Jun 25 2009
A wayward Catholic goes into the confessional box after years away from the Church. He notices on one side a fully equipped bar with Guinness on tap. On the other wall is a dazzling array of the finest Cuban cigars. Then the priest comes in.
“Father, forgive me, for it’s been a very long time since I’ve been to confession, but I must first admit that the confessional box is much more inviting than it used to be.”
The priest replies, “Get out. You’re on my side.”
Jun 18 2009
Captain Wayne Keble, commander of the assault ship HMS Bulwark, is made of stern stuff. He thinks nothing of being devoured by leeches and ants on exercise in the jungles of Brunei. But when it comes to eating, rather than being eaten, he draws the line at sprouts, or “the devil’s vegetable” as he calls them. They are absolutely banned on Bulwark.
“This has nothing to do with flatulence,” says Capt Keble.
He has taken umbrage against the vegetable simply because he hates it. Capt Keble disclosed details his ban after he was asked to confirm reports he had banned fried foods from his ship.
He said: “The only thing I have banned on board is Brussels sprouts. They are the devil’s vegetable and the only thing I do not like, and the only thing I hate.
“Brussels sprouts are absolutely banned on board HMS Bulwark. I do not eat them so I do not know what the after-effects are.”
(HT: UK Daily Telegraph, by way of BBC Quote of the Day)
So, kids, the important thing to learn here is that you need to grow up big and strong so you can ban the veggies you dislike.
Jun 11 2009
From the BBC:
A man who was found with his head severed by a chainsaw was fighting to stay in a block of 70 flats in Hampshire cleared for redevelopment….
His body was found by police on 5 July, who said his death was not suspicious. Post-mortem tests showed he died of a “complete transection of the neck”. …
“There’s nothing suspicious about the death. It was in his flat on Bodmin Road.
“The place is all due to be redeveloped. He was the last resident left there. He lived there alone.”
A Hampshire Constabulary spokeswoman confirmed his death was not suspicious.
Jun 09 2009
The first athletic cup to protect ‘the boys’ was used in professional hockey in 1874, but the first helmet wasn’t used until 1974.
Why did it take 100 years to realize that the brain is also important?
Jun 06 2009
Who says we don’t get payback from all the investment we’ve put into space? Here’s a cool story from the – no kidding – Himalayan Times:
WASHINGTON: Scientists looking for lost penguins stumbled upon an effective method: Follow their excrement from space.
In remote Antarctica, about one-and-a-half times bigger than the United States, researchers have been unable to figure out just where colonies of emperor penguins live and if their population is in peril. It is harder still because emperor penguins, featured in the film “March of the Penguins,” breed on sea ice, which scientists say will shrink significantly in the future because of global warming.
Because the large penguins stay on the same ice for months, their excrement stains make them stand out from space. Scientists at the British Antarctic Survey found this out by accident when they were looking at satellite images of their bases.
A reddish-brown streak on the colorless ice was right where they knew a colony was, said survey mapping scientist Peter Fretwell. The stain was penguin excrement – particularly smelly stuff – and it gave researchers an idea to search for brown stains to find penguins. They found the same telltale trail, usually dark enough to spot from space, all over the continent, said Fretwell by telephone from England.
Using satellite data, the scientists found 10 new colonies of penguins, six colonies that had moved from previously mapped positions to new spots and another six that seemed to have disappeared. Overall, 38 colonies were spotted from above, according to Fretwell’s paper, “Penguins From Space” in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography.
The research is “incredibly useful,” because the only time to see emperors are during breeding in winter when weather makes it nearly impossible to get to the colonies, said longtime penguin researcher William Fraser, who wasn’t involved in the study. Fraser noted that salty penguin guano “over time will corrode your boots,” adding that he has lost nearly a dozen pairs to it in 35 years of penguin research.
Jun 02 2009
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
(From To Be of Use, by Marge Piercy)
We have a burning need to have a purpose in life. Pastor told a story on Sunday of Allied in Hungary in WWII who worked at a sewage treatment plant. They were generally healthy until the plant was bombed. The prison officials needed something to do with the prisoners, so they had them move the rubble of the plant to a nearby field. When they were done, the prisoners were told to move the rubble to another field. When that was done, they were told to move it back to the first field. This went on for months and the prisoners began to lose hope and die. They were fine when they were laboring in a sewage plant, but couldn’t handle not having a purpose.
We are wired to need a purpose in life. As a wiser man than I once said, ‘without a vision [or purpose], the people perish.’
Kind of like working in a cube farm…
May 21 2009
This BBS News report speaks for itself. There are just some words I don’t want to hear from my doctor when I’m on the operating table. Then again, under Obama-Care, maybe we better get used to it.
“Get the Black and Decker” - Dr Rob Carson takes drastic action to treat a boy with a blood clot on the brain.
These are five words not often heard in the operating theatre and enough to terrify any patient. But Nicholas Rossi, 12 at the time, was losing consciousness after falling from his bike and the small city hospital in Victoria, Australia, had no neurological equipment. The household power drill found in the hospital maintenance room saved his life.
