moonbuggy

Fun little side scroller.

`A $37 million jet fighter belonging to the United States military has been lost at sea during a training exercise in Queensland. The jet was attempting a night landing on the flight deck of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan on Saturday.

The pilot ejected safely and was rescued by the ship’s helicopter, but the FA-18 Hornet strike fighter was unlikely to be retrieved from the ocean, US officials confirmed.

The accident happened when the aircraft carrier was 400 kilometres south-east of Brisbane, ABC television reported.’

`The troubled trial of Saddam Hussein collapsed into chaos moments after resuming as the former Iraqi president and his defence team stormed out and guards dragged his half-brother from the courtroom.

Saddam’s lawyers threatened to boycott future sessions unless the chief judge apologised, and called for the trial to be moved abroad, saying a fair hearing in Iraq was impossible. [..]

“I am the judge and you are the defendant,” Abdel Rahman told Saddam as he checked an outburst by the former Iraqi president, who complained: “This is an American court and it’s rules are American … you cannot force me to stay in court.”‘

‘Too bad Bin Laden does not have an Amazon.com Affiliate Account. With a bit of planning, Osama could have been raking in the dough.

Earlier this month, Bin Laden issued another audiotape single where he threatens the US. In case you thought Osama was evil AND illiterate, you were WRONG. Not only does he read, in his speech, he recommended that Americans read a book called Rogue State by liberal author William Blum.

The result of Osama’s “book club”? As I write this, the book is a top seller on Amazon.com. It is currently #32 on Amazon’s top selling book list. Yesterday it was at #51.’

I have an Amazon associates account, so if you don’t have ads blocked you can buy this book from me. 🙂 Don’t fund terrorism, fund moonbuggy. 🙂

`In a perfect world, there would be no need for this introduction. It is a humbling task to present a sport as old as humankind itself, the grandness of which dwarfs the pyramids. How best can one introduce Rock Paper Scissors, the sport that needs no introduction?

Perhaps I should start by first introducing myself. My name is Master Roshambollah, and I am considered by many to be the greatest professional Rock Paper Scissors player in the history of the sport.’

`That’s not a woman. You owe $500 in attorney’s fees.’

`When Daguerre’s discovery of the art of photography was announced to the world in 1839, many scientists, such as Dr. Bird of Philadelphia, found the concept so extraordinary that they insisted the announcement had to be a hoax. Photography was, of course, quite real, but it has proven to be a favorite tool of hoaxers since its invention. What follows are some notorious photographic fakes arranged in chronological order from the Civil War to the present.’

`Russian probes returned the first images of the Lunar far side and the first images from the Lunar surface. While a manned landing was never accomplished, the final phase of Soviet exploration included a number of impressive robotic missions, returning samples and roving the surface.’

Lots of old pictures.

`The link between cycling and impotence has been clearly established, writes Sandra Blakeslee.

A raft of new studies suggest that cyclists, particularly men, should be careful which bicycle seats they choose.

The studies add to earlier evidence that traditional bicycle saddles, the kind with a narrow rear and pointy nose, play a role in sexual impotence.’

`What Would Jesus Buy?’

Cool interactive 404 Page Not Found error page.

`The declassified document is called “Information Operations Roadmap”. It was obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University using the Freedom of Information Act. [..]

Perhaps the most startling aspect of the roadmap is its acknowledgement that information put out as part of the military’s psychological operations, or Psyops, is finding its way onto the computer and television screens of ordinary Americans.

“Information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and Psyops, is increasingly consumed by our domestic audience,” it reads.

“Psyops messages will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences, including the American public,” it goes on.’

`Known also as wakashudo, “the way of the youth”, it was a practice engaged in by all members of the samurai class, from lowliest warrior to highest lord. Indeed it has been said that it would never have been asked of a daimyo, “lord”, why he took boys as lovers, but why he didn’t.’

`New research reveals that monkey cops help keep social groups in line.

Not having guns or nightsticks, they leverage their group seniority, craft intimidating reputations and count on good voter turnout.

Take the primate police out of a group, as researchers did, and the rest get more violent and aggressive. Interaction between cliques drops significantly. [..]

The study, detailed in today’s issue of the journal Nature, also uncovered a complex monkey “voting” system for appointing the peacekeepers.’

`From space, the aurora is a crown of light that circles each of Earth’s poles. The IMAGE satellite captured this view of the aurora australis (southern lights) on September 11, 2005, four days after a record-setting solar flare sent plasma—an ionized gas of protons and electrons—flying towards the Earth. The ring of light that the solar storm generated over Antarctica glows green in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, shown in this image. The IMAGE observations of the aurora are overlaid onto NASA’s satellite-based Blue Marble image. From the Earth’s surface, the ring would appear as a curtain of light shimmering across the night sky.’

(various size Quicktimes)

`During its first year, Tennessee’s “Crack Tax” has brought in nearly $2 million dollars in state revenue.

The illegal substances tax went into effect last January.

Basically, drug dealers are supposed to pay taxes on illegal drugs and alcohol.

They pay confidentially, and when they do, they get a stamp.

If they’re caught without the stamp, they’ll be prosecuted for not only selling drugs, but for not paying their taxes too.’

