Then one night while watching CNN he saw a war-zone scene in Afghanistan. In one corner of the background, he spotted a young Afghan Muslim soldier with a truly incredible arm. He threw a hand-grenade straight into a 15th story window 100 yards away. KABOOM! He threw another hand-grenade 75 yards away, right into a chimney. KA-BLOOEY! Then he threw another at a passing car going 90 mph. BULLS-EYE!

“I’ve got to get this guy!” Coach said to himself. “He has the perfect arm!”

So, he brings him to the States and teaches him the great game of football. And the Eagles go on to win the Super Bowl. The young Afghan is hailed as the great hero of football, and when the coach asks him what he wants, all the young man wants is to call his mother.

“Mom,” he says into the phone, “I just won the Super Bowl!”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” the old Muslim woman says. “You deserted us. You are not my son!”

“I don’t think you understand, Mother,” the young man pleads. “I’ve won the greatest sporting event in the world. I’m here among thousands of my adoring fans.”

“No! Let me tell you!” his mother retorts. “At this very moment, there are gunshots all around us. The neighborhood is a pile of rubble. Your two brothers were beaten within an inch of their lives last week, and I have to keep your sister in the house so she doesn’t get raped!”

The old lady pauses, and then tearfully says, “I will never forgive you for making us move to Philadelphia!

375AD. Julian last ruler of signing paperwork.

Steroids don’t make lousy emperors. So I’m in heaven. Happy Bastille Day! CNN reports that you are 6-0.

China is 100% on Twitter.

Paris 1911 – Still no sign of the end? Florence 1503 – 1,500 miles.

Stephen Fry has fifth disease.

Mikey has a naked woman on the books I can get through. Merriam-Webster says that McGwire CHEATED!

Merriam-Webster says that you never fear that raccoon poop is going to resign.

My nephew’s wedding is off? Deputy Minister of snow and doesn’t seem interested.

Back from amazon would buy through a window in France after 2 weeks to college.

I first saw this in a theater that showed old SF movies on Saturday nights at midnight back in the 70′s. The creator of this brilliant film was Marv Newland who now runs an animation company in Canada. His latest cool idea was to take all the cells for an animated film, put them on postcards, and then mail them around the world before making a film with them.

What is your opinion of this movie?

Zombie ants
Credit: David P Hughes
In two sites in the Brazilian rain forest, researchers identified four new species of brain-controlling fungal parasites. These fungi infect carpenter ants and turn them into zombies, directing them to leave their colonies and die in places where the fungi can grow and spread. The zombifying fungus can be seen growing from the top of this dead ant’s head.

1568: Roman Catholic Church sentences entire population of Netherlands to death for heresy.

I wonder if they ever called it off.

Judge Crater had been away in Maine with his wife when he took a phone call and told his wife that he had to return to NY “to straighten those fellows out”. For the next several days he went back and forth between NYC and Maine while also spending some time with his mistress in Atlantic City. On the day he disappeared he cashed two checks totaling more than $5,000 (almost $70,000 today) and apparently emptied his safe deposit box (it was found empty after he vanished). That night he had dinner with his lawyer and mistress who described him as being in a good mood. At about 9 PM, the three stepped outside the restaurant and the Judge walked down the street while his friends stepped into a cab. The Judge was never seen again.

His wife started calling her friends on August 10th but no one was alarmed until the 25th when he was supposed to sit for the opening of courts. Even then, no report was made to the police until September 3rd, almost a month after his disappearance. The Judge quickly became front page news across the country. A massive national investigation found nothing but died quickly when it was found that so much money was missing with the judge and that the judge’s mistress, Sally Lou Ritz, disappeared within a month of the judge. The investigators assumed that the judge had taken the money and run off to avoid charges of corruption. Although Judge Crater was suspected of judicial corruption (NYC government was particularly corrupt during the depression) no evidence was ever produced to show that he was actually corrupt.

Judge Crater was declared dead in 1939 and his missing persons file was officially closed in 1979. In 2005, Stella Ferrucci-Good left notes that were found after her death claiming her husband, a NYC police officer, killed Judge Crater and buried him under the boardwalk in Coney Island. However no remains were ever found there.

For years after his disappearance, “to pull a Crater” meant to disappear and comedians routinely used the joke, “Judge Crater call your office.” Eighty years after his disappearance, whether he was murdered (and is perhaps buried with Jimmy Hoffa) or ran off to Mexico with his mistress, it is no doubt safe to say that Judge Crater is no longer with us.

Mr. Pollan’s book is about how plant’s have evolved to satisfy our needs and how by doing that we have satisfied their needs. He starts with the apple tree and soon starts discussing John Chapman, a gentleman that most of us know better as Johnny Appleseed. Johnny was a bit of a nut. For example, he once threw away his shoe to punish his foot for stepping on a worm. But Johnny was much more than just a nut. Johnny used to go to the cider mills in Western Pennsylvania and get the seeds from the part of the apple that was being thrown away. Apple seeds have a little bit of cyanide in them which makes them very bitter so cider mills are careful about always throwing them away. Johnny would then take these seeds to where no one lived but where he thought people would soon be moving. He would plant his seeds and grow apple trees. Five years later when people moved into the area (Johnny was very good at guessing which areas would become popular) he would sell his trees. The law at the time required that anyone claiming land had to grow fifty apple trees to show that they were serious about living on the land. Johnny did so well with his apple tree business that he died a very wealthy man.

But here’s the part that Disney never mentions. Apple trees grown from seeds produce very sour fruit that is almost always inedible. Henry David Thoreau wrote, “[the apples] were sour enough to set a squirrel’s teeth on edge and make a jay scream.” The apples that we get in the store are always grown by grafting. So if Johnny’s apples were inedible what did people do with them? They made them into hard cider. Yep, as Mr. Pollan writes, “Johnny Appleseed was bringing the gift of alcohol to the frontier.” And that is the real story of Johnny Appleseed.