Weezdumb

God Makes Surprise Visit To Local NC Church

2009-05-04T22:04:00.000-07:00

Now, this is some funny stuff.God Visits Local NC ChurchI love what the preacher said, "You'd think the Creator of the Universe would give us some warning, then we could put it in the bulletin, not that I'm complaining."Photo: Machhu Piccu turned sideways ;)

Winning Backwards

2009-04-01T22:30:00.000-07:00

You win these three events going backwards:Tug-of-warRowingBackstroke (swimming)

The Gatling Gun

2009-03-23T02:04:00.000-07:00

Forerunner to the machine gun, the Gatling gun was invented by Dr. Gatling in 1862, but the factory burned down before it could be produced for the war. He hoped that the creation of a gun that could fire 350 rounds per minute would be reduction of armies and less loss of life. Instead, this efficient killing machine, or rather its upgrades, was responsible for millions of deaths in World War I,

Who Needs a Patent For This Web Thing?

2009-03-22T16:10:00.000-07:00

Tim Berners-Lee, who created the first internet browser (1990) and the term World Wide Web, decided that if he patented it, it would never take off. He got the idea from attempting to organize his notes along the lines of a Victorian encyclopedia his parents had, called Enquire Within. He wrote hypertext software that allowed him to link ideas using text as a jumping off point to data held

Eiffel Tower Saved by Radio

2009-03-22T13:58:00.000-07:00

Paris, France’s Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 Paris Centenniel Exposition, but was destined to only stand 21 years. Artists and other critics who called it a giant lamppost wanted it demolished immediately despite its popularity with visitors. However, in 1907 it was found to be an excellent transmitter of radio waves, which even reached America. It's functionality as a giant antenna saved

The Edison Electric Chair

2009-03-21T16:37:00.000-07:00

Thomas Edison was a proponent of direct current (DC), while George Westinghouse preferred alternating current (AC), which could be transmitted over greater distances. Thomas Edison hoped to defeat AC by showing how dangerous it could be, so in 1890 he created the first electric chair in secret, using animals (dogs, cats, etc) for tests, eventually holding public demonstrations. Westinghouse and

How We Got Corn Flakes

2009-03-21T01:32:00.000-07:00

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg was a diet freak disgusted with America’s bad eating habits. In 1900, he ran the Battle Creek Sanitarium and promoted good digestion (along with daily enemas and celibacy, bragging about “remaining celibate for forty years of married life” – they didn’t ask his wife about it!) He decided to create a “health food” available by mail order, and with his wife and brother came

Vote or Die

2009-03-20T13:30:00.000-07:00

The island of Martinique is overlooked by a volcano, Mount Pelée. When it started smoking three days before 1902 elections, the local Governor Louis Mouttet feared it could hurt his election, so he blockaded the city and even visited the mountain to show that it was “safe”. However, on election day it erupted, and sent ash traveling 100 miles an hour through the city and killed all but two people

How We Got the Star Spangled Banner

2009-03-20T11:26:00.000-07:00

The fifth game of the 1918 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs was held up over an hour as players refused to play unless given more money for the series. The owners appealed to their patriotism: the stands were filled with veterans from the Great War. The players gave in, and the owners played the “Star Spangled Banner” as a tribute to the soldiers. It was the first time

Allied Invasion of Russia in 1918

2009-03-20T01:40:00.000-07:00

Far prior to the Cold War, even before the World War II alliance, the US and Russia had a short and minor war. In 1918, the Allies feared the rise of communism, and with the Great War winding down, the US and Great Britain mounted an Allied Expeditionary Force to invade Russia, landing on the north shore near Archangel. With a paltry force of around 6000 men, the A.E.F. wasn’t large enough to

Pres. Garfield, a Victim of Bad Doctoring

2009-03-19T23:13:00.000-07:00

President James Garfield was shot walking through a train station on his way to a college reunion in July of 1881. He was shot by a disgruntled lawyer denied a diplomatic post.Doctors could not find the bullet, and turned a 3-inch wound into an infected 20-inch cannonball hole and they punctured his liver!. Garfield struggled all summer and died in September, and they found the bullet in an

The Ghost of Lincoln

2009-03-19T22:56:00.000-07:00

While in office, Lincoln held séances in the White House and was a student of psychic research. Lincoln’s ghost has been often been seen in the White House, including by Holland’s Queen Wilhemena in 1945. Lincoln’s personal secretary was named Kennedy. John F. Kennedy’s personal secretary was named Lincoln. Richard Nixon used to have “private conversations” with Lincoln’s portrait during his

