March 30, 2008
Leap Year: Human ingenuity compensating for nature’s mischievousness
Note: This was published on Leap Year Day in the Bolivar Herald-Free Press. They allow me to publish features they have published in other places 30 days after the original publication date. I would be most interested in any thoughts readers of this blog have about it.
Leap years exist because to synchronize our calendars to [...]
March 26, 2008
U.S. accidentally delivered nuclear missile components to Taiwan
The Pentagon made a public statement on Tuesday saying that four ICBM detonation fuses were accidentally delivered to Taiwan by the United States military back in 2006.
According to the Pentagon’s official statement, the Taiwanese government had purchased helicopter batteries from the U.S, but instead received four nose cone fuses by accident in the autumn of [...]
March 21, 2008
Republic of Molossia announces international summit
On March 18, President Kevin Baugh of the Republic of Molossia, a micronation located in Nevada, announced that his country would hold its first ever international summit this June.
The official visit will be from Grand Prince Christopher I and Princess Erin of the Principality of Vikesland, another micronation located in Canada.
Besides the meeting itself, which [...]
March 16, 2008
Crane levels New York City townhouse, leaving 4 dead
A construction crane fell from a New York City condominium on Saturday afternoon, demolishing a four-story townhouse and killing four construction workers.
At least ten people were injured in the accident, three of them critically, mayor Michael Bloomberg said. “This accident is one of the worst the city has had,” said the mayor. “Our thoughts go [...]
February 23, 2008
Silent Partners By Eugene Linden, Reviewed by Denise Noe
The third book written by Eugene Linden about the ape-language experiments, Silent Partners tells the rather depressing story of a scientific era that began with the highest of hopes and ended in a dismal snarl of ambiguity and recrimination. The book takes a special look at the fluctuating fates of the simian “partners” and [...]
Comments (3) Filed under: Book Review, Culture, Entertainment, Mayhem, Media, Politics, Psychology, Science & Nature, Society, Vox Populi, Weird — Denise Noe @ 2:11 pmFebruary 19, 2008
Moderate Muslims turning radical? by William J. Federer
Britain’s Daily Mail, Jan. 29, 2007, reported in the article “Multiculturalism drives young Muslims to shun British values”:
Multiculturalism has alienated an entire generation of young Muslims and made them increasingly radical, a report has found. In stark contrast with their parents, growing numbers sympathize with extreme teachings of Islam, with almost four in 10 wanting [...]
February 16, 2008
Does anyone know why Lucy Grantham of Last House On The Left did not continue her acting career?
I finally saw the 1972 film that has become a cult classic and did much to launch the popularity of the slasher film, Wes Craven’s notorious Last House on the Left. The DVD I watched had a special feature that included interviews with several of the principals from this movie.
Lucy Grantham’s performance as victim Phyllis [...]
February 10, 2008
Republican Jaundice by BJ Dickerson
I believe that it is likely that many MND readers are GOP members. Therefore, I am posting this poem by BJ Dickerson that may express feelings that are common to readers of this website. Her poem was previously published in Time for Rhyme.
Republican Jaundice
By
BJ Dickerson
I despise
snakes
and
rats
and
Democrats.
February 6, 2008
Raptor Red by Robert T. Bakker: A novel through the eyes of a dinosaur
Reviewed by Denise Noe
Set 120 million years ago, Robert T. Bakker’s Raptor Red is science fiction of a special sort: fiction with a completely scientific base. There are no time-traveling humans or Disneyfied “talking” critters. It is about life as it might actually have been lived in the early Cretaceous period.
Raptor Red tells [...]
February 2, 2008
Was there a conspiracy in the infamous murder mystery of Andrew and Abby Borden?
Author’s Note: This was originally published in The Hatchet: The Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies.
The Borden case continues to intrigue over a century after the fact because there is so much that seems to point unmistakably to Lizzie Borden’s guilt – and important facts that appear to make that guilt utterly impossible.
Behavior prior to the [...]
January 31, 2008
International manhunt for alleged kidney harvester
While the involuntary harvesting of human kidneys may have been relegated to urban legend in the Western world, a raid in India has shown the practice is real and has triggered an international manhunt.
On January 24, police raided a clinic in Gurgaon, a satellite city of Delhi with two million inhabitants, and found that poor [...]
January 23, 2008
Texas UFOs were actually jets, Air Force says
The strange lights seen by dozens of Stephenville, Texas residents on the night of January 8 are now believed to have been F-16 fighter jets, according to a statement released by the Air Force Reserve.
The press release states that ten F-16s from the Joint Reserve Base Naval Air Station in Fort Worth were on a [...]
January 15, 2008
UFO sightings reported in Texas town
Dozens of people in the Texas town of Stephenville have reported seeing strange objects in the night sky last week, which many believe to be a UFO.
The eyewitnesses, who include a pilot, business owners, and the county constable, all claim to have seen a large, silent object with bright, flashing lights flying low and fast [...]
January 13, 2008
2007 Darwin Award winners announced
Recipients of 2007’s Darwin Awards were announced last week, representing the stories of people who are killed or otherwise rendered sterile after committing an “astounding misapplication of judgment.”
One of this year’s top winners was “What Goes Up Must Come Down” which received an 8.0 rating and 8929 votes. The tale concerns a couple in South [...]
January 10, 2008
How Snow White inspired me
When I checked a collection of fairy tales out from Bookears, I had a sense that something in there would provoke thought. Sure enough, the story of Snow White did.
I heard once again about the Queen looking into the magic mirror and asking, Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?
Although [...]
January 7, 2008
Texas man arrested for murder after preparing cannibal feast
Christopher Lee McCuin, 25, from Tyler, Texas in the United States has been arrested after police found him possibly preparing to eat the body parts of his dead girlfriend, Jana Shearer aged 21. He was also charged with stabbing his ex-wife’s boyfriend, William Veasley, 42.
According to reports, Shearer’s mother was told by McCuin to “look [...]
January 5, 2008
What WAS that Forbidden Fruit that Eve found so irresistible?
The Bible never tells us what the Forbidden Fruit was. We only know that, after some prodding by the infamous serpent, Eve gave into the temptation to eat it even though she had been told that the consequences of doing so would be death.
Despite the Biblical silence on the question of what the fruit was, [...]
January 4, 2008
Vixen! The soft porn film that created an unforgettable character
Made in 1968 by “King of the Nudies” Russ Meyer, Vixen! is a soft porn film that can stick in the mind afterward not just for its hot sex scenes but for the extraordinary qualities of its protagonist Vixen (yes, it’s her name) Palmer.
The movie opens with breathtakingly beautiful film of what a narrator [...]
December 12, 2007
Echoes of Lizzie in Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte
An earlier version of this essay was published in The Lizzie Borden Quarterly, a magazine that is no longer publishing.
I saw Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte and I was struck at the similarities between the film’s story and the Lizzie Borden case.
1. The wealthy family.
2. The central position of the father (as protector [...]
December 8, 2007
Sex tape starring former ‘American Idol’ finalist Jessica Sierra leaked to porn company
A celebrity sex tape starring former American Idol finalist Jessica Sierra has been leaked to an internet pornography company, who is reportedly planning to release it.
Sierra made her fame as a finalist on the 2005 season of American Idol, in which she finished fourth. The new tape is reported to show her in a number [...]
