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Northcountry News
“Berman’s Bits” by Dave Berman
Greetings, and thanks for joining me for another week. Starting us off are a few news stories you may have missed. First, some people never grow up.
Tihomir Petrov, 43, a mathemat- ics professor at California State University Northridge, was charged with misdemeanors for allegedly peeing twice on the office door of a colleague with whom he had been feuding. (Petrov was identified by a hid- den camera installed after the original puddles turned up.) Petrov is the author of several scholarly papers, with titles such as "Rationality of Moduli of Elliptic Fibrations With Fixed Monodromy." [Los Angeles Daily News] (That title sounds like a cure for insomnia to me…. Just sayin’.)
The Feral Professor:
Next, until recently, impover- ished Indonesians sought to cure various illnesses (such as diabetes and high blood pres- sure) by lying on railroad tracks as trains approached, thus allowing electrical charges from the tracks to course therapeuti- cally through their bodies. A combination of anecdotal suc- cesses and dissatisfaction with the state-operated health care system led to the instances in which hundreds at a time lay on the tracks. [Seattle Times] Over here, people do such things either because they’re drunk or lacking important brain cells.
Finally, Liquid Stupid Pills! An Oregon man pressed his luck one too many times and spent the night in a Nebraska detox cell after twice mistaking a police station for a casino and asking authorities for blackjack chips. The 21-year-old man
approached the University of Nebraska-Lincoln police station front desk after a college foot- ball game. He left after a staffer told him it was a police station but returned a few minutes later. That's when an officer adminis- tered a blood alcohol test, which registered at .273 percent -- more than triple the state's legal driving limit. [
www.azcentral.com]
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said back on 9/20 that there is a chance that the government could shut down at the end of this month.[
TheHill.com] I don’t know about you, but is that sup- posed to be a bad thing? As of this writing, the Congressional national approval rating is at 13.5 percent favorable! [Real Clear Politics] That makes Obama look quite popular!
I recently made a rare visit to KFC. I saw the meal I had pro- vided me with a small package of “buttery spread.” I presume because of the name there was no butter in it just like anything with “crème filling” has no cream in it. I used to teach a unit on weasel words – maybe it’s time again. A thought I recently had (no
it wasn’t lonely) makes sense to me, but would it work? Is there a way to make an eight-cylinder engine that would run on only four with the flip of a switch? I think my truck does it automati- cally now, but what about by choice?
Have they no decency? Thousands of angry bees swarmed a man in a wheel- chair, sending him and three others who came to his aid to
September 30, 2011
the hospital in the Southern California city of Santa Ana. The bee attack wasn't the first to make headlines. Africanized bees swarmed several farm ani- mals and killed a 1,000-pound hog at a farm in Bisbee, Ariz. An 800-pound pregnant sow also was stung so many times that it went into a coma and lost its litter. And in northern Arizona, a 49-year-old man remained hospitalized after authorities say he disturbed bees nesting under a cattle trough and was stung more than 1,000 times. [AP]
The reality TV of the Internet (I guess). Whether you call them a restroom, loo, lavatory, toilet, or "the facilities," they are always an important part of being on the go. With this in mind the members and editors of travel website
www.VirtualTourist.com have compiled this list of the "World's Top 10 Toilets." Something else the US is falling behind in – there are only three listed for America.
I don’t know about you, but I hate those shows that don’t start on the hour or half hour. I am sure there’s a good reason, but…. Speaking of TV, I see there is a movie on that has a interesting title. Maybe you have to think a certain way to appreciate the implications, but the 1945 film is called: “Our Vines Have Tender Grapes.” Hmmm….
Just a thought: IMHO, most of society’s problems from the whitest-collar boardroom to the average Joe/Jane on the street is simply that when left to their own devices, many/most people won’t do the right thing. It’s that simple. A profit or even healthy profit isn’t enough for most businesses – it has to be obscene. If everyone would take the Berman Bits Pledge, we’d be much better off as a people: Be honest. Be Respectful. Be Responsible.
www.northcountrynewsnh.com Northcountry News Picture Of The Week
Willie and Emma, two Halflinger draft ponies that live in Rumney, are wondering where their 15 acre pasture went dur- ing Hurricane Irene's rampage through the North Country. Amazingly, they just jumped right in to get to the green grass on the other side of the new pasture lake!- Laurie Coffin Photo
If you have a photo which you think could make it as our pic- ture of the week let us know. Email it to
northcountrynews@wildblue.net or send it US Mail to PO Box 10, Warren, NH 03279. If you want your photo back, please send a s.a.s.e. for return. Your picture could become our next Picture Of The Week! Please, send them on in......
Query to readers: You know that every click on the Internet is counted and recorded some- where. Sooo, when I click on a news video I want to see and a video ad comes on first and I hit the backspace to skip both, was I counted as having watched the video?
Check out ABC News’s “Made in America” series. They seem to be doing what our politicians can’t – bringing work and jobs back to America. They point out (for example) how American souvenirs at famous U.S. tourist stops and colleges furnishings offered by the schools are all from “overseas.” Kudos to ABC’s efforts. (In another story, I guess selling the government $16 muffins and $10 cups of coffee is also stimulating the
economy, but not the right way. And at yet another conference of the Office on Violence Against Women, guests were served Cracker Jack, popcorn and candy bars at a single break, costing $32 per person. As I said, getting rid of waste, fraud, and pork could probably help us get back to the black.)
Finally, a few headlines of note: (1) “Man Jumps Off 2nd Street Bridge: Neither Jumper Nor Body Found.” (2) “TV Ads Boost Eating of Obese Children by 130%.” (3) “ CHILDREN LIVING WITHOUT LIMBS LACK SUPPORT.” (4) “Global Warming Rally Cut Short by Cold Weather.” And (5) “Butte Blast Blamed on Leaking Gas.”
Later.
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