Northridge

The Northridge route is a route on Mt. Everest that climbers often take.

Sister Souljah moment

A Sister Souljah moment is a politician's public repudiation of an allegedly extremist person or group, statement, or position perceived to have some association with the politician or their party.

Sawbuck

A sawbuck is slang for a ten dollar bill.

Bill Kristol

Bill Kristol served as chief of staff to Secretary of Education Bill Bennett during the Reagan Administration and then as chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle under the first Bush Administration.

Miltary industrial complex

The military industrial complex is composed of a nation's armed forces, its suppliers of weapons systems, supplies and services, and its civil government.

Here is President Eisenhower warning us of the dangers of the MIC in his farewell address.

Leviathan

Leviathan is a sea monster referred to in the Old Testament.

Woolworth Building

The Woolworth Building, at fifty-seven stories, is one of the oldest — and one of the most famous — skyscrapers in New York City.

James Meredith

James Meredith was the first black student at the University of Mississippi.

Allyl sulfate

Allyl sulfate is the compound that causes the eyes to burn when an onion is cut.

Henry Kravis

Henry Kravis is a billionaire who bought undervalued companies using debt, cleaned up balance sheets, and sold them for profit.

T.D. Jakes

T.D. Jakes is the pastor of the Potter's House here in Dallas. I've lived in Dallas for almost 5 years and I knew the Potter's House but I just didn't know who T.D. Jakes was.

Bulls

Bulls are color blind.

Dogs

Dogs really don't like to roll over; they can injure themselves or are scared to put their belly up.

BigDog

BigDog is a robot created by Boston Dynamics.

Thomas Jefferson and the Quran

Thomas Jefferson owned a copy of the Quran in order to better understand the pirates of the Barbary states of North Africa (Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia) before he would go to war with them for enslaving shippers who passed through the Strait of Gibraltar.

Buck Rogers

Buck Rogers is a fictional character who first appeared in 1928. Rogers is best known from the long-running syndicated newspaper comic strip. He also appeared in a movie serial, a television series, and in many other formats.

The Baghdad Battery

The Baghdad Battery is a clay pot that is also an ancient electric battery.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is one of five major oceanic gyres, which is an area in an ocean where trash accumulates due to the lack of ocean currents present.

Wikimania

Wikimania is a conference for users of the wiki projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikimania 2008 will be held in Alexandria, Egypt on July 17-19.

The Maasai

The Maasai are an indigenous African ethnic group of semi-nomadic people located in Kenya and northern Tanzania.

The Belfast Agreement

The Belfast Agreement was a major political development in the Northern Ireland peace process. It was signed in Belfast in 1998 by the British and Irish governments and endorsed by most Northern Ireland political parties.

The Notre-Dame Affair

The Notre-Dame Affair was an anti-Catholic intervention performed by members of the radical wing of the Lettrist movement, on Easter Sunday, April 9th 1950, at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.

Abortion

There are 50 million abortions performed every year worldwide. An estimated 40% of those are performed illegally.

Giuseppe Zangara

Giuseppe Zangara attempted to kill U.S. President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933.

Cynthia McKinney

Cynthia McKinney served as a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 2003, and from 2005 to 2007, representing Georgia's fourth congressional district. She is currently running as President of the U.S. as a Green Party member.

Nepotism

Nepotism means "patronage bestowed or favoritism shown on the basis of family relationship."

Donkey rides on a beach

In England, children can enjoy donkey rides on the beach.

The bin Ladens

Muhammad bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's father, had 54 kids with 22 wives.

Asperger's Disorder

Asperger's Disorder is a milder variant of Autistic Disorder. Both Asperger's Disorder and Autistic Disorder are in fact subgroups of a larger diagnostic category. In Asperger's Disorder, affected individuals are characterized by social isolation and eccentric behavior in childhood. There are impairments in two-sided social interaction and non-verbal communication. Though grammatical, their speech may sound peculiar due to abnormalities of inflection and a repetitive pattern. Clumsiness may be prominent both in their articulation and gross motor behavior. They usually have a circumscribed area of interest which usually leaves no space for more age appropriate, common interests.

Mumia Abu-Jamal

Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1981 murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner, and is currently a prisoner at State Correctional Institution Greene near Waynesburg, Pennsylvania.

In December 2001, a judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania affirmed his conviction but quashed the original punishment and ordered resentencing. Both Abu-Jamal and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania appealed. The case was orally argued before a three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia on May 17, 2007. On March 27, 2008, the panel issued its opinion upholding the decision of the District Court.

His case has received international attention. Supporters and opponents disagree on the appropriateness of the death penalty, whether he is guilty, or whether he received a fair trial and the benefit of due process.

There are some websites advocating Abu-Jamal's release including this one, this one, and this one.