World War I Catalyst Was an Accident

2009-03-19T22:53:00.000-07:00

Try, try again but don’t stop the car for directions!World War I almost didn’t get its catalyst. On June 28, 1914, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and wife Sophie, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, visited Bosnia, the streets of Sarajevo were filled with admirers and assassination conspirators. One threw a bomb at the car that the Archduke batted away. Later he spontaneously wanted to visit the

The World's First Fax Machine in 1857

2009-03-19T22:51:00.000-07:00

Invented in 1857, and called a “pantelegraph”, Italian Giovanni Caselli was a priest who thought that telegraphs could also reproduce pictures. His device recognized ink on the page to be copied, causing a signal to write at the other end. It took six years to perfect, and consisted of pendulums, wires, and batteries. By 1868, it was sending over 100 faxes per hour. After the Prussian invasion of

Bush Is Back!

2009-02-14T16:34:00.000-08:00

This was too funny to pass up, a special Inauguration day campaign to "Shave the Date", organized by Kristen Chase, who said "take pride in knowing you've rid your world of bush, once and for all."Here's the original story at Salon.com:Shave the Date CampaignThat was Bill Maher's take, when he lamented on a Sept. 19 episode of "Real Time With Bill Maher," "Bring back a little pubic hair. Not a

Giant Muffin Plunges From Sky, Crushes Car

2009-02-13T23:56:00.000-08:00

Nothing Says I Love You..

2009-02-13T20:21:00.000-08:00

..Like a diamond and a shotgun!Some jewelry retailer in Florida is now running this campaign for Valentine's Day:"A free shotgun worth $300 with any diamond purchase of $400 or more!"

President George Jefferson

2009-02-12T06:48:00.000-08:00

A buddy of mine caught Rachel Maddow (on CNN?) yesterday saying this:"Obama is not being compared to earlier U.S. Presidents like George Jefferson or Ben Franklin."Holy Toledo! Illiteracy rules, even on CNN, apparently.

67 Computers Missing from Weapons Labs

2009-02-11T18:36:00.000-08:00

It now appears there are at least 67 computers missing from the nation's nuclear weapons labs. Of course, they like to stress "nothing classified is missing", which means that it's highly likely there has been a theft of classified info. We'll only know after the fact, like 911, how our security and intelligence failed us again.Here's the story at Usa Today:Missing Computers

Pictures from the War Front

2009-02-09T20:47:00.000-08:00

The Rat Catchers of New Delhi

2009-02-07T04:36:00.000-08:00

New Delhi's government has a rat catching department - only, it hasn't caught a single rodent in more than a decade. There are currently 97 rat catchers on the municipal payroll, all working for the Rat Surveillance Department, a decades-old agency that last saw any action in 1994, when a plague outbreak killed 56 people in areas of nw India, The Hindustan Times reported. Each rat catcher earns

The Anti-Gravity Pen

2009-02-07T04:29:00.000-08:00

When the U.S. went into space, the ‘experts’ at NASA decided we needed an anti-gravity ballpoint pen that worked under weightless conditions. About SIX MILLION dollars later, we had one. The Russian astronauts simply used pencils! These work on friction, not gravity.

The Dumb Agent Theory

2009-02-06T01:51:00.000-08:00

Source: WikipediaUSS Scorpion (SSN-589) was a nuclear submarine of the United States Navy lost at sea on June 5, 1968. While a public search did not yield any clues as to its location, Dr. John Craven, the Chief Scientist of the U.S. Navy's Special Projects Division, decided to employ the Bayesian search theory in order to establish its location. This involved formulating different hypotheses as

Kalifornia

2009-02-06T01:37:00.000-08:00

In the film Kalifornia, Brad Pitt plays a killer whose 'boots aren't laced all the way to the top' (from Anthony Weller), who says “We’ll move to California; there the first month’s rent is free, state law. So we’ll just keep moving each month until we build up a nest egg.”He kills his trailer park landlord in anger, shooting him in his Cadillac. He then takes a bulldozer, digs a hole big enough

Plymouth Rock was a Beer Stop

2009-02-05T18:26:00.000-08:00

The pilgrims sailing to America on the Mayflower were blown off course, and rather than turn and head south for Virginia as originally intended, they put ashore in Massachusetts because they were running low on beer. Water was considered suspect, due to contamination and disease, and one of the first things the pilgrims built up after landing was a brew house.One pilgrim, named Samuel Adams, used

