crome.org

Dang, I never knew about this.  During prohibition, the government required industrial alcohol manufacturers to add very toxic poison to the alcohols, knowing full-well that people get their alcohol from stolen industrial alcohol.  Ended up killing around 10,000 americans.  I wonder how many went blind.

Check out the full story at Slate.

This is really an impressive commercial, with almost no computer aid in the shot.

Okay, some folks just found a 100 Million year old insect embedded an amber that has 3 eyes on a stalk on the back of its head.  Now that’s cool. Click on the image for more info.

Cool find from Richard Wiseman’s blog: the Amazing Brick Man.

Al Franken attached an amendment to a defense spending bill that would prohibit defense contracts going to companies that prohibit employees from suing the over sexual assault and other crimes.  Why is such an amendment needed?  Well, heh, our friend Halliburton covered up the case of Jamie Leigh Jones who was gang raped in Iraq, then Halliburton covered up the incident, and told her she would be out of a job if she told anyone about it.

So him, Al Franken, did what most reasonable people would do:  He said, “There should be a law against that.”  Thus was born said amendment.

In typical modern Republican style, fully 75% of the republicans voted against the amendment, and for protection of companies that cover up and protect rapists!  Seriously.

The Rapist protector protectors are:

And the sane (for this vote anyway) republicans are:

So, yeah for Utah — both senators Bennett and Hatch are republican and voted for it.  It’s great when people allow their interal moral compass override their political affiliation.  I’m no great fan of these guys in general, but they get some props from me this time around.

Why is it that the party that claims to be more religious, is clearly less moral?  The less religious party (democrats) have a straighter moral compass?

I suspect it’s that the republicans think they have a direct mandate from God, and therefore whatever they do is right.  Whereas democrats have to answer to people, not God, and thus think through their actions.

I dunno.

Good lord, this is how some of your US senators spend their time.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

http://www.ohgizmo.com/2010/01/09/ces2010-rca-airnergy-charger-harvests-electricity-from-wifi/

And if you believe that, I’ve got some beachfront property to sell you in Florida.

I’m half way through The Prosecution of George W Bush for Murder, by Vincent Bugliosi.  In case you’re not a fan of true crime books, Bugliosi is the L.A. Prosecutor who investigated, prosecuted and obtained a murder conviction for Charles Manson.  If you recall, Manson didn’t actually murder Sharon Tate, but he was convicted of her murder.  Helter Skelter is Bugliosi’s book covering Mason.

In any case, he makes a compelling case that W. should be tried and convicted of Murder for taking the nation to war on a lie.  Bush and friends said over and over in the lead up to war in Iraq that we were performing a pre-emptive strike, and that Iraq was linked to 9/11.  Turns out… well… those were both lies.  It was well known by the administration that Iraq posed *no* threat to the US, unless provoked by an imminent attack by the US.

The book lays out a very, very clear, and what seems to me irrefutable, case against Bush.  I can’t figure out any reason he shouldn’t be tried, convicted, and potentially executed, for causing over 100,000 deaths of Americans and Iraqis, because he wanted to.

There is no statute of limitations on murder, and he could be prosecuted in any of the 50 states, or by a federal court.  So, unless some President pardons him, he’s vulnerable to prosecution.  Let’s hope some attorney general has the courage to carry out justice and indite Bush, and let a jury decide if a crime has been committed.  It seems irrefutable to me.

A warning though:  if you read this book, you will be furious with Bush, Rice, Cheney.  It’s not fun to read.  It’s infuriating.

Alright, after looking more closely at the helicopter fishing video, I’m pretty sure it’s fake. That fish isn’t flopping around — it’s already dead.

Check this out

I just saw this Instructable on how to make a flip-book, and was inspired to make one myself.

I couldn’t fathom the thought of using a Word template with 150 odd individual pictures, so I wrote a simple script to composite all the images.   Here’s the original video:

And here’s the flip-book version:

Clearly, Henry and I need to make a better video, and better flip book, but it’s promising…. more to come.

Here’s an interesting chart.  Click for more info.

I’ve been fishing about 3 times in the last 10 years.  I don’t think I’ve caught even one fish.  Clearly, I had the wrong technique: