the "self-serving bias." They're two sides of the same coin, the idea being that when somebody else succeeds, it is because he is lucky; when I succeed, it is because I am good. Alternatively, when someone else fails, it is because he sucks; when I fail, it is because I am unlucky.

It is hard to overstate the prevalence of this thinking at the poker table or, for that matter, in life generally. If other people are rich, they are lucky. If they are slim, they have good genes. On the other hand, if I am rich, it is because I'm brilliant. Et cetera.

What I want you to take away is that this is poisonous, ruinous, horseshit thinking. It affects you, it affects me, and it diminishes what you will accomplish in this life. If you believe your failures are out of your hands, you will continue to fail. And if you don't acknowledge the positive steps others take to achieve success, you will never emulate them.

A clear-headed thinker would examine why he lost two stacks to me; this guy will go home thinking, "That lucky Charlie--he gets queens and then kings in the span of five hands against me." End of analysis. Charlie is lucky. I'm unlucky.

There's more at the link. Interesting reading.

Peter

A great hotel comes back to life

I'm a history buff, I'm afraid, and I always enjoy reading about places with particular historical or cultural significance. I'm therefore happy to learn that one of London's icons, the Savoy Hotel (or, as its proprietors prefer, The Savoy - can't ignore the capital letters, you know!) is about to re-open after a three-year, £220 million (about US $351 million) renovation and restoration.




The history of The Savoy is a remarkable encapsulation of high society over more than a century. The hotel describes it as follows (link is to an Adobe Acrobat document in .PDF format).

Back in 1246, a stretch of land between the Strand and the Thames was presented by Henry III to Peter, Count of Savoy, uncle and consort to the King’s wife. That same year, Peter built his Savoy Palace on the river, and the name has been associated with the place ever since.

Over 600 years later, impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte chose the location for a new theatre to stage the famous operettas written by his friends Gilbert and Sullivan. He decided to call his new building the Savoy Theatre, and the productions were known henceforth as the Savoy Operas.

Gilbert and Sullivan were huge on both sides of the Atlantic, and D’Oyly Carte spent a lot of time producing their shows in America. This meant he could stay in some of the newest and best hotels, which impressed him so much with their amazing new technologies that he decided to build his own hotel back in London.

The new Savoy on the river took five years to build and opened on August 6, 1889. It caused a sensation.




This, the first true luxury hotel in Britain, was also the first to be lit by electricity. It had the first electric lifts, known as ‘ascending rooms’. Guest rooms were connected by speaking tube to the valet, maid and floor waiter – and to other parts of the hotel including the American Bar.

The Savoy later became the first hotel to provide most of its rooms with private bathrooms en suite. The ‘Savoy bathroom’ became famous for its cascading shower and quick filling bath.

D’Oyly Carte tempted the well-known hotel manager César Ritz to join his new wonder hotel. Ritz was delighted by the perfectly-appointed facilities and great potential at The Savoy. He brought in Auguste Escoffier, leading ‘celebrity chef ’ of his day, to run the kitchens.

Ritz and Escoffier simply revolutionised the face of the British hotel business. Ritz knew many society women from the fashionable Continental hotels he managed and persuaded them to come to The Savoy for dinner. In the early years, Savoy guests included Sarah Bernhardt and Dame Nellie Melba, for whom Escoffier famously created Melba Toast when she was on a diet, and Pêches Melba when she was not.




Artists Whistler and Monet both used views from Savoy windows in their work. Oscar Wilde stayed, with his friend Lord Alfred Douglas. The Prince of Wales himself and his coterie were frequent visitors. By 1904 the hotel was such a hit that the blocks on the Strand were added, designed by Thomas Collcutt, and the American Bar and Savoy Grill moved into this new part of the hotel.

After the sobering interlude of the Great War, The Savoy gradually began to find itself again, always looking for the latest styles and fashions that would draw the feted and famous. The likes of Noel Coward, George Gershwin, George Bernard Shaw and H G Wells frequented the restaurants and American Bar.

Art deco, jazz and The Savoy were made for each other. The new style was introduced, and the iconic stainless steel sign over Savoy Court erected in 1929. Top jazz musicians from America came to play, and a hydraulic system installed to raise the dance-floor and turn it into a stage for cabaret acts. Epitomising all the fun and flamboyance of the art deco jazz age, the famous Savoy Cocktail Book was published in 1930.

The stars loved The Savoy. England’s own Vivien Leigh was first introduced to her future husband Laurence Olivier in the hotel’s front hall. From America came Hollywood greats such as Al Jolson, Errol Flynn and Katharine Hepburn. From France, Josephine Baker and Coco Chanel. Winston Churchill frequently lunched with his cabinet at the hotel during the Second World War, and he attended his dining club dinners at The Savoy as often as possible, until his death in 1965.

