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Let that be a lesson to us all.

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“The Tomb Guards maintain a constant vigil at the Tomb no matter the weather conditions,” states the group’s Facebook page.Members of the 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment, also known as “The Old Guard” are staying with the Tomb of the Unknown Solider at Arlington National Cemetery despite blizzard conditions slamming the area.

Watch it.

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Biologist Josiah Zayner, founder of the Open Discovery Institute (ODIN), is now offering kits via Indiegogo that enables DIY gene-editing of single-celled critters in the comfort of your own home. From the San Jose Mercury News:

Be the first on your block to start the Zombie Apocalypse.

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Robots may not stop war, but they may someday be able to save the humans fighting it. Developed by Tactical Robotics, the Air Mule is a hovercar-like aircraft, built to be an ambulance. On December 30th, it flew autonomously, giving a wobbly glimpse at what battlefield salvation may look like later this century.

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Americans for Tax Reform once again presents a series of handy Bingo cards you may use to check off terms and phrases likely to be used during President Obama’s (FINAL!) State of the Union address on Tuesday.

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By now some of you are tut-tutting: Really, a drip coffeemaker? In 2016? If you want a really good cup of coffee, you need a cold French press and Jamaican beans individually washed in melted glacier runoff and hand-ground by pressing them between pieces of Icelandic volcano pumice. If you are that person, I like to imagine you’ve been kidnapped and trussed by Liam Neeson, who sits across from you, straddling a chair and saying, “I’m going to sit here with this 24-ounce of SuperAmerica coffee until you beg for it. The longer you wait, the colder it gets. Did I mention it’s that nasty hazelnut blend?”

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Sparky is now 11 and weighs 1,600 pounds, walking with a limp, according to an announcement made today by the USFWS.

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Aktarer Zaman, now 23, didn’t back down when United Airlines (UAL) and Orbitz sued him a little over a year ago for opening a website called Skiplagged.com to help travelers find cheap plane tickets.

Sounds to me like a useful service. Typically, when airlines discount seats it’s because people aren’t buying them, so he’s helping them fill up their planes.

United and Orbitz were livid about Skiplagged, calling the start up website “unfair competition” that promoted “strictly prohibited” travel. They filed a federal lawsuit and demanded Zaman pay them $75,000 in lost revenue.

If it was ‘strictly prohibited’, then how were they able to get the tickets? I smell a rat.

Skiplagged helps travelers find cheap tickets through a strategy called “hidden city” ticketing.

The idea is that you buy an airline ticket that has a layover at your actual destination.

Say you want to fly from New York to San Francisco. You book a flight from New York to Portland with a layover in San Francisco and get off there, without bothering to take the last leg of the flight. Sometimes, that can save you money. Flying this way isn’t always cheapest, but it often is.

Apparently the airline created its own problem. If they want to prevent that sort of thing, they need to adjust their pricing, not sue the guy who is taking advantage of the system that they set up.

Zaman says he and his lawyers realized early on that United’s case was flawed. United claimed Zaman broke the “contract of carriage,” but that’s a contract between passengers and airlines — not third parties like Skiplagged.

You’d think that their lawyers would have realized that. Figuring out who is bound by a contract is something they teach first semester at law school.

“I’m just providing people with information and making them more informed,” he said. “I never saw that as a bad thing, making people be more skilled travelers.”

And indeed it is not a bad thing, but rather a good thing. Access to information is one of the chief ways individual consumers can reverse the ancient advantage that vendors have in any market. This guy ought to get some sort of award.

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Is it just me, or is there something very American about this?

Glenn Harlan Reyholds (“Instapundit”) has an answer.

In my hometown of Knoxville, Tenn., a 15-year-old became a hero the week before Christmas.

Zaevion Dobson, a football player at Fulton High School, threw himself on top of three girls as gang members released a hail of bullets in an apparently random retaliation for a shooting the day before. Zaevion traded his life for the girls’ safety; he died after being struck by a bullet.

Here’s a case where black lives really do matter — this kid gave his life to protect others. That’s what being a hero is all about.

Dobson’s heroism speaks well of his family and his community. Football encourages quick-thinking physicality, but how people react in that split second is a reflection of the values they’ve absorbed over a lifetime. Greater love hath no man, we are told by the Bible, than that he lay down his life for his friends.

