And the Award for the "Most Appropriately Named Head of State" goes to . . .

. . . Nigeria's new president, Mr. Goodluck Jonathan.

Given that Nigeria faces a crumbling energy infrastructure, epidemic corruption, and Muslim-Christian division,

And given that he is a Christian taking over for a popular Muslim president who was elected in the first peaceful electoral transition in Nigeria since independence,

And given that he and his cabinet are accused of using the former president's illness as a political tool to seize control . . .

I think we can all join in wishing Mr. Jonathan Goodluck

Random Quote:

From a National Review Blog:

This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—November 12 [Ed Whelan]

1908—In Nashville, Illinois, the human fetus to become known as Harry A. Blackmun emerges safe and sound from his mother’s womb. Some sixty-five years later, Justice Blackmun authors the Supreme Court opinion in Roe v. Wade. (See This Day for Jan. 22, 1973.) Somehow the same people who think it meaningful to criticize Justice Thomas for opposing affirmative-action programs from which he putatively benefited don’t criticize Blackmun for depriving millions of other unborn human beings the same opportunity that he was given.

Quote of the Day

Regarding a British 11 year-old girl who posted nude pictures of herself online, a reader commented:

Scary! When I was 11 I was still playing with dolls.
That young lady needs to grow up a lot before acting without considering the consequences.

Amen. Children, consider the consequences, acting without considering the consequences is strictly for adults.

Do NOT Forget to Flush

Have you ever knocked a spider into the toilet and watched him drown? Remember that feeling of relief that it's dead?

Don't be too sure . . .

Like zombies, spiders in a lab twitched back to life hours after "drowning"—and the scientists were as surprised as anyone. The spiders, it seems, enter comas to survive for hours underwater, according to a new study.

Scientists at the University of Rennes in France collected three species of wolf spider—two from salt marshes, one from a forest. The team immersed 120 females of each species in seawater, jostling the spiders with brushes every two hours to see if they responded.

As expected, all the forest wolf spiders apparently died after 24 hours. The two salt marsh-dwelling species took longer—28 hours for P. purbeckensis and 36 hours for A. fulvolineata.

36 Hours !!! That's freaky enough, but it gets better . . .

After the "drownings," the researchers, hoping to weigh the spiders later, left them out to dry. That's when things began to get weird.

Hours later, the spiders began twitching and were soon back on their eight feet.

As I said, do NOT forget to flush.

Now excuse me while I shudder and scratch the tickles crawling up my legs . . .

Space, The Final Frontier . . .

. . . left unsullied by stupid perfume advertising.

Alas, no more:

Genki Wear Star Trek Perfume - A trio of scents from the final frontier
There are three fragrances planned for 2009 with the monikers "Tiberius" "Red Shirt" and "Ponn Farr."

Tiberius
The Tiberius cologne, named in honor of the Mirror Universe James T. Kirk’s challenges users to "Boldly Go" with a perfume described as being spiked with "notes of freshness and sensuality.

Red Shirt
Genki’s "Red Shirt" cologne (whose tag line "Because Tomorrow May Never Come" is priceless) celebrates the sacrifices of those often nameless crew of the USS Enterprise. Described appropriately as a cologne for those with a "devotion to living each day as it could be your last" the cologne has top notes of green mandarin, bergamot, and lavender, with base notes of leather and grey musk.

Pon Farr
The most risqué titled of the new Star Trek fragrances is "Ponn Farr" which is a perfume designed to "drive him wild." It should only be used once every seven years (okay, that isn’t true). Named for the Vulcan mating ritual first introduced in the episode "Amok Time," this perfume is one of the newly designed products meant to appeal to female fans.

You have to see the picture of the Red Shirt fragrance on the site. Note the crosshairs. I can't believe this is real. What is the Trek universe coming too?

Breakthrough in Medical Research

An enduring mystery of the human body has been solved. Where does belly button lint comes from? A Fox News article sums up the research:

'Abdominal hair is mainly responsible for the accumulation of navel lint,' proclaims Steinhauser in the abstract to his paper, presented in the online version of the journal Medical Hypotheses. 'Therefore, this is a typically male phenomenon. The abdominal hair collects fibers from cotton shirts and directs them into the navel where they are compacted to a felt-like matter.'

"Typically male?" What are you trying to say about men?

That's in keeping with a medium-scale Australian study cited by London's Daily Telegraph, which found that the average bearer of navel lint was "a slightly overweight middle-aged male with a hairy abdomen." . . . The hair's scales act like a kind of barbed hooks. . . . Abdominal hair often seems to grow in concentric circles around the navel.

