Welcome to ...

The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth.
Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Friday, December 5, 2008

Man comes home and finds drunk passed out

From the "Methinks Thou Hast Imbibed In Excess" Department:

Sarasota, Florida, police said a man came home to find a drunk burglar asleep on the living room floor. The arrest report said a 36-year-old man broke into the apartment Wednesday and rummaged through the bedroom and cabinets before passing out.

Police said when he woke up, the man was apparently so intoxicated he thought he was in his own apartment.

Police charged him with burglary and criminal mischief.

Texas town heads to Las Vegas for vacation

The tiny town of Cranfills Gap really needs a vacation.
That's why Las Vegas tourism officials decided to fly nearly half the 350 residents to the desert playground for a five-day getaway and publicity stunt.

Up to 120 people - those who could get off work and were over 21 - will be treated to swanky hotels, fancy restaurants and glitzy shows when they arrive Dec. 13, 2008.

It's all free with a catch: They'll be followed around by video cameras for tourism commercials to air early next year.

"It couldn't have come at a better time," said Tanya Davidson, 33. She plans to marry her fiance in a drive-through wedding chapel in Las Vegas.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority is spending $2.5 million for the trip and marketing campaign. Officials looked at 125 small communities around the nation before settling on the farming and ranching town that has one gas station, one bank, a bar and grill, and few other businesses.

"It really is the quintessential American town," said Doug Finelli, from an advertising agency working on the campaign. "The people are really welcoming, and everyone works really hard. Most people work multiple jobs."

Cranfills Gap, with two stop signs and no traffic lights about 75 miles southwest of Fort Worth, is more than ready for the getaway.

"It'll give people an opportunity to go somewhere they wouldn't have had a chance to go to normally," Mayor David Witte said.

He's like Freddy Krueger

Four days before coming to Charlotte for a Monday night mega-game, Tampa Bay coach Jon Gruden used some choice words to describe a certain Carolina receiver.

“That guy Steve Smith, he's a nightmare, man,” Gruden said on a conference call with reporters Thursday. “He's like Freddy Krueger to me. He scares the (heck) out of me.”

“Every film I pick up, he's brilliant,” said Gruden. “He makes some of the darndest catches.

“I don't like to see Steve.”

Even before speaking with reporters who cover the Panthers, Gruden used the “Freddy” moniker to describe Smith when addressing his Tampa players during a Bucs' team meeting Thursday morning.

Considering the source, it's a particularly impressive comparison. For years, Gruden has been dubbed “Chucky” after another horror film character because of his intense facial expressions on the sidelines during games.

Smith was flattered.

“I think that's a good compliment,” Smith said when told about Gruden's comments. “A lot of coaches don't always compliment the opposing team in the media. I don't think he said it to throw me off or to get me to relax.

“I appreciate it. I'll just kind of go home and smile and check that off and say, ‘Hey, that's pretty cool.'”

*****

It will be a 'Nightmare On Graham Street' for Tampa Bay, Monday night

Coral Reefs off Carolinas targeted for protection

Ancient, deep-sea coral reefs off the southeastern coast from North Carolina to Florida should be protected, a federal fisheries board says.

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, meeting this week in Wilmington, scheduled public hearings on designating the pristine reefs as “habitat areas of particular concern.” The 23,000-square-mile area is believed to be world's largest contiguous deep-water coral ecosystem.

Fishing for deep-water shrimp and golden crabs would be allowed within some of the protected areas.

Public hearings will be held in Charleston, S.C., on Jan. 26, in New Bern on Jan. 27 and in Georgia and Florida in early February. The council is expected to give final approval to the designation at its March meeting in Jekyll Island, Ga.

Found in dark, cold waters 1,200 feet or more deep, the fragile coral mounds have been explored only in the past decade. Fishing trawlers have damaged similar reefs around the world.

Food vs Fuel ...

Saltwater Crops May Be Key To Solving Earth’s Land Crunch
Saltwater-loving plants could open up half a million square miles of previously unusable territory for energy crops, helping settle the heated food-versus-fuel debate, which nearly derailed biofuel progress last year.

By increasing the world’s irrigated acreage by 50 percent, saltwater crops could provide a no-guilt source of biomass for alt fuel makers and tone down the rhetoric of U.N. officials worried about food prices, one of whom called the conversion of arable land to biofuel crops “a crime against humanity.”

