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I didn't realize that I was afraid of fish.

Around here, fish are really big. It seems like they grow a lot bigger in the ocean than in freshwater lakes up north. There's 3-feet long fish with huge teeth swimming around in little inlets and canals. Fish with teeth. And people wonder why I don't scuba dive. What did I just tell you? Fish with teeth. It's kind of scary. And the fish aren't even what I worry about. Tampa Bay has the third largest concentration of sharks in the world (after the Great Barrier Reef and someplace in Australia). Yes, you read that correctly. S-H-A-R-K-S. Now, sharks I'm told, have teeth as well. Only big teeth. Really big teeth.

Dark horse prognost- icators, the Mayans, ask all other religions “Who’s your Daddy now?”

In a stunning—and very unsettling—turn of events, modern scientists have found evidence supporting the ancient Mayan prediction of an apocalypse in the year 2012. Mayan astronomers supposedly predicted that 2012 would mark the calamitous “birth of a new era”—an era marked by the rise of giant, sentient cockroaches, I'm guessing.

Diet Coke may be massacring my mitochondria

I simply refuse to believe that my daily fix of Diet Coke, a delicious carbonated beverage that tastes like a combination of cola, chemicals and metal shavings, could be unhealthy. But more and more research implies just that.

World's Worst Tourist competition shocker: America didn't win.

Shocking only to those who have never met anyone from France, the results of a recent competition revealed that the French are the World's Worst Tourists. Yet this "scientific" survey surely begs the question: How did America not sweep this award in a landslide? I mean if there's one area where America clearly still excels, it's in grudgingly visiting foreign countries and treating the people who live there like backwater rubes just because their country isn't exactly like America in every way. Still, this national loss needs some context.

You must be this tall to enlist

Wow, and I kinda thought my paranoid concerns about America turning into a military/industrial complex (like the Empire in Star Wars) were unfounded. Sadly, I was wrong. According to CNN.com: The Army is considering a proposal to allow a private developer to build a military-themed park that would include Cobra Gunship rides and bars including a '1st Division Lounge.' Seriously, how else will The Army be able to breed a new generation of Storm Troopers? Unrelated fun: check out Chad Vader, Day Shift Manager.

BOOKS

I am America (And so can you!), Stephen Colbert—Sage advice for an ailing nation.
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Christopher Hitchens—The case against belief.
The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality, Brian Greene—A mind-bending romp through quantum physics.
Adam's Curse: A Future without Men, Bryan Sykes—It's not MY fault, it's my chromosome's.
1984, George Orwell—Who says no one can predict the future?
Nonzero : The Logic of Human Destiny, Robert Wright—It gives you hope for the future.
The Stranger, Albert Camus—Alienated existentialism at its best.
A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson—Why aren't textbooks this funny?

POLITICS

Change Congress Help keep Big Money out of politics
Earmark Watch Bringing citizen oversight to congressional spending
Money And Politics Illuminating the connection
Open Congress The real story behind what's happening in Congress
Fortune 535 Find out how wealthy your local politicians are
OpenSecrets Center for responsive politics
Citability Making government accessible, reliable, and transparent
Data.gov Public access to high-value, machine-readable data sets
Public Markup Review and comment on proposed bills before they are even introduced
FedSpending Find out where your tax money is going
The Sunlight Foundation Shining light on money, lobbying, and government
Transparency Int'l. Stop corruption to save lives.
Congresspedia The citizen's encyclopedia of Congress

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