Good Reads and Information

 This is how wealthy Americans can buy a presidential election. (via Breakfast Links)

What's it like to be an extra on the HBO series Games of Thrones? Many of them are fans, and make it into a labor of love.

Did Hitler Have a Secret Son with a French Teenager? New evidence supports the story Jean-Marie Loret's mother told him before her death.

Author Douglas Adams' 60th birthday would have been this March 11th. There's going to be a really big party in his honor in London, so make your plans now.

Depression Is Linked to Hyperconnectivity of Brain Regions. In other words, if your brain loses its flexibility, you may be at risk.

World’s First Test-Tube Hamburger to Be Served in 2012. Laboratory meat grown from bovine stem cells could eventually save animals, farmland, and energy, but will it be tasty?

The Mysterious Mr. Zedzed: The Wickedest Man in the World. Profiteering on war armaments is bad enough, but did he start the war himself?

 Tasers were meant to replace deadly force for police officers, but are more and more used as a shortcut for taking control. Read about 8 unfortunate Tasing incidents.

A new study on single people shows results that are the opposite of what you've heard lately. Men are more willing to commit than women are, to the point of settling for someone they're not in love with.

Georgia Tech has developed the Tongue Drive System, in which a stud in the tongue acts as a mouse against a pad attached to the roof of one's mouth. The device gives unprecedented control to paralyzed computer users.

The Fort Steuben Bridge connecting Ohio and West Virginia was decommissioned in just seconds on Tuesday. Luckily, its final performance was caught on high-speed video so we can see it go out in a blaze of glory.

Jeremy Lin will not be invited to play for the U.S. Olympic basketball team in 2012. China would put him on their team, but want him to renounce his U.S. citizenship to do so.

Affirmative Action is on trial now before the Supreme Court. The conservative court could render a narrow decision affecting one university, or could end the practice nationwide.

Interesting Links

An Open Letter to Hollywood: stop blaming piracy and make films worthy of cinematic experience.

Dirty Campaigning in the Roaring Twenties: Herbert Hoover vs. Al Smith. Mudslinging is nothing new, not that that makes it any more pleasant.

The First Black American Sea Captain. As a slave, Robert Smalls stole a ship right under the Conferederates' noses.

Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor.

A 4-year-old Pekingese won Best in Show at this year's Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Catch up on 11 Things You Didn’t Know About the Pekingese.

Singer Chris Brown is on top of the world, with a new Grammy and Rhianna's forgiveness for beating her to a pulp three years ago. Fame and fortune tends to blind fans to flaws that shouldn't be covered up.

The University of Manitoba has programmed a robot to -wait for it- play hockey! The humanoid, named Jennifer, can hit a puck, but may need some help with its skating skills.

Seven Incredible Tank Graveyards. If they're not in working order, they're left where they die because they're too heavy to haul home.

5 Innovative Ways to Encourage Safer Sex. Whatever works, even if it doesn't make much sense on the surface.

Photos of Carnival in Lucerne, Switzerland might give you nightmares. Or it might make you want to book tickets!

 Court records show that Chicago is the most corrupt city in the U.S. Los Angeles and New York follow.

The top-selling DVDs of 2012 (so far) tell us something like people don't want to buy DVDs anymore. Unless they involve sparkly vampires.


The new Jatech car door doesn't just open, but completely disappears underneath the car. No more door dings, no more getting blocked in, and no more slamming!

Good Reads and Info

How Obama Set a Contraception Trap for the Right. Catholic and Evangelical opposition to birth control is not the issue they want to put in front of the public that depends on it.

Firefighters in Belgium are protesting changes to their retirement plans. Guess who gets the fire hose in this demonstration!

Greek digital artist Petros Vrellis made an interactive animated version of Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night. It even plays music when you touch it!

Is Loss of Animal Diversity Behind the Spread of Deadly Diseases? Botanists will tell you it makes perfect sense.

