William Reeves was standing watch aboard his tramp steamer when he had an eerie feeling...as though something was wrong...but he didn't know what. They were Canada bound from England. The date was 1935, April...Iceburg season.
Young Reeves tended to worry about the huge mountains of ice, and at this point...the tingling he felt disturbed him.
His watch ended at midnight...about the time the Titanic had been nailed by an iceburg. The sea, as then, was now calm.
He suddenly remembered the date of the Titanics disaster...April 14th, 1912...the coincidence terrified him...it was also his birthday....he shouted a danger warning and the helmsman hit the alarm...the ship reversed engines and came to a halt...yards from a killing iceburg that would have easily breached their hull in the deadly cold of the North Sea.
More Iceburgs caged in the ship...it took icebreakers from Newfoundland 9 days to free them. The name of the ship that almost ended up next to the Titanic was....the Titanian.
The Last Sighting of the Flying Dutchman
At the tip of South Africa, False Bay bakes beneath the summer sun, a playground for the beachloving puplic...but in March 1939 it became a place of wonder, and not perhaps just a bit of fear.
Out of the haze of this tranquil day sailed a ship...a full rigged East Indiaman such as not been seen in for several centuries...soon everyone on the beach was alerted and staring at this anachronism.
The ship was full sailed and heading toward Muinzenburg...the ship then vanished.
60 people were questioned, and gave the same report of that day....a ship, several centuries out of date that vanishes with no trace?...right where the captian of the Flying Dutchman is supposedly eternally attempting crossing?
So-Called Secrets
Kentucky Fried Chicken
Throughout the corperate history of KFC one of the most tantalizing advertising gimmicks has always been the unknown makeup of the secret recipe for the chickens batter. What are the eleven herbs and spices? What exactly is the recipe for cooking this admittedly tasty chicken?
Colonel Sanders recipe is very closley held by the executives that franchise out the company's operations, so much so that it is rumoured that the full details are only known to 3 of the company's top executives (this seems unlikely).
Part of the process is under patent and therefore public knowledge. It seems the chicken is pressure-cooked and not actually fried...the temperature in the cooker being brought to 400 degrees which browns the coating very quickly, and then the temperature is taken down to 250 degrees and the pressure in the cooker is carefully maintained at 15 psi above atmospheric pressure... which cooks the chicken quickly...this and the steam maintained by the cooker produces fully cooked, yet moist and juicy chicken...it hasn't a chance to dry out, as it would during normal pan or deep frying.
But what about the ingredients?...the fabled 11 herbs and spices?
Many chefs (some quite famous) have attempted to replicate the flavor of the Colonels chicken, some with reasonable success. Gloria Pitzer, publisher of the newsletter Secret Recipe Report created three recipes in an attempt to duplicate the famous chicken.
All call for the chicken to be deep or pan fried only until brown, then transferred to a baking pan with a little water in it (1/4 to 1/2 inch) and baked (I'm assuming while covered) for 30 or 35 minutes or until fully cooked. One of the recipes uses garlic salt, onion powder, paprika, black pepper, allspice, sweet basil, oregano, sage, ginger, marjoram, summer savory, ginger and rosemary. This is said to approximate KFC's spicy-crispy style chicken.
But whats in the real thing? William Poundstone in his book "Big Secrets" (Quill, N.Y.) reports that a bag of the ingredients that are routinely sold to KFC franchisees was once "aquired" and analyzed. It was found to consist of only four ingredients...flour, salt, monosodium glutimate (figures) and black pepper. No eleven herbs and spices, nothing of real interest. Could it be that corperate America, with its usual disdain for the palattes of the great unwashed has been "losing" ingredients throughout the years to save a few bucks?
I know that the people I've spoken with on the matter have all stated that KFC simply dosn't taste as good as it used to years ago, and that it's become too greasy. I find I am in agreement with them, as well.
Cheating The Lie Detector?
Can you cheat a lie detector?...actually, it's easier than you think...
A trained Lie Detector operator will ask a series of "control Questions"...questions that the answer is yes or no, but you will not have any problem with being honest about..these are "control Questions" and your physical response is guaged while you answer...the nasty question, such as "did you kill him?" comes later...your responses to the "don't care" questions are then compared to the real ones...accurate?...hell no...but there should be some galvonic skin response differences and heart rate alteration as well as a possible resperation difference...how do you cheat?...
...Heh...the answer is simple and kind of disgusting...as the control questions are asked...clench your colon...yep, thats all...as the REAL questions are asked...clench it again...
This physiological act will mask your reactions, and at the very least...you will end up with an "inconclusive"...not admissable in a court of law. (it is of note that honest individuals can fail a lie detector test simply by being afraid it will find them guilty...even if they aren't)
