It was a profitable but outrageous scheme, set forth in a trial going on now. Prosecutors are charging that David Deng recruited Chinese immigrants to join the "U.S. Army/Military Special Forces Reserve" to help their chances of obtaining U.S. citizenship, and that he charged hundred of dollars from his "soldiers." The U.S. military has no such unit. The group is well known in Asian-American neighborhoods of Los Angeles, where community leaders had no idea they weren't government issue.

Last year, one Chinese-language newspaper reported that an Alhambra taxi driver was arrested near Los Angeles International Airport after producing counterfeit military identification while trying to get out of a traffic stop.

Investigators learned that the recruits were told that the military IDs could be used to avoid getting traffic tickets and to receive certain types of military benefits and discounts, Eimiller said.

Some of the recruits were so convinced that they were part of the U.S. military that they actually visited real Army recruiting centers and tried to pay their monthly dues directly to the U.S. government, Eimiller said. That was another tipoff when investigators began looking into the group.

Local Chinese American leaders on Wednesday said they were shocked that a group that was such a familiar presence in the community is now being accused of being a fraud.

If convicted of all charges, Daniel Deng could face 11 years in prison. Link -via Metafilter

(Image credit: FBI)

How much do you know about armadillos? Asher Kade had never even heard of armadillos before he moved to Texas and confronted many of them. But he dug up a lot of fascinating facts about the ancient animals. For instance, they can walk underwater and hold their breath up to six minutes! But they are endangered because they don't reproduce well, as you'll learn in this article at Environmental Graffiti. Link -via Look At This

(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons user Kolossos)

(YouTube link)

Here's the story from the YouTube page:

Sophia breaks into Amy's house in Africa, James Bond style, for the sardines we bought earlier. She's a freaking clawed ninja! (Note her hanging on one paw while trying to open the window with the other before she starts hanging.)

-via Arbroath

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One of the dinosaurs from the show "Walking with Dinosaurs" (previously at Neatorama) visited a school in Bondi, near Sydney, Australia. The kids were, shall we say, excited. Don't miss the foot race! -via reddit

Graham Short managed to engrave three words on the edge of a razor blade. You can only see it at 400x magnification (or by going to the link to see a larger picture). The 64-year-old Short, who admits he is obsessed with miniature engraving, made about 150 attempts before he got the engraving right.

He was only able to work at night, when traffic vibrations are at a minimum, with his right arm bound to the arm of his chair with a luggage strap to minimise unwanted movement. He uses a stethoscope to monitor his heart, attempting a stroke of the letter only between beats, when his body is perfectly still. He swims 10,000 metres a day and can slow his heart rate to 30 beats a minute.

He worked from midnight to 5.30am most nights of the week, for seven months on his razor blade. On a good night he’d manage three minuscule letters.

The Wilkinson’s Sword blade is now available to buy, with a £47,500 price tag.

Link -via J-Walk Blog

(Image credit: Cascade)

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The YoGPoD Podcast guys speculate about how the Teletubbies watch television. -via Buzzfeed

Oh, nothing special, just a duck walking through Beijing showing off its shoes. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/picturesoftheday/8445313/Pictures-of-the-day-12-April-2011.html?image=5 -via Buzzfeed

(Image credit: China Foto Press/Barcroft Media)

Doug Forbis is in a graduate education program and has done some student teaching. He aspires to be a physical education teacher for children with special needs. Forbis believe he can offer encouragement because he's an athlete -despite having no legs.

"It's so rare for kids with special needs to have a teacher with special needs -- that almost never happens," he said. "I think it would help a lot for these special need kids to say, 'Look, Mr. Forbis is a teacher, I can do that, too. He lives by himself, gets around town, goes shopping, I can do that, too.' A lot of kids don't know that's an option. They just depend on the system their whole lives."