Watch the east coast of the U.S. as seen from the International Space Station. You can’t help but try to pick out certain cities.

Syrian activists are pleading for help to keep their government from killing its citizens. So far, no world power is in a hurry to step up to the plate.

We all knew the purported video of a woolly mammoth in Siberia was a hoax, but now it’s getting interesting. The documentary filmmaker who shot the original footage is upset that a paranormal investigator is claiming a copyright on the video.

In Germany, a 400-Year-Old Witchcraft Case Gets a Retrial. There may be evidence that postmistress Katharina Henot might not have been a witch after all!

6 surprising things social media can predict. If you can wrestle the data, it’s better (and probably cheaper) than taking a poll.

Can your feelings of love show up on an MRI scan? You betcha, especially if those emotions are made into a competition.

Whitney Houston's Road to Ruin. She may have had the voice of an angel, but an angel was not what she wanted to be.

A London man may have set a new world record for the heaviest living human. He weights 812 pounds; do you know anyone who can top that?

Valentines Day Links

Dating Dos and Don'ts. Watch for the point where the illustrations start to differ from the captions.

Valentine Flowers.

Kids on Dating and Marriage.

The Ten Worst Romantic Comedies Ever. The ones you'll want to steer clear of if you have a Valentine date.

Heart Shaped Meals for Valentines Day. It's one of the cheapest ways to get your romantic sentiments across.

15 Romantic Records Perfect For Valentine’s Day

Ten Out-of-the-Ordinary Valentine’s Day Customs.

The Oatmeal's Horrible Valentine Cards.

12 Hilariously Bad Wedding Proposals.

Now that you can get duct tape in just about any color imaginable, why not make your Valentine some duct tape roses that are darn near indestructible? (via Metafilter)

14 Geeky Valentine’s Day Cards.

Mitch O'Connell posted 34 vintage valentine cards that appear to be the type children would exchange at school, yet many of them contain double-entendres, whether intentional or not. (via Boing Boing)

The History of Sweetheart Candies.

23 Painfully Honest Valentine's Day Cards.

12 Science Valentines.

Informative Links

The Man Who Shot John Wilkes Booth. They don't come any crazier than Boston Corbett.

Beautician Debbie Benton was murdered, and there is more than one suspect. She didn’t like her husband’s sex change, and didn’t even leave him enough cash to pay the hit woman.

The problem with outsourcing the military. Overspending, waste, fraud, and security breaches: it’s all about accountability.

Russian scientists have finally broken through to Lake Vostok, after twenty years of drilling through two miles of Antarctic ice. The freshwater lake underneath has not been exposed to the atmosphere for millions of years -and might even contain life.

'Rasputin Was My Neighbor' And Other True Tales Of Time Travel. See an eyewitness to the Lincoln assassination who appeared on television, Civil war widows who saw the 21st century, and the man who met both President John Quincy Adams and President John Kennedy. (via Breakfast Links)

Getting our immune systems to fight cancer was awesome already, and now we've got a special effects video. Watch a killer T-cell attack a cancer cell, slowed down and colored so we can see what happens.

President Kennedy got away with womanizing in the '60s, so why do we discuss the affairs of Herman Caine and Newt Gingrich today? Because character matters to voters, and always has.

If you want to spend $10,000 to propose to your significant other, you can do it at Pizza Hut! No, seriously, they expect up to ten people to spend big bucks to pop the question at a pizza parlor chain.

The Science Fiction Effect. The best science fiction comes from the question: What could possibly go wrong?

6 American Athletes Who Found Stardom Abroad. And you take it where you can find it.

Interesting Links

 Witness Protection: 5 Not-so Wiseguys. When you're in the Witness Protection Program, you're not supposed to tell people who you really are, but these guys did.

Why we'll never find another planet like Earth. It has something very unique and important, and it's not people.

Nichelle Nichols talks about breaking barriers in television. A black woman as a starship officer was outrageous enough in 1966, but when she kissed Kirk, she made history.

