Moms are such killjoys

I only used scalp electrodes on my daughter, since my wife wouldn’t let me drill holes in my daughter’s head.

 - Dr. Chris James, University of Southampton, via ExtremeTech and the Times of India.

Second-best headline of 2012

People’s Daily Quotes the Onion: Kim Jong Eun ‘Sexiest Man Alive’

Best headline of 2012

Cloned dogs run wild in Central Park, attacking other pets and people

Headline of the day

"Twins Involved In The Petraeus-Allen Scandal Once Cooked Alligator On Food Network Show"

Quote of the day

What about the generals? The women couldn't have made any progress in the role of "social liaison" if the generals didn't want to be liaised.

- Ann Althouse

Headline of the week

Jeffco "Democrat of the Year" Convicted of Felony Theft

Sex and the single personality cult member

The Obama campaign released this incredibly creepy campaign commercial to attract young female voters.  Because, ya know, nothing's better for attracting women than desperation.

Reading faces

I went for a walk in the Ornamental Gardens today during lunch, partly because I am a lover of the cultured and beautiful, but mostly because I wasn't watching where I was walking and wound up there.  At the north entrance into the park from the garden, there's a bench in front of a low brownstone wall, with a grassy hill in back of the wall.  Sitting on the wall with his feet on the bench was a man holding a baby.  His wife was holding a camera.  She was trying to get the baby to sit still for the picture.

"Stop wiggling.  That's it.  Don't you look nice!  Now say 'Cheese!'"

"No!"  (this was the baby, not the man)

"'Cheese!'"

"No!  No!  No!"

The man had the sheepish "aw come on, I'm not that bad" look that guys have when they have something to apologize for, but I assumed that I'm just not any good at reading faces.  As I walked past the woman said, "I'm going to kill your mother for teaching him that word."

Two dedicated employees

According to the Hour, someone reported suspicious activities on the roof of the UPS building last night. When the police got there, they surrounded the building and then caught a man and a woman on the roof.  Their excuse? The man said that they were UPS employees:

The suspect went on to say that while he and his coworker have an alarm code to get into the building, he couldn't get his keys to open the front door, so he hopped on the roof in an attempt to drop the package through a window leading to his boss's office.

When asked why he had to drop off the package on a Saturday night, the suspect said it was time sensitive and that his boss needed it

Pretty lame, huh? But here's the rub: the police called UPS security and found out the man's story was true. He couldn't get in to deliver the package, so he went up on the roof to throw the package in through a window. Now that's a dedicated delivery company.

Quote of the day

Well you've got to hand it to Mitt Romney, 'cause President Obama sure did.

- Seth Meyers, after the first Obama-Romney debate.

Quote of the day

 Sales are down because no-one knows who to bribe.

- Beijing salesman, quoted by the Wall Street Journal's China Realtime Report.

Quote of the day

Obama and Clinton are currently starring as the Siskel & Ebert of Pakistani TV, giving two thumbs down to Innocence of Muslims in hopes that it will dissuade local moviegoers from giving two heads off to consular officials.

- Mark Steyn

Dr. Strangelove

News headline of the week:  Missile defense workers told to stop surfing porn sites. (via Christopher Fountain.)

Quote of the day

If you want to live forever, then don't stop breathing, like I did.

- Val Patterson

Where's a good Third Amendment lawyer when you need one?

A British judge rejected a suit by tenants of a big apartment building who were upset that her Majesty's army was placing missiles on the building's rooftop to protect London during the 2012 Olympics. 

Residents of the 17-story tower, about 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the Olympic Park in east London, say the missile battery could make their homes a terrorist target.

But the judge said the missiles presented no real threat.

The government would have a problem doing this here in the US.  The Third Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says that "No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law."

Of course, according to Justice Roberts, I suppose that the feds can make you pay a tax if you don't allow the soldiers in your house. And another penalty if you don't give them broccoli every night.

You win some, you lose some.

