Rongorongo, et al...

Rongorongo?  What's that?

It's an ancient system of writing, and it's one of the few that have not been deciphered.  Modern science has done an amazing job of figuring out the meaning of ancient writings with no living readers, but some still remain a mystery...

It's Popcorn Time!

I don't actually like popcorn, but I just might take up the habit as I watch this one unfold.  Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann has gone where nobody thought he was actually stupid enough to go: he's filed a slander and defamation lawsuit against CEI and Mark Steyn.  Anthony Watts, we can be sure, will follow this diligently, with his own (very large) bag of popcorn.  Megan McArdle and Jonathan Adler have some thoughts as well.

Just like everyone else, I can scarcely wait until the discovery begins...

Who Is This Supposed To Appeal To?

Watch this, a new Obama ad:


It's hard to imagine the demographic that would consider that an effective appeal to vote for Obama.

Matt Welch (at Reason) gets my quote of the day with his reaction:

Twelve more days, people. Twelve. More. Days.

Exactly, Matt.  By the way, the headline on his post is also pure gold: “Lie Back and Think of Mother England, America...”

Joshua Keating (at Foreign Policy) notes that Obama's new ad looks like a direct ripoff of an ad for Vladimir Putin in his last election campaign.  Lovely. 

You just can't make this stuff up...

Like Shaking Hands with a Dead Fish...

This isn't pretty.  Charles Woods is the father of Tyrone Woods, an ex-SEAL who was one of the four Americans killed on 9/11 in Benghazi, Libya.  Just a few days later, Charles Woods attended a memorial ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base.  There he met Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Biden.  Here's some of what Mr. Woods (during an interview with Glenn Beck) had to say about those meetings:

Vice President Biden, as he has become known to do, reportedly made a wildly inappropriate comment to the father who had just lost his hero son.

Woods said Biden came over to his family and asked in a “loud and boisterous” voice, “Did your son always have balls the size of cue balls?”

“Are these the words of someone who is sorry?” said Woods.

The grieving father also described his brief encounter with President Obama during the ceremony for the Libya victims.

“When he finally came over to where we were, I could tell that he was rather conflicted, a person who was not at peace with himself,” Woods said. “Shaking hands with him, quite frankly, was like shaking hands with a dead fish. His face was pointed towards me but he would not look me in the eye, his eyes were over my shoulder.”

“I could tell that he was not sorry,” he added. “He had no remorse.”

...

Hillary Clinton’s comments to Woods raise even more questions about the White House’s official story on the Benghazi attack, which has already been extremely inconsistent.

After apologizing for his loss, Woods said Clinton told him that the U.S. would “make sure that the person who made that film is arrested and prosecuted.”

More here and here.

George W. Bush had many faults, but this kind of disrespectful and inappropriate display was not amongst them...

Remarkable...

Here's a piece of art by DiegoKoi, a picture of model Federica Ferragine – but it's not a photograph.  This picture was created by pencil, on paper.  Follow the links on this page to see the work in progress.

Amazing.  This is the most realistic piece of art I have ever seen...