While growing crops in saltwater has been on the fringes of horticulture for decades, the new demand for alternative energy has pushed the idea onto the pages of the nation’s most prestigious scientific journal and drawn the attention of NASA scientists.

Citing the work of Robert Glenn, a plant biologist at the University of Arizona, two biologists argue in this week’s Science that “the increasing demand for agricultural products and the spread of salinity now make this concept worth serious consideration and investment.”

Read the Full Story

Fifty first dates in reality

H.M., an amnesiac whose condition opened new doors in the study memory, died on Tuesday at age 82. A 1953 brain operation left H.M., now revealed to be Henry Gustav Molaison, with no ability to form new long-term memories. From then on, every time he met someone, or experienced something, it would be just like the very first time. His short-term memory was fine.

From the New York Times:
“The study of H. M. by Brenda Milner stands as one of the great milestones in the history of modern neuroscience,” said Dr. Eric Kandel, a neuroscientist at Columbia University. “It opened the way for the study of the two memory systems in the brain, explicit and implicit, and provided the basis for everything that came later — the study of human memory and its disorders.”

Living at his parents’ house, and later with a relative through the 1970s, Mr. Molaison helped with the shopping, mowed the lawn, raked leaves and relaxed in front of the television. He could navigate through a day attending to mundane details — fixing a lunch, making his bed — by drawing on what he could remember from his first 27 years.

Three Presidents

Presidents 41,42 & 43 were flying across the country.
With them was a college student traveling and an old man.

While in flight, the intercom came on and the pilot said, “ We just lost an engine, but nothing to worry about. We have three left”.
A little while later the intercom came on again. “ We just lost a second engine, but no frets. We still have two”.
30 seconds later, once more the intercom came on.” We just lost the third engine, There are 4 parachutes in the closet in the rear of the plane. Good luck. This is a recording”.

President 41, George H.W. Bush says, “ I was president of the US. I was successful in getting Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Yes, I did say “ Read my lips” and raised taxes, but hey, everybody makes mistakes. I feel I deserve one”. So he takes one and jumps out the door.

President 42, Bill Clinton says,” I was president of the U.S. I over saw a great economic expansion and balanced the budget. Even got a surplus. Yeah, there was that cigar thing and the “ It wasn’t sex” thing, but hey everybody makes mistakes. I feel I deserve one”. So he takes a parachute and goes out the door.

President 43, George W. Bush says, “ I am the decider and I’ve decided I’m taking this one” So, he takes it and goes out the door.

The old man says to the student, “ You take the last chute. I am old and lived a good , long life. You are young. You take it.

The student replies, “Not to worry. Here is one for you and here is one for me. The Decider decided to take my backpack."

Pinup Bettie Page hospitalized after heart attack

This is sad news ...

Bettie Page, a 1950s pinup known for her raven-haired bangs and saucy come-hither looks, was hospitalized in intensive care after suffering a heart attack, her agent said Friday.
"She's critically ill," said Mark Roesler of the Curtis Management Group.

He said the 85-year-old had the heart attack Tuesday and was hospitalized Friday in the Los Angeles area.

A family friend, Todd Mueller, said Page was in a coma. When asked to confirm, Roesler said, "I would not deny that," but he would not comment further on her condition.

Page, a secretary turned model, is credited with helping set the stage for the sexual revolution of the rebellious 1960s. She attracted national attention with magazine photographs of her sensuous figure that were tacked up on walls across the country.

Her photos included a centerfold in the January 1955 issue of then-fledgling Playboy magazine, as well as controversial sadomasochistic poses.

Page later spent decades away from the public eye, and during that time battled mental illness and became a born-again Christian.

After resurfacing in the 1990s, she occasionally granted interviews but refused to allow her picture to be taken.

Mueller credits his business dealings with Page for bringing her out of seclusion. He said he first met her in 1989 when he offered her "a bunch of money" to show up at autograph signings.

"I probably sold 3,000 of her autographs, usually for $200 to $300," he said. "Eleanor Roosevelt, we got $40-$50. ... Bettie Page outsells them all."

*****
On a personal note:

Bettie I hope you recover and live to smile at the sun again!

