And, to follow suit on Kent, plesiosaurs weren't dinosaurs.

A civil war era carbine bullet. . . and I'd go for the Neatoramabot (XXL)

This is a civil war era carbine bullet.

I suggest you check out "Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony" by Lee Miller. It is a great read and presents the disappearance and basically a political gambit. Alternatively, there is also the hypothesis that the Roanokers, joined with folk brought from Latin America by British privateers, joined up with some local native Americans and their microsociety led to the development of multiracial groups like the Portygee (Melungeons) and the Carolina "Redbones."

Something kinda' important is to remember Explorers is a program for Scouts about to go into College - it is intended to help them choose a career. As such there have always been programs that fed into military careers. And as to whether Scouts has always been a military preparation program, well, it has. It was founded in response to Lord Baden-Powell being deeply disturbed at how poorly English boys were prepared to deal with the rigors of a dangerous world - he was a vet of the Boer Wars I believe - and how many died out of a lack of basic self-discipline and survival skills. The distinction between the Scouting movement, which is imperfect and does need revision, is that it is in the liberal arts tradition - it encourages public service and self-education not a very particular ideological stance. Indeed, the fact that ideological stances have become the center of internal discussions in the last decade and a half indicates the BSA needs to recenter on skill development and helping boys choose their own path - which of course includes careers in law enforcement and the military as options.

I remember in elementary school, there was this "pyramid" built of "food." It was very neat. Apparently, if I remember this correctly, each "food" that was not "junk" provided you with things that made you "healthy." Clearly we need to slap some serious fines on those b@$%&!*$ who wrote my health book. Also Richard Simmons.

I prefer to think that the Japanese are a powerful creative civilization that experienced the most rapid and deep modernization in history, though tragically, like almost everyone else, they did so on the backs of other people to lower their costs at home. Also, like everyone else, they are "creative" by building extensively on the backs of other great civilizations. And as to their "superiority" at schools - if you understand the differences in their education system from ours (for instance our tendency to allow far more egalitarian access to standardized testing and higher education), well, let's just say we're all human and roughly equal given similar institutional and structural conditions. But Japanese robots look cooler than American robots. Of course OURS actually kill people. Da da da dum.

Deric Inverness

I think it is a bulb planter - specifically you use it to make a hole in the ground for planing bulbs like tulips and daffodils.

Wow. I am judging right now. I completely support public art. This, this is horribly ugly, however. Also, I second the principle of this being "magic sand"-esque.

And of course there was the Thanksgiving celebration held in Virginia at Berkley Plantation on December 4th in 1619.

I'm from the Two Virginias (first one and then the other) and I can say I have friends and family who have been mixing beer and Clamato forever - it is one of untold variations on the concept of the "Red Eye" (beer + tomato juice) which is so essential if one is going to drink all Friday night and tailgate or get married on Saturday.

First, let's actually read what it says:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

First, it does state that the right to bear arms is a right of the people. That is simply a fact. Why? In order to allow the establishment and maintenance of well-regulated militias, that is to say local, regional, or state-level ad hoc or part-time military units. The principle is ultimately that of the "citizen-solider" - a citizen (the people) have the right to own weapons SPECIFICALLY in order to protect their communities. This means, of course, the government does have the right to regulate weapons (which the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed) and their use, but it does not have the right to ban their ownership by citizens in good standing. And, dare we forget, the security of a free state infers defense against a few principle types of "enemies" - internal tyrants (e.g. our government decides to take away our freedom) and external threats (e.g. another government seeks to attack our state while we are ruled by a legitimate democratic republic). What makes the 2nd Amendment so contentious is that conversations about it tend to degenerate into yelling about rights rather than practical discussions of why it exists and what are the practical rules we can apply to guarantee that this right doesn't infringe on the rights of other men and women (such as our forbidding of the use of slander, an abuse of our 1st Amendment rights).

As for me, well, I support the Supreme Court's decision - I think it is pretty close to what the intention of the Founding Fathers was - libertarianism limited only by pragmatic rationalism and a realistic understanding of international and domestic threats.

I just finished my third reading of Orwell's 1984 yesterday morning - I was struck by Winston's description of a particular memory, playing Snakes and Ladders with his mother just before she vanished. I hadn't really noticed that in my previous readings but this time it really stood out to me. Seeing this article just makes that experience all the more interesting, particularly now that you have me thinking about the moral implications of that particular game.

Absolutely beautiful. Abstract expressionism as it was always meant to be.