No Wonder The Rest of the World Thinks We're a Little Bit Nuts

It's not as if America has to work really hard ruining its image around the world, eh?

Not with hunters shooting each other with assault rifles in Wisconsin, NBA players beating the stuffing out of fans, a sickening new video game that hits the market 41 years (almost to the day) after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and a recent Gallup poll that should make science teachers everywhere shudder to the bones. (Maybe those folks at the Sorry Everybody blog should start adding topical sections!)

Pardon my pontificating, but today's headlines and blog references are proof positive that this nation needs a ban on assault weapons. Because when hunters start using guns for crime, then all that talk about guns-for-sport becomes hollow talk, doesn't it? Among today's burstiest people are Chai Vang, the St. Paul hunter arrested for killing six fellow hunters (and wounding two others) with an assault-style rifle on Monday in northern Wisconsin. Also on the list are sheriff deputies Tim Zeigle and Jake Hodgkinson, who investigated the senseless shooting.

If that's not enough gore, how about a video game in which you get to be Lee Harvey Oswald aiming a rifle from a book depository window in Dallas? It's true. One of today's top links describes JFK Reloaded, a new video game from a Scottish company that insists there's nothing twisted about it. Players win or lose points depending on how well their tactics match the findings of the Warren Commission, which investigated the Nov. 22, 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Not depressed enough yet? From the pollsters at Gallup comes this new survey: almost half of Americans believe that God created humans about 10,000 years ago, while only one-third believe Darwin's theory of evolution. (I've gotta ask: is this a result of the so-called educational "gains" from No Child Left Behind? And should we add "ignorance" to the BlogPulse daily graph that charts the seven deadly sins?)

If you think sitting at a computer all day is the world's boring job, give yourself a healthy dose of perspective by checking out Popular Science's sequel to the "Worst Jobs in Science." At least you don't have ticks or worms sharing your cubicle (or DO you?)

And from what Jon Stewart calls "Mess-O-Potamia," or the war in Iraq, come two interesting links. The first is a blog by Kevin Sites, the TV newsman who was on the scene when a U.S. Marine shot and killed and already-injured Iraqi soldier in a Fallujah mosque. He adds the context and background that the nightly news blips don't have time for. The second link looks at war from the Marines' perspective in an ABC piece about Iraqi soldiers who "play dead" before firing on U.S. soliders.

And in order not to totally bum out every BlogPulse aficionado today with bum-out news, let's shift paradigms right now. Check out this totally enjoyable ditty titled "P.S. I'll find my frog." Click on each image (73 total) as it appears on your computer screen, and you'll go on an unforgettable frog-hunting pilgrimage (don't miss image No. 62). Whoever created this site...thanks! We needed that.

TREND GRAPH OF THE DAY:Who's all the rage among aging male rock/pop stars?