We’d like to live in a world where such heroic tendencies are common, but if they were common, then they wouldn’t be heroic, would they? But surely, we’d like to live in a world where selfless heroism is more common.

We would indeed.

In case you haven’t noticed, Scott Adams is a National Treasure.

Read it. And watch the video.

A Connecticut teenager named Austin Haughwout created a global stir a few months back when he posted a video of a homemade drone firing a handgun he had attached to the aircraft. Yesterday he upped the ante on weaponized aerial robots, posting a clip to YouTube of a drone with a flamethrower roasting a Thanksgiving turkey.

Like all smart YouTube creators, Haughwout leveraged his fame to entice #brands into paying to sponsor his content. In this case the video was backed by HobbyKing, an online retailer that sells all kinds of parts for DIY drones. No word on who provided the turkey, but the fuel pump for the flamethrower came from Amazon.

‘The right to buy weapons is the right to be free.’

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Sometimes the system works.

A 22-year-old man reportedly out to burglarize a few homes in Brevard County found out the hard way that crime doesn’t pay.

According to the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, a burglary suspect they were actively looking for on Nov. 13 realized deputies were hot on his trail and chose to hide near Barefoot Bay lake. That decision proved fatal.

While hiding near the water, it seems the burglary suspect, identified as Matthew Riggins, ran afoul of an 11-foot alligator. Seeing easy prey, the gator attacked.

Riggins, the sheriff’s office said, drowned as a result of that attack. His body, however, wasn’t found until 10 days after the initial burglary call came in.

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The Crust like to establish ‘feel-good’ awards like this one and pass them around amongst themselves, just for the warm fuzzies.

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The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from the Cleveland Board of Review last week, cementing the Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling that the “jock tax” applied to visiting N.F.L. players violated their due process rights. As a result, the Cleveland city government may be on the hook for millions of dollars owed back to professional athletes, according to data from the Cleveland Collections Agency.

The two former NFL players, Jeff Saturday and Hunter Hillenmeyer, both won their cases against a levy the Tax Foundation calls “arbitrary,” “unrealistic,” and “poorly targeted,” in the Ohio Supreme Court earlier this year. The Court’s decision in the former case struck down the tax Cleveland levied on Saturday even though he did not accompany his team, the Indianapolis Colts, to their game there. Calling the regulation “ambiguous at best,” the justices ordered the city to refund Saturday for the tax applied to his salary because he neither played in the scheduled game nor was present in Cleveland at the time.

In Hillenmeyer’s case, the justices took a more nuanced approach, finding the formula the city used to tax players unconstitutional, not the tax itself. Cleveland, grossly overstepping the bounds of its powers of taxation, argued that a 2% tax levied on the players entire salary, or 1/20th of their total salary, came from a calculation of the amount of games played in the preseason and regular season, 20, with one of those taking place in Cleveland. The court disagreed with this faulty logic, asserting that a NFL player’s total salary is derived from attendance at practices, off-season trainings, and a myriad of other duties.

Heh. Bloodsuckers lose one for once.

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If you’re a hardcore Wu-Tang Clan fan, you can stop combing your couch for loose change and eating instant ramen: the single physical copy of the group’s secret album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin has been sold. Forbes reported the album’s sale through online auction house Paddle8 yesterday afternoon, and later confirmed that the album had been sold to a “private American collector” for a total somewhere in the millions.

The auction house hasn’t shared an exact number yet, but it confirmed that the price was high enough to make Once Upon a Time in Shaolin the most expensive single album ever sold. (It’s breaking a record previously held by Elvis Presley — Jack White bought a rare version of his first song ever for $300,000 in January of this year.) The sale was actually made in May, but it took months for the buyer and the Wu to sort out the contractual language and protections surrounding the album. In any case, the sale price is high enough to make you feel a little better about shelling out an extra 10 bucks to hear the new Adele record.

Cue whining by the Usual Suspects about the 1% getting stuff the rest of us can’t.

I am pleased that it was an American collector, not a Russian kleptocrat or a petrodollar Prince or a Slightly-Pink-Chinese tycoon.

I am thankful for the robust firewall at The Washington Post, so that no matter how strongly tempted I am to post something from their site, I am prevented. God looks after us even when we can’t help ourselves.

