mental_floss is a bi-monthly American magazine, launched in 2001[1] in Birmingham, Alabama, that presents facts and trivia in a humorous way. It includes columns by A.J. Jacobs and Ken Jennings.
The magazine frequently publishes books and sells T-shirts with humorous sayings, such as "There's no right way to eat a Rhesus". In addition, there is a licensed trivia board game much like Trivial Pursuit. Most recently, the magazine began the In a Box series with Law School in a Box and Med School in a Box.
The magazine also offers a popular blog site that include pieces from the magazine and Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. It also includes new internet memes, news articles and weekly link round ups.
再看看他們自己的介紹
For the record: mental_floss magazine is an intelligent read, but not too intelligent. We're the sort of intelligent that you hang out with for a while, enjoy our company, laugh a little, smile a lot and then we part ways. Great times. And you only realize how much you learned from us after a little while. Like a couple days later when you're impressing your friends with all these intriguing facts and things you picked up from us, and they ask you how you know so much, and you think back on that great afternoon you spent with us and you smile.
And then you lie and say you read a lot.
如果這樣還看不懂 這是一本 諷刺的雜誌
我也不知道該怎麼說！
然後再仔細看看這五個領袖
怎麼會是全世界最有膽識的領袖？
與馬總統並列為五大全球最具膽識領袖的還有德國總理梅克爾（Angela Merkel）、烏干達總統穆塞維尼（Yoweri Museveni）、巴西總統魯拉（Luis InacioLula da Silva）與智利總統巴舍萊（MichelleBachelet）。
來看看原來雜誌的內容：
Sept-Oct 2009: The 5 Gutsiest World Leaders
The World's Gutsiest Leaders
By Jennifer Drapkin
Whether they're healing a tortured nation, conquering AIDS, uniting Europe, galvanizing Latin America, or wooing China, these heads of state are proving that they have what it takes to change the world.
我提供部分 內文
Our new cover story on leaders is filled with the bold ideas and strange measures that politicians have taken to try and better their countries. But part of what makes the piece so fascinating is that all of these men and women have had unbelievable lives. Their stories sound so unlikely– from a hippie, folk-singing doctor who escaped torture to become president, to an East German scientist and daughter of a pastor who walked over the Berlin wall and was so moved that she felt compelled to go into politics. The stories are incredible, but my favorite is that of Lula da Silva. This is just an excerpt from one of the profiles in that story.
The End of Poverty: Lula da Silva
President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva goes by one name, Lula. Because, like Beyoncé and Bono, he’s just that popular. With an approval rating approaching 80 percent, he is the most beloved president in the history of modern Brazil. Of course, he is not without his critics. Lula’s detractors call him an uneducated rabble-rouser, who curses, drinks, and smokes on airplanes—all of which is true. But to his adoring fans—the millions who chant his name over and over like a crowd at a soccer match—Lula is a hero who vowed to end poverty and then stayed true to his word. This is how he waged his war, and why China and India are copying his battle plan.
The Miraculous Bag of Money
Born to illiterate parents in 1945, Lula started out life in a hut with no electricity and only dirt floors to sleep on. At age 7, he sold peanuts on the streets of Sao Paulo to help support his family. They often went hungry, mostly because his father was an abusive alcoholic who had a second family and a total of 23 offspring. When Lula was 10, his mother, Lindu, decided she’d had enough. She gathered her seven children and moved them to a single room in the back of a local bar. But she still couldn’t keep up with the rent.
The situation looked dire until a miracle occurred: Lula’s brother found a package lying on the ground at the market. Inside was more money than a minimum-wage laborer could make in three years. After waiting a week for someone to claim it, Lula’s brother gave the package to Lindu. She used the extra cash to move the family to a nearby industrial suburb. Life was still hard, but the move brought opportunities. Lula learned to read and eventually received vocational training as a metalworker.
後記：我覺得最能解釋這個烏龍報導的一句介紹詞是：
Recurring themes
Every year, one issue of mental_floss is known as the "Ten Issue". It will usually feature lists of ten things focusing on one subject such as: "Ten Most Forgettable Presidents", or "Ten Famous Monkeys in Science"[5]. mental_floss has currently put out seven "ten issues" to date.作者: taiwanaise 時間: 2009-9-6 02:07 PM 標題: 新台灣加油正在討論
The Importance of Tact
Ma Ying-jeou
PRESIDENT OF TAIWAN
The recent global downturn has darkened economic forecasts around the world, but in Taiwan, it nearly blotted out the sun. Last February, The Economist called the country\'s financial forecast "the ugliest of them all." Producing about 70 percent of the world\'s laptops and PDAs and 12 percent of its cell phones, Taiwan relies on the West to buy its high-tech gadgets. Unfortunately, Americans haven\'t been spending a lot of time at Best Buy lately. In the past few months, however, Taiwan’s prospects have started to look rosier, thanks in large part to the country’s new president, Ma Ying-jeou. How is he saving the country? By being the world\'s best marriage counselor.
