Question of the Day:

Today on 1889 this famous landmark was inaugurated.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: Pres. Ronald Reagan, also shot that year Pope John Paul II, but oddly not David Hasselhoff the 3rd actor noted for destroying communism. Which one day I plan to cronical in my book “3 Actors that Saved the Free World” as soon as I figure out why the Germans love David Hasselhoff enough to destroy the Berlin wall to see him. Also how did we let the world be run by actors? I mean with the Pope, he was more of a playwright, and you could always argue about God’s unusual sense of humor. But, thousands of Americans voted for a guy known for costarring with a monkey.

Question of the Day:

In honor of my baby book, what famous person was shot, but not killed on this day in 1981? (Really all the news in the current events of my baby book were people who were shot at that year.)

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: South Central Alaska

An Actual Report of a Book – A History of the Amish

A History of the Amish, By: Steven M. Nolt
History, religion 285 pages 10th grade reading level copyright 1992

First, this book was published in Intercourse, PA (near Blue Ball). That has nothing to do with the book, but we just find it funny that for some reason cities in Amish country tend to have names that make one think about sex. Maybe that’s why in this last century the Amish have tended to move into Michigan. For all we know there is a large group of them outside of Climax (Although, we have never seen the Amish anywhere near I-75’s exit 69 [Big Beaver Road.])(And, yes for people outside of MI that didn’t know about exit 69, we are NOT making that up; it’s the exit for a road really called Big Beaver. [We are almost certain that it was named after the rodent and not the slang.])

Anyway, this book was exactly what the title states. Although it also includes info on the Mennonite’s (Which the author seams to be from his bio.) It starts with the Anabaptist movement and ends in the 1990’s. And it included most anything that you ever wanted to know about the Amish. (It doesn’t talk about that thing where the teens get to go out in the world for 2 years before deciding if they want to be Amish.) Why do they not wear buttons? Because they are thought to be fancy and vain. (Although, more liberal groups may allow them.) Are they all farmers? No, many own there own businesses or work for others. (Although, if they work for non-Amish companies they get screwed on social security tax. As the Amish don’t collect benefits [it’s against their religion] so they don’t have to pay if they are farmers, own their own business or work for other Amish people.) Anyway, if you want to know about the Amish, this is a good book to use.

Question of the Day:

The Good Friday Earthquake having a magnitude of 9.2 making it the largest in US history hit here.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: He bought it at an action from the man who assassinated the last emperor.

How much Caffeine?

As companies don't have to list how much caffeine is in a product on the lable (Although, it would be more helpful then listing that most pop has no nutritional value, as you already know that.) We have found the amounts of some and thought we would share them with you. (Note: they are listed from lowest to highest, meaning you could have a cup of coffee and get at least twice the caffeine of a Red Bull and it would taste a whole lot better!)

Drink Caffeine (mg)

Black tea 15
Green Tea 34
Coca-Cola 34
Pepsi-cola 37
Red Bull 40
Jolt Cola 55
Mountain Dew 71
Coffee, brewed 80-135
Coffee, drip 115-175

Question of the Day:

The Roman Emperor Marcus Didius Salvius Julians Servus, known as Didius Julianus, got the throne in this unusual way.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: education, which he earned a B.A. in.

No Pot on Passover

As you may know Passover starts next Monday at dusk. Because of this the Green Leaf Party, Isreal's pro-marijuana party has stated that pot is not allowed during Passover and should be removed from homes during this time. We at Weird News BNI think that this is an attempt by the pot selling members of this party to get people to buy more pot after the holiday, buy forcing them to throw out thier stash now and go threw withdrawls. But, it looks like it is not entirely working as Sephardic Jews do not follow any bans on marijuana and the rule on pot offical ly outlawed hemp seeds for Passover. And you know that there are potheads who would pick through their whole stash if it meant that they could keep smoking. (Although, as pot is illeagal in Isreal, we have to wonder how many opservent Jews there smoke anyway.)

Question of the Day:

Gene Simmons, of the band Kiss, studied this in college.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: a collection of flowers

Question of the Day:

Anthology is Greek for this.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: Almonds

Question of the Day:

This nut is mentioned 73 times in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: 32 Lbs.

