Photographs of American Revolution veterans, and 3D images from World War I

Old historical photos hold a special fascination for me.  So I find this next couple of items positively amazing... Peter Mackintosh Photo Credit: Joseph Bauman On the right is a picture of Peter Mackintosh, taken sometime after the early 1840s.  Mackintosh was 16 years old and an apprentice blacksmith in Boston when he watched as a gang of young men barged into...

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When animals attack: cows and snakes

A man in Brazil has died after a cow on top of his roof crashed through the ceiling of his house and crushed him in his bed. From the story at The Telegraph... The cow is believed to have escaped from a nearby farm and climbed onto the roof of the couple's house, which backs onto a steep hill on Wednesday night.The corrugated roof immediately gave way and the one-and-a-half-ton animal fell eight feet onto Mr de Souza's side of the bed. His wife,...

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George Zimmerman: NOT GUILTY

Breaking news on, I think every TV station in the land right now. George Zimmerman: found Not Guilty Justice was served.  And I'm going to tell you why... George Zimmerman has been found not guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin because the prosecution in this case either had NO real evidence whatsoever, or they were the most incompetent team of prosecutors in the history...

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Review of PACIFIC RIM: this summer's most fun movie yet!

Pacific Rim is the most thoughtful and personal film of the kaiju genre since the original Gojira in 1954.  It is also one of the remarkably few that give the kaiju themselves their proper respect. Consequently, it's an insanely fun movie which more than deserves your hard-earned entertainment coin! Those movies about giant monsters?  Well, the creatures themselves...

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Quite possibly the most hardcore bad-a$$ dude EVER

Sir Adrian Carton de Wiarthaving a jolly good time! Twitter user Matthew Barrett found what must be "the best opening paragraph of any Wikipedia biography ever".  It's the entry for Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, an officer in the British Army who served in three wars. From the Wikipedia entry... Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart VC, KBE, CB,...

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Chewbacca needs double amputee

Lord only knows how legit this is. Whether it is or not, it's both uproariously funny and downright creepy.  From Craigslist... I don't think that's how they did it for The Empire Strikes Back.  Can't this guy find a geek to set him up with some circuit boards and servos instead? Anyway, thanks to Erik Yaple for another twisted fi...

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Government-supplied consumers now outnumber private producers in America

Jobs are evaporating.  Manufacturing is disappearing from our shores.  Millions upon millions of undocumented immigrants are flooding across our borders. And now, at long last, the population of Americans on government food assistance outnumbers that of private sector employees. This is not sustainable. From the story at CNS News... The number of Americans receiving...

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This week's Tammy Tuesday proved elusive

I tried, really tried, to snap a photo of Tammy wearing my new sunglasses.  But she adamantly refused to cooperate. So here she is running around the house, sneaking under the dining room table, no doubt looking for trouble... I know: pretty disappointing as a photo.  Maybe she'll give us a better show next we...

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Look! Real Third Amendment case! A story that will boil your blood...

'Fess up: how many of us laughed about the Third Amendment when we learned about it (or were supposed to have learned about it) in ninth grade? The Quartering Act, 1763. (Chris raises his hand) The Third Amendment - part of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution - reads thusly: "No soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner,...

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Name these two dogs!

These two sweet little chihuahuas need help.  Your help! They have a home.  They have love.  They just need names. My girlfriend brought them home this past weekend from an animal adoption agency.  Right now their names are Lou and Blue.  Lou is toward the top of the photo and Blue is in the bottom half.  They are a mother-and-son pair and...

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A pledge against allegiance to man

I can no longer, in good conscience and in keeping to my faith in God, recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America. This is a choice which I have abided for nearly a year.  At various times I have felt led to articulate my reasons for doing so.  Indeed, this past fall a friend helped me to record a video about my decision to never...

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Douglas Engelbart, inventor of the computer mouse, has passed away

Unless you're reading this on a mobile device (and even that owes a lot to him) you're enjoying this blog and practically everything else on the Internet because of this man: Douglas Engelbart. While working at SRI in the 1960s, Engelbart was struck with the idea of humans interacting with computers by manipulating on the screen with an intuitive interface.  He called...

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The world's ugliest church buildings

RealClearReligion has scoured the globe to come up with this set of 35 pages depicting the ugliest churches in the world.  Be they Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, non-denominational or whatever, these edifices may not be an affront to God... but they are an affront to human eyeballs!  Some of them can't really help it: they were obviously a convenience store or movie...

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The titular dilemma of new Star Wars movies (and what can be done about it)

Right now, somewhere as you read this, pre-production is well underway for Star Wars Episode VII.  The script is being written and re-written, conceptual artists are creating new visions of a galaxy far far away, and there is already a casting call for major roles in the next movie.  Barely eight months ago we could have never imagined a new Star Wars trilogy would...

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ObamaCare employer mandate delayed until AFTER next election

The employer mandate component of Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act health-care scheme has been delayed from implementation until 2015.  That's after the 2014 elections, mind you.  Not well before. Can Obama do that?  I mean, I thought the Affordable Care Act was codified law.  Seems kinda illegal to invalidate the most sweeping legislation in living memory like that, even if it's only part of it. I have an idea: let ObamaCare...

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The latest from the wonderful world of 3D printing

This is easily the technology that I'm keenly following more than any other right now.  And for plenty of good reasons... 3D printing is now capable of producing replacement bones using living cells. Desktop-produced firearms continues to be developed and refined, beyond the control of any government. Laser-guided 3D printing can now produce metal objects with high...

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Tammy Tuesday this week is too snug and cozy to care

I snapped this picture of Tammy at about 4:30 in the morning.  On most nights she jumps onto the recliner and pulls this blanket over herself and goes to sleep.  On this particular morning she woke up, looked around, didn't see anything to get interested in for the moment, and then pulled her head back under the covers and went back to dozing... ...

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