Are Unmarried People Discriminated Against? They are lumped together as "untrustworthy" in comparison to married folks as a group.

The rumors are that Harrison Ford is negotiating for a part in the new Blade Runner film. Sadly, the movie's producer says it's not going to happen.

Queen Elizabeth's diamond anniversary: By the numbers. Sixty years on the throne means this lady has seen it all.

Should people be required to earn a GED to receive unemployment benefits? It might sound like a good idea, but it's a burden on educational facilities, older workers, and hardworking but intellectually deficient people.

President Obama shot marshmallows from a cannon inside the White House at the Science Fair yesterday. No, Mom won't let you do that in the house, but you're not the president, are you?

Chicago Man Gets Stuck In Elevator Twice In One Day. There's an elevator maintenance company somewhere that just might lose its contract.

The oldest human paintings yet discovered are Neanderthal depictions of seals found in a cave in Spain. They've held up pretty well over 42,000 years.

A federal court overturned Proposition 8, California's ban on same-sex marriage, in a landmark decision. But no weddings will be performed until the other side gets a chance to appeal.

The Stories Behind 5 Old American Brands. For example, Baker's chocolate is both a descriptive name and was named after a baker named Baker.

Good Reads and Links

NASA unveiled the New Blue Marble photograph of the Earth last week, which drew some criticism for setting North America front and center. Now there's an alternate version from the opposite side.

5 Terrible Inventions From Otherwise Great Inventors. Ya know, even the best players can't hit home runs every day of their lives.

It's A Shame This Super Bowl Ad Will Only Air In Canada. It's a feel-good story and will make you want to buy some... whatever it is they're selling.

The "safety net" that is supposed to catch the poorest of American before they slip to the bottom has a lot of holes in it. Existing programs have limits, are taking budget cuts, vary by state, or don't cover those who need them most.

What do you do when the star of your movie publicly disrespects an entire ethnic group that was featured prominently in the film? The producers of Mel Gibson's How I Spent My Summer Vacation came up with a particularly clever way to turn lemons in to lemonade.

This Is What A Scientist Looks Like is a picture blog aiming to refute stereotypes about scientists. What, you were expecting Doc Brown and Dr. Frankenstein?

Donald Trump unexpectedly endorsed Mitt Romney for president. Political pundits can't decide whether that's a blessing or a curse.

TRUE CRIME: The Very Strange Story of Sqeaky Fromme. She missed participating in the Manson murders, but found her crime niche a bit later.

Nancy Brinker, founder of the Susan G. Komen Foundation, defended the defunding of Planned Parenthood by saying the charity “would never bow to pressure.” That was just before they reversed course under pressure from all sides.

A new theme park in Ilsan, just outside Seoul, South Korea features interactive adventures using Kinect technology. That's way cheaper than building rides, exhibits, and a fantasy world.

Iceland's Historic Turf Houses: The Eco-Homes of the Future? There's no warmer, greener, or cheaper building material than Mother Earth.

As the police department suffers cutbacks, citizens of Detroit are resigned to defending themselves by any means necessary. Justifiable homicide is up 79% over last year, and it was already higher than the rest of the nation.

Informative Links

Why Did Bill Murray Keep Going Back in Groundhog Day?

Queer Blues. (via Everlasting Blort)

The more things change, the more they stay the same. A college professor remembers that maybe he wasn't that great as a student, either. (via Metafilter)

Obama is the best salesman ever, just ask Al Green and Jan Brewer.

25 Things I Learned From Opening a Used Bookstore. (via Metafilter)

Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert filed at report with the Federal Election Commission on the Super PAC's fundraising, which has exceeded a million dollars.

Take a sneak peek at the Best Super Bowl XLVI (2012) Commercials. You'll be able to take real breaks during the game Sunday if you've seen the ads already.

Three teenage girls were murdered by their father, brother, and mother, who were convicted in Canada of the "honor killings." How can a mother turn on their daughters like that?

