What did you think I meant?
The Local - French man with two asses surprises Swedish officials
Customs officials in Gothenburg were at a loss as to how to deal with Jacques Abdelaziz and his two four-legged pack animals when the trio wandered off a ferry boat from Denmark on Sunday afternoon.
Abdelaziz, who hails from Brittany in northwestern France, has been wandering around Europe for the past two months with his two donkeys, Nounou and Toutoune, according to the Göteborg-Posten (GP) newspaper.
And the journey had been going smoothly, if not slowly, until the pilgrims landed on Swedish shores, whereupon they were met by requests for permits and paperwork.
“I had thought about just going to Stockholm and then heading back but now I’m not sure what’s going to happen. All they care about are documents,” Abdelaziz said to GP as he nodded toward the customs checkpoint.
While customs officials weren’t unsympathetic to the Frenchman’s plight, they explained that he lacked important documents required by Sweden’s Board of Agriculture, including a veterinary examination costing €250 ($395), a sum which Abdelaziz wasn’t prepared to pay.
(HT:
Dustbury
)
I’m thinking KingDavid at
The Far Wright
should appreciate this…
While Japan gets ready to become the
world’s most robot-friendly nation
, the United States is more interested in helping integrate robots into rodent society. Hence the creation of
robo-squirrel Rocky
at Hampshire College in Massachusetts (pictured), where researchers are studying whether the robot’s squirrelly ways will allow it to mingle with the fully-biological, acorn-chomping natives.
Apparently things are working out pretty well — Rocky can make the proper noises to communicate, and knows how to warn other squirrels with special shakes of his tail. Once we can create a Rocky who has the capabilities of
Big Dog
, the autonomous robot who can recover his balance after being kicked around by humans, we may have to worry less about whether it will join the squirrels and more about whether the squirrels will join it. A mechasquirrel may be just what rodent culture needs to have its revolution and overthrow the grain-hoarding humans.
Cute Robo-ninjas: MechaSquirrel Leads BioSquirrels to Victory Over the Humans
.
Tags: mecha-squirrel
There’s an interesting bit a the
Fox News
site showing the percentages of obese people by state. I’ve always struggled a bit with my weight, but I’ve managed to drop 10 pounds in about three weeks by running every morning, cutting way back on fired foods and eating lots of fruit.
1. Mississippi: 32%
2. Alabama: 30.3%
3. Tennessee: 30.1%
4. Louisiana: 29.8%
5. Arkansas: 28.7%
6. West Virginia: 29.5%
7. South Carolina: 28.4%
8. Georgia: 28.2%
9. Oklahoma and Texas: 28.1%
10. North Carolina: 28%
11. Michigan: 27.7%
12. Alaska, Missouri, and Ohio: 27.5%
13. Delaware and Kentucky: 27.4%
14. Pennsylvania: 27.1%
15. Iowa and Kansas: 26.9%
16. Indiana: 26.8%
17. North Dakota: 26.5%
18. South Dakota: 26.2%
19. Nebraska: 26%
20. Minnesota: 25.6%
21. Oregon: 25.5%
22. Arizona and Maryland: 25.4%
23. Washington: 25.3%
24. New York: 25%
25. Illinois: 24.9%
26. Maine: 24.8%
27. Wisconsin: 24.7%
28. Idaho: 24.5%
29. New Hampshire: 24.4%
30. Virginia: 24.3%
31. Nevada: 24.1%
32. New Mexico: 24%
33. Wyoming: 23.7%
34. New Jersey: 23.5%
35. California: 22.6%
36. Montana, Utah, and Washington, D.C.: 21.8%
37. Hawaii and Rhode Island: 21.4%
38. Massachusetts and Vermont: 21.3%
39. Connecticut: 21.2%
40. Colorado: 18.7%
(Data from
Centers for Disease Control report
.)
Tags: statistics, weight loss
Ever wonder what families around the world eat in a week and how much it costs? Peter Menzel took a look and published the results in
Hungry Planet: What the World Eats
. It’s also available as a photogallery on the
Time
site. The menu is as varied as you might expect and weekly spending varies from a high of $500.07 (Euro equivalent) in Germany down to $1.23 in a Chadian refugee camp.
