The Belarus Giant...!

Did you know that there were really giants not that long ago? Most of course were that way because of genetic defects, but others we still don't know what made them grow so big. Here from Listverse is the story of the Belarus Giant.

Fyodor Makhnov

Photo credit: viola.bz

Fyodor Makhnov (alternatively spelled “Fyodor Machnow” or “Fedor Machnov”) was born in Kasciuki (in today’s Belarus) in June 1878. He started growing rapidly at eight and measured 200 centimeters (6’7″) when he was 14. He wore custom-made clothes and shoes and slept on a custom-made bed. His boots reached the waist of normal-sized people, and children often hid inside his boots when playing hide-and-seek.

Makhnov joined the circus when he was 14 but started performing at 16. Although sources vary about his height, he would later reach approximately 250 centimeters (8’2″) as he grew into adulthood.

Scientists often met him to ask for contracts for ownership of his corpse, but he always refused over fears that he could be murdered. He later married Efrosinja Lebedeva, who was 100 centimeters (3’3″) shorter than him even though she was taller than most women. They had a girl and three boys.

Makhnov had a huge appetite. Every day, he consumed a hefty breakfast of 20 eggs, eight loaves of bread, and 2 liters (0.5 gal) of tea. For lunch, he consumed 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) of potatoes, 2.5 kilograms (5.5 lb) of meat, and 3 liters (0.8 gal) of beer. For dinner, he managed a loaf of bread, 15 eggs, and 1 liter (0.3 gal) of milk. He died in 1912 at age 34.

There certainly wasn't anything wrong with his appetite, that's for sure. A body that big needs a lot of fuel, I reckon.

Coffee out on the patio, where the temps are supposed to reach about 83.

Drunk Moose Law On Freaky Friday...!

We all are aware that there are some fairly strange laws on the books around the country, but some of them are really over the top, in my opinion. Take this crazy law in Fairbanks, Alaska.

It Is Illegal For A Moose To Enter A Saloon Via The Sidewalk

Fairbanks, Alaska

It is illegal for a moose to enter a bar through the sidewalk in Fairbanks, Alaska. The law was passed during the early 20th century because a tavern owner was fond of getting his pet moose drunk. The intoxicated moose often went on rampages, destroying property.

City officials soon had enough and passed a law banning moose from public sidewalks, thus meaning that the moose in question could no longer get into the man’s saloon. The tavern owner stopped bringing his moose to his bar but still got it drunk in his home. It is unknown why the town couldn’t simply outlaw getting moose drunk.

I reckon that even a moose needs a stiff drink once in a while, right?

Coffee out on the patio this morning. Sunshine is on the menu.

No Post Today...!

Sorry, but I want to take the day off and enjoy this beautiful weather while it last. See ya tomorrow.

Frank Canton On Western Wednesday...!

Back in the days of the Wild West, it was not uncommon for an outlaw to change his ways and become a lawman. Some earned a pretty good reputation as lawmen, too. Frank Canton was one of those.

Frank M. Canton, was a famous lawman, gunman, cowboy and at one point in his life, an outlaw during the wild days of the Old West.

Canton was actually born as Josiah Horner on September 15, 1849, near Richmond, Virginia. As a child he moved to Texas with his family and while in his teens became a cowboy, herding cattle from North Texas to the Kansas railheads in the 1860s. In 1871 he dropped from sight and made his living as a bank robber and rustler. On October 10, 1874, Horner got into a gunfight with some Buffalo Soldiers, killing one and wounding the other. In 1877, he was jailed for robbing a bank in Comanche, Texas but escaped and returned to cattle herding. After driving a herd to Ogallala, Nebraska, he changed his name to Frank Canton and vowed to uphold law and order.

He was soon hired as the top enforcer of the Wyoming Stock Grower’s Association, a group of powerful cattlemen in Johnson County, Wyoming. He was later elected sheriff of the county. It was here that he made his reputation in the notorious Johnson County War of Wyoming in the 1890s and was involved in the unlawful hanging of James Averell and Cattle Kate.

