Actually, Charon, Pluto's big moon, is bigger in relation to Pluto. But we have the only satellite capable of producing interesting total eclipses where the Sun is just barely covered. Some outer planet satellites may be capable of just covering the Sun, but the Sun is so tiny from those vantage points there would be…

One of my favorite wacko conspiracy theories is that the nobility scrambled the spelling to keep the peasants from becoming literate.

After visiting Cahokia a couple of years ago we continued west on the Interstate and soon saw a landfill far bigger than the pyramid. It saddened me to think they worked for decades carrying baskets of earth, and we have bigger garbage piles.

There was actually a real batman. In fact, lots of them. In days gone by, a "batman" was a military officer's servant.

I haven't played chess in over 30 years. I decided to get really good at it would take a lot of study, which I could apply better to something useful. When I study math or foreign languages I get useful skills. When I study the Sicilian Defense, I learn nothing but the Sicilian Defense.

The only definition of "right" that makes sense is having a belief that is borne out by reality. Motivation doesn't enter into it.

The total lack of nuclear knowledge in these comments is unbelievable.

You left out the 1972 Chevy Vega. I once owned a classic car. It regularly turns up on lists of the worst cars ever made. Mine was painted a lovely shade of blue to match the clouds of smoke it left at every stop light. If the body was salvageable I'd have tried to save the engine. If the engine was salvageable I'd…

This is not about poverty. Poor people can buy trucks like the ones at left above? Stuff like this happens in Greece and Spain, but there it's arson to destroy protected forests. This is about privatizing in the most brutal way, by destroying protected sites so they're no longer worth protecting.

I did this once for Interstates only and the most remote places were northeast Montana and the tip of Michigan's Keeweenaw Peninsula. There are minor roads into almost all these areas. Maine has a lot of private toll roads in the North Woods. The pocket in Idaho is true wilderness and of course the bottom of the Grand…

As Dilbert's boss once observed, some employees in Japan work themselves to death. Slow down when you see a tunnel with dead loved ones waving to you.

One of the remotest battles of the Civil War happened in Idaho. Before the Civil War, about a third of the then-tiny U.S. Army was in Utah. When war broke out, Californians raised a volunteer brigade and marched east. When the got to Utah, the regulars said "YOU stay here and watch the Mormons. WE'LL go fight the…

And many of the survivors were protected by the Indians.

Well, I confess. I don't divvy housework up 50-50 with my wife. On the other hand, she didn't snow-blow 50% of the driveway this morning, or install a new monitor and printer, or hang a new garage door opener, either. I've never seen her crawl under a car to change the oil or climb up to clean the gutters. A fair…

"The secret of a good military operation is the element of surprise."

The plan is to make the USPS insolvent so it can be privatized. I mean, just look at how well the private sector provides cell phone service and broadband to the whole country.

I'm an old gross dude but I found someone 38 years ago who's getting old and gross along with me. That's how it works. You are not going to get someone 40 years junior to you. Yeah, there's Donald Trump and Hugh (Blecch) Hefner. 0.1% of the women on earth will sign on to that deal and the others retch. If you like…

Looked. Past test. It's kinda dinged up now.

That was my guess, too

Flying cars are overrated. You won't be able to pop from home to work at 150 mph - the chaos would have cars raining down everywhere. It would still take 20 hours to travel coast to coast, which means you'd need a Winnebago to travel in comfort. Much better to work toward 150 mph highways and gridlock-free streets.…