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Private spaceflight company Blue Origin, helmed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, says it has landed its main rocket, New Shepard, back on Earth after launch. That would make it the first rocket ever to have gently landed and remained intact after taking off into space. It also means that Blue Origin has beaten SpaceX in the race to make the first reusable rocket; the Elon Musk-led space venture has been trying to soft-land its main rocket, the Falcon 9, for the past year.

Lileks discusses home delivery.

Billboards around town are heralding a new Amazon service: They will deliver things to your house in an hour. Makes you want to order a 12-pack of Charmin then stand out on the boulevard hopping up and down when the truck pulls up. I suppose it’s useful for people who don’t want to go the store, but I like going to the store. You go for milk and come back with Green-and-Red Holiday Eggos and Sriracha Yogurt and a shoehorn and a can of Bison chunks for the dog. Delivery cannot provide that sense of random discovery.

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The AquaBounty company applied to the Food and Drug Administration to get approval for its genetically enhanced salmon back in 1995. Its salmon are modified to using a gene from another fish called ocean pouts which enables it to grow much faster using less feed. The company has jumped through all sorts of hoops to make sure that its fish cannot escape and that it is nutritionally identical to regular salmon. Naturally, the opponents of modern biotech foods lied incessantly about its alleged dangers to the environment and people. At long last, the FDA bureaucrats have mustered the courage to follow actual scientific evidence and ruled today.

A great organization, deserving of your support.

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I am not making this up.

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Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

Just as fascinating is the mutation that Orthodox liturgical expressions underwent from Greek to Russian. Just sayin’.

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Remember that guy in Kentucky who was arrested in July for shooting down a neighbor’s drone that was allegedly hovering over his property? He was charged with wanton endangerment and criminal mischief.

A judge has tossed out the charges.

You fly a drone over my property, that is trespass, pure and simple, and you will get what trespassers get in Texas: a bullet. Or maybe two.

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Zaiger, 85, is arguably the most famous plant breeder alive today. From his farm west of Modesto, he has created novel new fruit – like the pluot – that grace tables around the world. He has also improved familiar varieties, such as creating plums that can weather an intercontinental voyage.

These innovations have revolutionized an increasingly global fruit industry, earning him a reputation among farmers and fellow fruit experts that is hard to overstate.

“Big, with all capital letters,” suggested Tom Gradziel, a geneticist and professor of plant sciences at UC Davis. “We’re all beneficiaries, and by we I mean the public in general and me as a breeder.”

Just waiting for the ecoFascists to get around to targeting him….

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The Indianapolis Star reports 43-year-old Karen Dolley of Indianapolis threw punches until she had the man cornered during the Thursday night break-in. She then kept him subdued with a Japanese sword she keeps near her bed.

Dolley says she learned to fight as a teenager in the Society for Creative Anachronism, a group that recreates skills of the Middle Ages. She also skates with roller derby team Naptown Roller Girls.

Sometimes the old ways are best.

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We consume their products every day but economists give them little attention, and perhaps not enough respect. Yet America’s agriculture sector is not only the country’s oldest economic pillar but still a vital one, accounting for some 3.75 million jobs — not only in the fields, but in factories, laboratories and distribution. That compares to about 4.3 million jobs in the tech sector (which we analyzed last month here). Net farm income totaled $108 billion in 2014, according to preliminary figures from the USDA, up 24% from 2004.

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“They had discovered a growth, or a tumour, on my right kidney about the size of a walnut,” Mr Finney said. “If this didn’t happen with the shark, causing me to go in with this chest pain, I would have never known about this cancer.”

Well. There it is.

Read it.

Sometimes the old ways are best.

Don’t mess with Texas.

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The Twin Cities Marathon went off without a hitch yesterday. The perfect weather didn’t hurt a bit. The Star Tribune reports that Kenyans placed first, second, and third among the men competing in the race. An Ethiopian joined two Kenyans in the top three among the women. A good time was had by all. Black Lives Matter could not be reached for comment.

…

The Black Lives Matter crew also staged a die-in to kill for. The photograph published by the Star Tribune may provoke inappropriate laughter. The casting might be deemed racially insensitive. From the looks of the photograph, men of pallor were vastly overrepresented among the theatrical decedents.

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Scientists at an American chocolate company specialising in herbal technologies claim to have developed the “medicinal” chocolate, which contains only 35 per cent fat.

Cacao, the key ingredient in chocolate, contains a variety of antioxidants and minerals, which perform health benefits such as protecting the nervous system, reducing stroke risk and lowering blood pressure.

