Beautiful Photos of Infrared Trees.

BP well deeper than permit allowed, lacked safety valve . What we're not being told by the government or BP: "It's a race now...a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, blown out, leaking and failing system gives up it's [sic] last gasp in a horrific crescendo." Republicans are calling BP's failure a "natural disaster," suggesting nothing could have prevented it.** BP's pointing fingers and blaming the other guy Of course. more inside

The Blues Brothers is a Catholic movie. The Apocalypse is just a bit further down.

Behold the Tsintaosaurus, the dinosaur with a... um... a "unicorn-like crest" on its forhead. Yeah.

This is my life. Is it yours?

Happy Captain Picard Day! (via)

Strong man Joe Rollino has died. Over a hundred years old, he was taken out by a mini van collision. Already he was strong a a child, as shown in the New York Times article. He will be missed, but more children of strength will keep up the tradition. Guliano may be the strongest boy. Then there's Maevax, who may well be the strongest little girl. (That's 125 kg or 275 pounds she is bench pressing for reps.) Some have said that lacking the gene for myostatin will create such power from birth... But the feats of strength I've listed were not done by people with huge muscles... more inside

FOR SALE: G20 Tank! (6 wheeled, 8.5 ton Armoured Personnel Carrier) more inside

Crater face - great piece of short animation. (my cat is trying to help, so let's hope the URL is still OK) via

La Maison en Petits Cubes is a sweet, very sad, 12-minute animated film that's kind of a counterpoint to "Up", but without balloons and with a lot of global-warming-esque sea-level-rising. more inside

MonkeyFilter is now over. Please shut the door behind you. Chimp Rapes Frog. SLYT. Try not to cry too loudly.

End of the journey this Sunday - that's the plan for Hayabusa, which will release a capsule carrying a sample (hopefully!) of the asteroid it landed on years ago.

It's finally here!! Groups of Death. North Korea. England vs the US. Brazil vs Portgual. The Dutch and the Danes. Are we ready to rumble?

The Burger Lab: how to make perfect thin and crisp french fries

Couch Cushion Architecture; A Critical Analysis.

The very short and fairly descriptive domain name e.co is being auctioned off. Less than 2 hours into the 3 day auction, 16,500 USD has been bid, and it can be expected to go much higher. Of course, anyone can bid, and it'd be a great asset for the BP PR department at any price, right?

'murikins are evolving!! . Gallup Poll reflects changing attitudes on sexuality more inside

Astroturfing is bad, mmkay? Walter Apai of Techi.com and Web Design Depot admits to running paid reviews of his sites without labeling them as paid content and calls it ethical behavior. Do you want your opinion of a site to be bought? Or do you want to make up your own mind freely? (Disclosure: This links to my site, and I used to write for Techi.com but quit 'cause I smelled a phony. But I would have done the same due diligence on any other phony...)

Diana Wynne Jones "not at all well." If you grew up speaking English, odds are that before you were twenty you read at least one book by brilliant and prolific authoress Diana Wynne Jones. Now she has, according to this month's Ansible, decided to "abandon chemotherapy [...] and resign herself to whatever may follow." more inside

Imagine if ads in the US were like this. Vive la France!