Afterward, he fled south, becoming a U.S. Deputy Marshal in Indian Territory under Judge Isaac Parker and made a name for himself as a strong and honest lawman. In 1897, Canton went to Alaska to follow the Klondike Gold Rush but instead became a Deputy U.S. Marshal again. After a couple of years, he returned to Oklahoma and once more became a lawman. In 1907, he became adjutant general of the Oklahoma National Guard, a post he held until his death on September 27, 1927. He was buried at the Fairlawn Cemetery in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

I reckon even the baddest of the bad can change when they really want to.

Coffee out on the patio this morning!

An Interesting Autobiography...!

If you enjoy reading as much as I do, you might find this book worthwhile. Here from the folks at Did You Know Facts, is the information about this novel.

‘A Void’ is a 300-page autobiographical novel written entirely without the letter ‘e.’ Author Georges Perec lost both parents during the Holocaust and spent his youth living under a fake identity, so the absence of such a familiar letter symbolizes his life and loss. The book has over 12 translations by authors who also wrote them without using the most common letter of their alphabets.

It must be hard for a writer to not use a certain letter in his writings, especially one like the letter E.

Coffee out on the patio again today. After the high of 84 yesterday, we are expecting only the high 70s today.

The Mysteries Of The Bennington Triangle...!

Nearly every mountain has some elements of mystery to it. They are beautiful to look at, but many are surrounded by myth and mystery. That's the case of Glastenbury Mountain in Vermont.

Native American Warnings

Photo credit: Andy Arthur

It’s stated in Joseph A. Citro’s 1996 book, Passing Strange: True Tales of New England Hauntings and Horrors, that Native Americans refused to set foot on Glastenbury Mountain unless they were burying their dead. They believed that the whole mountain was cursed land because the “four winds” met there in an eternal struggle. While most refer to this as a myth, there is some truth to it. The wind pattern on Glastenbury Mountain is so erratic that weather changes suddenly, and plants grow at odd angles.

Another myth attributed to the native people of Vermont is that they believed an enchanted stone among the cairns on top of the mountain could swallow a man whole. As reported by Davy Russell in X-Project Paranormal Magazine, a person would stand on the rock to survey the area from the highest point and find themselves suddenly swallowed whole. That person would never be heard from again.

Like I said, nearly every mountain has a bit of myth attached to it in some fashion, but that's probably why we are so fascinated by them. Beautiful, nonetheless!

Coffee out on the patio, where the temps are supposed to reach the 80s today!

Stuckie The Dog...!

Animals can get themselves in trouble every so often and it can lead to very unhappy results. Such is the case for Stuckie the Dog. Here is his story from the folks over at Listverse.

Stuckie The Dog

Photo credit: allthatsinteresting.com

Stuckie is the mummified remains of a hunting dog that was trapped in a chestnut oak tree for almost 60 years. The dog was probably chasing a raccoon when it entered the tree through a hole around 1960.

Unfortunately, the dog was too big to pass through the hollowed-out tree and got stuck. Eventually, it died of starvation. However, its body mummified instead of decaying. It remained untouched for about 60 years until it was discovered after some loggers cut the tree.

Scientists later discovered that the moisture-absorbing tannin in the tree prevented Stuckie from decaying. The fact that the animal was stuck inside the tree also protected its body from scavengers. Stuckie is currently displayed at the Southern Forest World Museum in Waycross, Georgia. The dog’s remains are still inside the tree

Now that was one dedicated hunting dog, I have to admit. Just goes to show that accidents can easily happen when hunting.

Coffee out on the patio this morning. Nice warm temps headed our way again.

Death By Hailstones...!

What a terrible way to go, I'd say. If you have never been in a hail storm before, let me tell ya, it ain't fun! You have seen pictures of the kind of damage hail can inflict on cars, so imagine what they can do to your head.

Roopkund Lake

Photo credit: India Today

Roopkund lake in Uttarakhand, India, is known for its skeletons. The lake is often covered in ice. But when the ice melts—as it often does—tourists are treated to a chilling view of over 200 human skeletons scattered along its edge.

