There is a historical record of some kind of atmospheric event in 536 that lead to widespread crop failure and probably contributed to a plague in the following years.

New experiment: We'll cover you with bloodsucking horseflies and see if A) You attract a mate, and B) you live longer than it takes the flies to reproduce one generation. Me thinks the ladies will run and the flies will be having a party on your fresh, warm corpse.

Excellent article - thanks!

To be honest, my wife taking my last name (and making her maiden name her middle name), is just one less hassle for the endless pile of paperwork that my family has to wade through every year just to remain functioning members of society (unless the paperwork requires a birth certificate, then we need to bring the…

So? The Royals are not real people. They are public animatrons. All the horrors listed here are just theatre tricks. Hollywood stars would live the same way if it was not so fashionable to have the public image of a train wreck.

They should scrap the post office and setup a federal ISP where everyone in the nation gets a free email account. Post offices could be turned into internet access points where free terminals and printers let people see their mail (or they could access it through their home computer). Instead of stamps, people would…

AKA: The forefront of evolution!

They should have just aired the final episode of The Prisoner. Now THAT would have tripped people out!

I agree, but I don't think it should be confused with the value of persistence. Making an idea a reality may require trying many different approaches, and that can take time. I think its more important to be able to walk away from something once you have reached the point where it is no longer feasible.

Not happening for YOU, you mean. Now if you will excuse me now, I must be going... POOF!

I was thinking all the "non-believers" should hide in their closets on Saturday morning. That way all the believers will wake up, find themselves all alone, and think that THEY are the ones who have been "left behind" to face six months of devastation followed by an eternity in Hell. Kind of a nice comeuppance don't…

Can't we just go back to the shady guy with the front and back billboard suit? Where is Rorschach when you need him!

I think the point is more creative, which is sometimes confused with "smarter". I think of it from a probability standpoint: if your brain is putting together different ideas that aren't "normally" associated, then eventually it will find a combination that works as something new. Do this more often than most people…

This band looks and sounds like the bastard love child of The Partridge Family and Journey.

Don't worry, soon global warming will melt all the ice, and then we'll have plenty of water! Problem solved!

Aeroplan used to be good, but the last time I used air miles to buy a ticket, they only paid for the "airline fare" portion of the ticket and made me pay the taxes, which are more than half the cost of the ticket! So, basically, with one change, they have cut the value of their miles in half! Still, we did use…

The real problem with your new site is a focus on form rather than function: it looks great, but in terms of satisfying the needs of the users, it is a total dud. People read Gawker for two main reasons: 1) To get something "new", which means a quick fix from the latest story, and 2) To be a part of a community with…

I think the biggest challenges in life arise from a mismatch between nature and nurture. I think people are born the way they are, but everyone is born different, so when a parent starts pushing "their" wants and desires on the kids, the outcome is really determined by whether the kid was born the same way as the…

As much as I love these films, when they were released they were considered — and were in comparison to other films of the day — big budget B movies. That doesn't mean that they are not excellent films, but they are what they are. Now, sadly, Hollywood only makes big budget B films — and it's not even making them very…

Sarah Palin?