Bayard Rustin

Bayard Rustin (March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an African-American civil rights activist, important largely behind the scenes in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and earlier and principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He counseled Martin Luther King, Jr. on the techniques of nonviolent resistance. Rustin was openly gay and advocated on behalf of gay and lesbian causes in the latter part of his career.

A year before his death in 1987, Rustin said: "The barometer of where one is on human rights questions is no longer the black community, it's the gay community. Because it is the community which is most easily mistreated."

Louis Slotin and "Tickling the Dragon's Tail"

In May 1946, Slotin, among others, was in a laboratory doing an experiment that involved creation of the beginning of the fission reaction by placing two half-spheres of beryllium (a neutron reflector) around a plutonium core. The experiment was nicknamed "tickling the dragon's tail" after a remark by Richard Feynman that it was "tickling the tail of a sleeping dragon" due to its flirtations with nuclear chain reaction. Slotin grasped the upper beryllium hemisphere with his left hand through a thumb hole at the top while he maintained the separation of the half-spheres by a blade of a screwdriver with his right hand, having removed the shims normally used. Using a screwdriver was not a normal part of the experimental protocol.

Nine months previously on August 21, 1945, the same 6.2 kg plutonium core (later nicknamed the "demon core" because of these accidents) had produced a burst of ionizing radiation that caused lethal radiation poisoning to Harry Daghlian, an experimentor who had made a mistake while working alone doing neutron reflection experiments on it. This core, subject to experiments so shortly after the end of the war, had probably been the intended core for the 3rd nuclear weapon never used on Japan.

On May 21, the screwdriver slipped, the upper beryllium hemisphere fell and caused a "prompt critical" reaction, resulting in a burst of hard radiation. The "blue glow" of air ionization was observed and a "heat wave" was felt by the scientists in the room. Slotin instinctively jerked his left hand upward, lifting the upper beryllium hemisphere and dropping it to the floor. He exposed himself to a lethal dose (around 2100 rems, or 21 Sv) of neutron and gamma radiation, in history's second criticality accident. In addition to the blue glow and heat, Slotin experienced a sour taste in his mouth and an intense burning sensation in his left hand. As soon as Slotin left the building, he vomited, a common reaction from exposure to extremely intense ionizing radiation. The official line was that Slotin, by quickly removing the upper hemisphere, was a hero for ending the critical reaction and protecting seven other observers in the room. The official release from the authorities while Slotin was dying in the hospital after the accident was: "Dr. Slotin's quick reaction at the immediate risk of his own life prevented a more serious development of the experiment which would certainly have resulted in the death of the seven men working with him, as well as serious injury to others in the general vicinity." The designation as a hero is moderated by criticisms (from, for example, Robert B. Brode) that the accident was avoidable and that Slotin was not using proper procedures, endangering the others in the lab along with himself

Claudette Colvin

Claudette Colvin (born September 5, 1939) is a African American woman from Alabama. In 1955, at the age of 15, she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white person, in violation of local law. Her arrest preceded civil rights activist Rosa Parks' (on December 1, 1955) by nine months.

At the time, Colvin was a student at Booker T. Washington High School. Colvin's family didn't own a car, so she relied on the city's gold-and-green buses to get to school. On March 2, 1955, she boarded a public bus and, shortly thereafter, refused to give up her seat to a white man. Colvin was coming home from school that day when she got on a Capital Heights bus downtown at the same place Parks boarded another bus months later. Colvin was sitting about two seats from the emergency exit when four whites boarded and the driver ordered her, along with three other black passengers, to get up. She refused and was removed from the bus by two police officers, who took her to jail.

"The bus was getting crowded and I remember him (the bus driver) looking through the rear view mirror asking her to get up out of her seat, which she didn't," said a classmate at the time, Annie Larkins Price. "She didn't say anything. She just continued looking out the window. She decided on that day that she wasn't going to move."

Price testified on Colvin's behalf in the juvenile court case, where Colvin was convicted of violating the segregation law and assault. "There was no assault," Price said.

Colvin had been handcuffed, arrested and forcibly removed from the bus. She screamed that her constitutional rights were being violated. At the time, Colvin was active in the NAACP's Youth Council, and she was actually being advised by Rosa Parks.

Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male

The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male[1] also known as theThe Tuskegee Syphilis Study, Pelkola Syphilis Study, Public Health Service Syphilis Study or the Tuskegee Experiments was a clinical study, conducted between 1932 and 1972 in Tuskegee, Alabama, in which 399 (plus 200 control group without syphilis) poor -- and mostly illiterate -- African American sharecroppers were denied treatment for Syphilis.

This study became notorious because it was conducted without due care to its subjects, and led to major changes in how patients are protected in clinical studies. Individuals enrolled in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study did not give informed consent and were not informed of their diagnosis; instead they were told they had "bad blood" and could receive free medical treatment, rides to the clinic, meals and burial insurance in case of death in return for participating.[2]

In 1932, when the study started, standard treatments for syphilis were toxic, dangerous, and of questionable effectiveness. Part of the original goal of the study was to determine if patients were better off not being treated with these toxic remedies.

By 1947, penicillin had become the standard treatment for syphilis. Prior to this discovery, syphilis frequently led to a chronic, painful and fatal multisystem disease. Rather than treat all syphilitic subjects with penicillin and close the study, or split off a control group for testing penicillin; the Tuskegee scientists withheld penicillin and information about penicillin, purely to continue to study how the disease spreads and kills. Participants were also prevented from accessing syphilis treatment programs that were available to other people in the area. The study continued until 1972, when a leak to the press resulted in its termination.

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, cited as "arguably the most infamous biomedical research study in U.S. history",[3] led to the 1979 Belmont Report, the establishment of the National Human Investigation Board, and the requirement for establishment of Institutional Review Boards.

Operation Northwoods

Operation Northwoods, or Northwoods, was a 1962 plan by the US Department of Defense to cause acts of terrorism and violence on US soil or against US interests, blamed on Cuba, in order to generate U.S. public support for military action against the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. As part of the U.S. government's Operation Mongoose anti-Castro initiative, the plan, which was not implemented, called for various false flag actions, including simulated or real state-sponsored acts of terrorism (such as hijacked planes) on U.S. and Cuban soil. The plan was proposed by senior U.S. Department of Defense leaders, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lyman Louis Lemnitzer.

The main proposal was presented in a document entitled "Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba (TS)," a collection of draft memoranda written by the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) representative to the Caribbean Survey Group.[1] (The parenthetical "TS" in the title of the document is an initialism for "Top Secret.") The document was presented by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13 with one paragraph approved, as a preliminary submission for planning purposes.

The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever

Three gods A, B, and C are called, in some order, True, False, and Random. True always speaks truly, False always speaks falsely, but whether Random speaks truly or falsely is a completely random matter. Your task is to determine the identities of A, B, and C by asking three yes-no questions; each question must be put to exactly one god. The gods understand English, but will answer all questions in their own language, in which the words for yes and no are 'da' and 'ja', in some order. You do not know which word means which.

Lechuguilla Cave

Lechuguilla Cave is, as of 2006, the sixth longest cave (120 mi, or 193 km) known to exist in the world, and the deepest in the continental United States (489 m, or 1604 ft), but it is most famous for its unusual geology, rare formations, and pristine condition.

Lechuguilla Cave was known until 1986 as a small, fairly insignificant historic site in the park's backcountry. Small amounts of bat guano were mined from the entrance passages for a year under a mining claim filed in 1914. The historic cave contained a 90-foot (27 m) entrance pit which led to 400 feet (120 m) of dry dead-end passages.[1]

The cave was visited infrequently after mining activities ceased. However, in the 1950s cavers heard wind roaring up from the rubble-choked floor of the cave. Although there was no obvious route, different people concluded that cave passages lay below the rubble. A group of Colorado cavers gained permission from the National Park Service and began digging in 1984. The breakthrough, into large walking passages, occurred on May 26, 1986.[1]

Since 1984, explorers have mapped 118 miles of passages and have pushed the depth of the cave to 1604 feet (489 m), ranking Lechuguilla as the 6th longest cave in the world (4th longest in the United States) and the deepest limestone cave in the country. Cavers, drawn by the caves' pristine condition and rare beauty, come from around the world to explore and map its geology.

