Cool Links

A collection of cool, weird and funny links from around the Internet.

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Motivator
Create your own custom poster -- Inspire! Motivate! Mock!

Gravity Detector
We are pleased to announce the successful testing of our prototype Gravity Detector.

Star explosion is surprisingly neat
Stars don’t always rip apart in violent explosions. Some blow up in an orderly fashion.

Knuttz.net
Top 10 Pimped Trucks

Penguin Poke
Poke the Penguin at your own risk.

Joke of the Day

Big John

A bar owner in the Old West has just hired a timid new bartender. The owner of the establishment is giving his new hire some instructions on running the place. He tells the timid man, "If you ever hear that Big John is coming to town, drop everything and run for the hills!! He's the meanest, biggest, nastiest outlaw who ever lived!!"

A few weeks pass uneventfully. But one afternoon, a local cowhand comes running through town yelling, "Big John is coming to town!! Run for your lives!!!" When the bartender exits the saloon to start running, he's knocked to the ground by several townspeople scurrying out of town. As he's picking himself up, he sees a large man approaching the saloon, probably about 7 feet tall, muscular, grunting and growling as he walks. He stomps up to the door, orders the poor barkeep inside, and demands, "I want a beer NOW!!" He pounds his heavy fist on the bar, splitting it in half. The bartender nervously hands the big man a beer, hands shaking. He takes the beer, rips the top of the bottle off with his teeth, and downs the beer in one gulp. As the poor timid bartender cowers behind the bar, the big man gets up to leave. "Do you want another beer?" the bartender calls out. "Dang it, I don't have time!!" the big man yells. "I gotta get out of town!!! Didn't ya hear Big John is a-comin??"

1137 - Battle of Rignano between Ranulf of Apulia and Roger II of Sicily.

1270 - The Eighth Crusade and siege of Tunis end by an agreement between Charles I of Sicily (brother to King Louis IX of France, who had died months earlier) and the sultan of Tunis.

1340 - Battle of Rio Salado

1470 - Henry VI of England returns to the English throne after Earl of Warwick defeats Yorkists in battle.

1831 - In Southampton County, Virginia, escaped slave Nat Turner is captured and arrested for leading the bloodiest slave revolt in United States history.

1864 - Second war of Schleswig ends: Duke Frederick and the Danish Crown recognize Prussia's and Austria's annexation of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg.

1864 - Helena, Montana is founded after four prospectors discover gold at "Last Chance Gulch."

1894 - Domenico Menegatti obtains a patent for a procedure to be applied in producing pandoro industrially.

1905 - Tsar Nicholas II of Russia grants Russia's first constitution, creating a legislative assembly.

1918 - The Ottoman Empire signs an armistice with the Allies, ending the First World War in the Middle East

1920 - The Communist Party of Australia founded in Sydney.

1925 - John Logie Baird creates Britain's first television transmitter.

1929 - The Stuttgart Cable Car is constructed in Stuttgart, Germany.

1938 - Orson Welles broadcasts his radio play of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, causing a nationwide panic.

1941 - World War II: Franklin Delano Roosevelt approves US$1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.

1941 - 1.500 Jews from Pidhaytsi (in western Ukraine) were sent by Nazis to Belzec extermination camp.

1944 - Anne Frank is deported from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

1947 - The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which is the foundation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is founded.

1950 - Pope Pius XII witnesses the "Miracle of the Sun" while at the Vatican"[1]

1953 - Cold War: US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally approves the top secret document National Security Council Paper No. 162/2, which states that the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the communist threat.

1960 - Michael Woodruff performs the first successful kidney transplant in the United Kingdom at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

1961 - Nuclear testing: The Soviet Union detonates the hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya; at 58 megatons of yield, it is still the largest nuclear device ever detonated. Nikita Kruschev announces that the scientists had planned to make it 100 megatons, but had reduced the yield so as to avoid breaking all the windows in Moscow.

1961 - Due to "violations of Lenin's precepts", it is decreed that Josef Stalin's body be removed from its place of honour inside Lenin's tomb and buried near the Kremlin wall with a plain granite marker instead.

1965 - Vietnam War: Just miles from Da Nang, United States Marines repel an intense attack by wave after wave of Viet Cong forces, killing 56 guerrillas. Among the dead, a sketch of Marine positions was found on the body of a 13-year-old Vietnamese boy who sold drinks to the Marines the day before.

1966 - The Zodiac Killer kills his first victim, 18-year old Cheri Jo Bates, in Riverside, California.

1968 - The film The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn, debuts.

1970 - In Vietnam, the worst monsoon to hit the area in six years causes large floods, kills 293, leaves 200,000 homeless and virtually halts the Vietnam War.

