This is outrageous! Before I read it, I was of the opinion that the US presence in Iraq was a necessary evil and that we owed it to Iraq to stay and rebuild, which we do. But clearly the military is not interested in humanitarian work. I say give the $87 billion to the UN and let them clean up our mess. I would dedicate an entire post to this subject, but it has already been masterfully dealt with here and expanded upon here.
This is how much $87 billion is.
(from amberbamberboo)
Does Bush oppose peace in the Middle East? It's starting to look that way. Check out this commentary.
(from Channeling Cupertino)
Okay, now on to the fun stuff.
Wanna buy something unique for your loved ones this holiday season? How about a bottle of butterfly pee. (Actually it doesn't come out of butterflies; it's for them to drink.) Apparently bottled and powdered animal urine is a popular item. Check out this list.
Until I saw this, I didn't think there were any more truly creative jack o'lantern ideas to be thought up. Boy was I wrong! I also liked this one (very scary).
(from starkittn ink)
Here are some more cool optical illusions.
(from widdershins)
The Dalai Lama has determined that hard drives can function as prayer wheels.
(from Ron's Log)
According to the Pliocene Pussy Cat Theory, cats were first domesticated four million years ago by australopithecines. They were used for hunting and protection and were an integral part of human evolution. (Crackpot science at its finest.)
If you're planning a trip to China, don't expect to get much use out of the internet while you're there. Here is a list of sites that are known to be blocked. Besides the obvious sites about world news like the BBC, and human rights organizations like Amnesty International and anything having to do with Tibet, China also blocks such sites as google and hotmail, not to mention a huge amount of porn. So what's left? Well, I didn't see disney.com on the list.
(from stupidangrycanajun)
Perhaps employers should not be so quick to penalize their employees for surfing at work.
Digitus Impudicus was one of Ancient Rome's greatest contributions to the modern world.
Here in Muncie, a computer science class (CICS 602) at Ball State University has given its students the task of creating a maintaining personal blogs. The site has a list of about 40 such blogs, so if you want to check out other blogs by Munsonians, now you can. Be warned however, that most of them are not that good or interesting. They also recommend a good site on how to write an effective blog.
The Guardian has compiled a list of the 100 greates novels of all time. They were inspired by the BBC's recently-released list of one hundred nominations for Britain's best-loved novel. (I've read eight from the first list and sixteen from the second.)
(from Bill Stevenson)