Why do we have eyebrows?

When humans evolved and shed our extra hair, our eyebrows managed to stay behind. Why? Scientists aren't exactly sure but can offer a few reasons.

The arch shape of our eyebrows absorbs sweat and rain that would enter our eyes, keeping our eyes somewhat dry. The slant of the hairs divert the water sideways. This is good, of course, because the salt in our sweat stings the eyes and water in general impairs our vision.

But how did that happen? Well, our early ancestors either hunted or were being hunted almost everyday. Imagine all that sweat dripping down your forehead and into your eyes, eventually leading you to death (animal ate you) or starvation (you missed the damn animal, which would probably lead you to death, anyway). Nature has a way of selecting the humans who have eyebrows over the ones who don't.

Most scientists, however, believe that if we didn't have eyebrows then evolution would have compensated us with other possibilities. Extra thick eyelashes or protruding skulls that form a ledge above our eyes could have been feasible solutions. Let's just be thankful for what we received.

Quiet car

The train company Amtrak has a section called the Quiet Car. It is intended for patrons who want people around them to shut the fuck up and put their beeping devices away. The Quiet Car was created about a decade ago when a group of Philly to D.C. travelers begged Amtrak for a car where their headaches don't get augmented by yammering businessmen on their Blackberrys. The idea has become a hit ever since.

First rule of the Quiet Car: you do not talk in the Quiet Car.

Albania

Albania was the world's first officially atheist country. Religion was banned there in 1967; anyone caught worshipping, publicly or privately, suffered severe penalties. But religion recrudesced as communism collapsed in the early 1990s. Now mosques and churches are being built across the country as other countries, including the United States, infuse the tiny Balkan nation with money.

About 70% of Albanians are Muslim, 20% Albanian Orthodox, and 10% Catholic - but it is thought that only a quarter of the population actually worships. There, religion is more of a cultural symbol than a spiritual belief, which explains why Albanians like to think of themselves as religiously tolerant. Marriage between people of different faiths are common and people of one religion often celebrate the holidays of others.

But as with just about any religion, the crazies have to screw it up. Although still a rarity, the beards and garb of Muslim fundamentalists can be seen on some of the streets and more than 600 Albanians have gone abroad to study Islam before coming home to teach. The Albanian constitution guarantees freedom of religion and some important leaders stand firm in their belief and opposition against religious extremism.

Hasty Pudding Club

The Hasty Pudding Club is an exclusive club at Harvard University. It was formed in 1790 and is named after the food that the group ate at their first meeting. It brings together undergraduates in friendship, conversation, and enjoyment. Presidents John and J.Q. Adams, both Roosevelts, and Kennedy were all members.

The Hasty Pudding Theatricals, Radcliffe Pitches, and Harvard Krokodiloes were founded at the Hasty Pudding Club.

Houseflies

During her two month lifetime, the female housefly lays about 600-1,000 eggs, most of which mature in 10-12 days. That counts up to as many as 12 generations a year.

So start killin' 'em. That's a lot of maggots.

A deeper look at the story of Jesus (part 2)

Yesterday I wrote about the facts of Jesus' life and what Roman historians and Christians living at the time thought about the idea of a person who died for people's sins. It occured to me that the website ReligiousTolerance might not be enough and that some may need more resources to prove the points.

Unfortunately, there are few sites that delve into the issue as objectively and fairly as the aforementioned RT. The rest are either conspiracy theory Atheists or Bible-thumping reactionaries. I did find the story of Titus taking over Jerusalem in 70 AD interesting. Maybe that explains why there are no references to Jesus during his lifetime -- everything was burned down. But every other source I read that supports the existence of Jesus tries to make the fact that articles written about him centuries after the crucifixion maintain his being.

But today, as I promised, I am taking a look at other deities whose lives may correspond to the events in Jesus' life.

Horus, Egyptian god
This site compares the Horus story with that of Jesus then offers a Christian rebuttal.

Making the case that Horus and Jesus were similar:
- Horus is the Father seen in the son. Jesus said he was the way, the truth and the life.
- Horus said that he was the way, the truth, the life. Jesus said he was the way, the truth and the life.
- Horus The good shepherd with the crook on his shoulders. Jesus The good shepherd with a lamb on his shoulders.
- Horus the manifesting son of God. Jesus the manifesting son of God.
- Horus As Har-Khutti has twelve followers. Jesus has twelve disciples.
- And the list goes on.

Making the case agianst:
- You can make similar comparisons between Horus and Hitler.
- Horus is the father seen in the son. Hitler’s superior qualities reflected in many sons of Germany.
- Horus the Trinity. Hitler, Goebels and Himler.
- Horus Child of a virgin. Hitler’s mother a virgin prior to being mistress of H’s father.
- Horus has 12 followers. Hitler had 12.
- Horus the good shepherd. Hitler at first like a good shepherd.
- Horus taken by Set to the summit of Mount Hetep. Hitler’s retreat at Berchtesgarten.

Mithra, Zoroastrian god
I did the research and it looks like the story of Mithra was copied from Horus.

Dozens of others
And there are also many other gods whose lives parallel that of Jesus: Krishna, Quetzalcoatl, etc.

So did Jesus exist?
I'm spent from all the research. Anyone who writes anything down on the Internet writes it out of bias. So you have two sides battling each other while other people are truly trying to find real and direct answers. It's kind of like cable news channels. But I'll leave you with this quote from ReligiousTolerance:

The personal hunch of B.A. Robinson, this website's main author, is that there were many Jewish teachers wandering in Galilee during the interval 20 to 30 CE. At least one may have been called Yeshua (Hebrew for Joshua). One developed a devoted following of fellow Jews, committed aggravated assault in the Jerusalem temple, and was arrested by the occupying Roman Army. He was crucified as an insurrectionist as one of perhaps ten thousand other Jews who suffered the same fate during the first century CE.

