According to a recent Wall Street Journal blog post:

The number of Amish in North America has doubled since 1991 and their distinctive communities can now be found in Canada as well as 28 U.S. states, including unlikely ones like Texas and Maine.

The full article has an interesting chart with Amish population by state.

Wall Street Journal article (via neatorama)

Video link

Underground comic book pioneer, Harvey Pekar, died today. He was 70 years old. His most famous series “American Splendor” was an autobiographical chronicle that started in the late 70s and lasted several decades.

Actor, Paul Giamatti, played Pekar in the 2003 movie adaptation of Pekar’s “American Splendor.”

If you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s a pretty good movie.

Let’s go folks…hit me with some good captions for this ridiculous photo in the comments.

(photo via Digg images)

- Dave

Well-dressed and well-armed, these ladies were members of Drexel Institute’s girls rifle club (taken in Washington, DC).

The young lady on the right wearing the leopard coat looks dangerous (and probably a good shot).

According to some additional background on the team, the “Girls’ rifle team of Drexel Institute defeated a picked sharpshooter squad of Philadelphia police in a match.” Hammond, Indiana, Times, 25 February 1926.

(Original photo from Shorpy)

Amazing photo.

- Dave

Video link (via boingboing)

This young man is returning from the dentist after having had some teeth pulled and, more importantly, having anesthetic.

Some of my favorite lines are:

“Ahhhh I didn’t feel anything.”
“Is this real life?”
“I have two fingers.”
“You have four eyes.”
“Is this going to be forever?”

- Dave

Data visualizations fascinate me like fish tanks enthrall cats.  This is an interesting map of Walmart’s growth across the United States.  I think the designer choose to make the stores green dots on purpose…

What do you think?

Link to the dynamic map (requires Flash).

- Dave

35 women have held seats in the United States Senate since its inception.  The number of women in the Senate has more than doubled in the last 20 years.  I find it interesting that the majority of the women who have held seats in the Senate have been democrats (22 out of 35).

I’m not sure what, if anything, that says about our political landscape and the minds of voters in the United States.  Regardless, this wikipedia page has some very interesting data collected.

Link to Wikipedia

What do you think?

- Dave

Link (via BoingBoing)

From Wikipedia:

The origin of this custom has been much disputed. Many theories have been suggested.

What seems certain is that it is in some way or other a relic of those once universal festivities held at the vernal equinox, which, beginning on old New Year’s Day, the 25th of March, ended on the 2nd of April.

It has been suggested that Europe derived its April-fooling from the French. France was one of the first nations to make January 1 officially New Year’s Day (which was already celebrated by many), by decree of Charles IX. This was in 1564, even before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar (See Julian start of the year). Thus the New Year’s gifts and visits of felicitation which had been the feature of the 1st of April became associated with the first day of January, and those who disliked or did not hear about the change were fair game for those wits who amused themselves by sending mock presents and paying calls of pretended ceremony on the 1st of April. French and Dutch references from 1508 and 1539 respectively describe April Fools’ Day jokes and the custom of making them on the first of April.

So go out there and get somebody good.

-Dave

The New Yorker magazine online has some amazing photos of the bridges of New York City. You can see the collection of photos here.

The photo above makes me nervous just looking at it and I’m not really afraid of heights.

(Found at Digg under the design category)

-Dave