Britain Introduces the "Anti-Stab" Knife

From Times Online:

The first "anti-stab" knife is to go on sale in Britain, designed to work as normal in the kitchen but to be ineffective as a weapon.

The knife has a rounded edge instead of a point and will snag on clothing and skin to make it more difficult to stab someone.

It was invented by industrial designer John Cornock, who was inspired by a documentary in which doctors advocated banning traditional knives.

Mr Cornock, 42, from Swindon, said that the knife will cut vegetables, but will make it almost impossible to stab someone to death and will reduce the risk of accidental injuries.

He said: "It can never be a totally safe knife, but the idea is you can't inflict a fatal wound. Nobody could just grab one out of the kitchen drawer and kill someone."

The knife is expected to sell for around £40-50 and has been tested with "very favourable" results by the Home Office's Design and Technology Alliance -- set up to research products that can deter crime.

Leave it to the Brits to come up with yet another giant step backward in the area of self-defense.

Polka Is Officially Dead

Before you roll out the barrel, you might want to read this:

After 24 years, polka has had its last dance at the Grammys.

The Recording Academy, which bestows the Grammy Awards, announced late on Wednesday that the polka category would be eliminated, saying in a statement that it had been cut "to ensure the awards process remains representative of the current musical landscape."

To many in the polka world, that read as a kind of industry code meaning that their genre -- once capable of supporting artists with million-selling hits, but long since relegated to micro-niche status -- had slipped off the mainstream radar entirely.

"It's devastating," said Carl Finch of Brave Combo, a band from Denton, Tex., that has won the Grammy twice. "Polka is so misunderstood, you know, the butt of jokes. Having a polka category was the most important step to legitimacy that we could ever hope to achieve. To have that taken away, it's like it was all for nothing."

I see the death of polka as a good thing. Hopefully, I won't have to do that stupid "Chicken Dance" at weddings anymore.

America's Love Affair with Cars Is Over

P. J. O'rourke eloquently describes the end of the affair:

We've lost our love for cars and forgotten our debt to them and meanwhile the pointy-headed busybodies have been exacting their revenge. We escaped the poke of their noses once, when we lived downtown, but we won't be able to peel out so fast the next time. In the name of safety, emissions control and fuel economy, the simple mechanical elegance of the automobile has been rendered ponderous, cumbersome and incomprehensible. One might as well pry the back off an iPod as pop the hood on a contemporary motor vehicle. An aging shade-tree mechanic like myself stares aghast and sits back down in the shade. Or would if the car weren't squawking at me like a rehearsal for divorce. You left the key in. You left the door open. You left the lights on. You left your dirty socks in the middle of the bedroom floor.

I don't believe the pointy-heads give a damn about climate change or gas mileage, much less about whether I survive a head-on with one of their tax-sucking mass-transit projects. All they want to is to make me hate my car. How proud and handsome would Bucephalas look, or Traveler or Rachel Alexandra, with seat and shoulder belts, air bags, 5-mph bumpers and a maze of pollution-control equipment under the tail?

And there's the end of the American automobile industry. When it comes to dull, practical, ugly things that bore and annoy me, Japanese things cost less and the cup holders are more conveniently located.

Read the full article here.

UFO Saved Earth from Destruction?

On June 30, 1908, there was a sudden, violent explosion in the sky over the Tunguska River in Siberia. The blast, 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, leveled 830 square miles of forest.

To this day, no one knows exactly what it was. Countless possible explanations have been put forward over the decades: a meteor or comet exploding in the atmosphere, a passing black hole, a falling chunk of antimatter, a scientific experiment gone horribly wrong, and the ever-popular UFO crash.

One Russian scientist takes this last theory to an entirely new level:

According to The Sun, Dr. Yuri Labvin, head of the Tunguska Spatial Phenomenon Foundation, has found quartz slabs with strange markings that he thinks were part of a UFO control panel.

He made the discovery near the site of the so-called "Tunguska event" -- a massive and so-far unexplained explosion that devastated more than 100 square miles of Siberian forest in June 1908.

Dr Labvin claims the slabs provide evidence that a spacecraft deliberately crashed into the meteor to prevent it slamming into Earth and wiping out life on the planet.

Does Hallmark make a "Thank You" card for that?

No Smiling Allowed in the DMV

I didn't know this was actually a concern, but the Virginia DMV is cracking down on smiling:

Few places in Virginia are as draining to the soul and as numbing to the buttocks as the branch offices of the Department of Motor Vehicles. And yet, until recently, smiling was still permitted there.

No more. As part of the DMV's effort to develop super-secure driver's licenses and foolproof identification cards, the agency has issued a smile ban, directing customers to adopt a "neutral expression" in their portraits, thereby extinguishing whatever happiness comes with finally hearing one's number called.

The driver's license photo, it seems, is destined to look like a mug shot.

DMV officials say the smile ban is for a good cause. The agency would like to develop a facial recognition system that could compare customers' photographs over time to prevent fraud and identity theft. "The technology works best when the images are similar," said DMV spokeswoman Pam Goheen. "To prepare for the possibility of future security enhancements, we're asking customers to maintain a neutral expression."

I suppose it makes sense for driver's license photos to look more like mug shots. The government treats us all like potential criminals anyway.

Bazooka Joe the Movie?

You know Hollywood has officially hit bottom when this...

...is considered to be a great idea for a movie.

"Good Times" with the Bordens

From the back cover:

"GOOD TIMES...with a variety of good music (from Polkas & Waltzes to Rock & Roll) have been the key to the success of the "BORDENS", a versatile family dance band, who have played in various parts of the country including Thunder Bay, Ont., Edmonton, Alta., and are now living and playing in the Northwestern Ontariou community of Dryden, Ont.

The band consists of George (accordion), wife Jeanette (Electrovox organ), son Roger showing his versatility on saxophone, guitar, and vocals, and son Gary (age 12), a talented young drummer. A nephew, Bill Dombradi on guitar, has been added to the group for this recording."

And now, without further ado, here are the Bordens performing the theme from Star Wars!



(Found here.)

Now THAT'S a Knife!

Here's a "pocket" knife that would make Crocodile Dundee shake in his boots, and it would have to be carried by the entire Swiss Army:

Designed by Hans Meister, this elaborate piece of cutlery has a total of 314 blades and is part of an exhibition in celebration of the 125th anniversary of Swiss knife manufacturer Victorinox.

Cool stuff!

Handwashing for Dummies

Handwashing can be overwhelmingly complicated, which is why we need experts like the good folks at the Wall Street Journal to instruct idiots like us on the proper procedure:

Wow! She makes it look so easy!

Once I have this mastered, I might have to look into this "bathing" thing I've been hearing about.

One Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Just when you thought there couldn't be more of an overreaction to the so-called "swine flu," along comes this report from Reuters:

Afghanistan's only known pig has been locked in a room, away from visitors to Kabul zoo where it normally grazes beside deer and goats, because people are worried it could infect them with the virus popularly known as swine flu.

The pig is a curiosity in Muslim Afghanistan, where pork and pig products are illegal because they are considered irreligious, and has been in quarantine since Sunday after visitors expressed alarm it could spread the new flu strain.

"For now the pig is under quarantine, we built it a room because of swine influenza," Aziz Gul Saqib, director of Kabul Zoo, told Reuters. "We've done this because people are worried about getting the flu."

As far as hysteria goes, I think this actually tops Egypt's policy of swineocide.