Elk Cloner

Elk Cloner is one of the first known computer viruses that made it big. It was written around 1982 by a 15 year-old high school student.

Judah Folkman

Dr. Judah Folkman was a medical scientist best known for his research on angiogenesis and vasculogenesis, the fact that tumours generate tiny blood vessels to nourish themselves. His work founded a branch of cancer research called 'anti-angiogenesis therapy.' He died on January 14, 2008.

Critical Mass

Critical Mass is an event typically held on the last Friday of every month in cities around the world. The ride was originally founded with the idea of drawing attention to how unfriendly the city was to bicyclists.

Here is the latest Critical Mass from New York City. A dickhead police officer shoves a bicyclist to the ground for no apparent reason.

The day a bomber hit the Empire State Building

On a foggy day on July 28, 1945, during the waning days of World War II, a B-25 bomber that was flying a routine mission crashed into the Empire State Building leaving 14 dead.

Too much

We have 572,000 American troops in about 130 countries and it's costing us taxpayers $1 trillion every year.

Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrianism is a religion with about 200,000 adherents who live mostly in Iran and India.

Liberal media

*** This has been put in the section 'Posts I wish I could take back.' Reason below. ***

92% of the press corps votes for the Democrat.

Update 05.16.10: Ahh, the early days of not checking for reliable sources. I got this while listening to the NewsHour on NPR in my car, when Shields and Brooks were going at it. Brooks was talking about how the media paid way too much attention to every stupid thing Obama was doing during the campaign, like what kind of bottled water he drinks. Then Brooks claimed that "92 percent of [the press corps] vote for the Democrat year after year." Shields didn't refute it, so I ran with it. That and the fact that I didn't learn anything of value that day anyway. This little statistic may or may not be true, but I shouldn't have posted it because it does not seem to appear anywhere else.

Math skills

Girls are now doing just as well as boys on math assessment tests, according to a new study of over 7 million schoolchildren from 10 states.

Allen Telescope Array

The Allen Telescope Array is a field of satellite dishes in northern California built by the SETI Institute and the University of California at Berkeley. It is dedicated to astronomical observations and a simultaneous search for extra-terrestrial intelligence.

Richard Lewis

Richard Lewis is a comedian and actor. His latest book is The Other Great Depression.

Limerick

A limerick is a "humorous or nonsensical verse of five anapestic lines usually with the rhyme scheme aabba."

Here is President Woodrow Wilson's limerick:

For beauty I am not a star
There are others more handsome by far
But my face doesn't mind it
For I am behind it
It's the people in front that I jar

The same can be said of me.

Charlie Waitt

Charlie Waitt was a pro baseball player who was taunted and called a "sissy" by fans and teammates because he was one of the first to wear baseball gloves to protect his hands.

Cassius Marcellus Clay

The name Cassius Marcellus Clay is not only the name of a boxer (Muhammad Ali's before he converted to Islam), it was also the name of a 19th century abolitionist. And they are both from Kentucky.

Douglas Engelbart

Douglas Engelbart invented the world's first computer mouse.

Drew Griffin is a terrorist

CNN's Drew Griffin is a terrorist. Or at least he's on that phony terrorist watch list made by the government (1 million names and counting).

Our infrastructure sucks

There are 76,000 structurally deficient bridges in the U.S. today

Alice B. Toklas

Alice B. Toklas was a gay American author who wrote The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook in 1954. Her most famous recipe was "Hashish Fudge," a concoction of fruit, nuts, spices, and marijuana. Or in other words, brownies filled with weed.

Swiss chard

Swiss chard, along with kale, mustard greens and collard greens, is one of several leafy green vegetables often referred to as "greens". It is a tall leafy green vegetable with a thick, crunchy stalk that comes in white, red or yellow with wide fan-like green leaves. Chard belongs to the same family as beets and spinach and shares a similar taste profile: it has the bitterness of beet greens and the slightly salty flavor of spinach leaves.

Bartholomew Gilbert

Bartholomew Gilbert was an English mariner who in 1602 served as co-captain on the first recorded European expedition to Cape Cod. His decisions resulted in the failure to establish a colony there which would have been the first English colony in the Americas.

Thomas Jefferson's library

Thomas Jefferson collected books his entire adult life and amassed a library of about 6,500 volumes.

John Adams' faith

Second president of the United States John Adams was part of the Unitarian branch of Congregationalism. He believed that although Jesus Christ was a great and good man whose example of piety, love, and universal brotherhood was the ideal that everybody should follow, he was not the Son of God, not the Word made flesh. If he were God, reasoned Adams, why would he allow his own creatures to nail him to a cross? Adams also rejected the idea of a Blessed Trinity. To say that one is three and three is one was sheer mystical gimmickry.

But he also rejected Deism and thought it equally unacceptable. He believed in continuous divine intervention. Adams was also confident of life after death and had little use for the trappings of organized religion. One need only follow the good conscience God gave him and follow the precepts set forth in the Bible to be a solid Christian.

South Park

South Park, Wyoming; South Park Township, Pennsylvania; and South Park View, Kentucky are all real places.

Tree shrews

The tree shrew is a native mammal to the tropical forests of Southeast Asia.

Family Guy

The TV series Family Guy has been canceled twice, in 2000 and 2002, but strong DVD sales brought the show back in 2005.

Triskelion

A triskelion is a symbol consisting of three interlocked spirals or any similar symbol with three protrusions and a threefold rotational symmetry.


Flag of Isle of Man


Flag of Sicily

Army of God

Army of God is a radical anti-abortion organization that allows for the use of force to combat abortion in the United States.

Car battery breakdowns

Heat, not cold, is the most common cause of car battery breakdowns.

Vernice Armour

Vernice Armour is the first black female combat pilot in the U.S. She served in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and completed 2 tours of duty in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Ingrid Betancourt

Ingrid Betancourt is a French-Colombian politician who was rescued on July 2, 2008 from Colombian Farc rebels after being held hostage for 6 years.

Traffic accidents the #1 killer

For people between the ages of 5 and 34, traffic accidents are the #1 cause of death.

Colombia's economy

Colombia's economy is about the same size as that of Hollywood, Florida.