The skeletons were first discovered during World War II in 1942. The skeletons have dents on their skulls and shoulders, indicating that they had been struck by something from above. The British initially suspected they were the remains of Japanese soldiers who attempted to sneak into India.

They later realized the skeletons were too old to be the Japanese. Historians revisited the lake in 2004 and confirmed that the bones belonged to two groups of people killed by hailstones around AD 850.

One group was a family or tribe, while the other were either their porters or guides. The party was crossing the area when they ran into an hailstorm. They had no place to hide and died after they were continually hit by cricket ball-sized hailstones.

To me this is almost like being stoned by Mother Nature. Not a pleasant way to go, I'd think.

Coffee out on the patio again today. Temps are headed up to 80 or so.

Better Eat Your Cheerios...!

Many of us still have cereal for breakfast, I'm sure. What might surprise you are the origins of some of the favorite brands of cereal. Here from the folks at Listverse is a brief history of one of those brands.

Cheerios

After the invention of Puffed Rice, Puffed Wheat, and soon after, Kix, puffed cereals were becoming all the rage in the late 1930s and early 1940s. General Mills wanted to experiment with an oat-based puffed cereal. General Mills food science innovator Lester Borchardt gathered a team to test the oat-based recipe and to develop tools that cut the mixture into a variety of different shapes. They tested over 500 formulas as well as tons of shape options, including “a sphere, a six-pointed star, a five-pointed star, a four-pointed star, a three-pointed star, a thin-walled doughnut, a thick-walled doughnut, a dumbbell, a spiral, and a square.” The winner was the doughnut shape, known as a torus, as it fit best into packaging.

General Mills perfected and finally launched the cereal in 1941, as “CheeriOats.” However, this name was short-lived, as the Quaker Oats company quickly filed a lawsuit complaining of infringement on the use of the term “oats.” The cereal was re-released in 1945 as “Cheerios” and has been a top-selling cereal in the United States ever since.

My favorite breakfast is either eggs and bacon, or biscuits and gravy...but I won't turn down instant oatmeal when offered! In fact, I seldom turn down any food if offered, know what I mean?

Coffee out on the patio again this morning. Now that's something that goes with any breakfast!

The Rufus Buck Gang For Western Wednesday...!

Now these fellas were some pretty bad hombres, to say the least. Their make-up was unusual for the time as well. It appears that these guys weren't after money so much, but wanted to start a war!

Rufus Buck Gang

The only known photograph of the Rufus Buck gang, taken in the summer of 1895 in Indian Territory. Buck is in the middle. Photo credit: Leonce Gaiter

The Buck Gang was an outlaw multi-racial gang of members who were part African American and part Creek-Indian. The gang rose to prominence in July of 1895. Named after their leader, Rufus Buck, the gang had a total of five members. Sam Sampson and Maoma July were both Creek Indians. All of them had been apprehended on minor offenses and served time in the Fort Smith jail prior to their crime spree that summer.

The Buck Gang went on a vicious two-week spree of robbery, rape, and murder. The apparently random violence terrified not only the local white settlers but also the neighboring Indians and African-American freedmen. the gang began holding up various stores and ranches in the Fort Smith area. But the violence wasn’t random. The gang’s leader, Rufus Buck, the 18-year-old son of a black mother and Creek father, burned with a zealot’s passion: he dreamed that his gang’s spree would trigger an Indian uprising that would expel the illegal white majority and reclaim the whole Territory for its native people.

They were finally caught up with outside Muskogee, Oklahoma by a combined force of U.S. Deputy Marshals and the Creek Lighthorse police, led by Marshal S. Morton Rutherford on August 10th. The execution of the five members of the Rufus Buck Gang on July 1, 1896 was the second to last execution to occur at Fort Smith. The Buck Gang were the only men to die on the gallows in Fort Smith for rape.

Only good thing I can say about this gang is that it didn't last too long. They finally got what was coming to them, that's for sure!

Coffee out on the patio this morning. The temps are gonna reach the high 70s.