NASA’s Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission gives us the first-ever video of the far side of the moon. Coming soon: a closer look.

What's Wrong With the Teenage Mind? Nothing, if you look at the world the way they do, during their artificially-extended modern adolescence. (via Neatorama)

Researchers are developing ammunition that can correct its course after leaving the gun. It becomes more accurate over longer distances -even miles.

8 Secessionist Movements in American History. If they'd succeeded, we'd have neighboring countries like Beaver Island, McDonald Territory, and the Conch Republic.

Good Reads and Information

Misfit Zeitgeist. Some really neat observations on what the world has become for creative people.

The Caging of America. Six million people in prison is more than Stalin had in the Gulag. (via Metafilter)

Mr. Toilet Talks Some Shit. In a serious way.

"No is an extraordinarily complicated word when you're drunk." Alcohol and Sex. An excerpt from the book Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp. (via Metafilter)

She called 911 for help, but the cop who responded raped her. And the scared teenage mother was the one who was hauled off to jail that night.

The 25 Most Colorful Sea Slugs on Earth. They look like plush toy art pieces set in an underwater photo shoot.

With everything that's happened since the idea came up, they are still talking about making a fifth Terminator movie. All we know for sure is that it will be an R-rated film.

The family consists of him, her, his kids, her kids, and her brain-damaged ex-husband. With enough trust and compassion, the family makes it work.

Washington Didn’t Sleep Here: A White House FAQ. As Gerald Ford once said, “the best public housing I’ve ever seen.”

Who parks a car better, men or women? A new study suggests what you've known all along.

Obama’s Lean, Mean SEAL Machine. The Navy commandos pulled off another high-profile raid last week, illustrating the president's vision for the military.

You'll soon be able to invest in Facebook as the company prepares for its IPO (initial public offering). Its value may soar as high as $100 billion, but is that real, or just a number?

A college student found cocaine in a textbook she ordered from Amazon. And she didn't even have to pay extra for it!

Photographer Senén Llanos and dancer and yoga enthusiast Marién Enid began a tradition in 2005 of taking a photo of Marién against the backdrop of the last sunrise of the year. It is a chronicle of a friendship that survives time and distance.

Fascinating Links

10 Secrets of the Vatican Exposed.

Should Teens Be Jailed for Sex Offenses? Laws are there for good reasons, but the actual cases come in all shades of gray.

A state trooper pulled over a South Carolina mayor for speeding. The mayor than returned the favor and pulled over the trooper for speeding.

Mitt Romney's tax return reveals he is rich, but that's not the real shocker. The details show how the U.S. tax code is rigged to benefit the wealthy.

Julian Assange is going to be a TV talk show host. He's made a deal with Russia Today to host ten episodes of The News Tomorrow, even while under house arrest.

Should audiences be allowed to cheer at presidential debates? On the one hand, there's free speech; on the other hand, a few well-placed fans can affect an entire news cycle.

Cheetah vs. Leopard: What’s the Difference? I know cheetahs never prosper, and I heard leopards live in colonies.

Dance Moms and Toddlers & Tiaras are popular train wreck reality shows, which may verge on child abuse. Which is more exploitive: putting pressure on kids to perform, or recording their childhoods for an audience to ridicule?

In an alternate timeline of history, Nazis colonized the moon in order to launch a new invasion of Earth. After years in development, Iron Sky will premiere at the Berlin Film Festival next month.

Alibi aftershave products can make you smell like car trouble instead of smelling like the strip club you just left. If your wife knows what a strip club smells like, you'll have to go all out to fool her.

Historic new rules for school lunches will mean we can't blame them for obese kids. Costs will go up, but no one knows whether kids will actually eat more fruits and vegetables.

15 Noteworthy Nobel Prize Nuggets. These stories are obscure and strangely tangential but still fascinating.

Informative Links

Etgar Keret writes about his father's decision to have his tongue removed as a treatment for cancer.