1972 - US President Richard Nixon approves legislation to increase Social Security spending by US$5.3 billion.

1974 - "The Rumble in the Jungle": Muhammad Ali knocks out George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire to regain the World Heavyweight Boxing championship.

1975 - Prince Juan Carlos becomes Spain's acting head of state, taking over for the country's ailing dictator, Gen. Francisco Franco.

1980 - El Salvador and Honduras sign a peace treaty to put the border dispute fought over in 1969's Football War before the International Court of Justice.

1983 - The first democratic elections in Argentina after seven years of military rule are held.

1985 - Space Shuttle Challenger lifts off for mission STS-61-A, its final successful mission.

1987 - In Japan, NEC releases the first 16-bit home entertainment system, the PC-Engine.

1988 - Philip Morris buys Kraft Foods for US$13.1 billion.

1991 - The Madrid Conference for Middle East peace talks opens.

1995 - Quebec sovereignists narrowly lose a referendum for a mandate to negotiate independence from Canada (vote was 50.6% to 49.4%).

1997 - British au pair Louise Woodward is found guilty of the baby-shaking death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen.

1999 - Miss Saigon closes in London after 4264 performances.

2001 - George W. Bush throws out the first pitch at Game 3 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium, in what was intended to be a defiant gesture, coming just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks.

2001 - Michael Jordan returns to the National Basketball Association with the Washington Wizards after 3½ years (the Wizards lose 93-91 to the New York Knicks).

2002 - Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC was shot and killed in a Merrick Boulevard recording studio.

2002 - British Digital terrestrial television (DTT) Service Freeview starts transmitting throughout parts of the United Kingdom

2004 - A 163-metre (535 foot) radio mast in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, UK collapses in a fire.

2004 - In Punjab, India the expelled BSP leader Satnam Singh Kainth launches Bahujan Samaj Party (Kainth).

2005 - The rebuilt Dresden Frauenkirche (destroyed in the firebombing of Dresden during World War II) is reconsecrated after a thirteen-year rebuilding project.

Weird News

A collection of weird and strange news articles from around the Internet.

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Mum defies million-to-one odds to give birth to black and white boys
when Kerry Richardson's sons were born she had no trouble telling them apart instantly. Layton, who weighed 6lb 4oz, was growing blonde hair and was fair skinned. His brother, Kaydon, who arrived 20 minutes later weighing 6lb 9oz, was black.

USS Intrepid To Sail For First Time In 25 Years
(AP) NEW YORK To the sound of horns and the calling of orders, the retired aircraft carrier USS Intrepid will slip from her Hudson River berth on Nov. 6 and, like the fabled ships of yesteryear, sail on the morning tide.

Police: Nurse With Decades-Old Grudge Kills Patient
Sandra Baker Joyner, 45, went to a doctor's office for a mini-facelift and wound-up dead. But North Carolina authorities now believe this was no medical mistake. They're calling it a case of murder. As she lay bandaged in the recovery room, Joyner was poisoned by a nurse anesthetist who believed Joyner had stolen her boyfriend back in high school some 30 years ago, authorities said.

Spiritual event wants GodMen, not girly men
At the daylong GodMen event downtown Saturday, men will be able to cuss, smoke cigars, watch videos of football pileups and car crashes, listen to specially composed Christian rock songs such as "Testosterone High" and attend workshops on how to fight pornography addiction.

Sexy costumes for young girls a scary trend
Sophia Lever and her 13-year-old daughter, Storm, were looking for a Halloween costume on Friday. It turned out to be a long day. For example, when they walked into Halloween Headquarters on Market Street, the first thing they saw was a wall of costumes that looked like they'd fit in better at Victoria's Secret than the Seven Hills School's Halloween party in Walnut Creek, which was where Storm was going after shopping.

Coach Ordered Teammate "Beaned"
PITTSBURGH (AP) - October 27, 2006 - A judge granted bail to a youth baseball coach, Mark Downs Jr., who was convicted of offering a player money to bean a 9-year-old autistic teammate to keep the disabled boy out of a playoff game. He will remain free while he appeals his conviction and one- to six-year jail sentence.

A Big Mac Will Soon Come With Plasma TVs and Internet Access
After 50 years and billions of customers, the fast-food giant is getting a face-lift. Plasma-screen TVs, soft couches, coffee tables and wireless Internet access are just some of the new features customers will begin to see at their local McDonald's.

Ottawa seeks to deport U.S. man "exiled" to Canada
OTTAWA (Reuters) - An American sex offender who was sentenced by a U.S. judge to three years "exile" in Canada was arrested by Canadian border guards on Thursday and faces deportation, the government said.