The Daily Bluster

This one is destined to become a classic. Ran across this gem here .  Of course, the gentleman probably thought that he was doing his community a great favor, and perhaps there was a sort of...preparation, for this obviously important event. But hearing his testimony, one can't help but wonder what kind of reference materials he consulted. Not an approved Biology textbook, that's for sure. Maybe he dreamed this up, after a really memorable  night? Who knows?    Watch and listen: Here is the text of his testimony: My name is Mike Frey. I speak as a concerned Minnesotan father and husband. And the thing about same sex marriage is that, people who are married, do have sex. And when same-sex people are married, they do have sex, there’s something called sodomy. Sodomy defined in Minnesota is sex by or with the mouth or through the anus. When there is ejaculation into a vagina, there is a barrier there, as in your packet it states there, of a cellular tis...

The Hittites were an ancient people who built an empire that lasted for about a thousand years, from around  1340 to 1200 BCE in what is now modern Turkey and parts of northern Syria.  An Indo-European people, the Hittites were originally from around the Caspian Sea who later moved into southern Turkey around 2000 BC. Unlike other Semitic people who had lived in the area, the Hittites rode horses, and even built wagons and chariots.    Depiction of a Hittite chariot (from an Egyptian relief) Most information about the Hittites came from the royal library discovered in 1906 in the ruins of Khattushas, the ancient capital of the Hittite Empire, near Bogaz Koi in Turkey.  The library—one of the largest and oldest to be discovered—yielded 10,000 clay tablets containing a wealth of information about the empire, written in cuneiform.  Archaeologists were able to gather information from these and other documents and from the remains of their gr...

I've come across this many times in the past, this bit about a NY cab driver and a ride he gave to an anonymous elderly lady.  Since I am not dead inside (yet), this story never fails to make me tear up, every time .  Aesop was right when he said that, "No act of kindness, no matter small, is ever wasted." It is so easy to make a difference in someone's else's life. People should do this more--do at least one random act of kindness everyday. Here is the story:  I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes I honked again. Since this was going to be my last ride of my shift I thought about just driving away, but instead I put the car in park and walked up to the door and knocked.. "Just a minute," answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor. After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90's stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat...

Aokigahara Forest is a quiet, hauntingly beautiful woodland located in the northwestern base of Mt. Fuji in Japan. The trees in this forest are so dense they block the sound of the wind; wildlife is also conspicuously absent. The forest is eerily quiet. For many Japanese, Aokigahara (“Sea of Trees”) is the perfect place to die. More than five hundred people have chosen this place to commit suicide. Seventy-eight people killed themselves here in 2002; in 2003, the figure climbed to a hundred.  Local authorities subsequently stopped publicizing the number of bodies found in the forest. Since 1970, authorities conduct yearly body search. The search party includes volunteers and journalists. As the forest is dense, nobody knows how many more bodies are left undiscovered. If you are morbid enough, you can look at pictures at some of the bodies found here  (warning: disturbing  images ). A writer, Seicho Matsumoto, published a novel entitled “T...

It was the Reverend James Ussher (1581-1656) who calculated the Earth’s age as only 6,000 years old. This would make the Earth a veritable infant, as planets go. However, science puts Earth’s age as around 4.54 billion years; creationists, however, don’t let anything as trivial as scientific facts get in the way of how they view the world around them.   That’s why Pat Robertson’s admission that James Ussher was not “inspired” by the Lord when he calculated the Earth’s age—in short, he does not believe that the Earth is only 6,000 years old—is surprising. This is contrary to most religious fundamentalist’s views that Earth was created in 4000 BC (around the time urbanization was starting in Mesopotamia). Pat Robertson also said that Christians should not “cover up” scientific evidence that Earth is, in fact, billions of years old.    Look, I know that people will probably try to lynch me when I say this, but Bishop Ussher wasn’t inspired by the Lord ...

The longest record for an officially confirmed sniper kill is held by British Corporal Craig Harrison . The feat occurred in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in November 2011. Corporal Harrison killed two Taliban fighters (two consecutive shots!) at a distance of 8120 feet, or 2.47 kilometers. A third shot also sent a Taliban machine gunner straight into martyrdom. Before that, the previous record for the longest kill was held by Corporal Rob Furlong of the Canadian Army . He sent to Islamic paradise an Al Qaeda fighter from 2.43 kilometers away in 2002 during Operation Anaconda , also in Afghanistan.  At these distances, the bullets can take several seconds to reach their intended targets.  Corporal Harrison used an Accuracy International L115A3 rifle for his record-breaking shot. Like this one: Corporal Furlong, on the other hand, used a Mcmillan TAC-50 : U.S. Navy Seal sniper Chris Kyle , in his autobiography “American Sniper,” states that hi...

...(T)he only thing left to do is shout -- not moan, or complain, but yell out at the top of your voice whatever it was you had to say. What you've never said before. What perhaps you don't even know till now--Jean Anouilh Two news articles made me think of the quoted passage above. First—“ SC asked to declare cybercrime law illegal .”  This bill—the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012—was passed in the Philippine Senate that Senator Guingona is trying to amend. The article quoted Senator Guingona as saying, “Without a clear definition of the crime of libel and the persons liable, virtually any person can now be charged with a crime—even if you just like, retweet or comment on an online update or blog post containing criticisms.” What is alarming is that the Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda agrees with the bill. They find nothing wrong with it.  Seriously. Senator Tito Soto ( the unapologetic plagiarizer nonpareil ) apparently had a hand in the inclusi...