TAIWAN AND CHINA -- THE AWKWARD COUPLE
Technically speaking, Taiwan is a part of China, but in reality, they are two separate countries with two separate identities. And, until recently, they rarely talked to each other. Although he was successful in driving out the Japanese during World War II, General Chiang Kai-shek lost the Chinese Civil War to the internal communist forces in 1949. He then fled to Taiwan, a Chinese island 100 miles off the coast. Vowing to reclaim the mainland, Chiang Kai-shek and his band of nationalists set up a military dictatorship in Taiwan, and the island remained in a state of perpetual (if stable) martial law until 1987. For nearly half a century, capitalist Taiwan (the Republic of China) and communist China (the People\'s Republic of China) had virtually no diplomatic relations, and travel between the two countries was strictly forbidden. The nations had separated but refused to reconcile or get divorced. After all, reconciliation would mean one nation giving in to the other, and divorce would lead to all-out war. Even now, China has hundreds of missiles pointed at Taiwan, which they threaten to launch should Taiwan declare independence. In case you were wondering how this affects the United States, the American government has sworn to protect Taiwan in the event of an invasion. If they go to war, we would probably go along with them.
Months before his death in 1988, Taiwan’s last dictator, Chiang Kai-shek’s son Chiang Ching-Kuo, allowed the nation to become a democracy. It was at this time that Ma Ying-jeou, the future president, first made his mark on the international scene.
Ma came from one of the families that had followed General Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan, and Ma’s father had decided that his only son’s life would have national purpose. The expectations were great. Ma was forced to study Chinese classics after school every day, and he was pressured to perfect his calligraphy. Ma’s father also made him run daily to rid him of any laziness.
While Ma hated every minute of it, the experience did instill a certain discipline. He obtained a law degree from NYU and a doctorate from Harvard before returning to Taiwan to teach. There, at age 37, Ma became the former dictator’s protege. The two shared a deeply held desire to reunite China and Taiwan under the banner of democracy.
Ma knew that the first step was getting the two nations on speaking terms again. Using his legal expertise, he drafted what would become known as the “1992 Consensus,” a masterpiece of diplomatic ambiguity. It declared there to be only “one China,” but let both countries interpret the phrase however the pleased. The flexible agreement opened up a dialogue with China that led to increased commerce between the two nations. It also helped Ma gain a reputation as a savvy politician, which, along with his general handsomeness, got him elected mayor of Taipei in 1998. (In a poll of Taipei women, asking which public figure they would most like to father their children, Ma was the resounding winner.)
Yet, mending fences with China would not prove simple. Ever since Taiwan became a democracy in 1987, there has been a sizable political movement to break away entirely. After all, Taiwan is an open society that believes in free speech and civil liberties. China, in spite of all its economic gains, is still rife with human rights violations, from Hong Kong to Tibet.
In 2000, Taiwan elected a pro-independence president, Chen Shui-bian, and diplomacy with China took a nosedive. Both countries began saber-rattling and imposing financial restrictions on one another. Their relationship took a turn for the ridiculous in 2005, when China offered Taiwan a goodwill gift of two pandas named Tuantuan and Yuanyuan—a play of the Chinese word for reunion. Taiwan officially rejected them. As trade between the two countries waned, Taiwan’s economy grew sluggish. Taiwan’s ties with the United States also became strained because the American government didn’t want to be dragged into a conflict with China.
REUNITED, AND IT FEELS SO GOOD
For years, Taiwan and China weren’t talking; today, they’re giving each other pandas.
On March 22, 2008, Ma Ying-jeou was elected president of Taiwan by a wide margin, after campaigning on the idea of a “Great China market.” Modeled after the European Union, it would allow the free movement of goods and capital and encourage tourism between nations. In his inauguration speech, Ma reaffirmed his belief in the fantastically vague concept of “one China,” and Taiwan’s relationship with China improved almost immediately. Ma was able to sign a series of agreements that increased trade and investment across the Taiwan Strait, opening up vital parts of Taiwan’s service and manufacturing sectors to Chinese investors. Even more dramatically, Ma passed legislation to make air travel between the nations possible. On July 4, 2008, a commercial airplane brought passengers directly from China to Taiwan for the first time in nearly 60 years. Now, about 3,000 Chinese tourists arrive to invade Taipei’s shopping malls each day. Also, when China offered Taiwan the pandas Tuantuan and Yuanyuan again, President Ma gladly accepted them.
Improved relations with China have also translated into improved relations with the United States. Now that china and Taiwan aren’t belligerent towards each other, Westerners are again seeing Taiwan as a safe place to invest their money. Unfortunately, ma assumed office just as his country began to feel the effects of the global economic downturn. (In the first quarter of 2009, Taiwan’s economy shrank by a record 10.2 percent from a year earlier.) But many economists believe that, with money pouring in from both China and the United States, Taiwan may be on the road to recovery. Will Ma’s dream come true? Will China and Taiwan every reunite under the banner of democracy? Many foreign affairs experts would tell Ma to keep dreaming. But 25 years ago, these two countries weren’t talking at all; and today, they’re giving each other pandas. Anything is possible.
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美雜誌 馬總統列全球五大最具膽識領袖