Once peace was declared, The Savoy quickly regained its air of glamour and luxury. Princess Elizabeth was first seen with Prince Philip of Greece in public at a Savoy reception. When the Princess became the Queen a few years later, The Savoy threw quite the largest and most lavish Coronation Ball in London.

The new Elizabethan age saw a new generation of actors, film stars and politicians at The Savoy. Among the most glamorous: Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren and Marilyn Monroe. The Savoy swung into the 1960s with guests ranging from the Beatles and Bob Dylan to Louis Armstrong, Marlon Brando and Jane Fonda.




A number of refurbishments were undertaken as the century came to a close, the last completed just in time for the great Savoy party that celebrated the new Millennium. On December 2007 began the most extensive of restorations, which would re-launch The Savoy ... with all the flair and opulence of old.

The Savoy is famous for having no check-in or check-out requirements in the way of other hotels. Representatives meet travelers at the airport and arrange their transport to the hotels; personal butlers attend to their every need; and routine administration is discreetly handled behind the scenes. Needless to say, such comfort and discretion aren't cheap, but then, The Savoy's clients usually don't have to worry about such mundane considerations as money!

I've had the pleasure of dining at the Savoy once, in the 1990's . . . a very nice gesture of hospitality from my hosts while in London. I'm afraid it would have been far out of my price range if I'd had to pay! Still, I have happy memories of the occasion. It's nice to see so grand an institution return to life.

Peter

How potato chips are made

This may be a familiar subject to many, but I'd never seen a video depiction of how potato chips were made. This one has satisfied my curiosity.

What annoys me is the number of chips that can be cut from a single potato. If you look at the cost (by weight) of the raw materials, and compare it to the cost of the finished product, it's quite sickening!

Peter

Too much government!

The author of the blog 'Rage Against The Kakistocracy' has posted a very thought-provoking article examining the inordinate amount of Government interference in almost every aspect of our lives. If you, like me, prefer a minimalist form of government, taking care of essentials only and leaving the rest to individual discretion, the article is likely to produce real anger! Even if you're comfortable with more government than I'd prefer, the extent of its involvement in our everyday lives should give you pause.

The author lists the many areas in which legislation or regulation affects him. The first ten he mentions are:

1. Government is in my wallet.
2. Government is in my paycheck.
3. Government is in my employer's HR department.
4. Government is in my glove compartment.
5. Government is in my car's engine compartment.
6. Government is in my steering wheel and door panels.
7. Government controls owns my car's manufacturer.
8. Government is in my gasoline.
9. Government is in my medicine cabinet.
10. Government is in my toilet.

There are many more at the link. Highly recommended (not to mention disturbing) reading.

Peter

Not too much posting tonight

I've had a long day, helping Miss D. with the ongoing refurbishing and reassembly of her airplane (including my first attempt - successful, I'm pleased to report - at cutting Lexan to the required shapes for new cabin windows), shopping for bits and pieces, and spending a very enjoyable afternoon with a sergeant of Anchorage PD, a friend of Miss D.'s (and now mine too), who introduced us to a variety of the full-auto weapons in his collection. Lots of high-volume, high-speed noise ensued, to everyone's enjoyment.

I'm a tired puppy now. I'll put up one post linking to another blog, and a video. Back to normal blog fare tomorrow night.

Peter

The irony! It burns!

From Federal News Radio:

Members of the American Postal Workers Union, for obvious reason, elect their national officers via mail ballot. Most postal clerks, who sort the mail, belong to the union. Their union brothers with the National Association of Letter Carriers deliver the mail. And their track record, considering the massive daily mail volume, is very good.

Most of the time.

Unlike many unions where national leaders decide which presidential candidate the union will back, postal unions let their members make the choice. Again by mail ballot.

Normally the APWU election committee would be counting ballots this week, at the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel downtown. But there has been a problem. So far only 39,071 ballots have been received which is only a small percentage of the union's membership and a much lower total than in past elections.

So what happened to all those mail ballots?

You got it!

They seem to be lost in the mail.

There's more at the link.

Sometimes the snark provides itself . . .





Peter

Now that's a celebration!

A farmer came up with a novel - and explosive - idea to celebrate his birthday.

Peter

Love at high altitude

This story is a few months old, but it made me smile, so I thought I'd share it.

As reunions go, it only lasted a few minutes.

But Jeff and Christine McLean were thrilled nonetheless to see each other, even though they couldn't hug, let alone kiss.

