Mark Twain was born in 1835, a year in which Halley’s Comet was visible from Earth.  He always said it was his hope to die the next time the comet came around.

I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year (1910), and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: “Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.”

Twain died in 1910, the day after the comet next appeared.

Source: History Channel

Cat sex is painful. The reason: a cat’s penis has about 100 tiny barbed hooks on it. The hooks are made of the same stuff that the claws are made of.

During the mating act, the barbs scratch the heck out of the female cat’s hoo-hah.  The scratching, while painful, also releases some chemicals that let the body know that it’s time to produce some eggs.

Unlike a teenage human, a cat can’t get pregnant their first time.  It usually takes about 4 times before the body is ready.  Lions, however, don’t take any chances, so they’ll mate up to 100 times per day.

All cats are sluts.  They will mate with any male they can find – the more the better.  Cats have multiple kittens in their litters.  Something like 80% of cat litters have kittens from multiple fathers, which makes kitty child support very difficult to figure out.

Lest you think I made this all up to disturb you, here’s a video clip of the show I saw last night.

Oh, and The Ritten, who had just given birth when we got her, is grounded for life.

A mix of Beaver, Rabbit, and Wild Hare, to be exact.

The fur is chopped up, mixed with water, and formed into a hat.  They add Shellac (a resin secreted by the female lac bug) at the end to stiffen things up.

Source: Science Channel

Story Here.

This story is over a week old, but needs to be discussed, especially as this is the #2,356 most Comcast hating website in the World.

Comcast, The Worst Company on Earth, bought NBC Universal from GE the other day.  Actually, they bought 51% of it in a complicated deal, but the bottom line is that Comcast now owns NBC, USA, Bravo, and some other stuff.

Where this all gets interesting is that Comcast is obviously in the content delivery business.  They currently pay NBC a ton of cash to make their networks available to their cable subscribers.  But now, they’ll own those networks.

So, as the owner of, say, USA, Comcast is now in the position to set the price of providing USA to customers.  That’s a bad thing if you’re one of Comcast’s competitors, like DirecTV.

I won’t claim to be an expert in the whole cable TV business, because I’m not, but it’s not hard to imagine how this could go badly, especially in the hands of the Worst Company on Earth.

Normally, a myriad of federal agencies would get involved and scrutinize this deal.  There’s the anti-trust angle, the broadcast angle, etc.  Those federal agencies are part of the executive branch of government, headed by the President.

So, what’s an evil company to do when they need a favor from the President?  Why, scratch his back, of course.

The day after Comcast announced it was buying NBC, their CEO announced his support for the President’s disastrous and unpopular health care program.  The letter can be found here.

Read more here and here.

So there you have it, Comcast, The Worst Company on Earth, is teaming up with the Worst Administration in Recent History, trading support on the health care bill for regulatory approval.

They always said this was the Most Transparent Administration Ever, but I guess I didn’t expect it to be this transparent.

“It’s amazing they couldn’t find her. Good Lord,” said Kevin Kerns, the office chief of staff at USCIS where Buchanan still works as an analyst.

***

“We found it surprising, alarming that an employee of the Department of Homeland Security is a fraudster, and we do not understand how she could have remained employed there with an open criminal warrant for her arrest remaining on the interstate system without being discovered,” said Morris.

“Did they not invite many regional reporters? That seems to go against their strategy,” surmised one reporter for a national news organization, who had been invited to Bush White House holiday parties but was not invited to the Obama holiday party. “Or did they only invite regional [reporters] in the states they need.”

What has escalated the talk in the press room is that the rookie White House has been slow to send out the invitations to the holiday media party. A White House press aide sent out an e-mail several weeks ago informing the lucky attendees of the dates and times. On Monday, with the formal invitations sent out just days ago, the White House sent out a second e-mail asking reporters to RSVP for the party.

Under the Bush administration, invites went out before Thanksgiving, reporters said. “I’m wondering if they just don’t have their act together on the social stuff,” one print reporter said.

And instead of inviting individuals in past years, the White House is allocating a certain number of invites per news organization and allowing bureau chiefs or managers to pick who gets to attend.

“This year’s process seems so screwed up. It’s one big horrible mess,” said one veteran White House reporter. “The White House knows who covers the beat and they also know who should be attending. A lot of people have their feelings hurt.”

“It makes something that should be nice and happy, depressing and elitist and it creates a system of haves and have-nots among the press corps,” the reporter added.

Uhhh…

A chemistry student in the Ukraine was found dead with his jaw blown off by what is believed to be exploding chewing gum, according to reports.

“A loud pop was heard from the student’s room,” the ukranews.com Web site said, citing an aide to the city’s police chief.

“When his relatives entered the room, they saw that the lower part of the young man’s face had been blown off.”

Er, ummm…

The student apparently had a bizarre habit of chewing gum after dipping it into citric acid, Russian news agency Ria Novosti said.

Bizarre. Yes, that about covers it

Officers found both citric acid packets and a similar-looking unidentified substance, believed to be some kind of explosive material, on a table near the body, the agency continued.

Investigators suspect that the student simply confused the packets and put gum covered with explosive material into his mouth.

So, safety lesson of the day: Don’t store your explosives and citric acid in the same place, lest you accidentally dip your gum in the wrong one and blow up your face.

It’s a long story, and it would be boring to read, so I’ll spare you [most of] the details.

Somewhere in the internet abyss is an unpublished post of mine that compares Mike Huckabee to a radical Imam.  It wasn’t well thought out, but it was sure brimming with invective.  Luckily, I decided to run it past The Wife^® before hitting publish, and she advised that I sleep on it.

That was several days ago.  In the meantime I haven’t felt like writing at all.

So blame Mike Huckabee for the lack of content around here.

Boy do I hate that guy.

King pocketed several of the acorn cookies at the White House soiree and even stowed a few at home in his freezer. King even delivered a real acorn to House Judiciary Committee John Conyers, D-Mich., in an effort to launch a dialogue about the organization’s legal woes.