The beliefs of two or three of these Galilean teachers were subsequently amalgamated and recorded in the early gospels that explained the life of a single individual: Yeshua of Nazareth as a single individual:

- One was an itinerant Greek cynic philosopher who lived a life of poverty and challenged the public on philosophic, ethical and religious matters. The closest example to a cynic philosopher today would be a combination of stand-up comic and political cartoonist.
- A second was a apocalyptic teacher who preached about the imminent end of the world in his immediate future -- much like John the Baptizer.
- There might even have been a third teacher who was a follower of Hillel. The latter was a 1st century CE Jewish liberal theologian and one-time president of the Sanhedrin.
- There is`some evidence of this merger. The Gospel of Q, appears to be the oldest surviving gospel. It was written in sections over time. The first section describes the sayings of a Greek cynic philosopher; the second section describes sayings of an apocalyptic teacher. Meanwhile, many of Yeshua's teachings, as found in the synoptic Gospels, closely match those of Hillel except on matters of divorce where Hillel was more liberal. Between 30 CE and 100 CE, when the Gospel of Q, the three synoptic canonic Gospels, and the Gospel of Thomas were first written, the teachings of these multiple teachers were merged and attributed to a single individual: Yeshua of Nazareth. The rest is history.

I stress that these are my personal hunches. They are shared by few if any theologians.

A deeper look at the story of Jesus

I was surfing the Huffington Post one day until I clicked on this article. It was a video of Bill Maher on The View talking to Sherri Shepherd about religion.

...but the god who was born of a virgin, died, was resurrected three days later, died for everybody's sins -- that was an old story going around the Mediterranean for a thousand years. Horus is an Egyptian god, exact same story. He raised somebody named Lazarus from the dead. Mithra, a Persian god. Krishna the Indian god.

I was stunned. But I didn't really look into it until today, Christmas. What better day to research whether Jesus really existed than on the day of his "birth"? Of course, I'm only going to go to objective sites for information.

One site I found is called ReligiousTolerance.org. It's different than most other religious websites in that it doesn't try to proselytize the reader. They are a multi-faith group whose staff includes Christians, Buddhists, Wiccans, and Atheists. They try to be as unbiased and objective as possible and even have a page which they use to record the errors they make for the 4,500 essays and menus they've written. Here are the indisputable FACTS about Jesus from one of these articles:

- There are ZERO documents written during 7 BC to 33 AD about Jesus.
- The Gospel of Q is a collection of moral stories and anecdotes that had been transmitted orally and believed to have been first written down around 50 AD. However, it doesn't include dates for Jesus' life. If Jesus was crucified 33 AD "then many who saw and heard him preach would still have been alive and could have verified that the gospel was accurate." But it also might have been gathered together in the first or second centuries AD.
- Gnostic Christians, Jewish Christians, and Pauline Christians comprised the early Christian movement. They rejected the notion that God could ever present Himself in human form and some didn't believe in Jesus' existence.
- Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian born in the year 37 AD, wrote in his book Antiquities of the Jews that Jesus was a wise man crucified by Pilate. "Most historians believe that the paragraph in which he describes Jesus is partly or completely a forgery that was inserted into the text by an unknown Christian. The passage 'appears out of context, thereby breaking the flow of the narrative.'" A second passage which mentions Jesus' brother James being stoned to death has no consensus.
- Cornelius Tacitus was a Roman historian who wrote Annals (112 AD), a book which states Jesus' existence in the first century AD. But it also might have been based on Christian writings and sayings in the early second century.
- Suetonius wrote The Lives of the Caesars around 120 AD. In it he says "since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, [Emperor Claudius in 49 CE] expelled them from Rome." This is used to support Jesus' existence but Chrestus was also a common Greek name at the time. "It is likely that the reference is to a Jewish agitator in Rome by that name."
- None of the roughly 40 ancient Roman historians who wrote during the first two centuries, with the exception of Suetonius, mentioned that Jesus existed in the first century.
- The Talmud states that Jesus lived in the second century BC but the passage itself dates from that time period. The authors may have based it on the Christian material at the time.

Tomorrow I'll investigate the parallels, or perhaps lack of parallels, between the life of Jesus and the lives of other deities.

Merry Christmas.

Sugar does NOT make kids hyperactive

A holiday myth debunked...a report in the British Medical Journal states that 12 experimental trials have deflated the heretofore accepted fact that sugar causes hyperactivity in children. Not one of these studies could prove any discrepancies in behavior between kids with no sugar intake and kids who did have sugar, even with those who suffer from ADD/ADHD and the ones who are considered sensitive to sugar.

The main culprit: parents. Children were given a sugar-free drink that was purported as containing sugar. Their parents rated their kids' activities as more hyperactive, making it obvious that it was all in the grown-ups' minds.

"Elitist" liberals

Television played a huge role in the 1952 presidential race between Democrat Adlai Stevenson and Republican Dwight Eisenhower. For the first time, voters saw an intellectual governor of Illinois who attended Princeton University, Harvard Law School, and Northwestern University, and who eliminated needless spending from payrolls, brought mobsters to court, increased aid to education, and constructed new roads. The fact that Stevenson was smart and eloquent made him appear aloof to Republicans and working-class Democrats.

On the other side Americans saw a great war hero. Although he had zero political experience and finished school with average grades, he was the folksy one of the two candidates because he smiled a lot and didn't appear as formal as his opponent. Eisenhower was the guy with the easily digestible campaign slogan ("I Like Ike") and the vague promises of ending corruption in Washington.

It was also the first time that a liberal was labeled an "egghead." Stewart Alsop, a powerful Connecticut Republican, made the term popular in a column he penned weeks before the election. It pretty much sealed the deal as Eisenhower pummeled Stevenson in 1952 and again in 1956.

Why do my teeth hurt when I drink cold water?

Apparently, I may have receding gums. The tooth roots are exposed which causes the sensitivity to hot and cold foods.

The causes include:
- overaggressive brushing (guilty)
- inadequate brushing or flossing (I'm good with that)
- gingivitis (hmmm...maybe)
- dipping snuff (NOOO)
- inadequate placing of lip or tongue piercings (don't have any)
- bruxism, which is the grinding of teeth (no)

Of course, regular dental checkups help. So my problem is exacerbated even further given that I haven't been to the dentist in (I'll never tell you the number) years.

Wahoo!

Male baboons make very loud testosterone laden calls that sound like a "Wahoo!" They do this, not necessarily as a desire for a physical fight, although the wahoos might escalate to that point, but as a means of posturing and positioning in their hierarchy. The male baboons display their lung capacities as they're rapidly swinging through branches, which shows off their strength and stamina. At the end the winner might become the alpha male and get the ladies.

