In case you missed President Bush’s State of the Union address last night (or turned on some awful SciFi channel crap just to make it go away), NPR has gone ahead and fact checked his speech for you. Hey, thanks dudes.

Hugo Chavez calls for an anti-US alliance. His (not-so-outlandish) claim is that the US is and has been practicing imperialism throughout the world, and he doesn’t want to see the same crap go down in South America. Or, as he puts it: “If the US threatens one of us, it threatens all of us,” … “we will respond as one.”

Wanna know about the upcoming tax refund? Here’s a little primer for ya. It’s kinda like back in 2001 when Bush gave us all $300, except it may be a little more than that. Big freakin’ whoop.

MythBusters are taking on perhaps the most-argued-about problem in the history of science: can a plane take off while rolling on a conveyor belt? No matter what the outcome, this will probably continue to be fought over. My guess is that it doesn’t work, because no air is flowing above and below the wings, aside from the breeze. That said, it would be cool to be proved wrong, too!

Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Spaceship 2 will take tourists to space for around $200,000. Thankfully, it’ll get cheaper over time. The design of this thing seems a shitload more sturdy and sensible than NASA’s current shuttles, if you ask me. Do we still need to fill up those huge fuckin’ tanks each time if we can get ‘er up there with commercial jet-like vehicles?

Google Maps gone wrong. I think nicodemia will appreciate this… what with all his big brother notions and such.

Look people, Wesley Crusher wasn’t just dicking off when they made him acting ensign. Despite this obvious fact, some guy recently tried to outwit Wil Wheaton using treknobabble. Come on, man. Even Captain Picard himself knows less about warp cores than Wesley does.

This page is no longer loading properly, but: someone has figured out how much wireless phone companies are REALLY charging us for each text message. I’m going to let his data explain itself:

COSTS OF TRANSFERING 2,560 MP3s:

TCP/IP: $1
TCP/SMS: $61,356,851.20
TCP/USPS: $307,072.00 (Bits written out on paper)

Haha! Well, that settles it. Text messages are a total ripoff. (Although, I get unlimited messages to my bro Echanos, so what the F.)

A town in Vermont is voting on whether or not to arrest Bush and Cheney, if they set foot in the state. So far the initiative has just been approved for discussion at a town meeting, but what’s not to like about it?

Someone dug up this old footage of Will Farrell blatantly interrupting a news show. What the hell was going on? I think whenever he isn’t working on a movie or other production, he should wander onto the sets of live shows for a living. It should be known he could show up at any time.

Qtrax (whatever that is) will be offering 25 million songs for free, starting today. I haven’t checked out their site, but that’s a shitload of music. There’s mention of trouble using them in iTunes or on iPods, though.

Virtual reality view of the A380 cockpit. Pretty neat-o.

Beware of the Gothopotamus. Yowza!

Okay, here’s a little presidential update. Kucinich, sadly, has dropped out of the race. Obama, I think you know who your VP should be. Hillary should drop out of the race. This guy gives 11 reasons why, but I didn’t even need one.

Obama took South Carolina by a big margin in the primaries, as he should.

I guess with my main man out of the picture, r3tr0 readers will have to put up with a lot less carrying on about him. If you want to look on the bright side.

1973 - The Magnavox Odyssey debuts. Painfully stupid. (Echanos, didn’t Grandma have one of these in the basement?)

TV reporter gets bird shit in his mouth! Serves you right for.. um… well, whatever.

10 pointless but irresistible websites. iGod and I just can’t stop getting into arguments.

Really cool pools. A collection of, yep, awesome swimming pools.

Cookthink can really come in handy if you can’t decide what to eat tonight. Myself, I already know it’s leftover spaghetti bolognese. I made enough for at least 8 people.

On the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Bush showed his true colors by speaking in front of an anti-abortion rally in Washington D.C. Boy… remember back when we were just starting to figure out what a douche this guy is? Those were the days. Still shitty days, but they seem almost magical now.

Why do you need all those cable channels? According to this article, you can blame big media sooner than your cable provider. The reason is, big media insists on bundling channels together, and when it comes down to picking those packages, the little man gets screwed. Big surprise.

A rather ill woman in Tucson, Arizona laughed after killing a cyclist when she was drunk driving. The laughter was actually part of a conversation in jail, where it was said that she “took out a tree hugger, a cyclist, a Frenchman and a gay guy all in one shot.” For fuck’s sake! This is the kind of treatment you get for using the time-honored bicycle? I’ll tell ya what, I’m about five minutes from packing up and moving to France. There, I can hug trees, be gay, and bicycle all I want. Or not… but at least I won’t have fucking imbeciles trying to mow me down.

So, you’re gonna have yourself one of them babies, eh? Well, here’s a few dos and don’ts to keep you informed.

I think the London-based church of Scientology had better shutter their windows.

Six behind-the-scenes secrets of Cheers. Poor Norm, drinking that shite all day.

I’m afraid that using cold as an excuse for not exercising just won’t work anymore. Sure, you still have to avoid hypothermia and frostbite, but you won’t get sick and it won’t harm your lungs.

A teenage girl who suffered from allergies just died due to the toothpaste she was using! Jesus, that’s awful. The slightly terrifying aspect for me is that my teeth have been bothering me for a few days, and I just switched to a different kind of AquaFresh. I thought it was just my wisdom teeth shifting around as they do, but FUCKIN-A! I may have to go get some new toothpaste.

