Jamiroquai redubbed. // Rats with teddy bears. // I knew someone would build one eventually. // Hamster butts. // Ugly Renaissance babies. // Bluetooth enabled retro radio. // Bird feeder of note. // Beer meets hot skillet. // The cheese slicer you’ve always wanted. // Silence your windows. // Go supersonic, sideways. // Pot-bellied seahorses. // Teeny tiny quadcopter. // Terrariums. // The theremin you’ve always wanted. // And via MeFi, cooking gone awry, from unhappy fajitas and ectoplasm borscht to delicious ham water.

Methane gas released by dairy cows has caused an explosion in a cow shed in Germany, police said.

Oh, don’t act like you’re above these things. We both know different.

The roof was damaged and one of the cows was injured in the blast in the central German town of Rasdorf. Thanks to the belches and flatulence of the 90 dairy cows in the shed, high levels of the gas had built up. Then “a static electric charge caused the gas to explode with flashes of flames,” the force said in a statement quoted by Reuters news agency. Emergency services attended the farm and took gas readings to test for the risk of further blasts, said local media.

Via the BBC. 

Annette Gabbedey, maker of bespoke jewellery. Via Laughing Squid. 

The differing teaching methods of dogs and cats. // The flight paths of birds. // BarBacon, where the menu is all cured meat. (h/t, Kurt) // Batman wanders the American Southwest. // This match is burning. // Because skydiving is dull without it. // Alarm clock app wakes you early if snow has fallen. // Aquascaping. // Driftwood horses. // DrumPants. “For your mobile lifestyle.” // Speaker of note. // 1980s Japan. // CouchBunker. Bulletproof cushions optional. (h/t, Instapundit) // Carved from wood, then painted. // When Quentin Tarantino appeared on The Golden Girls as an Elvis impersonator. // Milky the cow. // Einstein’s little Einstein. // And last but not least, the thrilling adventures of Chief O’Brien.

Jim Goad on girth, grievance and the politics of rotundity: 

The results are in [according to a study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology]: Fat people overeat because our fat-fearing society “fat-shames” them, which then causes them to overeat. This doesn’t explain how they got fat in the first place, but let’s not get picky… The “fat acceptance” movement – AKA “fat power,” “body acceptance,” “size acceptance” and “weight diversity” – provides a waistband-busting cornucopia of unintentional humour. It is identity politics for the adipose, that odd, contradictory demand that society shouldn’t define them by their designated victim category even though that’s apparently the only way that these self-designated victims are able to define themselves. The movement goes all the way back to the 1960s, when “fat activists” staged a Central Park “fat-in” and the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance was founded.

Thomas Sowell on the forgetful left, parts one and two: 

Words seem to carry far more weight than facts among those liberals who argue as if rent control laws actually control rents and gun control laws actually control guns. It does no good to point out to them that the two American cities where rent control laws have existed longest and strongest – New York and San Francisco – are also the two cities with the highest average rents. Nor does it make a dent on them when you point out evidence, from both sides of the Atlantic, that tightening gun control laws does not reduce gun crimes, including murder. It is not uncommon for gun crimes to rise when gun control laws are tightened. Apparently armed criminals prefer unarmed victims.

Hans Bader on racial quotas in school discipline:  

The Education Department wrote that a school could be liable for punishing students for an offense like tardiness if more students of one race than another were tardy… Creating de facto racial quotas in school discipline will also increase violence and disorder in the schools. At a widely-read education blog, a teacher describes the violence and disorder that occurred when her school adopted racial quotas in discipline: “I was in a school that tried to implement just this criteria for discipline. One kid (scrawny 7th grader) had the crap beaten out of him by a 6-foot, fully-muscled 7th grader – two different races. The little kid was suspended before his copious blood had been cleaned up off the floor. The big kid never did have ANY punishment – that particular ethnic group had been disciplined too many times. Need I mention that it was a tough month, as word quickly spread that violence against the ‘under-disciplined’ ethnic group was treated as a freebie?”

Ah, but nothing says fairness like dishing out excuses according to how brown a student is rather than their behaviour. And attempting to reduce disruption and violence by punishing it less when racial quotas have been reached is clearly a recipe for everyone’s educational success. What could possibly go wrong? More on the same from Heather Mac Donald here and here. 

And on a lighter note, something tells me one or two of you may find this amusing. 

As usual, feel free to add your own links and snippets in the comments.