However, cacao is extremely bitter meaning many chocolate companies sweeten their products with fat and sugar, overriding cacao’s health benefits.

Kuka Xoco, the Boston-based firm, have discovered a new de-bittering agent in the form of a little-used herb from the Andean region of Bolivia and Peru.

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As would any veteran. A pack, not a herd.

More here.

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The dog was unharmed

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And I went to the battle on a dog with no head….

When I gassed up my car this morning, the price was $1.87 a gallon.

You people in California: Texas is a big state, we got plenty a room, y’all c’mon down.

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Marines: When you care enough to send the very best.

http://www.savagechickens.com/2015/08/counting-the-steps.html

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On Wednesday, Burger King reached out to its rival McDonald’s, proposing that the two chains come together to create a hybrid of their signature burgers, the Whopper and the Big Mac. McDonald’s declined Burger King’s proposal to make the so-called McWhopper, which was publicized in full-page ads in the New York Times and Chicago Tribune.

We’re not too upset about McDonald’s rejection, though, because really, the McWhopper just isn’t that exciting. We’ve got a few ideas for way more outrageous (yet totally marketable) unions between fast food chains.

Time magazine is not too far gone when they’ve got sufficient humor left for things like these.

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What were the train people doing?

The actor, who has starred in French films such as Betty Blue, went on to allege that train personnel ran down the corridor and took refuge in a work car, locking the door and refusing to answer to passengers.

Americans: A pack, not a herd.

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I am not making this up.

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Homeschooling—once thought to be the province of diehard evangelicals, political radicals, and others with ideological reasons to steer clear of public education—is increasingly being embraced by the middle-class city-dwellers who are simply disappointed with the quality of urban schools and helped by the way new technologies are reducing the need for professional teachers.

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The U.S. Air Force is planning to install the microwave ADS, or Active Denial System (which transmits a searchlight sized beam of energy that makes people downrange feel like their skin is on fire) on several of its sixteen new AC-130J gunships. This would provide air force gunships with a non-lethal weapon for the first time. This may not work. That’s because ADS has been ready since 2007 but has never been used. In 2012 a possible reason for this was revealed. It seems that ADS performs poorly in the rain (or fog, mist, or snow). This is a common problem with microwaves and lasers, which are broken up by all these forms of precipitation. Tests of ADS during rainy conditions found that the pain turned to a warm comfortable feeling (especially in the cold and damp). Moreover, the microwaves only work on exposed skin, which means during cold or inclement weather (when people cover up) ADS is less likely to have much impact. Apparently it was believed that it would not take the locals long to figure all this out and improvise effective countermeasures. Thus this aspect of ADS, long suspected by scientists and engineers, was kept secret until 2012.

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In a series of tests announced yesterday, the Aegis destroyer USS John Paul Jones fired three of the latest variants of Raytheon’s Standard Missile, the SM-6 Dual I. The SM-6 is an agile, long-range weapon that uses the same seeker as the AMRAAM air-to-air missile to engage enemy cruise missiles and aircraft. But the Dual I upgrade adds a new, more powerful processor that runs more sophisticated targeting software. That software lets the SM-6 identify, track, and kill something descending from the upper atmosphere at extreme speed — specifically, a ballistic missile warhead.

So on July 28th, the Missile Defense Agency launched “a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) target” over the Pacific. The John Paul Jones launched an SM-6 Dual I and destroyed the target. Then, in two subsequent tests on July 31st and August 1st, SM-6 Dual Is also shot down two different kinds of cruise missile.

Mark Steyn on Bugs Bunny.

Chuck Jones liked to tell the story of a young man who came to work with him in the Warner Brothers animation department and sent a letter home to his grandmother proudly telling her that he was writing scripts for Bugs Bunny. “I can’t understand why you’re writing scripts for Bugs Bunny,” she wrote back. “He’s funny enough just as he is.”

Two of my favorite people.

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The Navy’s 30-kilowatt weapon is currently the only operational laser in the US military that can blow things up. (Targeting lasers and non-lethal “dazzlers” are commonplace). But other weapons are in the works.

Air Force Special Operations Command wants to put a high-powered laser into a future version of its AC-130 gunship. “Block 60 with the laser, that’s not 10 years out; Block 60 is a couple years out,” said AFSOC commander Lt. Gen. Brad Heithold.

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Can’t say they’re wrong.