Random Nuclear Strikes

I could swear there’s a ’50s or ’60s SF writer who came up with the idea of immortal aliens regenerating by shifting to an infantile stage. I don’t think it was Niven, any thoughts?

Anyway, here’s a real-life immortal jellyfish that does that. This moves immortality from the level of Henrietta Lacks’ cells to full-blown animalia.

Technical application to humanity left as an exercise for whoever wants to get rich fast and live forever.

I just finished a rereading of John Ross’ Unintended Consequences, so here’s a news story about explosive pig farms.

A decade ago this video would have been extraordinary in our little corner of the internet. Nowadays, one’s tempted to say, “nice presentation, but that’s old news.”

Well, just remember that it’s still an extraordinary subject to most Americans, and by extension, most cops. Be nice if it went viral. I mean, it’s certainly packaged in a way to encourage repeat viewing. 🙂

The vapors have taken over Kim Bashin, HuffPo’s Senior Retail Reporter (whatever the hell that is)

Every year on Black Friday, shoppers across the United States brave crowds to battle each other for door-buster sales on flat-screen TVs, video games, Uggs and the hottest toys.

But other bargain hunters are out stalking a different sort of discounted prey: firearms. And they should find plenty of deals. Gunmakers are marketing aggressively, trying to revive sales that have slowed a bit after a flurry a year ago.

Gun-buying after Thanksgiving is becoming something of a holiday tradition. In each of the past two years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has reported a record number of calls for background checks for gun purchases on the Friday after Thanksgiving. A flood of 154,873 calls on Black Friday in 2012, nearly three times the daily average that year, caused outages at some of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System’s call centers.

The FBI does not track actual firearms purchases, and customers can buy multiple guns at one time, suggesting the total number of weapons sold on Black Friday could be even higher than the number of background-check calls. The bureau has reported 17,238,102 background checks this year through Oct. 31.

Halle-fawkin-lujah.

Law abiding gun owners do less than .9% of our yearly firearms purchasing on one day and they fill their diapers. We should have a second “Buy A Gun Day” every year and get that number up. It’d be like Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice.