"Superstar" Stamp Up For Auction

This is a stamp, just a stamp, nothing more - and please tell me if you can see why anybody would care one thing about it.  You can't read anything on it.  The only thing even half-way legible is somebody's scribbled signature on it, and apparently nobody knows who's signature it is.

OK.  Here's the deal.  This is a 1-cent postage stamp from British Guiana in 1856.  It used to hold the auction sales record for a single stamp back in 1980 when the last owner, John E. du Pont, an heir to the du Pont chemical fortune, bought it for $935,000.  It's now being sold by his estate and experts say it's poised to become the world's most valuable stamp again.

"You're not going to find anything rarer than this," said Allen Kane, director of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. "It's a stamp the world of collectors has been dying to see for a long time."  Measuring 1 inch-by-1 1/4 inches, the feather-light One-Cent Magenta hasn't been on public view since 1986. It is the only major stamp absent from the British Royal Family's private Royal Philatelic Collection.

"This is the superstar of the stamp world," said David Redden, Sotheby's worldwide chairman of books and manuscripts, adding that the stamp will travel to London and Hong Kong before being sold.  Printed in black on magenta paper, it bears the image of a three-masted ship and the colony's motto, in Latin, "we give and expect in return." The stamp went into circulation after a shipment of stamps was delayed from London and the postmaster asked printers for the Royal Gazette newspaper in Georgetown in British Guiana ─ the present day Guyana ─ to produce three stamps until the shipment arrived: A 1-cent magenta, a 4-cent magenta and a 4-cent blue.  To safeguard against forgery, the postmaster ordered that the stamps be initialed by a post office employee.

Are you ready?    Sotheby's predicts the stamp will sell for between $10 million and $20 million when it's offered in New York on June 17.  Get out your checkbook!

One in Four Americans Believes Earth Revolves Around the Sun

Welcome to the 21st Century.  A National Science Foundation survey offers a sobering reflection of knowledge in today's all-knowing world. According to the survey, 25 percent of Americans really do believe the sun circles the Earth. The statistics come from a survey of more than 2,200 people conducted by the National Science Foundation.  The survey is performed every two years, just to see if America has made any progress and will be included in a report to President Obama and US lawmakers later this year.  Fifty-two percent of Americans had no idea that humans evolved from animal species. (This may be the 52 percent of people who believe that mayonnaise comes from the mayo plant.) Thirty percent of people also said science deserves more government funding. There is no data suggesting that most of these people were the ones who believe the sun revolves around the Earth.

Iraqi militants accidentally set off car bomb at their own training camp

Seems the other day an al-Qaida breakaway group decided to set up a new car bomb making plant in an orchard north of Baghdad.  Naturally they filled it chock full of explosives and then sent out word for would-be car bombers to come and visit because one of their talented bomb-making instructors would be there to give the would-be recruits valuable lessons on how to go about putting car bombs together.  Must have been a festive occasion, eh?  Well, somehow something went wrong and the instructor accidentally set off a shit-load of explosives in his demonstration Monday.  BOOM!

Twenty-one of the hopeful bomb makers were killed and about two dozen others were arrested, including wounded insurgents trying to hobble away from the scene.  Let's see, each martyr is supposed to be met by seventy-two virgins upon his arrival in heaven, so 72 x 21 is ... well, that's an awful LOT of virgins, don't you think?  They probably had to send out a call for extra ones I suppose.  ;-}

Dr. House solves real-world mystery

We all knew the fictional Dr. Gregory House of Princeton, N.J., was good at solving medical mysteries. But it turns out he was so good he managed to solve a real one, in Germany, right around the time his Fox TV show went off the air.

A team of German doctors reported the other day in the medical journal Lancet that they used clues remembered from an episode of House to figure out what was wrong with a man who had severe heart failure. The unidentified 55-year-old patient had symptoms including fever, swollen lymph nodes, hearing loss and vision loss when he showed up in May 2012 at the Center for Undiagnosed Diseases in Marburg. He also had a metal hip implant, which had been put in as a replacement for a broken ceramic hip implant in 2010. Luckily, his doctors were not only House fans but actually had used a relevant episode of the drama to train medical students. As the doctors noted in their case report, the episode featured Candice Bergen playing the mother of House's love interest, Dr. Lisa Cuddy.

In the episode, it turns out that Bergen's character – who is suffering from all sorts of mysterious symptoms, including a fever and heart trouble – has been poisoned with cobalt from her metal hip implant. And that was the problem with the German patient. "We suspected cobalt intoxication as the most likely reason," because of the episode, the doctors write. They then found fragments of that metal near one hip and high levels in the patient's blood. They deduced that the man's new metal hip had been damaged by fragments of his old ceramic hip. The patient "stablilized and recovered slightly" after a getting new ceramic hip. House, which starred British actor Hugh Laurie, went off the air in May 2012 after eight seasons.

Brewery tests beer delivery by drone

Surely you've read about Amazon hoping to begin delivery of some of their products by drones sometime in the next four or five years, right?  Well this is even better.  Lakemaid Brewery in Wisconsin is currently testing out drones to deliver beer to ice fishermen! Yup, the brewers in Steven's Point Wisconsin have already videotaped themselves testing out drone technology on icy Lake Wacona.  Customers will be able to call in orders with their specific GPS coordinates, and then a clerk will take the order and ship the box of 12 brews to the exact location.

The idea hit Jack Supple, President of Lakemaid Beer, when he realized that frozen lakes are the perfect place to test out beer drones because there are no power lines, buildings trees, or anything else that may pose a safety issue.  At the moment however, Lakemaid is merely testing the idea as several issues still need to be worked out. For instance, there would need to be a way to check buyers' ids to ensure that they are of age, and unfortunately for Lakemaid fans and anyone else dreading a walk to the corner store, it's currently against the law to fly drones for commercial purposes or above 400 feet in the United States. The FAA is working on a comprehensive set of rules and regulations that will pave the way for commercial drone flight, but the legislation won't be ready until at least 2015 and drones might not be in the skies until 2017. Until then, thirsty fishermen must obtain their beverages through old-fashioned terrestrial delivery methods.

Flashing Headlights to Warn About Speed Traps Ruled Legal

Betcha didn't know that a Missouri Judge has ruled that you have a right to flash your lights to warn other drivers about speed traps!  Yes, over the past couple of years, drivers in Florida and Texas who have been ticketed for notifying their fellow motorists about speed traps have taken the case to court and in at least one case, they won. In Florida, Ryan Kintner simply flashed his high-beams to oncoming cars -- the international "Police ahead!" signal -- but in Texas, Ron Martin went so far as to create a warning sign and hold it while standing on the median, which resulted in his arrest. Both cases went to court. Though Martin's case is still pending, Kintner's turned out badly for Florida police: the judge decided that flashing lights are, in fact, the equivalent of free speech, and therefore that Kintner had every right to use his headlights to warn others.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the score has ramped up to 2-0 in favor of motorists, thanks to a similar decision in Missouri. That case was very similar to the one that unfolded in Florida: driver Michael Elli was ticketed for flashing his lights and alerting oncoming motorists to a speed radar trap. His fine was $1,000.  In court, Elli pleaded not guilty, and shortly thereafter, the city of Ellisville dropped the charge. But Elli wasn't content: he called the American Civil Liberties Union and sued the city for violating his constitutional right to free speech.

And now, he's won.  In court, lawyers for the city suggested that signaling other drivers with one's headlights might interfere with a police investigation, but then they backed down, insisting that officers no longer pull over drivers who flash their high-beams. U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey wasn't buying it. He ordered the city to end its policy of stopping, harassing, and citing drivers like Elli immediately. Though the city could theoretically appeal, it's unlikely that it will do so -- unless, of course, the city wants to spend more taxpayer dollars defending a practice that seems increasingly indefensible.