Frances Perkins

Frances Perkins was the first woman cabinet officer in the U.S. She was appointed Secretary of Labor in 1933 by Franklin Roosevelt and served until 1945. Perkins played a key role in the establishment of the Social Security system and also rooted out corruption in the Immigration Bureau.

Helper's high

Helper's high is a term made famous by Allan Luks and Peggy Payne in their book The Healing Power of Doing Good. The term describes "a feeling of exhilaration and a burst of energy similar to that experienced after intense exercise, followed by a period of calmness and serenity." It releases the endorphins in the body and can contribute to an overall state of emotional well-being.

Among other things, helping mitigates both the intensity and the awareness of physical pain, reduces chronic hostility, and decreases the constriction within the lungs that leads to asthma attacks.

A study at Harvard University examined the Mother Teresa effect:

Researchers showed 132 Harvard students a film about Mother Teresa's work among the Calcutta's poor, and then measured the level of immunoglobin A present in their saliva. The test revealed markedly increased levels of Immunoglobin A, which is the body's first defense against the common cold virus -- all after simply witnessing somebody else involved in charity work.

Where does fat go when you lose weight?

Your body stores fat until you consume fewer calories than is needed, at which point your body turns to the fat for energy. Triglycerides, or fat cells, provide just that. They are broken down into glycerol and fatty acids which your kidney, liver, and muscle keep, then are broken down even further for the final steps necessary to supply the energy. The heat produced by all this helps to preserve your body temperature. Water, one of the two waste products, is discharged by urinating and sweating. The other waste product, carbon dioxide, is exhaled from your lungs.

And that, kids, is how and where fat goes.

Christmas

Christmas was actually illegal to celebrate in England. In the 1640s the Puritan dominated Parliament considered the holiday to be of pagan influence and, in the 1640s, outlawed its celebration. It was rescinded two decades later but Christmas still harbored the stigma of being an unholy holiday.

In the 1620s the Puritan pilgrims who came to America were even more conservative in their beliefs. From 1659 to 1681 you could not celebrate the festive day in Boston. Either that or face a fine of 5 shillings.

It wasn't until renowned 19th century authors reinvented Christmas. At that time, many people were out of jobs and lower class gangs rioted on the streets during the season. This caused some in the upper class to start brainstorming for ways to reduce the violence and more importantly prevent the poorer people from harming them.

So in 1819 Washington Irving wrote a series of stories about the celebration of Christmas in an English manor house. The tales headlined a squire who invited peasants to his home for the holiday. Unlike what was happening in society, the wealthy squire spent his time joyously with the impoverished peasants. Mind you, the book was created out of Irving's imagination; he didn't pen it based on any festivals he attended. He only implied that the relationship between the rich and poor highlighted in his work was the true meaning of Christmas.

Across the pond 24 years later, Charles Dickens published the classic holiday tale A Christmas Carol. The story's theme of charity and goodwill towards all of humankind resonated well within all classes in the United States and England.

As the celebration of Christmas evolved over the next century, Americans introduced the now common traditions of tree decorating, sending holiday cards, and gift-giving. And even though many of us believe that we are celebrating the way people have always been celebrating for ages, we actually reinvented a holiday given the social milieu of the moment.

Deja vu

One report states that the more open-minded or politically liberal a person is, the more likely they are to experience deja vu.

Check out everything you need to know about deja vu and why it occurs to about 60% of us.

Why do Asians change their Asian names to American ones?

Read:

For [Asian Pacific Americans] that are second generation and on, growing up in America isn’t so different from their immigrant predecessors’ experiences. Sometimes it means a new name for a new identity, but many still believe a name carries the burden of a fractured identity.

....

For the most part, changing your name is increasingly popular because it makes it easier for other people to pronounce and it provides opportunity to better assimilate, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in New York.

Elaine Kim, professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley sees a different pattern in the naming phenomenon. Immigrant parents used to pick out patriotic names for their children — like Jefferson and Lincoln — but these days she sees a return to cultural roots. Parents are naming their children “pure” Asian names that sound more Western. For example, the Korean name Soo Jin is currently very popular and sounds like Sue Jean.

Immigrants are also more conscious when it comes to names and their unintentional English connotations, said Kim. Although she personally knows someone named “Fuk Yu” and “Won Suk,” she said these inconveniences are becoming few and far between.

’Fuk’ is actually a very pretty Korean name. It mean ‘virtue’ … can you imagine?” said Kim laughing.

But even those who experienced butchered pronunciations and teasing because of their names said they would still give their children Asian names.

Blago

The last time Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich and his lieutenant governor Pat Quinn said more than a sentence or two to each other was August 2, 2007.

Leap second

2008 will be a second longer, according to the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service. It is due to the tidal friction between the earth and the moon. The last leap second occurred on December 31, 2005. This year the extra second will happen at 6:59:60 PM on December 31.

Carlton Pearson

Carlton Pearson is a minister at the New Dimensions Church, the United Church of Christ denomination in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After a run-in with reality in which he watched the suffering of Rwandans on TV, he began to doubt the traditional concept of hell. "How can a just god do this?" he thought. He then came up with the Gospel of Inclusion, the doctrine that states that everyone is destined to heaven and that hell actually exists on earth. For this he was formally recognized as a heretic by the Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops in March 2004. Pearson is now the senior pastor at the New Dimensions Church despite witnessing the mass exodus from his congregation.

Must-hear radio: Pearson on This American Life in December 2005.

Bidet

A bidet is a type of sink used specifically to wash the genitals and posterior parts of the body. They are usually found separate of toilets but its nozzle may be attached to an existing toilet to make an all-in-one fixture. Bidets are popular in southern Europe, some Latin American countries, the Middle East, and some parts of Asia.

A toilet on the left and a bidet on the right

Fat Americans and energy usage

From Mother Jones:

Nineteen percent of US energy usage—about as much as is used to fuel our cars—is spent growing and delivering food to the average American who consumes 2,200 pounds of food a year. That's a whopping 3,747 calories a day—or 1,200 to 1,700 more than needed for personal or planetary health. The skinny truth is that as much as 7.6 percent of total energy in the United States today is used to grow human fat, fat that translates to 3,300 pounds of carbon per person.

....