History of the Gadsden Flag

In fall 1775, the U.S. Navy was established to intercept incoming British ships carrying war supplies to the British troops in the colonies. To aid in this, the Second Continental Congress authorized the mustering of five companies of Marines to accompany the Navy on their first mission. The first Marines that enlisted were from Philadelphia and they carried drums painted yellow, depicting a coiled rattlesnake with thirteen rattles, and the motto "Dont Tread On Me." This was the first mention of the Gadsden flag's symbolism.

At the Congress, Continental Colonel Christopher Gadsden was representing his home state of South Carolina. He was one of three members of the Marine Committee who were outfitting the first naval mission. It is unclear whether Gadsden took his inspiration from the Marine's drums, or if he inspired them himself.

Colony Collapse Disorder

Colony Collapse Disorder (or CCD) is a poorly understood phenomenon involving the massive die-off of a beehive or bee colony. CCD is alternatively referenced as Vanishing Bee Syndrome (VBS)[1]. Apparently, CCD was originally found only in colonies of the Western honey bee in North America[2], but European beekeepers have recently claimed to be observing a similar phenomenon in Poland, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, with initial reports coming in from Switzerland and Germany, albeit to a smaller degree[3]. The cause (or causes) of the syndrome is not yet well understood and even the existence of this disorder remains disputed. Theories include environmental change-related stresses[4], malnutrition, unknown pathogens (i.e., disease[5]), mites, pesticides such as neonicotinoids, emissions from cellular phones or other manmade devices,[6] and genetically modified (GM) crops[7]. That the disappearances have only been reported from a subset of the commercial beekeepers in affected areas (i.e., not feral colonies or "organic" beekeepers), suggests to some that beekeeping practices are a primary factor[8].

The Interrobang

The interrobang is a rarely used, nonstandard English-language punctuation mark intended to combine the functions of a question mark and an exclamation mark. The typographical character resembles those marks superimposed one over the other, and the name interrobang comes from interro - from interrogative - and bang - used to amplify the exclamation. In informal writing, the same effect is achieved by placing the exclamation point after or before the question mark; e.g., "How could you do such a thing?!"

American Martin K. Speckter concocted the interrobang in 1962. As the head of an advertising agency, Speckter believed that advertisements would look better if advertising copywriters conveyed surprised queries using a single mark. He proposed the concept of a single punctuation mark in an article in the magazine TYPEtalks. Speckter solicited possible names for the new character from readers. Contenders included rhet, exclarotive, and exclamaquest, but he settled on interrobang. He chose the name to reference the punctuation marks that inspired it.

The World's Steepest Street

Baldwin Street, in a quiet suburban part of New Zealand's southern city of Dunedin, is reputed to be the world's steepest street. It is located in the suburb of North East Valley, 3.5 kilometres northeast of Dunedin's city centre.

A short straight street of some 350 metres length, Baldwin Street runs east from the valley of the Lindsay Creek up the side of Signal Hill. Its lower reaches are of only moderate steepness, and the surface is asphalt, but the upper reaches of this cul-de-sac are far steeper, and surfaced in concrete, for ease of maintenance (tar seal would flow down the slope on a warm day) and for safety in Dunedin's frosty winters. At its maximum, the slope of Baldwin Street is approximately 1:2.86 (19° or 35%) - that is, for every 2.86 metres travelled horizontally, the elevation rises by 1 metre.

Famous Cases of Art Theft

Quedlinburg medieval artifacts (1945)

In 1945, an American soldier and former art teacher Joe Meandor stole 12 medieval artifacts found in a cave near Quedlinburg which had been hidden by local members of the clergy from Nazi looters in 1943.

Returning to the United States, the artifacts remained in Meandor's possession until his death in 1980, making no attempt to sell them. When his older brothers attempted to sell a 9th century manuscript and 16th century prayerbook from Meandor's collection in 1996, the two were arrested. However, the charges were dismissed after it was declared the statute of limitations had expired.

