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When I was a lad, I very much enjoyed the comedy of Cheech & Chong. Tonight, at the Novo by Microsoft theatre in downtown Los Angeles, I got to see them live. Their humor comes from a gentler, and now rather distant, time in our nation’s history, but only one of the many bits actually felt dated. Amid the drug-related and social-observation material came a genuine political surprise. An anti-Trump joke in the opening act fell a little flat, and a few minutes later, when the main act got under way, Cheech asked the audience, “Are there any Donald Trump...

The Convention of 1818 between Britain and America following the War of 1812 had a tough job to take on: determining the border between Canada and the United States. In an effort to avoid controversy and confusion caused by drawing the boundary based on watershed, the two countries agreed on a simpler solution: the 49th parallel. There were, of course, multiple problems that arose with this solution, including the fact that Vancouver Island was split in two by the imaginary line. The debate over whether the line of latitude should split the island in two or if it should be ignored,...

So word is trickling out that the next Star Wars movie will be “different” somehow. More daring. Doing things that have never been done in a Star Wars film before. We know the score. We can figure things out. A lot of us can read between the lines, in light of what has been transpiring lately throughout the entertainment and media industries. It means that there is going to be a homosexual relationship in Episode VIII. Abrams said it was coming. It's the way of things now, it seems, that everything be charged with the LBGT agenda. And now it...

The Xubuntu team is pleased to announce the immediate release of Xubuntu 16.04. Xubuntu 16.04 is an LTS (Long-Term Support) release and will be supported for 3 years. The final release images are available as Torrents and direct downloads from http://xubuntu.org/getxubuntu/ As the main server will be very busy in the first few days after release, we recommend using the Torrents wherever possible.

Two Republican presidential candidates and both Democratic candidates are on Time Magazine's list of The 100 Most Influential People of 2016. The magazine placed them and other notable American politicians from both parties among a list of artists, athletes, world leaders, and celebrities. They are on the list because, according to the magazine, "they each embody a breakthrough: they broke the rules, broke a record, broke the silence, broke the boundaries to reveal what they're capable of." "To expect Donald Trump to conform to the 'norms' of business and politics is like expecting a square peg to fit in a...

There’s a new movie currently in the works at Warner Brothers which will pitch two legendary monsters against each other: King Kong and Godzilla. King Kong, of course, was a gigantic, snorting, chest-beating gorilla which never felt a single shred of empathy for anyone in its life and was viewed, depending on who you ask, as either a rampaging monster or an anti-hero. Godzilla was a pre-historic, roaring, very strategic, fire-breathing lizard-like cross between a gorilla and a whale which saw itself as a driving force to restore balance to nature wherever that balance is disrupted – saving the world...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Pushing pause on that mission to simplify, McDonald's has moved in the other direction and unleashed a whole family of different-size Big Macs. Yesterday, the original size was joined by smaller and larger extremes in two test markets, Dallas and central Ohio. Columbus Business First reports the trio will remain on store menus until June 6, at which point the chain will see how customers reacted. At the more petite end is the new Mac Jr., a single-layer sandwich supposedly designed to be easier to eat, although the menu has six plain, smaller-size burgers already. The largest size has been...

Most news services are reporting that Ted Cruz currently has 559 delegates after gaining zero in yesterday's New York primary. With 1237 the goal, it is clear that Ted Cruz can no longer win on the first ballot at the Republican Convention. He would need 678 delegates to reach 1237 and only 620 delegates remain. Obviously, that is impossible. That would be 109% of what remains, and that is a mathematical impossibility. A good guess of how many additional delegates Cruz will gain between now and June 8 is 209. That would give him a total of 768 going into...

If anything's for certain about Oscar-winning actor and longtime political activist Susan Sarandon, it's that when she has something to say, she doesn't hold back — whether it's about LGBT rights, the war in Iraq, or, as shown most recently, her support for Bernie Sanders. Sarandon is one of the Democratic candidate's most vocal celebrity backers, and even when her opinions have gotten her into some trouble — such as her recent comments implying she might vote for Donald Trump if he were the nominee opposite Hillary Clinton — she's refused to back down. In fact, when I talk to...

New York Republican Rep. Peter King had harsh words for Sen. Ted Cruz on Tuesday, as his home state votes on presidential candidates. “In case anybody gets confused, I’m not endorsing Ted Cruz. I hate Ted Cruz, and I think I’ll take cyanide if he got the nomination,” King told MSNBC. King previously slammed Cruz for his criticism of “New York values,” calling for any New Yorkers who vote for him to have their head examined. “I think you’re going to see Donald Trump scoring a big victory tonight,” he said....

