Run, run as fast as you can. You can’t catch me, I’m the non gender specific gingerbread being
Which is in reference to this:
Gingerbread ‘person’, the PC pudding: Now even biscuits can’t escape the politically correct brigade
Snerk.
Nov 152010
Nov 152010
Silver-nosed Danish astrono-zombies!
Body of Danish Astronomer Tycho Brahe Exhumed from Tomb
Archeologists are exhuming the body of 16th century astronomer Tycho Brahe from a tomb in Prague to solve long-standing mysteries over the famed Danish scientist’s health — and possibly, his death.
This will not end well.
Nov 142010
… have this pre-loaded onto your laptop. When you get out of prison, let us all know how it went.
Nov 142010
http://johnnyedge.blogspot.com/2010/11/these-events-took-place-roughly-between.html
Read this. If you ever plan on flying again, read this. And hope that this may help change things.
Basically, a guy is facing a $10,000 civil suit for refusing to be sexually assaulted.
Nov 132010
In the late 80’s/early 90’s, the Bell-Boeing team behind the V-22 showed a display model and a painted three-view of what they termed the “AV-22,” for “Attack.” This would have had the V-22’s wing, propulsion system and tail, but an entirely new fuselage. This would have produced a highly armed vehicle capable of providing full mission escort to passenger and cargo carrying V-22s. This would be useful, as attack choppers could not keep up with the V-22, and fighter jets did not have the duration (and would have a hard time flying as *slow* as the V-22, especially at the landing zone).
The V-22 is shown armed with a Gatling gun under the nose; two Sidewinder missiles, and some unknown number of internally stored Maverick air-to-surface missiles, deployable from beneath the forward fuselage.
If anyone has more on this (good drawings/diagrams, brochures, photos of the model, better artwork, etc.), I’d be interested.
Nov 122010
One thing I’ve missed about the Midwest is autumn, something that Colorado, California and Utah don’t know how to do properly. So when I returned there a few weeks back, I guessed that I’d get to see some of it… but autumn this year was pretty dreary. I was told that this year the trees pretty much went straight from green to brown to dead, skipping right over the “bright red and orange and yellow” stage for the most part. Still, there was the occasional tree valiantly trying to put on a good show.
Nov 122010
Two things:
1) I’ll believe it when I see it
2) If I see it, it’ll be awesome
Electric 172 Aimed At Training Market
Claims: 2-hour duration, 25,000 hours between engine overhaul, $5-$10/hour energy cost.
Nov 122010
I have been pestering the USAF FOIA offices for info on Pluto for more than a decade and a half. Long ago, I got hold of one document that has provided me most of what I know about the program, but it was just a lean summary, with big, fat, tantalizing gaps. One of its good points, though, was a pretty lengthy bibliography. I have been requesting several documents from that bibliography since the early/mid 90’s. Every few years I send in a request; and a few months later I get a letter back saying they can’t find the documents. Sigh.
So what I wrote for APR a while back was a summary of pretty much all I had, from a few scattered sources, knowing full well that the documents I wanted, the ones that would *really* tell the tale, seemed to have vanished. Oddly, there’s a lot more available about the nuclear reactor at the heart of the vehicle than on the airframe of the vehicle itself.
A few months ago I fired off another FOI request for the documents, and for a bibliogrpahy of related documents. The reference I have lists the titles of a few volumes out of many for the final Vought report, but not the whole set; so what the hell, I asked for a list of all of ’em.
Shortly after I left on my trip, I was contacted by an editor interested in publishing a book on Pluto. What I have now would make a dandy “Squadron In Action”-size book; but what he was after was a full hardback history of the program. So, the idea sorta stagnated.
So I picked up my vacation hold mail. Lo and behold, there was a thin package from DTIC, with a response to my Pluto FOIA request. And this time… they’ve found them. The whole set of Vought documents. Included in the package was a complete bibliography of the report with all its volumes; the three volumes I had known about and specifically requested have been copied and passed on to the controlling agency for declassification review.
The biblioigraphy shows that the individual volumes vary from Unclassified to Secret, but none of them are currently available to the public. But for the first time in 15 years, there is now a reasonable hope that they might soon be. If I can snag these reports… a full Pluto book now looks like a fully reasonable prospect, to follow the Orion book.
Nov 122010
Going to go drop off some mail and pick up some mail at the PO. So while I’m gone, here’s a sale: 45% off all Air Drawings and Documents. As with the recent 1/3 off sale, simply order both the “coupon” below ($.50) and, let’s call it at least $12 would of Adwgs and/or Adocs, and I’ll refund 45% of the total. Obviously, the sale won’t last real long…
Remember to order the “coupon” and the items all in one order. Otherwise… it won’t work. No “coupon,” no savings…
SALE HAS ENDED.
Nov 122010
If there’s one government program that proves that “land of the free” is not an accurate description of America, it’s property tax. It proves that nobody actually, trully own the land that they think they own… they’re just renting. Even if the land was purchased by an ancestor centuries ago and handed down from generation to generation, the local government still thinks that *they* own it.
As one example of a great many, read through this story.
Short form: a 71-year-old woman has a tax dispute with the town of Redding, Connecticut. Reddings response? Foreclose on 2 of her 8.5 acres, and sell them to someone else. It just so happens that those two acres contained her driveway, and it just so happens that that the someone who bought it put a chian across it and dug a trench. So now, the fuel oil truck can’t get to her house to bring her heating oil, she can’t get deliveries of hay for her horses, she has to walk through the woods to get to her car to drive to chemotherapy.
Now, it could be that the woman is massively at fault here, and has spent her life being a pain in the ass to everyone around her and racking up enemies left and right. Who knows. But the thing to note is… the town of Redding essentially stole her land and sold it to someone else.
If an American cannot be secure in their own home… where can an American be secure? If you’ve bought something, it’s *yours,* damnit.