Vintage color photos of U.S. cities. There’s a couple of Cleveland from the 1940’s, which are quite awesome. Seeing Chicago back then is pretty wild, too.

A woman involved in a head-on collision had her breast implants explode upon impact. Ah, a DWBI. I wonder if they helped cushion the impact at all?

If you’ve never heard of a Roland 909, it’s a legendary drum machine that has surely produced some famous beats. Now’s your chance to mess around with one, online. A friend of mine used to have an 808, and man was that thing fun. The one sound always had me thinking of Phil Collins for some reason.

A world map, made solely out of words. Frankly, I think Thailand got ripped off. It’s way wider than Laos. Shoot, even the USA was mildly downsized. Sure, Canada’s huge, but anyone who’s ever driven across this country knows… it’s legitimately massive.

I’m gonna pull out some older stuff that I had saved up… bear with me.

Like, you may have already heard John Kerry endorses Obama for President. Hey, right on man.

Since it appears EVERYONE’S doing it, here’s how to hack a Diebold machine. I heard that they were talking about changing their name, pretty much just because their reputation is deplorable. Hey, morons! You don’t get another chance to impress us! We’ll still know who you are.

If you’re living in Texas nowadays, ya gotta keep them dildos outta sight, ya hear? Five’s the max. No more!

Here’s a bunch of really weird graffiti. I can’t tell if the Wild Style picture is photoshopped, but if it’s not, that is completely awesome.

If your USB hub has an empty port or two, you may as well pick up a USB vacuum cleaner. I’m totally getting one of these for my desk at work. It’s hilarious.

Okay, so I’m sure you’ve now heard that Hillary took New Hampshire in the primaries, but did you also hear that much of New Hampshire is using Diebold equipment? Not surprisingly, there have been numerous accusations of fraud - and the discrepancies between exit polls and the final results are giving lots of people flashbacks to the 2000 and 2004 elections. Now, there are far more reports out there than the one I linked to… but I really just wanted to point out that NOTHING HAS CHANGED. We’re still going to be second-guessing all of the electronic results. And my advice to everyone, come November, is to vote absentee. Unless of course you have the pleasure of leaving a hanging chad.

Here’s some truthful ad concepts for Diebold. I suggest printing them and hanging wherever you please.

Comcast may get a swift kick to the crotch from the FCC for throttling torrent traffic. The party who requested an FCC investigation suggests a fine of $195,000 per customer - bringing their total fine to $1.77 trillion dollars. Of course, they will never have to pay that much, but it’s fun to pretend.

Sure, you can get a Mac Mini for about $600 without a monitor, but what’s the most expensive Mac you can order from the Apple store? The answer is a shockingly-high $27,000. Good LORD! It’s not like you could even put 32 GB of RAM to use, anyway.

GM says that cars which can drive themselves could be ready for production in the next decade. I still like my idea of having sleds that you lock your cars wheels into for long trips. You can request a stop at any of the toll booths along the way, but you can freakin’ go to sleep if you want - all while your car zings along, engine off, at 250 mph+. You may want to tape down your windshield wipers, though.

Six ways to watch your favorite shows on the net. I would like to say that both Miro and Joost are not as great as they proclaim. Most of the original stuff on Miro is about 4 minutes long, and most of the stuff on Joost completely blows. That said, some of the other methods mentioned are worthwhile.

Speaking of TV, it’s almost time for LOST to return. By January 31st, you have to think back and recall everything that was going on… although I’m sure they’ll include plenty of flashbacks and re-cap bullshit. Anyway, if you want to be a super nerd about it - you could throw a LOST party. Oh yeah… Echanos? Time to get your ass on ABC.com and catch up. The show’s almost over… may as well get up to speed before the end!

This is totally rad: vegetable orchestra. Makes me hungry, though.

150 old cars seen on the streets of Alameda. I’ve personally seen about 3 of these beauties just riding my bike around on Alameda. Ahh, island living.

Dammit. Why is it just when you start feeling better after a cold, you start feeling crappy again? Did the cold itself sense that I was getting cocky about it? However that works, I’ve found myself back in a bit of a relapse. I hope my dear r3tr0 readers aren’t similarly incapacitated.

Good news on the presidential front, though… even in New Hampshire, it appears Obama is leading Hillary. If I was planning on putting all of my eggs in one of those baskets (and not Kucinich’s basket), I would have to go Barack. After trying to come up with one really solid reason, I decided that Hillary is like some uncool mom that never lightens up and keeps her kids sheltered from reality. Obama, on the other hand, is kinda like a cool dad who knows he can’t (and hasn’t) sheltered his kids. So Hillary, you may as well save it, ’cause no one wants to hear you get all whiny about shit. Cool dad’s here, and he’s about to tell you to talk to the hand.

Compared to most of Europe, US citizens are far more likely to believe the theory of evolution is false. Actually, the only country with a higher percentage of evolution haters is Turkey. Why you gotta be hatin’, bro?

Let’s take a closer look at a creationist textbook. Chapter 5 will prepare you for adulthood… no doubt.

WTF are you?

People, let’s not forget… Alaska is huge.

Would you believe real racers use Grand Turismo to train? I’m pretty sure this means Echanos could drive Formula 1 cars.

Wanna watch some Good Eats? Perhaps not, but if you do… here’s a few episodes.