There can be only ONE!

Add "sword" to the list of weapons used in convenience story robberies.

A man wielding a curved, "Arabian-type sword" brandished the weapon while trying to steal a 12-pack of beer from a northwest Oklahoma City 7-Eleven convenience store, according to a police report released today.

He was a regular customer? AWESOME! My cousin rob the corner convenience store with a knife. The clerk said to him, "Lance, what are you doing?" Yeah, he got 7 years in the pen for that. SEVEN!

I guess The Highlander's Kastagir he really wants to go to jail. There can be only one...idiot beer thief in a green boy racer. Should be easy to catch.

For those of you who are not "Highlander" fans. Kastagir was the immortal in the movie who wielded the sword that was an "Arabian-type sword".  

Yes, I know, I'm a nerd.

I'm not sure I like this

In an inventive (and slightly unnerving) move, the city of Vancouver will release a new brand of speed bump that uses an optical illusion to keep drivers alert. A painting of a child on pavement (as in the photo above) will appear to be three dimensional when cars get within 100 feet of it, giving the drivers enough time to slow to a stop. Once the cars pass the ideal viewing distance, the image returns to its two dimensional form.

Unnerving is exactly the word. I wonder how many rear end crashes these optical illusions will create. I can just see my wife driving and seeing this and SLAMMING ON HER BRAKES. I wonder if the city is responsible for that?

U.S. Marines Free German-Owned Ship From Pirates

U.S. Marines early Thursday boarded and took control of a German-owned commercial vessel that had been attacked and captured by pirates, in what appeared to be the first American-led military boarding of its kind amid the recent surge in piracy along the east coast of Africa.

There has been a lot of talk lately about the role of the United States Marine Corps and more here. The Defense Department wants the Marines to return to a more "traditional" role. (I guess the Army is tired of the Marines stealing all their thunder in the ground wars, j/k) So how could you have a more traditional role than taking out pirates?

Hello 1805? this is the Marine Corps calling, we're back. Do the words, "to the shores of Tripoli" mean anything to you?

I liked this final quote from the news article, The Few. The Proud. The New Marines...

"The reality is, when you have one of the most successful combat units in the world," he said, "you do not conduct fascinating social experiments to see if you can transform it into something else." - Anthony Cordesman, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, cautioned against too much tinkering with an organization established by the Continental Congress in 1775.

 I'm sure what ever job we are given...we will exceed the expectations of the brass doing it.

File this under "I told you so" part 23

The nation's health care tab will go up -- not down -- as a result of President Barack Obama's sweeping overhaul. That's the conclusion of a government forecast released Thursday, which also finds the increase will be modest.

The average annual growth in health care spending will be just two-tenths of 1 percentage point higher through 2019 with Obama's remake, said the analysis. And that's with more than 32 million uninsured gaining coverage because of the new law.

There has been a lot of talk lately about "trust in government". The level of trust of our government in the 1950s was pretty high. In the graph you can see it go down during the sixties.It never recovered.

I'm sure political scientists can tell you lots of reasons why. There have been a hundred books written about the subject. From my personal experience, I would say it was because the government told us one thing and that thing turned out to be something entirely different.

Just like health-care costs. President Obama and his experts said it would REDUCE medical costs. The experts outside the government said it would INCREASE costs. Now "the government" is saying costs will go up.

How can you trust what they say? Modest increase or not, its still the opposite of what the president told us would happen. So if the president's people are telling him that costs will go down, how can he trust what they say?

In this single specific example, national health care is a program this administration wanted and were going to sell to the American people, no matter what it cost. The damage to public trust be damned.

Tractor beam? Dammit!

Tractor beams, energy rays that can move objects, are a science fiction mainstay. But now they are becoming a reality -- at least for moving very tiny objects.

Researchers from the Australian National University have announced that they have built a device that can move small particles a meter and a half using only the power of light.

Damn you scientists! Phaser. Period. I said I wanted a Phuckin' PHASER. Yeah, yeah the tractor beam is pretty cool, but right now in my life I NEED a phaser.

Okay just so we are clear. Phaser, then warp drive, then start on the medical sciences. That way while I'm drinking my way across the galaxy blasting aliens and meteors out of my way I can have a pill that can grow me a new liver. Cool. Now get busy.

