There are those this year that have had enough snow. Some folks have had enough. From the Minnesotans for Global Warming, here's Frozen Wasteland, sung to to the song made famous by The Who.
Note: I wish it were funnier instead of a bit ham fisted, but then again, James Hansen and Al Gore can't claim a lock on subtlety either. Without further editorializing:
When left alone for any period of time, I like to fantasize about flying small and most assuredly unsafe vehicles around city airspace.
Death From Above takes on a whole new meaning for this guy
However, unlike this guy pictured above, my dreams of flying don't come with a death wish.
Anyway, this post isn't about little home made death traps, it's about some company trying to sell some slick mass produced death traps. Oh, and maybe autogyro technology to the military while they're at it.
Sound not req'd for this kinda cool idea of things to come in the flying car department.
Notice they don't show this miracle personal vehicle landing, but merely show tests of the landing gear that can take a fall from 15 feet. So, the landing gear will survive a fall from a bad landing -- the rest of the vehicle and the occupants... well, that video must have been left on the cutting room floor...
Yes, we're all doomed! DOOMED, I tell you!
And I can't _wait_ to find out how long the battery in that thing lasts...
From The Joy of Tech
h/t to @dsilverman
I feel weird posting this video because I might be giving instructions to other viruses on how to attack us humans.
I don't want to aid terrorist viruses.
I need to finish watching this
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/vp/33217642#33217642
It's not about health care.
It's about death.
Film Drunk links us to a funny video about how silly the disaster porn movie 2012 will be.
A new trailer hit the webs earlier showing off a multitude of disasters befalling Los Angeles... also known as "Tuesday"
But one inspired person took that same video and edited out all the disaster, leaving nothing but the actors making their "O" faces.
Yes, you'll get it 20 seconds in, but don't click away before the end!
A good joke lays in wait for the stalwart video watcher.
I love a good panic in the morning...
Research conducted at Texas A&M University casts doubts on the notion that El Niño has been getting stronger because of global warming and raises interesting questions about the relationship between El Niño and a severe flu pandemic 91 years ago. The findings are based on analysis of the 1918 El Niño, which the new research shows to be one of the strongest of the 20th century.
El Niño occurs when unusually warm surface waters form over vast stretches of the eastern Pacific Ocean and can affect weather systems worldwide. Using advanced computer models, Benjamin Giese, a professor of oceanography who specializes in ocean modeling, and his co-authors conducted a simulation of the global oceans for the first half of the 20th century and they find that, in contrast with prior descriptions, the 1918-19 El Niño was one of the strongest of the century.
Giese adds, “The most commonly used indicator of El Niño is the ocean temperature anomaly in the central Pacific Ocean. By that standard, the 1918-19 El Niño is as strong as the events in 1982-83 and 1997-98, considered to be two of the strongest events on record, causing some researchers to conclude that El Niño has been getting stronger because of global warming. Since the 1918-19 El Niño occurred before significant warming from greenhouse gasses, it makes it difficult to argue that El Niño s have been getting stronger.â€
The El Niño of 1918 coincided with one of the worst droughts in India, he adds. “It is well known that there is a connection between El Niño and the failure of the Indian monsoon, just as there is a well-established connection between El Niño and Atlantic hurricane intensity,†Giese says. In addition to drought in India and Australia, 1918 was also a year in which there were few Atlantic hurricanes.
The research also raises questions about El Niño and mortality from the influenza pandemic of 1918. By mid-1918, a flu outbreak – which we now know was the H1N1 strain that is of great concern today – was sweeping the world, and the resulting fatalities were catastrophic: At least 25 million people died worldwide, with some estimates as high as 100 million deaths. India was particularly hard hit by the influenza.
“We know that there is a connection between El Niño and drought in India,†Giese notes.
“It seems probable that mortality from influenza was high in India because of famine associated with drought, so it is likely that El Niño contributed to the high mortality from influenza in India.â€
The flu epidemic of 1918, commonly called the “Spanish Flu,†is believed to be the greatest medical holocaust in history. It lasted from March of 1918 to June of 1920, and about 500 million people worldwide became infected, with the disease killing between 25 million to 100 million, most of them young adults. An estimated 17 million died in India, between 500,000 to 675,000 died in the U.S. and another 400,000 died in Japan.
Could the events of 1918 be a harbinger of what might occur in 2009?
Giese says there are some interesting parallels. The winter and spring in 1918 were unusually cold throughout North America, just at the time influenza started to spread in the central U.S. That was followed by a strengthening El Niño and subsequent drought in India. As the El Niño matured in the fall of 1918, the influenza became a pandemic.
With a moderate to strong El Niño now forming in the Pacific and the H1N1 flu strain apparently making a vigorous comeback, the concerns today are obvious, Giese adds.
http://dmc-news.tamu.edu/templates/?a=8028&z=15
When there's just one manufacturer for a specific medication, it really sucks when every bit of the stuff is pulled from the market. 2nd time in a year. Armour Thyroid, I love you, I hate you.
Explanation: http://tinyurl.com/hypomadness
Update: from the article, it looks like there's a decent alternative. Hmm... I may not die after all.
More fun from Charlie Frost, a fictional character in the disaster movie, 2012.
In this animation, Charlie explains how the earth is all screwed.
The funniest part is that in the real world, you can get nearly the same whacky idea set from listening to AM radio late at night.