For starters, half of our food energy use comes from producing and delivering meat and dairy. If we gave up just meat, we could maintain that hefty 3,747-calorie intake but consume 33 percent less in fossil fuels doing it. If Americans cut just one serving of meat a week, it would equal taking 5 million cars off the road.

One-third of those 3,747 daily calories comes from junk food—potato chips, soda, etc. We can save on fossil fuel costs in this area by installing more efficient lighting, heating, and cooling in the plants that make the stuff and by using less packaging materials. But we'd save a lot more if you and I simply bought less of it. A can of diet soda, for instance, delivers only 1 calorie of food energy at a cost of 2,100 calories to make the drink and the can. Transporting the components and the finished product costs even more, and shipping processed food and its packaging accounts for much of the problem of America's food averaging 1,500 travel miles before it's eaten.

What would happen if you dived into a cumulus cloud?

It would probably look like falling in a fog bank. Unless it was a cumulonimbus cloud of epic proportions, the updraft wouldn't be strong enough to keep you aloft as you were diving through it. But it wouldn't look or feel like cotton candy.

Clip starts at 41:06.

Text messaging

The number of text messages sent and received everyday exceeds the total population of the planet.

Prince Randian

Prince Randian was a side show performer in the 1930s who was born without limbs.

Can you really survive on nothing but potatoes and milk?

Yes, but then you'd die of molybdenum deficiency:

[I]f you're an active male between 19 and 30, of average height and weight, then one gallon of milk and eight pounds of potatoes will supply the RDA of most nutrients, falling a little short on the iron, folate, and niacin fronts, missing a lot of vitamin E, and striking out completely on molybdenum. Chug two gallons of milk with your spuds and all you're missing is about two-thirds of your vitamin E and, of course, your molybdenum. Not so nuts about milk? Fine, cut it down to a quart and choke down 14 pounds of potatoes instead. Now you're short on zinc, folate, niacin, vitamin E, and way low on vitamin A. And alas, still no molybdenum.

So what happens if you starve yourself of molybdenum? According to one nutritional reference book, "signs of molybdenum deficiency . . . are headache, rapid breathing and heart rate, nausea and vomiting, acute asthma attacks, visual problems, disorientation, and, finally, coma."

Most corrupt countries in the world

According to Transparency International, the most corrupt countries in the world are Myanmar and Somalia. The least corrupt: New Zealand, Denmark and Finland.

Healthiest and unhealthiest U.S. states

Louisiana is now considered the unhealthiest state while Vermont ranks as the healthiest.

Double negatives

English is one of the few languages in the world where it is improper to use a double negative in a sentence.

God and the Kentucky government

Enough of this nonsense:

Under state law, God is Kentucky's first line of defense against terrorism.

The 2006 law organizing the state Office of Homeland Security lists its initial duty as "stressing the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth."

Specifically, Homeland Security is ordered to publicize God's benevolent protection in its reports, and it must post a plaque at the entrance to the state Emergency Operations Center with an 88-word statement that begins, "The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God."

Kakapo

The Kakapo is the world's only flightless and heaviest parrot. It is a native of New Zealand.

Claus Pavels

Claus Pavels was a Norwegian priest and diarist. His diaries from 1812–1822 are an important source for Norwegian cultural and biographical history.

Food stamps

Every $1 spent on food stamp benefits generates $1.73 of economic activity. The number of Americans on food stamps will likely surpass 30 million this month, the most in our country's history.

Why do women live longer than men?

From an article in Time Magazine:

One important reason is the big delay — and advantage — women have over men in terms of cardiovascular disease, like heart attack and stroke. Women develop these problems usually in their 70s and 80s, about 10 years later than men, who develop them in their 50s and 60s.

....

Another more complicated possibility [for women's longevity] is that women have two X chromosomes, while men have one. (Men have an X and a Y.) When cells go through aging and damage, they have a choice in terms of genes — either on one X chromosome or the other. Consider it this way: you have a population of cells, all aging together. In some cells, the genes on one X chromosome are active; in other cells, by chance, the same set of genes, with different variations, are active on the other X chromosome.

....

But, in general, there are maybe three things men do worse than women. They smoke a lot more. (That gender gap is fortunately shrinking, since men are smoking less and less.) They eat more food that leads to high cholesterol. And, perhaps related to that, men tend not to deal with their stress as well as women. They may be more prone to internalizing that stress rather than letting go — though that's a fairly controversial point. Nonetheless, stress plays a very important role in cardiovascular disease.

Diwali

Diwali is a major Hindu holiday and a significant festival in Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It is known to the adherents of these faiths as the "Festival of Lights."

Shortest war

The shortest war in history was fought between England and Zanzibar in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 45 minutes.

Brown eyes-blue eyes lesson

The brown eyes-blue eyes lesson was used by an Iowa third grade teacher named Jane Elliot the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated. It gives people first-hand experience in the meaning of discrimination.

Ning

Ning is another social networking website. It's similar to Google Groups in that it lets users create their own websites and networks. Ning was created in October 2005 and yes, I haven't heard of it until now. I'm just not that social networky.

Hitler had only one testicle

Reports have confirmed an old song that Hitler only had one ball.

Blassius Hanczuch, a friend of Jambor, said the doctor later blamed himself for saving Hitler's life. He said: "In 1916 they had their hardest fight in the Battle of the Somme. For several hours, Johan and his friends picked up injured soldiers. He remembers Hitler. They called him the 'Screamer'. He was very noisy. Hitler was screaming 'help, help'.

"His abdomen and legs were all in blood. Hitler was injured in the abdomen and lost one testicle. His first question to the doctor was: 'Will I be able to have children?'."

Atlas of True Names

Two German cartographers have created a set of maps that produce the etymological meanings of many of the world's place names. Here are a few of them:

New York: New Wild Boar Village
Great Britain: Great Land of the Tatooed
Chicago: Stink Onion
Yucatan: "I don't understand you." (After Spanish explorers asked the Mayans what the name of the region was, the Mayans kept saying, "Yuk ak katan.")

First pitch

William Howard Taft began the custom for the president to toss out the first ball at the beginning of the professional baseball season.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect who designed more than 1,000 projects.