Rethink Clown Food

Things that are made from organic material age and decay, especially when they stop being alive. A piece of home-baked bread, say, left on your kitchen counter, will get moldy relatively fast. Lord knows what some ground beef would smell like after a week. But the artist Sally Davies has been photographing one McDonald's hamburger and fries every day for 137 days. They look basically exactly the same.

I'm not a food prude. I occasionally eat at McDonalds. I'd have to say I've turned it down more times in the last 3 years than I've eaten it though. Looking through these pictures should concern you. What kind of preservatives are we eating?

I'm pretty sure I don't want to know.

Cutting it a bit close

Two asteroids are expected to pass within 154,000 miles of Earth on Wednesday _ closer than the distance between the Earth and the moon, NASA announced.

Neither will hit the planet, NASA was quick to add.

Asteroid 2010 RX30 is estimated to be approximately 32 to 65 feet in size and will pass within approximately 154,000 miles of Earth at 5:51 a.m. Wednesday. The
second object, 2010 RF12, estimated to be 20 to 46 feet in size, will
pass within approximately 49,000 miles at 5:12 p.m.

They just learned about these on SUNDAY! So it just goes to show ya, if life on earth is going to change (again) due to an asteroid hit, there ain't a damn thing we gonna do about it.

This goes to show ya it's never as easy as the video games....

Kyle Lograsso

Kyle Lograsso @ Yahoo! Video

Kyle Lograsso is a 5 year old golf prodigy. And to think he started playing at the age of 2! Watch this story about a loving family who overcame a great many problems.

Son of a United States Marine Sergeant, Kyle's story is awesome. 

This weekend Kyle hosts his first charity golf tournament.

Money can buy happiness, sorta

MONDAY, Sept. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Money can help buy happiness -- at least if you're bringing in about $75,000 a year, new research shows.

While happiness increases along with annual household incomes up to about $75,000, beyond that, earning more money has no effect on day-to-day contentment, according to the study.

But that doesn't mean you should give up trying to get that promotion. While making more won't help your emotional state on any given day, people who had household incomes above $75,000 were more apt to say they were satisfied overall with their life.

I KNEW IT! Sadly I'm in a dead end career path and have no prospects in the short term to earn more. My wife and I used to say, "if we could only earn X, things would be a lot better." X moved every year but it was essentially true.

The value for us at that time "X" was a magical number that covered all our bills and allowed us to entertain our friends and enjoy the simple things in life like food, diapers, gasoline, booze, movies and dinner out.

"X" always seemed to move just out of our reach. Today I can safely say $75,000 would make retirement pretty sweet and give us the money to go on a nice vacation each year. Oh well. Maybe in my next life I'll be rich instead of so damn good looking.

My wife is fond of quoting Goldie Hawn from the 1987 movie, Overboard. I think this quote works on many levels.

Annie: I don't belong here, I feel it, don't you think I feel it. I can't do any of these vile things and I wouldn't WANT to. Oh, my life is like death. My children are the spawn of hell, and you're the devil. Oh God.

Dean Proffitt: But baby, we LIKE you.

At one point she makes the following observation, which is my wife's favorite.
Annie: I didn't marry well.

I can't drive 55 (70)

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - One Nevada gubernatorial hopeful sees a speedy fix to Nevada's budget crisis. Nonpartisan candidate Eugene "Gino" DiSimone believes people would pay for the privilege to drive up to 90 mph on designated highways—and fill the state's depleted coffers.

DiSimone calls his idea the "free limit plan." He estimates the plan would bring in $1 billion a year.

A billion? I think I like this plan. Not for the billion, but for the piece of mind that I will not be harassed by cops while I speed around. Limit it to 90mph and limit it to highways and I think you have something there.

Having recently trekked it through the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas and through some very remote parts of New Mexico, it would be nice to know I wouldn't get a ticket for speeding....which I did....A LOT.

Hey! I need a cigar cutter like that. And yeah...I know its a video, but if you ever touch a cop like that your gonna get tased and then you'll have a tonfa jammed up your hoo-ha.