The pest in my yard - I shot these photos from ny front door.

The Art and Science of S'mores

What football team should you root for?

Is Yellowstone Ripe for a Crime Spree?

Brian Kalt says there is a hole in the Sixth Amendment big enough to run a crime spree through. Kalt is an associate professor at Michigan State Law School, and he has written an article for the Georgetown Law Journal called The Perfect Crime. It's an article that springs both from his study of constitutional law and, he says, his daydreaming.

Professor Kalt, the perfect crime, I gather, could be committed in a specific place.

Professor BRIAN KALT (Michigan State Law School): Yes. There's a small portion of Yellowstone National Park that spills over the Wyoming border into Idaho and another small part that's in Montana that would create an almost perfect crime.

SIEGEL: Now what is so special about, we'll say, the non-Wyoming portions of Yellowstone Park?

Prof. KALT: Well, the problem is that the federal District Court for the District of Wyoming is defined as including all of Yellowstone Park, including that 50-square-mile swath of Idaho. And the Sixth Amendment requires that when a crime is committed, that the jury be drawn from the state and district where the crime was committed. And the trial is supposed to be in the state where the crime was committed. So if you commit a crime in the Idaho portion of Yellowstone National Park, the jury should be drawn from among the ranks of Idahoans but also from the District of Wyoming. And unfortunately the population of that area is zero.

Stick Your Neck Out: The Visible Tattoo as Recession Status Symb

Christian Carden’s tattoos stretch from clavicle to throat, around his ears and up onto his head. He has a lotus flower printed on one side of his neck and a Japanese mask on the other; both stretch over his shoulders in a bed of waves, smoke, and fire. “I knew that people consider neck, face, and hand tattoos ‘job killers,’ and that's why I wanted them,” Carden says. “I never want to work at a bank again, and now I don’t have to worry about it.”

In a sputtering economy, highly visible tattoos like Carden's neck-and-head spread can mean the difference between a stint at the bank counter and a spot in the unemployment line. But in recent years, tattoo sales have failed to stall with the rest of the market. In many cities,they're actually thriving. And for some, opting for an above-the-shoulder tattoo signals a rejection of the recession rat race.

And the trouble extends far beyond the drive-through. When 31-year-old Giovanni Ramirez touched up his neck tattoos this summer, his parole officer reported him as a potential suspect in a high-profile beating at Los Angeles' Dodger Stadium—though Ramirez wasn't even at the game. In a police lineup, an eyewitness picked Ramirez as the guy who put a San Francisco Giants fan in critical condition after the contentious match. But when defense attorneys made efforts to control for Ramirez' prominent neck and face tattoos—wrapping lineup participants' necks in towels and applying faux face teardrop tattoos with a marker to match Ramirez' ink—witnesses failed to identify him as the assailant. "If you have a six photo lineup, and you see one guy with absolutely menacing tattoos—the Charles Manson tattoo on the forehead—you're more likely to believe that the person is culpable," says Jose Romero, Ramirez' defense attorney. "If you have a guy with a tattoo on the neck and the other five guys don't have any tattoos whatsoever, it's highly suggestive." Ramirez was later cleared of all charges.

The increased popularity of neck and face tattoos—and the continued stigma against them—has left tattoo artists to sew up the pieces. "When I'm approached to tattoo stuff in these 'job killer' zones, I always warn people of the risks, and try to talk them out of it," says Carden, who works at a parlor in Tempe, Arizona. "I love my very visible tattoos and think it was a great move to get them, but I'd hate to ruin an opportunity for someone else." In Des Moines, Iowa, 30-year tattooing veteran Sherry Sears won’t ink anyone above the shoulders. “I don’t think people should have tattoos on their necks and faces,” she says. “That cuts you out of just about every job you want to get. Employers are not big on that sort of thing.”

This one goes out to a certain ex-girlfriend.

Is it too early to tune into the 2012 presidential election?

Great Advertisement

Land use sign at former Vitamilk site promises huge ball pit and slide

The sign, a parody of a Seattle Department of Planning and Development land use sign, indicates that the empty lot will be used “to construct one ground level ball pit pond containing 1,200,000 cu. ft. of rainbow plastic balls.”

“Parking for for 171 bicycles, 65 unicycles, and 13 tricycles to be provided in 2 levels within the structure,” the sign reads. “Existing ramp to be converted to one 40 ft. slide.”

A map on the sign shows a trampoline, a concessions area and a “rescue claw.”

Sometimes State Flags . . .

8. Sometimes state flags flirt with Islam

Dear __________ Letters

Dear World,
Please stop freaking out about 2012. Our calendars end there because some Spanish d-bags invaded our

country and we got a little busy, OK?

