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Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein was arrested on Wednesday while attempting to deliver supplies to activists in Texas who’re camping in trees to block construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

A Presidential candidate who puts her money where her mouth is. How rare is that? Too bad it’s one of the lunatic fringe candidates.

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The so-called TidGen tidal turbine generator unit (TGU) was built by the Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC). It was installed at Cobscook Bay, part of the larger Bay of Fundy, off the coast of Maine and is accompanied by an on-shore station at Seward Neck. The peak output from TidGen is 180 kilowatts, enough to power about 25 to 30 homes. By comparison, a typical wind turbine produces about six times as much power.

And kills birds and looks ugly. These are better.

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As soon as the pressure in these Goodyear tires (which don’t have an official retail price yet) gets too low, they know it. An internal pressure regulator opens to allow air to flow into a pumping tube, and as the wheel turns, the flattened part helps squeeze air from the tube through an inlet valve into the tire. Once the air pressure hits an optimal level, the regulator closes—all without the driver’s realizing anything was wrong.

We have the technology.

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On Tuesday, Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz warned international voting monitors they would be arrested if they showed up to monitor polling locations in Iowa on Election Day.

“My office met with two delegation representatives last week to discuss Iowa’s election process, and it was explained to them that they are not permitted at the polls,” Schultz said in a statement released Tuesday. “Iowa law is very specific about who is permitted at polling places, and there is no exception for members of this group.”

Two data points — looks like a trend.

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The almost zodiac-like craft has been an ongoing project over recent years, and contains a fully automated system which the Navy calls a “Precision Engagement Module” which uses an Mk-49 mounting with a dual missile launcher manufactured by Rafael.

I suggest they call it a ‘Wetator Drone’.

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 The news has been full of the attacks on our embassies throughout the Muslim world, and in particular, the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others in Benghazi , Libya . However, apart from the shameful amount of disinformation willingly distributed by the Main Stream Media and the current administration, there’s a little known story of incredible bravery, heroics, and courage that should be the top story of every news agency across the fruited plain.

Know their names: Tyrone Wood. Gene Doherty. Neither will get the honors that they deserve. Memory eternal!

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I knew that Monopoly — the board game, not the economic concept — had evolved from a game designed to promote the ideas of the 19th-century radical Henry George. Now, thanks to a link in Christopher Ketcham’s Harper’s feature on the game’s history, I’ve seen this site, featuring photos of the boards used in different versions of the Landlord’s Game, as the Georgist version and its early successors were often known.

Steve Sailer does it better than most.

 I’d have some specific criticisms of Gopnik’s essay, but it’s really much better than the average, so you owe it to yourself to read it. My impression is of an urban Ashkenazi intellectual groping in good faith to recover some knowledge and wisdom lost when people without much connection to land came to dominate highbrow discourse.

Check it out.

This won’t mean much to anybody who hasn’t had to box a compass, but it’s still pretty slick.

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The company is developing an alternative to chemical-intensive agriculture, which is both expensive and hazardous to the environment. With advanced computer vision techniques for identifying weeds and selectively killing unwanted plants, Blue River Technology’s equipment is much faster and more efficient than traditional methods of weed killing. Known as “Lettuce-bot”, this machine is particularly well-suited to organic agriculture and fields with chemical-resistant weeds.

During tests, this automated system gathered over a million images as it moved through the fields. Its Computer Vision System was able to detect and segment individual plants – even those that were touching each other – with 98% accuracy.

We almost have the technology.

… and I find that pretty scary.

Oh, and if you’re not reading OUR VALUED CUSTOMERS every day, the angels will weep for you.

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Customers who spend $1,999 (£1,240) or more on an engagement ring at the Jewellery By Harold shop in North Liberty, Iowa will receive a free rifle.

Well, depends on the rifle. Remington 700? I’m impressed. Cheap Chinese AK-47 knockoff? Not so much.

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 The vehicle – called the Quadski – goes up to 45 miles (72 kilometers) per hour on land.

To go in the water, the driver presses a button and the wheels fold into the sides in five seconds. The Quadski also goes 45 miles (72 kilometers) per hour in the water.

You know you want one.

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I wouldn’t have been able to resist the temptation to call this “Every Dog Has His Day … in Court”; which, I suppose, is why I’m not a ‘journalist’.

Check it out.

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Taking the lift could be the least memorable part of your journey to work, but Dr Lee Gray of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte has made it his business to scrutinise this overlooked form of public transportation. People refer to him as “the Elevator Guy”.

Hey, tenure doesn’t grow on trees, you know.

Paul Miller discovers that there is life offline.

If you’ll recall, there was a time I could not mail things. But now I can mail things. I mail renewal slips for magazines, insurance claim forms, self-addressed stamped envelopes requesting photos of my new nephew, personal letters to close friends, personal letters to new friends.

