someone at GRU headquarters watches too many American movies

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/12/13/russia_spy_hq_has_gi.html

:)

gives a whole new meaning to "plumber's snake"

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/12/13/python_found_in_toil.html

This sounds like something out of an 1980s frat comedy, but this appears to be a real news story involving a 7-foot python in a toilet.

Bruce Sterling meta-rant on global warming

http://www.viridiandesign.org/2006/12/viridian-note-00482-big-changes-ahead.html

Clearly the man is having entirely too much fun here.

new Google patent search

http://www.google.com/patents

Works pretty well. I was able to find a reference to one of my favorite bogus patents (a mechanism for faster-than-light communication).

This has the potential to be very useful indeed: anything that helps rationalize the state of IP law in this country (by, in this case, making it much easier to do a patent search _before_ you submit your application) would be helpful.

armadillos meet Rube Goldberg

via BoingBoing: http://www.boingboing.net/2006/12/13/armadillo_run_physic.html

http://www.armadillorun.com/

Looks similar to things like The Incredible Machine, offhand. I'll have to check this out when I have time...

anti-"Christian-as-Republican" backlash

A couple of days ago, lethran pointed me to this: http://www.amhersttimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2340&Itemid=27

Today I saw this: http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/13/bakker.brown.commentary/index.html

An encouraging trend...