Apple’s Deal With the Devil. A manufacturing turnaround that executives call "breathtaking" strikes many as "barbaric."

Tracy Morgan collapsed after receiving an award at the Sundance Film Festival. They haven't told us what's wrong, but he is a diabetic with a transplanted kidney.

Gabrielle Giffords' 'bittersweet' resignation video. Recovery must be her priority, but she vows to return to public service someday.

5 Bodies Nobody Ever Found. But even decades later, people are still actively looking for clues.

The John F. Kennedy Library has released 45 hours of secret tapes recorded by the president. So you don't have to listen to all that, here are the most interesting parts.

The world's longest-running scientific experiment began in 1927 and is still going. The pitch drop may continue for another 100 years!

Borrow $5,000 and pay back only $40,842.72. It's not fuzzy math, but lesson in debt explained in the comments.

10 Famous People and Their Drug Habits. Following in their footsteps could lead to an early grave.

Joel Sartore's Biodiversity Portraits. The NatGeo photographer will be visiting a zoo near you.

Imagine a President Newt Gingrich Who Thinks Rules Don’t Apply to Him.

When Larry Met Sergey is the highly condensed story of Larry Page and Sergey Brin and the company they named Google. (via the Presurfer)

Good Reads and Interesting Links

Extinction of the Passenger Pigeons: How Man Destroyed a Species. Or was it an example of a species too stupid to adapt?

7 Athletes Who Went Directly To Jail. Surprise -you're not above the law.

Amazing X-rays show things people shouldn't live through, but they do. They also show a variety of other crimes, diseases, and anomalies.

A newer, stricter definition of autism could exclude many who are diagnosed already. Or maybe not, but parents are nervous about the possibility of losing current therapies and services.

The Fairy Chimneys and Underground Cities of Cappadocia. Geologic formations and ancient history come together to make you want to visit.

The Amazon's head hunters and body shrinkers. An author investigates Gustav Struve's tales of South American warriors and their gruesome souvenirs.

Eight Stories of Locked-In Syndrome. There's nothing more terrifying than awareness without the ability to communicate.

The real story behind Sir Ian McKellen and his t-shirt.

10 Handsome Men (Who Were Born Female).

Cable TV Is Full of Liars. Or, don't name your network after your content unless you are damn sure it's never going to change.

Goodbye, Farewell, and A*M*E*N. The story of how the finale episode of M*A*S*H came about and broke TV records.

Photographer Vanessa Bahmani Gathered 1,000 Portraits Of Occupy Wall Street Faces. Guess what: they're not all unemployed hippies.

Informative Links

"At least 10 senators and nearly twice that many House members announced their opposition" to SOPA.

PIPA support collapses, with 13 new Senators opposed.

After the blackouts: What's next for SOPA? Millions responded and both Senators and Representatives dropped their support, but the legislation may come back.

The 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor. Oh, you may think they may seem stupid, but when you have no choice, you do what you gotta do. NSFW text.

George Lucas' movie Red Tails opens today. Before you see it, read the real story of Tuskegee Airman Dr. Roscoe Brown.

People who are diagnosed with Internet Addiction Disorder have the same brain structure anomalies as those who are addicted to drugs or alcohol. So Internet Addiction may be an organic condition as well as a psychological disorder.

Bulgarian artist Plamen Ignatov Spent 16 Years and 6 Million Matchsticks Building a Model of Rila Monastery. The result is worth at least 15 minutes of internet fame.

The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy was established in 2007 to nurture impoverished girls in South Africa. Now the first class of 72 students has graduated, and Oprah was there to see her dream realized.

Native or Not? The True Stories behind 5 “American Indian” Actors. Sometimes an Italian, German, or Armenian background can be "close enough."

Francesco Schettino, the Costa Concordia’s captain, is facing charges of manslaughter and abandoning his ship. Here's what he did the night the cruise ship sank.

