American Inquisition: Holder's Justice Department demanding "tips" on George Zimmerman

This has been news for a couple of days now, but the reason I held off posting about it is that I wanted to do some historical investigation first.  And you know what I found out? To the very best of my understanding, there has not been a single instance before this week of the United States federal government setting up a hotline or e-mail address asking the public...

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This is why we can't have nice things...

In case you missed it the first time, tonight at 7 p.m. EST the SyFy channel will be re-broadcasting its natural disaster epic Sharknado.  Last week's premiere of the movie - about a freak hurricane spawning off the coast of California and hitting Los Angeles, dropping shark-spewing tornadoes all over the place - became one of the biggest television hits of the summer. (No,...

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Tammy Tuesday this week is brew-ing up trouble

So Tammy decided she wanted to try some beer... She ultimately decided that she didn't like it.  After one whiff of the bottle, she ran away from it as hard as she could!  Wish I could have gotten that on camera. A friend made an observation: what kind of a German dog wouldn't enjoy beer?  I think the photo speaks for itself: it's light beer that Tammy...

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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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