Sincerely,
The Mayans
___________________________________

Dear Noah,
We could have sworn you said the ark wasn't leaving 'til 5.

Sincerely,
Unicorns
___________________________________

Dear Twilight fans,
Please realize that because vampires are dead and have no blood pumping through them, they can

never get an erection.

Enjoy fantasizing about that.

Sincerely,
Logic
___________________________________

Dear Icebergs,
Sorry to hear about the global warming. Karma's a bitch, eh?

Sincerely,
The Titanic
___________________________________

Dear America ,
You produced Miley Cyrus. Bieber is your punishment.

Sincerely,
Canada
___________________________________

Dear Yahoo,
I've never heard anyone say, "I don't know -

let's Yahoo! it.."

Just saying...

Sincerely,
Google
___________________________________

Dear 2010,
So I hear the best rapper is white and the president is black – What happened?!

Sincerely,
1985
___________________________________

Dear Windshield Wipers,
Can't touch this.

Sincerely,
That Little Triangle
___________________________________

Dear girls who have been dumped,
There are plenty of fish in the sea... Just kidding!

They're all dead.

Sincerely,
BP
___________________________________

Dear Fox News,
So far, no news about foxes.

Sincerely,
Unimpressed
___________________________________

Dear jf;ldsfa/kvsmmklnn,
Please lknvfdmv.xvn.

Sincerely,
Stevie Wonder
___________________________________

Dear Nickleback,
That's enough.

Sincerely,
The World
___________________________________

Dear Skin-Colored Band Aids,
Please make one for every skin color...

Sincerely,
Black people
___________________________________

Dear Scissors,
I feel your pain... no one wants to run with me either.

Sincerely,
Sarah Palin
___________________________________

Dear World of Warcraft,
Thank you for ensuring my son's virginity.

Sincerely,
Parents Everywhere
___________________________________

Dear Customers,
Yes, we ARE making fun of you in Vietnamese.

Sincerely,
Nail Salon Ladies
___________________________________

Dear Ugly People,
You're welcome.

Sincerely,
Alcohol
___________________________________

Dear White People,
Don't you just hate immigrants?

Sincerely,
Native Americans
___________________________________

Dear iPhone,
Please stop spellchecking all of my rude words into nice words, you piece of shut.

Sincerely,
Every iPhone User
___________________________________

Dear Giant Spider on the Wall,
Please die. Please die. Please die. Please die.

CRAP! Where did you go?Sincerely,
Terrified
___________________________________

Dear Trash,
At least you get picked up...

Sincerely,
The Girls of Jersey Shore
___________________________________

Dear Man,
It's cute, but can you pick up peanuts with it?

Sincerely,
Elephant
___________________________________

Dear Dr. Phil,
Look man, there's only room for one fake doctor in this world and I was here first.

Sincerely,
Dr. Pepper

THE MOST AWKWARD 404 NOT FOUND PAGE ON THE INTERNET

The 404 Video

God's Blog

Free Tickets

I have four extra tickets to see Robbie Knievel ( Son of Evel Knievel) attempt to jump over 1,000 Tea Party supporters in a D9 Caterpillar.

A Good Read

For those who find it difficult to believe that there are still isolated, secluded, and uninhabited or sparsely populated pockets of land anchored firmly in the midst of the Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, Pacific, and Antarctic Oceans, this quietly beautiful and subtly evocative book is a must read. Firm in her conviction that atlases should take a much-deserved place in the literary pantheon and that there is “no more poetic book in the world,” her cartographic drawings are accompanied by compelling narratives, outlining the history, natural science, local lore, and legend of each of the 50 islands she visually and textually conjures up out of her impeccable research and vivid imaginings. An armchair traveler’s delight, this book will also beckon, challenge, and inspire intrepid explorers and exotically inclined vacationers.

LYNDON BATY WANTS TO BE A GREAT SPORTSCASTER, BUT HOW CAN HE DO THAT WITH A RAVAGED IMMUNE SYSTEM THAT MAKES IT TOO DANGEROUS FOR HIM EVEN TO GO TO SC

Everything within range of its camera lens and four microphones—the sign that said you are the future—do you like what you see? ... the Lone Star flag hanging from the wall ... Mr. Collins droning on about conversion from Celsius to Fahrenheit ... the video about temperature on a screen at the front of the room ... and district discus champ Tylynne Eaton's little shimmy to the video's music in his back-row seat—was being digitized by the robot's motherboard into hundreds of thousands of 1s and 0s and zipped as radio signals to an antenna at the end of the only hallway in Knox City High.