Question of the Day:

The Stanly Cup weights this much.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: Virgil

Question of the Day:

This famous poet is said to have had a funeral for his pet fly.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: Virginia by 95 miles

Question of the Day:

Which state goes farther West, Virginia or West Virginia?

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: sauerkraut and onions

Happy Spring!

Now go outside and remember to put a coat on, its freezing.

Question of the Day:

In Germany this type of pizza is people’s favorite.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: Hawaii

Question of the Day:

Want to live a long life? Then you should move to this state where on average the residents live longer then residents of the other 49 states.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: Red

Question of the Day:

In China this is the traditional color of wedding dresses.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: Corned Beef, which is made from the beef brisket, a cheap cut of beef that when handled properly is kosher. But, as all beef was expensive in Ireland when most Irish-Americans came here they would not be eating it in Ireland.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!!

As you most likely know to day is St. Patrick’s Day. (If you’re not wearing green pinch yourselves for us!) But most likely you don’t know much about the actual person St. Patrick. So we at WNBNI have compiled a short list of information on him and how he changed history. For more information on him click here.


*St. Patrick didn’t chase the snakes out of Ireland (snakes just naturally don’t really like Ireland or something) it was a metaphor for how well he converted the people of Ireland.

*St. Patrick was not Irish. He was from England.

*St. Patrick was kidnapped by pirates and taken to Ireland where he was a slave for 6 years.

*St. Patrick then escaped, returned home and studied to be a priest. He later returned to Ireland to share the Gospel with them and live with the Irish people the rest of his life.

*St. Patrick was the first person to evangelize outside of the Greco-Roman world. And invented ways to convert people in their religion while letting them keep their distinct culture.

*The Christianization of Ireland lead to it persevering literacy when the Roman Empire fell sending Europe into the Dark Age.

*St. Patrick was one of the 1st people known to speak out against slavery and he greatly helped to end the slave trade and human sacrifices in Ireland.

*St. Patrick spoke highly of women during a time when it was unheard of for men to do so.

*St. Patrick was a mystic and returned to Ireland because of a dream.

Quotes on the Irish

• “The Irish are a singing, storytelling people. And all of the Irish stereotypes were alive and well within my family.”
  Lara Flynn Boyle
  
  
• “In order to find his equal, an Irishman is forced to talk to God.”
  Stephen Braveheart

• “We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.”
  Winston Churchill
  
• “In a study, scientists report that drinking beer can be good for the liver. I'm sorry, did I say "scientists"? I meant "Irish people." ‘
  Tina Fey
  
• “An Irishman is never drunk as long as he can hold onto
  one blade of grass to keep from falling off the earth.”
  Irish Saying
  
• “Every St. Patrick's Day every Irishman goes out to
  find another Irishman to make a speech to.”
  Shane Leslie
  
• “I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could. “
  George Bernard Shaw
  
• “If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized. “
  Oscar Wilde

Question of the Day:

This traditional St. Patrick’s Day food for Americans is thought to have come to Irish emigrates from their Jewish neighbors in New York City as in Ireland it would be too expensive for the poor to buy it.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: and the rest of the day to you.

An Actual Report of a Book – News from the Fringe

News from the Fringe By: John J. Kohut and Roland Sweet
Non-Fiction, humor 200 pages 7th grade reading level
Copyright 1993

This book has about 600 weird news stories from around the world. We learned many weird facts from this book. For example, rhinotillexomania is the scientific name for chronic nose-picking, there are killer pandas, kosher steel, and the name Christopher Columbus is jinxed. This book is a fun read of those weird news stories that one does not often read about. (Unless you also read the column that they are co-authors of “News of the Weird.”)

Ides of March

We, at Weird News BNI hope that all our readers survived the Ides of March yesterday. We survived it by changing our routine. For example, instead of checking our emial and writing our blog, we didn't touch the computer. Also we avoided the Roman senate. We hope that this change didn't cause any problems with your day.

Question of the Day:

This is the traditional response to “Top of the mornin’ to you.”

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: Government toilet paper.