Married in May 2009 in Fox Point, the couple has spent most of their first year of marriage apart.

Really far apart. As in different cockpits in different airspaces.

Air Force Capt. Christine McLean pilots a refueling plane and Navy Lt. Jeff McLean flies an F/A-18 Super Hornet.

After Christine McLean was deployed from England to southwest Asia in May for refueling missions in the skies over Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries, she hoped she might hook up - literally - with her husband, who has been flying combat and support missions from the USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier since January.

But it wasn't until last week, on Jeff McLean's final and 40th flight on this deployment that he rendezvoused with the air refuelers over Pakistan and was happy to see it was his wife's plane.

As commander of her KC-135 Stratotanker, Christine McLean speaks to pilots of planes maneuvering behind the refueler to top off their fuel tanks. So the couple spoke for a short time. It was dark, which meant only a brief glimpse for the husband and wife.

The next day, Jeff McLean e-mailed his parents back home in Mequon with the happy news and included a picture taken through night vision goggles by another pilot in his squadron.




. . .

Though it was dark and turbulent - difficult conditions for aerial refueling - Jeff McLean said it was one of the highlights of the deployment. Fighter planes must refuel a few times on each mission over Afghanistan.

"After she gave me about 10,000 pounds of fuel, I flew right up next to her cockpit. She turned on the lights and waved, and I could see her, but it's pretty dark in my jet, so I'm not sure that she ever saw me waving . . .  We were able to fly together all the way out of country and back over the Arabian Sea at 500 knots, then I had to head back and land on the ship and she headed back to her base. As we broke apart, I lit my afterburner, which hopefully looked pretty cool in the dark. It was an absolutely perfect flight."

There's more at the link.

Talk about "So near, but yet so far"! Still, they're back from their deployments at last, so hopefully their contact is now at rather closer proximity.

Peter

Miles and miles and miles of shelves . . .

The Bodleian Library at Oxford University in England has (amongst its many activities) the function of repository for all books published in that country. One copy must, by law, be sent to the Bodleian for storage and future reference. (The Library of Congress performs this function in the USA.)

Given that the Bodleian has been in existence for many centuries, and has been accumulating reference resources and all those published books, it was running out of space - fast. Today it announced its solution to the problem.

The Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford today unveiled its new £26-million [about US $41.3 million] Book Storage Facility (BSF), capable of holding 8.4 million volumes on 153 miles of shelving.




The new book warehouse, in South Marston, near Swindon, will store lower-usage items from the Libraries’ collections that had overwhelmed the existing bookstacks and required additional temporary storage in various locations in and outside Oxford. These collections will now be brought together at the BSF, including books, maps, manuscripts, microfilms, periodicals and newspapers primarily from the 18th century onwards. Over the next year nearly 6 million books will be moved into the BSF in what will be the biggest book move in the Bodleian’s history (see Book Moves).




The Book Storage Facility consists of a 11-metre tall solid shelving system comprising 31 Very Narrow Aisles (VNA), with seven different bay type configurations to accommodate the different sizes of books and other materials. It also has a capacity equivalent to 153 miles (230 kilometres) of shelf space and a five level multi-tier structure for map storage. To guarantee the books’ preservation for the long-term, volumes will be stored in 745,000 bar-coded and specially designed storage trays and boxes that are of archival standard. Floor area of the warehouse equates to 1.6 football pitches although the High-Density shelving provides shelf surface area equivalent to 16.5 football pitches.




The decision to site the facility outside Oxford has been informed by the new academic strategy for the Libraries. This focuses on increasing the overall speed of access to information by providing direct access to high-demand print collections, increased online access to materials, and electronic document delivery. As a result of this strategy, the BSF will be used to house low-use collections, many of which have electronic copies available.

There are more photographs at the link. The statistics of the new facility are a bit staggering:

Racking:

• 11.4m (37½ feet) high, aisle length 71 metres (233 feet)
• 31 Aisles totalling 3,224 bays with 95,000 shelf levels
• 2,196 tons of steel
• 4550m of safety rail
• Over 25,000 nuts and bolts
• Over 1,000.000 rivets
• Over 18,000 floor fixings

* Archived microfilm to be stored - 1600 linear metres [about 5,250 feet, or almost a mile]
* 600 map cabinets to hold over 1.2 million maps and large format items
* Cables - 49,500 metres [about 162,400 feet, or 30¾ miles] of fire alarm, sub mains, lighting, power and security cables.

I can only hope they make progress on digitizing their collection for computerized access, so that the facility can turn into a warehouse without much in the way of retrieval. I should think that going up and down to get at those top shelves must be something of an occupational hazard!





Peter