Grant Korgan is paralyzed from the waist down, but that didn't stop from from traveling to the South Pole on a Sitski. He reached his goal exactly 100 years after Robert Falcon Scott's expedition did.

Meet the guy who decides how much Wall Street bankers get in their yearly bonus checks. (via Breakfast Links)

Stop SOPA

Where's reddit? Where's Boing Boing? Where's Cheezburger? Where's Wikipedia? Where's Fark? Where's xkcd? Where's Miss Cellania?

A large part of the internet is on strike today to highlight the dangers of the Stop Online Piracy Act (and the related bill called PIPA) now before Congress; the vote is scheduled for January 24th. You can read the full text of the bill here. The result of the bill, if passed, would be to destroy the internet as we know it. Boing Boing explains the effects succinctly:

Boing Boing could never co-exist with a SOPA world: we could not ever link to another website unless we were sure that no links to anything that infringes copyright appeared on that site. So in order to link to a URL on LiveJournal or WordPress or Twitter or Blogspot, we'd have to first confirm that no one had ever made an infringing link, anywhere on that site. Making one link would require checking millions (even tens of millions) of pages, just to be sure that we weren't in some way impinging on the ability of five Hollywood studios, four multinational record labels, and six global publishers to maximize their profits.

But it's not just entertainment for you and me that is threatened.

Big Content haven't just declared war on Boing Boing and Reddit and the rest of the "fun" Internet: they've declared war on every person who uses the net to publicize police brutality, every oppressed person in the Arab Spring who used the net to organize protests and publicize the blood spilled by their oppressors, every abused kid who used the net to reveal her father as a brutalizer of children, every gay kid who used the net to discover that life is worth living despite the torment she's experiencing, every grassroots political campaigner who uses the net to make her community a better place -- as well as the scientists who collaborate online, the rescue workers who coordinate online, the makers who trade tips online, the people with rare diseases who support each other online, and the independent creators who use the Internet to earn their livings.

While I'm not tech-savvy enough to disable my entire website temporarily (I use a hosting service), there will be no new content until the strike is over. While there's not much else to read on the internet today, check out these links and educate yourself about the SOPA bill. And then take action.

• House takes Senate's bad Internet censorship bill, tries making it worse


• Protect The Internet


• SOPA: Hollywood Finally Gets A Chance to Break the Internet


• SOPA on OpenCongress


• PIPA on OpenCongress

Please go to Stop American Censorship to add your name to the many who oppose these bills.

Get Involved

• /r/sopa


• List of companies that have expressed support for SOPA or PIPA.


• List of tech companies, and their contact info, that have expressed support for SOPA or PIPA.


• List of companies that have expressed concern with SOPA and PIPA.


• Take Action Checklist at Stop American Censorship.


• Contact Your Representative with info and a widget to find them by EFF and Wired for Change.


• Directory of Representatives


• Senators of the 112th Congress


• Helpful info on making phone calls to your Senator or Representative.


• SOPAOpera.org keeps track of where your Congressmembers stand on PROTECT-IP and SOPA.

Thank you!

Interesting Links

Will Wikipedia's one-day blackout sink SOPA? Maybe not, but how would you do your research if the internet gets wrecked?

The blackout will much wider than just Wikipedia.

Dancing for Dollars. The story of the 20th-century dance marathon craze.

More and more, U.S. schools are using police to discipline children.

What would happen if you ate one of those silica gel packets? The warnings make you think they are irresistible for some reason.

How Consumption Makes Us Sad. Things eventually just take up room in our homes instead of in our hearts.

We knew it would happen: In Icons has cancelled production of its uncannily-realistic Steve Jobs Action Figure because of legal objections from Job's family and Apple.

The Aurora Borealis and the Aurora Australis show up in a unique way seen from space. Space pictures of the lights in various parts of the world have been stitched together for an awesome virtual tour.

The Chilean Town Engulfed by a Volcanic Mudflow. Chaitén was wrecked in 2008, then frozen in place as the mud solidified.