Perhaps I ought to change this blog to a newsletter. That would certainly keep out the riff-raff….

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Worth noting that this is about serving customers by helping them avoid high shipping costs — not something every company cares about. Notice, too, that Teenage Engineering explicitly encourages people to print as many replacement parts as they want — no attempt to limit this to “one-offs” through stupid licensing agreements, for example.

Watch it.

Who’ll be the first to cry ‘raaaaacist’?

Read it. And definitely watch the videos.

This is the Babbage Engine at the Computer History Museum in L.A., one of two funded by Nathan Myhrvold in 1991.

Check it out.

 Test Your Vocab is a research project to measure vocabulary sizes according to age and education, and particularly to compare native learning rates with foreign language classroom learning rates. It functions by means of a test: the first part with a handful of words to determine the general vocabulary level, and a second part with a larger but narrower selection of words to determine the vocabulary level with greater precision.

Remembering always that this is just an estimate. My score was 39,900; don’t know whether that’s good or bad. Robin can probably beat me, since he’s more of a polymath than I am.

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The fine minds at MIT combined the Kinect with a laser range finder and a laptop to create a real-time mapping rig for firefighters and other rescue workers. The prototype, called SLAM (for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) received funding from the US Air Force and the Office of Naval Research, and it stands out among other indoor mapping systems for its focus on human (rather than robot) use and its ability to produce maps without the aid of any outside information, thanks to an on-board processor.

This is an amazingly good idea.

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Take whatever action you deem appropriate.

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Unless you’re Muslim, of course.

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You, too, can be a best-selling novelist — or an awesome adventuring avatar. Here’s now.

Read it. And watch the video.

If you don’t subscribe to Savage Chickens, then the angels weep for you.

Read it.

The Maple Bacon Donut … mmmm.

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No matter who you are, there is someone out there less interesting than you. Enjoy.

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And then again it might not, but why take the chance? Milton Hershey is your friend.

Lileks has done it again.

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The US Army’s Rapid Equipping Force (REF) is sending expeditionary labs housed in 20-foot shipping containers to Afghanistan, allowing engineers to manufacture parts on-site and provide soldiers with real-time technical support. Each lab costs $2.8 million and contains a 3D printer to print plastic parts, a CNC machine to manufacture steel and aluminum parts, a number of tools, as well as satellite equipment for engineers to collaborate via video conference with others worldwide.

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If, of course, you should want to do that.

The open source aviation organization will allow you to download its plans and schematics for free, then build your plane’s parts using CNC (computer numerically controlled) mills and 3D printers. If you don’t have one of those lying around, you’ll be able to go to a “makerspace” replete with all the necessary tools to get your wings whipped up, instead. As for keeping the blue side up, open source avionics software will also be included, allowing bold dabblers to create digital flight instruments and displays.

I am not making this up.

Watch the video.

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Successful Green Energy Investments
by Barack Obama

My Thoughts on Personal Liberty
by Nanny Michael Bloomberg

Actual Hard Scientific Evidence Supporting the Theory of Human-Induced Climate Change
by Michael Mann

The Relevance of Newspapers in the 21st Century
by NY Times Publisher Pinch Sulzberger

Socialist Policies That Actually Work
by French President Francois Hollande

Read the whole thing.

Gates of Vienna is holding a fundraiser. Stop by and contribute.

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A heroic pilot at the helm of a doomed plane full of skydivers made sure all of his passengers had jumped to safety before deftly crashing the aircraft in a backyard — where no one was injured

Brandon Sparrow, the brave pilot, was the only one killed in the horrific crash in Taylorville, Illinois, on Saturday morning.

Neighbors and authorities say Mr Sparrow’s efforts saved untold numbers of lives — as the plane went down in a crowded residential neighborhood.

A hero by anyone’s definition.

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In the months before a US Presidential election, the quality of political discourse hits new lows. Blue State/Red State tropes dominate the news cycle as the media gins up outrage over perceived injustices in the culture wars. It’s all about our differences. So I started wondering, how do Americans really think about “those people” in other states? What are the most common stereotypes? For each of the fifty states and DC, I asked Google: “Why is [State] so ” and let it autocomplete. It seemed like an ideal question to get at popular assumptions, since “Why is [State] so X?” presupposes that X is true.

The results are quite entertaining.

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Proving that learning a lesson is very, very difficult, North Face has taken the former owners of South Butt to court again. What happened at the conclusion of the original lawsuit was South Butt agreed to drop their brand entirely as part of an injunction. Then, according to North Face, they jumped right back into their old shenannigan ways, forming the company Why Climb Mountains LLC and registering for a trademark on their new brand Butt Face.

This is why I could never be an attorney — you have to argue these cases with a straight face just because they drones running the company pay you.