Converted to electrical pulses at that access point, the 1s and 0s were sent through copper wires to a telephone cooperative a half block away, then turned into laser beams that entered underground fiber-optic cables and darted beneath 85 miles of oil fields and ranchland to Wichita Falls. There they hopped a ride on cables and dashed across the continent to a server in Nashua, N.H.—home of VGo, the company that invented the robot—then reversed direction and raced 1,664 miles back to Knox City, an outpost in northern Texas 15 blocks long and 10 blocks wide that's populated by mebbe a thousand people, as the locals say, and mebbe not.

Transformed back into electrical signals in Knox City, that horde of 1s and 0s traveled about a mile north by copper wiring, where a thicket of mesquite gave way to a gray mailbox, a yard bumpy with brown weeds and bluebonnets and mounds of fire ants, a small red-brick house and 23 cows, two dozen calves, one bull, 52 hens, 10 roosters, 15 goats, five cats, one big shaggy herding dog named Jack and one small basset hound named Betsy, all milling on the homestead's 140-acre farm.

A branch of copper wiring surfaced here and fed those bytes through a wall of the red-brick house, where a modem turned them back into radio signals that leaped through the air to a laptop on a desk in the living room, which converted them into the images and sounds unfolding in that science classroom: Mr. Collins's drone, the flickering video and Tylynne Eaton's shimmy.

This—all of it—took three seconds.

A new way to avoid any .08 alcohol issues while driving:

I went out with some friends last night and tied one on.

Knowing that I was wasted, I did something that I have never done before. I took a bus home.

I arrived home safe and warm, which seemed really surprising as I have never driven a bus before.

Obama Turns 50 Despite Republican Opposition

WASHINGTON—After months of heated negotiations and failed attempts to achieve any kind of consensus, President Obama turned 50 years old Thursday, drawing strong criticism from Republicans in Congress. "With the host of problems this country is currently facing, the fact that our president is devoting time to the human process of aging is an affront to Americans everywhere," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who advocated a provision to keep Obama 49 at least through the fall of 2013. "To move forward unilaterally and simply begin the next year of his life without bipartisan support—is that any way to lead a country?" According to White House officials, Obama attempted to work with Republicans right up until the Aug. 4 deadline, but was ultimately left with no choice except to turn a year older.

Want It!

Frosty morning on Rock Creek

90 Percent of People Don't Know How to Use CTRL+F

This week, I talked with Dan Russell, a search anthropologist at Google, about the time he spends with random people studying how they search for stuff. One statistic blew my mind. 90 percent of people in their studies don't know how to use CTRL/Command + F to find a word in a document or web page! I probably use that trick 20 times per day and yet the vast majority of people don't use it at all.

"90 percent of the US Internet population does not know that. This is on a sample size of thousands," Russell said. "I do these field studies and I can't tell you how many hours I've sat in somebody's house as they've read through a long document trying to find the result they're looking for. At the end I'll say to them, 'Let me show one little trick here,' and very often people will say, 'I can't believe I've been wasting my life!'"

I can't believe people have been wasting their lives like this either! It makes me think that we need a new type of class in schools across the land immediately. Electronic literacy. Just like we learn to skim tables of content or look through an index or just skim chapter titles to find what we're looking for, we need to teach people about this CTRL+F thing.

Google itself is trying to teach people a little something with their AGoogleADay.com campaign, but the ability to retrieve information via a search engine is actually much bigger than the search engine itself. We're talking about the future of almost all knowledge acquisition and yet schools don't spend nearly as much time on this skill as they do on other equally important areas.

Want It!

Camping and hiking on Rock Creek

Oh, the places we go.

The Sexperience

Welcome to The Sexperience 1000, an interactive journey through the sexual experiences and preferences of one thousand British individuals. What’s the favourite sexual position of iPhone users in the North? Do country music lovers over 55 prefer to do it in
the dark? Explore the 20 questions of our survey and discover what the great British public get up to between the sheets…

The Advantages of Being Colorblind

The Longevity Game

Farming with Dynamite

Behold the hagfish

Visualizing U.S. Expansion through Post Offices

This visualization shows how formal US territorial control expanded in North America from 1700 to 1900, as seen through changes in the spatial distribution of post offices

Planet of the Apes

What we drink when we drink beer

Christmas to July. Not just ME, but these were the bottle caps we saved from the two houses I live in and multiple people drinking beer. About 58% Montana beers.

Bayern Brewing Company

Yeh!

Choose your party.

Your Friend from High School

Holland Lake from Holland Falls

Bumper Sticker of the Week