Via Telegraph.co.uk

Never before has the U.S. national debt grown at such a pace. It grew by one trillion in 2008. Estimates put 2009 growth at three trillion. That’s comparable to the growth of public debt accrued throughout the entire first half of this decade – in one year! One quarter of our ENTIRE U.S. national debt will be accumulated just in 2009; ie. It took about 99 years to reach the nine trillion mark. And one year on top of that to reach (and exceed) the 12 trillion mark.

The documentary I.O.U.S.A. details the national debt and what it means for average Americans.

Noone’s quite sure what it was – a comet, possibly – but some large object has plunged into Jupiter, leaving behind a scar-like blemish on its southern region. Apparently, an amateur astronomer first saw the blemish and alerted NASA which confirmed and published the story. The above image was captured just yesterday by one of NASA’s infrared telescopes in Hawaii.

I just found a few more reasons never to set foot in another airplane. In August of 2006, a cargo flight enroute to Minneapolis from Calgary slammed headfirst into a fast moving lightning and hail storm, at 35000 feet. The resulting damage looks intense, with the cockpit windows mostly cracked and the radome of the airliner blown apart. After partially losing electricity and radar, the pilots declared an emergency, returning to Calgary in what is reported as an uneventful landing. How the pilots landed this thing I’ll never know.

See more: Hail storm at 35000 feet

Yikes, a driver going down a highway was in for a bit of a shock (har har, get it?) one stormy afternoon, when suddenly, poof, their car became one hulking mass of lightning rod. Unfortunately, the video ends shortly after the blast, but, it doesn’t appear to have caused major damage, at least to the car, I would imagine a few years were taken off the driver’s life.

The Hindenburg disaster is one of the most well-known and well-documented air disasters on record, with live video and audio footage available from the very moment the disaster occurred in 1937. The Hindenburg was the pride of Pre-WWII Germany, and was one of the largest aircraft ever built (the length of 3 Boeing 747 end on end!). The true cause of the crash is not known to this day, with many theories present, from sabotage to lightening to static electricity causing the giant zeppelin to explode mysteriously while landing in New Jersey after one of the many trans-atlantic flights the Hindenburg performed.

Watch original video of the (silent) newsreel shown in theaters after the incident after the jump..

Read more: Hindenburg information @ Wikipedia

I’m not a fan of pain, or even death, which is why I prefer to avoid amusement parks and more specifically, their rides. As a kid I loved riding roller-coasters and basically everything else you could find in an amusement park, but, now things are a bit different and my fear of these aging mechanical contraptions is getting stronger. I thank the most comprehensive and (extremely) detailed database/web-blog of amusement park ride accident reports and news on the internet, RideAccidents.com for confirming my suspicions of these things. RideAccidents.com is a site that features detailed reports on amusement park and carnival ride accidents from around the world, including photographs and even court documents in some cases. While not affiliated with any government agents or consumer advocacy group, rideaccidents.com is certainly doing right by tracking the performance of an industry in a level-headed and informative fashion while not cashing into the morbidity of it all.

[RideAccidents.com]

I will never fall asleep tonight. If you’re like me and not a big fan of things with more than 4 legs that can hang from a ceiling and possibly kill you, then I’d suggest not watching this video. Deep in the caves of Venezuela, David Attenborough found a giant centipede, which appears to live off of bats. Yes, a centipede large enough to catch, kill and eat a bat. Watch the video after the jump, while I head out to buy a few cans of bug spray.

[Giant bat-eating centipede video @ YouTube]

Bunnies are cute little critters, I think everyone can agree on that. Right? Right? What about bunny yawns? I think that’s where we start to enter a grey area. Apparently, a yawning bunny on film is a rare thing, since, rabbit yawns are around 1-2 seconds long, making them rather difficult to actually catch on film. Enter Talking Egg and their collection of bunny yawning photos as well as videos! I have to admit, I’m warming up to the site of a yawning bunny on film, like the photo I HAD to post below, but some of these little crits look like they’re about to eat someone, Summer School style.

[Photos of bunnies yawning]

Liz over at the amazingly cool WFMU radio in New York has posted an article full of spooky (at least we think so) classic ice cream truck jingles in downloadable MP3 format. You know, those songs you’d love to hear coming down your street while simultaneously panicking at the thought that your dad couldn’t get a dollar out of his wallet fast enough for you to run out and buy that bomb-pop? Unfortunately listening to them today, they just make me think of that scary clown monster from Stephen King’s IT mini-series (Tim Curry in clown makeup!), but, maybe some of you will be able to re-live some fond memories of hot summer days with a sticky melting ice-cream in your paws.

Read more: Ice cream truck music