Wikifight Over Size of Porn Star's Penis

Cryptomnesia

Cryptomnesia, or "concealed recollection," is the name for a theoretical phenomenon involving suppressed or 'forgotten' memories. It refers to cases where (apparently) a person believes that he or she is creating or inventing something new, such as a story, poem, artwork, or joke, but is actually recalling a similar or identical work which he or she has previously encountered. According to the theory of cryptomnesia, the person is not engaging in plagiarism, but is rather experiencing a memory as if it were inspiration. Proponents of the cryptomnesia phenomenon believe it is possibly a means of recalling to mind certain experiences that one otherwise would not remember.

Iron Eyes Cody

Iron Eyes Cody (April 3, 1904 – January 4, 1999) was an actor born in Kaplan, Louisiana. He was born Espera De Corti, the son of Sicilian immigrants Francesca Salpietra and Antonio De Corti. He was not born a Native American, but he claimed to be part Cherokee and part Cree. Cody and his wife Bertha Parker adopted children that were Native American. Cody began his acting career at the age of 12 and continued to work until the time of his death. In 1996, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported his Sicilian heritage, but Cody denied it.

He appeared in more than 200 films including A Man Called Horse (1970) and Ernest Goes to Camp in 1987. However, he's most famous for his "Crying Indian" role in the Keep America Beautiful public service announcement in the early 1970's, an ecology commercial in which he sheds a tear after some trash is thrown from a speeding car and lands at his feet.

List of Fictional Democrats and Republicans

Shakespeare Apocrypha

In his own lifetime, Shakespeare saw only about half of his plays enter print. Some individual plays were published in quarto, a small, cheap format. In 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death, his fellow actors John Heminges and Henry Condell put together a collection of his complete plays. Heminges and Condell were in a position to compile Shakespeare's complete plays, because they, like Shakespeare, worked for the King's Men, the London theatre company that produced all of Shakespeare's plays (in Elizabethan England, plays belonged to the company that performed them, not the dramatist who had written them).

It ought to be simple, therefore, to say what Shakespeare wrote, and what he did not: the plays that were included in the First Folio must be by Shakespeare, and those that were excluded must be by someone else. After all, Heminges and Condell were in a better position to know what Shakespeare wrote than subsequent scholars or secondhand sources.

However, there are a number of complications that have created the concept of the Shakespeare Apocrypha. The Apocrypha can be categorized under the following headings.

List of company name etymologies

3Com — Network technology producer; the three coms are computer, communication, and compatibility.

A&W Root Beer — named after founders Roy Allen and Frank Wright

Coca-Cola — derived from the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring. Coca-Cola creator John S. Pemberton changed the 'K' of kola to 'C' to make the name look better.

Pepsi — named from the digestive enzyme pepsin.

The Bath School Disaster

The Bath School disaster is the name given to three bombings in Bath Township, Michigan, USA, on May 18, 1927, which killed 45 people and injured 58. Most of the victims were children in second to sixth grades attending the Bath Consolidated School. Their deaths constitute the deadliest act of mass murder in a school in U.S. history. The perpetrator was school board member Andrew Kehoe, who was upset by a property tax that had been levied to fund the construction of the school building. He blamed the additional tax for financial hardships which led to foreclosure proceedings against his farm. These events apparently provoked Kehoe to plan his attack.

The 27 Club

The "27 Club" is a popular culture reference to a group of several rock, and blues musicians, who experienced a successful career that was cut short by a drug-related death at age 27.

Virginia Tech's Killer's Wikipedia Page

Banned in the USA

The Profit is a feature film written and directed by Peter N. Alexander in 2001. Little seen, it is notable primarily because worldwide distribution of the film is prohibited by an American court order, the result of a lawsuit by the Church of Scientology.

The Profit is one of only two films currently banned in the United States. The other film is Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, for copyright infringement.

Notwithstanding the fictional elements of the film, the Church of Scientology took legal action against the film makers after a handful of test screenings in Florida. The Church claimed that the film was intended to influence the jury pool in the wrongful death case of a Scientologist, Lisa McPherson, who died while in the care of the Church of Scientology in Clearwater, Florida.

