Coffee and Provocation

1. How to Make a Cannon Net Gun:
   Here's an instructables on how to make a cannon net gun capable of firing a 90 square foot net 15 to 25 feet using 80-100 psi of compressed air. I'm thinking this would be great for feral cats, feral dogs, and maybe even some birds. And, of course, more distance could be gotten with a lighter mist net.
   
   
2. An Affliction Called Jack Russells:
   Chronicle of the Horse has a piece entitled "An Affliction Called Jack Russells" which has this wonderful sentence: "A good hunting Jack—which is 99 percent of them — is far better than a cat as a deterrent for rats, since they waste no time playing games. They just carry on like little killing machines, displaying the most ardent bloodthirst and pure joy in hunting. They may look sweet and innocent curled up on the couch, but you can see your little pooch get up, stretch, yawn, and say to himself, 'Well, I think I'll go kill something.'"
   
   
3. Sex and Sewers:
   I have written about bird sex in the past, noting that while ducks, geese and some ratites have penises, most other birds have a simple opening called a "cloaca" which is used for both sex, egg laying and defecation. What I did not know is that the cloaca is named after Cloacina, the ancient Roman goddess of Rome's sewers. Yes, that's right, Rome had a sewer God! Along with protecting sewers, Cloacina is also a "protector of sexual intercourse in marriage."
   
   
4. Action to Make a World of Difference:
   Most folks prefer to harangue other people about their choice of food or locomotion rather than take direct action to address the root of the problem through permanent contraception via surgical sterilization. For those who cringe at the thought, Treeghugger.com has a meeker suggestion: Offset Your CO2 by buying "the Pill" for someone who is poor.
   
   
5. Roads Without Names:
   How do you find a house in a nation where roads don't have names? Watch this video for a whole new way of thinking.
   
   
6. Uncle Sam Hates Game Boy:
   The U.S. military has announced plans to buy 2,200 more PlayStation 3 game consoles, so they can beef up the processing power of an existing, PS3-based supercomputer. No, I do not make this kind of stuff up.
   
   
7. Spending $30 Billion to Battle 100 Al Queda Fighters?
   According to Obama White House National Security Adviser General James Jones, there are only 100 Al Queda fighters left in all of Afghanistan. So why are we sending 30,000 more troops to that country, at a cost of $30 billion a year? Answer: to fight the Taliban which wants to make Afghanistan a theocracy. Why do we care if Afghanistan is a theocracy? We shouldn't! The Vatican is a theocracy, and so too is Saudi Arabia, Iran, and (I would argue) Israel. Yes, let's separate church and state in this country, but let others do as they will.
   
   
8. What Happens to a Dead Seal Pup?
   Answer: It gets consumed in a techno-color explosion of sea worms and starfish. Check it out!
   
   
9. Rinderpest Bites the Dust:
   Rinderpest, the most devastating cattle disease in the world, is set to be eradicated within 18 months according to world health authorities. If this occurs, this will be the second disease to be wiped from the globe — the first was smallpox, eradicated in 1980. Rinderpest, which means "cattle plague" in German, was the causal agent of many famines in Africa in the 19th and early 20th Century.
   
   
10. The Espresso Book Machine:
    An Expresso Book Machine is in operation at the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This machine will print any public domain book that Google has scanned in about 4 minutes, and for just $8. Watch it make a book here.
    .