‘1. Few people actually saw the Challenger tragedy unfold live on television.
2. The shuttle did not explode in the common definition of that word.
3. The flight, and the astronauts’ lives, did not end at that point, 73 seconds after launch.
4. The design of the booster, while possessing flaws subject to improvement, was neither especially dangerous if operated properly, nor the result of political interference.
5. Replacement of the original asbestos-bearing putty in the booster seals was unrelated to the failure.
6. There were pressures on the flight schedule, but none of any recognizable political origin.
7. Claims that the disaster was the unavoidable price to be paid for pioneering a new frontier were self-serving rationalizations on the part of those responsible for incompetent engineering management — the disaster should have been avoidable.’

Both the official NASA transcript of the cockpit voice recorder and the alleged secret transcript are on the web.

`Wave and tidal power can provide a fifth of the UK’s electricity needs, according to a new report. [..]

Despite Britain’s long shoreline and the vast power contained in its breakers and tides, the Carbon Trust believes only about one fifth of the country’s electricity could economically come from the sea.

It says that wave farms could generate 50 terawatt-hours (TWh – one thousand million kilowatt-hours) per year, and tidal stream installations a further 18TWh.’

`A judge has sentenced a man to life in prison for fatally shooting his elderly mother with a crossbow. [..]

After fighting with his mother over her will, Neal shot her with the crossbow in the chest, authorities said. [..]

“I loved my mother,” Bruce Neal said in court Wednesday. “What I did to my mom was a horrible crime.”

[The judge] said the love that Neal expressed for his mother made his actions more disturbing.’

`A team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Purdue University, and the Russian Academy of Sciences has used sound waves to induce nuclear fusion without the need for an external neutron source, according to a paper in the Jan. 27 issue of Physical Review Letters. [..]

By bombarding a special mixture of acetone and benzene with oscillating sound waves, the researchers caused bubbles in the mixture to expand and then violently collapse. This technique, which has been dubbed “sonofusion,” produces a shock wave that has the potential to fuse nuclei together, according to the team.’

`US Marshals in Roanoke are calling them armed and extremely dangerous. A manhunt is underway for a man suspected of 104 counts of child rape. They’re also looking for his girlfriend on two counts of child endangerment. [..]

Marshals believe they could be traveling in a red Dodge pickup with a “Get-R-Done” bug shield and a sticker on the rear glass that reads “100 percent Cowboy.”‘

`Getting your email address on the web without opening yourself up to 200 spam messages a day is a problem with many possible solutions. There doesn’t seem to be a perfect technique, but there are plenty that suffice. This is another sufficient technique that is perhaps the most esoteric and jerry-rigged of them all, but it works (in decent browsers anyway) and I haven’t seen it discussed anywhere else, so here it goes.’

`When Tammy Klein began investigating crime scenes eight years ago, it was virtually unheard of for a killer to use bleach to clean up a bloody mess.

Today, the use of bleach, which destroys DNA, is not unusual in a planned homicide, said the senior criminalist from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Klein and other experts attribute such sophistication to television crime dramas like “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” which give criminals helpful tips on how to cover up evidence.’

`In a tragic case of mistaken identity, police shot and critically wounded an off-duty officer as he pointed a gun at a suspect outside a fast food restaurant early Saturday, authorities said.

Eric Hernandez, 24, was hit three times and was hospitalized in extremely critical condition, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.’

`When you first meet 4-year-old Roberto Salazar, you can’t help but notice his unwavering smile and constant laughter. By all accounts, he’s a very happy boy.

It is only when he rams his head violently into walls or plays a little too roughly with a schoolmate, all the while smiling, that you are reminded that he suffers from an incredibly rare genetic disorder.

Roberto is one of 17 people in the United States with “congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis,” referred to as CIPA by the few people who know about it.’

`The woodsman who allegedly covered himself in “war paint” before assaulting two men with a machete this week is a decent, well-educated man, according to locals.

Wayne Stephen Parks, 57, has been living in the wilderness here for the past five years, in a makeshift tent near the CSX tracks, the site where he allegedly “hacked” two men with a machete Tuesday night following an argument at his forest quarters.

The story in this small community is a bit different: Hunters say Parks was defending himself and his land.’

`From Curt Schilling to Terrell Owens, meet the ten groin-kicking, preening, backstabbing athletes you most love to hate.’

An Australian made the list. Well deserved, I say.

‘A routine trip down the elevator to a parking garage that would have started the weekend instead turned into a terrifying ordeal for five people when their elevator plunged five levels and hit the bottom floor. [..]

The three men and two women inside the hydraulic elevator were taken to nearby Mount Sinai Hospital and St. Michael’s Hospital with serious compression fractures and broken legs and ankles, emergency officials said.

Emergency crews arrived at the 14-storey building about three minutes after the first call. But they had to frantically run underground to the elevator, which had stopped at the fifth and lowest level below the lobby, because ambulance and fire trucks could not go down the ramp to the garage.’

`Queensland’S police chief has defended an officer who allegedly handcuffed a mother in front of dozens of hysterical children for double-parking outside a Brisbane school.

Yvette Green, 38, of Riverview, was charged with public nuisance, disobeying a police direction and obstructing police as she tried to drop two of her five children at Collingwood Park State School in Brisbane’s west on Wednesday.

Ms Green said a policeman thrust his hand through her open window, handcuffed her and took her into custody as dozens of children – including her three-year-old son – watched hysterical and crying.

She was taken to the Ipswich watch house while another police crew took her son Greg to a daycare centre.’