Saturday, January 1, 2011

A Slow News Day


I love this picture even in the animal world there's ALWAYS someone who wants to be different!~!

Watching the TV program list going by at a boring rate one day I started to read some of the cells containing the names of the shows on and I discovered some rather funny combinations....

  1. Conan--George of the Jungle.
  2. Auto Racing--Bulging Brides.
  3. A Baby Story--How it's Made.
  4. Parental Control--Mantracker.
  5. Plastic Makes Perfect--Friends.
.......and you say I have too much time on my hands!! PHOOEY you laughed, you know you know you did.





Friday, December 31, 2010

Nelson Hollow Bridge New Hampshire1995 and 2008


On a trip in 1995 I took this picture on the way from Maine to Nova Scotia.  Today I scanned in one of the pictures I took of a covered bridge.  I had no idea at the time that it was quite the landmark.  Being curious about the name on the bridge I found some pictures of it taken in 2008 and some interesting facts. 
No longer in service, this covered bridge at Nelson Hollow, just 4 km outside of Doaktown, is the oldest covered bridge in New Brunswick and the only one remaining in Northumberland County. Also known as the Mill Brook #5, this covered bridge traverses Bett's Mill Brook.

On a sign posted over the entrance to the bridge is the warning:
$20 fine for Driving on This Bridge Faster Than a Walk

These pictures were taken in 2008 I found them on a web site called New Hampshire Covered Bridges or you can find it by entering the the term Nelson Hollow Bridge.







Thursday, December 30, 2010

Ontario researchers launch massive health study

Ontario researchers launch massive health study

Just a comment on the increased negative focus on people with diabetes. Are diabetics at risk of becoming a segment of society that is going from the designation of 'patient' to 'villian' by reports that they are becoming a burden to society economically and medically?
I am really happy to see that an ambitious study is in the works the results of which will surface many years down the line however. More needs to be done in changing people's behavior now not later.

General Anesthesia More Like Coma Than Sleep

General Anesthesia More Like Coma Than Sleep

Interesting new considerations about general anesthesia.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Priests Brawl at Jesus' Birthplace

   Every so often one runs across something so absurd that it makes my RidicuList.

First of all for men who profess to follow in the footsteps of their model, Christ Jesus, it's doubly ridiculous that they should then fight in the Church of the Nativity. 

  This happened in Bethlehem, West Bank where Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests attacked each other with brooms and stones as long-standing rivalries erupted in violence during holiday cleaning on Thursday.
  The basilica, built over the grotto in Bethlehem where Christians believe Jesus was born, is administered jointly by Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic authorities.
  Any perceived encroachment on one group's turf can touch off vicious feuds.
So dozens of priests and cleaners were scrubbing the church ahead of the Armenian and Orthodox Christmas, celebrated in early January.  Thousands of tourists visited the church this week for celebrations.
  But the clean-up turned ugly after some of the Orthodox faithful stepped inside the Armenian church's section, touching off a scuffle between about 50 Greek Orthodox and 30 Armenians.
  Palestinian police, armed with batons and shields, quickly formed a human cordon to separate the two sides so the cleaning could continue, then ordered an Associated Press photographer out of the church.
  Four people, some with blood running from their faces, were slightly wounded.

All I can say is that they must have missed the part where Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount "love your enemies and pray for those who are persecuting you"; or where Paul mentions to "return evil for evil to no one and if possible, as far as it depends upon you, be peaceable with all men; do not avenge yourselves but yield place to the wrath for it is God that will repay vengeance; and  do not let yourself be conquered by the evil, but keep conquering the evil with the good." Romans 12: 17-21.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

A DANDY POEM

A lady in Nova Scotia found this poem in an old magazine in her attic in 1905.  She sent it to  Reader's Digest many years later when she no longer had a home. 
She talks about the fact that the lawn was never cut until the dandelions were over.  She describes the picture on the page as having a pale blue sky and a new moon.  In the foreground were three little yellow dandelions.  In the background was a big one which had gone to seed.  Here is the poem which describes it so beautifully.