[Click on an image if the Slideshow function doesn't work for you.]
Tags: food for a week, world cultures
“Make your ear attentive to wisdom, incline your heart to understanding.” (
Prov 2:2, NASB
)
One of the most worthwhile pursuits for the Christian is wisdom. James says that if you don’t have it, ask, and you will receive it. So who am I to refuse something good offered by God? It’s encouraging to find it in unexpected places, but then again, very often God reveals things to you in places and times of His own choosing, and I’m good with that. With that said, here are three people who have shown me great wisdom. (I think this will be the first in a series of posts on the topic, so this one deals with wisdom in interpersonal relationships.)
- Karen at
Only Sometimes Clever
. She is a homeschooling mom who happens to be a believer. On a daily basis she deals with
celiac disease
and various food-related conditions within her ever-growing family. As a blogger she deals masterfully with trolls who object to homeschooling, folks who don’t understand (or care about) the above-mentioned food conditions, and any number of other topics. What I appreciate is her gentle spirit when she smacks someone upside the head who desperately needs it. My favorite Karen post:
The Great Divide, Jr. or Where I Stand on the OEC/YEC Debate
.
- Deb (I think), at
Ukok’s Place
. She is a convert to Catholicism and I am a convert from Catholicism. Needless to say, we have widely differing views on the subject. She has shown me that it is possible to be a Catholic and a Christian at the same time. Her ability to deal with those who, ahem, strenuously disagree with her shows a grace and wisdom that I envy (but in a good way). My favorite Ukok post:
Why Protestants can’t receive Communion in the Catholic Church
. That one is now up to 169 comments and you’re sure to find something to disagree with, but I encourage you to show the same grace as your bloghost. Did I mention that she likes
bacon
.
- Nick Hipa, guitarist for
As I Lay Dying
. Beside being an incredible shredder, he shows an incredible common sense and wisdom that, well, just isn’t common in this day and age. He’s been with the band for about four years and he - and the band - have figured out that dealing with personal differences, especially in close quarters on tour or in the studio, requires constant communication of the sort that subordinates individual pet peeves. My favorite AILD tracks:
I Never Wanted
and
An Ocean Between Us
from the
Ocean Between Us
CD.
The thing that these three folks have in common is their understanding that people matter to God, and that they can express themselves in a way that respects the often-hidden spirit of God within others. That’s cool.
And not that it matters, but I’m directly related to two of these three…
Tags: faith, wisdom
The spousal entity and I (and a few friends) managed to limp across the finish line at the Colfax Half Marathon in Denver yesterday. I won’t say how we did, but we crossed the line with some of the best marathoners around. Okay, that’s probably because the half marathon and full marathon shared the last few hundred yards of the course.
I will say that people who run for fun oviously have some strange brain chemistry going on. I think we’ll be living on Motrin for a few days…
Tags: Colfax Marathon, Denver, running
Gas pumps in Colorado Springs won’t sell more than $100 at a time. I needed more. Ouch.
Tags: gas prices
Fox News
has this tidbit:
OMAHA, Neb. — An Omaha man struggling to breathe used a steak knife to perform an at-home tracheotomy.
Steve Wilder says he thought he was going to die when he awoke one night last week and couldn’t breathe.
Wilder says he didn’t call 911 because he didn’t think help would arrive in time. So, the 55-year-old says, he got a steak knife from the kitchen and made a small hole in his throat, allowing air to gush in.
Wilder suffered from throat cancer and related breathing problems several years ago. About that time, he had an episode where he couldn’t breathe because his air passages swelled shut. He says that’s what happened this time around.
Doctors don’t expect Wilder to suffer any adverse effects from the tracheotomy once it’s healed.
Wow. I’ve done my share of DIY doctoring — I once took out a really nasty splinter from my own thumb — but I’m not sure if I could pull this one off…
Tags: DIY, miscellaneous, tracheotomy
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