Ripley's Believe It or Not by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for April 03, 2013

How did he discover this “talent”. Was it consuming chilli eating birds while relocating.

talk about s-itting bullets! tim, that’s for the birds, er… sorry, mr. inferno (hasn’t remembered his real name in years)

I can’t believe he really gargled lead. Even if he spat the lead out he would still be massively poisoned.

Can’t imagine the tree surviving. Let see photos in 5 years.

The metal is probably not lead, but there are other metals (bismuth?) that look like lead and melt at body temperature. Also, the Romans drank water out of lead pipes, some think that led to their downfall and the following descent into the dark ages.

Re the “Great Inferno”, I choose NOT!

During the Civil War, the soldiers liked to suck on the lead Minie balls, because they were sweet. They did not, of course, know about the poisons in lead. And just to make you even more grateful that you live in modern times, mercury was considered a wonder drug and basic cure-all; physicians prescribed them quite freely.

Daffy Duck has had bad reactions to hot sauce. Must have missed the memo.

The Amphora that held wine were made of lead. When the wine was gone and nothing but the dregs left.The dregs would be dryed and then scraped from the inside, and reconstituted with water, lead and all..From an Nat Geo article on Pompey and Herculaneum..\\//_

He may play around with some low melting alloy, but all lead I doubt.

Molten lead used to be forced into someone’s mouth as a mid-evil (sp) torture. (Wow – it sure doesn’t taste like tomato juice!)

Probably a trick. Like, early “lie detectors”, or even the one they use currently in some places in Africa. Sticking your hand in a pot of boiling oil, or sticking your tongue to a red hot poker.The moisture keeps the hot material from actually coming in contact with your skin (the theory being, if you’re nervous, you’re dryer, and will burn, if you’re calm and innocent about it you’ll have more moisture)So this guy probably has a lot of moisture (spit) for one. But even having a mass of molten lead in your mouth, the heat would be too great. No matter what, that’s hot. It’s probably cause teeth to crack or something.

He was also famous, for screwing the Indians out of all their land too. I can’t stand the man. The SCOTUS said, that he had to abide by their ruling, and let the Indians stay on their land. But told them to bugger off, and that’s the “trail of tears” The problem, and he knew it, is there is NO enforcement mech to the SCOTUS. They can rule, but what are they going to do? Send in the Marshall’s to arrest you? Sargent at arms? Call the state police? Nobody is going to walk into the white house, and arrest the president for something like that. So, he got away with it. Of course, public opinion was with him for the most part too. The people in Georgia wanted to get their hands on the gold that was on the Indian land. Much like what happened with the Indians in the Black Hills too. Hmmm see a pattern?

I have two budgerigars at present, and used to have several more plus cockatiels, and they didn’t react to peppers either. Just ate it like nothing else.

Then there’s leaded gasoline. I’ve heard it opined that Los Angeleans were so whacky (and violent) because of the lead content in the smog they breath. Yeah, the exhaust from their cars were and still are driving them nuts.

wow that was interesting about birds being immune to the hottest of chili peppers but would you feed one to your bird???

From your attempted correction of minié ball to musket ball, I gather you have never heard of the minié ball. See http://www.civilwar.si.edu/weapons_minieball.html

Knowing that oaks can have very deep tap roots compared to other trees, I was questioning in my mind how well the transplanted 100-year-old tree would do, but after reading a bit more, I see that the lateral roots, if healthy and strong, should be sufficient even if the tap toot is trimmed.