Toss Me That Pie Plate...!

So many favorite toys and playthings were discovered by accident. It's hard to believe that many of them came from simple everyday things, but believe it or not...they did! Here from Listverse is an example.

Frisbees were created by greed



Frisbee toys are a staple feature of all family outings: at every picnic someone brings one along, and kids can spend hours throwing it back and forth. The simplicity of playing Frisbee is what makes it so easy to enjoy for kids – but the equally simple origins of the Frisbee might surprise you.


From 1871-1958, The Frisbee Baking Company provided American colleges with pies that came in pie tins, and it wasn’t long before students realized what fun could be had by tossing these tins around. In 1948, a building inspector created the first plastic Frisbee which we now use today, based off this simple pie tin design. This is the ultimate example of capitalizing off other people: the name, design and purpose was already there, and all this guy did was build it from plastic and tell people it was a toy.

Back when I was a kid, we used the lid from a coffee can (the metal ones) the same way. Only trouble was, the lids had sharp edges, so cut fingers were fairly common back then. Guess that's why the lids today are plastic!

Coffee outside on the patio this morning.

Mount Shasta Mystery...!

So many natural wonders in our great country have an air of mystery attached to them. Take this Mount Shasta for instance. Folks have been associating myth and legend to the mountain for as long as anyone can remember. Here from Listverse is part of the reason.

Mount Shasta

Mount Shasta is located in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest of California and is a place shrouded by mysteries and legends. The tribes who lived on the mountain once thought of it as the center of creation and all life, while New Age believers see it as the Earth’s main point of spiritual energy.

In 1931, a huge forest fire swept across the mountain, only to be stopped by a strange fog that arose suddenly. It was later realized that the fog had stopped the fire directly in line with the Central Time Zone. This occurrence has never been explained scientifically.

The mountain is also said to be an entry point to the fifth dimension and an energy supply base for extraterrestrial craft, with local villages reporting large humanoid figures observing them from a distance. People also link these sightings to the Karuk legend of the “big people,” a race of superhuman individuals who fled their destroyed city of Lemuria and are responsible for the mysterious occurrences on the mountain.

The way I see it, any story that hangs around as long as the one pertaining to Mt. Shasta has to have started somewhere. Finding out the source of the myth could be the first step to getting some solid answers, right?

Coffee out on the patio this morning. We may get some sun!

The Holy Goose...!

Many folks living around animals, whether it be in the city or in a rural area, will tell you that animals are attracted to and will try to taste anything that looks good. Jewelry, by it's very nature, is always a good target. Here from Listverse is an excellent example.

Goose

Photo credit: veterinarypracticenews.com

In Illinois in 2017, a woman brought her six-month-old pilgrim goose to a local veterinarian. The woman explained that she always wore a cross-shaped necklace around her neck. But the necklace had attracted some unexpected attention while she was cleaning the barn.

Turns out that the sparkly cross was too intriguing for the goose to ignore. As the owner bent over to pick up something, the goose quickly snapped at the necklace—breaking it and swallowing the cross in the process.

After an X-ray was taken, the emergency that was nicknamed “The Holy Goose” was resolved by using an endoscope to retrieve the cross.

Actually, I'm thinking the goose was fortunate to go to the vet instead of the butcher. It could have been Sunday dinner instead of a patient in recovery.

Coffee in the kitchen this morning.

Now This Might Work...!

There seems to be a rash of women being mistreated by the husbands lately here in Houston. I'm thinking that this idea from India just might help here.

There’s a team of women in India who bring justice to the oppressed women of their country. ‘The Gulabi Gang’ wear pink saris, carry bamboo sticks as weapons, and are trained in counter- aggression techniques, like smearing abusive men with chili powder. If police fail to help an abused woman, the gang steps in and asks the husband to change his ways- but if he won’t, they ask his wife to join them in beating him.

Here locally I'm afraid it would take maybe a gun instead of a stick...and has on several occasions.

Coffee in the kitchen again this morning!

That Had To Hurt...!

