I saw a link to what was sarcastically called one of the best “Democratic Underground” posts ever, and while I don’t know about that, it’s definitely silly.  Some guy took some chicken wire, concrete blocks, newspaper, and kerosene to “simulate” the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11.  His conclusion, since the newspaper and kerosene didn’t burn down the chicken wire and cause the concrete block to fall, then obviously the Twin Towers couldn’t have fallen due to a fire from jet fuel and the structural damage caused when the plane crashed into it.  Here’s his words :

“What I conclude is that a fairly flimsy steel structure does not distort and bend and collapse very easily from a simple hydrocarbon fire. And thus, it is not clear why the much stronger steel columns in the WTC towers weakened so much from fires that the towers underwent global collapse.”

Click here for the pictures and the rest of the story.  This has to be the most ridiculous item of the day…  Well, that and the fact that some people think President Bush is responsible for taking down the WTC.

An excerpt from one of the comments :

Here you have someone without any apparent engineering background making very coarse analogies and drawing sweeping conclusions. Stop me if you’ve heard this: extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. You have someone positing a conspiracy of staggeringly vast size and audacity, based on an experiment that would fairly rate a failing grade as a high school science project. He then gets on the internet samizdat machine and declares that NIST, the military, the President and everyone else are engaged in some sort of bizarre conspiracy.

Golf is boring to watch, but does it have to be?  What (humorous) suggestions could be applied to the game to make it more entertaining to everyone?

Today is July 4th, when we celebrate our nation’s independence and our freedom.  But I already wrote about that at my other blog.  Here, I’m going to focus on the other parts of the holiday : food and fireworks.

A standard item at 4th of July parties is grilled burgers.  So scrumptuous!  I wonder why restaurants are typically unable to recreate that grilled-at-home flavor of the meat.  I grilled today, and it was good.  Also had cheese dip, baked beans, potato salad, sweet tea, and homemade ice cream.  All good stuff (although I could do without the potato salad, but some folks like it).  Another part of 4th of July is overeating, which goes with food, obviously.  Actually, I think this is part of every holiday.  We Americans like to eat (and it shows).

Now onto fireworks… on this holiday we are allowed to buy these small explosive devices and detonate them.  That is just about guaranteed to be a good time.  Who doesn’t like to blow stuff up?  (I realize there’s some people who don’t like to have fun… but they probably aren’t reading this blog.)  Anyway, back to blowing up stuff…  Even if you just shoot the fireworks in the air like you’re supposed to, it’s a good time.  This year I saw something like a semi-automatic Roman candle launcher — it put out several dozen in just a few seconds.  Way cool!  And there were some big-dollar fireworks I saw that launched a lot of smaller fireworks into the air for a neat effect.  It’s amazing what they can do with fireworks these days.

I have some stuff that’s scheduled to be destroyed with fireworks, but it didn’t happen today.  I’ve gotta wait until I have access to a video camera for this.  When it happens, it’ll be broadcast here first.  We will have the exclusive video.  So stay tuned.

I was thinking tonight about how cool it would be to make your own fireworks.  It would take quite a bit of practice, I’m sure, but that wouldn’t be a problem!  I wonder how hard it would be to make some of the bigger ones that shoot out many streams and have a two-stage explosion…  I may have to point our local R&D department in that direction…

If you have any thoughts on that or special memories along these lines about this wonderful holiday, feel free to leave them in the comments section.

A lot of people these days are trying to quit smoking, and rightly so, because it’s stupid.  But we understand it’s difficult to quit sometimes, because stupidity with momentum can be tough to stop, unfortunately. So we here at Buffet o’ Blog have devised a new product that’s guaranteed to help you stop smoking.  (Yes, you read that right — guaranteed!)  Available exclusively here, we introduce the explosive sweater.  If it comes in contact with fire or ashes, it doesn’t just burn — it explodes!  And so cigarette smoking is extremely dangerous, therefore strongly encouraging you to not smoke.  Because if you smoke while wearing this sweater, you will surely die.  (And you don’t want to do that yet.)

It’s available in a few different colors and styles, to accomodate most people.  There’s a “business casual” version, for the business person.  There’s a solid orange one for trendy students who want attention.  There’s a dookie brown one with a couple of orange horizontal stripes for those stuck in the ’70s.  There’s a hypercolor version for those stuck in the ’80s.  And there’s a solid black one for you “cool” folks.  Also, it comes in two sizes :

* One size fits most.

* Man, you sho’ are fat!

If you are really skinny, we haven’t forgotten about you — just buy the regular size and shrink it in the dryer.  And then you can make it fit custom — shrink-to-fit.  (See, we’ve thought of everything!)

They will be available any day now, so start sending us your money now.  Be sure to order plenty so you won’t have days where you can get away with a smoke.  They also make great gifts!

Like all products these days, there’s some fine print :

Warning: May cause death.

Look for our upcoming ads in popular magazines and on TV, with our new slogan : “Guaranteed to keep you from smoking… or else.”