With most of the excitement of the GOP nomination over, we can now speculate on who will win the title of Mitt Romney's running mate. Take a look at seven veep possibilities.

The Melancholy Deaths of Edward Gorey’s Children. The author's morbid visions may explain why he never had kids in real life.

Ten Days in a Madhouse: The Woman Who Got Herself Committed.

Great Reads and Interesting Links

Stephen Colbert gave his Super-PAC away and announced he is running for office. Every step he takes points out the absurdities of our presidential election system.

Would you really want to know when you are expected to die? On online mortality calculator designed to help doctors is now available for anyone.

In 1835, Andrew Jackson escaped the first attempt to assassinate a U.S. president. Richard Lawrence had him at point blank range, but incompetence or luck saved the president's life.

The Supreme Court has reaffirmed religious organizations' freedom to hire and fire as they see fit, meaning they have an exemption from laws against discrimination. This is the opposite of what some Christian groups expected.

New research shows that cravings for fatty foods can be blamed on our genes. Which only makes sense, as it affects how we fit into our jeans.

"I love the smell of napalm in the morning!" The line from Apocalyse Now has been used and reused and adapted in so many other movies that they've been compiled into a supercut. (NSFW language)

Adele's song "Rolling in the Deep" is awesome. Mike Thompkins does all the vocal parts and all the instrumental parts, too, in this version -with his mouth.

Should there be national standards for sex education? Right now, the average student only gets about 17 hours of sex ed before college.

6 Crises That Keep Economists Up At Night. At least they still have jobs, but they also know things could get much worse.

The point of the long and winding sentence.

U.S. Government Terrorist Identification Chart.

Friday the 13th Links

Happy Friday the 13th! Here are some facts about this supposedly unlucky day.

How 'The Phone Stack' is civilizing dinners out with friends. Try this out and be amazed at the uninterrupted conversations that follow.

It’s beautiful, it’s intelligent … it’s slime. And slime molds might be the stuff of your nightmares.

Golden parachutes are getting bigger. Fired business executives get severance packages that set them up for life, even if they did a lousy job.

Homeland Security may be keeping an eye on your Facebook page. They routinely check social media sites and blogs, too, as part of its “Social Networking/Media Capability.”

This Chinese Women’s Volleyball Rally Might Be the Most Insane Thing You’ll Watch in Sports Today. They had to be exhausted afterwards, since it made me tired just watching.

Lucy the Yorkshire Terrier holds the record for the world's smallest working dog. The 2.5 pound therapy dog is adorable, which is hard work in itself.

The 7 Creepiest Abandoned Japanese Love Hotels. Apparently charging by the hour didn't cover expenses for these places.

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments about allowing swear words on network TV. Broadcast networks say they need the freedom to compete with cable channels, even though the networks own those cable channels.

New Uses for 5 Old Pests. If we can recycle invasive species, we can do anything!

What Rick Santorum Doesn’t Know About Sex.

Three-legged Puppy. It's a translation of the Brazilian comic MenTirinhas http://mentirinhas.com.br/ by Fábio Coala. (via reddit)

When Mitt Romney Came to Town is a film that could sink Romney's presidential campaign -if anyone watched the whole thing.

Informative Links

A Thousand Cranes.

The 5 Reasons Marriage Scares Men (Aren't What You Think). On the contrary, they are exactly what I thought, but I've been around a long time.

The Sad Story of Elvis Presley’s Senior Prom.

America’s Unlevel Field. "America actually stands out as the advanced country in which it matters most who your parents were, the country in which those born on one of society’s lower rungs have the least chance of climbing to the top or even to the middle."

How No Child Left Behind Corrupted Education. In ten years, making the program work led to lowered standards and inflated grades.

If the moon passes overhead once daily, why are there two high and low tides every day? And how does this lead to the Earth's rotation slowing down?

