Sister cities…why?  The U.S. sister city program was originally proposed as a way to connect people internationally by President Eisenhower in 1956.  Eventually this led to the creation of Sister Cities International in 1967, whose goal is to “promote peace through mutual respect, understanding, and cooperation…”  I am pretty sure that exact mission statment can be (and has been) used for every politically correct initiative ever.  Seriously, try to be a little more generic…  Anyway, critics of the program complain that the sister city program is simply a waste of money and nothing more than an excuse for a politician to get a free vacation to some foreign city.  I’m sure that’s what the mayor of Miami, Florida is doing…let’s see…yeah…he’s definitely mooching off a free trip to Port-Au-Prince, Haiti…

This one comes up a lot in conversation around me.  Apparently, I am extremely territorial and materialistic.

A copyright is a form of protection given to authors for their original literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and/or other published or unpublished intellectual works.  The 1976 Copyright Act gives the author exclusive rights to the copyrighted work.  A copyright only protects forms of expression.  For example, a description of an invention can be copyrighted but it only protects other people from copying the description.  It would not give protection to the invention itself.

A trademark is a form of protection for a word, name, or symbol used to indicate a source of a good and to distinguish the actual product from others.  Trademarks prevent others from using similar symbols or logos, but do not prevent others from making the same product.

A patent gives the inventor a property right to his invention.  In the US, a typical patent lasts 20 years, and prohibits anyone from replicating, using, or selling the invention in the US.

This website is copyrighted to prevent others from using my posts to get rich.  Because if it wasn’t copyrighted, people would definitely be getting rich off this.  I know I am.

No, I’m not.  But suing someone over copyright infringement may lead to money.  Fingers crossed!

For the first couple years of his life, Gerald Ford was named Leslie Lynch King, Jr., after his father.  As it turned out, his father was an abusive douche-bag, so the future President’s mom divorced him, married a guy named Gerald Ford, and decided to rename her son after him.  It’s bizarre to me how his mom treated him like a classroom gerbil that gets a new name after every school year.  But at least she married a guy with an all-American sounding name.  Imagine if she would have married a guy with an Arab sounding name.  There would be no chance for a guy with a Middle-Eastern name to be elected President… 

On July 11, 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr shot and killed Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel (present day equivalent of Joe Biden killing Timothy Geithner).  The duel took place in New Jersey, because New York had outlawed dueling.  The bitter politicians arrived at the set location on separate boats.  Measures were taken so all witnesses could deny any wrong doing.  For example, the guns were concealed so all witnesses could legally claim that they saw no weapons.  Also during the actual duel, all other people present turned their backs so they also could legally declare that they saw no gun fire.  Everyone was very literal. During the duel itself, Hamilton took the first shot.  But he shot up in the air, possibly “throwing away his fire” as a sign of aborting the duel with honor.  Then, Burr shot Hamilton in the groin, as a sign of wanting to shoot Hamilton in the groin. 

When it comes to badass security guards, Paul Blart doesn’t come close to Frank Wills.  Wills was the security guard who uncovered the break-in at the Watergate office building that started the Watergate Scandal.  After this historic event, Wills’s story is a very sad one.  He quit his position as a security guard after he didn’t receive a pay raise for his actions.  He was later convicted of shoplifting, and eventually died well under the poverty line in 2000.  He did something very honorable.  He could have probably just blackmailed Nixon and his comrades into millions of dollars and could be living the life of luxury on some island somewhere.  But he didn’t.  He stuck it to the man.  Unfortunately, the man stuck it back to him, harder and more viciously.  When it comes to sticking it to people, the man is hard to outstick.

President William McKinley was assassinated in September 1901 by anarchist Leon Czolgosz.  Originally, it was thought McKinley would survive the gunshot wounds but died six days later.  He was the third of four assassinated U.S. Presidents (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy).  Although deceased, they live on in other aspects of our culture. We have Mount McKinley in Alaska, the highest mountain peak in North America.  Lincoln’s legacy is perpetuated with the help of the Lincoln Memorial, U.S. currency, and a giant face on Mount Rushmore.  There’s the Kennedy Space Center, JFK International Airport, and Kennedy’s image on the U.S. half-dollar.  As for Garfield…  well… your legacy has been trumped by a lethargic tabby cat that eats people food.  Tough break.