You would think that being in your own home would mean that you were safe from falling objects from space, right? Well, turns out that isn't always the case! From KnowledgeNuts here is the story of Ann Hodges.

As humans, we never expect our lives to be at risk from objects in outer space, but the Ann Hodges situation proved that it’s always a possibility. Back on one afternoon in 1954, Hodges was deep in relaxation on the couch in her Alabama home, completely oblivious to what was happening outside of those four walls. You see, a meteorite was on its course to Earth at a staggering pace, disintegrating into pieces along the way.

According to eyewitnesses, the accompanying fireball was so bright, that it could be seen from three different states. Now, the harsh atmosphere of the Earth did a wonderful job of purifying the rock, but one softball-sized portion managed to continue its journey. As it gathered speed, it started homing in on the Sylacauga area of Alabama, and subsequently Hodges’ house.

It crashed through the ceiling, pinballed around her living room, and eventually collided with her body as she slept. Other than the horrific bruising she suffered on her leg, the only other worries Hodges had was the attention from the media. There were appearances on TV shows, pieces about her in the newspapers, and a brilliant article in LIFE magazine. Plus, everyone wanted to get their hands on the space-born rock.

The interest ranged from Air Force Intelligence, who desperately wanted to ensure the rock wasn’t spy equipment from another country, to the Smithsonian Museum, who wanted to conduct studies on it. However, with influence from her husband, Hodges went down the route of cashing in on it. But, she soon encountered a stumbling block, when her landlord Bertie Guy opened up a legal dispute.

Guy felt that any foreign object that landed on her property was considered as her belongings. Unfortunately, as the court case lasted so long, the value of the piece of meteorite plummeted, and even though Hodges won the battle, she decided to donate it to the Alabama Museum of Natural History.

Despite miraculously surviving a blow from a meteorite, Hodges struggled to cope with the legal dispute and the bombardment from the media. As a result, her health started to decline, and so did her marriage. Sadly, Hodges split from her long-term Husband, and then died a few years later at the age of 52.

Ann Hodges is still the only recorded human to have been a victim of a meteorite strike. But, history always finds a way of repeating itself. So, if there’s one thing that you should take away from this, it should be – always listen out for an incoming meteorite!

I kinda feel sorry for the woman, but I figure that she was better off without the meteorite or the deadbeat hubby, ya know? Just my opinion...

Coffee in the kitchen this morning! Rain is back again.

Get To Work, Rook...!

Now here is an idea that would come in very handy in a big city like Houston. Train birds to pick up the litter around the parks. This article from Listverse shows that it has been done before, and seems to work just fine.

Theme Park Workers

Photo credit: Live Science

Around 20 years ago, Christophe Gaborit watched wild ravens sort through trash. Years later, Gaborit worked as a falconer at a theme park. Puy du Fou is located in France and enthralls the public with ancient gardens and villages. Visitors also enjoy historic reenactments but liberally sprinkle the park with litter.

Seeking a solution, Gaborit’s memory of the ravens sparked a novel suggestion—train rooks to pick up the trash. Rooks belong to the crow family and share their smarts.

In 2000, Gaborit hatched and trained his first two birds. He used a specially designed cabinet to dispense treats when the rooks put things like cigarette butts in the drawer. In this tasty manner, the falconer eventually raised and taught six rooks to recognize and remove litter. The feathery trash collectors graduated class in 2018 and now hop about the park, picking up rubbish

Call me crazy, but I think this is an excellent idea for any city. Only thing is, who can we train to clean up the bird poop ?

Coffee outside again, where the temps are supposed to be in the high 70s or close today.

An Very Early Version Of Auto-Navigation...!

Time and time again, we think of ourselves as being so smart as to invent an auto-navigation device only to find out we were certainly not the first after all. Turns out a very early version of this device showed up way back in 1932! From Listverse, here is the story about this surprising idea.

The Iter Auto

Photo credit: gislounge.com

It seems difficult to believe that early personal navigation systems could predate GPS or even satellites, but the first attempt at a commercial navigation device was made when cars were barely past the age of the hand crank in 1932. Produced by an Italian company, the Iter Auto was a console connected to the car’s speedometer and used interchangeable, scrolling maps to guide users to their destinations.