So when I first made a video showing that CrazyRussianHackers idea about using dry ice for an air conditioner was basically suicidal, I really didnt think anything would come of it. Then recently he filed a DMCA takedown of my video. This resulted in a strike against my account and me losing access to certain features. Now thats a special brand of idiot who makes a video about a suicidal way to chill the air, then files a baseless copyright takedown of the only warning about how dumb that idea is. Especially against a guy like me who has a...

In his 1944 opus “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive,” the philosopher Johnny Mercer provided some bracing imperatives that, rightly understood, explain why I am supporting Ted Cruz for the presidency of the United States. “You've got to accentuate the positive,” Mercer argued. Eliminate the negative Latch on to the affirmative Don't mess with Mister In-Between. Quite right. These imperatives, while not quite categorical, are sufficiently compelling to command our attention. Ted Cruz is the only candidate who accentuates the positive, who latches on to the affirmative. 1. Executive power. Even many ardent supporters of President Obama have been taken aback by his...

What’s up with all of this after-the-fact complaining we’ve heard from Donald Trump in the wake of his recent losses to Senator Cruz? Yesterday, Mr. Cruz romped in Wyoming. Mr. Trump charged that the Texan had bought the delegates. A week earlier after Mr. Cruz swept Colorado, a Trump lieutenant accused the Cruz campaign of “Gestapo tactics.” The crusty solon from Texas is probably the senator the Republican Establishment most likes to dislike. Yet after the Mr. Cruz crushed the New Yorker 531,000 votes to 386,000 in the Wisconsin primary, Mr. Trump called him a “Trojan horse” for the Establishment....

In the new movie, A Mother’s Worst Nightmare, TV One will explore the murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. The network announced a new slate of 26 original movies at their Upfront presentation in New York City. Expectations for the movie will be high as the story explores one of America’s most controversial murders and trials. TV One says: A Mother’s Worst Nightmare is an urban true crime drama chronicling one of America’s most polarizing murder cases in recent history: the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African-American high school junior. The film centers on Sybrina Fulton, Martin’s...

As Bernie Sanders continues to challenge Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, the time has come to focus some of those who are most actively backing his candidacy. Most of those voting for Sanders are decent people who truly deserve to be called “progressives.” But among his most active supporters are hard left elements within organizations such as Black Lives Matter, CodePink and MoveOn who are more appropriately called repressives. Too many of them have too little tolerance for views different than their own. Traditional liberals who have made their home in the Democratic Party should be wary of these...

Anyone know what happened to the site this morning? A DDOS attack perhaps?

Gun control supporters will no doubt be all aflutter about a new book that tries to validate one of their longtime favorite theories, while appearing to help their preferred presidential candidate appeal to anti-capitalist voters within the Democratic Party. The theory, which makes perfect sense to voters who believe that demand is driven by supply, is, as the Washington Post describes it, that “[g]uns in America were no big deal until big business made us love them.” The book, The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture, points its accusatory finger at the Winchester Repeating...

Businessman Donald Trump’s seemingly unstoppable presidential campaign might be losing its momentum. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s recent sweep in Colorado put up another speed bump in Trump’s path to the Republican nomination. While Trump claimed the Colorado outcome was “rigged” and “totally unfair,” his campaign is simply no longer winning all aspects of the race. Prediction markets are reacting to this latest hiccup for the Trump campaign. As the possibility of a contested convention in July looks more and more likely, Trump’s numbers have dipped. Prediction markets are where people bet on the possibilities of certain outcomes in politics, sports...

It occurred to me the other day after I read that Ringo Starr is refusing to play a show in North Carolina because he wants to make himself relevant is feeling put out by the so-called bathroom bill banning men from women’s rooms: he must really regret having played drums on “Get Back.” I was surprised this morning to see that no has pointed this out yet. For those of you who don’t know the lyrics to The Beatles’s 17th American number-one single by heart, here are the last two verses: Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman But...

Doha (AFP) - A leading Islamic scholar has claimed Muslims are "annoyed" by the level of support among Americans for US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Ali Qara Daghi, Secretary-General of the Qatar-based International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), told AFP late Wednesday that Trump was also using "attacks on Islam" to try and secure his bid for the White House. "This is really annoying us so much that he has these levels of support," he said. "We do not want this for the American people or America, which was founded on democracy, freedom and pluralism. "His remarks are not...