Plot twists that WON'T happen

cthia wrote:Stefan Young joins the Navy and becomes one of the most decorated officers in Manticore history.

(Busts out in uncontrolled laughter, trying to type this with a straight face.)

Death By A Thousand Cuts by Darcia Helle © Copyright Darcia Helle 2010

Capital punishment has been used for thousands of years and is or was practiced all over the world. A few of the past methods were quick and merciful. Most were not. Death by a thousand cuts is among the most horrific. Also translated as slow slicing , lingering death , and slow process , the true name for this ancient Chinese style of execution is Lingchi. The term was derived from a classical description of ascending a mountain slowly. Lingchi’s use as a form of execution began in China around the year 900 and continued until its abolition in 1905. Reserved for crimes considered particularly severe, such as treason and killing one’s parents, the process entailed slowly slicing off chunks of the condemned person’s flesh. Execution normally took place in a public area, where the condemned would be tied to a wooden frame or cross beside a table holding a basket of razor-sharp knives covered by a cloth. Each knife bore the marking for a particular part of the body. The executioner would reach beneath the cloth and pull out a knife. He would then slice the area designated by the knife’s inscription. The torture came to a merciful end only when the executioner pulled the knife with the marking for the heart. This method appears to have been later changed to a more deliberate procedure, using a specific sequence of slicing and only one knife.

In later years large amounts of opium would first be given to the accused, although it is unclear as to whether this was an act of mercy or to prevent fainting and prolong torture. The condemned fortunate enough to come from wealthy families could offer the executioner a bribe to hasten death. For less serious crimes, the executioner would first slice the victim’s throat. The slicing away of flesh then became symbolic rather than torturous. To the condemned, Lingchi was physical and psychological torture, as well as publicly humiliating. The principle behind the slicing of flesh lay in the spiritual belief that the victim’s body would not be intact in the afterlife. For the Chinese of that time, this may have been more horrifying than the actual torture. In 1895, Sir Henry Norman witnessed a Lingchi execution. In The People and Politics of the Far East , Norman wrote that the executioner sliced off pieces by “grasping handfuls from the fleshy parts of the body, such as the thighs and the breasts”. He went on to state that “then the limbs are cut off piecemeal at the wrists and the ankles, the elbows and knees, the shoulders and hip. Finally the victim is stabbed in the heart and his head cut off”. In 1904, in a public square in Beijing, China, accused murderer Wan Weiqin was put to death by a thousand cuts in front of a crowd of onlookers. He is among the last to have suffered this form of capital punishment.

There’s a new meaning to the Ne-Yo song ‘So Sick.’

Have you ever had a physical reaction to a piece of music so strong that it caused you to vomit uncontrollably? If so, you might be suffering from musicogenic epilepsy, just like Zoe Fennessy.

According to the Daily Mail, 26-year-old Zoe has seizures that are triggered by Ne-Yo’s singing voice. If she hears any of his songs or the tone of his voice, she freezes up and begins to vomit uncontrollably.

Ne-Yo’s popularity has made her life increasingly difficult, as his songs are often played in public at random and without warning. Whenever Zoe leaves her home, she is forced to listen to her own music via headphones, just in case a shop is playing something by the ‘She Knows’ singer. If she does recognize a Ne-Yo song: “Whenever I hear the first few beats of the song I have to drop whatever I am doing and run.”

According to her doctors, it looks like there is no set reason as to why Ne-Yo, in particular, sets off the seizures. A recent trip to Majorca left Zoe miserable, as Ne-Yo had just released the popular song ‘Play Hard’ featuring David Guetta and it was being played everywhere. Zoe told the Daily Mail: “I have had to go up to DJs in places and say ‘look can you not play Ne-Yo,’ and they just look at me like I’m an alien.”

Musicogenic epilepsy is not a disorder specifically attributed to the music of Ne-Yo or Zoe, as it has been experienced by other people with other artists. According to Gawker, a woman from New Jersey had the same reaction whenever she heard Sean Paul‘s music. The worst part? He happens to be her favorite singer. Luckily for her, however, she had brain surgery and it was successful.

