Here’s a concurrent contest. Since this one will be a bit trickier, I think, the prize is $30 worth of downloadables.
Name the country of origin, company/design bureau responsible, timeframe and program. I’ll leave this up till Friday or so.
Another one that *should* be easy. I’ll leave this up till Friday or so, though I suspect someone’ll get it. First respondant to correctly ID this gets $15 off of any of my downloadables.
South of San Francisco.
Wow, what an innovative way to raise money…
From Fox 28:
Some people in Ohio complain they received $25 parking tickets last week when their vehicles were parked in their own driveways.
Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner defends the citations, saying they were issued under a city law against parking on unpaved surfaces — including gravel driveways. The mayor, who’s facing a recall vote, says he stands by the city’s acting commissioner of Streets, Bridges and Harbor, Susan Frederick, who wrote the tickets.
During a news conference Monday, Finkbeiner ignored a reporter’s question of whether the crackdown and fines are at all related to the city’s budget crisis.
What kind of politician would support ticketing people who have parked their cars in their own driveways? A quick Wiki search… ah, here we go:
Carleton “Carty” S. Finkbeiner (born May 30, 1939 Toledo, Ohio) is an American Democratic politician who is the current mayor of Toledo, Ohio.
I’m shocked, SHOCKED, to find a Democrat involved in dubious fundraising!
Read the rest of this d-bags Wiki article. He’s a real piece of work.
Just to prove that the UK government hasn’t cornered the market on stupid with respect to knives, here’s some dumbassery out of the US government.
U.S. Government Trying To Take Away Your Pocket Knives!
U .S. Customs has proposed revoking earlier rulings that assisted opening knives are not switchblades. The proposal would not only outlaw assisted opening knives, its overly broad new definition of a switchblade would also include all one-handed opening knives and most other pocket knives! …
The proposed new rule would not only outlaw assisted opening knives, its new broad definition of a switchblade would also include one-handed opening knives and could be easily interpreted to cover most other pocket knives, even simple old-fashioned slip-joints. At this point, one-hand opening and assisted opening knives are 80% of U.S. knife sales (per AKTI industry sources). For most knife companies, they represent all or the majority of their product lines. These are the knives Americans take with them to work and to play everyday.
Oy.
It’s a nice little museum, with some interesting – and occasionally oddball – displays. The “Minority Report” jetpack was unexpected, to say the least.
All panoramas are reduced in size to 15% of the original.
Next up: beach.
Snort.
First ‘anti-stab’ knife to go on sale in Britain
The knives are expected to sell for £40-50
The knife has a rounded edge instead of a point and will snag on clothing and skin to make it more difficult to stab someone.
It was invented by industrial designer John Cornock, who was inspired by a documentary in which doctors advocated banning traditional knives.
These are not “govenrment mandated” knives, but instead are simply a commercial product. However… now that such knives are available, it could be argued that the law might be changed to mandate that all knives be given this sort of “safe” shape.
Fortunately for criminals, there are a few additional products readily available that might prove of value:
And even more helpfully, the website of the knives manufacture provides some useful diagrams for reversing the silliness of the knives:
Just cut along the line, grind smooth and sharpen, and viola! You can now get all stabby!
Of course, the idea of taking a £40 knife and modifying it is kinda silly. We’re talking about criminals here. Are criminals the sort of people who would break rules or demonstrate a high level of inventiveness when it comes to converting innocuous items into stabbing devices? It is to laugh.
Pffffff. Next some loonie will claim that criminals could use “pointed sticks.”
Artwork and an old photo of the Kaman K-16B VTOL testbed. Built in the mid ’50’s, this little tiltwing airplane based on a Grumman Goose was hoped to achieve VTOL performance with the aid of the Kaman-invented “Rotaprop” props which had articualted flaps. As it happened, the plane never flew (I believe it did some tethered tests, not sure if it got airborne).
I’ve seen this aircraft up close a few times at the New England Air Museum and have a bunch of photos, if people are interested.
Tactical Corsets. Pure. Fricken’. Genius.
Ummmm. Dayum.
And before you think I was being a perv, surfing the net for such things… get your mind out of the gutter, I found the link to this on Fark. So, go take a look at the Fark thread if you don’t believe me. And immediately put your mind right back into the gutter.
Uvas Canyon was my favorite place in Califonia when I lived there. it’s a place of great natural beauty, and it’s a damned shame that it has to be in a state like California. Perhaps when California collapses, the Uvas Canyon region might break free and rejoin the United States. One can hope, I suppose…
Late May is not the best time to visit. March probably would have been better… cooler and wetter.
