I read a while back that a cat's memory lasts 16 hours.  Someone forgot to tell Kitten - it's been months since I gave her a flea bath, yet she remembered the experience so acutely that she was being defensive and hiding after just one of the cats had been bathed (and behind a closed door to boot ( Read more... )

I don't care who does it.  It's wrong, it's stupid, and it undermines everything we stand for here in America.

For example, take the recent assault of a MoveOn.org protester at a Rand Paul rally in Kentucky.  Maybe trying to hold a sign up near Paul was not the best of ideas, but does she really need to be wrestled to the ground and stepped on ( Read more... )

I have to admit that I'm not impressed with this so-called "investigative journalist".  His first stunt, the video about ACORN that basically destroyed this organization due to various allegations, got him in the news as some kind of hotshot up-and-coming reporter, but when it was actually investigated, it was quickly discovered that the video he ( Read more... )

I read a news article recently that was talking about bullying and the punishments that are appropriate for those responsible ( Read more... )

This is in reference to a calculation made by Harold Morowitz which stated that if all of the chemical bonds of a bacterium were instantly dissolved, the likelihood of the atoms which made up that bacterium spontaneously recombining to reform said bacterium are infinitesimal (approaching zero so closely that for practical purposes, the likelihood ( Read more... )

www.scribd.com/doc/37958976/GOP-Pledge-to-America

Technically, a draft copy, but I believe it's identical to the copy that was to be released today.  Also, shades of the "Contract with America"?

( Read more... )

One of the biggest problems I have with mainstream religion, especially Christianity, is its tendency to assume that it is the only correct path to take towards righteousness.  As a result, it assumes that every other religious belief is wrong, even ones spawned from it (some of the most brutal conflicts were spawned by related religious sects, ( Read more... )

Nat Hentoff is a conservative political columnist who regularly writes about First Amendment issues.  I normally find what he has to say very interesting and thought-provoking.  The same is true of his three latest columns, linked below:

• Am I also a bigot?  Pols clueless on Ground Zero mosque (8/25/10)
• What hath the Ground Zero imam wrought? (9/1/10)
• ( Read more... )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txFoaxURoV4&feature=player_embedded

Words do not describe.

People who have played Dragon Quest will probably enjoy it much more.

lrnj.com/

Basically, this is a RPG which operates along the same lines as a typing tutor or the like.  To fight monsters, you have to be able to type in or identify Japanese characters (the default mode starts with hiragana and katakana, and then moves up to kanji).

The demo is free, but they're having a special until August 31 where you can unlock ( Read more... )