Happy Pi Day

As many of our faithful readers know today is Pi Day in the US. As it is 3-14. What you may not know is that other countries celebrate Pi Day on different dates. In Europe it is July 22nd. Which is 22/7 in the European way of writing dates. Others use November 10th as it’s the 314th day in the year. In China it may be celebrated on Dec 21st at 1:13 p.m. As it’s the 335th day of the year and they use 355/113 as their approximation of Pi.
But, no mater what day you use to celebrate Pi. The important thing to do is to do the traditional Pi Day activity. Which luckily is not doing math or singing (although there are Pi Day songs), but eating pie. Making it one of the easiest holidays to celebrate. Plus, people of all religions and spiritualities can agree, pie taste good! Making it the perfect holiday to celebrate with everyone.-T

Question of the Day:

At one time this item had “Govt. Property, Now Wash Your Hands.” Printed on it in the UK.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: Which quail laid the egg. They each have a distinctive pattern of spots on there eggs which is distinctive to that one quail.

An Actual Report of a Book – How to Have High Dollar Garage $ale$

How to Have High Dollar Garage $ale$ by: Jean Hines
Non-Fiction, marketing 77 pages 6th grade reading level
Copyright 1989

Ok, we know that there seams to be a theme going with the books this last week, but you know how it is, if we only picked out one of the books then we wouldn’t see the others again until September. And this book actually had a number of helpful tips that we will plan on using the next time we have a garage sale. Which if our mother lets us use her far superior yard for sales, will be around May. Any way this book has a number of good ideas in it, that even some one who has had a sale before could find new and useful.

Question of the Day:

What can the spots on a quail’s egg tell you?

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: The feathers, they weight twice as much as the bones do.

Question of the Day:

Which weights more an eagle’s feathers or it’s bones?

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: narrow spaces

An Actual Report of a Book – Thrift Score

Thrift Score By: Al Hoff
Non-Fiction, shopping, crafts, pop culture history 242 pages 6th grade reading level Copyright 1997

If you like cheap things, pop culture of the past, kitsch and the thrill of the hunt in shopping then this book is for you. It’s full of stories of great thrifts, what to do with the odd things you find, how to furnish your whole house for like $200 and lots of great party ideas. Also even thought the book is a decade old most of the information is still good, just add a decade to any information. I.E. “Thrift stores are still full of things from the 70’s” (Not really a quote from the book, but you get the idea.) Think, “Thrift stores are still full of things from the 80’s.” (Which according to stores like Clare’s is in!) Also reading this book is worth it just for what they say about the Atkins' Diet on page 128. Which first was started in 1972, and was denounced as unhealthy even then. (In an era when Paula Dean’s food might pass as healthy. . . “There’s a pound of butter and one of sugar, but look there’s a cup of fruit, it’s good for you!”)

Question of the Day:

Stenophobia is a fear of this.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: 52 Days

An Actual Report of a Book – Greatest Secrets of the Coupon Mom

Greatest Secrets of the Coupon Mom By: Stephanie Nelson
Non-Fiction, advice, shopping 164 pages 6th grade reading level
Copyright 2005

First this book does give a lot of advice on how to save more money on grocery shopping. It also gives a lot of information on how the cheaply give to your local food bank/pantry and what type of things that they really need. Also as the book is only a couple years old its information is mostly up to date. The only thing wrong with the book is that the web site that the author runs has changed. It wasn’t a big change it’s still free and full of information on what coupons are out there and where to get them, but the one thing it changed was the one thing we really liked about it. In the book it gives examples of their coupon information that includes the coupon, where to get it, the current price of the item in your area stores, and what price you would end up paying. Now the site just has the coupon info and not the store info. Plus, for Michigan we could not get any information to pop up. So, if you need some help with your budget, this book can help, but the web site isn’t that great.

Question of the Day:

The 1st car trip across the USA was in 1903 and took this long.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: snakes

Question of the Day:

Look out!!! This animal can bite after they die. (Note: the answer is a real proven animal, not a vampire or zombie.)

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: Paris, France - le pizza, garcon.