Sirsasana

Sirsasana is the yoga position in which the body is completely inverted, and held upright supported by the forearms, while the crown of the head rests lightly on the floor. Among other things, it

* relieves pressure in the lower back and lower body
* improves concentration and memory
* increases intellectual capacities

RaptureReady.com

RaptureReady.com is run by an idiotic religious zealot who keeps up with news around the world and links them to biblical prophecy in order to maintain his status as "the eBay of prophecy." Of course, like a lot of Jesus freaks, he believes in the make-believe story that has the savior descending to earth to save us against an army led by some guy known as the Antichrist. His site contains something called the Rapture Index which calculates the end of times based on absolute bullshit.

This idiot has also bought a number of Internet addresses in addition to RaptureReady: AntiAntichrist, Tribulationus and RaptureMe. In the event that RaptureReady crashes during the apocalypse, anyone who needs an update will, with a simple Google search, be able to get one.

And no, that last paragraph isn't a joke. I usually don't get this partial on here (ok, maybe I do) but when authors of credible magazines give credence to a moron like this with this story, I get furious. That last sentence is actually a direct quote from the article.

But hey, one more thing I learned today.

11-10

There is about a 400 to 1 chance to score 11 points in a football game. The Chargers-Steelers game yesterday was the first time in NFL history that a score of 11-10 was recorded (12,837 games).

Coal consumption

The average American household uses 9.5 tons of coal per year.

Jonestown

Jonestown, or the "Peoples Temple Agricultural Project", was a community in Guyana formed by the Peoples Temple, a cult from California led by Jim Jones. In November 1978, 918 people committed mass suicide by cyanide poisoning. It is the largest mass suicide in modern history.

Online dating

1 out of 8 couples married in the United States last year met online.

Ohio's state flower

During political campaigns, President William McKinley wore a red carnation in his buttonhole for good luck. This prompted his home state, Ohio, to designate the scarlet carnation the state flower.

Brain computer interface

Indus Valley Civilization

The Indus Valley Civilization (between the 26th and 19th centuries B.C.), with a population of approximately 5 million people, is India’s oldest known civilization and was a highly sophisticated one. It essentially disappeared from the face of the earth with no evidence of wars or other conflicts.

Joanne Alter

Joanne Alter, Jonathan Alter's mother, was the first female politician in Chicago. Mayor Richard J. Daley put her on the Democratic ticket for commissioner of the Sanitary District, responsible for sewage.

Myco-diesel

Myco-diesel is a fungus that contains the essence of diesel which could one day fuel vehicles. It was accidentally discovered from the stem of a tree in a Chilean forest.

Boston Molasses Disaster

The Boston Molasses Disaster occurred on January 15, 1919. A large molasses tank burst and a wave of molasses rushed through the streets at an estimated 35 mph which killed 21 and injured 150.

Bhutan

Bhutan is the world's newest democracy at six months old. Its new king, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, is currently the world's youngest monarch.

How to tell the difference between Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese

Link to a picture here.

Rahm Emanuel

Rahm Emanuel took ballet lessons as a kid and graduated from the Evanston School of Ballet.

Jeanne Shaheen

Jeanne Shaheen was the first female governor of New Hampshire and is now the first female senator from that state.

Carbon monoxide and hallucinations

Some of the phenomena generally associated with haunted houses (strange visions and sounds, feelings of dread, illness, and the sudden unexplainable death of all the occupants) can be attributed to carbon monoxide poisoning.

The Masked Avengers

The Masked Avengers, or Les Justiciers Masqués, are a Canadian radio duo from Montreal, Quebec, who prank phone call famous people and government officials.

They did it to Sarah Palin yesterday as one of the members posed as French president Nicolas Sarkozy. It's funny, too, because Sarkozy doesn't speak English. EPIC FAIL.

Don't talk bad about Ataturk

It is illegal in Turkey to demean the legacy of their founder and first president, Mustafa Kemal Atauturk.

Phoenicia

Phoenicia was an ancient maritime civilization located along the coastal regions of modern day Lebanon, Syria, Palestinian territories, and Israel. A recent study shows that as many as 1 in 17 men living today on the coasts of North Africa and southern Europe may have a Phoenician direct male-line ancestor.

Ishi

Ishi was the pseudonym of a member of the Yahi, the last surviving group of the Yana people of California. He is believed to be the last Native American in northern California to have lived most of his life completely outside the European American culture.

Semi-vegetarianism

Pescetarianism is a type of semi-vegetarianism in which a person eats any combination of vegetables, fruit, nuts, beans and fish or invertebrate seafood, but will not eat mammals or birds.

Pollotarianism is when a person only eats vegetables, fruits, and poultry meat (particularly chicken), but does not consume meat from fish or mammals.

Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma is considered by many as the world's greatest living cellist and has won over a dozen Grammy awards.

Now watch him perform this god-awful piece on The Colbert Report.

Elizabeth Hasselbeck

Elizabeth Hasselbeck finished fourth overall on the reality show Survivor: The Australian Outback (2001) before landing a spot on The View.

Horace Mann

Horace Mann is known as "The Father of American Education." As secretary of the newly created board of education of Massachusetts, he established a single school system throughout the state instead of separate local school districts, urged separate classrooms for students at different levels of learning, and discouraged learning by rote and flogging as punishment. He also made sure to implement more and better equipped school houses, longer school years (until 16 years old), higher pay for teachers, and a wider curriculum.

Bill Clinton

While in office, Bill Clinton sent only two emails and one was to test the system.

Mass mobilization

The world record for mass mobilization on a single issue is 116 million people (nearly 2% of the world's population). On October 17-19, 2008, 116 million people in 131 countries took part in “Stand Up and Take Action,” a call to end poverty around the globe.

Beijing

The most economically equal city in the world is Beijing, according to a U.N. report published today. The report also finds that major U.S. cities rival the economic inequality of that in Africa.

Les Vilda

Les Vilda is the 2008 B.E.E.R. party candidate for president of the United States.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is an author (The Black Swan) who predicted and bet on the current state of the financial crisis and won big. He predicts things will become worse.

Audio here.

Godwin's Law

Godwin's Law states:

"As a Usenet (user network) discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

Just look at the comments under any political video on YouTube for the point to be proven.

Psychometry

Psychometry is a form of extra-sensory perception in which a psychic is said to be able to obtain information about an individual through paranormal means by making physical contact with an object that belongs to them.

