Don't Ask, Don't Bore

The other day, Robb and I were watching the House Hearing on Don't Ask, Don't Tell on CSPAN. Those Representatives are really boring. If you've ever wondered why it takes Congress so long to accomplish what little they do, you only need to watch one of these sessions on CSPAN. Speaker after speaker on things not even remotely connected to the item on which they're about to vote. And the amount of paper they waste is astounding, because every time one of them speaks about something, it's written down. After they speak, the paper from which they spoke is presented to the secretary. I assume it is then recorded as some kind of 'exhibit' which goes to the Congressional archives. So, this meaningless crap is going to cost even more time and money, because it will have to be recorded in the Archives, and then someone has to find a place for it and that has to be recorded somewhere. I'll bet the government could save millions every year if these people would stick to the issues, without all the grandstanding.
Gates tells U.S. troops: no gay ban repeal imminent

Exercise in a pill? Drugs show promise in mice

This is just sick and definitely 'Big Brother': UK Children, 4, ‘to be fingerprinted to borrow school books from library’

Senators Propose Mandatory IDs For Prepaid Cell Phones

ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral , OK? What school did you go to?

WITNESS: Oral.

A calm and respectable lady went into the pharmacy, walked right up to the pharmacist, looked straight into his eyes, and said, “I would like to buy some cyanide.”

The pharmacist asked, “Why in the world do you need cyanide?”

The lady replied, “I need it to poison my husband.”

The pharmacist’s eyes got big and he exclaimed, “Lord have mercy! I can’t give you cyanide to kill your husband! That’s against the law! I’ll lose my license! They’ll throw both of us in jail! All kinds of bad things will happen. Absolutely not! You CANNOT have any cyanide!”

The lady reached into her purse and pulled out a picture of her husband in bed with the pharmacist’s wife.

The pharmacist looked at the picture and replied, “Well now, that’s different. You didn’t tell me you had a prescription.”

À la prochaine, mes amis

Non-Events

The non-events of our existence continue. Nothing at all going on. No arguments with crazy neighbors, no notes taped to doors, no confrontations. Just quiet.

Did exploding stars shatter life's mirror? MR SPOCK is dying. Fortunately for the crew of the USS Enterprise, the Spock in question is not the real one, but an evil mirror-image version created in a freak transporter malfunction. This Spock's back-to-front body can digest only right-handed amino acids; meanwhile, like all organic matter, the food around him is made of left-handed amino acids. He is starving in the midst of plenty.

This plot line from the 1970 novel Spock Must Die! - the first literary spin-off from the Star Trek TV series - highlights one of life's fundamental mysteries. Why does biology use only one of two mirror-image forms in which most complex molecules can occur? The latest pop at an answer weaves astrophysics, particle physics and biochemistry into a startling proposal: that the stellar explosions known as supernovae are to blame. Read full article.

'Impossible motion' trick wins Illusion Contest.

REMOVING a chemical "invisibility cloak" that makes HIV-infected cells look healthy might be the key to ridding people of the virus.

Human cells protect themselves against immune attack by displaying proteins on their surface that mark them as "self". When the immune system detects these proteins, it holds back. One way HIV evades immune attack is by hijacking one of these proteins - CD59 - and using it to disguise itself and the cells it infects as healthy, human cells. Read full article.

Texas schools to get controversial syllabus. Education officials in the US state of Texas have adopted new guidelines to the school curriculum, which critics say will politicise teaching. The changes include teaching that the UN could be a threat to American freedom, and that the Founding Fathers may not have intended a complete separation of church and state. Read full article.

Scientists in China have broken the record for quantum teleportation, achieving a distance of about 10 miles, according to a new study in Nature Photonics. That's a giant leap from previous achievements. Read full article.

Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons Exclusive: Secret apartheid-era papers give first official evidence of Israeli nuclear weapons

ATTORNEY: Doctor , how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?

WITNESS: All of them.. The live ones put up too much of a fight.

Church Bulletins: Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.

A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.

À la prochaine, mes amis

Jupiter Tree

Here is our picture in the South Florida Gay News. In case you don't recognize us, we're fourth from the bottom, or the last picture on the right, depending on which version comes up.. Click on it to make it larger

This tree had been providing shade for at least the fifteen years we've lived here, and judging by its size, a lot longer than that. Now, it appears to be quite dead. Apparently, the long, cold winter we just suffered was the cause of its demise.

The nutcase has taken to calling me at various times during the day, usually in the morning. The first couple of times I answered the call, but he never says anything, so I now have his calls on "silent", which means the phone doesn't ring, but I get a notification of a missed call. His new strategy is probably not a good idea since I frequently don't go to bed sometimes until 3:00 and 4:00AM, which would be the middle of his sleeping perod. You can see where this is going, right?

I was trying to watch some videos on You Tube and it occurred to me how stupid are the people who advertise there. Oh yeah, I'd much rather read those annoying ads than watch the video I wanted to see. Thankfully, there are alternatives to You Tube.

Speaking of alternatives to You Tube, here is a great video that will let you see some of the things we'll be seeing in Frankfurt, hopefully in August.

