Pix Of the American West, Mid-1800's

Ramble on, George Blackburn.

Led Zeppelin II has died.

Not the album ... the man.

Zeppelin, of downstate Bethalto, near St. Louis, was known most of his life as George Blackburn before officially changing his name last fall.

"He and Mom got divorced and he wanted to start his life over, like a new chapter," said his daughter Mindy Baker of Seattle, adding that her father had seen Jimmy Page and Robert Plant's English band probably about 20 times in its heyday of the late 1960s and early '70s. "He had always liked Led Zeppelin since they came out, and it was just time to do it.

"My mom says that he talked about it for probably five years before the divorce."

The 64-year-old Zeppelin "climbed the 'Stairway to Heaven'" May 18 at Alton Memorial Hospital, according to a death notice published in newspapers, including the Tribune. He died of a heart attack, his daughter said.

I blame Gollum and the Evil One.

The World's Meatiest Sandwich

More than a third of divorce filings last year contained the word Facebook, according to a U.K. survey by Divorce Online, a legal services firm.

An amendment that would legalize the use of propaganda on American audiences is being inserted into the latest defense authorization bill, BuzzFeed has learned.

The amendment would “strike the current ban on domestic dissemination” of propaganda material produced by the State Department and the Pentagon, according to the summary of the law at the House Rules Committee's official website.

The tweak to the bill would essentially neutralize two previous acts—the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987—that had been passed to protect U.S. audiences from our own government’s misinformation campaigns.

Horror! Why, without this awesome law, the government could use fabricated 'evidence' to lead the country into a decade-long aggressive war against a country which had nothing to do with 9/11.

Osaka Station Fountain

Creating the Windows 8 User Experience

The cowboy might be trying to get clean, but the Annville-Cleona School Board on Thursday night stood by its decision that a children’s book showing cartoon images of the man’s artfully concealed nakedness is too dirty.

The school board voted 8-0 in April to remove the book after parents of a kindergarten student lodged a complaint about it.

“Barbara Jones, director of the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom, wrote: “Like many books, it may not be right for every student at Cleona Elementary. But the school library has a responsibility to meet the needs of everyone in the school community — not just the most vocal, the most powerful, or even the majority.”

If a parent thinks a particular book is not suitable for their child, they should guide their children to other books. They should not be given the power to impose their beliefs or preferences on other people’s children,” Jones said.

New to America, Mrs Jones?

Def Leppard Tribute Band Seeks One-Armed Drummer

iPhone's email client does not allow you to mark all messages as 'read' - you have to manually select each message then mark the group as read. Awesome!

Nor does it check the POP server to see if you've deleted messages from the server. So, all the spam I get while my iPhone is on simply accumulates on my iPhone - marked as unread, of course.

This does not inspire confidence.