Wednesday, August 08, 2007

2 Dumb 4 Sure

A couple has got over the disappointment of having their choice of 4Real as the name for their baby son turned down by calling him Superman instead.

Pat and Sheena Wheaton were told by the government registry in New Zealand they could not register the name because it included a digit.
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Mr Wheaton said he came up with the unlikely moniker after seeing the baby for the first time in an ultrasound scan and realising their baby was “for real”.

However, the family has refused to let the law or good taste get in the way of their choice, insisting they will continue to refer to their two-month-old son as 4Real.

Telegraph

Run for Your Lives!!!!

The GW crowd has just come out of the closest. The Certifiably Insane Closet. Now they are claiming the earth is going to fight back!

Unlike most apparently intractable problems, which have a tendency to go away when examined closely and analytically, the climate change predicament just seems to get bigger and scarier the more we learn about it.

Now we discover that not only are the oceans and the atmosphere conspiring against us, bringing baking temperatures, more powerful storms, floods and ever-climbing sea levels, but the crust beneath our feet seems likely to join in too.

Looking back to other periods in our planet’s history when the climate was swinging about wildly, most notably during the last ice age, it appears that far more than the weather was affected. The solid earth also became restless, with an increase in volcanic activity, earthquakes, giant submarine landslides and tsunamis. At the rate climate change is accelerating, there is every prospect that we will see a similar response from the planet, heralding not just a warmer future but also a fiery one.

Just so we have a tally, here’s a list of some of the things they accuse Global Waming of also causing.

Meanwhile, the word green has officially become a cliche.

Top 10 Historical Mysteries

There’s some good ones in here I hadn’t even heard of.

Prove It and Win

Prove Al Gore right and win $100,000. Of course, they know you can’t. And so does Al.

And while you’re at it, join AA. That’s Apocaholics Anonymous.

Socialized Medicine 101

First they get you dependent on it, then they decide what medical help you are allowed to have. Then they start cutting out people they choose to classify in order to cut down their costs. This is why socialized medicine isn’t “health care for all”.

People who are grossly overweight, who smoke heavily or drink excessively could be denied surgery or drugs following a decision by a Government agency yesterday.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) which advises on the clinical and cost effectiveness of treatments for the NHS, said that in some cases the “self-inflicted” nature of an illness should be taken into account.

Of course, they throw in the weasel words that “people should not be discriminated against by doctors simply because they smoked or were overweight. Its ruling should apply only if the treatment was likely to be less effective, or not work because of an unhealthy habit.”

That’s just their way of getting around the fact that this is a appallingly inhumane decision. And the sup-par doctors they have will more than likely use it as an excuse whenever they choose.

Socialized medicine is not the answer any more than out HMOs and health insurance. The whole medical system needs a major overhaul.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Crazy Cat Lady, Moscow Style

130 cats in a tiny apartment. Yikes!

Monday, August 06, 2007

The Funky Planet

The weirdest planet ever discovered is also the lightest.

The largest planet ever discovered is also one of the strangest and theoretically should not even exist, scientists say.

Dubbed TrES-4, the planet is about 1.7 times the size of Jupiter and belongs to a small subclass of “puffy” planets that have extremely low densities. The finding will be detailed in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal.

“Its mean density is only about 0.2 grams per cubic centimeter, or about the density of balsa wood,” said study leader Georgi Mandushev of the Lowell Observatory in Arizona. “And because of the planet’s relatively weak pull on its upper atmosphere, some of the atmosphere probably escapes in a comet-like tail.”

Impressive!

A Gentlemen’s Duel

Pretty funny animation about a steam punk giant robot duel.

[via Boing Boing]

Sunday, August 05, 2007

It’s a Trap!!