Unusual News
Islamic Sports Event Cancelled over Name of Persian Gulf
Iran, selected to host the 2nd Annual Islamic Solidarity Games, insisted that maps promoting the sporting event show the Persian Gulf with that very name. But Arab participants insisted on “Arabian Gulf” for the name of the strategic waterway tha... read more
From Dickens and Capra: Two Fictional Characters with Lessons for Today
Mr. Merdle and Mr. Potter would be right at home today confronting the roiling contempt many Americans hold for bankers and financial schemers. More than 150 years ago, Charles Dickens created the character of Mr. Merdle in the serial novel Little... read more
Senegal Offers Land to Displaced Haitians
If Haitians displaced by the earthquake are willing to try life on a different continent, there is a new home awaiting them in Senegal. President Abdoulaye Wade has offered to give Haitians land in his African nation, after first promising to dona... read more
Age at First Marriage Hits Record High
Americans are waiting longer than ever to try matrimony for the first time. Statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau show the medina age of men who have their first wedding is now 28.1 years old, and for women it’s 25.9. In both cases, the ag... read more
Canadian History Magazine Forced to Change Name to Avoid Porn Filters
Porn has been bad for The Beaver. As Canada’s venerable historical journal, The Beaver spent 90 years educating Canadians about important people and events of the past, but the modern euphemism “beaver” forced publishers of the magazine to change ... read more
Listening to Mozart Helps Premature Babies Gain Weight
Mozart does wonders for the human body. Following up on earlier research that found the symphonies of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart helped boost the intelligence levels of college students, a group of pediatricians decided to apply the “Mozart effect” t... read more
Was an Intelligence Officer Fired for Friendship with Communists…or Because of a Typo?
Two missing letters from an intelligence document cost John Dullahan his spy job with the Department of Defense, he claims in a lawsuit filed against much of the intelligence community. Dullahan, who spent two decades serving as an Army intelligen... read more
Obama Promises State of the Union Address Won’t Interfere with “Lost” Season Opener
Have no fear “Lost” fans, the President of the United States will not be messing with your season premiere. Ever since the White House indicated that President Barack Obama might move back his State of the Union (SOTU) address from late January ... read more
Giuliani Third Leading Republican to Claim No Terrorist Attacks During Bush Presidency
Some Republicans are taking revisionist history to a new and bizarre partisan level in their attempts to convince the American people that GOP leaders are good at protecting the country from terrorism, while Democrats aren’t. On Friday, former New... read more
California Judge Orders Highway Patrol to Return 60 Pounds of Marijuana to Owner
California Highway Patrol (CHP) Sergeant Richard Fuentes thought he had made a successful drug bust when he caught Saguro Doven, 33, with 60 pounds of marijuana in his car. But Doven claimed at his trial that he was transporting the pot as part of... read more
Homeless Chihuahuas Emigrate to East Coast
The great Chihuahua airlift has begun. Flooded with thousands of the tiny dogs, animal shelters in California have made arrangements to ship Chihuahuas to the East Coast, where there’s plenty of demand for and little supply of the animals.
Rec... read more
DARPA to Host Workshop on Flying Cars
What if American soldiers had flying cars with which to travel around countries like Afghanistan, so as to avoid running over roadside bombs planted by the enemy? The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) thinks this idea might just be... read more
Obama Appoints Transgender Rocket Scientist to Commerce Position
Amanda Simpson would like to be known for who she is and her professional qualities, rather than what she was in the past. But because she had a sex change operation, making her the first transgender person to serve in an administration by preside... read more
Same-Sex Marriages, No Way… First Cousins, Sure
Five states currently allow homosexuals to marry, a right that’s been slow to spread because of complaints that such unions would pervert the institution of marriage. Meanwhile, more than 50% of the nation’s states do permit first cousins to marry... read more
Clone-Yourself Robots Available in Japan
For those people who wish they could be in two places at the same time, and have a couple hundred thousand dollars to blow, Japan has the Actroid to offer. Manufactured by Kokoro, Actroids are doppelganger robots made to look and behave similarly ... read more
New Year’s Eve Revelers Forced to Spend 3 Nights at Pub
Brits who decided to spend New Year’s Eve at the Tan Hill Inn got more than they had hoped for, thanks to inclement weather. Heavy snow falls forced revelers to spend not one, not two but three nights at the pub once roads were closed due to drift... read more