DO NOT watch this video if you get freaked out easily. This is a clip that turns out to be FACT from Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction.

English fecal matter

A study has revealed that men in northern England were more likely to have fecal matter on their hands than people in southern England.

Charles Barkley

Charles Barkley will be running for governor of Alabama in 2014.

Alfred E. Smith

Alfred E. Smith was elected governor of New York four times and was the Democratic presidential candidate in 1928. He was the first Catholic and Irish-American to run for president as a major party nominee.

President David Rice Atchison

Atchison was president for only one day. The term of James K. Polk ended at noon on March 4, 1849, but because this was a Sunday, Zachary Taylor refused to be sworn in until the next day. Since Polk's vice president had resigned a few days earlier, by law the president pro tempore of the Senate automatically became president during this vacancy. That was Atchison. He later said, "I slept most of that Sunday." On his gravestone, it says, "President of U.S. one day."

Safe haven law

Nebraska has a safe haven law in which a parent may choose to cross state lines and abandon a child under 19 years of age at a hospital. Since its inception on July 18, 2008, 18 children have been abandoned in Nebraska including 2 from outside that state.

Michael Donald

Michael Donald was the last black person lynched in the United States (Mobile, Alabama in 1981). In 2006, Mobile renamed one of their avenues Michael Donald Avenue.

Pig Danish

There are about 2.5 times more pigs than humans in Denmark.

Operation Northwoods

Operation Northwoods was a false flag conspiracy plan that was proposed within the United States government in 1962. It called for CIA or other operatives to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against the Castro-led Cuba. One plan was to "develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington".

The plan states:

The desired resultant from the execution of this plan would be to place the United States in the apparent position of suffering defensible grievances from a rash and irresponsible government of Cuba and to develop an international image of a Cuban threat to peace in the Western Hemisphere."

Operation Northwoods was drafted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and signed by Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer, and sent to the Secretary of Defense. It was never officially accepted or executed.

PDF of the document here.

KIPP

KIPP, the Knowledge Is Power Program, is a nationwide network of free college-prep public schools in low-income communities. They are usually established under state charter school laws. There are currently 66 KIPP public schools enrolling over 16,000 students. Over 90% of students are black or Hispanic, and more than 80% of are eligible for the federal free and reduced-price meals program.

Windshields

The average car windshield is angled at 33 degrees.

Where did the phrase "OK" come from?

No one knows for sure but the strongest argument for its etymology is explained by Columbia University professor Allen Walker Read.

The letters stand for 'oll korrect' (all correct), the result of a fad that started in Boston newspapers in 1838. It gained national fame when supporters of Martin Van Buren adopted it as the name of their political club in 1840 ('Old Kinderhook,' giving 'OK' a double meaning). Opponents used it against him, saying that it had originated with Van Buren's allegedly illiterate predecessor, Andrew Jackson, and came up with other interpretations: Out of Kash, Out of Kredit, and Out of Klothes.

Soon, newspaper editors and publicists around the country created their own meanings: Oll Killed, Orfully Konfused, Often Kontradicts, etc. By the time the campaign ended, the expression 'OK' had spread nationwide.

World's most phallic building

The World's Most Phallic Building contest was a contest held in 2003 to find the building which most resembled a human phallus. The Ypsilanti Water Tower was announced as the winner.

Credit default swaps

Michael Greenberger, a law professor at the University of Maryland and a former director of trading and markets for the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, explains what a credit default swap is:

A credit default swap is a contract between two people, one of whom is giving insurance to the other that he will be paid in the event that a financial institution, or a financial instrument, fails.

It is an insurance contract, but they've been very careful not to call it that because if it were insurance, it would be regulated. So they use a magic substitute word called a 'swap,' which by virtue of federal law is deregulated.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Gay animals

According to one zoologist, about 1,500 animal species are known to practice same-sex coupling. Same-sex relationships are common in the animal kingdom, scientists say, and the same is obviously true for humans. One thing exclusive to humans, however: homophobia.

Read the National Geographic article on it.
List of animals displaying homosexual behavior.

Christine Chubbuck

Christine Chubbuck was a news anchor in Sarasota, Florida who committed suicide on live TV on the morning of July 15, 1974. She had been suffering from depression for years. These were her last words:

In keeping with Channel 40's policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts, and in living color, you are going to see another first: an attempted suicide.

Starting off small

Murderers often start off, as young kids, killing small animals. (The kid in this video is said to have had an expressionless face almost the entire time of the rampage.)

Antikythera mechanism

The Antikythera mechanism is considered the world's first known mechanical computer, discovered off the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901. It contains many gears, and is regarded essentially as an analog computer. The calculator appears to be constructed upon theories of astronomy and mathematics developed by Greek astronomers and it is estimated that it was made around 150 to 100 BC.

Sleep paralysis

Sleep paralysis is a condition characterized by partial or total paralysis of skeletal muscles which occurs upon awakening from sleep or while falling asleep. Possible causes include:

- Sleeping in a face upwards or supine position
- Irregular sleeping schedules; naps, sleeping in, sleep deprivation
- Increased stress
- Sudden environmental/lifestyle changes
- A lucid dream that immediately precedes the episode.

Frank Buckles

Frank Buckles is the last identified American veteran of WWI. He is 107 years old.

Alaska's budget

85% of Alaska's budget comes from oil revenues.

Google Docs? Is that, like, when I have trouble with the Google a doctor will come and fix it?

A 2007 survey of 600 PC users found that 73% of Americans have never heard of Google Docs. Only 0.5% have abandoned desktop office applications for an online alternative and 94% have never tried a web based productivity suite.

Remunerate

Remunerate means to "to pay for goods provided, services rendered, or losses incurred".

Henry Earl

Henry Earl is a homeless man from Kentucky who has been arrested 1,333 times since his first arrest.

Lefties

There is no difference in life expectancy between left and right handed people.

What can $700 billion buy you?

2,000 McDonald's apple pies for every American.

Neptune

Neptune was the first planet discovered by mathematical prediction rather than regular observation. Perturbations in the orbit of Uranus led astronomers to deduce Neptune's existence. It was discovered on this day in 1846.

