I once heard that the average fish has a memory only about 5-7 seconds long. This means that, every 5-7 seconds, the fish forgets the old stuff and develops a new set of memories. I have to wonder about this, because we have a Betta which we keep in the kitchen, Herman. Now, I try to feed Herman at the same time every day; when I come over to his bowl, he sees me coming and swims to the surface to eat, as if he knows it's lunchtime. Often, if I was busy or gone and missed a day, I'll wait...

I was recently participating in Tex W's thread about PETA wanting to kill my Valentine's Day (although we didn't have lobster...budget constraints and all that, we did enjoy a nice tasty meal of BBQ ribs. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm), and was reminded of an online conversation I carried on last summer with a young man from Denmark. We went back and forth for a couple weeks (being from Denmark, a socialist country, he was hopelessly Leftist) and the topic did briefly touch on the subject of animal rights...

A warning: He claims he was tortured for information while held in Saudi. Can we please move beyond the positives and negatives of torture debate this time? Thanks. Man Charged in Alleged Plot to Kill Bush By MATTHEW BARAKAT ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - A former Virginia high school valedictorian who had been detained in Saudi Arabia as a suspected terrorist was charged Tuesday with conspiring to assassinate President Bush and with supporting the al-Qaida terrorist network. Ahmed O...

My wife and recently moved into a nice little 2-bedroom house, and as I was going through some boxes, I found some old pictures of my family and me. One was a family portrait of my mom, dad, me and our dog, Debbie. I was about 7 or 8 when the picture was taken, in 1975 or 76. My mom died in 1980, at 42, after a long illness; my dad passed away 3 years ago this April, of cancer. He was 61. As their only child, I'm the only one left who remembers certain things; people we knew and events th...

So I'm sitting there Saturday evening, watching the news, when I'm just about knocked out of my chair by the image of Jimmy Carter smiling his usual creepy smile as dozens of sailors run up the gangplank to board their new vessel, the USS Jimmy Carter . It seems that the navy, for some odd reason, has decided to christen the last of the Seawolf class attack subs after one of our worst presidents. Can someone please tell me who was bribed, and how much did it take, to allow for this to oc...

I’ve been a fan of comics for many, many years. When I was growing up in Wheeling, WV, my dad used to take me to 16th Street News to get the latest issues of my favorites. I started collecting in Jr. High. Spider-Man, Superman, Batman…..anyone remember “Rom, Spaceknight”? Rom was a toy in the early 80s that earned its own briefly-run comic in the same time. I used to collect that one, too. I collected several titles up to the mid-90s, when comic prices started going up, and I got tired of s...

I've said before that I would feel safer with Iran holding a few nukes rather than N. Korea, who I, too, feel is more likely to use them in anger. What I would worry about, though, would be Iran's tendency to support terrorism; I think it more than likely that they just might slip a bomb or two to some whacko group with the right amount of cash, or even on credit, if they promised to use it against Isreal (or even the US). After all....though Iran probably (or maybe) wouldn't use nukes on Is...

I posted two articles in the last 12 hours or so, and they both posted twice. Why? Anyone?

I am Rightwinger; I am 37 years old…..I was born in Wheeling, West Virginia in 1967, in “the dawning of the Age of Aquarius”, and in the dusk of the “Summer of Love”. Come to think of it, that’s a little ironic since, in the immortal words of “South Park’s” Eric Cartman, “Hippies piss me off.” My father was a Steelworker, my mother a housewife; yes, “stay-at-home-mothers”, back then, were still called “housewives”. This was only starting, then, to be looked down upon by the ultra-feminists...

I am Rightwinger; I am 37 years old…..I was born in Wheeling, West Virginia in 1967, in “the dawning of the Age of Aquarius”, and in the dusk of the “Summer of Love”. Come to think of it, that’s a little ironic since, in the immortal words of “South Park’s” Eric Cartman, “Hippies piss me off.” My father was a Steelworker, my mother a housewife; yes, “stay-at-home-mothers”, back then, were still called “housewives”. This was only starting, then, to be looked down upon by the ultra-feminists...

Defrocked Priest Sentenced for Raping Boy By DENISE LAVOIE BOSTON (AP) - Defrocked priest Paul Shanley, a central figure in the Boston Archdiocese clergy sex abuse scandal, was sentenced Tuesday to 12 to 15 years in prison for raping a boy repeatedly in the 1980s, sometimes in a church confessional. ``It is difficult to imagine a more egregious misuse of trust and authority,'' Judge Stephen Neel said in imposing the term. But he turned aside a prosecutor's request for a life senten...

Defrocked Priest Sentenced for Raping Boy By DENISE LAVOIE BOSTON (AP) - Defrocked priest Paul Shanley, a central figure in the Boston Archdiocese clergy sex abuse scandal, was sentenced Tuesday to 12 to 15 years in prison for raping a boy repeatedly in the 1980s, sometimes in a church confessional. ``It is difficult to imagine a more egregious misuse of trust and authority,'' Judge Stephen Neel said in imposing the term. But he turned aside a prosecutor's request for a life senten...

Before I begin here, let me preface this by saying that I am a Christian, and do believe very strongly in God. I believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins, and that He is coming back one day (maybe soon?) to take all His faithful to Heaven. That said, I'll vent a little frustration with my faith. My wife and I have some friends who believe VERY strongly; they're VERY devout.....their beliefs could even be considered puritannical. Their faith is very basic....there are no gray areas; God i...

You know what has been on my mind lately? Saddam was in power in Iraq for what? 30-some years? In that time, he tortured and murdered innocent people in droves, and lived like a czar in palaces furnished and decorated in obscene luxury and opulence while many of his people scratched and starved. He hoarded awesome sums of money, much of which he walled up in his palaces, and he and his family lived in hedonistic decadence to rival Caligula. In all this time, did the insurgents come to the a...

Can someone tell me why it is that the Democrats who spent the 1990s moaning about the sad state of social security and hoping against hope that someone would come along and do something to fix it, now say nothing is wrong with it and that it doesn't need any re-rigging? All is well, apparently, despite those decade-old predictions of insolvency by the end of the 21st century, which the current administration holds to, as well. How did things that were so bad get so good all of a sudden? Cl...