If you should ask me whether I
believe in spooks, I should reply,
The only spook I can rely on
Is that of Uncle Dandelion.
T'was just the hour when twilight ceases,
His ghost appeared to his three nieces.
His face beneath the crescent moon,
Was like a gossamer balloon.
Miss Anne and Fan Delion's knees shook
Though it might have been the breeze.
Miss Nan although she made no sound,
Was firmly rooted to the ground.
And then the breeze got fresh and,
Tore off Uncle's wig and right before the
 frightened eyes of his three nieces
Blew Uncle in a thousand pieces.

Author Unknown


By Mrs. Edith B. Harris
Annapolis Royal, N.S.

Monday, December 27, 2010

IN MEMORY OF THE 2010 FOOTBALL SEASON

'Virtual biopsy' may detect athletes' brain injury


Football season in North America is nearly over for another season but the long lasting effects from on-field hits, legal or otherwise, will span decades and likely be debated for that long.  No matter whether it's a sport,  car accidents or any head injuries this idea is long past due.

If this procedure is indeed as promising as it looks we can only hope that it might save the lives of many athletes.  It could also prevent violent behaviors that arise because of undetected brain damage that lead to spousal abuse and even death.   It could even reduce progressive brain diseases such as early onset Alzheimer's that greatly affects the quality of life of so many.

Until something is written in stone that would give a dedicated sports player an acceptable way to save face (interchange manhood here), thus enabling him to sit on the sidelines without question will go far to reduce the tragedies that is seen far too often on and off the playing field.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

THE GREAT MOLASSES FLOOD of JANUARY 1919

This story is not about Grandma's Molasses but about the worse industrial accident disasters in Boston Massachusetts history. 
 Perhaps it is where the saying 'slower than molasses in January' came from but in this case it was fast enough to kill this January in 1919.








  A giant molasses tank blows up, sending a wall of thick, sticky syrup through the streets of a Boston neighborhood. The blast and the molasses flood kill 21 people and injure 150.
The Purity Distilling Company built the tank in 1915 on the waterfront of Boston's North End, a populous neighborhood of Italian immigrants just a few blocks from the city's financial and downtown shopping districts. With a diameter of 90 feet and 50 feet high, the iron tank could hold about 2½ million gallons of molasses, ready to be distilled into rum or industrial alcohol.
At least, it could hold the molasses until shortly after noon on Jan. 15, 1919. No one is sure what caused the disaster. Workers and neighbors had complained about the tank leaking for years, so the owner painted it brown to hide the leaks. But the disaster was likely not due to overfilling, because the tank didn't merely give way — it exploded.
The local temperature had risen from 2 degrees above zero to the 40s in a couple of days. It's possible that the rapid heating started a fermentation process, or that newly added warm molasses somehow reacted with colder molasses lower in the tank.
Whatever caused the explosion, the tank gave out a dull roar, and then its two sides flew outward with a mighty blast. One huge piece knocked out the support of an elevated railway, buckling the tracks. An engineer stopped his train just in time to avoid an even worse disaster. Fragments of metal landed 200 feet away.
Besides sending shrapnel whizzing through the air, the explosion flattened people, horses and buildings with a huge shockwave. As some tried to get to their feet, the sudden vacuum where the tank once was created a reverse shockwave, sucking air in and knocking people, animals and vehicles around once more, and shaking homes off their foundations.
That was just the first few seconds. The real terror was about to begin.
The tank had been filled to near capacity, and 2.3 million gallons of thick, heavy, odorous molasses formed a sticky tsunami that started at 25 or 30 feet high and coursed through the streets at 35 mph. Victims couldn't outrun it. It knocked them into buildings and other obstacles, it swept them off their feet, and it pulled them under to drown in a viscous, suffocating, brown death.
When it was over, more than a score had died, and seven or eight times that number suffered injuries. The mess took months to clean up, and the legal issues even longer.
It was the height of the post-World War I Red Scare, and the distillery blamed anarchists, who they said knew the molasses was intended for alcohol to make military ammunition. The victims and their survivors blamed the distillery for faulty construction and unsafe operation.
More than a hundred separate lawsuits dragged on until 1925, when the U.S. Industrial Alcohol Co., the distillery's owner, finally settled the claims for nearly $1 million (about $12 million in today's money).
One of the strangest industrial accidents ever lingered on, and not just in a few safety improvements. On warm days for decades after, the neighborhood smelled of molasses. And if you listen to old-timers, even today, hot weather brings a vague, sickly sweet smell to the streets of the North.