WW2 airman found frozen in California glacier; Brendan Fraser, call your agent!

LA Times: U.S. Airman Found Encased in Glacier After 60 Years

I didn't even realize California had glaciers, but here you go: California has 20 glaciers. (What's next? Cows, in Berkeley?)

I'm a little suspicious. Might this just be a publicity stunt for some upcoming Brendan Fraser movie? It's been almost 7 years since Blast from the Past (1999), which itself followed Encino Man by 7 years. Like locusts, you can't keep man-out-of-time movie premises buried for very long!

Technorati Tags: glaciers, encino+man, blast+from+the+past, brendan+fraser, ww2, iceman

«» (0) comments

Most awaited new political thriller since 'Be Gone Demons'

Washington Times: 'Saints' fend off 'snakes' in Boxer's political novel

California Senator Barbara Boxer has a novel on the way -- A Time to Run -- where Democrat 'saints' work to derail the nomination of a conservative woman to the Supreme Court.

The fiction world hasn't seen this sort of suspenseful insider allegory ripped from today's headlines since Be Gone Demons!, Saddam Hussein's 2003 literary swan song. Hussein chose as his villains evil, scheming Jews -- a crowd-pleasing choice among his fan demographics. In a wise nod to American sensibilities, Boxer instead chooses evil, scheming Republicans.

"Suffice it to say, [Boxer's] effort reads more like a cross between a bad romance novel and a soap opera script. The Congressional Record might be more entertaining. And it's free," noted the Sacramento Bee, which obtained an uncorrected proof of the novel last month but was prohibited from quoting directly from it.

Pshaw! These journalistic carpers are just jealous. <monheit>The Nobel committee will recognize dynamite when it reads it! Come next October, it will be A Time to Run, alright -- all the way to Stockholm for the Literature Prize!</monheit>

Technorati Tags: barbara boxer, saddam hussein, walter monheit, novels, nobel prize, politics, dilettantism, sarcasm

«» (0) comments

Smart enough to die, not smart enough to throw the test

Via NEWS of the WEIRD:

In August, a jury found Virginia death-row inmate Daryl Atkins mentally competent, based on a recent IQ score of 76 (thus beating the '70' standard, below which under state law he could not be executed). Prosecutors said two previous scores below 70 were deceptively low because of Atkins' drug and alcohol use, but legal experts hypothesized that Atkins' IQ had actually improved in recent years via the intellectual stimulation of discussing his case with lawyers.

Reminds me vaguely of a short story I read in middle school, where a child is worried he'll fail an important upcoming test. At the end we learn, via condolences delivered to his mother, that her child has been lost, because he scored too high. I can't locate the title or author now; I had thought it might be by Bradbury (we read The Pedestrian around the same time) or maybe Asimov.

Technorati Tags: deathpenalty, iq, irony

«» (3) comments