It was the first device to show a user’s position in real time, and it worked—so long as one didn’t make a wrong turn. Of course, the user also had to start from a predetermined point, and many trips were long enough to require multiple scrolls to complete the trip, so the user would have to pull over and change out the scroll for the next one in the sequence every so often. While the device didn’t exactly catch on commercially, it was an ambitious first crack at a technology that wouldn’t begin to reach fruition for over 60 years.

Sometimes I think that we today even surprise ourselves about how smart our forefathers actually were. We sure don't give them enough credit sometimes!

Coffee out on the patio this morning. Temps yesterday got up to low 80s, so all should be good today!

Who Built This Thing...?

I think it's great that we have some actual mysterious ruins here in the states that we can study on, without having to travel all the way to some foreign country. Of course, that doesn't mean we understand what they are, or who built them. I reckon that's the reason those ruins are considered a mystery, right?

America’s Stonehenge

Photo credit: User: (WT-shared) Jtesla16 at wts wikivoyage

Outside of Salem, New Hampshire, lies the ruins of what some believe to be an ancient settlement. Known today as America’s Stonehenge, the site is made up of numerous man-made stone chambers, walls, and other rock structures.

The site has sparked a series of heated debates among historians and archaeologists as to the origins and use of the complex. The most prominent theory is that it was built by Native Americans some 2,500 years ago and was used for centuries as a place for religious ceremony. Another popular theory suggests that the structures were created and used by Irish monks around AD 1000.

I found this interesting article over on Listverse, needless to say.

Coffee out on the patio this morning, if it's not too wet.

Listen To Your Instinct...!

Here is a little information that you should be made aware of, in my opinion. However, only you alone can decide if it warrants paying attention to or not.

When you have a strong feeling that someone is watching you, they most likely are. Developed long ago as a primal survival skill, your brain has a ‘gaze detection’ system that fires an alert whenever it notices someone is staring directly at you or looking a few degrees to your side – so suddenly getting that ‘eerie feeling’ of being watched could in fact be a signal that your subconscious has just caught someone staring you down.

This is a real instinct that you can read more about right here. Might be worth the time to read the article.

Coffee out on the patio this morning We might see some sunshine.

Blame It On John...!

So many folks found ways to get around the rules and regulations established over the years, I thought we should look at one of them. Mr. John Brinkley. He actually made quite a name for himself as the man responsible for the spread of country music across parts of America.

John Brinkley

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

John Brinkley was a charlatan, but he had a product to sell. He advertised goat testicle transplants for the scrota of infertile men. Though this treatment was unmedical, he performed more than 16,000 surgeries. Brinkley advertised this procedure on his radio station KFKB, America’s fourth-ever station. To pay for his radio channel, he spoke about the wonders of product for 30 minutes at a time. These spots are now considered the first infomercials. Like the infomercials we know today, they were long, rambling, and usually misleading.

Because he was lying on the airwaves, the US government shut down his practice. Brinkley simply moved his operations to Mexico. He built the largest and most powerful tower in the world to advertise from Mexico into the United States. On the new radio channel, he played entertainment in between his infomercials. Brinkley was the first person to broadcast country music across the United States. His station was the first to play the country music legends the Carter Family. Brinkley’s radio station is credited with popularizing the genre outside of its regional limits.

By moving country out of Appalachia and into Texas, Brinkley created the country-western sound that would dominate the genre from then on. When he died decades later, his seat at the radio station was replaced by Wolfman Jack. Wolfman Jack helped spread rock and roll across the country.

You have to give the man credit. He may have been a snake oil salesman, but having done 16,000 operations involving goat testicles, he was pretty good at it! I came across this article over at Listverse.

Coffee inside once again.

Another Interesting Coffee Fact...!

I truly love it when I find an article that is positive about coffee...don't know why, but I do! Actually, learning about coffee is one more way to prove that Mother Nature is way smarter than we thought. From Listverse here is the most recent coffee article I found.

