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TV reporting...dangerous

On The New Republic's blog, The Plank, today, Michael Crowley hits us with this posting: 'A Fox News correspondent just reported from the scene of the latest California wildfire about one unlucky local resident: "He lost everything but his dog, and his wife."' Don't get me wrong, that elicited a guffaw. Maybe even a chuckle. But then I gots to thinking that reporting at a scene of a wildfire or a hurricane or a tsunami or an earthquake (or all of these at once, like Anderson Cooper does) is pretty... READ ON

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Just when you thought it was safe...

...to let the chicken die, Reuters reports today that an egg has been laid with the word "Allah" inscribed on its shell. I know, I know, it sounds like the Onion, not a world leader in news. Here it is, then, straight from the horse, er, chicken's mouth: "Our mosque confirmed that it says 'Allah' in Arabic," Bites Amantayeva, a farmer from the village of Stepnoi in eastern Kazakhstan, told state news agency Kazinform. "We'll keep this egg and we don't think it'll go bad." The news... READ ON

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Is this dress brown, or is it green?

Say what you will about eco-warrior Alex Martin, for the past year she hasn't once looked in her closet and thought "I have nothing to wear." That's because every single day from July 7, 2005 to July 7, 2006, she wore the same item of clothing -- a homemade little brown dress: The project is influenced in part by the art/anti-fashion movement "Grey Sweatsuit Revolution", in which participants attend a social event or public gathering wearing un-flattering sweatsuits as a statement against... READ ON

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You can't keep a good man down

Minggu Mang anak Madang recently described himself to Malaysian newspapers as being "the living dead," but don't worry, he's not about to terrorize y'all's neighborhood: Official records show that Minggu Mang anak Madang passed away from head injuries in the town of Bintulu in the eastern state of Sarawak on January 18, 2002, and was buried. But Minggu Mang, 40, says that he is alive and rallying for years to show to authorities he was not dead. ... He said he found out that he was proclaimed dead when he... READ ON

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Somewhere Over the Lightning

Were I a shepherd tending to my flock 4000 years ago, this is the kind of natural phenomenon that would have turned me into a scribe or an oracle, verily I say unto thee. According to The Daily Mail, a clash of rainbow and lightning "was seen above the affluent city of Fort Smith, in the Southern state Arkansas" yesterday"¦ "as two of nature's most spectacular phenomena created an unusual alliance." Check out the awe-inspiring photos... READ ON

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Tiny brain-computer used to help paralyzed patients

ScienceDaily has a fascinating article about research being done to help paralyzed patients. A multi-institutional team of researchers has found that people with long-standing, severe paralysis can generate signals in the area of the brain responsible for voluntary movement and these signals can be detected, recorded, routed out of the brain to a computer and converted into actions -- enabling a paralyzed patient to perform basic... READ ON

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There's a reason his name is one letter away from "Gigli"

Jim Guigli, a retiree from Carmichael (no relation), California, is the winner of this year's Bulwer-Lytton bad writing contest, named after the dashing gent pictured at left, who gave us "It was a dark and stormy night:" Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you... READ ON

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Here Chikichicky

Because you know these chicken facts will come in handy later.... The longest recorded flight time of a chicken is 13 seconds. A chicken that just lost its head can run the length of a football field before dropping dead. If you have Alektorophobia, you are afraid of chickens. (Note: If you do, indeed, suffer from this terrible affliction, and want a good site for treatment, check this out. It is, quite possibly, the most unusual website you'll ever click across.) Amount of light is what... READ ON

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Okay, I'm declaring it Official Pirate Day

Not to be confused with International Talk Like a Pirate Day, which isn't for another two months. Anyway, since lately I seem to do nothing but look up POTC: DMC-related trivia, I thought I'd try to find out who the basis was for Bill Nighy's nefarious cephalopod-person, Davy Jones. Trouble is, no one knows where the original "Davy Jones" (or for that matter his locker) came from: One legend suggests that a particularly fiendish pub owner named David Jones used to incapacitate hapless drinkers in his... READ ON