In the Wall Street Journal, Christopher Caldwell argues that the revered Calvin and Hobbes was America's most profound comic strip. He quotes the late political scientist James Q. Wilson, the inventor of the Broken Windows Theory of policing, who stated that Calvin and Hobbes expressed an Aristotelian worldview:

The late political scientist James Q. Wilson described “Calvin and Hobbes” as “our only popular explication of the moral philosophy of Aristotle.” Wilson meant that the social order is founded on self-control and delayed gratification—and that Calvin is hopeless at these things. Calvin thinks that “life should be more like TV” and that he is “destined for greatness” whether he does his homework or not. His favorite sport is “Calvinball,” in which he is entitled to make up the rules as he goes along.

Day-in, day-out, Calvin keeps running into evidence that the world isn’t built to his (and our) specifications. All humor is, in one way or another, about our resistance to that evidence.

-via Joe Carter

(Statue of Washington in Union Square Park by Eden, Janine, and Jim)

On November 25, 1783, General George Washington, mounted on a white charger, marched the Continental Army into New York City as the last British troops in that city evacuated. For many years, this event would be remembered as Evacuation Day, an important holiday in New York City for more than a century.

When General Washington dismounted from his horse, where would he have parked it?

Where would you park a horse--that is, tie it off and leave it alone--now?

Rhett Jones of Hopes & Fears thoroughly researched that question. As you might expect, NYPD cops can park their horses with great leeway. But what about those of us without government privileges? Jones eventually tracked down an answer in the New York City Traffic Rules, section 4-12.f, which says:

No person shall leave a horse unbridled or unattended in a street or unenclosed place unless the horse is securely fastened, or harnessed to a vehicle with wheels so secured as to prevent it from being dragged faster than a walk.

So, basically, you just need a solid hitching post.

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The YouTube channel Lil'Critterz dressed a goat from Tennessee named Peppa Lass up as variously Anna and Elsa from the movie Frozen.

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Can't hold it back anymore? Let it goat!

Duncan Keith plays for the Chicago Blackhawks, a hockey team. His biggest fan is Cammy Babiarz, who is 5 years old. She can't walk or speak because she was born with Rett syndrome.

The Blackhawks have a social media campaign called #WhatsYourGoal. It encourages people to share their personal goals in all dimensions of life. Cammy had one: she wanted to score a hockey goal. Her favorite player helped her do just that.

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Cammy's parents placed ice skates on her, then strapped her to Keith's body. Keith took her out on the ice and helped her slap a shot into a goal.

(xkcd/Randall Munroe)

You want to be an artist. But there's a problem: you have no technical skill for it.

Don't worry! You can become a conceptual or performance artist. Then all you need is a slight variation on an idea that several other artists have already done. Take photos of yourself (which is where everyone should direct their attention at all times) and post them on your website.

That website should be not only be poorly designed, but poorly designed in an original way that makes navigation frustrating. Preferably, your website should have little information about you or your project and contain no permalinks. Any text on your site should exist as static images. Disable right-clicking on all images to prevent them from being easily saved as image files.

Finally, send a cryptic email to a blogger on a popular website, such as Neatorama, apparently requesting a post about your project. Make sure that the email does not use conventional spelling, punctuation, capitalization, or grammar. Professional bloggers hate that.

Step 3: profit.

The blogger will respond by microwaving a burrito, which is his own attempt at art.

(Photo: Collin Anderson)

My eldest daughter is selling Girl Scout cookies this year. I helped sort the orders for her troop. Since there is, necessarily, no standing staff, organization system, or facility for the distribution of Girl Scout cookies at the troop level, it was a complicated process.

Purchasing them isn't easier. You order cookies, then you wait for them to be delivered to you . . . eventually. You can't say to yourself "I want Lemonades right now" and fulfill that basic, innate human need immediately.

The members of Troop 12115 in Salem, New Hampshire understand your pain. That's why they set up a drive-through window at a local business to process cookie distribution. You want cookies? Pull around to the second window.

-via AP

DeviantART members Arsenal Best make high-quality steampunk cosplay outfits and props, such as a Holy Hand Grenade from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and a Bollywood sari.

To equip themselves for their Starfleet uniforms below, they built a detailed model TR-560 VI tricorder, which was one type featured on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Their Steam Trek tricorder consists of a brass metal shell with wood veneer and brass inlays.

(Photo: unknown)

You turn the blue spigot--the story ends. You wake up with cold water splashing all over your bed. You turn the red spigot--you stay in Wonderland and I show you how scalding hot the rabbit hole is.

Remember: all I'm offering is water. Nothing more.

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-via Tastefully Offensive

It's hard for celebrities like Chris Evans, Shia LaBoeuf, and Miss Cellania to go out and enjoy their daily lives without photographers from gossip rags shoving cameras at them and snapping pictures. They often want to just be left alone while in public, which is why Chris Holmes, a professional DJ who often works with celebrities, invented Flashback Photobomber clothing.

Tiny glass bubbles embedded in the clothing are invisible to the naked eye. But they flash back at cameras using flash bulbs, ruining the resulting images. 

-via American Digest

Dean Gangwer is a cattle farmer in Rossville, Indiana. One morning, he found that one of his cows had snuck off to give birth by herself. He found the newborn calf almost frozen to death in a pile of snow.

Gangwer placed the calf on his ATV, then rushed him back home. The bull was near death, so it was essential to quickly bring his body temperature up. A hot bath would do it, but most bath tubs can't accommodate a full-size calf.

Gangwer's solution was to turn on his outdoor hot tub. He climbed in with the calf and warmed him up. Leroy, as they've named him, has made a full recovery. ABC 6 reports:

A day and a half later, Leroy's body temperature was back to normal and he even nursed for the first time Friday morning.

"Leroy's officially done hot-tubbing. Some sunbathing is definitely in his future out in the grass, but definitely his hot tub days are done," Gangwer said.

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His next step should be to travel back in time to prevent the mother cow from escaping in the first place.

-via Nothing to Do with Aborath | Photo: Dean Gangwer

(Speed Bump/Dave Coverly)

Dumbbells and barbells help, but they don't give you the full-body exercise that climbing can. And a vigorous workout can give you a very liberated feeling.

Master cosplayer Malicous Cosplay, who recently redressed Princess Leia as Streetfighter's Chun-Li, once also depicted Princess Leia as a Starfleet officer from classic Star Trek. Ensign Organa dresses in white and wears hair buns, as in Episode IV. She carries a phaser in addition to a blaster.

My favorite part of the cosplay is imagining Chewbacca as a tribble:

In each piece, there's a full story. You could easily write a page of dialogue from each one.

Tobbe Malm, a blacksmith and photographer in Oslo, Norway, calls his series Bolt Poetry. He reshapes nails and screws into forms that are strikingly reminiscent of human beings. They're simple, yet filled with dramatic tension.

All of the nails have a history, too. Malm found them at an old farm in Bergslagen, Sweden. Pulled from the wood, they share their stories.

Nothing tops Mexican wrestling for glorious theatrics. This match from February shows the Tortuguillos Karatekas and Tortugas Ninjas battling at the Arena López Mateos in Tlalnepantla, Mexico. All of them are dressed as the Ninja Turtles, so clearly one team consists of imposters. But which one?

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-via Fashionably Geek

Andrew Southwood-Jones and Alexander Kashin operate Daast, a design studio in Sydney, Australia. They developed Spyder, a lamp with 3 flexible legs. The tip of each leg is magnetized. So as long as there are metal surfaces handy, it would be ideal for situations when you need a light on just one spot.

A suggestion for a later version: make one that looks like an actual spider.

-via David Thompson