The Greatest Paper Airplanes

So you want to make a world-record breaking paper airplane? Well, here are the things you need to know. In case you are wondering, the current record holder is The Paper Airplane Guy. I can highly recommend joining his site, and if you are at all interested in making good paper airplanes, paying for his videos on Vimeo (join his Hanger and you’ll get the link there).

Conservatives respond to DHS report on “right wing extremists”

Very interesting video compilation of various conservative commentators on the report issued by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month regarding risks of right wing extremists:

What is particularly interesting is the last 10-15 seconds of the report.  This is the part almost no one seems to be reporting when expressing their false outrage over this report:

. . . this is an element of the story which has largely gone unreported.  There are two assessments.  One looks at right wing groups as you mentioned, and a second focuses on left wing groups.  Significantly, both were requested by the Bush administration, but not finished until President Bush left office.

But of course, that’s the kind of information entertainers like O’Reilly and Limbaugh wouldn’t want you to hear.

[tags]Right wing extremists, Conservative faux outrage, Faux News, More political lies[/tags]

Never doubt the ‘hoff

He is one of the greatest performers ever, wouldn’t you agree?  This is 211 seconds of heaven wrapped up in a sexy black spycoat and wintry fur…

I hear he is huge in Germany, although all the video I’ve seen him makes me think he’s really the same size as all the other people there.  Therefore, either everyone in Germany is huge, or Hasselhoff is the same size in Germany as when he is in the US.

[tags]I can’t stop this feeling, Ooga chakka, Hasselhoff, Huge in Germany, Ich bin ein Hasselhoff[/tags]

Rep. Michelle Bachmann and the Urban Legend

Today, we have a video daily double.  Play along at home and see if you can win the prize.

In early October of this year, Rep. Michelle Bachmann said The news media should do a penetrating exposé and take a look.  I wish they would.  I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out are they pro-America or are they anti-America?  I think people would love to see an exposé like that. (view video clip starting at about 1 minute and 50 seconds)

To me, this leaves no doubt that she believes some Congress-critters are anti-American, and that with investigation Americans could find out who these critters are.

Cue up an interview last week on Hannity and Colmes in which she was asked about this, and she claims she never said it – it is an urban legend.  Responding to a quote read by Alan Colmes taken word-for-word from the above-viewable video, she says Actually, that’s not what I said at all.  Actually that’s not what I said.  It’s an urban legend that was created.  That isn’t what I said at all. (about 15 seconds in)

I didn’t say the media needs to investigate Congress-critters and find the anti-Americans!

Whatever.  I get that we all sometimes say things we don’t mean, have a slip of the tongue/brain and say something wrong, or say things we shouldn’t have (e.g., Obama’s 57 states or McCain’s my fellow prisoners).  But let’s at least ask that she own up to what she said and at least apologize or stand behind her suggestion that President-elect Obama and some Congress-critters are anti-American.  The first two times I ever listened to Rush Limbaugh, he did the exact same thing and wouldn’t stand behind the comments he made when his listeners called him out on them just 2-3 minutes later.  I realized then that he doesn’t really believe what he says, and now I know the same about Rep. Bachmann.

[tags]Bachmann, Lies, Urban Legend, Colmes, That’s not what I said[/tags]

Start slicing stuff – no sharks included

So long, we have failed to talk lasers here on the Blahg.  If you’ve been around long, you know it’s one of our favorite topics.  But what is happening in the laser world?  What goes on when the Blahg doesn’t mention lasers?  If someone puts out news on a laser, and the Blahg doesn’t cover it, does it deserve to be mounted on the head of a friggin’ shark?  Well yes.  Yes it does.  Every laser deserves a shark of its own.

That out of the way, what good news to we have?  Well, how about a guide to building your own laser cutter?  Would you be interested in getting a knife made of focused light?  And what if it was less than $50?

This project demonstrates a simple hack to create a large format laser cutter utilizing all the scrap electronics you may have lying around. If you have a broken scanner or two, the cost can be just about 30 dollars for the entire project.

I totally need to build one of these, even if it isn’t actually a hand-held laser knife.  It sounds cool enough that it could go in to The Best of Instructables book, although it looks like it didn’t make the first volume.  Maybe volume 2?

So we’ll try to get you up date on the coolest or most useless new laser news in the coming days.  And as always, we’ll watch for news of advances on the friggin’ shark front.

[tags]lasers, laser, shark, Instructables, Laser knife[/tags]