Massachusetts man ticketed in gridlock while wife in labor

A man in Massachusetts is appealing a $100 ticket he got for driving to a hospital in the breakdown lane of a gridlocked Boston highway while his wife was in labor.

John Davis of Dracut says his wife Jennifer's contractions were three minutes apart on November 18, 2008 when a state trooper pulled them over for using the breakdown lane.

The couple says the trooper made them wait five to 10 minutes while he wrote a ticket for another car on Route 2, asked to see Jennifer's belly to prove her pregnancy, then issued them a ticket.

The couple then made it to Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge.
Their daughter was born five hours later.

State police say no discipline is likely for the trooper.

*****

No discipline?! How about a swift kick in the pants! Around here a Trooper would have escorted the couple to the hospital and expressed his wishes that they have a healthy child as he made sure they were inside the hospital and had the attention of the doctors and nurses there before going back to his job of patrolling our highways for miscreants and other ne'r-do-wells out for mischief and misdemeanors.

105-year-old singer says Hitler was a `good guy'

A 105-year-old singer whose past as a singer in Nazi Germany has dogged his reputation for decades is back in the spotlight after telling a Dutch television show Adolf Hitler was a "good guy."

The Dutch-born Johan Heesters, who now has Austrian citizenship and is still popular and performing in Germany, was asked by a Dutch journalist what he thought of Hitler.

"A good guy, that's what he was," he said on the clip shown Thursday on the current affairs show "De Wereld Draait Door".
His wife, Simone Rethel, immediately corrected him, saying that Hitler was the worst criminal in the world.
"I know, doll," Heesters responded. "But he was nice to me."

Rethel protested after the clip was aired, telling Dutch papers that he had been tricked into making the remarks, and that the program had cut out other parts of the interview where Heesters condemned the Nazi regime.

Heesters has made headlines twice in the past year for attempts to repair his reputation internationally, though he has remained popular in Germany throughout the war and after.
In February, he braved protests to perform in his native Netherlands for the first time in more than 40 years.
In his previous attempt, in 1964, he was booed off the stage in Amsterdam when he tried to appear as Nazi-hating Captain Von Trapp in "The Sound of Music."

Last month, he filed a lawsuit to clear himself of allegations he sang for SS guards at the Dachau concentration camp.
Heesters acknowledges he visited the camp outside Munich in 1941, but the suit will try to force a German author to retract statements that the singer entertained SS troops while there.
"It never happened," Heesters said in a lengthy statement explaining his connections to Nazi-era Germany on his Web site.

The author, Volker Kuehn, maintained Heesters performed for the troops, basing the assertion on a 1990 interview he did with former Dachau inmate Viktor Matejka.
Matejka died in 1993.

Heesters was never accused of being a propagandist or anything other than an artist willing to perform for the Nazis, and the Allies allowed him to continue his career after the war.
But in his native country - which was occupied by Germany for most of the conflict - some view him as irredeemable.
Heesters said it gave him a "heavy heart" to know he was "not wanted in my homeland."
"Sure, I wanted to build my career. But...through no fault of my own, Adolf Hitler was one of the fans of my art. What have I done?"

NFL Notes

New York Jets defensive end Shaun Ellis was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana, speeding and driving without insurance after being pulled over by police last weekend.
*
The New England Patriots have signed 39-year-old linebacker Junior Seau to replace Adalius Thomas.
*
The city of Pontiac is accepting bids again for the former home of the Detroit Lions.
*
Antonio Pierce is finally going to talk to investigators about what he did on the night Plaxico Burress shot himself.

A Good Question

If Happiness is just an illusion then why are the deluded (read: wing-nuts) so angry all the time - they should be ecstatic shouldn't they?

*****

Damn, I ask some good questions and normally have great answers. But this one has me stumped!

Just found out ...

Just found this out ...

There are only 19 people in the US that have my name, so you know it's not John Smith.

Only 19 out of over 500 million.

The Mrs., will be shocked to know there are so many of us.
She is forever saying "Thank, god there is only one of you!"

*****

Just told the Mrs., and her first reaction was "Oh! Fuck!"
Then she said, "19, oh, jesus - there's not but one of my nacktman!"

Drink Tea

Ben Franklin said, "In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria."

That is why I drink Tea!

Besides, it is good for what ails you.