Question of the Day:

The world’s busiest Pizza Hut is located in this unlikely city.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: Facts

An Actual Report of a Book – The Darwin Awards 4 : Intelligent Design

The Darwin Awards 4 : Intelligent Design By: Wendy Northcutt and Christopher M. Kelly
Humor, science, non-fiction 286 pages 8th grade reading level copyright 2006


We love the hear about how extremely stupid people are punished for their stupidity. So one would think we would love this book. We like the Darwin Awards as a whole, but this book was not worth the time it took to read. First, most of the stories aren’t that great. I mean not every time a person accidentally kills themselves is all that fun to hear about, most are just depressing. The couple that got run over while doing it in the street were warned multiple times about why this was a bad idea, making it worthy of a Darwin Award. And the first few stories about men putting fireworks, explosives etc. in or around their pants were funny (as are most stories about Darwin winners who are still alive.) But there are only so many times you want to read about it in a day. Also this book was very anti any believe but Darwinian Evolution as part of their anti-religionness. Now we don’t mind a few lighthearted pokes at the anti-science of fundamental creationist. But this was at times mean spirited to all religions. Sure you can’t prove that God caused evolution as part of a big plan. (Or gods, goddesses, aliens etc.) You can’t prove that evolution was the only thing that caused life to be the way it is either. (That’s why it’s only a theory, even thought all scientist believe in it.) And there are a lot of people that don’t see science and religion as two opposite things that are tired of people like this acting like it is. Historically, religion was one of the main forces behind scientific discoveries. From ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Christendom, to Islam scientist either were the religious leaders, or where encouraged or paid by the religious leaders. But, enough ranting. Anyway all the stories are apparently on their website anyway, so you mind as well read them there if you want to see how many ways a man can render himself sterile with gunpowder. Also they are making a movie, although we don’t see how that would work.

Question of the Day:

Time magazine was first going to be called this


Answer to Yesterday’s Question:95 million

More Weird Things Our Cat Does

Ok. This is not really about our cat. It is about cats in general. Apparently our cat is not the only one with a shoe fetish. We were reading “What Do Ducks Dream?” By Harriet Ziefert the other day for the hundredth time (And we only checked the book out of the library two weeks ago.) When it hit us. In the story the cat dreams of wearing shoes. Our cat is not alone!! Cats must just love shoes. Also the book is based on Sigmund Freud’s life and works. Given that this is not a book children should hear even though it was written for them. It is clear that all the animals on this farm are perverts who need anger management classes. The ducks are flying, and on bike too! The rooster dreams of a giant horn, making him possible even sicker then the ducks. And we will not get into the cows thoughts.

Question of the Day:

Some thing to think about when you pop that peep in your mouth. Americans (as a whole) eat this many pounds of marshmallows in a year.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: Thomas Edison

An Actual Report of a Book – The Serpent on the Crown

The Serpent on the Crown By: Elizabeth Peters
Historic Fiction, Mystery 543 pages (large print) 8th grade reading level copyright 2005


This book takes place in Egypt during 1922 and is about a mystery that finds a family of archeologist. It was written by a Ph. D. in Egyptology, so as one can guess it is really rich in information on ancient Egypt. However, the storyline of the mystery itself doesn’t require a large amount of knowledge of archeology or ancient Egypt. All one needs to know beyond common knowledge of ancient Egypt is that this story takes place before Howard Carter started to dig on that year. (1922 being the year that he found King Tut’s tomb.) But knowing a fair amount of info on Egypt makes the book more enjoyable. (Expect ones constant desire to yell at the book about the heir of Pharaoh Akhenaten.) All and all though we found the book a fun read and plan on looking for other books by the same author.

Question of the Day:

This famous inventor had 5,000 pet birds in their life.

Answer to Saturday's Question: Gold

Question of the Day:

If you think smoking is expensive now, be glad that this precious metal is no longer used to treat lung disease.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: the camel

Question of the Day:

This animal has three eyelids for each eye.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: A. uphill, think about it, it does actual make sense.

Question of the Day:

multiple choice: Forest fires move faster. . . A. uphill B downhill C. beside a hill D. near expensive housing

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: Pretoria