ronically, Vincent Capone was a federal Prohibition agent. That means he was stopping the illegal bootlegging of alcohol when alcohol was illegal. This was while his little brother, Al Capone, was running a bootlegging empire in Chicago.
Vincent legally changed his name to Richard Hart, but the media still found out his real identity in the 1920’s.
Maybe you’ve been out eating Indian food and realized too late that you have a low tolerance for spice. The most common response to something too spicy seems to be water, but as we all know it doesn’t work that well. Actually, drinking lots of water spreads the spiciness around, so it’s best not to go that route. Dairy products can work better. Yogurt, milk, sour cream, cheese, etc, all work to a degree.
Dairy helps to kind of absorb some of the spiciness. So feel free to follow up that pepper with a scoop of ice cream. The best way, though, is sugar. A sugar cube or a teaspoon of sugar will suffice. The sugar absorbs all the spicy oil that coats the mouth, and gives a strong, different taste to replace it with. So if you’re ever off to dinner with friends, you’ll be more prepared.
Oprah Winfrey is famous for giving things away. On September 14, 2004, she had a surprise for her entire audience. Each member of the audience found a box under their chair and they were told that if a key was inside of it, then they won a Pontiac G6 sedan worth $30,000. Each and every audience member had a key in their box. All 276 audience members received a G6 Sedan. They all went crazy with excitement. The end of the story is a little unknown, though.
Each audience member had to fork of $7,000 in taxes or forfeit the car. Oprah didn’t shell out a dime for the $7 million worth of gifts, either. General Motors took care of the whole thing.
This is a standard problem with major gift giving on TV shows. It is rarely ever brought to light, however, and most people do end up forfeiting their gifts, because they can’t pay the taxes on it.
Watermelon snow has many names including snow algae, red snow, or blood snow. It is characterized by reddish to pink colored snow with a slight smell of fresh watermelon. Watermelon snow is created by the presence of chlamydomonas nivalis, a species of green algae containing a secondary red carotenoid pigment plus chlorophyll. This type of algae is uncommon as it is cryophilic, or cold-loving, algae that thrive in freezing water. This kind of snow is common in the summer in alpine and coastal polar regions throughout the world.
The altitudes watermelon snow thrives in are 10,000 to 20,000 feet and the temperatures are cold year round to support the algae. Sierra Nevada of California is a perfect example of where watermelon snow lives and the snow lingers from winter storms. When you step on the snow or make snow balls compressing it, the snow turns the reddish color. Walking through watermelon snow will often leave the soles of your shoes and pant cuffs pinkish.
A Son of Sam law is any American law that keeps criminals from profiting from the publicity of their crimes. They could otherwise do this by selling their story to a publisher, for instance. In some cases, Son of Sam laws can extend to friends, neighbors, and family of the criminal, too. The first Son of Sam law was created in New York and named after the Son of Sam murders committed by serial killer David Berkowitz.
The laws were enacted after it was said that Berkowitz was being offered tons of money by publishers for his story. Many complained that the laws violated the first amendment and took away the incentive for criminals to share their story, when at times it would affect the public, like the Watergate scandal.
After several revisions, New York finally came up with a resolution in 2001. Victims of crimes are required to be notified if the criminal received $10,000 or more from any source. There’s a statute of limitations and victims of crimes are allowed to sue the criminal in civil court.
Doctors are seeing an alarming increase in ER visits from kids who are eating a lot of the popular Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Already several schools in New Mexico, California and Illinois have banned the snacks from their campuses because of their poor nutritional value. However, they’re not just making kids fat. They’re driving them to the ER.
Fortunately, they’re not going for a real medical problem. Instead, the ER visits are driven by parents mistakenly assuming that their kids are pooping blood. These particular Cheetos contain a lot of red food dye, which has been known to turn consumers’ stools red or orange. Parents see this, panic, and take them to the ER.
Now you know. If you wanna fake sick, just eat a lot of red dye and you’re set.
In recent attempts to develop weapons that are nonlethal but still able to incapacitate opponents, the military has turned to a new technology called an “LED Incapacitator.”
This device uses light-emitting diodes, or super-bright pulses at quickly altering wavelengths, which causes immense disorientation and unbalance. As the light changes, the person is so disconcerted that nausea sets in and they start to vomit.
The device looks like a large flashlight, which may appear to be nonthreatening, but after only a few seconds it has anyone looking into it vomiting profusely! The military hopes to implement technologies such as this for missions with large civilian populations around or when a capture is intended.
meeee….dread head!? :D
Gottfried Helnwein working on “The Murmur of the Innocents”, 2009
