A short time ago I made the decision to read through all of David McCullough’s books. He is a renown historian and a gifted author and I realized that reading his books would be both educational and enjoyable—not just to learn history from a master but to learn from his style of writing. Few men can write history with the lucidity and character of David McCullough. This is why, I’m sure, all of his books remain in print, even forty and fifty years after publication, and why he has twice received the Pulitzer Prize (not to mention multitudes of other accolades).

Intimidated by the sheer size of his biography of Truman, and having already made my way through 1776 and John Adams, I turned recently to The Johnstown Flood, one of his lesser-known works. This book, which weighs in at a “mere” 300 pages (quite short for McCullough’s standards) deals with one of the most devastating disasters in American history. On May 31, 1889, a dam burst near Johnstown, Pennsylvania, sending a massive wall of water hurtling towards the thriving town. It smashed into Johnstown, killing more than 2,000 people. But it was more than a tragedy—it was also a scandal, for the dam was privately owned and had been built to make a private lake on a summer resort property patronized by such tycoons as Andrew Mellon, Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick. Americans were outraged.

Though the event has been largely forgotten, at the time it was a national scandal and riveted the attention of Americans much the way Hurricane Katrina did when it devastated New Orleans a few years ago. For weeks and months it was front page news across the nation. Johnstown would never fully recover and, once a bustling town with a great future, it quickly faded in favor of other nearby towns.

While The Johnstown Flood may not be a book carrying lessons of great importance for our day (“Don’t neglect dams?”), neither does it need to be. It is a fascinating read and an interesting little slice of history. Through the pen of David McCullough the events come to life and the reader is transported a century into the past. Like all of the works of McCullough I’ve read to this point, this one is well worth the read.

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Swedish aggro combo SYCONAUT has revealed the track listing and cover artwork for the band's forthcoming debut album, "Burst Into Life".

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

By now you've probably watched the Bill Gates / Jerry Seinfeld Microsoft ad a dozen or so times (if not, get to it). If you're like us, you've got a healthy conversation happening about what the new campaign means, and whether or not you actually like the thing. According to a leaked internal email from Redmond's senior vice president Bill Veghte, this first installment in what will be a series of commercials is meant to function as an "Icebreaker to reintroduce Microsoft to viewers in a consumer context." It seems that the company is following the path they've stamped out with their previous media burst, the Mojave Experiment, which appears to be less concerned with changing the product (Windows), and more concerned with changing consumers' perception of the product. In Veghte's words, "Telling our story means making significant investments to improve the way consumers experience Windows." So here's our question to you: is Microsoft on the right track here? Let us know in the poll below! (You can also read the full text of the email after the break)

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Continue reading Poll: Is Microsoft's new ad working?

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This video is copyright free for educational purposes. Feel free to mirror these videos with or without accreditation. For other videos of this genre check out http://www.youtube.com/user/andromedaswake http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54 http://www.youtube.com/user/cdk007 http://www.youtube.com/user/AronRa http://www.youtube.com/user/DonExodus2 http://www.youtube.com/user/ExtantDodo http://www.youtube.com/user/BonoboBill http://www.youtube.com/user/EdwardCurrent http://www.youtube.com/user/patcondell Part of a series of videos exposing the funny stupidity of creationists and why they deserve to be laughed at. In each case the creationist statements are shown to be outrageously stupid by even the most rudimentary knowledge of science. In this episode Jonathan Wells of the creationist organization The Discovery Institute is taken to task over his bizarre assertions that the inability of a burst cell to spontaneously reassemble means that abiogenesis must be impossible. The bacteria is a modern organism....the end product of 4bn years of evolution. It is a complex organism and as such can compete in the biosphere using the fast reproduction 'strategy'. The reason bacteria are around today is they are vigorous reproducers. Jonathan Wells seems to be attacking the proposal that 'MODERN bacteria were the first life on Earth', which is in reality a straw man that exists nowhere outside of Wells's mind. The reasoning is similar to that used by Ken Ham, that you don't get abiogenesis from blended frogs. All of this seems to be ignoring the key factor that the biosphere is a harsh competition. There is simply no niche where abiogenesis could get a grip where it simply would not be out competed by life that has been around for 4bn yrs.

Author: Thunderf00t Keywords: evolution science Atheism amazing crazy creationism God Dawkins Religion funny stupid Hovind creation Darwin awards Added: September 4, 2008