Prior to the legal actions taken by the Church of Scientology, spokesman Ben Shaw agreed with the film's director that "the movie is fiction and has nothing to do with Scientology."[1]

In response to the lawsuit, Pinellas County, Florida, Judge Robert Beach issued a court order in April 2002 banning The Profit from worldwide distribution for an indefinite period. As of 2006, the ban still stands; the film has yet to be released to the public.

William Kemmler

Witnesses remarked Kemmler was composed at his execution; he did not scream, cry or resist in any way. He sat down on the chair, but was ordered up by the warden, Charles Durston, so a hole could be cut in his suit, through which second lead of electricity could be attached. This was done, and then Kemmler sat down again. He was strapped at the chair, his face was covered and the metal restraint put on his bare head, saying "Take it easy and do it properly, I'm in no hurry." Durston replied "Goodbye William" and ordered the switch thrown.

The generator was charged with the 1,000 volts, which was assumed to be adequate to induce quick unconsciousness and heart stoppage. The chair had already been thoroughly tested; a horse had been successfully electrocuted the day before.

Kemmler was electrocuted for 17 seconds. Witnesses reported the smell of burning flesh and several nauseated spectators fled the room. The power was turned off and Kemmler was declared dead.

However, witnesses noticed Kemmler was still breathing. The attending physicians, Dr. Edward Charles Spitzka and Dr. Carlos F. Macdonald, came forward to examine Kemmler. After confirming Kemmler was still alive, Spitzka reportedly called out, "Have the current turned on again, quick — no delay."

In the second attempt, Kemmler was shocked with 2,000 volts. Blood vessels under the skin ruptured and bled and his body caught fire.

In all, the entire execution took approximately eight minutes. Westinghouse later commented: "They would have done better using an axe." A reporter who witnessed it also said it was "an awful spectacle, far worse than hanging."

List of Fictional Diseases

Bendii syndrome A degenerative and incurable fatal neurological disease that occasionally strikes elderly Vulcans. The symptoms include most notably loss of emotional control and victims with strong telepathic abilities can involuntarily affect the emotions of other humanoids.

List of British words not widely used in the United States

List of Unusual Personal Names

A list of non-fictional people with unusual names, listed alphabetically by first name (even in the infrequent case where the middle or last name is the unusual one).

Thomas Crapper Did Not Invent The Flush Toilet

Crapper was born in Waterside, Yorkshire (near Thorne), in September 1836 (the exact date is unknown). His father Charles was a steamboat captain. At the age of 14, Crapper was apprenticed to a master plumber in Chelsea, London. After his apprenticeship and three years as a journeyman plumber, in 1861 he founded his own company at Robert Street, Chelsea. In 1866 he moved the business to nearby Marlborough Road (now part of Draycott Avenue).

Thomas Crapper did not invent the flush toilet — credit is usually given to Sir John Harington in 1596, with Alexander Cummings' 1775 toilet regarded as the first of the modern line — but he did popularise it. He was a shrewd businessman, salesman and self-publicist. In a time when bathroom fixtures were barely spoken of, he heavily promoted sanitary plumbing and pioneered the concept of the bathroom fittings showroom.

The Ding Hai Effect

The theory goes that whenever the Hong Kong actor Adam Cheng stars in a new television show, there is a sudden drop in the market. No reason is given for this effect, and it is still a popular topic amongst stock brokers, years after the drama series Greed of Man was broadcast in Hong Kong in 1993. The effect is named after Ding Hai, the main character of the show, played by Adam Cheng.

Wikipedia's Entry on Star Wars Music

The scores utilize an eclectic variety of musical styles, many culled from the Late Romantic idiom of Richard Strauss and his contemporaries that itself was incorporated into the Golden Age Hollywood scores of Erich Korngold and Max Steiner. While several obvious nods to Holst, Walton and Stravinsky exist in the score to Episode IV, Williams relied less and less on classical references in the latter five scores, incorporating more strains of modernist orchestral writing with each progressive score. The reasons for Williams' tapping of a familiar Romantic idiom are known to involve Lucas' desire to ground the otherwise strange and fantastic setting in well-known, audience-accessible music. Indeed, much of the trilogy's success relies not on advanced visual effects, but on the simple, direct emotional appeal of its plot, characters and, importantly, music.

