Homer : Lisa honey, are you saying you're
never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa : No.
Homer : Ham?
Lisa : No.
Homer : Pork chops?
Lisa : Dad! Those all come from the same animal!
Homer : Yeah, right Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.
Thursday, September 25, 2003
No rest for the wicked
Or is that “weary”? I’ve been told that it fits, either way, but I haven’t had a chance to sit down yet to bitch about today’s news…
First, it appears that not only do stars eat each other, so do galaxies...
You may not find it interesting, but I do. In a “what does that mean for me?” kinda way. It doesn’t mean anything in particular, but it’s still interesting. It would be cool to watch super-sped-up (since the whole thing is supposed to take many thousands of years), but the best we could hope for is a computer simulation.
---
In other news, the House put together everything it needs to approve legislation that will give the FTC the authority a Federal Judge (appointed by Jimmeh Cah-tuh) says they don’t have. They passed it 412-8. (Those eight members voting against are: Ron Paul (R-TX 14th); Jeff Flake (R-AZ 1st); Kendrick Meek (D-FL 17th); Tim Ryan (D-OH 17th); Ted Strickland (D-OH 6th); Lee Terry (R-NE 2nd); Rob Bishop (R-UT 1st), and Chris Cannon (R-UT 3rd).)
You see, a few months ago, a new law was written that created a national “Do-Not-Call” registry, supervised by the Federal Trade Commission. That made a lot of telemarketers very angry, because they would be out of work. A judge was found that would agree (like all cases where judges are being sought to overturn the will of the people and their legislators), and a lawsuit was filed. The fact that the original legislation was already passed, and signed into law didn’t matter, because judges feel that they have the power and the right to ignore what a majority of the people want to do, in favor of a vocal minority.
So Congress had to step up and do it all over again, to make sure that the judiciary (who is supposed to “interpret” the laws, not overturn them) understood. A 412-8 vote (which is 98%-2%) was intended to “leave no doubt as to the intent of Congress.” If this gets overturned (again), I will do what I can to put that particular judge’s name, e-mail address and phone number on every list I can find. I urge each of you to do the same.
And finally, as if we didn’t have enough of ‘em, scientists have cloned rats. And of course, they would be from France. I imagine that their next step would be to clone a politician. Chiraq isn’t going to last forever, after all.
Less...
Posted by
Drumwaster at
03:12 PM |
(0)
Trackbacks
Category:
Everything’s Coming Up Simpson
Maybe it’s just me, but reading the news report of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Hokkaido, Japan, I couldn’t help but think of The Simpsons. And yes, the earthquake was terrible…
Hokkaido was where Mr. Sparkle came from. A place known for it’s sacred forests and renowned for it’s countless soap factories.
Mr. Sparkle is a magnet for foodstuffs and boasts that he will banish dirt to the land of wind and ghosts.
Mr. Sparkle was a joint venture of Matsumura Fishworks and Tamaribuchi Heavy Manufacturing Concern. Their logo, when combined, had an un-canny resemblence to Homer Simpson.
Just so you know....
Posted by
Drumwaster at
02:28 PM |
(0)
Trackbacks
Category:
My Glass of Creek Water
I can remember a not-so typical day as a kid, although it’ sort of typical for some I suppose. My cousin and I were horsing around behind the bar where I lived as a child. We were thirsty and didn’t feel like running up and getting a “stupid” glass of water. Why go get tap water when we’ve got this cool, clear stream of creek water(where we were playing around) we could drink from? Hey, why not? So I got a glass, proceeded to dunk it in and tried to eyeball-analyze it. It looked clean, nothing floating around, and it was cold. Even better I thought.
Now sure, most 9 year olds probably had their own chemical sets or a microscope they could use in this instance(sarcasm), but I wasn’t one of them. Were there any after-effects? Did I start to choke? Did I turn green? No and no. So why the story about drinking creek water? Phages.
Amazing. Bacteria eating viruses. And most creeks are full of them.
Consider these events since that day:
-I’ve never had any serious ailments since that day. No flu, no bad outbreaks, I don’t worry about West-Nile virus and I laugh at e-coli.
-Another time during the winter, I was out for too long and started to run back to get inside. While slogging through the snow, I slipped and bumped my knee on what looked like a post that had fallen. Only when I got up did I see there was a rusty nail on the end of that post. When I got inside, my legs were bright red(I didn’t take kindly to getting bundled up just to go outside in the snow you see) and couldn’t feel a thing. As I looked at my knee, I saw a hole(literally) and could see down to the bone(it looked bluish to me now that I recall). That rusty nail I just brushed aside had burrowed through to my knee. Considering I was kid, my mother insisted I go to the doctor and get stiches. “STICHES!? NO WAY!” was my response. So, sure enough, after a couple of weeks of simple hydrogen peroxide dousing and some band-aids, it healed up nicely without setting foot in a doctors office.
-As an even smaller child(weird I describe myself as “small” considering I’m 6’5"), I almost died from a nose-bleed, had my adenoids removed and suffered from severe asthma. Yes, as you can tell, I survived the nose bleed. But my adenoids grew back and I no longer suffer from asthma at all.
Now, could these things be related to that creek water? Were there phages in there? The rusty nail into the knee, maybe not related, but considering I don’t get real sick(I do have the occasional head cold or stuffed up head nonsense) and haven’t worried about influenza or my asthma since that day, I can only wonder.
....Or maybe the creek was teeming with farm run-off from pesticides and fertilizers since that’s where it originated. I think I’ll stay with the phages story.
Less...
Posted by
Drumwaster at
08:09 AM |
(0)
Trackbacks
Category:
Page 1 of 1 pages