Friday Links: August 13

Ancient tales of giant squids. [link]

Teaser for "The Avengers". Gets you psyched despite the fact that the script is still in development.

Space Invader couch. [link]

A series of questions that are designed to build a logic trap to make one believe in the possibility of a god. I got 3 hits, but all 3 required them to change an earlier question. [link]

Republican candidate for Governor Dan Maes says that programs to encourage bicycle use are part of a UN conspiracy to take over this country. [link]

Big cats and catnip.

Live webcast recursion.

Interesting article about a man's battle with Argentine ants. [link]

Oldest species on Earth. [link]
I used to have some. Grow your own. [link]

AT&T's disaster recovery method. [link]

Sarah Palin could have cost us $400,000,000 to $2,000,000,000 for a pipeline that can't legally be built. [link]

Pics of a Namibia ghost town. [link]

What ever happened to the set for Hobbiton? [link]

This shower with the color change tile is kinda neat, but black tile bathrooms look awful. [link]

Weird Al and Hanson doing a Blues Brothers impression. [link]

Christopher Hitchens and I have our differences. I love to hear him debate creationists. He shreds them mercilessly. But he was a strong supporter of the war in Iraq. He finally came to understand that it was a mistake based entirely on lies, but it took him years. Now he's got cancer. In this interview he talks about the cancer, his reactions and those of the public. He makes a point that he's not critical of those praying for him. And at the end he says that if there's a deathbed conversion it's only because his mind is completely addled. Any rumors about a conversion will be completely false.

Another interview here.

And for those praying for his death, "Go fuck yourself." [link]

A long article about stupid delaying tactics in the Senate. It talks about the aftermath of the health care bill, how daily time is spent, and the change in relationships between members of the same party over the years. [link]
Note I didn't say Congress. The House, apparently, isn't nearly as bad.

Picture: The Saturn moon of Enceladus spewing ice and creating some of the planetary rings. [link]

Great DieHard battery commercial and the making thereof. [link]

Worst. Management. Evar. [link]

This guy got his stolen bike back. This is the story of the sting operation. [link]

There are 129,864,880 books in the world... according to Google Books. [link]

This city in Texas wants them all. [link]

Demo of Sharpie's new erasable pen. [link]

Newt Gingrich learns the hard way, if you're gonna be a dick about gay marriage you should turn off comments. [link]

Any Rubix Cube can be solved in 20 moves. [link]

Last years 53,216 Austrians left the Catholic Church. So far this year 57,000 have quit. Alas, it's because priests are child rapists, not because the citizens have come to their senses. [link]

The Brits, on the other hand, are leaving the church because they're seen the light. [link]

Full size, poster quality scan of a geologic map of the moon. [link]

Doctor 11 gets the Simpsons treatment. [link]

Teaser posters. [link]

Game: Number Lines - the old balls on a track game with a math twist. The balls have numbers. Fire a numbered ball that makes the two balls total 10. [link]