I'll be reviewing the last month's worth of comic books soon, but in the meantime, here's a nice book review from a book I recently checked out from the library.

1776 by David McCullough.

Amazing what they don't teach American kids in school. A lot of this was news to me, stuff I'd never heard about or read about before. The horrible defeats, the ugly behavior of the troops, the sheer stupid mistakes. Most of it was nothing I'd ever heard about.

As a for instance, I've heard MANY times about Washington crossing the Delaware. Until reading this book, the event was never in context, so I had no idea just what it meant. Put into the focus of the first full year of war, it became something more than a painting.

If history was taught more like this and less like "so and so did this and that in such and such year" more people would love it.

I have a couple of complaints about the book. The first is that I finished it wanting more. I wanted the whole revolution spelled out like this. I wanted it to go to the end, not just cover the one year it promised to cover.

My second complaint was the lack of maps that made sense. Oh, there are a few maps. Mostly utterly unreadable. I would have liked a really basic map of New York in 1776 so I could follow the action. As it was, I haven't got a sense of the layout of the city at all (past or present), so when the movement of troops is described, I just got utterly lost.

Still, it was a good read despite the problem, and worth looking into if you want a fairly good look at one of the defining moments of American history.

Via Various and Sundry. I couldn't look away.

Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #53.

Red Rain is falling... is it really alien life?

Start your own Hundred Dollar Folder.

If your child acts up, why don't you just give him an "icepick" lobotomy? One of the sickest stories I've read yet with regards to hurting perfectly normal children to make them fit some unrealistic ideal.

Canada's Captain Copyright violates copyright.

Making Light figures out how the anti-terror funds were distributed, the ones that led to this quote: "New York has no national monuments or icons, according to the Department of Homeland Security".

So hubby-Eric and I are watching the National Spelling Bee finals. I only remember trying out for the Spelling Bee twice (and I can't remember the grades) though I suspect I took the tests for it more than that. I never got very far.

The first time I got up in front of the entire grade and misspelled "everywhere". I forgot the "y". It wasn't because I didn't know how to spell it, it was because I was nervous about being up in front of the class and I rushed.

The second time was just the class championship I got up and was given a familiar word. Without pause, after getting the word, I confidently spelled "C-L-O-S-E!" The teacher said no, which surprised me, and then spelled "C-L-O-T-H-E-S". Oops. Advantage was taken of my mistake to remind the rest of the class that they should ask for a definition or the word in a sentence.

Hubby-Eric actually made it to school champion. The word that killed him at the district championship was "except". He spelled "expect" instead.

Harvey Award Nominees at The Beat.

How to get rid of yellow jackets. This seems like an interesting plan, if I start to have problems with the little flying devils I'll give it a try. Via Aaron Williams.

A REALLY big crater has been discovered under the ice in Antarctica. It's huge. And big news if it's confirmed.

From FilkerTom, without further comment: the list of top "conservative" songs.

I'm not sure I'm cool with an electric-producing bacteria that eats chocolate. But then, that's just a headline.

Extortion virus? Don't worry, the password is hacked so you don't have to pay up for access to your files.

The Pirate Bay will Rise Again! At least, that's what they say.

Pranks are always fun... The Great Rose Bowl Prank of 1961. And from the comments on that post, Harvardsucks.org... WATCH THE VIDEO!!!

I want. I'm a big jigsaw puzzle fan.

Government employed whistleblowers don't have 1st Amendment Rights according to the Supreme Court. Stephen Kohn, chairman of the National Whistleblower Center, said: "The ruling is a victory for every crooked politician in the United States."

Perhaps the largest BitTorrent site on the 'net, The Pirate Bay, has been raided and taken down by police in Sweden, where hosting bittorrent files is technically legal. One thing I didn't know about the Pirate Bay folks is that they were forming a political party with one goal: Copyright reformation. Check out their agenda.

We've finally got to the first episode of The Electric Company that features Spider-Man. To my surprise, it featured a preview at he beginning of the episode. Crank (Jimmy Boyd) was sitting on a park bench, and Easy Reader (Morgan Freeman) came up to ask him what he was doing. In his usual rude way, Crank explained that he was reading, what else would he be doing on The Electric Company?!?? Then Crank held up the book he was reading for Easy (and the audience at home) to look at:


Yup, that was this issue of Amazing Spider-Man. Easy Reader is impressed, and tells Crank that Spider-Man is going to make an appearance on the show. Crank thinks he's being had, and immediately goes into a typical Crank-like rant about how Spider-Man is a character in a funny-book, and thus won't be appearing on the show. He continues his rant even after Easy shakes his head and leaves. And as is usual on this show, he continues the rant even as Spider-Man himself sneaks up behind him and steals his comic book.


With Spider-Man behind him reading the stolen comic book, Crank finally winds down his rant about being made a fool of, then notices his book is missing. He immediately suspects Easy Reader and chases after him. Spider-Man watches the performance in silence, then gives his own opinion of Crank:


As promised, Spider-Man later appears in the show in an exciting adventure against The Spoiler!

FilkerTom has some links.

Just remember. And keep all those currently serving in your thoughts today.

Scientist digs up a rare giant Palouse earthworm. Cool. I love seeing animals that people thought might be extinct turn up again.