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Attack ads from the bitter Palpatine-Calrissian presidential race. Today, I'm going to vote for real leadership for the future with Emperor Palpatine. How about you? HT: Gabriel Malor

Science fiction blog io9 asked six major political bloggers what single work of science fiction they would recommend as reading or viewing material for the next President, regardless of who is elected.  Read responses from Markos Moulitsas, Andrew Sullivan, Jonah Goldberg, Amanda Marcotte, Glenn Reynolds, and Kevin Drum as they explain what works they selected and how they are especially relevant for the world of today.

If you could only choose one work of science fiction for the next President to read or view, what would it be?

Link via PopPolitics

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30,000 people in Mariano Roque Alonso, Paraguay cooked and ate 28 kilotons of meat in six hours.

As an American, I am appalled that this record has been taken away from us. Surely we are capable of outconsuming every other nation on earth, in every category. This usurpation must not stand!

Link via J-Walk Blog

Copenhagen Suborbitals is a Danish start-up company trying to make space travel affordable, assuming that you have no desire for creature comforts. Basically you're squished into a tiny nose cone and shot into the upper atmosphere. Sort of like when you were a kid and you put your brother's pet hamster into a model rocket and launched it.

Link via Geekologie

The automated features in Google News can be handy, but sometimes misleading, as the amusing screenshot above indicates. Link via DoublePlusUndead

Courtesy of Reuters, which has other ancient jokes as well:

It is a saying of the Sumerians, who lived in what is now southern Iraq and goes: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap."

image via flickr user rosemanios

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Invented by Matty Sallin, Daniel Bartolini, and Hsiao-huh Hsu, this alarm clock gently wakes you with the aroma of freshly-cooked bacon.  Here's how it works:

A frozen strip of bacon is placed in Wake n' Bacon the night before. Because there is a 10 minute cooking time, the clock is set to go off 10 minutes before the desired waking time. Once the alarm goes off, the clock it sends a signal to a small speaker to generate the alarm sound. We hacked the clock so that the signal is re-routed by a microchip that in responds by sending a signal to a relay that throws the switch to power two halogen lamps that slow-cook the bacon in about 10 minutes.

Link via Double Plus Undead

Tired of chasing and feeding on the living alone?  Need someone to share the apocalypse with?  Sign up for a free account with ZombieHarmony.

Link via Double Plus Undead

Dutch researchers are trying to channel the energy of people in dance clubs into electricity to power said clubs.  Here's a one-minute video from the BBC and National Geographic:




http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK2N008M1UF3JRB via Glenn Reynolds

Spanno at Al Dente lists his five favorite foods from movies and TV that he'd like to try someday.  I agree that Futurama's Bachelor Chow always seemed like a good idea.

The sheer simplicity of Bachelor Chow has had me curious for a bite since Futurama started. What bachelor wouldn't want a meal in a can? It's like dog food for people. It's genius! Sure you could get the same thing from a microwave dinner, but who has four minutes to heat that up?

http://www.aldenteblog.com/2008/07/my-five-favorit.html via Instapundit

Add some fright to your flower garden with this resin sculpture by Alan Dickenson.  Link -- Thanks, Tom Jackson!

He who is punished is never he who performed the deed. He is always the scapegoat.

The Nietzsche Family Circus is a randomized combination of Friedrich Nietzsche quotations and Family Circus cartoons -- usually with appropriate results. Link

A CT scan of a Stradivarius suggests that its critical difference from other violins is the density of its wood:

Using an adaptation of a computer program developed to calculate lung densities in people with emphysema, they were able to analyze the physical properties of violins without risking damage to instruments worth millions of dollars.

They found no significant differences between the median densities of the modern and the antique violins but did discover far less variation between wood grains of early and late growth in the old ones.

Link (Photo: Brendan McDermid of Reuters)

Here's a list of twelve curious facts about the Nobel Prizes.  For example, however well-deserving, Mohandas Gandhi never won the Nobel Peace Prize, but the prize was once withheld for a year in his honor:

Amazingly, the person probably most likely to have deserved the Nobel Peace Prize was never awarded one. Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi, Indian leader who advocated non-violence in the struggle for Indian independence from colonial rule, never won the award. He was nominated five times, but failed each time. He was assassinated just two days before the nominations for the 1948 prize were due, which, since he was deceased, disqualified him from the nomination and, therefore, the prize.

The Nobel Peace Prize Committee considered selecting Gandhi for the award in spite of the rules, but because he left no legal heirs, they were not sure of who to award the prize to. Instead, the committee elected to withhold the award that year, stating that "there was no suitable living candidate" for the award, a clear reference to the recently-deceased Gandhi.

Image by Flickr user niznoz

Link via Evangelical Outpost

On May 3, 1978, Gary Thuerk, a marketer with the Digital Equipment Corporation, sent the very first spam e-mail to 393 Arpanet users. You can read the actual e-mail and its consequences at the link.

Image via Flickr user eurleif (R)

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