Forbis has participated in swimming, basketball, and track in leagues for disabled people. His professors say he has a talent for talking to children. Link -via Fortean Times

(Image credit: Barcroft/Fame)

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Sheriff's deputies in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma noticed damaged wiring in their cruisers for weeks before finding out who the perpetrator is. Spokesman Mark Myer said the culprit is a squirrel who approaches the vehicles by a tree that hangs over the parked cars. Animal control officers have set traps, but so far the suspect has not been captured. http://www.kztv10.com/news/squirrel-wanted-for-damaging-police-cars/ -via Arbroath

Brabant is a province of Belgium. The Brabant Chronicle is a 14th-century manuscript by Jan Van Boendale. The chronicle was published in several updated versions and covers events of the area from around the year 600 to 1350, and is composed of 16,000 rhyming lines and illustrations. The volumes are owned by the Royal Library of Belgium, but 15 marvelous illustrations are posted at BibliOdyssey. Link

Jonathon Keats is opening a restaurant in San Francisco, Sacramento but it doesn't serve food. It doesn't even serve humans. The Photosynthetic Restaurant caters to plants! He filters sunlight in various combinations to make the rays appetizing and nutritious for the plants. Humans are welcome to come and watch, and to contemplate how much we take plants for granted.

“My recipes are all based on the scientific study of plant physiology, applied to the fine art of cuisine,” Keats told Wired.com. “I’m publishing the recipe book so gardeners everywhere can prepare gourmet sunlight for their plants at home. For people who are lazier, or keep only a few plants indoors, I packaged my signature recipes for easy consumption by videotaping select wavelengths of natural sunlight and editing them into a quick and convenient TV dinner.

“I tried it out on my plants at home, and as far as I can tell, they responded well to my delectable mixtures of orange, violet and yellow, although I can’t be certain,” he added. “Cuisine is a form of communication, and mine won’t be complete until plants evolve a mechanism for food criticism.”

It's what they call concept art. The Photosynthetic Restaurant will be open April 16-July 17 at the Crocker Art Museum. Read all about it at Underwire. Link

(Image credit: Crocker Art Museum)

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Now you know what medical doctors do during slow shifts. Dr. Denton is apparently a "practicing" physician! -via the Presurfer

A classic in modern literature, "The Lottery" did more in nine pages than most novels do in nine chapters. Here's how Shirley Jackson outraged a nation with fewer than 3,500 words.

Spoiler alert: this article reveals the ending of "The Lottery". If you haven't read it, hop to it! It'll take 15 minutes, tops.

In 1948, The New Yorker published the most controversial short story in its history: "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, a 31-year-old wife and mother living in Vermont. The simply told tale covers a ritual lottery in a sunny, rural town. But what starts out bathed in warmth and charm grows eerier and eerier, until the horrific purpose of the lottery is revealed in the story's final paragraphs. Soon after the piece was published, angry letters poured in to The New Yorker. Readers canceled their subscriptions. And while many claimed they didn't understand the story, the intense reaction indicated they understood it all too well.

"The Lottery" was published at a time when America was scrambling for conformity. Following World War II, the general public wanted to leave behind the horrors of war and genocide. They craved comfort, normalcy, and old-fashioned values. Jackson's story was a cutting commentary on the dangers of blind obedience to tradition, and she threw it, like a grenade, into a complacent post-war society.

LUCK OF THE DRAW

Shirley Jackson was not the kind of person you'd expect to be a literary firebrand. Shy and high-strung, she dropped out of the University of Rochester in 1935. Her second stab at school was more successful. At age 20, she enrolled at Syracuse University, where she met her future husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman. Together, they published a short-lived literary magazine called The Spectre.

After graduating from Syracuse, the two got married and moved to New York City, where Jackson gave birth to the first of her four children. Soon after, in 1945, Hyman got a job teaching at Bennington College in Vermont. The family moved to North Bennington, a tiny, rural town that later became the setting for "The Lottery." While Stanley taught, Jackson wrote. She penned a few offbeat stories for The New Yorker, but mostly she produced mainstream pieces for women's periodicals such as Good Housekeeping and Ladies' Home Journal. After several years of living in Vermont, Jackson had another child and was carrying a third. From a distance, her life seemed tranquil and wholesome. But something darker was brewing inside.

It is once again time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog. Do you know what this object is? Can you make a wild guess?

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will each win a T-shirt from the NeatoShop.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

Be sure to check out the What Is It? Blog. Let your imagination run wild, and good luck!

Update: It took over 50 guesses for someone to come up with the correct answer! Berhard finally said this object is a corn dryer. You stuck it into ears of corn to hang and dry them so you could use the kernels for seed corn. trishlovesdolphins gave us the funniest answer: it's the air freshener from Mad Max's car! Both win t-shirts from the NeatoShop.

Next Movie honors five classic comedians by enshrining them in comic book covers as superheroes, as rendered by the artists at Old Red Jalopy. Besides Steve Martin, see Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Eddie Murphy, and Will Farrell in tights on their own covers. Link -via mental_floss