Project MKULTRA

Headed by Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, MKULTRA was started on the order of CIA director Allen Dulles on April 13, 1953[5], largely in response to alleged Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean use of mind-control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war in Korea.[6] The CIA wanted to use similar methods on their own captives. The CIA was also interested in being able to manipulate foreign leaders with such techniques[7], and would later invent several schemes to drug Fidel Castro.

In 1964, the project was renamed MKSEARCH. The project attempted to produce a perfect truth drug for use in interrogating suspected Soviet spies during the Cold War, and generally to explore any other possibilities of mind control.

Because most of the MKULTRA records were deliberately destroyed in 1972 by order of the Director at that time, Richard Helms, it is impossible to have a complete understanding of the more than 150 individually funded research projects sponsored by MKULTRA and related CIA programs.

Edgardo Mortara

On the evening of 23 June 1858, in the central Italian city of Bologna, police of the Papal States, of which Bologna was then part, arrived at the home of a Jewish couple, Salomone ("Momolo") and Marianna Padovani Mortara, to seize one of their eight children, six-year-old Edgardo, and transport him to Rome to be raised by the Catholic church.

The police had orders from the authorities in Rome, authorised by Pope Pius IX. Church officials had been told that a Catholic servant girl of the Mortaras, Anna Morisi, had baptized Edgardo while he was ill because she feared that he would otherwise die and go to Hell. Under the law of the Papal States, Edgardo's baptism, even if illegal, was valid, and made him a Christian. Jews could not legally raise a Christian child, even their own. In 1912, in his relation in favor of the beatification of Pope Pius IX, Edgardo himself noted that the laws of the Papal States did not allow Catholics to work in the homes of Jewish families.[1] That law was widely disregarded.

Edgardo was taken to a house for Catholic converts in Rome, maintained by taxes levied on Jews. His parents were not allowed to see him for several weeks, and then not alone. Pius IX took a personal interest in the case, and all appeals to the Church were rebuffed. Church authorities told the Mortaras that they could have Edgardo back if they converted to Catholicism, but they refused.

List of Fictional Diseases

Ontological Paradox

An ontological paradox is a paradox of time travel that is often used as a convention in science fiction. It is very closely related to the predestination paradox and usually occurs at the same time.

Because of the possibility of influencing the past while time travelling, one way of explaining why history does not change is by saying that whatever has happened was meant to happen. A time traveller attempting to alter the past in this model, intentionally or not, would only be fulfilling his role in creating history, not changing it. The Novikov self-consistency principle proposes that contradictory causal loops cannot form, but that consistent ones can.

However, a scenario can occur where items or information are passed from the future to the past, which then become the same items or information that are subsequently passed back. This not only creates a loop, but a situation where these items have no discernible origin.

The paradox raises the ontological questions of where, when and by whom the items were created or the information derived. Time loop logic operates on similar principles, sending the solutions to computation problems back in time to be checked for correctness without ever being computed "originally."

List of Faux Pas

While it is acceptable for men to shake hands in greetings, women are only permitted to nod.

Eating of rice should be done with only the right hand.

The American thumbs up gesture is considered obscene.

Closing one's eyes during a meal is said to invite demonic possession of the hosts.

The Wikipedia Knowledge Dump

The Russian Reversal

Russian reversal is a type of joke by Yakov Smirnoff which frequently appears in many online communities, in particular Slashdot. The general form of the Soviet Russia joke is that the subject and objects of a statement are reversed, and “In Soviet Russia,� or something equivalent, is added. For example:

In the US, you can catch a cold.
In Soviet Russia, cold catches YOU!!

List of Confidence Tricks

The Fiddle Game is a variation on the pigeon drop. A pair of con men work together, one going into an expensive restaurant in shabby clothes, eating, and claiming to have left his wallet at home, which is nearby. As collateral, the con man leaves his only worldly possession, the violin that provides his livelihood. After he leaves, the second con man swoops in, offers an outrageously large amount (for example, $50,000) for such a rare instrument, then looks at his watch and runs off to an appointment, leaving his card for the mark to call him when the fiddle-owner returns. The mark's greed comes into play when the "poor man" comes back, having gotten the money to pay for his meal and redeem his violin. The mark, thinking he has an offer on the table, then buys the violin from the fiddle player (who "reluctantly" sells it eventually for, say, $5,000). The result is the two con men are $5,000 richer (less the cost of the violin), and the mark is left with a cheap instrument. (This trick is also detailed in the Neil Gaiman novel American Gods and is the basis for The Streets' song Can't Con an Honest John.)

