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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.


Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Question and Answer

Question: What do a hurricane, a tornado, and a redneck divorce all have in common?

Answer: Someone's going to lose their trailer...

AIG exec's resignation letter sparks new firestorm

AIG exec's resignation letter sparks new firestorm

A VP steps into the scandal's spotlight by defending his bonus and attacking his ex-CEO and the attorneys general on his case.

AIG exec's resignation letter sparks new firestorm

Tricks that boost your brain power

20 tricks that boost your brain power

You can start preventing dementia as early as in your 30s and 40s, research suggests.

20 tricks that boost your brain power

Four Pounds and 4800 Calories

Holy Crap, Batman!
Josh Kowalczyk, an intern with the West Michigan Whitecaps, in Comstock Park,
Josh Kowalczyk, an intern with the West Michigan Whitecaps, in Comstock Park, Michigan poses for a photo.

Well, at least the salsa is low-cal.

The West Michigan Whitecaps, a minor league baseball team, will be offering up major league cholesterol, carbohydrates and calories in an enormous hamburger being added to the menu this year at the Fifth Third Ballpark.

The 4-pound, $20 burger features five beef patties, five slices of cheese, nearly a cup of chili and liberal doses of salsa and corn chips, all on an 8-inch sesame-seed bun. That's a lot of dough!

The Grand Rapids Press reports that anyone who eats the entire 4,800-calorie behemoth in one sitting will receive a special T-shirt. Saner fans can divide it up with a pizza cutter and share.

Thar She Blows

Alaska's Mount Redoubt erupted at least twice Wednesday as officials from a pipeline company assessed conditions at a nearby oil storage facility to determine whether to remove its contents.

The Cook Inlet Pipeline Co., which is partly owned by Chevron Corp., was planning to look at whether a pumping system could be used to offload 6.2 million gallons of oil stored in two tanks, if Chevron decided to remove it.

Pipeline contractor Lana Johnson said Chevron has made no decision and that an airplane runway next to the facility was covered with debris and was unusable until cleared.

"Right now, nothing can happen, because you can't bring any equipment in, because the runway is closed," Johnson said.

The small eruptions Wednesday were picked up by seismic monitors, which showed that a 10-minute blast occurred after 5 a.m. at the volcano about 100 miles southwest of Anchorage. That eruption emitted an ash plume about 15,000 feet high that drifted to sparsely populated areas to the north and northwest, the same direction as earlier explosions since Mount Redoubt began erupting Sunday night.

A second eruption about five hours later did not emit an ash cloud detected by radar, which meant ash did not rise above 12,000 feet.

The shrub's legacy

Sacramento Tent City Reflects Economy’s Troubles

Job losses, home foreclosures and a deepening recession are sending scores of newly homeless people into a makeshift camp along the banks of the American River in Sacramento, Calif.

The tent city, spread over an area the size of several football fields, has local officials scrambling over how to handle the area’s homeless crisis.

More than a year ago, a handful of homeless people staked out the site on the northern edge of downtown Sacramento. Now there are more than 100 tents and anywhere between 300 to 400 people living without running water or sanitation. Their only protection from the elements is nylon tents and plastic tarps.

Full Story

Shanghai Surprise

Apparently, China has blocked its people from access to YouTube.

More at Reuters News Agency.

Health News

In Health News today:

Another reason to clean up our environment:

Air pollution can cause heart disease

Finally the truth

Home raided

Wikileaks.de domain-owner's house raided

The home of Theodor Reppe, owner of the wikileaks.de domain, was raided by German police in what could only be termed as retaliation for Wikileaks' publication of the secret government blocklists from around the world, like the Australian list of forbidden sites.

The "ACMA" list is supposed to be a list of child porn and other illegal sites, and it is the backbone of a proposal to censor the entire Australian Internet.
Publication of the ACMA list showed that the bureaucrats charged with secretly building a list of forbidden material had included tons of legitimate stuff that they just happened to disagree with -- straight-ahead porn sites, gambling sites, opposing political sites, etc.

It is not surprising when people who are given absolute power over their neighbors' intellectual curiosity without any accountability end up misbehaving, now is it?
A statement on Wikileaks's website claims police were investigating the "distribution of pornographic material" and "discovery of evidence".

Wikileaks claims Mr Reppe is not involved in the website other than "sponsoring the German domain name and mirroring a collection of Wikileaks US Congressional Research Service reports"...

"The raid is over the censorship lists, but which particular list, we can not be certain, although the Australian lists are the most recent and the most prominent due to their non-voluntary status."

In the past week, Wikileaks published three lists all purporting to be the Australian Communications and Media Authority's (ACMA's) blacklist of websites.

While ACMA and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy last week denied the list belonged to ACMA, they both warned that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) would investigate its distribution.

The lists contained apparent links to child pornography websites, gambling sites, as well as relatively innocuous sites including those of a dentist and canteen manager.

Poetry from Scotland

And one from that beloved son of Alba

Robert Burns (1591 – 1674)

Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!

Chorus:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

And surely ye'll be your pint stowp!
And surely I'll be mine!
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

Chorus

We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou'd the gowans fine;
But we've wander'd mony a weary fit,
Sin' auld lang syne.

Chorus

We twa hae paidl'd in the burn,
Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin' auld lang syne.

Chorus

And there's a hand, my trusty fere!
And gie's a hand o' thine!
And we'll tak a right gude-willie waught,
For auld lang syne.

Chorus

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost (1874–1963)

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Our Readers

Some of our readers today have been in:

Portsmouth, England, United Kingdom
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Nottingham, England, United Kingdom
London, England, United Kingdom
Rome, Lazio, Italy
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
Minsk, Minsk, Belarus
Dehli, Delhi, India
Skien, Telemark, Norway
Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia, & Herzegovina
Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

as well as Russia and the United States

Daily Horoscope

Today's horoscope says:

Today you need to set an example for your friends and family to follow.

Will do.