Pete's Place

Marc Stein of ESPN has come out with his preseason NBA power rankings , and if he's correct the Celtics should knock off the Lakers agai...

1618 Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded for allegedly conspiring against King James I of England. 1682 The founder of Pennsylvania, William Pen...

Now that he has been found guilty of seven felony counts of violating ethics laws, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens faces three choices. The first...

I must admit that I wonder why President Bush, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and former Rep. Tom DeLay pushed to locate a biological defense lab...

The Christian Science Monitor said Tuesday it will become the first national newspaper to drop its daily print edition and focus on publis...

I have never been a huge Kim Basinger fan, but after seeing this trailer and reading this write-up , I must admit her latest starring role ...

The Los Angeles Times plans to cut 75 jobs, or 10 percent of its news staff ; however, across the country, New York Times executive editor ...

1636 Harvard College was founded. 1793 Eli Whitney applied for a patent for the cotton gin . 1886 The Statue of Liberty, a gift from the pe...

After last night's World Series Game 5 was suspended because of rain with the score tied 2-2 Tampa Bay's Evan Longoria said: “It’s t...

I decided yesterday was a good time to vote. I figured that most of the early voting fanatics did exactly that -- voted early or, at least e...

Barack Obama has been endorsed by 194 newspapers , compared to the 82 (including the Dallas Morning News ) that have endorsed John McCain. F...

1275 The city of Amsterdam was founded. 1682 The city of Philadelphia was founded. 1787 The first of the Federalist Papers , a series of e...

(Click on title to view trailer) Death Defying Acts (2008) ** Though all the elements are in place, there's not much magic to be found...

It's Friday. The end of another week. So I thought I would leave you with a glimpse of my all-time favorite cartoon character.

Every year on April 1, each of the British television networks insert into their evening newscasts an April Fools feature. One of the great ...

Steven Spielberg had two films he directed released in 1993. The first, "Jurassic Park," was a real crowd-pleaser; the second, ...

Los Angeles had two shots to send a team to the World Series this year, but neither the American League Angels nor the National League Dodge...

John A. Bargh, a Yale University psychologist , has just finished leading a group of researchers who have determined that if you want to ma...

1648 The Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War and, effectively, the Holy Roman Empire. 1857 The world's first football c...

Where old, ugly, out of shape people are not allowed.

Sometimes I think the times have simply passed me by. Consider., for example, the tale of a Japanese woman jailed after killing her virtual ...

Dallas Morning News Mavericks beat writer Eddie Sefko, writing in an "Inside the Mavericks" newsletter that arrived by e-mail th...

Random Access Memory is a computer term for the data it stores. However, I'm beginning to question how it stores it and how randomly it ...

42 BCE Brutus committed suicide after forces led by Mark Anthony and Octavian decisively defeated Brutus' forces. 1915 Between 25,000 a...

Los Angeles City Council member Tony Cardenas is doing a Jenny in Los Angeles. Joined by a number of celebrities who need some extra publici...

1746 The College of New Jersey (later renamed Princeton University ) received its charter. 1797 Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first recor...

1520 Ferdinand Magellan discovered a body of water now known as the Strait of Magellan . 1797 The USS Constitution was launched in Boston H...

Now here's how to make a big splash on your wedding day.

I'll admit it! Following the Texas-Missouri football game, I was among the record number of viewers who turned to the local NBC affili...

Texas is ranked No. 1 in this year's first BCS rankings which came out yesterday. Here's the trivia question: What team was ranked N...

"Mr. Blackwell," the compiler of the worst-dressed list who once described Tony Romo's main squeeze as a "global fashion ...

1803 The U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase . 1818 The United States and the United Kingdrom signed the Treaty of 1818 which, amon...

I had forgotten how edge-of-the-seat suspenseful a baseball game could be and I offer thanks to the Tampa Bay Rays and the Boston Red Sox fo...

Army four-star general and President Bush's former Secretary of State Colin Powell's endorsement yesterday of Barack Obama was not ...

Here's what my ballot for the Top 25 college football teams would like this week: 1. Texas (7-0) 2. Penn State (8-0) 3. Alabama (7-0)...

(Click on title to see trailer) Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008) ½* Surely there’s a more nuanced argument to be made in favor of ...

A restaurant franchise called Another Broken Egg is moving into the Casa Linda Shopping Center spot that was occupied by Eckerds. As its nam...

I've finally gotten around to reading Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize winning "The Road." I'm about a third of the wa...

539 BCE King Cyrus the Great of Persia marched into Babylon and released the Jews from almost 70 years in exile. 1091 A tornado hit London...

I took a tour of the newly renovated Cotton Bowl about a month ago and I have to admit I was impressed. Is it on the level of what's goi...

I'm not sure I completely comprehend this new A-11 offense , but what I gather is it is a further enhancement of the spread offense that...

The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner is an annual charity fund raiser for Catholic Charities, named in honor of the former governor of New Yo...

The United States, for decades, was the leader of the technological revolution. Not so much anymore. Starting in 2002, we imported more high...

It turns out that "Joe the Plumber," who really isn't a licensed plumber after all -- he just works for a plumbing company, wo...

In this year's edition of the Initial Bowl, TCU whupped up on previously undefeated BYU last night 32-7, ending the longest current unde...

GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whose been the subject of a withering imitation on "Saturday Night Live" by writer/...

No one, it turns out. After last night's debate in which the name Joe the Plumber was invoked enough times to qualify him for his own Di...

CNN has used this graph during the Presidential debates and the vice-presidential encounter to show the world how a group of 30 "undeci...

"Casino" is one of my least favorite Martin Scorsese films. For one thing, too much of it reminded me of "GoodFellas" re...

1793 Marie Antoinette was guillotined. 1859 John Brown led a raid on Harper's Ferry, W. Va. 1869 The Cardiff Giant hoax was exposed. ...