That passage makes my belly button sound a little like the "all-powerful Sarlacc" from Return of the Jedi. As a slightly overweight, middle-aged man with a hairy abdomen, I can confirm that I do, indeed, collect belly button lint . . . let me rephrase that. Lint collects in my belly button. Don't worry, Becky, I'm not saving up to knit a sweater, or make flannel board characters, or anything weird like that.

Maybe if I comb some of those "concentric circles" another direction . . . hmmm . . . something to think about.

(Someone should nominate this for an IgNobel prize, if it hasn't been nominated already)

Fight The System

Finally, a Harmless Jihad . . . or . . . Why Bilingual Education is Important

Thank you FailBlog.org

One Man's Crap is Another Man's Treasure

Imagine spending seven years collecting rare specimens in the jungle to help write your doctorate dissertation -- only to have the university cleaning crew throw your collection away.

This happened to poor Daniel Bennett of Leeds University in the UK. The Daily Mail has the story here.

The odd thing is what he spent 7 years collecting:

A university has apologised to a scientist for throwing away his treasured collection of lizard [feces].

Graduate biologist Daniel Bennett, who spent seven years combing inhospitable jungles to amass his unique hoard, was told the 77lb bag had been thrown out during a lab clear-out. . .

Leeds University bosses admitted the gaffe, saying in a statement: 'The loss of these samples was an unfortunate mistake. They were thrown away in error because they were in an unmarked bag.'

My first thought was "lizard what?" followed closely by "seven years?!?!" followed by "77 LBS!!!"

What a load of crap! . . . Literally! Mr. Bennett was really upset:

Mr Bennett said: 'To some people it might have been just a bag of lizard s***, but to me it represented seven years of painstaking work searching the rainforest with a team of reformed poachers to find the [feces] of one of the world's largest, rarest and most mysterious lizards.'

'Whether it was the largest collection of lizard s*** in the world is uncertain. . . [but] Its loss left me reeling and altered the course of my life forever,' he told the Times Higher Education Supplement.

Mr Bennett said he had turned down an offer of £500 in compensation by the university and intended to 'see them in court'.

I sympathize with both sides here. I have a doctorate, and would have really been upset had anyone destroyed my materials while I was working on it. . . .

On the other hand, what is a cleaning crew supposed to do when they find an unmarked 77lb bag of crap sitting in a laboratory?

I think the lesson we can learn from this is two-fold:

• First: One man's crap really is another man's treasure, and
• Second (and of admittedly limited utility for most of us) Always, and I mean always, clearly and legibly label your giant bags of crap.

If this post saves even one giant bag of rare animal droppings from being thrown out, then all my work will have been worth it.

PS: Not to worry, the university says he will get his degree on time

Get Snuggie!

I saw the funniest TV infomercial this morning. It featured one of those made-up problems where people just can't get anything to work right. It's for those who can never seem to get warm and are always getting tangled up in blankets.

The answer: Snuggies

The video in the upper right is the best. I kept thinking of Friar Tuck (watch it, you'll understand).

Best of all, they double as a Halloween costume, just get a flat piece of wood and you're a monk!

The "Work Spouse"

I remember hearing, and telling jokes about someone having a "work spouse." All in good fun, right?

Apparently CNN believes that the phenomenon is real enough and serious enough to warrant an advice column on managing the "work spouse" relationship. Because, after all, no human interaction is so straightforward and uncomplicated that it can't be micromanaged to death if enough psychologists put their minds to it.

Don't know if you have a "work spouse?" You're not alone. Many people have one (or more) work spouses, and don't know it. Luckily, CNN has a quick and easy seven point test you can take to see if you have a "work spouse."

(I can imagine the rationalizations for a positive test result: "it can happen to anyone." "It's no one's fault, really." "When working together in close quarters, work spouses happen." "Don't feel stigmatized, work spouses cut across all racial and economic lines." "We just need to raise awareness . . ." blah, blah, blah)

If you discover that you have, inadvertently, acquired a work spouse - don't panic, you can manage your condition. CNN knows what to do:

Keep the lines of communication open. Make sure that other co-workers are not feeling shut out by the perception that you and your work spouse are an exclusive clique of two. If you are working on a project together that also involves the team, be sure to reach out to everyone for feedback and suggestions.

In other words, be promiscuous in your work relationships, exclusivity leads to jealousy, "Make 'work love' not 'work war'" in that giant corporate commune that is the office.