Merkle's Boner

Tuesday marks the 100th anniversary of the controversial play that landed [New York Giants infielder Fred Merkle] on the short list of baseball's all-time goats. The beneficiaries were the Cubs, who without "Merkle's Boner" almost surely would not have gone on to win the 1908 World Series.

....

Merkle, only 19, was on first base after hitting a single, and teammate Moose McCormick was on third. With two outs, Al Bridwell singled to center to drive in McCormick with the apparent winning run.

As Giants fans mobbed the field, Merkle headed for the safety of the clubhouse. But Cubs second baseman Johnny Evers noticed Merkle had left the field without touching second base, though it really should not have mattered, as the forceout rule usually wasn't enforced on game-winning hits in those days.

On this day, however, it was. Amid the chaos, Evers convinced umpire Hank O'Day to call Merkle out on a force play, thus nullifying the winning run.

Read the entire story here.

Jocelyn Wildenstein

Jocelyn Wildenstein, also known as Cat Woman or the Lion Queen, is a wealthy socialite who has had numerous cosmetic surgeries over the years to look like a cat.

Here's the most recent photo.

Tonsil stones

I finally found it!

Today I coughed up a nasty, odorous, white substance from the back of my mouth that has been coming from out of there for about 8 years. I've always called it "white shit". In the past I had tried searching on the internet for what it might be but to no avail. How do you search for something like that, anyway? I thought I was one of about 9 people in the world suffering from this obscure oddity. Today, however, I was going to stop at nothing to find out what the hell those little pieces of cheese were. The magic words on Google were "white stuff from mouth smells bad".

Oh damn! People on forums were posting their horror stories about it as well. But no one seemed to know what it was until I read the word "tonsillolith". I googled it and my life thereafter changed (this was a few hours ago).

The first thing I found was a Wikipedia article on tonsollilth a.k.a. tonsil stones. HOLY SHIT!!! A picture of my white shit on the internet!



As you can imagine, I was ecstatic. I read the entire article and googled some more and here's what I discovered.

But first, I'll brief you on what these mushy little things are and how I got them in the first place. I can still remember it: in 8th grade I noticed a long white strip in the middle of the back of my mouth. I ignored it. A few days later while I was drinking my daily iced tea in the school cafeteria, I accidentally swallowed it. I felt something rubbery slide down my throat but I still didn't seem to care that much. It was just something that comes and goes, I thought.

I don't remember how long it was after that but while I was doing my homework one sunny afternoon (it was graphing homework, by the way), I sneezed something that looked like the ball in the picture above. I didn't even hark back to the time I swallowed something weird in the cafeteria - I almost totally forgot about that incident. Actually, even after the sneeze, I really didn't mind or even wanted to look into it. That is, until it happened approximately every month. (Years later, I joked to friends that it happened every 28 days. They looked at me like I was from another planet.)

Now, I'm not one to go to the doctor; I believe you should stick it out until you're teetering on the point of death - at which point you'll squander away your life savings for something that could have been cured and for much cheaper had you gone to the doctor earlier. But I don't care. I let it go for 8 more years and I'm glad I did because it turns out that the tiny stinkballs are harmless. Whew!

And I can't believe they have two whole sites dedicated to this.

Dr. Douglass Hoffman, an ENT specialist who graduated from Stanford, put it this way:

The surface of your tonsils is pockmarked with deep pits, appropriately called "crypts" (since dead stuff accumulates in these pits). Oral mucosa lines the crypts. As this mucosa sheds, normally the dead cells leave the crypts and are swallowed. In some unlucky people...the dead cells accumulate and glom together to form hard little balls. All of this dead stuff makes great food for bacteria, and all kinds of bacteria normally colonize the mouth. Consequently, the [tonsilloliths] are ripe with bacteria. This accounts for the smell.

And yes, the period before the white shit comes out, I have horrible halitosis. To describe what the stones smell like, go to the bathroom, take a shit, and smell it. This is only a small exaggeration of what to expect if someone dared you to put one of those globs to your nose. And here is a video of one that is probably a little big but is not unusual to people with tonsil stones. This guy needs to seriously wash his hand with burning hot water and soap for about a minute and a half.



And here's a guy excavating.



If you have this don't be surprised to go to the doctor and find out that they have no clue what is wrong with you. Doctors are stupid. You go to their office and they give you an antibiotic that may or may not work. It's their way of saying, "I don't know. Take this and come back when you have something I know about. Then I'll look smart." Most of the tonsil stone sufferers who posted on blogs and forums went to their doctors and encountered the same thing. But thanks to the internet, people with similar troubles can share their stories and a real doctor comes by to answer their questions. And that doesn't solely apply to disorders, either. Just google something you have in mind and you can learn something new. Hence, this blog.

Emily Post

Emily Post was an American author who promoted what she considered "proper etiquette". She wrote books surrounding the topic of etiquette.

Jainism

Jainism is a religion prevalent primarily in India with about 10 million followers there, and successful growing immigrant communities elsewhere in the world.

I wonder where the Nazis got their symbol from?

Shortest man in the world

The shortest man in the world is He Pingping of China. He is 2 feet 5.37 inches tall.

Two Dicks

Dick Cheney, before the start of the Iraq War, purported to then House Majority Leader Dick Armey that Saddam Hussein had miniature WMDs. Although Armey had staunchly opposed invading Iraq, he gave the Administration the benefit of the doubt.

Our defense budget

The United States defense budget is more than the rest of the world's defense spending combined.

Lucid dream

A lucid dream is a dream in which the person is aware that he or she is dreaming while the dream is in progress.

Aramaic

There are an estimated 550,000 native speakers of Neo-Aramaic dialects as of 1994.

Sidney Torres

Sidney Torres is president of SDT Waste and Debris which won a $9 million a year contract to clean up the French Quarter and downtown New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte was about 5 feet 6.5 inches tall at the time of his death. That would make him slightly taller than an average Frenchman of the 19th century.

Broccoli

The cultivation of broccoli originated in Italy where it was known as broccolo.

"The surge worked!"

John McCain, during a low point in the Iraq war, urged the State Department to support increasing troops there because he believed that the United States was about to lose its second war in his lifetime.

Memory biases

A memory bias is a cognitive bias that either enhances or impairs the recall of a memory (either the chances that the memory will be recalled at all, or the amount of time it takes for it to be recalled, or both), or that alters the content of a reported memory. Here is a list of memory biases.