Despite an attempt at relieving her seizures by having part of her left temporal lobe removed, Zoe still has a seizure whenever she hears Ne-Yo: “I’m still left with the singer Ne-Yo causing my seizures,” she sad. “And I will be forever.”


Read More: Ne-Yo's Music Causes Woman to Seize, Remove Part of Her Brain | http://popcrush.com/ne-yo-zoe-fennessy- ... ck=tsmclip

cthia wrote:The MALign will rediscover overlooked research data obtained when they had the first living treecat in captivity.

They discovered a little known frequency and set of musical notes that incapacitates treecats, inducing musicogenic epilepsy similar to ...

There’s a new meaning to the Ne-Yo song ‘So Sick.’

Have you ever had a physical reaction to a piece of music so strong that it caused you to vomit uncontrollably? If so, you might be suffering from musicogenic epilepsy, just like Zoe Fennessy.

According to the Daily Mail, 26-year-old Zoe has seizures that are triggered by Ne-Yo’s singing voice. If she hears any of his songs or the tone of his voice, she freezes up and begins to vomit uncontrollably.

Ne-Yo’s popularity has made her life increasingly difficult, as his songs are often played in public at random and without warning. Whenever Zoe leaves her home, she is forced to listen to her own music via headphones, just in case a shop is playing something by the ‘She Knows’ singer. If she does recognize a Ne-Yo song: “Whenever I hear the first few beats of the song I have to drop whatever I am doing and run.”

According to her doctors, it looks like there is no set reason as to why Ne-Yo, in particular, sets off the seizures. A recent trip to Majorca left Zoe miserable, as Ne-Yo had just released the popular song ‘Play Hard’ featuring David Guetta and it was being played everywhere. Zoe told the Daily Mail: “I have had to go up to DJs in places and say ‘look can you not play Ne-Yo,’ and they just look at me like I’m an alien.”

Musicogenic epilepsy is not a disorder specifically attributed to the music of Ne-Yo or Zoe, as it has been experienced by other people with other artists. According to Gawker, a woman from New Jersey had the same reaction whenever she heard Sean Paul‘s music. The worst part? He happens to be her favorite singer. Luckily for her, however, she had brain surgery and it was successful.

Despite an attempt at relieving her seizures by having part of her left temporal lobe removed, Zoe still has a seizure whenever she hears Ne-Yo: “I’m still left with the singer Ne-Yo causing my seizures,” she sad. “And I will be forever.”


Read More: Ne-Yo's Music Causes Woman to Seize, Remove Part of Her Brain | http://popcrush.com/ne-yo-zoe-fennessy- ... ck=tsmclip

RHWoodman wrote:MAlign scientists capture wolverines from the North American continent on Old Earth and figure out to make them telepathic. These extremely dangerous creatures prove (with further genetic modification) to be awesomely dangerous shock troops. Things look bad -- very bad! -- for the Grand Alliance as the wolverines proceed from planet to planet inflicting destruction and mayhem, until an otherwise unremarkable Manticoran historian discovers that wolverines can be defeated rather handily by feeding them the Old Earth poisonous nut known as the buckeye.

<ducks and runs as outraged college football fans everywhere start looking for things to throw>

Hutch wrote:

RHWoodman wrote:
MAlign scientists capture wolverines from the North American continent on Old Earth and figure out to make them telepathic. These extremely dangerous creatures prove (with further genetic modification) to be awesomely dangerous shock troops. Things look bad -- very bad! -- for the Grand Alliance as the wolverines proceed from planet to planet inflicting destruction and mayhem, until an otherwise unremarkable Manticoran historian discovers that wolverines can be defeated rather handily by feeding them the Old Earth poisonous nut known as the buckeye.

<ducks and runs as outraged college football fans everywhere start looking for things to throw>

Being originally from Northern Ohio, I loved it.




For our foreign and non-football fans, there is a long-standing rivalry (think Real Madrid-Barcelona) between The Ohio State University, whose symbol is a Buckeye, and the University of Michigan, whose symbol is a wolverine. Thus the humor.

cthia wrote:"Wolverine" didn't evoke mascot in me rather the movie "Red Dawn."