Former Illinois governor Rod “Blago” Blagojevich was found guilty of 17 out of 20 counts on charges that basically boil down to him trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated after Barack Obama was elected president in 2008.
Michelle Bachmann announced today that she’s running for the 2012 Republican nomination for president.
“I think this is the most important thing I can work on. More than cancer. Over the long run, I think this will make more difference to more people.”Danny Hillis is building a giant mechanical clock inside a mountain in West Texas, with cash from Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. “Over the lifetime of this clock, the United States won’t exist,” Bezos tells me. “Whole civilizations will rise and fall. New systems of government will be invented.
The amazing Babe Didrikson Zaharias was born 100 years ago today in Port Arthur, Texas.
“Every time I read ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”Mark Twain on Jane Austen, from The 30 Harshest Author-on-Author Insults in History.
On this day in history, two United States presidents died — 46 years apart.
President Martin Van Buren died on June 24th in 1862, and President Steve Cleveland died on June 24th in 1908.
Steve Cleveland? Yes, Grover Cleveland’s real first name was Stephen.
Actor Peter Falk died last night, at the age of 83.
He was best known for playing the rumpled detective Lt. Columbo in the television series Columbo, originally on the air from 1971 through 1978, then revived in TV movies after 1989.
Peter Falk was born in New York in 1927. From the New York stage he began working in television in the late 1950s. He guest starred in dozens of shows and appeared in several movies in the ’60s and won two Oscar nominations, one for Murder, Inc. (1960) and one for Pocketful of Miracles (1961).
Courtesy of People magazine, 1976.
The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Whitey Bulger has been arrested.
A rediscovered painting thought to be by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio is being exhibited for the first time as part of the show “Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome.” The painting is currently on exhibit at the National Gallery of Canada.
Congratulations to YouTube user OHADI22 for this edit of the song “Paranoid Android” by the U.K. band Radiohead:
It’s hard to keep track of who is running for president in 2012 among the Republicans. In part because there seem to be so many of them, but also because these days there are a dozen stages of announcing your candidacy before you actually announce your candidacy.
And to think we have 19 months to go! Just this week, the slate of candidates and maybe-candidates have been in the news more for their wacky ideas and missteps than for any policy proposals. Let’s take a look:
Sixty-three years ago, on 20 June 1948, the first program from TV host Ed Sullivan was aired.
We can’t improve on this post from Woot.com.
Check it out. And thanks, Mike Duffy!
I recently passed by a bus stop advertisement from Values.com that gave me pause:
What kind of world is it that won’t let me see what some people consider the worst music video in the world?
According to news reports, the guy replacing Osama bin Laden as the head of al-Qaeda will be his old physician pal Ayman al-Zawahiri. Al-Zawahiri is said to have helped plan …..
The action figure couple known as Buzz Aldrin and Lois Driggs Cannon are getting divorced after 23 years of marriage.
New York Representative Anthony Weiner has resigned from office, after announcing that he was going to announce his resignation.
You can read the details here, in the New York Times. The Times avoids puns and titillating discussion, of course. They summarize the story — about Weiner’s use of modern technology to network socially (wink, wink). About as racy as it gets is when they refer to Weiner’s “tight-fitting underpants.”
Today is the birthday of O’Shea Jackson, the man also known as Ice Cube. Mr. Cube turns 42 years old today.
So let’s listen to one of my favorite Ice Cube songs:
Today is Flag Day in the United States. That’s only one part of Flag Week. Did you know there was a Flag Week?
Congress in 1971 asked the president to proclaim Fondue Day as part of Flag Week.
Wait, that’s not true. But then, neither is the story that Betsy Ross is the one who designed and sewed the first flag. Maybe. Who knows. You can read more about it in our Who2 biography of Betsy Ross.