WASHINGTON — Since the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded on April 20, the Obama administration has granted oil and gas companies at least 27 exemptions from doing in-depth environmental studies of oil exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico. Read the full article.

Companies Dodge $60 Billion in Taxes.

I LOVE this: World's First Gold Vending Machine.

Babies know the difference between good and evil at six months, study reveals.

This has to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Are Your Children Playing With Lucifer's Testicles?

Jupiter loses a stripe. Jupiter has lost one of its prominent stripes, leaving its southern half looking unusually blank. Scientists are not sure what triggered the disappearance of the band.

ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?

WITNESS: By death..

ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?

WITNESS: Take a guess

Church Bulletins:

The Rector will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing: 'Break Forth Into Joy.'

À la prochaine, mes amis

Nutcase Gossip

Something to relax you:

I had a confrontation with the nutcase on the second floor. He left another of his "anonymous" notes on several doors on the third floor, complaining about someone moving furniture. So, I wrote on the back of his note, my note: "There is a nutcase on the second floor who persists in leaving anonymous notes on my door". There was a bit more but that was the main theme. He then brought that note up and taped it to my door. I wrote: As long as you got the message (which he obviously hadn't) and taped it to his door. Somehow, he managed to come out, find the note and accosted me in the hallway before I could even make it back to my place. Apparently, he took offense at the word "nutcase", but then promptly proved it to be valid by threatening to call the police and the IRS. The IRS? Excuse me while I take a minute to stop laughing. Then followed that by wishing death for me and Robb by some means that I didn't hear because I was laughing. Needless to say, my laughter only enraged him further, and he left in a huff while calling me an "asshole".

Saturday was the day that letter carriers and others collect food for the poor. Robb and I were wondering how the government can spend billions on an illegal war, but can not take care of the homeless and hungry.

More gossip. In the ongoing saga of Geoff The Enraged, he is now pretty much not speaking to anyone. Perhaps the nutcase on the second floor and, maybe Pascal, but I'm not sure about that because Pascal is a member of the Board of Directors. Geoff was on the BOD but got pissed at something, sent them all a nasty email and resigned from the Board.

If you want to make the degree symbol (400°), hold down the left Alt Key and type 248. It also works if you type 0176.

Hawking: Time travel will happen. In a new documentary series for the Discovery Channel, Stephen Hawking has already considered how man might truly conquer space. Or, indeed, how spacemen might come down to our meager Earth and dismember us as so much fast food. Read more.

Currently reading - God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens. I couldn't agree more.

Rekers Paid $60K for Gay Adoption Testimony. Rekers, a cofounder of the Family Research Council, is now ensnared in controversy for hiring a gay male escort to assist him on a European trip. I would have bet money on that.

Frankincense: Could it be a cure for cancer? Scientists have observed that there is some agent within frankincense which stops cancer spreading, and which induces cancerous cells to close themselves down. Mahmoud Suhail is trying to find out what this is.

Energy drinks work as soon as they touch your tongue.

See Better by Believing You Can. "Eyesight markedly improved when people were experimentally induced to believe that they could see especially well, Langer and her colleagues report in the April Psychological Science. Such expectations actually enhanced visual clarity, rather than simply making volunteers more alert or motivated to focus on objects, they assert."

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he has 'documented evidence' that Washington and Israel are linked to leading terrorist organizations in the world. US root of global terror: Ahmadinejad.

Bill Maher - Just went to the Smithsonian natural history museum in D C - getting those huge dinos on the ark - man that Noah was good!

Dark matter claims thrown into doubt by new data. Previous claims that dark matter had been detected are being called into doubt now that a powerful new experiment has failed to see any of the elusive particles. Read more.

Church Bulletins:

Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say 'Hell' to someone who doesn't care much about you.

À la prochaine, mes amis

Twenty-One

Because it's Lara Fabian and I love her voice.

And just to prove how find behind the rest of the world the, according to Republicans, best country in the world, is in health care: What Cuba Can Teach Us About Health Care.

We were worried about Bush starting WWIII. We should be worried about Obummer. Obama Revives Rumsfeld’s Missile Scheme, Risks Nuke War.

Jesus, talk about arrogance: Goldman boss Lloyd Blankfein denies moral obligation towards client. I guess that means the Republicans are right, we definitely do not need financial regulation!

Innovation: One web language to rule them all. "How would you like to have just one all-powerful program on your computer? No cluttered "start" menu or "dock" to make your selection from, just one icon to click that opens up a window capable of any task you may require."

Arctic warming likely to reverse - scientist.

New animal species discovered in Borneo

Tailor-making cancer treatments. Cancer researchers in Berlin are working on a genome sequencing project. It promises an individualized approach to a disease that still defies complete medical comprehension.

Gene silencing prevents its first human disease.

Scientists make cancer cells vanish!

And you say you still believe in the Catholic church? Child sex `no breach of virtue’, some priests believe.

Why didn't the melons get married?

Because they cantaloupe!

ATTORNEY: She had three children , right?

WITNESS: Yes.

ATTORNEY: How many were boys?

WITNESS: None.

ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?

WITNESS: Your Honor , I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?

À la prochaine, mes amis