This is true. There is an organization called VHEMT (the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement) that wants, well, the voluntary extinction of humans.  VHEMT’s motto is “May we live long and die out.”  To paraphrase their objective, their website states that they will have succeeded when every human chooses to stop breeding, and Earth’s biosphere returns to its former glory.  Basically, it’s a radical environmental group composed of people who think humans are ruining the world, thus should stop having babies.  On their website, they admit that their goals are pretty lofty, but feel that it can be realistic down the road.  This is the biggest waste of time ever.  Dude, it didn’t work when you tried to cancel prom after not getting a date. Or when you tried to ban college after not getting accepted.  Or when you tried to prohibit people from owning dogs after you found out you were allergic.  Or when you tried to ban exercising once you got fat.  Or when you tried to outlaw lottery tickets when you didn’t win.  Or when you tried to outlaw sex because you couldn’t get laid.  Oh wait…

I always hear about First World Countries and Third World Countries, but I never really hear about the Second World Countries.  I wanted to find out more about the Silver-medal countries.  The placement of countries into different “worlds” started after World War II when the world split into two large geopolitical blocs.  The first bloc refers to the First World, which includes developed, capitalist, industrial countries that aligned with the United States after the second World War.  They all generally share common political and economic interests.  The second main bloc is made up of the Second World Countries, formerly known as the Eastern Bloc, referring to the communist-socialist, industrial states that at the time aligned with the USSR.  It now includes Russia, Eastern Europe, as well as China according to OWNO (One World-Nations Online).  The Third World was composed of the countries that didn’t fit into the first main blocs and is now used to vaguely describe developing countries, including both capitalist and communist countries, and the rich (Saudi Arabia) as well as the poor (Mali).  Interestingly, where your country ranks in terms of First, Second, or Third World Countries is inversely related to how well your country finished in Olympic marathon race.

The Nobel Prize was created in 1885 by Swedish inventor Alfred Bernhard Nobel (invented dynamite).  Awards are given in the following categories: Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace.  The winner earns a laureate, a gold medal, a diploma, and money.  In 2009, 10 Million SEK (Swedish Krona) was given to each winner.  This is about 1.5 million US dollars.  The amount of money depends on the income of the Nobel Foundation for the year.  On January 31, 1937, Hitler issued a decree that banned all Germans from accepting the Nobel Prize.  This was in response to German Carl Von Ossietzky, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature through works criticizing Hitler and Nazis.  Hitler was just pissed that he couldn’t win a Nobel Prize…unless they awarded a Nobel Prize for Being a Total Bitch.

Tom Vilsack.  You may know him as the Secretary of Agriculture.  Or you may have never heard of him.  But what if I told you that he was 9th in line to become President of the United States if 8 very important people croak or resign.  As we know, if the President dies or resigns, the Vice-President takes over (as stated in the 25th Amendment).  But if the Veep bites it too, we have to start looking down the roster for the next Pres.  The Presidential batting order, as dictated by the Presidential Succession Act, is as follows:

1. Vice President
2. Speaker of the House of Representatives
3. President pro tempore of the Senate
4. Secretary of State
5. Sec. of Treasury
6. Sec. of Defense
7. Attorney General
8. Sec. of Interior
9. Sec. of Agriculture (That’s you, Tom Vilsack!!!)
10. Sec. of Commerce
11. Sec. of Labor
12. Sec. of Health and Human Services
13. Sec. of Housing and Urban Development
14. Sec. of Transportation
15. Sec. of Energy
16. Sec. of Education
17. Sec. of Veterans Affairs
18. Sec. of Homeland Security

If you’re wondering why the Secretary of Transportation is more qualified than the Secretary of Energy, it’s because the order is determined by when the department was established (oldest to newest).

I hope Tom Vilsack knows how much he potentially means to the world outside of agriculture.