The glasses drop is a scam in which the scammer will intentionally bump into the mark and drop a pair of glasses that have already been broken. He will claim that the glasses were broken by the clumsiness of the mark, and demand money to replace them.

Psychic surgery is a con game in which the trickster uses sleight of hand to pretend to remove bits of malignant growths from the mark's body. A common form of medical fraud in underdeveloped countries, it imperils the victims, who may fail to seek competent medical attention. (The movie Man on the Moon depicts comedian Andy Kaufman undergoing psychic surgery.)

The Spanish Prisoner scam, and its modern variant, the Nigerian money transfer fraud, take advantage of the victim's greed. The basic premise involves enlisting the mark to aid in retrieving some stolen money from its hiding place. The victim sometimes goes in figuring he can cheat the con artists out of their money, but anyone trying this has already fallen for the essential con by believing that the money is there to steal.

The Russell Tribunal

The Russell Tribunal was a public international body organized by British philosopher and pacifist Bertrand Russell, along with Ken Coates and several others. It was designed to investigate and publicize war crimes and conduct of the American forces and its allies during the Vietnam War. The tribunal was constituted in November, 1966 and conducted over two sessions in 1967 in Stockholm, Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark. It gained significant international attention, but was largely ignored in the US, where many considered it an ineffectual, biased show trial.

Representatives of 18 countries participated in the two sessions of this tribunal, formally calling itself the International War Crimes Tribunal. The tribunal committee consisted of 25 notable personages, predominantly from leftist peace organizations. Many of these individuals were winners of the Nobel Prize, Medals of Valor and awards of recognition in humanitarian and social fields. There was no direct representation of Vietnam or the United States on this 25 member panel, although a couple of members were American citizens.

More than 30 individuals testified or provided information to this tribunal. Among them were military personnel from the United States, as well as from each of the warring factions in Vietnam. Financing for the Tribunal came from many sources, including a large contribution from the North Vietnamese government after a request made by Russell to Ho Chi Minh.

October Surprise

Hypnic Jerk

A hypnic or hypnagogic jerk is an involuntary muscle twitch (more generally known as myoclonus or a myoclonic twitch) which often occurs during the transition from wakefulness to sleep (see hypnagogia). It is often described as an electric shock or falling sensation, and can cause movement of the body in bed. Hypnic jerks are completely normal, and are experienced by most people, especially when over-tired or sleeping uncomfortably. The exact cause of the sudden jerks is not clear, but there are hypotheses:

David Hahn (The Radioactive Boyscout)

David Hahn (born October 1976) attempted to build a nuclear breeder reactor in 1994 in his backyard shed in Commerce Township, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at the age of 17.

Hahn, nicknamed the "Radioactive Boy Scout", is an Eagle Scout who had previously earned a merit badge in Atomic Energy and had spent years tinkering with basement chemistry which included small explosions. Furthering his experiments, Hahn diligently amassed radioactive material by collecting small amounts from (occasionally stolen) household products, such as americium from smoke detectors, thorium from camping lantern mantles, and radium from clocks and gunsights. His "reactor" was a large, cored-out block of lead, and he used $1000 worth of lithium from batteries to purify the thorium ash in a bunsen burner.

Hahn posed as a legitimate adult scientist or teacher to gain the trust of many professionals, despite the presence of misspellings and obvious errors in his letters. Hahn ultimately hoped to create a breeder reactor, using low-level isotopes to transform samples of thorium and uranium into fissionable isotopes.

