Big fish that turned up on Philippine beach is either a giant dolphin or a small whale. This might clear things up: "'Dolphins are small whales, whales are big dolphins. This one is a giant dolphin so it must be a whale,' Avila said."

An explorer has bought a Russian icebreaker and is heading out to the North Pole to determine if the Earth is hollow. Here's the pitch from Steve Currey's Expedition Company - Voyage to Our Hollow Earth: "Don't miss this chance to personally visit that paradise within our earth via the North Polar Opening and meet the highly advanced, friendly people who live there. We are of the opinion that they are the lengendary Lost Tribes of Israel who migrated into the North Country over 2,500 years ago and literally became lost to the knowledge of mankind. "

Check out the video on this page (you'll need Quicktime.) It's fun with electricity! (Link found via Cylindrical Primate Storage Unit, which I love more and more every day.)

'Hole in sky' amazes scientists, with picture. (Link via The Anomalist, from who I steal many links.)

Gottfried Benn was a poet and a doctor. He seems to have combined those interests in some very odd ways. I just downloaded his poems from this site and they are grotesque in the best sense. Try this poem:

Little Aster

A drowned beer hauler was heaved onto the slab.
Someone had heaved a lavender aster
between his teeth.
As I reached through the chest
under the skin
with a long knife
to cut out the tongue and palate
I must have bumped the flower, for it slid
into the brain lying alongside.
I packed it into the chest cavity
with the sawdust
as we sewed up.
Drink your fill in that vase!
Rest in peace,
little aster!

That comes from a collection called "Morgue," which you can dowload as a pdf at the link. Enjoy.

This post from Tequila Mockingbird is not the normal thing I post. But it is so well written and so touching, I can't help myself. Just read it.

Lion's bones proves sacred place lions held in Ancient Egypt.

Three cops see UFO floating over church on Dec. 26.

Isn't cool enough when you find a Roman-era wooden anchor on the shores of the Dead Sea? Why make claims for it being King Herod's yacht anchor, when you don't even know if Herod had a boat? Silly, silly archaeologist.

Neil Gaiman recently made mention of Harry Stephen Keeler and linked to Ramble House, who are currently republishing his novels.
So, looking further, I found this page: Harry Stephen Keeler Home Page. Read this page. This guy sounds crazy and wonderful. I want to buy his books. Here's a good passage from that page:
"In one novel, there's a character named Suing Sophie. Sophie goes on transpacific cruise ships, striking up an acquaintance with a single man on board. When the ship gets into port, Sophie bids her male friend farewell by loudly exclaiming, "Yes! I'll marry you!" then rushing off. Now the man has not proposed marriage. But Sophie has made sure that there are plenty of witnesses to her farewell. Soon afterward, the man is greeted with a breach of promise lawsuit for failing to marry Sophie. In the settlement, Sophie collects a huge award, which she then uses to travel to the cannibal isles of the South Pacific; specifically to islands whose inhabitants have recently been converted by Christian missionaries. There Sophie convinces them of the errors of their recent conversion, and reconverts them as practicing Jews.
"You know all this and more about Sophie; before it's over, Keeler probably gets more plot mileage out of Sophie than Flaubert does out of Emma Bovary. The difference is that Sophie does not appear in the action of Keeler's novel at all. Other characters just allude to her."

A story on the inventor of the death ray.

Cyclops goat.

A Ghost ship found more than a year ago off the coast of Australia will be sunk as an artificial reef. I love stories of people just disappearing, like the crew of this ship or the residents of Roanoke. There's probably reasonable explanations, but I like the far flung theories I can come up with instead.

Here's a decent Donnie Darko FAQ, although most of this information can be gleaned from the DVD and the Donnie Darko Web site. Still, it's nice to have it all in one place.

Zagat's outtakes, including gems like:
"Too snooty, but so am I."
"Even Jesus would have a hard time getting at table on Saturday night."
"The stench of testosterone and desperation doesn't quite cover up the fact that this place stinks."

Here's a review of a couple of books on the occult and their connections with literature.

2blowhards.com gives his take on book lovers' view of the world vs. movie lovers' view, and it's fascinating. I'm off to work now, but I wanted to note this for later consumption and argument. (Link found via About Last Night.)

Gene Wolfe, a really great writer, discusses the Lord of the Rings and their influence on him and the influence he believes they should have on society at large. It's a conservative viewpoint, but not a bad one. I particularly liked this:
"Philology led him [Tolkien] to the study of the largely illiterate societies of Northern Europe between the fall of Rome and the beginning of the true Middle Ages (roughly AD 400 to 1000). There he found a quality -- let us call it Folk Law -- that has almost disappeared from his world and ours. It is the neighbour-love and settled customary goodness of the Shire. Frodo is "rich" in comparison to Sam, though no dragon would call Frodo rich; Sam is poor in comparison to Frodo, though Sam is far richer than Gollum, who has been devoured by the tyranny and corruption of the One Ring. Frodo does not despise Sam for his poverty, he employs him; and Sam does not detest Frodo for his wealth, but is grateful for the job. Most central of all, the difference in their positions does not prevent their friendship. And in the end, poor Sam rises in the estimation of the Shire because of his association with Frodo, and rich Frodo sacrifices himself for the good of all the Sams."

Slightly less thrilling than a moon base and Mars exploration is deep-sea exploration. A next-generation robot will soon visit the deepest part of the Marinas trench (and therefore, the deepest part of the ocean.) I found this interesting:
"While the oceans cover two-thirds of the planet, the vast majority - 90% - are unexplored.
"We have better maps of Mars than we do of our own seabed, oceanographers say.
"But according to Professor Chris German, from the Southampton Oceanography Centre (SOC), UK, new underwater technologies will extend scientists' reach - soon - to all areas of the ocean floor.
"You could say that deep-sea exploration is the new space exploration," he said."

Wow. Bush is expected to send a manned mission to Mars and back to the moon. It's about time. I can't believe it's Bush proposing this though.