Avoid crossing boundaries. It's great to have a support system and a close confidante, but be sure to set boundaries for how much to share with your office mate. More importantly, honor those boundaries. If the relationship becomes antagonistic or is too close for comfort, let your work spouse know you need a little space.

Avoid crossing boundaries!?!? You mean like thinking of co-workers as your "spouse?" That kind of boundary? And if the relationship is destructive, by all means take "a little space" don't end it. You can make it work, 'work divorce' is not the answer!

Lighten the mood. If your life at home and at work is filled with complications, bringing a co-worker into the middle of those issues may not be beneficial for you. You should aim to keep the mood light and happy with your work spouse. You'll look forward to enjoying gossip, taking breaks and being able to relax with a friend without any concerns or complications.

Relaxing with a friend without any concerns or complications is the purview of a REAL spouse. if you are more relaxed at work than at home, then you need to seriously re-evaluate your life.

I kept hoping to see some evidence of humor in the article, but I didn't. That fact both scares and saddens me.

The Pet Bill of Rights . . .

. . . has been proposed in Britain. They don't call it that, of course. They call it "proposed new codes of conduct for dog, cat and horse owners"

Some highlights:

The dog code of conduct says they should not be taken for a walk when the weather is too hot.

Cat lovers have their own rules to follow and are urged to make sure, apart from advice on hygiene and diet, that the pet has a "secure place to hide".

Here are some other provisions from "The Daily Mail"

There aren't "plenty of things to stimulate [me] mentally" here at work. I'm a human being, and my employer doesn't even give me a "secure place to hide" or even "suitable toys." I work in a cubicle for crying out loud.

Lucky animals. I need better lobbyists.

Global Warming Alert!

Grab you shorts and shades, and lets head for the beach!

• Snow blankets London for global warming debate: "Snow fell as the House of Commons debated Global Warming yesterday - the first October fall in the metropolis since 1922."
  

But one event does not a climate make you say?

• Record snow storm triggers delays: "According to MeteoNews, the Swiss lowlands received the most snow for any October since records began in 1931. Zurich received 20cm, beating a record of 14cm set in 1939."

But that's Europe too, it's the same storm, it's not like it's Florida, right?

• Record cold swept over the [Ocala, FL] region Wednesday: It was a record for Oct. 29 and the second lowest temperature ever recorded in October since 1850.

Huh . . . well it's still all the polluters in the Northern Hemisphere who are pumping all that methane gas (a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) into the air.

• MIT Scientists baffled by data, contradicts global warming theory: Scientists at MIT have recorded a nearly simultaneous world-wide increase in methane levels. This is the first increase in ten years, and what baffles science is that this data contradicts theories stating man is the primary source of increase for this greenhouse gas . . . it is now believed this may be part of a natural cycle in mother nature - and not the direct result of man's contributions.

Hey, if the Greens can blame individual hurricanes on global warming, I can have my fun too . . .

How to Keep Your Kids From Losing Their Legos

Tired of finding legos all over the house?

Tired of never being able to find that one particular piece you need?

They don't have that problem in England!

The Real Danger of Communism . . .

. . . is that everyone would only be able to buy the items in this old Soviet mail-order catalog from 1983 called: "Goods for Personal Use."

Keep in mind this catalog wasn't just from one company, it was from the only company - the state. There were no other vendors for many of these items. Different factories would produce variants in some cases, but not all.

I ate off those flower dishes myself, and the big brown cabinets near the bottom were in literally every single apartment I ever saw. There were slight variations in color and layout but it was depressingly uniform.

No wonder Feng Shui wasn't practiced in the USSR, any interior designer with an once of artistic ability would be driven to suicide after one look at these items.

He Obviously Has No Children Around

From the "Too Much Time On His Hands" department:

The HMS Hood built to scale from Legos.

The Motto of the European Union

I just found out that the EU has a motto. Who knew?

We all know the motto of the United States "In God We Trust." It's solid, reassuring and says something concrete about the country. As mottos go, it's a good one (as are most things the Founding Fathers put out).

The EU motto also, unintentionally I presume, says something concrete about that "country." The motto is:

"United in Diversity"

That's it!? . . . what the heck is that supposed to mean? That's right out of the Oxymoron Dept.

I can hear the dialog in the committee meeting that came up with that . . .

France: "I'm glad we can come together to celebrate our differences."
Germany: "Yes indeed, we are united in our diversity . . ."
Italy: "Eureka! that's it! the new motto - 'united in diversity'"
France: "Sacre bleu! you are right. It's perfect, concretely vague . . ."
Germany: "Disturbingly reassuring . . ."
Italy: "Universally unique . . ."
France: "It absorbingly reflects all of the foreign policy, economic and social positions on which we've agreed to disagree."
Italy: "not to mention our shared individual non-binding commitment to Democratic Socialism.
Germany: "Plus it has a nice ring to it - like 'French Victory!'"