Washington's Less-Known Quote

2009-02-04T18:22:00.000-08:00

When George Washington was boarding the rowboat to cross the Delaware, he had to nudge 300-lb Colonel Henry Knox aside to make room, with these immortal words, “Shift that fat ass, Harry, but slowly or you’ll swamp the damn boat!” To me, these are much more inspiring fighting words than “full speed ahead” or “I regret that I have but one life to give.”By the way, Washington was not the first

Porn Interrupts Arizona Super Bowl Broadcast

2009-02-02T03:37:00.000-08:00

from Arizona Daily StarA short clip of a pornographic movie cut into a Comcast broadcast of the Super Bowl in homes in and around Tucson.Officials at Comcast confirmed that its signal was interrupted during the Super Bowl, but the company is still working to figure out how porn broke into its cable feed.Engineers at Comcast will be working throughout the night to determine what happened, said

Heed All Warning Signs

2009-01-28T18:35:00.000-08:00

Always avoid these signs....

Lancelot Encore, the Cloned Dog

2009-01-28T14:58:00.000-08:00

[Typical waste of money by americans with too much? or a worthy use of your life savings? - lol.. the Jman]A Florida couple had their dog (golden retreiver) Lancelot's DNA frozen, then cloned after he died. They now have the 10 wk old clone, named Lancelot Encore -- cost: $150,000! Guy Adami on Fast Money said, "they could've bought 200 dogs for 750 each, kept the one that looked like Lancelot

The Theory of Women

2009-01-22T20:09:00.000-08:00

The Real JFK Story from the CIA Itself

2009-01-11T02:23:00.000-08:00

Source: Plausible Denial by Mark LaneWe all remember the day in 1963 and the scamful Warren Commission later with bogus evidence and suspicous witnesses (two of whom could barely see 10 feet but made ID's of Oswald in a distant window), but no one even noticed when the CIA admitted contracting the Mafia for the hit during an 80’s trial, “Howard Hunt vs. Liberty Magazine”. Liberty-owned Spy

Ten or 12 Months, It's Still a Year to Me

2009-01-09T19:34:00.000-08:00

The Roman calendar was based on the moon, so every year it came up ten days short and also had ten months, beginning on March 1. An Egyptian astronomer that Caesar met through Cleopatra showed him a calendar based on the sun, which gave us the twelve month year. I always wondered why October (oct meaning eight) was the 10th month, November (novem meaning nine) the 11th, and December (dec meaning

The Much Too Modern Olympics

2009-01-06T19:03:00.000-08:00

The Olympics were halted in 394 a.d. by the Christian emperor Theodosius, who said they were a “pagan celebration” (Zeus favored the hammer throw). They were revived in 1892 by a Frenchman who wanted the French to become more fit in case they had another war with Germany – gee, what were the odds of that?Judging from history, I don’t think being able to win a fencing medal helped much in either

Acceptable Food Contamination

2009-01-03T17:04:00.000-08:00

U.S.D.A. (or is it FDA when its approaching medicine?)Acceptable “defect levels” of foods. “You are what you eat”. You just can't make this up!Asparagus – 10% infested with beetle eggs; 40 thrips or 5 insects in 100-gram samplesChocolate – up to 60 insect fragments in 100-gram sampleCoffee beans – up to 10% insect infested, damaged, or moldedFish – 5% of fillets or fish with “definite

Man-Made Laws of the Universe

2009-01-02T15:36:00.000-08:00

These are all un-proven un-scientific laws that seem to apply to modern civilized man. This will never be complete as we create more every day. We all know "If things can go wrong, they will." (Murphy's Law). Here are some you probably didn't know.Parkinson’s Law – Tasks will take at least the amount of time allotted.The 80/20 Rule – Twenty percent

Memorable Deaths

2009-01-01T15:30:00.000-08:00

We'll never get off this world alive - Jim MorrisonAgathocles (Syrian tyrant, 300 b.c.) – choked on a toothpick (they had toothpicks back then? I didn’t know they even had teeth as adults!).Alexander the Great (Macedonian emperor) – caught a fever during two days of drinking and carousing, died at 33. (Never really recovered from an arrow wound suffered in India).Alexander (king of Greece, 1920)