Our Sister Blog

Don't forget to check out our sister blog: The Naked, The Nude and The Nekkid
Don't be fooled by the title, it is not just naked pictures and stories about sex.

Some of the things over there are:

Cheer spreads like a touchy-feely virus


Amsterdam fights marijuana crackdown


Study finds 1 in 5 young adults has a personality disorder


Judge blocks suspensions of Vikings' Williamses


$200k worth of inflatable boobs lost at sea

OK, so the last one has a bit of 'blue' to it but it is not what you think!

So be sure to check it out and find out why there are so many readers over there as well.
And no they are not all the same readers. In fact only about a third of Carolina Naturally readers also read The Naked, The Nude and the Nekkid and the total numbers of readers is virtually the same.

United States employers slash 533,000 jobs

If not knowing the actual numbers was bad enough ... along come the numbers and it is worse!

Skittish employers slashed 533,000 jobs in November, the most in 34 years, catapulting the unemployment rate to 6.7%.

That's 533,000 people that were working that are no longer working in November alone, people!

That means 533,000 no longer getting paid so they are no longer spending money to help drive the economy.

Does anyone (outside the wing-nut cadre) still think we are all doing the hokey-pokey and all is roses and lilacs with the economy?

Otto Wreacks Havoc

Otto at the Sea Star Aquarium in Coburg, Germany
The culprit of the smashed glass and broken lamp is two foot seven inch Otto. Photo: EUROPICS

Staff believe that the octopus called Otto had been annoyed by the bright light shining into his aquarium and had discovered he could extinguish it by climbing onto the rim of his tank and squirting a jet of water in its direction.

The short-circuit had baffled electricians as well as staff at the Sea Star Aquarium in Coburg, Germany, who decided to take shifts sleeping on the floor to find out what caused the mysterious blackouts.

Read the rest in the Telegraph.

Der Untergang

Hey, Canada! How does it feels to be living through "Der Untergang"?!

Neo-cons in Canada reveled for what they truly are!

Another Iconic symbol bites the dust ...

Say it ain't so Sergei!

After more than 90 years, the Russian stars will no longer be all red.

They'll be red, white and blue.

The Kremlin-controlled lower house of parliament voted 389-2 Friday to replace Soviet-era red stars on military aircraft with ones bearing the three colors of the Russian national flag.
The five-pointed red stars have adorned the planes since the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.

The State Duma made the move even though the red star was officially restored as a military symbol and brought back to the military's parade banners in 2002.
The stars had remained on the planes all along, however.

But not all things Soviet have been abandoned. During Vladimir Putin's presidency, Russia also restored the old Soviet national anthem - albeit with new lyrics.

From the Inbox

Mark in Charlotte, NC says:
"You nailed it on November 4th when you said Perdue and Hagan would be the day's winners in NC."
I also said so before November 4. 2008, as well.

Hans writes:
I like your blog. It makes me think and practise my English.

Sue in Middlesex says:
Great stories and poetry and I loved your recipe!

Honda says:
My friends and I read your blog everyday at University.
(Ed. Note: they're in school somewhere in Japan around Tokyo)

Phyllis has this to say:
Can I have your baby?!


anonymous writes:

You Liberal
(expletive deleted) you.
(Normally I would not redact the expletive but this way it gives it more absurdity and therefore more hilarity - and as ever they won't leave their name when they rail against you)

Karen at Truth Center writes:
... A refreshing look and a scathing eye for the idiocies and beauties that are a part of life.

(Damn I love that review)

Walter from somewhere in the Great White North says:
It's a wonderful read.


Patel writes:

An American blog that is a world citizen. There are Gods then!

(You've been reading too many wing-nut blogs, there Patel. There are many American blogs that are 'world citizens'. But thanks for noticing.)

Michelle writes to say:
Thanks

These are just some of the things laying about in the Inbox amid the spam and still more spam and 'legitimate' offers for male enhancement, a Nigerian millionaire's money and enlargement of either the lower male anatomy or the upper female anatomy that clutter the pile on the floor.

Reader Scan

Man o' man, Carolina Naturally was mighty popular in Simi Valley, California, yesterday!
It seemed like every other reader was from Simi Valley. Of course they weren't, but it sure seemed that way - especially at one point in the day.