The projections of rising tuition suggest that babies born today could pay over $400K to go to college. The secret is to not pay the suggested retail price.

An Ohio professor proposes that pregnancy be classified as a disability. His point is that this would protect jobs, but others say this is totally unnecessary.

7 Crafty Zoo Escapes. When the opportunity for freedom presents itself, who cares that you're still far from your natural habitat.

Mitt Romney won the New Hampshire Primary, but does that mean everyone else goes home? Read several opinions on what comes next.

Organized Hypocrisy: Major TV networks support SOPA but avoid primetime coverage. An uninformed populace doesn't get upset or voice an opinion.

The first pictures of live Myanmar Snub-nosed Monkeys have been captured. It's good to see that the critically-endangered species is producing babies.

Good Reads and Interesting Links

Al Qaeda appears to be fading away. Since bin Laden's death, the terrorist group has become decimated, discouraged, and underfunded.

10 Amazing Stories of Animal Prosthetics. Not only do they make a world of difference to a disabled pet, but each is also a step toward better human prosthetics.

Celebrating Hollywood’s Love Affair With The Cold War. The Soviets were an easily recognized villain and nuclear war fueled more film plots than we care to count.

The erstwhile Chinese practice of foot binding left millions of women crippled for life. Learn how it was done, but be warned there are pictures that will make you sad.

Genetically-altered silkworms can produce, um, spiderwebs. The spiderweb material is more valuable than silk, but harvesting from spiders was next to impossible.

How Many Stephen Colberts Are There? He formed a Super-PAC last summer and is now starting to use it to highlight the absurdities of our election process.

Stephen Hawking Understands Everything but Women. Black holes, the nature of time, and subatomic particles are easy in comparison (unless you're a woman).

USC’s Ski and Snowboard Team Thrashes Mammoth Mountain. Looks like a lot of fun, but I wonder how many broken bones it takes to get this good.

Believe it or not, Kodak is going bankrupt after 130 years. Take a trip through the company's history before it's gone completely.

The 6 Most Mind-Blowing Modern Ghost Towns. Bad planning and way too much ambition add up to some weird and wasteful land use. NSFW text.

Former Egyptian First Lady Suzanne Mubarak lives in luxury, just like she did before the Arab Spring. The power she wielded as part of the Mubarak government is unknown to many outside the country, but she is hated in Egypt.

A Chinese construction company built a 30-story hotel in just 15 days. Watch the time-lapse video and think about whether you would stay there.

Informative Links

Tipper vs. Music. The story of Tipper Gore and her 1985 campaign to label music with explicit lyrics.

The Highest-Grossing Films of 2011. What does it say about our tastes that eight of the top ten are sequels?

Gigantic Glowing Forms Hovering Over The World's Cities. You may think of UFOs, but they are enormous featherweight art installations from Janet Echelman.

There's a shortage of ADHD drugs. Is it the DEA's fault for cracking down on abuse, or the manufacturer's fault for trying to maximize profits?

Money for (Practically) Nothing: 4 Very Big Paychecks for Very Little Work. The problem is that these schemes are pretty much un-reproducable.

Police are investigating the discovery of an unidentified murder victim on the grounds of Queen Elizabeth's country estate Sandringham. It sounds suspiciously like a plot from a popular British TV show.

Five opinions on why the Iowa caucuses are so important. And number 6 is that it gives us something to talk about.

In 2011, Kein Lam took 19 planes, 18 boats, and 58 buses to visit 17 countries. He recorded plenty of video and packed the entire adventure into one frenetic video.

Three guys took up crochet as a hobby because they wanted cool accessories. years later, they turned that hobby into an industry that employs impoverished women in Uganda and Peru.

Harry Burkhart is accused of serial arson in more than 50 Los Angeles area fires. The plot thickens as we find his mother was arrested on behalf of the german government for mysterious undisclosed charges.

Second-Cheapest Syndrome. You don't want to get the very cheapest, but you want to save money -yet marketers have already figured you out.