Anyway, on with the destruction:
YouTube link
Link to This Is The End
Link to the 2012 movie site called Who Will Survive?
Of course all our troubles seem to start in Los Angeles, but the good news is that our salvation apparently comes from there, too.
In the aftermath of a global event that devastates the world's infrastructures, a small band of survivors strives to rebuild society and unravel the mysteries of why the event took place and what the future has in store. Told from the point of view of an eclectic group of neighbors in a Van Nuys, California apartment building, this journey of survival will show us that hope is found in the smallest of victories and heroes are born every day.
So, your basic Melrose Place soap opera set at the end of the world. We'll see how well this one works out when all the initial smash up and aliens taking over (or ARE THEY?) gets thrown at the screen.
It's a mid-season replacement for NBC and the initial show is made by some of the same people that have given some decent work before - that is, if you like FRINGE and JOURNEYMAN.
Via [Forgetomori] comes a video that's really spooky. It's a smoke vortex hovering over the King's Island amusement park
sound not req'd
There is a possible explanation, but it's a boring one, so I'll let this one hit your eyeballs and let it be.
And now for something completely different. Now that I'm back on the internets, I can take in the wonderfully bizarre.
Via the science fiction blog io9.com, here's a Metallica music video for you.
It's an alternate reality version of the 1908 blast near Tunguska, Russia. Russians have discovered a "spore" that was carried to earth with the cometary fragments, and that spore has amazing properties.
Can anyone say, "Zombies"? I knew that you could.
The nine minute long video has subtitles that tell the tale, and the video is certainly a decent view if you like your zombie movies straight from the reels of a 50s Sci-Fi flick. A little confusing on the facts, but zombie fans have never let a few logic points stand in their way of enjoying Zombie Madness...
Sound req'd for Metallica song, "All Nightmare Long" and some filler news reports at the end...
I haven’t always been a huge fan of Halloween, but (when my kids were younger) we took to decorating up our house bigtime. It was a load of fun, but as time dragged on, it became more and more tedious, so eventually we gave up. Still, I can appreciate that others are still big fans.
Including Chad Morrisette from West Hollywood, Calif — who received a visit from the Secret Service who wanted to discover if a Halloween-themed effigy of Sarah Palin, that was being hung from the neck off his front porch, constituted a threat to the Republican nominee for the VP. Apparently, the display also includes John McCain, surrounded by fake flames on top of the house's chimney.
Deputy Special Agent in Charge Wayne Williams said Tuesday that the scene didn't appear to pose a danger to the Alaska governor. "Halloween presents some interesting challenges for us with the masks and costumes," he said. But the Palin effigy, a mannequin with a noose around its neck hanging in the front yard, has elicited protests from some local officials.
Chad Morrisette, the home's owner, said he wouldn't take the display down before Halloween. "If it's a political statement, it's that (McCain's and Palin’s) politics are scary," Morrisette told The Los Angeles Times. West Hollywood Mayor Jeffrey Prang has urged Morrisette to remove the display, and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich has called for an investigation into whether the scene is a hate crime.
Don’t you just love this great country of ours?
Read the rest here.
The Perfessor
As we move into the last couple or three weeks of presidential politics, the candidates are coming into the home stretch. If they can’t make their case now, they never will. It is for all the marbles this time.
Needless to say, as the candidates keep stressing (or in some cases, McCain changing) their messages the comedic possibilities of what is being said, have become downright hilarious.
First up, is my old pal, Jon Stewart talks a little bit of the potential danger in whipping up an audience into a mob:
He then went on to comment on McCain’s “New†Stump speech...
Still, while it is all fun and games, there is tonight’s debate (zzzzzzzzz). Yeah, if you are starting to snooze over the concept of yet another debate (that doesn’t involve that cute Palin gal winkin’ at us). So if you want to enliven the debate, I suggest one of these 20 ways.
Still, the best I’ve seen of late is this website that gives us a clear picture of what Sara Palin as President will truly look like.
“I fear for the Republic.â€
Hopefully if it actually happens, I will laugh as hard.
Just to be sure, it isn’t all fun and games, as political pundit Keith Olbermann points out:
And finally, yes, Sara you have foreign policy experience because you can see Russia from your porch, but then again (according to you) New Hampshire is apparently part of the “Great Northwest.â€
Me, I’m going back to drinking heavy and blowin’ up stuff.
The Perfessor
This just in from The Times-Tribune apparently the Secret Service is taking its job seriously, and investigating threats emanating from the crowd at a Palin rally:
The U.S. Secret Service is investigating a threatening remark directed at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama during a political event in Scranton.
Apparently, a hateful remark came from the crowd while congressional candidate Chris Hackett was addressing the crowd at the Riverfront Sports Complex. (Someone shouted “Kill him!†after a mention of Obama’s name. The story went on to indicate that there was no indication that Hackett or Palin — who took the stage a half-hour later — actually heard the remark (They are Republicans, it isn’t in their job descriptions to actually LISTEN to the electorate).
Read the full story, here.
The Perfessor (again)
As Walt has been stating, Ike is on the way, well, in the wake of the zombie attack that occurred in Katy, the other day, I went back and checked the Walt-cam and found the attached image.
Ike is here!
I, mean, seriously, who knew.
The Perfessor