Coffee Contains Caffeine To Attract Bees

Every other coffee list on the Internet will tell you that coffee was discovered by goat herders, whose goats got a little jolly after munching on coffee berries. But why does coffee contain caffeine to begin with? Well, it’s toxic to slugs and other pests, but it turns out it also has an effect on pollinators such as bees. In fact, scientists think they get—wait for it—a buzz from the caffeine in the flowers of plants.

Scientists found that consuming caffeine helped bees to improve their long-term memories. The caffeine acts on the brain chemistry of bees in a way that makes the flowers more memorable, so the bees are more likely to return to plants of the same type. Though bees and humans are very different, some experts suggest the capacity to be affected by caffeine could be as old as the common ancestors we share, as it impacts our neurological activity on a very fundamental level.

It's nice to know that I have something in common with bees, ya know? I also enjoy the slight buzz that I get from caffeine, but I always figured it was from the taste of the coffee that did it. Go figure!

Caffeine...er, coffee in the kitchen this morning.

The Old West Ted Bundy...!

As long as man has kept records, there has been those that could and would kill others for no apparent reason. Mankind has always been that way, I reckon. From Listverse, here is a story that describes one of the earliest versions of a serial killer we know.

Stephen Dee Richards

Photo credit: Nebraska archives

Stephen Dee Richards has been called the Old West’s Ted Bundy, but in his day and age, he was dubbed the Nebraska Fiend.[2] He was a charming and well-spoken man. Unlike Bundy, Stephen seems to have had no preferred type of victim when it came to killing. He murdered a young man he had a disagreement with, and he killed a mother and her three children with an ax. He said of killing the family that it was no different to him than killing jackrabbits.

Stephen ultimately murdered nine people in total. He did not escape justice, however, and was hanged in 1879.

I reckon there has always been the crazies among us that would kill just because they seemed to enjoy it. Doesn't say much about the goodness of our kind, does it?

Coffee in the kitchen again this morning.

True Or Not...?

In today's world, it's sometimes hard to tell what's true and what isn't. While we used to count on the mainstream media to give us the real facts, we know now that isn't always the case. Now days, more than ever before, the media is nothing more than a tool used by the PTB to further whatever cause they deem necessary. Here from the folks at Didyouknowfacts.com, is an article about UPS you might find interesting.

UPS trucks don’t turn left. Their policy to never turn across oncoming traffic, even when it shortens their routes, reduces traffic collisions and delays, so they plan routes that avoid left turns whenever possible. This reportedly cuts their number of trucks by 1,100, saves 10 million gallons of fuel and emits 22,000 fewer tons of carbon dioxide per year, and lowers the annual distance traveled by 28.5 million miles.

Now I watched the show "Mythbusters" when they set out to test this, and surprisingly they found it did save fuel, but sometimes took longer. So what do you think? Is it mainly true...or is it just another case of "believe it or not?"

Coffee insider this morning. It's really cold outside.

Strange Case Of George Patton...!

There is a lot of information about the life of General George Patton, but the details of his death have been a source of mystery for some time. This article from Listverse tells of some of the mysteries surrounding his death, and why it seems to be shrouded in mystery.

George S. Patton

George S. Patton was one of the most famous and most colorful generals in the history of the United States Army. But his illustrious career came to a sudden end on December 8, 1945.

On the fateful day, Patton was going on a pheasant hunt near Speyer, Germany. The general was in the back of his 1938 Cadillac Model 75, along with his chief of staff, Major-General Hobart Gay. They were being driven by Private Horace Woodring. The trio had just crossed a set of train tracks when a heavy-duty military GMC truck turned unexpectedly in front of the car. Woodring immediately slammed on the brakes and turned sharply to the left. Despite this attempt at evasion, the Cadillac still hit the truck, albeit at a slow speed. Woodring and Gay received minor wounds, but the 60-year-old Patton slammed into the glass partition, cutting his head open and breaking his neck.