(stiffled laughter)

France: "That's not funny . . ."
Britain: "But it is seriously ironic!"

Anyway, it is the perfect motto for the EU.

Why Auto Insurance is So Expensive . . .

. . . or "Life Imitates Art" - well, at least life imitates Tommy Boy.

Ever see one of those stories that just couldn't be any more ripe to mock?

This item comes to us from one of America's best-loved newspapers - The Leaf Chronicle. (don't laugh, according to the site, it's "Your Connection to Clarksville, Tenn."). The man's name has been changed to protect the innocent idiot (and the punchline at the end of this blog post),

Anyway:

[A man] was driving home from his job in Dover Wednesday at about 11 p.m. when a beautiful red fox dashed in front of his SUV. After he ran over the fox, he stopped his GMC Jimmy . . .

You may be thinking to yourself, "Oh how nice, he wants to see if the fox is okay. Just like those two guys in Tommy Boy, when they hit the deer - Maybe he's never seen one up close before."

You would be wrong. This is Tennessee after all.

After he ran over the fox, he stopped his GMC Jimmy to get the fox to cut off its tail for a souvenir, and he put it in the back seat, said Dale Grandstaff, a Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency wildlife officer.

The wildlife officer, by way of explanation said:

The tails are real bushy and pretty and thick this time of year.

Ah, well, that explains it . . . at least he's cleaning up the roadkill. But, with the fox in the back seat, (just like the deer from the movie) the eerie parallels to Tommy Boy continue:

Things took an odd turn when [the man] heard a noise coming from his back seat and realized the fox was alive — and not happy.

Gee, I wonder why the fox was enraged?

The driver desperately searched for something to hold the fox back and prevent him from climbing into the front seat and biting him, he told [Wildlife Officer] Grandstaff.

As he looked in the back seat to get a blanket to block the fox, he took his attention from the road.

The SUV crossed the center line and wrecked in a ditch, flipping once and landing upside down in the 3900 block of Lylewood Road, Grandstaff said.

So, an enraged live animal causes the destruction of a car . . . sounds familiar.

[The man] suffered minor injuries and bruises and was treated at the scene by Montgomery County Emergency Medical Service. The fox was found dead in the SUV. Grandstaff said it was not clear whether the fox died of injuries caused by being hit by the SUV or if it died in the wreck.

Either way, a really bad day for the fox . . .

The Wildlife Officer, who obviously knows a lot about animal psychology, explained the fox's behavior:

Grandstaff said there was nothing wrong with [the man] taking the animal after striking it. But foxes don't like to be caged, especially when they are alive, he said.

The dead ones apparently don't mind . . . It's also lucky for this guy that skunk tails aren't "real bushy and pretty and thick this time of year."

And the final irony, (drum-roll please): The man's name is Tommy Fox.

P.S.

It was also not known if Tommy Fox got to keep the tail.

Christianity

No, not the kind you're thinking.

This stems from an conversation I had with my mom last night. She saw my new name badge (see previous post), and lamented that the badge had 'Chris Williams' on it.

"After all the trouble I went through to call you 'Christian.'" she lamented.

I had to explain why I started going by Chris. It began in elementary school when Night Ranger released the song Sister Christian. My class was apparently full of Night Ranger fans, and they enjoyed singing the song over and over to me - at lunch, at recess, in the bathroom, in the hall . . .

As Wikipedia explains above, the song was written about a band member's sister, Christy, he added:

the real Christy was so mortified when the song came out she nearly changed her name.

yeah, no kidding. At least she was A GIRL!

Anyway, the wisdom of my decision was confirmed years later after I met Becky, and she told me about a high school classmate of hers named Christian who referred to himself, completely missing the irony, as 'Christian the anti-Christ'

So now there are two good reasons . . .

A Silent Killer - Golf

I hope Becky doesn't read this item. She'll never let me golf again. Here's just one of the seven golfing deaths you can read about by following the link:

1995 - Jean Potevan of Orleans, France was so irate after missing 3 straight puts that he threw his bag into a lake out of sheer frustration. Only problem: his car keys were also in the bag. He dove in and proceeded to drown after getting entangled in the weeds. According to his golf partner, his last words were “I’m going back for the keys, but I’m leaving the clubs down there.”

I'd never do anything potentially dangerous on the golf course, right sweetie?