 The other interesting tidbit in North Face’s complaints is that they believe…wait for it…that WCM’s owners are simply using the lawsuits filed against it as publicity. They reached the same conclusion as we had years ago. But, in an apparent attempt to test a theory called “litigation through stubborness”, they filed suit and gave their adversaries more ammuntion for publicity. It would be as though I had an ant problem in my kitchen because I left some honey out on the counter and my response was to cover the counter in honey while complaining about the ants marching in.

Hey — there are a lot of humor-impaired people in the world. Most of them are Democrats and buy shit from North Face. “I don’t really climb mountains but I’d like you to think that I do.” Not quite as pathetic as survivalists, but pretty close.

Read it. And watch the video.

The Roto-a-Matic has recently gone live in toy maker Rotofugi’s store in Chicago, and will create a polyethylene plastic figurine for you in under a minute, provided you feed it a token. Rotofugi and product design company Squibbles INK have given the vintage Mold-a-Rama vending machine a new lease of life, and now they are looking for artists to contribute designs for future molds.

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Put a .50-cal mount on that bad boy and I’m in.

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Yeah, what?

In the States the meaning of Anglo has evolved as various waves of people were assimilated. The term was first used to distinguish Protestant Americans of largely British (though also Dutch and German) stock from Irish Catholic immigrants, many of the former emphasising their Englishness in reaction to the newcomers. In the early twentieth century it was sometimes used by American leaders who felt a bond with Britain, such as Woodrow Wilson, especially when that country was in conflict with Germany. But later Anglo-Saxon (and Wasp) came to mean people of north-west European Protestant ancestry, as opposed to the immigrants of the 1880-1920 wave, Catholics and Jews from south and east Europe. Nowadays it can mean all “non-Hispanic whites”.

By that definition the implications of Romney’s adviser could be “we are white, Obama isn’t”. But if this was dog-whistle racism, then Obama’s 2008 campaign was a blaring Klaxon horn of race. Forget the “post-racial candidate” (© the entire mainstream US and European media), Obama was in reality the “multi-racial” candidate, one who signified the end of white demographic dominance. That’s post-racial in the sense that the majority are becoming a minority, but it would be absurd to pretend that race was not a huge factor in the election of this not-very-experienced junior senator – illustrated by the fact that 96 per cent of African-Americans voted for him.

Can you spell ‘double standard’? Of course you can … if you dare.

America’s vast contradictions and hypocrisies concerning race still rest on the idea that some groups are supposed to be post-racial, while others are encouraged to celebrate their identity, and to fight for the interests of their group. For example, lots of self-appointed Hispanic leaders want America to be more Hispanic, to have more of their countrymen. No one in the media accuses them of racism or chauvinism, and instead presents people wishing to maintain the status quo as hatemongers. Yet why is it necessarily more wrong for Anglo-Americans to want the country to be more full of people like them? Some people advancing the interests of their group are racists; some people advancing the interests of their group are anti-racists.

These days, ‘racist’ is just a synonym for ‘white’.

And why is it acceptable for every ethnicity in America to take pride in its roots, apart from the ethnic group that founded the 13 colonies, bequeathed it their language and laws, and established the political philosophy and liberal institutions? Even if actual English blood accounts for less than 10 per cent of American DNA, the Anglo political identity of America is deep. As David Hackett Fischer pointed out in Albion’s Seed, the cultural influence of the initial founders of a society can vastly outweigh their genetic input.

Yeah — but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order… what have the Romans done for us?

Freeberg reminds us that there are ‘progressives’ who still have two brain cells to rub together.

Like George Carlin. I miss George.

A sample.

There doesn’t appear to be a ‘current cartoon’ link, so the link at right goes to the home page – click on the ‘page xxx >>’ caption at the top for the latest.

Read it.

Carlos Miller of Photography is Not a Crime is helping publicize (and test) a new iPhone app that automatically streams video as a user is recording it and stores it remotely in a cloud, thus preventing grabby law enforcement officers from deleting footage.

Which is, of course the crime of conversion, when it isn’t actual obstruction of justice. But we all know that police never get called on that sort of thing. This will redress the balance somewhat.

Big Brother doesn’t like it when you’re watching him back.

Read it.

This strikes me as a great idea.

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The city of Takoma Park, Maryland granted a waiver to its strict Nuclear-Free Zone Act this week in order to use Hewlett-Packard computers in its city library. The city of Takoma Park has been nuclear-free since 1983, meaning that the city is prohibited from supporting companies that work with US nuclear weapons production. HP is on this list of prohibited contractors, so when librarians received the shipment of new hardware for the library’s computer learning center, they packed them away and awaited the Nuclear-Free Takoma Park Commitee’s decision on the matter. The Committee denied the waiver for the equipment, but was overridden for the first time ever in a vote by city officials.

Posturing gets kicked to the curb when it might actually pinch.

My first girlfriend at Yale came from Tacoma Park; her parents were bureaucrats. Eventually she joined the Party of the Right. (You know — you grow.)

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