Patton was rushed to hospital, where he spent 12 days in spinal traction. After initially seeming on the road to recovery, he passed away from a pulmonary edema and congestive heart failure on December 21. While this could have just been a tragic accident, there are some odd circumstances surrounding his death, which have led some to speculate that the general might have been murdered.

One theory is that Patton was targeted by his own government. According to this theory, Patton was going to release details about collusion between the Allies and the Soviet Union which resulted in the deaths of a number of Americans. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the American espionage agency which was the forerunner of the CIA, then supposedly ordered the hit on Patton. His death was set up by a highly decorated war hero, Douglas Bazata.

According to Bazata’s own confession, he staged the crash and had Patton shot with a low-velocity object in order to break his neck, making it look like he was killed in the accident. When he survived, Bazata claims that the OSS allowed the NVKD (which would later become the KGB) to finish the job with poison. The theory that Patton was poisoned was backed up by Stephen Skubik, a US Army counter-intelligence officer. Skubik supposedly told the head of the OSS, William “Wild Bill” Donovan, that Stalin wanted Patton dead, but he claims that his warnings were ignored.

While it may be easy to dismiss Bazata as an attention-seeker, he was actually a genuine war hero and a respected figure in American politics. During his time in the military, he received the Distinguished Service Cross, four Purple Hearts, and three French Croix de Guerre. After the war, he was a celebrated artist before going into politics, serving as an aide to Navy Secretary John Lehman. He died in 1999.

There are other strange circumstances surrounding Patton’s death. Documents about the accident are missing from the archives. No autopsy was performed on the body. When investigating a car accident, it’s usual to examine the vehicle involved. Historian Robert Wilcox and an expert on Cadillacs went to the Patton Museum and discovered the car they have on display was not the car that Patton was in when the accident occurred.

One more mystery that we will never know the truth about, I reckon. Seems to me that there are more and more of these turning up almost daily, but could be that's just my imagination.

Coffee inside this morning. Still cold out on the patio.

A Total Badass Texas Ranger...!

Many of the lawmen we think about today were not beyond taking a little frontier justice when they caught up to the bad guys. That was the case with the man known as John Reynold Hughes. Here is his story from the folks at Listverse.

John Reynolds Hughes

Photo credit: Texas Rangers

In May 1886, John Reynolds Hughes (seated on the right above) set out to discover who had stolen horses from his and his neighbors’ ranches. He trailed them for close to a year before coming upon them in New Mexico. He killed some of the horse thieves and captured the rest before returning the horses to his neighbors. The exploit earned the attention of the Texas Rangers, who persuaded him to join up.

Hughes served as a Texas Ranger for 28 years. When his captain was killed by bandits in 1893, Hughes was named as his successor. His first act as captain was to take a group of his men to search the border until they found, and killed, all those responsible for the death.

I guess that back in those days, frontier justice was considered more acceptable than it would be today. However, there are times when...

Coffee inside this morning. Anyone want some fresh baked peach pie?

Special Thanks To China For This Invention...!

There comes a time when due credit should be given for the invention of a product...in this case, toilet paper! We can thank the early Chinese for this invention, judging from what I've read.

Toilet Paper

Sui Dynasty: 581 – 618 AD

As noted above, paper was an early invention of China. One of the first recorded accounts of using hygienic paper was during the Sui Dynasty in 589. In 851 an Arab traveler reported (with some amazement) that the Chinese used paper in place of water to cleanse themselves. By the late 1300’s, approximately 720,000 sheets per year was produced in packages of 1,000 to 10,000 sheets. In colonial times in America (late 1700’s) it was still common to use corn-cobs or leaves. Commercial toilet paper was not introduced until the 1857 and at least one early advertiser noted that their product was ‘splinter free’ – something quite far from today’s ‘ultra-soft’. One rather odd piece of trivia I picked up during my research is that the Romans used a sponge tied to the end of a stick – which may have been the origin of the expression “to grab the wrong end of the stick”.

As usual, this article was garnered from the folks at Listverse. I'm just the messenger here.

Coffee inside once more this morning.