Current Events – Page 298 – commonplacebook.com

80’s Music Lyrics Quiz

Post author:HFM
Post published:November 3, 2003
Post category:What Am I?

This is pretty fun. Hard as hell, but fun. I got 97 of 103 questions right, for a total of score of 167.15.

Things my girlfriend and I have argued about.com

Post author:HFM
Post published:October 29, 2003
Post category:Recently Read

A British guy, a German girl, a couple of kids and some serious lack of communication. Also, a fascinating story about how the British tabloid the Daily Mail stole the website and printed it in their Sunday edition with all the names changed, and actually thought they might get away with it. They didn’t.

The End of the World

Post author:HFM
Post published:October 29, 2003
Post category:Recently Read

Check out this Flash movie. Fucking kangaroos.

U.S. Ancestry Maps

Post author:HFM
Post published:October 29, 2003
Post category:Recently Read

This is pretty cool — U.S. maps that show dispersion of people of various ancestry. Interesting where all the people of German ancestry tend to live… in the midwest. Check out the Irish; they all live in Kentucky and Tennessee.

Iraq Never Had Nuclear Weapons Program After 1991

Post author:HFM
Post published:October 28, 2003
Post category:Politics

According to records made available to The Washington Post and interviews with arms investigators from the United States, Britain and Australia, it did not require a comprehensive survey to find the central assertions of the Bush administration’s prewar nuclear case to be insubstantial or untrue. Although Hussein did not relinquish his nuclear ambitions or technical records, investigators said, it is now clear he had no active program to build a weapon, produce its key materials or obtain the technology he needed for either.

Rock in Tree (Gobbler’s Rock)

Post author:HFM
Post published:October 27, 2003
Post category:Big Things

In Yellowwood State Forest, there’s a giant limestone boulder in a tree. Back in 2001, I went looking for this, because I had heard of it on RoadsideAmerica.com.

A refrigerator sized limestone rock, 40 feet high in a tree. This 1,000 pound wonder sways with the wind way up in an oak tree in the Yellow Wood state forest in southern Indiana. Did it rise with the tree’s growth? Artistic vandals? No one knows… A great excuse for a walk in the woods.

At that time, there wasn’t a photo of it on the site, so I was going to get one myself. I wandered around in the woods following the directions for several hours and ran across several hunters and horseback riders, but I never found the rock.

Since then, someone posted GPS directions on Roadside America, and now here’s a whole article about the mysterious boulders.

Gobbler's Rock

I have asked others that live there in Bloomington about this, and it turns out many have seen it. How something that large could have got there is unknown to me (my guess is a tornado). I had my GPS and recorded the location: GPS N 39*12.604, W 086*22.314.

Update: Apparently in 2006, the tree fell.

Update: Mystery author Terence Faherty published a short story called “No Mystery” based on the rock in the tree in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in April 2011 and in a short story collection called Tales of the Star Republic. In the story he gives the most plausible explanation of how the rocks got up in the tree. I won’t spoil the answer for you; you should read it for yourself.

Beware: A Deadly Foe Is Near…

Post author:HFM
Post published:October 27, 2003
Post category:Recently Read

And other strange things that you can communicate with flowers.

Capitol, not White House, was the Fourth Target

Post author:HFM
Post published:October 27, 2003
Post category:Politics

The plane downed in Pennsylvania was actually targeting the U.S. Capitol, not the White House.

Recent News Headlines

Post author:HFM
Post published:October 27, 2003
Post category:Current Events GLBT Issues Media Politics Religion

I was having a conversation recently with someone from work, who said that they thought things were getting much better for gay people in America and they felt that there are no real incidences of homophobia any more. For their benefit, these news headlines from the past week.
Conservative Supreme Court justice ridicules sodomy ruling
Wisconsin assembly passes defense of marriage act
Alabama college removes gay-suggestive photo exhibit
Antigay Baptist school appeals voucher program rejection
Embattled bishop-elect defends his position
Patricia Ireland fired from YWCA for sexual orientation
Lesbian hiker murder trial delayed
Tennessee congressman joins growing call for marriage amendment
Oklahoma gays criticize “ex-gay” summit
Head of Poland’s Catholic Church opposes gay rights
Christian group asks lawmakers to sign pledge opposing gay marriage
Expelled gay student sues Christian school
Tennessee man who strangled gay activist back in court
Connecticut gay beating case settled
Injunction issued against suspect in Boston gay bashing
Israeli gay man denied partner’s inheritance

Librarian.net

Post author:HFM
Post published:October 23, 2003
Post category:Recently Read

“Putting the rarin’ back in librarian since 1993.” A weblog about library science issues, especially political issues. Pretty cool site. I especially like the “I read, therefore I’m Dangerous. Repeal the Patriot Act.” ad.