Gropecunt Lane

Gropecunt Lane was a name used in English-speaking towns and cities in the Middle Ages for streets where prostitutes conducted their business.

A Gropecuntelane is the earliest citation in the entry for the word cunt in the Oxford English Dictionary, which dates the reference to about 1230.

QubeTV

QubeTV is a conservative-biased alternative to YouTube. The site was founded by former Ronald Reagan aides as a response to what is perceived to be a liberal bias on the part of YouTube.

Peregrinate

Peregrinate means "to journey or travel from place to place."

Tamil

Tamil is an official language of India, Singapore, and Sri Lanka.

San Marino

San Marino claims to be the world's oldest republic. It was founded on this date in 301.

Oberlin College

Oberlin was the first college in the U.S. to regularly admit black students and is also the oldest continuously operating coeducational institution. It was founded on this date in 1833.

Schenectady, NY

Schenectady is pronounced [skuh-NEK-tuh-dee].

Victoria Woodhull

Victoria Woodhull was the first woman ever to run for president of the United States (1872).

Chewing gum

Chewing gum burns about 11 calories an hour.

Amazon Kindle

The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader.

Marilyn vos Savant

Marilyn vos Savant is considered to be the smartest person in the world. Her IQ is too high to be calculated.

Madeline Albright

In high school, Madeline Albright won the Rocky Mountain Empire Award for reciting, in alphabetical order, the 51 members of the United Nations.

The North Pole

There is no land at all at the North Pole, only ice on top of sea. The Arctic Ocean has about 4.6 million square miles of floating ice and has the coldest winter temperature of -29 degrees Fahrenheit.

Gamerosters.com

Since the NCAA prohibits the use of players' real names on video games, Gamerosters.com has been launched to provide just that. The site offers NCAA Football by EA Sports and plans to distribute rosters for the College Hoops and March Madness video games.

Water polo in the Olympics

During the two weeks of the Olympics, water polo players may lose about 5 to 10 pounds.

Usain Bolt

A lightning storm preceded Usain Bolt's record breaking 100 meter dash in New York City on May 31, 2008. It embellished his nickname "Lightning Bolt."

Toby Keith

Country singer Toby Keith considers himself a conservative Democrat.

Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi

Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi is an animated short film produced by Walt Disney and released in 1943.

Women trying too hard to impress guys

Women in the United States spend $7 billion a year on beauty products.

An average American woman wastes more than 3,000 hours "primping" and "preening" over her lifetime. You can go to the moon and back 22 times in that amount of time.

Dick Cheney

Dick Cheney ran Bush's VP search team in 2000 before picking himself.

John Philip Sousa

John Philip Sousa, known as "The March King," was a composer and conductor known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. His most famous work is "Stars and Stripes Forever."

Orphans

There are 148 million orphans in the world.

Ivy Bean

Ivy Bean is believed to be the world's oldest person on Facebook. She is 102 years old.

Why do divers shower right after a dive?

To keep their muscles warm after getting out of the pool. The temperature of the pool water is about 8-12 degrees warmer than the air temperature, which can cause muscle tightness. To combat this, divers warm up in either the showers or a hot tub.

Jerome Corsi

Jerome Corsi is an idiot who writes books.

The Windy City

Rock Port, Missouri is the first community in the United States to be powered completely by wind.

Speedo LZR Racer

The Speedo LZR Racer is being used in the Olympic swimming contests. It was engineered by NASA and produces 38% less hydrodynamic drag than a normal bathing suit. It is responsible for breaking dozens of world records.

The longest time without sleep

Randy Gardner holds the scientifically documented record for the longest period of time a human being has intentionally gone without sleep not using stimulants of any kind. In 1964 — as a 17-year-old — Gardner stayed awake for 264 hours (eleven days even), breaking the previous record of 260 hours.

Is it possible to drink too much water?

The short answer is "no" as long as you stay within these guidelines.

1) Try to stick with high-quality water. In most cases, "high-quality" means spring water or filtered water. Mineral waters are also excellent for exactly what their name says - many contain significant amounts of calcium and magnesium. Plain tap water, in most cities throughout the United States, contains a variety of contaminants, including pesticide residues and heavy metals.

2) Try to drink the most between meals. Excessive intake of water along with a meal can compromise stomach acidity and stomach function, and will not allow you to get the most nutritional value from your food.

3) Be careful drinking too much too late in the day. Waking up to go to the bathroom will not help your overall health.

4) Replenish water whenever you have obvious water loss: the most easy to recognize situations include sweating and diarrhea. After a heavy workout and profuse sweating, for example, you may easily need an additional quart of water.

5) Be consistent, and keep your water intake adequate on a morning-afternoon-and-evening basis. Although the exact amount of water needed each day may vary, you can use a general guideline of 6-8 glasses (8 ounces each) daily.

Baader-Meinhof phenomenon

The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon occurs when a person, after having learned some (usually obscure) fact, word, phrase, or other item for the first time, encounters that item again, perhaps several times, shortly after having learned it.

Nauru

Nauru is an island nation in the Micronesian South Pacific.

Adoption

American men are more than twice as likely to adopt a child compared with women, according to statistics released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among men ages 18 to 44, 2.3% had adopted compared with 1.1% of women in that age range.

911 calls

About 200 million 911 calls are made every year.

Rosa Parks of New York

In 1855, Lizzie Jennings, a black woman living in New York, was forced to get off a Brooklyn streetcar because it was for whites only. Chester A. Arthur, future president of the U.S., represented her in a suit against the streetcar company and won. The landmark decision led to desegregation of public transportation in New York City.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Russian author who made the world aware of the Gulag, the Soviet's labor camp system. For these efforts, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1970 and exiled from the country four years later. He died on August 3, 2008.

Charles J. Guiteau

Charles J. Guiteau was the assassin of President James A. Garfield. Guiteau had actually supported Garfield in the election of 1880 but when he went to Washington seeking a diplomatic post as his reward he was rebuffed. The mentally unstable Guiteau decided to assassinate Garfield and wrote on the morning of the murder that "the president's tragic death was a sad necessity, but it will unite the Republican party and save the Republic. ...I have no ill-will toward the president. His death was a political necessity."