US violent crime rate down for fifth straight year.
    - MSNBC

Hitchhiker writing 'The Kindness of America' memoir shot by motorist in Montana.
    - Christian Science Monitor 

The late unlamented al Quaeda

Today, everyone's an anglophile.

Universities around the world

Some Australian social science researchers at the University of Melbourne have ranked the higher education systems of countries around the world. The US came up number one. Bet you can't guess who was number two.

Playing detective

A teenager was arrested yesterday afternoon in Norwalk, climbing his neighbor's roof in a wig.

The teen, who was still wearing the hoodie and the wig, told police that his actions were based on a dare, police said. He said his classmates had levied the dare at him, but did not specify the contents of the dare, police said.

There are rumors that the dare involved climbing a roof in a wig.

McDonald's on Route 1 in Fairfield

Yesterday afternoon I was in Fairfield and I noticed I was insufficiently decaffeinated. So I pulled into the McDonald's on the Post Road to get some coffee and an apple pie. There were six or seven employees, but nobody was paying any attention to me. (Sniff. Poor me.) Three of the girls were listening to another girl tell a story.

I imagine that the story-telling girl was just getting off her shift, since she was wearing a coat. She was leaning on the table where the apple-pie machine was, with her back to me. In the middle of a sentence, she sneezed full on on the apple-pie machine and wiped her nose. None of the other employees batted an eye.

I had my coffee at Starbucks.

Economics joke

Ian Cowie relates a joke to help explain the Greek credit crisis:

Some years ago a small rural town in Spain twinned with a similar town in Greece.

The Mayor of the Greek town visited the Spanish town. When he saw the palatial mansion belonging to the Spanish mayor he wondered how he could afford such a house. The Spaniard said; “You see that bridge over there? The EU gave us a grant to build a four-lane bridge, but by building a single lane bridge with traffic lights at either end this house could be built”.

The following year the Spaniard visited the Greek town. He was simply amazed at the Greek Mayor’s house, gold taps, marble floors, it was marvellous. When he asked how this could be afforded the Greek said; “You see that bridge over there?”

The Spaniard replied; “No.”

I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to explain how this relates to Connecticut's current budget situation.

The humblest thing that V.I. Arnold ever said

This attempt to produce something useless ended with a failure.

- Arnold (1998) Higher dimensional continued fractions, Regular and Chaotic Dynamics (3) pp 10-17.

Arnold died last year at the age 0f 72.

A tough act to follow

Woman read Bible for more than an hour to attacker who had just slashed her throat

Newt dodges another bullet

Donald Trump endorses Mitt Romney for Republican nomination.

Depends on your point of view

From Best of the Web Today:

Putting Everything in Perspective

"I want to cut his nuts out."--Jesse Jackson on Barack Obama, quoted by the Chicago Tribune, July 10, 2008

"The ultimate insult."--Jesse Jackson on Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's pointing her finger at Barack Obama, quoted by the Chicago Sun-Times, Jan. 28, 2012

Attention, please!

"What's he telling me?"

Monday, the New Zealand Herald reported that in a video taken at the Wellington Zoo,

Sofia Walker, 3, was dwarfed by Malik, a 7-year-old "stroppy" lion, as she pressed up against the glass that separated her from the enclosure.

The close encounter happened last Wednesday morning, just after Malik had been given his breakfast.

Sofia and Malik looked directly at each other before the lion angrily pawed at the glass - upset someone disturbed his meal - which seemed to surprise the young girl, but not scare her.

Sofia was called away from the glass by her mother, Sharon, but instead the girl stood her ground and asked: "What's he telling me?"

One of the zookeepers said that Sofia had a "lot of spunk." But her father doesn't think she wants to grow up to be a zookeeper herself. "She'd much rather be a fairy."

Handy translation tool ...

... for your next Egyptian voyage. (This nice page is due to Chip Ahoy, which I strongly suspect is an assumed name.)

Quote of the day

Experts say that people need to try new challenges to keep their minds sharp. That's especially important in my case because I plan on living to 140, and I don't want to spend my last 60 years trying to find the TV remote.

- Scott Adams in The Wall Street Journal.