Atlantis ("island of Atlas") is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC.  According to Plato, Atlantis was a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or approximately 9600 BC.  After a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank into the ocean "in a single day and night of misfortune".  Scholars dispute whether and how much Plato's story or account was inspired by older traditions.  In Critias, Plato claims that his accounts of ancient Athens and Atlantis stem from a visit to Egypt by the legendary Athenian lawgiver Solon in the 6th century BC.  In Egypt, Solon met a priest of Sais, who translated the history of ancient Athens and Atlantis, recorded on papyri in Egyptian hieroglyphs, into Greek.  Some scholars argue Plato drew upon memories of past events such as the Thera eruption or the Trojan War, while others insist that he took inspiration from contemporary events like the destruction of Helike in 373 BC or the failed Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415–413 BC.  The possible existence of a genuine Atlantis was discussed throughout classical antiquity, but it was usually rejected and occasionally parodied by later authors.  Alan Cameron states:  "It is only in modern times that people have taken the Atlantis story seriously; no one did so in antiquity".  The Timaeus remained known in a Latin rendition by Calcidius through the Middle Ages, and the allegorical aspect of Atlantis was taken up by Humanists in utopian works of several Renaissance writers, such as Francis Bacon's New Atlantis and Thomas More's Utopia.  Atlantis inspires today's literature, from science fiction to comic books to films.  Its name has become a byword for any and all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilizations.   Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written in 360 BC, contain the earliest references to Atlantis.  For unknown reasons, Plato never completed Critias.  Plato introduced Atlantis in Timaeus:  For it is related in our records how once upon a time your State stayed the course of a mighty host, which, starting from a distant point in the Atlantic ocean, was insolently advancing to attack the whole of Europe, and Asia to boot.  For the ocean there was at that time navigable; for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, 'the pillars of Heracles,' there lay an island which was larger than Libya and Asia together; and it was possible for the travelers of that time to cross from it to the other islands, and from the islands to the whole of the continent over against them which encompasses that veritable ocean.  For all that we have here, lying within the mouth of which we speak, is evidently a haven having a narrow entrance; but that yonder is a real ocean, and the land surrounding it may most rightly be called, in the fullest and truest sense, a continent.  Now in this island of Atlantis there existed a confederation of kings, of great and marvelous power, which held sway over all the island, and over many other islands also and parts of the continent.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis

A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part.  It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax.  See examples at:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraprosdokian

Bess Truman's Ozark Pudding  If desired, serve with ice cream, whipped cream or sweet sauce.  http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/39/Bess_Trumans_Ozark_Pudding53243.shtml

Beall’s List of Predatory Publishers 2013 by Jeffrey Beall released December 4, 2012

The gold open-access model has given rise to a great many new online publishers.  Many of these publishers are corrupt and exist only to make money off the author processing charges that are billed to authors upon acceptance of their scientific manuscripts.  There are two lists.  The first includes questionable, scholarly open-access publishers.  Each of these publishers has a portfolio that ranges from just a few to hundreds of individual journal titles.  The second list includes individual journals that do not publish under the platform of any publisher — they are essentially independent, questionable journals.  In both cases, we recommend that researchers, scientists, and academics avoid doing business with these publishers and journals.  Scholars should avoid sending article submissions to them, serving on their editorial boards or reviewing papers for them, or advertising in them.  Also, tenure and promotion committees should give extra scrutiny to articles published in these journals, for many of them include instances of author misconduct.  There are still many high-quality journals available for scholars to publish in, including many that do not charge author processing fees.  An additional option is author self-archiving of articles in discipline-specific and institutional repositories.  The author is grateful to the many colleagues who have shared information about potential predatory publishers.  Last year’s list included 23 publishers, and this year’s has over 225, evidence of the rapid growth in the number of predatory journals and publishers.  This list will be updated throughout the year at the blog Scholarly Open Access, http://scholarlyoa.com.
http://scholarlyoa.com/2012/12/06/bealls-list-of-predatory-publishers-2013/

Unscrupulous traders and scammers are using fake blog sites and misleading web pages to promote dubious health products, lure Internet surfers to advertisement-laden pages, and launch scareware -- telling victims their PCs have been infected by a virus.  The tricksters also post ads and bogus comments on legitimate blog sites with the aim of drawing readers to their pages.  It's commonly known as a "flog" -- a fake blog -- and the con-artists who run them and bogus news sites are currently raking in an estimated $750 million a year selling products of questionable value, from supposed miracle cures to phony anti-virus software.  They're easy to set up and, even though the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently filed lawsuits to try to stop some of them, the tricksters often skirt their way around the law to stay in business.  What's a fake blog?  Well, first, let's think about what a blog is:  it's usually a personal or company website that's regularly updated with the latest news, views, and comments.  People use them to promote their products, air opinions and, sometimes, just to think out loud about the issues that interest or affect them.  But when a blog pretends to be something other than what it really is, that's what we mean by a fake blog.  Sometimes they only have one article, often posing as an impartial news report commenting on some kind of "miracle" product.  Read much more and find the telltale signs of a fake blog at:  http://www.scambusters.org/fakeblog.html 

From the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum

Herbert Hoover agreed to serve as Secretary of Commerce only after securing President-elect Harding's promise that he would have a free hand in all economic policy.  Three new divisions were created to deal with housing, radio and aeronautics.  While the Fisheries Bureau helped to save Alaska's salmon, Hoover convened a meeting of fishermen and oilmen to save Chesapeake Bay-- part of a seemingly endless series of public conferences and private think tanks, all designed to educate decision makers, inspire legislation or promote grassroots cooperation.  Under Secretary Hoover, the Census Bureau was expanded into an informational treasure trove for business planners. The Railway Labor Mediation Board was established in 1926.  Hoover personally raised more than a million dollars to further scientific research.  As befitting the man who insisted that all airport runways be fitted with landing lights, radio beams and other safety devices, Washington's first airfield was given Hoover's name.  In 1924 the Commerce Department sponsored the National Conference on Street and Highway Safety--this after 20,000 people died in auto accidents the previous year.  Hoover himself wrote the nation's first uniform highway safety code after a friend obeying District of Columbia traffic regulations was cited for twenty-four violations en route to New York.  The loss of both parents before his tenth birthday made Herbert Hoover deeply sympathetic to other children in distress.  Throughout the 1920s he served as president of the American Child Health Association.  Between 1923 and 1927 "flying squads" of ACHA personnel were sent into thirty states to monitor milk supplies.  Thanks to their highly publicized findings, over 250 municipalities passed ordinances requiring pasteurization.  As president, Hoover increased the budget of the Children's Bureau and called a landmark White House Conference on the Health and Protection of Children.  The nineteen point "Children's Charter" that came out of this gathering was in many ways an extension of the Child's Bill of Rights first published by the American Child Health Association in 1923.   At the start of the 1920s, radio was a costly novelty, limited to a few thousand amateurs across the country.  Then came an explosion of popular interest that within four years led to two million sets and some 530 stations-- answerable to no one.  Hoover changed all that, snatching regulation of the 'wireless telephone" away from the Bureau of Navigation and chairing a series of conferences, where it was decided that radio licenses would be limited initially to three months, that certain bands would be set aside for public service broadcasting, and that there would be no British-style regimentation of the airwaves.  A Washington funeral home might seem an unlikely place for the debut of a revolutionary technology.  Yet that is precisely where television was born, on April 27, 1927.   And Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover was on hand for the first inter-city transmission of video imagery.  http://hoover.archives.gov/exhibits/Hooverstory/gallery04/index.html