Grackles - Common Grackles, Grackle facts, The Great-Tailed Grackle Mysteries, Grackle Whacked, and the Great Grackle Migration. more inside

Rumsfeld says Iraq War Critics Are Cowards Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday accused critics of the Bush administration's Iraq and counterterrorism policies of lacking the courage to fight terror. In unusually explicit terms, Rumsfeld portrayed the administration's critics as suffering from "moral and intellectual confusion" about what threatens the nation's security. In other news, reality turns out to be optional. more inside

Curious George - Full Sized DVD Camcorder? Needed: a camcorder that records directly to full size DVD, and not that mini-DVD 3" format. We need the big one. Not the mini. more inside

Bush Stinks! If you elect a frat boy as President of the United States, don't be surprised if he enjoys farting and making others smell it. via y2karl's Flatulence Fiesta

911 Cover Up Video A little something has been previously mentioned, but this low-budget, one-hour-twenty-minute Google video makes a couple of claims that are interesting at least. Previously on "Monkey Wing: conspiracy theories, conspiracy theory, conspiracy theory part deux, and conspiracy theories" more inside

The Forger Who Fooled the World During the exhibition, van Meegeren would loudly proclaim the painting a forgery, a crude pastiche, and listen as the finest minds of his generation persuaded him that his painting was a genuine Vermeer. His triumph was now complete. He had only to do what he had promised himself: to stand up and claim the work for himself, thereby making fools of his critics. Instead, within a month, he was working on a new forgery. Greed, sex, money, art, - the story that has it all. A great tale of what happens when talents are used for good, then evil, then . . well, that's about it really. via Arts and Letters Daily

The Origin of the Ridiculous Whales are ridiculous thanks to their history.They evolved from mammals on land. Their swimming, reproduction, breathing, and other adaptations to life in water are all the result of tinkering with a terrestrial animal's body. Fossil discoveries have documented how coyote-like mammals moved into the water about 45 million years ago and became more and more adapted to the marine life. Coyote howl = Whale song, anyone? more inside

Curious George: Build a Synth It's my understanding that I can take an old PII computer running Windows 98, hook up a cheap MIDI keyboard to it and presto change-o have a grand piano or Hammond B-3 keyboard. Is that the case, if so what's the best way to do it (what software?), what else is there to do, or else what do I have wrong? more inside

Make Your Own Incense See also Herbalism and Incense or perhaps your own divination things, witchy things, japanese incense, and stay away from all but a very little saltpeter. Or just see it done. more inside

NASA Lost the Tape! But just 37 years after Apollo 11, it is feared the magnetic tapes that recorded the first moon walk . . .have gone missing at NASA's Goddard Space Centre in Maryland. Misplaced the evidence eh? Perhaps it was all a hoax! Or was it? /theremin via /.

Laundryroom Swapmeet People leave things on the laundryroom table of the apartment building. Later, those things are gone. More things appear. Who takes them, and why? The big questions, pondered small. Dude, I totally fuckin' swiped this from Mr. Blue over there, huh huh huh.

De-Frenched Fries Stripped of "Freedom" Mr. Ney, who was then the chairman of the House Administration Committee, which oversees the cafeterias, gleefully announced the change at the height of anti-French sentiment, when Paris scolded Washington that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was premature. "This action today is a small but symbolic effort to show the strong displeasure of many on Capitol Hill with the actions of our so-called ally, France," he said on March 11, 2003. [When asked why the name was changed back to french fries,]. . . "We don't have a comment for your story," said a spokeswoman for Mr. Ney. Lifted from Le Bleu more inside

Vegan diet reverses diabetes symptoms, study finds Also, there's a difference between vegan and vegetarian. more inside

A Foreign Affair On the great Ukrainian bride hunt “These are not American women,” our guide was telling us. “They do not care about your age, looks, or money. And you are not going to have to talk to them for half an hour and then have your testicles handed back to you! Let me tell you: over here, you’re the commodity; you’re the piece of meat. I’ve lived in St. Petersburg for two years, and I wouldn’t date an American woman right now if you paid me!”

Star Wars Origins - Dune? Lucas has often acknowledged Dune as an inspiration. In early drafts of the Star Wars script the influence was much more obvious - the story was full of feudalistic Houses and dictums, and the treasure the Princess was guarding wasn't the Death Star plans, but a shipment of "aura spice." The final version of Star Wars is related to Dune mostly in spirit: a science fiction heroic fantasy treated seriously. Of all the ideas George Lucas inherited from Frank Herbert, the subtle lesson was how to use science fiction to create myth. His lesser borrowings might include: more inside

The Fizz Cup AMAZING NEW PRODUCT!! more inside

Cat-scans.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why.

We Interrupt Your Communication Systems With This Important Announcement. "The government will soon be sending warnings of national emergencies on wireless phones, Web sites and hand-held computers." Heck, Nixon wanted a special device to turn on your TV and wake you up if he had something important to say. View the Emergency Broadcast papers wherein "The FCC was preparing broadcast stations for all-out atomic warfare in which millions of people might have been killed and the telephone system would be used only for high-priority messages."

Moms Prefer Smell of Their Own Baby's Poop You're welcome. more inside

The Vanishing "In the 1980s, two non-native species of parasitic mite infested North American honeybees. One of the species, Varroa destructor, has proved especially deadly. Meanwhile, safe pastures where bees can forage without being poisoned by pesticides are becoming increasingly rare. Anderson has his own ideas about what caused the almond pollination crisis, and what is most responsible for wiping out honeybees across the United States. 'Varroa is a bit of a red herring,' he says. 'One of the biggest problems is irresponsible use of pesticides and the failure of regulators to enforce the rules meant to protect bees from poisoning.'"