Although his home-made reactor never achieved criticality, it ended up emitting toxic levels of radioactivity, around 1000 times normal background radiation. Alarmed, Hahn began to dismantle his experiments, but a chance encounter with police led to the discovery of his activities, which triggered a Federal Radiological Emergency involving the FBI and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Environmental Protection Agency, having designated Hahn's mother's property as a Superfund hazardous materials cleanup site, dismantled the shed and its contents and buried them as low-level radioactive waste in Utah. Hahn refused medical evaluation for radiation exposure.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." is a grammatically valid sentence used as an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated constructs. It was featured in Steven Pinker's 1994 book The Language Instinct, but is known to have been around before February 1992 when it was posted to Linguist List by William J. Rapaport, an associate professor at the University at Buffalo.

The Storm Trooper Effect and the Inverse Ninja Law

The Storm Trooper Effect and the Inverse Ninja Law

Wikipedia Defies China's Censors

Wikipedia Defies China's Censors

Wikipedia's Lamest Edit Wars

Wikipedia's Lamest Edit Wars

Top 100 Most Viewed Articles from Wikipedia

Top 100 Most Viewed Articles from Wikipedia

Prisoner's Dilemma

Prisoner's Dilemma

Prisoner's Dilemma

List of lists of fictional things

List of lists of fictional things

2006 Israel-Lebanon Conflict

2006 Israel-Lebanon Conflict

Anglo-Zanzibar War

Anglo-Zanzibar War

List of Fictional Expletives

List of Fictional Expletives

List of Most Sexually Active Popes

List of Most Sexually Active Popes

Fatal Hilarity

Fatal Hilarity

The Most Complex Chinese Character in Current Usage

The Most Complex Chinese Character in Current Usage

Smedley Butler

Smedley Butler

List of Twins

List of Twins

List of Films by Gory Death Scene

List of Films by Gory Death Scene

The Broken Window Fallacy

The Broken Window Fallacy

Sod's Law

Sod's Law

Criticism of Family Guy

Criticism of Family Guy

Loving v. Virginia

Loving v. Virginia

White Rose

White Rose

List of Greek Mythological Figures

List of Greek Mythological Figures

List of Unusual Deaths

List of Unusual Deaths

The Norrmalmstorg Robbery

The Norrmalmstorg Robbery

Exploding Head Syndrome

Exploding Head Syndrome

The Milgram Experiment

The Milgram Experiment

Wikipedia on Your iPod

Wikipedia on Your iPod

Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy

Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy

The Bible and History

The Bible and History

Wikipedia Class Action Lawsuit

Wikipedia Class Action Lawsuit

Update on the "False Wikipedia Biography" Post

Update on the "False Wikipedia Biography" Post

A False Wikipedia Biography

A False Wikipedia Biography

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as Political Allegory

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as Political Allegory

Trap Street

Trap Street

List of Unseen Characters

List of Unseen Characters

Wikipedia's Entry for John Titor

Wikipedia's Entry for John Titor

Coca Cola's Secret Formula

Coca Cola's Secret Formula

The Magic Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two

The Magic Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two

The Montauk Project

The Montauk Project

Bedbug Reproductive Habits

Bedbug Reproductive Habits

September 26, 1983

September 26, 1983

An Interview with the Founder of Wikipedia

An Interview with the Founder of Wikipedia

The Rosenhan Experiment

The Rosenhan Experiment

Curse of the Ninth

Curse of the Ninth

Wikipedia's List of Wikis

Wikipedia's List of Wikis

Hurryicane Katrina News and Updates

Hurryicane Katrina News and Updates

Wikipedia's List of Suicides

Wikipedia's List of Suicides

Project Habbakuk

Project Habbakuk

Wikipedia Entry on Redshirts

Wikipedia Entry on Redshirts

List of Wars and Disasters by Death Count

List of Wars and Disasters by Death Count

List of Artificial Objects on the Moon

List of Artificial Objects on the Moon

Mike Tyson Quotes

Mike Tyson Quotes

List of films ordered by uses of the word fuck

List of films ordered by uses of the word fuck

Who Has Died So Far in 2005

Who Has Died So Far in 2005

The Principality of Sealand

The Principality of Sealand

The Price is Right Pricing Games

The Price is Right Pricing Games

Wikipedia's Entry About the Blast

Wikipedia's Entry About the Blast