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It’s sort of amazing that while the "healer" role has existed for at least as long as human civilization, most of the really significant advances in medicine have occurred in the past two hundred years. Many of the cures we’re going to look at predate the invention of common-sense medical regulations, a few of them are still going strong in defiance of scientific opinion, legislative response, and common damn sense. TREPANNING The expression “when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” was almost literally true for the profession of chirurgeon, a sort of ...
Flags today are primarily something to wave while yelling something at a sporting event, or something to roll yourself up in before attending a town council meeting, or to express yourself in some other, more subtle way. While most flags are fairly simple and convey a clear message, others can be a little busy… or just plain incoherent. Here are ten notably weird flags from today, yesterday and tomorrow. LIBYA (1977-2011) Strictly speaking, this is the flag of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, a confusing mouthful of Communist and Muslim buzzwords that represented Muammar ...
We like to think that being rich will solve all of our problems, but that’s not the case. Even the super wealthy can lose it all in the blink of an eye. In this feature, we’ll tell ten tales of insanely rich men who went bankrupt. The reasons vary from bad investments to nasty divorces, but they all end the same way: in the poorhouse. Sean Quinn In 2008, Sean Quinn was the richest man in all of Ireland, with a net worth north of four billion Euros. He made that money from a wide range of industries, including gravel, plastics and hospitality, but diversification led to his fall from power. In 2007, Quinn ...
Typically, when we think about big divorce settlements, it’s the woman making off with the cash. But that’s not always the case. When the lady is the breadwinner of the family, sometimes the man is entitled to a bigger slice of the pie. In this feature, we’ll examine ten of the biggest male divorce settlements of all time. Rene Elizondo, Jr. Life in the Jackson family isn’t particularly normal, so it’s unsurprising that when Janet Jackson fell in love with Mexican-American songwriter Rene Elizondo, Jr., she kept it secret from her crazy relatives. The pair were married in 1991 without any ...
Taking up arms for a foreign country in exchange for hard cash has been called “the second-oldest profession in the world.” Then again, being a spy, politician, lawyer, teacher, hotel manager, pawnbroker or gambling tip-sheet publisher have also been called the second-oldest professions in the world. But as author Peter Tickler said in the introduction to “The Modern Mercenary,” mercenary work has been considered by some to be “a peculiarly male version of prostitution,” with a maybe more literal definition of selling one’s body. During eras where many armies were made up of ...
Finally, after all of these years, one of the internet's biggest viral video stars has broken his silence. As it turns out, while many people embrace their internet fame, the Star Wars Kid spent the past ten years resenting his. Back when Ghyslain Raza was a 14-year-old high school student in 2002, he shot a video that was originally intended to be private. No, it wasn't a sex tape. That probably would've been less embarrassing. Raza was recording himself practicing his sweet Star Wars Jedi knight moves in order to prepare for a parody his school's TV club was working on (below). Fast forward to a year later when one of Raza's classmates posted the video online without his permission ...
